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This report was printed in the Rabocaja Gazeta, May 18 and 19 this is the organ of the Mensheviks, i.e. that of Tscheidse, Tseretelli and Skobeleff. These Entente Socialists at the front were told with all possible distinctness that the Russian army could not and would not fight for the imperialistic aims of England and France.
It is now some twenty years since the idea of a railroad from the Caspian Sea eastward was first advanced. In 1880 a narrow-gauge road was begun to aid Skobeleff, but that daring and impetuous chief had made his march and finished his work before the rails had crept far on their way.
It occurred to me that our men were reserving fire according to the Skobeleff plan. In this I was right. When the Turks were within a hundred yards of the trenches the defenders fired as one man. The front ranks of the enemy fell like corn before the scythe; those in rear charged with irresistible impetuosity over their dead comrades. But the Russians had anticipated such an event.
Hayward is angry with it; Kinglake thinks it more friendly than could have been expected "to YOU, a friend of ME, their old open enemy: the sugar- plums were meant for you, the sprinklings of soot for me." Besides "Russia and England" Madame Novikoff is the author of "Friends or Foes? is Russia wrong?" and of a "Life of Skobeleff," the hero of Plevna and of Geok Tepe.
He made fruitless inquiries after a paper said to have been left behind him by Skobeleff, explaining that "India is a cherry to be eaten by Russia, but in two bites"; it was contrary to the general's recorded utterances and probably apocryphal.
The happy days when they were guests of the army, when news was served to them by the men who made the news, when Archibald Forbes and Frank Millet shared the same mess with the future Czar of Russia, when MacGahan slept in the tent with Skobeleff and Kipling rode with Roberts, have passed.
By 1 p.m. the Russian standard waved in triumph from the central hill of the fortress, and thenceforth bands of Tekkes began to stream forth into the desert on the further side. Now Skobeleff gave to his foes a sharp lesson, which, he claimed, was the most merciful in the end. He ordered his men, horse and foot alike, to pursue the fugitives and spare no one. Ruthlessly the order was obeyed.
If he be Suvaroff or Skobeleff or Gourko he may win great battles; if he be Mendeleieff he may reach some epoch-making discovery in science; if he be Derjavine he may write a poem like the "Ode to God"; if he be Antokolsky he may carve statues like "Ivan the Terrible"; if he be Nesselrode he may hold all Europe enchained to the ideas of the autocrat; if he be Miloutine or Samarine or Tcherkassky he may devise vast plans like those which enabled Alexander II to free twenty millions of serfs and to secure means of subsistence for each of them; if he be Prince Khilkoff he may push railway systems over Europe to the extremes of Asia; if he be De Witte he may reform a vast financial system.
It made no difference my telling them who I really am, March instead of Mars. I thought they were sure to know something of my story. They said, when I tried to cry off, that it was going to be a small dinner just a few friends who would like to meet Skobeleff and me, so I let myself be persuaded. This is the result!" As we spoke together, the conversation around us murmured vaguely in my ears.
Shortly afterwards our detachment reached the headquarters of General Gourko, who, with that celebrated Russian general, Skobeleff the younger, was pressing towards the Balkans. Here changes took place which very materially altered my experiences. Nicholas Naranovitsch was transferred to the staff of General Skobeleff.
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