That task would be even more daunting given the alteration of the geographical shape of Russia and her political (or even geopolitical) form. For instance, during the last 100 years, Russia has changed its political and geographical shape three times. Nevertheless, after all geopolitical repercussions throughout the centuries one issue constantly remains on the imperial agenda. And that is access and control of the Turkish Straits – the Bosporus and Dardanelles.
The Turkish Straits form the geostrategic chokepoint of formidable importance for Russia since at least the end of the XVIII century, both in terms of state ideology and geoeconomical importance. That is also palpable recently after commence of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. Until September 2015, the role of Russian naval forces was limited and played the function of projection of power and demonstration of the Kremlin’s commitment to the Assad regime. Yet, the onset of the military campaign increased the role and significance of the Russian naval forces and made it almost impossible to carry through the Syrian operation without sufficient naval presence and communication. The Eastern Mediterranean is a direct zone of responsibility of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, located in the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia, therefore the straits issue started resembling the Cold War times, when the Soviet Union had permanent naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean zone since the 60s of XX century and until its dissolution.
If we take a quick look at the map, we will see old empires of Iran and Turkey forming throughout the centuries direct and symbolical zone of containment for Russia’s encroachment southward. Russia is in the vulnerable position of not being able to send any directly military airplanes or rockets from the airbases in Crimea and Russian mainland to Syria without permission of these states. It makes the Russian Federation highly dependent on the political regimes in Teheran and Ankara (being always a threat that they can change) and the only narrow bottleneck that allows establishing insecure but stable communication lines between Russian mainland and Syria is Turkish Straits. In order to understand the current implication, it is crucial to go in a nutshell through the history of Russia.
HISTORY OF THE QUESTION
The trace of the interest towards the straits is to be found already during the medieval times when the warriors of the Eastern Slavic Kievan Rus attacked the city of Constantinople. The situation changed when the Byzantium Empire was smashed by the Ottomans and Moscow appeared as the only Christian Orthodox state in Europe that eventually made it possible to create the ideological concept of Moscow as the Third Rome and the Collection of all Russian lands. The geopolitical concept of the Collection of Russian Lands was being reinforced and to some point it is intertwined with the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome that has driven Russia to the Middle East and helped her establish the geopolitical preponderance in the Eastern Europe.
Bosphorus seen from space (photo: ISS)
The grand strategy of Moscow till the end of XVIII century was based on the following foundations:
1. The collection of the former Kievan Rus lands, because they were divided between the regional powers like Poland and Golden Horde (after the Crimean Khanate).
2. Establishment of stable relations with the regional asymmetric power forces like the Don and Zaporozhian Cossacks, also using them as proxies in hybrid actions of the time in order to undermine the resilience of the Polish and Crimean Khanate statehood and social life;
3. Finding allies in Europe and creating pan-European coalition against Islam. This aim Russia achieved successfully, when together with Austria they broke the expansionist drive of Ottoman Empire;
4. Elimination of the Crimea Khanate as the main stronghold that kept Russia out of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, which was a geostrategic hindrance for Russia for further expansion into the Balkans and Northern Caucasus. Due to the geographical position, the Crimean Khanate could always have a chance to strike into the Russian rear from the Crimean peninsula;
5. Naval fleet as an additional element of military strategy of Russia against Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate and its coherence during the military operations together with the ground forces;
6. With allies or without them, to establish a small foothold in the Sea of Azov to build a fleet; after that – to have a full control over the Kerch Straits and eventually seize the Crimea;
7. Demand from the Ottoman Empire the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and through the Straits. Initially, the demands were only for a merchant fleet of Russia;
8. Establishment of naval bases in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and achievement of the naval preponderance in the Black Sea;
9. Establishment of control over Constantinople and possession of stable naval presence and maybe establishment semi-colony in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was part of the Russian grand design the “Greek Project”;
Except for the last aim, the rest of the aforementioned aims were achieved by the Russian Empire, albeit with the great efforts. Russia destroyed in the process the balance of power in the Eastern Europe and turned the direction of the regional history into a new form and direction.
