33. Balkan Bloodshed
“The Crisis of 1853 had nearly plunged eastern Europe into war, but the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches came to an agreement with the Ottoman authorities over the status of religious holy sites in Jerusalem and its environs. However, a series of rebellions in Crete and Mount Lebanon underscored the poor treatment of Christians in the Empire…
The relative quiet in the Balkans did little to stymie the spread of nationalism through the Christian peoples of the Ottoman territories in Europe. Bulgaria, and Serbia in particular were hotbeds of nationalist sentiments, egged on by the sympathetic government in Russia. However, the spark that would ultimately plunge the Balkans into conflict came not from an explicitly nationalist uprising, but rather a tax revolt [1]. The Ottoman government had made limited efforts to improve the conditions of its Christian subjects, but what little reforms were made were often ignored by rapacious local authorities. One of the harshest examples was the conduct of the beys of Bosnia-Herzegovina. There, the beys forced the Christian Serb peasants to pay heavy taxes and would confiscate as much as half their annual harvests, along with taxes on animals and farm equipment.
This onerous burden caused resentment to build, and several minor revolts broke out between 1852 and 1862. Seeking to finally throw off the Ottoman yolk, a group of local Serbian leaders met in August 1867 to plot a better-organized rebellion [2]. Led by Petar Popovic-Pecija [3], a total of eight men began assembling loyal fighters, weapons, and ammunition. They were aided financially by Nikola I of Montenegro, and Pecija secured the allegiance of several powerful clans in the region. Ties were also established between the Herzegovinian and Bosnian conspirators. Nikola I was able to secure the backing of the aged Czar Nicholas I [4]. Nicholas, eager to expand Russia’s Balkan influence, gave financial support, but refused to commit to war unless he received support from other revolutionary groups in the area. Nevertheless, Pecija and his allies charged ahead with their plan, setting the date of rebellion for June of 1868. On June 11th, 1868, a band of rebels seized control of a local bridge in Metkovic, while Catholic and Orthodox forces united to capture Trebinje. A correspondent for the London Times wrote “there is a revolt of the Catholic and Orthodox populations between the Popovo and the Gabela.” By the end of the year, upwards of 100,000 people had been displaced and the fighting showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, once the revolt spread to the Nevesinje region, engulfing nearly all of Herzegovina in conflict. At this point, the semi-independent Serbian government began supplying the rebels while the Ottomans refused the rebels’ demand of reduced taxes. While the Ottoman reinforcements arrived in early August and began to drive back the rebels, Bosnia erupted in the middle of the month. There, ethnic Serbs comprised the majority of the fighters, and they swiftly began harassing the Ottoman reinforcements bound for Herzegovina. In both regions, rebels attacked Muslims and drove them from their homes, a fact which was forgotten amidst the reprisals that came after the war...
The unrest spread quickly from Bosnia and Herzegovina, as in April of 1869, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee instigated a long-planned revolt [5]. Having stockpiled arms, the rebels seized a number of towns and villages to the east and south of Sofia, including the cities of Tarnovo and Plovdiv. As the violence spread, the Ottomans reacted swiftly, attacking rebellious towns with, according to one British reporter, “unsettling ferocity.” It did not help that a large contingent of the Ottoman forces were irregulars. Ottoman soldiers committed massacres of civilians in several towns, but the worst was the Batak massacre, where anywhere between 1,500 and 8,000 Bulgarians were killed. Irregulars destroyed a religious school, burning hundreds alive, before besieging the adjacent church and massacring by beheading everyone but the few who agreed to convert to Islam. A conference of the Great Powers convened in Berlin, where they demanded that the Ottoman Empire grant full equality to its Christian minority and allow some level of autonomy in Bosnia and Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire refused.
Eager to cement Russia’s role as the defender of the Eastern Orthodox church, Czar Nicholas I began planning for an invasion of the Ottoman Empire as soon as the uprisings began. On May 11th, 1870, amid the tension after the Berlin Ultimatum, Serbia and Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire, sending in forces to aid the flagging rebellions. Though unable to secure the neutrality of Austria, Nicholas issued his own ultimatum to the Ottomans on June 3rd, threatening war if they did not accept the Berlin terms “without reservation.” This was refused, and the next day, the Russian Empire declared war on the Ottomans. Britain was left in a difficult situation by the outbreak of hostilities. Public opinion was very much against the Ottomans, but the idea of allowing Russia to impose its will on the Balkans was a threat to British geopolitical interests. The government, paralyzed by indecision, simply stood by, and resolved to intervene should Russia get too close to decisive victory. They needn’t have worried, however…”
-From THE GRAND CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1815-1898 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2001
“The Russian army was woefully underprepared for the war. While the Ottomans had undertaken military reforms that had resulted in a moderately modern army, the Russian army was still dependent on peasant levies. Initially, the Russians moved quickly and had occupied the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia by the middle of June 1870. Under the protection of the Russian army, the United Principalities declared independence while Ottoman forces rushed to bombard Wallachian towns along the Danube. While the Russians could muster upwards of 300,000 soldiers in the Danube to the Ottomans’ 200,000, the Ottomans had near-total control over the Danube River, and their fleet posed a threat to the Russian Black Sea fleet. Worried that early Russian successes would embolden the festering conflict in Serbia and Bulgaria, Osman Nuri Pasha set out on the offensive. Backed by Ottoman gunboats and riverine mines, he crossed the Danube [6] on July 9th, moving north to face Grand Duke Nicholas’s army at Zimnicea. Despite initial Ottoman difficulties, a combination of the Grand Duke’s poor strategizing and the even worse quality of his troops meant that the Russians were forced to withdraw north, and the withdrawal was a disorderly affair. On July 27th, Osman Pasha attacked a combined Russo-Danubian force to the west, across the river from the Bulgarian town of Nikopol. The Russians were better prepared, but once again the more professional Ottoman forces won the battle [7].
