Suleiman at Shipka
Suleiman’s arrival from Montenegro had made him, the Daily News correspondent in Constantinople thought, ‘the hero of the hour.’ Seeking an interview with the general, he was pleased to find that no restrictions were imposed on him, and he met him at his headquarters in the outskirts of Adrianople:
The General is hardly forty years old, a man of middle height, and for a wonder not inclined to corpulency, as appears to be the almost invariable effect of high command in Turkey. To look at his fair complexion, sandy beard and whiskers, and his grey eyes, one would almost imagine oneself in the presence of a migratory Scotchman.1
This interview took place before the Battle of Eski Zagra, and Suleiman assured his interlocutor that as far as atrocities were concerned ‘the strongest orders of which language was capable was … had been issued to prevent the slightest excesses of the men.’
A few days later, just before the battle had began, this same correspondent was obliged to report that Suleiman’s assurances had proved worthless. Writing from Karabunar, he observed:
The villages between this little station on the Jamboli line and Eski Zagra appear likely to become as infamous in history as those in which the Turkish name will be branded to the end of time. The passion of revenge once let loose amongst a barbarous people is not to be stayed by military mandates, no matter how severe the language in which they may be couched. It is to be hoped that the Russian Commander in Chief is in earnest in his desire to carry on the war in a civilised manner; and it certainly appears almost incredible to find the Turkish side professing to be horror-stricken at outrages which they have so lately been doing their utmost to palliate.2
After his victory at Eski Zagra, Suleiman had, as has been seen, not made any effort to follow up Gourko’s retreat, but encamped at Yeni Zagra, bringing up supplies and ammunition before preparing to take the offensive. The key question now was the direction in which to move. Mehemet Ali, the nominal Commander in Chief in the European theatre, was of equal rank to Osman and Suleiman, whose armies were operating independently of him; in practice their movement was coordinated, or was meant to have been, by telegraph from Constantinople by the so called War Council which had been established. As Greene pointed out, this was the worst possible system that could have been conceived.
Essentially there were three options open to Suleiman. He might move to his right and cross the Balkans to join his army with that of Mehemet Ali at Shumla. Alternatively, operating on his opposite flank, he could march to link hands with Osman. In either case he must undertake a ten days’ march; but thereafter a really powerful force would have been assembled to strike at the Russian line of communications at Sistova. The third option was more direct; it involved a frontal attack on one or more of the Balkan passes held by the Russians.
Of those options, the move westwards to join with Osman must have seemed the least promising. It would involve crossing the Trojan Pass, and the route would take Suleiman dangerously close to the Russian forces based on Selvi, while once reaching Plevna the fortress of Nicopolis must be retaken before attacking Sistova. On the other hand, the eastward advance would cross the Balkans by the Slivno-Shumla pass, one of the best routes through the mountains, and would stay well clear of any of the Russian positions. Allied to Mehemet Ali’s army, the Turks would have 125,000 men concentrated to attack the Russian left, and would certainly oblige the enemy to abandon his position at the Shipka Pass. A Russian defeat would open the road to Sistova; on the other hand, if the attack failed, the Turks could fall back on the fortresses of the Quadrilateral.3 This option was much preferred by Mehemet Ali, who saw the opportunity of a joint advance through Tirnova to join hands with Osman by way of Lovtcha. Neither of these two options appealed to his colleague:
Suleiman, however, was apparently more occupied in maintaining and increasing his influence with the Government than in endeavouring to assure the decisive success of a campaign, the honour of which would have accrued to his rival. He knew that if he could succeed in retaking the Shipka Pass he should flatter the national pride, which had been profoundly humiliated by the loss of this position. The extreme fear which the Russians inspired, combined with the ignorance of military matters, produced the idea at Constantinople that the evacuation of Shipka by the Russians was an indispensable condition of the security of the capital.4
Guard for the colours of the Bulgarian Legion. (The Graphic)
Suleiman’s nominal superior had a more objective grasp of what was required. Mehemet Ali’s family had come originally from France, but settled in Germany. He was born Jules Detroit, and was brought up in Magdeburg, joining the merchant navy as a boy of fifteen. Visiting Constantinople, and anxious to escape the brutal regime he endured on board ship, he encountered a relative serving in the Turkish army, and through him joined the household of Ali Pasha, becoming a Muslim. Sent to the military school, he did well, and rose rapidly in the army. He served on the staff of Omar Pasha during the Crimean War. Later he served in Montenegro, Arabia, Bosnia and Crete, before being appointed to suppress the banditti in Thessaly. This task he performed very successfully, quickly restoring order. He was given the command of a division during the Serbian War of 1876. He had earned the personal confidence of the Sultan, in spite of his being a foreigner. While Redif was Minister for War, this latter circumstance would have made it unlikely that Mehemet Ali could be appointed as commander in chief; but Redif ’s fall cleared the way. To his great surprise, Mehemet Ali was sent for by the Sultan, and told that he was to replace Abdul Kerim with immediate effect.
