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| conflict = Great Eastern Crisis Of 1542 | image = File:The defeat of Shipka Peak, Bulgarian War of Independence.JPG | caption = Beligerants of the Crisis | date = 4 March 1542 – 20 September 1546 | place = Balkans, Caucasus, Anatolia, Crimea | result = White peace (Strategic Coalition Victory). (See Aftermath)

| combatant1 =

Russian Empire Russian Empire

Spanish Empire Spanish Empire

Austria Duchy of Austria

Hungary Principality of Hungary

| combatant2 =

Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire

Morocco Morocco


| strength1 =

  • Russian Empire: 215,000 in the Army of Kiev, 35,000 in the Caucasian Army.
  • Spanish Empire: 78,000 In mainland Spain
  • Duchy Of Austria: 167,000 In Austria
  • Principality Of Hungary: 32,000 (Estimate)

Total: 527,000

| strength2 =

  • Ottoman Empire: 443,000 in the Balkans, 230,000 In Anatolia.
  • Morocco: 56,000 in North Africa

729,000 Total

| casualties1 =

  • Russian Empire
    • 256,000 killed
  • Spanish Empire
    • 34,456 killed
    • 3,316 Died at sea
  • Duchy Of Austria
    • 234,000 killed
  • Principailty Of Hungary
    • 49,000 killed

Total: 576,772

| casualties2 =

  • Ottoman Empire
    • 1,134.456 killed
  • Morocco
    • 89,454 killed

Total: 1,223,910‬

| campaignbox =

}}

The Great Eastern Crisis of 1542–46 (Turkish - Büyük doğu krii) was a conflict between the

subjugated for almost 150 years. Additional factors of combined Russian goals included halting Ottoman Expansion and presence in Crimea and and Eastern Europe. The war would go on to be one of the bloodiest in the history of the world at the time claming 2,327,682 lives and devastaning over 1500 provinces
.

The Russian-led coalition did not achive any of their primary goals of conquest. As a result, Russia singed on behalf of the entire coalition signed the

Kiev which created a White Peace for 10 years. The indirect goals of halting Ottoman Expansion in Eastern Europe however did have some effect; essentially crippling the Ottoman ecomomy driving them over 30,000 ducats in debt and completly draining their active manpower
pool. (See Aftermath for indepth analysis)


Build-up to the war

Ottoman - Russian relations.

One of the primary driving forces behind the Russian declaration of war was the deteroiating

diplomatic situation between the Ottoman Empire and Recently founded Russian Empire. Just 30 years prior to the conflict, Russian-Ottoman relations were relativly good having been in an alliance for 4 years for the sole reason of weakening and annexing a emerging Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelath. The war was a pyrrhic victory for the Ottoman-Russian forces annexing 9 provincses and devastating the economy. However quickly after it ended Russian anger grew almost imediatly as they were granted only 2 of these provincses and a small some of money despite having lost upwards of 70,000 men in the fighting and had occupied all of Easten Poland-Lithuania including its capital
. This coupled with the growing economic and military might of the Ottomans led them to break off the alliance shortly after the war and would adopt a hostile attitude towards them for the next 250 years.

Crisis in Lebanon, 1860

Main article:
1860 Mount Lebanon civil war

In 1858, the

civil war. Although both sides suffered, about 10,000 Maronites were massacred at the hands of the Druze.[1][2]

Under the threat of European intervention, Ottoman authorities restored order. Nevertheless, French and British intervention followed.[3] Under further European pressure, the Sultan agreed to appoint a Christian governor in Lebanon, whose candidacy was to be submitted by the Sultan and approved by the European powers.[1]

On May 27, 1860 a group of Maronites raided a Druze village.[

American and Dutch
consuls, giving the event an international dimension.

