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Chapter 58 The Crimean War Part 2
Chapter 58 The Crimean War Part 2
"LIGHT BRIGADE MASSACRED AT BALACLAVA. NO SURVIVORS LEFT"- London Times 1853
"We have achieved a glorious victory today. The motherland has been avenged!"- Last words of Tsar Nicholas I 1854
"Seriously, what in God's name is a Crimea? Is it a pie, a gun, some sort of Russian chicken? What is it?!?!"- President Davy Crockett 1853
When the Crimean War began, many thought it would be a repeat of the (First)War of German Unification or the Napoleonic Wars, seeing all of Europe collapse into a years long continental war which would bring the nations into a the largest war the world had ever seen. Fortunately Crimea would not see an 58 years early rendition of the Great War, and would instead be confined to the Black Sea, Romania, and the Caucasus. The reasons for this were many, but the diplomacy in and of itself at the beginning of the war would come to influence European politics for the rest of the century. France and Italy were obviously not able to get involved due to the ongoing, though soon to be resolved Sardinian Heresy. Even when the Sardinian Heresy was over both sides would stick to neutrality and not dare to get involved in the politics of the east. Italy at the time was in the process of immediate unification, with the ongoing task of trying to unify the peninsula for the first time since Rome and try and promote a compromise between the various factions that would form the new Italian Federation, Pope Pius had neither the time nor the ability to pledge Italian support to a cause. The Pope was very much against the war anyways as he saw it as a petty struggle between two empires for land and prestige and the Balkans. Furthermore, Pius saw the war as a three way conflict between Protestants, Orthodox, and Muslims; as head of the Catholic faith he did not want to start a religious war with no benefits, especially as the conflict of faiths were already solved. Pius routinely spoke out against the war in multiple homilies in mass and offered numerous times to act as mediator between the powers, though he was rejected each time, causing him to instead pay attention to Italy and the Church. While Napoleon was interested in Crimea earlier in the year, he had no mood to be involved now after the success of French intervention in the Sardinian Heresy. Napoleon had just secured much love and popularity in France for the quick and glorious victory with the addition of the new territories, to go and launch the Empire further into debt while sending French boys off to die for a cause with no direct benefit was itself an idiotic promise. The French people also remembered the war calls that the people of Great Britain had launched previously in order to overthrow their beloved Emperor, many in the French Army had the feeling that they would rather desert than side with the bloody Brits or the backwards Russians. So Napoleon stayed neutral and continued internal development and imperial expansion. Both Germany and Hungary while very anti-Russian and sympathetic to the British cause, were still in the middle of recovering from the Russian invasions and like Italy were in the middle of trying to ensure their new nations survived. Hungary declared flat out neutrality while Germany promised material support to their British allies, something that threw Victoria into a fit but was perfectly justified since the defensive alliance did not include the Ottomans. The only other power that could enter against Russia was Sweden, but the Scandinavian Kingdom was too weak and the days of the glorious empire under the Vasa Kings were long gone. All other European nations were neutral or had pro-British sentiments on the matter. Then there was Austria. Austria came out of the 1846 Revolutions as the clear loser with a majority of their empire gone and their position as leader of Germany ruined. Before the conflict began, Russia enticed Austria with several offers of support and the possibility of adding Ottoman territory to the empire should they emerge victorious, Nicholas further stressed the fact that Russia was the sole reason Austria still existed and they should repay their debts. For reasons unknown that are still unclear to this day, Franz Joseph became hostile to Russia and declared neutrality at the beginning of the conflict, while vocally supporting the Anglo-Ottoman alliance. While it could be understandable for Austria to be neutral due to its ongoing reconstruction, the fact that Franz Joseph chose to openly antagonize his main benefactor is seen as downright foolishness to many historians, with one prominent theory being that Franz Joseph was starting to run with madness due to the incestuous bloodlines of the Hapsburgs, thinking he could put Austria back into prominence by way of independent leadership. So the war would continue as one strictly between the Russians on one side, and the Anglo-Ottomans on the other. Whatever the reason for its neutrality, Austria had just permanently ruined its relations with Russia in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Tsar Alexander never forgetting the grand betrayal of the Hapsburgs, leading to Austria's downfall in the Second War of German Unification.
Danube Campaign: Though the island of Crimea was the place in which the war was named after, it was the Danube region of Romania that saw the first fighting and where the first half of the fighting would take place. Before the end of the year in the Novermber March, the Russian Army of 80,000 led by Tsarverich Alexander marched into Ottoman territory with their sights on the full capture of the war goals of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Tsar Nicholas had chosen these two principalities as the Russian casus belli since they were the only areas of the Ottoman empire upon which unrest had occured in the 1846 Revolutions, though the Slavic population had not risen up due to the high presence of Turkish troops and the inability to arm themselves like the Hungarians. The first days of the war there was little direct fighting as the Russians were welcomed as liberators by the local Romanian population, many rising up and joining the Russian Army with spare rifles provided by the Russian Quartermaster, totaling around an additional untrained 25,000 troops to the Russian contingent. With the unexpected speed of the attack and the government in Istanbul fearing an invasion of Anatolia, few reinforcements came in before the end of the year, leaving Serbian General Omar Pasha, the man widely regarded as the most capable of the Ottoman forces, to stand against the Russians with the local corps of 50,000 troops. Recognizing the fact that he could not face the Russian behemoth without reinforcements or foreign aid, Omar instead tried stalling tactics and surprise battles in order to slow down the Russians and prevent them from reaching Istanbul. In both of the Danube principalities, the Ottoman Amy ran amok and used scorched earth tactics to pillage the local farmland and destroy what little industry the region had so that the Russians would not be able to use it to replenish their troops, in that while winter was hardly a problem in Romania as it was in Russia, the peasants would still be starved and the Russians would have to force what few resources they had to taking care of their liberated population alongside their armies. The only major battle of note in this area was the Battle of Bucharest where a lead Russian brigade of 8,000 under the command of General Peter Dannenberg rushed to conquer the city before Omar Pasha and his force of 10,000 men could destroy it or pillage the surrounding countryside. The battle took place on November 26th and mainly involved Russian cavalry and infantry forces attempting to storm the city and hopefully cause an insurrection to drive out the Ottomans. When the Russians advanced, they were met with large barrages of artillery fire by the Ottomans as they had not yet taken off the defenses by the time the Russians arrived. In addition, what Russian charges did take place failed due to a lack of reconnaissance and rushed planning on the part of the Russian command. The battle ended in a Ottoman tactical victory as the Russians left, with the Ottomans suffering 532 KIA, 764 WIA, and 109 POW; while the Russians suffered 943 KIA, 952 WIA, and 480 POW. Two days after the Ottomans had finished their sabotage and destruction of the city and then retreated to the Danube while the Russians arrived in early December. Thanks to the actions of Pasha, the Russians did not arrived to the Danube until February and had suffered 7,000 casualties over the entire campaign, while the Ottomans took 4,000. During this time, the Ottoman armies took to fortifying the Danube cities of Vidin and Sillistria. When the Russians arrived at the Danube, Tsarevich Alexander decided to wait and not begin any more offensive operations until mid-summer so that the bulk of Russian reinforcements could arrive from the Ukraine and Russia. While waiting for further reinforcements, recruiting efforts were made to gather men who were veterans of the Hungarian Revolution from Transylvania, while the Russian laid siege to the two strongholds of Sillistria and Vidin. Splitting their forces into 40,000 at each city while the rest made up the border patrol along the Danube river. The Ottomans took all effort to supply these besieged cities while they made sure the rest of the Balkans were stable and wait for reinforcements from the British.
