The Russo-Turkish War was one of the most decisive conflicts of the 18th century. In this book, Brian Davies offers a thorough survey of the war and explains why it was crucial to the political triumph of Catherine the Great, the southward expansion of the Russian Empire, and the rollback of Ottoman power from southeastern Europe. The war completed the incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Empire, ended the independence of the great Cossack hosts, removed once and for all the military threat from the Crimean Khanate, began the partitions of Poland, and encouraged Catherine II to plan projects to complete the "liberation" of the lower Danubian and Balkan Slavs and Greeks. The war legitimated and secured the power of Catherine II, finally made the Pontic steppe safe for agricultural colonization, and won ports enabling Russia to control the Black Sea and become a leading grain exporter. Traditionally historians (Sorel, for example) have treated this war as the beginning of the "Eastern Question," the question of how the European powers should manage the decline of the Ottoman Empire. A thorough grasp of the Russo-Turkish War is essential to understanding the complexity and volatility of diplomacy in 18th-century Europe. This book will be an invaluable resource for all scholars and students on European military history and the history of Eastern Europe.

Over thirty years in the making, the most comprehensive work in English on Ukraine is now complete: its history, people, geography, economy, and cultural heritage, both in Ukraine and in the diaspora.

In terms of resource mobilization and devastation the wars between Russia, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire were some of the largest of the 18th century, and had enormous consequences for the balance of power in Eastern Europe. Brian Davies examines how these conflicts characterized the course of Russian military development in response to Ottoman and Crimean Tatar threats and to determine under what circumstances and in what ways Russian military power experienced a "revolution" awarding it clear preponderance over the Ottoman-Crimean system. A central part of Davies' argument is that identifying and explaining a Military Revolution must involve examining the role of factors not purely military. One must look not only at new military technology, new force and command structure, new tactical thinking, and new recruitment and military finance practices but also consider the impact of larger demographic, economic, and sociopolitical changes.

In 1711 Peter the Great, the Tsar of Russia, led a large army of veterans from Poltava and his other Great Northern War victories into the Balkans. He aimed to humble the Ottomans in the same way he had the Swedes a few years before. Victory would secure useful allies in the Balkans, cement Russia's 'Great Power' status and offer Peter the opportunity to finally gain control over the Swedish king, Charles XII, thus completing his victory over Sweden. Yet within a few months, the 'backward' Ottomans had forced the Tsar and his Tsarina and their army of veterans into a humbling surrender near the Pruth River. The war was the first time that Russia was strong enough to confront the Ottomans independently rather than as a member of an alliance. It marked an important stage in Russia's development. However, it also showed the significant military strength of the Ottoman Empire and the limitations of Peter the Great's achievements. The war was of significance to the allies of both the Russians and the Ottomans. It was of course of an even greater importance to all those directly affected by the war such as the Swedish, the Polish, and the Cossacks, who had taken refuge from the reverses of the Great Northern War in the Ottoman territory. It would also bring about the defeat of the Moldavian and Walachian ambitions to shake off the Ottoman overlordship, elevating Dimitrie Cantemir into the position of a national hero celebrated to this day by the people of Romania. The book looks at the causes of this little known war and its course. Using contemporary and modern sources it examines in detail the forces involved in the conflict, seeking to determine their size, actual composition, and tactics, offering the first realistic determination on the subject in English.

A detailed look at the Russian army during the Great Northern War utilising material previously unseen in the West.

Armed with only a telescope, a watch, and a notebook he retrieved from a dead soldier, William Howard Russell spent twenty-two months reporting from the trenches for the Times of London during the Crimean War. A novice in a new field of journalism -- war reporting -- when he first set off for Crimea in 1854, the young Irishman returned home a veteran of three bloody battles, having survived the siege of Sebastopol and watched a colleague die of cholera. Russell's fine eye for detail electrified readers, and his remarkably colorful and hugely significant accounts of battles provided those at home -- for the first time ever -- with a realistic picture of the brutality of war. The Crimean War, originally published in 1856 under the title The Complete History of the Russian War, presents a selection of Russell's dispatches -- as well as those of other embedded reporters -- providing a ground-eye view of the conflict as depicted in British newspapers. Fought on the southern tip of the Crimea from 1853 to 1856, the Crimean War raged on far longer than either side expected -- largely because of mismanagement and disease: more soldiers died from cholera, typhus, typhoid, dysentery, and scurvy than battle wounds. Russell's biting criticisms of incompetent military authorities and an antiquated military system contributed to the collapse of the contemporary ruling party in Britain. In his reports, Russell wrote extensively about inept medical care for the wounded, which he termed "human barbarity." Thanks to compelling accounts by Russell and others, authorities allowed Florence Nightingale to enter the war zone and nurse troops back to health. The Crimean War contains reports from military men who acted as part-time reporters, articles by professional journalists, and letters from others at the front that newspapers back home later published. Rapidly pulled together by American publisher John G. Wells, the volume presents a fascinating contemporary analysis of the war by those on the ground. This reissue offers a new introduction by Angela Michelli Fleming and John Maxwell Hamilton that places these reports in context and highlights the critical role they played during a pivotal point in European history. The first first-hand accounts of the realities of war, these dispatches set the tone for future independent war reporting.