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CHAPTER IX.

CAPTURE OF THE MALAKOFF AND REDAN, AND FALL OF SEBASTOPOL—1855. Crimea was conquered by Russia in the time of Catharine the Great, and immediately after the conquest the Russians began to fortify the harbor of Sebastopol (Sacred City). When they went there they found a miserable Tartar village called Akhtiar; they created one of the finest naval and military posts in the world, and built a city with broad streets and handsome quays and docks. In 1850 it had a population of about fifty thousand, which included many soldiers and marines, together with workmen employed in the government establishments.

In that year there was a dispute between France and Russia relative to the custody of the holy places in Palestine; there had been a contention concerning this matter for several centuries, in which sometimes the Greek Church and sometimes the Latin had the advantage. In 1850, at the suggestion of Turkey, a mixed commission was appointed to consider the dispute upon it. The Porte, as the Turkish government is officially designated, issued in March, 1852, a decree that the Greek Church should be confirmed in the rights it formerly held, and that the Latins could not claim exclusive possession of any of the holy places. It allowed them to have a key to the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and to certain other buildings of minor importance. France accepted the decision, though she did not like it; Russia continued to demand that the Latin monks 133