Russian advance into the Danube
Black Sea Theater:In the German War, the British Royal Navy had experienced immense defeat in the Black Sea, mainly due to the stretching of the Navy in North America and the Baltic, while having little resources to match the superior Russian forces in the Black Sea. This time around the Black Sea would be the only area of importance for naval actions and the British could send as many ships as they wanted to this sea. Unfortunately for the British, it would still take several months to organize the Royal Navy while they could only send the local fleets at Malta and Gibraltar to assist, totaling only 24 ships. The Russians meanwhile had built up their fleet to 120 ships and had proven earlier at at Sinop that they were far superior to that of the Ottomans Navy. British forces would wait it out until the summer of 1853, during that time the Russians had sent squadrons to assist in taking control on the Bulgarian coast and making raids on the Anatolia peninsula, all the while riverboats were being made to take control in the Danube. In June 1853, British reinforcements had arrived in totality with 200,000 British troops sent to the Danube front along with 150 ships to the Black Sea, a majority having been collected from Britain with some being veterans of the Oregon War. The British arrived on June 8th, making a grand entrance in the battle of the Dardanelles where the Russian ship contingent of 10 ships guarding the area where overwhelmed by the 100 British ships that had arrived in the area, with the Russians losing 6 ships and the rest heavily damaged while the British lost 4 and had 1 lightly damaged. The rest of the year saw the Russians pushed back from the Turkish waters while British ships assumed control of the Ottoman coast, blocking all naval access and assistance from Russia to the Danube area. The Russians did not go without a fight as the remainder of 1853 saw multiple battles take place in the Black Sea by Russian squadrons who used hit and run tactics against the British to try and eliminate any supply lines while making coastal protection of Anatolia and Bulgaria difficult with continued raids. While the Russian Navy did see some success against the British, they were unable to break the Royal Navy as they did six years prior, while gradually suffering more defeats as the year went on due to most of the Russian forces still relying on sail while the British were mostly done with the transformation into steam-reliant vessels. The totality of losses in 1853 saw 42 Russian ships lost while the Ottomans suffered 45 and the British suffered 31 ships lost. With a third of the Russian fleet gone and the British still in the triple digits with their numbers, Russian Prince Menshikov decided to keep the remainder of the Russian forces around the Crimea to protect the homeland from any potential invasion and keep up the appearance of a Russian threat with a fleet-in-being state.
Battle of the Azov
Crimean Campaign: As the year 1854 came by, the war was increasingly looking to be a bloody stalemate. The Russian had managed to bring around 300,000 troops in the summer of 1853 to reinforce the ongoing sieges and try and make any breakthroughs on the rest of the Danube. The British Army was reinforced by 150,000 Ottoman troops so the numbers on both sides were roughly even. There were many attempts by both armies to break through the Danube and try and encircle the besieged cities so that way the Principalities could be liberated for the alliance, or Istanbul for the Russians. The most successful of these actions being the Codrington Offensive named after Sir William John Codrington. The offensive succeed in reaching the city limits of Bucharest by 1853, but they were beaten back by waves of Russian infantry that had come from the reserves to beat back the British, the numerical superiority driving back the British to the Danube river. All the while both sides had taken to fortifying their prospective side, making each chance of a breakout increasingly difficult unless the sieges ended. While the front lines remained static, it had resulted in an Strategic Russian advantage since they controlled the war goals. The British people were getting increasingly restless and the Tory majority looked to be kicked out of Parliament in the next election. Scrambling to provide a clear and decisive victory to end the war, Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen called upon British High Command to launch a direct invasion into Russia to relieve pressure on the Danube and possibly begin a breakthrough. The British leadership chose to take an action that would wipe out all Russian naval forces in the Black Sea while taking a strike at a heart of Russia, Crimea.
Months of planning and preparation began for what would become one of the largest maritime assaults in history, with the British later using Crimea as a guidebook to the Normandy assaults in the Great War. On July 13th, a combined landing began on the Crimea with 95,000 allied troops under the command of Field Marshall Raglan landed at Northern Crimea and marched the combined force down South to the port of Sevastopol, Russia's lifeline in the Black Sea. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Allied fleets appeared in the coastal waters of Sevastopol in early morning to blockade the port and prevent any Russian naval reinforcements to the rest of the island. While the Russians attempted to break the blockade numerous times, they were unsuccessful each time and were forced to stay within the port. The Allies made their way across the peninsula and managed to defeat a Russian force at the Battle of Alma. Unfortunately for the British the Battle of Alma and the beginning of the offensive proved to be strategic failures as the British had failed to pursue the beaten Russian forces and were unable to consolidate their supply lines, giving Russian forces time to regroup in Sevastapol and spend days building fortifications within the city. The siege of Sevastopol began on August 17th with the entirety of the Allied force matching up against the Russian garrison of 40,000 men. Most of the defenders were natives to the city and Crimea and all were ready to die to the last man to protect the Motherland from these foreign swine. The nature of the siege was one that relied entirely on artillery as the Allies set up their artillery encampment around the city limits with around 75 guns to bombard the cities defenses enough to create an opening in the Russian defenses. On the Russian side, the command of the garrison fell under Admiral Vladimir Kornilov, who daringly chose to scuttle the cities remaining 30 ships in port and direct most of the ships guns to coastal defense and artillery emplacements towards the allied camp. This was a bold move in and of itself as 1/4th of the Russian Navy would be destroyed. Many of its prized ships would be lost and the Russians would no longer have the capacity to challenge the British Navy in the Black Sea nor be able to break the blockade form inside. If the city were to fall then many suspected that Tsar Nicholas would've ordered the execution of Admiral Kornilov for this move alone. Kornilov's reasoning for the entire affair was that the massive reinforcements in guns would be more than enough to keep the allies at bay, while if Sevastopol fell anyhow with the ships in place then it would've been pointless to keep them up as the British would find some way in the peace deal to scuttle Russia's navy. This gambit soon proved to be successful as the Russians now had 400 guns all around the city and were able to take out multiple columns of allied infantry, allied artillery and prevent the Royal Navy from coming too close to the cities bay. So while the city would be low on supplies and food, there would be little external damage.
