The Crimean War

to complete Russia’s providential mission in the world. In all sincerity Nicholas believed that he had been called by God to wage a holy war for the liberation of the Orthodox from Muslim rule, and nothing would divert him from this ‘divine cause’. As he explained to Frederick William, the Prussian king, in March 1854, he was prepared to fight this war alone, against the Western powers, if they sided with the Turks:

Waging war neither for worldly advantages nor for conquests, but for a solely Christian purpose, must I be left alone to fight under the banner of the Holy Cross and to see the others, who call themselves Christians, all unite around the Crescent to combat Christendom? … Nothing is left to me but to fight, to win, or to perish with honour, as a martyr of our holy faith, and when I say this I declare it in the name of all Russia.⁴⁴

These were not the words of a reckless gambler; they were the calculations of a believer.

Rebuffed by the Tsar, Napoleon had no option but to add his signature to the British ultimatum to the Russians to withdraw from the principalities: for him it was an issue of national honour and prestige. Sent to the Tsar on 27 February, the ultimatum stated that, if he did not reply within six days, a state of war would automatically come into existence between the Western powers and Russia. There was no reference to peace talks any more – no opportunity was given to the Tsar to come back with terms – so the purpose of the ultimatum was clearly to precipitate a war. It was a foregone conclusion that the Tsar would reject the ultimatum – he considered it beneath his dignity even to make a reply – so as soon as they had sent their ultimatum the Western powers were in effect acting as if war had already been declared. By the end of February, troops were being mobilized.

Antoine Cetty, the quartermaster of the French army, wrote to Marshal de Castellane on 24 February:

The Tsar has replied negatively [to Napoleon’s letter]; it only now remains to prepare for war. The Emperor’s thinking was to do everything in his power not to send an expeditionary force to the East, but England carried us away in its headlong rush to war. It was impossible to permit an English flag to hang without our own on the walls of Constantinople. Wherever England treads alone, she rapidly becomes the sole mistress and does not let go of her prey.

This was about the sum of it. At the moment of decision, Napoleon had hesitated over war. But in the end he needed the alliance with the British, and feared losing out in the share-out of the spoils if he did not join them in a war for the defence of Western interests in the Near East. The French Emperor confessed as much in a speech to the Senate and Legislative Assembly on 2 March:

France has as great an interest as England – perhaps a greater interest – to ensure that the influence of Russia does not permanently extend to Constantinople; because to reign at Constantinople means to reign over the Mediterranean; and I think that none of you, gentlemen, will say that only England has vital interests in this sea, which washes three hundred leagues of our shores … . Why are we going to Constantinople? We are going there with England to defend the Sultan’s cause, and no less to protect the right of the Christians; we are going there to defend the freedom of the seas and our rightful influence in the Mediterranean. ⁴⁵

In fact, it was far from clear what the allies would be fighting for. Like so many wars, the allied expedition to the East began with no one really knowing what it was about. The reasons for the war would take months for the Western powers to work out through long-drawn-out negotiations between themselves and the Austrians during 1854. Even after they had landed in the Crimea, in September, the allies were a long way from agreement about the objectives of the war.

The French and the British had different ideas from the start. During March there was a series of conferences in Paris to discuss their aims and strategy. The French argued for a Danubian campaign as well as a Crimean one. If Austria and Prussia could be persuaded to join the war on the allies’ side, the French favoured a large-scale land offensive in the principalities and southern Russia, combined with an Austrian-Prussian campaign in Poland. But the British mistrusted the Austrians – they thought they were too soft on Russia – and did not want to be committed to an alliance with them which might inhibit their own more ambitious plans against Russia.

