RUSSIAN-TURKISH WAR 1877-1878

The beginning of hostilities.

The Russian army in the Balkans, led by the Tsar's brother Nikolai Nikolaevich, numbered 185 thousands of people. The Tsar was also at the army headquarters. The strength of the Turkish army in Northern Bulgaria was 160 thousand people. June 1877 Russian troops crossed the Danube and launched an offensive. The Bulgarian population enthusiastically greeted the Russian army. Bulgarian voluntary squads joined it, showing high fighting spirit. Eyewitnesses said that they went into battle as if they were “on a merry holiday.”

Russian troops quickly moved south, hastening to capture the mountain passes through the Balkans and reach southern Bulgaria. It was especially important to occupy the Shipka Pass, from where the most convenient road to Adrianople led. After two days of fierce fighting, the pass was taken. The Turkish troops retreated in disarray. It seemed that a direct path to Constantinople was opening.

Counter-offensive of Turkish troops. Battles on Shipka and near Plevna. However, the course of events suddenly changed dramatically.

7 July, a large Turkish detachment under the command of Osman Pasha, having completed a forced march and ahead of the Russians, occupied the Plevna fortress in Northern Bulgaria. There was a threat of a flank attack. Two attempts by Russian troops to drive the enemy out of Plevna ended unsuccessfully. The Turkish troops, who could not withstand the onslaught of the Russians in open battles, were doing well in the fortresses. The movement of Russian troops through the Balkans was suspended.

Russia and the liberation struggle of the Balkan peoples. in spring

An uprising against the Turkish yoke began in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A year later, in April 1876 , an uprising broke out in Bulgaria. Turkish punitive forces suppressed these uprisings with fire and sword. Only in Bulgaria they cut out more 30 thousands of people. Serbia and Montenegro in summer 1876 g. started a war against Turkey. But the forces were unequal. The poorly armed Slavic armies suffered setbacks.

In Russia, the social movement in defense of the Slavs was expanding. Thousands of Russian volunteers were sent to the Balkans. Donations were collected throughout the country, weapons and medicine were purchased, and hospitals were equipped. The outstanding Russian surgeon N.V. Sklifosovsky headed the Russian sanitary detachments in Montenegro, and the famous general practitioner S.P. Botkin

- in Serbia. Alexander II contributed 10 thousand rubles in favor of the rebels. There were calls for Russian military intervention from everywhere.

However, the government acted cautiously, recognizing Russia's unpreparedness for a major war. Reforms in the army and its rearmament have not yet been completed. They did not have time to recreate the Black Sea Fleet.

Meanwhile, Serbia was defeated. The Serbian prince Milan turned to the king with a request for help. In October

Russia presented Turkey with an ultimatum: immediately conclude a truce with Serbia. Russian intervention prevented the fall of Belgrade.

Through secret negotiations, Russia managed to ensure the neutrality of Austria-Hungary, although at a very high cost. According to the Budapest Convention, signed in January

1877 g., Russia

agreed to the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austro-Hungarian troops. Russian diplomacy managed to take advantage of the indignation of the world community over the atrocities of the Turkish punitive forces. In March

1877 In London, representatives of the great powers agreed on a protocol in which Turkey was invited to carry out reforms in favor of the Christian population in the Balkans. Türkiye rejected the London Protocol. 12 April, the king signed a manifesto declaring war on Turkey. A month later, Romania entered the war on the side of Russia.

Having seized the initiative, Turkish troops ousted the Russians from Southern Bulgaria. In August, bloody battles for Shipka began. The five thousand strong Russian detachment, which included Bulgarian squads, was led by General N. G. Stoletov. The enemy had a fivefold superiority. Shipka's defenders had to fight back until

14 attacks per day. The unbearable heat increased thirst, and the stream was under fire. At the end of the third day of fighting, when the situation became desperate, reinforcements arrived. The threat of encirclement has been eliminated. A few days later the fighting died down. The Shipka Pass remained in Russian hands, but its southern slopes were held by the Turks.

Fresh reinforcements from Russia were arriving at Plevna. Her third assault has begun

30 August. Using thick fog, the detachment of General Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev (1843-1882) secretly approached the enemy and broke through the fortifications with a swift attack. But in other areas, attacks by Russian troops were repulsed. Having received no support, Skobelev’s detachment retreated back the next day. In three assaults on Plevna, the Russians lost 32 thousand, Romanians - 3 thousands of people. The hero of the Sevastopol defense, General E.I. Totleben, came from St. Petersburg. After examining the positions, he said that there was only one way out - complete blockade of the fortress. Without heavy artillery, a new assault could only lead to new needless victims.

The fall of Plevna and the turning point during the war. Winter has begun. The Turks held Plevna, the Russians

- Shipka. “Everything is calm on Shipka”- the command reported. Meanwhile, the number of frostbitten cases reached 400 in a day. When a snowstorm broke out, the supply of ammunition and food stopped. From September to December 1877 Russians and Bulgarians lost on Shipka 9500 people are frostbitten, sick and frozen. Nowadays, on Shipka there is a monument-tomb depicting two warriors bowing their heads,- Russian and Bulgarian.

At the end of November, food supplies ran out in Plevna. Osman Pasha made a desperate attempt to break through, but was driven back to the fortress.

28 November the garrison of Plevna surrendered. They found themselves in Russian captivity 43 thousands of people led by the most talented Turkish military leader. During the war, a turning point occurred. Serbia began hostilities again. In order not to lose the initiative, the Russian command decided to go through the Balkans without waiting for spring.December the main forces of the Russian army led by General Joseph Vladimirovich Gurko (1828-1901) We started our journey to Sofia through the most difficult Churyak pass. The troops moved day and night along steep and slippery mountain roads. The rain that started turned to snow, a blizzard swirled, and then frosts hit. December 23, 1877 In icy overcoats, the Russian army entered Sofia.

Meanwhile, troops under the command of Skobelev should

were to remove the group blocking the Shipka Pass from the fight. Skobelev crossed the Balkans west of Shipka along an icy sloping cornice above the abyss and reached the rear of the fortified Sheinovo camp. Skobelev, who was nicknamed the “white general” (he had a habit of appearing in dangerous places on a white horse, in a white tunic and a white cap), valued and cherished the life of a soldier. His soldiers went into battle not in dense columns, as was customary then, but in chains and quick runs. As a result of the fighting at Shipka-Sheinovo 27-28 December 20,000 Turkish group capitulated.

A few years after the war, Skobelev suddenly died, in the prime of his strength and talent, at the age of

38 years. Many streets and squares in Bulgaria are named after him.

The Turks gave up Plovdiv without a fight. A three-day battle south of this city ended the military campaign.

January 8, 1878 Russian troops entered Adrianople. Pursuing the randomly retreating Turks, the Russian cavalry reached the shore of the Sea of ​​Marmara. A detachment under the command of Skobelev occupied the town of San Stefano, a few kilometers from Constantinople. Entering the Turkish capital was not difficult, but, Fearing international complications, the Russian command did not dare to do this.

Military operations in Transcaucasia. Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, Nicholas's youngest son, was formally considered the commander of the Russian troops in the Transcaucasian theater of military operations.

I. In fact, the command was exercised by General M. T. Loris-Melikov. In April- May 1877 The Russian army took the fortresses of Bayazet and Ardahan and blocked Kare. But then a series of failures followed, and the siege of Kars had to be lifted.

The decisive battle took place in the fall in the Aladzhin Heights area, not far from Kars.

3 October Russian troops stormed the fortified Mount Avliyar - a key point of Turkish defense. In the Battle of Aladzhin, the Russian command used the telegraph for the first time to control troops. On the night of November 6, 1877 the city was taken by Kare. After this, the Russian army reached Erzurum.

Treaty of San Stefano.

February 19, 1878 A peace treaty was signed in San Stefano. Under its terms, Bulgaria received the status of an autonomous principality, independent in its internal affairs. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania gained complete independence and significant territorial increments. Southern Bessarabia, seized under the Treaty of Paris, was returned to Russia, and the Kars region in the Caucasus was transferred.

The provisional Russian administration that ruled Bulgaria developed a draft constitution. Bulgaria was proclaimed a constitutional monarchy. Personal and property rights were guaranteed. The Russian project was the basis of the Bulgarian Constitution, adopted by the Founding

meeting in Tarnovo in April 1879 G.

Berlin Congress. England and Austria-Hungary refused to recognize the terms of the Peace of San Stefano. At their insistence in the summer

1878 The Berlin Congress took place with the participation of six powers (England, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey). Russia found itself isolated and was forced to make concessions. The Western powers categorically objected to the creation of a unified Bulgarian state. As a result, Southern Bulgaria remained under Turkish rule. Russian diplomats only managed to achieve that Sofia and Varna were included in the autonomous Bulgarian principality. The territory of Serbia and Montenegro was significantly reduced. The Congress confirmed the right of Austria-Hungary to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. England bargained for the right to lead troops to Cyprus.

In a report to the Tsar, the head of the Russian delegation, Chancellor A. M. Gorchakov, wrote: “The Berlin Congress is the darkest page in my career.” The king noted: “And in mine too.”

The Russian public, which did not know about the secret Budapest Agreement, was even more shocked. The failure at the Berlin Congress was entirely attributed to the failures of Russian diplomacy. The indignant speech of Ivan Aksakov, delivered at a meeting of the Moscow Slavic Committee, thundered throughout Russia. The government, which did not tolerate criticism, expelled this old and honored public figure from Moscow.

The Berlin Congress, undoubtedly, did not brighten the diplomatic history of not only Russia, but also the Western powers. Driven by petty momentary calculations and envy of the brilliant victory of Russian weapons, the governments of these countries extended Turkish rule over several million Slavs.

And yet the fruits of the Russian victory were only partially destroyed. Having laid the foundations for the freedom of the fraternal Bulgarian people, Russia has written a glorious page in its history. Russo-Turkish War

1877-1878 gg. entered into the general context of the era of Liberation and became its worthy completion.

THE RUSSIAN ARMY BEFORE THE WAR OF 1877-1878 BLACK SEA NAVY

Crimean War 1853-1856 showed the backwardness of the military organization of Tsarist Russia during the Nicholas period.

It turned out that recruiting the army according to the conscription system, which at one time was progressive, has completely outlived its usefulness. The recruiting system was a purely class system; all the hardships of military service during recruitment fell only on the tax-paying classes - peasants, burghers and “children of soldiers.” Since the last two categories were small in number, we can admit that, in essence, the army was staffed almost exclusively by peasants. But the peasant contingent was far from being fully used. The giving of peasants as recruits affected the material interests of the nobility, since with each recruit the landowner lost either a quitrent payer or a corvee worker.

As a result, the annual intake of recruits averaged only 80,000 people. Under such conditions, the Russian army could not have a sufficient amount of prepared reserves in case of war. With the outbreak of the Crimean War, the trained supply was quickly exhausted, and in the future it was necessary to replenish the army, in addition to the usual recruitment, by calling up completely untrained militias.

A trained reserve began to be created in 1834 due to the dismissal of soldiers on indefinite leave after completing 15-20 years of active service; with a 25-year service period in the military, those discharged on indefinite leave spent 5-10 years in the reserves. This measure resulted in the accumulation of a reserve of 212,000 people by the beginning of the Crimean War; in terms of quality, the reserve was not at all effective; under unbearably difficult conditions of service, a Nikolaev soldier ended up in the reserves already half-sick and half-disabled.

The Crimean War revealed the very low level of combat training of the Russian army. The fact is that in peacetime there was almost no combat training. Basically, the training of soldiers and officers was reduced to drill and parade hobbies. Suvorov's requirement - to teach the troops what would be needed in war - was completely forgotten.

The ability to appreciate the dignity of a warrior, his initiative, the military partnership between officer and soldier, which Suvorov so persistently instilled in the army, gave way to gross disregard for the soldier’s personality, the master-officer’s disdain for the slave soldier, and the methods of the most brutal cane discipline. The spread among officers of general and special education, a broad view of military affairs, military curiosity and a creative attitude to business was directly or indirectly condemned; everything was replaced by the statute and its blind, formulaic implementation. The moral character of the officer changed sharply for the worse, “embezzlement” and “soldier theft”, intrigue, and trickery became widespread. Reactionary beliefs, political reliability and knowledge of the details of combat drills redeemed in the eyes of the tsar all the officer’s shortcomings in his moral character, attitude towards the soldier and in the field of military art. Of course, there were exceptions to this general rule, but they were a rare phenomenon in the general mass of officers of the Russian army.

60% of the bulk of the officers consisted of persons who did not have a secondary military education, and often no education whatsoever.

In terms of class composition, the officers of the Russian army of Nicholas's time were almost purely noble. The noble part of the officers was staffed by two main categories: graduates of cadet corps and noble cadets from among the minors like Fonvizinsky Mitrofanushka. The non-noble part of the officer corps was numerically small and was recruited mainly from among non-commissioned officers who entered the army through conscription; They barely rose to the ranks of middle officer ranks and, at best, ended their careers in the position of “eternal company commander.”

Officers of noble origin played a decisive role in the officer corps; officers who came from other classes were kept in a black body, were used for “rough” work and did not enjoy influence. The Baltic German nobles, the “Baltic Seamen,” had particular strength in the officer corps. Distinguished for the most part by their extreme reactionary, cruelty and stupidity, even in the officer corps of Nicholas's times they firmly established themselves as the most cruel torturers of soldiers, the most mediocre and ignorant commanders.

