What if Russia had won the Crimean War?
Sevastopol fell in September 1855 after an eleven-month siege. What if Russia had held it and marched on Constantinople?
What actually happened
In 1853 a dispute over the holy places in Jerusalem and Russia's claim to protect the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan led to war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. After the Russian fleet destroyed an Ottoman squadron at Sinope in November 1853, Britain and France, fearing Russian control of the Straits, declared war in March 1854; Sardinia joined later.
The allies landed in the Crimea in September 1854, won at the Alma and besieged Sevastopol, the base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The battles of Balaclava, with the Charge of the Light Brigade, and Inkerman followed. The winter of 1854–55 was a disaster for the poorly supplied British army; Florence Nightingale's work in the hospital at Scutari became famous. Tsar Nicholas I died in March 1855.
On 8 September 1855 French troops stormed the Malakoff redoubt, and the Russians evacuated the southern part of Sevastopol. Facing an Austrian ultimatum and exhaustion, Russia accepted the Treaty of Paris in March 1856, which neutralised the Black Sea, banning warships and naval arsenals there.
Russia was not crushed. It still held much of Sevastopol's northern side, its armies had taken the Ottoman fortress of Kars in the Caucasus in November 1855, and its territorial losses were small, chiefly southern Bessarabia. What brought it to terms was the prospect of a wider war: in December 1855 Austria threatened to join the allies unless Russia accepted their conditions.
The turning point
The siege was long and costly on both sides, and cholera and winter killed more soldiers than battle. Had Sevastopol held through a second winter, British and French public opinion, already angry at the war's mismanagement, might have forced a compromise peace. Orlando Figes's history of the war shows how close the allied effort came to collapse in early 1855.
But a Russian advance to Constantinople would have needed far more: crossing the Danube and the Balkans against Ottoman and allied armies while Britain and France held the sea. Austria's hostility, which in reality helped force Russia to the peace table, would also have stood in the way.
The world that might have been
In Crown & Plough the alternative reads: Sevastopol held, and the allies, worn down by cholera and winter, were the first to take to their ships; the following spring the Russian army crossed the Balkans and reached the Bosporus, and the cross rose once more over the dome of Hagia Sophia. The game then removes the scripted unification of Romania and the Congress of Berlin.
Beyond the game, this is one of the boldest alternatives in the game. A Russian victory at Sevastopol is plausible; a Russian Constantinople would likely have triggered a far larger war with Britain, France and probably Austria. A more modest Russian success would still have meant a much stronger Russian position in the Balkans and the Black Sea, and perhaps no humiliation to drive the reforms of Alexander II, such as the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.
The Ottoman Empire's long decline in Europe might have accelerated sharply, and the Balkan nations would have emerged under Russian protection rather than through the great-power bargaining of 1856 and 1878.
Ripples through time
A Russia triumphant in the Crimea shapes the road to 1914: in the game it makes a peaceful end to the July Crisis slightly less likely.
Play this turning point
Start in the Victorian Age (1850), or take the scenario A ship to Scutari, which begins in 1853. In the Currents of History story The Crimean War you can take the allied side, the Russian side or work in the field hospital; the Russian side pushes for the alternative.
The game weights history less heavily here than for many turning points, so a determined Russian contribution can matter.
Play this turning point → Start the scenario “A ship to Scutari” →
Questions and answers
Why did the Crimean War start?
A dispute over Christian holy places and Russia's claim to protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire led to a Russo-Ottoman war in 1853; Britain and France joined in 1854 to stop Russian expansion toward the Straits.
When did Sevastopol fall?
The French stormed the Malakoff on 8 September 1855 and the Russians abandoned the southern side of the city that night, after a siege of about eleven months.
What did the Treaty of Paris (1856) decide?
It neutralised the Black Sea, forbidding warships and naval arsenals there, guaranteed the Ottoman Empire's integrity and placed the Danubian principalities under collective great-power protection.
Sources and further reading
Modern accounts: Orlando Figes, Crimea: The Last Crusade; Trevor Royle, Crimea; Winfried Baumgart, The Crimean War, 1853–1856.
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