Evening star., 1950-08-16
Here Was One Time Russia Got Licked
By George Kennedy

TOR bit of escape literature about
IL conflict between Russia and the
West on q distant peninsula, the reader
might turn to Alexander William King
lakes "The Crimean War"
That war was similar to the Korean
affair in this: It started out very badly.
But Knglake's work might come under
the head Of light summer reading, for it
has happy ending. After going through
a Valley Forge winter. the forces Of the
West finally won.
1.-THE Crimean War" is a classic among
military histories, for two reasons: The
author commanded a beautiful prose
style, and he fought in the war he wrote
about. If the eight-volume size Of his
report seems little formidable. an ade-
quate substitute may be found in the
brief and witty account of the affair by
F. j. Hudleston and E. w. Sheppard, two
historians of the British War Office, in
the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The reader will quickly realize that al
though the Crimean campaign. like the
Korean campaign, was one Of Western
sea power carrying troops to peninsula
thousands of miles from home, the par
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begin to glare out from the printed page.
1t was not goddess Russia then. Gear
Nicholas I, in starting the war, cited
the same casus belli used by the Cru
Saders. He charged that Turkey, the
"sick man of Europe" was interfering
with the pilgrimage of Orthodox priests
to the holy places Of Palestine. then
Turkish possession. The Cars troops
marched in and occupied that portion
of Turkey north of the Danube, now
Romania.
Victoria's England and Napoleon III's
France declared war. To England this
move toward Constantinople threatened
the overland route to India. She vir-
tuously rejected the suggestion that she
could have Egypt as the price of ac-
quieScence. Napoleon III had a more
personal reason in opposing Nicholas.
The Car did not address him as fellow
emperor.
Early in 1854 the Allies assembled q
combined force at the Turkish port of
Varna, on the western shore of the Black
Sea. But they found the Russians had
withdrawn their army from the captured
tranS-Danube provinces, and there was
nothing to fight about.
Something had to be done. Both the
democratic government of Great Britain
and the autocratic government of
France would be endangered by the fall
ure of the costly expedition to accomplish
anything. In England it would mean the
fall Of a cabinet, in France the end
of a dynasty. And the two nations had
to get their armies out Of Varna. Cholera
was raging there
At this stage of the crisis, the British
cabinet took note that Sevastopol, Rus
sia'S Black Sea naval base, was on a
peninsula called Crimea, and the penin-
sula had a very narrow neck. 1t should
be easy for sea power to choke it off,
they reasoned
And 1t would have been, except for
one fact. The sea on both sides of the
isthmus was only two to three feet deep.
The mistake was similar to the order
from London to the admiral Of the
British fleet in New York harbor in 1776
to sail up the Bronx River, which has
the characteristics of Rock Creek, and
support Sir William Howe at White
Plains.
So the Crimean campaign was author
lied and. in September. $1,000 troops en-