PLEVNA (1877)
An English boy as Turkish Lieutenant--A mêlée--Wounded by a
horseman--Takes letter to Russian camp--The Czar watches the
guns--Skobeleff’s charge--The great Todleben arrives--Skobeleff
deals with cowards--Pasting labels--The last sortie--Osman
surrenders--Prisoners in the snow--Bukarest ladies very kind.
After Turkey had put down the insurrection in Bulgaria (1876) and had
beaten Servia (October, 1876), Russia made her tenth attempt to seize
Constantinople. The Czar, Alexander II., declared war against the
Sultan, Abdul Hamid II., and the result was a war which in cruelty and
horrors has had no equal since the first Napoleon retired to St. Helena.
There were a few young Englishmen fighting on the side of the Turks,
one of whom, Lieutenant Herbert, has left us a full account of the
siege of Plevna. He says in his preface:
“I have witnessed much that was heroic, much that was grand,
soul-stirring, sublime, but infinitely more of what was hideous and
terrible. If you have too firm a belief in the glories of soldiering,
try a war.”
Herbert was soon made Mulazim, or Lieutenant, and his friend Jack
Seymour was in the same company. The first successes of the Russians
were checked when Osman Pasha stood at bay at Plevna, and the Turks
literally dug themselves into the hills around the city, while the
Russians lost thousands of men in vain assaults upon the earthworks.
It was in the second battle of Plevna that a Bimbashi, or Major, came
up to Herbert and said:
“The General has sent for reinforcements. Take your company; an
orderly will show the way. Do your best, Mulazim. You are but a boy,
in a position which might unnerve a man twice your age. Rise to the
occasion, as Englishmen are wont to do. The soldiers love you. You and
your compatriot have but to lead, and they will follow. Remember the
Czar Nicholas’ furious cry in the Crimean War: ‘We have been beaten by
a handful of savages led by British boys!’”
As they climbed to a distant hill they suddenly overlooked a
battle-field of twenty square miles in area--terrible to see, terrible
to hear. The thunder of 240 guns seemed like the crash of so many
volcanoes; the earth trembled like a living thing. It was like standing
in the centre of a raging fire. Presently the Russian troops drew near.
The Turks began a quick fire of three minutes’ duration. Deep gaps
showed in their lines, but they were soon filled up, and still they
drew nearer. The Russian “Hurrah!” and the wild Turkish cry of “Allah!”
mingled together. Now there were only 100 paces between the charging
lines, the Russians coming up hill, the Turks rushing down. Then came
a chaos of stabbing, clubbing, hacking, shouting, cursing men: knots
of two or three on the ground, clinging to each other in a deadlier
Rugby football; butt-ends of rifles rising and falling like the cranks
of many engines; horses charging into solid bodies of men; frantic
faces streaming with blood. All the mad-houses of the world might be
discharging their contents into this seething caldron of human passion.
“I remember nothing; all I know is that I discharged the six chambers
of my revolver, but at whom I have no notion; that my sabre was stained
with blood, but with whose I cannot tell; that suddenly we looked at
one another in blank surprise, for the Russians had gone, save those
left on the ground, and we were among friends, all frantic, breathless,
perspiring, many bleeding, the lines broken, all of us jabbering,
laughing, dancing about like maniacs. Fifteen minutes after the first
charge the Russians returned. Of this charge I remember one item too
well. A giant on a big horse--a Colonel, I think--galloped up to me
and dealt me a terrific blow from above. I parried as well as I could,
but his sword cut across my upturned face, across nose and chin, where
the mark is visible to this day. I felt the hot blood trickle down my
throat. He passed on. Sergeant Bakal, my friend and counsellor, spoke
to me, pointing to my face. Jack said something in a compassionate
voice. I fainted. When I came to myself, my head had been bandaged, the
nose plastered all over. Water was given me. How grateful I was for
that delicious drink! Then I was supported by friends to the outskirts
of Plevna. As we went along I noticed a Russian Lieutenant who, after
creeping along for a space, had sat down by the side of the track,
leaning against the belly of a dead horse. He was calmly awaiting death
in awful forsakenness. He counted barely twenty summers, poor boy! He
looked at me, oh! so wistfully and sadly, with the sweet, divine light
of deliverance shining in his tearful eyes. He said faintly: ‘De l’eau,
monsieur?’
