The Crimean War, brief as was the interval it occupied in the annals of time, was one replete with exciting events. And of these much the most brilliant was that which took place on the 25th of October, 1854, the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade," which Tennyson has immortalized in song, and which stands among the most dramatic incidents in the history of war. It was truthfully said by one of the French generals who witnessed it, "It is magnificent, but it is not war." We give it for its magnificence alone.
First let us depict the scene of that memorable event. The British and French armies lay in front of Balaklava, their base of supplies, facing towards Sebastopol. They occupied a mountain slope, which was strongly intrenched. A valley lay before them, and some two miles distant rose another mountain range, rocky and picturesque. In the valley between were four rounded hillocks, each crowned by an earthwork defended by a few hundred Turks. These outlying redoubts formed the central points of the famous battle of October 25.
In the early morning of that day the Russians appeared in force, debouching from the mountain passes in front of the allied army. Six compact masses of infantry were seen, with a line of artillery in front, and on each flank a powerful cavalry force, while a cloud of mounted skirmishers filled the space between. Fronting the line of the allies were the Zouaves, crouching behind low earthworks, on the right the 93d Highlanders, and in front the British cavalry, composed of the Heavy Brigade, under General Scarlett, and, more in advance, the Light Brigade, under Lord Cardigan. Such were, in broad outline, the formation of the ground and the position of the actors in the drama of battle about to be played.
The scene opened with an attack on the advanced redoubts. No. 1 was quickly taken, the Turks flying in haste before the fire of the Russian guns. No. 2 was evacuated in similar panic haste, the Cossack skirmishers riding among the fleeing Turks and cutting them mercilessly down. The guns of No. 2 were at once turned upon No. 3, whose garrison of Turks fired a few shots in return, and then, as in the previous cases, broke into open flight. After them dashed the Cossack light horsemen, flanking them to right and left, and many of the turbaned fugitives paid for their panic with their lives. The Russians had won in the first move of the game. They had taken three of the redoubts before a movement could be made for their support.
Next a squadron of the Russian cavalry charged vigorously upon the Highlanders. But a deadly rifle fire met them as they came, volley after volley tearing gaps through their compact ranks, and in a moment more they had wheeled, opened their files, and were in full flight. "Bravo, Highlanders!" came up an exulting shout from the thousands of spectators behind.
It was evident that Balaklava was the goal of the Russian movement, and the heavy cavalry were ordered into position to protect the approaches. As they moved towards the post indicated, a large body of the enemy's cavalry appeared over the ridge in front. These were corps d'élite, evidently, their jackets of light blue, embroidered with silver lace, giving them a holiday appearance. Behind them, as they galloped at an easy pace to the brow of the hill, appeared the keen glitter of lance-tips, and in the rear of the lancers came several squadrons of gray-coated dragoons as supports. As the serried ranks of horsemen advanced, their pace declined from a gallop to an easy trot, and from that almost to a halt. Their first line was double the length of the British, and three times as deep. Behind it came a second line, equally strong. They greatly outnumbered their foe.
It was evident that the shock of a cavalry battle was at hand. The hearts of the spectators throbbed with excitement as they saw the Heavy Brigade suddenly break into a full gallop and rush headlong upon the enemy, making straight for the centre of the Russian line. On they went, Grays and Enniskilleners, in serried array, while their cheers and shouts rent the air as they struck the Russian line with an impetus which carried them through the close-drawn ranks. For a moment there was a glittering flash of sword-blades and a sharp clash of steel, and then, in thinned numbers, the charging dragoons appeared in the rear of the line, heading with unchecked speed towards the second Russian rank.
The gallant horsemen seemed buried amid the multitude of the enemy. "God help them! they are lost!" came from more than one trembling lip and was echoed in many a fearful heart. The onset was terrific: the second line was broken like the first, and in its rear the red-coated riders appeared. But the first line of Russians, which had been rolled back upon its flanks by the impetuous rush, was closing up again, and the much smaller force in their midst was in serious peril of being swallowed up and crushed by sheer force of numbers.