His origins, however, remained a serious handicap, and he soon found that a number of the pashas of the old school were determined to thwart him in any way they could. Among those opposed to him was Suleiman, who was able to win support among the members of the War Council for his preference for a direct attack on the Shipka Pass. In the end this view prevailed, apparently on the basis that Suleiman’s army had insufficient pack transport. Orders were issued accordingly. It was, however, not until August 13 that Suleiman began to put his forces into motion.
Suleiman had about 40,000 men available to him for his operation against the Shipka Pass, of which some 15,000 were first line regular troops; the remainder were reserves, together with some irregular cavalry. The latter were completely undisciplined, ignoring Suleiman’s orders forbidding the burning of Bulgarian villages in the path of the advance; the destruction which they wrought was entirely self-defeating, since the houses burned down would have provided quarters in the event of a winter campaign.
Responsible for the defences of the Balkan passes was Radetzky, the commander of the VIII Corps. His troops were disposed to cover the three passes of Shipka, Hainkioi and Elena. At Shipka he posted the 36th Regiment (from the 9th Division) and five battalions of Bulgarian troops. Major-General Boreisha, with the 34th Regiment and the 13th Dragoons, was covering the easternmost of the passes held by the Russians, the Elena Pass, while the 33rd Regiment held the Hainkioi Pass. In reserve at Selvi were the 35th Regiment, and the 55th and 56th Regiments from the 14th Division. The rest of the 14th Division was at Tirnova, with the 4th Rifle Brigade, while one Bulgarian battalion held the pass at Triavna.5
Suleiman finally made his move on August 16, beginning with a feint against the Russian left, to give the impression that he intended to adopt the scheme advocated by Mehemet Ali. Six battalions together with a large body of Circassians attacked the 33rd Regiment at the entrance to the Hainkioi Pass; after several hours’ exchange of rifle fire the Turkish force withdrew. Further east, a more substantial movement was made through the Demir Kapu Pass, the pass of the Iron Gate, driving back Boreisha’s troops to Bebrova on August 16 and then on the following day attacking again and taking the town. Boreisha fell back to Elena, while Bebrova was partly destroyed by the Bashi Bazouks. Radetzky took the bait; the advance through the Iron Gate was, he considered, a serious threat to his left flank, and he sent the 2nd Brigade of the 14th Division to Slatariska to block the road that ran through that place to Tirnova. He went himself with the 4th Rifle Brigade to Elena, through which ran the other road that the Turks might take to outflank him. There, he realised that the movement was no more than a reconnaissance in force. This enabled him to pull back the brigade at Slatariska to Tirnova, where it would be available to meet the real thrust when it came.
The road through the Shipka Pass seen from the north, a near-contemporary view. (Springer)
The Shipka Pass viewed from the south, a near-contemporary view. (Springer)
This was, of course, to be directed at Shipka. On August 18, at about 10.00 am, the garrison there observed considerable Turkish activity in and around Kazanlik. Six battalions were seen on the heights above the town, while the villages of Shenovo and Yabiba were occupied by cavalry. Stoletov, in command at Shipka, reported these movements to Radetzky, who set the 35th Regiment in motion to reinforce him. This was just as well; on the morning of August 19 it was clear that practically the whole of Suleiman’s army was deploying for an attack on the Shipka Pass. However, Major-General Darozhinsky arrived on August 20, bringing the total garrison to eleven battalions, with 32 guns, including the seven steel Krupp guns captured by Gourko from the Turks.
