opportunity which presented itself to Lord Wolseley’s mind as he read
the intercepted dispatch was just this. It was evident from the
information brought in by the Bulgarians, and from other sources, that
the Russians were still ignorant that an English force had landed in the
country. If he could immediately surprise the camp at Varna, he would
have at least a highly probable opportunity of breaking in upon the
Russian columns on their march, and annihilating one before the other
could come to its support; especially seeing that they were relying upon
the Cavalry of the Varna force to cover their movements. This was a far
more brilliant opportunity than that which had been at first hoped for
when the taking up a position, which would oblige the Russians to
attack, had been designed. The intention was for the three Infantry
brigades to move up that night in two marches into a position within
reach of attack of the Russian camp at Varna, and actually to make the
attack at grey dawn on the following morning.
Lord Charles Beresford was, according to arrangement, to land in the
evening with no particular attempt at concealment with a party of Blue
Jackets and Marines, and to arrange with the Bulgarian Officer in
command at Varna, for a sally of the whole Bulgarian garrison so as to
attract the attention of the Russians towards the Varna side at the
moment when our attack was made. Watches having been carefully compared,
three o’clock in the morning was fixed upon as the hour for the
simultaneous attack. The three brigades were to attack respectively the
right, left, and centre of the Russian position.
A powerful force of Artillery was kept back about two miles from Varna
in a favourable position in order to give support to our troops in the
event of any disaster. But it was to be a pure Infantry attack, not a
gun was to be fired, unless any of our troops were forced to retreat.
The sole duty of the Cavalry was to cut off fugitives and prevent any
knowledge of what had happened from reaching the Russian General.
We have reason to believe that some of the inhabitants brought off by
the fleet had supplied Lord Wolseley with most accurate information as
to the nature of the ground in the neighbourhood of the Russian camp,
and that this had given him considerable confidence in arranging the
details of the attack. Sir Evelyn Wood had charge of the whole of the
actual attack, and very great advantage was found to arise from the
practice in night marching which had been carried out under his orders
at Aldershot.
It cannot, however, be said that the fighting on this occasion was a
very severe trial for our troops. The British Army had to all intents
and purposes dropped from the clouds upon the Russians before they were
aware of its arrival. No very serious preparations had been made to
resist attack from the north since there was no reason to anticipate
troops coming from that side. The surprise the following morning was
complete. That is to say, not that the Russians were caught in their
beds, but that the English troops fully organised and ready for the
attack were upon them, and into their lines, before the Russians had
been able to prepare any organised resistance.
Only on one side, where an active Russian General had cautiously
entangled the front of his position with obstacles, was the right
brigade checked for a time, and, though some losses were occasioned
here, the general effect of the attack on all sides of the Russian
position, and the numerous places in which the works had been entered
made it impossible for the troops who had resisted the attack of the
right Brigade to hold out for any length of time. The Russians fought
most gallantly, yet showed very little power of acting for themselves in
a case where superior orders could not reach them.
ROUT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY.
THE RELIEF OF VARNA.
By noon the whole of the works were in our hands, and as the Cavalry
intercepted all who attempted to make their escape, the Mounted Infantry
holding all such places as were inconvenient for the Cavalry, we had
every reason to believe that no one had escaped to tell the tale. The
slaughter on neither side was very great, the Russian position being,
from the beginning, so obviously hopeless, greatly outnumbered and
surprised as they were, that nearly 10,000 men laid down their arms. The
prisoners were the following day embarked for Constantinople,
considerable supplies and very valuable transport waggons, horses, and
mules fell into our hands. To make assurance doubly sure, Lord Wolseley
had brought up a fourth of Sir Evelyn Wood’s brigades nearly to the
position occupied by the batteries. Meantime, on the same morning that
the fight was going on, nearly the whole of the remainder of the force
had marched to occupy the high lands which overlook the two roads
leading up from Kosluji and Varna upon Bazardjik.