The crisis was a terrible one. But at the moment when the danger seemed greatest, two regiments of dragoons, the 4th and 5th, who had closely followed their fellows in the charge, broke furiously upon the enemy, dashing through and rending to fragments the already broken line. In a moment all was over. Less than five minutes had passed since the first shock, and already the Russian horse was in full flight, beaten by half its force. Wild cheers burst from the whole army as the victors drew back with almost intact ranks, their loss having been very small.
Thus ended the famous "Charge of the Heavy Brigade." Its glory was to be eclipsed by that memorable "Charge of the Light Brigade" which became the theme of Tennyson's stirring ode, and the recital of which still causes many a heart to throb. We are indebted for our story of it to the thrilling account of W.H. Russell, the Times correspondent, and a spectator of the event.
As the Russian cavalry retired, their infantry fell back, leaving men in three of the captured redoubts, but abandoning the other points gained. They also had guns on the heights overlooking their position. About the hour of eleven, while the two armies thus faced each other, resting for an interval from the rush of conflict, there came to Lord Cardigan that fatal order which caused him to hurl his men into "the jaws of death." How it came to be given, how the misapprehension occurred, who was at fault in the error, has never been made clear. Captain Nolan, who brought the order, was one of the first to fall, and his story of the event died with him. All we know is that he handed Lord Lucan a written command to advance, and when asked, "Where are we to advance to?" he pointed to the Russian line, and said, "There are the enemy, and there are the guns," or words of similar meaning.
It is a maxim in war that "cavalry shall never act without a support," that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry guns," and that a line of cavalry should have some squadrons in column on its flanks, to guard it against a flank attack. None of these rules was carried out here, and Lord Lucan reluctantly gave the order to advance upon the guns, which Lord Cardigan as reluctantly accepted, for to any eye it was evident that it was an order to advance upon death. "Some one had blundered," and wisdom would have dictated the demand for a confirmation of the order. Valor suggested that it should be obeyed in all its blank enormity. Dismissing wisdom and yielding to valor, Lord Cardigan gave the word to advance, the brigade, scarcely a regiment in total strength, broke into a sudden gallop, and within a minute the devoted line was flying over the plain towards the enemy.
The movement struck Lord Raglan, from whom the order was supposed to have emanated, with consternation. It struck the Russians with surprise. Surely that handful of men was not going to attack an army in position? Yet so it seemed as the Light Brigade dashed onward, the uplifted sabres glittering in the morning sun, the horses galloping at full speed towards the Russian guns, over a plain a mile and a half in width.
Not far had they gone when a hot fire of cannon, musketry, and rifles belched from the Russian line. A flood of smoke and flame hid the opposing ranks, and shot and shell tore through the charging troops. Gaps were rent in their ranks, men and horses went down in rapid succession, and riderless horses were seen rushing wildly across the plain. The first line was broken. It was joined by the second. On went the brigade in a single line with unchecked speed. Though torn by the deadly fire of thirty guns, the brave riders rode steadily on into the smoke of the batteries, with cheers which too often changed in a breath to the cry of death.
Through the clouds of smoke the horsemen could be seen dashing up to and between the guns, cutting down the gunners as they stood. Then, wheeling, they broke through a line of Russian infantry which sought to stay their advance, and scattered it to right and left. In a moment more, to the relief of those who had watched their career in an agony of emotion, they were seen riding back from the captured redoubt.
Scattered and broken they came, some mounted, some on foot, all hastening towards the British lines. As they wheeled to retreat, a regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the 8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rushed at the foe, cutting a passage through with great loss. The others had similarly to break their way through the columns that sought to envelop them. As they emerged from the cavalry fight, the gunners opened upon them again, cutting new lines of carnage through their decimated ranks. The Heavy Brigade had ridden to their relief, but could only cover the retreat of the slender remnant of the gallant band. In twenty-five minutes from the start not a British soldier, except the dead and dying, was left on the scene of this daring but mad exploit.
Captain Nolan fell among the first; Lord Lucan was slightly wounded; Lord Cardigan had his clothes pierced by a lance; Lord Fitzgibbon received a fatal wound. Of the total brigade, some six hundred strong, the killed, wounded, and missing numbered four hundred and twenty-six.