The Shipka position which the Russians must defend had two serious disadvantages. The first of these was that at this point in the main Balkan range three spurs run both to the north and to the south. The central spur is the Shipka ridge, up which the road climbs. Before the summit is reached, however, there are three sets of small hills or ridges about 200 feet high running across the main ridge. Of these the highest and most southerly is St Nicholas, the key to the position. Behind it came the Central Hills, about a mile back, and finally the Northern Hills, a further mile back. The problem for the defenders was the fact that to the west and east the other spurs, the high points of which are Mount Aikiridjebel or ‘Bald Mountain,’ and Mount Berdek respectively, both dominate the Shipka position. Each is separated from the Shipka ridge by a deep ravine. Since the Russians had insufficient troops to enable them to hold these heights there was nothing to prevent the Turks from occupying them, and bringing up guns which could take advantage of the position to overcome the Russian artillery.
The second drawback was the nature of the broken ground in front of the position, which paradoxically might have appeared to be an advantage:
The strength of a position does not, however, depend entirely upon its difficulty of access to a direct attack, but upon the extent of ground which can be swept by its guns, and upon its means of concentrating fire upon points of critical importance; and Shipka is not able to dominate with its fire the network of lateral valleys and heights which surround it. A brigade of infantry could be massed in a ravine at less than a hundred yards distant from the first Russian position out of reach of its artillery.6
The Russian positions were on the three sets of small hills described above. On St Nicholas, part of the southern side of which is a perpendicular rock, there were three batteries with 25 guns, while to the north-east at the end of a spur some 250 yards long there were the seven steel Krupp guns. Trenches connected the two positions.
The Shipka Pass - the view south, looking from the Russian position towards the direction in which the Turks attacked, and the epicentre of the battle. (Dave Watson)
The peak from which desperate Russians threw any missile they could find on August 23. (Dave Watson)
During August 20 Suleiman sent forward a substantial force composed of seven infantry battalions against the village of Shipka, which was held by several companies of Bulgarian troops. After several hours fighting the latter fell back toward the pass. The Turks advanced up the road under heavy fire; four battalions swung off down a ravine and into a copse, where they encountered Russian infantry. For a while, the Turks held their position, before falling back though the ruins of the village, which had been set on fire. It was obvious that a further, more substantial attack was to be expected next day; during the night the Bulgarian battalion that alone had remained in front of the Russian position was compelled to retreat to the pass. Stoletov had posted one battalion between the St Nicholas and Steel batteries; another battalion was in trenches on the right, with two companies in a forward position in front of it. Three Bulgarian battalions held the trenches on the left. Two more Bulgarian battalions, with a battalion and a half of Russian infantry, were in reserve between St Nicholas and the Central Hill.7
Soon after 7.00 am on August 21 Turkish infantry could be seen on Mount Berdek. The sun came up on what for the moment was a peaceful scene:
The day promised to be very warm; the sky was magnificently clear, balsamic odours ascended from the surrounding woods; while from the bottom of the gorges came the murmur of water under the leaves, and the songs of the birds that the noise of battle had not yet frightened away.8
The scale of the imminent assault was entirely clear to Stoletov and his men; the question in all their minds was whether the expected reinforcements would arrive in time.
Predictably the Turks were soon at work constructing a battery on Mount Berdek opposite the Steel battery at a range of about 2000 yards. Rifle fire failed to prevent the establishment by 10.00 am of four guns in the position. Meanwhile the Turkish infantry had begun to move up the road from Shipka village. The road had been mined with fougasses; as the Turks came up they were met with heavy artillery fire from the Steel battery and then the fougasses were exploded electrically, causing heavy casualties. The explosions also heavily damaged the road itself. Now the Turkish artillery on Mount Berdek opened fire, and the Turkish infantry deployed and maintained a heavy rifle fire on the Russian position. On the south-east side three Turkish assaults were made, all of which broke down in the face of the rifle fire of the defenders; the attackers fell back with heavy losses.
Suleiman, who appeared unconcerned about the casualties which his army might incur in the process, was resolved to launch a series of powerful probing attacks against different sectors of the Russian position, in the hope of finding the weakest point. Having failed on the south-east side of St Nicholas, he next launched strong columns against its western slopes. For a while, in spite of terrible losses from the artillery firing point blank into them, the Turks courageously held their ground; but the casualties they took were so great that they were obliged to fall back. It was now about 11.30 am; to the vast relief of the defenders the 35th Regiment now arrived, having marched without a break for 27 miles to reach the front.
