1877 battle of the Russo-Turkish War
Siege of Pleven
|
---|
Part of the
Russo-Turkish War (1877?1878)
|
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Grivita_1877.jpg/300px-Grivita_1877.jpg) The capture of the
Grivitsa
redoubt, by Henryk Dembitzky
|
Date
| 20 July ? 10 December 1877 (145 days)
- 20 Jul. ? 1st Rus. assault
[1]
- 30 Jul. ? 2nd Rus. assault
[1]
- 30 Aug. ? Turkish sortie
[1]
- 11?12 Sep. ? Great Assault
[1]
- 9?10 Dec. ? Breakout attempt
[1]
|
---|
Location
| 43°25′N
24°37′E
/
43.417°N 24.617°E
/
43.417; 24.617
|
---|
Result
|
Russian coalition victory
[2]
- Ottoman victory ? 1st Rus. assault
[1]
- Ottoman victory ? 2nd Rus. assault
[1]
- Russian coalition victory ? Turkish sortie
[1]
- Russian coalition victory ?
Battle of Lovcha
[1]
- Ottoman victory ? Great Assault
[1]
- Russian coalition victory ?
Battle of Gorni Dubnik
[1]
- Russian coalition victory ? Breakout attempt
[1]
- Russian offensive into Balkans delayed, preventing the fall of Constantinople
[3]
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---|
|
Belligerents
|
---|
Russian Empire
Kingdom of Romania
Bulgarian Volunteers
|
Ottoman Empire
|
Commanders and leaders
|
---|
Tsar Alexander II
[4]
Yuri Schilder-Schuldner
(1st Rus. assault)
Nikolay Kridener
(2nd Rus. assault)
Pavel Zotov
(Great Assault)
[a]
Grand Duke Nicholas
(Great Assault)
[b]
Mikhail Skobelev
(Great Assault)
Eduard Totleben
(Breakout attempt)
Iosif Gurko
(Breakout attempt)
King
Carol I of Romania
(Great Assault)
[c]
Mihail Cerchez
|
Osman Nuri Pasha
![Surrendered](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/White_flag_icon.svg/14px-White_flag_icon.svg.png)
Edhem Pasha
![Surrendered](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/White_flag_icon.svg/14px-White_flag_icon.svg.png) Sefe Kosharja
Abdullah Pashe Dreni
|
Strength
|
---|
130,000
[2]
- 6,500 ? 1st Rus. assault
[1]
- 30,000 ? 2nd Rus. assault
[1]
- 95,000 ? Great Assault
[1]
|
67,000
[2]
- 5,000 ? 1st Rus. assault
[1]
- 20,000 ? 2nd Rus. assault
[1]
- 30,000 ? Great Assault
[1]
|
Casualties and losses
|
---|
50,000 killed, wounded and missing
[1]
- 3,000 ? 1st Rus. assault
[1]
- 7,305 killed, wounded or missing ? 2nd Rus. assault
[1]
- 20,600 killed, wounded or captured ? Great Assault
[1]
- 2,000 ? Breakout attempt
[1]
|
25,000 killed or wounded
[1]
43,340 surrendered (including non-combatants)
[1]
Total: 68,340
- 2,000 ? 1st Rus. assault
[1]
- 2,000 killed or wounded ? 2nd Rus. assault
[1]
- 5,000 ? Great Assault
[1]
- 5,000 ? Breakout attempt
[1]
|
Map
The
siege of Plevna
or
Pleven
, was a major battle of the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877?1878
, fought by the joint army of
Russian Empire
and
Kingdom of Romania
against the
Ottoman Empire
.
[6]
After the Russian army crossed the
Danube
at
Svishtov
, it began advancing towards the centre of modern Bulgaria, with the aim of crossing the
Balkan Mountains
to
Constantinople
, avoiding the fortified Turkish fortresses on the
Black Sea
coast. The Ottoman army led by
Osman Pasha
, returning from
Serbia
after a conflict with that country, was massed in the fortified city of
Pleven
, a city surrounded by numerous redoubts, located at an important road intersection.
After two unsuccessful assaults, in which he lost valuable troops, the commander of the Russian troops on the Balkan front,
Grand Duke Nicholas
of Russia insisted by telegram on the help of his
Romanian
ally
King Carol I
. King Carol I crossed the Danube with the Romanian Army and was placed in command of the Russian-Romanian troops. He decided not to make any more assaults, but to besiege the city, cutting off the food and ammunition supply routes.
At the beginning of the siege, the Russian-Romanian army managed to conquer several redoubts around Pleven, keeping in the long run only the
Grivitsa
redoubt. The siege, which began in July 1877, did not end until December of the same year, when Osman Pasha tried unsuccessfully to force the siege to break and was wounded. Finally, Osman Pasha received the delegation led by General
Mihail Cerchez
and accepted the conditions of capitulation offered by him. The Turkish general, Osman Pasha, when he capitulated and declared himself a prisoner during the Russo-Turkish War, handed over his sword to the Romanian general Mihail Cerchez, commander of the Romanian troops in Pleven. It was housed in the Museum of the Iron Gates Region, but was stolen in 1992.
