If the sworn enemy of modern China is regarded as Japan, then the country that Turkey does not share the sky and is eager to frustrate the other side is Russia, and the two countries can be called "feuds". Why? China and Japan have fought 5 battles in history, namely the Tang Dynasty, the Great Yuan, the Great Ming, the Great Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China against Japan, and the 5 battles in which China won three victories and two defeats, and the historical record maintained its superiority.
Turkey's territory was reduced by Tsarist Russia
But Turkey and Russia, the two countries, have been fighting a geopolitical war since the 17th century, with 10 important battles and hundreds of medium- and small-scale conflicts. The two sides fought a series of wars over the Caucasus, the Balkans, Crimea, the Black Sea and other places. That is to say, almost every 19 years, a war of considerable scale breaks out between the two countries.
The Russo-Turkish dispute
Russian and Turkish leaders cartoon style
In addition to this, the two sides fought in World War I and Turkish intervention in the Russian Civil War are also generally considered to be the 11th and 12th Russo-Turkish Wars. According to the data on the injuries of all Turkish fighters, one in every three Turkish soldiers killed in the battle was caused by the Russians.
What is called world hatred, this is called world hatred. In contrast, there are not as many battles between China and Japan as there are in these two countries.
So why are the battles between the two countries so frequent and fierce, and what are the innate and acquired factors that have created such a great war will between the two countries? In a nutshell, there are the following aspects:
1. Geographically: Turkey controls the Bosphorus and Marmara Straits, choking Russia's throat.
The red circle is the "seven inches" of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
2, national character: both are belligerent peoples, Russia has always been known as a fighting nation, and Turkey before it degenerated into the "husky of the country", in the Ottoman Empire, was one of the most capable countries in the world, when it conquered Constantinople, which was said to be invincible for a thousand years.
The Ottoman Empire besieged Constantinople
3. Religious aspects: Constantinople (now called Istanbul), the seat of the Orthodox Patriarch, was conquered and slaughtered by turkey, and today orthodoxy is the state religion of Russia.
The wind rises in Constantinople, the end of the millennium empire, the beginning of the Entanglement of Russia and Turkey. Constantinople's feud with these two countries dates back to the fourteenth century, on May 29, 1453, the most glorious day in the history of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, when he finally captured Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
Constantinople in the game screen
Thereafter, Tsar Ivan III of the Russian Empire married Princess Sophia Paleolog, the niece of the last Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, Constantine XI (the Byzantine Emperor was called Constantine), so Tsarist Russia inherited the double-headed eagle mark of the Byzantine Empire, and to this day the double-headed eagle pattern is still the coat of arms of Russia.
Double-headed eagle marker
So much so that Marx later said that every illiterate Russian peasant knew that in addition to St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia had a real capital, Constantinople, and that one day the Tsar would insert the cross above the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
Hagia Sophia
From an orthodox point of view, since the fall of the Byzantine Empire (i.e., the Eastern Roman Empire) in 1453, Russia has claimed to be the next successor of ancient Rome, the "Third Rome", and the Tsar is the Russian transliteration of "Caesar". If the Ottoman Turks that destroyed the Byzantine Empire could be eliminated, Russia would have, by definition, an unquestionably strong authority over the European powers.
Thus the Tsarist Empire began a war frenzy against ottoman Turkey, today with several representative battles.
Peter the Great was a famous emperor in Russian history, and under his rule, Russia became a powerful state, and he famously said: "What Russia needs is water." ”
Peter the Great
(1) The Battle of Poltava in 1709 completely defeated Sweden, and Russia dominated the Baltic Sea, while Sweden declined and disappeared from the list of European powers. In 1712 Peter the Great moved the capital to St. Petersburg.
During the reign of Peter the Great, he failed to fulfill his desire to open the Mouth of the Black Sea, and Turkey was always the number one sworn enemy of Tsarist Russia.
