No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
Doubt it as between them there are wild tribe's and mountain chain, not a best place to lead an offensive, not even enough places to loot .
Generally Russia will probably go through the Balkans like in the last war. Otherwise if you are talking about lands in eastern Anatolia, those lands definitely aren't worth it as it would involve conquering wild tribe's of Caucasus to protect it, a lot of expenses for little to no gain.
Doubt it, Russia and Austria still remain main powers in the area (actually i wouldn't be surprised if Austria doesn't use this mess to either grant Serbia independence, or make it it's protectorate, they reformed their as and are only seeking a place to use it and if nothing gain some domestic prestige).
Regarding France and the British they'll definitely have latitude in Greece, but i doubt Balkans as a whole.
Doubt it, there are just to many interests in keeping Ottomans afloat.
Impossible, as said Ottomans probably aren't collapsing and taking Constantinople is just a pipe dream .
Generally i believe Russia will actually be lenient on the Ottoman's just to garner support, i expect support of the British stance of the autonomy for the Greeks (far better than independent state bent on retaking it's former lands and causing trouble).
Otherwise i expect that Russia will make Danubian province's into it's protectorates to access Danubian trade and generally formal conformation of it's existing rights, maybe become the overlordship of whole Septinsular republic (but i doubt that because Russia already has everything it wants from Septinsular republic ,current arrangement benefits Russia and keeps Ottomans invested in the area, ultimately goal is to punish the Ottoman's, expand Russian influence and still get out of it with working relations).
I believe that Austria will get Serbia just so other powers can balance Russian influence, plus Russia was okay with with Austria gaining influence in northern Balkans, at least before BPW and given that Ottomans made a major screw up i think they'll be so again just to make a point .
Otherwise regarding the British, they'll probably try to push either access to the Black Sea, or to the Turkish market's.
France on other hand will just try to preserve it's influence in Egypt and potentially expand it generally, they'll not support Greek autonomy, but also not oppose it either (just so that they can say their public that they tried), as they don't want to be drawn in the Balkans , maybe try to expand their influence in Tunisia.
But otherwise i expect that on paper Ottoman empire should keep it's lands, it's just that it would lose influence on periphery .
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Fool’s war
203. Fool’s war
Mahmud’s declaration of war on three most powerful countries in Europe when he still could not quite finish the Greek Rebellion and after his fleet suffered a crushing defeat looked (and was) bizarre but it was not necessarily stupid, at least based upon his vision of the situation. The whole previous pattern of the British-French-Russian behavior seemingly indicated that none of these countries really wanted a major military commitment. Navarino was just an accident and, to think about it, this defeat may be not such a big disaster for the Ottomans:
Seemingly, the fool’s luck was holding: in the early 1828 the news had been received that Emperor Alexander suddenly died December 1, 1827 of typhus to be succeeded by his younger brother Nicholas [1].
Not too much had been known about him. He was 31 years old, married to the daughter of FWIII of Prussia and already had five children. The marriage story was somewhat romantic. In the 1814 Alexander allowed his two younger brothers, Nicholas and Michael, to go on the European trip (Germany, France). In Berlin 17-year-old Nicholas first saw the 16-year-old daughter of King Frederick William III of Prussia, Princess Charlotte. On the way back from Paris he visited Berlin again. On November 4 (16), 1815, during an official dinner in Berlin, the engagement of Princess Charlotte and Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was announced.
Nicholas got a reasonably good education: some of the most reputable Russian professors had been teaching him finances, Russian history, military history and military engineering, which was his favorite subject. In the summer of 1816, Nikolai Pavlovich had to take a trip to Russia to complete his education to get acquainted with his homeland in administrative, commercial and industrial relations. On this occasion, on behalf of Empress Maria Feodorovna, a special note was drawn up, which set out the main principles of the administrative system of provincial Russia, described the areas that the Grand Duke had to pass, in historical, domestic, industrial and geographical relations, it was indicated what exactly could be the subject of the Grand Duke's conversations with representatives of the provincial authorities, which should be paid attention to. Thanks to a trip to some provinces of Russia, Nikolai Pavlovich got a visual idea of the internal state and problems of his country. This trip was followed by the visit to Britain where he got acquainted with the experience of developing the socio-political system of the state. On July 1 (13), 1817, Grand Duke Nicholas married Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, who was called Princess Charlotte of Prussia before her adoption of Orthodoxy. This marriage strengthened the political union between Russia and Prussia.
After the wedding, Emperor Alexander I instructed Nikolai Pavlovich to start his daily service, in July 1817 he was appointed Chief Inspector of the Corps of Engineers, then also became chief of the Life Guards’ Engineer Battalion. In the following 1818, Nicholas, in addition to these positions, was appointed commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Guards Infantry Division. Since March 1825 - Head of the 2nd Guards Infantry Division.
It was reasonable to expect that for the next year or more the new monarch will be too busy with the domestic affairs, coronation, receiving the dignitaries and deputations, making new administrative appointments, etc., to pay too much attention to the Ottoman affairs giving Mahmud enough time to finish off the rebels. After which Britain, France and Russia will accept the fait accompli.
However, at this point Mahmud run out of his luck.
Russia. Of course, nobody in the Russian military establishment was going to protest against Alexander’s foreign policy. However, on his side Alexander did not argue against validity of 'Si vis pacem, para bellum.' principle. The militaries had to be ready for any eventuality and volatile situation in the Ottoman Empire could explode at any time into something bigger. Since 1825 the Generalissimo and Minister of War [2] had been diligently working on preparations to the possible future campaign against the Ottomans, or Austrians, or both.
Logistics needed for concentration of the supplies and troops on the Russian South-Western border was very complicated. A potential theater was lacking pretty much everything from food to the descent roads so to a big degree a supply system, and resulting strategy, will be dependent upon supplies being carried by the sea to the ports of the western coast of the Black Sea. Which meant that the logistic tasks will be two-fold:
So, with Emperor Alexander dead, it was an open question, what Emperor Nicholas is going to do. And, to a great delight of the military (and army suppliers), he wanted to start his reign “gloriously” and what can be more glorious than a glorious war? He was too young to be allowed to participate in the Great Polish War but this war was his.
Coronation was postponed (and, anyway, it was somewhat indecent to rush with it) and Emperor Nicholas I joined Generalissimo Bonaparte, just as his late brother did in the previous war. Barclay remained in Moscow to guarantee that the wheels of logistics are keep turning smoothly. At the theater these issues had been under control of Quartermaster-General Karl von Toll.
Specifics of the theater (a narrow front of the operations and difficult logistics) put considerable restraints upon the size of the Russian army. As a result, 95,000 Russian troops had been facing the Ottoman army of 150,000 big part of which still were pre-reform provincial troops of a dubious quality.
Politically, the Alexander’s view held:
Ottoman Empire. The first big operation was crossing the Danube. The Ottomans built the field fortifications at the potential crossing area but barrage from the cannon boats of the Black Sea fleet mostly neutralized their fire guarantying a secure crossing.
On May 27 in the morning, the crossing of Russian troops on ships and boats began in the presence of the sovereign. They reached the right bank, and when the advanced Turkish trenches were taken, the enemy fled from the rest. On May 30, the fortress of Isakcha surrendered. Having separated the detachments to blockade Machin, Girsov and Tulci, the main forces of the 3rd Corps reached Karas on June 6, while their vanguard under the command of General Fyodor Ridiger established blockade of Kyustenji.
The siege of Brailov quickly moved forward, and the chief of the siege troops, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, hurrying to end this case so that the 7th Corps could join the 3rd Corps, decided to storm the fortress on June 3; the assault was repulsed, but when 3 days after the surrender of Mechin followed, Commandant of Brailov, seeing himself cut off and losing hope of help, also surrendered (June 7).
After the fall of Brailov, the 7th Corps was sent to join the 3rd; General Roth with two infantry and one cavalry brigades was ordered to mortgage Silistria, and General Borozdin with six infantry and four cavalry regiments - to guard Wallachia. Even before the implementation of all these orders, the 3rd Corps moved to Bazardzhik, which, according to information, gathered significant Turkish forces. [3]
On June 8, the main forces of the Russian army led by the emperor approached Shumla and blocked it from the east side, strongly strengthened in their positions in order to interrupt the possibility of communication with Varna. On the same day, near the Bulanlyk River, a Turkish avant-garde of 15,000 men attacked Russian troops, but was repulsed and fled to Shumla. Serasker did not risk to get out and remained in the fortress with the main force.
At that point Emperor Nicholas, who already put his “stamp” on the war, left the army to get back to Moscow and start ruling the empire.
The Black Sea fleet arrived to Varna and, together with the land force of Prince Menshikov and the Guards started a siege. After receiving these news, Bonaparte ordered to leave a minimal land and naval force needed to maintain a blockade and to attack Burgos instead. For the relief of this fortress, the Turkish Corps of Omer Pasha Vrioni, 30,000 strong, arrived from the Kamchik River. His attempts to break to Varna had been repulsed, on June 29 Varna capitulated and Omer Pasha had to retreat.
The Russian squadrons of Greig on the Black Sea and Geiden on the Aegean established blockade of the Straits cutting food supplies for Constantinople.
To get Vizier Reshid Mehmed Pasha out of his “hiding place” in Shumla Bonaparte pretended that he is marching with all his force to besiege Silistria. As expected, Vizier with his main force marched out of Shumla to retake Varna and Bonaparte, leaving part of his army to keep marching on Silistria, attacked Vizier from the rear. In a battle of Kulevich (July 5) Vizier was defeated and retreated back to Shumla where he was safely blockaded.
The Turkish army lost 5,000 people killed, more than 2,000 prisoners, all artillery and all food. The Russian army lost 2,300 people killed and wounded.
On July 18 Silistria capitulated.
Meanwhile, the vizier, convinced that Dibić would besiege Shumla, gathered troops there from where possible - even from the Balkan passages and from coastal points on the Black Sea. The Russian army, meanwhile, advanced to the Kamchik River (Kamchia) and after a number of battles both on this river and in further movement in the mountains of the 6th and 7th Corps crossed the Balkan Range, simultaneously capturing two fortresses, Mesemvria and Ahiolo, and an important port Burgas.
On July 31 Bonaparte attacked the Ottoman corps of 20,000 near Sliven, defeated it and cut communications between Shumla and Adrianople.
After the fast marches, the Russian army approached Adrianople on August 7, and the surprise of its arrival so embarrassed the head of the garrison there that he offered to surrender. The next day, part of the Russian troops was introduced into the city, where large stocks of weapons and other supplies were found.
The Ottomans tried to advance into Walachia but The brilliant victory won by Geismar near the village of Boelesti put an end to their attempts.
Battle of Boelesti. On July 13, it was reported that Vidinskaya's seraskir with 30,000 troops - half of them cavalry, with 30 artillery guns - crossed the Danube and reached the village of Mazlavit. On the morning of July 14 the Turks came to Boelesti and began to strengthen their position. Taking into account the strategic and tactical situation, General Geismar decided to attack the enemy despite his superior forces and more profitable - the plain between Chori and Boelesti is completely flat, with an elevation at Boelesti - position: to hit and dispel the Turkish forces tired of the 50-verst march with a quick, if not sudden, attack. Geismar had under his command 4,200 troops with 14 guns.
At 10 a.m. on July 14, Russian troops arranged into a wedge with cavalry and Cossacks on the flanks moved from Chori to Boelesti, which was reached by 2 p.m. Two battery guns of the center immediately opened fire on Turkish positions, the Turks responded from all 30 guns sheltered behind small hills. Geismar tried to bypass the left flank Turkish positions on the right flank of his detachment to threaten the enemy's communication with Vidin. In response, Seraskir threw all his cavalry - about 10,000 people - on the right flank of the detachment - the square of the Tomsk Infantry Regiment. Covering the infantry, the 2nd Division (3rd and 4th Squadron) [4] of the Kargopol Dragoon Regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel von Leschern - with the support of the 1st Squadron of the Novorossiysk Dragoon Regiment and the Cossacks - counterattacked the Turks on the flank, defeated and chased them. The Russian infantry continued to move forward, allowing the artillery to take positions on hills to shell Turkish fortifications.
