Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of IslamWilliams, Augustus Warner
History
Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam
Williams, Augustus Warner
Armenian question
"I shall never forget," said Mr. Kinnard Rose, "a solemn service for
the repose of the souls of the dead that was held on that battlefield
of Senova by the General and a score of companions. Skobeleff's
chaplain chanted the Mass with a simple dragoon for clerk. Every
head was uncovered. The party stood in respectful groups around a
monumental column with its cross, the General to the right of the
priest. As the service progressed, the General wept like a child, and
among the small but deeply moved congregation there were few dry eyes."
And now the road lay open before him. The last army was
beaten--Skobeleff's forced march made the Turkish Pashas stand
aghast--thirty, even fifty miles a day, and soon he had occupied
Adrianople, the second city of the Empire. He had entered it without
a sick man--there was not a theft nor burglary--not a street row,
as he rested there a few days.
The heroes of the campaign in the Balkans were Generals Gourko,
Radetzky and Skobeleff. They carried out operations which for
difficulty of execution, rapidity of movement and quickness of
combination have hardly ever been equalled. In fifteen days they had
destroyed three Turkish armies, and swept the country from Shipka Pass
to Adrianople and with one hundred and thirty-two thousand bayonets
were ready to dictate peace to the Sublime Porte.
General Gourko, who was Skobeleff's senior, arrived in advance of his
columns on January 26th, and took command of the city, while Skobeleff
pushed on with his cavalry and in two weeks (February 5th) camped on
the shores of the Sea of Marmora a short distance from Constantinople,
having marched two hundred and seventy-five miles in twenty days,
one hundred miles of it in four days.
The history of the Russo-Turkish war has been written in terms
of highest eulogy by impartial historians and disinterested
eyewitnesses. The condensed account given in these pages is accorded
space to emphasize the difference between warfare as conducted by
one of the Great Powers of Europe and the barbarous methods of the
"Unspeakable Turk." Previously to the occupancy of Adrianople by the
Russian forces, representatives of the two nations most interested,
met and seriously discussed the question of peace.
The Turkish delegates refused to accept the Russian terms. They were
informed that the Russians would march upon Constantinople unless they
accepted. On the question of the autonomy for Bulgaria, the Russians
were inflexible. This the delegates refused, and the troops continued
to close in upon Constantinople.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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