and the Bulgarians, had been called | tended in this manner from the shores out; and as every Turk is trained to of the Euxine to the frontiers of Austria, arms, an accomplished horseman, and and, having its communications stretchskilled in the use of firearms, they ing from the Pruth to Widdin, over a formed, though not regularly disci- distance of above five hundred miles, plined, a very formidable force, espe- exposed, in any offensive movement, its cially in desultory warfare, and for the flank, in a most hazardous manner, to defence of walled cities. It was calcu- the Ottoman forces, comparatively conlated that, with the aid of these rude centrated, and resting on the fortified but brave and effective auxiliaries, the towns, which gave them the command Turkish force in Schumla might, if of both banks of the Danube. As long the barrier of the Danube was forced, as the latter were in possession of the be raised to a hundred thousand men. triangle of which Silistria and RoudIn Asia Minor, where the Mussulman schuck formed the base, and Schumla population constituted three-fourths the apex, the Muscovites not only of the entire inhabitants, and the re- could not, without extreme hazard, ligious spirit was at its height, the venture to push across the Balkan, preparations, so far as numbers were either by the shores of the Black Sea concerned, were still more formidable; or the great road by Sophia to Beland it was expected that the com- grade, but they were exposed to great mander-in-chief, the Pacha of Erze- risk from the power which the enemy roum, could collect a hundred thou- possessed of making an inroad from sand men round his banners--a force their fortified posts on the Danube triple any which Paskewitch could into the very middle of their long line bring against him. But they were of communications. It was impossible the old feudal militia of the country, that every point of this line could be with a very slender intermixture of equally guarded; and if broken through regular troops; and though most for- at any one point by twenty or thirty midable in the defence of fortresses, or thousand men, the whole supplies of in detached cavalry actions, could not the army would be interrupted, and be trusted to move under fire in the its most advanced corps exposed to open field, and were liable to disperse total ruin. This is the secret of the on any serious reverse. paralysis communicated to the whole 34. By the Russian plan of the cam-Russian army, eighty thousand strong, paign, General Roth with the sixth corps was to occupy the two principalities, and extend his troops to the upper Danube; while the seventh corps, under the orders of the Grand-duke Michael, was to undertake the siege of Brahilov, and having reduced it, to push on to Schumla; and Roudzewitch, with the third corps, should pass the Danube at Isaktchi, and move along the Black Sea to Varna, lending a hand at the same time to the seventh corps, which had advanced to Schumla. But this plan of operations, which was analogous to all those which the Russians had adopted in former wars, was open to very serious difficulties, owing to the peculiar conformation of the country, and the nature of the positions which the Turks occupied in it. Whoever will cast his eyes on the map will perceive that the Muscovite army ex by the defeat of inconsiderable bodies of men at Oltenitza and Kalafat in the campaign of 1853. These defeats endangered their whole line of communication, and arrested the march of entire corps, some hundred miles in advance, from the risk of being separated from their supplies and reserves. 35. To avoid this danger, of which the experience of former wars had made them well aware, the Russian generals, in the present campaign, resolved to push at once from Brahilov and Silistria on Varna and Schumla, by which means their columns, instead of being échelonnés across the Turkish forces in a long line, would come up in front, one behind another, in a comparatively short one, so as to be able to give mutual support in case of danger. This plan was of course based on the command of the sea—a matter of 36. The Emperor of Russia set out from St Petersburg for the seat of war on the 7th May, and arrived on the 20th before Brahilov, situated on the left bank of the Danube, the approaches to which were conducted by the Grandduke Michael in person. But the for great importance in all wars in mari- | Intersected, as that to the north of the time districts, but which, in every age, Po is by the Adige, the Piave, and the has been of vital consequence, and gen- Tagliamento, by a series of streams erally decisive, in those of Turkey and with impetuous torrents and rocky Greece. The reason is, that the coun- banks, which descend from the northtries around the Euxine and Egean ern face of the mountains of Hæmus Seas are so desolate and unhealthy in to the Danube, and from its eastern the plains, and so rugged and inhospi- shoulder to the Black Sea, it presents table in the mountains, that the pas- a succession of defensible positions of sage of troops by land