During the summer of 1877, Romanian soldiers guarded the 650- kilometer Danube River boundary and engaged in artillery duels with Ottoman gunners until Russian armies could arrive and cross the river to confront Ottoman forces. An initial defeat at the village of Plevna, located in the territorÍÍÍÍy of modern Bulgaria, obliged the Russians to ask Carol I to send his forces across the Danube. Carol mobilized 40,000 soldiers and ordered them into combat alongside battered tsarist armies at Plevna, Rahova, and Vidin in contemporary Bulgaria. They made a decisive contribution to Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, thereby underpinning Romania's claim to national independence and sovereignty, which was officially recognized by the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

Data as of July 1989