Ottoman foreign minister Mehmed Fuad Pasha came to Syria and solved the problems by seeking out and executing the culprits, including the governor and other officials. Order was restored, and preparations made to give Lebanon new autonomy to avoid European intervention. Nevertheless, in September 1860 France sent a fleet, and Britain joined to prevent a unilateral intervention that could help increase French influence in the area at Britain's expense.[3]

The revolt in Crete, 1866–1869

Moni Arkadiou
monastery

The

Greece.[4]
The insurgents gained control over the whole island, except for five fortified cities where the Muslims took refuge. The Greek press claimed that Muslims had massacred Greeks and the word was spread throughout Europe. Thousands of Greek volunteers were mobilized and sent to the island.

The siege of

Moni Arkadiou monastery became particularly well known. In November 1866, about 250 Cretan Greek combatants and around 600 women and children were besieged by about 23,000 mainly Cretan Muslims aided by Ottoman troops, and this became widely known in Europe. After a bloody battle with a large number of casualties on both sides, the Cretan Greeks finally surrendered when their ammunition ran out but were killed upon surrender.[5]

By early 1869, the insurrection was suppressed, but

the Porte
offered some concessions, introducing island self-rule and increasing Christian rights on the island. Although the Cretan crisis ended better for the Ottomans than almost any other diplomatic confrontation of the century, the insurrection, and especially the brutality with which it was suppressed, led to greater public attention in Europe to the oppression of Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

Small as the amount of attention is which can be given by the people of England to the affairs of Turkey ... enough was transpiring from time to time to produce a vague but a settled and general impression that the Sultans were not fulfilling the "solemn promises" they had made to Europe; that the vices of the Turkish government were ineradicable; and that whenever another crisis might arise affecting the "independence" of the Ottoman Empire, it would be wholly impossible to afford to it again the support we had afforded in the

Crimean war.[6]

Changing balance of power in Europe

Although on the winning side in the

Constanţa and Varna, which cost a great deal in money and in civil disorder to the Ottoman authorities.[7]

The New European Concert

The

Three Emperors' League
with Austria and Russia to keep France isolated on the continent.

France responded by supporting self-determination movements, particularly if they concerned the three emperors and the Sultan. Thus revolts in Poland against Russia and national aspirations in the Balkans were encouraged by France. Russia worked to regain its right to maintain a fleet on the Black Sea and vied with the French in gaining influence in the Balkans by using the new

Pan-Slavic idea that all Slavs should be united under Russian leadership. This could be done only by destroying the two empires where most non-Russian Slavs lived, the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empires. The ambitions and the rivalries of the Russians and French in the Balkans surfaced in Serbia, which was experiencing its own national revival and had ambitions that partly conflicted with those of the great powers.[8]

Russia after the Crimean War

Alexander Gorchakov

Russia ended the Crimean War with minimal territorial losses, but was forced to destroy its Black Sea Fleet and Sevastopol fortifications. Russian international prestige was damaged, and for many years revenge for the Crimean War became the main goal of Russian foreign policy. This was not easy though — the Paris Peace Treaty included guarantees of Ottoman territorial integrity by Great Britain, France and Austria; only Prussia remained friendly to Russia.

The newly appointed Russian chancellor,

Alexander Gorchakov depended upon alliance with Prussia and its chancellor Bismarck. Russia consistently supported Prussia in her wars with Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870). In March 1871, using the crushing French defeat and the support of a grateful Germany, Russia achieved international recognition of its earlier denouncement of Article 11 of the Paris Peace Treaty, thus enabling it to revive the Black Sea Fleet
.

Other clauses of the Paris Peace Treaty, however, remained in force, specifically Article 8 with guarantees of Ottoman territorial integrity by Great Britain, France and Austria. Therefore, Russia was extremely cautious in its relations with the Ottoman Empire, coordinating all its actions with other European powers. A Russian war with Turkey would require at least the tacit support of all other Great Powers, and Russian diplomacy was waiting for a convenient moment.

Balkan crisis of 1875–1876

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 in 1850.

Austria consolidated after the turmoil of the first half of the century and sought to reinvigorate its longstanding 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.

Balkan uprisings

Herzegovina Uprising

Main article:
Herzegovina Uprising (1875–78)

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.

