1768-1774 жылдардағы Ресей-Түрік соғысы

1768–1774 conflict fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire

The Russo Turkish War of 1768–1774 was a major armed conflict that saw Russian arms largely victorious against the Ottoman Empire. Russia's victory brought the Yedisan between the rivers Bug and Dnieper, and Crimea into the Russian sphere of influence. Through a series of victories accrued by the Russian Empire led to substantial territorial conquests, including direct conquest over much of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, less Ottoman territory was directly annexed than might otherwise be expected due to a complex struggle within the European diplomatic system to maintain a balance of power that was acceptable to other European states and avoided direct Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, Russia was able to take advantage of the weakened Ottoman Empire, the end of the Seven Years' War, and the withdrawal of France from Polish affairs to assert itself as one of the continent's primary military powers. The war left the Russian Empire in a strengthened position to expand its territory and maintain hegemony over the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, eventually leading to the First Partition of Poland. Turkish losses included diplomatic defeats that saw its decline as a threat to Europe, loss over its exclusive control over the Orthodox millet, and the beginning of European bickering over the Eastern Question that would feature in European diplomacy until the Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I.

The war followed internal tensions within Poland which indirectly challenged the security of the Ottoman Empire and its ally, the Crimean Khanate. The true power behind the Polish throne was the Russian ambassador Nicholas Repnin and the Imperial Russian Army, with King Stanisław August Poniatowski being elected due to his ties as former favourite to the Empress Catherine II of Russia. Repnin had forcefully passed the Perpetual Treaty of 1768 between Poland and Russia, which was disadvantageous to Poland geopolitically, challenged the political supremacy of Poland's Catholic faith, prevented reform of the liberum veto, and allowed Warsaw's occupation by Russian troops. Rising unrest led to the massive revolt of the Bar Confederation, which became an alliance of noble, Roman Catholic, and peasant rebels. In the fortified town called Bar, near the Ottoman border, the Bar Confederation was created on 29 February 1768, led by a landed Polish noble named Casimir Pulaski. While the Russian army heavily outnumbered the confederates and defeated them several times in direct battle in Podolia Ukraine, bands of rebels waged low scale guerrilla war throughout Ukraine and southern Poland. On 20 June 1768, the Russian Army captured the fortress of Bar but when one band of surviving confederates fled over to the Turkish border, pursuing troops including Zaporozhian Cossacks, clashed with janissary garrison troops. Polish revolts would dog Russia throughout the war and make it impossible for Catherine II to keep control of Poland. Upon the outbreak of the war the Ottomans seemed to have the upper hand as Russia was suffering from financial strain as a consequence of involvement in the Seven Years' War. The Ottoman Navy capitalized on the inferiority of the Imperial Russian Navy, even though Russia employed British officers to resolve this weakness. The Ottomans dominated the Black Sea, giving it the advantage of shorter supply lines. The Ottomans were also able to levy troops from their vassal state, the Crimean Khanate, to fight the Russians, but their effectiveness was undermined by constant Russian destabilization of the area. In the years preceding the war the Ottoman Empire had enjoyed the longest period of peace with Europe in its history (1739–1768). Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire faced internal division, rebellion and corruption compounded by the re emergence of a unified Persian leadership, under Nader Shah. One clear advantage for the Ottomans was its superior numbers as the Ottoman army was three times the size of its Russian counterpart. However, the new Grand Vizier Mehmed Emin Pasha would prove himself to be incompetent militarily. The Russian army massed along the borders with Poland and the Ottoman Empire, Russia denied the accusations, but it was reported that the Cossacks "certainly razed Balta and killed whomever they found". With the confederates of Poland and the French embassy pushing the sultan along, with many pro war advisors, the sultan on October 6 imprisoned Aleksei Mikhailovich Obreskov and the entire Russian embassy's staff, marking the Ottoman's declaration of war on Russia. After her victories in the war, Catherine II was depicted in portraits dressed in the military uniforms of Great Britain, which was initially a willing ally to Russia because of the trade between the two countries. Great Britain needed bar iron to fuel its ongoing Industrial Revolution as well as other products such as sailcloth, hemp, and timber, for the construction and maintenance of its Navy, all of which Russia could provide. When the tide of the conflict turned in Russia's favour, Britain limited its support, seeing Russia as a rising competitor in Far Eastern trade, rather than merely as a counterbalance to the French Navy in the Mediterranean. While Russia remained in a superior position in the Black Sea, the withdrawal of British support left Russia unable to do anything more than cut down its own supply lines and disrupt Turkish trade in the area. On September 17, 1769, the Russians began their initial campaign over the Dniester into Moldavia. The elite Ottoman Janissaries took heavy casualties from the Russians at Khotyn but managed to hold on; the remainder of the Ottoman army panicked and abandoned the field, and the Russians claimed the fortress. With the Ottomans in disarray the Russians took the capital of Moldavia (Jassy) on October 7. They continued the advance south into Wallachia, occupying its capital Bucharest on November 17. In Ottoman Greece, Orlov's arrival sparked a Maniot revolt against the Ottoman authorities. However, the Ottoman vizier called on the provincial notables (ayans) of Ottoman Albania to mobilize irregular troops, which he used to crush the revolt in 1771. Just outside the city of Chesma on June 24, 1770, twelve Russian ships engaged twenty two Turkish vessels and destroyed them with the use of fire ships. The defeat at Chesma demoralized the Ottomans, and bolstered Russian morale.

Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain offered to mediate the dispute between Russia and the Ottomans to halt Russia's expansion. Austria managed to turn the situation to its advantage by gaining Bukovina District from the Ottomans with a treaty on July 6, 1771. The Austrians maintained their increased military presence on their border with Moldavia and Wallachia, and they increased a subsidy to the cash starved Ottomans, who had been dabbling in tax farming) and offered unsubstantiated support to the Ottomans against Russia. Catherine II, wary of the proximity of the Austrian army to her own forces and fearing an all out European war, accepted the loss of Poland and agreed to Frederick II's plan to partition Poland. She secretly agreed to return the captured principalities back to the Ottomans, thereby removing Austria's fear of a powerful Russian Balkan neighbour. On April 8, 1772, Kaunitz, the Austrian equivalent of Minister of Foreign affairs, informed the Sublime Porte that Austria no longer considered the treaty of 1771 binding. A ceasefire between Russia and the Ottoman Empire commenced on May 30, 1772, but real negotiations did not begin until August 8. The peace talks broke down almost immediately over the Crimea, but the truce was extended until March 20, 1773. Both parties had reasons to expand the negotiations, primarily to do with both sides wanting to keep fighting on a single front. The Ottomans were now quelling rebellions from Egypt and Syria and also faced incursions from Persia. The Russians were facing a revival of a centralized Sweden, which had undergone a coup from King Gustav III.

On June 20, 1774, the Russian army, under the command of Alexander Suvorov, managed to rout the Ottoman army near Kozludzha. Russia used the victory to force the Ottoman Empire to acquiesce to Russia's preferences in the treaty.