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Updated: June 24, 2025
Some of these have dragged themselves hither on foot from that awful Shipka Pass a seven days' journey, and are in such an abject state of exhaustion that their recovery is usually impossible. Yet some do recover. Some men seem very hard to kill.
The bulk of these men did not arrive until September; and meanwhile the strain was terrible. The war correspondence of Mr. Archibald Forbes reveals the state of nervous anxiety in which Alexander II. was plunged at this time. Forbes had been a witness of the savage tenacity of the Turkish attack and the Russian defence on the hills commanding the Shipka Pass.
In April of the year 1877 the Russian armies crossed the Danube, stormed the Shipka pass, and after the capture of Plevna, marched southward until they reached the gates of Constantinople. Turkey appealed for help to England. There were many English people who denounced their government when it took the side of the Sultan.
They failed, however, to dislodge them from the important and famous Shipka Pass in August, and after this they became demoralized and their resistance rapidly weakened.
The army was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold, the deep snow, the natural difficulties of the passes, the efforts of the enemy, all failed to check the Russian advance.
After bringing his column of 11,000 men through the pass, Gurko drove off four Turkish battalions sent against him from the Shipka Pass and Kazanlik. Next he sent out bands of Cossacks to spread terror southwards, and delude the Turks into the belief that he meant to strike at the important towns, Jeni Zagra and Eski Zagra, on the road to Adrianople.
He allowed Suleiman Pasha to fling his troops in vain against the natural stronghold of the Russians at the Shipka Pass, and had made no dispositions for succouring Lovtcha. Obviously he should have concentrated the Turkish forces so as to deal a timely and decisive blow either on the Lom or on the Sofia-Plevna road.
Finally, Suleiman Pasha, in his pride at driving Gurko through the Khainkoi Pass, wasted time on the southern side, first by harrying the wretched Bulgarians, and then by hurling his brave troops repeatedly against the now almost impregnable position on the Shipka Pass.
On January 5-8 Prince Mirsky threaded his way with a strong column through the deep snows of the Travna Pass, about twenty-five miles east of the Shipka, which he then approached; while Skobeleff struggled through a still more difficult defile west of the central position. The total strength of the Russians was 56,000 men.
Russia, according to her previous declaration, took up arms alone. The Russian troops crossed the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, and seized on the important Shipka Pass. At first they seemed destined to a speedy triumph. But the Turks under Osman Pasha fought with unexpected valor and success. They were thus in the neighborhood of Constantinople.
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