It was evident that, assuming the march of the Russians to be carried
out in accordance with the captured dispatch, the two Russian columns
would, during a certain period of their march, be not only some ten
miles apart, but be separated by some very difficult country. And,
moreover, that as the roads converged towards Bazardjik, an English
force occupying the uplands would have its two portions much closer
together than the advancing Russians. A valuable capture of the papers
of the Russian General in command at Varna showed that a duplicate of
the intercepted dispatch had reached him the previous day. Apparently a
reply had been prepared, but none as yet sent off. This indicated the
movements he was intending to adopt in order to join the main force. As
it had been ascertained that Kosluji, though not as yet in the
possession of the Russians, was in telegraphic communication with the
Russian headquarters, it was resolved to repair the telegraph, which had
only been cut by the peasants between Kosluji and Varna. As soon as this
was done a telegraphic dispatch was sent through in the Russian cypher
to the General commanding, ‘Yours of the 10th, Cavalry will be pushed on
to cover right flank, and advance of army on Bazardjik. The Infantry and
Artillery will join rear of column after the right column has passed the
junction.’ The British forces were now distributed as follows: Of the
Duke of Connaught’s Corps, the right division occupied the high ground
which the road from Kosluji towards Bazardjik crosses shortly after
passing Kosluji. The second division similarly occupied the high ground
above the Varna-Bazardjik road. The Artillery of the entire army was
concentrated on the high ground in such a way as to be able to bring its
fire upon the columns debouching from the roads. The whole of Sir Evelyn
Wood’s Corps lay in a position between Varna and the high ground, ready
to attack the right column as soon as its march should be sufficiently
developed to give an opportunity. Advantage had been taken of the number
of captured Russian uniforms in the camp at Varna to put up dummy
sentries, so as to leave the impression from a distance that Varna
encampment and neighbourhood was still held by the Russians. The whole
of the ground over which the fight was likely to take place was
carefully reconnoitred beforehand. On the morning of June 14th the
Russian right column, which, having a considerably longer march to
perform, moved off first, had arrived at the point where the road turns
sharply to the north leading towards Bazardjik, when a party of
Cossacks, who had been sent on to communicate with the cavalry from
Varna, which was supposed to be before them on the road, galloped in and
reported that they had been stopped on the road in crossing the
mountains by finding that the path was blocked with some felled trees
and abattis. Supposing this to be the work of some Bulgarian insurgents,
the General ordered forward a battalion of Infantry and a couple of
guns, and allowed the column to resume the march. Shortly afterwards
some Cossacks who had moved towards Varna rode up to some supposed
friends in Russian uniform, were captured, and not allowed to return. No
alarm therefore was excited on this side. As, however, the battalion of
Infantry moved up to the abattis in order to remove it, they were fired
upon by unseen foes, and many of them fell. A brigade was now ordered to
advance and clear the ground. As it moved forward within close range of
the hills it, too, was received with Infantry fire from unseen foes.
THE BATTLE OF KOSLUJI.
ROUT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY.
The dispatch from our Correspondent of June 18th, published last week,
stopped abruptly at the moment of describing how the column of Russians
was advancing into the ambush cleverly laid for them by Lord Wolseley.
In the following dispatch he continues the narrative:—
As yet not a shot had been fired by the artillery or by any of Sir
Evelyn Wood’s troops, whose position was absolutely unknown. The column
was now halted in considerable confusion.
The General commanding the Russian brigade, uncertain as to what he had
in front of him, did not like to commit himself to an attack without
previous preparation by artillery, and asked to have some artillery sent
him. Six batteries were brought out in succession from the column on the
road at a gallop, and began to shell the heights.
Uncertain as to what they were firing at, they produced very little
effect, and none of the guns on the hills replied to them. Meantime the
column on the road was in the greatest confusion. A fresh brigade was,
however, gradually formed out of it, and moved up towards the right of
the road. A third brigade was to be seen also moving up in support of
the other two. As the right brigade moved up in successive lines towards
the heights, its right came within easy range of the position in which,
concealed behind a long line of under-feature, Sir Evelyn Wood’s
advanced division lay. When the rear of the brigade had fairly passed
beyond his left, a withering volley, followed by magazine fire, was
poured into it from the whole line of the division.
