the militia was called out, amounting to one hundred and eighty thousand men; they were to replace the losses already suffered in battle and to be ready to replace others which might afterwards occur. The Prince of Roumania was called upon to put his army in the field, which consisted of thirty-two thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and eighty-four guns. It was now the moment for the Turks to strike a vigorous blow, but the three commanders, Mehemet Ali, Suleiman, and Osman, were all independent of each other, and were directed by means of telegraphic despatches by a War Council sitting at Constantinople. The best plan would have been for Suleiman to have united himself with Mehemet Ali, gathering up the garrisons of Shumla and Varna on his way. They would then have been able to attack the Russian left wing with one hundred and twenty-five thousand men and compelled them to release their hold of the Shipka Pass. Suleiman, however, determined instead to attack the Shipka Pass directly in front, and in this he was supported by the War Council in the capital. He began this attack on August 20, and continued it for about four months, with the sole result that he sacrificed the best parts of his army.

It seemed at the beginning as if his attack were likely to succeed. On August 23 the Russian positions in the pass were nearly surrounded by the Turks. The struggle continued during the whole day, with seven thousand five hundred Russians against twenty-eight thousand Turks. In the afternoon the position of the Russians became most critical, their artillery ammunition was exhausted, and their losses were enormous. If the Turks could have established themselves in the rear of the Rus

sians and cut off their one line of communication, a disastrous retreat or possibly a surrender was inevitable. But reinforcements came up just at the critical moment and the Turks were driven back. On the following days further assistance arrived and the Turks were compelled to retreat still further; so after five days of nearly uninterrupted fighting both sides were much in the same position as they were at the beginning. For three days less than eight thousand Russians and Bulgarians had held the army of Suleiman in check, their only food being the biscuits which they had in their pockets when they began. The heat was intense and the nearest spring was three or four miles in the rear. When the firing slackened they lay down on the ground and obtained a little sleep, but, as the moon was full, the night brought no cessation of the firing. Reinforcements arrived just as the men had reached the extreme limit of human endurance.

Mehemet Ali, after some preliminary skirmishing, attacked the army of the Tsarevitch on the left wing and drove it back from the Lom to the Yantra. He then suddenly stopped, and a few days later, towards the end of September, returned to his former position. The Tsarevitch had under his command about forty thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and two hundred guns; Mehemet Ali, about fifty thousand infantry, sixty guns and a certain number of cavalry. In fifteen days Mehemet Ali drove the Russians back with a loss of between three and four thousand men. He then should have concentrated his forces, which now amounted in all to sixty thou sand, and have delivered a decisive battle in the neighbourhood of Biela. But apparently he had no such

design in view; possibly from the incompetence of his officers. On September 28, however, he attacked the Russian position near Cerkovico, but was entirely defeated, and was compelled to retreat along his whole line, so that at the end of his offensive movement he had lost more men than the enemy and had not diverted a single Russian soldier either from Plevna or from Shipka. On October 2 he was superseded and Suleiman Pasha put in his place.

CHAPTER LXIX.

PLEVNA.

THE chief attention of the Russians was naturally directed towards Plevna, in which neighbourhood, at the end of August, they had assembled about one hundred and five thousand men. As no more Russian troops could be expected before the end of September and as the season was advancing the Grand Duke determined to attack at once. He was, however, anticipated by Osman, who on August 31 attacked him with about twenty-five thousand men. This sortie had no result except the sacrifice of one thousand Russians and three hundred Turks, so that the Grand Duke went on with his original design, his object being first to capture Lootcha, and then to close round Plevna with one hundred thousand men. Lootcha is about twenty miles from Plevna, and might be regarded as the extended right flank of the Turkish position. The attack took place on September 3, under the command of Skobeleff on the left and Dubovolsky on the right. The battle lasted the whole day, and the main redoubt, the most important feature in the position, was not captured till 7 P.M., at which time the bodies of dead and wounded, Russians and Turks, lay piled up in a mass six feet deep around its approach.

The Russians could now give their undivided attention to Plevna, having in the field 74,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, 24 siege guns, 364 field guns,

and 54 horse artillery, to which Osman could oppose a force of 56,000 men, together with 2,500 cavalry and 80 guns. Plevna is a little town of about 7,000 inhabitants, lying in a hollow surrounded by hills of moderate height. It is the meeting-place of the roads leading to Widdin, Sophia, Shipka, Biela, Zimnitza, and Nicopolis, and therefore could not be neglected with safety by an invading army. Osman had occupied his time by carefully fortifying the town, and at the beginning of September it was protected by eighteen redoubts and several lines of trenches, the Grivitza redoubt being the key of the position in the north, and the Kischni redoubt in the south. The Russian attack was made on September 6, the redoubts were bombarded till September 11, when a general assault was ordered. The result of this third battle of Plevna, as it may be called, was a terrible and murderous repulse, the Russian losses amounting to eighteen thousand men. It was a great disaster for the Russian army, but, as the sequel will show, was not irreparable; the cause of it was, probably, a lack of unity in the command of the army.

It was now determined to make no more assaults upon the works of Plevna, but to proceed to a regular investment. For this purpose the famous General Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol, was summoned from St. Petersburg, arriving at Plevna on September 28. The investment was completed by the end of October, being effected chiefly by the energy and skill of General Gourko, who after the hardly fought battle of Gorni Dubnik drove back the Turks into the entrenchments, Osman Pasha being prevented by simultaneous attacks from coming to the assistance of his countrymen.

During these autumn months the war was raging