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Romania War of Independence, 1877-78
During the summer of 1877, Romanian soldiers guarded
the 650-
kilometer Danube River boundary and engaged in artillery
duels with
Ottoman gunners until Russian armies could arrive and
cross the
river to confront Ottoman forces. An initial defeat at the
village
of Plevna, located in the territory of modern Bulgaria,
obliged the
Russians to ask Carol I to send his forces across the
Danube. Carol
mobilized 40,000 soldiers and ordered them into combat
alongside
battered tsarist armies at Plevna, Rahova, and Vidin in
contemporary Bulgaria. They made a decisive contribution
to Russian
victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, thereby
underpinning
Romania's claim to national independence and sovereignty,
which was
officially recognized by the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
Data as of July 1989
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