Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)
In 1875, a series of Balkan events brought Europe to the brink of war. The state of Ottoman administration in the Balkans continued to deteriorate throughout the 19th century, with the central government occasionally losing control over whole provinces. Reforms imposed by European powers did little to improve the conditions of the Christian population, while managing to dissatisfy a sizable portion of the Muslim population. Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered at least two waves of rebellion by the local Muslim population, the most recent ending in 1862. Austria-Hungary consolidated after the turmoil of the first half of the century and sought to reinvigorate its centuries long policy of expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.
Meanwhile, the nominally autonomous, de facto independent principalities of Serbia and Montenegro also sought to expand into regions inhabited by their compatriots. Nationalist and irredentist sentiments were strong and were encouraged by Russia and her agents. At the same time, a severe drought in Anatolia in 1873 and flooding in 1874 caused famine and widespread discontent in the heart of the Empire. The agricultural shortages precluded the collection of necessary taxes, which forced the Ottoman government to declare bankruptcy in October 1875 and increase taxes on outlying provinces including the Balkans.
An uprising against Ottoman rule began in Herzegovina in July 1875. By August almost all of Herzegovina had been seized and the revolt had spread into Bosnia. Supported by nationalist volunteers from Serbia and Montenegro, the uprising continued as the Ottomans committed more and more troops to suppress it. With its origin in the vicinity of the town of Nevesinje the uprising was also known as "Nevesinjska puška" - the rifle of Nevesinje. The revolt of Bosnia and Herzegovina spurred Bucharest-based Bulgarian revolutionaries into action. In 1875, a Bulgarian uprising was hastily prepared to take advantage of Ottoman preoccupation, but it fizzled before it started.
In the spring of 1876, another uprising erupted in the south-central Bulgarian lands despite the fact that there were numerous regular Turkish troops in those areas. A special Turkish military committee was established to quell the uprising. Regular troops (Nizam) and irregulars (Redif or Bashi-bazouk) were directed to fight the Bulgarians from the 11th of May until the 9th of June 1876. The irregulars were mostly drawn from the Muslim inhabitants of the Bulgarian region. Many were Circassians from the Caucasus or Crimean Tatars who were expelled during the Crimean War; some were Islamized Bulgarians. The Ottoman army suppressed the revolt, massacring up to 30,000 people in the process.
The Ottoman army at this time solely conscripted Muslims with non-Muslims paying a poll tax in lieu of service. The army itself was divided into four categories: the Nizam (standing army), who served for four years (five for cavalry and engineers); the Ithiat, or first reserve, where a further two years were served (one year for the cavalry and artillery); the Redif, which took veterans of the Nizam and Ithiat categories and men who did not serve; and the Moustafiz, where all men who had completed their service in the Redif (approximately 300,000 troops) served for a further six years.
Sultan Abdulaziz had reorganised the military school during his reign to educate officers. However, the turnout of this academy was poor and only 1,600 of the 20,000 regular officers of the army were academy trained, though the artillery saw the highest concentration of academy trained officers at 20% of the total. For the entire Ottoman army, only 132 academy-trained generals were available. The Ottoman army was organised at the battalion level with a battalion nominally holding 800 men subdivided into companies of 100 men. For formations above the battalion level these were to be assembled ad-hoc this results in difficulty at estimating Ottoman troop strength throughout the war as many units were below strength before entering the war due to the many rebellions affecting the empire.
The Ottoman army was also well equipped; 75% of its troops were equipped with Peabody-Martini rifles accurate to 1,800 yards, with 300,000 of these guns having been purchased prior to the war. The remainder of the regular troops used Snider rifles; the irregulars used Winchester repeating rifles, and the Egyptians used Remington rifles. The Ottoman support services were, however, less impressive, with the army often forced to resort to foraging. On the other hand, Ottoman forces were equipped with entrenching tools which they used extensively at Plevna and had sufficient ammunition for their repeating rifles.
The Russian army in the decade prior to the war underwent major modernisation spearheaded by the Minister of War Dmitry Milyutin. This programme of reform gave Russia a large army that was capable of fighting a war against the Ottomans. All Russian men were to serve 6 years in the active army and 9 years in the reserves though through exemption the effective intake of conscription was considerably less. In 1874 of 724,648 eligible men only 150,000 were enlisted, this having risen to 218,000 by 1877. The active portion of the army was subdivided into 2 portions: local troops garrisoned in Europe or Asia, and the Field Army.
