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| Detail of Franz Roubaud's panoramic painting The Siege of Sevastopol (1904) |
[The Crimean War] "was not the result of a calculated plan, nor even of hasty last-minute decisions made under stress. It was the consequence of more than two years of fatal blundering in slow-motion by inept statesmen who had months to reflect upon the actions they took. It arose from Napoleon's search for prestige; Nicholas’s quest for control over the Straits; his naïve miscalculation of the probable reactions of the European powers; the failure of those powers to make their positions clear; and the pressure of public opinion in Britain and Constantinople at crucial moments."[11]Clough, Shepard B., ed. (1964). A History of the Western World. p. 917.
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Ukraine: there's no way out unless the west understands its past mistakes
Western leaders mostly paint the whole dispute as totally one-sided: it is all Russia's fault. But the Crimea crisis is directly related to the misguided steps taken after the Soviet Union's fall
Malcolm Fraser
The Guardian, 3 March 2014