While the Allies were focused on the siege, Russia was able to bring in reinforcements from the Danube, Ukraine, and the Caucus theater. The reinforcements numbered around 70,000 troops and made their way onto the peninsula on October 20th to drive the allies away from Sevastopol and relieve the city. With the wide stretch of Allied supply lines over the island, the Russians planned to target the supply lines first in order to weaken the siege force before moving in to liberate the city. The first instance of this, and the battle that would come to define the war, was the Battle of Balaclava. The port city of Balaclava was chosen as the primary target due to the lax defenses around the city and the port being the primary supplier of food and ammunition to the Allied forces on the peninsula. The battle took place on October 25th with the Russian forces of 25,000 under General Pavel Liprandi moving to capture British Redbouts with 21,000 troops under Lord Raglan near the Woronstov Road. Although initial cavalry charges were attempted to surround the enemies on the hillsides, all attempts by both sides had failed and the Russians resorted to using tactics of heavy bombardments of the Redbouts and using large assault waves of human troops against the British. This strategy proved to be costly but successful as by the afternoon the Russians had captured four British Redbouts and were advancing towards the Allied lines. Still, the British held their ground and there were numerous chances for a counterattack, that is, until the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. The Charge of the Light Brigade took place around 3:12 P.M, when the Light Brigade of cavalry under the command of Lord Cardigan were given orders to assault an ill-made Russian battery on a recently captured Redbout so that the British could turn the tides. Unfortunately, there was a huge miscommunication in the order's purpose and direction, with it instead pointing towards another Russian artillery emplacement that was actually the most highly defended and organized one. Confused by the orders but not daring to question his superior, Lord Cardigan ordered for the Light Brigade to commit a charge. As soon as the charge began it was clear that the British were doomed, seeing that the battery was vastly different then what they were told about, Captain Louis Nolan rode up front and tried to order his men to turn back, sadly the Captain was killed immediately by a Russian sniper, the charge went on. The next half an hour was what would be described as a bloodbath with the Russian artillery and longshooters taking out each horsemen one by one until the entire field turned into one of Horse guts and human body parts. Gradually the brigades forces were wiped out, with the last man, Sargent Edward Cunningham, reaching the Russian lines only to fall off his horse due to massive internal bleeding from multiple bullet wounds. The only man who did survive was the one who did not participate in the charge, Lord Cardigan, his cowardice being the result of staying in the rear when he realized his fatal mistake, only after Captain Nolan was killed. The loss of the Light Brigade was a massive psychological trauma on the British forces as they became convinced that cavalry would be useless against the Russians. Wanting to prevent a complete surrender, Lord Raglan ordered the men to retreat to the city of Beclava itself. The Russian Army used this chance to capture the remaining defenses and redbouts, but were unable to give chase due to the high casualties taken on their side. The overall end of the battle would result in 1,689 Russians KIA, 1,232 WIA; the British suffered 1,897 killed (669 being the Light Brigade), 904 WIA. While the battle was inconclusive in strategic means it gave the Russian defenders of Sevastopol immense hope once word reached, raising morale and encouraging the men to fight on. The morale of the Russians was further raised by the Battle of Inkerman where the Russian relief force overwhelmed and crushed the 10,000 British soldiers they had met in the field, causing 607 killed, 2,293 wounded, and the rest captured on the British, while the Russians only suffered 2,286 killed and 1,733 wounded. Morale for the Allied army dropped to an all-time low as the as the Russians raced towards Sevastopol.
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Charge of the Light Brigade
Invading Russia is always said to be a folly due to the greatest resource that the Russians could call upon, General Winter. While Crimea was far warmer and hospitable then say the outskirts of Moscow, the islands location caused multiple heavy blizzards to appear in the winter of 1854. The roads soon became closed, the water froze, many telegraph lines became nonoperational, and the ground turned into mud. At first the British had been prepared to dig in and wait for spring, but in a freak storm that was proclaimed as an act of God by the Russian Orthodox Church, the British convoy to deliver food and deliver clothing of 30 ships was completely destroyed in a terrible storm on November 14th, leaving the Allies on a desperate shortage of supplies. The defeats of Balaclava and Inkermenn already put the allies in severely low morale, now it was at an alltime bottom as many of the men were starving or cold. On the Russian side, Prince Menshikov was about to prepare for winter quarters, until he got word from a citizen of the city of how dire the Allies were in. Taking an immense gamble that would for sure turn the war in the Allies favor if they failed, Prince Menshikov ordered the entirety of the Russian forces to march onto Sevastopol to liberate the city from its siege. The attack took place on December 2nd with the Russian onslaught being protected from view by a slight snowfall that took place that day. The Russians all wore white so they remained unseen by British scouts as the totality of the infantry advanced slowly down the fields, the British assuming that the Russians were camped miles away. The direct assault took place around high noon when the first waves of Russian troops rushed into the camps and started slaughtering the tired and unaware British troops, shouting "слава Родины!" (Glory to the Motherland!) The battle was entirely one sided as the Russians being full of energy and high morale overtook the British in close combat with pistols, knives, swords, and shotguns. Admiral Kornilov in the city received word that the relief had finally come, and then directed all land batteries towards the British camps that were not filled with Russian troops. The slaughter ended in the afternoon when Lord Raglan surrendered to British forces and gave the orders for all available men to run through the camps and spread the news that the Allies had surrendered. In total the Anglo/Turkish casualties were around 10,000 with the rest of the force, around 65,000 troops being taken prisoner; meanwhile the Russians only took around 2,000 casualties. The Battle of Sevastopol was the final engagement on Crimea with the Allied forces surrendering and the Royal Navy breaking their blockade due to the low impact it would do. Sevastopol is usually seen as the turning point in the war as it shifted the war towards Russian favor and forced the British government to sue for peace talks. Today the battle is celebrated as a national holiday in Ukraine and is also celebrated by the Russian military.
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Russian Assault in the Battle of Sevastopol
Caucus Theater: The Caucus front is usually the most forgotten theater in a forgotten war due to the frontlines acting entirely static in the entirety of the war. The Russians had moved the vast majority of their troops towards the Danube with the only other area of importance being Crimea. Similarly, the British/Ottoman forces chose to primarily defend the border on the Danube and invested the Naval forces around Crimea, a campaign that obviously ended in failure. The goal of both armies was to take actions that could gain as much territory as possible in order to influence any peace deal that may occur. The general pattern was one where the Russians had gained 20 miles in 1852, only to be pushed back to the border by an Ottoman counterattack led by Omar Pasha in 1853. 1854 saw an Ottoman incursion into the caucus of 30 miles with the Crimea invasion, but that to was pushed back after news of Crimea came and Ottoman forces scrambled to prevent a collapse in the Danube. By the time the war ended the borders would remain exactly where they were. Resulting in a status quo antebellum in caucus territories with the Treaty of Copenhagen, something that would not be the same in the aftermath of the Balkans War.
