The advantage to the Russians in this triumph is immense,
for it releases 120,000 men for further operations, but the numbers in Plevna were found to be unexpectedly small. Osman Pasha had originally, by all accounts, 30,000 Regulars, including some of the best troops in the service, and he gathered together from small garrisons and from the Mussulinan villages round Sofia about 15,000 more. He' must have, however, sustained great losses during the siege, both in battle and from sickness, or have for- warded some of his Irregulars to Sofia, for only 27,000 prisoners `fell into the hands of those to whom he surrendered, 15,000 of whom yielded to the actual victors. The remainder were guarding the transport trains, or were sick or scattered. Five thousand more lad fallen in the sortie, so that 82,000 only are officially accounted for. The town itself was found to be little injured, but the cannonade of two previous days had done great execution, and the losses in the two great repulses, in defending Skobeleffe re- doubts, and in the two desperate efforts to recapture them must 'have been very heavy.
