Charles S. Ryan

“ It was every man for himself of course, and we did not attempt to preserve any sort of formation. The instinct of a hunted animal flying for cover made me turn towards the maize-field, and I galloped into the friendly shelter of the tall stems, bending my head low over my horse's neck and urging him forward with voice and spur. The maize was tall enough to conceal a horse and man completely, so that the Russians could not take aim at any individual mark; but they poured incessant volleys into the field, and many a bullet fired at random found its billet. ”

“ I knew then—and have remembered it ever since—that I owed my life to the skill and care of that devoted surgeon James Denniston.
Looking round the fever-stricken town, I saw on every hand dead men lying in the snow, and living men, worn to shadows like myself, crawling feebly about the streets; while outside the gates the Russians were waiting grimly until the thaw should enable them to bring up their artillery and complete the work that sickness had begun. ”

“ In the Bulgarian folk-songs, with their plaintive semitones and their melodies sliding away invariably into the mournful minor, one seemed to hear the echoes of the history of the people who have degenerated from the warlike race that crossed the Danube under their great chief Zabergan in the sixth century to the feeble and lethargic tillers of the soil, who have grown up under their long subjection to the great Byzantine Empire with its seat of government at Constantinople, and afterwards to the despotic Turkish power which superseded it. ”

“ It was round the Grivitza redoubt in the toe of the horseshoe, and this double redoubt close into Plevna in the heel, that the fiercest fighting of the whole protracted series of engagements was centred.
In six weeks the Turkish troops, under the direction of Tewfik Bey, had constructed the most elaborate and perfect system of field fortification that the world had ever seen—a system which utterly routed the old military [221] idea that a bold and well reinforced attack must always succeed against a defended position. ”

“ Poor old Zohrab! He listened with much the same feelings that Ulysses might have had when the island princes, over-bold, were feasting on his substance and the steam of the roasting beef (which the poet avers is dear to the gods) rose up in his lordly halls.
Recollections of Osman Pasha's ball at Widdin came back to me when I met at Smyrna Zara Dilber Effendi, the skilful entertainer who arranged all the details of that never to be forgotten function. He and I spent the afternoon together, and had much to tell each other. ”

“ I often watched the burial squads at work, as I sat there on the black cob puffing a cigarette in the glorious summer weather, and saw them dragging the scattered bodies together into a little heap, and then digging a trench to hold them. Sometimes they would put twenty or thirty into one trench when they came on a patch where the troops had fallen thickly, and sometimes a dead soldier lying far away from his comrades would be buried in a lonely grave by himself. The Russian and Turkish dead were always kept distinct, for the Moslem will not sleep by the Giaour, even in the grave. ”

“ No dour old Covenanter with a verse of a psalm on his lips ever flung himself with more dogged courage on the pikes of Graham of Claverhouse, than did those Turks charge down upon the Russian steel a few months later, with the cry of "Allah" upon their lips and the assurance of paradise in their heroic hearts. Perhaps the best qualification for a good soldier is to be a fanatic—as the next best is to be an infidel. After "Praise-God-Barebones," the most striking figure in a mêlée is Sergeant Bothwell, who died "believing nothing, hoping nothing, fearing nothing." ”

“ Most of the men, however, bore their dreadful sufferings with [300] a grim silence that was as painful as the cries. Oh that ghastly journey of wounded men to Sofia! And here and there a cart would stop while the driver lifted out a dead man from among his still living fellow travellers, and laid him down by the side of the road, at rest at last from the fearful jolting of the araba. There was no time to dig a grave, so the body was left there to soak in the rain and bleach in the sun, along the white road that wound from Plevna to Orkhanieh. ”

“ These ladies, I must admit, were little short of a revelation to me, for I had only seen a few thickly veiled Turkish women in the town hitherto; but Zara Dilber Effendi was evidently a person of some note in Widdin, and the invitations had been sent out to none but the ladies of the most aristocratic families in the country.
I was the only Englishman present at that remarkable ball; and I suppose it is not often that an Englishman finds himself assisting at an entertainment of such half-barbaric splendour, and held under such dramatic circumstances. ”