Baltic Theater: While a majority of the war was taking place in the Black Sea, the Royal Navy was taking the fight straight to Russia within the Baltic. Due to the the signing of the Stockholm Conference, Russia had transferred all of its naval power within the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, therefore having no virtual ability to protect its Baltic and Finnish territories, opening up a clear path to St. Petersburg. Fortunately for the Russian Empire, the British military was too focused on the Danube and Crimea with a majority of their already standing forces having been deployed to there. Any additional forces that could be available were those stationed in India and Canada, and would only have amounted to very small numbers, around 15,000 to be precise. Instead the Royal Navy decided to stick to an intense raid campaign to try and virtually eliminate all Russian shipping that took place in the Baltic. This proved to be a major strategic boon that ended the war in 1855 and prevented the Russians from moving further on due to their inability to trade with virtually any nation outside of its borders through independent means. Russia having to use proxies through Sweden, Persia, Hungary, and Germany, though the latter two held little trade with Russia. The islands of Dago, Osel, and Aland were also taken by Royal Marines at this time in order to provide bases for the Royal Navy in the Baltic besides the friendly German ports. In 1853 the Royal Marines were able to commit massive raid campaigns against the Baltic states and Finland to further ruin the Russian economy. 1854 onwards Russia had developed a response system to combat it and the raids ceased. It is overall estimated that Russia lost around $40 Million in trade in the Baltic during this time in the war.
Pacific Theater: Out of all the theaters in the war, the Pacific theater is generally seen as the most unimportant due to the least amount of action. Previously in Royal war plans against Russia which had been made before the Oregon War, there would be a general plan of operations where the British would transport forces from Canada (British Oregon) and would lay siege and capture the Russian port of Petropavlosk on the Kamchatka peninsula. Unfortunately, due to the cession of Oregon after the Oregon War, Great Britain no longer had any viable base to combat the Russian presence in the North Pacific. The British did not have the capabilities or need to venture eliminate the Russian presence in the North Pacific, and vice versa with the Russians around Chinese sea, leading to a stalemate. The only occasional naval action in this theater were the random battles between Russian ships and British convoys that were on there way to trade with North America at the ports of Seattle, Boston, or San Francisco. Over the course of the war a total of 2 Russian ships were lost versus the 4 British ones, half of the British being merchant vessels.
What the Pacific theater is mainly remembered for is the Great Snowball War of Alaska. During the Crimean War, Russian troops were on constant patrol on the Yukon border in order to prevent a Canadian invasion, something which was never going to happen due to the harshness of the Yukon and few equipment accessible to combat in this terrain. On November 12th, 1853, a Russian patrol was on the border when they unknowingly headed into American territory in Columbia. The Russian patrol saw an American platoon under the command of First Lieutenant Bryan Clark and assumed that they were British soldiers. Luckily little bloodshed resulted as the antique muskets of the Russian troops were frozen and could not fire their with wet gunpowder in addition. One Russian soldier whose name is unknown towards history, decided to throw a snowball towards the Americans in order to retaliate for the perceived border violation. Lieutenant Clark while walking along a frozen river, was hit directly in the face by one of the snowballs. The men scrambled in order to find the origin of the snowball and found the Russian patrol across the bed of the frozen creek. The Americans were about to shoot back in retaliation for the assault on their leader, when a Corporal Bryan Jennings fortunately stopped them. The man was from Buffalo, New York and he claimed that the Russians were merely trying to start a snowball fight like the ones that he had played with his peers in his hometown. The Americans then lowered their weapons and decided to throw a large volley of snowballs at the unsuspecting Russians, who were confused but thought the Americans must have also used inferior muskets. The exchange went on for a full hour while one of the Russian scouts went back to camp and informed their leader of what was going on. The Russian leader, Captain Mikhail Alekshov, decided to immediately reinforce his men with the rest of the Russian company present. The men brought any muskets and gunpowder they could out of storage, then headed out to retaliate. By the time they arrived Captain Mikhail ordered them to hold fire due to the fact that one of the American soldiers decided to hoist the American flag on top of a makeshift fort on the Americans side, signaling they were not British. Since the snowball fights were in good spirit and there were no British troops around, the Captain let his men join in on the fun. For the rest of the day until sunset, the two sides continued their Cold War until the American side mock surrendered due to the Russian's superior numerical and home field advantage. When Lieutenant Clark went over to the Russian side and spoke with a Russian English speaker, he was shocked to find out the Russians thought they were British at first, and was then glad that there were no real fighting between both sides. Lieutenant Clark then shared a detailed map of British encampments in Yukon and Manitoba, while the Russians and Americans traded items such as tobacco and vodka between both sides, both armies leaving in peace by the end of the day. The Great Snowball War has since then become one of urban legend, with many stories being told largely exaggerating the scale of the fights. It was later commemorated a hundred years later when Governor Scott McClain decided to hold a statewide snowball contest on the very same spot of the Alaskan-Columbian border that same day in 1953. With the Snowball War quickly becoming one of the largest sporting events in North America, with over 500,000 people participating annually today.
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The Great Snowball War of 1853
After two intense years of fighting, both sides were ready to make peace to end the war immediately. On the Russian side, they had been able to repulse the Crimean invasion, capture the wargoals of Wallachia and Moldavia, deal heavy damage to the Royal Navy, and prevent any Ottoman incursion into the Caucasus. While it seemed like the Russians could continue the fight and take Constantinople, the reality was that this was nowhere near possible. Russia took an immense amount of debt due to the funds necessary to complete the war, their Navy was heavily destroyed in the Black Sea, they had taken a total of 200,000 casualties, and the sieges of Silistria and Vidin where nowhere near a Russian victory. The move to peace was finalized when Tsar Nicholas died on December 9th, 1854 due to pneumonia. Though he died with a smile on his face after receiving word of Sevastopol. The new Tsar Alexander had less visions of grandeur and conquest, and was ready to begin the move for peace immediately. This was something that the British and Ottomans welcomed immensely as there was no way that Romania could be recaptured. Great Britian was already facing immense pressure back home due to the Light Brigade and the loss at Sevastopol, with the situation threatening to evolve into another Corn Riot situation and talks of Republicanism increasing in London. The Ottomans also wanted to end the war immediately for fear that other Balkans ethnicities and some such as the Kurds or Arabs would rise up against Istanbul. A truce was agreed at the beginning of 1855 with a peace conference set for March 30th in Copenhagen Denmark. With the results changing the destiny of Eurasia forever.
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Tsar Nicholas I, 1796-1854 (Left) Redcoats being deployed to prevent unrest in London (Right)
A/N: Well there you have it folks. What I'm pretty damn sure to be my longest chapter update ever on Lone Star Republic. Really hope you enjoyed it as it took several hours to write all this down. Next major war will definitely have more entries. Leave a comment below on your thoughts of the Crimean War. Also as a little PSA, the Turtledove nominations should begin today. So if anyone would like to nominate Lone Star Republic, then please do so it would be a huge honor to enter the competition. Though there are several great TL's that could provide for some competition, I'm hoping to at least have a good shot for the finals. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for the rise of the Mexican War and American Civil War. Glory to Texas!
