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The British tried to expand across the Bering Strait during the Crimean War. They failed badly and abandoned the idea.

eesmith 3y ago
The Bering Strait, which is between the Russian Far East and Alaska, is nowhere near where the Crimean War was. Do you mean the Black Sea straits?
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  No, the Bering Strait. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petropavlovsk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petropavlovsk https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/petropavlovsk-the-crimean-wars-forgotten-battle/ https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/petropavlovsk-the-... https://dawlishchronicles.com/2021/12/04/crimean-wars-north-pacific-theatre-1854/ https://dawlishchronicles.com/2021/12/04/crimean-wars-north-...
  - eesmith 3y ago
    I had no idea - thanks! I had double-checked the Crimean War Wikipedia page and saw no mention of the Bering Strait. Could you give me another pointer? Even with your links, I don't see how the Bering Strait was part of the Crimean War. Your first link mentions Novo-Arkhangelsk (modern day Sitka in southeast Alaska), Okhotsk (on the Sea of Okhotsk east of the Kamchatka Peninsula), and Petropavlovsk (on the southern end of the Kamchatka Peninsula). None of those are close to the Bering Strait. Petropavlovsk is about 2,000 km away, for example, and I don't see why anyone would travel to the north end of the Bering Sea in that theater. Your second link mentions the Battle of Tsushima Strait, between Korea and Japan but nothing about the Bering Strait or Bering Sea. The last link mentions the Bering Strait only because Petropavlovsk was founded by Bering.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      I frankly have no idea how the Bering Strait relates to the war beyond the geographic proximity(?). I just found those links from dumping "bering strait crimean war britain" on Google.
      - eesmith 3y ago
        Thing is, otabdeveloper4 wrote "The British tried to expand across the Bering Strait during the Crimean War". None of those links mention anything about British expansion across the Bering Strait nor anything within 2,000 km of the Bering Strait. Your first link said nothing about British territorial expansion from Canada's west, saying only "The primary concern of the Anglo-French allies was that cruisers of the Russian Siberian flotilla would operate against British and French trade in the area". All of your links appear to be false positives which show up because the British were involved in the Siege of Petropavlovsk as part of the Pacific theater of the Crimean War, because Petropavlovsk was founded in 1740 during Vitus Bering's second Kamchatka expedition, and because that's the Bering that the Bering Strait is named after.
        otabdeveloper4 3y ago
        The original topic starter mentioned the British Empire trying to expand across the Bering Strait in a hypothetical alternative history where Alaska was British. (Of course this is meant figuratively, nobody would be sailing across the literal Bering Strait even in this alternative reality. "Bering Strait" means crossing the North Pacific from the American side to the Asian side.)
        eesmith 3y ago
        I thought it was an observation about what the British actually did, not about what they might have done in some counterfactual world where somehow the Crimean War still existed even though the preceding 80 years of history were drastically different. This counterfactual world doesn't make any sense. Why would the British Empire "[take] up land across the Bering Straights" from sparsely populated Alaska when they can come in from the south using established colonies in Asia which are closer? How are these colonists supposed to get to "Georgetown" nee Vladivostok from the British American Pacific Coast? It's not like Alaska or the Pacific Coast had much in the way of shipbuilding at the time, so the transport and war ships would have to come from, what, England?, the American East Coast? Then go around South America (about 14,000 nautical miles), pick up colonists and troops in sparely settled Alaska/western North America, to settle an area which is much harsher than they are used to? Because why? The distances are huge and the available American population small. The sea distance from Sitka to Vladivostok is 3,651 nautical miles, which is a bit further than the 3,342 nautical miles from London to New York. From Juneau it's 3,720 nautical miles. Problem is, there are almost no potential colonists to draw from as they have fewer than 1,000 people in the 1880 census, and only a few hundred were non-aboriginal and non-Russian. From Vancouver it's 4,262 nautical miles, but Vancouver Island's non-aboriginal population was about 500 in the 1850s. It's 4,554 nm to San Francisco, which in our timeline is the first place you could get colonists - because of the new settlers drawn there by the Gold Rush. (Distances from https://sea-distances.org/ https://sea-distances.org/ , population numbers from Wikipedia.) From Hong Kong to Vladivostok it's only 1,639 nautical miles, from Singapore 3,007 nautical miles. Both are closer, can act as staging areas, and can draw from much better established British colonies in Asia and Oceania. Kolkata, at 4,657 nm, is only slightly further away from Vladivostok than San Francisco is. Even Boston-Vladivostok via the Cape of Good Hope is shorter than going around South America. Even if Vladivostok had been turned into a British colony, there's still a lot of territory between there and the Bering Strait several thousand km away Vladivostok is 2,586 nautical miles sea distance from Nome, which I'm taking as a proxy for the Bering Strait. As a comparison, the sea distance from Boston to Houston is 2,142 nautical miles. Who is taking all that land from the Russians?

