THE DEFENCE OF PLEVNA.*
To learn the lesson conveyed by the defence and the fall of Plevna, we must find the true place of these events in the war of which they were a part. Before the month of April, 1877, when war was declared, the Russians had mobilised nine army-corps, seven of which (200,000 men) were posted on the frontier between the Pruth and the mouth of the Danube. Russia had secured the neutrality of Austria, and the alliance of Roumania, both indispensable. The Turkish forces were dispersed over a wide area. A considerable army was still operating against Montenegro ; forty-four battalions of the army that had defeated the Serbs were still under Osman Pasha at and near Widdin, observing both the Serbs and the Roumanians. In the quadrilateral * The Defence of Pleura, 1877 written by One who r ok Part in IL By William
v. Herbert, London: Longman, Green, and Co. 1895. formed by the fortresses of Rustchuk, Silistria, Shumla, and the much-dilapidated Varna, stood a hundred and twenty-
four battalions, perhaps seventy thousand men. The exist- ence of these fortresses and the presence of an army between them rendered improbable, because too dangerous, an attempt of the Russians to pass the Danube between Rustchuk and Silistria. An advance of the Russian main army through the Dobrudscha was out of the question, because in that district a large army can be supplied only from the sea, which the Turkish Fleet commanded. The Russians therefore must advance into Roumania, and try to cross the Danube between Rustchuk and Widdin. Broadly speaking, the distribution of the available Turkish forces was a good one, though it does not appear to have originated in any specific design. The plan, suggested by Greene after the war, of a Turkish offensive defence by the seizure and fortification of Galatz, Braila, Reni, and Ismail, and a vigorous attack on the Russian army during its advance into Wallachia, was quite impracticable. Nor was it possible without an army at least twice as numerous and much more mobile than the Turks possessed, to prevent the Russians from passing the Danube. The real question for the Turks was whether to deliver their great blow on the north or on the south aide of the Balkans. The plan, much cherished in theories, of posting an army on the hither side of a mountain chain, with a view to a concentrated attack upon the first fraction of the enemy that emerges in isolation from one of
the passes, depends for its chance of success upon a particular formation of the country. Where, as in Piedmont, the moun- tains rise steeply from the plain so that a series of passes open directly on to the main plain, an army in the plain can pre- vent the junction of the enemy's columns because that junc- tion can take place only in the plain. But between the Balkans and the plain of the Maritza stand the Little Balkans, a lower parallel range, separated by a very narrow valley from the main range. This valley offered a gathering place for Russian columns moving through the passes, and would have been a trap to a Turkish force posted in it. The best plan open to the Turks was, therefore, collecting their army in the quadrilateral, where it could base itself either on Adrianople or on the sea, and having the advantage of the Rustchuk Varna railway for supply, to make a vigorous attack upon the Russian army when it should be between the Danube and the Balkans.
That the Turks had this plan it would be hard to deny, but what they certainly had not was the determination and the energy, or, in one word, the will to carry it out. The Russians moved one corps into the Dobrudscha, where it remained passive; with six corps they moved through Wallachia, and by July 2nd had made their bridge at Sistova and begun to cross the river. Two corps under the Cesarevitch were to face eastwards as a defence against the main Turkish army ; one was to face westwards ; an advance guard under Gourko, with one corps in support, moved south towards the Balkans; and two corps, of which one did not pass the Danube until the close of July, were at first held in reserve. The Turkish army fell back before the Cesarevitch to the line of the Lom, while Gourko crossed the Balkans and reached Eshki-Zagra, on the edge of the plain of Adrianople. Here he met the Turkish army under Suleiman Pasha, which had been brought by sea from Montenegro to Dede-Agatch, and thence pushed forward by railway through Adrianople. Suleiman had ninety-five bat- talions, say sixty thousand men, and Gourko fell back to the Shipka Pass, where, however, he held his ground. Thus at the beginning of August the chief Turkish army, then under Mehemet Ali, had been passive, and Suleiman was about to waste his force by the impracticable frontal attack of a moun- tain position. The Russians had troubled themselves little about the Turkish armies, which should have been their first objective, and were dispersed over the wide semi-circle from the Danube above Rustchuk, by Tirnova, Shipka, and Lovcha., to Nicopolis.
On July 13th, Osman Pasha, after a week's negotiation with the secret debating society at Constantinople, which, under the Sultan's guidance, appointed, removed, and embarrassed the Generals in the field, set out with twelve thousand men from Widdin and marched to Plevna, which he reached on the 19th. The nearest hostile force was the army-corps covering the Russian right flank, which had just taken Nicopolis and its Turkish garrison. Of this corps a detachment, about seven hundred strong, attacked Osman at Plevna on July 20th, and was repulsed. The whole Russian corps, and a good part of one of the reserve corps—about twenty-eight thousand men, with one hundred and seventy guns—were then brought up to the attack, which was renewed on July 30th. Meantime Osman had entrenched his position and been reinforced, so that be had now thirty-three battalions, about twenty thousand men, and fifty-four guns. The attacking force was thoroughly beaten and lost heavily.
