Age of Revolutions // 1787-1792
Seventh Russo-Turkish War
The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 involved an unsuccessful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to regain lands lost to the Russian Empire in the course of the previous Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). It took place concomitantly with the Austro-Turkish War (1788–1791), the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790), and the Theatre War.
Tactical Map#
11 battles plotted
LOADING MAP TELEMETRY…
War Tempo#
Battle cadence by year
Battles per year
12 battles
Heaviest fighting in 1790 — 4 catalogued battles.
Causes#
The war opened in August 1787 when the Ottoman Empire issued an ultimatum demanding that Russia evacuate Crimea and recognize Ottoman suzerainty over Georgia, then declared war upon Russia's refusal [1]. The proximate trigger was thus Ottoman, but the structural pressures driving Constantinople toward war had been accumulating since the humiliating peace that closed the previous conflict.
The most direct cause was the territorial settlement imposed by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, which stripped the Ottoman Empire of formal sovereignty over Crimea and granted the Russian Empire extensive rights along the northern Black Sea littoral [2]. When Catherine II formally annexed Crimea in 1783, the loss was not merely strategic — it severed Ottoman control over a buffer zone that had protected Anatolia and the Danube provinces from direct Russian pressure for centuries. Ottoman statesmen calculated that accepting the annexation without a military response would signal permanent strategic retreat and invite further encroachments.
Fiscal and institutional weakness within the Ottoman state complicated any military response, yet simultaneously heightened the urgency felt at the Sublime Porte. Decades of costly warfare had strained provincial revenue extraction, and the empire's capacity to field and supply armies had deteriorated relative to the reformed Russian military [3]. Nevertheless, Ottoman commanders counted on the simultaneity of threats facing Russia — Sweden had opened hostilities in the north in 1788, and Austria was a reluctant and geographically awkward ally for St. Petersburg — to divide Russian attention and resources [4].
The geopolitical context of the 1780s also encouraged Ottoman risk-taking. Britain and Prussia, neither wishing to see Russia consolidate dominance over the Black Sea and the approaches to the Straits, provided diplomatic encouragement to Constantinople [5]. The broader European balance was in flux: French attention was turning inward toward the fiscal and political crises that would produce revolution, removing Paris as a stabilizing mediator [6]. For the Porte, this combination of diplomatic backing and Russian distraction appeared to create a window that might not reopen. The decision for war was, in short, a calculated gamble by a weakening empire attempting to recover lost ground before the military gap with Russia widened further [7].
Consequences#
The war ended with the Treaty of Jassy, signed in January 1792[1], which confirmed and extended Russia's territorial gains from the preceding conflict. The Ottoman Empire formally ceded the fortress city of Ochakov and the steppe territory between the Bug and Dniester rivers to Russia, pushing the empire's southwestern frontier to the Dniester and consolidating Russian control over the entire northern Black Sea littoral[2]. The treaty obliged the Ottomans to recognize the permanence of Russian influence over Crimea — already annexed in 1783 — and foreclosed any near-term prospect of reversing the territorial hemorrhage that had begun with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774. For the Ottomans, Jassy represented not merely a military defeat but a diplomatic ratification of structural weakness[3].
The geopolitical consequences extended well beyond the two principal belligerents. The war had been fought alongside the Austro-Turkish War and the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790, a convergence that strained Ottoman diplomatic and military resources simultaneously on multiple frontiers. Austria's separate peace at Sistova in 1791 left the Porte without its most significant European counterweight against Russian expansion in the Balkans, and the broader Concert of European powers remained too fractured — partly by the upheaval of the French Revolution — to impose a check on Russian ambitions in the region[4]. Britain and Prussia had maneuvered diplomatically during the war to restrain Russia, but failed to translate that pressure into a binding outcome, a failure that shaped the limits of their credibility in Ottoman eyes for decades afterward[5].
The military experience of the war accelerated reform pressures within both empires, though with starkly different trajectories. On the Russian side, campaigns such as the Battle of Rymnik and the Siege of Izmail demonstrated the tactical effectiveness of Suvorov's methods and reinforced a model of aggressive combined-arms assault that would influence Russian military doctrine into the next century[6]. For the Ottomans, the repeated failures of their field armies and naval squadrons — including the defeat at the Battle of Cape Kaliakria and the fall of Ochakov after the Siege of Ochakov — made the inadequacy of existing military institutions impossible to dismiss. The reformist impetus that would eventually produce the Nizam-ı Cedid program under Selim III drew directly on the lessons of this war, though Ottoman internal politics repeatedly obstructed sustained implementation[2].
