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Updated: July 23, 2025
We see no reason to deny it; and if the case occurred again, we should see no reason to act with less determination. And again as to the prosecution of the war after the raising of the siege of Silistria which, according to Kinglake, was unnecessary; or the invasion of the Crimea which was unjustifiable, to be accounted for, not by any large views of politics or of war, but by paltry personal passions and influences of the most contemptible kind: England and France declared by their despatches of July 22nd, that the sacrifices already imposed on them were too great, and the cause they had taken in hand too important, for them to desist, unless they obtained from Russia adequate securities against the renewal of hostilities.
That she could not take Silistria or Kars against Turkish troops, except by the accident of famine, will never be forgotten by German armies or statesmen.... The native Russian peasants and low persons do not yet know that the Czar was beaten; they suppose him to have conquered with immense cost; but the nobility knew the truth, and it will leak through to the lowest people, I expect, in the course of a few years.
Instead of purchasing safety by paying tribute, as his predecessors had done, he raised one hundred thousand men, armed a respectable fleet, repulsed Svatoslav at Adrianople, obliged him to retreat to Silistria, and took by assault the capital of the Bulgarians.
Things don't look as bright as we should wish, but we can keep up our spirits with the hopes of a change for the better. The Turks are tremendously hard pressed in Silistria, and we are expecting every hour to hear of the fall of the place; when we shall have the Russians down upon us.
I fear the defeat of the Turks near Shumla was decisive; but still we have only Russian accounts, and they do so lie! It seems certain the Russians took the opportunity of opening a negotiation. The carelessness of the Turks in not keeping a good look-out towards Silistria seems unaccountable, and they dawdled sadly before Pravady.
Many were put to death; many escaped into neutral ground; and it is gratifying to add, that of two traitors amongst the higher officers, one was detected and despatched in a summary way of vengeance by his own associates; the other, for some unexplained reason, was beheaded by his Turkish friends at the very moment when he had put himself into their power, in fearless obedience to their own summons to come and receive his well-merited reward, and under an express assurance from the Pacha of Silistria that he was impatiently waiting to invest him with a pelisse of honor.
Thereafter, they would be threatened by the Quadrilateral of fortresses Rustchuk, Shumla, Varna, and Silistria. Three of these were connected by railway, which enabled the Turks to send troops quickly from the port of Varna to any position between the mountain stronghold of Shumla and the riverine fortress, Rustchuk.
But when a month's campaign changed the war from one of liberation to one of conquest, Roumania demanded from Bulgaria as the price of neutrality Silistria and a small slice of the Black Sea coast sufficient to satisfy strategic military demands. It was in his relations with Roumania that Daneff's diplomacy was most stupid.
Daneff, who represented Bulgaria, adopted a most truculent attitude and refused to yield on any point. As a result of the skilful diplomacy of the French ambassador, M. Delcassé, in reconciling the divergent views of the great Powers, Roumania was awarded, on April 19th, the town of Silistria and a three-mile zone around it, but was refused an increase on the seaboard.
Silistria farther down the river was thereupon evacuated, and on the 16th Mackensen stood on the line Rasova-Kobadinu-Tuzla, a dozen miles from the important railway running from Bukarest across the Tchernavoda bridge to Constanza; Tchernavoda was the only bridge across the Danube in the Balkans, and Constanza was Rumania's only Black Sea port.
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