The effect of this defeat was to paralyse the Russian army, dispersed as it was over three extensive fronts, and facing at once east, south, and west. At the head- quarters, it was at once decided to send for one hundred and twenty thousand fresh troops from Russia, and for the Roumanian army thirty-seven thousand men, as well as to call up, to make good gaps and losses, some two hundred and twenty thousand further troops, to be sent gradually from Russia to the front. Osman's offensive had been confined to an advance to a position in which he must be attacked, and to an effective defence in that position. What must have been the result of any vigorous offensive now undertaken by the two other Turkish armies ? The second battle of Plevna took place the day before the collision between Gourko and Suleiman at Eshki-Zagra, after which Gourko retired to Shipka, slowly followed by Suleiman. About the same time General Valentine Baker reached the headquarters of Mehemet Ali, and tried to induce that General and Suleiman to co-operate. Had Suleiman left a small force in front of Shipka, and sent thirty thousand men over the Balkans further east to co-operate with Mehemet Ali, the latter General would have had force enough to be sure of driving the Cesarevitch back across the Yantra, and in all probability across the Danube at Sistova. Such a blow would have ended the campaign with disaster to the Russian arms, and the opportunity for it had been created by Osman's action. Suleiman, however, refused to move, and ruined his army by hopeless assaults on the Shipka position. Baker set going a partial attack on the right wing of the Cesarevitch, who was easily driven back from the Lom; but when it came to the final attack, for which a remarkably favourable opportunity was given by the Russians at Verboka, Mehemet Ali's will failed him and he retreated with all his army. From that moment the fate of Turkey was sealed. Mehemet Ali was replaced by Suleiman, who made partial and there- fore useless attacks on the Cesarevitch, while the Turkish Balkan army continued to throw away its strength at Shipka. Osman, who seems to have contemplated a move to a position that would have covered his retreat to the Balkans, was ordered from Constantinople to remain at Plevna. His force by Septeciber 6th had been increased to thirty thousand men and seventy-two guns. On that day the Russians began an attack, which lasted a week, and for which they disposed of ninety-five thousand men and four hundred and fifty guns. The attack was unsuccessful, and the Russians, after a pause, during which Osman's force was increased by reinforcements to forty-eight thousand men and ninety-six guns, proceeded to a regular investment, in which they employed no less than one hundred and ten thousand men and five hundred guns. Osman held out until December 10th, when, after a brave attempt to fight his way out, he surrendered with his army.
With the fall of Plevna the whole Turkish defence collapsed. The Russians were able to reinforce their parties in the Balkans, so that Gonrko, who, with a new advanced guard, had already attacked near Etropol a Turkish force covering Sofia, was able to turn its position and compel its retreat to Philippopolis, while the Turkish Shipka army, turned in like manner, was captured. The main body of the Turkish Lom army had been moved to the neighbourhood of Sofia. It retreated before Gourko to Philippopolis, and was there, along with the detachment from Etropol, attacked by Gourko and driven through the Rhodope Mountains, leaving nothing to oppose the Russian advance to Adrianople and the Sea of Marmora.
The service rendered by Osman Pasha consisted in finding occupation from July to December for the greater part of the Russian army. In proportion to the force he drew upon himself was the risk he incurred at first of defeat, and after- wards of capture. But that he was in the long run obliged to surrender, was due to the fact that no use whatever was
made by the other Turkish armies of the opportunity which his action created for them. The Turks had no other General. Suleiman spent his time in intrigues for the suc- cession to Mehemet Ali, who was rendered helpless and hopeless by the knowledge of Suleiman's plot. The Sultan and his gang of Pashas at Constantinople seem to have been one and all incapable, as helpless to direct a war as to carry on a government in peace. The bravery and en- durance of the Turkish soldiers were thus thrown away to. no purpose.
Mr. Herbert's Defence of Plevna tells, we believe for the first time, the story of Osman Pasha's army from the inside. The author, then a mere boy, became a Turkish officer early in July, 1877. He was sent from Constantinople to Widdin in charge of a party of soldiers, and after being encamped for some two months at the latter place, marched to Plevna as a lieutenant in one of Osman's regiments. His account of these earlier experiences introduces us to the Turkish army. He then describes what he saw and felt during the battles and the long siege of Plevna. It is a truthful picture of war, reproducing to the life its grand and dreadful scenes, its normal misery, its horrors, and its agonies. The picture, drawn from a lieutenant's point of view, furnishes elements for a judgment of Osman Pasha, who himself hardly appears in it. We see on the eve of every fight each company re- ceiving clear and explicit orders ; we see the men well sup- plied with such provisions as exist, and always abundantly with ammunition. From these details we know that Osman's army was well commanded, and are therefore not surprised that it was confident of success, and fought well.
Few writers have better conveyed than Mr. Herbert the impression which battles make upon those who take part in them, not as Generals or Staff-officers, but with the rank-and-file of their regiments. The author's first battle, his experience of a charge and of a melee, and his recollections of the great struggle against Skobeleff's famous attack, are bits of fighting from the life. Amid these scenes of grim conflict and the greater terrors of the day after the battle, the human heart asserts itself irrepressibly; one lieutenant plays chess while waiting for the fight to begin, another falls in love while in the hospital ; at the height of the siege the Roumanians in the Grivitza redoubt exhibit a marionette performance of shadows on a sheet to the enemy, the Turks, in the opposite redoubt. These are the touches that show why it is that a leader of men or a master in war must be an artist in human nature.
Previous page