Bulgarian Uprising

Main article:
April Uprising
Bashi-bazouks' atrocities in Macedonia

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 (Nisam) and irregular ones (Redif or Bashi-bazouk) were directed to fight the Bulgarians (May 11 – June 9, 1876). The irregulars were mostly drawn from the Muslim inhabitants of the Bulgarian regions, many of whom were Circassian Islamic population which migrated from the Caucasus or Crimean Tatars who were expelled during the Crimean War and even Islamized Bulgarians. The Turkish army suppressed the revolt, massacring up to 30,000[9][10] people in the process.[11][12] Five thousand out of the seven thousand villagers of Batak were put to death.[13] Both Batak and Perushtitsa, where the majority of the population was also massacred, participated in the rebellion.[10] Many of the perpetrators of those massacres were later decorated by the Ottoman high command.[10] Modern historians have estimated the number of killed Bulgarian population is between 30,000 and 100,000. The Turkish military carried on horribly unjust acts upon the Bulgarian populations.[14]

  • Konstantin Makovsky, The Bulgarian Martyresses, a painting depicting the atrocities of bashibazouks in Macedonia.
    bashibazouks in Macedonia
    .
  • Bashibazouks held captive by the Bulgarian and Russian army.
    Bashibazouks
    held captive by the Bulgarian and Russian army.
  • Bashi-Bazouks, returning with the spoils from the Romanian shore of the Danube.
    Bashi-Bazouks, returning with the spoils from the Romanian shore of the Danube.

International reaction to atrocities in Bulgaria

Word of the bashi-bazouks' atrocities filtered to the outside world by way of American-run Robert College located in

Soukoum Kaleh. He was able to coordinate with British diplomat Edward Malet to bring the matter to the attention of the Sublime Porte, and then to the British foreign secretary Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (the Marquess of Salisbury).[15] In Britain, where Disraeli's government was committed to supporting the Ottomans in the ongoing Balkan crisis, the Liberal opposition newspaper Daily News hired American journalist Januarius A. MacGahan
to report on the massacre stories firsthand.

MacGahan toured the stricken regions of the Bulgarian uprising, and his report, splashed across the Daily News's front pages, galvanized British public opinion against Disraeli's pro-Ottoman policy.[16] In September, opposition leader William Gladstone published his Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East[17] calling upon Britain to withdraw its support for Turkey and proposing that Europe demand independence for Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[18] As the details became known across Europe, many dignitaries, including Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi, publicly condemned the Ottoman abuses in Bulgaria.[19]

The strongest reaction came from Russia. Widespread sympathy for the Bulgarian cause led to a nationwide surge in patriotism on a scale comparable with the one during the

Slavophiles, including Dostoevsky, saw in the impending war the chance to unite all Orthodox nations under Russia's helm, thus fulfilling what they believed was the historic mission of Russia, while their opponents, westernizers, inspired by Turgenev, denied the importance of religion and believed that Russian goals should not be defense of Orthodoxy but liberation of Bulgaria.[20]

Serbo-Turkish War and diplomatic manoeuvering

Main articles:
Expulsion of the Albanians 1877–1878
Serio-comic war map for 1877. Anti-Russian cartoon depicting Russia as a vicious octopus.
Russia preparing to release the Balkan dogs of war, while Britain warns him to take care. Punch cartoon from June 17, 1876

On June 30, 1876, Serbia, followed by

Count Andrássy in the Reichstadt castle in Bohemia. No written agreement was made, but during the discussions, Russia agreed to support Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Austria-Hungary, in exchange, agreed to support the return of Southern Bessarabia—lost by Russia during the Crimean War—and Russian annexation of the port of Batum on the east coast of the Black Sea. Bulgaria was to become autonomous (independent, according to the Russian records).[21]

As the fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina continued, Serbia suffered a string of setbacks and asked the European powers to mediate an end to the war. A joint ultimatum by the European powers forced the Porte to give Serbia a one-month truce and start peace negotiations. Turkish peace conditions however were refused by European powers as too harsh. In early October, after the truce expired, the Turkish army resumed its offensive and the Serbian position quickly became desperate. On October 31, Russia issued an ultimatum requiring the Ottoman Empire to stop the hostilities and sign a new truce with Serbia within 48 hours. This was supported by the partial mobilization of the Russian army (up to 20 divisions). The Sultan accepted the conditions of the ultimatum.