Suleiman next varied his tactics, employing dense masses of sharpshooters to lay down a constant blanket of rifle fire, which fell not only on the troops in the trenches but also on the reserves in the valley behind. He then at about noon launched an attacking column towards the Steel battery, which advanced in three lines at a run to scramble up the mountain side with drums beating and to shouts of ‘Allah! Allah!’ Despite their bravery, they were cut down by murderous rifle fire; ten times they charged the Russian position, as Suleiman fed in reinforcements, but every time the attackers were forced to retreat. The final assault went in by moonlight at about 9.00 pm. Casualties during the day had been fearful; Hozier puts the total Turkish loss at 3,000 men. The Russian official figure of their loss was about 200 in total.9
During the night the Turks were busy constructing new batteries, and digging trenches as close as one hundred yards from the Russian positions; there was little that Stoletov could do to prevent this, since he had too few troops to undertake a sortie. As August 22 dawned the Turks now had ten guns in position on Mount Berdek, and six guns on Bald Mountain. Two more were on the height known as Woody Mountain to the north of Bald Mountain.
Throughout August 22 the Turkish artillery kept up a heavy fire, but no serious assault was made. During the day, however, ammunition for the Russian artillery began to run dangerously short. All day both sides worked hard at repairing their batteries; the Turks dug a series of shelter trenches to cover their forward positions. During the day also, Suleiman began to withdraw part of his reserve behind Mount Berdek, and moved them round to his extreme left, to Woody Mountain. His aim was to break the frail umbilical cord which linked the defenders of Shipka to the rest of the Russian forces north of the mountains. By the morning of August 23 the Russians were threatened on all sides; the narrow ridge, along which ran the high road, and which connected the hills which made up the Russian position, was entirely exposed to the cross fire of the Turks at a range of between 1,500 and 2,000 yards.10
Bringing down the Turkish wounded. (Ollier)
Suleiman had by now realised the folly of making piecemeal attacks on what was unquestionably a strong position which was being resolutely defended. His intention for August 23 was to make a simultaneous assault taking advantage of the situation which his troops had occupied on practically all sides of the Russian position. In preparation for the assault the Turkish artillery kept up its bombardment throughout the night.
Early on the morning of August 23 he pushed forward two columns on either side of the Shipka ridge, up the valleys which were out of reach of the Russian artillery. That on the Russian right was directed at the western flank of the Central Hills, while that on the Russian left assaulted the eastern flank of the same position. At the same time two large columns advanced to the assault of the rocky slopes of St Nicholas.
On the left of this position, held by three Bulgarian battalions, Turkish troops attacked from two ravines on the east. As many as six battalions repeatedly attacked the Bulgarian trenches, but in spite of inflicting heavy losses were unable to gain a foothold. Meanwhile in the front of St Nicholas, on its southern face, the Turks made no less than four attempts on the Steel battery; all were driven back with heavy loss, but here again the defenders had also suffered terribly and were obliged hurriedly to dig additional rows of shelter trenches to provide cover.
Stoletov had sent two and a half companies under Lieutenant Colonel Schwabe to take up a position on the slopes of Mount Berdek, and thereby hamper any Turkish assault from this direction. Naturally the Turks made Schwabe’s men the first object of their assault; at 5.00 am they moved forward in four columns, and Schwabe sent for reinforcements, receiving one and a half companies. The Turkish attack came in at 6.00 am. Heavily overpressed, Schwabe again appealed for help, and two more companies were sent to him. The Turks also received reinforcement and at 7.30 am launched a fresh attack, inflicting heavy casualties on the defenders. One of the latter said afterwards: ‘The Turks fired at random, and only stray bullets reached us; but there was such a hail of shot, so many stray bullets, that the ranks thinned with frightful rapidity.’11 The pressure on Schwabe was intense; in reply to a further appeal from him Stoletov sent yet more reinforcements.
The situation on this flank remained extremely serious, but there now came a development that could have been fatal to the Russians. A fresh Turkish column debouched from the forest on Woody Mountain, to assault the Northern Hills.