In general, the Russian officer corps of the Nikolaev era, in its organization and composition, could not ensure either the accumulation of a sufficient supply of officers, or the proper development of Russian military art and the correct organization of combat training of troops.

The Crimean War also revealed the obsolescence of the Russian army's weapons, especially with regard to small arms. Only 4-5% of the infantry were armed with rifled guns - Belgian (“Luttich”, Liege) and domestic Hartung and Ernroth systems, rifles - only 4-5% of the infantry: rifle battalions and 24 “skirmishers” in each infantry battalion. The main type of mass-produced small arms, especially at the beginning of the Crimean War, were smooth-bore flintlock and percussion-percussion guns with a direct shot range of 200 steps. In addition to the general economic backwardness of the country, the direct re-equipment of the entire army with fittings was hampered by the backwardness of the Russian military industry with its few plants and factories, almost devoid of the most advanced steam engine of that time and characterized by extremely low productivity of serf labor.

The Crimean War (1853-1856) showed a sharp lag between the Russian army of the Nicholas era and Western European armies. In the event of a new war, the backwardness of the Russian army could lead to the complete military defeat of tsarist Russia, and in the presence of sharp Anglo-Russian contradictions, tsarism could not consider the danger of such a war to have been eliminated. The Russian nobility, led by Alexander II, understood this and were afraid of war, since a new military defeat of tsarist Russia could not only further worsen Russia’s already weak international positions, but also seriously shake the dominant position of the nobility and tsarism as a whole. Therefore, immediately after the Crimean War, the number of supporters of military reform began to grow among the Russian nobility. But along with this, it should be noted that the bulk of the Russian nobility, led by its most reactionary part, went to military reform reluctantly, reluctantly; the bulk of the Russian nobility wanted to limit military reform to the inevitable minimum, which would not affect the noble class interests.

The Russian nobility was afraid of losing the privileges established by Peter III. It was almost the only supplier of officers, receiving military education in cadet corps or voluntarily enrolling as cadets even in the absence of any education. The abolition of these noble privileges would lead to a significant increase in the number of officers of non-noble origin in the army and, consequently, to the loss by the nobility of its dominant position in the army, which was the most important basis for the dominance of the nobility in the country.

The fears of the nobility were not groundless. Military reform, like all other reforms of the 60-70s, was essentially a bourgeois reform. Its objective task was to create a mass army of the bourgeois type. The solution to such a problem could not be limited to merely increasing the number of conscripts; a corresponding increase in the number of officers in the cadres and reserves was required. In addition, the bourgeois essence of military reform demanded that when recruiting officers, one should proceed not from the origin of the candidate officer, but from the presence of one or another education. Thus, the consistent bourgeois implementation of military reform in the field of officer recruitment would inevitably lead to the loss of the nobility's monopoly - dominant positions in the army, to the need to, to one degree or another, share their power in the army with the bourgeoisie.

For these reasons, military reforms in the first years after the Crimean War were essentially reduced to several timid attempts that hardly affected the main shortcomings of the Russian army. But this situation did not last long. A number of circumstances required acceleration and deepening of military reform.

The main one of these circumstances lay in the field of domestic politics. Revolutionary situation 1859-1861 did not go into revolution; The peasant movement was suppressed, but it forced the tsarism, along with other concessions, to carry out military reform. The aggravation of class contradictions required the strengthening and strengthening of the army as a decisive means in the struggle of the ruling classes with the exploited masses.

On the other hand, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. and the defeat of Napoleonic France by the Prussians clearly showed, in particular, what great military advantages the Prussian mass army of the bourgeois type had in comparison with the backward army of Napoleon III.

In addition to these two most important circumstances, others also contributed to the acceleration of military reform. After the “peasant” reform of 1861, the main objections of the nobility to changing the system of recruiting soldiers for the army disappeared. The set of civil reforms, which were essentially bourgeois, gave impetus to accelerating economic development and improving the financial situation of tsarist Russia; the opportunity arose to find the funds needed to carry out military reform. The development of the railway network, which created the possibility of accelerated transportation of reserves during mobilization, justified the army's transition to a system of small personnel in the presence of a large reserve.

In 1861, D. A. Milyutin became Minister of War; The task of implementing military reform fell on him.

Milyutin was a highly educated man; he graduated from the Moscow University boarding school and the Military Academy. From an early age he was engaged in self-education and became involved in literary and scientific activities. From 1845 to 1856 Milyutin was a professor at the Military Academy; at this time he wrote a great work about

A.V. Suvorov, in which he highly appreciated Suvorov’s national military art. At the academy, Milyutin created and headed a new department of military statistics, which aimed to deepen and broaden the horizons of the academy's students. Three times during his life Milyutin served in the Caucasus - in 1839-1840, 1843-1845 and 1856-1860; He took almost no combat or direct participation in the Caucasian War, holding a number of positions in the highest headquarters; Milyutin did not participate in the Crimean War either. Milyutin traveled abroad several times, which gave him the opportunity to become familiar with the state of military affairs abroad.

Milyutin was a supporter of the bourgeois development of Russia. Although Milyutin was familiar with many of the works of leading democrats of that time, he was far from revolutionary ideas and sentiments. He believed that a popular revolution could destroy a lot, but could not give anything positive. He stood for “prudence” and preferred reform to revolution. Milutin viewed revolutionaries as groundless fantasists. He explained the very fact of the existence and activity of revolutionaries in Russia by the fact that, in his opinion, before 1861 Russia did not take the path of bourgeois reforms, and after 1861 it did not, within the limits of “prudence,” firmly follow this path. Being a very moderate liberal, closely connected with tsarism, Milyutin considered it quite sufficient to implement bourgeois reforms within the framework of the monarchical system and saw the very purpose of the reforms in strengthening the monarchical system.

When implementing military reforms, Milyutin had to endure fierce attacks from the reactionary part of the Russian nobility, who considered him a “red”, almost a socialist, and wage a stubborn struggle with him. Of course, there was nothing revolutionary in this struggle. “The notorious struggle between serf owners and liberals,” wrote

V.I. Lenin, - ... was a struggle within the ruling classes, mostly within the landowners, a struggle exclusively over the measure and form of concessions. The liberals, just like the serf owners, stood on the basis of recognition of the property and power of the landowners, condemning with indignation any revolutionary thoughts about the destruction of this property, about the complete overthrow of this power.”

The most important of the reforms carried out by Milyutin was the reform of manning the Russian army with rank-and-file personnel. Less than a year after his appointment as Minister of War, on January 15, 1862, Milyutin presented a report in which he undeniably proved the need to change the recruitment system of the Russian army.

Milyutin showed that with the size of the Russian army in peacetime being 765,000 people, it could not be brought to the wartime strength of 1,377,000 people, since there were only 242,000 people in reserve. To accumulate a sufficient supply, Milyutin proposed sending soldiers on temporary leave after seven to eight years of active service, which became possible with an increase in the recruitment rate (four people from 1000 instead of three).

The report was approved by Alexander II, but during its implementation Milyutin encountered the strongest resistance from the reactionary circles of Russia, led by Prince Baryatinsky and the chief of gendarmes Shuvalov.

Since temporary leaves did not solve the issue of accumulating trained reserves, Milyutin put forward the idea of ​​universal conscription with relatively short periods of service. The new “Charter on Military Service,” which came into force in 1874, resolved the important task of reorganizing the army - the task of creating a stock of trained reserves in case of war.

According to this charter, the male population of all classes who had reached 21 years of age was subject to conscription into the army; part of it, by lot, was enrolled in active service, the rest - in the militia.

The period of active service in the army for the bulk of conscripts was set at 6 years, followed by 9 years in reserve. Thus, the total period of military service was calculated at 15 years. Depending on origin and education, the period of active service could be reduced from 6 months to 4 years. According to this charter, Cossacks, some religious sectarians, clergy and a number of peoples of Russia (Central Asia, the Caucasus and the North) were not subject to conscription into the army; benefits were also provided based on property and family status. Consequently, it cannot be admitted that in Russia, according to the regulations of 1874, universal military service was established, as bourgeois historians did.

On this occasion, V.I. Lenin wrote: “In essence, we did not have and do not have universal military service, because the privileges of noble birth and wealth create a lot of exceptions.” The army recruitment reform according to the 1874 regulations would be more correctly called all-class conscription.

Nevertheless, what was able to be done in the field of changing the system of recruiting the army was a progressive matter, since the tsarist government was forced to “eventually train the entire people to wield weapons, so that the latter acquires the opportunity at a certain moment to carry out their will in spite of the military commander to the authorities."

Revolutionary situation 1859-1861 did not go into revolution; this was also the outcome of the revolutionary situation in 1879-1881. The reason for this is the weakness of the revolutionary forces. Under these conditions, it was impossible to wait for the introduction of universal military service in place of conscription through a popular revolution. Consequently, from a political point of view, even the half-hearted all-class conscription of 1874 was progressive; By introducing bourgeois order into the army, although not fully, this reform undermined the foundations of the main enemy of the Russian people at that time - the autocracy.

The introduction of all-class conscription had a positive impact on the Russian army during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. The Russian army went to war with two annual sets of recruits, drafted on the basis of the new regulations; this significantly rejuvenated the army, made its composition more mobile, more resilient. The first draft according to the regulations of 1874 gave 150,000 recruits instead of 80,000 recruited during the conscription, and during the war the number of recruits accepted for service increased to 218,000 people. The army reserve for the war of 1877 did not yet consist of persons who had completed active military service on the basis of the new conscription, but it already had a significantly larger number of people than it had before the reform.

In addition to this basic reform concerning the recruitment of rank-and-file personnel into the army, during 1862-1874. Other reforms were also carried out. Among these reforms was a change in the army's staffing of officers.

The issue of staffing the army with officers was very acute. Thus, by 1861 there was a huge shortage of officers in the army. This is evident from the fact that in 1861 only 1,270 officers entered the army, with an annual loss of 4,241 people. It is not surprising that over the course of a number of years, even in the peacetime officer corps, a significant shortage formed, but in the event of mobilization, a downright catastrophic situation was created for the army, since there was no trace of an officer reserve.

Milyutin was also seriously concerned about the quality of the officers. Some of the officers graduating from the cadet corps were influenced by the progressive political views that prevailed in the 60s, which, naturally, did not contribute to the development of devoted servants of tsarism from them. Some of the cadets did not feel a calling to military service and were not people who consciously chose military service as their profession.

To avoid these shortcomings and improve the officer training system, a number of measures were taken.

First of all, the cadet corps was replaced with military gymnasiums. The combat organization in them was liquidated, military training was stopped, and in their program they were closer to civilian gymnasiums. Direct training of officers was transferred to military schools, which were created on the basis of special classes of cadet corps. This event made it possible to admit into military schools people from among those who graduated from military gymnasiums, as well as those entering from outside, while ensuring the selection of trustworthy people who were not “guilty” of any revolutionary sentiments. Under such a system, only those who consciously chose military service as their profession became cadets. However, all the schools together provided the army with only 400-500 officers annually, and, therefore, in quantitative terms, the replacement of buildings with military gymnasiums did not solve the issue of fully providing the army with officers.

It was decided to compensate for this deficiency by creating cadet schools in military districts. From 1864 to 1877, 17 such schools were created. The main contingent of students was recruited from among military cadets and volunteers; a certain number were also recruited from among persons who had not completed the full course of military gymnasiums and similar civilian educational institutions, as well as from those who had graduated from primary schools and non-commissioned officers of conscript service. By 1877, cadet schools had graduated 11,500 people as officers. The creation of cadet schools made it possible to stop access to officers for persons who did not possess a certain amount of general and military knowledge. The political reliability of the officers produced by the cadet schools was ensured by strict class selection of cadets; three quarters of the cadets were nobles.

Both of these measures made it possible to eliminate the shortage of officers in peacetime, but by 1877 they did not and could not solve the problem of staffing the army with officers in wartime. During mobilization, the army's additional need for officers reached 17,000 people, and the tsarist government could not create such a supply of officers. One of the main reasons for the weak accumulation of officer reserves was the government's desire to limit access to officer positions for persons of non-noble rank.

At the same time, smaller reforms were carried out to improve the quality of the army's rank and file and officers. For example, since 1863, corporal punishment of soldiers has been legally reduced to a minimum; Since 1867, compulsory literacy training for soldiers began, officer regimental meetings with libraries at them were created for officers; teaching in military academies was revived and expanded; For officers who graduated from the academy, mandatory experience was introduced in command of a company or squadron, and then a regiment, etc.

The military reforms carried out, however, did not eradicate the remnants of serfdom in the army, especially in the area of ​​improving the health of the generals of the Russian army.

The entire noble-aristocratic environment and Alexander II himself held tightly to these relics, since in the corps of officers they saw the holy of holies of their command positions in the army. In the matter of service - and especially the promotion of officers - Alexander II was guided by reactionary dynastic and class-noble motives that had nothing to do with the interests of Russia, the army and military affairs. This had a particularly dramatic effect on the Russian generals, whose appointment and promotion Alexander II retained in his hands. And since the generals set the tone in the army, it is natural that all of Milyutin’s other reforms either failed or were implemented too slowly.

Further, the general concept of military reform included changes in military command and control - the creation of military districts. This event freed the War Ministry from current day-to-day worries and gave it the opportunity to more purposefully and systematically prepare the country and army for war. The military district reform helped reduce paperwork.

Along with its purely military significance, “... the military district reform also pursued a political goal - the struggle of the autocracy against the revolutionary movement. The presence of military districts made it possible for the tsarist government to concentrate the fullness of both military and civil power in the hands of commanders,” since it was widely practiced to combine the positions of military commander and governor-general in one person. Finally, without the introduction of military districts it was practically impossible to mobilize the army in case of war. However, at the same time, the corps organization of troops was destroyed, which was an undoubted step backward in the matter of combat training of troops.

