19 MARCH 1881, Page 16

CAPTAIN CLARKE'S " PLEVNA."* Tim American officer, Lieutenant Greene, who

attended the Czar's head-quarters during the war in Turkey, in one of the notes to his honest and careful history of the Russian cam- paigns, compares the siege of Plevna in duration, length of opposing lines, numbers engaged and disposed of, and expendi- ture of ammunition, with six of the greatest of modern sieges,— Sebastopol, Kars, Vicksburg, Richmond, Metz, and Paris. But although in every respect particularised the defence of Plevna well sustains the comparison, it has beyond such considerations a glory unique, and all its own. Never in the history of war was the art of the military engineer so splendidly illustrated, and with such eminent and immense results. When the Rus- sians crossed the Danube, Plevna was an open country town, without a fort, without a cannon, whose strongest buildings were a mosque or a convent, girt by the gay summer sheen of vineyards and maize-fields. " Before the campaign of 1877-8," says Captain Clarke, " Plevna, had never been heard of, and it finds no place even in Von Moltke's sketch of the defensive advantages of Bulgaria." But the position was one of great natural capacity, and the Turkish General and his chief of the Staff were soldiers of unquestionable genius, enterprise, and energy. So, although the great invading army had mastered the Danube and captured Nicopolis, and though Gourko's Cossacks, having cleared the Shipka Pass, already within a fortnight had touched the rail- road to Constantinople beyond the Balkans, Osman did not despair. On July 18th the Grand Duke Nicholas telegraphed to General Krudener," Occupy Plevna as promptly as possible." But Osman just arrived, with patient, skilful Tewfik, in the course of a few hours had made such skilful use of the spade, that Plevna was already a formidable place of arms when the Russians first attacked him, on the 20th. That attack resulted in a repulse so complete that it instantly stemmed the invasion. For five months behind his earthworks, always ready with spade

* Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers. Edited by Major R. 11. Vetch, R. E. Royal Engineer Institute °occasional Papers.—Vol. V. 1880. !!Plevna." By Captain (1. S. Clarke, E.E. London' E. Stanford.

or rifle, Osman stood at bay. In defence of his ramparts, before he was completely iuvested, he fought three great. battles, and in each inflicted dire disaster on his enemy.. He not merely brought the Czar's whole army to a sudden halt, at the moment when they supposed they were about to• clutch complete and easy victory. Ile so pummelled the Rus- sian force before him, and spoiled its strength and spirit, that.

it became necessary, not merely to bring the hitherto ignored.

Roumanians to its rescue, but to transfer the general command before Plevna to the Prince of Roumania. Meantime, the Czar ruled and governed All the Russias, from the camp that for all these five long months of blood and iron stood still at. Osman's bidding. Seldom have such great results been achieved in war with such small material means. Osman had.

40,000 soldiers and 77 guns, when he surrendered. The invest-.

ing force alone was 110,000 men, with 600 guns. The conditions. changed, indeed, when, after the monstrous slaughter of the third. battle, the one adequate engineer, Todleben, was summoned, and proceeded to environ the place in his terrible ring-fence. Not always the big battalions avail, even in modern war. Genius and the heroic spirit are still factors of victory. Had there been no- Todleben on the Russian side, or had all the Turkish armies.

been led as Osman's was, Alexander's war might have as little, advanced the settlement of the Eastern Question as those of Nicholas had done.

Major Vetch, who edits the series of papers in which Captain, Clarke's able and exhaustive monograph appears, occupying a.

whole volume to itself, says, no doubt correctly, that hitherto, "no complete history of the defence of Plevna has appeared,.

in our own or any other tongue." Captain Clarke had under- taken to translate an essay of General von Schroder on the• subject, when Major Vetch urged him instead to make a.

thorough study of all the existing available materials, and'. write the story of the siege. It was an appropriate task, and it has been done with keen insight and good judgment :-

" There is, perhaps, a danger," Captain Clarke says, in his preface,. "that the Russo-Turkish campaign may not receive the full study which it certainly deserves, partly because its history will always be' somewhat incomplete and unsatisfactory, and partly because the operations seem to give an impression of a species of strategic or- tactical lawlessness, or of departure from the established precedents of warfare. Moreover, the positive teaching of the campaign is. somewhat slight ; it contains more of warning than of example, and perhaps it is more natural to follow the latter than to study the former."

