How comprehensive was Dickens' concerns with injustice? Did Dickens concern himself with suffering in general, or perhaps was Dickens concerned only with the suffering of a few, restricted to specific circumstances? Specifically, if Dickens was concerned about the English working man, was Dickens an "internationalist", concerned with the plight of people throughout the world?

1. Brief Review of Events Leading to the Crimean War

   The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) was in obvious decline in the late 18th century. Simultaneously, during the period of Peter the Great (circa 1700), Russia was attempting to gain access to the Baltic ¹, the Black Sea ², the White Sea, and the Pacific Ocean ³. The Battle of Gangut (Hangö) in July 1700 was a critical battle of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). The Russian galley fleet (combining land and naval forces) needed to secure the fort at Åbo, Finland. The Swedish navy at Åbo and Åland island blocked Russian access to fort Åbo. Sweden was outmaneuvered by Russia both on sea and land, thereby ceding access to the Baltic (and the Gulf of Bothnia) to Russia.
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   Sweden under Charles XII was then badly beaten at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. ⁴ At the Russo-Turkish War of 1710 - 1711, Russia (under the leadership of Peter the Great and Boris Sheremetev), was beaten at the Battle of Stănilești on the river Pruth, Moldavia. In the consequent Treaty of Pruth, Russia lost access to the Azov (Taganrog fort and ship building facilities). ⁵
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   Russia sent a fleet (circa 1770) from Kronstadt (near St. Petersburg), through the Gulf of Finland, into the Baltic, through the sound between Denmark and Sweden into the North Sea, onward through the English Channel, through the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), to Malta in the Mediterranean, then onward to the Morea and the Ionian archipelago. Such was Peter the Great's dream. The Black Sea could provide access to Europe through the Dardanelles (the famous bosphorus or narrow strait) providing access to the Mediterranean. The famous Battle of Tschesme (June 24, 1770) in which the Turkish Navy was destroyed, is evidence of the failing Turkish empire. Russia sought access to two major areas of the Ottoman Empire: the "Danubian Principalities" (Wallachia, Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Serbia) ⁶ and the Caucasus. At the Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774), Russia gained a protectorate over the Crimean chersonese (peninsula). At the Treaty of Akerman (1826), Turkey agreed to evacuate the Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Finally, when Russia destroyed a Turkish fleet in 1828, Russia established a protectorship over Wallachia and Moldavia. Russia was no more aggressive than other nations: Austria was interested in Serbia, Herzogovina, and Montenegro; Great Britain was interested in Egypt, and Crete (as well as further exploitation of India); etc.
   Great Britain (especially under Palmerston) feared Russian access to the Mediterranean and the concomitant control of the Caucasus, as this clearly threatened British India. In addition, access to the Baltic, White Sea, Black Sea, and the Pacific could provide a means of economic growth and a rival industrial country (just as the anti-slavery movement could prevent the industrialization of France by preventing the creation of a working class [slaves] to underwrite industrial development).
   Just before the Crimean War, the Ottoman Empire began to collapse, with independence movements in Serbia (1804-1817), Greece (1821-1827), Hungary (1848) and Sardinia/Piedmont (1848), supported to some degree by Russia. The Polish rebellion (1863) and Romanian, Montenegrin and Bulgarian independence movements followed soon after in 1877-1878.

2. Military Environment of the Crimean War

   The principle parties involved in the Crimean War were many, including Great Britain, Russia, France, Turkey, as well as less developed nations (or nations to be) such as Sardinia, Spain, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, Belgium, etc. This discussion will focus upon Russia, England and Turkey.

   1. Russia

      Guns so old, in short supply, with a technology such that bullets often could not reach or penetrate a target. The typical Russian soldier was trained primarily to use the bayonet. During the Crimean War, a blockade was established by the allies (Great Britain, France, Turkey, Austria, etc.). The blockade was on the Baltic, Black Sea, White Sea, the Pacific, and overland between Russia and Europe. Access to weapons (primarily between Belgium and Russia via Prussia) was difficult. Conscripts (25-year period) and officers most often were illiterate: did not have maps, but if they did, they didn't know how to use maps anyway. Army personnel had no knowledge of strategy or tactics, logistics, history, etc. The structure of the army was strictly hierarchical, allowing absolutely no deviation or reaction based on local realities. Thus the soldier could not protect himself nor attack unless an officer so ordered it. An officer could not so order, unless his commander so ordered. A general could not order, unless his superior ordered it. No one could act unless ordered, all the way up to the Tsar.
      Only one railroad existed in Russia at this time: between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Logistics were a nightmare (any time of the year, not just Winter). Horses and wagons, and horses must carry their own fodder. Travel to the Crimea took several months. By the time the horses arrived (with great losses), the few remaining horses were useless, needing months to recuperate. Transporting food and any other essential material suffered the same fate.
      While Russia had no ironclads and very few steamships (none in the Baltic), the use of the new sea mines aided the protection of Kronstadt. ⁷

