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Chapter 57 The Crimean War Part 1
Chapter 57 The Crimean War Part 1
“Throughout all of history mankind has been trying its best to perfect the art of killing. Through various causes such as conquest, religion, ideology, nationalism, somewhere in the world a war is being waged and lives are lost senselessly for foolish notions of glory and honor. In all recorded conflicts I can only say about 10% of them would ever be considered justifiable by one or both sides. By far the most senseless one was Crimea.”- Admiral Yang Wenli 1945
“The hell’s a Crimea?”- President Davy Crockett 1853
“Why in God’s name are Britain and Russia fighting over the right to be protector of Christians in the Turk lands? I don’t care and I’M THE POPE!”- Pope Pius IX 1852
Out of all the conflicts that have come about in the post-Napoleonic era, by far the one which is seen as the most senseless, and is generally the most overlooked is the Crimean War. While the Crimean War did have large effects in its aftermaths for all participants either through a shift in foreign policy or the advancement of military technology that led to the bloodbath of the Great War, its immediate effects were very little and the causes are generally so petty that one could compare them to the argument of toddlers. When historians look at this time, most like to pay exclusive attention to the Sardinian Heresy or the Opium Wars in China as it shows the rise and fall of two great civilizations. Even in the actual Crimea itself today, most people whether they be Tatars or Ukrainians, hold little knowledge of the two year conflict of which the island became a central theater. For those few who do take the time to learn of the Crimean War, it is learned to be the first modern war and the beginning of the buildup to the Great War only half a century later.
When studying the Crimean War, the main focus for most students and teachers to talk about is why the war started, for its beginnings are shrouded in confused geopolitical scheming and religious conflict that was only a shroud for each parties true intentions. In the aftermath of the 1846 Revolutions, Russia while defeated on the battlefield and in their quest to stop the spread of liberalism in Europe, was not broken. The German incursion into its territory was relatively quick and minor, stopping all relatively harmful lasting effects. Much of the empire was still secure as the Ukrainian breadbasket was hearty, Moscow stayed strong in the harsh winter, and the Black and Baltic Seas had their trade resumed with normalization in 1849. The main problem for the Romanov dynasty though was the beginning of a large public debt for this failed grand venture, something that Tsar Alexander II tried desperately to remove, but still plagued part of the countries finances leading to the Great War. With Germany and Austria now united and blocking the path for Russian influence in the west, Nicholas turned his sights on a new conquest, the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire was starting to be seen by many in Europe as a failed state as signified by the Greek and Serbian Revolutions only a generation prior. The nation's expansion had stopped centuries ago at Vienna and since then their former seat of power as a regional hegemon was slowly being passed away with each new sultan, losing immense amounts of territory in the process. Science and technology was in constant stagnation within the empire as its Reactionary Islamic clerics refused to adapt to western advancements unlike Mohammad Ali or Persia and Afghanistan in the early 20th century. The Ottomans took this constant decay and then turned its frustrations on its religious and ethnic minorities. Christians, Arabs, Shiites, Kurds, Jews, all were targeted with varying degrees of harshness by the Sultan's pogroms. With all of these factors combined, it was only a matter of time before a European country started a grand crusade against the Turk. Nicholas, like many members of the Romanov family, was a firm believer in Pan-Slavism and saw it his Christian duty to liberate Slavs and Orthodox Christians from the wrath of the Turk. The Ottoman Empire also served several expansion possibilities with its large natural resources, total control of the Black Sea, and oil as later seen in the 20th century. Unlike Alexander though, Nicholas did not wait to bid his times and gain allies for a united strike like the campaigns of the later Balkans War. Instead he wanted to go in alone so that Russia would be the sole liberator of the Slavs and Nicholas could finally restore faith in the Romanov's after the disastrous results of 1846. So, after Germany he ordered high command to rebuild the Russian Army through mass conscription, ordered the Baltic Fleet to make its way to Crimea, and began fortifications and weapons stockpiling in Ukraine and Georgia to prepare for a possible strike. Russia could've very well achieved all of this in a grand war for Orthodoxy, had it not been for the actions of the British interventionists.
