It also influenced British public opinion on the eve of the Crimean War. In May 1854, ‘The True Story of the Nuns of Minsk’ was published in Charles Dickens’s journal
g
In 1850 the British public applauded the decision by Palmerston to send the Royal Navy to block the port of Athens in support of Don Pacifico, a British subject who had appealed to the Greek government for compensation after his home was burned down in an anti-Semitic riot in Athens. Don Pacifico was serving as the Portuguese consul in Athens at the time of the attack (he was a Portuguese Jew by descent) but he had been born in Gibraltar and was thus a British subject. On this basis (‘Civis Britannicus Sum’), Palmerston defended his decision to dispatch the fleet.
h
The Austrians and Prussians had agreed to follow Russia’s example, but then backed down, fearing it would cause a break with France. They found a compromise, addressing Napoleon as ‘Monsieur mon frere.’
i
The Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen; Lord John Russell, leader of the House of Commons; Foreign Secretary Lord George Clarendon; Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty; and Palmerston, at that time Home Secretary.
j
Nesselrode was supported by Baron Meyendorff, the Russian ambassador in Vienna, who reported to the Tsar on 29 November that the ‘little Christian peoples’ would not fight on Russia’s side. They had never received any help from Russia in the past and had been left in ‘a state of military destitution’, unable to resist the Turks (
k
A reference to the expeditionary force of General Oudinot in 1849 – 50 which attacked the anti-papal Roman Republic and brought back Pius IX to Rome. The French troops remained in Rome to protect the Pope until 1870.
l
In the Opium Wars of 1839 – 42.
m
A reference to the Don Pacifico affair.
n
In the battle of Poltava (1709) Peter the Great defeated Sweden and established Russia as a Baltic power.
o
It is one of the ironies of the Crimean War that Sidney Herbert, the British Secretary at War in 1852 – 5, was the nephew of this senior Russian general and Anglophile. Mikhail was the son of Count Semyon Vorontsov, who lived for forty-seven years in London, most of them after his retirement as Russia’s ambassador. Semyon’s daughter Catherine married George Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke. A general in the war against Napoleon, Mikhail was appointed governor-general of New Russia in 1823. He did a great deal to establish Odessa, where he built a magnificent palace, promoted the development of steamships on the Black Sea and fought in the war against the Turks in 1828 – 9. Following the Anglophile traditions of his family, Vorontsov built a fabulous Anglo-Moorish palace at Alupka on the Crimea’s southern coast, where the British delegation to the Yalta Conference stayed in 1945.
p
There was no Russian Bible – only a Psalter and a Book of Hours – until the 1870s.
q
One of them now stands in front of the City Duma building on the Primorsky Boulevard.
r
Their determination was given more religious force when Musa Pasha was later killed by a shell that landed directly on him while he was conducting evening prayers for divine intervention to save Silistria.
s
After it was amputated (without anaesthetic) Raglan had asked to have the arm so that he could retrieve a ring given to him by his wife. The incident had sealed his reputation for personal bravery.
t
The first Zouave battalions were recruited from a Berber mountain tribe called the Zouaoua. Later Zouave battalions of Frenchmen adopted their Moorish costumes and green turbans.
u
A tall shako, named after Prince Albert, who supposedly designed it.
v
Events would prove them right. On 8 August Napier launched an allied attack against the Russian fortress at Bomarsund in the Aaland Islands, between Sweden and Finland, mainly with the aim of involving Sweden in the war. The support of Swedish troops was necessary for any move on the Russian capital. After a heavy
