Amongst the many compliments which were showered on the Commander of the Army of Investment, none was more deeply appreciated than the following despatch from the German Emperor: "PRINCE CHARLES OF ROUMANIA, PORADIM, "I have followed your operations and noted the valour of your troops with the greatest interest. I cannot express too warmly my pleasure at this success; and I permit myself to confer on you herewith my military Order--_Pour le Mérite_. As you are aware of the value placed on this Order by my army, you will no doubt appreciate its bestowal. How many dangers, exertions, and privations you must have shared with your troops before you could at last celebrate a glorious triumph by the fall of Plevna! God be with you in the future. "WILLIAM." After an absence of four eventful months Prince Charles set out on December 22, a bitterly cold day, for Nikopoli _en route_ for Bucharest. The roadsides offered a terrible picture of the horrors of war. Almost every step was marked by the corpse of some Turkish prisoner or Russian invalid who had succumbed to the bitter cold. One incident became engraved indelibly upon the Prince's mind. A little group of Turks appeared to be talking round the fragment of a wheel at some slight distance from the road, but on closer inspection they were found to be all frozen to death over their last fire. Even the streets of Nikopoli were not free from these ghastly milestones, and the Prince's thoughts involuntarily turned to the story of Napoleon's retreat from Russia. The unfortunate Turkish prisoners, to the number of 11,000, were herded together in the ditch of the fort exposed to the bitter cold (22° R.) without even a vestige of warm clothing. Small wonder that the Prince, who could do nothing to alleviate their sufferings, hastened to cross the Danube, beyond the reach of their groans and supplications. As only a few of the pontoons had managed to resist the pressure of the ice, Prince Charles was forced to cross the Danube by means of a small steamboat, which took an hour to reach the Roumanian bank. His first action on reaching Turnu-Magurele was directed to alleviating the miseries of the wounded and the unfortunate prisoners, to which merciful work he devoted Christmas Day of 1877. A welcome letter from his father was received here: "Roumania must now maintain its vitality by the development of its independence, and prove practically to the Powers that it has become an essential member of the European States.