In 1869, the “Committee on the Movement of Troops by Railroads and Water” was established. Thus, for the first time in the world, military communications authorities were created.

Among the military reforms it is also necessary to include: 1) military-judicial reform, which had as its main purpose the improvement of the fight against political activity hostile to tsarism within the army; 2) the development of a new “Regulation on field command and control of troops”, in which, however, the issue of the rear of the field army was very poorly developed; 3) the beginning of the development of plans for the mobilization of troops, although by 1877 a general mobilization plan had not yet been created, mobilization schedules for calling up reserves and their transportation by rail already existed; 4) the publication in 1867 of the law on military conscription, which resolved the issue of manning the army with horses when deployed during mobilization; 5) creation of emergency reserves of weapons, uniforms, etc. in case of mobilization.

The army's allowance, previously largely based on the system of in-kind duties, was transferred to cash.

Finally, major changes took place in the military industry, armament of the army and training of troops, as will be discussed below.

Some foreign powers even before the war of 1877-1878. they tried in advance to discredit military reforms in Russia and keep tsarism from carrying them out. German, Austrian and English newspapers were hostile to the military reform, seeing in it a strengthening of Russia's military power.

The organization of the rear and supply of the army had many shortcomings, in particular, there was no chief who united the entire rear service, and the “Regulations on Field Command of Troops” did not address the issue of the army’s field base.

Artillery supply was the responsibility of the chief of artillery of the army, subordinate to the commander-in-chief of the army. In corps and detachments, artillery supply was in charge of the chiefs of artillery of the corps and detachments, subordinate along the artillery line to the chief of artillery of the army, in divisions - the commanders of artillery brigades.

The army quartermaster supply - food, fodder, clothing, housing, baggage and money - lay with the army quartermaster. The quartermaster was subordinate to the commander-in-chief of the army, but gave all his representations to him through the chief of staff of the army. The corps quartermasters were subordinate to the army quartermaster, and the divisional quartermasters were the latter.

Army medical services were headed by two persons: a field military medical inspector and an inspector of hospitals. The first was in charge of the medical unit and military medical personnel; Corps (detachment) doctors were subordinate to him, and divisional and regimental doctors were the latter. All hospital heads were subordinate to the hospital inspector, and he was in charge of evacuation issues and hospital affairs. Both of these officials reported to the Chief of Army Staff. The duality of the management of medical services was a serious shortcoming in the organization of the rear.

Military communications were in charge of the head of the military communications department, subordinate to the commander-in-chief of the army, but making all his representations to the commander-in-chief through the chief of staff of the army.

All these bosses had corresponding administrative apparatuses.

The supply of various types of food items and the evacuation of the sick and wounded were thought of in Russia before the war in the following form.

The artillery supply of the active army units was carried out from flying and mobile parks, which were assigned one to each infantry division; The cavalry division was assigned half of the horse artillery park. Flying, mobile and horse artillery parks were replenished from local parks assigned to each army. Local parks were replenished from artillery depots located on Russian territory. Replenishment of the material part of the artillery, gunners and artillery horses was carried out from the forward artillery reserve moved into the army's area of ​​operations.

The quartermaster supply of units of the active army was supposed to be carried out using army transport of 4,900 carts; transport was replenished from warehouses laid down as the army advanced. Warehouses were replenished both by rail transport from the depths of the country and by quartermaster supplies in the far rear of the army. The troops were to receive provisions in kind from the commissariat; Money was given to the troops for welding preparations. The troops could either receive fodder in kind or procure it themselves for the money they were given for it. Clothing allowance was supposed to be carried out according to time sheets and periods of wearing in peacetime; an exception was made for overcoats and boots, which, with special permission, could be replenished even before the expiration of the wear period; provision was also made for replacing items lost in battle.

It was planned to evacuate the wounded in the following order. The wounded, picked up by company porters, received first aid from company paramedics (one paramedic per company) and were then carried by the porters to the dressing and main dressing stations. From there, the wounded were transported by means of infirmary, quartermaster and hospital transport to military temporary hospitals, from which further evacuation into the interior of the country was carried out partly by horse, but mainly by rail.

The armament of the Russian infantry during the war was not uniform, and by the time hostilities opened, the rearmament of troops with more advanced guns had not yet been completed. Rearmament began with the troops of the guard, grenadiers, and western military districts; the war on the Balkan Peninsula was started mainly by the troops of the southern military districts, and in the Caucasian theater by the troops of the Caucasian military district. As a result, a significant part of the Russian troops entered the war with old-style guns, and only during the war did units armed with more advanced rifled guns join the active army.

The most successful gun system in the Russian army was a single-shot rifle, adopted for service under the name “Berdana No. 2, model 1870.” The history of its creation is as follows. Russian designers A.P. Gorlov and K.I. Gunnius were sent to the USA to correct the shortcomings of the rifle of the American designer Berdan system, which the Russian Ministry of War accepted as the original model. Gorlov and Gunnius redesigned the Berdan rifle so much that little of the original model survived. The complete creative reworking of the Berdan system by Gorlov and Gunnius was so obvious that even in the USA the rifle they created was called the “Russian rifle.” This model was adopted by the Russian army and entered production. Subsequently, Berdan made a number of changes to the “Russian rifle”; the most significant of them was the replacement of the downward-opening shutter with a sliding one. But this model also had disadvantages that required new changes to the system. They were made by the Russian designer Captain Rogovtsev; the main one was the improvement of the striker and extractor. This sample was final and was adopted by the Russian army, and the initial sample of the “Russian rifle” was removed from service and production. The Russian military bureaucracy refused to recognize and emphasize the Russian priority in the creation of a new gun system by the name itself and, without any sound justification, assigned the name “Berdana No. 1” to the first model, and “Berdana No. 2” to the last one.

The Berdan rifle No. 2 had a caliber of 4.2 lines (10.67 mm), a tetrahedral bayonet and a sight cut at 1,500 paces. The initial speed of the bullet was 437 m/sec, so the range of a direct shot reached 450 steps, and the longest range reached 4000 steps. Together with the bayonet, the rifle weighed 4.89 kg, without the bayonet - 4.43 kg. The weight of the metal unitary cartridge was 39.24 g. In terms of its qualities, the Berdan rifle No. 2 was superior in a number of respects to the best gun systems of the main Western European countries.

By the end of the war, three guards, four grenadier and three (24th, 26th and 39th) army infantry divisions were armed with this rifle, that is, 31% of the number of divisions that participated in the war in the Balkan and Caucasian theaters (there were 32). This situation, at first glance, was very strange; As is known, by the beginning of the war in Russia there were 230,000 Berdan No. 2 rifles in warehouses. The formal motive for refusing to rearm all divisions taking part in the war with Berdan No. 2 rifles was the fear of giving the infantry weapons unfamiliar to them during the war, as well as the fear that Russian infantry, armed with this more advanced gun, will engage in long fire battles and lose their “inherent” desire for a decisive bayonet strike. Objectively, the refusal to rearm the fighting divisions with the Berdan rifle No. 2 reflected the inertia of the Russian command, its lordly disregard for the life and blood of the Russian soldier, on the one hand, and, on the other, the weakness of the Russian military industry, which would not cope with the task of supplying the army with ammunition with full use of the power of the new weapon, Speaking about the quality of the new rifle, it should be noted that it was completely unjustified to set the sight on the Berdan rifle No. 2 within the range of only 1500 steps, while its longest range was 4000 steps.

In addition to the main model adopted by the infantry, the Berdan rifle No. 2 was also represented in the Russian army by dragoon and Cossack models and, finally, a carbine. All these samples differed from the main one in the length of the barrel, the presence or absence of a bayonet, and therefore had unequal weight; the carbine, for example, weighed only 2.8 kg.

The second highest quality rifle system adopted by the Russian infantry was the Berdan rifle No. 1 of the 1868 model. Having common ballistic data with the Berdan No. 2 system, this rifle differed from it for the worse in a number of respects. The reclining bolt did not allow firing from the Berdan No. 1 rifle while lying down; the bayonet was attached from below, loading was slower. In the infantry, rifle brigades were armed with this rifle, but during the war, some of them were rearmed with Berdan No. 2 rifles.

Taking into account the four rifle brigades that took part in the war, 33-34% of the Russian infantry in the Balkan and Caucasian theaters were armed with the Berdan rifle No. 1 and No. 2 by the end of the war.

The third best-quality gun system was the Czech Krnka rifle, converted from old muzzle-loading guns; therefore, in the Russian army the Krnka rifle was called “reworked”. This system was a transition from guns loaded from the muzzle to guns loaded from the treasury. In time, the Russian army rearmed with it earlier than with the Berdan No. 2 system; The Krnka rifle was adopted for service in 1869. It was supposed to be gradually replaced by the Berdan, but by the beginning of the war this process had not yet ended, although, as indicated above, there were opportunities for this. In total, 800,000 guns were converted using the Krnka system. The caliber of this gun was 6 lines (15.24 mm). The rifle had an initial bullet speed of about 305 m/sec, its direct shot range was 350 steps; the rifle was single-shot and had a triangular bayonet; weight with a bayonet was 4.9 kg, without a bayonet - 4.5 kg. A sharply negative quality of this rifle was that, despite the good combat range, reaching up to 2000 steps, its sight was cut for the bulk of the infantry only at 600 steps; Only privates in rifle companies and non-commissioned officers had a sight range of 1200 steps. The reasons for such an artificial limitation of the technical capabilities of the Krnka rifle were ultimately the same, because of which the Russian command did not dare to rearm the entire infantry with the Berdan rifle No. 2. The second largest drawback of the Krnka rifle was the poor extraction of the cartridge case after firing in the event of a more or less shooting. Finally, the weight of the unitary cartridge of this rifle was significantly greater (54.18 g) than that of the Berdan rifle. Therefore, carrying a supply of cartridges for the Krnka rifle greatly burdened the soldiers. The troops were dissatisfied with the Krnka rifle, and there are cases when they willingly rearmed with captured Turkish rifles. Krnka rifle during the war

1877 - 1878 17 infantry divisions out of the 32 that participated in the war were armed, that is, 51-52%. At the end of the war, these rifles were left to the newly created Bulgarian army.

In terms of flatness, range and accuracy of fire, the Berdan rifle was significantly superior to the Krnka rifle. D.I. Kozlovsky gives the following comparison:

The fourth in quality and worst was the Karle system, the so-called “needle” gun. The Carle rifle was the first example of “conversion rifles” (approved in 1867). Its caliber was 15.24 mm; weight without bayonet 4.5 kg, with bayonet - 4.9 kg; initial bullet speed 305 m/sec. The range of a direct shot from a gun of this system was even slightly greater than that of the Krnka gun, but the bolt often failed to operate, and the unitary paper cartridge poorly ensured the obturation of powder gases, clogged the barrel bore, became wet from the rain and became unusable; 20 percent of bullets from a paper cartridge undershot. In total, 200,000 guns were converted using the Karle system. Only five divisions (19, 20, 21, 38 and 41) operating in the Caucasus theater were armed with this rifle, that is, 15 percent of the Russian infantry participating in the war.

In addition, there were a number of so-called “shotguns” or “quick-firing guns” in service. They had nothing in common with cannons, being a prototype of a machine gun, but nevertheless they were introduced into service with artillery units and were intended for use as artillery. There were two systems of canister cartridges: 10-barrel Gorlov systems and 6-barrel Baranovsky systems. Gun barrels were mounted on a common frame. The canister fired with a rifle cartridge. Experienced crews could fire 250-300 shots per minute from a 10-barreled grapeshot. In 1876, the canisters (they were also called “mitrailleuses”) were withdrawn from service.

Finally, regular Caucasian infantry units had a number of rifled and smooth-bore piston and even flintlock rifles.

Thus, the general disadvantage of small arms of the Russian army was the multi-system nature and incomplete use of the inherent range of these weapons (“short” sights). Only a small number of smoothbore and needle guns did not completely meet the combat requirements of that time.

In infantry divisions, a rifle was equipped with 182 cartridges, of which 60 were carried by a soldier, 60 were carried in regimental cartridge boxes, 52 in flying cartridges and 10 in mobile parks. In rifle brigades, 184 rounds of ammunition were required per rifle. In total, by the beginning of the war, the troops operating in the Balkan theater had 45 million rounds of ammunition.

Officers, sergeants, musicians, drummers and buglers of infantry units were armed with Smith-Wesson revolvers; the officers also had sabers.

The armament of the Russian cavalry was even more diverse. The dragoons in the guards division were armed with lightweight Berdan rifles No. 1 (weight 3.8 kg), while other dragoon regiments, with a few exceptions, were armed with shortened and lightweight Krnka rifles; the rifles had bayonets, and, in addition, the dragoons were armed with sabers. The hussars and lancers in the first ranks of the squadrons were armed with pikes and Smith-Wesson revolvers, and the second ranks had Berdan No. 1 rifles; in addition, both ranks were armed with sabers in iron sheaths. The Cossack regiments of the first and second stages of the Don troops and the first stages of other Cossack troops were armed with Berdan rifles No. 1 without a bayonet (weight 3.3 kg); The third line of Cossack regiments of the Don Army and parts of the second line of the Kuban Army were armed with 152-mm muzzle-loading Tanner rifles. In addition to the rifle, the combat Cossack was armed with a pike and a saber. The Plastun Cossack battalions were armed with rifles of different systems, as were the Caucasian cavalry irregular units.

