SKOBELEFF.

Evening Star, Issue 6038, 19 July 1882, Page 4

SKOBELEFF.

HY ARCHIBALD FORIJES. It was in "the early summer of 77. A month had passed since I seen that amnlcoureur of active hostilities, Schahofskoy's advance guard Cossack, ride his shambling pony up the main street of Galatz, and pushing on through the swamp, annex the bridge of Babosck at the point of that long lance of his. Ever since that afternoon the main tide of the Russian march on the Danube had been flowing steadily on through Roumania from tho willows that Hue tho margin of tho sluggish Fruth. Already shells had whistled across the great River of Separation, from Braila, from Oltcnitza, and fro .n Giurgevo. Already the Lufti Djelil, sitting there on the water, trim, taut, and jaunty, behind the tall alders in the bend of the river between Matchin and Braila, had, with an appalling swiftness, blackened the air with the smoke of her explosion, and strewn the surface of the Panube with shattered fragments of crew and ship. Emperor Alexander had his headquarters in Ploesti, eighty miles behind Bucharest. And Bucharest herself—that Paris of the East—was in a delirium of wild pleasure, accentuated by the clank of martial accoutrements, the clatter of the sword scabbards, and the tramp of the cohorts that poured through her streets. Bucharest was a ballroom, wherein Venus, Bacchus, and Mars were dancing the cancan in a frantic orgie. Princes, grand dukes, countesses without their counts, diplomats, orderlies, and Polish J«ws jostled one another politely on tho broad stain\'is.-> of the lfotfd Brofit In tho garden restaurant attached to that hostelrie, aides-de-camp from the Russian head quarters stall' were piling up the dead soldiers of the puissant " Miimm " regiment, scornfully glancing, as they drank, on the group of swarthy slender officers of the Roumanian Guard, who had not yet redeemed their repute in the carnage around the great Grivitza Redoubt. At a little table in the corner, Macgahan, the "Cossack war correspondent," the hero of that wonderful lonely ride through the great desert of Central Asia that had earned for him by the unanimous voice, of the Russian army the title of " molodyetz," or " brave fellow," sat quietly gossiping with Ids colleague, myself, who hud only a few days before made his personal acquaintance. Macgahan's theme was a young Russian general named Skobeleff, a man of whom until then I had barely heard. But Macgahan knew Skobeleff to the backbone, and thus early predicted that as he had been the hero of the K hi van campaign, so he would prove himself the hero of the struggle on a larger scale, whose shadow was now luridly slanting athwart the broad current of the Danube. Skobeleff was a colonel, and barely thirty years old, when Macgahan was his comrade in Central Asia. Kaufmann had reached Khiva, and was training his cannon on its ramparts and preparing for an assault in force, when suddenly on the ramparts above the closed gate which he was threatening, appeared up against the sky line tho tall figure of Colonel Skobeleff. With a handful of Cossacks, he had quietly ridden round to the rear gate, carried it after a flicker of resistance, taken tho town by surprise, and was now beckoning to Kaufmann to limber up his batteries and countermand the detachments told off for the assault of the place that had already been won. Of another exploit performed by Skobeleff Macgahan told me as we chatted. Of the five Russian columns which had set out across the desert from different points with intent to reach Khiva, only four had made good their destination. MarkosofFs column had not yet arrived, when tho time approached for Kaufmann to evacuate Khiva. It could not be left to its fate ; it was necessary to ascertain whether, thwarted by adverse conditions, it had turned back, or whether it was struggling on through the hordes of Turkomans that infested the region through which lay its lino of route. For this hazardous emprise, Skobelelfvolunteered. He took his life in his hand. With three friendly Tuikomans, he himself disguised as a Turkoman, he rode out into the desert on his perilous task of exploration. Ten days passed, and he returned not; he was given up for lost; and Kaufmann, unable to tarry longer, made his preparations for departure. The day before Kaufmann's evacuation, SkobeleiF reappeared alone, and on foot, half dead. He had lost his companions and his horses; he had ran the gauntlet of the marauding Turkomans time after time ; but he had accomplished the task he had undertaken. He had struck the