The Crimean War

Podcast Transcript

In the mid-19th century, Europe saw one of its largest wars since the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

The war was ultimately fought over who would pick up the pieces of the failing Ottoman Empire. However, every country that fought in the conflict had its own unique reasons for doing so.

What no one could know at the time is that the war would usher in changes that would affect the future of warfare forever.

Learn more about the Crimean War, its causes, and its legacy on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

You may have heard of the Crimean War before, but there is a good chance you know little about it.

Although it wasn’t a major conflict in the grand scheme of things, it was an important conflict historically.

The starting point for understanding the war has to do with the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

There was a time when the Ottoman Empire was the most powerful empire on Earth. It probably peaked around the mid-16th century under the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent.

After that, it began a long, slow period of decline.

By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was known as the sick man of Europe. They still held a significant amount of territory, but they had been losing territory in Europe, and they were unable to keep up with other European powers as the world began to industrialize.

The Serbian Revolution of 1804, the Greek War of Independence in 1821, and the almost total destruction of the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 led to the perception of decline. The Russo-Turkish War of 1828 resulted in the Ottomans ceding rights to Russia and the rest of Europe to sail through the Bosporus Straits to access the Black Sea.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire gave rise to what became known in Europe as the Eastern Question.

The Eastern Question referred to the diplomatic and political problems posed by the gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire, particularly how the European powers would manage the power vacuum left behind.

As Ottoman authority weakened, rival European powers—especially Britain, France, Austria, and Russia—began to compete for influence over former Ottoman territories, particularly in the Balkans and around the eastern Mediterranean.

Russia was especially interested in expanding its influence southward, seeking access to warm-water ports and portraying itself as the protector of Orthodox Christians living under Ottoman rule. It also had longstanding ambitions to control the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, vital maritime chokepoints linking the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

Control of Constantinople, arguably the most important city in the Orthodox Christian world next to Jerusalem, had been a long-term Russian dream.

The problem was that several European powers didn’t want to see Russia benefit at the expense of the Ottomans.

Britain feared that Russian control of the straits would threaten British trade routes to India and upset the European balance of power. While the British were not a Mediterranean country themselves, they had a vested interest in the region. By the 1850s, they already controlled Gibraltar and Malta, which were key naval strongholds.

Britain and Russia were also competing for influence in Central Asia during this period in what was known as the “Great Game.”

The Russians and the British weren’t the only ones with an interest in what was happening with the Ottomans.

France had its own religious and strategic interests in the region, especially concerning Catholic holy sites in the Holy Land. Tensions rose in the 1850s when disputes broke out over the rights of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire and the guardianship of Christian holy places in Jerusalem.

Both France and Russia tried to pressure the Ottomans into favoring their religious communities.

The French leader, Napoleon III, who rose to power in 1852 as the Emperor of the French, was also looking to cement his authority in France as well as increase France’s reputation on the world stage.

France had been sidelined in Europe since the Napoleonic Wars several decades earlier. The new French Empire needed military successes to bolster its legitimacy. Napoleon III needed to demonstrate the restoration of French glory to secure his position.

So, this was the position of the major powers going into 1853.

In February 1853, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia sent Prince Menshikov as an envoy to Constantinople to demand formal recognition of Russian protection over Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans resisted these demands, backed quietly by Britain and France.

In June 1853, after the failure of diplomatic efforts, Russia occupied the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, territories under nominal Ottoman sovereignty along the Danube River, claiming to protect Orthodox Christians. This brought the Russians to the north bank of the Danube River.

Today, these are part of Moldova and Romania.

The other European powers saw this as an aggressive move. With the Russians now at their doorstep, the Austrians feared them more than the Ottomans. The British saw the Ottomans as the natural bulwark against Russian expansion to the south.

The Russians, on their part, assumed that the European powers wouldn’t object to Russia, a Christian country, taking Christian provinces from the Muslim Ottomans.

In October, the Ottomans finally declared war on Russia, but Britain and France remained neutral for the time being.

In November, however, Russia increased the European powers’ concern when it defeated an Ottoman fleet of 11 ships in the Black Sea at the Battle of Sinope.

Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Russia to withdraw from the provinces they occupied, but Russia refused.

So, in March 1854, both Britain and France formally declared war on Russia in support of the Ottomans.

This was one of the first historic events that happened during the war. Britain and France had been historic rivals for centuries. Now, they were allies working on the same side and have remained allies until the present day.

Rather than fighting in the Balkans, where the initial conflict had begun, the Allies decided to strike at the heart of Russian naval power in the Black Sea: the port of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s powerful Black Sea Fleet. In September 1854, British and French forces landed on the Crimean Peninsula, along with a smaller contingent from Sardinia, which joined the war in 1855 to gain diplomatic favor with France and Britain. The Allied armies marched south to lay siege to Sevastopol, marking the beginning of a long and grueling campaign.

