Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681)

Russo-Turkish War (1676-1681)
Date 1676-81 Location Chyhyryn, Cossack Hetmanate Result Ottoman victory Ottoman captured Chyhyryn Treaty of Bakhchisarai
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire Crimean Khanate Cossack Hetmanate of Petro Doroshenko	Russian Tsardom Cossack Hetmanate of Ivan Samoylovych
Commanders and leaders
Kara Mustafa Pasha Selim I Giray Petro Doroshenko Yuri Khmelnitsky	Ivan Samoilovich Grigory Romodanovsky
Strength
12,000 (initially) 120,000 (reinforcements)	20,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Unknown

The Russo–Turkish War of 1676–1681, a war between the Tsardom of Russia and Ottoman Empire, caused by Turkish expansionism in the second half of the 17th century. After having captured and devastated the region of Podolia in the course of the Polish–Turkish War of 1672–1676, the Ottoman government strove to spread its rule over all of the Right-bank Ukraine with the support of its vassal (since 1669), Hetman Petro Doroshenko. The latter's pro-Turkish policy caused discontent among many Ukrainian Cossacks, which would elect Ivan Samoilovich (Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine) as a sole Hetman of all Ukraine in 1674.

Doroshenko decided to fight back, and in 1676, his army of 12,000 men seized the city of Chyhyryn, counting on the approaching Turkish-Tatar army. However, the Russian and Ukrainian forces under the command of Samoilovich and Grigory Romodanovsky besieged Chyhyryn and made Doroshenko surrender. Leaving a garrison in Chyhyryn, the Russian and Ukrainian armies retreated to the left bank of the Dnieper. The Turkish Sultan appointed Yuri Khmelnitsky Hetman of the Right-bank Ukraine, who had been the Sultan's prisoner at that time. In July 1677, the Sultan ordered his army (45,000 men) under the command of Ibrahim Pasha to advance towards Chyhyryn.

Ibrahim Pasha's army did not arrive at Chyhyryn until August 4, 1677. Samoilovich and Grigory Romodanovsky's forces rendezvoused on August 10, and by August 24 only had to cross the Sula River to reach Chyhyryn. On August 26–27, a skirmish between Muscovite and Ukrainian and Ottoman troops removed Ottoman observation posts and allowed the rest of the Muscovite and Ukrainian forces to cross the river unmolested. Muscovite and Ukrainian cavalry attacked and overwhelmed Ibrahim Pasha's camp, on the August 28, inflicting heavy casualties. The following day, Ibrahim lifted the siege of Chyhyryn and retreated to the Igul' River. Samoilovich and Grigory Romodanovsky relieved Chyhyryn on September 5. The Ottoman Army had lost 20,000 men and Ibrahim was imprisoned upon his return to Constantinople.

In July 1678, the Turkish army (approx. 70,000 men) of the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa with Crimean Tatar army (up to 50,000 men) besieged Chyhyryn once again. Russian and Ukrainian army under Romodanovsky arrived to defend Chyhyryn, Turkish-Tatar army attack and invaded them. The crossings were destroyed and it was difficult to attack the Turks. The troops could freely enter the Chyhyryn, but it was already surrounded by well-equipped siege positions and was heavliy bombarded; its fortifications were badly damaged. The Turks broke into the Lower Town of Chyhyryn and besieged the Chyhyryn fortress, Romodanovsky ordered his troops to withdraw to the left bank. On 21 August Turkish army captured Chyhyryn citadel. The Russian and Ukrainian army were reatreting and trenched their position in the near Dnieper River, pursuing Turkish-Tatar army assault on them after hard fighting, Russian and Ukrainian army lost and pulled back from the battle and retreat to Kiev. Later Turks seized Kanev.

On January 31, 1681, the Treaty of Bakhchisarai was signed between the Russian Tsardom and the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. According to this agreement, the Dnieper River became the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. The right bank (west) of the Dnieper River remained in the hands of the Ottoman Empire and the fortress of the Chyhyryn was considered to belong to the Ottomans.

Notes

1. ^ Despite the loss of Chyhyryn the war aims of greatest importance to Moscow were therefore achieved. Khan Murat Girei was compelled to negotiate at Bakhchisarai a twenty-year armistice with Muscovy formally acknowledging Kiev and the Left Bank as Muscovite possessions. Murat Girei played a crucial role in subsequently inducing Sultan Mehmet IV to ratify these same terms. For Mehmet IV and Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa the destruction of Chyhyryn was thereby rendered a Pyrrhic victory. Brian L. Davies, Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea steppe, 1500-1700, (Routledge, 2007), 172.

