I've seen a few threads about how close the Ottomans were to a victory in 1877, and I wanted to pin down how close the Ottomans were to a victory in the war, and how you can alter it so the Ottomans were to win. Does anyone have an answer?
The only real question regarding this war is how Russia could win it more effectively (and there are numerous books written on this subject: Alexander II and his Chancellor Prince Gorchakov by their witless politics and meddling turned it from a "blitz" into a prolonged and costly affair). The Ottomans, short of the ASBs intervention, never had a realistic chance to win it. Potential British military intervention would not change anything because the forces that Brits were potentially ready to commit simply were too small to make a real difference. British political pressure would (and was) working only up to a certain degree and could not change an outcome of the war.
This does not mean that the Ottomans were bad. Actually, they were quite good on a defensive (see defense of Plevna), especially when the opponent was getting confusing communications from the "top". I read somewhere that fortifications of their last defensive line had been done in a way that was taking advantages of a terrain (as opposite to the "standard" forts Russians built to blockade Plevna). Unfortunately (for them), by that time they did not have an army to garrison these fortifications..
They were noticeably weaker in the terms of the numbers, general strategy, and their ability to fight an offensive action.