Russian field artillery was armed with nine-pound field guns and three-pound mountain guns. All these guns were bronze, loaded from the treasury and had a wedge breech; They differed from Western European guns of the same type in a number of improvements developed by Russian professors and scientists - Gadolin, Maievsky and others. Steel, more advanced guns were available only as experimental ones and were introduced into service with the troops only after the war. Meanwhile, the tools of this latter type, created by Russian scientists, were much more advanced than the best Western European samples of the same type. The delay in rearmament of troops was explained by the economic backwardness of tsarist Russia, the slowness of the military apparatus of the tsarist army, as well as the highly developed admiration for foreign countries among the Russian ruling elite.

The weight of the nine-pound bronze cannon with carriage slightly exceeded one ton, the limber weighed about 370 kg; the entire system with full stacking weighed about 1.7 tons. The initial speed when firing a conventional grenade was 320 m/sec, when firing a grapeshot grenade - 299 m/sec; table range when firing a grenade - 3200 m; longest range - 4480 m. The caliber of this gun was 107 mm.

The weight of the four-pound bronze cannon with carriage was about 800 kg; the front weighed about 370 kg; the entire system with full stacking weighed 1.3 tons. The initial speed when firing a conventional grenade was 306 m/sec, when firing a grapeshot grenade - 288 m/sec; table range when firing a grenade - 2560 m; the longest range is 3400 m. The caliber of this gun is 87 mm.

The weight of a three-pound bronze mountain cannon with a carriage was 245 kg. The gun and carriage were dismantled into pieces and carried in packs. The initial speed is 213 m/sec, the table range is 1423 m. The caliber of this gun is 76.2 mm.

In addition, the Russian army was armed with siege and coastal artillery guns. Their initial data was characterized as follows:

Since 1876, only three types of shells were accepted for production for field artillery - an ordinary grenade with a shock tube, shrapnel with a spacer tube and buckshot. But along with these types of projectiles, there were significant unspent stocks of discontinued types of projectiles - the so-called “sharokh” and grapeshot grenades with impact and remote tubes; These types of shells were supplied during the war to supply artillery along with new types, and the grapeshot grenade almost completely replaced shrapnel, of which little was supplied to the troops.

An ordinary grenade for a nine-pound gun weighed 11.7 kg, for a four-pound gun - 5.7 kg and for a three-pound gun - about 4 kg. The explosive shell of an ordinary grenade was about 0.4 kg of gunpowder for a nine-pound gun, about 0.2 kg for a four-pound gun, and about 0.13 kg for a three-pound gun. An ordinary grenade was intended: for the destruction of stone and wooden buildings (it coped with this task satisfactorily); for demolishing earthen embankments (with this last task, an ordinary nine-pound cannon grenade, due to the weakness of its high-explosive action, coped poorly, and an ordinary four- and three-pound cannon grenade was not suitable at all). For operations against troops, an ordinary grenade was used with success only when firing at open targets at distances of up to 1500 m for a four-pound gun and up to 1900 m for a nine-pound gun; when shooting at long distances, an ordinary grenade often buried itself in the ground and did not create a crater, and if it exploded correctly, it would hit an area with a depth of only 4-20 m with 20-30 fragments. As a result, firing an ordinary grenade at lying targets, as well as shooting chains, located in the trenches or covered by folds of the terrain, was of little effect.

The balls were a grenade with a spherical core in the head; Balloons were designed to have a ricochet effect, but in practice their destructive effect was lower than that of an ordinary grenade.

Shrapnel and grapeshot grenade, which differed little from shrapnel for the worse, weighed slightly more than 13 kg for a nine-pounder gun, 5.63 kg for a four-pounder, and 4.8 kg for a three-pounder. The shrapnel of the nine-pound cannon contained 220 bullets, the four-pounder - 118 and the three-pounder - 70. The sheaf of bullets had an expansion angle of 8 to 18 degrees and at medium distances with a normal explosion hit an area of ​​up to 160 m. Shrapnel worked well against openly positioned troops, but troops in the trenches they were successfully hit by it only when conducting flank fire and in the absence of traverses and dugouts. In addition, successful shooting with shrapnel was possible no further than at medium distances, since for most of the war the artillery was armed with a tube, the combustion of which corresponded to a range of only 1700-1900 m. At the end of the war, 10-15 second tubes were adopted by the Russian artillery , which corresponded to a range of 2350-3000 m, but at this distance, due to the low final speed of the projectile, the destructive power of the shrapnel bullet was insufficient.

The buckshot of a nine-pound cannon carried 108 bullets, a four-pounder - 48 bullets, and a three-pounder - 50 bullets. The effect of grapeshot, especially from four- and three-pound guns, was weak. The maximum distance for firing buckshot was considered to be 420 m.

In the manufacture of shells and charges in factories, due care and precision were not always observed.

The combat kit of the nine-pounder gun consisted of 125 shells, the four-pounder - of 158 and the three-pounder - of 98. Foot batteries, in addition to a small number of buckshot, had approximately equal numbers of ordinary grenades and shrapnel (shot grenades). In horse batteries, the combat kit contained a slightly larger amount of buckshot.

Thus, Russian artillery did not have in its arsenal a perfect steel field gun with an increased range and rate of fire, heavy field artillery and a powerful projectile with a mounted trajectory. The first circumstance reduced the range of use of light artillery fire, the second made field artillery largely helpless when fighting infantry hidden in more or less developed field fortifications.

The rank and file of the artillery were armed with checkers or sabers, as well as Smith-Wesson revolvers or smoothbore pistols. The officers were armed in the same way as in the infantry.

In addition, the Russian army was armed with rocket batteries that fired combat missiles from a short tube on a tripod (“descent”), weighing about 7 kg. The pipe had a caliber of about 7 cm, the rocket weighed about 3 kg. The longest range of the missile is 1.4 km. Rocket batteries had a strong moral effect on a weak enemy; due to their lightness, they were a good maneuverable means, however, due to their low accuracy and ability to hit only living targets, they could not replace artillery. They were used in mountain warfare and mainly against irregular cavalry in the European and Caucasian theaters.

Ultimately, we can come to the conclusion that the weaknesses of the Russian army’s weapons were the variety of its small arms for the same purpose, the numerousness of their systems, as well as the lack of steel long-range and mounted fire guns and shells with a strong high-explosive effect in the field artillery armament.

Even before the military reform and during its implementation, on the initiative of mainly Milyutin and his supporters, the Russian military industry was created and reconstructed, without which it would have been impossible to rearm the troops. Milyutin wrote: “Russia is not Egypt and not the papal possessions, so that we can limit ourselves to buying guns abroad for the entire army. We must set up our own factories to manufacture our guns in the future.”

In the creation and reconstruction of the Russian military industry there were many obstacles, the most important of which deserve to be noted.

First of all, insufficient funds were allocated for the development of the military industry. Because of this, the Russian military industry of the 60-70s could not be developed to the required size. The development of the domestic military industry was greatly hampered by the admiration of the tsarist bureaucracy for the foreign brand. This led to the fact that in many cases, foreign orders of ready-made weapons were preferred to investing in Russian factories and plants, which, in the vast majority of cases, would do an excellent job of meeting the needs for armament of the army and navy, provided there was sufficient funding.

After the abolition of serfdom, the inability of the clumsy and bureaucratic military administration of state military factories and factories to move from the system of organizing the labor of serf “assigned” workers and soldier craftsmen to a system of free-hire work had a very adverse effect.

Despite all the difficulties, quite a lot of effort was made to develop the Russian military industry in the 60-70s, which gave, although incomplete, still tangible results.

Advanced Russian scientists and engineers played a major role in this regard.

The activities of a whole group of talented Russian designers of various weapons and inventors-innovators date back to the 60-70s of the 19th century. Among them, one of the first places was occupied by V.S. Baranovsky, who for the first time in the world created in 1875 such a model of a 63.5-mm rapid-fire mountain gun, which, according to all data, was significantly superior to the field gun systems of the notorious “gun king” Krupp. Based on a sample of a mountain cannon, Baranovsky created an amphibious assault cannon for the navy. Baranovsky's reputation as the founder of rapid-fire artillery was firmly established.

The talented designer S.S. Semenov came to the fore in the field of designing carriages for artillery guns. In 1868, he created carriages for 8- and 9-inch coastal guns, and in the 70s - carriages for fortress and siege guns. Semenov's carriages were distinguished by their originality in solving design problems and stood among the world's best carriage systems.

A. A. Kolokoltsev, together with the chief mechanic of the Obukhov plant, Musellius, discovered the principle of “lining” guns - free replacement of the internal pipe in the gun barrel. Abroad, this principle was “discovered” only many years later.

V. F. Petrushevsky worked on the creation of artillery instruments.

D. Gan worked on the creation of new types of small arms, who gave the original example of a particularly long-range and armor-piercing 20.4-mm fortress rifle, which found application in the war of 1877-1878.

The work of advanced Russian designers and inventors in the field of weapons was based on the outstanding works and discoveries of contemporary Russian scientists and innovators in metallurgy, chemistry and theoretical issues of artillery. P. M. Obukhov, N. V. Kalakutsky and especially D. K. Chernov were engaged in the study and creation of the most profitable steel grades for artillery guns; the latter discovered the most important principle of the critical heating points of steel; With the application of this principle, the possibility of obtaining a homogeneous metal opened up.

A. A. Fadeev, L. N. Shishkov, V. F. Petrushevsky and G. P. Kisnemsky advanced in the creation and manufacture of explosives.

In the field of the theory of ballistics and artillery shooting, first of all, it is necessary to note the fruitful activity of N.V. Maievsky and A.V. Gadolin. The first, a professor at the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, became especially famous for his work “A Course in External Ballistics,” written in 1870 and earning worldwide recognition. A.V. Gadolin successfully worked on the completely undeveloped problem of increasing the strength and survivability of a gun while simultaneously reducing its weight by fastening the barrel body with rings. Gadolin laid a solid foundation for strictly scientific design of guns and established Russian priority in this area.

Most military plants and factories were state enterprises in the 60-70s. For the most part, they were not universal and strictly specialized in certain branches of the military industry.

Artillery guns were cast at first only in the St. Petersburg and Bryansk arsenals, as well as at some Ural factories, and since 1864 - at the newly created factories: the private Obukhov and state Motovilikha (Perm). The St. Petersburg and Bryansk arsenals were transferred to a steam engine in the 60-70s. Basically, these factories coped with the task of equipping the army with domestically produced cannons, but there were also serious failures. So, for example, due to the general industrial backwardness of the country, it was necessary to abandon arming the troops with a domestic steel cannon and introduce into service the four-pound bronze cannon system developed by A. S. Lavrov; in the same way, a significant number of orders for the production of large-caliber guns had to be transferred abroad.

Small arms and bladed weapons were manufactured at Tula, Izhevsk, Sestroretsk and some Ural factories. In 1870, the Tula plant was completely reconstructed, 1000 machine tools, 3 turbines of 300 horsepower each and 2 steam engines of 200 horsepower each were supplied. The Sestroretsk and Izhevsk plants were reconstructed only partially. By 1874, arms factories had mastered the production of Berdan guns. As of January 1, 1877, factories produced about half a million Berdan rifles for various purposes.

The production of rifle cartridges for Berdan rifles was carried out at the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant, opened in 1869; in 1876 it increased its annual capacity to 80 million rounds.

The production of gunpowder was concentrated at the Okhtensky, Kazansky and Shostensky factories. The first of them underwent complete reconstruction at the end of the 60s, Kazansky and Shostensky - only partial. In 1874, these factories produced 180,000 pounds of gunpowder per year. Private factories and factories of the mining department also fulfilled orders for the production of weapons.

In addition to factories for the production of weapons, in Russia there were a number of military factories and factories for the production of uniforms, equipment, convoys, etc.

So, in the 60-70s of the 19th century, although quite significant, only the first and, moreover, not entirely sufficient steps were taken in the creation of the Russian military industry. All the shortcomings of its deployment rested on the general economic and political backwardness of Russian tsarism.

The insufficient capacity of the Russian military industry was the reason for the delay in the period of rearmament of the Russian army. As a result, Russian troops entered the war of 1877-1878 with multi-system small arms and bronze artillery.

This was one of the significant reasons that Russian troops were forced to pay for their victories in the war with the excess blood of their soldiers.

By the beginning of the war of 1877-1878, the combat training of the troops of the Russian army was in the same transitional state as its recruitment and armament.

The increase since the beginning of the 19th century in the mass of artillery used on the battlefield, at that time still smooth-bore, forced questions of artillery tactics and engineering to be posed in a new way. Somewhat later, the advent of rifled handguns imposed new demands on infantry tactics. In this regard, advanced Russian military thought, in a number of the most important tactical positions, reflected more deeply and fully the requirements of contemporary combat than was the case in foreign armies of that time.

Scheme 1. General organization of troops of the Russian army in peacetime in 1876

The Russian tactician Goremykin already in 1849 proposed massing artillery fire at the most important points. The Russian military engineer Telyakovsky created a new school in military engineering back in the thirties of the last century; in particular, he created a new theory of fortification, devoid of the formalism and scholasticism that dominated the West at that time.

Scheme 2. Organization of an infantry division of the Russian army.