Staggered by the unexpected blow, the brigade fell into confusion. Sir
Evelyn, seizing the moment, advanced the whole division, having given
orders beforehand that the men should be kept in hand as much as
possible; and that instead of a skirmishing attack, which was quite
unnecessary under the circumstances, lines at least of companies should
be kept together as much as possible.
The Russian brigade, though taken in rear as well as flank, endeavoured
for a moment to present a front in the new direction. As they did so the
guns from the high ground for the first time opened, tearing through the
Russian ranks in all directions. Under the double storm, taken in flank
whichever way they turned, the brigade gave way, and was followed
closely by the leading division of Sir Evelyn’s Corps.
The Russian brigade next on the left began immediately to attempt to dig
in order to form a rallying point for the flying brigade, but,
overwhelmed by the fugitives, fired into from the heights, and pressed
by the pursuing division, they too broke, and carried confusion amongst
the guns.
The whole of the troops that had debouched from the road were now little
better than a confused mass, unable to act with effect, and suffering
appallingly from the cross fire directed upon them by Sir Evelyn’s
troops and those on the hill, whose fire was now continually increasing
in intensity.
[Illustration:
THE BATTLE OF KOSLUJI: SIR EVELYN WOOD’S ATTACK ON THE RUSSIAN FORCES.
]
The remainder of the Corps, with little space to deploy, and whelmed by
the mass of fugitives, was huddled back upon the road. At this moment a
pre-concerted signal from Lord Wolseley directed Sir Baker Russell, who
with the whole of the cavalry, less Colonel French’s regiment which was
on the extreme right, had been placed near Varna to the left of Sir
Evelyn’s force, to charge into the confused mass which now represented
the right corps of the Russian Army. Enormous numbers of prisoners were
taken, and sent back promptly to Varna to be embarked on board ship.
Meantime the left Corps of the Russian Army had begun its advance along
the other road towards Bazardjik, but before it approached the heights
the news of the disaster which had befallen the right corps reached the
General. Though at first his intention had been to attempt to out-flank
the position opposed to him on the English right, in order to relieve
the pressure on his own right, the rapid progress of the disaster of the
right made him change his determination. With his intact Corps he took
up a position to cover the retreat of the remnants of the broken Corps.
Practically only one English division, besides the cavalry, had been
seriously engaged. From the nature of the case the losses had been
comparatively small. Smokeless powder had told altogether in favour of
the English in the action.
[Illustration:
MAP OF THE FIGHT NEAR VARNA.
Facsimile of Sketch from our War Correspondent.
]
Practically the fate of the Russian army was decided. Lord Wolseley was
in full communication with the Bulgarian General, who, with a force
between forty and fifty thousand strong, had been following close upon
the heels of the Russians. There could be no hope that, with their
diminished and discouraged troops, the Russians would be able to defeat
the English forces, against which with their intact army they had failed
on the previous day. Nor could they turn on the Bulgarians without
having both armies upon them at once.
To avoid useless slaughter, the Russian General forty-eight hours later
agreed to lay down his arms. As soon as the Russian army had given up
its guns and was no longer in a position to act effectively, the English
army marched back to the coast, and, according to our latest
information, a considerable part of it had already embarked and sailed
in an unknown direction.
Lord Wolseley, with Admiral Markham and their Staffs, have returned to
Constantinople, doubtless in order to be in communication with Ministers
at home, the Ambassador, the Sultan, and other sources of information.
It is only fair to a gallant enemy to say that the startling success
which has attended our arms is, apart from the gallantry of our soldiers
and the skill of the General who led them, to be attributed to the
enormous advantage which is possessed by the Power that commands the
sea.
