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Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Bulgaria is liberated after 500 years of Ottoman rule and the Great Powers of Europe will stir the Balkans and each other one step closer to World War I.

Prior to the events of the war one needs to visit the history of the region. Bulgaria in the middle ages was a major power in Eastern and Southern Europe at varying times. In the 7th century a nomadic group of Turkic tribes from the Eurasian steppes north of the Black Sea had over time migrated westward and southward on down to the Balkans and south of the Danube. This group of Turkic tribes was called the Bulgars.

The Bulgars were led by Asparukh, who became Khan of Bulgaria. The Bulgars served as a military and political elite over the prior two major groups of people that had lived in this region of the eastern Balkans and south of the Danube by the time of their arrival. The first group were the Thracians who since ancient times were a separate Indo-European speaking group of tribes that interacted with the Persians, Greeks, Celts, Germans and Romans that all came to the region over the centuries. The Thracians had by the time of the arrival of the next group largely become culturally absorbed into the Hellenic and later Roman world. Thracians did maintain some of their language into this time and some cultural traditions but by and large had become Hellenized Thraco-Roman citizens. The next group were the Slavs, another Indo-European group that had somewhat uncertain origins, believed to be in the vicinity of modern Belarus and Ukraine, they had migrated in massive numbers throughout the Balkans, becoming the majority populace in many parts, forming the South Slav branch of Slavic peoples which exist in the present. They had warred off and on with the Eastern Roman Empire, known to history as the Byzantine Empire or Greek dominated half of the Roman Empire from its capital in Constantinople.

681 was the year the Bulgars rose against the Byzantine Empire with their Slav allies. The Byzantines were defeated and the First Bulgarian Empire was declared as a result with Asparukh as its Khan or ruler. Initially, the Bulgars, the Slavs and the Hellenized Thraco-Romans all had separate cultures living under one polity. The Slavs and Bulgars had their own pagan religions and the former Byzantine citizens were Orthodox Christians. The Slavs being the most numerous group, gradually assimilated the Thracians and the Bulgars into a Slavic ethnolinguistic group that formed the basis for the modern day Bulgarian people. They spoke a Slavic language and had a majority of the population but they took the name and cultural heritage of the Bulgars as well as the Thracians giving Bulgaria its own unique blend of traditions. Bulgaria also became the first Orthodox Christian Slavic state, taking on the Byzantine state religion as its own. The Bulgarians eventually developed the Cyrillic alphabet and spread the language known as Old Church Slavonic or Old Bulgarian among the clergy of Southern Slavs. The First Bulgarian Empire grew fairly expansive and over the centuries it continued to both rival and assist the Byzantine Empire. Though civil war and invasions from other powers weakened the Bulgarian state. In 1018, it was conquered by the Byzantine Empire under the rule of Basil II, Byzantine Emperor.

For the next 170 years until 1185, Bulgaria remained part of the Byzantine Empire. An uprising by two brothers, Ivan Asen & Peter lead to the reestablishment of the Bulgarian state, a Second Bulgarian Empire. It too clashed with the Byzantine Empire. It also clashed with the Latin Empire, made up of French, German and Italian Crusaders who forsake their original mission to go to the Holy Land and instead sacked Constantinople in 1204, temporarily breaking up the Byzantine Empire into several Greek rump states in Greece and Anatolia. The Second Bulgarian Empire, became a powerful state and cultural hub in the Middle Ages. However, it faced continual warfare with the Latin Crusaders, various Greek states including the restored Byzantine Empire as well as Serbia, Hungary and the Mongol Empire. This combined with civil war weakened the state once more. By the end of the 14th century in the year 1396, the Second Bulgarian Empire was overtaken by a new threat from the east, the Ottoman Empire.

The Muslim threat to Europe had been an issue off an on for centuries with the Arab Caliphates and the Seljuk Turks but none had the success of the Ottoman Empire, which started as an Turkic emirate under Osman I, that rose by gradual conquest in Anatolia. By the time Bulgaria had been conquered the Ottomans were using the Balkans as a launching pad to surround Constantinople and finish off the Byzantine Empire, which is finally did in 1453. From there the rest of the Balkans were virtually under its control, Bosnia, Serbia, Greece, Albania, Romania, Macedonia and Bulgaria all were effectively under the Ottomans rule.

