Lord Palmerston and other British leaders had…

Lord Palmerston and other British leaders had expressed fears of Russian encroachment upon India and Afghanistan in the 1840s, and in the 1850s find a pretext for countering the Russian threat in the cause of protecting Roman Catholic holy places in Palestine.

France, under treaties negotiated during the eighteenth century, is the guardian of Roman Catholics in the Ottoman Empire, while Russia is the protector of Orthodox Christians.

For several years, however, Catholic and Orthodox monks have disputed possession of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

During the early 1850s, the two sides make demands that Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid cannot possibly satisfy simultaneously.