From the moment that our fleet cut off the communications of the Russian
Army, the Russian General was in a position, such as in our time can
rarely happen, of being completely deprived of all means of knowing what
his enemy was doing, while, on the other hand, our own Commander was
able to obtain information far more accurate than is common in war of
everything that his opponent did. No other Power in Europe could have
reached and destroyed with the same ease and certainty that dangerous
Russian force, susceptible of indefinite increase, as long as Russia
held the sea. Meantime, speculation is rife as to the direction in which
our army is next going to strike.
ENTHUSIASM IN CAIRO.
DEPARTURE OF THE ENGLISH TROOPS.
(_From our Special Correspondent, Mr. Francis Scudamore._)
CAIRO, _May 8_.
For the past two days the entire populace of this city has lived in a
state of frenzied excitement, to which the seething clamour of the days
immediately following the memorable 15th September 1882 is only faintly
comparable. Then it was, with the arrival before the gate of the citadel
of Sir Drury Lowe and his cavalry brigade fresh from Tel-el-Kebir, that
England’s peaceful occupation of Cairo began. There were no Europeans in
Cairo at the time, and even the better classes of Egyptians had either
fled to distant parts of the country or lay hidden in their spacious
houses, closely barred against intrusion by friend or foe. Demonstration
of popular feeling was confined to the astounded and panic-ridden
natives of the lower orders, whose bewildered minds swung for a week
between fearful anticipation of the horrors they had been taught to
expect at the hands of the English, and trembling delight that the reign
of terror under Arabi and Toulba had at length come to an end. They
needed time, these stricken, starving people, to discover the state of
their feelings; to decide whether they were pleased that foreign aid had
come to them, or were only glad to know that Arabi had fled, and would
soon be in prison; and in their indecision, for two whole days and
nights dense crowds of wandering Arabs, Fellaheen, street merchants,
clerks, donkey-boys, and small officials, thronged the European quarters
of the town, ceaselessly jostling each other through the streets, and
murmuring repeatedly, ‘The English have come. The Effendina is coming.’
That was ten years ago. During those ten years the English soldiers and
the Cairenes, both natives and foreigners, have learned so well to know
and appreciate each other, that when it leaked out (who shall say how)
on Sunday evening that orders had been received for the immediate
embarkation of all the British troops in garrison here, the announcement
clanged like a tocsin through the startled town.
Once again the Frank quarter was filled with an anxious wondering mob,
formed not of Arabs only, but of all the varied nationalities that make
up Cairo’s thriving population, who roamed the broad streets round the
Esbekeeyeh Gardens, silent, orderly, and sad, or gathered in
tight-packed masses in front of Shepheard’s and the New Hotel, and the
Sporting Club, and lingered for hours in slowly changing thousands in
the great square facing the Abdeen barracks.
It was near midnight, and the moon was high, when the news became
generally known. The band of the Alexandria Regiment had for some time
ceased playing in the Esbekeeyeh Gardens, and nearly all English
soldiers were back in barracks. Some few men, however, who had twelve
o’clock leave, were still abroad, and as, on their way home, they
shouldered through the throng—wondering, no doubt, what could be the
matter—they were instantly seized upon by scores of eager well-wishers,
delighted to find an outlet for some portion of the cordial enthusiasm
pent up within them. Of one of these spontaneous outbursts of affection
towards ‘Thomas Atkins’ I was myself a witness. I was standing with
other Englishmen and ladies on Shepheard’s balcony watching the shifting
masses of the crowd below, when suddenly there arose, some way up the
street—beyond the British Consulate—a wild confused noise of cheering.
It was a queer kind of cheer, such as could probably be heard nowhere
else in the world—a strange blending of the Zughareet of Arab women—the
guttural Fellah Hàgh, the Italian Viva, and the Greek Huzzah, with a
leavening of Levantine squeal; but the outcome of the mixture was
sufficiently startling to make us turn—for a moment anxiously—in the
direction of the sound. Then the crowd before us took up the cry, and
quickly pressing back on either side of the way, left room for the
passage of the most extraordinary procession it has yet fallen to my lot
to behold.
