One strange and grim incident happened during the bombardment, and, to the Turkish mind especially, seemed to illustrate the doctrine of fatalism with appalling vividness. In the height of the firing, when the shells from the heavy siege-guns at Kalafat were dropping incessantly within the fortress, one of them, as it exploded, tore a great hole in the ground large enough to contain a horse. A Turkish woman, who was cowering with three children under the shadow of the wall, determined to take refuge in the newly made hole, reckoning by the doctrine of chances that it was about the least likely spot to be again disturbed. Hardly had she crept in and drawn the three children after her than another shell, leaving the cannon's mouth at Kalafat nearly two miles away, dropped into the very same hole and blew the four hapless creatures who were hiding there to atoms. On another occasion I saw a shell strike the angle of a house, tear two walls down, and reduce one half of a room to ruins. In the other half of the room were a Turkish woman and two children, all of whom escaped unhurt.
As soon as the war had fairly started and the troops had smelt blood, the Circassians began to display the wild courage and the love of pillage inbred in them in the mountain fastnesses, which they only left to become the troublesome members of the Turkish Empire that they generally turned out to be. Of their bravery and resourcefulness there could be no question; but their rapacity was inextinguishable, and no one who did not wear a uniform was safe from them. Soon after the commencement of the bombardment, a party of about fifty Circassians organized a private raid on their own account into Roumanian territory, and carried it out with extraordinary dash and brilliancy. One dark night, when the flash of the guns at Kalafat and the answering stream of fire from the Widdin batteries illuminated the blackness with fitful gleams of light, the Circassians crossed the Danube in boats, towing their horses behind them by ropes. They had made ingenious lifebelts for the horses out of the inflated pigskins which were used as wine casks in the country, and thus equipped each hardy little animal swam easily behind the boats and crossed the river without mishap. When the Circassians reached the opposite bank, they removed these novel lifebelts, mounted their horses, shot a couple of Roumanian sentries, and galloped off in the darkness with the instinctive knowledge of the whereabouts of plunder that is born in the blood of hereditary cattle-stealers. Before long they had rounded up a goodly mob of the small black cattle of Roumania, and had them headed for the Danube. The Circassian is an expert stockman, and for the party to bring four hundred cattle down to the river was an easy task while the Kalafat gunners, blissfully unconscious of the coup that was being executed under their noses, kept pounding away at the Widdin fortifications. To bring a mob of cattle across a river nearly a mile wide and with a current of great velocity would need some skill in daylight; but to bring them across in pitch darkness, and under the guns of the enemy, was a feat which few but Circassians could accomplish. Those black cattle, however, that are found along the banks of the Danube are almost amphibious, and they take to the water like dogs. As soon as the front files had taken to the water the others followed them readily, and the Circassians followed in the boats, rounding up the stragglers with their whips, and towing their horses, re-equipped with the pigskin lifebelts, behind them. So in darkness and rain, across the hurrying flood of the Danube they brought four hundred head of Roumanian cattle, and left behind them two dead sentries lying with their faces turned towards the sky.
All that May the bombardment of Widdin was continued at irregular intervals; but there were occasionally several successive days on which there was no firing, and at these times life in Widdin was inconceivably dull. While these voluntary armistices were in progress, we could see the Roumanians hard at work constructing new batteries, which made the Turkish troops in Widdin chafe at their enforced inactivity.
Owing to the conditions under which the bombardment took place and the strong fortifications of Widdin, the Turkish loss in killed and wounded was remarkably small; for on June 27, after several weeks of intermittent firing, we only had about twelve killed and twenty wounded.
The Roumanian gunners seemed to have great difficulty in finding the range; for on June 26, when I was sitting on the verandah of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate, all the Roumanian batteries, six in number, opened fire apparently on the consulate, though it was said afterwards that their target was a Turkish monitor lying a little farther down the river. The first two shells flew over the consulate, the next exploded in the adjoining house, and the next fell into the river about twenty yards from where we were sitting. Despairing, it seemed, of hitting the consulate, my quondam entertainers, with whom I had dined not so long before, directed their efforts upon the fortress, but without doing any serious damage. On the following morning they commenced operations at seven o'clock, and from that hour until three o'clock in the afternoon the screaming of the shells was incessant. This was decidedly the biggest day that we had had, and the Turkish batteries responded very vigorously. Osman Pasha took the keenest interest in the artillery practice, and remained in one of our largest batteries for the greater part of the day. While there he told one of the gunners to direct his fire upon a certain battery. The gunner fired three times, and on each occasion he dropped the shell right into the Roumanian battery. Osman Pasha was so delighted that he embraced the man, and made him a sergeant on the spot.
In spite of the stunning noise of the projectiles, many of which weighed sixty pounds apiece, one soon got used to the cannonading; and while the bombardment was going on, I often sat on the battlements with my legs dangling over the side, and watched the Roumanian gunners at their work.
Our friends the Circassians, whenever they found time hanging heavy on their hands, were in the habit of relieving the monotony by private forays across the river, during which they made things very unpleasant for the Roumanian outposts. Osman Pasha himself admitted that he could put no reliance upon the Circassians. In his treatise on the campaign, he sums up this branch of his troops in one fitting sentence: "En résumé, leur concours fut plus invisible qu'utile." At the same time he points out that the savage excesses of the Circassians were equalled, if not surpassed, by the exploits both of the Cossacks and the Bulgarians, who never allowed an opportunity of massacre or pillage to escape them. At the same time, while admitting the excesses of the Circassians, he is careful to point out that the regular Ottoman troops were kept in a thorough state of discipline by their officers. "We can affirm," he declares, "that the Turkish regulars never committed an act similar to the massacre of the defenders of Lovtcha, nor to the inhuman treatment of which the Turkish prisoners were the victims after the fall of Plevna."
It may not be out of place here to give a brief sketch of the plan of campaign which Osman Pasha submitted to the commander-in-chief, Abdul Kerim Pasha, about the end of June, and which, had it been adopted, would probably have changed the whole issue of the war. From the official records, since collated under the Muchir's personal supervision, it appears that Osman Pasha proposed to the commander-in-chief to leave about twelve battalions of infantry for the defence of Widdin, and to unite the remainder of the forces at his disposal, namely, nineteen battalions, so as to make a corps d'armée, at the head of which he (Osman Pasha) should leave Widdin. He would pick up on the march a few battalions from the garrison of Rahova, make for Plevna, and there join the division of Hassan Hairi Pasha, who would quit Nicopolis without waiting for the enemy's attack. Then passing Lovtcha, the whole column would march upon Tirnova, where Osman Pasha would effect a junction with the eastern army from Shumla under Mehemet Ali Pasha, and then with the two combined armies march in the direction of Sistova. If this junction were prevented by the movements of the Russian army, Osman Pasha could occupy the position of Lovtcha, which was better situated than Plevna for the defence of the Balkan Passes.
However, Osman Pasha could not obtain leave to carry out his plan, and he even encountered opposition in making the necessary preparations. His idea was of course to assume the offensive, and hurl the Russians back upon Wallachia before their reinforcements arrived, instead of being compelled, as afterwards happened, to act on the defensive at Plevna.
Afterwards, on July 10, the Sultan gave Osman Pasha a free hand, but it was then too late; and so it came about that delay at the critical moment, combined with the incapacity of Redif Pasha, the Turkish minister of war, who was responsible for the defective organization of the Ottoman army, its reduced strength, and its lack of proper transport and commissariat services, operating together, neutralized the brilliant generalship of Osman Pasha and the devoted courage of the men who fought under him.