Welcome to Russian History Retold, Episode 244, the Russo-Turkish Wars, Part 2.

Last time, we covered the earliest wars between the Ottoman and Russian empires.

Today, we complete the series.

The next Russo-Turkish conflict, after the one that we ended with last time in 1739, wouldn't occur until the reign of Catherine the Great in 1768.

This one would last a bit longer than most of them, and it wouldn't end until 1774, and it would cause a great deal of economic, political, and diplomatic defeats to the already weakening Ottoman Empire.

Prior to Catherine dealing with the Turks, her predecessor, before Peter III, Empress Elizabeth, was more concerned about the goings-on in Europe, rather than her enemy to the south.

She would involve Russia in the War of Austrian Secession of 1740-48, and the first truly global war, the Seven Years War of 1756-1763.

The Russians had initially sided with the French and Habsburgs against the British Prussians and Hanover, but when Elizabeth died in 1762, her successor, Peter III, switched sides.

This prevented his idol, Frederick the Great of Prussia, from defeat. This would also help alienate Peter from the Russian court.

He was supposedly totally uninterested in any Ottoman threat.

This may be due, in part, to his lack of actually being Russian at all.

Catherine, while also having no Russian blood in her, had wholly embraced her new nation when she took control of the government.

It was the new Empress's ambition to succeed where Peter the Great had failed, absorbed Crimea, and gained a strong foothold on the ports of the northern coast of the Black Sea.

Although the Ottomans were slowly weakening militarily, they were still alluming threat to Russia.

Catherine knew this when she said, quote, I have no way to defend my borders, but to extend them.

In her mind, the way to expand lay in the south with the Ottoman territory, and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the west.

Unfortunately, this policy of hers is still being carried out today by the Putin administration and its threats on the border of Russia and Ukraine.

The conflict with the Ottomans began with a crisis of succession in Poland.

Augustus III, a pro-Russian king of Poland, died in 1763.

Catherine now wanted to name his successor to keep the Polish nation on her side.

Unfortunately, her selection was someone who he met in the Catherine the Great Lovers series, when Stanislav Ogost Poniatowski.

This angered the Ottomans because Poniatowski would do little to prevent the first partition of Poland, which occurred in 1772, right in the middle of the latest Russo-Turkish war.

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