Russia wins Crimean War
- Thread starter Onyx
- Start date
If Britain & France stay out, Russia wins hands down. Turkey wasn't known as the "Sick Man of Europe" for nothing. The main reason that Britain got involved wasn't out of moral righteousness, but rather because they didn't want Russia gaining access to the Mediterranean markets or being in position to threaten British passage to India.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
The Ottomans were known as the Sick Man of Europe because of wishful thinking. If you'll read a military history of the war, the Ottomans were doing quite well on their own. They had no hope of defeating the Russians in the Crimea, but they wouldn't have tried. Instead they would have fought a defensive war and ground down the Russians.
In 1828-29, the Ottomans did respectably against the Russians, despite having had under two years to build their new army from scratch. In 1853, they were more or less a match in a defensive conflict. Russia at this time had very limited financial resources, equally limited logistical capabilities, and not much of a manpower advantage either, given the need to heavily garrison their Muslim territories and maintain armies on their vulnerable Western border.
In addition, the Ottomans had unusual unity of command in this period. if the war had remained one-on-one, both sides would have achieved limited victories in battle with a slight upper hand for Russia until Russia was exhausted and its armies decimated by disease, and then there would have been an armistice with a peace settlement satisfying honor.
The Russians hadn't wanted a war and counted on the Ottomans backing down.
67th Tigers
Banned
Well, the Russo-Ottoman War was prettymuch settled on 20th March 1854, the Ottomans won. A week later the French and British join in.
Of the 12 infantry divisions the Russians had available to campaign with, 6.5 were involved at Silistria (where the Ottomans stopped them dead), 2.5 were in the Crimean (preparing to open a second front in Asia Minor, two of those divisions, 16th and 17th, were the only disposable force available to Russia) and the other 2 were needed to put down the Caucasians.
Of the 12 infantry divisions the Russians had available to campaign with, 6.5 were involved at Silistria (where the Ottomans stopped them dead), 2.5 were in the Crimean (preparing to open a second front in Asia Minor, two of those divisions, 16th and 17th, were the only disposable force available to Russia) and the other 2 were needed to put down the Caucasians.
Bill Cameron
Banned
AHP,
Exactly. The Ottomans had essentially won the Balkans and Caucasus portions of the war before the Franco-British expeditionary force even arrived at Varna.
I think any discussion of Russia "winning" this war needs to begin with Russia's actual war aims. I know the excuse to go to war involved little more than the usual religious idiocy occurring daily in Jerusalem over keys to a door in a church, but what was Russia really after?
Bill
Wolfpaw
Banned
Complete dominance of the Black Sea, a nice sphere of influence in the Near East, and the creation of independent Slavic client states in the Balkans.
Solomaxwell6
Banned
All of them split off at once? That seems a bit much, unless Russia manages to pull off a huge victory. From what others have said, that doesn't seem possible. More like Russia just barely holding together long enough to force the Ottomans to the bargaining table. So maybe a "great Armenia" client state, but Russia won't be able to lop off chunks of the Ottoman Empire left and right.
If Russia tried anything like that, noting that their military was obviously not up to the job, having already seen a majority of the Russian Army given a bloody nose by the Ottomans, then if the British/French/other aren't already at war with Russia then they will be soon enough.
do you think it was impossible? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sinop Russia at that time had gigantic technical advantage over OE
litwin, did you bother to read what you linked to?
The Russian battle fleet mobbed a single Ottoman patrol squadron which proves absolutely nothing in terms of technical advantage. Meanwhile the Russians bloody defeat at the hands of the OE shows that there was no technical advantage in the land...
Diplomatically, of course, this gave England and France the excuse to enter the war so it backfired horribly.
The Russian battle fleet mobbed a single Ottoman patrol squadron which proves absolutely nothing in terms of technical advantage. Meanwhile the Russians bloody defeat at the hands of the OE shows that there was no technical advantage in the land...
Diplomatically, of course, this gave England and France the excuse to enter the war so it backfired horribly.
Yes, a detachment of russian ships of the line mauling some turkish frigates in harbour is a great demonstration of russian technical superiority.
Where do I start with this? Sinop was fought between neumerically similar forces, but the russian ships easily outgunned the turks. The heaviest ships the turks had were those seven frigates, whereas the russians brought six ships of the line to action. Assuming that the article you linked gets the numbers right, the three largest ships in the russian battleline massed a firepower equal to all seven turkish frigates combined. All told, the russians massed about 1.5 times as much firepower as the turks. And it only gets worse when you realize that the russians neumerically could match a battleship with just about every turkish frigate, and a frigate or corvette with each turkish corvette.
Then you have to understand the context of the engagement. The turkish frigates are sitting at anchor when a russian squadron arrives and starts pounding them. The turks never get to use the main asset of their ships: the speed necessary to evade ships of the line. Sinop is a good example of why, from the late 17th century until the world wars lighter ships almost invariably declined to engage in fleet actions, at least in the main battle line. If they did, they would be crushed by the superior firepower of the enemy battleships. This is what happened at sinop. Russian battleships engage at close quarters with turkish frigates, who have little chance of escape. The outcome is effectivly preordained.
In short, Sinop was far from a fair test of either combatant. Winning was not so much a demonstration of russian prowess or turkish shortcomings as much as an illustration of the realities of naval warfare during that timeperiod. To be honest, at sinop all the russians had to do was not lose. the victory tells us relativly little about the combatants, and the battle would only be meaningful if the opposite result had occured, because that would have required tactical incompetence and inept seamanship on an incredible scale by the russians.
Russia would definitely defeat the Ottomans. The thing is, it would be hard for Britain and France not to get involved. It would be a bit like President Kennedy twiddling his thumbs as the Russians put missiles in Cuba. Simply put, if the Russians gained control of the Dardanelles Strait, they would have too much of an advantage - an unacceptable advantage. This is something that under no condition could the UK or France ignore.
67th Tigers
Banned
No.
I'm in the middle of writing a blog post about this. The Russians sailed in with 6 Ships of the Line with 612 guns, of which on 38 were Paixhans shell guns. They were all heavy guns (mostly 68 and 36 pdrs, with some 24's on the upper decks). The 472 guns the Ottomans opposed them with were mostly light, the heaviest were 24 pdrs, and they couldn't pierce the Russian armour*. The Russians simply outgunned this frigate force with conventional weapons. The shell guns were totally ineffective.
In the face of overwhelming firepower the Ottomans beached their ships and, when a Russian landing party came to take off prizes, they set them afire rather than allow them to be captured. In one case (Navek-i-Bahri) the Captain blew his own powder magazine rather than by taken by boarding.
* Yes armour, it just happens to be made out of wood.