“I had some cold coffee left in my flask, which I got my companion to
pour down his throat. He bowed his poor bruised head gratefully, and we
left him to die. The ground was strewn with haversacks, rifles, swords,
wounded men; riderless horses, neighing vehemently, trotted about in
search of food. These sights were revealed to me by the peaceful,
dying golden light of a summer sunset. Even war, that hell-born product
of the iniquity of monarchs and statesmen, receives its quota of
sunshine.”
A few weeks later Herbert was summoned to the Ferik, or General of
Division, and asked if he could speak French well enough to take a
letter into the Russian camp. He said “Yes,” made himself smart in
new tunic and boots, and flattered himself that his tanned, smooth,
youthful face looked well below the bright red fez with its jaunty
tassel, in spite of his chin being still under repair. A corporal
carrying a white flag and a bugler well mounted rode with him. They
were handsome, strapping fellows, in the highest of spirits. After a
ride of six miles they came in sight of a detachment of Cossacks. A
young Russian Lieutenant rode to meet them, waving his handkerchief.
Herbert stated his business in French, was asked to dismount while
awaiting instructions. The Russians crowded round out of curiosity; the
horses were fed and watered, cigarettes were exchanged, and friendly
talk ensued. In half an hour a horseman rode up, and Herbert was bidden
to mount. His eyes were bandaged, his horse was led. After a sharp
trot of twenty minutes they halted, the handkerchief was taken off,
and he found himself in a battery. An officer came up and took the
letter, then handed Herbert over to an infantry Colonel, who took him
into a small tent. Here, with some other officers, they had a cosy
meal--wine, bread, and soup--a pleasant chat and smiles all round. It
was a fortnight since the last battle, and the Russians were still lost
in admiration of the bravery with which the Turks had defended their
positions.
“Vos hommes, mon camarade, sont des diables. Jamais je n’ai vu pareille
chose.”
That was just a glimpse of the enemy, and proved that, though men may
fight by order, they may yet be friends at heart.
The Czar Alexander had been present, watching the varied issues of
every fight and assault. The sappers had built for him a kind of
outlook on a little hill beyond the line of fire, where he could see
far away on all sides. A large tent was standing behind, supplied with
food and wine, where his suite made merry; but the poor, worn, anxious
Czar could not eat, could not bide in his safe tower, but would go
wandering round among the gunners and the guns. It was his fête-day
when the great September battle was being fought. There he stood alone
on his little balcony, under the lowering sky of an autumn day, gazing
through his glass at the efforts of his soldiers to storm the Gravitza
redoubt. All the afternoon assault had followed assault in vain, and
now the last desperate effort, the forlorn hope, was being pushed to
the front. The pale, drawn face on the balcony was now quivering with
agonized sorrow; the tall figure was bent and bowed, and seemed to
wince under the lash of some destroying angel. With awful losses the
Russian battalions staggered and struggled up the slopes slippery with
their comrades’ blood.
“See, sire, they have entered the redoubt; it is carried at last!”
Hardly has the Czar time to smile and breathe a prayer of gratitude
when from a second redoubt higher up a terrible fire is turned on the
Russians, and they are swept out of the place they had so hardly won.
There was one Russian officer who seemed to have a charmed life. He
was the bravest of the brave, was beloved by his men, and did marvels
of heroic feats--Skobeleff. On a day of battle Skobeleff always wore
a white frock-coat, with all his decorations. Seeing the battalions
coming back from the Gravitza in disorderly route, the tall white
figure on the white horse dashed at full speed down the slope, passed
the linesmen, who gave their loved chief a great cheer as he galloped
by, caught up the riflemen who were advancing in support, and swept
them on at the double. Men sprang to their feet and rapturously cheered
the white-clad leader. He reached the wavering beaten mass, pointed
upwards with his sword, and imparted to daunted hearts some of his own
courage and enthusiasm. They turned with him and tried yet once more.