"LIGHT BRIGADE MASSACRED AT BALACLAVA. NO SURVIVORS LEFT"- London Times 1853
"We have achieved a glorious victory today. The motherland has been avenged!"- Last words of Tsar Nicholas I 1854
"Seriously, what in God's name is a Crimea? Is it a pie, a gun, some sort of Russian chicken? What is it?!?!"- President Davy Crockett 1853
When the Crimean War began, many thought it would be a repeat of the (First)War of German Unification or the Napoleonic Wars, seeing all of Europe collapse into a years long continental war which would bring the nations into a the largest war the world had ever seen. Fortunately Crimea would not see an 58 years early rendition of the Great War, and would instead be confined to the Black Sea, Romania, and the Caucasus. The reasons for this were many, but the diplomacy in and of itself at the beginning of the war would come to influence European politics for the rest of the century. France and Italy were obviously not able to get involved due to the ongoing, though soon to be resolved Sardinian Heresy. Even when the Sardinian Heresy was over both sides would stick to neutrality and not dare to get involved in the politics of the east. Italy at the time was in the process of immediate unification, with the ongoing task of trying to unify the peninsula for the first time since Rome and try and promote a compromise between the various factions that would form the new Italian Federation, Pope Pius had neither the time nor the ability to pledge Italian support to a cause. The Pope was very much against the war anyways as he saw it as a petty struggle between two empires for land and prestige and the Balkans. Furthermore, Pius saw the war as a three way conflict between Protestants, Orthodox, and Muslims; as head of the Catholic faith he did not want to start a religious war with no benefits, especially as the conflict of faiths were already solved. Pius routinely spoke out against the war in multiple homilies in mass and offered numerous times to act as mediator between the powers, though he was rejected each time, causing him to instead pay attention to Italy and the Church. While Napoleon was interested in Crimea earlier in the year, he had no mood to be involved now after the success of French intervention in the Sardinian Heresy. Napoleon had just secured much love and popularity in France for the quick and glorious victory with the addition of the new territories, to go and launch the Empire further into debt while sending French boys off to die for a cause with no direct benefit was itself an idiotic promise. The French people also remembered the war calls that the people of Great Britain had launched previously in order to overthrow their beloved Emperor, many in the French Army had the feeling that they would rather desert than side with the bloody Brits or the backwards Russians. So Napoleon stayed neutral and continued internal development and imperial expansion. Both Germany and Hungary while very anti-Russian and sympathetic to the British cause, were still in the middle of recovering from the Russian invasions and like Italy were in the middle of trying to ensure their new nations survived. Hungary declared flat out neutrality while Germany promised material support to their British allies, something that threw Victoria into a fit but was perfectly justified since the defensive alliance did not include the Ottomans. The only other power that could enter against Russia was Sweden, but the Scandinavian Kingdom was too weak and the days of the glorious empire under the Vasa Kings were long gone. All other European nations were neutral or had pro-British sentiments on the matter. Then there was Austria. Austria came out of the 1846 Revolutions as the clear loser with a majority of their empire gone and their position as leader of Germany ruined. Before the conflict began, Russia enticed Austria with several offers of support and the possibility of adding Ottoman territory to the empire should they emerge victorious, Nicholas further stressed the fact that Russia was the sole reason Austria still existed and they should repay their debts. For reasons unknown that are still unclear to this day, Franz Joseph became hostile to Russia and declared neutrality at the beginning of the conflict, while vocally supporting the Anglo-Ottoman alliance. While it could be understandable for Austria to be neutral due to its ongoing reconstruction, the fact that Franz Joseph chose to openly antagonize his main benefactor is seen as downright foolishness to many historians, with one prominent theory being that Franz Joseph was starting to run with madness due to the incestuous bloodlines of the Hapsburgs, thinking he could put Austria back into prominence by way of independent leadership. So the war would continue as one strictly between the Russians on one side, and the Anglo-Ottomans on the other. Whatever the reason for its neutrality, Austria had just permanently ruined its relations with Russia in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Tsar Alexander never forgetting the grand betrayal of the Hapsburgs, leading to Austria's downfall in the Second War of German Unification.
Danube Campaign: Though the island of Crimea was the place in which the war was named after, it was the Danube region of Romania that saw the first fighting and where the first half of the fighting would take place. Before the end of the year in the Novermber March, the Russian Army of 80,000 led by Tsarverich Alexander marched into Ottoman territory with their sights on the full capture of the war goals of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Tsar Nicholas had chosen these two principalities as the Russian casus belli since they were the only areas of the Ottoman empire upon which unrest had occured in the 1846 Revolutions, though the Slavic population had not risen up due to the high presence of Turkish troops and the inability to arm themselves like the Hungarians. The first days of the war there was little direct fighting as the Russians were welcomed as liberators by the local Romanian population, many rising up and joining the Russian Army with spare rifles provided by the Russian Quartermaster, totaling around an additional untrained 25,000 troops to the Russian contingent. With the unexpected speed of the attack and the government in Istanbul fearing an invasion of Anatolia, few reinforcements came in before the end of the year, leaving Serbian General Omar Pasha, the man widely regarded as the most capable of the Ottoman forces, to stand against the Russians with the local corps of 50,000 troops. Recognizing the fact that he could not face the Russian behemoth without reinforcements or foreign aid, Omar instead tried stalling tactics and surprise battles in order to slow down the Russians and prevent them from reaching Istanbul. In both of the Danube principalities, the Ottoman Amy ran amok and used scorched earth tactics to pillage the local farmland and destroy what little industry the region had so that the Russians would not be able to use it to replenish their troops, in that while winter was hardly a problem in Romania as it was in Russia, the peasants would still be starved and the Russians would have to force what few resources they had to taking care of their liberated population alongside their armies. The only major battle of note in this area was the Battle of Bucharest where a lead Russian brigade of 8,000 under the command of General Peter Dannenberg rushed to conquer the city before Omar Pasha and his force of 10,000 men could destroy it or pillage the surrounding countryside. The battle took place on November 26th and mainly involved Russian cavalry and infantry forces attempting to storm the city and hopefully cause an insurrection to drive out the Ottomans. When the Russians advanced, they were met with large barrages of artillery fire by the Ottomans as they had not yet taken off the defenses by the time the Russians arrived. In addition, what Russian charges did take place failed due to a lack of reconnaissance and rushed planning on the part of the Russian command. The battle ended in a Ottoman tactical victory as the Russians left, with the Ottomans suffering 532 KIA, 764 WIA, and 109 POW; while the Russians suffered 943 KIA, 952 WIA, and 480 POW. Two days after the Ottomans had finished their sabotage and destruction of the city and then retreated to the Danube while the Russians arrived in early December. Thanks to the actions of Pasha, the Russians did not arrived to the Danube until February and had suffered 7,000 casualties over the entire campaign, while the Ottomans took 4,000. During this time, the Ottoman armies took to fortifying the Danube cities of Vidin and Sillistria. When the Russians arrived at the Danube, Tsarevich Alexander decided to wait and not begin any more offensive operations until mid-summer so that the bulk of Russian reinforcements could arrive from the Ukraine and Russia. While waiting for further reinforcements, recruiting efforts were made to gather men who were veterans of the Hungarian Revolution from Transylvania, while the Russian laid siege to the two strongholds of Sillistria and Vidin. Splitting their forces into 40,000 at each city while the rest made up the border patrol along the Danube river. The Ottomans took all effort to supply these besieged cities while they made sure the rest of the Balkans were stable and wait for reinforcements from the British.
