Crimean War | |||||||
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Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe and the Russo-Turkish wars | |||||||
Detail of Franz Roubaud's panoramic painting The Siege of Sevastopol (1904) |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
Total: 975,850 |
Total: 707,500
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
Total: 213,147–293,447 dead 2,050 died from all causes |
Total casualties: 400,000+ including: 143,000 killed 80,000 wounded |
Total: 213,147–293,447 dead
Ottoman Empire
Total dead est. 95,000–175,300
French Empire
Total dead: 95,000 of which:
10,240 killed in action;
20,000 died of wounds;
~ 60,000 died of disease
British Empire
Total dead: 21,097 of which :
2,755 killed in action;
2,019 died of wounds;
16,000–16,323 died of disease
The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which Russia lost to an alliance of France, Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. It has widely been noted that the causes, in one case involving an argument over a key, have never revealed a "greater confusion of purpose", yet led to a war noted for its "notoriously incompetent international butchery."