point at which Markosofl' had been forced to turn back, and so bad set Ids whereabouts at rest. After Khiva (continued Macgahan) SkobelelPs career had been singularly brilliant. Kaufmann had given him, now a major-general—-the youngest in the Russian service—the command of a force intended to operate against the Khanate of Khokand. That country, with a population of some 2,000,000, he had conquered and annexed, and of it so conquered ho had been appointed governor. In the course of his two years' administration there the enemies whom a young, energetic, and thorough man is always sure to make had aer-used him to the Emperor of malpractices. The accusati■;■:! was that he had stolen a few millions of roubles, more or less. lie was superseded, and with contumely, if not disgrace. With the vouchers to disprove the charge, he had hurried to St. Petersburg, to find the Emperor already departed for the army at Kisehencff. Waiting until the official auditors had gone through his accounts and had cleared him of the charges of peculation, he had hurried after the Emperor and begged for an audience. But this was denied. Sko-' belcffs enemies had gained the ear of the Czar. But Skobeleff was too good a man to be left out altogether in the cold when hard fighting was in the air. To his father (General Skobeleff, senior) had been assigned the com- j mand the command of a division of irregular

cavalry, consisting of Cossacks, with the task of covering tho advance and overrunning the low region of Roumania, adjacent to the Danube. Skobeleff the younger was temporarily appointed chief of staff to his father, with a s.>rt of open commission to risk ins Ufa proUy much where he pleased, and a tacit understanding that he L-.hould be free to show the way in any b r: ;-v.u,,c- adventure that he might contrive or hear of. As Macgahan chatted, I chanced to notice two men ent.i Lb.; garden-restaurant in which we :;at. The two were arm-in-arm. Oih wax dressed in tho uniform of a private of Cossack:---a small, slight, swarthy man; his companion, dressed in white, wore the insignia of a general officii - . The curious spectacle uf a private and '> general arm-in-arm struck me, and I called Macgahan's attention to it. lie sprang to his feet in an instant, with the exclamation "It is Skobeleff himself!'' and, running across the garden, greeted his friend, or rather his two friends. Let me dispose first of the Cossack private. He was Prince Tserteleff. He had been secretary to Ignatieff when that diplomat was Russian Ambassador at Constantinople. Finding his diplomatic avoca- I tion gone, panting for action, yet knowing nothing of war, he had taken service as a private in a Cossack regiment, and Skobeleff had found him and annexed him as his orderly. Tserteleff afterwards found the hill track through the llankoi Pass by which Gourko penetrated beyond the Balkans in his summor raid ; later ho helped Ignatieff to draw up the treaty of San Stefano ; and I read only tho other day that ho had been consigned to a private' mad-house, hopelessly insane. I looked at Skobeleff with all my eyes, aa ho stood on the garden walk, his fine face glowing with pleasure as he returned the greeting of his old friend. I thought then, as 1 have never ceased to think, that I never looked on a finer man. Six feet high, straight as a pine, tho head carried high with a gallant dr.bonnair fearlessness, square across the shoulders, deep in the chest, slender of waist, clean of flank, the muscular, graceful, supplo figure set off to perfection by the white frockcoat with tho decorations and gold lace on it, Skobeleff, with his high frank bearing, looked a genial king of men. Presently ho came and sat with us, and I was introduced to him. As we talked I looked into his face, partly because 1 was curious, partly because he fascinated me, so that I could not help myself. Except Macgahan himself, I never knew a man so winning. No wonder that soldiers, friends, and women loved him. It Mas impossible to know him, to have him smile on you, and not to love him. As I write I see before mo—alas, that I shall never see them again in life!