The Russian military writer Astafiev, immediately after the Crimean War, demanded a decisive transition to the use of chains instead of columns, and the chain was to become the basis of the battle order from an appendage. Astafyev wrote: “According to the current improvement and influence on the battle of hand-held and firearms, tactics should change the formation, giving all the advantages to a loose formation over columns. Scatter not only companies and battalions, but even entire regiments and brigades.” At the same time, Astafiev correctly foresaw the most important elements of chain tactics.

Scheme 3. Organization of an artillery brigade and cavalry battery of the Russian army.

Scheme 4. Organization of the cavalry division of the Russian army.

Scheme 5. Organization of the Russian army corps.

Thus, he demanded that the soldiers in a chain be at a distance of 3-6 steps from each other, that self-digging be used in the offensive, that the soldiers act independently, prepare the attack with fire, and be dressed in light and comfortable clothing, colored for camouflage purposes. gray or green, did not use volley fire, but preferably rapid fire, and had a wearable entrenching tool.

Astafiev paid great attention to the individual training of soldiers. He wrote: “In general, little attention has been paid to single training... as if neglecting to deal with an insignificant subject, a soldier, forgetting that by setting out the rules of battle for one person, we thereby contribute to the guarantee of future victories in the whole army.” Based on chain tactics, Astafiev proposed using the idea of ​​a ram. In defense, Astafiev recommended wearing out the enemy with fire from long distances, “waiting for a favorable moment to go on the offensive.” Astafiev foresaw the growing importance of heavy artillery, the need for battalion artillery, and much more.

Very valuable progressive thoughts were found in the magazines “Military Collection” and “Morskoy Sbornik”; general issues of combat training were especially well covered in the magazine “Military Collection” for 1858, when it was edited by the greatest Russian revolutionary democrat N. G. Chernyshevsky.

The Italian campaign of 1859, the civil war in the United States of America in 1863-1866, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871, during which rifled artillery and treasury-loaded rifled handguns were widely used weapons, railways and telegraphs, completely confirmed the conclusions of advanced Russian military tactics.

Advanced Russian commanders, developing the basic principles of Astafiev, Goremykin and others, applied progressive tactical principles in the combat training of the troops entrusted to them.

But advanced forms of combat training did not cover not only the entire, but even the majority of the Russian army. In order to apply them, a favorable environment was required in which the innovative, progressive activities of individual advanced commanders would be picked up by the entire army, generalized and introduced for all troops as mandatory statutory provisions.

The reactionary circles of the tsarist command everywhere sought to preserve the old, feudal foundations, seeing in this the main way to ensure their class dominance in the army and the country. Meanwhile, the need to develop new tactics required a more trained soldier who had a certain level of general and military knowledge and showed initiative. And the training of such soldiers was inevitably associated with the weakening of those serfdom relations that the high tsarist command so sought to preserve in the Russian army. Therefore, the tsarist high command was an enemy of military reform, including changes in the field of tactics and combat training of troops.

Not all, of course, the senior command staff openly hampered the further development of tactics and combat training of the Russian army before the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Minister of War Milyutin, some commanders of military districts and some other members of the top tsarist command staff not only understood the need to change tactics and combat training of troops in accordance with new combat requirements, but also sought to implement them.

They had to fight not only with the highest reactionary court and military circles, but also with the entire mass of both the majority of the top and a significant part of the senior military command personnel, students of the Nicholas school, thoroughly imbued with inert serf-like views on the army and combat training. Milyutin therefore had, as he believed, to achieve new changes in the combat training of troops and the introduction of new tactics, to go slowly, by training through academies and military educational institutions such cadres of officers who, over time, would be able to perceive the new and put it into practice.

The Russian army continued to pay much more attention to developing rules for organizing reviews and parades than to preparing new combat regulations. For example, during the war of 1877-1878. Russian troops did not have mandatory combat instructions, with the rules for joint infantry and artillery exercises published in 1857, while back in 1872, in addition to the drill regulations, a special “Code of Rules on Reviews and Parades of Large Detachments of Troops” was published, which was supplemented by special orders for the military department in 1872, 1873, 1875 and 1876.

Only on the eve of the war, in the spring of 1877, did the War Ministry manage to begin drawing up the army-wide “Instructions for the actions of a company and battalion in battle,” but the war interrupted this work. The restructuring of the combat training of Russian troops was hampered by insufficient general education and training of officers and soldiers.

Among the 15,000 officers who received military rank after several years of service as cadets or non-commissioned officers, general educational training was often limited to only basic literacy; the majority had lower education. The soldiers were mostly illiterate. According to the Odessa Military District, among those who entered the troops in 1869-1870. - 3.4%, in 1870-1871 - 4.4%, in 1871-1872 - 4%, in 1872-1873 - 5.2% literate in relation to the payroll of the unit.

Only as a result of the beginning of teaching soldiers literacy during their service in units, by the mid-70s, the percentage of literate soldiers in the infantry rose to 36.

In special branches of the military it was higher.

Among other things, the obstacle to improving the combat training of troops was the dual line of Alexander II. While approving new provisions for combat training, which were based on the desire to teach troops what is needed in war, and demanding their implementation, he at the same time retained with all his might the former parade ground and external picturesqueness of military exercises. The tsar was forced to do the first under the influence of obvious factors of modern combat experience, and the second was dearer to his heart. Many military commanders, in order to ensure their careers, were carried away by parading, separating troops from actual combat training.

Under these conditions, the restructuring of the combat training of troops had to occur with great difficulty and at a very slow pace.

Tactical training for officers began with War Department Order No. 379 in 1865; this order, however, concerned only the training of young officers and required very little tactical knowledge from the officers (drawing up maps, laying out field fortifications, etc.). Order No. 28 of 1875 already made more serious demands on the tactical training of officers - it introduced exercises in solving written and oral tactical problems on plans and in the field. Due to the fact that the order was issued only in 1875, its effect before the start of the war had little effect on the training of officers. The situation was improved to a certain extent by the fact that in a number of military districts tactical exercises with officers were carried out several years before 1875. True, the disparity in requirements was very great. The general disadvantages of orders No. 379 and 28 were that they concerned mainly young officers and did not cover senior and senior officers, and also that their implementation itself fell on the officers of the General Staff, whose number was very small. Meanwhile, junior officers were already the most advanced in their political views (many of them were brought up on the ideas of Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky) and military knowledge, and therefore the training of senior and senior command personnel would have been more important, but this was precisely what was not .

Senior and senior (general) officers generally avoided not only the direct conduct of classes, but even their general management; at the same time, they themselves fell out of the system of officer tactical training; the latter for them was limited primarily to maneuvers, but they, as Milyutin characterized the maneuvers, “... generally turned out to be more like a game than serious training of troops. They can give the most misleading ideas about military affairs to inexperienced officers.” There were no retraining courses for senior officers in the army at that time. Some addition to official officer training was self-education. They began to pay attention to the acquisition of libraries and the publication of new military tactical literature.

In general, it must be recognized that if in combat training Russian junior officers have significantly advanced from the level of training of officers during the Crimean War, nevertheless it has not yet met the requirements of military affairs of the 60-70s.

The level of training of the majority of middle and senior officers was weak, it increased only slightly, all their official interests in peacetime were concentrated primarily on combat training, housekeeping and, at best, shooting. Tactical exercises for them were most often a secondary matter, and “comparing them, for example, with a ceremonial march was out of the question.” That part of this layer of Russian officers who took courses in military schools and military academies already when Milyutin was Minister of War, in most cases was theoretically prepared in tactical and operational terms, but there were few of them. The disadvantage of training officers at the academy was their lack of good knowledge of the troops and strong practical skills.

The worst situation, however, was with the training of the general staff. Almost all generals received their basic military education back in Nicholas’s time, but during their service their theoretical training was improved even less than that of senior officers; only individuals, on their own initiative, supplemented their military-theoretical knowledge with self-education.

All this had a very negative impact on the restructuring of the combat training of soldiers and non-commissioned officers.

Infantry training, as a rule, developed along the lines of using dense formations and battle formations in the offensive. The infantry made poor use of rifle fire in battle and poorly combined fire with movement and application to the terrain. Despite this, it cannot be denied that infantry training has in many ways advanced greatly since the Crimean War.

In infantry exercises, when a battalion advances, it was most often recommended to build battle formations from two lines of linear companies, located one from the other at a distance of two hundred steps; each line had two linear companies, each company advancing in a deployed two-rank formation. Three hundred steps forward from the first line moved forward the fifth, rifle, company of the battalion, which scattered into a chain, in density approaching a single-rank formation (there were 1 1/2-2 steps per rifleman in the chain).

During the offensive, the chain was allowed to be strengthened. It was recommended that the chain move in dashes of 50-100 steps from cover to cover. Line companies usually moved non-stop on the offensive, although theoretically they were allowed to stop and lie down, as well as disengage. Before the attack, the chain was taught to spread out to the sides, the line companies had to go forward, take rifles on hand from 50 steps and rush with bayonets from 30 steps. Influenced by the desire for overall harmony, the commanders were very reluctant to strengthen the chain and move from cover to cover, since this led to mixing of the formation; on the contrary, in the offensive, moving to the foot and trimming was widely practiced.

According to the adopted formation scheme, the battalion occupied 200-400 steps along the front, and 500-700 steps in depth. At the head moved the chain of the rifle company, which in most cases was the only one firing; this sharply weakened the use of all the fire capabilities available to the battalion. Counting 150 riflemen in a chain, each of whom carried 60 rounds of ammunition, the battalion could fire only 9,000 bullets during the offensive. In practice, the advancing battalion conducted even weaker rifle fire. The chain was allowed to open fire only at a distance of 600-800 steps from the enemy, and only at large targets; Only from 300 steps did fire open on single targets. However, even in this case it was prescribed to require the greatest economy of cartridges from the chain; Dragomirov, for example, directly demanded that no more than half of the carryable supply of cartridges be used during the offensive, that is, 30 pieces. Thus, in his order for division No. 19 of 1877, Dragomirov wrote: “For an intelligent and not crazy person, 30 rounds of ammunition for the eyes is enough if they are released only when they can probably get hit.” As a result, out of an available carry-over stock of 45,000 rounds of ammunition, the battalion was trained to expend only 4,500 rounds on the offensive, i.e., it used only one-tenth of the rifle fire capabilities it had. Consequently, Nyokhota learned to use almost no fire preparation for an attack when attacking. All this was justified by the view, which was strongly inculcated during training, that the success of an offensive is decided by the bayonet, while rifle fire plays only an auxiliary role.

Only in relation to rifle companies were some “relaxations” allowed in terms of their firing. One of the contemporaries of the Russian-Turkish war wrote: “Riflemen were strictly distinguished from linemen. The former were trained for action in a chain of fire, and the latter, according to old traditions, were intended almost exclusively for a bayonet strike... Neglect of rifle fire and, as it were, recognition of its low reality also determined the use of short distances into the depth of the battle formation; the chain and battle lines were kept 200 steps apart from each other, but none of the commanders made any comments, seeing the distance and less than 100 steps.” True, these memories related to the guard troops, where in peacetime preparations there was a particularly strong bias towards parade ground. Nevertheless, neglect of fire was characteristic of many army units. Some commanders, in order to justify inattention to fire, even came up with the thesis right before the war that “the Turks, due to their religious beliefs, avoid a bayonet strike and, in order to avoid a bayonet clash, rush to clear the position.” Given the poor development of artillery at that time, the infantry with such training could not make up for the lack of artillery preparation for the attack with their rifle fire. This trend was clearly outdated, since the enemy of that time with his strong rifled gun loaded from the treasury could not be suppressed without the full use of firepower.

Self-entrenchment was not used at all in the offensive; there was not even a term for such a concept. This, of course, reflected a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of self-entrenchment; True, it could not be used, since the troops did not have a small entrenching tool. In addition, self-entrenchment during exercises disrupted the then highly valued ceremonial harmony of the “box” offensive, when quadrangles and squares of troops moved along the parade ground in a strictly linear manner.

When training infantry for defense, the wrong views were also instilled in them.

Thus, a battalion in defense was trained to keep most of its forces in close reserves and only a smaller part in a chain. The enemy, without firing a shot, was allowed as close as possible to the defended position - usually 300 steps, and sometimes 50 - and only after that fire was opened, mainly volley fire; after several volleys, when the “enemy” approached within 50-100 steps, the Chain and the reserve had to rush into a bayonet counterattack.

The infantry was poorly trained for use in the defense of fortifications; the latter were formulaic, poorly applied to the terrain and technically very imperfect. The construction of field fortifications by infantry, as a contemporary of the war wrote, “was carried out sluggishly among the troops and, moreover, separately from tactical exercises, and only in the rarest cases was used during maneuvers.”

To a certain extent, this was due to the fact that there were no sapper cells in the infantry by state; the degree of “sapperization” of the infantry was weak, despite the fact that in 1871, the then advanced “Manual for training field troops in sapper work” was published. To train sapper instructors for sapper brigades, special teams were seconded from the troops every day for a month, but this did little to help matters. There were very few shovels in the infantry (only ten large shovels per company).

Under such conditions, training could not instill in the infantry a taste for sapper work; unofficially they even treated him with disdain, as did defense in general.

The involvement of the infantry in marching movements was carried out poorly; this led to insufficient marching training of the infantryman’s body, to a lack of marching skills and dexterity among the infantry. Meanwhile, the Russian infantry especially needed to be drawn into marches, in addition to general reasons, also because the infantryman’s burden weighed 32 kg, and the clothes on the march were uncomfortable (in the summer the soldiers suffered from the heat, and in the winter from the cold).

