On April 24, 1877 , the Russian Empire declared war on Turkey. Serbia, which had meanwhile signed the peace with Istanbul, stood aside. Montenegro, which had not even agreed to sign the peace, joined Russia in the war against the Ottoman Empire. The Russo-Turkish War created a new state for all the nations oppressed by the Ottoman Empire and for all the monarchies of the Balkan Peninsula. Everywhere there was a conviction that this war would end with the defeat of the Sublime Porte. All Balkan states were set in motion to fulfill their national unification at the conclusion of this war and, to a greater extent, to fulfill their annexationist aspirations to the detriment of other nations on the peninsula. For the Albanian issue, the beginning of the Russo-Turkish war created a more complicated situation than it was before. In the event that Russia would win the war, Albania would face its territorial dismemberment and, consequently, its political death. The complete defeat of the Ottoman armies worried all the Great Powers. In particular, it shocked Great Britain, which, in order to prevent the entry of Russian armies into Istanbul, sent its battle fleet to the Sea of Marmara. At the same time, at its instigation, the Sublime Porte asked the Russian command for a cease-fire. Seeing that England was determined to protect the Ottoman capital at all costs, Russia signed an armistice with the Ottoman Empire in Edirne on January 31, 1878, and began negotiations to conclude a Peace Treaty with it. (In the photo: The Russian Guards Regiment stands next to the railway line to Edirne.)
Text : History of the Albanian people – Vol. II , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Toena”, Tirana, 2002, pages 139-144.
Photo: © Ivanov AD, personal archive
Graphic processing: AHCF
