Abstract

As is well known, during the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the principal military operations between the armed forces of the Allied Powers and the Russian Empire took place on the Crimean Peninsula. At the same time, the British, French, and Ottoman military and political leadership also devoted considerable attention to the Caucasian front. Consequently, an important element of the Allied strategy in the Caucasus was their attempt to establish contacts with representatives of both the North Caucasus—including Imam Shamil’s Imamate and the Circassians of the northwestern Caucasus—and the South Caucasus, particularly the Abkhazians and Georgians, with the aim of involving them effectively in the struggle against the Russian Empire.

This policy became particularly evident in 1855–1856, during the military campaign of Omer Lütfi Pasha in Mingrelia and Imereti. Recently discovered archival materials from the archives of the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence make it possible to shed new light on the political positions adopted in the second half of 1855 by Mikheil Sharvashidze, Prince of Abkhazia, and Ekaterine Dadiani, Regent of Mingrelia, toward the Caucasian plans of Paris, London, and Constantinople. The study draws primarily on the political reports of Charles Champoiseau, the French consul in Redut-Kale and Sukhum-Kale, as well as on other relevant historical sources.

Keywords: Georgian national liberation movement in the nineteenth century; Crimean War; Caucasus; Mikheil Sharvashidze; Ekaterine Dadiani; Charles Champoiseau; Omer Lütfi Pasha; Anglo-French-Ottoman alliance; Russian Empire.

Georges Mamoulia

Abstract