In addition to these forces there was the militia (opolcheniye), which contained all men exempted from conscription and men under 40 who had completed their terms of service. The Field Army was organised into 48 infantry divisions including 3 guard and 4 Grenadier divisions. There were also 8 rifle brigades, 19 cavalry divisions, 35 horse gun batteries, 19 engineer battalions and 49 field gun brigades. The Russian army in 1874 contained 754,265 men and by the 1st of January 1878, this had risen to over 1.5 million men.
On the 12th of April 1877, Romania gave permission to the Russian troops to pass through its territory to attack the Turks. On the 24th of April 1877 Russia declared war on the Ottomans, and its troops entered Romania through the newly built Eiffel Bridge near Ungheni, on the Prut river, resulting in Turkish bombardments of Romanian towns on the Danube. On the 10th of May 1877, the Principality of Romania, which was under nominal Turkish suzerainty, declared its independence.
At the beginning of the war, the outcome was far from obvious. The Russians could send a larger army into the Balkans: about 300,000 troops were within reach. The Ottomans had about 200,000 troops on the Balkan peninsula, of which about 100,000 were assigned to fortified garrisons, leaving about 100,000 for the army of operation. The Ottomans had the advantage of being fortified, complete command of the Black Sea, and patrol boats along the Danube river. They also possessed superior arms, including new British and American-made rifles and German-made artillery.
In June, a small Russian unit crossed the Danube close to the delta, at Galați, and marched towards Ruschuk (today Ruse). This made the Ottomans even more confident that the big Russian force would come right through the middle of the Ottoman stronghold. Under the direct command of Major-General Mikhail Ivanovich Dragomirov, on the night of 27/the 28th of June 1877 the Russians constructed a pontoon bridge across the Danube at Svishtov. After a short battle in which the Russians suffered 812 killed and wounded, the Russians secured the opposing bank and drove off the Ottoman infantry brigade defending Svishtov.
At this point the Russian force was divided into three parts: the Eastern Detachment under the command of Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Tsar Alexander III of Russia, assigned to capture the fortress of Ruschuk and cover the army's eastern flank; the Western Detachment, to capture the fortress of Nikopol, Bulgaria and cover the army's western flank; and the Advance Detachment under Count Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko, which was assigned to quickly move via Veliko Tarnovo and penetrate the Balkan Mountains, the most significant barrier between the Danube and Constantinople.
The Russian 1st Caucasus Army Corps was stationed in Georgia and Armenia, composed of approximately 50,000 men and 202 guns under the overall command of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich, Governor General of the Caucasus. The Russian force stood opposed by an Ottoman Army of 100,000 men led by General Ahmed Muhtar Pasha. While the Russian army was better prepared for the fighting in the region, it lagged behind technologically in certain areas such as heavy artillery and was outgunned, for example, by the superior long-range Krupp artillery that Germany had supplied to the Ottomans.
Forces under Lieutenant-General Ter-Gukasov, stationed near Yerevan, commenced the first assault into Ottoman territory by capturing the town of Bayazid on the 27th of April 1877. Capitalizing on Ter-Gukasov's victory there, Russian forces advanced, taking the region of Ardahan on the 17th of May; Russian units also besieged the city of Kars in the final week of May, although Ottoman reinforcements lifted the siege and drove them back.
Bolstered by reinforcements, in November 1877 General Lazarev launched a new attack on Kars, suppressing the southern forts leading to the city and capturing Kars itself on the 18th of November. On the 19th of February 1878, the strategic fortress town of Erzurum was taken by the Russians after a lengthy siege. Although they relinquished control of Erzurum to the Ottomans at the end the war, the Russians acquired the regions of Batum, Ardahan, Kars, Olti, and Sarikamish and reconstituted them into the Kars Oblast.
Under pressure from the British, Russia accepted the truce offered by the Ottoman Empire on the 31st of January 1878, but continued to move towards Constantinople. The British sent a fleet of battleships to intimidate Russia from entering the city, and Russian forces stopped at San Stefano. Eventually Russia entered into a settlement under the Treaty of San Stefano on the 3rd of March, by which the Ottoman Empire would recognize the independence of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, and the autonomy of Bulgaria.
Alarmed by the extension of Russian power into the Balkans, the Great Powers later forced modifications of the treaty in the Congress of Berlin. The main change here was that Bulgaria would be split, according to earlier agreements among the Great Powers that precluded the creation of a large new Slavic state: the northern and eastern parts to become principalities as before (Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia), though with different governors; and the Macedonian region, originally part of Bulgaria under San Stefano, would return to direct Ottoman administration.