Meanwhile, the discarded Turkish cavalry secretly - behind the buildings of Boelesti - moved to the right flank of the seraskar position, and the rest of the mass attacked the Cossacks and another part of the Novorossiysk regiment along the road to Chora. Taking advantage of its huge numerical advantage, especially over the cavalry units of the Russians, the Turkish cavalry tried to bypass Geismar's detachment and capture its train.
Geismar responded with a flank blow of the 1st Division of Kargopol dragoons under the command of regimental commander Colonel Glazenap. Unable to withstand the second flank attack, the Turkish cavalry was torn in two, and - with the support of Novorossiysk reserve dragoons under the leadership of Count Tolstoy and a square grenadier with two guns - completely pushed back behind Boelesti. That's how the first part of the battle ended.
In the dark, General Geismar decided to hit the Turkish positions again in order to complete what he started during the day. The success was facilitated by the carelessness of the Turks, who did not even bother to set out outposts. Around 8 p.m., 8 two-company columns of Russian infantry moved to the enemy. 6 columns directly attacked the enemy, and 2 reserve columns were preparing to bypass the right wing of the Turkish position. Cavalry and artillery in common dense columns followed. The first shots plunged the Turkish cavalry in front of the camp into complete confusion. Ibrahim Pasha himself ran to Vidin on horseback, most of his closest assistants followed the example of the chief. Most of the other fugitives were intercepted by the cavalry sent by Geismar to the rear of the Turks at the beginning of the battle. However, the Turkish infantry managed to better prepare for the meeting with Russian troops. A stubborn bloody battle broke out on the outskirts of Boelesti. When the ranks of the Turks were scattered and their artillery was captured, some of the Turkish infantry refused proposed surrender, hiding in the houses of Boelesti. The Grenadier Reserve was forced to clear the village in hand-to-hand combat. By 4 a.m. on July 15 the Turkish camp had been surrounded and captured.
The Turks lost at least 2,000 killed only in the village of Boelesti. 507 people, 24 banners, 5 powder boxes, 24 supply lines and 400 with fodder and food supplies were captured. All the camp accessories went to the winners including Seraskier’s papers containing campaign plan.
The next day Geismar marched 30 versts forcing the Turks to retreat to the western banks of the Danube.
The battle, even if a relatively minor one by the numbers involved, is illustrative of a comparative qualities of the troops and their tactics.
The occupation of Adrianople, the close blockade of the straits and internal turmoil in Turkey finally shocked the severance of the Sultan; Commissioners for peace negotiations came to Bonaparte’s headquarters. However, these negotiations were deliberately delayed by the Turks in the expectation of help coming from Austria [5] and the Skutarian Pasha Mustafa, who until then evaded participation in hostilities, but now led a 40,000 Albanian army to the theater of war and already reached Sophia.
Bonaparte did not care too much for Mustafa and his Albanians but ordered Adjutant General Kiselev, who commanded Russian troops in the principalities, was sent an order: leaving part of his forces to protect Wallachia, cross the Danube with the rest and move against Mustafa. To the Ottoman Commissioners he announced that he gives them a deadline until September 1 to receive final instructions, and if peace is not concluded after that, military actions on the Russian side will resume. To reinforce these demands, several detachments were sent to Constantinople and a connection was established between them and Greig and Geiden squadrons.
The offensive of Russian detachments to Constantinople had its effect: the alarmed sultan begged the Prussian envoy to go as a mediator to Bonaparte who agreed to stop the movement of troops to the Turkish capital. Then the authorized Commissioners agreed to all the conditions proposed by them, and on September 2, the Peace of Adrianople was signed.
Greece. After the Battle of Navarino, the French expeditionary corps of General Maison (former Bernadotte’s aid-de-camp) arrived in Greece; Navarin, Crown, Modon and Patras were occupied by French troops; Egyptian troops left Greece, and in August 1828 Morea and the Cycladic Islands were free from the Turks.
Peace of Adrianople.
_______________
[1] No Constantine ITTL. He may not be even born or he died before Alexander.
[2] ITTL Both Nappy and Barclay are still alive: the life was much less stressful for both of them and by 1828 they are not too old even by the standards of time.
[3] In OTL that part of the war had been conducted rather ineptly. There were only two corps, 3rd and 7th, initially engaged, which was inadequate to the task. Other forces, 4th Reserve cavalry corps, 2nd corps (30,000) and the Guards (25,000) had been staying in Ukraine and moved to the theater piecemeal only when the numeric inadequacy became obvious. Plus, Wittgenstein, who was at that stage in charge, dutifully sucked up to the Ottomans scenario planning the expensive sieges and wasting time and people.
[4] Terminological confusion: in English and French “division” has a double meaning (which, according to Jomini, could be a cause for the misinterpreted Napoleon’s order and ill-famous French attack at Waterloo). In Russian, there are two different words: «дивизия» (a big entity consisting of few regiments) and «дивизион» (a small unit, in this case two cavalry squadrons, part of the Kargopol regiment).
[5] As in OTL, these expectations belonged to the wishful thinking category.
“The supply chain stuff is really tricky”
Elon Musk
“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics”
Napoleon
“Logistics is the practical art of moving armies.”
Antoine Henri Jomini
“Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician.”
M. Cox
““Fool's luck"=A joking belief that stupid people can have amazing good fortune for no reason”
1828.Elon Musk
“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics”
Napoleon
“Logistics is the practical art of moving armies.”
Antoine Henri Jomini
“Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician.”
M. Cox
““Fool's luck"=A joking belief that stupid people can have amazing good fortune for no reason”
Mahmud’s declaration of war on three most powerful countries in Europe when he still could not quite finish the Greek Rebellion and after his fleet suffered a crushing defeat looked (and was) bizarre but it was not necessarily stupid, at least based upon his vision of the situation. The whole previous pattern of the British-French-Russian behavior seemingly indicated that none of these countries really wanted a major military commitment. Navarino was just an accident and, to think about it, this defeat may be not such a big disaster for the Ottomans:
- A big and the best part of the destroyed fleet was Egyptian and its destruction was weakening Mohammed Ali, which will be good when it eventually comes to fulfilling the promises given to him.
- The troops starving in Morea were the Egyptians, so “see above”.
- None of the three big countries had their armies ready for invasion so perhaps a victory of their joined fleet provides them with enough of a “glory” and a reason to get back to the diplomacy in which case the Ottoman’s defiant gesture looks like a show of strength putting Mahmud in a better bargaining position.
Seemingly, the fool’s luck was holding: in the early 1828 the news had been received that Emperor Alexander suddenly died December 1, 1827 of typhus to be succeeded by his younger brother Nicholas [1].
Not too much had been known about him. He was 31 years old, married to the daughter of FWIII of Prussia and already had five children. The marriage story was somewhat romantic. In the 1814 Alexander allowed his two younger brothers, Nicholas and Michael, to go on the European trip (Germany, France). In Berlin 17-year-old Nicholas first saw the 16-year-old daughter of King Frederick William III of Prussia, Princess Charlotte. On the way back from Paris he visited Berlin again. On November 4 (16), 1815, during an official dinner in Berlin, the engagement of Princess Charlotte and Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was announced.
Nicholas got a reasonably good education: some of the most reputable Russian professors had been teaching him finances, Russian history, military history and military engineering, which was his favorite subject. In the summer of 1816, Nikolai Pavlovich had to take a trip to Russia to complete his education to get acquainted with his homeland in administrative, commercial and industrial relations. On this occasion, on behalf of Empress Maria Feodorovna, a special note was drawn up, which set out the main principles of the administrative system of provincial Russia, described the areas that the Grand Duke had to pass, in historical, domestic, industrial and geographical relations, it was indicated what exactly could be the subject of the Grand Duke's conversations with representatives of the provincial authorities, which should be paid attention to. Thanks to a trip to some provinces of Russia, Nikolai Pavlovich got a visual idea of the internal state and problems of his country. This trip was followed by the visit to Britain where he got acquainted with the experience of developing the socio-political system of the state. On July 1 (13), 1817, Grand Duke Nicholas married Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, who was called Princess Charlotte of Prussia before her adoption of Orthodoxy. This marriage strengthened the political union between Russia and Prussia.
After the wedding, Emperor Alexander I instructed Nikolai Pavlovich to start his daily service, in July 1817 he was appointed Chief Inspector of the Corps of Engineers, then also became chief of the Life Guards’ Engineer Battalion. In the following 1818, Nicholas, in addition to these positions, was appointed commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Guards Infantry Division. Since March 1825 - Head of the 2nd Guards Infantry Division.
It was reasonable to expect that for the next year or more the new monarch will be too busy with the domestic affairs, coronation, receiving the dignitaries and deputations, making new administrative appointments, etc., to pay too much attention to the Ottoman affairs giving Mahmud enough time to finish off the rebels. After which Britain, France and Russia will accept the fait accompli.
However, at this point Mahmud run out of his luck.
Russia. Of course, nobody in the Russian military establishment was going to protest against Alexander’s foreign policy. However, on his side Alexander did not argue against validity of 'Si vis pacem, para bellum.' principle. The militaries had to be ready for any eventuality and volatile situation in the Ottoman Empire could explode at any time into something bigger. Since 1825 the Generalissimo and Minister of War [2] had been diligently working on preparations to the possible future campaign against the Ottomans, or Austrians, or both.
Logistics needed for concentration of the supplies and troops on the Russian South-Western border was very complicated. A potential theater was lacking pretty much everything from food to the descent roads so to a big degree a supply system, and resulting strategy, will be dependent upon supplies being carried by the sea to the ports of the western coast of the Black Sea. Which meant that the logistic tasks will be two-fold:
- Bring everything that is needed to the Russian Black Sea ports. With the railroad construction projects being mostly in a planing or early implementation stages, this meant that all necessary supplies would have to be transferred to these ports by the “conventional” means of the river transportation and horse/oxen power and their flow must continue throughout the war. Of course, there will be a need for the warehouses, existing and new, the necessary arrangements along the main roads, contracts with the suppliers, etc.
- Bring supplies from the Russian ports to the army. The resources of the Black Sea fleet, ROPiT and other commercial companies had to be accounted and arrangements to be made for commandeering whatever is necessary.
So, with Emperor Alexander dead, it was an open question, what Emperor Nicholas is going to do. And, to a great delight of the military (and army suppliers), he wanted to start his reign “gloriously” and what can be more glorious than a glorious war? He was too young to be allowed to participate in the Great Polish War but this war was his.
Coronation was postponed (and, anyway, it was somewhat indecent to rush with it) and Emperor Nicholas I joined Generalissimo Bonaparte, just as his late brother did in the previous war. Barclay remained in Moscow to guarantee that the wheels of logistics are keep turning smoothly. At the theater these issues had been under control of Quartermaster-General Karl von Toll.
Specifics of the theater (a narrow front of the operations and difficult logistics) put considerable restraints upon the size of the Russian army. As a result, 95,000 Russian troops had been facing the Ottoman army of 150,000 big part of which still were pre-reform provincial troops of a dubious quality.
- The Ottoman strategy was to hold quadrangle of the reasonably updated fortresses (Silistra, Ruschuk, Shumla, Varna) in a hope that the Russian advance is going to be bogged down by the sieges and combination of a difficult logistics and terrible climate will do the rest, forcing them to retreat due to the exhaustion.
