Page 231 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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ActA
War of the firsts: the Crimean War (1853-1856)

Levent ÜnAL 1
F.Rezzan ÜnALP (TUAF) 2

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ccupying an important page in the 19 century European history, the Crimean War
O is deemed to be the first of the all-out and long-range military operations and the
modern frontal battles, with all the alliances throughout the war. This war, which is called
as the “War of the Firsts”, brought along new practices in many fields such as health,
communications and logistics, as well as in military operations. But this war left a mark
in the Turkish history as the war after which the Ottoman State got into foreign debts.
The Crimean Khanate went under the Ottoman sovereignty in 1475, during the term
of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, and this sovereignty ended with the Treaty of Kuchuk
Kainarji that was signed after the 1768-1774 Ottoman-Russian War. The most striking
period of the Crimean Tartar history under the rule of the Russian Tsardom, especially
during the first century of this rule, was the mass immigration of the Crimean Tartars in
the Ottoman Turkey. The biggest and the most destructive migration wave took place
between 1860-1861, when the impacts of the Crimean War were still fresh. 3
When the reasons that dragged the Ottoman State into the Crimean War are
considered; it is clear that the events in the territories far away from the center in the first
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half of the 19 century bothered the government. Although the Russian Tsar Nicholas
I, who had contacted the Britain a few times on the division of the Ottoman territories
among themselves through agreement, openly proposed Britain to protect together the
Christian subjects within the Ottoman borders, he could not take the reply he desired.
Meanwhile, the revolts of the Hungarians and the Polish were suppressed severely by
Russia and Austria in 1848; and the renowned Hungarian leader Lajos Kossuth and his
entourage took refuge in the Ottoman territories. The Ottoman State did not extradite
those refugees amounting to 4400 despite war threats from Russia and Austria; hence
France and Britain jointly supported the Ottoman State against Russia and Austria.
Soon after this problem was settled, the Question of the Holy Places broke out.
France sought to enlarge the religious privileges it had been enjoying in Jerusalem until
then, in favor of Catholics. Russia, who wanted to emphasize that it was the protector
of the Orthodox Christians, tried to take advantage of this conduct of France and
dispatched Prince Menshikov to Istanbul as the ambassador extraordinary. The real duty
of Menshikov was to create a kind of Russian influence on the Ottoman State, rather

1 Chief of Planning and Coordination Branch, Turkish General Staff Military History and Strategic Studies
(ATASE) Division.
2 Chief of Military History Branch, Turkish General Staff Military History and Strategic Studies (ATASE)
Division.
3 Hakan Kırımlı, Kırım Tatarlarında Milli Kimlik ve Milli Hareketler, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, Ankara,
2010, pp. 5-16.