On the evening of July 12 we heard the news that we were to march next morning, and every heart beat high at the prospect of an early escape from the demoralizing inactivity of life in the bombarded town. Among the troops left in Widdin for garrison duty was my old regiment the Kyrchehir; and on the evening of July 12, just eight days before the first battle of Plevna, I rode out to the camp to bid farewell to my old comrades, from whom I was now to part, for in accordance with my own request to Hassib Bey I had been appointed to go on duty with the troops about to take the field. My relations with both the officers and the men of the Kyrchehir Regiment had been of the most cordial nature ever since I joined them in Constantinople. They all expressed their regret at the separation, which, I need hardly say, I felt as keenly as they did. My leave-taking with my little comrade Mehemet Ali the paymaster, whose tent-mate I had been, and who had taught me most of the Turkish that I knew, was specially affecting; and I can say with truth that, as I cantered back to Widdin that night to take the field against the enemy, I carried with me the good wishes of all my old comrades.
On July 13 at five o'clock we marched out of Widdin, bound, as we afterwards understood, for Nicopolis. Osman Pasha's army consisted of nineteen battalions of infantry, fifty-eight guns, and one regiment of cavalry;[1] while Izzet Pasha was left behind with the remainder of the troops to garrison Widdin. I was attached to the Shumla Regiment, which had the reputation of being one of the finest fighting regiments in the Ottoman army; and two other surgeons, Weinberger and Kustler, both Austrians, accompanied the advance guard with me. We said good-bye to the others before we started, and we all drank each other's healths, and wished each other good luck in the unknown struggle that was before us.
The men of Osman Pasha's army were all in splendid fettle, and were looking forward with longing to the time of coming to close quarters with the enemy. Since the close of the Servian war they had all been well fed and well clothed, the horses were in tiptop condition, and the men set out upon the march with a light heart, carrying each his seventy rounds of ammunition and his accoutrements reduced to the lightest marching order as if the weight was nothing. We had a baggage train consisting of waggons full of ammunition; but there was no commissariat service, and we had to rely for sustenance solely on the great army biscuits, each as big as a soup-plate, of which every man carried a supply. Water was obtained from the water-carts, which followed the column in case streams or wells should fail us en route.
It was the height of summer, and the weather was terribly hot when we started on the morning of the 13th, the line of march following the course of the Danube, though at some distance back, this precaution being adopted for two reasons—first, to conceal our objective from the enemy and, secondly, to minimize the danger from their guns.
The Roumanians of course were quickly aware of our departure, and they followed us with their field-guns on the other side of the river. When they began to shell us, however, at Vidpol, we diverged from the main road, and, striking farther back, continued our march without sustaining a single casualty. At five o'clock in the afternoon the column camped near the village of Artzar, and I rode into the village on a foraging expedition to see if I could not supplement the biscuits, which were very hard fare, and had to be broken with a hatchet and soaked in water before they could be eaten.
I managed to buy some kabobs, or small pieces of meat fixed on skewers; and Weinberger, Kustler, and I made a fire, and cooked a modest supper, which we ate with the best of appetites. We determined to camp about a mile away from the main body, and tied our horses up to the branches of a huge walnut tree, while we admired the novel sight of the bivouac. The column had halted in a wooded valley among the hills and along the bank of a river; so that the lights of a thousand camp-fires danced on the quiet water, and the hum and laughter of thirteen thousand men came to our ears on the soft night breeze that was whispering through the walnut trees. Gradually one by one the lights died down; the men, tired with the long and dusty march, wrapped themselves in their great-coats; and the camp was sunk in slumber. At about nine o'clock it began to get very cold, and Weinberger, Kustler, and I decided to shift our quarters, and move in among the main body to warm ourselves by the smouldering camp-fires. Picking our way gingerly among the sleeping forms that lay thickly on the bare ground, we came to a water-cart, to which we tied our horses, and then lay down to sleep. In the middle of the night there was a tremendous uproar, and I woke with a start, fancying that the Russians were upon us; but the scare was groundless. Our horses had pulled over the water-cart, broken their bridles, and were galloping mad with fright among the sleeping men; while the cries of the sentries and the curses of the rudely awakened sleepers speedily put the whole camp into confusion. In the middle of it all Osman Pasha put in an appearance to see what the noise was about, and the disturbance ceased as quickly as it began. With a few blessings from the sentries, we dozed off again to snatch what sleep we could, knowing that we had a hard day before us on the morrow.
On the following day the marching was terribly severe, for the heat was intense, and the distance we had already travelled had told on the men. About half a dozen fell down from sunstroke, and we had to leave them by the side of the road on the chance that the arabas bringing up the rear would pick them up. We came to several small rivers which were not bridged and had to be forded, while the roughness of the country caused much trouble to the artillery. In many places the path was so precipitous that the horses had to be taken out, and the guns pulled up to the summit by the men with drag-ropes. At four o'clock in the afternoon the column reached Krivodol; and here Osman Pasha received an urgent telegraphic message from Said Pasha, the Sultan's private secretary, instructing him to push on with the utmost possible despatch, and declaring that the Turkish Empire was then between life and death.
In order that the fatal consequences of the long delay in Widdin, at a time when every moment was precious and when every Turkish soldier was needed on the frontier, may be clearly understood, it is necessary to take a bird's-eye view of the disposition of the Russian forces and their plan of campaign during those momentous days in July.
As the Franco-German war opened with a race to the Rhine, so the Russo-Turkish war opened with a race to the Balkans, and the Russians got there first. By July 5, while we were still in Widdin, three Russian army corps had crossed the Danube at Sistova, with a division of cavalry and several Cossack regiments. General Gourko, with a strong advanced guard, including infantry, cavalry, artillery, and mounted pioneers, had crossed the Balkans by the bridle-path of Hain-Bogan, an exploit requiring extraordinary efforts, and debouched near Hainkioj on July 14. Here Gourko's dragoons easily routed a regiment of three hundred Anatolian Nizams; but a single Turkish regiment properly informed and properly led could have barred the pass for days. On July 19 the Shipka Pass was taken, a considerable Turkish force was dispersed, and a panic was struck at Constantinople. Meanwhile General Krüdener, with the Ninth Russian Army Corps, left Sistova on July 12, on the 15th invested Nicopolis, and on the 16th received the surrender of that fortress, upon which Osman Pasha was then marching. Ahmed Pasha, Hassan Pasha, with seven thousand men, were made prisoners, and one hundred and thirteen guns, with a large quantity of miscellaneous stores, fell into the hands of the Russians. Had Osman Pasha's propositions for an earlier departure from Widdin been carried out, Nicopolis would probably have been saved and the course of the campaign entirely changed. It was the news of the imminent attack on Nicopolis, which was communicated to Osman Pasha while we were lying in camp at Krivodol, which caused him to break up the camp after a few hours' rest and push on with that terrible forced march to Plevna.