“ When we reached Constantinople the whole place was full of excitement, for the Russian army was at San Stefano, only a few miles away, and Pera was almost like a Russian town. Every day hundreds of Russians might be seen clanking up and down the streets in full uniform, when they came in on leave from San Stefano.
English philanthropy was displayed as generously at this stage as it had been throughout the entire course of the war, and English gold was freely spent on the relief of starving and fever-stricken refugees from the Turkish provinces as well as on the sick and wounded troops. ”

“ That there was a large amount of corruption in the officialdom of Turkey at that time was no doubt true; but the real samples of national character, the men in the rank and file of the army, I found to be simple-minded, courteous, honourable, and honest in time of peace, while braver men on the battle-field than those who fought under Osman Pasha at Plevna are not to be found in Europe. The magnificent physique and robust constitution of the ordinary Turkish private soldiers I believe to be due mainly to two causes. ”

“ Gradually one by one the lights died down; the men, tired with the long and dusty march, wrapped themselves in their great-coats; and the camp was sunk in slumber. At about nine o'clock it began to get very cold, and Weinberger, Kustler, and I decided to shift our quarters, and move in among the main body to warm ourselves by the smouldering camp-fires. Picking our way gingerly among the sleeping forms that lay thickly on the bare ground, we came to a water-cart, to which we tied our horses, and then lay down to sleep. ”

“ Only the men who were gravely wounded were brought in these arabas, and hundreds had to drag themselves down on foot. As the rough, springless arabas jolted over the cobble-stones of the Plevna street, the sufferings of the wounded men must have been excruciating. There was no field hospital to render first aid, and it is not easy to imagine the misery of an unfortunate wretch, say, with a compound fracture of the thigh, transported in a cart and without any surgical attendance from the field to the base hospital. ”

“ In those old fighting days a farewell dinner to any one was a thing to wonder at; for it was always a shade of odds that a fever or a rifle-bullet would claim a [315] good many of the guests before they could meet again, and the more risky the prospects of the future the more lively was the certain pleasure of the present. Late that night, or rather early next morning, they saw me down to the quay where the Messageries boat was lying, and I went on board, lugging with me a bag containing three hundred English sovereigns—perhaps the only coins on earth that will fetch their face value anywhere. ”

“ Mackellar spoke very strongly, declaring that it was a barbarous and brutal thing to send the wounded men away, many of whom he considered, as a surgeon of large experience, to be quite unfit to travel. I felt quite sorry for poor old Hassib Bey, especially as I myself, with a full comprehension of the whole position, was thoroughly in accord with Osman Pasha's view. It was perfectly plain to me that the wisest course was to despatch the wounded men from out the crowded hospitals into the fresh air and away to Sofia. ”

“ As the four of us rode away in a southerly direction to the Ibrahim Bey redoubt, the Russian artillerymen saw us, and in a couple of seconds the Stafford House doctors and the war correspondent had an experience which struck them with all the force of the novel and the unexpected. The Russians fired six shells at us, and it certainly was a wonder that some of us were not killed, for the artillerymen had found the range by long practice at the redoubts, and their shells fell all round us. ”

“ Courageous in misfortune, uncomplaining under the most awful suffering, good-humoured in every situation, the Turkish troops, both officers and [425] men, showed throughout all the campaign the temper of true heroes. I need hardly say that for me it is deeply painful to think that the men whom I almost idealized, the men with whom I fought and suffered, with whom I tasted the glory of victory and the bitterness of defeat, should lie under the accusation of the atrocities which we must believe have been committed in 1896, not only in Armenia, but also in Constantinople. ”

“ The Turk, though an excellent fellow in many respects, has peculiar notions in the matter of voice production, and to hear a group of them all singing in unison through their noses as they squatted on the ground round a camp-fire was an experience to which one had to get accustomed before one could thoroughly enjoy it. It was a pleasant variety to exchange the nasal tenor squeak of the Turkish Tommy Atkins for the soft contralto of a Bulgarian blanchisseuse. ”

“ Occasionally one found isolated cases of intemperance among the [132] higher officers in the Turkish army; but I never saw a private soldier under the influence of liquor during the whole time that I was in the country. There were many of these men whose lives I could have saved if I could have persuaded them to take stimulants; but it was impossible to get them to touch alcohol, even as medicine. The principles of their religion forbid the use of alcohol, and the humble Turk clings so tenaciously to his religion that he would rather meet death itself than violate its precepts. ”