The Bering Strait, which is between the Russian Far East and Alaska, is nowhere near where the Crimean War was. Do you mean the Black Sea straits?

Dalewyn 3y ago
No, the Bering Strait. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petropavlovsk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petropavlovsk https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/petropavlovsk-the-crimean-wars-forgotten-battle/ https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/petropavlovsk-the-... https://dawlishchronicles.com/2021/12/04/crimean-wars-north-pacific-theatre-1854/ https://dawlishchronicles.com/2021/12/04/crimean-wars-north-...
- eesmith 3y ago
  I had no idea - thanks! I had double-checked the Crimean War Wikipedia page and saw no mention of the Bering Strait. Could you give me another pointer? Even with your links, I don't see how the Bering Strait was part of the Crimean War. Your first link mentions Novo-Arkhangelsk (modern day Sitka in southeast Alaska), Okhotsk (on the Sea of Okhotsk east of the Kamchatka Peninsula), and Petropavlovsk (on the southern end of the Kamchatka Peninsula). None of those are close to the Bering Strait. Petropavlovsk is about 2,000 km away, for example, and I don't see why anyone would travel to the north end of the Bering Sea in that theater. Your second link mentions the Battle of Tsushima Strait, between Korea and Japan but nothing about the Bering Strait or Bering Sea. The last link mentions the Bering Strait only because Petropavlovsk was founded by Bering.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I frankly have no idea how the Bering Strait relates to the war beyond the geographic proximity(?). I just found those links from dumping "bering strait crimean war britain" on Google.
    - eesmith 3y ago
      Thing is, otabdeveloper4 wrote "The British tried to expand across the Bering Strait during the Crimean War". None of those links mention anything about British expansion across the Bering Strait nor anything within 2,000 km of the Bering Strait. Your first link said nothing about British territorial expansion from Canada's west, saying only "The primary concern of the Anglo-French allies was that cruisers of the Russian Siberian flotilla would operate against British and French trade in the area". All of your links appear to be false positives which show up because the British were involved in the Siege of Petropavlovsk as part of the Pacific theater of the Crimean War, because Petropavlovsk was founded in 1740 during Vitus Bering's second Kamchatka expedition, and because that's the Bering that the Bering Strait is named after.
      - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
        The original topic starter mentioned the British Empire trying to expand across the Bering Strait in a hypothetical alternative history where Alaska was British. (Of course this is meant figuratively, nobody would be sailing across the literal Bering Strait even in this alternative reality. "Bering Strait" means crossing the North Pacific from the American side to the Asian side.)
        eesmith 3y ago
        I thought it was an observation about what the British actually did, not about what they might have done in some counterfactual world where somehow the Crimean War still existed even though the preceding 80 years of history were drastically different. This counterfactual world doesn't make any sense. Why would the British Empire "[take] up land across the Bering Straights" from sparsely populated Alaska when they can come in from the south using established colonies in Asia which are closer? How are these colonists supposed to get to "Georgetown" nee Vladivostok from the British American Pacific Coast? It's not like Alaska or the Pacific Coast had much in the way of shipbuilding at the time, so the transport and war ships would have to come from, what, England?, the American East Coast? Then go around South America (about 14,000 nautical miles), pick up colonists and troops in sparely settled Alaska/western North America, to settle an area which is much harsher than they are used to? Because why? The distances are huge and the available American population small. The sea distance from Sitka to Vladivostok is 3,651 nautical miles, which is a bit further than the 3,342 nautical miles from London to New York. From Juneau it's 3,720 nautical miles. Problem is, there are almost no potential colonists to draw from as they have fewer than 1,000 people in the 1880 census, and only a few hundred were non-aboriginal and non-Russian. From Vancouver it's 4,262 nautical miles, but Vancouver Island's non-aboriginal population was about 500 in the 1850s. It's 4,554 nm to San Francisco, which in our timeline is the first place you could get colonists - because of the new settlers drawn there by the Gold Rush. (Distances from https://sea-distances.org/ https://sea-distances.org/ , population numbers from Wikipedia.) From Hong Kong to Vladivostok it's only 1,639 nautical miles, from Singapore 3,007 nautical miles. Both are closer, can act as staging areas, and can draw from much better established British colonies in Asia and Oceania. Kolkata, at 4,657 nm, is only slightly further away from Vladivostok than San Francisco is. Even Boston-Vladivostok via the Cape of Good Hope is shorter than going around South America. Even if Vladivostok had been turned into a British colony, there's still a lot of territory between there and the Bering Strait several thousand km away Vladivostok is 2,586 nautical miles sea distance from Nome, which I'm taking as a proxy for the Bering Strait. As a comparison, the sea distance from Boston to Houston is 2,142 nautical miles. Who is taking all that land from the Russians?