a good chance of breaking to pieces the defeated army had he followed up his success by pursuit. It must, however, be borne in mind and this is one of the cardinal facts of the warthat the forces of the Turks were so badly organized that on

offensive they were weak and sluggish. Those of Osman resembled in this their comrades; and possibly the Ottoman chief, though victorious, felt himself unequal to the daring movement, and deemed it more prudent to remain at Plevna. What he had achieved on the 31st of July was, in truth, of the highest

value to the cause of the Porte, and had brought a marvellous change in the position of affairs. A Turkish army, that could be easily increased by reinforcements from the western provinces, had now firmly established itself on the right side of the whole line of invasion, and paralyzed, so to speak, the Russian operations. So long as Osman held his ground at Plevna the far-extended communications of his foes were liable to be intercepted at many points; their position even on the Danube was unsafe; and on military principles their far-spread advance into Roumelia, upon a contracted front, was a situation of no common danger. This, too, would be more especially the case, if we recollect that the force on the Lom had been lessened to aid in the attack on Plevna, and that the whole strength of the Russian army between the Danube and Roumelia was not sufficient to guard and defend the large extent of territory it had hastily overrun. Strategetically, in fact, the Muscovite host had one of its flanks seized by a victorious foe, and drawn out as it was in a long thin line, with a great river behind it, and between hostile fortresses, and in too small numbers to hold the ground it occupied, it was singularly exposed to a serious attack. At this crisis, too, it had become manifest that an effort of the kind was about to be made, and that the Turks were about to assume the offensive. The miserable generalship of the commanders who had left the Danube without defence, and had permitted the enemy to cross the Balkans without making any serious resistance, had excited the wrath of the Ottoman caste; and a revolution having suddenly taken place in the highest grades of the Turkish armies, a new set of leaders was now at their head. The chief of these was a German renegade, Mehemet Ali, a good professional soldier, and by his directions a combined movement was being made against the invader's forces. For this purpose the Turkish reserves, disseminated before in distant provinces, were being gathered together by the Turkish fleets, and placed in the hands of Suleiman Pasha; and they had received orders to enter Roumelia, to expel Gourko's division from it, and, if practicable, to get over the Balkans. Mehemet Ali, at the head of the main Turkish army, was at the same time to advance from Shumla and to assail the Russian corps on the Lom; and the force of Osman, there can be scarcely a doubt, was expected to coöperate from the other side. In truth it seems likely, as we have said before, that the march of that chief from Widdin was the first step in what was meant to be a general scheme of attack.

21. If, then, we glance at what really was the military position of the belligerents for a short time after the 31st of July, we shall see that the situation for the Russians was grave, and that the Turks had a prospect of success. The left wing of the Russian armies, that which had crossed the Danube at Galatz, was still in the Dobrudscha plains, unable to assist the main body, and, indeed, hundreds of miles distant. The principal army, which had crossed at Simnitza, was probably not more than one hundred and ten thousand strong after the calamitous defeat it had suffered at Plevna, and it was spread over a very long line from the Danube to the Maritza plains. One of its flanks was actually grasped by an enemy flushed with unexpected and brilliant success; another was in a great

measure ex

posed; on every side it was liable to be assailed, and, if defeated, to be in real peril ; and it was too weak to defend at all points the number of positions it had first seized. On the other hand, in a military point of view, the affairs of the Turks seemed full of promise, and

success was

perhaps really within their power. Suleiman Pasha was

moving from Adrianople in

GENERAL OF THE TURKISH ARMY IN THE BALKANS.

greatly superior force to Gourko; Mehemet Ali was preparing to advance from Shumla, with an army certainly of considerable size, and gaining great strength from the support of the

fortresses; Osman stood at Plevna, with his victorious troops, threatening a defeated enemy from his base on the Danube to Tirnova, Gabrova, and the Shipka Pass. In this state of things were there not the elements of Turkish victory and of Russian disaster? Was it not at least probable that a wellcombined effort of the Turkish commanders might break at some points the weak and extended line of the Russian invasion? and, if so, was not the result possible that the Russian armies should be forced from the Balkans, from the Lom, and from Bulgaria itself; nay, would find it difficult to recross the Danube? The situation, in fact, had become very critical, and this was perfectly understood in the grand duke's camp. Yet, at this difficult juncture steady resolve was not wanting in the Muscovite chiefs; and, though their military measures were very questionable, their energy and tenacity deserve high praise. They still persisted in maintaining their hold on the territory they had already won, and so they left their forces in their present positions, false strategy, no doubt, in a military point of view, yet not so wholly unwise perhaps as it has beer represented by mere soldier critics. But, on the other hand, the true state of affairs was at last understood, and it was frankly acknowledged that the Russian army in Bulgaria was too weak for its task. Orders were, therefore, sent for vast reinforcements; the Imperial Guard and Todleben himself were summoned to the European theatre of war; and it is said that more than one hundred and fifty thousand men were directed to march across the Danube.

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22. It was, nevertheless, a momentous question, one on which the issue of the campaign hung, whether the Russians would be able to resist their foes until the arrival of the expected succors. Their military position, we have seen, was a bad one; they were vulnerable at a variety of points; and for some weeks they would be very inferior to the force of the Turks in numerical strength. This last-named fact seems to us certain, though it is impossible to form, with any degree of accuracy, an arithmetical estimate of the contending armies. As we have said, after the 31st of July the forces of the Russians in Bulgaria probably did not exceed one hundred and ten thousand men; those of the Turks, before the Danube was crossed, were, perhaps, one hundred and forty thousand strong; and, as large accessions were being made to them, we are disposed to think that, by the first days of August, the Porte had one hundred and seventy thousand men between Roumelia, the

Balkans, and the Bulgarian fortresses. This large force, led, as we have seen, south of the Balkans by Suleiman Pasha, by Mehemet Ali from Rustchuk to Shumla, and by Osman Pasha in the camp of Plevna, was, no doubt, divided by great dis

tances; was spread on an arc, of which its adversaries held, as a general rule, the chord; and was certainly far inferior to the Russian army as a military instrument, and in aggressive power. But it had great opportunities to strike with effect; it was elated with recent success and with hope; and numerically it