Small arms training was based on preparing infantry for targeted shooting from short distances and at a slow pace, which did not correspond to the properties of the small arms systems available in service; The situation was somewhat better only in rifle companies. Due to the lack of a developed teaching methodology, the results achieved were varied and generally low; Only just before the war did some shift for the better become noticeable.

In order to develop the physical agility and endurance of soldiers, gymnastics and fencing classes were introduced in the infantry, gymnastics and assault camps were used, etc.

Thus, the training of the Russian infantry was one-sided and was reduced to training in close-range combat (if by such combat we mean only a relatively short period of impact and the actions immediately preceding it). With such training at medium and long distances, Russian infantry should have been a helpless target for modern enemy small arms, especially when used en masse.

This was the main line of combat training of the Russian infantry before the war. It subsequently found a vivid expression at the first stage of the war and only at its subsequent stages gradually straightened out. Attempts to eliminate the one-sidedness of infantry training in individual military districts and units took place even in peacetime.

In the Warsaw District, the tactics of attacking with rifle chains were practiced already in 1874. The order for the district required that from the entire first rifle position the chain move in leaps, alternately, in half-platoons, under the cover of fire from lying riflemen.

In the same Warsaw Military District, when practicing actions with chains, Order No. 225 of 1873 demanded: “When advancing within an actual rifle shot, the fire of the chain must in no case completely stop; while part of the chain is moving, the other, remaining in place, increases the fire and then, in turn, will begin to move when the moving part has already taken a position and opens fire... the chain and supports move forward in no other way than by running from position to position, or from closure to closure, with support running in all directions to reduce losses.”

Here there are all the basic elements of chain offensive tactics - the consistent reinforcement of chains from the rear, and the running of the chain in sections, half-platoons, from cover to cover, and a combination of fire and movement.

In 1875, a special commission of the committee on the organization and formation of troops came to the correct conclusions regarding the actions of the infantry during the offensive. So, for example, she admitted that “the rifle chain not only ceased to be an appendage part of the closed order, but acquired primary importance in the infantry combat formation.”

A number of advanced ideas for that time in the field of troop training are contained in orders from other military districts. So, for example, the order of the Kyiv Military District No. 144 of 1873 requires that troops deploy another 2 1/2 km from the enemy, that dashes in the offensive begin at a distance of 1200 steps from the enemy, that troops in the offensive avoid close combat formations and orders. The order of the Kyiv Military District No. 26 of 1877 paid special attention to prone shooting training. Some orders recommended firing on the move when advancing, placing emphasis on flank attacks, etc.

It would still be wrong to overestimate the influence of all these orders and new, advanced at that time, ideas in the field of infantry combat training. The absence of new regulations and the conservatism of the officer corps led to the fact that inertia and routine reigned for the most part in the training of troops. In the orders for the districts, advanced ideas alternated with backward ones, which were a step back even from the accepted middle line.

In the 70s, the articles of M.I. Dragomirov, devoted to the education of the fighting qualities of an officer and a soldier, aroused great interest among Russian officers.

First of all, they criticized the Nikolaev system of education and training of soldiers of the Russian army. But if in this part they were progressive, then in general Dragomirov’s work, presented by him under the guise of a revival of the glorious Suvorov traditions, was a reactionary attempt to substantiate the backward views held by the serf-owning part of the officers.

Of course, we must recognize as positive those views of Dragomirov, which boiled down to the requirement to teach soldiers only what is needed in war, to the requirement for individual training, to the requirement to develop initiative and fearlessness; however, the remaining provisions of his articles directly contradicted these views. Thus, Dragomirov clearly preferred a closed formation that binds the initiative of the soldiers, and disdained sapper work and defense, and this was necessary in war just like the ability to attack; denied the method of explanation in training soldiers, considered it unnecessary to develop mental abilities and literacy in a soldier. All this was in clear contradiction with the main Suvorov precepts. Having adopted Suvorov's form, Dragomirov often put reactionary content into it. He did not so much popularize Suvorov’s legacy as distorted it, mechanically transferring certain Suvorov provisions into the conditions of combat reality of the 70s of the 19th century, which were very different from the conditions of Suvorov’s time, thus directing the combat training of Russian troops along the wrong path, often exactly the opposite of the way in which military affairs developed.

For example, Dragomirov almost completely ignored the importance of fire, and extolled the bayonet strike as the decisive and only means of achieving victory in battle. Dragomirov brought a lot of harm to the combat training of the Russian troops, since his views were supported by many representatives of the highest and senior command. It was difficult for officers who understood the mistakes in the combat training of the Russian infantry to correct them.

Remnants of serfdom, the ruling classes' fear of the oppressed masses, the weak level of development of the productive forces - all this also had a negative impact on the training of troops, as in other areas of the country's life.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that in terms of infantry training the Russian army lagged behind the Western European ones. The latter were also experiencing a period of transition to new weapons and were still very far from such a degree of development of infantry tactics that would meet the combat requirements put forward by the introduction of rifled weapons loaded from the treasury. Experience of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. to a large extent has not yet been taken into account by them;

The chain was not recognized as the main type of infantry combat formation; questions of tactics for attacking in chains were not worked out. This is easy to see if you look at the infantry regulations published after the Franco-Prussian War: Prussian - 1876, Austrian - 1874, French - 1875, English - 1874 -1876.

Combat training of artillery in peacetime was at an even lower level than combat training of infantry.

The situation was most successful only with shooting technique, but even this prosperity was very relative. For financial reasons (the impact of the crises of 1866 and 1873-1875), only 1-2 combat grenades and 1-2 combat shrapnel were supplied per gun per year for combat training of artillery. In the unstable material part of the artillery, major changes often occurred. This state of the material part corresponded to the insufficiently established theory of firing rifled artillery. The shooting methods were also very imperfect - only just before the war, shooting with a fork began to be adopted, and independent shooting by gunners began to be replaced by fire control on the part of the battery commander; in the methods of training in shooting there was a lot of conditionality (range shooting on 14.2X1.8 shields at stationary targets and from short distances) and outwardly ostentatious (they tried to achieve beauty in the actions of gun crews and bring artillery shooting to full accuracy, etc.). All these reasons made it difficult for special combat training of artillery in accordance with the requirements of battle.

The situation was even worse with the tactical side of artillery combat training. In addition to the unfavorable conditions common to the infantry for the development of tactics, it was very negatively affected by the abolition of the corps organization in the Russian army in peacetime. Before this, the artillery, organically part of the corps, knew the needs of the infantry and cavalry and their requirements for it; at the same time, the capabilities of artillery became known to other branches of the military and to combined arms commanders. With the abolition of the corps, this connection between the three branches of the military weakened greatly, since the commander of the district troops, having a large number of military units under his command, could not play the same role that the corps commander played in the matter of mutual rapprochement and familiarization of the combat branches. Artillery was not introduced into the divisions.

The artillery began to understand less well the tactics of other branches of the military and did not so carefully study its capabilities to assist them. Combined arms commanders have become less aware than they were, for example, with smoothbore artillery, in what infantry and cavalry can help artillery and, conversely, in what artillery can help them.

The weakness of the tactical training of Russian officers, especially senior and senior officers, as well as their large shortage in the artillery also hampered the tactical training of all Russian artillery before the war.

When preparing artillery, due attention was not paid to the selection of artillery positions and hidden routes to them; Thus, the artillery actually abandoned flanking fire, which was most effective against an enemy hidden in trenches. Concentrating fire on a single target was rarely used; instead, they sometimes practiced the concentrated placement of many guns in one position, which, however, fired at different targets. A lack of understanding of the significance of concentrated artillery fire led to the fact that during peacetime exercises, artillery was often distributed evenly in infantry combat formations, without massing it in the direction of the main attack. In the artillery, shooting competitions were held at a distance of 900-1100 m for a 4-pounder gun and at a distance of 1100-1300 m for a 9-pounder gun, that is, it was prepared for actions at short and medium distances.

At the same time, the nature of artillery preparation was strongly influenced by the incorrect conclusion from the experience of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, according to which artillery cannot operate in the field of enemy rifle fire due to the threat of complete destruction. These incorrect views pushed the artillery to fire from extreme distances safe from rifle fire and to refuse to recognize the effectiveness of artillery preparation for an infantry attack. This view led to the refusal to accompany the infantry attack with wheels and fire from flank positions. Here, a significant role was also played by the inability to choose artillery flank positions from which it would be most convenient to support the attack almost until the bayonet strike, and the inability to find hidden paths to such positions. The frontal positions of the artillery forced the artillery support of the attack to be stopped too early, and movement in the open from position to position seemed to confirm the opinion that the artillery was generally unable to operate in the field of rifle fire.

Thus, the tactical training of Russian artillery before the war took place in isolation from the requirements of tactical interaction with the infantry.

The technical shortcomings of Russian artillery (short-range and insufficient shell power) were aggravated by poor tactical training. These shortcomings should have had a particularly dramatic effect when fighting against enemy chains hidden in the ground, equipped with guns that were perfect for that time.

The cavalry of the Russian army, in terms of its combat training, was perhaps the most stagnant branch of the military before the war. This was largely explained by the fact that cavalry (regular) was the most “aristocratic” branch of the army - it had many representatives of the noble royal nobility in command positions.

With the development of rapid-fire and long-range small arms, the main tasks of the cavalry became operations outside the battlefield, on the flanks and behind enemy lines. It cannot be said that when training the cavalry, these tasks were completely ignored by the command. But there is no doubt that they were not the basis for the training of the cavalry. For operations in the enemy rear and on the flanks, the cavalry was required to have its horse and manpower well engaged on long runs. But this was prevented by the opinion that was gaining the force of law that horses in the cavalry should be in “good body”, since otherwise the beauty and picturesqueness of the cavalry units, which were so highly valued at that time, would disappear. Since in this case the squadron and regiment commander often did not want to give up and also with their “income” from saving on fodder, then the “good condition” of the horse’s bodies could only be achieved with the least workload on the horse.Cavalry was trained only for short distances, which led to a lack of involvement in long-term work of the horse and rider.

Actions on the enemy flanks and in the rear required a certain independence from the cavalry, the ability to conduct offensive and defensive battles both against enemy cavalry and against small enemy infantry units. And this is possible only if the cavalry is ready for foot and fire combat. Something was done for such preparation - the small arms of the cavalry were strengthened, training in fire and foot combat was introduced. However, all this was nullified by the fact that the cavalry was considered powerless against undisturbed infantry, armed with rifled weapons and weapons loaded from the treasury. This harmful view, which was the result of incorrect conclusions from the experience of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, became widespread and objectively served as the reason for the cavalry’s lack of faith in their own strength.

In addition, the fire training of the Russian cavalry was hampered by a highly developed disdainful attitude towards fire among cavalrymen, and preference was given to combat with edged weapons, mainly in close formation. Cavalrymen (except Cossacks) were forbidden to even shoot from horseback, however, when operating in small units in reconnaissance, in mobile security, in closed and rough terrain, this was extremely necessary.

The possibilities for successful cavalry operations in the rear and flanks of the enemy were also limited by the fact that before the war the Russian command did not envisage the creation of large independent cavalry formations such as the cavalry corps and did not prepare cavalry in peacetime for operations with such formations outside the battlefield.

Thus, throughout the course of combat training, the Russian cavalry was doomed to tactical combat operations alone.

Moreover, the lack of faith in their combat capabilities, which was intensely instilled in the cavalry in peacetime, as well as their lack of involvement in long-term combat work, should have had a negative impact on the tactical and strategic actions of the cavalry in guarding or reconnaissance.

Of course, there were cavalry units where, under the influence of the progressive views of their commanders, the combat training of the cavalry in many ways came close to the requirements of the combat reality of that time. But there were few of them.

The shortcomings of the combat training of the cavalry in peacetime concealed the threat of making it during the war an appendage of the infantry, not so much bringing it assistance as requiring it from the infantry. To a large extent this is what happened in the war of 1877-1878.

The combat training of the engineering troops was based on the rich experience of the Crimean War and mainly the defense of Sevastopol; by the 60-70s, this experience still retained topical significance, especially in the sense of the creation and use of positional defensive fortifications.

Relatively deeply layered defense, rifle trenches, the use of shelters, moving artillery from fortifications to gaps and rear areas, engineering support for counterattacks - all this was of vital importance for the training of engineering troops in the 60-70s. In addition, the classical theoretical works of A. Z. Telyakovsky (1806-1891) on fortification played a major role in the combat training of engineering troops. The first of his main works, “Field Fortification,” was published back in 1839, the second, “Long-Term Fortification,” in 1846. In these works, Telyakovsky thought about the subordinate position of military engineering in relation to tactics and strategy, about the correspondence of fortification to the conditions of the terrain and the requirements of the troops, about the creative, devoid of template, use of fortification in battle, about the purpose of fortification to ensure that troops carry out their combat missions and etc. All these provisions gave the right direction to the combat training of engineering troops in the 70s of the 19th century.

Along with this, however, there were a number of circumstances that negatively affected the combat training of the Russian engineering troops. In this sense, first of all, it should be noted the inertia of the official leadership of the engineering troops, which was actually headed by Totleben. It consisted in the fact that the experience of the Crimean War was taken into account by the leadership incorrectly or not taken into account at all. As a result, an unhealthy pattern was instilled in the combat training of engineering troops; the beginnings of something new in military engineering, revealed by the Crimean War, were ignored. The experience of the Crimean War was not considered in the light of new phenomena, which was especially important in connection with the increased role of new rifled weapons.

Totleben and his supporters took an incorrect and harmful position in relation to a number of Telyakovsky’s advanced provisions. Unable to openly reject them due to Telyakovsky’s scientific authority and popularity, the top military engineering leadership quietly ignored them in the practical combat training of military engineering troops.

