Treaty of Edirne (Adrianople), 1829

The Treaty of Edirne, also called the Treaty or Peace of Adrianople, was the settlement that ended the Russo-Ottoman war of 1828 to 1829. The Encyclopaedia of Islam dates it to 14 September 1829 ¹ and, in another article, gives the year as 1245 AH. ² It is named for the city of Edirne, which the Russian army had taken a few weeks earlier. ¹

The article on the sultan Mahmud II sets the treaty in the long crisis of the Greek uprising. It says that Britain, Russia and France offered mediation, that the Ottomans refused on the ground that the conflict was an internal matter, and that the European fleets then destroyed an Ottoman-Egyptian fleet in the harbour of Navarino on 20 October 1827 (see the battle of Navarino). ¹ In May 1828 the Russians began an offensive against the Ottoman lands in Europe and Asia. ¹ The article on the Black Sea port of Burgas adds that it served as a Russian staging point in the advance on Edirne in 1245/1829. ³

In 1829 a Russian army under General Diebitsch bypassed Shumla, came through the passes of the Balkan mountains, captured Edirne on 20 August and threatened to march on Istanbul, so that the sultan was forced to sue for peace. ¹ The Russian advance and its sequel are recorded separately as the occupation of Edirne in 1829, and the whole conflict as the Russo-Turkish war of 1828 to 1829. In the article on Edirne itself, the Russian occupation is said to have had a deep effect on the Muslims of the city, who began to emigrate while Christians from the surrounding villages moved in. ⁴

According to the article on Mahmud II, the Ottomans ceded to Russia the Danube delta in Europe and the province of Akhaltsikhe in Asia, and were required to pay a heavy war indemnity. ¹ They also had to recognise the autonomy of Serbia, Moldavia, Wallachia and Greece under Russian protection. The same article adds that later negotiations between the European powers decided that Greece should be an independent monarchy, which the sultan accepted in July 1832. ¹

The treaty also changed the map of the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus. The article on the Caucasus says that it handed Samtskhe, the region of Akhaltsikhe, to Russia together with the Black Sea ports of Poti and Anapa, which cut the Ottomans off from direct access to Circassia. ⁵ The article on Anapa says the fortress was blockaded by Admiral Greig and Prince Menshikov in 1828 and ceded to Russia by article 4 of the treaty. ⁶ The article on the Circassians says that the Ottomans had to give up their rights over Circassia in favour of Russia, and that the Circassians went on resisting the Russians until 1281/1864. ² The article on Abkhazia notes that Russia's position there was strengthened by the cession of the coast from Anapa to Poti. ⁷

The article on the Serbs records that the peace treaty of Edirne required the Ottoman government to carry out at once the measures of the earlier Akkerman convention of 7 October 1826 and to hand back to Serbia the six districts outside the pashalik of Belgrade that had been freed in the First Uprising. These provisions were put into practice by an imperial edict of 30 September 1829. In August 1830 a further edict set out Serbian autonomy point by point and confirmed Milosh Obrenovic as hereditary prince, so that Serbia became a principality under Ottoman suzerainty. ⁸

The Encyclopaedia names one participant on the Ottoman side. In 1829 the young official Mustafa Reshid, later a leading statesman of the reform period, was attached as secretary to the Ottoman delegation that negotiated the peace with the Russians in Edirne. ⁹

The articles read for this record give the date, the broad terms and several local consequences, but not the text of the treaty, the names of the plenipotentiaries or the full list of articles, and no complete account of its clauses is given here. The Encyclopaedia of Islam does not quote the treaty itself, and the figure of the indemnity is not stated in the passages used.