Baltic Medal

 

The Crimean War 1854 - 1856.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

The Baltic Medal was a British Empire campaign medal presented for service during the Crimean War. The medal was instituted in 1856 and was awarded to officers and men of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Royal Sappers and Miners who served in the Baltic Sea theatre of operations against Russia.

 

The medal primarily covered naval actions but it was also awarded to approximately 100 men or the Royal Sappers and Miners for their work in the demolition of the Russian fortifications at Bomarsund and Sveaborg.

 

 

The medal is circular, 36mm in diameter and was struck in silver. The obverse of this medal bears the head of Queen Victoria and the inscription; 'VICTORIA REGINA'.

 

The reverse depicts Britannia holding a trident and seated on a plinth. In the background a coastal seascape depicting the forts of Bomarsund  and Sveaborg with the dates; '1854 - 1855' below.

 

The engravers signatures; 'W. Wyon RA' (on the obverse) is on the bust truncation, and; 'L.C. Wyon' (on the reverse) is within the exergue.
 

The ribbon suspender is of the swivelling ornate scroll style, attached to the medal by a claw mount.

 

The medal was issued un-named apart from the medals issued to the Royal Engineers which were impressed in roman capitals and can be found on the rim of the medal.

 

Many recipients of un-named medals had their medals privately engraved (and can be found in various contemporary engraved styles similar to the Crimea War medals).

 

 

 

The ribbon is 33mm wide and yellow in colour with a narrow blue stripe along either edge.

 

 

None were authorised for this medal.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

 

* It should be noted that the values quoted above reflect the average price that a medal dealer may expect to sell this medal for - please see the ‘things you should know’ web page for more details about valuing medals.

 

 

This section contains information on:-

 

- The Baltic Campaign.

- The Crimean War.

 

The Crimean War - The Crimean War was a conflict in which Russia lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. While neutral, Austria played a role in stopping the Russians.

 

The immediate issue involved the rights of Christians in the Holy Land, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Orthodox. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. Russia lost and the Ottomans gained a twenty-year respite from Russian pressure. The Christians were granted a degree of official equality and the Orthodox gained control of the Christian churches in dispute.

 

Russia survived, gained a new appreciation for its religious diversity, and launched a reform program with far-reaching consequences. According to Shepard Clough, professor of history at Columbia University, the 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…'

 

Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in October 1853 over Russia's rights to protect Orthodox Christians. Russia gained the upper hand after destroying the Ottoman fleet at the Black Sea port of Sinope; to stop Russia's conquest France and Britain entered in March 1854. Most of the fighting took place for control of the Black Sea, with land battles on the Crimean peninsula in southern Russia.

 

The Russians held their great fortress at Sevastopol for over a year. After it fell, peace became possible, and was arranged at Paris in March 1856. The religion issue had already been resolved. The main results were that the Black Sea was neutralised - Russia would not have any warships there - and the two provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent under nominal Ottoman rule.

 

There were smaller campaigns in eastern Anatolia, Caucasus, the Baltic Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea. In Russia, this war is also known as the 'Eastern War'.

 

The war transformed the region. Because of battles, population exchanges, and nationalist movements incited by the war, the present-day states of Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and regions such as Crimea and the Caucasus all changed in small or large ways due to this conflict.

 

The Crimean War is notorious for logistical, medical and tactical failure on both sides. The naval side saw both a successful Allied campaign which eliminated most of the ships of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, and a successful blockade by the Royal Navy in the Baltic. It was one of the first 'modern' wars because it saw the first use of major technologies, such as railways and telegraphs. It is also famous for the work of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole, who pioneered contrasting modern medical practices while treating the wounded.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Baltic Campaign - The Baltic was a forgotten theater of the Crimean War. The popularisation of events elsewhere had overshadowed the significance of this theater, which was close to Saint Petersburg, the Russian capital. In April 1854 an Anglo-French fleet was sent into the Baltic to attack the Russian seaport of Kronstadt and the Russian fleet stationed there.

 

In August 1854 the combined British and French fleet returned to Kronstadt for another attempt. The outnumbered Russian Baltic Fleet confined its movements to the areas around its fortifications. At the same time, British and French commanders Sir Charles Napier and Alexandre Ferdinand Parseval-Deschenes - although they led the largest fleet assembled since the Napoleonic Wars - considered the Sveaborg fortress too well-defended to engage.

 

Thus, shelling of the Russian batteries was limited to two attempts in the summers of 1854 and 1855, and initially, the attacking fleets limited their actions to blockading the Russian trade in the Gulf of Finland. Naval attacks on other ports, such as the ones at Hogland, were more successful. Additionally, they conducted raids on less fortified sections of the Finnish coast.

 

Russia was dependent on imports for both the domestic economy and the supply of her military forces, and the blockade seriously undermined the Russian economy. Raiding by allied British and French fleets destroyed forts on the Finnish coast including the newly constructed Bomarsund on the Åland Islands which was raided on 3 July through 16 July 1854, and Fort Slava. Other such attacks were not so successful, and the poorly planned attempts to take Hanko, Ekenäs, Kokkola, and Turku were repulsed.

 

The burning of tar warehouses and ships in Oulu and Raahe led to international criticism and, in Britain, MP Thomas Gibson demanded in the House of Commons that the First Lord of the Admiralty explain: '…a system which carried on a great war by plundering and destroying the property of defenceless villagers'.

 

In 1855 the Western Allied Baltic Fleet tried to destroy heavily defended Russian dockyards at Sveaborg outside Helsinki. More than 1,000 enemy guns tested the strength of the fortress for two days. Despite the shelling, the sailors of the 120-gun ship Rossiya, led by Captain Viktor Poplonsky, defended the entrance to the harbor.

 

The Allies fired over twenty thousand shells but were unable to defeat the Russian batteries. A massive new fleet of more than 350 gunboats and mortar vessels was prepared, but before the attack was launched, the war ended.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.