Massacre at Balta

Background. In the fortified town of Bar, near the Ottoman border, the Bar Confederation was created on 29 February 1768, led by the Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski. On 20 June 1768 the Russian Army captured the fortress of Bar, and surviving confederates fled toward the Turkish border. The Haidamak rebellion known as Koliivshchyna was underway in Right-Bank Ukraine, where Haidamaks committed mass murders against the Polish and Jewish population, forcing civilians to flee, sometimes into Ottoman territory.

The Raid on Balta. In mid-June 1768, soon after the massacre at Uman, a detachment of Zalizniak's haidamaks pursued Confederates through Podolia toward the Kodyma River. The Haidamaks attacked Balta, then part of the Ottoman Empire, defeated the Tatar garrison, and sacked the city. According to another version, they entered Ottoman territory after the kaymak of Balta refused to surrender Poles who had earlier attacked the village of Paliyeve Ozero together with Tatars. The Haidamak mass murders in Right-Bank Ukraine had already forced civilians to escape, sometimes to Ottoman territory, forming the immediate context of the incursion.

Consequences. In the summer of 1768, Sultan Mustafa III received reports that Balta had been massacred by Russian-paid Zaporozhian Cossacks. Not content to let the Polish enemy flee over the border, Cossacks had followed them into the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire had until then enjoyed its longest period of peace with Europe (1739–1768); the incident contributed to the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, in which Russian armies were ultimately victorious.