Russian advance into the Danube
Black Sea Theater:In the German War, the British Royal Navy had experienced immense defeat in the Black Sea, mainly due to the stretching of the Navy in North America and the Baltic, while having little resources to match the superior Russian forces in the Black Sea. This time around the Black Sea would be the only area of importance for naval actions and the British could send as many ships as they wanted to this sea. Unfortunately for the British, it would still take several months to organize the Royal Navy while they could only send the local fleets at Malta and Gibraltar to assist, totaling only 24 ships. The Russians meanwhile had built up their fleet to 120 ships and had proven earlier at at Sinop that they were far superior to that of the Ottomans Navy. British forces would wait it out until the summer of 1853, during that time the Russians had sent squadrons to assist in taking control on the Bulgarian coast and making raids on the Anatolia peninsula, all the while riverboats were being made to take control in the Danube. In June 1853, British reinforcements had arrived in totality with 200,000 British troops sent to the Danube front along with 150 ships to the Black Sea, a majority having been collected from Britain with some being veterans of the Oregon War. The British arrived on June 8th, making a grand entrance in the battle of the Dardanelles where the Russian ship contingent of 10 ships guarding the area where overwhelmed by the 100 British ships that had arrived in the area, with the Russians losing 6 ships and the rest heavily damaged while the British lost 4 and had 1 lightly damaged. The rest of the year saw the Russians pushed back from the Turkish waters while British ships assumed control of the Ottoman coast, blocking all naval access and assistance from Russia to the Danube area. The Russians did not go without a fight as the remainder of 1853 saw multiple battles take place in the Black Sea by Russian squadrons who used hit and run tactics against the British to try and eliminate any supply lines while making coastal protection of Anatolia and Bulgaria difficult with continued raids. While the Russian Navy did see some success against the British, they were unable to break the Royal Navy as they did six years prior, while gradually suffering more defeats as the year went on due to most of the Russian forces still relying on sail while the British were mostly done with the transformation into steam-reliant vessels. The totality of losses in 1853 saw 42 Russian ships lost while the Ottomans suffered 45 and the British suffered 31 ships lost. With a third of the Russian fleet gone and the British still in the triple digits with their numbers, Russian Prince Menshikov decided to keep the remainder of the Russian forces around the Crimea to protect the homeland from any potential invasion and keep up the appearance of a Russian threat with a fleet-in-being state.
Battle of the Azov
Crimean Campaign: As the year 1854 came by, the war was increasingly looking to be a bloody stalemate. The Russian had managed to bring around 300,000 troops in the summer of 1853 to reinforce the ongoing sieges and try and make any breakthroughs on the rest of the Danube. The British Army was reinforced by 150,000 Ottoman troops so the numbers on both sides were roughly even. There were many attempts by both armies to break through the Danube and try and encircle the besieged cities so that way the Principalities could be liberated for the alliance, or Istanbul for the Russians. The most successful of these actions being the Codrington Offensive named after Sir William John Codrington. The offensive succeed in reaching the city limits of Bucharest by 1853, but they were beaten back by waves of Russian infantry that had come from the reserves to beat back the British, the numerical superiority driving back the British to the Danube river. All the while both sides had taken to fortifying their prospective side, making each chance of a breakout increasingly difficult unless the sieges ended. While the front lines remained static, it had resulted in an Strategic Russian advantage since they controlled the war goals. The British people were getting increasingly restless and the Tory majority looked to be kicked out of Parliament in the next election. Scrambling to provide a clear and decisive victory to end the war, Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen called upon British High Command to launch a direct invasion into Russia to relieve pressure on the Danube and possibly begin a breakthrough. The British leadership chose to take an action that would wipe out all Russian naval forces in the Black Sea while taking a strike at a heart of Russia, Crimea.
Months of planning and preparation began for what would become one of the largest maritime assaults in history, with the British later using Crimea as a guidebook to the Normandy assaults in the Great War. On July 13th, a combined landing began on the Crimea with 95,000 allied troops under the command of Field Marshall Raglan landed at Northern Crimea and marched the combined force down South to the port of Sevastopol, Russia's lifeline in the Black Sea. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Allied fleets appeared in the coastal waters of Sevastopol in early morning to blockade the port and prevent any Russian naval reinforcements to the rest of the island. While the Russians attempted to break the blockade numerous times, they were unsuccessful each time and were forced to stay within the port. The Allies made their way across the peninsula and managed to defeat a Russian force at the Battle of Alma. Unfortunately for the British the Battle of Alma and the beginning of the offensive proved to be strategic failures as the British had failed to pursue the beaten Russian forces and were unable to consolidate their supply lines, giving Russian forces time to regroup in Sevastapol and spend days building fortifications within the city. The siege of Sevastopol began on August 17th with the entirety of the Allied force matching up against the Russian garrison of 40,000 men. Most of the defenders were natives to the city and Crimea and all were ready to die to the last man to protect the Motherland from these foreign swine. The nature of the siege was one that relied entirely on artillery as the Allies set up their artillery encampment around the city limits with around 75 guns to bombard the cities defenses enough to create an opening in the Russian defenses. On the Russian side, the command of the garrison fell under Admiral Vladimir Kornilov, who daringly chose to scuttle the cities remaining 30 ships in port and direct most of the ships guns to coastal defense and artillery emplacements towards the allied camp. This was a bold move in and of itself as 1/4th of the Russian Navy would be destroyed. Many of its prized ships would be lost and the Russians would no longer have the capacity to challenge the British Navy in the Black Sea nor be able to break the blockade form inside. If the city were to fall then many suspected that Tsar Nicholas would've ordered the execution of Admiral Kornilov for this move alone. Kornilov's reasoning for the entire affair was that the massive reinforcements in guns would be more than enough to keep the allies at bay, while if Sevastopol fell anyhow with the ships in place then it would've been pointless to keep them up as the British would find some way in the peace deal to scuttle Russia's navy. This gambit soon proved to be successful as the Russians now had 400 guns all around the city and were able to take out multiple columns of allied infantry, allied artillery and prevent the Royal Navy from coming too close to the cities bay. So while the city would be low on supplies and food, there would be little external damage.
