Crimean War

“ If reason could prevail over the war fever, you would conquer. But I too well remember the Crimean war, into which we were plunged by the machinations of the intriguers for their personal objects and the popular madness which followed. Men who had taken part in making that war lived to repent it, and of its fruits absolutely nothing now remains but the Crimean graves. ”

“ During the Crimean war, no one danced in Russia from the Imperial palace down to the remotest village; the people's indignation would have prevented any body—even the Czar, from such a sacrilegious display of recklessness when the country's integrity and honor were at stake, when the nation's blood was pouring in torrents. ”

“ The Crimean War has this remarkable interest, not that the suffering of the troops and their depreciation in effective power were greater than in many other wars, but that these happened in an age when the intelligence and philanthropy, and even the policy of the nation, demanded to know whether the vital depression and the loss of martial strength were as great as rumor reported, whether these were the necessary condition of war, and whether anything could be done to lessen them. ”

“ Many, therefore, had to sell and sacrifice their properties for the necessities of life, and fell into abject poverty and had almost reached the verge of starvation.
Russia’s desire and demand to establish a protectorate over the Greek Christians in the Turkish empire, and the latter government’s refusal, led these two powers into, what is generally known in history, as the Crimean war. England and France were the allies of the Turk in that war, 1853. This Crimean war also greatly added to the misery of the Protestant community and threatened the existence of the little flock. ”

“ We have never forgotten the bitter lessons of the Crimean war which laid bare our miserable incompetence in organizing, and the moral rottenness of our English firms that could supply our soldiers with paper-soled boots and bayonets that bent at a thrust, when the very life of our brave fellows depended on their being well armed and well shod. ”

“ While the Russian War was going on a clamour was raised against Government for not calling away all the British troops in India and sending them to the Crimea, and those who went mad about the Crimean War would willingly have left India without a single European regiment, and have entrusted all our interests to the fidelity and attachment of the Native army. ”

“ All the disorders and disturbances of Europe, those immense armaments that are an incubus on national industry and the great obstacle to progressive civilization, may be traced and justly attributed to the Crimean War. ”

“ The Crimean war came, and soldiers went to the front in large numbers. They were all taken from the families of the serfs, and while a certain number of the noblemen went to the war as officers of the Russian army, many others stayed at home safely, not being compelled to fight for their country as the peasants were. And the injustice of the system was very evident to the young girl, who even then was forming the idea of devoting her life to aiding the suffering and oppressed people who surrounded her. ”

“ For ten centuries these wars have continued, with Constantinople for their ultimate goal, yet in all these ten centuries of conflict no Russian foot has ever been set in hostility within that ancient city's walls.
[Pg 277]
Of these many wars, that which looms largest on the historic page is the fierce conflict of 1854–55, in which England and France came to Turkey's aid and Russia met with defeat on the soil of the Crimea. We have already given the most striking and dramatic incident of this famous Crimean war. ”

“ Rightly envisaged, the Crimean war was the end of what remained of absolutism and legitimism in Europe. It threw the way open for the liberation of Italy. The war in Manchuria makes an end of absolutism in Russia, whoever has got to perish from the shock behind a rampart of dead ukases, manifestoes, and rescripts. ”

“ The termination of the Crimean war, though it entailed considerable reductions in the army, was not accompanied by the acute distress that marked the close of the great struggle with France in 1815. In the latter case, the country had been seriously engaged with a formidable enemy for twenty years, and was constrained to devote all its resources to crush him. For nearly a generation, Great Britain had been a nation standing in arms, and thriving, so to speak, upon the success of her operations by sea and by land. ”

“ Such a practice is fatal to peace, and destructive of the independence of States. It is destructive of peace because it is an act of war, and if resistance takes place it is the beginning of war. But war so begun may not be confined within the narrow limits of its early commencement, as was proved in 1853, when the occupation of the Danubian Principalities by Russia as a material guarantee proved the direct cause of the Crimean War. ”

“ Bravery on the battlefield does not suffice to secure victory. For this end, highly trained officers and men, improved instruments of offence and defence, and an adequate supply of food, medicines, and stores of all kinds, are no less essential. There must be foresight. The history of the Crimean War teaches us how the inward corruption of theocratic obscurantism had affected army administration. When we study that history we realize the truth of Bělinskii's dictum concerning the whole regime of Nicholas 1, that it was "a corporation of enthroned thieves and brigands." ”

“ Such was the state of affairs in the summer of 1854, when the allies determined to carry the war into the enemy’s territory, attack the maritime city of Sebastopol in the Crimea, and seek to destroy the Russian naval power in the Black Sea.
The War in the Crimea
Of the allied armies 15,000 men had already perished. With the remaining forces, rather more than 50,000 British and French and 6,000 Turks, the fleet set sail in September across the Black Sea, and landed near Eupatoria on the west coast of the Crimean peninsula, on the 4th of September, 1854. ”

“ The result was the Crimean war. To have led England into so futile an adventure would indeed be an unworthy termination to a long career of wise statesmanship. The Crimean war, however, was not to be averted by diplomacy. Russia was resolved upon war long before it actually broke out. Above all Nicholas was bent upon crushing the hateful ambassador who had so long successfully bearded the Emperor of All the Russias. What Stratford did was to make the war impossible to a moral state. ”

“ For years there had been growing up in world politics the theory that France, no matter how she may deal with monks and nuns and ultramontane efforts within her own immediate boundaries, is their protector in all the world beside, and especially in the Holy Land. The relation of this theory to the Crimean War, fifty years ago, is one of the curious things of history, and from that day to this it has seemed to be hardening more and more into a fixed policy—even into something like a doctrine of international law. ”

