Crimea

I have often wondered why there seems to be an everlasting conflict between Russia and the West. The Crimean War by Orlando Figes provides a very strong insight into this. From my understanding, it has its roots in two factors.Firstly, there are the religious differences between Eastern Christianity (Orthodoxy) and Western Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism). During the 1800s, there were struggles in Jerusalem over access to different Christian churches between Orthodox Christians and Catholics. Many Russians made pilgrimages to the Holy Land at the time. The conflicts frequently turned violent and bloody. This was a major reason why France declared war on Russia and fought in the Crimean War.Secondly, at the time, Russia was expanding its territory and empire, which made Britain feel threatened, particularly fearing that Russia's eastward expansion would reach and challenge Britain's hold on India, the crown jewel of their empire. The Russians were viewed as a non-European and foreign/Asiatic people threatening the European establishment. Britain, hence, had their incentive to declare war on Tsarist Russia.Russia declared war on Ottoman Turkey with the pretense of defending their Orthodox Christian subjects living on the Ottoman Empire's European lands such as Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia and living within Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire's eastern territories such as the Armenians and Georgians. It was always in Britain's interest to keep the Ottoman Empire alive and well to serve as a buffer to Russia's expansion. Due to all the aforementioned factors, both European powers came to the aid of the Ottoman Empire. The war began in the Danubian area of Eastern Europe and eventually ended in the Crimea.Russia felt betrayed that two Christian powers sided with an Islamic power against them and, to this day, there is the conflict between Russia and Catholic/Protestant Europe.

I have a bias toward Orlando Figes as a historian. I find his work well researched, tremendously well written, compelling and insightful. Figes narrative of the Crimean War (1854-1856) is powerful and flows smoothly from one chapter to the next, pulling the read along with it from beginning to end. It is filled with interesting details. I was thrilled, for example, to see a significant number of pages devoted to Russian Surgeon Nikolai Pirogov, one of the founding fathers of modern and military surgery. Although Figes gets some of the important details on Pirogov's innovations wrong, he nonetheless brings to life a brilliant and important figure all but forgotten in the United States (but not by Europe or Russia). This is a tremendously good read that should be picked up by everyone interested in developments between America, Europe, Russia, and Ukraine. In light of recent Russian actions in Ukraine and southeast Europe, it is understandable why the West sided with Turkey, a Muslim nation, against Russia, a Christian nation, in both the Crimean War and the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). One suspects an all out Russian war against Ukraine and Turkey will find the United States and Europe siding once again against Russia.

This is a highly readable book that I couldn't put down. My only complaint, which I often express about Kindle, is that the battlefield maps are not linked to the text.The bigger issue to me is why aren't they teaching about the Crimean War in schools? I'm 70 years old and have been reading WWI history my whole life but never understood it until reading this book. In fact, one can't understand the whole 20th Century without an understanding of the religious, economic, and political forces linked to the Crimean conflict as so well told in this book.

Figes' The Crimean War: A History thoroughly explores previously untouched primary sources that reveal what most people consider an embarrassing episode in human self-destruction best remembered for the activities of Florence Nightingale. What Figes has unearthed is critical to understanding seemingly incomprehensible issues of the world today. For example, why would two brothers from a country unfamiliar to most Americans explode pressure-cooker bombs at a foot race the chief purpose of which is to raise awareness of need and money for charities? At the second anniversary of this horrendous event, Figes’ book also reveals as relevant the expansionist goals of Russia’s present-day leader, Vladimir Putin. Well written and engaging do not begin to cover what this book offers readers who sense that events today are anything but random and arbitrary, but don't know where to look for the deep roots.Given the Cold War, to how many readers would it seem obvious that, as the French, British, and Sardinians marshaled their forces in 1853 to push back Russia at the start of the Crimean War, the United States, especially the Southern states, were siding with Russia? As pressure for the abolition of slavery mounted, American plantation owners were looking for anything to support the South’s status quo, and the idea of Russian serfdom provided moral support -- until Alexander II emancipated the serfs in 1861. Ten years earlier, both the U.S. and Russia had been in the process of driving off non-Christian tribes to colonize areas with “real” Americans and Russians, resulting in mass destitution, displacement, and genocide of native peoples who in both cases had lived in those places for centuries, if not millennia. Fast-forward to two years after the end of the U.S. Civil War, and the Russian-American friendship had become heated enough that Russia eagerly sold Alaska to the U.S., handing off containment of British expansion in the Pacific, launched from Britain’s ports in western Canada, to the Americans.Above all, in Figes' history, the reader can see that, from Catherine the Great on, the Russian empire identified itself with and employed the moral weight of Greek and Byzantine civilization in its zealous expansion. The Soviet Union continued this momentum by “internationalizing” its ideology and creating Soviet Socialist Republics. Then, In Russia’s newest incarnation, President Vladimir Putin picks up the torch, and the specter of Nicholas I and the Crimean War light the way to securing Sochi in the Caucasus from Muslim extremists for the recent Winter Olympics, and a year later, Putin time-travels back to Catherine the Great to annex Crimea.Figes' history becomes even more enlightening when read together with Tolstoy's extensively researched, personally experienced historical novel Hadji Murat (as translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky). This is set in 1851, two years before the Crimean War began, and traces the Russian campaign to dislodge Muslim Chechens and Avars from the Caucasus Mountains, the motherland of the Tsarnaev brothers. The central figure, an Avar chieftain and a Muslim, thinks he can save lives and a way of life by going over to the Russians. The reasons why this is impossible turn out to be mindless and banal, in the way that the greatest evils always are. The combined effect of Figes' history and Tolstoy's novel, both written entirely without irony, is to expose roots of resentment that seem otherwise inexplicable on this day in which the 119th Boston Marathon was run triumphantly – but in conditions of the utmost security.

The existing literature on the Crimean War is vast, and from every angle. So, when confronted with a new work on the subject, I was initially circumspect; it is difficult to image that anything original can still be said about the topic. However, Figes succeeds in writing a superb book, which not only outlines the operations on the ground but also sets the war in its wider political setting. In particular, he continues the narrative after the end of the war - something few other comparable books do - and reminds us, in one effective final chapter, that the entire "Crimea System" was effectively torn apart with a decade after the carnage. Highly recommended; an excellent read, but also a very good introduction to the "Eastern Question" of the 19th century

The book covers the background causes of the war, before diving extensively into the conflict itself, offering both a detailed account of political events and the military encounters between the Allies and the Russians. Figes displays a mastery of narrative, detailing the brutal scenes of 19th century battle, the devastating effects of death, disease and winter.A great purchase for those interested in this period of history.

Very detailed and comprehensive book about the Crimean war, also easy to read style of writing. I found the historical reasons for the war a bit long, I would have liked more details about how the troops got there, the army in general and the unhealthy conditions in Varna. However he wrote about the terrible state of the troops during the winter of 1854-55 and compared it to the French better organised health care. A really interesting book. I couldn't put it down.

The most detailed and informative book on the subject i have ever read . Usually books describe the conflict and battles, but this gives not only the reasons and build to the war it also relates the far reaching consequencies right up to recent history. A must read for anyone interested in the subject.

A fabulous read. History I had forgotten. But how timely in that the author reflects at the end I the book that the Crimes is now in the Ukraine. As we know that history has changed!A very good book. I much enjoyed the passages detailing the social impacts of the War.