THE SIEGE OF PLEVNA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXII, 2 June 1900, Page 1040

THE SIEGE OF PLEVNA.

The heroic defence of Plevna is thus recorded by the “Daily Mail": — The early victories won by the Czar’s battalions in .lune and July, 1877, found Osman Pasha —then a little known man in occupation of the fortress of Widdin with 40,000 of the best troops of Turkey and ninety guns. But as soon as Osman learnt that the invading: army of the Grand Duke Nicholas had crossed the Danube he wheeled his army inland iinti , on July 17, the village of Plevna was reached. His trained eye at once detected that this was a place to be defended. On July 18 the Grand Duke wired General Krudener to “ocfcupy Plevna as promptly as possible.” They reckoned without Osman. General Schildner-Schuldner, sent forward by Krudener according to the Grand Duke’s orders, found Os-man in possession of Plevna, and already partially entrenched. Yet SchildnerScliuldner, with (>5OO men, was foolish enough to throw himself against the Turk's 40,000. This attack- the first battle of Plevna —signally failed, the Russian losing- two-thirds of his (force and most of his baggage. It was the first reverse sustained by the invaders, and they could not understand it. They estimated the Turkish losses in this battle at 4000. but one writer places it at 200. Worse followed. The Grand Duke could not be made to believe that the enemy was in serious force at Plevna. So ten days later he ordered Krudener to hurl his thirty thousand against Osman's 40.000. Of course, the inevitable happened. The Russians' lost 169 officers and 7136 men, a. single regiment having 75 per cent, of its number killed and -wounded. It was seen that the crux of the Russo Turkish war would be Plevna. After July 30 came a six- weeks’ pause. The investment of Plevna by an army which, by September 6. numbered 1)5.000 followed. The siege operations were directed by the veteran Todleben. the hero of Sebastopol who. though he had 150 guns, declared Plevna “impregnable.” For meanwhile the battle of September 11. 1877. had won for Osman the proud title of Ghazi—“The Victorious.”

The Czar in person witnessed the rout of his bravest battalions. In the right attack 6000 victims were swept to destruction before those bloodstained redoubts. On the left Skobel off won a partial but wholly useless success. In the final assault of this, the most sanguinary conflict of the whole war, the Turks attacked with only 5500 men. instead of 11,000, so distressing had been their losses,. “There were,” writes one who saw it, “walls and parapets of dead bodies, erected by the Russians to close the rear entrance of the works. There were piles of corpses and maimed men. There were brooks and rivers of blood." As the outcome of twentyeight hours’ fighting the Russian losses exceeded 20,000! Nevertheless, bv October the Turks began to be hungry. Inside Plevna, including non-combatants, 45,000 mouths had to be fed. The soldiers’ clothes dropped off and could not be replaced. By mid-October snow set in, adding fearfully to the garrison’s sufferings. and the mortality from disease became awful. Yet the Turks behaved with heroic fortitude. November arrived, slill in snow and sleet and frost. “The Plevna camp, twenty-five square miles in area, was a vast cemetery,” says one historian. Two alleged “attempts” to relieve the umonquered fortress failed lamentably. Osman found himself left to his fate by a grateful Sultan. On December 1 he conferred with his divisional brigade and regimental commanders on the subieet of a sortie. The Ghazi was in favour of it. though knowing well how small the chances. lie could now place in line rot n-ore thin 25,000 unwounded men, to which the Russo-Rouma.nians could oppose 100.000 men and 482 guns. Small hone for the Turks. But infinite was their faith in Osman. December 10. 1877. dawned eold. foggy and snowy. For the sortie every individual of the “lost children” received a rifle, down to the buglers and non-combatants. Each was given 130 cartridges, and each battalion received a reserve stock of 180.000 cartridges. The wheels, of gun carriages find tumbrils were muffled with straw to deaden sound, and the wounded were placed in ox carts. The long train that accompanied Osman’s noble

hearts out of Plevna counted eightyeight guns, 1100 bullock carts and 5000 pack horses and mules. The regimental standards were destroyed ere moving out. Osman commanded in person, with Tahir Pasha as second. Their aim was to cross the Vid and retreat over the Balkans to Sofia. A little maize porridge is not the best of rations on which to fight a great battle. Still the Turkish ranks presented a magnificent appearance as they moved out of Plevna to cross the Vid by three bridges. Then it was that Osman Ghazi, sword and pistol tn nan«, tn person led the great bayonet charge of his first division. To them were opposed the picked men of Ganetzky’s Grenadiers, but so irresistible was the onslaught that their fine troops were overborne and scattered to the winds. Three lines of trenches were successfully pierced; twelve guns and many prisoners were taken. The Turks charged in a compact mass of 14,000 bayonets, and for the. moment naught could resist their onslaughts. But the reaction was at hand. The wild hysteria of this last attempt was passing into the exhaustion of splendid failure. The Muscovites rallied to their guns. Heavy masses or men were moved up to Todleben, and as the devoted Turks struggled to keep the alignment, shells crashed into their disordered ranks at close range. Osman was struck in the leg by a fragment of one of these grim messengers, and immediately disabled. One who saw Osman Pasha as he lay wounded in a sorry hut. says: — “The terrible expression on his tortured features haunted me long afterwards.” To add to his misery, aides came pouring (from every quarter of the stricken field asking -for “help” As a matter of fact, the Russians were already in Plevna, having discovered overnight' that the eastern fortifications had been abandoned. About 8000 of both sides—men., women and children—had fallen ere the wounded Ghazi would consent to the white flag being displayed. Message after message reached him. imploring him to give in. but for many a wavering minute he refused to pass the word. At last the white symbol was hoisted on the roof of the hut. around which the shells were screaming and

bullets whistling thick as hail. It was hoped that General Ganetzky, who was there in nominal command, would consent to a conditional surrender, but the Russian, knowing that he held the enemy in the hollow of his nana, was implacable, and the end of the brief negotiation was that the word for “unconditional surrender” had to be passed. And so fell the unassailable, un scaleable fortress, of Plevna, “after a defence which had lasted 143 days, which embraced four great battles, twenty-five minor actions and numerous skirmishes; which involved a cost in life and limb of close on 100,000 human being’s, and which, to quote the Czar Alexander IL. ‘is one of the finest things done in military history.’ ”