About Crimean War?

The Crimean War, as with many before it, was a contest over who in Europe would control the Holy Land. France, as the heir to Napoleonic prestige and power claimed it and forced Turkey to acknowledge them as sovereigns of the Holy Lands. The Russians then Pressed their own Claims, resulting in an alliance of European and Turkish forces against Russia.

So, Basically, the same things we have been fighting over for many centuries.

All the Russo-Turkish wars in the 18th and 19th have the same causes: the eastern crisis (pointing the fall of the ottoman empire) and the will of the Russian emperors to expand their lands and control the Black sea straits (Dardanelles and Bosporus). In 1856 the perpetual state of war reached its climax. There was a great chance for the Russians to be the only benefactors from the ottoman collapse, and this of course lead to the involvement of the other occidental powers (which had great economic interest in the east).

You could blame the greed of the Russian monarchs for the conflict..but in the end, which of the European powers of those days, driven by imperialism, can not be characterized as being greedy?

The Crimean War was set off by disagreement between Russian and French Christians. Both nations wanted to control and “protect” the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The Crimean War was also fought because Russia wanted to attack the Turks and take Constantinople. Russia desired England as an ally, but the English viewed the Russians as ‘uncivilized’. France was afraid of Russia attacking them, so they joined with Britain to resist Russia. When France was in a position to receive control of the church, Nicholas I of Russia marched down and invaded the Turks. France and Britain managed to drive Russia out of Turkish land, and they resolved to push even farther. They planned to capture the Russian city of Sevastopol. The French and English troops eventually managed to capture the city, but only after a long battle called the Crimean War. In a treaty called the Peace of Paris (of all places), Russia gave up all the land they had captured from the Turks in exchange for Sevastopol.

The Ottomans and the Russians wanted more land and they attacked each other and then the British and French sided with the Ottomans and eventually won the war.

The chain of events leading to Britain and France declaring war on Russia on March 28, 1853 can be traced to the 1851 coup d'état in France. Napoleon III had his ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Marquis de Lafayette, force the Ottomans to recognize France as the "sovereign authority" in the Holy Land.[2]

Quickly, the Russians made counterclaims to this newest change in "authority" in the Holy Land. Pointing to two more treaties, one in 1757 and the other in 1774, the Ottomans reversed their earlier decision, renouncing the French treaty and insisting that Russia was the protector of the Christian faith in the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon III responded with a show of force, sending the ship of the line Charlemagne to the Black Sea, a "clear violation" of the London Straits Convention.[2] France's show of force, combined with aggressive diplomacy and money, induced Sultan Abdülmecid I to accept a new treaty, confirming France and the Catholic Church as the supreme Christian authority in the Holy Land with control over the Christian holy places and possession of the keys to the Church of the Nativity, previously held by the Greek Orthodox Church.[3]

Tsar Nicholas I then deployed his 4th and 5th Army Corps along the River Danube, and had Count Karl Nesselrode, his foreign minister, undertake talks with the Ottomans. Nesselrode confided to the British ambassador in St Petersburg, Sir Hamilton Seymour: As conflict loomed over the question of the holy places, Nicholas I and Nesselrode began a diplomatic offensive which they hoped would prevent either Britain or France from interfering in any conflict between Russia and the Ottomans, as well as to prevent them from allying together.

Cornet Henry Wilkin, 11th Hussars, British Army. Photo by Roger Fenton.Nicholas began courting Britain through Seymour. Nicholas insisted that he no longer wished to expand Imperial Russia further, but that he had an obligation to Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire.

The Tsar next dispatched a diplomat, Prince Menshikov, on a special mission to the Porte. By previous treaties, the Sultan was committed "to protect the Christian religion and its churches", but Menshikov attempted to negotiate a new treaty, under which Russia would be allowed to interfere whenever it deemed the Sultan's protection inadequate. Further, this new synod, a religious convention, would allow Russia to control the Orthodox Church's hierarchy in the Ottoman Empire. Menshikov arrived at Constantinople on 16 February on the steam-powered warship Gromovnik. Menshikov broke protocol at the Porte when, at his first meeting with the Sultan, he condemned the Ottoman's concessions to the French. Menshikov also began demanding the replacement of highly-placed Ottoman civil servants.

The British embassy at Istanbul at the time was being run by Hugh Rose, chargé d'affaires for the British. Using his considerable resources within the Ottoman Empire, Rose gathered intelligence on Russian troop movements along the Danube frontier, and became concerned about the extent of Menshikov's mission to the Porte. Rose, using his authority as the British representative to the Ottomans, ordered a British squadron of warships to depart early for an eastern Mediterranean cruise and head for Istanbul. However, Rose's actions were not backed up by the British admiral in command of the squadron, Whitley Dundas, who resented the diplomat for believing he could interfere in the Admiralty's business. Within a week, Rose's actions were canceled. Only the French sent a naval task force to support the Ottomans.

Nice answer Spark