View attachment 304200
"Lord protect Russia", a propaganda painting by Dimitri Karlov portraying the Russian Empire as the saviors of Orthodoxy
The 1849 was a year of very mixed feelings in Great Britain. The British Army and Navy had managed to achieve grand victories against the mighty Russian Empire on land and proved its naval superiority at sea (in the Baltic, most refused to remember the horrible defeats of the Black Sea). Britain had gained a new ally in Germany and was beginning to start warm relations with Hungary. House Hanover had scored two huge victories with its retention of the Kingdom of Hanover and Princess Victoria set to become Empress of Germany in the future. Yet, there were several damages to Britain that they could never immediately recover from. The Corn Riots left a lasting scar on British society with full damages not fully repayed until the 1860's. The domestic economy was in a wreck and the island needed to transition into its global imperial trade. The Irish question rose again as its people were starving and leaving for America and Texas en droves. The gap between the rich and the poor grew exponentially in the past three years. All of these being factors used in Oliver Mosley's propaganda in Our Struggle: The Oppression of Fair Britannia. Outside of the domestic situation there was no forgetting the huge embarrassment that the United Kingdom had suffered in the Oregon War where they had lost Oregon, Quebec, and Canada being reduced to useless prairie. While the Victorian Era's prosperity would later occur with the colonial expansions of the latter half of the century and Britain's economy could only go up from here; it didn't excuse the tremendous social agitation and unrest that the British people were facing. In order to ensure domestic stability, Queen Victoria and her cabinet needed a solid distraction and fast, some foreign enemy that the common people could turn their attention to in hatred, they found two in the form of France and Russia. When Napoleon III crowned himself as Emperor of the French in 1850, all slander against the Hannover monarchy stopped as the British people directed their hatred towards France. Many remembered the hardships of the Napoleonic Wars and did not want to see his nephew cause another grand blockade for Britain. A large warscare came in 1850 when British newspapers and politicians were calling for a quick pre-emptive strike against France to overthrow the Bonapartes once and for all. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed when French and British diplomats met in Paris and London, where the French affirmed Napoleon's dedication to internal development and not towards European conquests. While war was avoided, the tension remained and would only grow until the outbreak of the Great War. After the hype of Napoleon died down, the British redirected their hatred towards Russia. Nicholas for years had been seen as nothing but a backwards savage who was an opponent of change, while Russia as a whole was looked towards as a backwater wilderness with only land for value. These feelings intensified when veterans of the GEF returned to Britain, where they spread tales of Russian savagery and their attempts to oppress the innocent Germans. A few were true, but most were outlandish tales originated from ethnic bias. The members of Parliament and the Royal family also saw Russia as a threat with their encroachment on the Ottomans and the Middle East. If Russia conquered the Ottomans then they would be an unstoppable continental superpower rich in trade and goods. Another concern was the Great Game, a colonial competition between Russia and Britain over the greater Middle East. If Russia were to say conquer Persia and gain access to the Persian Gulf, then they would be in a position to threaten India and attack British global trade. Russia was to Britain a menace which needed to be killed in its infancy. So it's little suprise that when the time for war came, the British people were in full support.
View attachment 304199
Victorian England. Stagnation under the guise of prosperity.
As to the immediate cause of the war, it lies in the status of Christians living within the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottoman Empire was one that was dominated by Sunni Islam as the state religion, it also held the Holy Land as its borders, therefore millions of Christians called the Ottoman Empire its home and performed pilgrimages to visit the holy sites where Jesus once walked. Still, these people were routinely persecuted by the Ottomans and were forced to pay hefty fines and accept lower social positions, with their young being taken away as in the case of Janissaries. After the Russian conquest of Crimea in the 18th century, Russia and the Ottomans routinely fought over the status of Christians within the Ottomans borders. In early 1852, Nicholas once again brought the issue of Christian treatment by proclaiming himself as Protector of the Orthodox Christians in the empire in order to hold some power and influence over the Ottomans. Napoleon in turn, saw this as a chance to gain glory for the French Empire and declared himself to be protector of the Roman Catholics. With these two conflicting titles, Napoleon and Nicholas started butting heads over the right to administer the Holy Land and the status of both Churches within the Empire. Ironically, one man who didn't want to get involved was Pope Pius himself, as the Pope was too busy with the Italian question and wanted to reform the Church first before dealing with the issue of Jerusalem, though he publicly supported Napoleon's claim, he didn't do much in private. In what was a rare moment of unity in the Victorian Era, Britain pledged support for Napoleon's claim as it saw a Russian victory as more disastrous with the possibility of further concessions to be made to Russia, including territorial extractions. For the first few months of 1852, bickering went on between the diplomats of the three countries as the Ottomans looked on pondering its fate. Sardinia-Piedmont was offered involvement in the proceedings, but this soon cancelled with the start of the Sardinian Heresy. When the Heresy did start, France quietly retreated out of the talks as it saw the gains from Sardinia and a close alliance with the Pope to be more beneficial than any honorary titles or influence in the Middle East, something proven true with the wars aftermath. With France gone, Britain had no chief claim to challenge Russia as Protestantism barely existed in the Ottoman Empire and the title, Protector of the Anglicans, was worthless with the Ottomans. Instead, Papal emissaries were sent to negotiate directly and a precise agreement was reached where the Catholic Church's rights would be protected, Russia would gain title Protector of the Orthodox, and an agreement was reached between the two churches over administration in the Holy Land. It looked like peace would prevail, sadly, this was not the case.
