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But a great change soon took place. The first object of the Government was to prevent the Turkish disturbance from leading to a European war, and in this object they failed. On April 24, 1877, Russia, in spite of English remonstrances, declared war against Turkey. On the same day a Russian army crossed the Pruth, and the Eastern Question entered into a new and dangerous phase.
Up to that time, of course, war had been expected as regards the army, eagerly desired; but no declaration had absolutely been made. Ungheni, where the railway crosses the Pruth, and not far from Kischeneff, the capital of Bessarabia, was fixed on as the spot where the grand review should take place.
It was some little time after this occurrence, that we heard of the defeat of the Czar by the Grand Vizier upon the Pruth. The Turks drew him to the Pruth across deserts supplied with nothing; if he did not risk all, by a very unequal battle, he must perish.
In this he succeeded; but hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning by the battle of the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catherine, first the mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner and successor of Peter on the throne of Russia.
Again on the next day, August 5, 1916, the Austro-Germans attacked in force, this time somewhat farther west on the Pruth River in the vicinity of Jablonitza south of Delabin, without gaining any noticeable ground. On August 6, 1916, the Austro-German successes of August 4, 1916, were somewhat extended by the capture of some additional heights on the Cheremosh River.
In 1812 Russia won that part of Moldavia and Bessarabia which lies beyond the Pruth, in 1828 it gained the principal mouth of the Danube, and in 1829 it crossed the Balkans and took Adrianople. The independence of Greece was acknowledged the same year. The next important event in the history of Turkey in Europe was the Crimean War, the story of which has been told in an earlier chapter.
On the French right flank, affairs were less promising; for the ending of the Russo-Turkish war now left the Russian army of the Pruth free to march into Volhynia. But, for the present, Napoleon was able to summon up strong reserves under Victor, and assure his rear. With full confidence, then, he pressed onwards to wrest from Fortune one last favour. It was granted to him at Borodino.
The Dniester and the Pruth were now flooded with July rains, and a month elapsed before Lechitsky could resume his march. Other causes had checked the Russians farther north. Brussilov's offensive may have been merely a vast reconnaissance in force, but its astonishing success had stirred the Germans to prompt action.
In minor political ways the Napoleonic Era was not without significance. The Tsar was enabled finally to acquire Finland, Poland, and Turkish land as far as the River Pruth, Minor thus completing the work of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, and rounding out the European frontier of Russia to its present extent.
West of Sniatyn the Russian troops advanced to the Rybnitza River, occupying the heights along its banks. Still further west, about twenty miles south of the Pruth River, the town of Kuty, well up in the Carpathian Mountains, was captured.
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