is attended with which a retiring army can avail itself, great loss of life, and the bringing up and of which the Ottomans made good of supplies a matter of extreme diffi-use in the two campaigns which folculty, often impossibility; while, on lowed. the other hand, the ocean, penetrating every part, forms an interior line of communication, readily traversed in every direction, and affording to whoever has the command of it the means of transporting troops and the muniments of war in a few days to the most distant parts of the empire. The bat-midable nature of the place, and the tle of Navarino, however, had given the Russians this immense advantage, and their dispositions soon showed that they were aware of its importance, and resolved to make the most of it in the operations which followed.* Yet was the country to which the war was in a manner confined, between the direct road from Roudschuck to Schumla and the sea, one presenting great difficulties to an invading army. The mouldering rampart of Trajan still ran, like the wall of Antoninus in Scotland, across the narrow neck of land which led from Rassova on the Danube to Kustendji on the Euxine; and when it was passed, the country between the river and the Balkan presented very great difficulties to an invading force. * "Il est un cas dans lequel il est peut-être convenable de dévier de ce que nous venons de dire, et de porter ses opérations du côté de la iner: c'est lorsqu'on a affaire à un adversaire peu redoutable en campagne, et qu'étant maître décidé de cette mer, on pourrait s'approvisionner aisément de ce côté, tandis qu'il serait difficile de le faire dans l'intérieur des terres. Quoiqu'il soit fort rare de voir ces trois conditions réunies, ce fut néanmoins ce qui arriva dans la guerre de Turquie en 1828 et 1829. Toute l'attention fut fixée sur Varna et Bourgas, en se bornant á observer Schumla-système qu'on n'eût pas pu suivre en face d'une armée Européenne, fors même qu'on eût tenu la mer sans s'ex poser à une ruine probable."-JOMINI, L'Art de la Guerre, i. 165. VOL. III. difficulties in getting up the siege equipage, owing to great floods in the river, having rendered it apparent that little progress could be made in the siege for some time, he resolved to push forward in person the operations for the passage of the Danube. But there a fresh difficulty presented itself. The place where the passage was to be attempted at Satunovo, towards the mouth of the river, was low and' swampy, and a dike required to be driven a considerable distance through the inundation before the stream could be approached. The Emperor had been led to believe, from the information transmitted to St Petersburg, that the piles for the bridge and its approaches were already fixed. On arriving at the spot he found that the wood for them. had not yet been cut down in the forests of Bessarabia. Finding that nothing could be done there for some time, he withdrew to Bender, where he spent two weeks with the Empress; and the preparations having at length been brought into a state of forwardness, he returned to the banks of the Danube on the 8th June. The third corps was to force the passage, which was opposed by eight thousand Turks, with a powerful artillery, resting on the fort of Isaktchi. The Emperor established a battery of twenty-four twelve-pounders B on the bank, which vigorously replied | been rapidly made, on the 20th the garto the Turkish guns; and under cover rison, having exhausted all its means of this fire eight battalions were em- of defence, capitulated on condition of barked, and hurried across. The boats the men being conducted to Pravadi. grounded far from the opposite bank, The Russians found on the ramparts and the men, leaping out, found them- thirty-six pieces of artillery; and, what selves up to the knees in water, through was of much more importance, they bewhich they had to wade under a fire of came masters of a fortified harbour on grape for a considerable distance, and the Euxine, where supplies could be then through deep swamps, before they landed with facility from the sea. The reached firm ground. Protected by the importance of this acquisition appearfire of the gunboats, however, which ed the very next day in the arrival of kept up a vigorous cannonade, the twenty-six ships laden with provisions brave Muscovites pushed forward, and and stores from Odessa. Meanwhile the Turks, abandoning their guns, fled their plan of campaign received a severe in disorder. Isaktchi was immediately check on the Upper Danube. There surrendered, a tête-du-pont construct- General Roth was to force the passage el, and the bridge having been laid of the river at Oltenitza, and blockade across, the passage commenced and Silistria with part of his corps; but was continued during the following the Turks having established themday without further interruption. selves in force opposite him at TurtuCount Nesselrode published from Is-kai, the operation failed. aktchi an address to the inhabitants of the Principalities, in which, disclaiming all projects of territorial aggrandisement, he declared that the wishes of his imperial master were limited to securing to them their legal rights and privileges under the protec-generated from the valour of their antion of Russia.