Episode 29: Fight for the Steppe: The Russo-Ottoman Wars
Lee Gugino: When we think of 18th-century warfare, our minds often jump to the fields of Flanders, the forests of North America, or the rolling hills of Central Europe. But while the Western powers were fighting over border forts and overseas colonies, a completely different war was raging in the East. Across the vast, unforgiving expanse of the Pontic Steppe, the Russian and Ottoman empires were hurling hundreds of thousands of men at each other in a fight for control over the region that is now modern Ukraine and southern Russia. Welcome back to Prime and Load! My name is Lee Gugino, and as always I'm joined by Dr. Alex Burns and Dr. Andrew Bamford. Today we're turning our attention eastward. We'll be looking at the Russo-Turkish Wars of the mid- and late 18th century. To help us navigate these conflicts, we're joined by Dave Watson, also known on social media as Balkan Dave. Dave has a fantastic new book out covering these campaigns, titled The Struggle for the Pontic Steppe, and today we're going to explore the armies, the navies, and the economic systems that clashed in Eastern Europe.
Dr. Andrew Bamford: Thank you for joining us for Fight for the Steppe. Okay Dave, before we get into the history—you're known to those of us who follow you on social media as Balkan Dave. It's clearly your part of the world. Before we get into talking about your book and the campaigns that it covers, could you tell us a little bit about how you came to be interested in that particular area? I know you've covered it beyond the 18th century as well, so how did that all come about?
Dave Watson: Yeah, I'm often asked that and I'm never quite sure. I have no family connections at all. I'm from Scotland—I was born in England, but my family is from Scotland. As far as I'm aware, all my Scottish family comes from the Western Isles and the Western Highlands, so I've no idea. Other than I suppose the terrain is fairly similar, so there may be something in the genes, but even ancestry didn't come up with any sort of genetic link to the Balkans. I first got interested through a very old journalist, Ferdinand Schevill, who wrote a book called The History of the Balkans. I read that and he talked about the Balkans being the crossroads of history, which I think was a pretty good description. I started the website 25 years ago and I've been going ever since. Obviously since retiring from my career job—or semi-retiring, as my wife jokingly reveals—I've had more time to write books, but I've been writing about the Balkans for 25 years. I just get more and more interested, largely because I think it's obscure. I like writing about obscure wars; there's very little written in English, and in fact not much written even in the languages of the countries concerned. For this particular campaign, I specifically had the opportunity to visit the battlefields because I was asked to be a historical advisor for a documentary being produced in the Balkans. I love to actually walk battlefields. I think it's absolutely crucial to understand the ground, particularly when you're working off 18th-century maps, which are not always terribly accurate. Walking the battlefields was a great opportunity—not many people have even visited Moldova as it is today, so it was really very interesting.
Dr. Andrew Bamford: You mentioned your website—we can put the link up in text to go with this, but for those of us who aren't familiar, what is the website name?
Dave Watson: Just Google Balkan Military History essentially. I've been running it for 25 years. It has travel guides, articles, book reviews, and a twice-weekly blog that goes with it.
Dr. Andrew Bamford: Great! So to get into the topic of the session, looking at the wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the 1760s through to pretty much the end of the century. Your book is called The Struggle for the Pontic Steppe, and I know you answer it in the introduction, but again for the benefit of those less familiar, where the heck is the Pontic Steppe and why is it important?
Dave Watson: Yeah, it's a good question. 'Pontic' comes from the old Pontic states back in ancient times, but it's a broad swathe of steppe territory—largely grasslands, although there are mountains in this area—that runs from the northern Caucasus around the coast of the Black Sea into the modern Balkans, down towards the Danube Delta. That's the geographical area we're covering. It's grassland, probably better known to modern listeners because the maps, sadly, are on our news most nights as this is very much the terrain of the current Ukraine conflict. Many of the names have changed a bit, but not hugely, so people looking at the news map tonight will see pretty much many of the same places we'll discuss in this podcast.
Dr. Alex Burns: And the wars you're looking at aren't the first time these two empires clashed in this part of the world. I know you're currently working on the earlier wars, and we would love to get you back on to talk about those, but if you could very briefly contextualize the previous conflicts to get us to the point where the first of these wars breaks out?
Dave Watson: Yeah, sure. In the West, you've obviously got Austria pushing south after the big Ottoman invasion, predominantly under Prince Eugene in the early part of the 18th century. The Russians had a different objective. Essentially from Peter the Great's time, the Russians were pushing south with the target of reaching the Black Sea. They needed a port on the Black Sea to dominate it. The other reason was economic. These were fairly undeveloped lands. The Russians hate you calling it a colonial adventure, but it was a colonial expansion, whatever they say. It was about developing the economy of the area, as we'll see later with characters like Prince Potemkin, but gaining access to the Black Sea was crucial.
Dr. Alex Burns: And before we get into the narrative events, let's talk about the armies. The Russian army is becoming Europeanized, though perhaps not quite a Western European army in the exact same sense as Prussia, Austria, or France. The Ottoman army is something quite different again. Could you take us through the two opposing sides and outline the forces they were bringing to bear?
