train of limping and wounded men came dragging themselves back, dyeing the pure white snow with their blood. By five o'clock the Russians were complete masters of the wood, and a few bold skirmishers appeared on the edge of the plateau. Their direct attack was supported by Artillery, dragged at immense labour by the Russians up the mountain road we knew so well. A flank Artillery attack was also carried on by a few guns posted some hundreds of feet below the top redoubt and firing at an enormous elevation. The shells passed harmlessly over our heads while watching the fire, but as accidentally they enfiladed the line of redoubts some casualties happened in the lower ones, and in this way Osman Bey, the designer of the works, was killed in No. 4 redoubt.

By nightfall the Russians were firmly entrenched at the edge of the plateau they had so bravely won. The defeat and demoralisation of the Turks were very marked. The raw levies seemed to waste away, and so disorganised were they, that Mehemet Ali posted a strong cordon of sentries with fixed bayonets at the foot of the mountain to secure deserters. I will not attempt to describe the sufferings of the wounded left out on the bleak plateau that night uncared for and untended. As Englishmen we performed what little duty we could, and each brought down a wounded man upon his horse as comfortably as the snow and ice permitted, carrying for him also his arms and ammunition. My own particular charge sorely tried my temper, for when nearly at our journey's end his bandage slipped off his arm. I unfolded it, carefully rolling it up as I did so, when, to my horror, I found that, although bandaged right above the elbow, he had lost only his forefinger. I knew what that meant, so giving him a push of disgust I left him to his fate in the snow. It was too revolting to find one had wasted one's philanthropic feelings on a selfwounded man.

During the night Chakir's force still guarding Ivretsch was necessarily compelled to retreat, his rear being threatened by the position the Russians had won.

We were up betimes at Kamarli next morning to see what would be the next scene in the drama, which promised intense interest. The last of the guns of Chakir's force arrived at Kamarli about 11 A.M., and Mehemet Ali received a welcome addition of force from Sofia and Shipka about the same time. The Turkish General must have had some 20,000 men thus concen trated, but the majority were conspicuously inferior troops, and the whole were much shaken in moral from constant retreat and defeat. All the morning wounded and frostbitten men came down. About 1.30, while we were watching the Russian entrenchments which they had constructed during the night, a gun opened fire

across the plateau on the top redoubt and a slow Artillery duel commenced. About twenty minutes afterwards we saw the Russians leaving their entrenchments preparatory to an attack across the plateau. We were the first to see the movement, and hastily called the marshal's attention to it. He wired at once to the line of redoubts to prepare for the coming attack. He said it was no use our going up the mountain as we should be too late, and advised us to stop where we were and where we could see everything in comparative safety. It was the most animated picture one could possibly see without being able to partake in the fray. The Russian attack could not be more distinctly viewed. Every man stood out bold and clear against the snow-white background.

They advanced in three lines at starting, three battalions. strong. First line in extended order, the reserves and supports also in extended order at 100 and 150 yards distance respectively from each other. They never fired a shot, but pushed on at a double. When half-way across the plateau (some 1000 yards) they collected in small groups under such shelter as could be got. The line formations seemed to disappear. A second advance for some distance to fresh cover, and then a third. The ranks got thinner and thinner at each advance. We could see the wounded trailing heavily to the rear, the dead lying where they fell. Near the foot of the redoubt, in a hollow, the whole massed together for the final effort. We could count them, and with our glasses almost see the numbers on their caps. Then the trumpets pealed high the sound to charge; the whole rose as one man, and with loud cheers dashed at the parapet. Musketry ceased, and the flashing of the bayonets told us too plainly that the cold steel was at work. We knew what depended on the result, for it was the key to the Turks' last stand on the Western Balkans.

A few moments of intense suspense in a death-like stillness and we saw the Muscovite beaten and disorganised fleeing from the parapet. No attempt was made on their side to support the gallant attack. It almost seemed murder to launch them unaided on such a task. During their advance the guns in the redoubt from which we viewed the movements played on the flank of the attackers, but it was impossible accurately to watch the effect of the shells owing to the white background of the snow.

The moral effect of the victory was incalculable, and for nearly a month did the Turks hold their positions."

I spent the night in the Red Cross field-hospital tent, where I assisted in several operations by the light of a candle put in

4

I had the honour of dining that night with Mehemet Ali in his hut, and heard many of his experiences. He was a jovial, hearty-looking, robust German, who in his youth had thrown in his lot with the Mussulman cause. His end was very tragic. He was assassinated in Montenegro about a year after I met him.

a bayonet, and shared the straw of the numerous patients. Next morning, as there appeared no signs of renewed attack, a parlementaire was sent out to bury the dead and bring in wounded. I donned the red cross on my left arm, but previously to setting out assisted in the interesting operation of plaster of Paris on a young officer shot through the thigh. When finished I carved my name (à la British tourist) on his leg.

