On April 26, 1828, Russia declared war against Turkey. England and France found themselves in a position when they could not object, for the Porte still refused their demands as regards Greece. They had joined with Russia in destroying the Turkish fleet. They were now compelled to stand by while the Russians invaded Turkey. The position, and still more the results of the war, showed what a grave error Mahmoud committed when he refused to agree to the scheme of the allied Powers for granting autonomy to Greece under the suzerainty of Turkey. If he had accepted, his fleet would have been intact. England and France would have been in a position to object to Russia’s schemes. As it was, Greece secured an absolute independence, and Wallachia, Moldavia, and Serbia were soon, by the victories of Russia, to secure the status of complete autonomy which the Sultan had refused to Greece.
The Emperor Nicholas, in nominal command of his army, crossed the Pruth on May 7, 1828. His force consisted of not more than sixty-five thousand men, a surprisingly small number for the greatest military Power in Europe to put into the field. It was necessary, however, to keep a large army in Poland, where an outbreak was expected. Another army was stationed in the Ukraine to watch Austria, who regarded the Russian attack on Turkey with suspicion and malevolence; and a fourth army of thirty thousand men, under General Paskiewich, invaded Asia Minor from the Caucasus. With the main army it was hoped to cross the Balkans and to menace Constantinople. The Turks offered no resistance in Moldavia and Wallachia. But it was not till June 8th that the Russians were able to effect a crossing over the Danube. The Sultan, on his part, commenced the campaign under great disadvantages. His old army of Janissaries had recently been destroyed. The new army, equipped and drilled in the fashion of European armies, was very raw and ill-trained. It consisted of very young men, who were recruited with difficulty, often by compulsion, for the new service was very unpopular, and the older men could not be induced to join. It did not count more than forty-five thousand men, exclusive of the artillery. It was supplemented by irregulars from Asia, and the total force under arms was estimated at one hundred and eighty thousand men, of whom, after providing for the defence of Constantinople and the Dardanelles, for a reserve at Adrianople and for other demands on the Empire in Europe and Asia, there remained only fifty thousand men to oppose the Russians in Bulgaria, and to provide garrisons for the fortresses on the Danube and for Schumla and Varna. These garrisons, however, were supported by the armed Turkish inhabitants of the towns, who could be relied on for a vigorous resistance. The Turks were under the further disadvantage that the greater part of their fleet had been destroyed at Navarino. The Russians were, in consequence, completely masters in the Black Sea. They were able to send to the Ægean archipelago another fleet, which blockaded the Dardanelles.
In spite of these difficulties, the Turks made an unexpectedly vigorous defence against the Russian invasion in Europe. The campaign of 1828 was mainly one of sieges, where the Turkish soldiers, supported by Moslems of the fortified towns, fought to the best advantage behind walls and earthworks. They could make but a poor stand in the open against their better trained enemy.
The Russians, after crossing the Danube, laid siege to Ibrail, the most important fortress on the lower stretch of the river, and which it was essentially necessary to capture before making an advance to Schumla. The garrison and inhabitants made a gallant resistance, and it was only after five weeks that it was compelled to surrender, on June 17th. The Russian army was then divided into three parts—the one to attack Silistria, the capture of which was almost as necessary as that of Ibrail; the second to besiege Varna; the third and most important, under the Emperor, to march to Schumla. The attack on Silistria failed, and after some weeks the force employed against it marched in the direction of Schumla to support the Czar’s army. Even with this addition it was found impossible to invest the fortified camp of the Turks behind Schumla, and, after a demonstration, it was compelled to hold a defensive position, in front of Schumla, while the Czar and a part of the army marched in support of the division before Varna.
On August 18th the Czar arrived there with a reinforcement of nine thousand men, and the siege then commenced, while the Russian Black Sea fleet of eight ships of the line and three frigates, under command of Admiral Greig, joined in the attack from the sea. The Turks again made a desperate and prolonged defence, which might have been successful if it had not been that Jussuf Pasha, in command of the garrison, with five thousand of his men, traitorously deserted the city, on October 14th, and threw themselves on the mercy of the Czar. The remainder of the garrison, under the Capitan Pasha, refused to be a party to the surrender. It was said that the cause of this extraordinary act of treachery was that the Sultan, in pursuance of his policy of concentrating all power and authority in himself, had been persuaded by an intrigue to confiscate the property of Jussuf, who was one of the few large landowners in Turkey, while the owner was gallantly fighting the enemy at Varna. However that may be, the remaining garrison was soon compelled to capitulate, and this most important stronghold fell into the hands of the Russians. Without it no advance could possibly have been made across the Balkans.
The campaign of 1828 came to an end with the surrender of Varna. Though the Russians had been able to capture two of the four fortresses which barred their way to the Balkans, the campaign had not been without success to the Turks. They had shown unexpected powers of resistance, and had prevented for a year the achievement of the main object of the Russians—their advance to Constantinople. The losses of the Russians had been very great, not only in the sieges, but by disease, which dogged their armies as usual.
Baron von Moltke, the German general, who, at the invitation of the Sultan, was with the Turkish headquarters during this war, writes of the Russian and Turkish troops in his remarkable history of it:—
The faults of the Russian Staff were atoned for by the innate excellence of the Russian troops. The self-sacrificing obedience of the commanders, the steadiness of the common soldiers, their power of endurance and unshaken bravery in times of danger, were the qualities that enabled them to avert the dangers of their position before Schumla and to hold the Turks in check, and to make up for all deficiencies and overcome all resistance at Varna.[32]
Of the Turks he adds:—
We cannot say much for the skill of the Turkish commanders, but the conduct of the Turks, from the highest officers to the last soldier at the storming of Ibrail, their courage and steadiness in the mines and trenches before Varna, were far above all praise.