A particularly harmful role was played by blind imitation of the “victorious” experience of the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.

The training of engineering troops was also adversely affected by their insufficient material support, the lack of organic communication with other branches of the military (engineering troops existed in the form of separate, isolated brigades) and a number of other minor circumstances.

The sapper units were basically prepared to provide engineering support to the troops and generally coped well with the tasks assigned to them. The weak point of their training was engineering support for the offensive and practical instructor skills in managing engineering work carried out by the main branches of the military. The pontoon units were well prepared; Their training was based on the rich experience of the Russian army in crossing large rivers, including the experience of multiple crossings of the Danube. The units of the engineering troops engaged in laying minefields were perfectly prepared; the head of this work, M. M. Boreskov, a participant in the war of 1853-1856, gave a lot of new and valuable things in his specialty.

In general, the training of Russian engineering troops met the military requirements of that time.

Here we should briefly dwell on the combat training of troops that were just emerging at that time, such as signal troops and aeronautical units.

By 1876, future signal troops existed in the Russian army under the name “military marching telegraph parks”; each such park had eight telegraph devices of the Vorontsov-Velyaminov system and 100 km of wire; a total of nine parks were created. In 1863, a manual for the use of the telegraph in the military, “Military Marching Telegraph”, was published; A cadre of specialists and enthusiasts of their work has grown. Within the modest limits of a small number of staff units, despite the imperfection of the material part, a lot of work was done to prepare telegraph operators for work in the field. By the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. the active army already had 100 telegraph stations.

Military aeronautics began in 1869 with the creation of the “Commission on the Use of Aeronautics for Military Purposes.” In 1870, in the Ust-Izhora sapper camp, experiments were carried out on the use of aeronautics to correct artillery fire.

The preparation of headquarters in peacetime was a priority in the Russian army before the war of 1877-1878. at a low level. This mainly depended on the shortcomings of academic education, since the headquarters of divisions and corps were staffed by officers who graduated from academies. These officers played a major role in the troops in the fight against paradise in the dissemination of tactical knowledge. They were the most tactically and strategically educated part of Russian officers. But in the area of ​​direct staff service, the military academy gave them little. An additional course designed to prepare officers for staff service was introduced only in 1869; field trips for officers of the General Staff began only in 1871, but both of these measures provided little directly for staff service.

The poor preparation of headquarters was explained, in addition, by the overload of officers of the General Staff with clerical work, poor knowledge of the needs of the troops, unsettled views on the role, significance and functions of headquarters in the conditions of that time, which were largely different from previous ones, the lack of generally binding guidelines for staff service, unsettled and imperfect the organization of permanent military headquarters and a completely random, improvised organization of detachment headquarters, an insufficient number of officers with an academic education - the Military Academy, for example, graduated only 50 people annually - etc.

For these reasons, staff training suffered from poor organization of the staff service, poor organization of the work of the staff team; often staff officers carried out only occasional tasks on the instructions of their commanders; The organization of intelligence, reconnaissance, information services, and foresight were especially weak; The documentation language was neither concise nor precise.

Summing up the final results of the state of combat training of the Russian army in 1860-1870, it should be noted that, although it had gone far ahead compared to the period of the Crimean War, it still did not sufficiently meet the requirements of the level of military affairs of that time and had many significant shortcomings. The main one was the insufficient preparation of the infantry for attacks at medium and long distances from the enemy.

* * *

By 1876, Russia had an extremely weak navy on the Black Sea. In total, the Russian Black Sea Navy consisted of 39 ships. The “popovkas” were better armed than others: 1) “Novgorod” was a ship with a displacement of 2491 tons and a speed of 7 knots; carried 11 guns of 11 dm caliber, 11 - 4-pounder guns, 11 rapid-fire guns; had armor: side - 11 dm and deck - 3 dm; 2) “Vice Admiral Popov” - with a displacement of 3500 tons and a speed of 8 knots; carried 11-12 dm guns, 6-4 pound guns, 11 rapid-fire guns; had armor: side armor - 15 dm, deck armor - 3 dm. However, both of these ships were intended for coastal defense and, due to their inherent slowness and design features, could not fight the enemy fleet on the high seas. All other ships had no armor, were weakly armed, and even then not all of them, were outdated, small, or had only auxiliary value.

The reasons for the weakness of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which not so long ago represented a formidable naval force and became famous for its brilliant victories, were only partly rooted in the conditions of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1856, according to which Russia did not have the right to maintain a navy in the Black Sea. In 1870, these unfavorable conditions for Russia of the Paris Treaty were canceled, and over the next six years the Black Sea Navy could be largely recreated. Basically, the reasons for his weakness lay in the mediocrity of the main Russian naval command. The main naval command believed that since Russia is not a maritime power, the Black Sea Fleet is a great luxury for it, which can be afforded only with a clear excess of funds. Therefore, it was decided to build the defense of the Black Sea coast on the basis of land assets, and the navy was going to be used in coastal defense, and then only to a very limited extent. However, the combat training of the personnel of the Russian Black Sea Navy, as well as other Russian fleets, was at a high level at that time.

To a large extent, this should be attributed to the merits of Admiral G.I. Butakov. He was not only the founder of the new Russian tactics of the steam fleet, but also an educator of Russian sailors in the spirit of the former glorious Russian naval traditions applied to the new conditions of the steam fleet. An associate of V. A. Kornilov, P. S. Nakhimov and V. I. Istomin, Butakov was distinguished by intelligence, courage and great organizational abilities. Butakov paid great attention to the issues of maneuvering in battle, artillery and mine training of personnel; he encouraged calculated risk-taking and initiative among his subordinates. Butakov widely practiced exercises in conditions close to combat.

Butakov’s tactical and military educational ideas formed into a whole school, which received wide recognition in Russian naval circles; Butakov’s student and pupil was the later famous naval commander Makarov.

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None of the people knows anything in advance. And the greatest misfortune can befall a person in the best place, and the greatest happiness can find him - in the worst place...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In the foreign policy of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, there were four wars with the Ottoman Empire. Russia won three of them and lost one. The last war in the 19th century between the two countries was the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, in which Russia won. The victory was one of the results of the military reform of Alexander 2. As a result of the war, the Russian Empire regained a number of territories, and also helped to gain the independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania. In addition, for non-intervention in the war, Austria-Hungary received Bosnia, and England received Cyprus. The article is devoted to a description of the causes of the war between Russia and Turkey, its stages and main battles, the results and historical consequences of the war, as well as an analysis of the reaction of Western European countries to the increasing influence of Russia in the Balkans.

What were the causes of the Russo-Turkish War?

Historians identify the following reasons for the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878:

1. Exacerbation of the “Balkan” issue.
2. Russia's desire to regain its status as an influential player in the foreign arena.
3. Russian support for the national movement of Slavic peoples in the Balkans, seeking to expand its influence in this region. This caused intense resistance from European countries and the Ottoman Empire.
4. The conflict between Russia and Turkey over the status of the straits, as well as the desire for revenge for the defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-1856.
5. Turkey's unwillingness to compromise, ignoring not only the demands of Russia, but also the European community.

Now let's look at the reasons for the war between Russia and Turkey in more detail, since it is important to know them and interpret them correctly. Despite the lost Crimean War, Russia, thanks to some reforms (primarily military) of Alexander 2, again became an influential and strong state in Europe. This forced many politicians in Russia to think about revenge for the lost war. But this was not even the most important thing - much more important was the desire to regain the right to have the Black Sea Fleet. In many ways, it was to achieve this goal that the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 was unleashed, which we will talk briefly about later.

In 1875, an uprising against Turkish rule began in Bosnia. The army of the Ottoman Empire brutally suppressed it, but already in April 1876 an uprising began in Bulgaria. Türkiye also cracked down on this national movement. As a sign of protest against the policy towards the southern Slavs, and also wanting to realize its territorial goals, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in June 1876. The Serbian army was much weaker than the Turkish one. Since the beginning of the 19th century, Russia has positioned itself as the protector of the Slavic peoples in the Balkans, so Chernyaev, as well as several thousand Russian volunteers, went to Serbia.

After the defeat of the Serbian army in October 1876 near Dyuniš, Russia called on Turkey to stop hostilities and guarantee cultural rights to the Slavic people. The Ottomans, feeling the support of Britain, ignored the ideas of Russia. Despite the obviousness of the conflict, the Russian Empire tried to resolve the issue peacefully. Proof of this are several conferences convened by Alexander 2, in particular in January 1877 in Istanbul. Ambassadors and representatives of key European countries gathered there, but did not come to a common decision.

In March, an agreement was signed in London, which obligated Turkey to carry out reforms, but the latter completely ignored it. Thus, Russia has only one option left for resolving the conflict - military. Until recently, Alexander 2 did not dare to start a war with Turkey, because he was worried that the war would again turn into resistance of European countries to Russian foreign policy. On April 12, 1877, Alexander 2 signed a manifesto declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the emperor concluded an agreement with Austria-Hungary on the latter’s non-entry on the side of Turkey. In exchange for neutrality, Austria-Hungary was to receive Bosnia.

Map of the Russian-Turkish War 1877-1878

Main battles of the war

Several important battles took place between April and August 1877:

• Already on the first day of the war, Russian troops captured key Turkish fortresses on the Danube and also crossed the Caucasian border.
• On April 18, Russian troops captured Boyazet, an important Turkish fortress in Armenia. However, already in the period June 7-28, the Turks tried to carry out a counter-offensive; Russian troops survived the heroic struggle.
• At the beginning of the summer, General Gurko's troops captured the ancient Bulgarian capital of Tarnovo, and on July 5 they established control over the Shipka Pass, through which the road to Istanbul went.
• During May-August, Romanians and Bulgarians began to massively create partisan detachments to help the Russians in the war with the Ottomans.

Battle of Plevna in 1877

The main problem for Russia was that the emperor’s inexperienced brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, commanded the troops. Therefore, individual Russian troops actually acted without a center, which means they acted as uncoordinated units. As a result, on July 7-18, two unsuccessful attempts were made to storm Plevna, as a result of which about 10 thousand Russians died. In August, the third assault began, which turned into a protracted blockade. At the same time, from August 9 until December 28, the heroic defense of the Shipka Pass lasted. In this sense, the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, even briefly, seems very contradictory in events and personalities.

In the autumn of 1877, the key battle took place near the Plevna fortress. By order of the Minister of War D. Milyutin, the army abandoned the assault on the fortress and moved on to a systematic siege. The army of Russia, as well as its ally Romania, numbered about 83 thousand people, and the garrison of the fortress consisted of 34 thousand soldiers. The last battle near Plevna took place on November 28, the Russian army emerged victorious and was finally able to capture the impregnable fortress. This was one of the largest defeats of the Turkish army: 10 generals and several thousand officers were captured. In addition, Russia was establishing control over an important fortress, opening its way to Sofia. This was the beginning of a turning point in the Russian-Turkish war.

Eastern front

On the eastern front, the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 also developed rapidly. At the beginning of November, another important strategic fortress was captured - Kars. Due to simultaneous failures on two fronts, Turkey completely lost control over the movement of its own troops. On December 23, the Russian army entered Sofia.

Russia entered 1878 with a complete advantage over the enemy. On January 3, the assault on Phillipopolis began, and already on the 5th the city was taken, and the road to Istanbul was opened for the Russian Empire. On January 10, Russia enters Adrianople, the defeat of the Ottoman Empire is a fact, the Sultan is ready to sign peace on Russia’s terms. Already on January 19, the parties agreed on a preliminary agreement, which significantly strengthened Russia’s role in the Black and Marmara Seas, as well as in the Balkans. This caused great concern in European countries.

Reaction of major European powers to the successes of Russian troops

England expressed its dissatisfaction most of all, which already at the end of January sent a fleet into the Sea of ​​Marmara, threatening an attack in the event of a Russian invasion of Istanbul. England demanded that Russian troops be withdrawn from the Turkish capital, and also begin to develop a new treaty. Russia found itself in a difficult situation, which threatened to repeat the scenario of 1853-1856, when the entry of European troops violated Russia's advantage, which led to defeat. Taking this into account, Alexander 2 agreed to revise the treaty.

On February 19, 1878, in a suburb of Istanbul, San Stefano, a new treaty was signed with the participation of England.

The main results of the war were recorded in the San Stefano Peace Treaty:

• Russia annexed Bessarabia, as well as part of Turkish Armenia.
• Türkiye paid an indemnity of 310 million rubles to the Russian Empire.
• Russia received the right to have a Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol.
• Serbia, Montenegro and Romania gained independence, and Bulgaria received this status 2 years later, after the final withdrawal of Russian troops from there (who were there in case Turkey tried to return the territory).
• Bosnia and Herzegovina received autonomy status, but were actually occupied by Austria-Hungary.
• In peacetime, Turkey was supposed to open ports to all ships heading to Russia.
• Turkey was obliged to organize reforms in the cultural sphere (in particular for the Slavs and Armenians).

However, these conditions did not suit the European states. As a result, in June-July 1878, a congress was held in Berlin, at which some decisions were revised:

1. Bulgaria was divided into several parts, and only the northern part received independence, while the southern part was returned to Turkey.
2. The amount of indemnity decreased.
3. England received Cyprus, and Austria-Hungary received the official right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Heroes of War

The Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 traditionally became a “minute of glory” for many soldiers and military leaders. In particular, several Russian generals became famous:

• Joseph Gurko. Hero of the capture of the Shipka Pass, as well as the capture of Adrianople.
• Mikhail Skobilev. He led the heroic defense of the Shipka Pass, as well as the capture of Sofia. He received the nickname “White General”, and is considered a national hero among the Bulgarians.
• Mikhail Loris-Melikov. Hero of the battles for Boyazet in the Caucasus.