The Russian?Romanian victory on 10 December 1877 was decisive for the outcome of the war and the
Liberation of Bulgaria
. Following the battle, the Russian armies were able to advance and forcefully attack the
Shipka Pass
, succeeding in defeating the Ottoman defense and opening their way to
Constantinople
.
Background
[
edit
]
In July 1877, the Russian Army, under the command of
Grand Duke Nicholas
, moved toward the
Danube River
virtually unopposed, as the Ottomans had no sizable force in the area. The Ottoman high command sent an army under the command of
Osman Nuri Pasha
to reinforce
Nikopol
, but the city fell to the Russian vanguard in the
Battle of Nikopol
(16 July 1877) before Osman reached it. He settled on
Plevna
, a town among vineyards in a deep rocky valley some twenty miles to the south of Nikopol, as a defensive position. The Ottomans quickly created a strong fortress, raising earthworks with
redoubts
, digging trenches, and quarrying out gun emplacements. From Plevna Osman's army controlled the main strategic routes to the
Balkan Mountains
. As the Turks hurried to complete their defenses, Russian forces began to arrive.
Strength of forces throughout the siege
[7]
Date
|
Ottoman
|
Russian and Romanian
|
20 July
(first battle)
|
11,000
|
25,000 infantry
3,000 cavalry
108 guns
|
30 July
(second battle)
|
19-22,000 infantry
700 cavalry
58 guns
22,000 total
|
35,000
170 guns
|
3 September
(assault on Lovech)
|
|
27,000
98 guns
|
11 September
(third battle)
|
|
84,000
424 guns
|
Mid-November
(the investment)
|
|
120,000
522 guns
|
Siege
[
edit
]
General
Mikhail Skobelev
on horseback
, by
Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky
First battle
[
edit
]
General
Yuri Schilder-Schuldner
, commanding the Russian 5th Division, IX Corps, received orders to occupy Plevna. Schilder-Schuldner arrived outside the town on 19 July and began bombarding the Ottoman defenses. The next day his troops attacked and succeeded in driving Ottoman forces from some of the outer defenses; however, Osman Pasha brought up reinforcements and launched a series of counterattacks, which drove the Russians from the captured trenches, inflicting 3,000 casualties at a cost of 2,000 of his own men.
[8]
Second battle
[
edit
]
Osman Pasha strengthened his defences and built more redoubts, his force growing to 22,000 men and 58 guns,
[8]
while the Russians obtained reinforcements from the army of Prince Carol of Romania (later king
Carol I of Romania
), who received the command of the joint besieging force. General
Nikolai Kridener
also arrived with the Russian IX Corps. The overall number of Russian troops increased to 35,000 and 176 guns.
[8]
On 31 July Russian headquarters ordered Kridener to assault the town, attacking from three sides, with every expectation of a Russo-Romanian triumph. General Alexey Schakhovskoy's cavalry attacked the eastern redoubts, while an infantry division under General
Mikhail Skobelev
assailed the
Grivitsa
redoubt to the north. Schakhovskoy managed to take two redoubts, but by the end of the day the Ottoman forces succeeded in repulsing all the attacks and retaking lost ground. Russian losses amounted to 7,300, and the Ottomans' to more than 2,000.
[
citation needed
]
Third battle
[
edit
]
The artillery battle at Pleven. The battery of siege guns on the Grand Duke Mount, by
Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky
The Capture of the
Grivitsa
redoubt at Pleven
, by
Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky
Three Romanian soldiers holding a captured Ottoman flag. from on cover of the
Resboiu
war newspaper.
The third battle of Plevna is also called the "Great Assault".
After repulsing the Russian attacks, Osman failed to press his advantage and possibly drive off the besiegers; he did, however, make a cavalry sortie on 31 August that cost the Russian 1,300 men, and the Ottomans 1,000. The Russians continued to send reinforcements to Plevna, and their army, now personally led by the
Grand Duke
swelled to 100,000 men. On 3 September Skobelev reduced the Turkish garrison guarding the Ottoman supply lines at
Lovech
before Osman could move out to relieve it. The Ottoman army organized the survivors of Lovech into 3 battalions for the Plevna defenses. Osman also received a reinforcement of 13 battalions, bringing his total strength to 30,000 men-the highest it would reach during the siege.
In August, Romanian troops led by General Alexandru Cernat crossed the Danube and entered the battle with 43,414 men.