[Illustration:
SCENE OUTSIDE SHEPHEARD’S HOTEL, CAIRO: TOMMY ATKINS ABOUT TO QUIT
EGYPT.
]
First, leaping in a frantic dance such as one sees here at weddings and
religious festivals, came some score of sayces, their lawn sleeves
flaunting as they waved their arms, and their gold-broidered waistcoats
gleaming bravely in the moonlight. Their usual cry of ‘_Shmarlek,
Gemeelek_,’ was interrupted now by hoarse shouts of ‘Inglis, Inglis,
long live the Inglis!’—shouts which the crowd readily took up.
Immediately behind them paced a tall, half-naked negro, who—such is the
length to which enthusiasm will carry these fanatics—held outstretched
before him (a sacrifice to friendship), his brawny right arm transfixed
by a long knife, from whose blade his blood dripped freely to the
ground. A carriage followed—an ordinary hack victoria, captured,
doubtless, close by—round which a frenzied mob surged, yelling and
gesticulating madly. There was no driver on the carriage. The box-seat
was occupied by a mandolin player and a harpist, whose fingers were very
busy, though of their music not one note could be heard. In the victoria
were the objects of the demonstration, two English soldiers, one of
whom, while preserving his good temper, was struggling manfully though
vainly against a dozen pair of hands that held him in his place, and
loudly declaring in words as unavailing as they were forcible that he
was due in barracks at midnight and could not ‘stay fooling’ any later.
His protest was disregarded, and his comrade, who had apparently
succumbed to the hospitality of a burly Greek who faced the pair, on the
Strapontin, nursing a huge demijohn of some pernicious liquor, gave him
no help, expressing neither approval nor condemnation of the
proceedings, and, indeed, but for the tender ministrations of an old
äalem in a saffron robe, who stood on the step beside him, he would
probably have fallen out into the road.
The motley carnival passed slowly into the night; the shouts softened in
the distance and then died away; but the crowd, silent again, remained
staring vacantly at the hotel windows. As I turned from the balcony
railings a quiet native spectator on the pavement beneath me looked up
and spoke in Arabic: ‘Ah, Hawaga,’ he said, ‘Toufik Pasha has gone;
Allah rest him! Now the English are going—evil days are coming.’
Throughout Sunday night and during the whole of yesterday the great
crowd filled the streets. Even the announcement made yesterday afternoon
that, although the English soldiers were called suddenly away, their
Indian brothers-in-arms would replace them, failed to satisfy the public
mind, or to remove the painful impression it had received. In some vague
way the feeling of the native populace was that, though the Indian
troops might be soldiers of England’s Queen, they were not the English
they had known; the English who wore yellow clothes, and blue goggles,
and hats with towels on them, and who paid so well for donkey hire, and
bought so freely in the bazaars, and were so easily persuaded to accept
bits of imported blue glass as valuable turquoises, ‘and wonderfully
cheap.’
With very few exceptions all British troops were confined to barracks
yesterday—not so much on account of their preparations for departure,
for ever since the reinforcement of the garrison the commanders of
regiments have been held in readiness to entrain in two hours after
receipt of orders—but in order to avoid the repetition, on probably a
very large scale, of Sunday night’s demonstrations. The natives,
therefore, were fain to be content with standing in thousands outside
the barrack-yard gates gazing at the busy scene within, while from time
to time some English-speaking donkey-boy would accost the impassive
sentries on behalf of himself and friends with some such speech as, ‘You
going, Missa Soja, Arab prenty solly.’
Thanks to the energy and foresight of the Commander-in-Chief in
carefully policing the whole length of the canal with troops from Suez
to Port Said to prevent any such apt accident as the sinking of a
dredger in a narrow part, the transports suffered no delay. Each
ship—there were eight (chartered vessels of the P. and O., British India
and Orient Lines)—on reaching Suez landed the troops she had brought
from Bombay and passed on into the Canal, employing the time of her
passage in cleaning up for the reception of the English regiments at
Alexandria. The Indian brigades are for the moment encamped on the Sweet
Water Canal, pending dispatch to their several stations.