Crimean War Trivia
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44 free Crimean War trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
The Crimean War (1853–1856) set Russia against the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain and, late on, Sardinia-Piedmont. It began over who protected Christians in the Holy Land, was inflamed by the destruction of an Ottoman squadron at Sinop, and ended after an eleven-month siege of Sevastopol and a treaty that banned Russian warships from the Black Sea. Along the way it produced the Thin Red Line, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the first war photographs, telegraph dispatches that toppled a government, and the nursing reforms of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. This quiz covers the causes and the Four Points, the battles on the Alma, at Balaclava and Inkerman, the forgotten Baltic, White Sea and Pacific theatres, the siege of Kars, Immanuel Nobel's naval mines, the snowball riot in Trafalgar Square, the fall of Lord Aberdeen, and long-run consequences from the emancipation of the serfs to the sale of Alaska. There is even a question about a tortoise. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a history quiz night.
30 of 44 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which prime minister, who took office in 1855, led Britain through the rest of the Crimean War?
Lord Palmerston
Lord Palmerston's government reformed how the British army was run, merging separate war offices into one.
Q 02Which tsar's demand to protect the Ottoman Empire's Orthodox subjects was the Crimean War's proximate cause?
Nicholas I
Nicholas I's troops then overran Moldavia and Wallachia in July 1853, and the Ottomans declared war on Russia that October.
Q 03Outrage over the destruction of an Ottoman squadron at which port drew Britain and France into war?
Sinop
Sinop's destruction stirred a storm of indignation in Britain and France, though Russia and the Ottomans were already at war.
Q 04Allied forces landed in Crimea in September 1854 to capture which Russian naval base?
Sevastopol
Sevastopol held out until September 1855, when a renewed French assault broke its defences and the Russians abandoned its southern side.
Q 05The allies' first victory in Crimea, on 20 September 1854, was fought on the banks of which river?
Alma
Alma was won, but with few ambulances the British needed two days to clear their wounded from the battlefield.
Q 06Which Italian state joined the allies in 1855 with 15,000 troops under General La Marmora?
Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia troops fought at the Chernaya in August 1855, when Russian corps furiously attacked the French and Sardinian positions.
Q 07The French assault that finally broke the besieged city in September 1855 took which redoubt?
Malakoff
Malakoff fell to the French assault, while a simultaneous British attack on the Great Redan was repulsed.
Q 08Which agreement, signed on 30 March 1856, ended the Crimean War?
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris closed the Black Sea to warships, but that ban lasted only until 1871, after Prussia had defeated France.
Q 09Which reform, five years after the Crimean War, is counted among the war's consequences for Russia?
Abolition of serfdom
Abolition of serfdom came in 1861, after the war exposed how poorly a serf army and serf economy could fight industrial powers.
Q 10Which nurse gained worldwide attention for her work in the Crimean War?
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale's night rounds among the wounded earned her the name 'the Lady with the Lamp'.
Q 11Whose bid for Catholic support over the Holy Places set off the chain of events leading to the Crimean War?
Napoleon III
Napoleon III sent the warship Charlemagne into the Black Sea, and the Sultan then confirmed France's authority over the Christian holy places.
Q 12Which abrasive Russian envoy was sent to the Sublime Porte in February 1853 with sweeping demands?
Prince Menshikov
He demanded a protectorate over all 12 million Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire; the Sultan refused the most sweeping terms.
Q 13Which British ambassador, nicknamed 'the Great Elchi', had a direct hand in Ottoman policy?
Stratford Canning
Q 21At which Black Sea city did the allied expeditionary force land in June 1854, before Crimea?
Varna
Varna's camps saw little fighting, but cholera broke out there, hitting the French especially hard before the armies sailed for Crimea.
Q 22Which nurse, turned down by the War Office, paid her own way to the Crimean War and opened the 'British Hotel'?
Mary Seacole
Mary Seacole's British Hotel fed and housed sick officers, and she also went out onto the battlefields to tend the fallen.
Q 23On the beaches of which Crimean bay did the allied armies land in September 1854?
Kalamita Bay
Kalamita Bay was chosen for its long beach, shielded by the fleet's guns at sea and by lagoons inland.
Stratford Canning, as a young envoy in 1812, helped broker the peace of Bucharest between the Ottomans and Russia.
Q 14Which British prime minister's government fell on 30 January 1855 over its handling of the Crimean War?
Lord Aberdeen
Lord Aberdeen's government fell amid public fury at newspaper reports of the army's failings in Crimea.
Q 15What did the Russian fleet fire to shatter an anchored Ottoman squadron in November 1853?
Explosive shells
Explosive shells left every Ottoman frigate and corvette sunk or driven ashore, proving far deadlier than solid cannonballs.
Q 16Which Russian admiral, victor of the 1853 naval battle, was killed in the Crimean War in 1855?
Pavel Nakhimov
Pavel Nakhimov was shot in the head by an allied sniper and died days later, and Russia went on to name ships and medals after him.
Q 17Russian troops crossed which river in 1853 to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia?
Prut
Prut: once Russian troops crossed it into Moldavia and Wallachia, the Ottomans declared war on Russia that October.
Q 18The Russian siege of which Danube fortress was lifted on 23 June 1854?
Silistra
Silistra's garrison held out, and once the siege was lifted the Russians began pulling out of the principalities.
Q 19Which Ottoman general crossed the Danube at Vidin and captured Calafat in October 1853?
Omar Pasha
Omar Pasha later led Ottoman troops in Crimea, where they beat off a Russian attack on Eupatoria in February 1855.
Q 20Which neutral power occupied the Danubian Principalities after the Russians withdrew in 1854?
Austria
Austria's ultimatum, backed by an army massing in Transylvania, made the tsar pull his troops out before Austrian soldiers moved in.
Q 24Which engineer adviser in the Crimean War recommended attacking the besieged city from the south, not the north?
Sir John Burgoyne
Sir John Burgoyne's plan meant marching around the city, and the delay gave the Russians time to strengthen its defences.
Q 25The British established their port facilities for the siege in the Crimean War at which harbour?
Balaclava
Balaclava's harbour was the British supply port, so when about 25,000 Russians attacked towards it in October 1854, a famous battle followed.
Q 26Sir Colin Campbell's 93rd Highlanders met Russian cavalry in what formation?
A single line two men deep
A single line two men deep, not the usual square, fired two disciplined volleys and turned the Russian horsemen back.
Q 27Which Times correspondent's dispatches from Crimea shocked Britain into rethinking how its troops were treated?
William Howard Russell
William Howard Russell's accounts of the army's shortcomings caused an outcry credited with bringing down the British government.
Q 28Which aide-de-camp delivered the confused order that launched the Charge of the Light Brigade?
Captain Louis Nolan
Captain Louis Nolan, who carried the order, was the charge's first casualty, killed riding across the brigade's front.
Q 29Who led the Light Brigade's charge down the valley?
Earl of Cardigan
The charge caused 278 casualties in the 700-man unit, but it also unnerved the Russian cavalry into flight.
Q 30Which poet memorialised the Light Brigade in a famous 1854 poem?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The poem helped make the charge an iconic symbol of logistical, tactical and command failure.