The " feeling " of Constantinople is not known since
the last disaster to the Turkish arms. Generals Mirsky and Skobeleff, after desperate exertions, succeeded in cross- ing the Balkans by the Trojan Pass to Kezanlik, and sur- rounding the Turkish army in the Shipka. The south aide was attacked by Generals Mirsky and Skobeleff, while General Radetsky held the north. The Turkish army, of forty-one bat- talions, ten batteries, and a regiment of cavalry, thereupon, after apparently one desperate effort to break out, surrendered. General Musky now, therefore, occupies Kezanlik, while General Skobeleff is at Shipka, and General Gourko, with the Guard, at Sofia. That is to say, the Russians have now three clear roads across the Balkans, and some eighty thousand men altogether in South Bulgaria, with no serious Turkish army between them and Adrianople. The victory is immense, and will deeply impress the Turks, more especially as it has been achieved in the midst of reports that the Russian army were perishing of frost and snow, that their horses were without forage, that their maga- zines were nearly exhausted, and that no more food could be conveyed across the Danube. The latter story was true for a few days, but the Russians take forethought about bread, if nothing else, and have all the live stock of undrained Servia, the land of pig-breeders, to fall back upon at need. There are millions of hogs in Servia, and in frosty weather hog's flesh will keep like ham.