- The Russian strategy was:
- For main army to take the ports, which they needed (Kustendzi, Varna, Burgas), blockade or ignore the rest of the fortified places (unless they are an easy pick) and keep advancing along the coast.
- A separate corps under command of general Geismar will march through Moldavia and Walachia covering the right flank of main army.
Politically, the Alexander’s view held:
- Russia is not interested in the territorial acquisitions, especially in Europe: there was nothing of value and could unnecessary irritate other Great Powers.
- Russia is not interested in the excessive weakening of the Porte because this could embolden Austria to look for “compensation” at the Ottoman expense.
- Creation of the new vassal or autonomous entities within Ottoman Empire is not in the Russian interests because at best they will be of a low interest as trade or political partners and realistically may be a source of trouble. However, getting against other Great Powers on this issue is also not in the Russian interests. In the case of Greece this looks inevitable so be it.
- Mahmud has to be punished for his behavior by extending the Russian trading rights in his empire.
Ottoman Empire. The first big operation was crossing the Danube. The Ottomans built the field fortifications at the potential crossing area but barrage from the cannon boats of the Black Sea fleet mostly neutralized their fire guarantying a secure crossing.
On May 27 in the morning, the crossing of Russian troops on ships and boats began in the presence of the sovereign. They reached the right bank, and when the advanced Turkish trenches were taken, the enemy fled from the rest. On May 30, the fortress of Isakcha surrendered. Having separated the detachments to blockade Machin, Girsov and Tulci, the main forces of the 3rd Corps reached Karas on June 6, while their vanguard under the command of General Fyodor Ridiger established blockade of Kyustenji.
The siege of Brailov quickly moved forward, and the chief of the siege troops, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, hurrying to end this case so that the 7th Corps could join the 3rd Corps, decided to storm the fortress on June 3; the assault was repulsed, but when 3 days after the surrender of Mechin followed, Commandant of Brailov, seeing himself cut off and losing hope of help, also surrendered (June 7).
After the fall of Brailov, the 7th Corps was sent to join the 3rd; General Roth with two infantry and one cavalry brigades was ordered to mortgage Silistria, and General Borozdin with six infantry and four cavalry regiments - to guard Wallachia. Even before the implementation of all these orders, the 3rd Corps moved to Bazardzhik, which, according to information, gathered significant Turkish forces. [3]
On June 8, the main forces of the Russian army led by the emperor approached Shumla and blocked it from the east side, strongly strengthened in their positions in order to interrupt the possibility of communication with Varna. On the same day, near the Bulanlyk River, a Turkish avant-garde of 15,000 men attacked Russian troops, but was repulsed and fled to Shumla. Serasker did not risk to get out and remained in the fortress with the main force.
At that point Emperor Nicholas, who already put his “stamp” on the war, left the army to get back to Moscow and start ruling the empire.
The Black Sea fleet arrived to Varna and, together with the land force of Prince Menshikov and the Guards started a siege. After receiving these news, Bonaparte ordered to leave a minimal land and naval force needed to maintain a blockade and to attack Burgos instead. For the relief of this fortress, the Turkish Corps of Omer Pasha Vrioni, 30,000 strong, arrived from the Kamchik River. His attempts to break to Varna had been repulsed, on June 29 Varna capitulated and Omer Pasha had to retreat.
The Russian squadrons of Greig on the Black Sea and Geiden on the Aegean established blockade of the Straits cutting food supplies for Constantinople.
To get Vizier Reshid Mehmed Pasha out of his “hiding place” in Shumla Bonaparte pretended that he is marching with all his force to besiege Silistria. As expected, Vizier with his main force marched out of Shumla to retake Varna and Bonaparte, leaving part of his army to keep marching on Silistria, attacked Vizier from the rear. In a battle of Kulevich (July 5) Vizier was defeated and retreated back to Shumla where he was safely blockaded.
The Turkish army lost 5,000 people killed, more than 2,000 prisoners, all artillery and all food. The Russian army lost 2,300 people killed and wounded.
On July 18 Silistria capitulated.
Meanwhile, the vizier, convinced that Dibić would besiege Shumla, gathered troops there from where possible - even from the Balkan passages and from coastal points on the Black Sea. The Russian army, meanwhile, advanced to the Kamchik River (Kamchia) and after a number of battles both on this river and in further movement in the mountains of the 6th and 7th Corps crossed the Balkan Range, simultaneously capturing two fortresses, Mesemvria and Ahiolo, and an important port Burgas.
On July 31 Bonaparte attacked the Ottoman corps of 20,000 near Sliven, defeated it and cut communications between Shumla and Adrianople.
After the fast marches, the Russian army approached Adrianople on August 7, and the surprise of its arrival so embarrassed the head of the garrison there that he offered to surrender. The next day, part of the Russian troops was introduced into the city, where large stocks of weapons and other supplies were found.
The Ottomans tried to advance into Walachia but The brilliant victory won by Geismar near the village of Boelesti put an end to their attempts.
Battle of Boelesti. On July 13, it was reported that Vidinskaya's seraskir with 30,000 troops - half of them cavalry, with 30 artillery guns - crossed the Danube and reached the village of Mazlavit. On the morning of July 14 the Turks came to Boelesti and began to strengthen their position. Taking into account the strategic and tactical situation, General Geismar decided to attack the enemy despite his superior forces and more profitable - the plain between Chori and Boelesti is completely flat, with an elevation at Boelesti - position: to hit and dispel the Turkish forces tired of the 50-verst march with a quick, if not sudden, attack. Geismar had under his command 4,200 troops with 14 guns.
At 10 a.m. on July 14, Russian troops arranged into a wedge with cavalry and Cossacks on the flanks moved from Chori to Boelesti, which was reached by 2 p.m. Two battery guns of the center immediately opened fire on Turkish positions, the Turks responded from all 30 guns sheltered behind small hills. Geismar tried to bypass the left flank Turkish positions on the right flank of his detachment to threaten the enemy's communication with Vidin. In response, Seraskir threw all his cavalry - about 10,000 people - on the right flank of the detachment - the square of the Tomsk Infantry Regiment. Covering the infantry, the 2nd Division (3rd and 4th Squadron) [4] of the Kargopol Dragoon Regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel von Leschern - with the support of the 1st Squadron of the Novorossiysk Dragoon Regiment and the Cossacks - counterattacked the Turks on the flank, defeated and chased them. The Russian infantry continued to move forward, allowing the artillery to take positions on hills to shell Turkish fortifications.
Meanwhile, the discarded Turkish cavalry secretly - behind the buildings of Boelesti - moved to the right flank of the seraskar position, and the rest of the mass attacked the Cossacks and another part of the Novorossiysk regiment along the road to Chora. Taking advantage of its huge numerical advantage, especially over the cavalry units of the Russians, the Turkish cavalry tried to bypass Geismar's detachment and capture its train.
Geismar responded with a flank blow of the 1st Division of Kargopol dragoons under the command of regimental commander Colonel Glazenap. Unable to withstand the second flank attack, the Turkish cavalry was torn in two, and - with the support of Novorossiysk reserve dragoons under the leadership of Count Tolstoy and a square grenadier with two guns - completely pushed back behind Boelesti. That's how the first part of the battle ended.
In the dark, General Geismar decided to hit the Turkish positions again in order to complete what he started during the day. The success was facilitated by the carelessness of the Turks, who did not even bother to set out outposts. Around 8 p.m., 8 two-company columns of Russian infantry moved to the enemy. 6 columns directly attacked the enemy, and 2 reserve columns were preparing to bypass the right wing of the Turkish position. Cavalry and artillery in common dense columns followed. The first shots plunged the Turkish cavalry in front of the camp into complete confusion. Ibrahim Pasha himself ran to Vidin on horseback, most of his closest assistants followed the example of the chief. Most of the other fugitives were intercepted by the cavalry sent by Geismar to the rear of the Turks at the beginning of the battle. However, the Turkish infantry managed to better prepare for the meeting with Russian troops. A stubborn bloody battle broke out on the outskirts of Boelesti. When the ranks of the Turks were scattered and their artillery was captured, some of the Turkish infantry refused proposed surrender, hiding in the houses of Boelesti. The Grenadier Reserve was forced to clear the village in hand-to-hand combat. By 4 a.m. on July 15 the Turkish camp had been surrounded and captured.
The Turks lost at least 2,000 killed only in the village of Boelesti. 507 people, 24 banners, 5 powder boxes, 24 supply lines and 400 with fodder and food supplies were captured. All the camp accessories went to the winners including Seraskier’s papers containing campaign plan.
The next day Geismar marched 30 versts forcing the Turks to retreat to the western banks of the Danube.
The battle, even if a relatively minor one by the numbers involved, is illustrative of a comparative qualities of the troops and their tactics.
The occupation of Adrianople, the close blockade of the straits and internal turmoil in Turkey finally shocked the severance of the Sultan; Commissioners for peace negotiations came to Bonaparte’s headquarters. However, these negotiations were deliberately delayed by the Turks in the expectation of help coming from Austria [5] and the Skutarian Pasha Mustafa, who until then evaded participation in hostilities, but now led a 40,000 Albanian army to the theater of war and already reached Sophia.
Bonaparte did not care too much for Mustafa and his Albanians but ordered Adjutant General Kiselev, who commanded Russian troops in the principalities, was sent an order: leaving part of his forces to protect Wallachia, cross the Danube with the rest and move against Mustafa. To the Ottoman Commissioners he announced that he gives them a deadline until September 1 to receive final instructions, and if peace is not concluded after that, military actions on the Russian side will resume. To reinforce these demands, several detachments were sent to Constantinople and a connection was established between them and Greig and Geiden squadrons.
The offensive of Russian detachments to Constantinople had its effect: the alarmed sultan begged the Prussian envoy to go as a mediator to Bonaparte who agreed to stop the movement of troops to the Turkish capital. Then the authorized Commissioners agreed to all the conditions proposed by them, and on September 2, the Peace of Adrianople was signed.
Greece. After the Battle of Navarino, the French expeditionary corps of General Maison (former Bernadotte’s aid-de-camp) arrived in Greece; Navarin, Crown, Modon and Patras were occupied by French troops; Egyptian troops left Greece, and in August 1828 Morea and the Cycladic Islands were free from the Turks.
Peace of Adrianople.
- The treaty opened the Dardanelles to all commercial vessels, thus liberating commerce for cereals, livestock and wood.
- The Sultan reguaranteed the previously promised autonomy to Serbia
- The Sultan promised autonomy for Greece along the lines of the London Protocol.
- The Sultan promised to pay indemnity to Russia.
- The Russian traders in Turkey were placed under the legal jurisdiction of the Russian ambassador and got a freedom of traveling and doing business in all Ottoman Empire.
- The custom dues for for the Russian-Ottoman trade had been set as 3% on import and export, 9% on exports’ transit and 2% on imports’ transit.
- Port Anapa (captured by Greig during the war) is ceded to Russia.
_______________
[1] No Constantine ITTL. He may not be even born or he died before Alexander.
[2] ITTL Both Nappy and Barclay are still alive: the life was much less stressful for both of them and by 1828 they are not too old even by the standards of time.
[3] In OTL that part of the war had been conducted rather ineptly. There were only two corps, 3rd and 7th, initially engaged, which was inadequate to the task. Other forces, 4th Reserve cavalry corps, 2nd corps (30,000) and the Guards (25,000) had been staying in Ukraine and moved to the theater piecemeal only when the numeric inadequacy became obvious. Plus, Wittgenstein, who was at that stage in charge, dutifully sucked up to the Ottomans scenario planning the expensive sieges and wasting time and people.