—that lofty forehead shaded with the chestnut curls, the clear, frank, manly blue eyes that met yours so staunchly; tho long straight decisive nose, the kind of nose Napoleon said he looked for among his officers when he wanted to find a general ; the beautiful mouth, with its wonderful mobility of expression; tho well-turned compact chin with tho deep dirnplo in its centre. At this time he wore only whiskers and moustache—later in the campaign a silky chestnut beard flowed over his broad chest. I could not fancy this man a foreigner, who sat by me talking in purest idiomatic English, of common English friends; he looked to me like an English country gentleman of the best type —such a man aa Miss Braddon has depicted as Lady Audley's husband. It seemed to me that this young man—he was then t.cant thirty-five—-had been everywhere, seen everything, and read everything. He was familiar with episodes of my own professional career; he had carried a flying rdconnaismncefromKhokand over the Pamir steppes, round Lake Victoria, and right into the flanks of tho Hindoo Koosh; he quoted Balzac and Harney's " Operations of War " ; he had no belief in tho first favorite for the approaching Derby ; he thought Madame Chaumont very chic ; and he imparted the information that the upper fords of the Oxus were dangerous because of quicksands. We dined together, and after dinner went into the musicsaloon, when Skobeleff, to his own pianoforte accompaniment, sang songs in French, German, Russian, Kirghiz, Italian, English, and wound up with "Auld Lang Syne" in tindeniable vernacular. He impressed me with the belief that he wa9 out of sight the most muscular thinker of any Russian I had met, and that altogether he was a Muscovite—or rather, indeed, a cosmopolitan—"Admirable Crichton." He had but an evening's leave from his father's headquarters at Giurgevo, on the Danube. Next day I went down with him, and in his society had a few days of about the riskiest fun that the most venturesomo man could desire. His amusement for the time was laying torpedoes in the Danube to close in the Turkish flotilla over the way at Rustchuk. Skobeleff had, as it seemed to me, a positive joy in drawing the enemy's fire, and went back to Vieailvjuaxters happy if lie had teased the Turks into expending half-a-dozen shells in blazing at his little cockle shell of a steam launch. By-and-by came the general move of the Russian army corps down on the Danube, in preparation for the crossing. The whereabouts of that operation was a dead secret, and we correspondents were straggling around the convexity of the bend between Simnitza and Turnu Magarclle in the blankest bewilderment. The night but one before the enterprise, I met Skobeleff in the town of Alexandria, behind Turnu Magarclle. I thought as I saw him that hero surely was a gleam of light on the path that was so dark to inc. But he would not give me so much as a hint. "Haven't the faintest idea!" was his answer when I asked him where I should head for; and he bolted from my embarrassing question to assist a lady out of her caleche with a sedulous leisurely grace that was characteristic, in the midst of a Avhirl of bustle and excitement as he was, By good fortune I got such a hint as to tho point chosen for the crossing as enabled me to be down among tne willows on the Danube shore, just as DragomirofFs first pontoon was launched into the swirling water. Through the gloom of the night I saw a man in a white coat jump on to the pontoon, and then cams the command, in a voice I knew well, for the nearest soldiers —the voice called them " brothers," in that pleasant, familiar, Russian fashion—to get aboard. " All right, little father ! " was the response; and so set out tho first boat on its voyage across the great river to the Turkish bank. Skobeleff was the first man to spring ashore en that bank ; and when I reached it, an hour later, he and Dragomiroff were standing up iu the grey dawn under the straggling tire from the Turks above, while boat-load after boat-load of reinforcements landed, to lie down among the slime and wait till the party should bo strong enough for action. When that time c;ime—and already ere it came the slime was the moister because of the blood that had drained on it—it was the chief in the white coat, it was Skobeleff, who gave the command, and that command was characteristic. It was—" Get up,, brothers, and follow me." AH that hot morning Skobeleff waa being followed for the simple reason that he was always leading. After I had rocrossed to the Roumanian bank I could see through my glass the white coat heading the dashes of the darkcoated Rusaian skirmishers as they pressed higher and higher through the straggling trees that stud the slope up to where, outside the high-perched town of Sistova, tho steadfast Turkish gunners were plying their shell fire on the Russian masses crowded on tho flat shore below Simnitza, and on the loaded pontoons that were toiling across the current. In tho summer season the