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The pride of the Roumanian people brooked no thought of accepting the Dobrudscha, a district in great part marshy and thinly populated, as an exchange for a fertile district peopled by their kith and kin. They let the world know that Russia appropriated their Bessarabian district by force, and that they accepted the Dobrudscha as a war indemnity.
It may be questioned, however, whether the invaders did well to keep so large a force in the Dobrudscha, seeing that a smaller body of light troops patrolling the left bank of the lower Danube or at the tête de pont at Matchin would have answered the same purpose.
Early in May the news arrived that the Russians had advanced through the Dobrudscha and had commenced the siege of Silistria. A few hours later the "Falcon" and several other ships of war were on their way up the Dardanelles, convoying numerous store-ships bound to Varna.
Thus, on all sides, proofs accumulated that the invaders had attempted far too much for their strength, and that their whole plan of campaign was more brilliant than sound. Possibly, had not the 14th corps been thrown away on the unhealthy Dobrudscha, enough men would have been at hand to save the situation. But now everything was at stake.
The Russian plan of campaign was to destroy or cripple the four small Turkish ironclads that patrolled the lower reaches of the river, to make feints at several points, and to force a passage at two places first near Ibrail into the Dobrudscha, and thereafter, under cover of that diversion, from Simnitza to Sistova. The latter place of crossing combined all the possible advantages.
Meanwhile, their 14th corps held the central position of Babadagh in the Dobrudscha, thereby preventing any attack from the north-east side of the Quadrilateral against their communications with the south of Russia.
On the 21st of July two divisions of French troops under General Canrobert marched into the Dobrudscha, in search of some bodies of Russians who were said to be there. On the night of the 28th cholera broke out, and before morning, in one division no less than 600 men lay dead.
The action of Russia, in compelling Bulgaria to give up the Dobrudscha as an equivalent to the part of Bessarabia which she took from Roumania, also strained the sense of gratitude of those peoples; and the conduct of Muscovite agents in Bulgaria provoked in that Principality feelings bitterer than those which the Italians felt at the loss of Savoy and Nice.
The flood of the Danube having at last subsided, all was ready by midsummer. Russian batteries and torpedo-boats had destroyed two Turkish armoured gunboats in the lower reaches of the river, and on June 22 a Russian force crossed in boats from a point near Galatz to Matchin, and made good their hold on the Dobrudscha. Preparations were also ripe at Simnitza.
Ibraila capitulated on the 18th of June, and the military posts on the Dobrudscha fell rapidly one after another. But it was at Shumla that the strongest part of the Turkish army was concentrated, under Omar Brionis, bent on defensive operations; and thither the Czar directed his main attack. Before this stronghold his army wasted away by sickness in the malarial month of September.
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