Sizepolis, a stronghold situated on a | Wittgenstein retired in February, with rock projecting into the Black Sea, a the thanks of the Emperor for "his little to the south of the Bay of Bour-distinguished services in the career of gas, at the eastern end of the Balkan. glory, and for those which he had renIt yielded in a few hours to the simple dered in the preceding winter, by orcannonade of some Russian vessels of ganising the army in such a manner war, the garrison, consisting of one as to insure victory in the succeeding thousand Albanians, having evacuated campaign.' Diebitch, in an order of the place. The Russians immediately the day, at the same time, in announclanded, took possession of the fort, and ing his taking the command, expressed strengthened its works, too happy to himself in flattering terms to his rebecome so easily masters of a little spectable predecessor," whose advanced Gibraltar on the sea-coast, within the years deprived him of the pleasure of vaunted line of the Balkan. again combating the enemy; but nothing is impossible to the Russian warriors, when they combat for their faith, their honour, and their country."

114. The success of Wittgenstein in the preceding campaign against the Turks in Europe had not been such as to justify his being retained in the command. He was allowed to retire accordingly, a step rested on his age and infirmities; and he received for his successor COUNT DIEBITCH, the chief of his staff, whose great abilities and success in the succeeding campaign fully justified the Emperor's choice.*

115. The decisive superiority of the Russians at sea, both in the Mediterranean and the Euxine, gave them a at the battle of Dresden, where he had a horse shot under him; and distinguished himself so much at the battle of Leipsic, that he was by the Emperor Alexander in person on the promoted to the rank of lieutentant-general field of battle. In the campaign of 1814, when the memorable conference took place to consider whether the Allies should advance to Paris, when Napoleon moved on Arcis-surAube, he was one of those who most strenuously supported the advance to the French capital which led to such important results. Arrived on the heights of Montmartre, Alexander publicly embraced him, and decorated him with the order of St Alexander Newski. After the peace of 1814 he returned to St

* Like so many of the generals in the Russian service, Diebitch is a foreigner. He was born on 13th May 1785, at Grossleippe, in Prussian Silesia, of an ancient family, and received his military education at the school of cadets in Berlin. In 1805, at the age of twenty, he entered the Russian service as ensign in the grenadier guards, where his talents and courage attracted the notice of the Emperor Alexander. He was engaged in the bat-Petersburg, where he married a niece of Bartle of Austerlitz, and, being wounded in the right hand, he did not leave the field, but took his sword in his left, for which he was rewarded by a sabre of honour from the Czar. He signalised himself also at the battles of Eylau and Friedland, for his conduct on which occasions he received a company, and was decorated by the orders of St George of Russia and of Merit in Prussia. After the peace of Tilsit, he profited by his leisure to study the military art, especially strategy, in which he soon made such progress as procured for him a situation on the staff. In the war of 1812 he was attached to Wittgenstein's corps, and distinguished himself on the 18th October in the defence of a bridge, which, preserved from destruction an entire corps, and won for him the rank of major-general. In the retreat he followed the Prussian general D'York with eighteen hundred horse, and by his prudent conduct contributed much to the important defection of that general with his corps, which ensued. In 1813 he was made chief of the staff to Wittgenstein, then in command of the grand allied army, a situation of the very highest importance; and he was one of those who conducted the secret treaty of Reichenbach, concluded on 14th June 1813 between the allied powers. He evinced great talents I

clay de Tolly, and was soon after summoned to the Congress of Vienna, and appointed chief of the staff of the first army. After this he became so great a favourite with Alexander that he accompanied him on all his travels, and attended his deathbed at Taganrog in 1825. He was, from his devotion to the imperial family, singled out for the peculiar vengeance of the conspirators at that time, and was to have been carried off or despatched with the Emperor and Grand-duke. On occasion of the revolt of the guards at St Petersburg, he exhibited a rare combination of talent and prudence; and he was despatched afterwards to Moscow, to attend the remains of the Emperor Alexander to St Petersburg. When the war broke out in 1828, he was appointed chief of the staff to Wittgenstein's army; and in February 1829 to succeed him in the chief command. His strategetical talents were very great, and have won for him a lasting place in European fame; and his coolness and courage were à toute epreuve. But his disposition was warm, and his temper irritable, which sometimes led him into excesses; and in the end, as will appear in the sequel, occasioned his death in the prime of life.-See Biographie Universelle, Supplément, lxii. 470, 471 (DIEBITCH).