Then the white horse went down. The glass trembled in the hands of
Alexander.
“He is down!”
“No, sire; he rises--he mounts again! See, they are over and into the
Turkish entrenchments!”
What a medley of sights and sounds--flame and smoke and shouts and
screams! But the Russians were for the present masters of the redoubt.
In the evening Skobeleff rode back without a scratch on him, though his
white coat was covered with blood and froth and mud. His horse--his
last white charger--was shot dead on the edge of the ditch; his blade
was broken off short by the hilt. Every man of his staff was killed or
wounded, except Kuropatkin.
“General Skobeleff,” wrote MacGahan to the _Daily News_, “was in a
fearful state of excitement and fury. His cross of St. George twisted
over his shoulder, his face black with powder and smoke, his eyes
haggard and bloodshot, his voice quite gone. I never saw such a picture
of battle as he presented.”
But a few hours later the General was calm and collected. He said in a
low, quiet voice:
“I have done my best; I could do no more. My detachment is half
destroyed; my regiments no longer exist; I have no officers left. They
sent me no reinforcements. I have lost three guns!”
“Why did they send you no help? Who was to blame?”
“I blame nobody,” said Skobeleff; then solemnly crossing himself, he
added: “It was the will of God--the will of God!”
Skobeleff’s heroism was magnificent, and did much to nerve the common
soldier to face the Turkish batteries; but success came not that way.
Men and officers began to ask one another why the Czar did not send
them the help of the great Todleben, who had defended Sebastopol so
brilliantly. It seems that the Grand Duke Nicholas had nourished a
grudge against Russia’s most eminent engineer, and had kept him out
of all honourable employment. But Alexander had sent for Todleben,
and this was the turn of the tide. Todleben came in such haste from
Russia that he had brought no horses with him. Now he was at last in
the Russian camp--a handsome, tall, dignified man of sixty, straight
and active, and very affable to all. The attack was to be changed. No
more deadly assaults in front, but a complete investment, and wait till
famine steps in to make Osman submit.
But Skobeleff had not yet finished with daring assaults. One day the
“Green Hill,” which the Russians had taken under his command, was being
endangered by Turkish sharp-shooters. Russian recruits who were posted
near had fallen back in a scare, thrown down their rifles, and simply
run like hares. Skobeleff met them in full flight, and in grim humour
shouted: “Good health, my fine fellows--my fine, brave fellows!”
The men halted and gave the customary salute, being very shamefaced
withal.
“You are all noble fellows; perfect heroes you are. I am proud to
command you!”
Silent and confounded, they shambled from one leg to another.
“By the way,” said Skobeleff, still blandly smiling, “I do not see your
rifles!”
The men cast their eyes down and said not a word.
“Where are your rifles, I ask you?” in a sterner tone.
There was a painful silence, which Skobeleff broke with a voice of
thunder. His face changed to an awful frown, his glance made the men
cower.
“So you have thrown away your weapons! You are cowards! You run away
from Turks! You are a disgrace to your country! My God! Right about
face! My children, follow me!”
The General marched them up to the spot where they had left their
rifles, and ordered them to take them up and follow him. Then he led
them out into the space in front of the trench, right in the line
of the Turkish fire, and there he put them through their exercises,
standing with his back to the Turks, while the bullets could be heard
whistling over and around them. Only two of them were hit during this
strange drill. Then he let them go back to their trenches, saying: “The
next time any one of you runs away, he will be shot!”
The investment of Plevna went on relentlessly through October,
November, and part of December. By the 9th almost all their food
was exhausted, and Osman determined to try one last sortie before
surrendering. Herbert had charge of a train of a battalion outside
the town. He made up a fire, saw his men installed for the night, and
then walked to the town. A snowfall was coming down lazily; bivouac
fires lit up the gaunt figures of men and beasts. The men, talking
of to-morrow’s fight in a subdued tone, were yet excited and eager.