Dave Watson: Yeah. A lot of listeners will have heard of the Militärgrenze, the military frontier on the Austrian border of the Balkans. In the East, facing the Russians, the Ottomans didn't colonize the borders in the same way. It was a very different type of border for two reasons. One is space. If you ever visit the steppes in modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia, it is a huge area. The biggest defense was sheer space, because you had to drag your army, your cannons, and your wagons across massive distances. The Ottomans defended this by building a series of fortresses along the river lines, while the Russians expanded their empire by building line fortresses. The Russians used the Cossacks, who by this period had largely been integrated into the Russian Empire—they no longer elected their own hetmans and were commanded by Russian officers. Meanwhile, the Ottomans garrisoned their fortresses—places like Khotyn in Ukraine, Bender in modern Transnistria, right down to massive fortresses like Izmail—and used the Crimean Tatars to counter the Cossacks. So you had two horse-mounted force structures roaming the steppes, fighting and raiding each other, with regular armies operating from the fortress lines. The Ottoman army at this time still looked somewhat like the classic Ottoman army of Suleiman the Magnificent. The Janissaries were still there as the core, though they had been diluted and had lost much of their military character, often becoming tradesmen. In earlier conflicts like the 1736 war, the Ottomans had defeated the Austrians, but a long period of peace meant the conservatives won out over the modernizers. So the Janissaries were deteriorating. In terms of numbers—which must be taken with a broad pinch of salt—they fielded 100,000 to 150,000 levent. The levent were locally recruited or contracted forces. The Ottoman state would ask a local leader to recruit 5,000 or 10,000 men, bring their own weapons or have weapons rustled up for them. They were mostly infantry, some cavalry, forming the core of the provincial forces. For cavalry, they had the Kapikulu, the household cavalry guards in Constantinople, who were semi-armored, regular heavy cavalry. The Spahis were traditional cavalry recruited on a semi-feudal timar system, though by this time objective Ottoman sources like Ahmed Resmi describe them as poorly equipped and ineffective because the state had shifted to tax farming. Then you had light cavalry like the Deli ('madheads') from the Balkans, and of course the Tatars. Finally, the artillery and engineers had been periodically modernized by French advisors like Claude Alexandre de Bonneval earlier and later Baron de Tott, though conservative grand viziers frequently let those reforms lapse.
Dr. Alex Burns: And on the Russian side?
Dave Watson: The Russians had learned key lessons about supply and tactics from their 1735 war under Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, who devised massive divisional or army squares with wagons inside to protect against Ottoman cavalry raids. By the 1760s, the outstanding Russian commander was Pyotr Rumyantsev—a general who deserves to be far better known alongside Suvorov and Kutuzov. Rumyantsev introduced flexible, smaller battalion or regimental squares. Anyone classically educated looking at them would see an echo of the Roman legionary formations. They were exceptionally flexible. The Russians also improved their cavalry. In the Seven Years' War, they found their dragoons struggled against Prussian cavalry due to poor horses, so they imported stronger German horses, created Cuirassier regiments, and converted dragoons into Carabiniers to stand up to Ottoman horsemen. Light cavalry was provided by Cossacks, Kalmyks, and Nogai Tatars. However, Russia relied on peasant conscription—taking one soul per fifty—which often meant village elders handed over the village drunk or troublemaker. Rumyantsev himself wrote about the deplorable state of sickly recruits dying from fatigue before even reaching the front. So Russian commanders faced a massive challenge knocking these conscripts into shape.
Lee Gugino: Are there any particular personalities we should watch out for as we get into the narrative? You mentioned high turnover and severe penalties in the Ottoman high command.
Dave Watson: On the Ottoman side, commanding was a very risky business! If things went wrong, the silk bowstring was whipped out and you ended up in the Bosphorus, or at best exiled to a hot, dusty corner of the empire. Communication was so slow that a commander might not even know he had been relieved until three messengers arrived with a bowstring! On the Russian side, internal court politics under Catherine the Great were fascinating. But militarily, the outstanding commander was Rumyantsev. Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov both cut their teeth in these wars as young officers and reformers. Prince Potemkin is famous as Catherine's lover and economic developer, but he was also a capable cavalry commander in the field.
Dr. Andrew Bamford: To get into the first of these two wars, then—you set up the conflicting strategic ambitions, but the actual spark for fighting seems to come from a bit of a tangent: those pesky Poles!
Dave Watson: Exactly! Poland was being carved up by Austria, Russia, Prussia, and previously Sweden. There was an obscure conflict called the War of the Bar Confederation, where Polish Confederates were fighting Russian influence. Russian troops pursued Polish rebels across the border into Ottoman territory. This triggered an accidental war that neither empire was fully prepared for. The war party in Constantinople gained the upper hand and declared war in 1768. Because it was unexpected, both sides had to mobilize over huge distances. Moving a Russian army from New Russia (Novorossiya) required 15,000 wagons and 30,000 oxen! These wars were defined first and foremost by logistics.
Dr. Andrew Bamford: Once the armies were raised, fed, and moved, could you walk us through the main highlights of the fighting in the First Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774)?