[4] Terminological confusion: in English and French “division” has a double meaning (which, according to Jomini, could be a cause for the misinterpreted Napoleon’s order and ill-famous French attack at Waterloo). In Russian, there are two different words: «дивизия» (a big entity consisting of few regiments) and «дивизион» (a small unit, in this case two cavalry squadrons, part of the Kargopol regiment).
[5] As in OTL, these expectations belonged to the wishful thinking category.
A good peace all in all, Russia gains open trade route through the Strait's and favorable access to the Ottoman market, for the indemnity, i suppose it isn't to high like in otl?
Good idea to expand in Anapa, from geopolitical point of view it doesn't change a lot as Black Sea is more, or less Russo Turkish lake and it's in Caucasus, faraway enough for other European powers not to be worried.
Greece is autonomous on other hand, far better option than the otl (For Russia at least), otl British feared increased Russian influence in trade of Eastern Med and thus they decided to support independent Greek state to close up Aegean for Russia and also to diminish the Russian influence in new state and not only did it work, but the biggest irony in all of this was that Russia more, or less did lion share of the work in the war (though Russia did get it's reward ) .
Other interesting thing is that otl Treaty of London essentially obligated Russia to promise that it won't expand at Turkish expense, nor will it seek any commercial advantage at the expense of the Ottoman's making a war purely one for the Prestige? Of course Russia more, or less broke it with otl peace of Adrianople which drew ire of the Brits and Europe (but what did they expect? For Russia to do the heavy lifting and get nothing?) Though this just more, or less shows inconsistency of Russian forgein policy in otl.
I assume that in ITTL London Treaty/Protocol Russia outright refused to speak about anything else but the Greek question? And otherwise how is that autonomy working out? Im assuming that it isn't inherited monarchy like in otl and that Russia probably has no intention to guarantee anything , nor will it give that right to Austria, or any other power so i assume leadership and protocol itself is more along the lines of otl Saint Petersburg protocol , i assume some concessions were made to Austria in reaffirmation of the Serbian autonomy, not giving independence to the Greece and assurances were given that Russia won't expand in the Balkans? That should get Austria on Russian side together with Prussia and Sweden thus giving Russia needed diplomatic cover in following peace treaty.
Otherwise why not call this war Greek revolutionary war ? As i doubt that Sultan would like to be called "the fool " especially if Russia plans to improve relations down the line.
Regarding the fate of Greek autonomy i see it falling under Russian influence as French are to far away and Russia actually has more presence in the area (Septinsular republic and more hold over Ottoman court).
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Well I suppose Egypt has been weakened as a result of this war so not a total loss for the Ottomans and terms are pretty good.
Not a bad idea, this way Russia that is most ready for the war gets to dictate the peace based on fait accompli and is more or stoping Mahmud from making things worse as war drag's on, thus being forced to give concessions to other powers beside Russia.
These are all good questions/issues and I’ll try to address them in the next chapter.
Making peace
204. Making peace
“Bartolo (continuing speech). I claim that this is a connecting union ‘and’ connecting the relative members of the sentence: I will pay the girl and marry her.Figaro (continuing his speech). And I claim that this is a dividing union ‘or’, the mentioned members that separates: I will pay the girl or marry her. “
1828. Greece
While the fighting still going on in Greece, Admiral Condrington and his French and Russian colleagues decided to enforce the evacuation of the peninsula by Ibrahim Pasha (Egyptian commander) peacefully. Codrington sailed to Alexandria to discuss situation with Muhammed Ali and persuade him to order his son to get out of Greece. Mohammed Ali already had more than one reason to question wisdom of getting into this mess: his fleet was almost completely destroyed, his troops in Greece had been suffering from the numerous problems (of which the Greeks were somewhere at the bottom of the list) and it was less and less obvious that the Sultan is going to keep to his word regarding expected rewards, especially if the Egyptian army is seriously weakened by fighting in Greece. So he rather willingly signed evacuation order.
After this was done, the French government sent a military (and scientific, how without it) expedition to Morea to oversee the evacuation and to try to influence Mahmud to agree to settlement with the Greeks by the peaceful means. The Chamber of Deputies authorised a loan of 80 million gold francs to allow the government to meet its obligations for the expedition. An expeditionary corps of 13,000–15,000 men commanded by Lieutenant-General Nicolas Joseph Maison was formed.
It was composed of nine infantry regiments distributed in three brigades. Also departing were the 3rd Chasseur Regiment (1st brigade, 286 men), four companies of artillery (484 men, with 12 battery pieces for sieges, 8 for campaigns, and 12 for mountains) of the 3rd and 8th Artillery Regiments, and two companies of military engineers that included 800 sappers (combat engineers) and miners. A transport fleet protected by warships was organised; sixty ships sailed in all. Equipment, victuals, munitions and 1,300 horses had to be brought over, as well as arms, munitions and money for the Greek provisional government of Ioannis Kapodistrias. France wished to support the first steps of free Greece by helping it developing its own army. The aim was also to gain influence in the region.
After a boat passage without problems, the first convoy transporting the two first brigades arrived on 28 August in Navarino bay, where the joint Franco-Russo-British squadron was berthed. With the Egyptian army ensconced between Navarino and Methoni, the landing was risky and the fleet sailed toward the Messenian Gulf. The expeditionary corps reached the northwest part of the Gulf and began disembarking on the evening of 29 August with no opposition, and finished on 30–31 August.
The meeting between general Maison and Ibrahim Pasha [1] was quite friendly but Ibrahim found numerous excuses for delaying evacuation, including quite reasonable statement that he does not have enough ships [2]. But gradually these problems had been resolved after which the French soldiers began to suffer from the autumnal rains that drenched the tents pitched in their camps and favoured the spread of fever and dysentery. [3] Eventually, the Egyptian troops left leaving approximately 1,500 Turkish garrisons in various fortifications.
From this point the glorious military part of the campaign started. It was seemingly all along the same lines:
There were one or two cases when a bombardment required and one tragic incident when a dozen Frenchmen had been wounded by the rocks thrown from the wall. In this specific case the other French soldiers felt insulted and their general had great difficulty in preventing them from opening fire and taking the stronghold by force. [4] Actually, preventing the troops from firing or hurting the Ottomans some other way was the main problem of the French commanders (after dysentery and fever).
On 5 November 1828, the last Turks and Egyptians had definitely left Morea. 2,500 men and their families were placed aboard French vessels headed for Smyrna.
At that point the French and British interests began to differ. General Maison wanted extending the military oppeton to Attica and Euboea while the British government opposed this plan (it wanted the new Greek state to be limited only to Peloponnese), thus it was left to the Greeks to drive out the Ottomans from these territories, with the understanding that the French army would only intervene if the Greeks found themselves in trouble. But the Ottomans were in a such sorry state that the Greeks got an upper hand and even managed to defeat them in a regular field battle.
However, it took the military victory of Russia in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828 and the Treaty of Adrianople, which was then ratified by the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832, before the independence of Greece was recognized and guaranteed by the Great Powers. Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of the territory. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King.
The treaties.
The Treaty of Adrianople, straightforward and restrained as it was, did cause a moderate tempest in a teaspoon. Of course, it was based upon the London Treaty and directly referenced it in a part related to the Ottoman-Greek arrangement:
“ART. II. The Arrangement to be proposed to the Ottoman Porte shall rest upon the following bases:
Greece to be a Dependency of Turkey and Pay Tribute.”
However, there was seemingly a contradiction with Article V:
“ART. V. The Contracting Powers will not seek, in these Arrangements, any augmentation of territory, any exclusive influence, or any commercial advantage for their subjects, which those of every other nation may not equally obtain.”
Augmentation of territory was not an issue: Russia got Anapa but this was an obscure port on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea far away from anybody’s sphere of interests. Russia could even boast that its capture put out of business one of the slave trade outlets.
The commercial advantage was a more serious complaint because Russia definitely got it. However, the Russian counter-argument was that the Treaty of London was not covering the existing situation at all being dedicated exclusively to non-military talks:
“the High Powers will, jointly, exert all their efforts to accomplish the object of such Armistice, without, however, taking any part in the hostilities between the Two Contending Parties.”
Taking into an account that the High Powers got directly engaged in the hostilities and that, moreover, there was a formal state of a war into which the said powers got engaged without any military treaty, each of them is entitled to making a separate peace conditions of which will not prevent other Powers from making the similar trade arrangements in their treaties. Then again, wasn’t the very fact of the Greek independence a gross violation of the Article II?
Actually, the Russian representative made some moderate fuss about this issue: loud enough to be heard by the Turks but not strong enough to cause a rift with two partners. The reason was simple: whatever were the devious plans of late Alexander, Nicholas did not care enough about the formal status of the Greek state as long as it is weak enough not to create the new troubles with the Ottomans who were a much more important factor in the Russian politics and economy. It was supposed that a new Greek state is going to be reasonably neutral/friendly to Russia and that a slightly “abridged” Ottoman Empire will value the Russian friendship as it did before.
Taking into the account that at least the Brits were looking for a similar trade arrangement for themselves, and that it was rather hard to argue that the Treaty of London implied that Russia was under any obligation to fight a war without gaining anything, the dispute died by the natural causes.
Austria was seemingly unhappy with the fact that it did not get any “compensation” for doing nothing but it was not a signatory of the London Treaty and none of three Powers saw any reason for giving to it anything, especially in a view of their own self-restraint.
The important part was that Nicholas started his reign by convincingly confirming Russia’s status of a Great Power without stepping to much on anybody’s toes. Domestically, the “society” was ecstatic and the military very proud of themselves. And it did not even cost too much. There will be the celebratory parades, awards, state and private balls and some entertainments for the “lower classes”.
It was to be expected that sooner rather than later Britain will also get similarly favorable trade deal but so far nomenclature of its and Russian imports to the Ottoman Empire was reasonably different and many of the competing items were cheaper when coming from Russia due to the much shorter distances. As for the rest, Odessa was already a biggest port on the Black Sea intensively visited by the British and French merchant ships. Short of the rather fanciful schemas, neither the Principalities nor Hungary (if the Ottomans fully open the Danube) could successfully compete in the agricultural (and not only) products.
What this war made clear was the importance of better communications so the future task #1 was the railroads. A lot of them. Well, of course, after the coronation.
____________
[1] I have no idea why at the front of the painting there is a bunch of half-dressed women.
[2] This one was clearly a bizarre pretext: obviously, the Egyptians could just swim all the way to Egypt if they wanted. 😉
[3] During the Revolutionary wars and (in OTL) Napoleonic ones, the French bivouacking arrangements were quite pathetic. Nappy himself considered the tents a bad idea (except for the commanders who had to deal with the maps and documents) and it does not look like after him there were noticeable improvements in that area.
[4] FYI, this specific fortress had 80 cannons none of which seemingly fired a shot.
“Bartolo (continuing speech). I claim that this is a connecting union ‘and’ connecting the relative members of the sentence: I will pay the girl and marry her.
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Marriage of Figaro
“Treaties are observed as long as they are in harmony with interests.”
Napoleon
“Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.”
Charles de Gaulle
“No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.”
Sophocles
“Treaties are observed as long as they are in harmony with interests.”
Napoleon
“Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.”
Charles de Gaulle
“No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.”
Sophocles
1828. Greece
While the fighting still going on in Greece, Admiral Condrington and his French and Russian colleagues decided to enforce the evacuation of the peninsula by Ibrahim Pasha (Egyptian commander) peacefully. Codrington sailed to Alexandria to discuss situation with Muhammed Ali and persuade him to order his son to get out of Greece. Mohammed Ali already had more than one reason to question wisdom of getting into this mess: his fleet was almost completely destroyed, his troops in Greece had been suffering from the numerous problems (of which the Greeks were somewhere at the bottom of the list) and it was less and less obvious that the Sultan is going to keep to his word regarding expected rewards, especially if the Egyptian army is seriously weakened by fighting in Greece. So he rather willingly signed evacuation order.