The Siege of Sevastopol dominated the war. It lasted from October 1854 to September 1855 and was characterized by trench warfare, logistical failures, and widespread disease. Conditions were harsh, with inadequate medical care, poor sanitation, and brutal winters causing more deaths than combat.

During the siege, several major battles took place, including the Battle of Balaclava in October 1854, which is remembered for the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade—a courageous but disastrous cavalry assault resulting from a miscommunication among British commanders. Shortly after, the Battle of Inkerman in November 1854 saw British and French forces repel a major Russian offensive, solidifying the Allied grip on the siege.

Despite initial Russian resistance, the prolonged blockade and bombardment gradually wore down Sevastopol’s defenses. In September 1855, after months of trench warfare and continuous bombardment, the Allies finally stormed the Russian fortifications and captured the city. The fall of Sevastopol marked the turning point of the war. Russia, now exhausted and diplomatically isolated, sought peace.

Peace negotiations followed in early 1856 and culminated in the Treaty of Paris, signed in March of that year. The treaty’s terms were intended to check Russian influence in the region. Russia was required to withdraw from the Danubian Principalities, which were placed under the collective protection of the Great Powers while remaining under Ottoman sovereignty.

The Black Sea was declared neutral—closed to all warships, including Russia’s—and its coastal fortifications were dismantled. Russia also had to renounce its claim to act as protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, a symbolic defeat that weakened its prestige.

The war didn’t last that long, and there weren’t a lot of battles, yet it had a legacy that was far greater than the outcome of the war itself.

For starters, in many respects, the Crimean War was the first modern industrialized war.

Railroads were used for the first time in a major military conflict to support logistical operations, marking a significant development in modern warfare.

The most notable example was the construction of the Grand Crimean Central Railway by British engineers in early 1855.

Built between the port of Balaclava and the front lines near Sevastopol, the railway was designed to overcome the severe logistical challenges faced by British forces, who had struggled to transport supplies, ammunition, and medical equipment through muddy, mountainous terrain.

The railway dramatically improved the efficiency of supply lines, helping to sustain the siege of Sevastopol and alleviate some of the suffering caused by poor planning and inadequate infrastructure. Its success demonstrated the strategic value of rail transport in wartime and paved the way for its widespread use in later 19th-century conflicts.

The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to see the strategic use of the electric telegraph, which revolutionized communication between the battlefield and home governments.

For the first time, news and military reports could be transmitted almost instantaneously across long distances, drastically reducing the time it took for information to travel from the front lines to London or Paris.

The British government, in particular, laid a telegraph line from Varna on the Black Sea coast to Balaclava in Crimea, eventually linking it with the broader European network. This allowed political leaders to make more immediate decisions and respond more quickly to developments on the ground.

However, the speed of communication also exposed military failures and poor leadership to the public and press in near real-time, increasing pressure on governments and commanders. The telegraph thus not only improved wartime coordination but also marked the beginning of modern war reporting and public scrutiny of military operations.

This eventually led to the Cardwell reforms from 1868 to 1874, which changed the way the British military was organized.

The adoption of new technologies set the stage for the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, which were to come in the years that followed.

The Crimean War marked a turning point in the history of military medicine, exposing the appalling conditions in army hospitals and prompting crucial reforms in medical treatment. Most notably, the efforts of Florence Nightingale, who led a team of nurses to the British hospital at Scutari, brought widespread attention to the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions that were contributing to high mortality rates from disease rather than battle wounds.

Nightingale introduced basic hygiene practices—such as proper ventilation, clean bedding, and handwashing—that drastically reduced death rates and laid the foundations for modern nursing.

Meanwhile, the war underscored the need for better medical organization and logistics, leading to the development of more systematic ambulance services, field hospitals, and record-keeping. These changes helped shift military medicine from a chaotic, ad hoc affair to a more structured and professional system, with long-term effects on both military and civilian healthcare practices.

The Crimean War didn’t end the decline of the Ottoman Empire. If anything, it hastened it as it required two major European powers to bail them out of the conflict.

In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, Russia and the Ottomans fought once again. This time, the Russians reached the gates of Constantinople, resulting in the loss of much of the Ottoman territory in the Balkans.

In the end, the Crimean War can be thought of as a transitional war. It had elements of the old style of warfare from the Napoleonic Wars earlier in the century, as well as modern warfare, which would rise to prominence later in the century.

It resolved no long-term issues and only served as a historical speed bump in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Today’s review comes from listener Tolani I over on the Apple Podcasts in the United Kingdom. They write.

Outstanding & informative podcast

Information to increase your knowledge, delivered in a simple and easily digestible fashion.

Thanks, Tolani! I’m always happy to see the UK represented in the comments. Just a reminder to everyone, no matter where you are listening, you are free to leave a comment. If you are listening on a podcast app that doesn’t have comments, you can always leave one on Facebook, the Discord server, Twitter, or even an email.

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