1855

March 2

*Tsar Nicholas I died.  

Nicholas I (Николай I Павлович, r Nikolai I Pavlovich; July 6 [O.S. June 25] 1796 – March 2 [O.S. February 18] 1855) was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855. He was also the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. He is best known as a political conservative whose reign was marked by geographical expansion, repression of dissent, economic stagnation, poor administrative policies, a corrupt bureaucracy, and frequent wars that culminated in Russia's disastrous defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-56. Nicholas displayed determination, singleness of purpose, and an iron will, along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to very hard work. He saw himself as a soldier – a junior officer totally consumed by spit and polish. A handsome man, he was highly nervous and aggressive. Trained as an engineer, he was a stickler for minute detail. His reign had an ideology called "Official Nationality" that was proclaimed officially in 1833. It was a reactionary policy based on orthodoxy in religion, autocracy in government, and Russian nationalism.

He was the younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I. Nicholas inherited his brother's throne despite the failed Decembrist revolt against him, and went on to become the most reactionary of all Russian leaders. His aggressive foreign policy involved many expensive wars, for little result. He seized territories in the Caucasus (including modern day Armenia and Azerbaijan) at the expense of Persia, by defeating the Ottoman Empire and Persian Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829) and the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) and respectively. He led Russia into the Crimean War (1853–56) with disastrous results. Historians emphasize that his micromanagement of the armies hindered his generals, as did his misguided strategy. Historians have frequently concluded that the reign of Nicholas I was a catastrophic failure in both domestic and foreign policy. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its geographical zenith, spanning over 20 million square kilometers (7.7 million square miles), but the Empire was in desperate need of reform.

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*Alexander II became the new Russian Tsar.

Alexander II (Russian: Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, tr. Aleksandr II Nikolaevich; April  29 [O.S. April 17] 1818 in Moscow – March 13 [O.S. March 1] 1881 in Saint Petersburg) was the Emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Prince of Finland. 

Alexander was the most successful Russian reformer since Peter the Great.  His most important achievement was the emancipation of serfs in 1861, for which he became known as Alexander the Liberator (Russian: Алекса́ндр Освободи́тель, tr. Aleksandr Osvoboditel). Alexander was responsible for numerous other reforms including reorganizing the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing capital punishment, promoting local self-government through the zemstvo system, imposing universal military service, ending some of the privileges of the nobility, and promoting the universities. Despite these reforms, during his reign, his brutal secret police, known as the Third Section, sent thousands of dissidents into exile in Siberia.

In foreign policy, Alexander sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there was another war. He sought peace, moved away from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and Austria in the League of the Three Emperors that stabilized the European situation. Despite his otherwise pacifistic foreign policy, he fought a brief war with Turkey in 1877–78, pursued further expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus, and conquered Turkestan. Although disappointed by the results of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Alexander abided by that agreement. Among his greatest domestic challenges was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which he responded by stripping that land of its separate Constitution and incorporating it directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic movements when he was assassinated in 1881.

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*Sebastopol fell.

One of the most notable events involving the city is the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) carried out by the British, French, Sardinian, and Turkish troops during the Crimean War,  which lasted for 11 months. Despite its efforts, the Russian army had to leave its stronghold and evacuate over a pontoon bridge to the north shore of the inlet. The Russians chose to sink their entire fleet to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy and at the same time to block the entrance of the Western ships into the inlet. When the enemy troops entered Sevastopol, they were faced with the ruins of a formerly glorious city.
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Al-Qādir and his family were detained in France, first at Toulon, then at Pau, and in November 1848 they were transferred to the chateau of Amboise. There he remained until October 16, 1852, when he was released by then-President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (later the Emperor Napoléon III) and given an annual pension of 100,000 francs on taking an oath never again to disturb Algeria. He then took up residence in Bursa, today's Turkey, moving in 1855 to Amara District in Damascus.  He devoted himself anew to theology and philosophy, and composed a philosophical treatise, of which a French translation was published in 1858 under the title of Rappel à l'intelligent. Avis à l'indifférent. He also wrote a book on the Arabian horse.