Victorian Britain 689

in 1815. (Indeed the period is sometimes known as the Pax Britannia, in
part because Britain’s naval domination helped discourage conflict.) Britain
entered the Crimean War (1853-1856) to support the Turks against Russia,
which had intervened in 1841 against Mehmet Ali, the governor of Egypt
(see Chapter 16). In 1853, Russian forces occupied the Ottoman Danubian
principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (see Map 18.1) to solidify Russia’s
position in the Balkans.
The Russian Empire had since the late eighteenth century sought con­
trol over the Straits of Constantinople, which divide Europe from Asia and
could provide the Russian navy with access to the Aegean and Mediter­
ranean Seas. Such ambitions inevitably brought conflict with the Ottoman
Empire, which had controlled virtually the entire Balkan region until the
early nineteenth century.
Following defeat after the Greek revolt in the 1820s, Ottoman rulers
had undertaken a series of major reforms of the army (after having
replaced the janissary corps—the Turkish sultan’s militia that had origi­
nally been formed of Christians who converted to Islam, slaves, and mem­
bers of other nationalities—with a more European army in 1826) and

Map 18.1 The Crimean War, 1853-1856 Russian, British-French-Piedmontese,

and Austrian troop movements involved in this war between the great powers.