While this event was taking place, a body of French cavalry made a brilliant charge on a battery at the left, which was firing upon the devoted brigade, and cut down the gunners. But they could not get the guns off without support, and fell back with a loss of one-fourth their number. Thus ended that eventful day, in which the British cavalry had covered itself with glory, though it had only glory to show in return for its heavy loss.
Such is the story as it stands in prose. Here is Tennyson's poetic version, which is full of the dash and daring of the wild ride.
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well;
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not—
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them,
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
The history of Russia has been largely a history of wars,—which indeed might be said with equal justice of most of the nations of Europe. In truth, history as written gives such prominence to warlike deeds, and glosses over so hastily the events of peace, that we seem to hear the roll of the drum rising from the written page itself, and to see the hue of blood crimsoning the printed sheets. This dominance of war in history is a striking instance of false perspective. Nations have not spent all or most of their lives in fighting, but the clash of the sword rings so loudly through the historic atmosphere that we scarcely hear the milder sounds of peace.
So far as Russia is concerned, the torrent of war has rolled mainly towards the south. From those early days in which the Scythians drove back the Persian host and the early Varangians fiercely assailed the Greek empire, the relations of the north and the south have been strained, and a rapid succession of wars has been waged between the Russians and their varying foes, the Greeks, the Tartars, and the Turks. For ten centuries these wars have continued, with Constantinople for their ultimate goal, yet in all these ten centuries of conflict no Russian foot has ever been set in hostility within that ancient city's walls.
Of these many wars, that which looms largest on the historic page is the fierce conflict of 1854–55, in which England and France came to Turkey's aid and Russia met with defeat on the soil of the Crimea. We have already given the most striking and dramatic incident of this famous Crimean war. It may be aptly followed by the final scene of all, the assault upon and capture of Sebastopol.
The city of this name (Russian Sevastopol) is a seaport and fortress on the site of an old Tartar village near the southwest extremity of the Crimea, built by Russia as her naval station on the Black Sea. It possesses one of the finest natural harbors of the world, and formed the central scene of the Crimean War, the English and French armies besieging it with all the resources at their command. For nearly a year this stronghold of Russia was subjected to bombardment. Battles were fought in front of it, vigorous efforts for its capture and its relief were made, but in early September, 1855, it still remained in Russian hands, though frightfully torn and rent by the torrent of iron balls which had been poured into it with little cessation. But now the climax of the struggle was at hand, and all Europe stood in breathless anxiety awaiting the result.
On September 5 the fiercest cannonade the city had yet felt was begun by the French, the English batteries quickly joining in. All that night and during the night of the 6th the bombardment was unceasingly continued, and during the 7th the cannons still belched their fiery hail upon the town. Everywhere the streets showed the terrible effect of this vigorous assault. Nearly every house in sight was rent asunder by the balls. Towards evening the great dock-yard shears caught fire, and burned fiercely in the high wind then prevailing. A large vessel in the harbor was next seen in flames, and burned to the water's edge. This bombardment was preliminary to a general assault, fixed for the 8th, and on the morning of that day it was resumed, as a mask to the coming charge upon the works.
The Malakoff fort, the key to the Russian position, was to be assaulted by the French, who gathered in great force in its front during the night. The Redan, another strong fortification, was reserved for the British attack. In the trenches, facing the works, men were gathered as closely as they could be packed, with their nerves strung to an intense pitch as they awaited the decisive word. The hour of noon was fixed for the French assault, and as it approached a lull in the cannonade told that the critical moment was at hand.
At five minutes to twelve the word was given, and like a swarm of angry bees the French sprang from their trenches and rushed in mad haste across the narrow space dividing them from the Malakoff. The place, a moment before quiet and apparently deserted, seemed suddenly alive. A few bounds took the active line of stormers across the perilous interval, and within a minute's time they were scrambling up the face and slipping through the embrasures of the long-defiant fort. On they came, stream after stream, battalion succeeding battalion, each dashing for the embrasures, and before the last of the stormers had left the trenches the flag of the foremost was waving in triumph above a bastion of the fort.