Many Turkish residents, with their carts and vehicles, were spending
the night on the snow-covered plain, the men brooding and gloomy, the
veiled women sobbing, the children playing hide-and-seek around the
fires and among the carts. It was a weird sight--all these thousands
eager to go out after the army when the last struggle should have
carved them an open road through the surrounding foe.
At head-quarters an officer met Herbert, and asked him to post some
labels at the ambulance doors of a certain street. He says:
“Armed with a brush and paste-pot, I turned bill-sticker, and affixed
a notice on some twenty house doors which were showing the ambulance
flag. Anything more dismal than that deserted town, abandoned by all
but dying and helpless men and some 400 starving Bulgarian families,
cannot be imagined. Desolate, dead, God-forsaken Plevna during the
night of the 9th and 10th of December was no more like the thriving and
pretty Plevna of July than the decaying corpse of an old hag is like
the living body of a blooming girl. The streets, unlighted and empty,
save for a slouching outcast here and there bent on rapine, echoed to
the metallic ring of my solitary steps; while occasional groans or
curses proceeding from the interior of the ambulances haunted me long
afterwards as sounding unearthly in the dark. Twice I stumbled over
corpses which had been thrust into the gutter as the quickest way of
getting rid of them.
“As I walked I had to shake myself and pinch my flesh, so much like the
phantasy of an ugly dream was the scene to my mind. As I plied my brush
on the door-panels, I felt like one alive in a gigantic graveyard.
“At one of the ambulances I was bidden to enter, and found, by the
feeble light of a reeking oil-lamp, some invalids fighting for a
remnant of half-rotten food which they had just discovered in a
forgotten cupboard. Men without legs, hands, or feet were clutching,
scratching, kicking, struggling for morsels that no respectable dog
or cat would look at twice. I pacified them, and distributed the
unsavoury bits of meat. As I turned to go a man without legs caught
hold of me from his mattress, begging me to carry him to the train
bivouac, that he might follow the army. Happily an attendant turned up,
and I wrenched myself away.”
Herbert was returning by a narrow dark lane when someone sprang upon
him and tore the paste-pot away from him. He had doubtless seen it by
the light of the Lieutenant’s lantern, and thought the vessel contained
food.
He belaboured the fellow’s face with his brush, making it ghastly
white, and setting him off to splutter and croak and swear, and finally
he rammed the bristles hard down his throat. At this moment two other
Bulgarians came up; but, taking time by the forelock, Herbert pasted
their mouths and eyes before they could speak, then shouted out,
“Good-night, gentlemen, and I wish you a very hearty appetite.” He then
turned and ran for all he was worth to the officers’ mess-room. It was
about ten o’clock p.m. when Osman Pasha and his staff rode up, preceded
by a mounted torch-bearer, and escorted by a body of Saloniki cavalry.
When he came out again, the light from the torch fell full upon his
face. His features were drawn and care-worn, the cheeks hollow; there
were deep lines on the forehead, and blue rings under his eyes. Their
expression was one of angry determination. He responded to the salute
with that peculiar nod which was more a frown than a greeting. They all
rose and went after him into the street to see him mount his fine Arab
horse. He and his staff spent that last night in one of the farm-houses
on the western outskirts of Plevna.
After a supper of gruel and bread, Herbert and the others walked in
a body to the train bivouac. The night was intensely dark; a few
snowflakes were flying about; it was freezing a little. They did not
talk, for each was saying to himself, “It is all over with us now.”
Hardly any expected to see the next nightfall.
Herbert and two other Lieutenants slept in a hut by the river’s brink;
they could hear the water murmuring, and every now and then a lump of
ice made music against the piles. A little after five in the morning
he moved on, crossed with the first division the shaky pontoon bridge,
and rejoined his company. Twenty-four crack battalions of the First
Division were marching on to face the ring of Russian guns; the dark
hoods of the great-coats drawn over the fez and pointing upwards gave
an element of grotesqueness to the men. They were marching to certain
death, with hope in their hearts.
In front the Russian entrenchments rose out of the vapours and fog in
threatening silence; once beyond them, and they were free! The country
and military honour called for this supreme sacrifice, and they offered
it full willingly.
