The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, signed in 1774 between the Ottomans and Russians, gave Russia the right to intervene on behalf of Eastern Orthodox Ottoman subjects in general, a right which it used to sanction Ottoman interventions in the Principalities in particular. Thus, Russia intervened to preserve reigns of hospodars who had lost Ottoman approval in the context of the Napoleonic Wars (the casus belli for the 1806–12 conflict), and remained present in the Danubian states, vying for influence with the Austrian Empire, well into the 19th century and annexing Moldavia's Bessarabia in 1812.