But however low it may stand in the scale of great wars re- garded from the strategist's point of view, it is certainly full of' lessons to engineers. Apart from the great struggle out of which Todleben at last led Osman captive, it is justly said by* Captain Clarke

Few of the engineering concomitants of warfare were absent from. this campaign. One of the longest of military bridges was thrown, across a deep and rapid river. Pontooning experiences of the most. varied kind were gained. There wore several offensive torpedo., exploits ; defensive submarine mines were extensively employed, and: formed a very real protection against the Turkish Danube flotilla., of which much had been predicted. Railway and road difficulties of all kinds had to be conquered. A mountain range had to be crossed in. the depth of winter. In picturesqueness of incident and in variety of operation, few wars of modern times compare with that of 1877-782

But from the siege of Plevna itself, the three great lessons of experience which most impress Captain Clarke's mind are the slight effect which the Russian cannonade had on Osma.n's earthworks, the extraordinary results of the Turkish rifle-fire„ and the great defensive power which the Turks from the first derived, and then steadily and incessantly developed, from their use of the spade. Of these three, the most marvellous, the most. unexpected result was that obtained by maintaining rapid and, distant infantry fire. The great triumphs of the defence on critical occasions appear to have been achieved by a perfect. hail of rifle-bullets. This, but for its result, might be regarded as an instance of the "tactical lawlessness" of which Captain. Clarke elsewhere speaks, for certainly guns of precision, with•

nicely graduated ranges, were not introduced into the armament

of nations with the view of burning ten to fifteen cartridges a. minute. But the tornado of lead justified itself, and though Captain Clarke does not seem to have formed a conclusive judg-• went on the point, we cannot but think that the evidence is in. favour of the view that the Turkish fire, however rapid, was also' sure. On this point he perhaps assigns a little too much value..

to the opinion of Lieutenant Chermside, R.E., who says that the• Turks were bad shots, except at very short ranges, but that they fired very rapidly. Lonrapatkin, on the other baud, says that the- Russian losses began at ranges over 2,000 paces, and that " the greatest losses were experienced. between 2,000 and 000 paces," a natural induction from which state of facts would be that the firing

at long distances was slower and more careful, but becarnerestless and rapid as the smoke thickened and the lines converged. But here Todleben's evidence is, after all, entitled to the greatest w i ht. He had seen and studied more of actual war than any

office in either camp, and he deliberately declared that " the fire of the Turkish infantry was shattering and devastating to a degree never hitherto attained by any European army." Indeed, the Turk ought to be by rights a better shot than the Russian. Born and bred in a sunnier atmosphere, where the eye is not tried by the long contrast of seasons of snow and sand, more accustomed to the use of arms apart from the mere obligation of military service, and an hereditary teetotaller, the Turk has great natural advantages as a sharpshooter. In addition, he had at Plevna the long odds of the most ingeniously contrived cover, and he had a far more telling weapon than that of his enemy.

It is impossible to separate the operations round Plevna very strictly from the fortunes of the war elsewhere in European Turkey, and accordingly Captain Clarke devotes special sections of his work to Gourko's, Suleiman's, and Mehemet Ali's opera- tions. Reviewing, with all the evidence that has since trans- pired before him, the much debated question of Suleiman's conduct and motives, he passes a severe judgment upon them. He says :—

" It was open to Suleiman by a ten days' march to cross the Trojan or the Slivno Pass, and to bring a new army, composed of admirable fighting material, to the aid either of Osman or Mehemet Ali. The Trojan Pass is by no moans easy, and the road thence to Plevna passes rather near to the Russian position at Selvi. The Slivno Pass, however, presents no difficulties, and the latter plan was strongly urged by Mehemet Ali. General Baker's work amply proves, how- ever, that anything approaching to a combined movement was possible. The Pashas sank patriotism, and even military loyalty, in their personal rivalries. Mehemet All was never sure of the co-opera- tion of his own subordinates, and though be descended to entreaties to Suleiman to lend him a 'band, it was all in vain. The proposed move- ment would have given an overwhelming superiority to the Turkish Army of the East, and to meet it the Russians would probably have been forced to let go their hold of the Schipka position. Suleiman, however, seems to have had a single aim—his own glorification. He was bent on a front attack on the Schipka position. Ile is said to have had the art of despatch writing, and he was supported at Constantinople."

It is not at all improbable, indeed, that Suleiman might be able to plead that he acted on express orders from Constantinople.

Great must have been the terror there when the news came that in fifteen days after crossing the Danube, Gourko had mastered three passes of the Danube, and caught hold of a branch of the Roumelian railroad. It was to ward off Gourko from the road to Constantinople that Suleiman was summoned in hot haste from Montenegro ; and it very probably seemed to those who guided the councils of the Porte at the time that Suleiman, and Suleiman alone, could keep Gourko and his Cossacks from cantering on to the banks of the Bosphorus, and that no Commander of the Faithful could by any possibility be better employed. It is almost certain, from Osman's imperfect reply when Todleben asked him why he had not retreated to Rado- rniftza in October, when the Russian Guard was closing tightly round his right flank, that he, for no more noble reasons, received positive orders to hold Plevna to his last biscuit, bullet, and drop of blood.

We have said enough to indicate our opinion that Captain Clarke's book—for it in reality is a book, though purporting only to be a paper—is a valuable addition to the not very voluminous library of English military science. Notwith- standing the great dearth of materials on the Turkish side, he has constructed what scorns to us to be a very vivid, just, and accurately detailed account of one of the most epic of modern sieges. The accompanying plans are complete in every variety of illustrative detail. It is to be hoped and expected that an edition for the public will be issued, as, we believe, iu its present form the volume is not intended for general circulation.