On October 4, 1853, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia after it refuses to withdraw his troops from the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.
The Crimean War (1853-56) was the bloodiest conflict of the 19th century. The armed conflict caused a displacement of the strata formed on the Old Continent after 1815. The result of the war is the expulsion of Russia from the Black Sea basin and the loss of part of Bessarabia.
During the Crimean War industrial warfare began: the artillery of the Western Allies was able to fire 75,000 volleys a day. Crucial to the success of the Allies was the new combat equipment: the "Minie" rifle. and the artillery shell that displaces the shell. Sevastopol fell in September 1855, Deutsche Welle recalls.
The Crimean War claimed the lives of 750,000 soldiers; the number of victims among the civilian population is countless. There have been many mass exterminations. The Turkish army paid a premium for "the heads of the gyaures". After all, most soldiers die not in battle, but from cholera or typhus.
On March 30, 1856, a treaty was signed in Paris that ended the Crimean War.
It changed the face of the Ottoman Empire. Never before has there been such a gathering of Western politicians, military and observers in Constantinople. With them came their way of life, so the Crimean War contributed to the first opening of Turkish society, which immediately provoked an Islamic backlash.
In Russia, anger against Western Europe gave wing to patriotic and Pan-Slavic feelings. Tolstoy's epic "War and Peace" was created precisely in this context. The memory of the victory over Napoleon is a salve for the Russian soul, humiliated by the defeat in Crimea, which reveals Russia's backwardness.