The tsar’s troops might have taken Plevna that day. Despite the fact that the White General’s victory was the only one that day, and that only two of the Turkish forts were taken, the days following could have turned the tide. Now that the Turks had left their fortifications to engage in field combat, the vastly superior numbers of the reinforced Russian army could not help but tell against them very quickly. Had the grand duke bolstered his flagging forces immediately and rallied his army together the following day, there was little doubt Skobelev and others of his caliber could have overrun the other Turkish forts one by one.
But at the prospect of yet another defeat, Nicholas lost his nerve. The Turks took advantage of the moment and seized the initiative themselves. A quick counterattack forced Skobelev to retreat. When Viktor next came to visit Sergei where he lay on a bed in the crowded field hospital, he did not have the heart to tell him that Grivitsa had been lost again to the Turks and that the entire Cossack regiment had been forced to retreat to its original position. All the fighting, all the losses—eighteen thousand Russian and Romanian casualties—had been for nothing.
The grand duke’s miscalculation resulted in another three months of weary vigil at the town of Plevna.
———
The weeks passed, then months. Autumn came, and gradually the nights and mornings turned colder. Sporadic fighting accomplished nothing. So long as the Turks could keep the mighty Russian army at bay, imprisoned behind the mountains from Constantinople, the victory was theirs. While the world watched, the very word Plevna came to symbolize Russian helplessness, and the final valiant hour of the dying Ottoman Empire. Whatever the political ties of their various nations, in the newspapers of Europe, Osman Pasha was lauded as a cunning and resourceful general, while the Grand Duke Nicholas was ridiculed as an incompetent who could not turn what was now a four-to-one advantage into victory. Still unwilling to replace him, Tsar Alexander feared in his heart that his worst fears were coming to pass, and that he had unwittingly stumbled into another Crimean disaster which would end his reign in failure and ridicule.
On the home front, eventually the rest of Russia stopped waiting daily for news of the war. The weary waiting seemed endless, and casualties had already been so heavy that many wives and mothers, sisters and lovers, wondered if they would ever see their young men again.
As she had promised, Katrina wrote to Dmitri at the front, not once but three times. His single reply, however, had been brief and formal, expressing his thanks for her letters and her prayers, and sending regards to her mother. Anna dared not write to Sergei, though she yearned to. She had to settle instead for the words added to one of his letters to Katrina which had burned their way deep into her heart: “And greet your dear maid Anna for me, will you, Katitchka? Tell her the moment I am back she and I will get together to talk more about Lord Byron and the English poets.”
“Who is he talking about, Anna?” Katrina had asked after finishing the letter.
“He is an English poet,” replied Anna, making every effort to hide both her pleasure and her embarrassment.
“And what does he have to do with you and Sergei?”
“We both enjoy his poems, that’s all, Princess.”
Katrina eyed Anna carefully. “Secrets with my brother, Anna?” she said mischievously.
Anna looked down but did not reply. At first Katrina attempted to push the matter, prying at Anna for details. But the sensitivity which had begun to take root in the young princess bore its fruit, and when Katrina finally realized that Anna did not wish to talk about it, she let the matter drop.
In mid-autumn, Viktor and three or four of the tsar’s generals met together in desperation to discuss what might be done. Their meeting resulted in an audience with their commander-in-chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas. As diplomatically as was possible, they suggested to the emperor’s brother that it might prove advantageous to call upon the services of General Eduard Totleben, the engineer famed for his work during the Crimean War. For the first time since the beginning of the engagement against the Turks, Nicholas showed the good sense to listen.
Totleben was brought to the front, consulted, and under his direction a series of earthworks were immediately begun, protected under cover of Russian troops. Construction quickly was expanded to encircle all of Plevna, effectively sealing in Osman Pasha and, more importantly, cutting him off from receiving further supplies and reinforcements. What the Imperial Army had not been able to accomplish by military force began to be accomplished by engineering genius and backbreaking work.
After the stalemate on the battlefield, the Turks were doomed to the fate of watching their rations dwindle. Osman saw that the end could not be forestalled, and finally surrendered on December the tenth. But even in defeat, his heroic defense of the town and its forts against overwhelming odds came to be applauded, even by the Russian troops, who saw in him the brilliant commander their own forces lacked.
Free at last to cross the mountains, the Russian army continued its long-delayed advance on Constantinople. But in the dead of winter, with supply lines stretching further and further every day across snow-filled mountain passes, the march southward was arduous, and much hardship still faced the beleaguered army.