Mennonites and the Crimean War (1853-56)

Martin Klaassen was traveling through the Molotschna Mennonite Colony when the Crimean War broke out in 1853 (note 1). His diary notes that the following hymn was sung before the sermon:

December 1853. With regards to the war which broke out between Russia and Turkey, the song, No: 723 “O Lord, the clouds of war are threatening now, above our heads we see them roll” was sung before the sermon” (note 2).

As the war effort grew, thousands of troops came through Molotschna:

January 14, 1854. Today our colony has received billets: in Halbstadt about 1,000 soldiers. It is said that Joh. Neufelds have offered liquor (Branntwein), naturally without charge. The soldiers are supposed to have marched in with jubilant singing and much hilarity. They had been very happy for the wonderful reception they got, and promised to accomplish great things.

In March, England and France also declared war on Russia.

March 26, 1854. At noon today there was suddenly a military transport at our gates. Because of the poor roads … 2,000 men and equipment had to be transported by way of Halbstadt, so in order to ease the billeting, 500 men were ordered to pass through here. In this house we had to billet one young officer and 7 privates; the officer took our room, the others occupied the bakehouse. Across from Neufelds is the company commander.

March 28, 1854. Sunday. Our officer left the house yesterday and didn’t return. … In the evening the Choir sang a few selections on Neufeld’s yard. The soldiers were amazed at the well-rehearsed presentation (note 3).

In September 1854, an allied army landed on Russia’s Crimean Peninsula with the goal of seizing the Russian naval base at Sevastopol. By the summer of 1855 it was a major European war theatre with 175,000 allied troops and approximately 170,000 Russian troops in Sevastopol alone (note 4).

The Mennonite colonies were ordered to provide provisions as well as hundreds of wagons and drivers—usually a young son or a landless Mennonite cottager (Anwohner) or renter (Einwohner)—to transport soldiers and supplies. In the autumn of 1854, the Molotschna Colony alone brought 4,000 wagons loaded with hay to Crimea. In 1855 the Molotschna Colony with a population of 17,148—or 1,991 families—sent 9,627 wagonloads of provisions, despite two poor harvests (note 5). Mennonites were also required to contribute labour and materials to improve roads and repair bridges in their area, which facilitated troop movement (note 6). Though work and supplies were requisitioned by the military, Mennonites were not subject to direct military command. They were in effect in a non-combative role (note 7).

By Summer 1855 some 175,000 allied troops had landed on the Crimean Peninsula to seize the Russian naval base at Sevastopol; they were met by approximately 170,000 Russian troops. During the war it is estimated that between 406,000 and 450,000 Russian soldiers died.

Many Mennonite farmers, artisans, and blacksmiths became wealthy from war orders. The wagon-making industry had flourished in Mennonite colonies since the 1830s, and the Mennonite wagons proved ideally suited for the military supply needs. Sales of wagons to non-Mennonites jumped 306% in one year, from 162 in 1854, to 658 in 1855—most of which were ordered by the state—while the number of available draught horses in the colony dropped from 9,601 to 9,397, with 10.6 horses on average per farm. Molotschna milk and cheese revenues rose 5.6% with increased prices, while the price of wool from their 71,026 merino sheep jumped 71% over the same year. The number of Russian labourers employed by Mennonites in the colony increased 57%, from 433 in 1854 to 681 to 1855 (note 8).

The military medical situation was appalling. In March 1855, newspapers were reported that in Simferopol and Bakhchysarai it was not possible to accommodate the large numbers of wounded and sick Russian soldiers in hospitals, and some 1,520 “had to be distributed among the colonies. The counselor Dr. Lewkowicz … managed to convince the colonists and Mennonites to accept the sick and wounded into their homes” (note 9).

Mennonite wagons were now returning to the colonies with sick and wounded soldiers. Scurvy, dysentery, cholera, and typhus were the most common illnesses that ravaged the troops. Lice in clothing and hair were the main means by which typhus was transmitted. There was a Mennonite hospital located in Gnadenfeld, but the expectation was also that “each farmer had to take one soldier and keep him until he was well again” (note 10). The Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists sent guidelines to the Molotschna Mennonites “for dealing with care of wounded soldiers.” In total, approximately 5,000 soldiers received care in the Mennonite colonies (note 11).