Dave Watson: The first year, 1769, was called the 'Year of Victory' by Russia. The initial campaign centered around the massive fortress of Khotyn on the Dniester River. Prince Galitzine commanded the First Russian Army, but supply troubles forced him to retreat twice across the river. Catherine the Great grew impatient and dispatched Rumyantsev to replace him. Hearing of his dismissal, Galitzine made a third attempt, succeeded in taking Khotyn, and was rewarded with a comfortable governorship! Rumyantsev took full command for the 1770 campaign in Moldavia. This led to two massive battles: first Larga, and then Kagul (Kagul). Kagul was one of the largest battles of the 18th century—roughly 100,000 to 150,000 Ottomans against 25,000 to 30,000 Russians, with another 80,000 Tatars nearby! When you walk the battlefield today, you see rolling hills rather than mountains. Rumyantsev's tactical squares won a decisive victory, leading to the rapid fall of key river fortresses: Bender, Izmail, Akkerman, and Braila, pushing Russian forces down to the Danube in Wallachia. However, disease was rampant. Thousands died of plague, which even reached Moscow. Rumyantsev reported that half his army was in hospital, while Catherine kept ordering him to push across the massive Danube River. Suvorov rose to prominence here leading daring river crossing raids. The war finally ground to a halt after Suvorov won the Battle of Kozludzha in June 1774, while General Dolgorukov overran the Crimean Peninsula. Exhausted, both sides signed the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774. Russia gained Azov, access to the Black Sea, and declared the Crimean Khanate independent.
Dr. Andrew Bamford: I found it striking that the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca could be interpreted differently depending on which language version you read! Could you fill us in on the interwar period between 1774 and 1787?
Dave Watson: In Western Europe, French was the language of diplomacy, but not in the Sublime Porte. The treaty texts differed significantly. Russia claimed the text gave them the right to act as protector over all Orthodox Christians throughout the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans insisted it merely granted permission to build one Russian Orthodox church in Constantinople. The Ottomans operated the Millet system, granting religious self-governance to non-Muslims, and vehemently rejected Russian interference. The real spark for the Second War, however, was Potemkin persuading Catherine to outright annex the Crimean Khanate in 1783 to build naval ports like Sevastopol. For the Ottomans, Crimean annexation was an absolute red line. Meanwhile, Britain shifted from being a Russian ally to viewing Russian expansion into the Black Sea as a threat.
Dr. Alex Burns: How did the Second Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792) play out? Could you give us the highlights of that conflict?
Dave Watson: In the Second War, Austria joined as Russia's ally under Joseph II. The war opened with the Battle of Kinburn Spit, where Suvorov successfully repelled an Ottoman amphibious assault. Then came the grueling Siege of Ochakov (Ozy) on the Black Sea. This is where American Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones served as a Russian rear admiral in the Liman naval campaign, commanding gunboats alongside a Prince of Nassau-Siegen. Jones fought brilliantly, though he clashed bitterly with Potemkin and Russian leadership! Suvorov eventually led a bloody, decisive assault that took Ochakov in December 1788. In 1789, Suvorov and the Austrians won brilliant combined victories at Focșani and Rymnik. In 1790, Suvorov stormed the formidable fortress of Izmail, where Mikhail Kutuzov distinguished himself leading the assault columns on the ramparts. Finally, in 1791, Kutuzov won the decisive Battle of Măcin in the Danube Delta. Potemkin tragically died out on the open steppe in his carriage shortly before the war ended. The 1792 Treaty of Jassy confirmed Russian control of the Crimea and extended the border to the Dniester River.
Lee Gugino: What are the main takeaways and long-term lessons from these campaigns for both empires and for military historians?
Dave Watson: First and foremost: logistics and disease. More soldiers and civilians died of plague and typhus than combat. Catherine the Great famously set a personal example by getting inoculated against smallpox by a Scottish doctor, Thomas Dimsdale! Turgot and Thermes wrote Russian regulations recognizing that conscripts would fire one volley and then engage in chaotic firing, making flexible battalion squares and light infantry (Jäger units developed by Kutuzov) essential. The Ottomans improved their river fortresses with French engineering, making sieges far harder in the Second War, but suffered from administrative corruption and the decay of the Janissaries. Finally, these wars were the ultimate proving ground for commanders like Suvorov, Kutuzov, and Bagration, who would go on to command against Napoleon. You cannot understand 18th-century warfare—or the modern geography of Eastern Europe—without studying the struggle for the Pontic Steppe.
Lee Gugino: And that is a perfect note to end on! Dave, thank you so much for coming on Prime and Load and sharing your deep expertise on this fascinating theater of warfare. To our listeners, be sure to check out Dave Watson's book, The Struggle for the Pontic Steppe, and visit his website at Balkan Military History. Don't forget to join our Patreon War Room for bonus content, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This episode was hosted by Lee Gugino, Dr. Alex Burns, and Dr. Andrew Bamford, with guest expert Dave Watson. Produced by Lee Gugino, music by Brianna Tam, Ardi Son, and Adrian Berenger. Prime and Load is a Historic Studios podcast. We'll see you next time!
