Encyclopedia Britannica: Treaty of Paris, (1856), treaty signed on March 30, 1856, in Paris that ended the Crimean War. The treaty was signed between Russia on one side and France, Great Britain, Sardinia-Piedmont, and Turkey on the other. Because the western European powers had fought the war to protect Ottoman Turkey from Russia, the treaty gave special attention to this problem. The signatories guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of Turkey. Russia was obliged to surrender Bessarabia (situated at the mouth of the Danube River) to Moldavia, which along with Walachia were reorganized as autonomous states under Ottoman suzerainty. (These two principalities later joined to form Romania.) The Black Sea was neutralized (i.e., its waters were closed to all warships), and the Danube was opened to the shipping of all nations. In 1870 Russia repudiated the demilitarization of the Black Sea and began to rebuild its naval fleet there.
Lord Palmerston (1784 – 1865) was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Crimean War. He took a hard line on the war; he wanted to expand the fighting, especially in the Baltic where St. Petersburg could be threatened by superior British naval power. His goal was to permanently reduce the Russian threat to Europe. If Sweden and Prussia were willing to join, Russia would stand alone. However, France, which had sent far more soldiers to the war than Britain, and had suffered far more casualties, wanted the war to end, as did Austria. In March 1855 the old Tsar died and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II, who wished to make peace. However, Palmerston found the peace terms too soft on Russia and so persuaded Napoleon III to break off the peace negotiations until Sevastopol could be captured, putting the allies in a stronger negotiating position. In September Sevastopol finally surrendered and the Allies had full control of the Black Sea theatre. Russia came to terms. On 27 February 1856, an armistice was signed and after a month’s negotiations, an agreement was signed at the Congress of Paris. Palmerston’s demand for a demilitarised Black Sea was secured, although his wish for the Crimea to be returned to the Ottomans was not. The peace treaty was signed on 30 March 1856. In April 1856 Palmerston was appointed to the Order of the Garter by Victoria.
Per Wikipedia, the following agreements were negotiated during the Congress of Paris (1856): the Black Sea became neutral, meaning its waters were closed to all warships and the building of fortresses was forbidden, and the Danube River was opened to the shipping of all nations. An important multilateral agreement on some basic legal principles of maritime warfare appeared, resulting in the separate Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law, which was acceded by 55 nations.
The conditions of the Paris Congress collapsed after the defeat of France in the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. After the surrender of the fortress of Metz, when France lost hope of winning the war, Russia announced its refusal to comply with the terms of the treaty. Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov denounced the treaty’s Black Sea clauses on 31 October 1870, which was documented by the Treaty of London (1871).
Crimean War of 1854 and parallels to current Russia’s War on Ukraine >
