The Crimean War 1853-56

• Fought between Russia and the Ottoman Turks, who were supported by Britain and France.

• The war culminated at the Seige of Sevastopol where Russian troops surrendered, the Treaty of Paris (1856) was signed and Russia gave up valuable land in Bessarabia.

The war effected the government of Russia in the following ways:

• Compare to Britain and France, Russia’s economic and social infrastructure was outdated; Serfdom was geared towards an economy based on agricultural production, tightly controlled by the aristocratic classes.

• Emacipation of the serfs (1861) → the movement of some rural labour to industry, modernisation of the military and social reforms without the nobility and tsar losing their authority.

• Modernisiation of the military occured as a result of the emacipation → the tsar was able to change how the army was recruited, trained and organised.

• Emacipation forced changes to be made to the way localities were governed → introduction of the Zemstva.

The creation of the Zemstva:

The Zemstva appeared to bring an element of Democracy to Russian Government.

Strengths:

• Members were elected by a mixture of landowners, urban dwellers and peasant based on a property qualification.

• The Zemstva could feed regional issues back to central government and, to an extent, challenge the policies of the Tsar.

Weaknesses:

• The councils tended to be dominated by the nobility and professional classes.

• The Zemstva were located only in areas considered to be part of Great Russia → not in the Baltics, Poland, or the Caucasus.

• For various reasons, not all of the provinces eligable for representation were covered by Zemstva - by 1917 there were still 37 provinces without one.

Limitations of the reforms:

• The war did not lead to any major change in the ideology and the structure of central Russian Government.

• Alexander II’s main aim was to retain autocracy in Russia.

• The Emancipation edict and its spin-offs were from ‘above’ were designed to counter an attempt to reform from ‘below’.