Political cartoon of the Great Game. With a Turk being surrounded by a Bear (Russia) and a Lion (England)
In the aftermath of the diplomatic talks, Nicholas was still not pleased as Russia had not gained very much and its pretense for a direct grab onto Ottoman interests was now gone. Nicholas still saw an opportunity in the aftermath as his new title and contemporary events gave him a seemingly golden opportunity. Russian agents in Paris had manged to learn that Napoleon had left the talks in order to focus on Sardinia-Piedmont so that he could launch his own venture into Italy. This took one of the major powers out of play and left the issue of involvement from the Catholic world mute. Russian diplomats also told that Germany was in the midst of rebuilding and had no desire for a war in the Ottomans when they would gain so little. Similar activities revealed Hungary's neutrality as they were hurt the most and needed to stabilize relations between Magyars and Slavs. Austria while a shell of its former self, would certainly back up Russia as they were still allies and Nicholas had lost so much for Hungary. Finally, it seemed as though Britain had no direct claims, and entering into war against Russia for the Ottomans looked to be a foolish reasoning at the time. With new confidence from the foreign situation. Nicholas marched a corps of Ukrainian troops to the border of the Danube Principalities (Romania), and demanded that the Principalities be occupied by Russia in retaliation for the Ottomans past abuses with the inhabitants, all according to the rights of Nicholas as Protector of the Orthodox. Sultan Abdulmecid refused to back down and decried that Russia had already gain what it needed, any more would be a violation of Ottoman sovereignty. Great Britain at the same time, became worried that this would be the start of Russian hegemony over the Balkans and began moving troops into India and Cyprus while the Royal Navy was redirecting ships into the Mediterranean. Nicholas sent an ultimatum on October 1st that if the Ottomans did not agree to an Russian occupation by October 31st, then Russia would take the provinces by force. Abdulmecid refused any agreement to the ultimatum as doing so would make the House of Osman traitors to the Turkish people. At the same time, Abdulmecid began talks with the British for possible support, knowing that Britain would be trying to extend its influence at the same time. For all of October Europe (at least those who weren't focused on the Sardinian Heresy) waited in anticipation to see how the crisis would be resolved. Nicholas knew in advance that there would be no way for the Ottomans to accept his ultimatum. So on October 31st, when the deadline ended and without a final response, the order was given for 80,000 Russian troops to advance into Moldavia and Wallachia. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was on the move and managed to obliterate the Ottoman Black Sea squadron in the Battle of Sinop. Where a 11 ship Russian task force under Admiral Pavel Nakhimov managed to sneak across the coast of Northern Anatolia and wipe out all 12 stationed Ottoman ships while in port, only taking 37 killed and 129 wounded for the tremendous victory, while the Ottomans took 3,000 dead. Victoria became enraged by this form of Russian aggression and declared the Romanov dynasty to be "Filthy warmongers who have no place in the civilized world." Great Britain declared war on November 2nd and had the Royal Navy deploy to the Black Sea while British colonial troops were packed on transport ships to the Balkans, all the while the fighting in the Danube began to intensify. The Crimean War had begun.
Russian troops march into the Danube (Left) Battle of Sinop (Right)
A/N: The Crimean War is a go people! Sorry for the long wait but I'm back and more dedicated than ever. Lone Star Republic will see more updates in the coming weeks in preparation for the Turtledove announcements. So expect this to be done and for the topic of Douglas and Crockett's Presidencies to be touched upon by the end of the month. Once again so sorry for the wait, will work to bring high quality updates in return. Thank you for reading.
