expedition, consisting of eight ships of | viously obeyed the will of a single chief, instead of every one following, as heretofore, the dictates of his own impetuous courage. Such was the spirit of the men, that one of the Ottoman horsemen threw himself on a cannon which had been taken, as if to secure his prey, and was bayoneted while still sitting astride on it. 45. After this check Nicholas paused a week at Bazardjik, to give time for his reinforcements to come up. At length, deeming himself, on the arrival of the seventh corps from Bra the line and six frigates, having on board seven thousand land troops, sailed from Sevastopol, and made for Anapa, a fortress on the opposite shore of Asia Minor, at the foot of the Caucasus, valuable both on account of its strength, and as containing a safe harbour of great value on that dangerous coast. The garrison consisted of three thousand men; but the Russians, having made themselves masters of the peninsula on which the place is situated, pushed their approaches with such vigour the land forces being un-hilov, in sufficient strength to face the der the orders of Prince Menschikoff, the sea of Admiral Greig, a Scotchman in the Russian service that on the 10th June three practicable breaches were made in the walls, and on the 11th the place capitulated. The besiegers found eighty-five guns on the ramparts, abundant stores of ammunition and provisions in the magazine, and became masters of a fortified harbour of great value on the north-eastern coast of Asia Minor. 44. The first engagement in the open field which took place in the campaign was in the neighbourhood of Bazardjik, on the 8th July. The Turks had evacuated it in the course of their retreat, and their rear-guard, consisting of six thousand horse, was imprudently attacked by General Read with an inferior Russian body of cavalry. After a furious conflict the Muscovites were routed. Some squadrons of the hussars of Alexander, sent up to support them, shared the same fate; a gun was taken; and it was only by the opportune arrival of a brigade of foot that the Ottoman horse was at length arrested. The Russians in this affair lost twelve hundred men, and at one period six guns had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The superiority of the Turkish horse was rendered manifest by its result, and the sense of this never left either party during the remainder of the campaign. It was observed on this occasion, that though the Turkish cavalry were still equipped in the old fashion, and assailed their opponents by a swarm charge, yet they resumed their ranks more rapidly than formerly and ob Turkish horsemen in the field, the march was resumed, on the 15th July, with forty-two thousand men and a hundred and eight guns. The plan of directing one corps on Schumla and another on Varna was abandoned. Both united were now to advance on the former point by Koslodschi and Jenibazar. Rudiger, with 6000 men, formed the advanced guard; 24,000 under the Emperor in person supported him; 5000 were detached against Varna and Pravadi, to observe the former and secure the latter place; and 6000 were employed in keeping up the communications with the fleet and fortresses on the Danube. Another cavalry action took place between the Russian advanced guard, under General Rudiger, and a body of eight thousand Ottoman horse, with five guns, on the road between Bazardjik and Jenibazar. The Russians were here more rudely handled than on the former occasion; their advanced guard was surrounded, and in part broken, by the Turkish cavalry; and it was only by the advance of Rudiger himself, with two brigades of infantry and a battery of horse-artillery, that the enveloped squadrons were at length extricated, after having lost six hundred men. In this, as in the other cavalry actions at the commencement of the campaign, the Russian horse were greatly inferior in number; but it was evident, from their result, that they had conceived an undue contempt for their adversaries, and that the spahis were as formidable still on their admirable steeds as they had been in the days of Soliman the Magnificent, or Bajazet the Invincible. Nothing could exceed the vehemence of their charge, or the impetuosity with which they threw themselves on the guns or bayonets of their adversaries; and their courage was now restrained by discipline, and directed by prudence; for they withdrew, when ordered, as readily as they had advanced, and thus escaped the disasters which, in former wars, had so often succeeded their greatest successes. It was the spahis of Bulgaria, each mounted on his own horse, superbly armed, and holding their lands by military tenure, which constituted this most formidable feudal militia. where forty thousand men were now assembled. 