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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
MILITARY ATTACHÉ RETURNS FROM RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
In early January 1879, 1st Lt. Francis V. Greene returned to the United States after one and a half years serving as a military attaché and observer in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Greene’s experiences provided key information on the organization and disposition of the Russian and Turkish armies and lessons learned for the developing U.S. Army.
Francis Vinton Greene was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Maj. Gen. George Sears Greene, most notable for his defense of the Union right flank at Culp’s Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. As a member of a prominent military family, Greene graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1870 as a second lieutenant. In 1872, he was assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and in 1877, he was selected as a military attaché to the U.S. legation in St. Petersburg, Russia.
In April 1877, Russian Emperor Alexander II began decrying the oppression of Christians in the Ottoman Empire and its occupied regions in Eastern Europe. The Russo-Turkish War was ostensibly fought to free these Christians from persecution, however Russia also sought to recover its lost territories captured during the Crimean War two decades earlier and seize the Balkans from the Turks. Over the next eleven months, the Russian army fought across Eastern Europe enroute to the Ottoman capital in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Western European nations like Great Britain and France eventually intervened in the conflict to deter the Russian Empire from claiming more territory in Europe.
The number of nations involved in the conflict and the great expanse of land it was waged across incited tremendous interest in militaries across the world. Lieutenant Greene was sent to observe the war alongside military attachés from Germany, Austria, France, England, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro. The system of military attachés was relatively new at the onset of the war, and Greene became one of the first American attachés under this system to follow and study a foreign army in combat. Greene was critical of both the Russian offensive and Turkish defensive organizations during the war, especially the failure of leadership. During the First Battle of Plevna in July 1877, Lieutenant Greene remarked, “The almost criminal faults of this battle on the part of the Russian commander are so apparent that they hardly need to be pointed out.” Despite his criticisms, Greene freely admitted to favoring the Russian cause in his report on the conflict.
Like many other attachés following the conflict, Greene reflected frequently on the failure of the Russians and the Turks to evaluate historical military failures of other nations to develop their own armies. He pointed to failures in leadership during the American Civil War as examples Russia could have used to prevent its own organizational mistakes. In contrast, Greene’s duties as an attaché provided unique lessons for U.S. Army development that otherwise might have been learned too late in combat, proving the merit of military observers in war.
In early January 1879, Lieutenant Greene returned to the United States from St. Petersburg. He compiled his numerous reports, notes, and personal experiences into a book published in April 1879. Greene became a captain in the Corps of Engineers in 1883, and in 1898, he raised the 7th New York Infantry Regiment during the Spanish-American War, achieving the rank of major general of the U.S. Volunteers and taking command of 2d Division, 7th Army Corps, until February 1899. Greene’s complete account of the Russo-Turkish War, "The Russian Army and Its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-1878," is available online in its entirety.
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| Date Taken: | 01.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 01.02.2024 09:11 |
| Story ID: | 461176 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 265 |
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