* 38. Meanwhile the siege of Brahilov continued to be prosecuted with vigour; but there the Russians encountered a most sturdy resistance, and were taught that, in the defence of fortified towns at least, their antagonists had not de cestors. This fortress, the most important and strongest on the Lower Danube, is situated close to that river, on a plateau elevated seventy or eighty feet above its level. The Danube, a little way above the town, divides into 37. Rudiger was intrusted with the command of the Russian advanced guard, which moved through the Dobroudscha upon the rampart of Trajan. They encountered only small bodies of the enemy, which skirmished while re-two branches; and the smaller, which tiring, till they came to the fortress of Kustendji, at the extremity of the old rampart next the sea. It held out, however; but the approaches having "Le dessein de sa Majesté n'est pas, et n'a pas jamais été, d'agrandir ses états aux dépens des provinces qui l'avoisinent. Vos doctrines sont donc à l'abri de tout projet de conquête mais l'ordre légal dont vous êtes appelés à jouir; mais les bienfaits d'une administration régulière et stable; mais l'inviolabilité des privilèges que vous possédez, l'éxércice paisible des droits qui en découlent, le bonheur, enfin, de votre terre natale, sous l'égide des lois qui doivent la gouverner,— tels sont et seront toujours les objets des vœux que l'Empereur formera pour vous; tels seront aussi, il se plait à le croire, les résultats de la Protection qu'il ne cessera d'exercer sur les deux Principautés, et de l'administration provisoire qu'il vient d'y établir."-Réponse de M. le Comte Nesselrode à l'Adresse du Divan de Walachie, 12 June, 1828; Annuaire Historique, xi. 378, 379. flows past its walls, is only four hundred yards broad. The other and larger branch passes the little fort of Matchin, rather more than a league distant. The place itself had no outworks, and none of the outer salient angles which in Vauban's system expose each face to a raking fire from the adjoining one. It has a rampart, however, thirty feet high, and nine bastions, with a deep wet ditch in front: the covered-way is narrow, but it terminates in a glacis, which forbade any access to the place except by regular approaches. The citadel is situated on an eminence on the right bank, and commands the whole interior. It is surrounded by a strong bastioned wall, but has no casemates or protection against shells other than the rude excavations behind the rampart, in which the Turks are in use to deposit their ammunition and combustible materials. The interior of the town bore no likeness to a modern city; it resembled rather the description which Montesquieu has given of ancient Rome. It had no regular streets, but passages cut for the entrance of cattle, booty, and provisions, through a confused mass of wooden houses or mud cottages. But in these hovels dwelt thirty thousand inhabitants, of whom ten thousand were capable of bearing arms; and these, joined to a garrison of nearly equal strength, constituted a most formidable body of defenders, whose resolution the Russians were too fatally taught in the siege which followed. stood ready to rush forward when the last had exploded. 40. A breach of forty paces wide was formed by the third explosion, and the Russian columns, before the smoke had cleared away, and when the fragments were still falling, rushed forward to the assault, the generals and chief officers at their head. One column, however, missed its way, and got into the ditch at a point where the rampart was entire, owing to the failure of the second mine, and where it was exposed to a plunging fire from its summit, which occasioned a very severe loss. The other came right on the breach, and a few hundreds succeeded in reaching the summit, but they were immediately mowed down 39. The first Russian troops ap- by the deadly fire which issued from peared before this formidable fortress the Turkish musketeers, retrenched on the 11th May, when they made behind the breach and posted on the themselves masters, with scarce any tops of the houses. Several bold men resistance, of the suburbs. Opera- on the right and left, indeed, succeeded tions in form, however, did not be- in making their way in by escalade, gin till the 17th, when the first and mounted on each others' shoulders, parallel was opened. The trenches by the embrasures of the guns; but were armed with 24-pounders on the they were instantly bayoneted on the 25th, and a heavy fire commenced on top, or struck down by the murderous the place. The Mussulmans, accord-fire which assailed them on all sides. ing to their usual custom, gave them-In vain the Grand-duke Michael, who selves very little trouble to disturb the directed the assault, and the officers advances of the besiegers, which were who headed it, exerted themselves to generally conducted in the night; the