Of course the redoubts were not all uniform in exact pattern, some of them being designed for artillery and infantry, while others were defended by infantry only. In many of the works a second line of rifle fire was obtained from a covered way leading outside, so that when all the resources of a redoubt and trenches were at work an unremitting fire of three and in some cases four successive tiers was obtained. The supply of ammunition was practically unlimited; and it is not difficult to recognize that, under such conditions, an assaulting force could not but be terribly scourged both by infantry and artillery.
During the night of September 6 the Russians brought up their artillery under cover of the darkness, and threw up cover for the guns with their entrenching tools. When the morning of September 7 broke in cold and drizzling rain, the Russians had surrounded us, the Roumanian divisions being placed in the north and north-east, while the Russian divisions lay in the south-east and south. All the west side was occupied by cavalry, who commanded the valley of the Vid and the Orkhanieh road, so as to cut off the Turkish fugitives who were expected to fly in that direction.
The Russians had about eighty thousand infantry, twelve thousand cavalry, and four hundred and forty guns; while the Turkish forces numbered about thirty thousand infantry with seventy-two guns and an inappreciable number of cavalry.[3]
Every precaution had been taken by the Russians to avoid a repetition of the previous disasters which had attended their attempts to force Plevna by assault, and they relied for success upon their vast preponderance in numbers and upon a prolonged artillery preparation which was intended to demoralize the defence.
At six o'clock in the morning of September 7 I heard the roar of the commencing bombardment from Opanetz in the north, and it quickly worked round, until the two Grivitza redoubts due east of Plevna were involved. Across the Bulgarian road, Ibrahim Bey's redoubt and three or four others connected with it sustained a fierce bombardment, and the line of guns extending southwards across the Tutchenitza ravine and the Lovtcha road added their voices to the general roar as far as the village of Brestovitz, where a heavy fire from siege-guns was concentrated on the Krishin redoubt. A short experience of the bombardment, however, showed our troops that they had little to fear from the Russian artillery, and casualties were few and far between in the redoubts.
What was called the "mammoth battery," consisting of a tremendous group of fifty heavy Russian siege-guns, was placed in position due east of Plevna, and bombarded Ibrahim Bey's redoubt all day, the guns of the redoubt replying with spirit. The garrison of the redoubt were so well covered that they lost only forty men in killed and wounded after the whole day's firing, and the damage which was done to the earthworks during the day was repaired at night.
Soon after the commencement of the action I rode over towards Ibrahim Bey's redoubt, taking Lauri, the newly arrived German artist, with me. As we rode along together a Russian shell struck the ground about a hundred yards in front of us, and, ricochetting, flew over our heads and lodged in the ground behind us. Lauri was tremendously excited. He rushed off and picked up the shell, which he held in his arms as if it was a baby, exclaiming at the same time in his broken English, "I am forty-three years of age, and this is the first time that I haf seen a gun fired. Ah, what would my wife say if she could now see me!" With some difficulty I induced him to moderate his transports and drop the shell, which I was afraid every moment would explode and dissipate poor Lauri into space. By keeping on the lee side of the hill and dodging up at intervals we could catch glimpses of the "mammoth battery" scarcely a mile away, and could see the spirts of flame enveloped in white smoke as the guns were fired in a tremendous volley. Sometimes the shells struck the redoubt, and clouds of earth flew up; while at other times the projectiles went screaming over the crest of the hill, and fell in the low ground near the town.
I occupied myself in my hospital for the next few days, riding out at intervals to watch the progress of the bombardment, which was being prosecuted with terrific force. On the 10th the village of Radishevo, where the Russian batteries were in position, caught fire, and the conflagration lit up the wet grey sky in the east. Little damage was done to our redoubts, and the artillery preparation was so far a failure.
On the 11th the general assault took place. I was working away in the hospital all the morning, as the wounded were beginning to come into Plevna in considerable numbers, when I saw a Turkish sergeant who had been slightly wounded by a splinter from a shell. He announced that he was going back to the fight, and I said that I would go with him. I rode out, while the sergeant followed on foot, and passing our farthest redoubt I found myself among some trees, with the shells flying about in all directions. When I looked round for the sergeant, I found that he had disappeared, and that I was there by myself about two hundred yards in the rear of our foremost fighting line in the trenches. The troops were almost hidden from me by smoke, and a few wounded men were crawling back towards the redoubt for shelter. I formed a little field ambulance behind the trees, and proceeded to give first aid to the wounded; but the firing began to get so hot that I was obliged to abandon the position and ride back. As I crossed the Lovtcha road in the direction of the Krishin redoubts, I came across three or four isolated rifle pits in which a few old Turkish civilians, armed with antiquated rifles, were busily firing upon the Russian lines. They had evidently not been observed by the Russians, and the old fellows, showing nothing but a pair of gleaming eyes and the long brown barrels of the rifles above the level of the ground, were knocking over their men at long range. How on earth they got there I could not conjecture; but they soon saw me, and resented my appearance strongly. They called out to me in most forcible language to take myself and my horse away, as they were afraid that I should draw the Russian fire upon them. I left them still diligently potting the unconscious enemy, and at about four o'clock in the afternoon I heard a terrific musketry fire back towards Grivitza. After crossing the headquarters camp I could see dense masses of troops advancing from the village of Grivitza, and a black cloud of men already in the valley, about five hundred yards in front of the Grivitza redoubt.