The Ottoman Crimean War (1853–1856) pdf download

The Ottoman Crimean War (1853–1856)

By Candan Badem 2010

Introduction and review of the sources

This book concerns the Ottoman involvement in the Crimean War of 1853–1856. While a huge literature in the European languages (including Russian) is available on this topic, there hardly exists any modern, up-to-date, comparative, scholarly monograph based on original research in Ottoman sources and focusing on the Ottoman state and society.

The main concern of this study is to reconstruct the narrative of the war as experienced by the Ottomans, setting the record straight by an up-to-date, comparative study of factual data from primary sources.

While doing so, I will also examine the political, economic, social and intellectual impact of the war on the Ottoman state and society.

 Language barriers, neglect and, indeed, total ignorance of the Ottoman archival material have hitherto prevented Western and Russian historians from paying sufficient attention to the role of the Ottomans in the war.1

The present study aims to fill this gap in the historiography of this all-European, proto-world war of the long nineteenth century.

While a good deal of the Western historiography focuses on the origins of the war and the role of diplomacy, the present study will rather concern itself with the conduct of the war itself and with its implications, results and impact upon the Ottoman state and society.

Interestingly, the Ottoman and Turkish historians themselves have neglected this topic and their references have also come primarily from Western sources.

Although recently there have been new studies and some dissertations written in Turkey, the general coverage of the Turkish historiography on the subject is not very impressive.

The existing general histories of the nineteenth century give scanty place to the war and the few monographs on the topic confine themselves to making a summary of Western sources, whereas Ottoman archives are open and the subject is waiting for its researchers.

The Crimean War is the only all-European war in the one hundred years between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. It is also the only war in the nineteenth century when the Ottomans defeated Russia.

Of the ten wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire from 1678 to 1917, only three ended with victory for the Ottomans. The Crimean War is also the only time when two European great powers, Britain and France fought against the Russians in alliance with the Ottomans.

The Crimean War, indeed, proved to be of the utmost importance for the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century.

It officially introduced the Ottoman Empire into the European state system, the so-called Concert of Europe. The Crimean War is an exceptional example of Russian diplomatic isolation due to the personal miscalculations of Nikolai I and to the successful alliance policies of the Porte. Ottoman statesmen, however, later discovered the practical value of being included in the European system or becoming allied with Euro-pean powers; when, in 1877, their hopes of British or French help against Russia did not materialize.

Even the promulgation of the 1876 Constitution did not help the Ottoman Empire to gain European favour. Nevertheless, the doctrine of Turkey’s geopolitical strategic importance carried over into the twentieth century.

One of the possible reasons for the relative oblivion concerning this war in Turkish historiography is that it was seen as creating too many problems even though the Ottoman Empire was on the winning side at the end of it.

In fact, the Treaty of Paris neutralized the Black Sea for both Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Territorially the Ottoman Empire did not make any significant gain, but it was exhausted economically and morally.

Soon after the war, the idea that it was quite a useless and senseless conflict gained popularity in both European and Ottoman public opinion. Public opinion was indeed important during the war:

We can argue that the Crimean War was the first war in world history where public opinion did matter. This was in part due to the wonderful effect of the electric telegraph, bringing news from the front almost daily.

In 1877, when Russia again attacked the Ottoman Empire, the British government was again influenced by public opinion; on that occasion, however, Britain took Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire as a reward for its support without going into war.

 Th at Britain could gain its ends without going to war against Russia also contributed to the common (especially British) notion that