After this was done, the French government sent a military (and scientific, how without it) expedition to Morea to oversee the evacuation and to try to influence Mahmud to agree to settlement with the Greeks by the peaceful means. The Chamber of Deputies authorised a loan of 80 million gold francs to allow the government to meet its obligations for the expedition. An expeditionary corps of 13,000–15,000 men commanded by Lieutenant-General Nicolas Joseph Maison was formed.
It was composed of nine infantry regiments distributed in three brigades. Also departing were the 3rd Chasseur Regiment (1st brigade, 286 men), four companies of artillery (484 men, with 12 battery pieces for sieges, 8 for campaigns, and 12 for mountains) of the 3rd and 8th Artillery Regiments, and two companies of military engineers that included 800 sappers (combat engineers) and miners. A transport fleet protected by warships was organised; sixty ships sailed in all. Equipment, victuals, munitions and 1,300 horses had to be brought over, as well as arms, munitions and money for the Greek provisional government of Ioannis Kapodistrias. France wished to support the first steps of free Greece by helping it developing its own army. The aim was also to gain influence in the region.
After a boat passage without problems, the first convoy transporting the two first brigades arrived on 28 August in Navarino bay, where the joint Franco-Russo-British squadron was berthed. With the Egyptian army ensconced between Navarino and Methoni, the landing was risky and the fleet sailed toward the Messenian Gulf. The expeditionary corps reached the northwest part of the Gulf and began disembarking on the evening of 29 August with no opposition, and finished on 30–31 August.
The meeting between general Maison and Ibrahim Pasha [1] was quite friendly but Ibrahim found numerous excuses for delaying evacuation, including quite reasonable statement that he does not have enough ships [2]. But gradually these problems had been resolved after which the French soldiers began to suffer from the autumnal rains that drenched the tents pitched in their camps and favoured the spread of fever and dysentery. [3] Eventually, the Egyptian troops left leaving approximately 1,500 Turkish garrisons in various fortifications.
From this point the glorious military part of the campaign started. It was seemingly all along the same lines:
- The French troops approached a fortress and called its commandant to surrender.
- The commandant answers that he can’t surrender without the Sultan’s order.
- The French are using their engineers to make a breach in a wall while the Turks are peacefully watching.
- After the wall is breached, the Turks surrender.
There were one or two cases when a bombardment required and one tragic incident when a dozen Frenchmen had been wounded by the rocks thrown from the wall. In this specific case the other French soldiers felt insulted and their general had great difficulty in preventing them from opening fire and taking the stronghold by force. [4] Actually, preventing the troops from firing or hurting the Ottomans some other way was the main problem of the French commanders (after dysentery and fever).
On 5 November 1828, the last Turks and Egyptians had definitely left Morea. 2,500 men and their families were placed aboard French vessels headed for Smyrna.
At that point the French and British interests began to differ. General Maison wanted extending the military oppeton to Attica and Euboea while the British government opposed this plan (it wanted the new Greek state to be limited only to Peloponnese), thus it was left to the Greeks to drive out the Ottomans from these territories, with the understanding that the French army would only intervene if the Greeks found themselves in trouble. But the Ottomans were in a such sorry state that the Greeks got an upper hand and even managed to defeat them in a regular field battle.
However, it took the military victory of Russia in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828 and the Treaty of Adrianople, which was then ratified by the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832, before the independence of Greece was recognized and guaranteed by the Great Powers. Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of the territory. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King.
The treaties.
The Treaty of Adrianople, straightforward and restrained as it was, did cause a moderate tempest in a teaspoon. Of course, it was based upon the London Treaty and directly referenced it in a part related to the Ottoman-Greek arrangement:
“ART. II. The Arrangement to be proposed to the Ottoman Porte shall rest upon the following bases:
Greece to be a Dependency of Turkey and Pay Tribute.”
However, there was seemingly a contradiction with Article V:
“ART. V. The Contracting Powers will not seek, in these Arrangements, any augmentation of territory, any exclusive influence, or any commercial advantage for their subjects, which those of every other nation may not equally obtain.”
Augmentation of territory was not an issue: Russia got Anapa but this was an obscure port on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea far away from anybody’s sphere of interests. Russia could even boast that its capture put out of business one of the slave trade outlets.
The commercial advantage was a more serious complaint because Russia definitely got it. However, the Russian counter-argument was that the Treaty of London was not covering the existing situation at all being dedicated exclusively to non-military talks:
“the High Powers will, jointly, exert all their efforts to accomplish the object of such Armistice, without, however, taking any part in the hostilities between the Two Contending Parties.”
Taking into an account that the High Powers got directly engaged in the hostilities and that, moreover, there was a formal state of a war into which the said powers got engaged without any military treaty, each of them is entitled to making a separate peace conditions of which will not prevent other Powers from making the similar trade arrangements in their treaties. Then again, wasn’t the very fact of the Greek independence a gross violation of the Article II?
Actually, the Russian representative made some moderate fuss about this issue: loud enough to be heard by the Turks but not strong enough to cause a rift with two partners. The reason was simple: whatever were the devious plans of late Alexander, Nicholas did not care enough about the formal status of the Greek state as long as it is weak enough not to create the new troubles with the Ottomans who were a much more important factor in the Russian politics and economy. It was supposed that a new Greek state is going to be reasonably neutral/friendly to Russia and that a slightly “abridged” Ottoman Empire will value the Russian friendship as it did before.
Taking into the account that at least the Brits were looking for a similar trade arrangement for themselves, and that it was rather hard to argue that the Treaty of London implied that Russia was under any obligation to fight a war without gaining anything, the dispute died by the natural causes.
Austria was seemingly unhappy with the fact that it did not get any “compensation” for doing nothing but it was not a signatory of the London Treaty and none of three Powers saw any reason for giving to it anything, especially in a view of their own self-restraint.
The important part was that Nicholas started his reign by convincingly confirming Russia’s status of a Great Power without stepping to much on anybody’s toes. Domestically, the “society” was ecstatic and the military very proud of themselves. And it did not even cost too much. There will be the celebratory parades, awards, state and private balls and some entertainments for the “lower classes”.
It was to be expected that sooner rather than later Britain will also get similarly favorable trade deal but so far nomenclature of its and Russian imports to the Ottoman Empire was reasonably different and many of the competing items were cheaper when coming from Russia due to the much shorter distances. As for the rest, Odessa was already a biggest port on the Black Sea intensively visited by the British and French merchant ships. Short of the rather fanciful schemas, neither the Principalities nor Hungary (if the Ottomans fully open the Danube) could successfully compete in the agricultural (and not only) products.
What this war made clear was the importance of better communications so the future task #1 was the railroads. A lot of them. Well, of course, after the coronation.
____________
[1] I have no idea why at the front of the painting there is a bunch of half-dressed women.
[2] This one was clearly a bizarre pretext: obviously, the Egyptians could just swim all the way to Egypt if they wanted. 😉
[3] During the Revolutionary wars and (in OTL) Napoleonic ones, the French bivouacking arrangements were quite pathetic. Nappy himself considered the tents a bad idea (except for the commanders who had to deal with the maps and documents) and it does not look like after him there were noticeable improvements in that area.
[4] FYI, this specific fortress had 80 cannons none of which seemingly fired a shot.
Attachments
Full steam ahead
“The girl next to me on the train didn't stop chatting all the way! I'm already starting to regret marrying her...”
“It was hot in the compartment, and the men took off their wedding rings.”
“There are two types of windows in the cars of our trains: not closing and not opening.”
General observations regarding the railroads
“Railways should not be built at all, and banks should not be allowed. That's when there would be a real palladium. [1] But since the roads are already built and the banks have been established, there is nothing you can do about it.”
Saltykov-Schedrin ‘Poshekhonie stories”
Getting slightly backward in time.“It was hot in the compartment, and the men took off their wedding rings.”
“There are two types of windows in the cars of our trains: not closing and not opening.”
General observations regarding the railroads
“Railways should not be built at all, and banks should not be allowed. That's when there would be a real palladium. [1] But since the roads are already built and the banks have been established, there is nothing you can do about it.”
Saltykov-Schedrin ‘Poshekhonie stories”
Britain 1820. The advantages and disadvantages of parliamentarian system (😉)
- Starting from 1760 the cotton industry of Lancashire was doubling its volume every 20 years. Two most important cities, Liverpool and Manchester had bee linked with each other by 3 channels constructed in the mid-XVIII, each of them belonging to a separate company. In practical terms, these channel-owners had a monopoly over the cargo traffic, which they were using to raise the freight charges. In an effort to further increase the freight charge, canal owners' companies closed traffic arbitrarily, introduced limited contingents of goods transported for each company, etc. But even if the channel owners wanted to, they could not cope with the growing cargo turnover. In addition, navigation stopped in winter. Cotton went 21 days from New York to Liverpool, and often would came from Liverpool to Manchester after a month and a half, although the distance between cities did not exceed fifty kilometers. There were still ordinary roads, but they were in poor condition and were also teeming with robbers. The factories stopped. The situation of workers dismissed by manufacturers was terrible.
- In 1820 Thomas Gray wrote a book “Observations on a General Iron Railway" in which he advocated creation of the system of railroads as a way to deal with the existing transportation problems. Specifically, he advocated construction of a railroad between Liverpool and Manchester.
- In 1822 two businessmen on their own risk financed research for a potential route. The locals did not like it and the members of the research parties often had been beaten and their equipment destroyed. However, they persisted and the initiators publicly declared their intention to introduce a bill into the Parliament. As a head of the future construction they invited Stephenson.
- In mid-1824 in Liverpool there was a meeting of 150 major local businessmen which ended with a foundation of the special railroad constructioncommittee and signing of a declaration. All attempts to find a compromise with the land- and channel-owners failed.
- In the fall of 1824 the 1st prospect was published. The research continued facing the same hostile attitudes. Too late the channel-owners offered to negotiate offering the lowered tariffs: the committee members already invested too much money to stop.
- An intensive PR campaign against the railroad had been launched predicting a terrible fate for the stable owners, innkeepers, financial ruin of the farmers, fires caused by the steamers and all the way to the cows loosing their milk due to the noice.
- 21 March 1825 project was introduced into the Parliament and a special commission was formed followed by two months of the hearings. The railroad proponents had been divided into two groups:
- Investor (and their journalists and the lawyers) who insisted just on creation of a railroad [2].
- Stephenson and his supporters who insisted upon using a steam technology.
- After finding technical defects in the preliminary research the commission voted the project down by 19 votes against 13.
- The first attempt was over and the next two years the railroad committee spent on greasing the numerous wheels spending by 1826 157,000 pounds which amounted to 21% of the total cost.
- The second application passed through thank to the combination of 157,000, agreement not to use the steamers and dumping Stephenson (who was later quietly reinstated).
- Only in 1829 the committee finally decided to use the steam.
Russia 1825. The advantages and disadvantages of absolutism (😉)
It was not that the idea of the railroads was something completely new. There were already some horse- and steam-driven railroads on the industrial plants, the military started railroad construction in the CA and there were some other small-scale projects here and there but so far the government’s involved had been mostly limited to the general regulations like wide of the gauge.
So far, combination of the rivers/channel arteries and the local railroads was marginally adequate for the commercial traffic but with the manufacturing volume growing the bottlenecks started to occur. The travel segment of the issue was more complicated. To some degree it was handled by the steamships (especially as far as Volga region was involved). Travel by land was still more traditional but in 1820 a stagecoach service was introduced. First, on a paved highway Moscow-St-Petersburg
and then between most of the significant cities.