47. The Emperor had at first intended to hazard an attack upon this important stronghold, the key to the Balkan, and the crossing-point of all the roads in that quarter which traverse that mountain-barrier. But these ideas vanished at the sight of the strength of the position, and the experience he had had of the tenacity with which the Turks maintained their ground on every occasion. It was resolved, therefore, to observe Schumla only with a corps of thirty thousand men, and to direct the remainder of the army and the reserves as they came up against VARNA, which presented fewer ob46. Their strength was soon put to stacles, and in the attack of which the the test on the greatest scale. On the command of the sea and the co-opera20th July, the reserves having come tion of the fleet promised several advanup, and the troops, to the number of tages. The force before Schumla was 30,000, being concentrated at Jeniba-divided into two parts; the third corps zar, a general movement took place received orders to occupy the redoubts towards Schumla, with the cavalry in erected to the north, that is, in front advance. The right was commanded by of the town, while the seventh was to Roudyewitch, at the head of the third extend itself to the south by Eski-Stamcorps; the left by General Woinoff, who, boul, in its rear, so as to interrupt with the assistance of Diebitch, in the communication and complete the whose suite the Emperor placed him- blockade. Count Suchtelen, with four self, led the seventh corps. They had thousand men, had taken a position need of all their strength; for the Ot- before Varna, and sustained, with great tomans had ten thousand magnificent intrepidity, the attacks of the garrison, horsemen and sixty guns in the field, which was superior in number. Benand watched only for an imprudent kendorf had seized Pravadi and deadvance of some isolated body, to fall stroyed a Turkish convoy. Silistria upon it, and trample it under their was blockaded by General Roth with horses' hoofs. Several cavalry charges, ten thousand men, who, after his failwith various success, took place; inure at Oltenitza, had descended the the course of which the Turks evinced Danube to Hirsova and there crossed their improved military skill, by the to the right bank; but they were not manner in which they supported their in sufficient strength to undertake till cavalry by masses of infantry, and the August the siege of so important a nrasked batteries which they opened, fortress; and General Geismar, on the on a repulse of their own men, on the extreme right, with a little corps, five pursuing squadrons of the enemy. The thousand strong, protected Little WalOttoman horse maintained their wont-lachia against the incursions of the ed superiority over the Muscovite; but the invading army was too strong in infantry and artillery for their opponents; and, after several brilliant charges, seeing the Russians established in great force, with a hundred guns in front of their position, the Turks withdrew in the best order within their intrenched camp around Schumla, It Pacha of Widdin, with the garrison of which, though attended with various tilential fevers of autumn had made success, were accompanied also with their appearance in the Principalities great loss of life, and for the most part and on the banks of the Danube; the turned to the advantage of the Turks. hospitals were filled with sick; and 48. The Emperor, perceiving that without having as yet engaged in any he was not in sufficient strength to un-pitched battle, the invading army was dertake the siege of Schumla, or any-weakened by nearly half its numbers. thing decisive, with the main army, Add to this, the roads, at all times till the guards and reserves, who had bad, had been rendered all but imleft St Petersburg in the beginning of passable by the continued passage of May, came up, and deeming it dero- carriages over them; provisions had gatory to the majesty of the Czar to become scarce, notwithstanding all the remain with the army in a state of in- advantages enjoyed from the command activity, set out on the 2d August of the sea; and the inhabitants of the with a strong escort, consisting of Principalities, overwhelmed by contritwelve pieces of cannon and a large butions, and the passage of one large body of infantry and cavalry, for body of men after another, did their Varna. He arrived before that town utmost to conceal what they had, or on the 5th, and, after inspecting the fled into the woods and mountains to approaches, which hitherto had made avoid the exactions of their oppressors. very little progress, he embarked, in the evening of the same day, on board the Flora frigate, part of Admiral Greig's squadron, which lay in the bay, for Odessa. He arrived on the 8th, and joined the Empress at a country palace at a little distance from the town. He there carried through two measures eminently indicative of the charges of the war, and the vast loss of life with which it had already been attended. The first was a loan of 18,000,000 of florins (£1,800,000), contracted with the house of the Hopes at Amsterdam; the other a general levy of four men in five hundred for the service of the army, promulgated by a ukase on 21st August. At the same time, a decree was issued, prohibiting the exportation of all sorts of grain from the harbours of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof a measure destructive of the agricultural industry of the south of Russia, but adopted in the hope that it might starve the Sultan into submission. 