TURKEY. 
165 
the ambition of Russia; but its measures were taken too 
late, and it could not act with sufficient efficacy to prevent 
that catastrophe. 
At the conclusion of 1768, the czarina set on foot three 
armies; one, commanded by prince Gallitzin, was intended 
to cover Poland and to prevent the Turks from joining the 
confederates; the second, under count Romanzow, was to 
protect the Ukraine from the incursions of the Tartars, while 
a detachment from it was to form a corps of observation on 
the frontiers of the Crimea; and the third, of less force, 
was to march to the provinces bordering upon the Caucasus, 
and to encourage insurrection among the petty princes 
tributary to the Ottoman empire, from Georgia to Tre- 
bisond. 
The court of Russia availed itself also of the aversion 
excited by religious opinions against the Turks, to raise an 
insurrection of the Greek Christians in Albania, the Morea 
and Greece. A fleet of twenty-two ships was equipped to 
make the circuit of Europe and to proceed into the Archi¬ 
pelago with troops, money, and military stores, for the pur¬ 
pose of arming the Greeks: and a flotilla was to sail down 
the Don into the Black Sea, in order to intercept in that 
quarter all communication between Asia and the Crimea. 
The Ottoman Porte, unused for upwards of 30 years to 
war, was unable to oppose its foe with so formidable a force. 
The Ottoman army traversed Moldavia, with a view to 
enter Poland; and after several marches and counter-marches 
without any definite object, it was beaten by prince Gallitzin, 
and the capture of the town of Khoczim made the Russians 
masters of Moldavia, and part of Wallachia, the conquest 
of which was completed by count Romanzow during the 
winter of 1769. 
The campaign of 1770 began in the south. The Russian 
fleet, commanded by count Orlow, proceeded to the coast 
of the Morea, where the Greeks impatiently awaited succours 
and arms to assert their liberty and shake off the Ottoman 
yoke: but the Russians landed a force of scarcely eight 
hundred men, and appeared to no purpose before Modon, 
Napoli di Romania and Navarin. They miscalculated the 
force of the Greeks, which they deemed adequate to the 
consummation of the revolution; they were every where 
repulsed, and the only effect of this ill concerted diversion 
was, that they exposed the people of the Morea to the 
sanguinary vengeance of the Turks. 
The Russian fleet then sailed into the Archipelago,-and 
there met that of the Turks within view of Scio. The two 
admirals attacked each other with such fury that the ship of 
one of them having taken fire, the flames communicated to 
the other, and both blew up nearly at the same moment. 
The Turks, daunted by this tremendous accident, fled to 
Chesmeh, landed their guns and formed batteries with them 
in order to protect themselves from insult; but the Russian 
fleet, approaching the harbour, detached four fire-ships; 
these were driven by the wind among the Ottoman vessels, 
which they grappled; the flames spread rapidly and the 
whole fleet was consumed to ashes. The Russians, being 
now masters of the Archipelago, reduced the islands which 
were defenceless, and greatly injured the Turkish commerce. 
Their success near the Danube also u r as brilliant. The 
Turks, routed and pursued by Romanzow, abandoned 
Isma'ilow, re-crossed the Danube, and allowed the enemy to 
make himself master of Bender and Bahilow. 
The discomfiture of the Ottomans in the Archipelago and 
on the Danube spread consternation throughout the empire; 
the remote provinces manifested a disposition to throw off 
the yoke. Ali-Bey, one of the chief members of the 
government of Egypt, made himself almost absolute master 
of that country: he then carried the war into Syria, and, in 
concert with the governor of St. Jean D’Acre, reduced the 
principal cities, and imposed a considerable contribution on 
the city of Aleppo. 
In the succeeding campaign the Russians were indebted 
for their trophies solely to the inexperience and the de¬ 
spondency of the Turks; their progress, however, toward 
Yol. XXIV. No. 1634. 
the Crimea, was inconsiderable, while their fleet in the 
Mediterranean made some unsuccessful attempts upon 
Rhodes, and proceeded, likewise to no purpose, to Negro- 
pont and the gulf of Salonica. 
