MARITIME HORIZONS Is This the Brink of War?


by Ken Hansen


Photo: internet


Research into the ‘Crisis in Crimea’ is soon over-


whelmed by the complexity of the larger issue of Russian-Western relations. The recent events are only the latest instalment in a violent history that stretches back centuries. Cimmerians, Greeks, Romans, Tartars and Turks, just to name a few, have all fought and died to hold this place. By the time that Russian imperial forces of Catherine the Great seized control of Crimea from the Ottoman Turks in 1783 the ground had been blood-soaked many times. It didn’t end there. The Crimean War (October 1853 to February 1856)


saw British and French forces allied with the Turks against the Russians. The 11-month Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55) destroyed the city by artillery bombardment. Eventually, the Russian army was evacuated across a pontoon bridge to the north shore of the bay. The navy scuttled their fleet to block the harbour, then followed the army. Worse was yet to come. During the Second World War, the city was intensively bombarded during an 8-month siege ending in July 1942. The Red Army liberated it in May 1944. This has been a tough neigh-


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bourhood to call ‘home’. As a result, the emotions attached to Crimea are powerful, clouded by suffering and heroics. Supposedly, religion was a major issue in the Crime-


an War. In fact, the main motivation was to hold back Russian expansion as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, allowing Western influence to replace it. Russian ambi- tions threatened to bring their significant naval power past the Dardanelles and into the Mediterranean. That was the real reason so many European powers sent their poorly equipped troops to be slaughtered in what some have called “the first modern war of the industrial age”. Without the naval base at Sevastopol, the threat could not materialize. The Treaty of Paris (1856) prevented a catastrophic Russian collapse and left them with a ‘neutralized’ Black Sea. It all had far more to do with economics than piety. French political and trade interests were busily work-


ing towards the construction of the Suez Canal at the same time as the Crimean War. The Universal Suez Ship Canal Company was formed in 1858 and construc-


May 2014


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