50. On the other hand, the condition of the Turks was hardly less critical, for they were pierced to the heart of their empire, blockaded in their stronghold, the last and greatest bulwark of the realm; they had lost the important fortress of Brahilov, commanding a passage of the Danube; a third of their territory in Europe was in the hands of the enemy; and Constantinople itself was blockaded by sea, and shut out from the supplies from the Euxine, on which it had hitherto depended for the subsistence of its inhabitants. In these circumstances, the firmness of the Sultan and his council was worthy of the very highest admiration. In a grand council held at Constantinople on the 2d of August, it was resolved that the Grand Vizier, Mahomet Selim Pacha, should forthwith join the army; on the 5th, the horse-tails were again displayed in the court of the Seraglio, in presence of the Sultan, his ministers, and an immense crowd of spectators; public prayers were of49. Great as had been the progress fered up for the prosperity of the emand incontestable the advantages gain-pire and the preservation of the true ed by the Russians since the com- faith; and a fresh proclamation was mencement of the campaign, matters issued, calling upon all Mussulmans to had now become more gloomy, and it take up arms, and combat in defence was evident that the issue of the strug. of their country and holy religion. gle, unless large reinforcements came These energetic measures were attendup, was very doubtful. The plague ed with a great effect. Recruits came had broken out in the rear of the army, rapidly in from all quarters, the armaand made great ravages; the usual pes-ments went on with redoubled activity, in 1812; great numbers of foraging parties were every day cut off, the horses of the army were rapidly melting away; and the Russians were experiencing the danger so often encountered by a victorious invader in Eastern warfare, that of being starved in the midst of their conquests by the superiority of the enemy in light horse. 52. These dangers were brought to light in the clearest manner by an event which took place on the 26th August, and what was really extraordinary, by a phenomenon wholly unknown in Ottoman warfare--a nocturnal surprise. At one in the morning a large column of Turkish infantry silently defiled out of Schumla, and attacked the last redoubt on the Rus and Constantinople resembled an im- | advanced parties to attack, not only mense camp, where military exercises from the indefatigable light troops of and preparations were incessantly go- the enemy, but the armed peasants, ing forward. On the 9th the Grand who had everywhere taken up arms to Vizier set out for Adrianople, attended defend their hearths from spoliation. by a splendid retinue, and in great In a word, the situation of the Russians pomp; but that gave rise to an occur before Schumla in 1828 closely resemrence which demonstrated how deep-bled that of the French around Moscow felt had been the wounds recently inflicted on the old patriotic party, and on how precarious a footing the public tranquillity rested. When the procession set out, the well-known ensigns of the ortas of the janizaries were not to be seen; the public discontent soon became visible, and a tumult arose, which was not suppressed without measures of great severity, and the execution of a number of the persons suspected of favouring that hated body. 51. Meanwhile the operations before Schumla continued with various success, but on the whole to the advantage of the Ottomans. On the 15th August, Rudiger received orders from Wittgenstein to move on Kioitei, a village beyond Eski-Stamboul behind that fortress, and on the road to Constanti-sian right. The surprise was complete; nople, in order to dislodge a body of the redoubt was carried, six guns taken, three thousand Turks who were sta- and General Wrede, with five hundred tioned there, and kept up the commu- men, put to the sword. The Russians nications with the interior. He was experienced an equal loss in their efat first successful, and drove the enemy forts to regain the redoubt, which was back; but, attacked in his turn by su- obstinately defended, and in the enperior forces, he was routed with the deavour to rescue the guns, which the loss of four hundred men, and a gun Turks succeeded in carrying off. This taken. This check revealed the supe-attack was not a mere detached operariority of the enemy in detached ac- tion, but was intended to divert their tions, the ascendant which their horse attention from the principal design, had acquired, and the extreme danger which was nothing less than to crush to which the army was exposed in con- by a concentric attack the troops of sequence. Provisions were becoming Prince Eugene* at Marash, four thouscarce, and forage in particular, in con- sand