ABSTRACT
The Crimean War, as a ‘modern’ war, was not an isolated event, but one waiting to be fought in some fashion in the light of the 1848–49 crises, the Bonapartist challenge to the 1815 settlement, the Anglo-Russian ‘great game’, and the legacy of Russo-Turkish hostilities. Nevertheless, the outbreak of this war was especially the result of the power, policies and personality of an autocrat, who exhibited plenty of ‘ill will’ as well as pride and poor judgement, and who, like his Western counterparts, understood the implications of his armed diplomacy: 1 Nicholas I is thus in the company of three other nineteenth-century strong men without whom certain European wars would have been inconceivable: Napoleon I, Napoleon III and Bismarck.