For the next 500 years, there were a number of local rebellions but none were successful, and often the other European powers were busy fighting each other so the Balkans continued under Ottoman rule. In Bulgaria, as elsewhere the Ottomans imposed a new Turkish elite upon the native populace. The Ottomans didn’t divide typically along ethnic grounds but more religious ones. Muslims, Christians and Jews could coexist but the hierarchy clearly placed Muslims at the top. Christians tended to be Orthodox Christians and the Patriarch of Constantinople, a Greek Byzantine position tended to make all other Orthodox Christians subordinate to them, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was under Greek auspices under the overall Turkish rule or Turkish Yoke as it became known. The Bulgarian culture and language was in danger of being subsumed if it were not in part for the local clergy who kept the language, culture and history alive in monasteries and among the rural populace who made up the country’s majority, typically these monasteries were found in relative isolation among Bulgaria’s many mountain ranges, safely tucked away from the Turkish run urban centers.

The Turks didn’t always require their subjects to convert to Islam but there many cases of forced conversion of Bulgarians along with other Balkan peoples to Islam. In Bulgaria, this most often occurred along with voluntary conversions or ones brought about by intimidation in the Rhodopes, a mountain range in Southern Bulgaria. A new community, known as Pomaks was formed out of this, Pomaks were ethnic Bulgarians who converted to Islam or who were culturally Turkified. Indeed, Turks also intermixed with the Bulgarian populace, contributing to the Pomak populace or sometimes just by force as conquerors often do. The Turks and Muslims in general nevertheless remained a minority in the province’s history but held the administrative dominance. Turkish nobles divided the land as powerful landlords with the Bulgarian populace being subjected to their landlord’s whims, but these lands were not hereditary and reverted to the Ottoman Sultan upon the landlord’s death. Turkish soldiers were garrisoned throughout the country and imposed harsh crackdowns during rebellions or at the Sultan’s order. One of the many impositions was the so called “blood tax” where young Christian boys were forcibly taken from their families, converted to Islam and forced to serve in the Ottoman army. Additionally, Bulgarian Christians paid a number other taxes, a land tax, commercial taxes, religious tithes and a capitation tax known as the jizya which confirmed their secondary status in the Ottoman Empire. The price for non-conversion was this tax to be paid to Ottoman tax collectors, this tax bought the people protection from the Sultan against harassment and forced conversion. The Ottomans imposed this throughout the empire as did other Muslim nations.

Legally speaking, there were separate courts of law as well. Muslims, Christians and Jews all had their own court system under the Ottomans. However, in cases where a Muslim was accused of an offense against a Christian, Christian testimony was not admitted in the court, allowing for discrimination and often unjust rulings to take place. Mosques also became the dominant religious center in Ottoman Bulgaria’s urban centers, churches still existed but were often found in rural areas and could sometimes be subject to destruction by Muslims.

The Ottoman Empire reached its zenith in the 16th and 17th centuries but found itself at war intractably in Europe with the Hapsburg dynasty of Austria and by the end of the 17th century and into the 18th century, it found a new rival to the north of the Black Sea, the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire under Tsar Peter the Great and his descendants became quite expansive in Eastern Europe as well as the Caucasus region. It took over the Crimean Peninsula and soon battled the Ottoman Turks for control of the Black Sea and surrounding region.

By the end of the 18th century and into the 19th century another issue other than Russian expansionism worsened the Ottoman Empire’s gradual decline, nationalism. In the wake of the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars, ideas of romantic nationalism swept across Europe. Creating a nostalgia that inflamed the cultural passions of many diverse peoples. The Balkans was hard hit by this and soon rebellions in Serbia and Greece took place. In both of these hard-fought wars which saw brutal reprisals from the Ottomans against the local Christian populace and likewise massacres of Muslims by Christians, Russia assisted the independence movements which were ultimately successful if somewhat limited in their initial aspirations. The Ottomans were now being driven from Europe altogether. Inspired by Serbian and Greek success, along with later Romanian independence, Bulgarian nationalists began to organize their own plans for independence. It was however a matter of decades of planning for the opportune moment. The Bulgarians were undergoing a literary, artistic and religious nationalist resurgence during this time, they also hoped for Russian support as fellow Orthodox Christians and ethnic Slavs.

Meanwhile, Russia and the Ottoman Empire continued their struggle for dominance in the east of Europe. However, by the mid 19th-century the geopolitics of the long anticipated collapse of the declining Ottoman state had troublesome considerations for the major western European powers, namely the British Empire and Second French Empire. If the Turks completely fell, the British and French, now allies, worried about the Russian takeover of the Balkans and Asia Minor. Britain and Russia were engaged in a geopolitical struggle called the Great Game which extended from the Balkans to Central Asia and British India and even into the Pacific Ocean. The ailing Ottoman Empire, or Sick Man of Europe as it was called or the Eastern Question, was another theater in this struggle. Things came to ahead when the British and French, allied with the Ottoman Empire in 1853 to repel a Russian invasion of the Danubian Provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia in Romania, areas which were nominally still part of the Ottoman Empire. This placed Russian troops on the north side of the Danube, north of Bulgaria. A push through there onto Constantinople might undo the whole empire. The Crimean War of 1853-1856 started as a result. Eventually, the Allied armies defeated the Russians on the Crimean Peninsula and forced Russia to dismantle its Black Sea navy, forbade its shipping through the Dardanelles and to respect the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The balance of power was restored for the time being.