The Red Cross party were not very successful, for on emerging from the redoubt a salvo of shells greeted them. I explained this by the white flag and its small cross not being seen with the snow background. However, I had to quit them, having been

left behind by the rest of my party, who had ridden into Sofia that morning as our leave was waning. I had my twenty-five-mile ride alone, unmolested by the many deserters, Bashi-Bazouks, and other human hawks that I passed, and reached Sofia at nightfall. This ended our active experiences, as although our journey down to Constantinople was a rough one, yet the experiences paled before the vivid scenes we had witnessed. The route by road and rail was through one vast crowd of refugees, the exodus of the peasantry of Roumelia.

The stand of the Turks on the summit of the Western Balkans, the beginning of which we witnessed, was practically the last show of front they made. When outmanoeuvred, and

the left flank turned by a wide turning movement towards Sofia, made at enormous cost of life (three generals, fifty-two officers, and 1003 men exacted by the elements alone), it fell to the lot of an Englishman to cover the retreat of the outgeneralled Turks. A man whose services, rightly or wrongly, were lost to his Queen and country, with a punishment that to him, with a soldier's heart, must have told with terrible force, but who, with his stout heart and well-taught mind, carved for himself in another land an undying fame as a leader of men of whatever nationality. I allude to Valentine Baker Pasha.

With scarce 5000 Turks he fought the plucky fight of Taskesend against 25,000 Russians, and won it, for he did what was wanted-he enabled the whole of Mehemet Ali's force to retreat from Kamarli, and got off his own men.

That, however, is beyond my personal reminiscences; the facts I got from that brave man Alister Campbell," who, after seeing us off at Constantinople, returned to his duty at the front and was present at the battle. History relates but little of Valentine Baker's career with the army with which he threw in his lot, but I cannot better close my somewhat lengthy discourse than by this short allusion to that illustrious warrior, whose loss to our service all true soldiers who knew him so deeply deplore.

POSTSCRIPT.-As I pen these lines the dogs of war are loose once more. It has had to come. The Turks will profit by the mistakes they made thirty-five years ago in their struggle with the mighty but ill-directed power of Russia. Then their armies suffered reverses for two good reasons. Firstly, they had no commander-in-chief. The marshals appointed to command the different army corps knew that their continuance in office depended upon their own individual success and on the caprice of the Sultan. As a consequence each was jealous of the other, and they declined to co-operate in offensive movements. Secondly, when once the Regular Army was expended there was nothing reliable to fall back upon but an ill-trained, grossly officered

men.

Alister Campbell was a born soldier-adventurer. He led the main assault on the Russian position at Shipka (Fort S. Nicholas) when Suleiman lost 10,000 His end was very tragic. I met him at Lydenberg in the Transvaal in 1879. He had walked up from Delagoa Bay to join Sir Garnet Wolesley's Force, which was operating against Secoconi, a Basuto chief. I was instrumental in getting him given the command of the Zwazii contingent. He learnt one word of their language, which was 'Goosalapa' (come on). On the day of the assault on the stronghold he was well ahead of his men waving a small blue flag. He was shot down by a Kaffir, dragged into a cave, and, it is believed, was cut up In spite of long search and a large reward offered for his body I never found him.

Militia. Such troops can offer no resistance to veterans. What a lesson to us, for this very Militia had been embodied more than six months! Not that we have not already bought that

experience.

That the Turks with numbers so inferior to their enemy put up such a good fight in 1877 is due to another good reason. They were vastly better armed than their foes. To compare the Martini-Peabody of the Turks with the ponderous converted rifle of the Russians is an impossibility. The latter, a barbarous parody of a breech-loader, had a calibre of about .577, similar to our Snider. It had no extracting gear for the cartridge, and only two rough back sights, the longest giving a range of 500 yards. Brave old Suwaroff, who wedded the Russian to his bayonet as the only weapon worth having, quite ignored the value of the barrel on which it was fixed. Some hundreds of thousands of Russian lives have been sacrificed to this fetish. Not even in 1877 or 1904 did the soldier ever remove his goddess from his rifle even when firing. No wonder they were mowed down in thousands before the parapets of Plevna. Not until the Guards' Army Corps armed with modern rifles (the Berdan) came upon the scene was any impression made upon the Turkish fire. A gross misuse of close artillery co-operation further added to Russian losses. The rearmament of the main Russian Army with rifles captured from their foes eventually led to the collapse of Turkish resistance.

What a lesson for us to take to heart, for is not our small corner-boy recruited army armed with the worst rifle in Europe? Not that it is a positively bad weapon; but should not a small army like ours make up for inferiority in numbers by superiority in arms? And why should we not go one still better, and have an automatic rifle? We throw open to the world an invitation and a prize to compete for the best air craft for war purposes, and discover a home-made article. Why not try the same method for an automatic rifle? I'll tell you why. Because our Minister of War is afraid he will get it. He is afraid to face the Treasury with a bill for rearmament, which rearmament would place his small army a decade ahead of her possible foes. An apathetic population totally wanting in war sense is indifferent to the matter of having her army ahead or astern of other armies, and will swallow all the excuses which a responsible Minister will offer to a dull palate.

It will be a clever prophet who will tell us what is to happen when the curtain is rung down upon the bloody drama now being enacted on the Near Eastern stage. Suppose that Turkey outstays her foes and is in a position to take the route to Sofia that I was able to do in 1877. Even if the Balkan States do not fall