The
Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) was a conflict in which
Russia lost to an alliance of
France, the
United Kingdom, the
Ottoman Empire, and
Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of
Christian minorities in the
Holy Land, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The
French promoted the rights of
Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the
Eastern Orthodox Christians. The longer-term causes involved the
decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of the United Kingdom and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. It has widely been noted that the causes, in one case involving an argument over a key, have never revealed a "greater confusion of purpose", yet led to a war noted for its "notoriously incompetent international butchery."