Religious Conflict Precedes the Crimean War

In 1825, Nicholas I became Russia's tsar, and he was head of the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church. His subjects knelt when he came into view. Everyone including scholars were expected to be devoted to the "sacred principles" that Nicholas stood for. Nicholas was sincerely devout. He saw himself as the defender of God's order across Europe. He adhered to the motto of his family (the Romanovs): "orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality." Nicholas was for doing right.

He took Russia into another war with Turkey -- during the Greek struggle for independence. The Russians were on the side of the Greeks. Turkey's Sultan retaliated by closing passage for Russian ships into the Mediterranean and other things. Russia's success forced the Turks to cede to Russia in the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople most of the eastern shore of the Black Sea and the mouth of the Danube River, and Turkey recognized Russian sovereignty over Georgia and part of Armenia. The Turks granted autonomy of Serbia. They agreed to Russia's occupation of Moldavia and Walachia, and they promised to close the straits between the Mediterranean and Black Sea to foreign warships. This last matter was perhaps a step too far for the Russians, Nicholas wanting good relations with the British, who were outraged, as were the French.

For the British, Turkey and its empire were a market for the export of their manufactured goods and a source of raw materials. Britain was moving toward friendship with Turkey as a buffer against Russia.

The British looked forward to influencing the Sultan toward a greater liberalism and a greater Westernization under their tutelage. In the 1830s the British were fearful of Russian power and influence that ran counter to their imperial interests. The Sultan meanwhile welcomed the friendship of both Britain and France as protection from the Russians.

The British were firmly entrenched in India, and they viewed the ruler of neighboring Afghanistan, Dost Muhammad, as too friendly with the Russians. The British invaded Afghanistan to protect their position in India, seeing a single Russian envoy to Kabul as a precursor to a Russian invasion.

The invasion of Afghanistan was a fiasco for the British that had little if anything to do with the Russians. This was followed by Britain advocating stability in the relations between the Russians and the Turks. In 1841 the London Straits Convention affirmed Ottoman control over the straits between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, an agreement with other European powers, including Russia, and signed by Turkey. It was agreed that no power would send warships through the straits in time of peace. Tsar Nicholas signed -- happy to cooperate with Britain -- while the British saw the agreement as preserving a European balance of power by preventing Russia's now powerful navy from dominating the Mediterranean.

Politicians were trying to be peacemakers, but they had the differences of men of prayer to contend with. The peace was disrupted in 1846 inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem -- the holiest of sites for Christians and therefore a focal point for conflict. To maintain peace there the Muslim governor of Jerusalem had been posting soldiers inside and outside the church. Despite this, fights had been erupting. And on Good Friday a conflict between who was to use the altar first escalated into a brawl. In his book The Crimean War, Orlando Figes writes:

The rival groups of worshippers fought not only with their fists, but with crucifixes, candle sticks, chalices, lamps and incense-burners, and even bits of wood which they tore from the sacred shrines. The fighting continued with knives and pistols smuggled into the Holy Sepulchre by worshippers of either side. (p. 2)

The riot ended with more than forty people dead on the church's floor. In 1847 and 1848 there were more unseemly scuffles between Catholic and Orthodox Christian monks and priests in Jerusalem; the representatives of the Orthodox Church emerged triumphant: for example, at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Catholics had placed a silver star to commemorate the place of Jesus' birth. It was pried out and stolen, and Catholics described Orthodox monks as the thieves, and in Jerusalem Orthodox monks and Catholic priests again scuffled.

France's president, Louis Napoleon, made a show of being a good Catholic and championed Roman Catholic control over Christianity's sites in the Holy Land. Turkey's sultan, Abdul Mejid (r. 1839-61), had been educated in France, and he favored French control over the Christian sites. Nicholas saw this as a blow to Russia and to Orthodox Christianity,

On April 19, 1853, while waiting for a response, Russia proclaimed the right to protect Christians in the Ottoman Empire. On May 21, the Ottomans rejected the Russian ultimatum. In July, Nicholas mobilized his armies and invaded neighboring vassal states of the Ottoman Empire -- Moldavia and Walachia. Futile negotiations between Russia and the Ottomans followed. In Turkey, the Sultan came under pressure from nationalist and religiously chauvinistic public opinion. Religious leaders were raising fears among Muslims that the Russians were going to destroy their mosques and build churches in their place -- similar to the Muslims having turned the great Orthodox Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople into a grand mosque.

In September in Turkey there were mass demonstrations and petitions urging a "holy war" against Russia. Theological schools sent the sultan declarations of their willingness to sacrifice their lives. Numerous petitions were filled with quotations from the Koran. God's greatness and will were evoked. Religious leaders met with the Sultan and ventured an ultimatum: that he either declare war or abdicate.

They got their war. In an enlarged session with his Grand Council, the Sultan gave in. On October 4 he declared war. The British and French would get involved on the side of the Turks. Crimean War was on its way.

Religious Conflict Precedes War