Mennonites from the bombed Asov Sea port city of Berdjansk were also forced to leave and find shelter in the mother colony (note 12).

The youth who travelled in the wagon convoys—about seven trips per farmstead—described later in life how awestruck and horrified they were by the sights of the war.

Beyond the watchful eye of parents and congregational leaders, many Mennonite boys as young as thirteen acquired new and unsavory habits:

“These boys were told to smoke and also drink brandy to ward off contagious diseases. ... They also acquired the use of profane language from their rough companions. When they returned home they felt quite out of place with the other boys of the village. ... Father said war did not tend to improve mankind.” (Note 13)

Each trip from the Molotschna was at least 550 kilometres. Mennonite teamsters occasionally brought home souvenirs of the war including, in one case, an unexploded bomb. The local blacksmith Cornelius Fast was asked to dismantle and clean the bomb. A terrific explosion occurred that tore off his leg, and he died shortly thereafter (note 14). The grandson of Rudnerweide Elder Franz Görz, Johann Jantzen, became gravely injured on one of the more dangerous and colder trips: a family Bible notes that “Johann arrived at Kleefeld still alive but died on the way between Kleefeld and Rudnerweide,” on January 19, 1856 (note 15).

The Mennonite contribution to Russian’s Crimean War effort was so significant that Tsar Alexander II had a large monument erected for the Mennonites in Halbstadt, Molotschna “in grateful remembrance of the faithful services which Mennonite subjects offered to their monarch during the time of the terrible Crimean War, 1854 and ’55.” The plaque notes that the Mennonites “delivered wagons, and took in, cared for and supported the on-going needs of the wounded and of soldiers moving through the region. Though not a single one of them took up a weapon, but held rather to the pledge of their forefathers to non-resistance, they nevertheless gave evidence that being non-resistant (Wehr-losigkeit) and being unpatriotic (Vaterlands-losigkeit) are two completely different things” (note 16).

Trying to understand the deeply felt patriotism of Russian Mennonites in the nineteenth-century in times of war is to enter into a different world than our own. An older Mennonite from the conservative Bergthal Colony, upon hearing from a foreigner that the war was not going well for Russia, “took off his cap, folded his hands and prayed quietly, upon which he turned to me with the words: ‘No, sir, God cannot want this that our Tsar becomes so dejected!” (note 17).

    (Photo courtesy of Loran Unger)

Mennonites understood God to be at work in the Christian Tsar, whose ambitions they were to support prayerfully and passionately--but not with a weapon. Mennonites in Russia may have been a peace church, but they had also embraced their place as one of many imperial religions in the multi-religious world of Russia.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. “Martin Klaassen (1820–1881) Diary: November 1852–June 1870; August 1880–1881," translated by Esther C. (Klaassen) Bergen (Saskatoon, 2011), 32; 39, http://ketiltrout.net/klaassen/Martin_Klaassen_Diary.pdf.

Note 2: “Es zieht, o Gott! Ein Krieges-wetter jetzt über unser Haupt einher,” by Ernst Samuel Jakob Borgeward (1717-1776), in Gesang-Buch in welchem eine Sammlung geistreicher Lieder befindlich, 3rd edition in Russia (Odessa: Franzow, 1859), 929f., no. 723, https://books.google.ca/books?id=MtwTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA929#v=onepage&q&f=false. Sung to Georg Neurock's, “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9T9J2cfE-Y.

Note 3: “Martin Klaassen (1820–1881) Diary,” 44.

Note 4: See William H. Russell, General Todleben's History of the defence of Sebastopol, 1854–5: A Review (New York: Van Nostrand, 1865), https://archive.org/details/generaltodlebens00russuoft/.

