Beginning of November of the year 1853. Young people from all over the Russian Czar advance to the Danube for God and Orthodox Christianity against the infidel ottoman empire; they think it will be like a parade. No one at that time expected that the conflict would end up on the beaches of crimea against the heart of the Russian Black Sea in Sevastopol, where the British and French Empires they would lose their best men displaying the latest military technology.
Thus ended a conflict in which the contenders used a diverse mix of the latest war techniques and technologies; also seeing the remnants of the old tactics of Napoleonic times or even medieval times in the most remote places of the Sublime Porte.
EUROPE BEFORE CRIMEA
On June 18, 1815, the last chance of survival of the Napoleonic regime was lost. After the Battle of Waterloo, with the defeat of the revived Napoleon, the most conservative European regimes, Prussia, Austria and Russia, decided to act. At the initiative of Czar Alexander I, they created the so-called Holy Alliance, whose function, after the intervention of the Austrian Prime Minister Metternich, was to intervene in all European territory to suffocate any hint of liberalism (Bassett, 2015: 292).
For the Austrian Empire, this strategy on a continental scale served to strengthen itself and in turn extend its influence throughout Italy, but they would end up betraying the alliance. Among many other revolts and uprisings in 1848, the Hungarian Revolution stood out; an exhausted and ill-prepared imperial army could not cope with a general uprising in nationalist Hungary. For this reason, the newly appointed Emperor Francisco José I had to ask for help from his Russian neighbor Nicolás I, which he accepted without conditions. Finally the revolt was crushed and the Kaiser owed the Czar his life, favor that never returned (Bassett, 2015: 308).
So repression reigned in Europe against all radical liberalism for the status quo for quite some time, but you can always find wayward sons. After the Napoleonic Wars in the Kingdom of France, a parliamentary monarchy was established to placate Louis XVIII, succeeded by his brother Charles X. But he had absolutist pretensions that forced him to abdicate in the uprisings of 1830; he was followed by the liberal Luis Felipe I, who also fell into a conservatism that did not please the French, who ended up expelling him in an uprising in 1848 (Rapport, 2008: 206).
The Second French Republic was proclaimed, short-lived but with great reforms, in which Carlos Luis Napoleón Bonaparte, nephew of the emperor, ended up being elected as the first (and only) president. He never gave up the imperial dream of his great-uncle and in 1852 named himself emperor after a coup with almost no opposition. But Napoleon III (as he would be known) was not satisfied and wanted to recover the pride of the French army through great deeds that would legitimize him on the throne, directing himself to it in his foreign policy (Palmade, 1981: 50).
Beyond the sea was the British Empire, at the beginning of what was its great height in the Victorian era. Moment in which, protected by what will be its longest-serving monarch until then, Victoria I, it industrialized intensively. It improved connections with all of its territory and reaffirmed its maritime and colonial control over the rest of the powers that would take time to rival it. Unlike other countries, the problems that arose in the revolutions of 1848 barely affected it, with only certain Chartist attempts (various groups demanding reforms) that were soon repressed (Palmade, 1981: 50)
But a new factor came into play decisively in English public opinion. The newspaper. For the first time the will of the masses led by these pamphlets became apparent, forcing modern politicians to follow the popular demands with the slogan vox populi vox dei and the most conservative to adapt or die. From there would come the confrontation between two politicians of different signs, Aberdeen and Palmerston, getting the second to be represented by the newspapers as the voice of the English will and impose his interventionist opinion on war matters (Rapport, 2008: 266)
For its part, the Ottoman Empire prior to the Crimean War was led by Sultan Abdülmecit I from 1839. He began his reign at the age of 16 with a reformist spirit, greatly influenced by foreign diplomats (mostly English). Shortly after his investiture, he made public the decree of Hatt-i Sharif of Güldhane, which promised all the subjects of the Sultan legal equality, security and respect for his property and honor regardless of his “millet” (religious groups in the Ottoman Empire). This decree kicked off the Tanzimat reforms, a name given to the period that began in the reign of Abdülmecit I until the end of the 1980s, through which the decadent empire tried to update itself (Badem, 2010: 46) .
At first, everything seemed to be on the right track and aimed at a pro-European reorganization. The very hierarchs of the Empire understood that if they wanted to preserve it, they had to stop giving such advantageous treatment to their Muslim subjects. But the Empire was never a compact entity and the reaction to the sovereign’s intentions was soon seen.