In 1774, Russia succeeded to transfer military victories into the diplomatic one by signing the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. According to which, Crimea was declared an independent state; fortresses of Azov and Kerch were to be under Russian control; Russia returned the conquered islands in the Aegean Sea to the Ottoman Empire; Istanbul was obliged to grant the Russian merchant fleet free and unimpeded navigation. After the annexation of the Crimean Khanate in 1783, Russia broke the century long hegemony of Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea. Since then, it was not “Turkish Lake” anymore from the older times when Crimean Khans and the Sultans pledged alliance.
The goal at point 9 that was not achieved in the Russian historiography was also referred to as the Archipelago Expeditions. The expeditions were being conducted during the most ruinous for Ottoman Empire and definitely for the Crimean khanate and Polish Confederates war with Russian Empire in 1768-1774 (initiated under the pressure of France). Catherine the Great (reign from 1762 to 1796) was practically obsessed with the Russian hegemony over the Near East and possession of Constantinople. The “Greek Project” was to embrace Constantinople and the Turkish Straits as a trophy.
The destruction of the Ottoman fleet in the Bay of Chesma. (Jacob Phillip Hackert, circa 1772, painting commissioned by Catherine the Great (photo: Saint Petersburg ermitage)
The first Archipelago Expedition was conducted in 1768-1774. The Naval Forces of Russia had two main tasks. Firstly, they had to assist to push Turks and Tatars out of the Northern Black Sea region and to gain control over the Kerch Strait, securing the free exit to the Black Sea. These tasks were achieved successfully. Second task was to gain control over the Eastern Mediterranean, which was not an easy task. Nobody in Europe expected that Russia is capable to do so, even with the assistance of Great Britain. Oddly enough, Great Britain helped Russia at that time. But the rationale was clear – reaping the full global colonial agenda when the European powers were busy with Russian threat. In the autumn of 1768, Russia sent to the Eastern Mediterranean the squadron of Russian naval fleet for the purpose of striking the Turkish underbelly and to sow unrest in the Near East, inciting the Christian population of Ottoman Empire for the revolt against Istanbul. The blockade of the Turkish Straits was done from the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkish capital faced the shortage of supplies and Turkey had to keep a huge army in order to contain Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean. The most disastrous event happened in 1770, when in the Battle of Chesma Russians managed to destroy almost the entire Turkish Naval Forces.
The wars in Europe, the First and Second Coalition against France required participation of Russia. Strangely, Ottoman Empire invited the Russian Empire for joint military naval operations against French Army that invaded Egypt and Palestine. On December 23, 1798, Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed an agreement by which ports and Turkish straits were open to Russian ships. It was called as a Mediterranean march of Ushakov (1798-1800) Ottoman Government allowed the passage through the straits. One of the main tasks assigned to the united Russian-Turkish squadron of Ushakov in the Mediterranean was the liberation of the strategically important Ionian island of Corfu (1798–99). All strategic aims were achieved in the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia along with Suvorov’s army in Central Europe was fighting against the French revolutionary forces. However, the tricky issue that arose already during the first expedition, was the idea of creating the semi-colonial territory under Russian protectorate, but in the first expedition the huge problem was the lack of readiness level of local Christian population to support the Russian forces. Thus, during the entire war, Russia had the right of free passage through the Turkish straits.
