Krüdener was in chief command of the assailing forces. His orders for the 30th were that the troops of his own corps, forming the right wing, should advance to the attack of the Grivitza redoubt and the adjacent positions on the northern heights, the 31st division to lead, the 5th to follow in support; and that the left wing under Schahofskoy, consisting of two infantry brigades, should occupy the Radischevo ridge to the south-east of Plevna, and assail the redoubts of the “middle group” on the lower swell, due east of the town. Krüdener’s whole army was a little over 30,000 men, consisting of 36 battalions, 30 squadrons, and 176 guns; of which 24 battalions, 110 guns, and 10 squadrons belonged to his own (the right) wing, 11 battalions, 54 guns, and 8 squadrons constituted Schahofskoy’s (the left) wing, and 1 battalion, 12 guns, and 12 squadrons was Skobeleff’s detached command on the extreme left. The main fault of the dispositions was that Krüdener and Schahofskoy were practically independent of each other, so that the two attacks were far apart and with no connecting link; but the gravest evil was the weakness of the assailing force. The key of the Turkish position was the Grivitza redoubt. [Illustration: “THE GENERAL HAD RISEN, AND WAS STANDING AGAINST A TREE” (_p._ 106).] Schahofskoy’s advance from Poradim began at 6 a.m. As the infantry went swinging past their general, they cheered vigorously, and seemed ready for anything. After a two-hours’ march the head of the column reached the upland in front of Pelischat, whence the whole Plevna region lay before it. The headquarter stood temporarily halted near the apex of a great horse-shoe, closed in at the heel by a wooded valley running north and south, in the centre of which lay the town of Plevna, its white minarets, on which the sun was shining, visible above the encircling trees. On the long ridge forming the northern section of the horse-shoe were discernible the tents of the Turkish camps, and on its nearer shoulder lay the Grivitza redoubt, of which later the world was to hear so much. Now it did not seem very formidable--merely a rough parallelogram--all of defence visible being a bank of earth with a ditch at its outer foot, a few guns here and there, and a good many Turks inside the work. To his left front, as Schahofskoy looked toward Plevna, he saw the long ridge of Radischevo, forming the southern edge of the horse-shoe, and the valley behind it into which his advance troops were already moving. Some of the gay young officers of Schahofskoy’s staff would have it that slow old Krüdener had not yet got out of bed. But the old warrior was wide awake and well to the front. About 9 a.m. the Turkish guns opened fire on him from the Grivitza redoubt. Answering smoke rose to the eastward, and the cannon thunder came booming down on the wind. [Illustration: “THEN THERE FOLLOWED A HEADLONG RUSH” (_p._ 107).]