Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart), 1809-1898; Great Britain -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
As I rode up the slope of the hill east of Plevna towards the
redoubt defending the road between the town and the village of
Radicheve, a ghastly scene was presented. Hundreds of Russian
skeletons lay glistening on the hillsides, where they had fallen
during the assault of September. The bones were generally
completely bare. Those nearest to the earthwork had been covered
with a few inches of earth, which had been washed off by the first
shower, and now they lay as naked as the others. The Moslem outpost
pits were among these skeletons, many of them not being more than a
yard distant. Singular as it may seem, many of these skeletons had
distinct expressions, both in the attitude in which they had fallen
and in the position of the fleshless jaws. I could distinguish
those who had fallen without suffering from those who had died in
agony, and the effect was such as I shall never forget. The Russian
soldiers who marched into Plevna in the rear of Osman's sallying
force passed among these remains of their unburied comrades.... On
entering the town I was surprised to find it so little injured by
the cannonading....
Within a short time after Osman's surrender at the bridge over
the Vid, on the Sofia road, the 16,000 prisoners were turned back
into the town, with the artillery and transport trains.... The
Turks were well fed in appearance, but were generally ragged, and
were all wearing sandals. No boots were to be seen, though most of
them had overcoats.... The contrast between these tatterdemalion
battalions and the well-dressed men guarding them made the war
appear a one-sided affair, until the reflection came that a ragged
man shot as well as one perfectly equipped. Later in the day,
standing on the Sofia road, in the Gravitza valley west of Plevna,
I surveyed the whole basin forming Osman's position. The herbage
and all other growing things had so effectually disappeared that
the earth's surface looked as if a conflagration had swept over
every square foot of it. The colour was a dull brown, and I never
gazed upon a more dismal-looking region. The sides of the basin
were serried by ravines, all centering in the valley where I stood,
and upon the surrounding edges of the basin were the Turkish
and Allied batteries planted in irregular line, but commanding
every vantage-point of the neighbourhood.... Where the Gravitza
_chaussée_ crosses the elevation the Turkish redoubts were weakest,
and here the Russian artillery fire had been chiefly concentrated.
The front and rear of the earthworks were ploughed up by shells,
and in truth there was scarcely a square yard which had not been
struck. Thousands of such missiles, varying from 3 inches to 6
inches in diameter, lay unexploded upon the surface of the earth.
In a previous telegram I said that these redoubts were battered to
pieces; but I now discover that this was a curious error of vision.
The works are practically uninjured. So far as the earthworks are
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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