“ I was inside the Number 1 redoubt two minutes after the men of the front firing line, and I shall never forget the scene of carnage that I saw there. The redoubt was literally choked up with dead and dying men, and the ground was ankle deep in blood, brains, and mutilated fragments of humanity. The Turks became almost delirious with the excitement of the victory. Everywhere men were shouting, praying, and giving thanks to Allah. About three hundred of them got drag-ropes, and took the captured Russian guns off in triumph to the headquarters camp ”

“ In many places a foot, a finger, or a hand protruding from the ground revealed the presence of the dead; and as I advanced farther down into the valley from the Turkish line of defence, I came across a great number of bodies which had escaped the notice of the burial parties altogether. There they lay, with the hot July sun beating down upon them, and the cool moisture of the earth teeming with horrible living things beneath them. The faces of many of the Russians, as is often the case when death is due to gunshot wounds, were placid and composed ”

“ If we had had a strong body of cavalry, scarcely a Russian would have reached the Danube alive; and even as it was the [178] panic among the Russians at Sistova was so great that a rush was made upon the bridge, and many waggons were actually pushed over into the river by the crowding fugitives.
As for my little troop of cavalry with whom I made that desperate charge and still more desperate retreat, it had been absolutely decimated, though Mustapha Bey the colonel, Czetwertinski the captain, and the Turkish lieutenant, all escaped as fortunately as myself. ”

“ One of the speakers who invariably ranged himself on the side of the minority in these discussions, and whose chief delight it was to be the Ishmael of debate with his hand against every man and every man's hand against him, was an extraordinary man named Foley, who quarrelled violently with every one of us except, I think, myself. Afterwards, just before the Russian war broke out, the poor fellow met a tragic end. He was quartered near Sistova in a Bulgarian house on the bank of the Danube, and it was found one morning that he had disappeared. ”

“ At any rate those who hold to this theory might find support for it in the magnificent physique of the present population of this primeval country. At times, when a sick man is sent back to breathe the air of his native place after a lifetime spent in some distant city, he gathers new health and strength in some mysterious way. So tired humanity, sick and undersized in Western Europe, regains its pristine vigour and development among the mountains and ravines where it first saw the light. ”

“ A military police force was organized for the protection of the townspeople, and the soldiery were given to understand that any excesses would be visited by the only penalty known to the martial code in war-time—the penalty of death. Owing to this decisive action, the Bulgarian population regained confidence, and carried on their respective businesses without let or hindrance. For several days, indeed, after the first battle the spoils of war stripped from the dead Russians on the field of action by the roving and predatory Circassians were on sale in every bazaar. ”

“ The Turkish women huddled together in two large alcoves in the wall of the archway leading into the fortress, refuges which were almost like dungeons hewn out of the solid masonry, and which were absolutely safe from projectiles. When the firing was over I went to the hospital, and found that four or five people had been wounded. A Spanish boy had lost his arm, and a Turkish woman had been killed by a shell bursting in her room. ”

“ Probably no man except one who has been in a similar position can even faintly guess at the rapid change of feeling which comes over one at such a crisis. A few moments before, while we were galloping forward against the fugitives, I felt as brave as a lion; but when once I had turned my back to them and heard their bullets whistling round me, a mortal dread came over me, and if I had had a hundred millions in the bank I would have given it all to be a furlong farther from the muzzles of those Russian rifles. ”

“ In addition to it all was the nervous strain of waiting for the expected Russian attack, which would have been gladly welcomed as a relief from the intolerable tension.
During these early days of January, 1878, the mortality in Erzeroum was something appalling. Out of a total number of about seventeen thousand troops in the town, there were on one day no fewer than three hundred and two deaths, and the daily death-rate frequently rose to two hundred! The weak, emaciated survivors had hardly strength left to dig graves for their dead comrades in the hard and frozen ground. ”

“ To one who had been accustomed to Paris and Vienna, where it is never night in this sense, where gas and arc lamps form an admirable substitute for sunlight, and where the patter of feet on the trottoirs and the hum of human life in the cafés are practically ceaseless, the sensation of wandering through these dark, deserted streets among hordes of starving curs was a strange one. By day Constantinople is modern, pulsating, alive. ”