“Throughout all of history mankind has been trying its best to perfect the art of killing. Through various causes such as conquest, religion, ideology, nationalism, somewhere in the world a war is being waged and lives are lost senselessly for foolish notions of glory and honor. In all recorded conflicts I can only say about 10% of them would ever be considered justifiable by one or both sides. By far the most senseless one was Crimea.”- Admiral Yang Wenli 1945
“The hell’s a Crimea?”- President Davy Crockett 1853
“Why in God’s name are Britain and Russia fighting over the right to be protector of Christians in the Turk lands? I don’t care and I’M THE POPE!”- Pope Pius IX 1852
Out of all the conflicts that have come about in the post-Napoleonic era, by far the one which is seen as the most senseless, and is generally the most overlooked is the Crimean War. While the Crimean War did have large effects in its aftermaths for all participants either through a shift in foreign policy or the advancement of military technology that led to the bloodbath of the Great War, its immediate effects were very little and the causes are generally so petty that one could compare them to the argument of toddlers. When historians look at this time, most like to pay exclusive attention to the Sardinian Heresy or the Opium Wars in China as it shows the rise and fall of two great civilizations. Even in the actual Crimea itself today, most people whether they be Tatars or Ukrainians, hold little knowledge of the two year conflict of which the island became a central theater. For those few who do take the time to learn of the Crimean War, it is learned to be the first modern war and the beginning of the buildup to the Great War only half a century later.
When studying the Crimean War, the main focus for most students and teachers to talk about is why the war started, for its beginnings are shrouded in confused geopolitical scheming and religious conflict that was only a shroud for each parties true intentions. In the aftermath of the 1846 Revolutions, Russia while defeated on the battlefield and in their quest to stop the spread of liberalism in Europe, was not broken. The German incursion into its territory was relatively quick and minor, stopping all relatively harmful lasting effects. Much of the empire was still secure as the Ukrainian breadbasket was hearty, Moscow stayed strong in the harsh winter, and the Black and Baltic Seas had their trade resumed with normalization in 1849. The main problem for the Romanov dynasty though was the beginning of a large public debt for this failed grand venture, something that Tsar Alexander II tried desperately to remove, but still plagued part of the countries finances leading to the Great War. With Germany and Austria now united and blocking the path for Russian influence in the west, Nicholas turned his sights on a new conquest, the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire was starting to be seen by many in Europe as a failed state as signified by the Greek and Serbian Revolutions only a generation prior. The nation's expansion had stopped centuries ago at Vienna and since then their former seat of power as a regional hegemon was slowly being passed away with each new sultan, losing immense amounts of territory in the process. Science and technology was in constant stagnation within the empire as its Reactionary Islamic clerics refused to adapt to western advancements unlike Mohammad Ali or Persia and Afghanistan in the early 20th century. The Ottomans took this constant decay and then turned its frustrations on its religious and ethnic minorities. Christians, Arabs, Shiites, Kurds, Jews, all were targeted with varying degrees of harshness by the Sultan's pogroms. With all of these factors combined, it was only a matter of time before a European country started a grand crusade against the Turk. Nicholas, like many members of the Romanov family, was a firm believer in Pan-Slavism and saw it his Christian duty to liberate Slavs and Orthodox Christians from the wrath of the Turk. The Ottoman Empire also served several expansion possibilities with its large natural resources, total control of the Black Sea, and oil as later seen in the 20th century. Unlike Alexander though, Nicholas did not wait to bid his times and gain allies for a united strike like the campaigns of the later Balkans War. Instead he wanted to go in alone so that Russia would be the sole liberator of the Slavs and Nicholas could finally restore faith in the Romanov's after the disastrous results of 1846. So, after Germany he ordered high command to rebuild the Russian Army through mass conscription, ordered the Baltic Fleet to make its way to Crimea, and began fortifications and weapons stockpiling in Ukraine and Georgia to prepare for a possible strike. Russia could've very well achieved all of this in a grand war for Orthodoxy, had it not been for the actions of the British interventionists.