Note 5: Alexander Petzholdt, Reise im westlichen und südlichen europäischen Russland im Jahre 1855 (Leipzig: H. Fries, 1864), 183; 150, https://archive.org/details/reiseimwestlich00petzgoog/. Cf. also Anna Brons, Ursprung, Entwickelung und Schicksale der Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten in kurzen Zügen (Norden, 1884), 306f., https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1884,%20Brons,%20Ursprung,%20Entwickelung%20und%20Schicksale%20der%20altevangelischen%20Taufgesinnten%20oder%20Mennoniten/. In contrast to Petzholdt, in 1855 the influential Pastor Eduard Wüst spoke of the “rich harvests of the past years” (Abram Kröker, Pfarrer Eduard Wüst: Der große Erweckungsprediger in den deutschen Kolonien Südrußlands [Spat, Crimea: Self-published, ca. 1903], 72, http://chort.square7.ch/Pis/Kroeker.pdf). For a boyhood memoir of the events, cf. Heinrich Dirks, “Podwodzeit,” Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 1910 8 (1911), 34–45, https://chort.square7.ch/Buch/MJ/MJ10-2.pdf. Seed 1853 map of route taken: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~301095~90071834:Russia-Meridionale?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=w4s:/where%2FRussia%2FEurope;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=3&trs=115.

Note 6: Cf. the diary entries from March 1854 until February 1856, in Jacob Wall, Tagebuch von Jakob Wall 1824–1859. Parts I–II. From Mennonite Heritage Archives (MHA), Winnipeg, MB, Jacob Wall Fonds, vol. 1086, file 5a. http://chort.square7.ch/Eich/WallOr1.htm; ET: Diary of Jacob Wall 1824–1860, translated by Edward Enns. From MHA, Jacob Wall Fonds, vol. 1086, file 5a. Cf. also H. B. Friesen, in Lawrance Klippenstein, “Mennonites and the Crimean War (1853–1856): Three Eyewitness Accounts,” Spirit-Wrestlers (Blog), 2012, 5-13, http://spirit-wrestlers.com/2012_Klippenstein_Mennonites-Crimean-War.pdf.

Note 7: James Urry and Lawrence Klippenstein, “Mennonites and the Crimean War, 1854–1856,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 7 (1989), 14, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/748/747.

Note 8: Friedrich Matthäi, Die deutschen Ansiedlungen in Rußland. Ihre Geschichte und volkswirthschaftliche Bedeutung (Leipzig: Fries, 1866), 206f.; 200, http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/Matthaeif/matthaeif_index.html. See also Russell, Todleben’s History, 201, 203.

Note 9: From a Polish newspaper in Krakow newspaper: , Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich. T. 6, [Malczyce-Net[...], Czas. [TIMES] [R.8], № 50 (3 marca 1855), https://polona.pl/search/?query=Mo%C5%82oczno&filters=public:1&highlight=1. I thank Daniel Foote for this reference.

Note 10: H. B. Friesen, in L. Klippenstein, “Mennonites and the Crimean War,” 9.

Note 11: “Molochna Mennonite District Office Correspondence: Crimean War,” reel 51, file 1738; “Fürsorge Komität der ausländischen Ansiedler im südlichen Rußland to the Molotschnar Mennoniten Gebietsamt, February 25, 1855, reel 51, file 1776, from Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, Thomas Fischer Rare Books Library, University of Toronto. Cf. also Urry and Klippenstein, “Mennonites and the Crimean War,” 15.

Note 12: See the family memoir of Bernhard Buhler, in Anna Enns Siemens, “Life and Descendants of Bernhard Buhler (1834–1918), Buhler, Kansas,” 3, from Mennonite Library and Archives—Bethel College, Newton, KS, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/929_2_B867s.pdf.

Note 13: Jacob Unruh, cited in Urry and Klippenstein, “Mennonites and the Crimean War,” 18.

Note 14: Years later his son Cornelius was an original settler of Steinbach, Manitoba, and he kept the story of Mennonites and Crimean War alive with his students; Abe Warkentin, Reflections on our Heritage. A History of Steinbach and the R.M. of Hanover from 1874 (Steinbach, MB: Derksen, 1971), 37.

Note 15: Cf. “Johann Jantzen,” GRanDMA #69584, www.grandmaonline.org.

Note 16: “Die Ansiedlung der Mennoniten in Rußland,” Christlicher Gemeinde-Kalender (1908), 81-98; text on p. 96; pic on p. 97, https://chortitza.org/pdf/eklas443.pdf.

Note 17: Alexander Petzholdt, Reise im westlichen und südlichen europäischen Russland im Jahre 1855 (Leipzig: H. Fries, 1864), 183f., https://archive.org/details/reiseimwestlich00petzgoog/page/n211.

---

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Mennonites and the Crimean War (1853-56)," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), January 10, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/mennonites-and-crimean-war-1853-56.html.