The first major Ottoman war, the Crimean War (1854-1856), came with Russia. Like so many of the later conflicts with Europe, this one was initiated not by the Ottomans, but by the Europeans. Russia was primarily interested in territory. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Russia had slowly been annexing Muslim states in Central Asia. By 1854, Russia found itself near the banks of the Black Sea. Anxious to annex territories in Eastern Europe, particularly the Ottoman provinces of Moldavia and Walachia (now in modern day Czechoslovakia), the Russians went to war with the Ottomans on the flimsiest of pretexts: the Ottomans had granted Catholic France the right to protect Christian sites in the Holy Land (which the Ottomans controlled) rather than Orthodox Russia. That, according to the Russians, justified going to war with the Ottomans.

This war is unique in Ottoman history in that the outcome wasn't heavily influenced by the Ottomans themselves. The war soon became a European war when Britain and France allied with the Ottomans in order to protect their lucrative trade interests in the region. The war ended badly for the Russians, and the Paris peace of 1856 was unfavorable to them. In textbooks, the Crimean War is presented entirely from the perspective of the Europeans, for it brought home the fact that more European powers were willing to overthrow the old order than to maintain it. It had, though, important consequences for the Ottoman Empire, as well. From this point onwards, the Ottoman Empire saw itself as being heavily controlled by Europeans. The Crimean War initiated a decline in Ottoman morale and a helplessness. Europeans, for their part, no longer saw the Ottomans as an equal force to be reckoned with, but as a tool to be used in larger European concerns.

Crimean War (1853-1856) Forces and Casualties


Total forces | Total dead | KIA-DOW | NCD | | WIA
Britain | 97,864 | 22,182 | 4,602c | 17,580 | | 18,280
France | 309,268 | 95,615 | 20,240 | 73,375 | | 39,870
Ottoman Emp. |165,000 | 45,400 | 20,900 | 24,500
Piedmont| 21,000 | 2,194 | 28 | 2,166
Subtotal |593,132 | 165,391 | 45,770 | 117,621

Russia | 888,000a | 450,015b | 73,125 | 377,000

TOTAL | 1,481,132 | 615,378 | 118,895

KIA-DOW: Killed in action- Dead of wounds
NCD: Non combat death
WIA : Wounded in Action

a. total mobilised; total serving on war fronts was 324,478
b. includes deaths in all Russia without reaching a war front
c. twenty percent were "friendly fire" deaths