While the Allies were focused on the siege, Russia was able to bring in reinforcements from the Danube, Ukraine, and the Caucus theater. The reinforcements numbered around 70,000 troops and made their way onto the peninsula on October 20th to drive the allies away from Sevastopol and relieve the city. With the wide stretch of Allied supply lines over the island, the Russians planned to target the supply lines first in order to weaken the siege force before moving in to liberate the city. The first instance of this, and the battle that would come to define the war, was the Battle of Balaclava. The port city of Balaclava was chosen as the primary target due to the lax defenses around the city and the port being the primary supplier of food and ammunition to the Allied forces on the peninsula. The battle took place on October 25th with the Russian forces of 25,000 under General Pavel Liprandi moving to capture British Redbouts with 21,000 troops under Lord Raglan near the Woronstov Road. Although initial cavalry charges were attempted to surround the enemies on the hillsides, all attempts by both sides had failed and the Russians resorted to using tactics of heavy bombardments of the Redbouts and using large assault waves of human troops against the British. This strategy proved to be costly but successful as by the afternoon the Russians had captured four British Redbouts and were advancing towards the Allied lines. Still, the British held their ground and there were numerous chances for a counterattack, that is, until the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. The Charge of the Light Brigade took place around 3:12 P.M, when the Light Brigade of cavalry under the command of Lord Cardigan were given orders to assault an ill-made Russian battery on a recently captured Redbout so that the British could turn the tides. Unfortunately, there was a huge miscommunication in the order's purpose and direction, with it instead pointing towards another Russian artillery emplacement that was actually the most highly defended and organized one. Confused by the orders but not daring to question his superior, Lord Cardigan ordered for the Light Brigade to commit a charge. As soon as the charge began it was clear that the British were doomed, seeing that the battery was vastly different then what they were told about, Captain Louis Nolan rode up front and tried to order his men to turn back, sadly the Captain was killed immediately by a Russian sniper, the charge went on. The next half an hour was what would be described as a bloodbath with the Russian artillery and longshooters taking out each horsemen one by one until the entire field turned into one of Horse guts and human body parts. Gradually the brigades forces were wiped out, with the last man, Sargent Edward Cunningham, reaching the Russian lines only to fall off his horse due to massive internal bleeding from multiple bullet wounds. The only man who did survive was the one who did not participate in the charge, Lord Cardigan, his cowardice being the result of staying in the rear when he realized his fatal mistake, only after Captain Nolan was killed. The loss of the Light Brigade was a massive psychological trauma on the British forces as they became convinced that cavalry would be useless against the Russians. Wanting to prevent a complete surrender, Lord Raglan ordered the men to retreat to the city of Beclava itself. The Russian Army used this chance to capture the remaining defenses and redbouts, but were unable to give chase due to the high casualties taken on their side. The overall end of the battle would result in 1,689 Russians KIA, 1,232 WIA; the British suffered 1,897 killed (669 being the Light Brigade), 904 WIA. While the battle was inconclusive in strategic means it gave the Russian defenders of Sevastopol immense hope once word reached, raising morale and encouraging the men to fight on. The morale of the Russians was further raised by the Battle of Inkerman where the Russian relief force overwhelmed and crushed the 10,000 British soldiers they had met in the field, causing 607 killed, 2,293 wounded, and the rest captured on the British, while the Russians only suffered 2,286 killed and 1,733 wounded. Morale for the Allied army dropped to an all-time low as the as the Russians raced towards Sevastopol.
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Charge of the Light Brigade
Invading Russia is always said to be a folly due to the greatest resource that the Russians could call upon, General Winter. While Crimea was far warmer and hospitable then say the outskirts of Moscow, the islands location caused multiple heavy blizzards to appear in the winter of 1854. The roads soon became closed, the water froze, many telegraph lines became nonoperational, and the ground turned into mud. At first the British had been prepared to dig in and wait for spring, but in a freak storm that was proclaimed as an act of God by the Russian Orthodox Church, the British convoy to deliver food and deliver clothing of 30 ships was completely destroyed in a terrible storm on November 14th, leaving the Allies on a desperate shortage of supplies. The defeats of Balaclava and Inkermenn already put the allies in severely low morale, now it was at an alltime bottom as many of the men were starving or cold. On the Russian side, Prince Menshikov was about to prepare for winter quarters, until he got word from a citizen of the city of how dire the Allies were in. Taking an immense gamble that would for sure turn the war in the Allies favor if they failed, Prince Menshikov ordered the entirety of the Russian forces to march onto Sevastopol to liberate the city from its siege. The attack took place on December 2nd with the Russian onslaught being protected from view by a slight snowfall that took place that day. The Russians all wore white so they remained unseen by British scouts as the totality of the infantry advanced slowly down the fields, the British assuming that the Russians were camped miles away. The direct assault took place around high noon when the first waves of Russian troops rushed into the camps and started slaughtering the tired and unaware British troops, shouting "слава Родины!" (Glory to the Motherland!) The battle was entirely one sided as the Russians being full of energy and high morale overtook the British in close combat with pistols, knives, swords, and shotguns. Admiral Kornilov in the city received word that the relief had finally come, and then directed all land batteries towards the British camps that were not filled with Russian troops. The slaughter ended in the afternoon when Lord Raglan surrendered to British forces and gave the orders for all available men to run through the camps and spread the news that the Allies had surrendered. In total the Anglo/Turkish casualties were around 10,000 with the rest of the force, around 65,000 troops being taken prisoner; meanwhile the Russians only took around 2,000 casualties. The Battle of Sevastopol was the final engagement on Crimea with the Allied forces surrendering and the Royal Navy breaking their blockade due to the low impact it would do. Sevastopol is usually seen as the turning point in the war as it shifted the war towards Russian favor and forced the British government to sue for peace talks. Today the battle is celebrated as a national holiday in Ukraine and is also celebrated by the Russian military.
View attachment 304823
Russian Assault in the Battle of Sevastopol
Caucus Theater: The Caucus front is usually the most forgotten theater in a forgotten war due to the frontlines acting entirely static in the entirety of the war. The Russians had moved the vast majority of their troops towards the Danube with the only other area of importance being Crimea. Similarly, the British/Ottoman forces chose to primarily defend the border on the Danube and invested the Naval forces around Crimea, a campaign that obviously ended in failure. The goal of both armies was to take actions that could gain as much territory as possible in order to influence any peace deal that may occur. The general pattern was one where the Russians had gained 20 miles in 1852, only to be pushed back to the border by an Ottoman counterattack led by Omar Pasha in 1853. 1854 saw an Ottoman incursion into the caucus of 30 miles with the Crimea invasion, but that to was pushed back after news of Crimea came and Ottoman forces scrambled to prevent a collapse in the Danube. By the time the war ended the borders would remain exactly where they were. Resulting in a status quo antebellum in caucus territories with the Treaty of Copenhagen, something that would not be the same in the aftermath of the Balkans War.