View attachment 304200
"Lord protect Russia", a propaganda painting by Dimitri Karlov portraying the Russian Empire as the saviors of Orthodoxy
The 1849 was a year of very mixed feelings in Great Britain. The British Army and Navy had managed to achieve grand victories against the mighty Russian Empire on land and proved its naval superiority at sea (in the Baltic, most refused to remember the horrible defeats of the Black Sea). Britain had gained a new ally in Germany and was beginning to start warm relations with Hungary. House Hanover had scored two huge victories with its retention of the Kingdom of Hanover and Princess Victoria set to become Empress of Germany in the future. Yet, there were several damages to Britain that they could never immediately recover from. The Corn Riots left a lasting scar on British society with full damages not fully repayed until the 1860's. The domestic economy was in a wreck and the island needed to transition into its global imperial trade. The Irish question rose again as its people were starving and leaving for America and Texas en droves. The gap between the rich and the poor grew exponentially in the past three years. All of these being factors used in Oliver Mosley's propaganda in Our Struggle: The Oppression of Fair Britannia. Outside of the domestic situation there was no forgetting the huge embarrassment that the United Kingdom had suffered in the Oregon War where they had lost Oregon, Quebec, and Canada being reduced to useless prairie. While the Victorian Era's prosperity would later occur with the colonial expansions of the latter half of the century and Britain's economy could only go up from here; it didn't excuse the tremendous social agitation and unrest that the British people were facing. In order to ensure domestic stability, Queen Victoria and her cabinet needed a solid distraction and fast, some foreign enemy that the common people could turn their attention to in hatred, they found two in the form of France and Russia. When Napoleon III crowned himself as Emperor of the French in 1850, all slander against the Hannover monarchy stopped as the British people directed their hatred towards France. Many remembered the hardships of the Napoleonic Wars and did not want to see his nephew cause another grand blockade for Britain. A large warscare came in 1850 when British newspapers and politicians were calling for a quick pre-emptive strike against France to overthrow the Bonapartes once and for all. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed when French and British diplomats met in Paris and London, where the French affirmed Napoleon's dedication to internal development and not towards European conquests. While war was avoided, the tension remained and would only grow until the outbreak of the Great War. After the hype of Napoleon died down, the British redirected their hatred towards Russia. Nicholas for years had been seen as nothing but a backwards savage who was an opponent of change, while Russia as a whole was looked towards as a backwater wilderness with only land for value. These feelings intensified when veterans of the GEF returned to Britain, where they spread tales of Russian savagery and their attempts to oppress the innocent Germans. A few were true, but most were outlandish tales originated from ethnic bias. The members of Parliament and the Royal family also saw Russia as a threat with their encroachment on the Ottomans and the Middle East. If Russia conquered the Ottomans then they would be an unstoppable continental superpower rich in trade and goods. Another concern was the Great Game, a colonial competition between Russia and Britain over the greater Middle East. If Russia were to say conquer Persia and gain access to the Persian Gulf, then they would be in a position to threaten India and attack British global trade. Russia was to Britain a menace which needed to be killed in its infancy. So it's little suprise that when the time for war came, the British people were in full support.
View attachment 304199
Victorian England. Stagnation under the guise of prosperity.
As to the immediate cause of the war, it lies in the status of Christians living within the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottoman Empire was one that was dominated by Sunni Islam as the state religion, it also held the Holy Land as its borders, therefore millions of Christians called the Ottoman Empire its home and performed pilgrimages to visit the holy sites where Jesus once walked. Still, these people were routinely persecuted by the Ottomans and were forced to pay hefty fines and accept lower social positions, with their young being taken away as in the case of Janissaries. After the Russian conquest of Crimea in the 18th century, Russia and the Ottomans routinely fought over the status of Christians within the Ottomans borders. In early 1852, Nicholas once again brought the issue of Christian treatment by proclaiming himself as Protector of the Orthodox Christians in the empire in order to hold some power and influence over the Ottomans. Napoleon in turn, saw this as a chance to gain glory for the French Empire and declared himself to be protector of the Roman Catholics. With these two conflicting titles, Napoleon and Nicholas started butting heads over the right to administer the Holy Land and the status of both Churches within the Empire. Ironically, one man who didn't want to get involved was Pope Pius himself, as the Pope was too busy with the Italian question and wanted to reform the Church first before dealing with the issue of Jerusalem, though he publicly supported Napoleon's claim, he didn't do much in private. In what was a rare moment of unity in the Victorian Era, Britain pledged support for Napoleon's claim as it saw a Russian victory as more disastrous with the possibility of further concessions to be made to Russia, including territorial extractions. For the first few months of 1852, bickering went on between the diplomats of the three countries as the Ottomans looked on pondering its fate. Sardinia-Piedmont was offered involvement in the proceedings, but this soon cancelled with the start of the Sardinian Heresy. When the Heresy did start, France quietly retreated out of the talks as it saw the gains from Sardinia and a close alliance with the Pope to be more beneficial than any honorary titles or influence in the Middle East, something proven true with the wars aftermath. With France gone, Britain had no chief claim to challenge Russia as Protestantism barely existed in the Ottoman Empire and the title, Protector of the Anglicans, was worthless with the Ottomans. Instead, Papal emissaries were sent to negotiate directly and a precise agreement was reached where the Catholic Church's rights would be protected, Russia would gain title Protector of the Orthodox, and an agreement was reached between the two churches over administration in the Holy Land. It looked like peace would prevail, sadly, this was not the case.
