ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the ways in which four countries observed the war and identified lessons therefrom. Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States at this time had quite differing military traditions and varying degrees of national interest wrapped up in the war's outcome. Thus, provide a fair sample of how foreigners appropriated military 'lessons' from the third Russo-Turkish War of the nineteenth century. The Russo-Turkish War was the object of serious contemporary scrutiny. The foreign reactions to the Russo-Turkish War presented so far are more observational than analytical in nature; that is, they are comments which report what was seen but do not examine the underlying reasons for the war's events. The Russo-Turkish War has always been most associated with the three battles of Plevna and consequently with the Russian attacks on entrenched Turkish positions.' Strategically the Russo-Turkish War showed the Europeans only a glaring example of how not to conduct a war.