Under additional pressure from Austria, the Russian command, which was about to launch a final assault on the fortress town, was ordered to lift the siege and retreat from the area, thus ending the Danubian phase of the Crimean War.

In the east, an army numbering 50,000 under General Alexander von Lüders crossed the border from Bessarabia into Dobruja to occupy designated strong points.

[c][12] Silistria had ancient Roman foundations, it was built up by Turkey as a major fortress and trading centre, fortified with an inner Citadel it had an outer ring of ten forts.

[14] On 5 April the vanguard of the Russian force under General Karl Andreyevich Schilder and his assistant military engineer Lieutenant-Colonel Eduard Totleben arrived at the fortress and commenced the siege by building entrenchments.

On 22 April Field Marshal Prince Ivan Paskevich, the commander of all Russian forces took personal control of the Danube campaign and arrived from Warsaw to Bucharest to take charge of the siege.

[17] Musa Pasha, the garrison commander, died on 2 June killed by shrapnel while performing prayers, he was replaced by British officers Butler and Nasmyth.

The concentration of allied troops in the vicinity of Varna, 50,000 French and 20,000 British, as well as Austria's new treaty with Turkey, signed on 14 June, made Nicholas I order a strategic withdrawal.