[9]
On 11 September the Russians and Romanians mounted a large-scale assault on Plevna. The Ottoman forces were dug in and equipped with German
Krupp
-manufactured steel breech-loading artillery and American-manufactured
Winchester repeaters
[10]
and
Peabody-Martini rifles
. For three hours they pushed back the waves of advancing Russians with superior firepower.
[11]
Czar Alexander II
and his brother
Grand Duke Nicolas
watched from a pavilion built on a hillside out of the line of fire.
[12]
Skobelev took two southern redoubts. The Romanian 4th division led by General George Manu took the
Grivitsa
redoubt after four bloody assaults, personally assisted by Prince Carol. The next day, the Turks retook the southern redoubts, but could not dislodge the Romanians, who repelled three counterattacks. From the beginning of September, Russian and Romanian losses had amounted to roughly 20,000, while the Ottomans lost 5,000?6,000.
[13]
Fourth battle
[
edit
]
The wounded Osman Pasha surrenders (from a Russian book)
Growing Russian and Romanian casualties put a halt to frontal assaults. General
Eduard Ivanovich Totleben
arrived to oversee the conduct of the siege as the army
chief of staff
. Totleben had proven command experience in siege warfare, having gained renown for his
defense
of
Sevastopol
(1854?1855) during the
Crimean War
. He decided on a complete encirclement of the city and its defenders. Osman requested permission from his superiors to abandon Plevna and retreat, but the Ottoman high command would not allow him to do so. By 24 October the Russians and Romanians had closed the ring. Supplies began to run low in the city, and Osman finally made an attempt to break the Russian siege north-west, in the direction of
Opanets
. On 9 December the Ottoman forces silently emerged in the dead of night, threw bridges over and crossed the Vit River, attacked on a two-mile front, and broke through the first line of Russian trenches. Here they fought hand to hand and bayonet to bayonet, with, at first, little advantage to either side; however, outnumbering the Ottoman forces almost 5 to 1, the Russians and Romanians eventually drove them back across the
Vit
, wounding Osman in the process (he was hit in the leg by a stray bullet, which killed his horse beneath him). Rumours of his death created panic. After making a brief stand, the Ottoman forces found themselves driven back into the city, losing 5,000 men to the Russians' 2,000.
[14]
The next day Osman surrendered the city, the garrison and his sword to Romanian Col.
Mihail Cerchez
. He was treated honorably, but his troops perished in the snow by the thousands as they straggled off into captivity.
Aftermath
[
edit
]
Sword surrendered by
Edhem Pasha
after the defeat at Plevna.
The
Plevna Chapel
on St Elijah's Square in Moscow, opened in 1882, commemorates the Russian soldiers who died in the Battle of Plevna.
The siege of Plevna seriously delayed the main Russian advance into Bulgaria, but its end freed up Russian reinforcements, which were sent to General
Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko
, who then decisively defeated the Ottoman forces in the
Fourth battle of Shipka Pass
. The siege was widely reported on and followed by the public in Europe and beyond. Although the declining Ottoman Empire was by this time often regarded as "the sick man of Europe", its five-month-long resistance against a much larger army earned a degree of admiration, which may have contributed to the unsympathetic treatment of Russia at the
Congress of Berlin
.
According to the British diplomatic historian
AJP Taylor
:
- Most battles confirm the way that things are going already; Plevna is one of the few engagements which changed the course of history. It is difficult to see how the Ottoman Empire could have survived in Europe... if the Russians and Romanians had reached Constantinople in July; probably it would have collapsed in Asia as well. Plevna... gave the Ottoman Empire another forty years of life.
[3]
The siege also signalled the introduction of the repeating rifle into European warfare.
[11]
Both the Russian and the Ottoman armies were each using two types of infantry rifle at Plevna. Russian troops were largely armed with the old
M1869 Krnka
, a single-shot lifting breech block conversion of the muzzle loading M1857
rifled musket
. It was soundly outperformed by the more modern single-shot Turkish
Peabody-Martini rifles
. At the time, the Russian Army was in process of reequipping with the more modern but still single-shot
Berdan rifle
.
[11]
It became clear at Plevna that it was already obsolete while it was introduced and that it was outclassed by the Turkish
Winchester repeaters
. Reports of the heavy losses suffered by the Russian Army at the hands of the Turks at Plevna prompted militaries across Europe to start re-equipping themselves with repeating rifles or finding a way to convert their existing single-shot rifles into
magazine
-fed weapons.
Legacy
[
edit
]
The
Pleven Panorama
from the outside
In popular culture
[
edit
]
- In
Ulysses
,
Leopold Bloom
's father-in-law, Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, is said to have made his military mark at Plevna.
- The best-selling Russian detective novel
The Turkish Gambit
, the second book in the
Erast Fandorin
series, is set at the siege of Plevna. In 2005 a
film of the same name
was made. Book and film broadly follow the course of the actual battles, but attribute much of the blame for the Russian failures to a daring (fictional) Turkish spy.