The Russians had been taken by surprise. Very few of them were in the fort. The destructive cannonade had driven them to shelter. It was in the hands of the French by the time their foes were fully aware of what had occurred. Then a determined attempt was made to recapture it, and the Russian general hurled his men in successive storming columns upon the work, vainly endeavoring to drive out its captors. From noon until seven in the evening these furious efforts continued, thousands of the Russians falling in the attempt. In the end the exhausted legions were withdrawn, the French being left in possession of the work they had so ably won and so valiantly held.
Meanwhile the British were engaged in their share of the assault. The moment the French tricolor was seen waving from the parapet of the Malakoff four signal rockets were sent up, and the dash on the Redan began. It was made in less force than the French had used, and with a very different result. The Russians were better prepared, and the space to be crossed was wider, the assaulting column being rent with musketry as it dashed over the interval between the trenches and the fort. On dashed the assailants, through the abatis, which had been torn to fragments by the artillery fire, into the ditch, and up the face of the work. The parapet was scaled almost without opposition, the few Russians there taking shelter behind their breastworks in the rear, whence they opened fire on the assailing force.
At this point, instead of continuing the charge, as their officers implored them to do, the men halted and began loading and firing, a work in which they were greatly at a disadvantage, since the Russians returned the fire briskly from behind their shelters. Every moment reinforcements rushed in from the town and added to the weight of the enemy's fire. The assailants were falling rapidly, particularly the officers, who were singled out by their foes.
For an hour and a half the struggle continued. By that time the Russians had cleared the Redan, but the British still held the parapets. Then a rush from within was made, and the assailants were swept back and driven through the embrasures or down the face of the parapet into the ditch, where their foes followed them with the bayonet.
A short, sharp, and bloody struggle here took place. Step by step the band of Britons was forced back by the enemy, those who fled for the trenches having to run the gauntlet of a hot fire, those who remained having to defend themselves against four times their force. The attempt had hopelessly failed, and of those in the assailing column comparatively few escaped. The day's work had been partly a success and partly a failure. The French had succeeded in their assault. The English had failed in theirs, and lost heavily in the attempt.
What the final result was to be no one could tell. Silence followed the day's struggle, and night fell upon a comparatively quiet scene. About eleven o'clock a new act in the drama began, with a terrific explosion that shook the ground like an earthquake. By midnight several other explosions vibrated through the air. Here and there flames were seen, half hidden by the cloud of dust which rose before the strong wind. As the night waned, the fires grew and spread, while tremendous explosions from time to time told of startling events taking place in the town. What was going on under the shroud of night? The early dawn solved the mystery. The Russians were abandoning the city they had so long and so gallantly held.
The Malakoff was the key of their position. Its loss had made the city untenable. The failure of the attempt to recover it was followed by immediate preparations for evacuation. The gray light of the coming day showed a stream of soldiers marching across the bridge to the north side. The fleet had disappeared. It lay sunk in the harbor's depths.
The retreat had begun at eight o'clock of the evening before, soon after the failure to retake the Malakoff. But it was a Moscow the Russian general proposed to leave his foes. Combustibles had been stored in the principal houses. About two o'clock flames began to rise from these, and at the same hour all the vessels of the fleet except the steamers were scuttled and sunk. The steamers were retained to aid in carrying off the stores. A terrific explosion behind the Redan at four o'clock shook the whole camp. Four others equally startling followed. Battery after battery was hurled into the air by the explosion of the magazines. Before seven o'clock the last of the Russians had crossed the bridge to the north side, which was uninvested by the allies, and the hill-sides opposite the city were alive with troops. Smaller explosions followed. From a steamer in the harbor clouds of dense smoke arose. Flames spread rapidly, and by ten o'clock the whole city was in a blaze, while vast columns of smoke rose far into the skies, lurid in the glare of the flames below. The sounds of battle had ceased. Those of conflagration and ruin succeeded. The final flames were those sent up from the steamers, which were set on fire when the work of transporting stores had ceased.
Great was the surprise throughout the camp that Sunday morning when the news spread that Sebastopol was on fire and the enemy in full retreat. Most of the soldiers, worn out with their desperate day's work, slept through the explosions and woke to learn that the city so long fought for was at last theirs—or so much of it as the flames were likely to leave.