very great advantage, which threatened | three thousand men were left in charge of the passes leading from Varna and Pravadí across the mountains. They were aware, however, of the value of Sizepolis, and fitted out an expedition to recover it. By a sudden assault at

ceeded in breaking into the fort, and surprising part of the garrison. But a portion of it rallied with such vigour that the Turks in their turn were ex

to starve Constantinople itself into an early submission, and deprived the Turks of all possibility of transporting their troops or magazines by water; a difficulty of the very greatest magnitude in a country so destitute of prac-daybreak on the 9th April, they sucticable roads as Turkey, both in Europe and Asia. Admiral Greig, with nine sail of the line, five frigates, and twentyeight corvettes, carrying 1556 guns, blockaded the Bosphorus; while Ad-pelled from the works, with the loss miral Hamelin, with eight sail of the of two hundred and fifty. Encouraged line, seven frigates, and seventeen cor- by this success, the garrison of Sizepovettes, shut in the Dardanelles. The lis made an attack on Antiochia, which Turks and Egyptians, whose marine was repulsed with equal loss; but the had been totally ruined by the battle Russians, notwithstanding, maintained of Navarino, had no force capable of themselves in the former important meeting these fleets; the whole ships post, which they held till the end of remaining in the harbour of Constan- the campaign. Irritated beyond entinople in the spring of 1829 were four durance by the establishment of a Mussail of the line, two frigates, and six covite post within twenty-five leagues corvettes; and the Egyptain fleet, con- of the capital, the Sultan ordered the sisting of one ship of the line, six fri- Turkish fleet, consisting of four ships gates, and nine corvettes, was cut off of the line, five frigates, and a few corfrom them by the blockade of the Dar-vettes, to issue from the Bosphorus and danelles, and rendered no service what- endeavour to retake it. They fell in ever during the campaign. Thus the with a Russian frigate, the Raphael, entire command of the sea, with all its of forty-five guns, which they took, inestimable consequences, fell to the and brought back in triumph to ConRussians during the whole remainder stantinople. The unwonted spectacle of a naval triumph excited the utmost 116. The Russian plan of the cam- enthusiasm in the capital, which was inpaign, based on the possession of Var-creased a few days after by the arrival, na and the command of the Black Sea, during the suspension of the blockade, was to besiege Silistria and blockade of a valuable convoy of wheat from Schumla, and having made themselves | Natolia, for the use of its inhabitants. masters of the former place, to push But these transports were of short duacross the Balkan by the eastern_val- ration; for, having ventured upon a leys between the latter fortress and the second sortie a few days after, Admiral sea. The fort of Sizepolis was of great Greig met them with his squadron of value in this view, as it was a strong-eight line-of-battle ships, forced them hold within the Balkan range, and by means of its harbour enabled the Russians to communicate with their fleet in the Black Sea, and receive supplies from Galatz and Odessa. The Turkish generals, impressed with the importance of Schumla in all preceding campaigns, were persuaded that it would be of equal value in the one which was approaching, and used all their efforts to concentrate as large a force as possible within its walls. They thus stripped the eastern defiles of the Balkan of nearly all its defenders; and only

of the war.

to retire within the Bosphorus, and reestablished the blockade on that side, which was continued till the conclusion of the war.

117. The violence of the equinoctial gales and storms, and the floods of the Danube, rendered it impossible to commence the campaign till the begining of May, by which time the forces were fully brought up on both sides ; it then began in good earnest, and soon became of great importance. The Russians on their side advanced in two huge columns to the Danube, which

they began to pass at Hirchova and Ka- | with their brave commander, General lavatsch, immediately below Silistria. Rynden. The four remaining Russian The passage was completed in imposing battalions seemed lost; and so they style on the 10th, and the right column would have been, if it had been posapproached that fortress, the siege of sible to keep the Turks better in hand. which was the first object of the cam- But, intoxicated by their success, they paign. A warm action of cavalry en- dispersed to plunder and behead the sued on the 17th, which ended in the slain, and this gave a breathing-time Turks being driven under the cannon to the battalions in rear, who retreated of the place, and the investment to a rising ground, where they sucwas commenced, General Kreutz being ceeded in maintaining themselves till stationed at Koargu with seven thou- General Kouprianoff, with part of the sand men, to cover the siege and keep garrison of Pravadi, came up, and by a up the communication of the forces flank movement, which threatened to under General Roth, near Varna, with cut them off from Schumla, obliged those which were directed against them to retire. In this desperate afSilistria. Redschid Pacha, who had fair the loss on both sides was nearly recently been called from Greece to equal, amounting to about two thouthe important station of Grand Vizier, sand men to each party, and each had had collected forty thousand men in some standards to exhibit, wrested Schumla; and he resolved to commence from their antagonists in fair fight; the campaign by an attack on Pravadi, but the Russians, upon the whole, preparatory to an attempt to regain justly claimed the advantage, as they Varna. He issued, accordingly, with had succeeded in maintaining the ten thousand foot and five thousand position of Eski-Arnautlar, and comhorse to commence operations; but be- pelling their opponents to withdraw. fore assailing that place it was deemed expedient to attack a post the Russians had established and fortified with redoubts at Eski - Arnautlar, three miles east of Pravadi, where six battalions were posted under General Roth in person.

