A GREAT RUSSIAN GENERAL

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4319, 30 March 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

A GREAT RUSSIAN GENERAL

FIELD-MARSHAL GOUDKO. This famous Russian soldier, whose death was recently announced at the age of 73. was essentially a general of one campaign, for although he was as a young man in the Crimea he got no nearer the lighting than the camp at llelbek, twelve miles from Sevastopol. Of Lithuanian origin, Joseph Vassilieviteh Gourko was born in 1828 of a family that became more Russian than the Russians, was educated as an imperial page, and in due course became an ensign in the Hussars of the Body Guard m 1846. The war of 18.1 t-G brought him no opportunity for distinction, but ho was promoted to captain in 1857, and adjutant to the Emperor three years later. That honour brought liim the rank of colonel in 1861. In 1866 ho was given the command of the 4th Hussars of Mariupol, and the next year he teas promoted to major-general, and to he a member of the imperial' suite. Favour followed favour; for in a very short time he was appointed Commander of the Grenadier Regiment of Guards, • and in 1873 the command of the Ist Brigade, 2nd Division of ’ the Cavalry of the Guard, fell to- him. In the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, he, by this time lieutenant-gen-eral, was given charge of the advance guard after the crossing of the Danube, consisting of 8000 infantry, 4000 cavalry, eighteen field! and fourteen mountain guns. The march, began July 3, and he reached the neighbourhood of Tirnova, a city of 50,000 people on the 6th. The next day made a reconnaisance, and with only 1400 men and’ six guns he drove out the Turks with a loss of two men. The ensuing four days he spent in collecting information, and on 'the 13th he crossed the northern Balkans by a bridle path, and easily beat some Turkish • detachments. After various •succesful small affairs he attacked the Shipka Pass and w-as repulsed, but the Turks evacuated the -splendid position and left it in Gourko’s hands on the 19th. -

The pass was fortified and the Russians continued to hold it against all Suleiman Pasha’s efforts to retake it. These operations marked out Gourko as a coming man of the first order. He now returned to Russia to bring up his own men, and when they had arrived he was ordered to Plevna and given command of all the cavalry on the west of the Vid, and soon of the Ist and 2nd Infantry divisions and the Cavalry divisions of the Guard on the west of the invested camp. He had fourty-four battalions, 102 field-guns, eighty-six squadrons, and forty-eight horse guns, or 35,000 infantry, 10,000,000 cavalry, and 150 guns. On 'October 21 he attacked Gorni-Dubnik, and after being badly beaten at various points in the early part of the day, he ordered an attack simultaneously at three p.m., with, to use his own words, “a sinking heart,” when he found the united attack was not coming off. Bui his troops won their way until nightfall, and then rushed the Turkish redoubts, but had twenty-four officers and 811 men killed, and 100 officers and 2384 men wounded. The possession of this point gave him a firm footing between Plevna and Sofia. On the 28th he took Telis, and by October 31 had completely isolated Plevna. He ordered an attack of the outposts on Nov. 2, but the Turks did not wait for it, and fell back on the main works. As the Russians had troops to spare, Gourko now set out for Sofia, and, deceiving the Turks by false demonstrations of impossible attacks, drew them off, and, by immense work, got his guns up on ridges that were equali to the Turkish positions

But he had not enough men to attack until Plevna fell. Then he got 65.000 infantry, but with the thermometer at 3deg Fain - , what onuld he do with them? The Turks had 37,000 men and forty guns all entrenched, and Gourko with the Guard and the till Corps, by Jan. 1 had conquered all the physical difficulties. Then the Turns recognised that they must go, and they lost no time in going, so Gourko, with a loss of three generals, twenty-nine other officers, and 1003 men, won Jus way over the great pass to the valley of Tashkessen, and so on to the Bulgarian capital. It was a. tremendous feat of war, but if the Turks had only stood Gourko would, probably have lost 30.000 men. As it was, the Turks lost 8,000,000 rations, 4,000,000 cartridges, and great store of forage. After five days’ rest at Sofia Gourko begaii his march on Philoppopolis. The operations here were well planned, and led f a nothing very serious in the way of. fight, ing, for, in a number of engagements, resulting in the destruction or dispersal of Suleiman Pasha’s army of 54,0'JQ men, Gourko only lost forty-one officers and 1200 men. Adrianople, though admirably fortified, fell without a blow, av.-l in the advance on Constantinople! Goudco and the Guard held the western post so as to be used against either Const antinopl© or Gallipoli. On Jail. 31 Gourko moved, and that night. th 4 armistice was signed which led to the “Peace” of San Stefano on March 3, and the Treaty, of Berlin in the following July. Soon after the war Gourko was made an adjutant-general, a Knight if St. Georg© of the 2nd class, and a cqunt. Ho also became Governor-General of Poland. There has been no more terrible' governor since the partition, and no. more severe one is likely to follow him.