About midnight, attracted by the dead silence, some volunteers had crept into an embrasure of the Redan and found the place deserted by the foe. As soon as dawn appeared, the French Zouaves began to steal from their trenches into the burning town, heedless of the flames, the explosions, and the danger of being shot by some lurking foe, the desire for plunder being stronger in their minds than dread of danger. Soon the red uniforms of these daring marauders could be seen in the streets, revealed by the flames, and the day had but fairly dawned when men came staggering back laden with spoils, Russian relics being offered for sale in the camps while the Russian columns were still marching from the deserted city. The sailors were equally alert, and could soon be seen bearing more or less worthless lumber from the streets, often useless stuff which they had risked their lives to gain.
The allies had won a city in ruins; but they had defeated the Russians at every encounter, in field and in fort, and the Muscovite resources were exhausted. The war must soon cease. What followed was to complete the destruction which the torch had began. The splendid docks which Russia had constructed at immense cost were mined and blown up. The houses which had escaped the fire were robbed of doors, windows, and furniture to add to the comfort of the huts which were built for winter quarters by the troops. As for the scene of ruin, disaster, and death within the city, it was frightful, and it was evident that the Russians had clung to it with a death-grip until it was impossible to remain. It was an absolute ruin from which the Sebastopol of to-day began its growth.
From the days of Rurik down, a single desire—a single passion, we may say—has had a strong hold upon the Russian heart, the desire to possess Constantinople, that grand gate-city between Europe and Asia, with its control of the avenue to the southern seas. While it continued the capital of the Greek empire it was more than once assailed by Russian armies. After it became the metropolis of the Turkish dominion renewed attempts were made. But Greek and Turk alike valiantly held their own, and the city of the straits defied its northern foes. Through the centuries war after war with Turkey was fought, the possession of Constantinople their main purpose, but the Moslem clung to his capital with fierce pertinacity, and not until the year 1878 did he give way and a Russian army set eyes on the city so long desired.
In 1875 an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two Christian provinces under Turkish rule. The rebellious sentiment spread to Bulgaria, and in 1876 Turkey began a policy of repression so cruel as to make all Europe quiver with horror. Thousands of its most savage soldiery were let loose upon the Christian populations south of the Balkans, with full license to murder and burn, and a frightful carnival of torture and massacre began. More than a hundred towns were destroyed, and their inhabitants treated with revolting inhumanity. In the month of June, 1876, about forty thousand Bulgarians, of all ages and sexes, were put to death, many of the children being sold as slaves in the Turkish cities.
Of all the powers of Europe, Russia was the only one that took arms to avenge these slaughtered populations. England stood impassive, the other nations held aloof, but Alexander II. called out his troops, and once more the Russian battalions were set en route for the Danube, with Constantinople as their ultimate goal.
In June, 1877, the Danube was crossed and the Russian host entered Bulgaria, the Turks retiring as they advanced. But the march of invasion was soon arrested. The Balkan Mountains, nature's line of defence for Turkey, lay before the Russian troops, and on the high-road to its passes stood the town of Plevna, a fortress which must be taken before the mountains could safely be crossed. The works were very strong, and behind them lay Osman Pacha, one of the boldest and bravest of the Turkish soldiers, with a gallant little army under his command. The defence of this city was the central event of the war. From July to September the Russians sought its capture, making three desperate assaults, all of which were repulsed. In October the city was invested with an army of forty thousand men, under the intrepid General Skobeleff, with a determination to win. But Osman held out with all his old stubbornness, and continued his unflinching defence until starvation forced him to yield. He had lost his city, but had held back the Russian army for nearly half a year and won the admiration of the world.
The fall of Plevna set free the large Russian army that had been tied up by its siege. What should be done with these troops, more than one hundred thousand strong? The Balkans, whose gateways Plevna had closed, now lay open before them, but winter was at hand, winter with its frosts and snows. An attempt to cross the mountains at this time, even if successful, would bring them before strong Turkish fortresses in midwinter, with a chain of mountains in the rear, over which it would be impossible to maintain a line of supplies. The prudent course would have been to put the men into winter quarters at the foot of the Balkans on the north and wait for spring before venturing upon the mountain passes.
