Battle of Plevna

“ The first successes of the Russians were checked when Osman Pasha stood at bay at Plevna, and the Turks literally [Pg 265] dug themselves into the hills around the city, while the Russians lost thousands of men in vain assaults upon the earthworks.
It was in the second battle of Plevna that a Bimbashi, or Major, came up to Herbert and said:
“The General has sent for reinforcements. Take your company; an orderly will show the way. Do your best, Mulazim. You are but a boy, in a position which might unnerve a man twice your age. Rise to the occasion, as Englishmen are wont to do. ”

“ Whatever may have been the cause of this decision it ruined the Turkish campaign. Adherence to the defensive spells defeat now, as it has always done. Defeat comes more slowly now that quick-firing rifles quadruple the power of the defence; but all the same it must come if the assailant has enough men to throw on that point and then at other points. Or, to use technical terms, while modern inventions alter tactics, that is, the dispositions of troops on the field of battle--a fact which the Russians seemed to ignore at Plevna--they do not change the fundamental principles of strategy. ”

“ It may seem a paradox; but the Russians are simply the most democratic people in Europe, and for a Russian to be borné would be a contradiction in terms. Every officer was the correspondent’s comrade. Prince Schahofskoy, the ill-conditioned general who made such a mess of the July Plevna attack, was the only exception I ever knew. If the samovar was in service, the officer shared his tea with the correspondent; in the middle of a battle, if the officer had a couple of sandwiches he would offer one of them to the correspondent. ”

“ The command before Plevna is no easy matter: it will cost many a bloody battle before [279] the Turks are conquered; nay, it may be questioned whether we shall succeed in this struggle! But I could not refuse the Emperor's offer, although I should have preferred my army to fight in its own sphere of operations. Now my troops will form the right wing, the Russian Ninth Corps the centre, and the Fourth the left wing. The Roumanian troops will cross our bridge over the Danube to-day. ”

“ But this time again the attack resulted in a like defeat; the enemy’s forces, which far exceeded those of the Russians, repelled all the assaults of the Russian troops, added to which this second attack on Plevna cost the Russians 7,500 men. Following upon this, with the arrival of fresh reinforcements for the army encamped before Plevna, a third and final heroic effort was made to take this fortified position by storm. The chief part in the attack was taken by the brave young general Skobelev and his detachment. ”

“ The total Russian force operating against him was supposed by Osman Pasha, from information which we obtained, to amount to thirteen thousand men. The total available strength in Plevna was about fifteen thousand men, most of whom, however, were in poor trim for fighting, having just arrived after a long and arduous march, and having been deprived of sleep for many nights in succession. ”

“ It remained for the other Turkish forces in the field to take the offensive and by a vigorous counter stroke to reap the fruits of his successes. Victories which are not followed up are useless. War without strategy is mere butchery. The position of Plevna, threatening the Russian bridge and communications, was strategically important, but there was no necessity for the Russians to attack the position. On the eastern Hank was an army stronger than Osman's and the fortress of Rustchuk was nearer the bridge than Plevna, but they did not consider it necessary to attack them. ”

“ The tide of fortune had set in in favour of the Moslem, and although a retreat was not as yet whispered of, it was held certain by experts that more men were absolutely required by the Russians in order to continue the campaign.
At this time the name of a hitherto unknown town in the north of Bulgaria was constantly on men's tongues. Until now no one had ever heard of Plevna, which, nevertheless, was destined to be the chief topic of conversation throughout all the civilized world for many months to come. ”

“ During the September attack on Plevna he was continually in the field while daylight lasted, looking out on the slaughter from an eminence within range of the Turkish cannon-fire, and manifestly enduring keen anguish at the spectacle of the losses sustained by his brave, patient troops. Later, during the investment of Plevna, his point of observation was a redoubt on the Radischevo ridge still closer to the Turkish front of fire, and it was thence he witnessed the surrender of Osman's army on the memorable 10th December 1877. ”

“ There had been a terrible loss of men, the ground was covered with dead and wounded, the Peabody rifles in Turkish hands poured out volley after volley so rapidly that it was literally a rain-storm of bullets that fell upon the Russians. The bravest troops in the world could not live in such a storm, and in disorder the late assailants fell back across the undulating ground, over which they had advanced. Schahofskoy's column was completely broken, and though he brought up his reserves and made another attempt, it was evident to all that the capture of Plevna on this side was hopeless. ”

“ As I followed them I met several wounded men dragging themselves slowly and painfully from the front to the hospital at Plevna, and I was able to reduce their sufferings a little, though of course I could not attempt any operations even of the simplest kind. Gradually I became aware of the general disposition of the opposing forces, and found that the Turks, roughly speaking, occupied the arc of a circle south and south-east of Plevna, while the Russian troops were advancing in converging lines upon them with the village of Grivitza evidently as the main object of their attack. ”

“ But the military engineer knows the comparatively slight effect of artillery upon earthworks, and as all the defences of Plevna were simply the earth of which the hills were composed, the Russian fire did little more than dismount some of the Turkish cannon, and keep the men confined to their bomb-proofs, with the exception of those who were working the guns that replied to the assailants. ”

“ According to Russian official statistics, the force brought against Plevna numbered over 90,000 men, composed of 70,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, with 24 siege-guns, 364 field-guns, and 54 horse-guns. The losses were in all 18,216 men: killed, 75 officers and 7,558 men; wounded, 290 officers and 10,658 men. The Turkish strength given in the text is only approximate. The losses have never been stated; Osman Pasha admitted after the surrender that he lost more men on the Lovtcha road and its vicinity than did Skobeleff, who owned to the loss of 160 officers and over 8,000 men. ”

