Following the crushing Russian victory at the last battle of Shipka Pass, Russian commander Gen. Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko began to move southeast towards Constantinople. Blocking the route was the Ottoman fortress at Plovdiv under Suleiman Pasha. On 16 January 1878, a squadron of Russian dragoons led by Captain Alexander Burago stormed the city. Its defenses were strong but superior Russian numbers overwhelmed them and the Ottoman forces retreated almost to Constantinople. At this time foreign powers intervened and Russia agreed to the Treaty of San Stefano.
^ abEggenberger D. An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. Courier Corporation. 2012. P. 338
^Jacques T. Dictionary of Battles and Sieges. A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2007. P. 804
^Dowling T. C. Russia at War. From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond. ABC-CLIO. 2014. P. 644.
^F. V. Greene, The Russian Arm and Its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-1878, Read Books, 2008, p. 359.
^Norman Tobias, The International Military Encyclopedia, Academic International Press, 2004, p. 19.
^Stanley Sandler, Ground Warfare: An International Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2002, p. 690.
Further reading
Compton's Home Library: Battles of the World CD-ROM
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