strong, and then assault General sequence of the first growth of summer Rudiger near Eski-Stamboul, on the having been consumed or past away, extreme Russian left, who would in was everywhere awanting. The Turk- that event have been seriously comish horses, accustomed to be fed en- promised. These attacks were not entirely on barley or bread, did not suf- tirely successful, but such as they were fer in consequence; but the Russian, they inflicted a serious loss upon the bred up on the green pastures of the Russians, and demonstrated the exUkraine and the Don, were daily be-treme danger which they ran when coming weaker, and died in great num- scattered around Schumla, in presence bers from pure inanition. This render- of a powerful and enterprising enemy. ed a more extensive circuit for foraging indispensable; and that in its turn induced fresh dangers, by exposing the * Eugene had succeeded to the command of the 7th corps, on Woinoff being appointed to that of the cavalry. 55. While affairs were beginning to wear this sombre aspect on the side of Schumla, the siege of Varna had come to be seriously prosecuted. The reinforcements from Russia began to come up in the end of August. They amounted to 35,000 men, and consisted of the Guards and 2d corps. The latter moved on Silistria; the former, numbering 16,000 of the best troops in the empire, were directed on Varna, and their arrival would enable the besiegers to assume the offensive in that quarter with every prospect of success. Previous to this, the investing force, including all forwarded from Schumla and landed from the fleet, amounted to 20,000. Admiral Greig, with eight sail of the line and as many frigates, kept up a close blockade by sea, and not only prevented any supplies from being thrown in, but destroyed a flotilla of twenty-eight Turkish gunboats in a bay in the vicinity. Prince Menschikoff unfortu 53. The column destined to attack | out detachments on the road to JeniMarash, composed of eight thousand bazar, intercepted several Russian coninfantry, four thousand horse, and voys, and daily made prisoners of great eight guns, met with more resistance numbers of their foraging parties. than that which destroyed General Wrede, for the enemy were informed of what was intended, and were on their guard. One Russian battalion was cut to pieces in the first fury of the assault; and although obliged to retire by the vigorous attack which three other battalions directed against them, the besieged carried with them one gun, and inflicted a very severe loss upon the enemy. The division destined for the attack of Rudiger near Eski-Stamboul was still more successful; for that officer, on hearing of its approach, abandoned his post and retired behind the Great Kamtjik. In these different actions the Russians lost above fifteen hundred men and eight guns; alarm and insecurity were spread over their whole lines, and the Turks gained the substantial fruits of victory by the introduction, two days after the tumult, of a considerable body of troops and large convoy of ammunition and provisions into Schumla. 54. These disasters convinced Witt-nately was severely wounded in the genstein of the necessity of concentrating his troops, and evacuating the ground which he held around the Turkish position on the southern side. The redoubts on the Balkan side of Schumla were held for a few days after, to avoid the appearance of a defeat, but finally evacuated on the 6th August. The 7th corps, which had been stationed to the south of the town, was withdrawn, so as to be placed in close communication with the 3d, on the north of it, and both occupied positions on the roads to Jenibazar and Silistria. The communication of the troops at Schumla with both Adrianople and Constantinople was thus left open; not even the semblance of a blockade was kept up: the Russians merely occupied a position to the north, observing the place. The Turkish general profited by this opening to throw large supplies into it, which augmented the strength and audacity of the garrison so much, that, no longer confining themselves to operations on the Balkan side, they threw thigh by a cannon-ball in the commencement of the siege, which rendered it necessary to confer its direction on Count Woronzow, who immediately pushed it with vigour on the side next the sea, in order to obtain the advantage of the co-operation of the fleet. Foreseeing that important events were approaching, the Emperor returned in person to Varna, and took the command of the besieging army; while General Golownin was detached to Galata, on the other side of the bay, between the sea and the Lake of Dewno, to take the command of the covering force, 5000 strong. 56. It soon appeared how necessary the great reinforcements which were now coming up were to the invaders, and how serious were the dangers which threatened them on the side of Schumla. Vague reports had of late reached the Russian outposts of the arrival of the Grand Vizier with ten thousand men at Adrianople, and the concentration of daily increasing num |