Taking deeply to heart the successes of his valiant army and the holy work for which it was fighting, the emperor Alexander II had at the end of May, 1877, at the very commencement, that is, of the war, arrived in Bulgaria, and in spite of the weak state of his health had remained all the while amongst the acting army of the Danube, sharing all reverses and privations of military life on the march.
“I go as a brother of mercy,” said the czar when he set off for the active army. And actually, leaving to others all the martial glory of victory over the enemy, the emperor concentrated his attention upon the sick and wounded soldiers to whom he showed himself not a brother, but a very father of mercy. Zealously visiting the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals and ambulances, the emperor showed them heartfelt sympathy, comforted, encouraged, and sustained the sufferers, listened to their tales with fatherly love, and with his own hand rewarded those who had distinguished themselves by their services in battle.
[1877-1878 A.D.]
The wounded and their families were the object of the emperor Alexander’s unwearied care. He was rejoiced when the provisions sent out for the use of the wounded by the empress Marie Alexandrovna arrived from St. Petersburg. Alexander unfailingly distributed them himself, carefully inquiring of each soldier what he wanted, what he liked, and strove to satisfy each sufferer: to the musicians he gave accordions, to the readers books, to the smokers tobacco pouches, to the non-smokers tea, dainties, etc. Both soldiers and officers were as pleased as children at receiving presents from the hand of the royal “brother of mercy,” and listening to his cordial, gracious words. The soldiers’ love for the emperor, their joy and rapture at seeing him acted like living water on the wounded; everyone that could move strove to rise, to stand up, to take courage; they stretched out their hands to the czar, kissed his raiment and blessed his name. It was only after the fall of Plevna when the war clearly inclined to the advantage of the Russians, and further success was entirely secured that the emperor, bidding farewell to his troops, left the active army and in the beginning of December, 1877, returned to Russia.
Immediately after the taking of Plevna it was decided that, without losing time, the Balkans should be crossed. Meanwhile a severe winter had already set in and the Turks did not even admit the possibility of the Russian troops crossing the Balkans at such a time. But here again all the valour of the Russian army was displayed. To take a whole army across the Balkans in winter was a work of the very greatest difficulty and danger; but to cross the Trievna pass had never yet been attempted by any army in the world. Strictly speaking, the chief part of the Russian army crossed the Balkans at two other points, but it was part of the Russian strategy to carry an insignificant portion of the troops across by the Trievna pass in order that the attention of the Turks should be diverted from the chief army, and the passage of the latter thus be facilitated. The accomplishment of this terribly difficult and almost impossible feat was entrusted to General Kartzov’s division. On the night between the 3rd and 4th of January the division moved on its road. After having reached by incredible efforts the very summit of the pass, where a short time was spent, on the 7th of January General Kartzov’s division stormed the Turkish redoubt, forced their way into it and drove out the Turks. After this the Russians had to descend to the so-called Valley of Roses on the southern slope of the Balkans, which was even much steeper than the northern. As soon as the Russians had come down from Trievna, the Turks abandoned their positions at the feet of the Great Balkans, and General Kartzov’s division entered into communication on one side with General Gurko’s division, and on the other with the Shipka division of General Radetzki.
After descending the Balkans to the Valley of Roses, General Radetzki, together with General Skobelev, who had come to his assistance after the fall of Plevna, attacked on the 9th of January an army of 40,000 Turks at Kezanlik, who after a stubborn resistance were defeated and taken prisoners. After having devastated and scattered the Turkish army of Shipka and accomplished the feat unexampled in history of the passage of the Balkans, the Russian army continued its victorious advance; Adrianople, the second capital of the Turkish empire, was taken without a struggle and the troops drew near to Constantinople itself. Then, on the 3rd of March, 1878, at a little place called San Stefano, at ten versts from Constantinople, Turkey signed the conditions of peace offered her by Russia.
Meanwhile the great European powers required that three conditions of peace should be submitted to their consideration, and thus the treaty of San Stefano showed itself to be only a preliminary one; the great European powers ratified it only after considerable changes. These altered conditions of peace were signed in 1878 by the plenipotentiaries of all the great powers at the Congress of Berlin; after which on the 8th of February, 1879, a final treaty of peace, based on these same conditions, was signed at Constantinople between Russia and Turkey.
The emperor Alexander might certainly with full right have insisted on the ratification of the treaty of peace of San Stefano without any alterations; but then Russia would have incurred a fresh war with Europe, while the emperor deeply felt the necessity of peace. It was time to give the Russian people rest after they had made such sacrifices in the struggle for their Slavonian brethren! Pitying his people, the emperor decided—however painful it might be to him—not to insist on all that had been gained at the price of Russian blood and confirmed by the treaty of San Stefano with Turkey, but consented in Berlin to great concessions which did not, however, in any way interfere with the liberation of the Christian population of Turkey.
By the treaties of San Stefano and Berlin, that part of Bessarabia was returned to Russia which, by the Peace of Paris in 1856, had been ceded to her by Turkey after the Crimean campaign. Thanks to this, Russia again reached the mouths of the river Danube; in Asia she acquired a portion of the Turkish possessions, with the port of Batum and the fortress of Kars, which guaranteed her security and future development. Finally, in compensating for the military expenditure incurred by Russia, Turkey was bound to pay her an indemnity of 300 million rubles.
Thus terminated the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878—that decisive struggle for the liberation of the Slavonians of the Balkan peninsula, and although in consequence of the interference of Europe Russia was far from attaining what she had a right to expect after the enormous sacrifices she had made, and the glorious victories she had gained, nevertheless the great and sacred object of the war was attained; on the memorable day of the emancipation of the peasants in Russia, also the Slavonian nations of the Balkan peninsula were liberated, by the help of Russia and her great monarch, from the Turkish yoke which had oppressed them for ages. To the emperor Alexander II, who gave freedom to many millions of his own subjects, was allotted also the glorious rôle of liberator of the Balkan Christians, by whom he was a second time named the Czar Liberator!