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First Serbian–Ottoman War (1876–1877)
Part of the Great Eastern Crisis
Battle of Moravac
Date 30 June 1876 – 28 February 1877 (7 months, 4 weeks and 1 day) Location Serbia Result Mixed results: Ottoman military victory Serbian political victory Status quo
Belligerents
Serbia  Montenegro Russian Volunteers Bulgarian Volunteers	Ottoman Empire Egypt
Commanders and leaders
František Zach Đura Horvatović Mihailo Ilić † Ranko Alimpić Milojko Lešjanin Nićifor Dučić Mikhail Chernyayev	Abdülkerim Nadir Osman Nuri Süleyman Hüsnü Mehmed Ali
Strength
130,000 with 160 guns	153,000 with 192 guns
Casualties and losses
6,000 killed, 9,500 wounded	1,000+ killed, 6,000+ wounded

The First Serbian–Ottoman War (Serbian: Први српско-турски рат, romanized: Prvi srpsko-turski rat), was a military conflict fought by the Principality of Serbia and the Principality of Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire.

Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 30 June 1876. A Serbian offensive to the South and the West was repulsed by Ottoman troops after just three weeks of fighting, upon which Turkey then invaded Serbia proper. Eastern Serbia was quickly occupied, but on the southern front the Serbian army successfully stopped the Ottoman advance, defending the fortified positions around Aleksinac for more than two months.

The Russian Empire brokered a ceasefire in autumn of 1876 by threatening military intervention, and the European Great Powers then organized the Constantinople Conference to settle the war and wider issues in the Balkans. Peace was signed on 28 February 1877 on the basis of status quo ante bellum.

Military operations

Serbian offensive

On July 2, 1876, all four major Serbian armies crossed the border into the Ottoman territory, hoping to inspire massive popular uprisings of the local Christian population. However, local support for the Serbian liberation from Ottoman rule was mostly absent: in all, no more than 3,000 Christian rebels joined the Serbian army, which was not enough to make the difference.

On the western border, a Serbian army of about 20,000 men crossed the Drina river and invaded Bosnia, but was unable to take Bijeljina and retreated back to Serbia after several days.

Further south, another Serbian army of about 11,500 men marched on Sjenica and Novi Pazar, but was defeated in the first Battle of Kalipolje and forced to retreat to Javor mountain, where it fought several defensive battles till the end of the war.

On the eastern border, another Serbian army of about 25,000 troops invaded Ottoman Bulgaria and advanced on Kula, but was quickly outmaneuvered by the Ottoman army from Vidin with 10,000 troops, who then went on the offensive into Serbian territory and took Veliki Izvor near Zaječar on July 3. The Serbian Eastern Army was immediately forced to go on defensive, and the Serbian High Command sent orders to the Serbian Army of the South, made up of 68,000 men to reinforce it, aborting the main Serbian offensive on the southern border, aimed on Niš, after only a few days. However, Serbian attempt to push the Ottomans back on the eastern border was heavily defeated in the battle of Veliki Izvor (July 6-11th).

Ottoman offensive

After the Ottoman victory in the battle of Veliki Izvor, the Serbian eastern and southern armies were pushed back (July 15-August 6), and the Ottoman forces took Zaječar and Knjaževac. However, the Ottoman eastern army was unable to push further into Serbia proper on the eastern front, due to the very rough and impassable mountain terrain of the eastern Serbia. In fact, although the Ottomans have successfully occupied the Timok Valley the only route from there into the rest of Serbia was through but two mountain passes (Čestobrodica and Bovan Gorge near Sokobanja), which were already fortified and heavily defended by the Serbian eastern army. So the main Ottoman army (some 60,000 strong) had to attack from the south, from its base at Niš through the Morava Valley.

However, the Serbian southern border and the Morava Valley were defended by heavily fortified towns of Aleksinac and Deligrad, which was also the base of the main Serbian army, some 68,000 strong, with more than 100 pieces of artillery. So the first Ottoman attack on Aleksinac (on August 23) was soundly beaten back in the Battle of Šumatovac. Realising that the main Serbian fortifications in Aleksinac (on the eastern bank of the Morava) were too strong to breach, the Ottoman command sent the bulk of its forces on the western bank of the Morava, where Serbian fortifications were few and far between. So, on the western bank of the Morava, Ottoman forces successfully beat the Serbian army back in the battles of Adrovac (September 1), Krevet (October 1) and Veliki Šiljegovac (October 19). After the fall of Đunis on October 29, the last Serbian fortification on the western bank of the Morava, the Serbian southern front was effectively breached.

Ceasefire and Peace

It was at this point that the government of the Russian Empire intervened offering an ultimatum to the Porte to grant both Serbia and Montenegro an armistice within 48 hours or face Russian military intervention. Such an armistice lasting for two months was granted on November 1, 1876 and subsequently extended until March 1, 1877, when a definitive peace treaty was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Principality of Serbia. The treaty preserved the status quo ante bellum. Serbia gained no territory, but was not forced to cede anything either or pay a war indemnity.

Notes

1. Actual fighting lasted abouth four months, between July 2nd and October 29th.
2. ^ Никола Гажевић, Војна енциклопедија 9, Војноиздавачки завод, Београд (1975), стр. 116-122
3. Jovanović, Slobodan (1990). Sabrana dela Slobodana Jovanovića: Vlada Milana Obrenovića II. Radovan Samardžić, Živorad Stojković. Beograd: BIGZ. p. 91. ISBN 86-13-00435-0. OCLC 22963111.
4. ^ Mayers, Carl (1877). Der Serbisch-Türkische Krieg im Jahre 1876. Wien: Bloch & Hasbach. p. 113.
5. Todorović, Pera (1988). Dnevnik jednoga dobrovoljca. Miodrag Racković. Beograd: Nolit. pp. 60–81, 113. ISBN 86-19-01613-X. OCLC 31085371.
6. Jovanović, Slobodan (1990). Sabrana dela Slobodana Jovanovića: Vlada Milana Obrenovića II. Radovan Samardžić, Živorad Stojković. Beograd: BIGZ. p. 61. ISBN 86-13-00435-0. OCLC 22963111.
7. ^ Király, Béla; Stokes, Gale (1985). Insurrections, wars, and the Eastern crisis in the 1870s. War and society in East Central Europe. Boulder, Colo. New York: Social science monographs Columbia university press. pp. 261–318. ISBN 978-0-88033-090-9.
8. ^ Hitchins, Keith (September 1968). "David MacKenzie, The Serbs and Russian Pan-Slavism 1875-1878. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967. Pages xx, 365. $10". Slavic Review. 27 (3): 489–490. doi:10.2307/2493354. ISSN 0037-6779. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
9. Ćirković, Sima M. (2004). The Serbs. The peoples of Europe (1. publ ed.). Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. pp. 223–225. ISBN 978-0-631-20471-8.
10. Glenny, Misha (2012). The Balkans : nationalism, war, and the great powers, 1804-2012 (New and updated ed.). Toronto: Anansi. pp. 120–134. ISBN 978-1-77089-273-6. OCLC 795624553.
11. Ward, Prothero & Leathes 1920, p. 386.

References

• Ward, A.W.; Prothero, G.W.; Leathes, Stanely, eds. (1920). The Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 12. Cambridge University Press.

• Serbian–Turkish Wars (1876–1878)
• Conflicts in 1876
• Conflicts in 1877