But that the ultimate design of Russia was to secure and incorporate the Principalities as part of her general scheme of aggression, there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who has followed her operations previous to the Crimean campaign. That and subsequent events may be said to belong to contemporary history; but we must briefly refer to such incidents of the war as affected the Danubian Principalities and laid the foundation of Roumanian freedom. The Emperor Nicholas had picked a wolf-and-lamb quarrel with the Porte, of which the ostensible ground was the protection of subjects professing the Greek Catholic faith in the 'holy places;' and little expecting, perhaps little caring, that he would arouse the jealousy of France and England, he had sent an ultimatum to the Porte, demanding the right of intervention in conformity with the Treaty of Kainardji, threatening the invasion and occupation of the Danubian Principalities in default of immediate acquiescence. Not having received the satisfaction he required, he ordered General Gortschakoff to cross the Pruth and to take possession of and hold the Principalities. This was done in the month of July 1853. In September the Turkish Commander-in-Chief on the Danube demanded an immediate evacuation of those territories, and, failing compliance, war was declared. For some time the Russians, fearing the enmity of Austria, which had massed troops on the Wallachian frontier, remained on the defensive, but in October Omar Pasha assumed the aggressive, sending a small force across the Danube at Vidin, and it was thought that the straggle between the contending forces would take place in 'Lesser Wallachia.' Omar Pasha, however, either intended this as a feint, or changed his plan, for he soon afterwards occupied strong positions on the Danube at Turtukai and Oltenitza, between Silistria and Rustchuk, and was there attacked by a Russian force, which he succeeded in repulsing. No results followed this encounter; the Russians retreated towards Bucarest, and the Turks fell back across the Danube into Bulgaria.