The Barboshi Bridge
To protect the left flank of their advance it was necessary that the Russians should swiftly seize Reni, Braila and Galatz, the only firm crossing places in the area in which the Danube swings eastwards towards the Black Sea. Just south of Galatz the River Sereth flows into the Danube, at which point it is one hundred and eighty yards wide and is deep and swift flowing. Across it there were three bridges; there was one bridge at Roman, one narrow bridge in bad repair between Tekutch and Fokchany and a modern iron rail and road bridge at Barboshi, near Galatz, which crossed the Sereth just before it joined the Danube. The latter was 300 yards long and its possession, undamaged, was essential; the heavy April rains had flooded the marshes near Barboshi, and the construction of a temporary bridge was impossible.
The agreement with the Roumanian Government permitting the Russian forces to cross the country was not to come before parliament until April 29, and the Russians believed that the Turks would not expect hostilities to begin until it had been ratified. Accordingly, they moved their advanced forces up to the frontier, and then made a formal declaration of war on April 24. During the previous night a column commanded by Colonel Biskoupski, the Chief of Staff of the XI Corps, assembled on the frontier between Kubei and Bolgrad, crossing at 3.00 am. Its task was to race for the Barboshi bridge and prevent its destruction by the Turks. It consisted of three Don Cossack regiments, two battalions of the 41st Regiment and two field and two Cossack batteries. From Kubei to Galatz it is about fifty miles; the cavalry, leading the column, quickly reached the flooded River Pruth, but were here delayed for some five hours while crossing in boats. The Barboshi bridge was reached at 7.00 pm. Meanwhile the rest of the column, which reached Reni between 5.00 pm and 6.00 pm, was held up by the discovery of two Turkish gunboats at the mouth of the Pruth, where the ferry had been damaged. However, by 10.00 pm the column began to cross and by 9.00 am on the following day Biskoupski had one battalion and the two Cossack batteries over the river, with which he marched at once on Galatz, reaching the Barboshi bridge at noon. In spite of the delay the infantry had marched the fifty miles in thirty-four hours, and were rewarded when the bridge was seized undamaged. The artillery quickly took up position to cover the bridge; this was just in time, because Turkish monitors arrived at the mouth of the Sereth but were driven off by the Russian guns.
Hozier, in his history of the war, noted that the Russians knew, and the Turks should have known, that the Barboshi bridge was critical to their main line of communications:
Immediately on the threat of active hostilities that bridge should undoubtedly have been destroyed by the Turks. With a fatal apathy, however, this precaution was neglected until too late … Being situated but a few hours march from the Turkish frontier, the bridge might easily have been seized and blown up by Ottoman troops. While the Russian flying column performed considerably over 100 miles to seize it, the Turks from Matchin, or some other point on the Danube, might have reached Barboshi in eight hours. The coup de main which, in a few hours after the beginning of the campaign, made the Russian masters of this bridge, was a stroke worthy of the conception and genius of Moltke.1
Cossacks on the road from Galatz to Barboshi. (Illustrated London News)
The bridge was commanded by ancient Roman fortifications on the plateau overlooking it, which proved surprisingly suitable for modern artillery; thus, when on April 25 the Turkish monitors arrived, they were easily driven off.