In 1772, the two courts accepted the mediation of the 
emperor of Germany and the king of Prussia, and agreed 
to an armistice; but a congress, which met in Wallachia, 
was soon broken up, because the Russians insisted on the 
independence of the Crimea and freedom of navigation in 
the Black Sea. The armistice was nevertheless prolonged, 
and the commissioners of the Porte repaired to Bucharest, 
where the conferences were renewed, but with no better 
success. The Porte meanwhile abated none of its prepara¬ 
tions for war. In 1773 it dispatched a squadron into the 
Black Sea, and reinforced its army on the Danube. Several 
insignificant affairs took place in that quarter; and the 
Russians were baffled in an attempt to make themselves 
masters of Silistria. Turkish troops were sent to Egypt and 
attacked Ali-Bey near Cairo: he was defeated, taken pri¬ 
soner, and died of his wounds. 
Sultan Mustapha, who had not been disheartened by any 
of the reverses which he had sustained, finding his health 
daily declining, sent for his brother Abdul Hamyd, the last 
of Achmet’s sons, laid before him the state of the empire, 
over which he would soon rule, and died on the 21st of 
January, 1774. 
1774—1789.— Abdul Hamyd, born in 1725, and con¬ 
fined at the age of six years, had lived forty-four years in 
captivity. He marked his accession to the throne by the 
most favourable dispositions. He confirmed the ministers in 
their posts, issued orders for prosecuting the preparations for 
war, augmented his navy with ships purchased abroad, and 
thus strengthened the naval force destined for the Archipelago 
and the Black Sea. His army assembled on the banks of the 
Danube, received a check from the Russians, who crossed 
that river, and forced the Porte to sue for peace, which was 
signed the same year, on conditions by no means advan¬ 
tageous to the Turks. 
Abdul Hamyd, however, profited by this opportunity to 
quell the disturbances which had broken out in the Asiatic 
provinces. Several rebels were put to death. Syria and 
Egypt were not the only theatres of insurrection and dissen¬ 
sion. Bagdad and Bassorah had been taken by the Per¬ 
sians ; and the Morea, where the Russians had originally ex¬ 
cited commotions, was still at the discretion of a body of 
Greeks and Albanians, whom the Turks could not till long 
afterwards disperse. 
Russia was meanwhile ready to seize the first favourable 
occasion to renew the war. Elated by her success, she con¬ 
ceived that she could not require too much, while the Porte, 
though humbled by its disasters, had still too high a con¬ 
fidence in its courage and resources to brook an insult. The 
two empires were on the point of a rupture, when France 
lent her mediation, and the peace of Kudjuk-Cainardjy, 
signed in August, 1774, being adopted for the basis of the 
reconciliation, was renewed at Ainahly Cavac, on the 21st 
of June, 1779. By virtue of this treaty, Russia was left in 
final possession of the Crimea and the Kuban. The empress 
Catherine caused the town, fortress, and Port of Cherson, to 
be constructed at the mouth of the Borysthenes, with a view 
to make it the capital of the country. In 1781, the Tartars 
of the Crimea having revolted, Russia marched troops to¬ 
wards the Crimea and the Ukraine. The Porte also, on its 
part, dispatched troops to the frontiers of Servia, and erected 
batteries at the mouth of the Black Sea. A treaty, signed at 
Constantinople on the 21st of June, 1783, confirmed Russia 
in the possession of the Crimea, and afforded Turkey a mo¬ 
mentary peace. 
The pretensions incessantly renewed by the Russians, and 
the instability of treaties, were not the only embarrassments 
experienced by the divan. The Albanians ravaged the 
Morea, from which it was found very difficult to expel them. 
Asia was agitated by three impostors, who went from pro¬ 
vince to province seducing the people by their fanatical 
2 U harangues. 