However, the vocal debate in Britain (still pretty much an European center of the technological innovations) was a thing important enough to attract attention on the very top. Alexander I was still alive and he ordered creation of the special committee, chaired (as was pretty much a tradition) by his younger brother who was, after all, a military engineer (and was taking his “profession” seriously). The first question was obvious: strategic plan for the future Russian railroads based upon the known economic, administrative and military interests including impact upon the future development of the “new” regions.
Taking into an account personality of the committee chairman, the first proposal was stressing military-economic aspect. For the starters, it was proposed to implement two “axis”: St-Petersburg - Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod - Kazan and Moscow - Odessa - Taganrog. The idea was to connect St. Petersburg and the capital with the main inland waterway of European Russia - the Volga, with the help of a rail track, with the economically important region of the Middle Volga (Kazan was the third scientific center of the country, and the largest fair of all-Russian importance was held in Nizhny Novgorod) and through it - with the Ural mining region. Such a decision was to partially relieve the Mariinsky and Vyshnevolotsk canal systems, through which the main delivery of various goods from the interior of the country to St. Petersburg and then for export through the port of St. Petersburg went. For Moscow, this meant further strengthening the role of the most important transport hub and laid the prerequisites for its accelerated development as a center of the manufacturing industry.
Plan proposed by the Ministry of the State properties in 1826 was based upon the different priority: grain export. The priority of railways designed to become channels for the delivery of export bread to ports was formulated, and a method for determining the directions of future railway lines was proposed. Initially, the necessary (main) roads were to connect the main grain-producing areas with the ports of St. Petersburg, and Odessa. The internal provinces, which will bring their products to them, will themselves identify the "natural" directions of secondary and connecting roads.
The project proposed by P.P.Melnikov, a transportation specialist and future Minister of Transportation (and a person responsible for picking Russian OTL gauge) involved construction of more than 3,200 km of the railroads. It included Moscow-St. Petersburg RR and the roads to the Black Sea ports and Donbas.
The first private initiative came to life almost immediately. In 1826 landowner from Poltava, Pavlovsky, asked for the government’s permission to organize a publicly-held company for constructing a railroad between Moscow and Kremenchug. This road would pass through some of the most commercially active gubernias connecting the major piers of the mid-Dnieper with those of Oka and Volga.
This project was declined by then Minister of Transportation, Count Kleinmichel, based upon a law which was greatly impeding the private railroad construction: prior to establishing a public company and getting concession the founders had to conduct a complete research of a route, provide a full project of a construction, provide all financial plans, and put into the state bank a deposit amounting to 5% of a full cost to secure the implementation of a project.
Count Kleinmichel was notorious for his very bad memory, which was a very convenient excuse for pretty much everything. To any inconvenient question he honestly responded that he does not remember the issue or the circumstances. He also had a reputation of a very honest person because he personally never took a bribe: they were delivered to his wife.
Anyway, the top priority was given to the railroad Moscow-St. Petersburg. Besides administrative-strategic considerations (considerable part of the state administrative structures was located in St. Petersburg and the same goes for a part of the Guards’ units) this was an issue of a pure practicality dictated by a huge volume of traffic between these two cities. Most of the traffic was going from Moscow to St. Petersburg by the channels’s system and in 1825 volume in this direction amounted to 1.3 millions tons. The railroad was expected to pick, initially, a rather modest fraction of that volume, 0.4 millions tons. However, it was expected to deliver both goods and passengers much faster than even a postal stagecoach.
According to the project, a total construction cost should amount to 47 millions rubles (silver) and annual pure profit - 2.6millions. The project projected annual transfer of 400,000 tons of goods and 270,000 passengers. The first advantage of the absolutism was that there was no opposition lobbying for a low speed of a traffic (😉): projected speed limits were 16 km/hours for the cargo trains and 37 km/hour for the passenger trains.
Construction was planned to start in the early 1828 but the death of Alexander and the following war delayed it until 1829.
1829. Russia. “A new broom”
After being present at the war and then crowned the new Emperor Nicholas I was seemingly bent on showing that a new broom sweeps clean and one of the first areas of applying that principle were the railroads. As a military engineer and (for a while) participant of a reasonably big war, he got an idea about importance of that new way of transportation and had no intention to pay attention to the contradicting voices.
Count Kankrin, Minister of Finances, was considered a valuable specialist in the area of finances (which he was, except for a number of really bad ideas including opposing the railroads as a matter of principle) so he was left in his position. However, he was pointed that his competence is limited to the finances, foreign trade and the customs. The domestic trade is within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior and the railroads and other means of the transportation belong to the Ministry of Transportation and he should not interfere into the domains of other ministers unless his opinion is explicitly solicited.
Count Kleinmichel was not that valuable. He was put into a retirement with a gentle hint that the waters in Baden-Baden presumably do miracles in improving one’s health in general and specifically a memory. He was replaced by K.V. Chevkin, Chief of Staff of the Corps of Mining Engineers, who had visited England and other parts of Western Europe to study the development of railways before joining Lieutenant-Colonel Pavel Petrovich Melnikov and Colonel N. O. Kraft in Commission looking into the viability of establishing the Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway.
Length of the road was 645 km. The construction started in 1830 and between 14 and 16 August 1836 on the first 9 trains the units of the Guards Corps had been carried from St. Petersburg to Moscow followed, on August 19, by the imperial train of 9 cars. The trip took 19 hours (it would take 4-5 days by a postal stagecoach). On 1 November the first passenger train of 6 cars went from Moscow to St. Petersburg covering distance in 21 hours 45 minutes. Cost of the 1st class ticket was 19 rubles (stagecoach - 95 rubles). Merchandise transportation cost between 9 and 24.42 rubles per ton while the traditional land transportation would cost 73.26 per ton in the summer and 146.5 rubles during the winter.
Of course, it took 8 years before the road got to a planned level of a profitability and a cargo volume (after which both kept growing) but even in the first year it carried 3 times more passengers than expected.
Construction required 79,000 tons rails which required a serious adjustment of the Russian metallurgy. Initially, State cast iron smelter in St. Petersburg was assigned to the task but its resources proved to be seriously inadequate and the orders had been distributed to a number of the privately owned plants in the European Russia at the cost of 83.7 rubles per ton including delivery. The rails were iron, weighing 30 kg/m, 5.4 m long and 9 cm high; they were fastened together with an 11-kilogram cast iron cushion laid on a sleeper. Iron rails worn out for four, five years and required regular replacement.
Putilov Plant.
Besides the rails the railroads needed a lot of machinery of various types. State Cast Iron Smeltery, founded in 1801, proved to be not adequate for producing enough rails because it was routinely oriented toward production of various military equipment including the rifles. Since 1812, the plant began to develop the engineering direction, starting to manufacture steam engines. [3] At the same time, artistic and foundry production was mastered, the plant participated in the creation of architectural ensembles and monumental and sculptural monuments of St. Petersburg and the suburbs. After an attempt to re-orient it toward the rail production it changed ownership more than once it was eventually purchased by the engineer and entrepreneur N.I. Putilov who turned the metallurgical enterprise into a multidisciplinary machine-building complex.
In the shortest possible time, Putilovsky Zavod became the main supplier of rails for Russian railways, selling them for 1 rub. 88 kopecks/pud. In 1860, the Bessemer converter began to work. The smelting of high-quality steels, the production of wagons, large-sized metal structures, tools and other types of industrial products were also mastered, many of which were produced using their own technology. In connection with the development of railway business in the country, a huge amount of rolling stock was needed to meet the needs of the new industry, so the Putilov plant switched from rails, the production of which was more expensive for the plant, due to cost of raw materials, than in the south of the country, in particular Lugansk, switched to steam locomotives and wagon construction. In the first years of steam locomotive construction, the plant copied ready-made models and from the very beginning, again, faced competition in the south of the country. Production of steam locomotives in the south and at the plants of central Russia (in Kolomna, Sormovo) was cheaper, as there were inexpensive raw materials. In addition, due to the rapid development of railway business in Russia, new requirements for transport were formed that could not be met by previous types of rolling stock. To meet the new conditions and tasks, Putilov created a steam locomotive office, which began to design new models, improve old ones, create its own types of steam locomotives.
Alexandrovsky Plant. Was built in 1826 as a state plant.
Produced a variety of products on orders of the Ministry of Finance, military and naval departments, for the construction needs of the city, as well as for individuals. His workshops manufactured steam engines, metalworking machines, artillery shells, industrial equipment, bread and drinking measures, weights and exchanges for the Ministry of Finance. The plant built steamships, participated in the construction of a number of architectural monuments of the city, creating not only building structures for them, but also decor. In those years, the plant belonged to the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs.
In connection with the beginning of the construction of the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow and the need to provide it with transport, at the initiative of P.P. Melnikov, the plant was transferred to the Main Directorate of Railways, was named the Alexandrovsky Main Mechanical Plant of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway and given as a concession to a group of the mechanical engineers. It was obliged to "manufacture locomotives and wagons for the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway, supply the plant with all the necessary machines and tools for this matter; train the mechanical office work of the plant's craftsmen; form drivers from them; prepare conductors and, in general, bring the plant to its intended purpose." The direction of activity of the plant required concessionaires to revise and update all fixed assets. Machines and tools were discharged for the organization of locomotive production, and wooden barracks intended for the construction of wagons were built behind the working village adjacent to the plant on 5 hectares. The plant produced the first locomotives for the Moscow - St. Petersburg railroad. In 1836, there were 230 machines and machines on the technical armament of the Alexandrovsky plant, including unique equipment at that time: steam hammers, a pipe pulling machine, a gear cutting machine, a special installation for testing metal structures, mechanical and hydraulic presses. The plant had mechanical, sawmill, foundry, machine-smithing, locksmith and other workshops equipped with new equipment. Emperor Nicholas I himself decided to inspect the fleet of new cars, which were about to run along the highway.
Sormovo Plant.
In March 1829, the "Company of the Nizhny Novgorod Machine Factory of the Volga Towing and Imported Shipping Company" was established in St. Petersburg. Its founders were prince L.V. Kochubey, prince V.A. Menshikov and D.E. Benardaki. On June 30, 1829, by proxy of the company, a plot of land was bought on the right bank of the Volga River, between the villages of Sormovo and Myshyakovka. On July 21, 1829, the Balakhninsky District Court approved the bill of sale. This date is considered the birthday of the Sormovsky plant. The plant began to be created in 1829. Initially, it was called "Nizhny Novgorod workshops of the Kamsko-Volga Towing Shipping Company" and was planned as a shipbuilding one. The workshops consisted of turning and locksmith departments, a cast iron foundry workshop with a forge, a boiler room workshop and shipyards for ship assembly. Starting with the construction of steam ships with wooden hulls, the plant quickly switched to steamers and barges with iron plating. The first steamer with a metal hull was Eagle, launched on April 30, 1832 and eventually the plant became the greater ship builder on Volga.
The plant also began to develop wagon production. In this regard, a wagon shop and related wheel, woodworking and bandage workshops were built on its territory, forging and rolling shops were expanding, and new equipment was being installed. Sormovsky Zavod becomes the largest car building enterprise. It got state order for 1150 wagons and kept increasing their production. In 5 years alone, the plant supplied 6,628 freight cars to railways, which accounted for 17% of cars built by all factories in the country. The rapid development of wagon construction at the plant was facilitated by its metallurgical base, which in turn developed in connection with the mass production of wagons. The cars built at the Sormovsky plant were of high quality and had a lower price than similar designs of foreign production.