2. ^ In the decades preceding the Ottomans’ attempted siege of Vienna in 1683 Ottoman armies had successfully prosecuted single-front wars in Hungary (the sieges of Varad [Oradea] in 1660 and Uyvar [N. Zamky] in 1663), Crete (the siege of Candia [Heraklion] between 1667 and 1669], Poland (the siege of Kamanice [Kamanetz-Podolsk] in 1672 and Russia (the siege of Çehrin [Chyhyryn] in 1678). Rhoads Murphy, Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700, (UCL Press 1999), 9.

3. ^ In June 1678 the Ottomans made a second bid to seize Chyhyryn. This time the invading Ottoman army numbered 70,000 (not counting Crimean Tatar auxiliaries), had a much larger artillery train and was commanded by Kara Mustafa Pasha, the grand vizier. Romodanovskii and Samoilovich again marched to the relief of Chyhyryn, with the same forces and nearly the same plan of operations as the year before. The crucial difference this time was that they halted their armies on the far side of the Tias’min River, nearly four kilometres from Chyhyryn, on 4 August, ostensibly to await reinforcements, and meanwhile made no serious effort to harass the Ottoman camp. This gave the Turks time to continue their bombardment of Chyhyryn and move their trenches up to its walls. On 11 August Romodanovskii ordered Chyhyryn evacuated and burned to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. He and Samoilovich then withdrew across the Dnieper. Given Romodanovskii’s insistence the year before on the strategic necessity of holding Chyhyryn, this had the appearance of a major defeat, and it led many Ukrainians to blame Romodanovskii for incompetence or even treason. Actually Moscow had issued Romodanovskii secret orders to do everything to avoid battle with the Turks, to seek peace talks with them and to be prepared to sacrifice Chyhyryn rather than his army so as not to leave Kiev and the left bank under-defended. Chyhyryn was of greater importance to Samoilovich than to Moscow, which placed higher priority on defending Kiev and the left bank. The Russo-Turkish war of 1676–81 is usually seen as a stalemate or even as a Russian defeat because Chyhyryn had to be destroyed and the right bank was thereby lost to the Turks and Iurii Khmel’nyts’kyi. Maureen Perrie, The Cambridge History of Russia From Early Rus to 1689.

4. ^ Brian Davies, Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia's Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century, (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 9.

5. ^ Dimitrie Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire Volume 3 (J. J. and P. Knapton, 1734),

6. ^ Danishmend, Kronoloji, (Türkiye Yayınevi, 1972), 447.

7. ^ History of the Ottoman Turks,1288-1918, The library of University of California Los Angeles, 1868), 705, 706.

8. ^ Davies, B. ‘The Second Chigirin Campaign (1678): Late Muscovite Power in Transition,’ in The Military and Society in Russia, 1450–1917, ed E. Lohr and M. Poe (Leiden 2002)

9. ^ John Paxton and John Traynor, Leaders of Russia and the Soviet Union, (Taylor & Francis Books Inc, 2004), 195.

10. ^ Hasan Karaköse, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Uluslararası Sempozyumu, (Merzifon Vakfı, Kültür Bakanlığı, 2001), 159.

11. ^ Blochet, Catalogue, (Suppl, 1909), 870, 927, 1124.

12. ^ Яфарова, Мадина (2017), pp. 163-174.

Sources and further reading

• Brian L. Davies, Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea steppe, 1500-1700, Routledge, 2007.

• Rhoads Murphey Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700, UCL Press 1999.

• Brian Davies, Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia's Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century, Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

• Maureen Perrie "The Cambridge History of Russia from early Rus to 1689", Cambridge University Press, 2006.

• History of the Ottoman Turks,1288-1918, The library of University of California Los Angeles, 1868.

• Davies, B. ‘The Second Chigirin Campaign (1678): Late Muscovite Power in Transition,’ in The Military and Society in Russia, 1450–1917, ed E. Lohr and M. Poe (Leiden 2002)

• Dimitrie Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire Volume IIIJ. J., and P. Knapton., 1734.

• Geschichte des Osmanischen Reich 1840.

• Danishmend, Kronoloji, Türkiye Yayınevi, 1972.

• C. Heywood, Kara Mustafa Paşa, In: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Leiden, 1954-2004.

• John Paxton and John Traynor, Leaders of Russia and the Soviet Union, Taylor & Francis Books Inc, 2004.

• Hasan Karaköse, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Uluslararası Sempozyumu, Merzifon Vakfı, Kültür Bakanlığı, 2001.

• Blocet, Catalogue, Suppl.,1909.

• Яфарова, Мадина (2017).

• [1] Russo-Turkish War 1676 1681

• [2] Britannica, Russo-Turkish Wars