Qualla: Battle of Plovdiv (1878)

Battle of Plovdiv (1878): Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VladislavNedelev, CC BY-SA 3.0. Captain Aleksandr Burago had been ordered to scout. He decided, on the morning of 16 January 1878, to take a city instead. He rode through the dark with sixty-three men of the 2nd Dragoon Squadron, picked his way through outposts that should have stopped him, and clattered into Plovdiv on horseback while Suleiman Pasha's army was still trying to figure out where the main Russian force was. The defenders, stunned, did not fight. By morning Bulgarian families were pouring into the streets to meet their liberators - thin men in greatcoats, exhausted from a winter march most of their generals had said could not be done.

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Image: VladislavNedelev | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Plovdiv (1878): After Plevna

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Чигот, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 had spent half a year frozen at the fortress of Plevna, where Osman Pasha's Ottoman garrison held off Russian and Romanian armies through three brutal assaults and a long siege. Mikhail Skobelev's counterattack finally broke the deadlock. Osman Pa...

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Image: Чигот | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Plovdiv (1878): Across the Mountains in Winter

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vassia Atanassova - Spiritia, Public domain. The Balkan Mountains in January are not a place armies belong. Gurko marched anyway, three columns moving across icy passes with cannon that had to be lowered down slopes by ropes. The Ottomans had not believed it possible. Sofia fell in early January with almost no resistance. A...

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Image: Vassia Atanassova - Spiritia | Public domain

Battle of Plovdiv (1878): The Approach

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Мико, CC BY-SA 4.0. By mid-January Suleiman Pasha had perhaps fifty thousand to sixty thousand men spread across southern Bulgaria, but they were tired, hungry, and walking backward toward Plovdiv. Faud Pasha, with about thirty-five thousand, took up positions on the Topolnitsa river and the Dermend...

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Image: Мико | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Plovdiv (1878): Burago's Ride

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Владимир Kaladan Петков, CC BY-SA 4.0. What happened the next morning has become local legend. Captain Burago, ordered out before dawn on a reconnaissance, looked at the situation - a panicked garrison, fleeing officers, civilians waiting for someone to enter the city - and decided to make a different report. He took ...

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Image: Владимир Kaladan Петков | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Plovdiv (1878): The Treaty That Made Bulgaria

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vassia Atanassova - Spiritia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Skobelev was sent with the Caucasian brigade to chase what was left of the Ottoman army toward Adrianople. The Russians very nearly took Constantinople. Britain rushed warships to the Bosphorus, Austria-Hungary made warning noises, and on 3 March 1878 the Treaty of San Stefano wa...

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Image: Vassia Atanassova - Spiritia | CC BY-SA 3.0