Baltic Theater: While a majority of the war was taking place in the Black Sea, the Royal Navy was taking the fight straight to Russia within the Baltic. Due to the the signing of the Stockholm Conference, Russia had transferred all of its naval power within the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, therefore having no virtual ability to protect its Baltic and Finnish territories, opening up a clear path to St. Petersburg. Fortunately for the Russian Empire, the British military was too focused on the Danube and Crimea with a majority of their already standing forces having been deployed to there. Any additional forces that could be available were those stationed in India and Canada, and would only have amounted to very small numbers, around 15,000 to be precise. Instead the Royal Navy decided to stick to an intense raid campaign to try and virtually eliminate all Russian shipping that took place in the Baltic. This proved to be a major strategic boon that ended the war in 1855 and prevented the Russians from moving further on due to their inability to trade with virtually any nation outside of its borders through independent means. Russia having to use proxies through Sweden, Persia, Hungary, and Germany, though the latter two held little trade with Russia. The islands of Dago, Osel, and Aland were also taken by Royal Marines at this time in order to provide bases for the Royal Navy in the Baltic besides the friendly German ports. In 1853 the Royal Marines were able to commit massive raid campaigns against the Baltic states and Finland to further ruin the Russian economy. 1854 onwards Russia had developed a response system to combat it and the raids ceased. It is overall estimated that Russia lost around $40 Million in trade in the Baltic during this time in the war.
Pacific Theater: Out of all the theaters in the war, the Pacific theater is generally seen as the most unimportant due to the least amount of action. Previously in Royal war plans against Russia which had been made before the Oregon War, there would be a general plan of operations where the British would transport forces from Canada (British Oregon) and would lay siege and capture the Russian port of Petropavlosk on the Kamchatka peninsula. Unfortunately, due to the cession of Oregon after the Oregon War, Great Britain no longer had any viable base to combat the Russian presence in the North Pacific. The British did not have the capabilities or need to venture eliminate the Russian presence in the North Pacific, and vice versa with the Russians around Chinese sea, leading to a stalemate. The only occasional naval action in this theater were the random battles between Russian ships and British convoys that were on there way to trade with North America at the ports of Seattle, Boston, or San Francisco. Over the course of the war a total of 2 Russian ships were lost versus the 4 British ones, half of the British being merchant vessels.
What the Pacific theater is mainly remembered for is the Great Snowball War of Alaska. During the Crimean War, Russian troops were on constant patrol on the Yukon border in order to prevent a Canadian invasion, something which was never going to happen due to the harshness of the Yukon and few equipment accessible to combat in this terrain. On November 12th, 1853, a Russian patrol was on the border when they unknowingly headed into American territory in Columbia. The Russian patrol saw an American platoon under the command of First Lieutenant Bryan Clark and assumed that they were British soldiers. Luckily little bloodshed resulted as the antique muskets of the Russian troops were frozen and could not fire their with wet gunpowder in addition. One Russian soldier whose name is unknown towards history, decided to throw a snowball towards the Americans in order to retaliate for the perceived border violation. Lieutenant Clark while walking along a frozen river, was hit directly in the face by one of the snowballs. The men scrambled in order to find the origin of the snowball and found the Russian patrol across the bed of the frozen creek. The Americans were about to shoot back in retaliation for the assault on their leader, when a Corporal Bryan Jennings fortunately stopped them. The man was from Buffalo, New York and he claimed that the Russians were merely trying to start a snowball fight like the ones that he had played with his peers in his hometown. The Americans then lowered their weapons and decided to throw a large volley of snowballs at the unsuspecting Russians, who were confused but thought the Americans must have also used inferior muskets. The exchange went on for a full hour while one of the Russian scouts went back to camp and informed their leader of what was going on. The Russian leader, Captain Mikhail Alekshov, decided to immediately reinforce his men with the rest of the Russian company present. The men brought any muskets and gunpowder they could out of storage, then headed out to retaliate. By the time they arrived Captain Mikhail ordered them to hold fire due to the fact that one of the American soldiers decided to hoist the American flag on top of a makeshift fort on the Americans side, signaling they were not British. Since the snowball fights were in good spirit and there were no British troops around, the Captain let his men join in on the fun. For the rest of the day until sunset, the two sides continued their Cold War until the American side mock surrendered due to the Russian's superior numerical and home field advantage. When Lieutenant Clark went over to the Russian side and spoke with a Russian English speaker, he was shocked to find out the Russians thought they were British at first, and was then glad that there were no real fighting between both sides. Lieutenant Clark then shared a detailed map of British encampments in Yukon and Manitoba, while the Russians and Americans traded items such as tobacco and vodka between both sides, both armies leaving in peace by the end of the day. The Great Snowball War has since then become one of urban legend, with many stories being told largely exaggerating the scale of the fights. It was later commemorated a hundred years later when Governor Scott McClain decided to hold a statewide snowball contest on the very same spot of the Alaskan-Columbian border that same day in 1953. With the Snowball War quickly becoming one of the largest sporting events in North America, with over 500,000 people participating annually today.
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The Great Snowball War of 1853
After two intense years of fighting, both sides were ready to make peace to end the war immediately. On the Russian side, they had been able to repulse the Crimean invasion, capture the wargoals of Wallachia and Moldavia, deal heavy damage to the Royal Navy, and prevent any Ottoman incursion into the Caucasus. While it seemed like the Russians could continue the fight and take Constantinople, the reality was that this was nowhere near possible. Russia took an immense amount of debt due to the funds necessary to complete the war, their Navy was heavily destroyed in the Black Sea, they had taken a total of 200,000 casualties, and the sieges of Silistria and Vidin where nowhere near a Russian victory. The move to peace was finalized when Tsar Nicholas died on December 9th, 1854 due to pneumonia. Though he died with a smile on his face after receiving word of Sevastopol. The new Tsar Alexander had less visions of grandeur and conquest, and was ready to begin the move for peace immediately. This was something that the British and Ottomans welcomed immensely as there was no way that Romania could be recaptured. Great Britian was already facing immense pressure back home due to the Light Brigade and the loss at Sevastopol, with the situation threatening to evolve into another Corn Riot situation and talks of Republicanism increasing in London. The Ottomans also wanted to end the war immediately for fear that other Balkans ethnicities and some such as the Kurds or Arabs would rise up against Istanbul. A truce was agreed at the beginning of 1855 with a peace conference set for March 30th in Copenhagen Denmark. With the results changing the destiny of Eurasia forever.
View attachment 304824Tsar Nicholas I, 1796-1854 (Left) Redcoats being deployed to prevent unrest in London (Right)
A/N: Well there you have it folks. What I'm pretty damn sure to be my longest chapter update ever on Lone Star Republic. Really hope you enjoyed it as it took several hours to write all this down. Next major war will definitely have more entries. Leave a comment below on your thoughts of the Crimean War. Also as a little PSA, the Turtledove nominations should begin today. So if anyone would like to nominate Lone Star Republic, then please do so it would be a huge honor to enter the competition. Though there are several great TL's that could provide for some competition, I'm hoping to at least have a good shot for the finals. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for the rise of the Mexican War and American Civil War. Glory to Texas!
- Kaiser Chris
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