First battle in the siege of Plevna during the Russo-Turkish War

Background. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) pitted the Ottoman Empire against a coalition led by the Russian Empire and including Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. In July 1877 the Russian Army under Grand Duke Nicholas moved toward the Danube, and the Ottoman high command sent an army under Osman Nuri Pasha to reinforce Nikopol, but the city fell to the Russian vanguard on 16 July before he reached it. Osman then settled on Plevna as a defensive position, and the siege began that month.

Combatants. The siege was fought by the joint army of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Romania against the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman garrison at Plevna was commanded by Osman Pasha, who in July 1877 received 15 battalions of reinforcements from Sofia. The Russian forces included the vanguard that had captured Nikopol. After the war, Bulgaria emerged as an autonomous state with Russian support and military intervention, following almost five centuries of Ottoman domination.

Outcome. The first battle opened a siege that lasted from July to December 1877, with the end date known only to the month. At the siege's end, Osman Pasha was wounded in a failed breakout attempt and subsequently accepted the capitulation conditions offered by General Mihail Cerchez. The siege turned to victory for the Russian and Romanian forces only after they cut off all supply routes to the fortified Ottomans; this outcome belongs to the siege as a whole rather than to the first battle.