“ Action might doubtless have been taken by us at any time between the Crimean War and the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War, but, as the opportunity had been neglected, it was difficult to inaugurate such a policy under pressure of the atrocities agitation.... ”

“ The survivors of the Crimean war are, alas! growing yearly fewer; but the author desires to acknowledge with thankfulness much information he has gained from the veterans he has had the opportunity of knowing, amongst whom he wishes specially to mention Sergeant James Mustard, of the 17th Lancers, a survivor of the immortal charge, and happily still alive.
He also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the fascinating pages of Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea and Russell’s British Expedition to the Crimea. ”

“ To quote anything that happened in the Crimean War as a precedent without such traditional support will scarcely appear convincing. In our British way we have fostered a legend that so far as organisation and staff work were concerned that war was nothing but a collection of deterrent examples. ”

“ The misty grey of early dawn lay over the smooth grassy slopes of the Crimea when Phil and Tony turned over on the following morning and looked about them. Here and there men were moving about like big ghostly shadows as they trudged down to the banks of the River Bulganak to fill their water-bottles and mess-tins in preparation for the morning meal. Some were crouching over smoking fires, encouraging them to burn up brightly and give out sufficient heat to cook the food. ”

“ It is most frequently through the emotions that such a view of distant events acquires power, and being almost beyond the pale of reasoning, it is likely to become a dangerous force in politics. Thus, we believe, the Crimean War was the direct consequence of a popular impulse, which had its root in the inaccurate judgment of the English people upon some ambiguous acts and expressions of the emperor Nicholas, for the explanations and modifications of which no hearing could be obtained. ”

“ European politics were in the unsettled condition which, after the illusive international courtesies of the Great Exhibition of 1851, ended in the Crimean War, and it was feared that in the event of hostilities breaking out, the zeal of the officers for their country might tempt them to transcend their peaceful occupation. ”

“ The Crimean war and the Volunteers have done all that was necessary in the way of answer to such croakings in our case, as the response of the Free States of the American Union and the continuance of the war to this day have sufficed, in reply to the same reproach against the commercial people of the North. ”

“ The interference of the allied powers alone prevented the empire from dismemberment at this juncture. The great event of his reign was the Crimean War, in which France and England allied themselves with Turkey against the encroachments of Russia, and which was terminated by the fall of Sebastopol after a long siege, in 1856. ”

“ A week later the number of cases was infinitesimal compared with what it had been, and in consequence arrangements were pushed forward for another move.
“We shall go to the Crimea this time,” said the doctor, who seemed to have taken quite a fancy to Phil, and often indulged in a chat with him. “Austria has moved 50,000 or more of her troops down Silistria way, and the Russians have raised the siege and retired. Now we are going to show them that war cannot be commenced with impunity on such trivial grounds. ”

“ I said, “My regiment did not come home till May: I had spent this spring in the Crimea.”
“Ah! the spring flowers there, I have heard, are remarkably beautiful, much more so than ours.”
“Yes;” and as she seemed fond of flowers, I told her of the great abundance which in the peaceful spring that followed the war, we had noticed, carpeting with a mass of colour those dreary plains; the large Crimean snow-drops, the jonquils, and blue hyacinths, growing in myriads, about Balaklava and on the banks of the Tchernaya ”

“ Men had to be examined as to their physical fitness for rough work in the field; kits had to be looked to, new boots issued, and a hundred-and-one points attended to. Then there were good-byes to be said, for many of those fine, brave lads, the last they would ever have an opportunity of saying, for the Crimea was to claim them, and the deep-trodden mire and mud of the heights round Sebastopol was destined to form a covering for thousands—thousands, alas! of England’s bravest soldiers. ”

“ But the two former battles are remarkable and noteworthy instances of the courage and fearlessness—one may almost add skill-lessness—of our army. Never did men fight better. Never were greater mistakes made in all the annals of war. The Crimean campaign teaches one thing, if it teaches no other. Battles are won, sometimes if apparently lost, by sheer hard fighting. ”

“ In the Coldstream the recipients of this proud distinction were Majors Goodlake and Conolly, and Privates Strong and Stanlock. [362] This event, though it took place more than a year after the 288conclusion of peace, is connected with the Crimean struggle, and may be said to terminate the history of the protracted hostilities that troubled our relations with Russia. Thenceforward the war became a thing of the past, and its memories were merged into or overshadowed by other events which occurred elsewhere.
We have seen how the struggle shaped itself ”

“ THE interest excited by the events of the Campaign in the Crimea has not died away. Many years, indeed, must elapse ere the recital of the details of that great struggle, its glories, and its disasters, cease to revive the emotions of joy or grief with which a contemporary generation regarded the sublime efforts of their countrymen. As records on which the future history of the war must be founded, none can be more valuable than letters written from the scene, read by the light documents, such as those which will shortly be made public, can throw upon them. ”

“ A generation later, the command of the sea enabled England and France to despatch, in unarmed transports, 63,000 men and 128 guns to the Crimea, and to land them, without opposition, for the red carnage of the Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol. Following closely upon the disease and death, the fatuity and the glory, of the Crimea, came the great war of modern times, in which the gun afloat played such a gallant part, as the blockade, with its constricting coils, slowly starved and strangled the Confederacy to death, and Farragut, on inland waters, split it in twain. ”