Meanwhile other detachments of the XI Corps had seized Ismail and Kilin, securing the Russian left flank. By the end of April 27 the 11th Division, with the 2nd Brigade of the 32nd Division, had occupied Galatz, and within two days the rest of the XI Corps had arrived, supported by the Naval Brigade. This coup de main gave the Russians the chance to make up for delays caused by the almost ceaseless rains, as McGahan reported:
The roads, therefore, remain in a fearful condition, and the progress of that part of the army which is moving forward on foot is but slow. Nevertheless, the Russians have, by their energy and rapid marching, won the first move in the game just opened, or rather the two first moves – first, in preventing the destruction of the railway bridge near Galatz by a wonderful march; and secondly, in throwing forward a sufficient number of troops to prevent the occupation of Roumania by the Turks. It was evidently so clearly the proper move of the Turks to cross the Danube, destroy the railways and bridges of all kinds, skirmish with the advance guard, and retard and harass the march of the army, that the Russians were quite convinced that they would do this.2
Russian torpedo launches attacking a Turkish monitor at Matghin. (Ollier)
Further steps were at once taken to secure the Barboshi bridge and the other crossings against any attack by the Turkish navy. The mouth of the Sereth was mined, and by April 30 a line of mines was laid across the Danube at Braila and Reni. This had the effect of cutting off the Danube flotilla, consisting of seven armoured gunboats and eighteen wooden vessels, from the Turkish fleet off the Sulina mouth of the river. To the fury of the neutral merchantmen awaiting cargoes at Galatz, all ships were ordered to clear the port by 6.00 pm on April 27. Protests by the consuls of the various nationalities were of no avail; Prince Shakofskoi, the commander of the XI Corps, insisted that his orders from the headquarters of the Army of the South were inflexible.3
Having achieved nothing to prevent or delay the Russian move southward, ships from the upriver flotilla, consisting of five armoured gunboats and two wooden ships, came down on May 6 to Braila and opened fire on the Russian batteries and the town. They had previously taken refuge in an arm of the river at Matchin, and this was apparently an effort to break out to join the principal naval forces at the mouth of the Danube. The Turkish vessels exchanged fire with the Russian batteries over several days; finally, on May 10 a shell from a Russian mortar penetrated the armoured deck of the flagship Luft-i-Djelil, which blew up and sank with the loss of 217 crew. This was a twin-screw seagoing monitor, carrying four 150 pounder Armstrong guns.4
On May 25 the Russians went over to the offensive, when Lieutenant Dubassov, with four steam launches armed with spar torpedoes, went up river to the Matchin channel where, on a dark and rainy night he found two Turkish ironclads, and a wooden vessel, at anchor. When the alarm was given he put on full steam, exploding his torpedo under the port quarter of the largest monitor, the Havzi Rahman. Dubassov’s launch had been filled with water by the explosion; he called out to Lieutenant Shestakov in the next launch to come on; he did so, and exploded his torpedo amidships, and the ship sank within a few minutes, only her masts showing above the water.5 MacGahan saw in this feat a grim warning for the future:
This is the first instance, I believe, in which a vessel has been destroyed in time of war by an enemy’s torpedoes, and the ease with which this was accomplished makes it a most important event in naval warfare. What gives it more significance is that the Turks apparently were not taken by surprise. They had as much warning as they could expect under the circumstances, and they found it utterly impossible to arrest or injure the swift and terrible instruments of destruction that were flitting about them in the darkness. The Turks are notoriously bad sailors, but it does not appear that even good sailors under such circumstances could have done any better.6
Nicopolis. (Fauré)
Meanwhile the Army of the South was engaged in its deployment in Roumania, a process that was undisturbed by the enemy. The bulk of the army had begun to cross the frontier on April 24, preceded and screened by the cavalry, in three principal columns. On the right, one column moved from Umgeni through Jassy and Roman to Fokchany. The centre column, also with Fokchany as its first objective, moved by Berlat. The left column, which crossed the Pruth at Leova, had a particular mission. Led by Skobelev I, it headed for Galatz and Braila. It consisted of the Caucasian Cossack Cavalry Division, the 23rd Don Cossack Regiment, the 4th Rifle Brigade and the 5th Engineer Battalion. Skobelev’s task was to occupy all the possible river crossings on the Danube above Braila, and thereby to screen the movement of the rest of the Army of the South. It was followed in its march by the 11th Cavalry Division and the infantry and artillery of the VIII Corps.