However, the 1860′s and 1870′ saw the balance of power become even more complex. German unification under Prussian hegemony at the expense of the Danes, Austrians and later the French along with the unification of Italy at the expense of the Austrians introduced two new major players on the European scene. The German Empire and Kingdom of Italy now had their own interests and were forces the French and British had to deal with, not just Russia which sat in relative isolation. For the Ottomans, these developments only complicated matters more as it meant more voices at the power sharing table, for better or worse, the Ottomans had to adapt to it.

By 1876, unrest in the Balkans would cause more trouble for the Ottomans. A rebellion in Bosnia Herzegovina inspired a proposed general uprising by Bulgarian nationalists of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee in April. The uprising was ultimately launched too early and not nearly well coordinated as planned. It had some initial success and saw many Turkish soldiers, policemen and some Muslim civilians killed. However, the Turkish repression was swift and very harsh. The Sultan ordered the Turkish military supported by irregular Muslim militias, called bashi-bazouks to suppress the rebellion. Ultimately, they did with brute force and superior arms. The Ottomans then committed atrocities against Bulgarian population, killing thousands and burning whole towns. Men were shot and beheaded, groups of people locked in churches for sanctuary were burnt alive, women and girls raped or sold off into captivity and slavery and children were killed as well. The numbers ranged from 15,000-30,000 estimated dead. The town of Batak in particular became well associated with the general massacre. One last known act of resistance was a unit of Bulgarian rebels and exiles under the command of poet and nationalist Hristo Botev who crossed the Danube from Romania and launched a brief campaign across Northern Bulgaria before they were defeated in the Balkan mountain range. Botev himself was killed in battle. The Turks had more or less suppressed the rebellion by the end of May.

The Turks made some effort to conceal news of the atrocities but this was not successful and ultimately reports from many sources local and foreign picked up on the stories of massacres and wholesale destruction of Bulgarian towns and populaces. One famous foreign source was Januarius MacGahan, an American born reporter working for the British newspaper, London Daily News and stationed in Constantinople who arranged to tour Bulgaria and areas of the uprising. His reports from interviews with the locals who survived and witnessed the atrocities, along with the graphic evidence of burnt buildings, rotted corpses and stacks of skulls gave all the proof he needed to report this to the world. MacGahan and other reporters’ findings shocked the public in Western Europe, America and indeed in Russia. Britain and France condemned their nominal ally. Russia and Turkey which were antagonistic anyway now found themselves on a course for war.

The Russian leadership wanted to avenge the loss of the Crimean War, break out of their diplomatic isolation and create new states in the Balkans that would be friendly to them and allow a restoration of shipping from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, increasing their sphere of influence, they also wanted Constantinople for their own. The Russian public was outraged and saw the attacks against their fellow Orthodox Slavs in Bulgaria as an affront against Slavic peoples and Orthodox Christians everywhere and one that must be avenged.

To avoid a repeat of the Crimean War, the Russians had to bide their time and use every diplomatic nuance to their advantage. With Britain and France now at odds with the Ottomans due to the influence of negative public opinion in light of the Bulgarian massacres, there was no chance they would intervene on Turkey’s behalf. Germany preferred to stay neutral and the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s neutrality was bought out by Russian influence. The Ottomans would have to face the Russians alone. To make matters worse, the Russians established a coalition of South Slavs from Serbia and Montenegro along with Romania, all of which were semi-autonomous but tributaries of the Ottoman Empire and sought to sever their final Turkish connection once and for all. Russian Tsar Alexander II declared war in April of 1877 against Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the Ottoman Empire.

The Russians and Romanians crossed the Danube that spring under Turkish fire. The Russians were better prepared and the war’s outcome was more or less determined from the outcome, the Turks while they had modern weapons were in a poor financial state, had bad infrastructure and were spread out to fight on multiple fronts against the Serbs and Montenegrins in addition to the Russians and Romanians. Not to mention, a renewed Bulgarian insurgency, this time made up of far more volunteers angered by the atrocities of 1876 and now supplied and working with the Russians joined the allied coalition which would slow Turkish progress. The Russians initially did not send enough troops as expected due to overconfidence and their plan required a passive defense by the Turks, this was not always the case and long drawn out sieges by mid summer slowed their advance to the Balkan mountains in north central Bulgaria, namely the Siege of Pleven. The concern for both sides was that the Russians would have to contribute more troops to the Balkans to make a decisive breakthrough.

