ART OF THE DAY: DEFENSE OF THE FORTRESS OF BAYAZID BY THE RUSSIANS (June 8-28, 1877) by LEV LAGORIO

 During the short Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, the Orthodox balkanic coalition led by Russia against the Ottoman Empire scored a number of resounding victories. It was also marked by brutal “ethnic cleansing” of minorities – Christians, Muslims and Jews - by all the parties involved. Adrianople had fallen, Russian troops came as close as 11 km from Istanbul. The firm intervention of Britain stopped them from taking the capital of the Sultans and the Dardanelles, as they came under the threat of the British Mediterranean squadron led by Vice-Admiral Geoffrey Phipps-Hornby stationed at Besika Bay, ready to engage the Orthodox coalition “as to not repeat the bloody blunder of [the battle of] Navarino”-British Prime Minister Disraeli. 

Siege of the citadel of Bayazid by Lev Lagorio, painted in 1891, Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps, Saint Petersburg.

 

 

 

 

In the Caucasus theater, on April 18, 1877, Bayazid (Doğubayazıt in Ağrı Province), 15 km southwest of Mount Ararat, was occupied by the detachment of Lieutenant General Tergukasov, who then moved on, leaving a small garrison in the city. Captain F. Shtokvich was appointed commandant of the Bayazet citadel (the Ishak Pasha Palace). On June 6, 11,000 Turks under the command of Brigadier General A. Faik Pasha, occupied the city and blocked the 1,700-men strong Russian garrison in the citadel. On June 8, Turkish troops attempted to storm the citadel but were repulsed. The Kurdish irregulars plundered the city, carrying out a complete extermination of the local Armenian population. For 23 days, the garrison repelled all the attacks, and on June 28 it was finally saved by the troops of the Erivan detachment of General Tergukasov. During the siege, the garrison suffered 286 casualties.

After the war, under the terms of the San Stefano Peace Treaty (March 1878), Bayazid and the adjacent territories were ceded to Imperial Russia. But according to the decisions of the Berlin Congress (June-July 1878), this was reversed and Bayazid and the Alashkert Valley were returned to the Ottoman Empire. 

End of the siege of the citadel of Bayazid on June 23, 1878.

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Viennese authorities were unhappy with this extension of Russian power, and Serbia feared the establishment of Greater Bulgaria would harm its interests in former and remaining Ottoman territories. Britain would defend its interests in Constantinople, in Egypt, Suez, and the Persian Gulf by war if necessary. For Prince Aleksandr Gorchakov, “the British find it hard to understand a war of religious and national sentiment, and being incapable of one themselves, they consequently look for arrières pensées”. As for Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, the Balkans were simply “not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier”!

The British fleet in the Dardanelles with ironclads Alexandra, Agincourt, Achilles, Monarch, Invincible, Rupert, Swiftsure, Hostpur, Defense, Thunderer, Raleigh, Ruby, Sultan, Temeraire and Research: 1. The Fleet nearing the town of Kum Kaleh; 2. The Fleet entering the mouth of the Dardanelles. The Illustrated London News, 1878.

  

Disraeli never dissimulated his sympathy for the Ottoman cause vs the Balkan Christians:

“I find the habits of this calm and luxurious people [the Ottomans] entirely agree with my own preconceived opinions of property and enjoyment, and detest the Greeks more than ever”. (Miloš Ković , Disreali and the Eastern Question, 2007). 

William Gladstone, on the other hand, was fiercely in favor of “humanitarian intervention” on behalf of the Christians and disliked the Turks: “Upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force, as opposed to government by law. For the guide of this life they had a relentless fatalism: for its reward hereafter, a sensual paradise.”