The Grand Duke Nicholas, however, was not governed by such considerations of prudence, but determined, at all hazards, to strike the Turks before they had time to reorganize and recuperate. The army was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold, the deep snow, the natural difficulties of the passes, the efforts of the enemy, all failed to check the Russian advance. Gourko forced his way through all opposition, took the powerful fortress of Sophia without a blow, and routed an army of fifty thousand men on his march to Philippopolis. Radetzky did even better, since he captured the Turkish army defending the Shipka Pass, thirty-six thousand strong. The whole Turkish defence of the Balkans had gone down with a crash, and the Russians found themselves on the south side of the mountains with the enemy everywhere on the retreat, a broken and demoralized host.
Meanwhile what had become of the Turkish population of the Balkans and Roumelia? There were none of them to be seen; no fugitives were passed; not a Turk was visible in Sophia; the whole region traversed up to Philippopolis seemed to have only a Christian population. But on leaving the last-named city the situation changed, and a terrible scene of bloodshed, death, and misery met the eyes of the marching hosts. It was now easy to see what had become of the Turks: they were here in multitudes in full flight for their lives. The Bulgarians had avenged themselves bitterly on their late oppressors. Dead bodies of men and animals, broken carts, heaps of abandoned household goods, and tatters of clothing seemed to mark every step of the way. Fierce and terrible had been the struggle, dreadful the result, Turks and Bulgarians lying thickly side by side in death. Here appeared the bodies of Bulgarian peasants horrible with gaping wounds and mutilations, the marks of Turkish vengeance; there beside them lay corpses of dignified old Turks, their white beards stained with their blood.
While the men had died from violence, the women and children had perished from cold and hunger, many of them being frozen to death, the faces and tiny hands of dead children visible through the shrouding snows. The living were dragging their slow way onward through this ghastly array of the dead, in a seemingly endless procession of wagons, drawn by half starved oxen, and bearing sick and feeble human beings and loads of household goods. Beside the laden vehicles the wretched, famine-stricken, worn-out fugitives walked, pushing forward in unceasing fear of their merciless Bulgarian foes.
Farther on the scene grew even more terrible. The road was strewn with discarded bedding, carpets, and other household goods. In one village were visible the bodies of some Turkish soldiers whom the Bulgarians had stoned to death, the corpses half covered with the heaps of stones and bricks which had been hurled at them.
Beyond this was reached a vast mass of closely packed wagons extending widely over roads and fields, not fewer than twenty thousand in all. The oxen were still in the yokes, but the people had vanished, and Bulgarian plunderers were helping themselves unresisted to the spoil. The great company, numbering fully two hundred thousand, had fled in terror to the mountains from some Russian cavalry who had been fired upon by the escort of the fugitives and were about to fire in return. Abandoning their property, the able-bodied had fled in panic fear, leaving the old, the sick, and the infants to perish in the snow, and their cherished effects to the hands of Bulgarian pilferers.
In advance lay Adrianople, the ancient capital of Turkey and the second city in the empire. Here, if anywhere, the Turks should have made a stand. But news came that this stronghold had been abandoned by its garrison, that the wildest panic prevailed, and that the Turkish population of the city and the surrounding villages was in full flight. At daylight of the 20th of January the city was entered by the cavalry, and on the 22d Skobeleff marched in with his infantry, at once despatching the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The defence of Adrianople had been well provided for by an extensive system of earthworks, but not an effort was made to hold it, and an incredible panic seemed everywhere to have seized the Turks.
Russia had almost accomplished the task for which it had been striving during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, and their powers of resistance to be at an end. They were in a state of utter demoralization and ready to give way to Russia at all points and accept almost any terms they could obtain. Had they decided to continue the fight, they still possessed a position famous for its adaptation to defence, behind which it was possible to hold at bay all the power of Russia.
