The Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774: Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire by Brian L. Davies (review)

In The Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774, Brian L. Davies continues his exploration of the political consolidation of the Pontic Steppe in the early modern era. In contrast with his previous book, Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia’s Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century, The Russo-Turkish War narrows its focus to a single conflict: the Russo-Turkish War of 1768. Davies views this neglected war as a critical moment in the political reorganization of the Russian-Ottoman borderlands, the military-administrative development of the Russian Empire, and the reign of Catherine II (Catherine the Great). He argues that the war led to the final subjugation of the Cossacks by Russia, the transformation of Ukraine into a Russian province, the partition of Poland, and Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Khanate. The war and the subsequent Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji set the stage for ongoing Russian involvement in Moldovia and Wallachia, the eventual separation of Greece from the Ottoman Empire, and the growth of Russian influence in the Black Sea region. For Catherine II, Russia’s territorial and political gains in the war showed her to be a capable ruler and helped to transform her from a usurper into a legitimate ruler in the eyes of the Russian court.

Davies lays out the events of the war from beginning to end. He draws primarily upon Russian-language published sources and scholarly literature in Russian and English and notes that his lack of knowledge of Turkish prevents him from making full use of Ottoman accounts of the war. Nonetheless, he gives a refreshingly balanced assessment of all the parties involved in the conflict.

Chapters 1 through 4 set the stage for the war, detailing the political and administrative development of Russia and the Ottoman Empire as well as the activities of the other major players on the Russian-Ottoman frontier (Crimea, the Nogai Horde, the Don and Zaporozhian Cossack hosts, the haidamak bandits, Poland, the Ottoman Empire’s eastern European provinces, and the peoples of the Caucasus). He presents Russia and the Ottoman Empire as early modern states pursuing two different courses of administrative development and possessing different forms of military organization. While the Ottomans moved toward an administrative structure that was decentralized and reliant upon the participation of provincial elites, Russia continued to centralize its administration. Davies outlines the advantages and drawbacks of both strategies and makes a particular effort to provide a more normalized depiction of Ottoman military and administrative life by debunking derogatory European accounts of Ottoman governance and technology. The two different approaches to administration taken by Russia and the Ottoman Empire shaped how each side prepared for and fought the 1768 war.

In chapters 5 through 7, Davies presents the events of the war, from the Khotin Campaign of 1769 to the peace of Kuchuk Kainarji in 1774. Davies strikes a balance between relating the immediate events of the Russia-Turkish conflict and placing the war in the broader chronological and geopolitical context of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe. He discusses the effects of the Seven Years’ War on Russia’s military organization and makes his readers aware of how Russian victories affected the balance of power among Europe’s major states. Ultimately, administratively centralized Russia defeated the decentralized Ottomans, despite the outbreak of Pugachev’s Revolt in Russia in 1773, which drew resources and attention from the Turkish front. The Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji brought respite to the defeated Ottoman Empire and returned to it some of the land occupied by Russia, but the treaty also established provisions that would lead to a new war between the Russian and Ottoman empires in 1787. It also set into motion other processes that would come to completion by the end of the eighteenth century, such as Crimea’s annexation and the partition of Poland.

Davies offers meticulous, highly detailed descriptions of...