“ To attack the Turkish army of the east would probably necessitate protracted siege operations; while if Osman Pasha were defeated, it would be easy to reinforce General Gourko, and afterwards advance against Suleiman Pasha's army. Thus it was that the Russian general staff, who were sixty miles away at Tirnova, resolved to attack Plevna, and entrusted the task to Prince Schahoffskoi and General Krüdener. ”

“ The scene of the long-continued struggle is an undulating country, and Plevna, the centre of attack and defence, is in the hollow of a valley running in a northerly and southerly direction. The ground adjacent to this valley was described by one of the war correspondents as consisting of great solid waves with their faces set edgeways to the valley of Plevna. ”

“ The next place of note, Somovit, on the Bulgarian side, is the railhead of another line to the capital. The railway to Sofia passes through Plevna, which stands about twenty-five miles south of Somovit. Plevna was the centre of the most remarkable incident in the latest Russo-Turkish War, when it was defended in stubborn and magnificent fashion by Osman Pasha against a [Pg 283] mighty Russian and Rumanian army. Twice in July, 1877, did the enemy unsuccessfully attack the town. In September (7-13) they made a grand assault, and were repulsed with a loss of eighteen thousand men. ”

“ The deep ravines which break up the country and for the most part converge on Plevna rendered the lateral communication of the attacking force very difficult, so that the tactical contact, which is so important to the success of a combined attack on two points, was scarcely possible. It was easy to see that the ground was difficult for the movements of cavalry and guns; and the maize, vineyards, and scrub combined to prevent the rapid movement even of infantry. ”

“ So skilfully had outworks been thrown up on the north-east of Plevna that what looked like an unimportant trench was found to be a new and formidable redoubt, which foiled the utmost efforts of the 3rd Roumanian division to struggle up the steep slopes on that side. To their 4th division and to a Russian brigade fell an equally hard task, that of advancing from the east against the two Grivitza redoubts which had defied all assaults. The Turks showed their usual constancy, despite the heavy and prolonged bombardment which preluded the attack here and all along the lines. ”

“ From the point of view of strategy--that is, the conduct of the great operations of a campaign--Osman's defence of Plevna yields lessons of equal interest. It affords the most brilliant example in modern warfare of the power of a force strongly intrenched in a favourable position to "contain," that is, to hold or hold back, a greater force of the enemy. Other examples are the Austrian defence of Mantua in 1796-97, which hindered the young Bonaparte's invasion of the Hapsburg States; Bazaine's defence of Metz in 1870; and Sir George White's defence of Ladysmith against the Boers. ”

“ Around Richmond and Petersburg alone the development of field works was far greater than Wellington's celebrated lines at Torres Vedras. In all future wars, when large armies are opposed to each other, it is probable that field works will play even a more important part than in the past. The great advantage of such works, since the introduction of the deadly breech loading rifles and machine guns, was shown at Plevna, where the Russians were almost annihilated in attempting to capture the Turkish intrenchments. ”

“ The Russian soldiers charged gallantly but foolishly upon a literal wall of fire, for there is no man steadier in a trench than the fatalist. In some years, when the quick-firing rifle is perfected, there will be no such thing as carrying a breastwork at the point of the bayonet, for no man will live to stand up within forty yards of the position held. Even at Plevna, against an imperfect rifle in the hands of a half-trained, badly fed, poorly-accoutred soldier, the slaughter was terrible, and the result small. ”

“ In the fortification of the future the defender will no longer be "enclosed in the toils imposed by the engineer" with the inevitable disabilities they entail, while the besieger enjoys the advantage of free mobility. Plevna has killed the castellated fortress. With free communications the full results attainable by fortress artillery intelligently used, will at length come to be realised. ”

“ It's astonishing, isn't it, with what jealous care poor humanity looks after number one, even though life be at a discount, as it was during the siege of Plevna, when one morning Conigsby and myself sallied forth in opposite directions in quest of material for our respective papers? Each in turn, though separated by some miles, found himself under a withering fire from Turkish rifle pits, and later on each found himself hastening for the kindly protection of the same advanced Russian earthworks. ”

“ They went against three permanently fortified places, the antediluvian little Matchin which if I remember right blew itself up; the crumbling Nicopolis which surrendered after one day's fighting; and Rustchuk which held out till the end of the war. They would not look at Silistria, ruined, but strong in heroic memories; they avoided Rasgrad, Schumla, and the Black Sea fortresses; Sophia, Philippopolis, and Adrianople made no resistance. The earthworks of Plevna, vicious as they were in many characteristics, they found impregnable. ”

“ Armed with a brush and paste-pot, I turned bill-sticker, and affixed a notice on some twenty house doors which were showing the ambulance flag. Anything more dismal than that deserted town, abandoned by all but dying and helpless men and some 400 starving Bulgarian families, cannot be imagined. Desolate, dead, God-forsaken Plevna during the night of the 9th and 10th of December was no more like the thriving and pretty Plevna of July than the decaying corpse of an old hag is like the living body of a blooming girl. ”

“ Then at the moment when the artillery fire was compelled to cease, owing to the near approach of our infantry, the crafty sharp-shooters crawled out of their nooks and crannies and used their rifles with deadly precision and rapidity.
On this point—the general ineffectiveness of artillery fire when the enemy possesses good cover—the history of modern warfare repeats itself. The Russian bombardments of Plevna were quite futile, and General Todleben acknowledged that it sometimes required a whole day's shell fire to kill a single Turkish soldier. ”

“ If they had been allowed to advance one hundred and twenty yards from their redoubt on the pretence of burying the bodies, they would surmount the crest of the hill, and would be able to see into Plevna, besides securing most valuable observations as to the position of the various defences. Hence his polite reply.
The Russian officers were overwhelmed of course with admiration for the generous proposal made by Tewfik Pasha, but were desolated at [254] their inability to accept it. ”