118. The attack was commenced by the Turkish troops with great resolution, and such success that victory appeared certain, when they were assailed in flank by General Wachter, who came up with three thousand foot and eight hundred Cossacks from the side of Dewno, thrown into confusion, and driven back towards Pravadi. But the Grand Vizier on his side also had summoned up reinforcements from Schumla; and they met the victorious Russians as they were pursuing the Turks from Eski-Arnautlar. Instantly three thousand Ottoman horse, in splendid condition, having as yet experienced none of the fatigues of the campaign, threw themselves, with loud cries, on two Russian battalions which headed the pursuit. The Muscovites were assailed before they had time to form square; the rush was irresistible, and they were almost all cut to pieces,

119. On the same day on which these bloody conflicts took place between Schumla and Pravadi, the investment of Silistria was effected. This town, which is situated on the right bank of the Danube, near the commencement of its delta, contained, in 1829, twenty-nine thousand inhabitants, of whom nearly six thousand were enrolled among the armed defenders of the place. It is imperfectly fortified, and is commanded by some heights on the outside, especially to the south-west. There are ten fronts, each of which has an extremely long curtain and two small bastions, which give a flanking fire to the ditch. The scarp and counterscarp have scarcely a perpendicular of fifteen feet, but the former is surmounted by a hurdle parapet, with a strong row of palisades rising above its crest on the inner side. There is a low and very imperfect glacis, but no covered-way or outworks, excepting three exterior redoubts on the land side and two towards the river, which cover the vessels anchored under the walls. Such had been the supineness of the Turks during the winter, that they had made

siege of Silistria, and probably lead to its abandonment, Redschid Pacha issued from Schumla on the 28th May, at the head of forty thousand men, and, directing his steps across the hills, he reached the rugged and narrow valley in which Pravadi stands, and

no attempt to demolish or injure the approaches made by the Russians during the preceding campaign, so that when they returned on this occasion they marched into the old works and trenches as if they had only evacuated them on the preceding day. It may readily be conceived how this marvel-established himself in front of the lous negligence on the part of the Ottomans facilitated the operations of the next siege. The besieging force under Diebitch was twenty-seven thousand strong, and Kreutz was at the head of a covering army of seven thousand at Koargu in advance towards Schumla. The garrison, exclusive of the armed inhabitants, was nearly ten thousand, commanded by Achmet Pacha, a man of determined resolution and tried ability.

western works of that place on the 1st June. General Roth reinforced the garrison by two battalions, and retired with the bulk of his forces, about ten thousand strong, to Koslodschi, twenty miles to the northward, despatching at the same time an officer with the intelligence to Diebitch. This officer had orders to ride as for life and death; and with such fidelity did he execute his mission that he reached the headquarters of the general-in-chief, a distance of eighty miles, in twelve hours, without changing his horse.

121. Diebitch no sooner heard of this movement of the Grand Vizier against Pravadi, than he conceived, and instantly carried into execution, the brilliant stroke which decided the campaign, and has deservedly given him a very high place in the archives of military fame. This was, to break up with the bulk of the covering army from the neighbourhood of Silistria, and to move direct by forced marches, not on the Grand Vizier's force in front of Pravadi, but on his line of communication with Schumla. this means he would compel the Turks either to abandon the latter fortress entirely to its feeble garrison, in which case it could make no defence, or to fight their way back to it through the Russian army-a contingency more likely than any other to lead to decis

By

120. Diebitch prosecuted the siege of this fortress with the utmost vigour, while a powerful flotilla, issuing from the upper part of the river, cut the besieged off from all communication by water on the west. His approaches were at first directed chiefly against a hornwork which the Turks had constructed on the margin of the stream, and the east front to which it was attached. Afterwards this line of attack was changed to the south front, but the besieged made a vigorous resistance. Recourse was of necessity had to the tedious processes of sap and mine; and the inundations of the Danube rendered the progress of both during the first week of the siege extremely slow. This circumstance, joined to the checkered success which had attended the Ottoman arms in the combats of the 17th at Eski-Arnautlar, induced the Grand Vizier to conceive a grand plan, which might, if successive success, as the Turkish troops, ful, be attended with decisive effects upon the issue of the campaign. This was nothing less than to move out of Schumla, with nearly the whole troops assembled there, against Pravadi, where only three thousand men were left in garrison, who, it was thought, might with ease be overcome by the superior force brought against them. Impressed with this project, which he hoped would effectually divert the enemy's attention from the

however zealous and brave, had not yet acquired the consistency requisite to enable them to perform complicated movements under fire in the open field. This decision was no sooner formed by the Russian general than it was acted upon; and on the 5th June, accordingly, he set out from the shores of the Danube at the head of fifteen thousand men, leaving General Krasowsky to continue the siege of Silistria, with twelve thousand. On the 7th he