The British cabinet was divided over its war aims and strategy. Aberdeen insisted on a limited campaign to restore the sovereignty of Turkey, while Palmerston and his war party argued for a more aggressive offensive to roll back Russian influence in the Near East and bring Russia to its knees. The two sides reached a sort of compromise through the naval strategy drawn up by Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, which had taken shape in reaction to Sinope in December 1853. Graham’s plan was to launch a swift attack on Sevastopol to destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet and seize the Crimea before the opening of the more important spring campaign in the Baltic which would bring British forces to St Petersburg – a strategy developed from plans already made in the event of a war against France (for Sevastopol read Cherbourg).⁴⁶

As Britain moved onto a military footing in the early months of 1854, the idea of a limited campaign for the defence of Turkey became lost in the war fever that swept the country. Britain’s war aims escalated, not just from the bellicose chauvinism of the press but from the belief that the war’s immense potential costs demanded larger objectives, ‘worthy of Britain’s honour and greatness’. Palmerston was always returning to this theme. His war aims changed in detail but never in their anti-Russian character. In a memorandum to the cabinet on 19 March, he outlined an ambitious plan for the dismemberment of the Russian Empire and the redrawing of the European map: Finland and the Aaland Islands would be transferred from Russia to Sweden; the Tsar’s Baltic provinces would be given to Prussia; Poland would be enlarged as an independent kingdom and buffer state for Europe against Russia; Austria would gain the Danubian principalities and Bessarabia from the Russians (and be forced to give up northern Italy); the Crimea and Georgia would be given to Turkey; while Circassia would become independent under Turkish protection. The plan called for a major European war against Russia, one involving Austria and Prussia, and ideally Sweden, on the anti-Russian side. It was greeted with a good deal of scepticism in the cabinet. Aberdeen, who was hoping for a short campaign so that his government could ‘return zealously to the task of domestic reform’, objected that it would require another Thirty Years War. But Palmerston continued to promote his plans. Indeed, the longer the war went on, the more determined he became to advance it, on the grounds that anything less than ‘great territorial changes’ would not be enough to justify the war’s enormous loss of life.⁴⁷

By the end of March, the idea of expanding the defence of Turkey into a broader European war against Russia had gained much support in the British political establishment. Prince Albert was doubtful whether Turkey could be saved, but confident that Russia’s influence in Europe could be curbed by a war to deprive her of her western territories. He thought that Prussia could be drawn into this war by promises of ‘territory to guard against Russia’s pouncing upon her’, and advocated measures to get the German states on side as well as to tame the Russian bear, ‘whose teeth must be drawn and claws pared’. He wrote to Leopold, the Belgian king: ‘All Europe, Belgium and Germany included, have the greatest interest in the integrity and independence of the Porte being secured for the future, but a still greater interest in Russia being defeated and chastised.’ Sir Henry Layard, the famous Assyriologist and MP, who served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, called for war until Russia had been ‘crippled’. Stratford Canning proposed a war to break up the Tsar’s empire ‘for the benefit of Poland and other spoliated neighbours to the lasting delivery of Europe from Russian dictation’. In a later letter to Clarendon, Stratford emphasized the need to curb the will of Russia, not just by checking its ‘present outbreak’ but ‘by bringing home to its inner sense a feeling of permanent restraint’. The aim of any war by the European powers should be to destroy the threat of Russia once and for all, argued Stratford, and they should go on fighting until Russia was surrounded by a buffer zone of independent states (the Danubian principalities, the Crimea, Circassia and Poland) to ensure that feeling of restraint. As the government prepared to declare war on Russia, Russell called on Clarendon not to include anything in the Queen’s message to Parliament that would commit the Western powers to the existing territorial boundaries of Europe.⁴⁸

Even at this stage Aberdeen was reluctant to declare war. On 26 March, the eve of the British declaration, he told the Queen and Prince Albert that he had been ‘dragged into a war’ by Palmerston, who had the support of the press and public opinion. Three months earlier, the Queen had shared Aberdeen’s reluctance to commit British troops to the defence of the Turks. But now she saw the necessity of war, as she and Albert both explained to the Prime Minister:

We both repeated our conviction that it was necessary now, which he could not deny, and I observed that I thought we could not have avoided it, even if there had been mistakes and misfortunes, that the