Russian troops making rafts on the banks of the Danube. (Ollier)
By May 8 the VIII, XI and part of the VII Corps was concentrated around Reni, Galatz and Braila. The XII Corps was at Tekutch. Skobelev had carried out his mission to occupy the left bank of the Danube as far as Gora-Yalumitza; westward of here the Roumanian army watched the line of the river, handing over their positions to Russian troops as they moved west. Turkish activity during the month of May was confined to the occasional bombardment of Roumanian towns on the northern shore of the Danube, a process which strengthened the hand of the more belligerent faction in the Roumanian government and army, and inclined public opinion to their support. Prince Charles of Roumania, the country’s Hohenzollern prince, who was concerned to identify himself with his people, also assumed a warlike attitude.
On May 11 Roumanian relations with the Ottoman Empire were finally broken off, and the formal independence of the country was declared four days later. Following this another agreement was reached with Russia, by which the independence of Roumania was recognised, and a promise made to require Turkey to cede to her the northern part of the Dobrudja. In exchange for this Roumania was to transfer part of Roumanian Bessarabia to Russia, from Reni to the Black Sea. It was a term of the agreement that Roumania should enter the war with an army of 70,000 men, and should receive 200,000 rifles. The actual basis of Roumanian participation was not agreed, and this was for the moment postponed. The Russian high command was largely indifferent to this, regarding the possibility of active Roumanian involvement as unnecessary and probably undesirable. It was an attitude of which they would in due course repent.7
This attitude of indifference was maintained notwithstanding the fact that it had already become clear that there were insufficient Russian troops on the ground; it was as a result of this that the three further corps had been added to the Army of the South on May 6. It would necessarily be some time before these could come into line. The XIV Corps would be the first to arrive, being directed on Galatz on June 13, where it was to relieve the XI Corps which would move west to a position opposite Turtukai. The XIII Corps was to go to Alexandria, sixty miles south-west of Bucharest, arriving on June 27; and the IV Corps was for the moment to go to Bucharest, where it was held in reserve.
By May 24 the Army of the South had completed its initial deployment. Headquarters was now at Ploesti. Two and a half corps were at Bucharest, with a half corps at Slatina. The cavalry continued to cover the line of the Danube from Nicopolis to Silistria, at which point began the marshy section of the river unsuitable for a crossing. The army was thus in the position required for the crossing of the Danube at the selected point, but it was soon clear that the wet spring meant that the operation must be delayed. The level of the river at Galatz was on June 1 some fifteen feet higher than usual at that time; several railroad bridges had been swept away by floods and many roads had become impassable. The limited capacity of the railroad had been largely taken up with the transport of heavy artillery, ammunition and siege materials, pontoon trains and the steam torpedo boats and their equipment that were performing so creditably.8
The target date of June 6 for the crossing of the Danube was accordingly put back, and the Army of the South remained immobile in the positions it had taken up. The deployment had certainly been remarkable successful, having regard to the practical difficulties it had faced. The efficient use of cavalry to screen the movement into Roumania gave the Ottoman commanders little indication of the real line of advance to be taken. Such information as could be gleaned from the concentration around Braila and Galatz appeared to point to a Russian advance through the Dobrudja.
Meanwhile the Russian navy continued its efforts to neutralize the Turkish fleet. On June 10 the steamer Constantine with six torpedo launches in tow, sailed from Odessa on course for Sulina. Arriving that night, the launches were sent in to attack the Turkish ironclads. Three were at anchor; another had steam up in the roadstead, and this was made the target. The spar torpedo of the leading launch exploded short of its object, probably due to protective wire netting. This caused the alarm to be raised, and the launches made their retreat to the Constantine, although one was disabled and captured.9
On June 20 ten steam launches succeeded, in spite of the intervention of a Turkish monitor from Rustchuk, in placing a barricade of torpedoes across the Danube above that place. Three days later, Commander Novikov, who had led that operation, used rowing boats to do the same above Nicopolis. A Turkish monitor came down river, and was attacked unsuccessfully by two launches; in the face of heavy gunfire from Russian artillery on the northern bank it speedily withdrew.
This marked the end of active operations by Turkish gunboats on the Danube. The considerable threat which they might have posed to the Russian advance never materialised. Two of the ironclads had been sunk; two would in due course be captured at Nicopolis when that place was taken, while the other three remained at Rustchuk until the end of the war.