Crimean War. For close upon forty years Britain had been at peace with all the great powers of Europe, but in 1853 a war-cloud arose on the eastern horizon. Russia had long cast a covetous eye upon Constantinople and the Sultan's possessions, and had contrived in various treaties to lay the foundation of a claim to something like a protectorate over the Christians of the Greek Church in Turkey, amounting to three-fourths of the Sultan's subjects in Europe. As early as 1844 the Emperor Nicholas had proposed to divide with Britain the inheritance of the 'sick man,' so he called Turkey; and in 1853 he began to urge his claims in a form which Turkey could not accept without ceasing to remain an independent state. The other great powers intervened as mediators, but in vain; and meanwhile a Russian army took possession of Moldavia and Wallachia. After nearly a year of fruitless diplomacy, negotiations were broken off, and Britain and France agreed to support Turkey by armed intervention. War was proclaimed against Russia on 28th March 1854.
The war thus undertaken lasted two years. At first, England and France stood alone in their support of Turkey; but early in 1855 Sardinia boldly joined the alliance, and sent a contingent to the seat of war. The other powers remained neutral throughout the contest. The chief scenes of operation were the Black Sea and the Baltic. In the spring of 1854 a powerful British and French fleet appeared in the Gulf of Finland; but the Russian fleet declined the combat, and kept safe behind the granite fortresses of Cronstadt and Sveaborg, which, owing to shallow water and difficult navigation, could not be attacked by the large vessels composing the allied fleets. The only thing of importance effected, besides imprisoning the enemy's navy and ruining his commerce, was the destruction of the fortress of Bomarsund, and the capture of the Aland Islands, on which it was situated. The second Baltic campaign, in 1855, was a repetition of the first. Sveaborg was bombarded and partially destroyed, but again the want of gun-boats confined the real services of the fleet to a strict blockade of the Russian coasts.
In the Black Sea the Russian fleet followed the same tactics as in the Baltic, and took refuge in the fortified harbour of Sebastopol, sinking vessels across the entrance to keep out the enemy. On land, the Turkish forces, under Omar Pasha, had sustained during the winter of 1853-54 an heroic contest on the Danube against the Russian invaders. The French and British troops sent to the aid of the Sultan were landed at first in European Turkey, chiefly at Varna (April and May 1854). But the valiant defence of Silistria by the Turks themselves rendered our advance in that direction unnecessary; after using every effort for six weeks, the Russians had to retire baffled from before the place. The allies having suffered great loss from cholera at Varna, it was resolved to carry the war into the Crimea; and on 14th September an army of 25,000 British under Lord Raglan, as many French under Marshal St Arnaud, and 8000 Turks, landed on the west coast, 30 miles north of Sebastopol. On the 20th they attacked and completely defeated a Russian army strongly posted on the steep heights above the river Alma; then taking up position near Balaklava, to the south of Sebastopol, they commenced the siege of that vast fortress. The Russians made repeated attempts, with overwhelming masses of troops, to force the allied position, which led to the sanguinary battles of Balaklava (25th October) and Inkermann (5th November).
Balaklava was mainly a cavalry action, and did far more credit to our soldiers' gallantry than to their commanders' generalship. It will ever be memorable for the glorious charge of the Light Brigade, who, in obedience to a bungled order, rode a mile and a half beneath a murderous fire against the Russian army in position. Faster and faster grew the pace, until with a cheer that was many a hero's death-cry, they broke right into the battery, sabred the gunners, and burst through a column of infantry. Then they paused, and cut their way back; but out of the six hundred who had ridden forth, not two hundred returned. 'It is magnificent, but it is not war,' was the comment of a French general. Inkermann, known as the Soldiers' Battle, was fought on a dark and drizzly morning of autumn. Taken unawares, and short of cartridges, 8000 British sustained for several hours a hand-to-hand fight against six times that number of Russians, till 6000 French came to their aid, and completed the rout of the enemy.
Throughout the ensuing winter, the allies, especially the British, suffered terrible hardships, owing partly to the rigour of the climate, but more to the shameful breakdown of the system for provisioning the army. The supplies of food, clothing, and other necessaries were often sent where they were not wanted. The hospitals, too, were frightfully mismanaged; barely 12 per cent. of our total loss in the war (20,656) dying in battle, the rest in hospital. To Florence Nightingale, a lady of gentle birth, was due the establishment of proper nursing in the military hospitals, not merely then, but thereafter.
The prodigious extent and strength of the fortifications of Sebastopol (q.v.), together with the skill and obstinacy of its defence, protracted the siege for nearly a twelvemonth, and rendered it well-nigh the greatest in history. In March 1855 died the Czar Nicholas, whose ambition was the cause of the contest; but under his son and successor, Alexander II., Russia continued to sustain the enormous drain on her population and resources. The trenches, or lines of attack, had drawn closer and closer to the Russian works, till at one point the foes were well within speaking distance; at last, on 8th September 1855, after a three days' tremendous cannonade by the allies, the French stormed and carried the Malakoff fort, the key of Sebastopol. That night the Russians evacuated the city, or rather its blazing ruins. Except for the surrender of Kars in Circassia, after its gallant defence by the Turks under Colonel Williams, a British officer, the war ended with the fall of Sebastopol. In March 1856 a treaty of peace was signed at Paris, by which Russia lost all she had gained or attempted to gain; but the article prohibiting Russia from building arsenals or having war-ships on the Black Sea (q.v.) was abrogated in 1871. See Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea (8 vols. 1863-87), and books on the war by Sir E. Hamley (1891), Sir D. Lysons (1895), Sterling (1895), and Sir W. H. Russell (1855 and 1895).