The Caucasus front was, similarly to previous wars, given secondary priority. Fighting in the mountains, the Ottoman defenders enjoyed the advantage. Despite this, they were forced to retreat and defend the key city of Kars from a Russian siege. Aside from this, the Ottomans under Ahmed Muhtar Pasha held off the Russians, and there was little change in the front lines.
…the Russian advance ground to a halt, as decades of neglect and stagnation had left their army far behind the Ottomans both organizationally and technologically. Osman Pasha elected to besiege Bucharest starting on November 12th and delay the Russians there while his compatriots crushed the Bosnian revolts and brought Serbia to heel. The ill-equipped and poorly trained Serbian troops advanced south against a distracted enemy, but by September of 1870, the Ottoman counterattack was ready. General Suleyman Husnu Pasha retook the only major gain of the Serbs, the city of Pirot, and pushed the Serbian army to the brink of collapse. On March 17th, 1871, the last major Serbian army, commanded by Dura Horvatovic, was ruined by Suleyman Pasha’s army, and Serbian resistance was reduced to guerilla fighting that was harshly suppressed by the Ottoman forces. Belgrade fell on April 14th. The rebels in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina met similar fates during the campaigns of April.
On May 3rd, 1871, the city of Bucharest surrendered to Osman Pasha’s army, as the Russian army, weakened by several fruitless efforts to break the siege, withdrew north. Now, the nationalist spirit that had gripped the region was ebbing away amid the often-brutal Ottoman repression and the complete humiliation of the Russian army. With the Ottoman army poised to rampage through Wallachia and march into Russian Bessarabia, the ailing Czar Nicholas I sued for peace on May 19th. Serbia and Montenegro followed suit the next day. Seeking to ensure the balance of power was maintained, the British insisted that the peace be determined by an international conference of the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire. Serbia and Montenegro were pointedly excluded.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Vienna, Russia agreed to withdraw from the sections of the Caucasus they had occupied. They were also forced to drop their claim of defender of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Serbia’s status as a dependency of the Ottomans was affirmed, and it was agreed Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were territories of the Empire as well. The United Principalities was recognized as a “strictly neural” independent country, with the mouth of the Danube organized as a demilitarized zone. Russia ceded its section of the north bank of the Danube, a part of Bessarabia, to the United Principalities. The treaty was a great victory for the Ottoman Empire, but the rest of Europe had not forgotten the brutality that helped cause the war in the first place…”
-From THE TIDE OF NATIONALISM by Mary Brenneman, published 1999
“In the aftermath of the Russian defeat, waves of brutal reprisals visited death and worse crimes upon countless villages in Bosnia, Hercegovina, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Nearly 500,000 people were displaced by the massacres, rapes, and looting that scarred the pastoral hills of the region, while 30,000 Bulgarians and 15,000 Serbs were estimated killed [8]. Amid the ensuing refugee crisis, nearly 120,000 Serbs and Bulgarians fled to the Dalmatian coast of Austria, and from there, almost 50,000 emigrated to the United States between 1869 and 1874. About half of them arrived in New York City and dispersed through the countryside, but the other half settled in Richmond, Virginia. Initially, there was a great deal of suspicion among the citizens of Richmond. “Suddenly, there are distinctly foreign men and women walking about here,” one man complained in an open letter. Another wrote, “I understand they are fleeing a very unpleasant war in their home countries, but surely, we should not have to bear the burden of housing and employing them. Well, at least they aren’t Catholics.””
-From OUT OF MANY, ONE: IMMIGRATION IN AMERICA by Henry Carpenter, published 2014
[1] A bit simplistic as the rebels were Christians, but their primary grievance was the staggering tax burden they were saddled with.
[2] No Crimean War means the resentment builds and festers, and the rebels start stockpiling weapons earlier. They’re less well prepared than OTL, however.
[3] He led a revolt in 1858 OTL.
[4] Without the Crimean War, he doesn’t get sick, refuse treatment, and die.
[5] Like the Bosnian revolts, the Bulgarians start planning earlier but are less well prepared.
[6] OTL, the Ottomans adopted a defensive posture early on, allowing the Russians to sink an Ottoman gunboat and cross the Danube. TTL, the Ottomans are more vigilant.
[7] I’m glossing over most of the battles, but the Ottoman advance isn’t bloodless. They lose some battles, but the disparity between them and the Russians is greater than in the OTL war of 1876.
[8] Suffice to say that this is way worse than the massacres that precipitated Russian involvement.