Battle of Athos 1807 by Alexey Bogolyubov (1853)
On September 23, 1805 in the Treaty of Defensive Alliance Turkey again allowed the passage of Russian naval forces through the straits. However, both Turkey and Russia slowly were turning to France and in 1807, Russia returned the Corfu Island to France. This decision irritated Ottoman Empire. The relations became traditionally hostile. The situation was altered in 1833 when Mohammed Ali, the ruler of Egypt, threatened to end existence of the Ottoman Empire. Declining Istanbul turned to Russia again for help and on July 8, 1833 two empires signed the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi. All the great powers found this agreement dangerous for their national interests, because for them it was a sign that the Ottoman Empire was leaning to Russia and she could turn it into the colonial dependency. Nevertheless, due to the Russian diplomatic failures, the West found a way to put the situation under control. On July 13, 1841 the London Convention was signed restoring the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire over the Turkish Straits. The Sultan had the full right to close the straits to the foreign powers’ warships but at the same time he had the right to allow the passage to warships in case of war, what actually he would do during the Crimean (Eastern) War. In 1856, in the Treaty of Paris it was reassured once again that the Sultan reigns over the Turkish Straits. Concurrently, the Crimean War made it clear to Russia that she is deeply vulnerable from the Black Sea direction and from the fact of inability to control the Turkish Straits. The dependence on the Sultan’s will had not tranquilizing effect. Never tired of marching towards the straits, in 1878, the Russian Army was near Constantinople but was halted and was obliged to sign the Treaty of San Stefano. In XIX century all attempts to change the “ancient rule” of the Turkish straits ended in a fiasco.
As in the case of the Crimean War, during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905 the Turkish Straits reminded Czars how vulnerable Russia was. Inasmuch as Turkey did not allow the passage of the formidable Russian navy through the straits that meant that the Black Sea Fleet missed a chance to project power into the south but also to transit to the Far East where Russia was the first European power to be defeated by the Asian power.
The First World War brought to Russia much bigger problems in terms of the geostrategic consequences. When Turkey allowed transit of two German warships (the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau) that were escaping the British Mediterranean Fleet, military and strategic implications were spectacular. These two warships up to the end of the war established in the Black Sea the total hegemony of the Turkish Navy and they made it impossible to deliver the supplies to allies as the Germans additionally intercepted the sea communication through the Baltic Sea. The dramatic period known as the Battle of Gallipoli (Çanakkale) was an attempt of the British and French forces to break the blockade of the Turkish Straits and reconnect Russia with Entente. Pressed by war event and in despair France and Britain accepted Russia’s demands and promised the straits control to Russia, but the October Revolution in 1917 changed everything.
Panoramic photograph of Istanbul. One of three bridges across the Bosphorus is visible in the background (photo: Pixabay)
Russia was never so close in the fulfillment of her dream when in 1918 the former Russian western allies occupied the straits zone in Constantinople and signed the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Strikingly, Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of Britain, expressed that the primary element of the British policy was “anxiety as to freedom of navigation between the Mediterranean and Black Sea.” Some say that the closure of the Straits prolonged the war by about two years and contributed to the collapse of the Imperial Russia in the Great War.
Appearance of the Soviet Union on the global map changed a lot of things, also for the Turkish Straits. Interestingly, throughout the Civil War in Russia the straits were playing an important role, becoming the main line of supplies for the armies of Denikin and Wrangel. In the Lausanne Conference in 1922-1923 (and before the Montreux Conference in 1936), the Soviet Union demanded the total ban of any passage of foreign warships through the straits, claiming that the Soviet Union was not an expansionist power anymore, and does not have aggressive colonial ambitions.
Here are the main elements of the Soviet goals that the Kremlin tried to achieve:
1. Organized international conference about the future of the Straits;
2. Block of the Straits to warships of the non-Black Sea powers;
3. Free and unlimited right of Soviet warships to pass to and from the Mediterranean and the same right for the rest of the Black Sea Powers;
4. Total sovereignty of Turkish Republic over the Straits;
5. Freedom of navigation for the merchant fleets of any country;
Before sending the diplomatic delegation to the Lausanne Conference Lenin provided the diplomats with short notes including points 2, 3 and 4. In the aftermath of a protracted diplomatic struggle the two rivals – Soviets and the British Empire – found a way and adopted one of the longest living documents in international relations of great sensitivity, this being the Montreux Convention. The convention survived the later negotiations between the great powers when Stalin wanted modifications of the convention and bringing the straits under Soviet military and political control. After unsuccessful pressure on Turkish delegation, Stalin was trying to find another way to gain some concessions from the European powers after the war. Molotov held negotiations in this regard with the Nazi Germany in 1939. In 1942, Stalin raised the question in front of Churchill with an interesting formulation that “such a large land mass as the USSR deserved the access to warm waters ports.” When the time came to negotiate the international order in the post-war Europe, Stalin and his diplomats secretly, in many documents, put it straightforward that the issue of the Turkish Straits was to be settled to the Soviet favor. All in all, Stalin’s persistence on this issue was formidable. He was stressing it in Yalta and Potsdam and till the end of 1947, when the Soviets were demanding from the allies the modifications of the Montreux Convention. Actually allies seemed complacent but the persistence and belligerent attitude of the Soviet Union turned their full attention to Turkey. As a result, the Truman Doctrine was introduced in 1947.