Issue of the private construction had been raised again in 1830. This time attitude was different. Nicholas was stickler to the rules and as far as the rules were involved, the main rule of the Russan Empire was that an Emperor is a sole source of the laws but has to follow the laws once they are formally accepted. Kleimichel, of course, had to obey the existing law and so did Chevkin. Strictly speaking, even Nicholas himself had to follow the law. But only for as long as he did not decide to change it. Which he did when situation was brought to his attention. The conditions for application were made much less restrictive jumpstarting creation of a number of railroads.
One of the first and biggest companies was “Main Society of the Russian Railroads” which included Russian, French, British, Dutch and German investors and specialists which issued obligations to a total of over 112 millions rubles. Its initial plans were extremely ambitious but soon enough they shrunk to a construction of St. Petersburg - Warsaw and Nizhny Novgorod railroads, 1,616 verst total. Most of other construction had been done by the state and another companies.
1831 Elsewhere. Far away from Russia Muhammed Ali came to a reasonable conclusion that the Sultan did not compensate him for the services granted….
The reign of Nicholas promised to be quite busy.
_________
[1] Here in the meaning “Mascot, sacred object that brings good luck to the owner (more often the country)”. Always hard to tell with this author when he really thought what he wrote and when it was a sarcasm: his speciality in the literature was criticize everything.
[2] Not necessarily steam-powered, the horses would be OK. As a result, they were supportive of a speed limit equal to the average horse-powered traffic, 6 km/hour.
[3] As in OTL.
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Expensive, but beside the empire having quite reasonable economic policy and not being involved into costly prestige wars through history it also got quite a bit of reparations from Austria and Prussia at the begining of the century (around 78 mil roubles) and indemnity form the Ottoman's in last war (though given good relationship this could be just the coat of war for Russian side), basically treasury should operate on a quite a surplus.
Darling, the raw GT is embarassing there.
It took кн. (knyaz/Prince) and interpreted it as книга /book.
Is it the check "Does anyone actually read my stuff?"
Nope. Just got concentrated on fixing other lapses and did not check this part carefully: did not expect that GT will manage to screw that. Thanks for finding.
This was OTL projected cost. In a reality it ended up costing more to a country which was not well off financially. But in a few years it was generating a much higher than estimated profit. So ITTL it is more affordable and, with Kleinmichel out, less expensive.
The ironic thing is that the contemporary “progressive” writers did not, in general, consider the railroads as something positive, tending to concentrate on the sufferings of the construction workers and the profits made by the contractors. Needless to say that, while the working conditions were bad and pay low, for many of these workers the alternative was a death from starvation. And of course, the bemoaning did not prevent these writers from using the railroads: a popular poem on the subject was inspired by such a travel with author seemingly riding in the 1st class. 😉
"Those disgusting rainroads! Ugly and forcing people to work on them!
I miss the good times where people would just have a nice walk"
"So why are you not walking all the way to St Petersburg-"
"Silence! Unfortunately in this age we simply cant go fast enough on our own to important cities, another symptom of this decadence, and due to the utmost importance of my work I'm forced to take this unrefined means of transportation"
"You know you could always take a horse"
"What?!"
"And a donkey if you wanna carry all this rather useless baggage"
"REEEEEEEEE"
Yes, this is truly terrible. Just imagine all these poor peasants struggling with shoveling instead of just quietly dying from a starvation. Well, of course, this would also be a subject of your bemoaning so you’ll get royalties for your poem one way or another which would allow you to spend hours playing cards with your equally progressive friends.
A side note. Most of the Russian “progressives” of the 1860-70s were seemingly spending most of their spare time playing cards. Those better off would also go hunting in their estates.
Or travel in their own carriage operated by a serf.
“Why aren’t you using a nice stage coach? It will take you there only in 4 days (well, 6 at most) and you’ll have comfortable beds at night in the roadside inns with their bedbugs and cockroaches which are an inevitable part of a journey. Surely, you are not in a hurry because the only people who really must travel fast are the fieldjagers who are traveling without stopping, except for changing their horses.”
So that I’ll have more time to write my poems or novels (and play cards in between). Ah yes, the cities are evil as well, especially the factories. AFAIK, none of the first generation Russian progressive writers ever visited a factory or wrote about it. But they did not like the industrialists. Actually, a list of those whom they did not like was quite long so it is easier to compose a short one of those whom they did like: (a) a peasant, preferably dirt poor one who spends all his money (or money trusted to him) on drink; (b) representative of an educated class who is trying to imitate a peasant and spends his time “singing Russian songs”.
The donkeys were not widely available in European Russia and while there were plenty of asses, they were not good for any useful purpose.
😂
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Broken promises
206. Broken promises
1831-32. Ottoman Empire
When in 1825 Sultan Mahmud called on Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt, to suppress the Greek rebellion he promised as a reward for his services Crete, Cyprus, and the Morea. The troops under command of Ibrahim Pasha landed in Greece in February 1825 and controlled nearly the entire Peloponnesian peninsula within 10 months of his arrival. Then in 1827 a combined British-Russian-French squadron defeated the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at Navarino and Muhammed Ali agreed to order evacuation of Ibrahim's troops from Greece.
Then there was a full-scale Russian-Ottoman war and French military expedition to Greece with a resulting declaration of the Greek independence.
As a result of all these events the Sultan came to a seemingly logical conclusion that he owns Muhammed Ali nothing: the Egyptian mission failed so why should there be any reward? Anyway, the Sultan was a firm believer in a principle “I’m a master of my word: I can give it and I can take it back” so the nonsense like “moral obligations” was not on his mental radar screen [1].
Not to mention that, in any case, giving territory to Muhammed Ali would unduly strengthen already too strong and too independent vassal. Taking into an account that the Egyptian fleet was pretty much destroyed at Navarino and that Morea now was a Kingdom of Greece, the chances of Muhammed Ali getting to any of the promised territories were rather slim and a risk of offering him to take a hike was seemingly minimal and refusal looked as a wise state policy. Of course, it could be argued that “Mahmud” and “wise policy” used in the same sentence is an oxymoron but probably not in the Sultan's face [2].
Well, the Hell (in this framework probably جهنم or “Jahannam”) was in the details.
Not that Muhammed Ali would mind getting the islands or a piece of Greece but what he really wanted was Syria. After Ibrahim with his army was back, Muhammed Ali started preparations for taking control over that territory.
He started with attacking Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali, the Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet who also ruled all Palestine and the Syrian coastline and, being a little bit self-assured, provided Muhammed Ali with a perfect excuse or rather two excuses:
Of course, the Egyptian army hardly was up to the European standards but its opponents were well below the “Egyptian standard”. The more or less trained Ottoman troops mostly perished during the Russian-Ottoman war of 1828 and since then there were not too many competent European officers willing to participate in rebuilding the Sultan’s army because he was still considered something of a black sheep due to his reluctance to agree to the arrangements regarding Greece. As a result, Ibrahim’s army was facing pretty much the ill-trained levies led by the leaders of a questionable talent and meager experience.
On 21 November 1832 the Egyptian forces occupied the city of Konya in central Turkey, within striking distance of the imperial capital of Constantinople. The Sultan organized a new army under Reshid Mehmed Pasha, the Grand Vizier.
Reshid Mehmed Pasha came to prominence during the Greek War even if his actual record there was rather sketchy. In the Russian-Ottoman War he was defeated in a Battle of Kulevicha after which he was appointed the Grand Vizier. In this capacity he organized a massacre of 500 Albanian leaders (beys) and their personal guards who arrived to the the town of Manastir for a meeting with him. Then he crushed the Bosnian uprising of 1831-32.
Presumably, Reshid Mehmed had an army of 80,000 and Ibrahim of 50,000. However, Ibrahim’s forces had been spread along his supply line all the way back to Cairo so at Konya he had 15,000 with 48 guns but they were the best part of his army. Reshid Mehmed had on a battlefield 54,000 with 100 guns with the troops from various Ottoman provinces. [4]
The results were more or less predictable. The Ottoman artillery opened fire into a dense fog not seeing the Egyptian position. When the fog lifted, the Egyptians saw a gap in the Ottoman formation between their cavalry and infantry on their left flank. Ibrahim personally led a charge of his best troops into this gap and the Ottoman order collapsed. Reshid Mehmed tried to rally his troops and was captured. The capture of their supreme commander deepened the confusion amongst the Ottomans, and some units lost cohesion and broke ranks as the Egyptian artillery and cavalry advanced around their left flank to their rear, enveloping the now disorganised units and continuing a relentless slaughter from three directions, South, East and North. As night fell, the new Ottoman commander managed to rally some units and organised a desperate counter-attack from the West against the Egyptian left flank, but this failed as the Egyptian centre wheeled to face them with an organised barrage of artillery and as this attack broke, the remaining Ottomans scattered. The Ottomans lost 3,000 killed and 5,000 prisoners vs. Egyptian losses of 262 killed and 530 wounded. There were no more troops between Ibrahim Pasha and Istanbul.
However, politics has come into action. Muhammad Ali began bargaining with the sultan and, using a successful military situation, secured Syria under a peace treaty. As sometimes happens, he was a little bit too smart for his own good. With Ibrahim Pasha staying in the winter quarters in Konya the Great Powers had time to react.
1832. Europe. Searching for a sucker.
Out of 3 European powers involved in the region, 2 found themselves facing what can be called, “the Russian dilemma”: “What to do?” [5] Neither Britain nor France considered a fall of the Ottoman Empire a good idea. OTOH, both of them had certain interests in Egypt (cotton, sugar cane and other valuable commodities) and did not want a complete break with Mehmed Ali even if both would like him to abolish the monopolies putting them in a better trading position.
But, without being backed by a military force, the Ottoman-Egyptian agreement did not worth much. Who would guarantee that Mehmed Ali is not going to order advance on Istanbul when the winter is over or will not decide to held all Ottoman territories in Asia?
Clearly, a direct military threat was needed. The obvious question was where to get it from? Of course, France still had its troops in Morea but they were too few for a full-scale war or even for a plausible threat. Not to mention that the Consulate was not planning to get into a war on the Ottoman behalf: first, it would be rather unpopular action with the Greeks still being the darlings of French public and second, it would be a costly enterprise with no or little territorial gains.
Britain had little to offer in the terms of a land military force and, just as was the case with France, a public support for anything much greater than a naval bluff was minimal.
Obviously, a sucker was needed and the young Russian Emperor, who just fought a major war as “a matter of honor” looked as a good candidate. Especially taking into an account that the French Ambassador to the Court of Moscow was a brother to the Russian top military figure and that the Emperor himself was seemingly trigger happy person.
The approaches had been made:
__________
[1] Just a form of speech. There is no indication that the radars had been used in the Ottoman Empire of 1830s. 😜
[2] It seems that impalement still was widely used even in the later times.
[3] Abdullah Pasha was captured and sent to Egypt when he was welcomed by MA, provided with a pension and lived in Egypt for a while after which was allowed to retire to the Hejaz.
[4] Wiki can drive you crazy. In a synopsis it says 35,000 and in the text 6,000. Not that the 6,000 are following from the battle description. Russian version of wiki is more consistent. It says that the Ottomans had an army of 80,000 out of which 54,000 with 100 guns reached the battlefield. The same numbers both in the synopsis and the text so I’ll stick to those who at least have their story straight.
[5] A joke based upon the titles of two iconic “progressive” books of the mid-XIX: “What to do?” and “Who is guilty?” These two questions became something of a trademark of the Russian intelligencia for the generations to follow. 😂
[6] Inspired by the title “Once is not enough” (which is about completely different subject). 😉
[7] In OTL the framework was different and so was Nicholas. The real one was ego-driven. Even before the Battle of Konya he sent general Muraviev on a diplomatic mission to Istanbul and Egypt. The message was that Nicholas is going to demand from Mohammed Ali a submission to the Sultan’s wishes and if this does not happen he is willing to do whatever the Sultan will ask him to do. The Sultan himself was not quite comfortable with this generous offer and tried to convince Muraviev not to sail to Egypt. Muhammed Ali spent a considerable time assuring Muraviev that he is Sultan’s faithful subject who is just asking for a legitimate compensation, etc. To make the long story short, Nicholas pushed his “prestige” into everybody’s faces gaining nothing and creating a noticeable irritation of the European countries involved because by all practical means he was trying to position the Sultan as the Russian if not vassal then at least a dependent.