To resolve the crisis, on December 11, 1876, the

constitution
was adopted that declared equal rights for religious minorities within the Empire. The Ottomans attempted to use this manoeuver to get their objections and amendments to the agreement heard. When they were rejected by the Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire announced its decision to disregard the results of the conference.

On January 15, 1877, Russia and Austria-Hungary signed a written agreement confirming the results of an earlier Reichstadt Agreement in July 1876. This assured Russia of the benevolent neutrality of Austria-Hungary in the impending war. These terms meant that in case of war Russia would do the fighting and Austria would derive most of the advantage. Russia therefore made a final effort for a peaceful settlement. After reaching an agreement with its main Balkan rival and with anti-Ottoman sympathies running high throughout Europe due to the Bulgarian atrocities and the rejection of the Constantinople agreements, Russia finally felt free to declare war.

Course of the war

See also: Romanian War of Independence

Opening manoeuvres

Dragoons of Nizhny Novgorod pursuing the Turks near Kars, 1877, painting by Aleksey Kivshenko

Russia declared war on the Ottomans on 24 April 1877 and its troops entered Romania through the newly built

Principality of Romania, which was under formal Turkish rule, declared its independence.[22]

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.[23] They also possessed superior arms, including new British and American-made rifles and German-made artillery.

Russian crossing of the Danube, June 1877, painting by Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky, 1883

In the event, however, the Ottomans usually resorted to passive defense, leaving the strategic initiative to the Russians, who, after making some mistakes, found a winning strategy for the war. The Ottoman military command in Constantinople made poor assumptions about Russian intentions. They decided that Russians would be too lazy to march along the Danube and cross it away from the delta, and would prefer the short way along the Black Sea coast. This would be ignoring the fact that the coast had the strongest, best supplied and garrisoned Turkish fortresses. There was only one well manned fortress along the inner part of the river Danube, Vidin. It was garrisoned only because the troops, led by Osman Pasha, had just taken part in defeating the Serbs in their recent war against the Ottoman Empire.

The Russian campaign was better planned, but it relied heavily on Turkish passivity. A crucial Russian mistake was sending too few troops initially; an expeditionary force of about 185,000 crossed the Danube in June, slightly fewer than the combined Turkish forces in the Balkans (about 200,000). After setbacks in July (at Pleven and Stara Zagora), the Russian military command realized it did not have the reserves to keep the offensive going and switched to a defensive posture. The Russians did not even have enough forces to blockade Pleven properly until late August, which effectively delayed the whole campaign for about two months.

Balkan theatre

Map of the Balkan Theater

At the start of the war, Russia and Romania destroyed all vessels along the Danube and

Ruse
). This made the Ottomans even more confident that the big Russian force would come right through the middle of the Ottoman stronghold.

Russian, Romanian and Ottoman troop movements at Plevna

On 25–26 May, a Romanian torpedo boat with a mixed Romanian-Russian crew

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.

Fighting near Ivanovo-Chiflik

Responding to the Russian crossing of the Danube, the Ottoman high command in Constantinople ordered

Osman Nuri Paşa to advance east from Vidin occupy the fortress of Nikopol, just west of the Russian crossing. On his way to Nikopol, Osman Pasha learned that the Russians had already captured the fortress and so moved to the crossroads town of Plevna (now known as Pleven), which he occupied with a force of approximately 15,000 on 19 July (NS).[26] The Russians, approximately 9,000 under the command of General Schilder-Schuldner, reached Plevna early in the morning. Thus began the Siege of Plevna
.

