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Yes, he got back safely enough. As to whether he is safe now, that is another matter. He is in the thick of the fighting around Gumbinnen, and he is not one of those generals who stay in the rear. He is like Skobeleff. Have you heard of him?" "He commanded at Plevna, against the Turks?" "And in a good many other battles!
Shell fire could do little against troops so splendidly entrenched. The Boers, like the Turks at Plevna, crept under their épaulements while the shells screamed overhead or swept the parapets with shrapnel bullets, and then, when this tyranny was overpast, crept out and poured in one of the most terrific fusilades of the century's warfare.
At last one of the greatest events of the war approached. Plevna had been so closely hemmed in by Russian troops, and cut off from supplies, that the garrison was reduced to starvation. In this extremity, as is well known, Osman Pasha resolved on the desperate attempt to cut his way out of the beleaguered position.
But this intention having been presently departed from, and the reinforcements being ordered instead to the Plevna section of the theatre of war, the Tzarewitch retained his command on the left flank, and thus in mid-December had the opportunity of inflicting a severe defeat on Suleiman Pasha, just as in September he had worsted Mehemet Ali in the battle of Carkova.
But Prince Carol refused to make capital out of the serious position of the Russians; he led his army across the Danube and, at the express desire of the Tsar, took over the supreme command of the united forces before Plevna.
Like Alexis, he had been a soldier in a guard regiment; Alexis had been killed at Plevna, and Nicholas had succeeded to the title and the estates, from which, however, a considerable allowance was paid to the Countess as a jointure. Nicholas was a handsome man of five or six and twenty, of middle height, swarthy complexion, and compact figure.
Osman's solitary attempt to operate outside of Plevna met with no success; and the recent defeat of Moukhtar may be ascribed to incaution in taking position too far from his line of defense, where, when attacked, manoeuvres of which his people were incapable became necessary.
He stood frowning heavily as he snapped the catches of his gloves, and fell foul of the groom over a buckle of the harness, in a fashion that left the man open-mouthed. "Blow me, if I don't believe he's got the sack!" thought the man in driving townwards. The abrupt stoppage of Richard's visits to Plevna House staggered Mary.
He was older and stouter than his brother-in-arms, Henri de Prerolles, and a wound he had received at Plevna slightly impeded his movements, so that he was unable to display the same activity in the dance as the other waltzers, and contented himself with moving a 'trois temps', in an evolution less in harmony with the brilliancy of the music.
A study of the events around Plevna shows clearly what a brave but ill-trained army can do and what it cannot do under modern conditions. From the point of view of strategy that is, the conduct of the great operations of a campaign Osman's defence of Plevna yields lessons of equal interest.
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