“There is nothing more valuable than this promise, and there is nothing more shameful than breaking it.”
Pablo Escobar
“Consider whether what you promise is true and possible, because a promise is a duty.”
Confucius
“The surest sign of non-fulfillment of the promise is the ease with which it is given.”
Axel Gustafson Oxenscherna
“Vows made in storm forgotten in calm.”
Thomas Fuller
Pablo Escobar
“Consider whether what you promise is true and possible, because a promise is a duty.”
Confucius
“The surest sign of non-fulfillment of the promise is the ease with which it is given.”
Axel Gustafson Oxenscherna
“Vows made in storm forgotten in calm.”
Thomas Fuller
1831-32. Ottoman Empire
When in 1825 Sultan Mahmud called on Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt, to suppress the Greek rebellion he promised as a reward for his services Crete, Cyprus, and the Morea. The troops under command of Ibrahim Pasha landed in Greece in February 1825 and controlled nearly the entire Peloponnesian peninsula within 10 months of his arrival. Then in 1827 a combined British-Russian-French squadron defeated the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at Navarino and Muhammed Ali agreed to order evacuation of Ibrahim's troops from Greece.
Then there was a full-scale Russian-Ottoman war and French military expedition to Greece with a resulting declaration of the Greek independence.
As a result of all these events the Sultan came to a seemingly logical conclusion that he owns Muhammed Ali nothing: the Egyptian mission failed so why should there be any reward? Anyway, the Sultan was a firm believer in a principle “I’m a master of my word: I can give it and I can take it back” so the nonsense like “moral obligations” was not on his mental radar screen [1].
Not to mention that, in any case, giving territory to Muhammed Ali would unduly strengthen already too strong and too independent vassal. Taking into an account that the Egyptian fleet was pretty much destroyed at Navarino and that Morea now was a Kingdom of Greece, the chances of Muhammed Ali getting to any of the promised territories were rather slim and a risk of offering him to take a hike was seemingly minimal and refusal looked as a wise state policy. Of course, it could be argued that “Mahmud” and “wise policy” used in the same sentence is an oxymoron but probably not in the Sultan's face [2].
Well, the Hell (in this framework probably جهنم or “Jahannam”) was in the details.
Not that Muhammed Ali would mind getting the islands or a piece of Greece but what he really wanted was Syria. After Ibrahim with his army was back, Muhammed Ali started preparations for taking control over that territory.
He started with attacking Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali, the Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet who also ruled all Palestine and the Syrian coastline and, being a little bit self-assured, provided Muhammed Ali with a perfect excuse or rather two excuses:
- He refused to contribute to his war effort in Greece.
- He was harboring the Egyptian fugitives from a draft.
Of course, the Egyptian army hardly was up to the European standards but its opponents were well below the “Egyptian standard”. The more or less trained Ottoman troops mostly perished during the Russian-Ottoman war of 1828 and since then there were not too many competent European officers willing to participate in rebuilding the Sultan’s army because he was still considered something of a black sheep due to his reluctance to agree to the arrangements regarding Greece. As a result, Ibrahim’s army was facing pretty much the ill-trained levies led by the leaders of a questionable talent and meager experience.
On 21 November 1832 the Egyptian forces occupied the city of Konya in central Turkey, within striking distance of the imperial capital of Constantinople. The Sultan organized a new army under Reshid Mehmed Pasha, the Grand Vizier.
Reshid Mehmed Pasha came to prominence during the Greek War even if his actual record there was rather sketchy. In the Russian-Ottoman War he was defeated in a Battle of Kulevicha after which he was appointed the Grand Vizier. In this capacity he organized a massacre of 500 Albanian leaders (beys) and their personal guards who arrived to the the town of Manastir for a meeting with him. Then he crushed the Bosnian uprising of 1831-32.
Presumably, Reshid Mehmed had an army of 80,000 and Ibrahim of 50,000. However, Ibrahim’s forces had been spread along his supply line all the way back to Cairo so at Konya he had 15,000 with 48 guns but they were the best part of his army. Reshid Mehmed had on a battlefield 54,000 with 100 guns with the troops from various Ottoman provinces. [4]
The results were more or less predictable. The Ottoman artillery opened fire into a dense fog not seeing the Egyptian position. When the fog lifted, the Egyptians saw a gap in the Ottoman formation between their cavalry and infantry on their left flank. Ibrahim personally led a charge of his best troops into this gap and the Ottoman order collapsed. Reshid Mehmed tried to rally his troops and was captured. The capture of their supreme commander deepened the confusion amongst the Ottomans, and some units lost cohesion and broke ranks as the Egyptian artillery and cavalry advanced around their left flank to their rear, enveloping the now disorganised units and continuing a relentless slaughter from three directions, South, East and North. As night fell, the new Ottoman commander managed to rally some units and organised a desperate counter-attack from the West against the Egyptian left flank, but this failed as the Egyptian centre wheeled to face them with an organised barrage of artillery and as this attack broke, the remaining Ottomans scattered. The Ottomans lost 3,000 killed and 5,000 prisoners vs. Egyptian losses of 262 killed and 530 wounded. There were no more troops between Ibrahim Pasha and Istanbul.
However, politics has come into action. Muhammad Ali began bargaining with the sultan and, using a successful military situation, secured Syria under a peace treaty. As sometimes happens, he was a little bit too smart for his own good. With Ibrahim Pasha staying in the winter quarters in Konya the Great Powers had time to react.
1832. Europe. Searching for a sucker.
Out of 3 European powers involved in the region, 2 found themselves facing what can be called, “the Russian dilemma”: “What to do?” [5] Neither Britain nor France considered a fall of the Ottoman Empire a good idea. OTOH, both of them had certain interests in Egypt (cotton, sugar cane and other valuable commodities) and did not want a complete break with Mehmed Ali even if both would like him to abolish the monopolies putting them in a better trading position.
But, without being backed by a military force, the Ottoman-Egyptian agreement did not worth much. Who would guarantee that Mehmed Ali is not going to order advance on Istanbul when the winter is over or will not decide to held all Ottoman territories in Asia?
Clearly, a direct military threat was needed. The obvious question was where to get it from? Of course, France still had its troops in Morea but they were too few for a full-scale war or even for a plausible threat. Not to mention that the Consulate was not planning to get into a war on the Ottoman behalf: first, it would be rather unpopular action with the Greeks still being the darlings of French public and second, it would be a costly enterprise with no or little territorial gains.
Britain had little to offer in the terms of a land military force and, just as was the case with France, a public support for anything much greater than a naval bluff was minimal.
Obviously, a sucker was needed and the young Russian Emperor, who just fought a major war as “a matter of honor” looked as a good candidate. Especially taking into an account that the French Ambassador to the Court of Moscow was a brother to the Russian top military figure and that the Emperor himself was seemingly trigger happy person.
The approaches had been made:
- In a private discussion with his brother the Generalissimo recommended Ambassador that the next time he is looking for an idiot he would better use a mirror.
- An official approach to the Russian Foreign Minister, Karl Robert Reichsgraf von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, whom Nicholas I inherited from his late brother and still held in his cabinet, gave a response which was much more polite, considerably longer and almost impossible to decipher except for the general idea that His Imperial Majesty is under no obligation to get involved into the Ottoman domestic affairs.
- When, on some official occasion, there was an opportunity to approach the Emperor directly, the result was the same: “Once is enough”. [6]
- As far as Nicholas was concerned, the last war was a result of Alexander’s convoluted policy and a following sequence of blunders by the naval commanders. So the first conclusion was that he is not going to put himself into a situation where he is not in a complete control and the present confrontation clearly looked as one of these cases.
- The last war was, of course, glorious and as such good for the public morale but, except for a good trade deal, rather pointless. And even this trade deal was not some kind of a miracle because conditions it provided were rather close to those existing before the war.
- The allies alreadycircumvented him on the issue of Greece status and while he did not really care one way or another, this was a violation of trust and official treaty. Where is a guarantee that the same thing is not going to happen again? Hence is “Once is enough”.
- There already were noises in Britain about Russia trying to expand (nobody was quite sure where and to which end) and what today is considered a solicited help tomorrow will be interpreted as infringement on the British interests. It could be ignored if the Russian interests were at stake but they weren’t. The Russian trade interests on the Black Sea and the Eastern Med depended very little upon who is controlling which area because most of the imports/exports on both sides were the life necessities or things close to them. If anything, Egypt under Muhammed Ali was becoming a growing market for the Russian exports because his orientation toward the cash crops was steadily turning the country from a grain exporter to the grain consumer. So why spoil relations over the irrelevant issue like Syria?
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[1] Just a form of speech. There is no indication that the radars had been used in the Ottoman Empire of 1830s. 😜
[2] It seems that impalement still was widely used even in the later times.
[3] Abdullah Pasha was captured and sent to Egypt when he was welcomed by MA, provided with a pension and lived in Egypt for a while after which was allowed to retire to the Hejaz.
[4] Wiki can drive you crazy. In a synopsis it says 35,000 and in the text 6,000. Not that the 6,000 are following from the battle description. Russian version of wiki is more consistent. It says that the Ottomans had an army of 80,000 out of which 54,000 with 100 guns reached the battlefield. The same numbers both in the synopsis and the text so I’ll stick to those who at least have their story straight.
[5] A joke based upon the titles of two iconic “progressive” books of the mid-XIX: “What to do?” and “Who is guilty?” These two questions became something of a trademark of the Russian intelligencia for the generations to follow. 😂
[6] Inspired by the title “Once is not enough” (which is about completely different subject). 😉
[7] In OTL the framework was different and so was Nicholas. The real one was ego-driven. Even before the Battle of Konya he sent general Muraviev on a diplomatic mission to Istanbul and Egypt. The message was that Nicholas is going to demand from Mohammed Ali a submission to the Sultan’s wishes and if this does not happen he is willing to do whatever the Sultan will ask him to do. The Sultan himself was not quite comfortable with this generous offer and tried to convince Muraviev not to sail to Egypt. Muhammed Ali spent a considerable time assuring Muraviev that he is Sultan’s faithful subject who is just asking for a legitimate compensation, etc. To make the long story short, Nicholas pushed his “prestige” into everybody’s faces gaining nothing and creating a noticeable irritation of the European countries involved because by all practical means he was trying to position the Sultan as the Russian if not vassal then at least a dependent.
Very nice chapter, a Egypt that controls the levantine coast and serves as a third major power in the Middle East is very interesting, hopefully they can keep themselves that way while the Ottomans are reduced to controlling the Balkans and Anatolia (much like the Byzantines they succeeded, I'm sure the irony isn't lost to some) which will hopefully force them to make better reforms to avoid losing even more territory.
Also, Russia now has yet another country to profit from and play against the Ottomans (or the Ottomans against them) to keep the region under control.
Also, Russia now has yet another country to profit from and play against the Ottomans (or the Ottomans against them) to keep the region under control.
For this the second Ottoman-Egyptian War either has to be avoided or it should end up differently, which means exclusion of the British (and Austrian) intervention (or a failure of the intervention). It will also require some other things like no London Convention regarding the Straits and probably no Balta Treaty.
I’ll need to figure these things out.
It does not need to keep it “under control” because this inevitably results in a broad anti-Russian coalition as happened in OTL. It needs mutual trade interests with both and never-ending conflict of the French and British interests in the region.