Political cartoon of the Great Game. With a Turk being surrounded by a Bear (Russia) and a Lion (England)
In the aftermath of the diplomatic talks, Nicholas was still not pleased as Russia had not gained very much and its pretense for a direct grab onto Ottoman interests was now gone. Nicholas still saw an opportunity in the aftermath as his new title and contemporary events gave him a seemingly golden opportunity. Russian agents in Paris had manged to learn that Napoleon had left the talks in order to focus on Sardinia-Piedmont so that he could launch his own venture into Italy. This took one of the major powers out of play and left the issue of involvement from the Catholic world mute. Russian diplomats also told that Germany was in the midst of rebuilding and had no desire for a war in the Ottomans when they would gain so little. Similar activities revealed Hungary's neutrality as they were hurt the most and needed to stabilize relations between Magyars and Slavs. Austria while a shell of its former self, would certainly back up Russia as they were still allies and Nicholas had lost so much for Hungary. Finally, it seemed as though Britain had no direct claims, and entering into war against Russia for the Ottomans looked to be a foolish reasoning at the time. With new confidence from the foreign situation. Nicholas marched a corps of Ukrainian troops to the border of the Danube Principalities (Romania), and demanded that the Principalities be occupied by Russia in retaliation for the Ottomans past abuses with the inhabitants, all according to the rights of Nicholas as Protector of the Orthodox. Sultan Abdulmecid refused to back down and decried that Russia had already gain what it needed, any more would be a violation of Ottoman sovereignty. Great Britain at the same time, became worried that this would be the start of Russian hegemony over the Balkans and began moving troops into India and Cyprus while the Royal Navy was redirecting ships into the Mediterranean. Nicholas sent an ultimatum on October 1st that if the Ottomans did not agree to an Russian occupation by October 31st, then Russia would take the provinces by force. Abdulmecid refused any agreement to the ultimatum as doing so would make the House of Osman traitors to the Turkish people. At the same time, Abdulmecid began talks with the British for possible support, knowing that Britain would be trying to extend its influence at the same time. For all of October Europe (at least those who weren't focused on the Sardinian Heresy) waited in anticipation to see how the crisis would be resolved. Nicholas knew in advance that there would be no way for the Ottomans to accept his ultimatum. So on October 31st, when the deadline ended and without a final response, the order was given for 80,000 Russian troops to advance into Moldavia and Wallachia. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was on the move and managed to obliterate the Ottoman Black Sea squadron in the Battle of Sinop. Where a 11 ship Russian task force under Admiral Pavel Nakhimov managed to sneak across the coast of Northern Anatolia and wipe out all 12 stationed Ottoman ships while in port, only taking 37 killed and 129 wounded for the tremendous victory, while the Ottomans took 3,000 dead. Victoria became enraged by this form of Russian aggression and declared the Romanov dynasty to be "Filthy warmongers who have no place in the civilized world." Great Britain declared war on November 2nd and had the Royal Navy deploy to the Black Sea while British colonial troops were packed on transport ships to the Balkans, all the while the fighting in the Danube began to intensify. The Crimean War had begun.
Russian troops march into the Danube (Left) Battle of Sinop (Right)
A/N: The Crimean War is a go people! Sorry for the long wait but I'm back and more dedicated than ever. Lone Star Republic will see more updates in the coming weeks in preparation for the Turtledove announcements. So expect this to be done and for the topic of Douglas and Crockett's Presidencies to be touched upon by the end of the month. Once again so sorry for the wait, will work to bring high quality updates in return. Thank you for reading.
- Kaiser Chris
- Word Count: 2.8k