The Russians had their perennial logistical problems and more troops and supplies had to be rushed to Balkan front. Additionally, there was a front fought in the Caucasus region and eastern Anatolia as well, though this served more or less as a side theater, Bulgaria was the decisive theater of operations. The Russians were concerned the Turks might actually reinforce their troops under siege, relief them and drive the Allies back north of the Danube, by which time the major European powers might intervene and force an end to the war. The Turks likewise were concerned about the Russian reinforcements and considered time a factor here. If the besieged Turkish armies in Northern Bulgaria fell, the Thracian Plain of the country’s center would be open and then onto Rumelia and Constantinople itself.

The Turks understood the only way to relief Pleven and elsewhere was to pass through the Balkan Mountains. The quickest route was the Shipka Pass. The Russians had in July wrestled control of the strategic pass from the Turks. In August it was now occupied by a detachment of 2,000 Russians and 5,500 Bulgarian volunteers. The Turkish commander, Suleyman Pasha had a 40,000 strong force on its way to relief Pleven. He became aware of Shipka being in Russo-Bulgarian hands and decided out of necessity he would force his way through. Convinced his numbers, modern arms and low opinion of the Bulgarian volunteers fighting abilities would be sufficient to win the day. Upon securing Shipka, he would head north to relief the besieged Turkish armies. What followed would be the decisive moment in the war and a moment etched in Bulgarian historical memory, akin to Saratoga, Yorktown or Gettysburg in American military history. The Bulgarians and Russians lacked numbers but they held the high ground, always a textbook advantage in battle. They were also highly motivated. If they could deny the Turks passage through the mountains they would deny any relief to Pleven and save the Russian offensive by buying crucial time for reinforcements.

The Turks starting August 21st made several infantry charges against the Bulgarians and Russians numerous times up the mountains of Shipka Pass, each attack was repulsed with heavy losses on both sides. Only determination on the Allied side combined with a timely Russian reinforcement and a Bulgarian bayonet charge held off the Turks who by August 26th were exhausted and facing mounting casualties, decided to withdraw and regroup. The romantic and iconic image that emerged from Shipka Pass later used in Bulgarian nationalist circles really showed the desperate state they were in by battle’s end. Bulgarian and Russian troops by days five and six of the battle were so low on ammunition that they resorted to throwing rocks and the corpses of fallen comrades to kill, injure and deter the exhausted Ottoman troops. The timely arrival of reinforcements along coupled with the aforementioned Bulgarian bayonet charge is what saved the day in the end. Nevertheless, the bravery of the Bulgarian volunteers at Shipka showed the Ottomans they had underestimated their enemy.

in September 1877, Suleyman Pasha again attempted to take Shipka with reinforced artillery. They shelled the positions hoping to soften the Russian and Bulgarian defenses before another infantry charge would take the pass. The Russians had improved the defensive lines though in the preceding month. There wasn’t much in the way of reinforcement but some troops were fresh to replace those lost in August. The initial Ottoman charge worked but a Russian counterattack drove the Turks downhill, all subsequent Ottoman attacks were repulsed as well. Shipka remained in Russian and Bulgarian hands and with winter approaching, the Turks knew they couldn’t force another attack until the following spring. The Allies had denied the Turks the crucial relief force they needed and Pleven fell by December to the Russians, Romanians and Bulgarian Legions.

Having taken Pleven, the Russians swooped west and liberated Sofia from the Turks. The Turks were again camped in front of Shipka hoping to breakthrough and cutoff the Russian flow of troops. However the Russians already in Sofia swung east and south attacking the Turks and now cutting them off, the fourth and final battle of Shipka proved to be a defeat for the Turks again. Northern Bulgaria was secured and liberated.

The Russians now advanced to Plovdiv in Central Bulgaria, the last major Ottoman stronghold in the country. Russian dragoons were able to storm the defenses of the city in mid-January 1878 Eventually overwhelming Russians numbers turned the tide in their favor. The war was for intents and purposes over. The Turks in the coming weeks launched a confused and desperate fighting retreat, being pursued by the Allies across Southern Bulgaria into European Turkey itself. The Russians advanced to the outskirts of Constantinople. On January 31st, 1878 the Turks and offered a truce to the Russians. The Russians accepted and both sides agreed to a preliminary treaty signing.