Russian troops march and camp in white clothing, but they always pxrt on their bine uniform coats to fight in. They '' dress " for the fray; and there is another reason. The Russian ambulance service is not very alert, and there is an even chance that wounded men may lie all night before being removed. Tho lilue coats are warmer than the white canvas blouses for men in this plight. One of Skobeleff s singularities—and he had many—was that he always went into action in a white coat. His explanation was characteristic of the man. " It is that my fellows can see where I am, and know therefore whither to follow." The day after the river had boon forced, the Emperor crossed the Danube to risit and congratulate the troops who had performed the exploit. In front of the long massive line drawn up on the crest of the slope stood the men, awaiting the Czar's arrival Generals Dragomiroff, who commanded the division that had crossed first ; Yolchine, the- chief of the brigade of that division that had been first over; and Skobe-

leif, who had shown the way to all and sundry. The Emperor embraced DrogomirofF in the Russian fashion, and gave him the Cross oi St. licorge; he shook hands cordially with Yolehine; and when he camo to Skobeleffhe frowned, turned on hiß heel, and strode away, without a word or gesture of notice. A" man of strong prejudices, the Czar had still the poison in his mind of the calumnies that had blackened SkobeloA's character to him. Skobeloif bowed, flushed, then turned pale, and Bet his teeth hard. It was a il;\gr;mt insult, in the very face of the army, and a gross injustice ; but Skobelclf took it in a proud silence that seemed to me very grand. Nor did I ever after hear him mention the slur. It was not long ere he couUl afford to be magnanimous. This despite was done him on the 28th of June. On the 3rd of September Skobeleff led the successful assault on the Turkish positions at Loftoha, and drove his adversaries out of that position. On the following night at his own dinner table in the Imperial marquee, at the Gorni Studon head-quarters, the Emperor stood up and called on his guests to pledge him to the toast of "Skobeleff, the hero of Loftcha !" It is not given to many men to have a revenge so full and so grand as this. On tho afternoon of the crossing I had to ride back some distance with my despatch describing it. On the way I met General Skobeleff, sen., at the head of the Cossack division, marching down on Simnitza. I stopped the old gentleman and told him of the prowess of his gallant son. Ho was moved to tears, got solemnly off his horse, approached me, threw both arms round my neck, and kissed me on both cheeks. He always wore a huge diamond ring on the thumb cf his right hand; and I remember how the said ring scratched the back of my neck in the performance of this interesting operation. As soon as Skobeleff, sen., reached Simnitza, his son zealously urged upon him that he should swim his whole division of Cossacks across the Danube. The old man refused. He would think of such a thing, said he, if there were no other means of crossing; but to-morrow the bridge would be ready, and what was the use of a bridge, if not to cross by? The son was very angry at the parental resistance. His contention was that Cossacks were fit to go anywhere, and that their attributes should bo developed in this direction, irrespective of common-sense. So he set out to swim the river—about a mile and a-half wide—with his own henchman, a wild Kirghiz, who never left him in the thickest of the light, and who was always getting llesh wounds—and with his own personal escort of three men. Skobeleff swam his first charger, a noble Turkoman horse which he had brought from Central Asia. He and the Kirghiz got safely across ; the bodies of the three men of the escort were found two days later on an island about three miles below, and were buried there. It was generally considered that the result proved that in this affair the father showed more sound sense than the son. But then the father had made his career. After this for a time I lost sight of Skobeleff. I went east with the army of the Lorn, and never knew what he was doing meanwhile. Hearing of the intention that Scbahofskoy and Krudener should make an attempt to dislodge Osman Pasha from Plevna, I left the Lorn and crossed Bulgaria with intent to join the former and see what was to be seen. On July 29 we were in bivouac at Poradim, waiting for the word to assail Plevna—a word that came the following night, and that meant death to many a gallant man. After