Osman Pasha organized a defense and repelled two Russian attacks with colossal casualties on the Russian side. At that point, the sides were almost equal in numbers and the Russian army was very discouraged.[27] Most analysts agree that a counter-attack would have allowed the Ottomans to gain control of, and destroy, the Russians' bridge.[who?] However, Osman Pasha had orders to stay fortified in Plevna, and so he did not leave that fortress.

Gazi Osman Pasha
The Ottoman capitulation at Niğbolu (Nicopolis, modern Nikopol) in 1877 was significant, as it was the site of an important Ottoman victory in 1396 which marked the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into the Balkans.

Russia had no more troops to throw against Plevna, so the Russians besieged it, and subsequently asked

Carol I, aided by the Russian general Pavel Dmitrievich Zotov and the Romanian general Alexandru Cernat
.

The Turks maintained several fortresses around Pleven which the Russian and Romanian forces gradually reduced.[29][30][page needed] The Romanian 4th Division led by General Gheorghe Manu took the Grivitsa redoubt after four bloody assaults and managed to keep it until the very end of the siege. The siege of Plevna (July–December 1877) turned to victory only after Russian and Romanian forces cut off all supply routes to the fortified Ottomans. With supplies running low, Osman Pasha made an attempt to break the Russian siege in the direction of Opanets. On December 9, in the middle of the night the Ottomans threw bridges over the Vit River and crossed it, attacked on a 2-mile (3.2 km) front and broke through the first line of Russian trenches. Here they fought hand to hand and bayonet to bayonet, with little advantage to either side. Outnumbering the Ottomans almost 5 to 1, the Russians drove the Ottomans back across the Vit. Osman Pasha was wounded in the leg by a stray bullet, which killed his horse beneath him. Making a brief stand, the Ottomans eventually found themselves driven back into the city, losing 5,000 men to the Russians' 2,000. The next day, Osman surrendered the city, the garrison, and his sword to the Romanian colonel, Mihail Cerchez. He was treated honorably, but his troops perished in the snows by the thousand as they straggled off into captivity. The more seriously wounded were left behind in their camp hospitals, only to be murdered by the Bulgarians.[31][dubious – discuss]

Taking of the Grivitsa redoubt by the Russians – a few hours later the redoubt was recaptured by the Ottomans and fell to the Romanians on 30 August 1877 in what became known as the "Third Battle of Grivitsa".

At this point Serbia, having finally secured monetary aid from Russia, declared war on the Ottoman Empire again. This time there were far fewer Russian officers in the Serbian army but this was more than offset by the experience gained from the 1876–77 war. Under nominal command of prince Milan Obrenović (effective command was in hands of general Kosta Protić, the army chief of staff), the Serbian Army went on offensive in what is now eastern south Serbia. A planned offensive into the Ottoman Sanjak of Novi Pazar was called off due to strong diplomatic pressure from Austria-Hungary, which wanted to prevent Serbia and Montenegro from coming into contact, and which had designs to spread Austria-Hungary's influence through the area. The Ottomans, outnumbered unlike two years before, mostly confined themselves to passive defence of fortified positions. By the end of hostilities the Serbs had captured Ak-Palanka (today Bela Palanka), Pirot, Niš and Vranje.

Battle at bridge Skit, November 1877

Russians under

Stara Planina mountain, which were crucial for maneuvering. Next, both sides fought a series of battles for Shipka Pass. Gourko made several attacks on the Pass
and eventually secured it. Ottoman troops spent much effort to recapture this important route, to use it to reinforce Osman Pasha in Pleven, but failed. Eventually Gourko led a final offensive that crushed the Ottomans around Shipka Pass. The Ottoman offensive against Shipka Pass is considered one of the major mistakes of the war, as other passes were virtually unguarded. At this time a huge number of Ottoman troops stayed fortified along the Black Sea coast and engaged in very few operations.

A Russian army crossed the Stara Planina by a high snowy pass in winter, guided and helped by local Bulgarians, not expected by the Ottoman army, and defeated the Turks at the Battle of Tashkessen and took Sofia. The way was now open for a quick advance through Plovdiv and Edirne to Constantinople.