   2. England

      As England was the leader among nations in the process of industrialization (based upon its use of slave labour), the only standing Navy in the world was also using ships that were propelled by screw, using steam engines based on coal. The British Navy had access to steam ships and paddle wheel ships powered by steam engines. These ships were fast, and their travel did not depend upon the weather. Great Britain used ironsiders (somewhat impervious to cannon).
      The Army and Navy was based on an old formula: the existence of a system of aristocratic purchase. Commissions (generalships, officerships, admiralships, etc.) were on sale. Experience and training was not required. In many cases, positions of leadership were filled by very old men. In some cases, generals died on the battlefield due to old age. Personal enmity prevented cooperation during battles (the Charge of the Light Brigade is a well-known example). As pointed out by the Prince Consort:
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      We have [...] no general staff or staff corps; – No field commissariat, no field army department; no ambulance corps, no baggage train, no corps of drivers, no corps of artisans; no practice, or possibility of acquiring it, in the combined use of the three arms, cavalry, infantry, and artillery; – No general qualified to handle more than one of these arms, and the artillery kept as distinct from the army as if it were a separate profession. ⁸

   3. Turkey

      As already mentioned, Turkey was a dying empire. Turkish troops were provided from Tunisia and Egypt. These troops were seized and brought in chains from Alexandria to Constantinople. In addition, there were irregular troops, the famous Bashi-Bazooks: illiterate, impoverished, often with criminal tendencies, without pay and without uniforms. All the men in the army deserted at the first opportunity, they knew that they were expected to be killed as "cannon fodder". ⁹
      How could the army of the dying Turkish empire be expected to act? The Armenian genocide of 1915 is the answer.

3. Progress of the Crimean War

   Details about the actual battles of the Crimean War will not be provided here. Instead what will be discussed is that as the war proceeded, the British Army, led by inexperienced officers and soldiers (mostly mercenaries), was in total disorder. Clothes were not adequate. Food wasn't adequate. There was no plan for logistics such as roads to support distribution of arms, food, etc. The result was delayed "surprise" attacks as soldiers weren't in place, guns absent, food not present, etc. These facts became widely known as the Crimean War was the first war in which there was live newspaper coverage, including the use of photography. In addition, concentrations of large numbers of soldiers lent itself to disease. Thus the well-known Florence Nightengale treating soldiers with cholera.
   Dickens, along with the British public, criticised what was happening. Dickens' "circumlocution office" ("Little Dorrit") was about the Crimean War, Sevastopol, etc.
   Though Russia was an autocracy it was clear that Russia needed to industrialize ¹⁰ (Peter the Great initiated Russian industrialism; for background information, click here), and that the entire system of serfdom had to be abolished (the idealistic attempt of the Decemberists to modify and modernize Russia, in 1823, comes to mind). Dmitrij Miliutin clearly stated these sociopolitical shortcomings in a memorandum to the Tsar as follows: ¹¹
   1. The human reservoir for recruiting young men from among the serfs would soon be exhausted.¹² The mass of the 800,000 men drafted since the beginning of the war were without proper military training and there were not enough officers for this purpose. The economy would not bear a further drainage of young men.
   2. The supplies of arms and ammunition were nearly exhausted. From the one million rifles that were stored in the arsenals at the beginning of the war, only 90,000 were left. Of the 1656 fieldguns, 253 were still in the depots. Russia's primitive arms industry could not supply the quantities needed and the clandestine imports were no more than a trickle.
   3. Worse still were the low stocks of gunpowder and projectiles. The production of gunpowder in 1855 had only satisfied the consumption at Sevastopol without counting the needs of other fronts. The raw materials for the production of gunpowder – saltpeter and sulphur – were not available in sufficient quantities.
   4. The supply of food for 1856 would not fulfil the needs of the army.
   5. The transport situation would not allow any major movement of supplies and troops. The lack of railways doomed Russia's war-machinery to a virtual standstill.
   