At 9.30 a.m. the bugles sounded “Advance,” and the whole line, two
miles long, began to move in one grand column. The Turks went at the
quick, hurling a hail of lead before them. The troops kept repeating
the Arabic phrase, “Bismillah rahmin!” (In the name of the merciful
God!), but the fire became so deadly that they came to a dead-stop. The
men in the front line lay down on their stomachs. After an interval of
ten minutes, the bugles of the First Division sounded “Storm.”
The men jumped to their feet and rushed at the nearest trench. A
murderous discharge of rifle fire greeted them; many bit the dust.
But very soon the Turks had the first trench in their possession, then
a second and third; and before they knew what they were about, they
were in the midst of the Russian guns, hacking, clubbing, stabbing,
shooting, whilst overhead flew countless shells, hissing and leaving a
white trail in their track.
Then they waited for the support of the second line, which never came;
but at noon the Russians came down upon them in force. Herbert was
ordered to ride and report that they could not hold out longer without
reinforcements. He says:
“As I rode towards the centre, I was drawn into the vortex of a most
awful panic--a wild flight for safety to the right bank of the river.
“I had never been in a general retreat. It is far more terrible than
the most desperate encounter. I was simply drawn along in a mad stream
of men, horses, and carts. Officers, their faces streaming with
perspiration in spite of the cold, were trying to restore order; the
train got mixed with the infantry and the batteries, and the confusion
baffles description. My horse slipped into a ditch, and I continued on
foot. I heard that Osman had been wounded and carted across the river;
the pitiless shells followed us even to the other side of the river.
The screams of the women in the carts unnerved many a sturdy man. I
came to a sort of barn, where two Saloniki horsemen stood sentry. Being
dead-beat and hungry to starving-point, I sat down on a stone. Whilst
I crunched a biscuit a cart drove up, and a man badly wounded in the
leg was assisted into the building. So sallow and pain-drawn was his
face that at first I failed to recognize Osman. There were tears in
his eyes--tears of grief and rage rather than of physical pain--and in
their expression lay that awful thought, ‘The game is up, the end is
come,’ which we see in Meissonier’s picture of Napoleon in the retreat
from Waterloo.”
The last sortie from Plevna was witnessed by Skobeleff from the heights
above. The Turkish infantry were deploying with great smartness, taking
advantage of the cover afforded by the ground. The skirmishers were
already out in the open, driving before them the Russian outposts.
Skobeleff was very excited.
“Were there ever more skilful tactics?” he said. “They are born
soldiers, those Turks--already half-way to Ganetzky’s front, hidden
first by the darkness and now by the long bank under which they are
forming in perfect safety. Beautiful indeed! Never was a sortie more
skilfully prepared. How I should like to be in command of it!”
Skobeleff then turned his glass on the Russian defence line. He seldom
swore, but now a torrent of oaths burst from his lips.
“Oh, that ass--that consummate ass--Ganetzky!” he shouted, striking his
thigh with his clenched fist. “What fool’s work! He had his orders;
he was warned of the intended sortie; he might have had any number
of reinforcements. And what preparation has he made? None. He is
confronting Osman’s army with six battalions when he might have had
twenty-four. Mark my words: the Turks will carry our first line with
a rush. We shall retrieve it, but to have lost it for ever so short a
time will be our disgrace for ever.” Then Skobeleff spat angrily and
rode off at a gallop. How true those words were we have seen already.
At 2 p.m. Osman had been obliged to surrender, and shortly after he
met the Russian Grand Duke Nicholas--Osman in a carriage, Nicholas on
horseback. They looked one another long in the face, then Nicholas
offered his hand heartily, and said:
“General, I honour you for your noble defence of Plevna. It has been
among the most splendid examples of skill and heroism in modern
history!”
Osman’s face winced a little--perhaps a twitch of pain crossed it--as,
in spite of his wound, he struggled to his feet and uttered a few
broken words in a low tone. The Russian officers saluted with great
demonstration of respect, and shouts of “Bravo!” rang out again and
again.
Poor victorious Osman! conquered at last by King Famine. He had lived
in a common green tent during the whole period of the investment; his
last night at Plevna was the first he spent under a roof.