Besides the

Old Guard
Battalion.

Caucasian theatre

Beyazid
on June 8, 1877, oil painting by Lev Feliksovich Lagorio, 1891

The Russian Caucasus Corps was stationed in

heavy artillery and was outgunned, for example, by the superior long-range Krupp artillery that Germany had supplied to the Ottomans.[33]

The Caucasus Corps was led by a quartet of

Kars Oblast.[37]

Civilian government in Bulgaria during the war

Main article: Provisional Russian Administration in Bulgaria
Plevna Chapel near the walls of Kitay-gorod

After Bulgarian territories were liberated by the Imperial Russian Army during the war, they were governed initially by a provisional Russian administration, which was established in April 1877. The Treaty of Berlin (1878) provided for the termination of this provisional Russian administration in May 1879, when the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia were established.[38] The main objectives of the temporary Russian administration were to secure peace and order and to prepare for a revival of the Bulgarian state.

Aftermath

Intervention by the Great Powers

Under pressure from the British, Russia accepted the truce offered by the Ottoman Empire on January 31, 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

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.[39]

Effects on Bulgaria's Muslim and Christian population

Tarnovo towards Shumen
Bones of massacred Bulgarians at Stara Zagora
Circassian horseman, during the Russo-Turkish War

Muslim civilian casualties during the war are often estimated in the tens of thousands.

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, which as a result thousands died and their goods confiscated.[43][44] The correspondent of the Daily News describes as an eyewitness the burning of four or five Turkish villages by the Russian troops in response to the Turks firing at the Russians from the villages, instead of behind rocks or trees[45]
, which must have appeared to the Russian soldiers as guerrilla attempts by the local Muslim populace upon the Russian contingencies operating against the Ottoman forces embedded in the area.

The number of Muslim refugees is estimated by RJ Crampton to be 130,000.[46] Richard C. Frucht estimates that only half (700,000) of the prewar Muslim population remained after the war, 216,000 had died and the rest emigrated.[47] Douglas Arthur Howard estimates that half the 1.5 million Muslims, for the most part Turks, in prewar Bulgaria had disappeared by 1879. 200,000 had died, the rest became permanently refugees in Ottoman territories.[48] However, it should be noted that according to one estimate, the total population of Bulgaria in its postwar borders was about 2.8 million in 1871,[49] while according to official censuses, the total population was 2.823 million in 1880/81.[50] And as such would make the aforementioned claim of 216,000 - 2.8 millions of persons dead due to Russian engagement and the subsequent fleeing of the majority of the Muslim population highly questionable.

During the conflict a number of Muslim buildings and cultural centres were destroyed. A large library of old Turkish books was destroyed when a mosque in Turnovo was burned in 1877.[51] Most mosques in Sofia perished, seven of them destroyed in one night in December 1878 when a thunderstorm masked the noise of the explosions arranged by Russian military engineers."[52]

The Christian population, especially in the initial stages of the war, that found itself in the path of the Ottoman armies also suffered greatly.

The most notable massacre of Bulgarian civilians took part after the July

deserters, bashi-bazouks and Circassians).[55]

Bulgarian historians claim that 30,000 civilian Bulgarians were killed during the war, two thirds of which occurred in the Stara Zagora area.[56]

Effects on Bulgaria's Jewish population

Many Jewish communities in their entirety fled with the retreating Turks as their protectors. The Bulletins de l'

Bulgarian Jews found refuge at the Ottoman capital of Constantinople.[57]

Internationalization of the Armenian Question

Emigration of Armenians into Georgia during the Russo-Turkish war

The conclusion of the Russo-Turkish war also led to the internationalization of the

Turkish Armenia) of the Ottoman Empire greeted the advancing Russians as liberators. Violence and instability directed at Armenians during the war by Kurd and Circassian bands had left many Armenians looking toward the invading Russians as the ultimate guarantors of their security. In January 1878, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Nerses II Varzhapetian
approached the Russian leadership with the view of receiving assurances that the Russians would introduce provisions in the prospective peace treaty for self-administration in the Armenian provinces. Though not as explicit, Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano read:

As the evacuation of the Russian troops of the territory they occupy in Armenia, and which is to be restored to Turkey, might give rise to conflicts and complications detrimental to the maintenance of good relations between the two countries, the Sublime Porte engaged to carry into effect, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians and to guarantee their security from Kurds and Circassians.[58]

Great Britain, however, took objection to Russia holding on to so much Ottoman territory and forced it to enter into new negotiations by convening the Congress of Berlin in June 1878. An Armenian delegation led by prelate Mkrtich Khrimian traveled to Berlin to present the case of the Armenians but, much to its chagrin, was left out of the negotiations. Article 16 was modified and watered down, and all mention of the Russian forces remaining in the provinces was removed. In the final text of the Treaty of Berlin, it was transformed into Article 61, which read:

The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the powers, who will superintend their application.[59]

As it turned out, the reforms were not forthcoming. Khrimian returned to Constantinople and delivered a famous speech in which he likened the peace conference to a "'big cauldron of Liberty Stew' into which the big nations dipped their 'iron ladles' for real results, while the Armenian delegation had only a 'Paper Ladle'. 'Ah dear Armenian people,' Khrimian said, 'could I have dipped my Paper Ladle in the cauldron it would sog and remain there! Where guns talk and sabers shine, what significance do appeals and petitions have?'"[60] Given the absence of tangible improvements in the plight of the Armenian community, a number of Armenian intellectuals living in Europe and Russia in the 1880s and 1890s formed political parties and revolutionary societies to secure better conditions for their compatriots in Anatolia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire.[61]

Lasting effects

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

Red Crescent
emblems

This war caused a division in the

Muslim countries, and was ratified as an emblem of protection by later Geneva Conventions
in 1929 and again in 1949 (the current version).

Ottoman flag (and the modern Turkish flag). This appears to have led to their national society in the Movement being initially known as the Red Lion and Sun Society, using a red version of the Lion and Sun, a traditional Iranian symbol. After the Iranian Revolution
of 1979, Iran switched to the Red Crescent, but the Geneva Conventions continue to recognize the Red Lion and Sun as an emblem of protection.

In popular culture

The 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[62].

The novel The Doll (Polish title: Lalka), 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.

The 1912 silent film Independența României depicted the war in Romania.

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^ a b "Lebanon", Country Studies, US: Library of Congress, 1994.
  2. ^ Churchill, C (1862), The Druzes and the Maronites under the Turkish rule from 1840 to 1860, London: B Quaritch, p. 219.
  3. ^ a b Shaw & Shaw 1977, pp. 142–43.
  4. S2CID 159657337
    .
  5. eBook#11594
    .
  6. ^ Argyll 1879, p. 122.
  7. ^ Finkel, Caroline (2005), The History of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Basic Books, p. 467.
  8. ^ Shaw & Shaw 1977, p. 146.
  9. ^ Hupchick 2002, p. 264.
  10. ^ a b c Jonassohn 1999, pp. 209–10.
  11. ^ Eversley, Baron George Shaw-Lefevre (1924), The Turkish empire from 1288 to 1914, p. 319.
  12. ^ Jonassohn 1999, p. 210.
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    )    .
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Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Media related to Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) at Wikimedia Commons

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Russo-Turkish War (1877–78).

Video links

130 years Liberation of Pleven (Plevna)


* Category:Conflicts in 1877 Category:Conflicts in 1878 Category:Modern history of Bulgaria Category:Wars involving Chechnya Category:Wars involving Romania Category:Wars involving Serbia Category:Wars involving Montenegro Category:Wars involving Bulgaria Category:Russo-Turkish wars Category:1877 in Bulgaria Category:1878 in Bulgaria Category:1870s in the Ottoman Empire Category:Modern history of Armenia Category:Modern history of Georgia (country)

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