sundown there galloped in among us a man in a mighty hurry. It was Skobeleff, who had got permission from the Grand Duke Nicholas to take a hand in the work that had so sorry an outcome. Skobeleff had got permission to take command of a brigade of Caucasian Cossacks that had belonged to his father's division, and that had been watching Loftcha, a town held by the Turks to the south of Plevna, and of a couple of battalions of infantry that had been supporting that brigade. His instructions were vaguely to cover with this little force the region and roads between Loftcha and Plevna, so as to hinder supports being sent from the former to the latter place ; and, in the event of Osman being expelled from the latter place, to impede his retreat on the former. He came to Poradim on his way from Tirnova tu juin tliirj little command that had been given him, to report to Schahofskoy, and «isk him whether, as his superior officer, he had any detailed instructions to impart. Schahofskoy, who was a gruff bear, and hated Skobeleff because of his enterprising nature, would have nothing to say to him, and didn't even ask him to supper. Skobeleff took the rebuff with characteristic equanimity. "I'll have all the more freedom to do a stroke of independent business on my own account," he cheerfully observed to me, as he took a drink from my'flask—l hadn't eaten myself that day, and had no food to offer him'—and he galloped off into the darkness, with his faithful Kirghiz behind him, Schahofskoy's men could not get into Pleyna on our Bide—the south—any more than could Krudener's on the north side. After carrying the first Turkish redoubt, they were brought to a stand, and not being the kind of men to go back, they stood there gazing into the face of death, poor fellows, till 8,000 of them littered that long gentlysloping natural glacis that the Turkish rifle lire swept with such workmanlike steadiness. Ever between the blue-coated column of them out in the open, and those spires and minarets on which sparkled the afternoon sun, heaved upward into the calm blue sky the white bulwark of smoke from the rifle lire of Osman Pasha's Moslems. But all of a sudden thero was a rapture in that white bulwark, and a bicker of musketry away in the rear of it, about the mouth of a gully that debouched on the little Plevna plain, far away on the left of the Radishova heights, which was Schahofskoy's initial position. What could this mean ? It seemed a diversion, but who or what was carrying it out? None of Schahofskoy's force had been detached for such a purpose ; that force was all down in front of us, dying there with stolid inactive courage. Yet the devilry went on right in the Turkish rear, till the turmoil of the din seemed actually inside Plevna itself! Then smoke began to rise from a house that had been fired right on the edge of the town under the near shadow of one of the minarets. Gradually the firing fell back toward the mouth of the gully. The assailants, whoever they were, had been thwarted and forced to retreat. And who, think you, were these same assailants that ! seemed to us with Schahofskoy as if they had dropped from the clouds? Skobeleff and part of his petty force of two battalions ! Yes, he had thrust down the Loftchia road, past the spot where later stood the Kri3hine redoubts, in the vain effort to hold which he shed .blood so profusely in September, and had made an audacious dash right for the town of Plevna itself. Ido not speak on Skobeleff s own authority, for I never talked over this day in detail with him ; but it was reported with seeming authenticity in the Russian army that on the evening of this disastrous day he was actually inside the town of Plovna for ten minutes, and had expected to hold his position had support from Schahofskoy been possible. Authoritative information on this point is available, curiously, in Melbourne alone, of all English-speaking communities. Dr Charles Ryan, who was in the town at the time, must know whether this was actually so, or whether Skobeleff was able to push his singularly daring attempt only up to the immediate exterior of the place. Be this as it may, he extricated himself from his critical position with singular address. He lost indeed half his infantry command, but he so utilised what was left of it, and his brigade of Cossack irregulars, as to cover the shattered debris of Schahofskoy's force from a flanking attack that would have annihilated it, and enable its remnants to rally into something like cohesion at Poradim on the following morning. (To be continued,)