This wish was finally fulfilled by another Russian lord, Empress Catherine. The empress who once said, "Give me another 200 years, and the whole of Europe will crawl at my feet."
The Leaf Emperor of the Tsarist Empress
(2) Queen Catherine divided Poland three times, leaving Poland completely on the map, and two wars against Turkey (one in 1768, one in 1787, that is, the fifth and sixth Russo-Turkish Wars) were won, and Turkey recognized Russia's annexation of Crimea and Georgia. Achieved the ambition to dominate the Black Sea, and obtained the sea mouth of the Black Sea without freezing. Having taken away the dazzling pearl of Crimea, she looked back on her achievements and said: "I came to Russia empty-handed, and now I have finally brought to Russia my dowry, namely Crimea and Poland."
(3) (Crimean War) In order to prevent the Russian Empire from entering the Mediterranean, Britain and France, who had been enemies for a hundred years, finally united to wage war against Russia. The backwardness of the Russian Empire was unmistakable, and more than 500,000 people died in this war, and the Anglo-French coalition army also paid a considerable price, and the commander-in-chief was killed in both battles
Schematic of the Crimean War
The Crimean War was the first modernization war in world history. Technological inventions such as new rifles, steam-powered warships, railways, and radio communications played an important role in warfare. The British and French chiefs and military services used radio to direct the war from thousands of miles away
Most of the soldiers died not in battle, but from their war wounds due to starvation, malnutrition, poor sanitation and poor conditions in field hospitals.
The battle also spawned modern military doctors and nurses, and Florence Nightingale improved the hygiene of field hospitals, a reform alone that greatly increased the survival rate of wounded soldiers. After the war, Nightingale founded the first nursing school in London.
Nightingale took care of the soldiers in the war
Tsar Nicholas I committed suicide by poisoning, which can be called "the death of the king". And promoted the Russian reforms of 1861. Alaska was also sold cheaply to raise military funds. $7.2 million bought more than 1.7 million square kilometers of Alaska, a deal that the United States has made a lot of money from any point of view.
Tsar Nicholas I of the "Death of the King"
(4) Just one step away from the dream of occupying Constantinople. When World War I broke out, Turkey belonged to the allies of the German Empire and austria-Hungary. In the absence of Turkey, in March 1915, the Entente secretly planned to divide it. Britain, France and Russia reached the Secret Agreement on the Question of Constantinople and the Strait, which clearly stipulated that Constantinople, the Black Sea Strait and the Sea of Marmara would be assigned to Russia; Britain would abandon its traditional policy of preventing Russia from exiting the Black Sea Strait; and Russia would only begin to have control of the Strait when Britain and France acquired territory in the Arab region to which Turkey belonged after the end of the War. In April 1916 Russia and France reached an agreement, and in September Russia and Britain reached an agreement stipulating that Greater Armenia, i.e., the coastal area of the Turkish Black Sea, would be assigned to Russia; Little Armenia, the narrow strip of land stretching west of Greater Armenia to the Mediterranean Sea, would be assigned to France; and southern Mesopotamia would be assigned to Britain. In this way, Turkey was secretly divided up by the great powers.
Peter the Great's dream hundreds of years ago is about to come true!!!
But, just before the fruits of victory could be eaten into the stomach, the Russian Empire fell. The February Revolution of 1917 led to the fall of Romanov Tsarist Russia. After the October Revolution of the same year, the Soviet government was established.
In order to oppose the Western Allies, the Soviet government decided to reduce the number of enemies. On December 3, 1917, the Soviet government issued the "Letter to All Islamic Working Peoples of Russia and the East", declaring: tear up the secret treaty on the forcible occupation of Constantinople, and cancel the treaty on the partition of Turkey and the seizure of Armenia from Turkey.
With the success of mustafa Kemal's leadership of the revolution, Turkey maintained the "basic disk" of Constantinople territory and escaped death.
Turkish "Father of the Nation" Mustafa Kemal