Lieutenant Herbert says concerning the surrender: “As the Roumanian
soldiers seized our weapons I became possessed of an uncontrollable
fury. I broke my sword, thrust carbine, revolvers, and ammunition into
the waggon. A private with Semitic features perceived my Circassian
dagger, but I managed to spoil it by breaking the point before handing
it over. Another man annexed my field-glass. I never saw my valise
again, which had been stored on one of the battalion’s carts. I had
saved a portion of my notes and manuscripts by carrying them like a
breast cuirass between uniform and vest. Having given vent to rage, I
fell into the opposite mood, and, sitting down on a stone, I hid my
face in my hands, and abandoned myself to the bitterest half-hour of
reflection I have ever endured.”
Luckily Herbert fell in with a Roumanian Lieutenant whom he knew, who
took him to the Russian camp, and gave him hot grog, bread, and cold
meat. “How we devoured the food!” he says. “We actually licked the mugs
out.”
As they walked away in the dark to their night quarters, they happened
to pass the spot where Herbert’s battalion was encamped, without fires
or tents, in an open, snow-covered field, exposed to the north wind.
Cries of distress and rage greeted them, and they found that the
drunken Russian soldiers were robbing their Turkish prisoners, not
only of watches, money, etc., but also of their biscuits--their only
food.
Herbert stopped for a minute, and gave away all he had left; but some
Russians jumped upon him and rifled his pockets, before he could recall
his companions to his aid. Everybody in camp seemed to be drunk.
Herbert went to sleep in a mud hut, and slept for twelve hours without
awaking, being very kindly treated by a Russian Major.
But the Turks suffered terribly. They spent the night of the 10th on
the same cold spot. Their arms had been taken from them, also their
money, biscuits, and even their great-coats. It froze and snowed, and
they were allowed no fires.
It was a fortnight before all the prisoners had left the neighbourhood;
during this time from 3,000 to 4,000 men had succumbed to their
privations. The defence of Plevna had lasted 143 days. As the Grand
Duke Nicholas told Osman, it was one of the finest things done in
military history. But it cost the Russians 55,000 men, the Roumanians
10,000, and the Turks 30,000.
There is a Turkish proverb, “Though your enemy be as small as an ant,
yet act as if he were as big as an elephant.” Had the Russians been
guided by this, they might have saved many losses.
“One bitterly cold morning, with two feet of snow on the ground, I
joined a detachment of prisoners, escorted by Roumanians. We travelled
viâ Sistoon to Bukarest, crossing the Danube by the Russian pontoon
bridge. This journey, which lasted eight days, was the most dreadful
part of my experience, lying as it did through snow-clad country, with
storms and bitter winds. I and fifty others had seats on carts; the
bulk of the prisoners had to tramp. I saw at least 400 men drop, to
be taken as little notice of as if they were so much offal, to die
of starvation, or be devoured by the wolves which prowled around our
column.
“Over each man who fell a hideous crowd of crows, ravens, vultures,
hovered until he was exhausted enough to be attacked with impunity.
“Some of the soldiers of the escort were extremely brutal; others
displayed a touching kindness; most were as stolid and apathetic as
their captives. Of Osman’s army of 48,000 men, only 15,000 reached
Russian soil; only 12,000 returned to their homes.
“In Bukarest our sufferings were at an end. In the streets ladies
distributed coffee, broth, bread, tobacco, cigarettes, spirit. Our
quarters in the barracks appeared to us like Paradise.”
Then by train to Kharkoff, where Herbert got a cheque from his father,
and was allowed much freedom on parole; he made many friends, was
lionized and feasted and fattened “like a show beast.” “I was treated,”
he says, “with all the chivalrous kindness and open-handed hospitality
which are the characteristics of the educated Russians. The effects of
the brutal propensities developed in warfare wore off speedily, and I
am now a mild and inoffensive being, whose conscience does not allow
the killing of a flea or the plucking of a flower!”
From “The Defence of Plevna,” by W. V. Herbert, 1895, by kind
permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co.