The Treaty of San Stefano signed on March 3, 1878 agreed to the following, the Ottoman Empire agreed to full independence for Serbia, Montenegro and Romania. It also agreed to Bulgarian autonomy, meaning the Bulgarian state would become de-facto independent but would nominally still be a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, like Serbia and Romania had been previously. The proposed Bulgarian borders were quite extensive granting access to the Aegean and Black Seas, parts of modern Greece and Serbia and almost all of Macedonia. Bulgaria would become the Principality of Bulgaria with its own Christian run government, army and internal control. It gave the Bulgarians there first measure of independence in nearly 500 years. It also granted minor territories to Russia in the Caucasus region and opened up neutral shipping in the Dardanelles during times of peace or war. The Russians however claim, this treaty was always a rough draft and knew the Great Powers of Europe, including the Ottomans would object for the purposes of balancing power. It granted too much potential Russian influence in other words.

German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck organized the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to address changes to the Treaty of San Stefano. The Congress included representatives from Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ottoman Empire as well as Greece, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. Bulgarian representatives were not invited. It made many amendments to San Stefano since the other powers wanted to balance the changes the Russians had brought about while satisfying their own concerns. Romania, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro wanted territory for themselves and saw an enlarged Greater Bulgaria as an obstacle to that. Britain’s main concern was limiting Russian influence in the Balkans and access to the Mediterranean. France shared in these concerns. The Germans wanted to balance the Russians and Austrians needs. The Russians were granted territories from Romania. Romania’s independence was reaffirmed and they gained territory in Dobruja at Bulgaria’s expense. Serbia, Greece and Montenegro also gained territory at Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire’s expense and Serbia and Montenegro’s independence was reaffirmed. Britain also occupied Cyprus, taking over from the Ottomans, using it as a bulwark against the Russians and to protect the Suez Canal in Egypt under British administration. Austria-Hungary having previously lost territory to Italy and influence to Germany was looking for compensation, it found it when it was allowed to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina at the expense of the Ottomans. The Ottomans for their part lost much of their European territory and had to accept the reality of their increasing decline with the full independence of three states and the new semi-independence of Bulgaria. as compensation and to offset total Russian influence, southern Bulgaria, called Eastern Rumelia was reverted to the Ottomans. This region had large Turkish and Muslim minorities so it seemed sensible to the Great Powers that this should happen.

The Congress of Berlin was meant to settle the balance of power in the Balkans and satisfy all participants. In reality, it sowed the seeds of further conflict, leaving the nationalist aspirations of all the Balkan nations blunted. It also put the Great Powers onto new collision courses. Italy was unsatisfied, it saw no real gains and still desired lands from Austria-Hungary with Italian speaking populations. Greece and the Ottoman Empire still had tensions over Crete and Thrace/Rumelia. Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary’s occupation of Bosnia didn’t create tension with the Ottomans so much as it created tensions with Serbia and Russia. Serbs wanted an enlarged state and saw Bosnia as its key to access to the sea and with a large Serbian populace it saw as its kindred people in need of liberation. Serbia now had to deal with Austria-Hungary and had to limit its territorial claims to suit Austria’s needs and as such Russia’s influence on Serbia was tempered, even though it remained its ally. Greece and Serbia also had claims on Macedonia and neither wanted a powerful Bulgaria to disrupt this, though Macedonia remained as part of the Ottoman Empire. Russia was mostly dissatisfied at the results despites it minor territorial gains, its long-term influence was curbed and kept in check. This created resentment towards Austria-Hungary and Germany and the whole Pan-Slavism movement it championed was setback Bulgaria for its part was glad to be relatively independent after 500 years but it was frustrated that many Bulgarians remained in foreign lands Turkish, Serbian, Romanian, Greek and Macedonian. Its foreign policy from then until World War II would be to unite these people. It would by decree undermine the Treaty of Berlin in 1885 and unilaterally declare a union with Eastern Rumelia. This wouldn’t lead to a clash with Turkey as expected but Serbia, its former ally and fellow South Slav state, creating a rivalry between the two lasting off and on until the Second World War. This war was brief and was a solid Bulgarian victory, Eastern Rumelia became part of Bulgaria thereafter and the Ottomans remained powerless to prevent its further decline. The subsequent Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 would showcase the friction the Congress of Berlin had started it also sowed the seeds of the Serbian-Austrian rivalry that culminated in Franz Ferdinand's fateful assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 that would trigger World War I...

Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Bulgaria is liberated after 500 years of Ottoman rule and the Great Powers of Europe will stir the Balkans and each other one step closer to World War I.

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