No French in the Crimean War

There' d have been a Russo-Turkish war, with maybe a British contingent supporting Turkey on the Danube or thereabouts.
 
Funny enough I just posted a complete chapter dedicated to the Crimean War in my timeline, Lone Star Republic, where its the same scenario with the Russian Empire going up against the British and Ottomans a few years early in 1852, without the French involvement. It will be kind of confusing reading the background as you will have had to have read most of my TL in order to understand events. But the actual sequence of the war is a rough parallel to what went on OTL. I haven't completely finished yet, but the fighting is over in my TL and has resulted in a mostly Russian victory on the Crimea. Feel free to read if your interested.
 
Well the British, with their pathological fear of the Russians at this point, would probably end up intervening somehow, which means the Russian Black Sea fleet probably ends up stuck in port again after Sinop. How things on the Danube go would probably help running the British plans. They might launch an attack (or more of a raid) on Sevastopol or they might decide to blockade it.

Either way the war probably stalemates until one side goes to the negotiating table.
 
Would the British help the Turks with sending the RN in to the Black Sea to ensure the Russians can't use their navy or water transport to assist in their campaigns against the Ottomans. Some small land components, perhaps artillery etc. The sort of land component you saw OTL, no way. Absent the French land component, an invasion of the Crimea with only British troops simply is not feasible - they would be tremendously outnumbered. Using Ottoman troops against the Russians in Crimea is probably militarily impractical and would be politically unwise.

So...no "Crimean" War
 

raharris1973

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Would the British help the Turks with sending the RN in to the Black Sea to ensure the Russians can't use their navy or water transport to assist in their campaigns against the Ottomans. Some small land components, perhaps artillery etc. The sort of land component you saw OTL, no way. Absent the French land component, an invasion of the Crimea with only British troops simply is not feasible - they would be tremendously outnumbered. Using Ottoman troops against the Russians in Crimea is probably militarily impractical and would be politically unwise.

So...no "Crimean" War

I would think that a serious British force augmenting the Turks in the Danube could be beyond their capabilities.
 
The entire point of the conflict was initially about Russian vs. French influence in the Ottoman Empire. It escalated quickly, but without French involvement, the would hardly be a reason for Russia to go to war with the Ottomans at that point. Clearly, Russia would likely clash with the ottomans at some point over something anyway, sooner or later. Britain is likely to support the Ottomans to some degree in this case, but Russia is likely in a better position here.
 
do you think Russia will take Constantinople or do you think Russia just take some more land from Ottomans
 
do you think Russia will take Constantinople or do you think Russia just take some more land from Ottomans
The Russian invasion of the Balkans stalled before French and British troops even arrived. Russia isn't going to have much success in an alternate Crimean War without French involvement, the Ottomans did a fine job repelling them on their own and Russia probably couldn't hope for more than taking another slice of the Romanian principalities as long as Austria remained hostile to their movements in the Balkans. Even in OTL the Crimean campaign was in large part a political show by Britain and France to justify their entry into the war.

Austria being pro-Russia in the war would probably help Russia more than removing France.
 
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I would think that a serious British force augmenting the Turks in the Danube could be beyond their capabilities.

I don't see why. They managed to support a serious force in the Crimea IOTL (a fact which their well-documented difficulties shouldn't obscure), and maintaining an army in friendly (Ottoman) territory hardly seems like it would be more difficult.
 
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