   The loss of the Crimean War proved that Russia must advance by industrialization.
   • Requirements to Industrialize
     1. A mobile population
     2. Sources of energy (steam power [coal], electricity ¹³[dams]: for railroads, and ships, as well as other sources such as waterwheels and windmills; click here to see a windmill)
     3. Machines used in industry require iron (and other metals)
     4. Iron and coal mines and various products require a transportation system that is reliable in all weather thus trains and roads. Transportation is strategic in war.
     5. Centers of industrial output (factories) and consumption require cities.
     6. Cities require a transportation system ¹⁴, as well as a sanitation system, public health centers, water distribution.
     7. Increased agricultural output to support city populations.
     8. New industries require a refinement of division of labour (thus new kinds of work, and a new kind of worker: factories)
     9. An educational system must be created to provide a uniform education that provides literacy and the use of arithmetic to support the use of machines. Apprenticeships in guilds and learning at home from serfs will not be adequate in an industrial age. In such an age, the extended family is doomed to history.
   • Requirements for serfdom
     1. Primary sources of energy are human, animal, wood, and occasional waterwheels.
     2. Population is not mobile (serfdom excludes mobility by definition)
     3. No system of incentives for the serf, as the serf produces only for the estate nobelman. Without incentives, the serf lacks initiative. Such a worker is totally inappropriate to work with modern machines.
     4. Noblemen on their estates have no interest or need to refine the division of labour: increase production and decrease costs for what market and what competitors?
     5. Noblemen have no need for serfs educated enough to read or do arithmetic. The few educated serfs, such as architects are rarely encountered. Furthermore, educated serfs might rebel or run away. Serfs and their families educate their children to be obedient and not to think independently, to "know their station".
     6. Estates ship or receive products using trains or ships? Estates have inadequate populations to warrant use of trains or ships. There is an inadequate consumption or production on estates - few are the size of a city.
     7. Few noblemen provide for the health needs, let alone the development of a public health system on their estates.
     8. How many estates consume coal or produce electricity?
     9. Serfs use barter. Serfs do not require a money economy. Capital accumulation (to invest in trains, mines, etc) isn't a reality.
   Serfdom and an Industrialized society are not compatible. If serfs are required for an army, then labour shortages will appear upon the estates. There will be starvation. Serfs in a large army concentrate populations and engender epidemics as well as lend themselves to rebellions. Economic necessities will cause social instabilities during war time, as occurred during the Pugachev Rebellion (1773, Urals to the Volga) when Russia opposed the Ottoman Empire. Industrialization will require the emancipation of the serfs.
   However, the entire society would need to be changed, amounting to a revolution, as the aristocrats and their social order would have to be demolished as well - not something they would likely agree to. Thus, as part of the Czar's ukase (decree) of emancipation of the serfs on March 3, 1861, the nobles were compensated for the loss of their serfs. This was a first, very belated step towards the modernization of Russia. Click here to get an idea of the social situation in Russia during the period of the Crimean War.
   Further information may be found in the off page link (in red, returning by red link): click here.

4. Photo Gallery

   Russian History and the Caucasus Crimean War campaign
   1. Galleys (галеры)
   2. Lod'ia (Ладья)
   3. Battle of Vyborg (Russia vs Sweden): Russia Dominates the Baltic
   4. Black Sea Area
   5. Battle of Tschesme: Mediterranean, South of the Dardanelles
   6. Battle of Sinope: Crimean War Starts: 1854
   7. Silistria, Danubian Principalities: Crimean War Campaign
   8. Sevastopol: Crimean War Campaign
   9. Balaklava: the Medical Situation
   10. Caucasus: Crimean War Campaign
   11. Battle of Fort Bomarsund, Aug. 15, 1854: Åland Island, Baltic
   12. Bombardment Solovetsky Monastery, White Sea (woodcut)
   13. British Racial Discrimination during the Crimean War

5. Conclusion

   In several articles in Dickens' "Household Words ", Dickens attacked the British government (as did the public and many aristocrats) for the chaos in the Crimea. Everyone felt for the exploited English soldier, including Dickens. Dickens supported a view which was quite unsympathetic towards the Russians, and made no mention at all of Turkish subjects, such as those encountered in the "Danubian Principalities" and the Caucasus. Dickens also did not seem to care about the destruction of Russian, French, and Turkish soldiers, certainly just as innocent and just as exploited as were the English soldiers. ¹⁵ Dickens' view of injustice and exploitation of people was NOT one inspired by a compassion for people from other nations. For excerpts from "Household Words" that substantiate this view, click here. Thus we see that Dickens was a jingoist, following very much in the footsteps of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Rudyard Kipling. It is interesting that Dickens could not reconcile his low opinion of the "non-European" people of the Danubian Principalities and their accomplishments in music and art, a view that waited for someone of the stature of Franz Boas.
   It is useful to compare Dickens' views to the views expressed by Leo Tolstoy (click here), who participated in the Crimean War. Tolstoy wrote about the Crimean War in several of his less well-known stories, such as "Cossacks", "The Invaders", "Sevastopol", "The Wood-cutting Expedition", "An Old Acquaintance", etc. and later used this experience in "War and Peace". Tolstoy's concerns about exploitation and suffering were more universal in orientation than those of Dickens.

6. References from "Household Words"

   "The True Story of the Nuns of Minsk", Household Words, vol. IX, no. 216, May 13, 1854, pp. 290 - 295
   "A Home Question", Household Words, vol. X, no. 242, Nov., 1854, pp. 292 - 296
   "At Home with the Russians", Household Words, vol. X, no. 252, Jan. 20, 1855, pp. 533 - 538
   "A Roving Englishman: From Varna to Balaklava", Household Words, vol. XI, no. 260, March 17, 1855, pp. 153 - 157

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