utmost to encourage the troops, they amused themselves with firing and repeatedly led them back to the at single figures at a distance, as if attack. All their efforts were vain, to evince their skill in ball-practice. all their assaults repulsed and at Their whole serious care was devoted length, gnashing their teeth with to preparing a warm reception for the vexation, the Russians withdrew on all enemy when he should venture to sides, having, by their own admission, mount the breach. Their isolated three thousand killed and wounded shots were so well directed, that they around the breach. Soliman, the govstruck down daily fifteen or twenty ernor of the town, had made good his men in the besiegers' lines. Several words when summoned to surrender : sorties at daybreak were also attempt- "Should the rampart be destroyed, ed, but with little success, though the we will make a second living one with vehemence of the besieged was evinced our bodies. by their issuing forth with a pistol in ach hand, and a poniard in their teeth. Meanwhile the besiegers continued their advances with great vigour, and several mines having been run under the walls, three great globes of compression were ordered to be fired at nine in the morning of the 15th June, while the assaulting columns-VALENTINI, 239. a 41. Nothing discouraged by this * Such was the spirit of the besieged, that boy of twelve years of age, who was made prisoner on the breach, when his younger brother, a boy of ten, had just been killed, having been brought before the Grand-duke Michael, and asked whether he did not lament for him?-did he not die upon the breach ?" his brother, he replied, "Why should I weep still predominant in them, and that they took this method of revenging themselves on their oppressors. Meanwhile the Seraskier, Hussein Pacha, having collected twenty-two thousand men in Schumla, an advanced guard of eight thousand horse, under the orders of the celebrated Karadjeinem (Black Devil), advanced towards the Russian army on the road to Bazardjik. Jussuf Pacha, a great feudatory in Macedonia, was thrown into Varna with ten thousand men, and the garrison of Silistria augmented to nine thousand. A reserve began to be col bloody repulse, the Russians on the following day sprang a fresh mine, which opened a still wider breach than the preceding; and the troops having been disposed for an assault, the brave governor, who did not feel himself in sufficient strength to resist a second attack, proposed to capitulate, provided he was not relieved in ten days. The Grand-duke, however, would grant only a respite of twenty-four hours; at the end of which time, as no relief approached, he surrendered. He obtained the most honourable terms, the troops marching out with the honours of war, and being conducted to Silis-lected at Adrianople, to succour any tria with their arms and field-pieces. The Russians found two hundred and seventy guns on the ramparts, and seventeen thousand pounds of powder, besides immense stores of wood and provisions in the magazine, which entirely subsisted the army for a month. There can be no doubt that the place made a noble defence, and that the governor was deserving of every commendation for his conduct in directing it; nevertheless, by the Mussulman customs, which do not distinguish between misconduct and misfortune, he 43. The Euxine is the interior line incurred the penalty of death by con- of communication to the Turkish emsenting to a surrender. "Soliman,' pire; the party who has the command said the Grand Vizier, "has done well; of it enjoys the inappreciable advanbut he should not have survived the tage of being able to direct his forces fall of Brahilov." In effect, the bow- at pleasure in a few days to any place string was sent him; and it was with on its margin, while the enemy, toiling the utmost difficulty, and at the ear-round its rugged or inhospitable shores, nest solicitation of the Russian general, that he was saved from death as the reward of his devotion. The Russian loss in the siege amounted to 122 officers and 2251 men killed, besides the sick and wounded. 42. The Russian besieging force, after the fall of Brahilov, was directed upon Bazardjik, where it joined the third corps; while several columns were sent out who soon overran the whole level country between the Danube and the sea, as far as the rampart of Trajan. The fortresses of the district, Hirchova, Toultcha, and Matchin, capitulated at the first summons; the rapidity with which they lowered their colours begat the suspicion that the old janizary party was point in the line which might be menaced; while the Sultan himself, with the standard of the Prophet unfurled, was making the utmost efforts to organise and forward reinforcements from the capital. The system of defence adopted, and the orders issued to the generals, were to take advantage of every defensible position, and harass the enemy in all possible ways, but avoid general actions, and in the fortified towns to defend themselves to the last extremity. This with scarce any roads practicable for |