In Bulgaria there are over 400 monuments erected in honor of the Russians who fought in the war with the Ottomans in 1877-1878. There are many memorial plaques, mass graves, etc. One of the most famous monuments is the Freedom Monument on the Shipka Pass. There is also a monument to Emperor Alexander 2. There are also many settlements named after Russians. Thus, the Bulgarian people thank the Russians for the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkey, and the end of Muslim rule, which lasted more than five centuries. During the war, the Bulgarians called the Russians themselves “brothers,” and this word remained in the Bulgarian language as a synonym for “Russians.”

Historical reference

Historical significance of the war

The Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 ended with the complete and unconditional victory of the Russian Empire, however, despite the military success, European states quickly resisted the strengthening of Russia's role in Europe. In an effort to weaken Russia, England and Turkey insisted that not all the aspirations of the southern Slavs were realized, in particular, not the entire territory of Bulgaria received independence, and Bosnia passed from Ottoman occupation to Austrian occupation. As a result, the national problems of the Balkans became even more complicated, eventually turning the region into the “powder keg of Europe.” It was here that the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne took place, becoming the reason for the outbreak of the First World War. This is generally a funny and paradoxical situation - Russia wins victories on the battlefields, but over and over again suffers defeats in the diplomatic fields.

Russia regained its lost territories and the Black Sea Fleet, but never achieved the desire to dominate the Balkan Peninsula. This factor was also used by Russia when entering the First World War. For the Ottoman Empire, which was completely defeated, the idea of ​​revenge persisted, which forced it to enter into a world war against Russia. These were the results of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, which we briefly reviewed today.

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 was a war between the Russian Empire and Ottoman Turkey. It was caused by the rise of the national liberation movement in the Balkans and the aggravation of international contradictions in connection with this.

Uprisings against the Turkish yoke in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1875-1878) and Bulgaria (1876) sparked a social movement in Russia in support of the fraternal Slavic peoples. Responding to these sentiments, the Russian government came out in support of the rebels, hoping that if they were successful, they would strengthen their influence in the Balkans. Great Britain sought to pit Russia against Turkey and take advantage of the weakening of both countries.

In June 1876, the Serbo-Turkish War began, in which Serbia was defeated. To save it from death, Russia in October 1876 turned to the Turkish Sultan with a proposal to conclude a truce with Serbia.

In December 1876, the Constantinople Conference of the Great Powers was convened and tried to resolve the conflict diplomatically, but the Porte rejected their proposals. During secret negotiations, Russia managed to obtain guarantees of non-interference from Austria-Hungary in exchange for the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In April 1877, an agreement was concluded with Romania on the passage of Russian troops through its territory.

After the Sultan rejected a new reform project for the Balkan Slavs, developed at the initiative of Russia, on April 24 (April 12, old style), 1877, Russia officially declared war on Turkey.

In the European theater of operations, Russia had 185 thousand soldiers; together with its Balkan allies, the size of the group reached 300 thousand people. Russia had approximately 100 thousand soldiers in the Caucasus. In turn, the Turks in the European theater had a 186,000-strong force, and in the Caucasus they had approximately 90,000 soldiers. The Turkish fleet almost completely dominated the Black Sea; in addition, the Porte had the Danube flotilla.

In the context of the restructuring of the entire internal life of the country, the Russian government was unable to prepare for a long war, and the financial situation remained difficult. The forces allocated to the Balkan theater of operations were insufficient, but the morale of the Russian army was very high.

According to the plan, the Russian command intended to cross the Danube, cross the Balkans with a swift offensive and move on the Turkish capital - Constantinople. Relying on their fortresses, the Turks hoped to prevent Russian troops from crossing the Danube. However, these calculations of the Turkish command were disrupted.

In the summer of 1877, the Russian army successfully crossed the Danube. An advance detachment under the command of General Joseph Gurko quickly occupied the ancient capital of Bulgaria, the city of Tarnovo, and then captured an important passage through the Balkans - the Shipka Pass. Further advance was suspended due to lack of forces.

In the Caucasus, Russian troops captured the fortresses of Bayazet and Ardahan, defeated the Anatolian Turkish army during the Battle of Avliyar-Alajin in 1877, and then captured the fortress of Kars in November 1877.

The actions of Russian troops near Plevna (now Pleven) on the western flank of the army were unsuccessful. Due to gross mistakes by the tsarist command, the Turks managed to detain large forces of Russian (and somewhat later Romanian) troops here. Three times Russian troops stormed Plevna, suffering huge losses, and each time without success.

In December, the forty thousand-strong garrison of Plevna capitulated.

The fall of Plevna caused the rise of the Slavic liberation movement. Serbia entered the war again. Bulgarian militias fought heroically in the ranks of the Russian army.

By 1878, the balance of power in the Balkans had changed in favor of Russia. The Danube Army, with the assistance of the Bulgarian population and the Serbian army, defeated the Turks while crossing the Balkans in the winter of 1877-1878, in the battle of Sheinovo, Philippopolis (now Plovdiv) and Adrianople, and in February 1878 reached the Bosporus and Constantinople.

In the Caucasus, the Russian army captured Batum and blocked Erzurum.

The ruling circles of Russia faced the specter of a big war with the European powers, for which Russia was not ready. The army suffered heavy losses and experienced supply difficulties. The command stopped the troops in the town of San Stefano (near Constantinople), and on March 3 (February 19, old style), 1878, a peace treaty was signed here.

According to it, Kars, Ardahan, Batum and Bayazet, as well as Southern Bessarabia, were ceded to Russia. Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina received broad autonomy, and Serbia, Montenegro and Romania received independence. In addition, Türkiye was obliged to pay an indemnity of 310 million rubles.

The terms of the treaty caused a negative reaction from Western European states, which feared Russia's enormously increased influence in the Balkans. Fearing the threat of a new war, for which Russia was not prepared, the Russian government was forced to revise the treaty at an international congress in Berlin (June-July 1878), where the San Stefano Treaty was replaced by the Berlin Treaty, which was unfavorable for Russia and the Balkan countries.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

During the Russian-Turkish War of 1878, two types of weapons were used: bladed weapons and firearms - rifles. According to technical characteristics, rifles were divided into two groups: single-shot for a unitary cartridge and multi-shot (magazine). Single-shot rifles were in service with the warring parties, multi-shot rifles were used only by irregular formations and volunteers (bashi-bazouks). BERDAN RIFLE No. 2 mod. 1870. It was this gun with a caliber of 10.67 mm that became the famous “Berdanka”, which remained in service with the army for twenty years until 1891, when it was replaced by the no less famous “three-line” caliber 7.62 mm (Berdan Rifle), developed by Colonel American service Hiram Berdan, together with Russian officers Colonel Gorlov and Captain Gunius sent to America, was adopted in Russia for arming rifle battalions; and the 1869 model is for arming all units of the Russian troops in general.

Rifles and carbine of the Berdan-2 system, model 1870: 1 - infantry rifle, 2 - dragoon rifle, 3 - Cossack rifle, 4 - carbine.

bayonet for Berdan rifle No. 2

The best rifle in Europe

Berdan-2 arr. 1870

M1868 Russian Berdan I: The Turkish army used Austrian rifles of the Wenzel (Wenzl) system mod. 1867 and Verdl sample 1877.

Austrian rifle of the Wenzel (Wenzl) system mod. 1867

Austrian Werdl rifle of 1877

The Turkish army was also equipped with Snyder rifles and Martini rifles.

Breech-loading rifle of the Snyder system model 1865 with a folding bolt, England
Breech-loading
rifle
Martini-Henry system model 1871 with a swinging shutter (fragment). England

Source: http://firearmstalk.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=107 Bashi-bazouks and Turkish regular cavalry used American rifles and carbines of the Henry and Winchester systems with an under-barrel tubular magazine. The American Winchester rifle was one of the first weapon systems chambered for a metal cartridge . It was designed, however, not by Winchester at all, but by the American gunsmith and engineer B. T. Henry for a special metal side-fire cartridge of 44 caliber (11.2 mm). In 1860, he assigned the patent and all rights to this gun to the New Haven Armament Company, owned by O. F. Winchester. Henry himself became the director of the Winchester factory, and these weapons began to be named after the owner of the company; from 1867 and the factory became known as the Winchester Repairing Arm Company. In 1866, the magazine began to be filled with cartridges through the charging hole in the receiver, and not from the front of the magazine, as was originally the case with Henry. The Winchester magazine proved its worth during the American Civil War (1861-1865), and later as a hunting rifle. http://corsair.teamforum.ru/viewtopic.php?f=280&t=1638

hard drives

During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, combat blade weapons were widely used - scimitars, broadswords and sabers. In the literature, scimitars and sabers are sometimes called scimitars, and sometimes this name is assigned exclusively to Janissary daggers. It is not right. Only a weapon with a slight double bend can be called a scimitar. The length of the blade could be different. The Janissaries had really short scimitars, but cavalry examples could have blades up to 90 cm long. The weight of the scimitars, regardless of their size, was at least 0.8 kg. With less weight, the weapon became difficult to chop.

scimitar

Scimitar. Balkans, early 19th century.

Scimitar in sheath. Türkiye. 19th century.


The scimitar could be used to stab, chop and cut. Moreover, chopping blows were applied with the upper part of the blade, and cutting blows with the lower part - with the concave part. That is, they cut with a scimitar, like a saber or a katana, so he did not have a guard. But there was a difference. The scimitar did not need to be leaned on with both hands, like a Japanese sword; it did not have to be moved slowly, like a saber. It was enough for a foot soldier to sharply pull the scimitar back. The rider had to simply hold him. The rest, as they say, was a matter of technique. The concave blade “bite” into the enemy itself. And to prevent the scimitar from being torn out of the hand, its handle was equipped with ears that tightly covered the fighter’s hand from behind. The heaviest samples had a rest for the second hand under the usual handle.
About the penetrating power of scimitars, it is enough to say that even the 50-centimeter daggers of the Janissaries pierced knightly armor. dagger), a cutting and piercing bladed weapon with a straight and long blade.

Broadsword_Osman Pasha

It can have double-sided (early samples), one-sided and one-and-a-half sharpening. The length of the blade is up to 85 cm. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian army had several types of broadswords in service: guards cuirassier broadswords, army cuirassier broadswords, dragoon broadswords, with the exception of dragoons in the Caucasus, who were armed with sabers. Horse artillery also had special horse artillery broadswords.

Naval officer's broadsword model 1855/1914. Russia. 19th century.
Blade length - 83.3 cm;
Blade width - 3 cm;
Total length - 98 cm.
The blades of Russian broadswords from the first decade of the 19th century were only single-edged. In the first third of the 19th century, various types of broadswords were unified: the dragoon model 1806, the cuirassier model 1810 and the cuirassier model 1826 that replaced it. Broadswords were in service with cuirassiers until they were reorganized into dragoons in 1882, after which broadswords remained only in some military units as ceremonial weapons. The naval broadsword is a type of cavalry broadsword, it is distinguished by a somewhat curved, but more often straight blade and the presence at the combat end on both sides sides of obliquely set ribs, which are a continuation of the butt and reach the tip.

Cuirassier officer's broadswords, model 1826. Made in 1855 and 1856. Chrysostom

The naval broadsword has been used since the 16th century as a boarding weapon. In Russia, naval broadswords were introduced into the navy under Peter I. Russian naval broadswords of the 19th century differ from cavalry ones in their smaller size, the shape of the blades and hilts. A large number of naval broadswords were made in Zlatoust in 1852-1856 and later.
http://www.megabook.ru

Russian cavalry saber model 1827, kladenets

"Infantry sabers and cutlasses. Zlatoust arms factory, mid-19th century
The Russian Navy made its contribution to the defeat of the Turkish troops. Vice Admiral of the Russian Fleet Stepan Osipovich Makarov (1848-1904) played a huge role in the development of naval underwater weapons in the Russian Navy. His merits in this matter include, first of all, the idea of ​​​​creating mine boats (the prototype of destroyers) and arming them with pole mines, and later with torpedoes; modernization of pole mines using stern attachment; creation of towed lionfish mines. In combat tactics, Stepan Osipovich was the first to use mines as an offensive weapon off the enemy’s coast during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and carried out the first combat attack on an enemy ship with Whitehead torpedoes. Makarov provided invaluable assistance to his flagship miner K.F. Schultz in the creation of the world's first trawl. During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. boats with pole mines, improved by S. O. Makarov, were widely used in the Russian fleet. They sunk the Turkish monitor Selfi. At the same time, S. O. Makarov developed and successfully used a lionfish mine towed by a boat. The Turkish battleship Assari was blown up by such a mine. torpedo boats and destroyers were created.
The idea of ​​​​creating torpedo boats belongs to the talented Russian admiral S. O. Makarov, who was the first to use torpedoes in a combat situation from boats specially equipped for torpedo firing. Russia, the first to appreciate the value of this new weapon, built several destroyers with a displacement of 12 tons. Torpedoes and the successful use of mines by the Russian fleet in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. made a strong impression on the naval circles of other states that had a large number of large ships, apparently defenseless against this new weapon, since it seemed that strong artillery and thick armor were nothing in front of a small ship bringing death to a large ship. (MILITARY LITERATURE --[ Equipment and weapons ] -- Shershov A)