Stalin’s primary demand from allies and from Turkey was to introduce the modifications that would allow the Soviet Union to jointly control and defend the straits and establish the relations with Turkey that would resemble those with Poland. Additionally, to grant the Black Sea powers naval forces with full and unlimited access to the free waters. It looked as if the Soviet Union was making efforts for creating the zone of the containment along the entire West Eurasia. Whereas Stalin was successful in European continent, in the Middle East he failed.
During the Cold War, unofficially two superpowers divided the Mediterranean Sea into two parts. The United States controlled the Western Mediterranean with such important geostrategic points like the Straits of Sicily and Gibraltar, while the Soviet Union proclaimed the zone of responsibility of the Eastern Mediterranean. The United States entrusted this task to the Sixth Fleet. In the Soviet Union for these purposes the Fifth Mediterranean Squadron (Escadra) was et up that mostly consisted of the warships of the Black Sea Fleet. At the initial stage, the Soviet Union was using the “bases at sea” (anchorages) – the artificial supply hubs in the open sea, which were very expensive and unsecure. The Escadra operated in the Mediterranean Sea since 1967 being a continuation of the tradition of the Naval Fleet of the Russian Empire. It was a powerful modern naval fleet that was capable to counter the NATO in the region, but the dramatic disadvantage of the Soviet Union during the entire period of the Cold War resulted in the fact that Moscow did not manage to establish any permanent naval and air base in the Middle East.
The problem with the naval and air base in the Middle East was a constant issue and dissatisfaction for the Kremlin. Only actually Vladimir Putin’s ambitions paid off in 2015 with much smaller military and economic capabilities, succeeding in what Russian naval tradition demanded since Orlov’s expedition at the mid- XVIII century.
Turkey and Southern Balkans as seen from space (photo: ESA)
The Soviet militaries already since the beginning of the 60s began to name the Soviet state as a Mediterranean power and to declare that it had own national interests there. First, the Soviet naval warships were assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean in 1958; afterwards in 1960 near Dardanelles in the Aegean Sea the Soviets conducted the naval drill with a scenario that the U.S. Sixth Fleet is blocking the exit from the Turkish Straits. Already in this period, the additional problem appeared after Albanian decision in 1961 to ban docking of the Soviet submarines in own ports what made almost impossible to maintain Soviet’s presence in the region because the Montreux Convention does not allow a free passage for the submarines. In 1964, only 15 warships patrolled the Eastern Mediterranean but it was already sufficient for the Soviets and even this fact was unprecedented. The hegemony of the US 6th Fleet in the south of Europe came to an end. It was a chain reaction to the delivery to the Sixth Fleet the Polaris missiles that triggered the Kremlin to increase its naval presence in this region. The average number of the warships since the 1967 was approximately 50, and it was altering depending on the situation.
The absence of the naval bases in 70s was not an obstacle for the Soviets and they sent as many warships and submarines as was possible in order to show presence and counterbalance the overall superiority of the NATO naval forces. It was the great concern for the Americans. Of course, during some short periods the Soviet Union happened to have air and naval bases in Egypt but it was never permanent and sufficient.
The concentration of the Soviet Union naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean is to be explained by the following reasons: lack of sophisticated system of naval and air bases pushed the fleet to be closer to the main supply routes in the Black Sea; the necessity to be always nearby the Turkish Straits so as to prevent the cutting from main naval base in Sevastopol; concentration of almost all crucial regional countr ies; preserving the economic and diplomatic investments.
Autor
Ridvan Bari Urcosta
Senior Analyst at Strategy&Future
Strategy&Future
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