This was the celebrated position of Buyak-Tchek-medje, a defensive line twenty-five miles from Constantinople and of remarkable military strength. The peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora is at this point only twenty miles wide, and twelve of these miles are occupied by broad lakes which extend inland from either shore. Of the remaining distance, about half is made up of swamps which are almost or quite impassable, while dense and difficult thickets occupy the rest of the line. Behind this stretch of lake, swamp, and thicket there extends from sea to sea a ridge from four hundred to seven hundred feet in height, the whole forming a most admirable position for defence. This ridge had been fortified by the Turks with redoubts, trenches, and rifle-pits, which, fully garrisoned and mounted with guns, might have proved impregnable to the strongest force. The thirty thousand men within them could have given great trouble to the whole Russian army, and double that number might have completely arrested its march. Yet this great natural stronghold was given up without a blow, signed away with a stroke of the pen.
On January 31 an armistice was signed, one of whose terms was that this formidable defensive line should be evacuated by the Turks, who were to retire to an inner line, while the Russians were to occupy a position about ten miles distant. It was no consideration for Turkey that now kept the Russians outside the great capital, but dread of the powers of Europe, which jealously distrusted an increase of the power of Russia, and were bent on saving Turkey from the hands of the czar.
On February 12 an event took place that threatened ominous results. The British fleet forced the passage of the Dardanelles and moved upon Constantinople, on the pretence of protecting the lives of British subjects in that city. As soon as news of this movement reached St. Petersburg the emperor telegraphed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, giving him authority to march a part of his army into Constantinople, on the same plea that the British had made. In response the grand duke demanded of the sultan the right to occupy a part of the environs of his capital with Russian soldiers, the negotiations ending with the permission to occupy the village of San Stefano, on the Sea of Marmora, about six miles from the walls of the threatened city.
What would be the end of it all was difficult to foresee. On the waters of the city floated the English iron-clads, with their mute threat of war; around the walls Turkish troops were rapidly throwing up earthworks; leading officers in the Russian army chafed at the thought of stopping so near their longed-for goal, and burned with the desire to make a final end of the empire of the Turks and add Constantinople to the dominions of the czar. Yet though thus, as it were, on the edge of a volcano, their ordinary policy of delay and hesitation was shown by the Turkish diplomats, and the treaty of peace was not concluded and signed until the 3d of March. The Russians had used their controlling position with effect, and the treaty largely put an end to Turkish dominion in Europe.
The news of the signing was received with cheers of enthusiasm by the Russian army, drawn up on the shores of the inland sea, the Preobrajensky, the famous regiment of Peter the Great, holding the post of honor. Scarce a rifle-shot distant, crowding in groups the crests of the neighboring hills, and deeply interested spectators of the scene, appeared numbers of their late opponents. The news received, the cheering battalions wheeled into column, and past the grand duke went the army in rapid review, the march still continuing after darkness had descended on the scene.
And thus ended the war, with the Russians within sight of the walls of that city which for so many centuries they had longed and struggled to possess. Only for the threatening aspect of the powers of Europe the Ottoman empire would have ended then and there, and the Turk, "encamped in Europe," would have ended forever his rule over Christian realms.
In 1861 Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, signed a proclamation for the emancipation of the Russian serfs, giving freedom by a stroke of the pen to over fifty millions of human beings. In 1881, twenty years afterwards, when, as there is some reason to believe, he was about to grant a constitution and summon a parliament for the political emancipation of the Russian people, he fell victim to a band of revolutionists, and the thought of granting liberty to his people perished with him.
This assassination was the work of the secret society known as the Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies nothingness. It comes from the same root as annihilate, and annihilation of despots appears to have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This society reached its culmination in the reign of Alexander II., and, despite the fact that he proved himself one of the mildest and most public-spirited of the czars, he was chosen as the victim of the theory of obtaining political regeneration by terror.
Threats preceded deeds. The final years of the emperor's life were made wretched through fear and anxiety. His ministers were killed by the revolutionists. Some of the guards placed about his person became victims of the secret band. Letters bordered with black and threatening the emperor's life were found among his papers or his clothes. An explosive powder placed in his handkerchief injured his sight for a time; a box of asthma pills sent him proved to contain a small but dangerous infernal machine. He grew haggard through this constant peril; his hair whitened, his form shrank, his nerves were unstrung.