In 1860 approximate figures were given for the population of the Empire, with just over 35 million inhabitants, of which only 10% were ethnic Turkish, with 40% of the total Christian compared to the remaining 60% Muslim. The Ismailis, together with the old local elites, vigorously protested against the reforms, led by an orthodoxy that led to real massacres (something common whenever the Christians did not accept their inferior position) (Figes, 2012: 70).
The English, the main promoters of its reforms, aware of the many nationalist problems that the Empire brought with it and anguished by its continuous persecution of Christians, were about to withdraw support for the Sublime Porte (Badem, 2010: 58). The Empire was plunged into a real crisis. It was a time of nationalism in which Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian Ottoman subjects (not counting Egyptians) slowly began to show their discontent, usually brutally repressed. But, as we will see, messing with Slavic nationalisms or with people of the Orthodox Christian religion did not please their Russian neighbor (Basset, 2015:304).
MARCH TO WAR
From the beginning of Ottoman rule over Christian populations, they were subjected to ridicule through exclusive taxes, arbitrary prohibitions and other exclusionary treatment in case they remained faithful to their religion. In no case is something unknown here told. The Muslim majority submitted to the rest of the millets for their benefit, but in turn the lands with a Christian majority (mainly the European zone) were the richest in the Empire; being able these access in many occasions to good positions in the administration and commerce.
But apart from the problems with the Muslims, there were also problems among the Christians themselves, but in a substantially different way. The struggle to discern which was the dominant Christianity in the holy land was nothing more than a struggle between European powers moved by their interest in having a preponderant presence in the place (Figes, 2012: 36).
Even in the 19th century, France itself was keenly aware of being the heir to the Crusades. Directed by a diplomacy designed to promote Catholicism and the Gallic presence, they tried by all means to make treaties with the Sublime Porte that would give them pre-eminence over the rest of the Christian branches. It should be noted that at that time foreign interventionism in Ottoman land was the largest to date with England at the head.
But if there was a Christian branch that stood out above the rest, it was the orthodox, mostly Russian, which each year brought an even larger number of pilgrims to the holy land. These stood out for their great fanaticism, which French and especially English public opinion called bestial in their newspapers. The English themselves had great sympathy for the Mohammedans due to the quietness of their creed in comparison with the orthodox “Asiatic barbarians”, whom they saw as closer to paganism.
Religion in Russia was not perceived as in the rest of European states. At the time that was going through, romanticism and the nationalisms that were chained with it were on the rise and Russia was not far behind. For many Russians at that time, being Orthodox meant being a full-fledged Russian, and likewise if one was not Orthodox, one was not a true Russian (Figes, 2012: 38).
The Role of Russia
Every military man in the army of Nicholas I knew the campaigns that brought Russia to its greatest glory in the days of Catherine the Great. Thanks to this well-known empress (of German origin), the Empire expanded with the Polish partitions and with the annexation of the Crimean Khanate in 1783. With its new access to the sea, Russia managed to extend its influence to the Ottoman Empire, with which it continued the policy of the “weak neighbor” to take advantage of and keep alive artificially, even sending troops to help him when Egypt rose up against the sultan.
But in its wars Russia was not only looking for territorial gains. At the end of the war with the Ottomans in 1774, the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji was signed, which among other benefits allowed Russia, in an ambiguous way, protect the orthodox of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to this clause, Russia justified its present and future interventionism in the Empire for a long time (Badem, 2010: 64).
The Russians themselves made an effort so that the Slavs within the Ottoman Empire (both under direct Turkish control and in the Danube Principalities) had Russia as a second homeland. By the previous mentioned treaty, they were allowed to sail under the Russian flag; and in the same way in every war against the Turk religion was appealed to. At the time of her Catherine herself or her son Nicholas came to identify themselves as heirs of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, intending to resurrect it from power (Figes, 2012: 68).
Russia itself was not exactly well regarded by liberal powers like France or England. Already in 1831, in the cycle of revolutions that hit Europe, Poland rose against the Russian yoke. At first hopes of victory could be harbored but the Zarato armies prevailed. The repression was not minor and this earned Nicholas I the nickname of “the Gendarme of Europe”, for having so brutally attacked a nationalist and liberal movement.
But the English had a special phobia of them. Since its wide circulation, the newspapers did nothing but plunge the population into a state of collective hysteria against this power until they could classify it without fear of being mistaken as “the Russian bogeyman”. According to the newspapers and all “experts”, this was nothing but a tyrannical nation of Asian origins, pagan and barbaric that was fighting for world domination. Hence the…