The was a further continuation of negotiations between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. While reaffirming provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano which had not been modified by the Treaty of Berlin, it set compensation terms owed by Ottoman Empire to Russia for losses sustained during the war. It contained terms to release prisoners of war and to grant amnesty to Ottoman subjects, as well as providing terms for the inhabitants nationality after the annexations. Article VII allowed subjects to opt within six months of the signing of the treaty to retain Ottoman subjecthood or become Russian subjects.
In January 1878, advancing coalition forces started committing atrocities against Muslim populations in the region. British reports from that time have detailed information about atrocities and massacres. According to those reports, in the village of İssova Bâlâ, the school and 96 of the 170 houses were burned to the ground. The inhabitants of Yukarı Sofular were slaughtered and 12 of the 130 houses in village, a mosque, and a school were burned. In Kozluca, 18 Turks were killed. Massacres of Muslim inhabitants occurred in Kazanlak too.
In the village of Muflis, 127 Muslim inhabitants were kidnapped by a group of Russian and Bulgarian troops. 20 managed to escape. The rest were killed. 400 people from Muflis were killed according to Ottoman sources. During the Battle of Harmanli accompanying this retaliation on Muslim non-combatants, it was reported that a huge group of Muslim townspeople were attacked by the Russian army. Thousands died and their goods were confiscated.
The most notable massacre of Bulgarian civilians during the Russo-Turkish War took place during the Battle of Stara Zagora in July 1877, when Gurko's forces had to retreat back to the Shipka Pass. In the aftermath of the battle, Suleiman Pasha's forces burned down and plundered the city of Stara Zagora and subjected its population to indiscriminate slaughter. At the time, Stara Zagora was not only one of the biggest Bulgarian cities, but also accommodated some 20,000 refugees from nearby villages, seeking shelter from Ottoman reprisals. The number of massacred Christian civilians in the course of the battle is estimated at between 14,000 and 14,500, which would make it the biggest war crime in modern-era Bulgaria.
This war caused a division in the emblems of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement which continues to this day. Both Russia and the Ottoman Empire had signed the First Geneva Convention (1864), which made the Red Cross, a colour reversal of the flag of neutral Switzerland, the sole emblem of protection for military medical personnel and facilities. However, during this war the cross instead reminded the Ottomans of the Crusades; so they elected to replace the cross with the Red Crescent instead.
The Armenian novella Jalaleddin, published in 1878 by the novelist Raffi, describes the Kurdish massacres of Armenians in the eastern Ottoman Empire at the time of the Russo-Turkish war. The novella follows the journey of a young man through the mountains of Anatolia. The historical descriptions in the novella correspond with information from British sources at the time.
The novel The Doll written in 1887, 1889 by Bolesław Prus describes consequences of the Russo-Turkish war for merchants living in Russia and partitioned Poland. The main protagonist helped his Russian friend, a multi-millionaire, and made a fortune supplying the Russian Army in 1877, 1878. The novel describes trading during political instability, and its ambiguous results for Russian and Polish societies.
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Common questions
What caused the Russo-Turkish War 1877 to begin?
The Russo-Turkish War began due to deteriorating Ottoman administration in the Balkans, severe droughts and floods causing famine, and a series of uprisings starting in Herzegovina in July 1875. Russia declared war on the Ottomans on the 24th of April 1877 after Romania allowed Russian troops to pass through its territory.
Who commanded the Russian forces during the Russo-Turkish War 1877?
Russian forces were led by several commanders including Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich who commanded the Eastern Detachment and Count Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko who led the Advance Detachment. The 1st Caucasus Army Corps was under Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich while Lieutenant-General Ter-Gukasov initiated assaults into Ottoman territory from Yerevan.
When did the Treaty of San Stefano end the Russo-Turkish War 1877?
Russia entered into the Treaty of San Stefano on the 3rd of March 1878 which recognized the independence of Romania Serbia and Montenegro and granted autonomy to Bulgaria. This treaty was later modified by the Congress of Berlin which split Bulgaria according to agreements among the Great Powers.
How many men were in the Russian army at the start of the Russo-Turkish War 1877?
The Russian army contained 754,265 men in 1874 and grew to over 1.5 million men by the 1st of January 1878. Approximately 300,000 troops were within reach for sending into the Balkans at the beginning of the war.
What atrocities occurred during the Battle of Stara Zagora in the Russo-Turkish War 1877?
During the Battle of Stara Zagora in July 1877 Suleiman Pasha's forces burned down and plundered the city subjecting its population to indiscriminate slaughter. The number of massacred Christian civilians is estimated at between 14,000 and 14,500 making it the biggest war crime in modern-era Bulgaria.