- A famous Mehteran (
Ottoman military band
) piece "Osman Pa?a Mar?ı" (
Osman Pasha March
) honors the courageous defense of the Plevna; and is one of the most well-known marches in
Turkey
.
- Under the Red Crescent
by
Charles Snodgrass Ryan
, Australian Surgeon at the siege of Plevna, who later operated in the Gallipoli campaign and negotiated with his old friends for burial armistices.
See also
[
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]
Notes
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
aa
ab
ac
Clodfelter, Micheal (2002).
Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500?2000
(2nd ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 220.
ISBN
0-7864-1204-6
.
OCLC
48003215
.
- ^
a
b
c
Panthaki, Neville G. (2002). "Pleven/Plevna, Siege of (20 July?10 December 1877)". In Sandler, Stanley (ed.).
Ground warfare: an international encyclopedia
. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. p. 690.
ISBN
1-57607-733-0
.
OCLC
52521652
.
- ^
a
b
AJP Taylor (1963).
The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848?1918
. p. 245.
- ^
Drury, Ian (1994).
The Russo-Turkish War 1877: Men-at-Arms
. London: Osprey. p. 6.
ISBN
1-85532-371-0
.
OCLC
34911468
.
- ^
Crowe, John Henry Verinder (1911).
"Plevna"
. In
Chisholm, Hugh
(ed.).
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 838?840, see page 838.
Battles of 1877....
- ^
Drury, Ian (1994).
The Russo-turkish war 1877
. Osprey military Men-at-arms series. London: Osprey. pp. 6?10.
ISBN
978-1-85532-371-1
.
- ^
a
b
c
Dowling, Timothy C., ed. (2014).
Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond
. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 645.
ISBN
978-1-59884-947-9
.
OCLC
880349770
.
- ^
[George Marcu, Enciclopedia b?t?liilor din istoria romanilor, Editura Meronia, Bucure?ti 2011
- ^
Keith W. Doyon.
"M1866 Turkish Contract Winchester (.44 Henry Rimfire)"
. Militaryrifles.com. Archived from
the original
on 29 November 2012
. Retrieved
6 September
2012
.
- ^
a
b
c
Trenk, Richard T. Sr. (August 1997). "The Plevna Delay: Winchesters and Peabody-Martinis in the Russo-Turkish War: A small Turkish army is trapped, but with the help of surprising firepower, they hold up the entire Russian Campaign for over five months".
Man At Arms Magazine
. Vol. 19, no. 4 – via
militaryrifles.com
.
- ^
Cowles, Virginia (1969).
The Russian Dagger: Cold War in the Days of the Czars
. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 107?108.
OCLC
57268
.
- ^
Dowling, Timothy C., ed. (2014).
Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond
. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 646.
ISBN
978-1-59884-947-9
.
OCLC
880349770
.
- ^
Eggenberger, David (2012).
An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present
. Newburyport: Dover Publications. p. 337.
ISBN
978-0-486-14201-2
.
OCLC
898770805
.
- ^
"Finlayson history (see year 1877)"
. Finlayson.fi. Archived from
the original
on 28 March 2010
. Retrieved
9 September
2012
.
- ^
"Plevna Siege"
. Goldenaer.com. Archived from
the original
on 23 January 2018
. Retrieved
2 February
2016
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
John Henry Verinder Crowe (1911). "
Plevna
". In
Chisholm, Hugh
(ed.).
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 838?840, see page 838.
Battles of 1877....
- Greene, F.V.
(1879).
The Russian Army and its Campaigns in Turkey
. New York: D.Appleton and Company
. Retrieved
19 July
2018
– via Internet Archive.
- Murray, Nicholas.
The Rocky Road to the Great War: The Evolution of Trench Warfare to 1914
. Potomac Books Inc. (an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press), 2013.
- Murray, Nicholas. "Plevna, Siege of (20 July ? 10 December 1877),"
Russia at War
, Timothy Dowling (ed.), ABC-CLIO, (December 2014).
- Von Herbert, Captain Frederick William (1911).
The Defence of Plevna; Written by One who Took Part in It
. London: John Murray
. Retrieved
18 July
2018
– via Internet Archive.
- Crane, Stephen
(1901).
"The Siege of Plevna"
.
Great Battles of the World
. London: Chapman & Hall Limited. pp. 33?49
. Retrieved
21 July
2018
– via Internet Archive.
- Compton's Home Library: Battles of the World
CD-ROM
- George Marcu (coord.),
Enciclopedia b?t?liilor din istoria romanilor
, Editura Meronia, Bucure?ti 2011
- Azyassky, N. F. (22 February 2023).
"Осада Плевны 1877"
.
Great Russian Encyclopedia
: scientific and educational portal
. Retrieved
22 September
2023
.
External links
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]