At the social and economic level, the war imposed serious burdens on Ottoman provincial society. Sustained mobilization, requisitioning, and the disruption of Balkan and Anatolian trade routes intensified fiscal pressure on a revenue system already strained by earlier conflicts[7]. The Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, repeatedly traversed by campaigning armies, suffered acute population displacement and agricultural destruction. What the Treaty of Jassy left unresolved was nearly as consequential as what it settled: the question of the Straits, the status of Ottoman Christians in the Balkans, and the competing claims of regional powers to influence over a weakening empire remained open, ensuring that the Eastern Question — the problem of managing Ottoman decline — would define European diplomacy for the better part of the following century[8].
Campaigns#
0 operational sequences
Battles#
12 catalogued engagements
- Battle of Kinburn
October 12, 1787
- Battle of Fidonisi
July 14, 1788
The Battle of Fidonisi was a Russian naval victory over the Ottoman fleet in the Black Sea during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792. Fought near Snake Island, the engagement marked an early contest for naval supremacy in the Black Sea theater, where control of maritime routes and coastal operations was central to the broader conflict. The battle is also notable for the role of Fyodor Ushakov, who served under overall commander Marko Voinovich and would go on to become the dominant Russian naval commander of the era.
- Naval actions at the siege of Ochakov
January 1, 1788
The naval actions at Ochakov formed part of the broader contest for control of a strategic position on the Black Sea coast during the Seventh Russo-Turkish War. The engagements, conducted primarily by small ships and boats, were ancillary to land operations, with Russian and Turkish naval forces each supporting their respective armies in the siege. The main sea actions were concentrated in late June and early July 1788. The departure of the larger Turkish ships on 9 July shifted the naval balance, leading those vessels to engage the Russian Sevastopol Squadron approximately 100 miles to the south on 14 July, extending the naval contest beyond the immediate vicinity of Ochakov.
- Siege of Ochakov
August 14, 1788
- Battle of Focșani
August 1, 1789
The Battle of Focșani was a joint engagement between Russian and Habsburg forces against the Ottoman Empire during the Seventh Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), fought near Focșani in Moldavia. The allied force, numbering between 23,000 and 25,000, engaged an Ottoman army of approximately 30,000 under Grand Vizier Koca Yusuf Pasha. Ottoman casualties of 1,500–1,600 indicated a clear tactical reverse for Koca Yusuf Pasha's forces. The battle demonstrated the capacity of Russian and Austrian commanders — Suvorov and Prince Josias of Coburg — to coordinate combined operations against the Ottomans in the Danubian theater, a cooperation that would continue to shape the campaign's progress in Moldavia.
- Battle of Rymnik
September 22, 1789
The Battle of Rymnik was a decisive engagement of the Seventh Russo-Turkish War, fought in Wallachia along the Râmnicul Sărat River. A combined Russian and Habsburg force of roughly 25,000 men under Alexander Suvorov and Prince Josias of Coburg attacked the main Ottoman army, commanded by Grand Vizier Cenaze Hasan Pasha, which outnumbered them by approximately four to one. The engagement produced sharply asymmetric casualties — around 1,000 on the allied side against an estimated 20,000 Ottoman losses — and effectively destroyed the principal Ottoman field force in the theatre. The victory reinforced Russian operational dominance in the Danubian principalities and strengthened the allied Austro-Russian position in the concurrent Austro-Turkish War. Suvorov's success at Rymnik became one of the defining engagements of his career and contributed to the pressure that ultimately led the Ottoman Empire toward the peace negotiations concluding the war in 1792.
- Battle of Andros
May 18, 1790
- Battle of Kerch Strait
January 1, 1790
- Battle of the Tokhtamysh River
September 30, 1790
The Battle of the Tokhtamysh River, fought on September 30, 1790, resulted in a major Russian victory against a combined Ottoman and North Caucasian force that outnumbered the Russian army by roughly seven to one. The capture of the Ottoman commander Batal Hussein Pasha was the battle's most consequential outcome, depriving the Ottoman-North Caucasian alliance of its senior leadership and contributing to the broader Russian strategic advantage in the Seventh Russo-Turkish War. The engagement forced the surviving Ottoman and North Caucasian forces to flee, eliminating their operational presence in the region at that stage of the conflict. Some sources dispute the circumstances of Batal Hussein Pasha's capture, suggesting he surrendered without resistance and betrayed his army, a characterization that, if accurate, would further diminish the Ottoman military position in the Caucasian theater.
