Anthony Dawson - The Siege of Sevastopol, 1854–1855: The War in the Crimea Told Through Newspaper Reports, Official Documents and the Accounts of Those Who Were There

The Siege of Sevastopol 1854 1855

Anthony Dawson

THE SIEGE OF SEVASTOPOL 1854 1855

The War in the Crimea Told Through Newspaper Reports, official

Documents and the accounts of Those Who Were There

First published in 2017 by Frontline Books,

an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS.

Copyright Anthony Dawson, 2017

The right of Anthony Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-1-84832-957-7

eISBN: 978-1-84832-959-1

Mobi ISBN: 978-1-84832-958-4

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T he Crimean War was a conflict forty years in the making. Britain had long been wary of Russia; as early as 1817 there were concerns amongst British politicians over Russias European intentions. Many Radicals and romantics in Britain sided with the Greeks during the Greek revolt (1821-1827), putting them at odds with Russia and Turkey, and the Russo-Turkish War of 1827-1828, which led to Turkey granting major concessions to the Tsar (Nicholas I) producing the spectre of Russian control of Constantinople and the Black Sea. One of the leading Russophobes was George De Lacy Evans, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and later to command a Division in the Crimea. At the height of the Russo-Turkish War he published a diatribe On the Designs of Russia : he feared Russian expansion and the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire, causing disruption of European trade (particularly of France and Britain) and ultimately threatening British possessions in India. Evans argued that Britain and France were the only countries strong enough to halt the Russian menace. In 1829 the Russians had established a pro-Russian Shah on the Persian throne, which caused considerable alarm in Calcutta, leading to the establishment of a pro-British ruler in Afghanistan in 1839 (supported by British bayonets), which became a buffer to perceived Russian expansionism. The pro-British regime was deeply unpopular and lead to the ignominious retreat from Kabul in 1842.

Russias condemnation of the Liberal revolution in Spain (1825) and its brutal suppression of the Polish Revolution (1830-31) put even more distance between Britain and Russia: British opinion was firmly with the Poles. The Times newspaper was particularly belligerent, even suggesting military intervention.

France, which shook off the last of the Bourbon monarchy in the same year, 1830, also took Polish nationalism to heart.

When revolution broke out again in Europe during 1848, Polish and Hungarian nationalism became the cause clbre amongst British and other European Radicals. Louis Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian revolutionaries, became a celebrity in Europe, and promoted the Hungarian cause internationally as a public speaker. The cause of Hungarian nationalism took on a religious edge, too: Hungary had been one of the cradles of European Unitarianism with Francis David I (1510-1579) being Europes first, and only, Unitarian King. Kossuth visited Manchester in 1851; the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell wife of Rev. William Gaskell, minister of Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester thought him wonderful and eloquent with a noble cause. Barmby was also friends with Italian nationalists Giuseppi Mazzini and Garibaldi.

The Russian suppression of nationalist movements in Poland and Hungary served to increase Russophobia, with Russia becoming the embodiment to many Liberals and Radicals of reactionary

It was against this pan-European mistrust of Russia that the issue of the Holy Places in Jerusalem appeared in 1852. Napolon III appealed to the Catholic Church in France to support the traditional French claim of guardianship. The new French ambassador in Constantinople, La Valette, was part of a powerful Catholic lobby that pushed an aggressive policy in the Near East backed up by French Warships. The Sublime Porte in November 1852 granted the French the right to hold the keys to the Holy Places, a policy that was supported by the anti-Russian British ambassador, Stratford Canning. The Tsar was furious and immediately ordered the mobilisation of his army, revealing to the British ambassador in St Petersburg that he planned to partition Turkey (the sick man of Europe) and had a sacred duty to defend all those who professed the Orthodox faith.

In February 1853, the Tsar dispatched his own envoy to Turkey Prince Alexander Menshikov. Backed-up by Britain, the Porte rejected Menshikovs demands for a new treaty which would assert the rights of the Tsar over the Orthodox citizens of the Turkish Empire. The failure of Menshikov prompted the Tsar to resort to military means but he did not necessarily want war, fearing the intervention of the Western Powers. In late June 1853, the Tsars troops entered the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (modern day Romania). The response in Britain was mixed: Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, who headed a weak coalition government, was in favour of peace whilst Home Secretary, Lord Palmerston, was the most belligerent, considering the Russian occupation an hostile act. In Turkey, the mood was rapidly swinging toward war, led by radical Imams and theological schools (Madrasas) calling for Jihad or Holy War. The religious leaders pressed the Sultan for war, and on 12 September 1853 issued an ultimatum: either declare war or abdicate. The Sultan chose war. The Western Powers were content to observe what was still a small, localised, war but when the Russians sank a Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea (30

The war when it came, however, was not universally popular. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) had sent a Peace Mission to the Tsar to avert the war 1853-1854. They were led by Joseph Sturge founder of the British and Foreign Anti Slavery Society and The Peace Society but were not successful. Quakers also opposed the raising of income tax to pay for the war whilst John Bright, the Quaker MP for Manchester, was a strong voice in Parliament for peace; he eventually lost his seat because of his pacifism. British Yearly Meeting passed the following Minute: