Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/90

60 line of communication with Shumla, and not upon the Turkish position in front of Pravadi. By so doing he would compel the Turks to abandon Shumla to its feeble garrison, in which event it would be taken without serious opposition, or else fight their way back to it through the Russian army under circumstances greatly to their disadvantage. Though brave enough behind defences, the Turkish troops were too recently organized to enable them to be satisfactorily handled in the open field, and especially under fire. The Russian artillery was moved by horses, while all the Turkish cannon were transported by oxen. Diebitsch rightly calculated that the Turkish guns, though greatly superior to the Russians in numbers, would be of slight efficiency in the field, when their motive power was by means of oxen only. Count Pahlen, with the advance of the Russian army, established himself on the 9th of June at a point between Shumla and Pravadi, and was closely followed by the rest of General Diebitsch's force. On the 10th, General Ross, who had skilfully concealed the Russian advance by a thin curtain of Cossack videttes, made a forced march and joined Diebitsch, thus making the available force under the latter something more than thirty thousand men with one hundred and thirty-six guns. The grand vizier first learned that he was cut off from Shumla by some prisoners captured in a skirmish on the evening of the 10th. Not aware that the whole Russian force was in front of him, he started to retire to Shumla in full confidence that he would be able to reach it. The first onset between the opposing forces was an affair of cavalry and artillery, in which the Russians were the sufferers. The Turks sent three thousand horsemen, the flower of their cavalry, which completely routed the Russian battalion opposing them and captured five guns; they next assailed two battalions of infantry, which they