In February, 1879, Prince Krapotkin, governor-general of Kharkoff, was killed by a pistol-shot fired into his carriage window. In April a Nihilist fired five pistol-shots at the czar. In June the Nihilists resolved to use dynamite with the purpose of destroying the governors-general of several provinces and the czar and heir-apparent. Among their victims was the chief of police, while two of his successors barely escaped death.
The first attempt to kill the czar by dynamite took the form of excavating mines under three railroads on one of which he was expected to travel. Of these mines only one was exploded. A house on the Moscow railroad, not far from that city, was purchased by the conspirators, and an underground passage excavated from its cellar to the roadway. Here auger-holes were bored upward in which were inserted iron pipes communicating with dynamite stored below. On the day when the emperor was expected to pass, a woman Nihilist named Sophia Perovskya stood within view of the track, with instructions to wave her handkerchief to the conspirators in the house at the proper moment. The pilot train which always preceded the imperial train was allowed to pass. The other train drew up to take water, and was wrecked by the explosion of the mine. Fortunately for the emperor, he was in the pilot train and out of danger.
Some of the participants in this affair were arrested, but their chief, a German named Hartmann, escaped. Despite the utmost efforts of the police, he made his way safely out of Russia, aided by Nihilists at every step, sometimes travelling on foot, at other times in peasants' carts, finally crossing the frontier and reaching the nest of conspirators at Geneva. Here he is supposed to have taken part with others in devising a new and what proved a fatal plot. Meanwhile a fresh attempt was made on the life of the czar.
On February 5, 1880, Alexander II. was to entertain at dinner in the Winter Palace a royal visitor, Prince Alexander of Hesse. Fortunately, the czar was detained for a short time, and the hour fixed for the dinner had passed when the party proceeded along the corridor to the dining-hall. The brief delay probably saved their lives, for at that moment a tremendous explosion took place, wrecking the dining-hall and completely demolishing the guard-room, which was filled with dead and dying victims, sixty-seven in all. It proved that a Nihilist had obtained employment among some carpenters engaged in repairs within the palace, and had succeeded in storing dynamite in a tool-chest in his room. He escaped, and was never seen in St. Petersburg again. Two days later the corpse of a murdered policeman was found on the frozen surface of the Neva, a paper pinned to his breast threatening with death every governor-general except Melikoff, the successor of the murdered Krapotkin.
Their failures had proved so nearly successes that the Nihilists were rather encouraged than depressed. New plans followed the failure of old ones. It was proposed to poison the emperor and his son, the murder to be followed by a revolt of the disaffected in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the seizure of the palaces, and the establishment of a constitutional government. This plan, however, was given up as not likely to have the "great moral effect" which the Nihilists hoped to produce.
A Nihilist student in St. Petersburg had sent to the Paris committee of the society a recipe for a formidable explosive of his invention. A quantity of this dangerous substance was manufactured in France and secretly conveyed to St. Petersburg, where bombs to contain it had been prepared. The plans of the conspirators were now very carefully laid. They did not propose to fail again, if care could insure success. A cheesemonger's shop was opened on a street leading to the palace, under which a mine was laid to the centre of the carriage-way, it being proposed to kill the czar when out driving. If his carriage should take another route and follow the street leading from the Catharine Canal, it was arranged to wreck it with bombs flung by hand. The death of the czar was the sole thing in view. The conspirators seemed willing freely to sacrifice their own lives to that object. As regards the mine, it was so heavily charged with dynamite that its explosion would have wrecked a great part of the Anitchkoff Palace while killing the czar.
How the explosive material was conveyed from Paris to Russia is a mystery which was never successfully traced by the police. The utmost care was taken at the frontiers to prevent the entrance of any suspicious substance. For a year or two even the tea that came on the backs of camels from China was carefully searched, while all travellers were closely examined, and all articles coming from Western Europe were almost pulled to pieces in the minuteness of the scrutiny. The explosive is said to have looked like golden syrup, and to have been sweet to the taste, though acrid in its after-effects. A drop or two let fall on a hot stove flashed up in a brilliant sheet of flame, though without smell or noise.