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It was the autumn of 1854 in Crimea. British, French, and Ottoman troops were in Crimea to battle Russia. The issue was over the question of who would have control of churches in the Holy Land – the Catholic Christians supported by France or the Orthodox Christians supported by Russia.
To stake its claim, France sent its state-of-the-art battleship, Charlemagne, into the Black Sea as a show of force to the Ottomans who controlled the Holy Lands. The Ottomans quickly got the message, sensing that a France on their side would be stronger than a Russia on their side, and declared in favor of Catholic Christians. This was enough reason for Russia to move its armies into Ottoman-held territory.
A small victory by the Allies at the Battle of Alma after amazing blunders by both sides gave the Allies some confidence, given that planning and logistics were disastrous throughout the campaign. Moving into the Battle of Balaklava, a reserved and wavering British Field Marshall Lord Raglan supposedly ordered 700 cavalrymen of a light brigade into a suicidal charge against well positioned Russian guns. Only 195 were reported to return, and 500 horses were lost; the overall battle was a draw, but the commander of the charge, Major General James Brudenall, Earl of Cardigan, became a national hero and darling of England.
He returned to England to celebrations and speeches, his picture in every shop window and biography in every noteworthy newspaper. Merchants sold a woolen jacket such as he wore, naming it the “cardigan”, which remains synonymous to the sweater to this day. Lord Alfred Tennyson immortalized the charge of the light brigade in a poem by that name, the words “half a league, half a league, half a league onward” reverberating hypnotically the single-minded gallop of thundering hoofs against an entrenched enemy, passionately inspiring generations of youngsters with courage, emotional heroism, sense of duty, and patriotism.
While the Allies eventually captured Sevastopol a year later, with peace being declared in February 1856, the Allies had lost more soldiers to disease than to action. Lord Raglan himself died in the Crimea at the age of 67. A total of about 220,000 Allied soldiers died—80,000 to combat, 40,000 to wounds, and 100,000 to diseases such as diarrhea and cholera. Thus it was that Florence Nightingale earned a name serving the sick and ailing soldiers. The Russians, as reported by the Allies, lost 400,000 soldiers.
Despite such a loss, the Crimean War is hailed as the beginning of modernism and reform in militaries: the sale of military commissions came under scrutiny and was subsequently abolished in Great Britain and USA. No longer could a lord of England buy a rank and commission in the army; staff colleges started; medical and supply services were improved; various branches of the army according to discipline were streamlined; army welfare, education, sports, recreation, and physical training came into being as a result.
The peace Treaty of Paris, March 1856, restored areas conquered by both sides, with Sevastopol and Balaklava returned to Russia, but Russia allowed no naval presence in the Black Sea. However, Moldavia and Wallachia became autonomous under Ottoman rule, a signal achievement to free people under Ottoman rule. But, Russia landed so heavily in debt owing to the war that it sold Alaska in 1867 to raise money. Nonetheless, the treaty stood only till 1871, when Prussia defeated France. Supported then by Otto von Bismarck, the iron-fisted Chancellor of Germany, Russia renounced the Treaty of Paris. Consequently, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877, and Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia were freed, marking another milestone in the march to freedom for these states.
Russia subsequently restarted the build-up of its Black Sea Fleet, with headquarters in Sevastopol. Commensurate to its status as a global power, a naval fleet in the Black Sea is essential for Russia to monitor sea lanes east and west of the Suez, through which a sizeable portion of world trade flows. Russia also needs a Black Sea port to ensure that it can send military supplies quickly to various allies around the world, especially the volatile Middle East. Even the Nazis occupied Sevastopol in WWII, understanding the great damage a Black Sea Russian Fleet could cause its bases in the Mediterranean.
However, the Crimean Tatars, who are Moslem descendants of the Mongols through mixed offspring, collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, which prompted Stalin to mass deport them in 1944 to labor camps in the Gulag, after the Russians had recaptured Crimea. It was also time for sweet revenge, as the Tatars had sacked Moscow in 1572, when a strong wind fanned the fires and razed Moscow to the ground. The Tatars were notorious for their slave trade, and during the above campaign returned with 150,000 Russian captives. In 1954, President Khrushchev of Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine as a gesture of goodwill.
This brings us to the present-day situation of Putin’s annexation of Crimea. While USA would naturally wish to deprive Russia of access to the Crimea, Russia has played hardball before. It has been at the receiving end of international opprobrium too many times in the past 200 years to not have developed a thick skin. Through the 19thcentury it played the “Great Game” with Great Britain that saw Russia slowly but systematically swallow one Central Asian nation after another in its desired march to India, the jewel of Great Britain.
Every time, the diplomatic games were the same: Britain protesting the occupation of another Central Asian state, and Russia claiming that the occupation was temporary to restore order. Britain feared a final attack by Russia into India, and even though Russia coveted the wealth of India, and made military plans over its history to enter India, time and again Russia assured Britain it had no designs on India. The only red lines for Britain were Constantinople in the West and Afghanistan in Central Asia. Those were never breached.
For the present, Russia seems to have played by the book – supporting the majority Crimean Russians, and annexing Crimea only after Crimea’s parliament voted for it. Inasmuch as the Western powers tout the power of freedom, there must also be some respect for the freedom of Crimean Russians who do not wish to be part of Ukraine. The overthrow of President Yanukovych of Ukraine by a vote in Parliament is not altogether legal, either, even though his order to shoot that killed 88 protestors was not altogether moral. However, the fantastic speed with which Russia mobilised its troops and sent them in stripped of insignias shows some excellent organising, planning, and quick thinking by Russian forces that were already stationed in Crimea.
Though Putin and Obama have both done what they needed to, the economic sanctions imposed upon Russia are absolutely useless as a deterrent. More than Russia fearing economic backlash, it is Europe which depends on Russian gas that needs to be more worried. Hence, it is imperative that neither side take steps that frustrate the other or send them to despair. They are both too wise to cross those rubicons.
Ukraine has been an ideological battleground between Russia and the West ever since 1991. It is not altogether unrealistic that the final settlement should be that each takes a part of Ukraine. Thus, a wise decision at this time for Ukraine and the Western world might be to take a free Ukraine that can in due course join the European Union, in exchange for a much smaller Crimea that wants to be a part of Russia. Already, Ukraine has been promised $19 billion in aid by the West. A more than fair bargain is always a great deal. This could be a simple win situation for both sides that can retain the peace for time to come.
By Special Arrangement with The Centre For Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) (http://www.claws.in)