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150 Years Ago in Mediterranean

Mohammed Ali (born 1769, died 1849) was an Albanian general in the service of the Turkish Ottoman army in Egypt. In 1811, Ali rebels and breaks free of both Turkish rule and the rule of the Mamluks (who had been earlier weakened by the French invasion under Napoleon in 1789). However, he was never really free of British interference. Technically Egypt was still part of the Ottoman empire, but this did not stop Mohammed Ali from attacking the Turks in 1834. He was victorious at the city of Konya and annexed Syria. A further advance into the Turkish home province of Anatolia was too much for the European powers. Britain, Russia and Prussia forced France to halt its support for Egypt. Mohammed Ali then accepted a reduction in his power and became the hereditary governor of Egypt under British leadership.

With the decline in Turkish power, the former North African provinces had become independent powers in their own right. While the Turkish fleet had long ceased to be a threat, well organized pirate fleets based in North African ports, such as Algiers, preyed on the shipping the European powers in the Mediterranean. In 1816, a British-Dutch fleet attacked Algiers and burned most of the Algerian fleet. Then, in 1830, the French invade Algiers, but they had come to stay. The capture of Algiers marked the first step towards the creation of a huge French empire in North Africa.

Greece becomes independent from Turkish rule in 1830 after almost ten years of fighting. The Greeks were supported by Britain, France and Russia. Greece, established as kingdom, did not develop into a stable state, but was subject to internal rebellions and was under strong British influence.

After fighting Turkey during the Greek revolt, Britain and France began to support it because they feared the growth of Russian power. The Crimean War is fought, 1853- 1856, between Russia on one side, and Britain, France, Turkey and Savoy (Italy) on the other. It is the first major war between European powers since 1815.

Russia was attempting to force Turkey to give it access to the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles, the straits connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean.

Without access through the straits, Russian fleets were bottled up in the Black Sea. Major battles are fought at the Alma river, Balaclava and Inkerman. After the Russian Black Sea port of Sevastopol is captured, Russia is forced to surrender.

Florence Nightingale

The Crimean War was the first major war to be photographed. The camera was still a fairly new invention, but they had become advanced and light enough that cameras could be used on the battlefield. For the first time, people not at the battlefield could see graphic and unromanticized images of the wounded and dead. The process allowing photographs to be printed in newspapers had not yet been developed. However, special engravers would copy the photographs by hand so they could be printed. William Russel, a reporter for the London Times neswpaper, was the first modern war correspondent despatching reports from the battlefield via telegraph. In terms of information technology and news coverage, the Crimean War can be seen as the first modern war.

Florence Nightingale, (1820-1910) shown here, became famous for her medical care of the sick and wounded soldiers during the war. She not only invented the modern nursing profession, but she also marks the introduction of women into the medical profession. Aside from traditional herbal medicine where women had often been healers, or in the role of midwife, women had been excluded from medicine. Although most nurses today are women, before Florence Nightingale this was very unusual.

Both doctors and nurses were usually men.

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