- Siege of Izmail
December 22, 1790
The storming of Izmail was a major Russian success during the Seventh Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), delivering the heavily fortified Danube stronghold to Russian control against a defending Ottoman garrison that outnumbered the attacking force. The Russian assault force of 28,000–32,000 overcame an Ottoman defense of 40,000–42,000, with Ottoman casualties reaching nearly 42,000 against Russian losses of approximately 4,500. The fall of Izmail strengthened Russia's position along the Danube and the Black Sea littoral at a moment when the war was being fought simultaneously with the Austro-Turkish conflict (1788–1791). The operation added to a sequence of Russian battlefield successes under Suvorov — following Kinburn, Focsani, and Rymnik, as well as the siege of Ochakov — that collectively eroded Ottoman capacity to sustain the war. It is considered among Suvorov's most significant operational achievements.
- Battle of Cape Kaliakra
August 11, 1791
The Battle of Cape Kaliakra was the final naval engagement of the Seventh Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), fought off the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Although neither side lost a vessel, the Ottoman fleet retreated to Istanbul following the engagement, ceding the naval initiative to Russia. The battle effectively ended Ottoman naval operations in the Black Sea theater of the war, contributing to the conditions under which the conflict concluded.
- Battle of Măcin
July 10, 1791
The Battle of Măcin was fought between a Russian force of around 30,000 under Prince Nicholas Repnin and an Ottoman army roughly twice to nearly three times that size under Koca Yusuf Pasha. Despite the substantial disparity in force strength, Russian casualties amounted to approximately 1,000 against an estimated 4,000 Ottoman losses. The engagement took place during the closing phase of the Seventh Russo-Turkish War, and the outcome reinforced Russian operational momentum in the Danubian theater at a stage when both powers were moving toward settlement. The battle is notable as one of the engagements associated with Mikhail Kutuzov, who served among the Russian commanders.
Famous commanders of Seventh Russo-Turkish War
12 shown
Alexander Suvorov
generalissimo1730–1800
5 battles ledΣ226 int
Prince of Coburg
field marshal1737–1815
2 battles ledΣ86 int
Koca Yusuf Pasha
admiral1730–1800
2 battles ledΣ74 int
Alexander Samoylov
1 battle ledΣ59 int
Aydoslu Mehmed Pasha
1 battle ledΣ59 int
José de Ribas
1 battle ledΣ59 int
Mikhail Golenishchev-Kutuzov
1 battle ledΣ59 int
Pavel Potemkin
1 battle ledΣ59 int
Andreas Karaczay
field marshal-lieutenant1744–1808
1 battle ledΣ55 int
Cenaze Hasan Pasha
grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire1800–1810
1 battle ledΣ55 int
Hadji Mustafa Pasha
1733–1801
1 battle ledΣ55 int
Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha
admiral1713–1790
2 battles ledΣ50 int
Ranked by Σ battle intensity across battles led in scope. Strategic leaders (chiefs of state / supreme commanders) pinned to the top.
Other wars in this era
Age of Revolutions
WAR· 1763-1864
Caucasian War
The Caucasian War or the Caucasus War was a 19th-century military conflict between the Russian Empire and various peoples of the North Caucasus who resisted subjugation during the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. It consisted of a series of military actions waged by the Russian Imperial Army and Cossack settlers against the native inhabitants such as the Adyghe, Abazins, Ubykhs, Chechens, Dagestanis as well as Abkhazians despite the official principality of Abkhazia being on Russian empire’s side as the Tsars sought to expand.
WAR· 1763-1765
Pontiac's War
Pontiac's War was launched in 1763 by a confederation of Native Americans who were dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous nations joined in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after Odawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many Indigenous leaders in the conflict.
WAR· 1763-1864
Russian–Circassian War
The Russo-Circassian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Circassia, or termed by the Circassians as the Great War with the Tsar took place in the North Caucasus between July 1763 and June 1864. It began when the Russian Empire entered Circassia and occupied Mozdok, which prompted the Circassian people to organize a resistance movement to preserve their independence. Over the next century, the Imperial Russian Army expanded across the country until the last Circassian fighters were defeated in the Battle of Qbaada. It remains the longest war to have ever occurred in the Caucasus and in the history of Russia, as well as the longest and final war in the history of Circassia. Although it initially involved only Russia and Circassia, the conflict soon drew in a number of other Caucasian nations after they also became targets for Russian conquests, and it is consequently sometimes considered to be the western half of the Caucasian War.
WAR· 1765-1767
Burmese–Siamese War of 1765–1767
The Burmese–Siamese War of 1765–1767, also known as the war of the second fall of Ayutthaya was the second military conflict between Burma under the Konbaung dynasty and Ayutthaya Kingdom under the Siamese Ban Phlu Luang dynasty that lasted from 1765 until 1767; the war ended the 417-year-old Ayutthaya Kingdom.