They advanced rapidly towards the high road, and at a range of a hundred yards the Turks opened fire on the one and a half companies of the 35th Regiment which confronted them. The Russian infantry charged forward with the bayonet without firing a shot, and drove back the attackers. Meanwhile on Mount Berdek Schwabe was grimly hanging on to his position. The last company which Stoletov still had in reserve was sent to him at about 10.00 am, and with this his small force, which had sustained heavy casualties, was able to hold on until 2.30 pm. At this time he sent a message to Stoletov that he could do so no longer without further reinforcement; but none was available, and he was told to hold the position at any cost for as long as he could, and only if absolutely necessary to fall back. Fortunately, at about this time the Turkish attack on the southern face of St Nicholas slackened, and Stoletov was able to withdraw troops from there to help Schwabe. By 5.00 pm, however, there was no more that the latter could do, and his troops began to retreat.
The lack of ammunition was by now having a marked effect; sensing that the Russians were coming to the end of their tether Suleiman renewed his assaults, which were met not only by bayonet charges but by a hail of stones, tree trunks and other missiles of all kinds. Archibald Forbes described the dramatic moment as Stoletov and Darozhinsky, having sent what they believed might be their final message reporting the situation, prepared to defend the position to the last:
It was six o’clock; there was a lull in the fighting, of which the Russians could take no advantage, since the reserves were all engaged. The grimed, sun-blistered men were beaten out with heat, fatigue, hunger and thirst. There had been no cooking for three days, and there was no water within the Russian lines. The poor fellows lay panting on the bare ridge, reckless that it was swept by Turkish rifle fire. Others doggedly fought on down among the rocks, forced to give ground, but doing so grimly and sourly. The cliffs and valleys sent back the triumphant Turkish shouts of ‘Allah il Allah!’12
The Russians defended themselves desperately when, on August 23, ammunition ran so low they used rocks, tree trunks and other missiles to repel the Turkish assaults. (Russes et Turcs)
Suddenly, as they watched, Stoletov caught sight of a long dark column moving down the high road. To their amazement the two generals saw that these were mounted men. They were not, however, cavalry; the column consisted of somewhat less than 300 men of the 4th Rifle Brigade. Radetzky had accompanied the brigade on its march to Gabrova on its way to reinforce the Shipka front. By the afternoon of August 23 they had, after marching thirty-three miles, reached the entrance to the Shipka Pass. There Radetzky was met by an orderly officer sent by Stoletov who, seeing the general, called out: ‘Quick, General, we can hold out no longer, the Turks are on the point of cutting the road.’ Seeing the horse lines of several sotnias of Cossacks who had camped at this point, and whose riders had made their way on foot into the pass, Radetzky ordered the riflemen to take off their knapsacks and to mount the Cossack ponies and ride hell for leather through the pass. As they galloped up the road they met more and more parties of walking wounded heading for Gabrova, but soon they were able to take their place alongside Stoletov’s exhausted men, and their arrival, which the Turks took to be a much larger reinforcement than was in fact the case, caused the enemy to become demoralised. However, the rest of the 4th Rifle Brigade was following, albeit on foot. The battle was not, though, by any means over yet. The Turkish troops on Woody Mountain continued to pose a serious threat to the Russian rear. Radetzky, who with his staff had accompanied the mounted riflemen, took in the situation at a glance. The 16th Battalion of the 4th Rifle Brigade was just now beginning to arrive; pausing for half an hour for these troops to be collected. Radetzky launched them in a charge towards Woody Mountain. So successful was their attack that they drove the Turks back beyond their first line of trenches, which the riflemen occupied. By 8.00 pm silence at last descended on the battlefield.13
Radetzky’s riflemen arrive in the nick of time at Shipka on August 23. (Budev)
It had been a disastrous day for the Ottoman Empire. Estimates of the Turkish casualties during the three days fighting vary; Hozier puts the total figure as being at least 8,000 men, and Russian losses during the same period as more than 2,000. Until Radetzky brought up the reinforcements, Russian casualties were of the order of 50% of their total force engaged. The defence of the Russian position on Mount Berdek, which had absorbed so many of Stoletov’s reserves, had been particularly expensive. Of the troops engaged there, only about 150 remained unwounded.14
For the Turks, however the consequences of the fighting on August 23 were immense. The symbolic significance of Shipka, which had enabled Suleiman to convince himself, and the government, that this was the correct military objective, had been profoundly enhanced by the sacrifice of so many lives. Thereafter Suleiman’s military judgment was perverted by a desire to take the Shipka Pass, at whatever cost, with the result that the overall Turkish strategy lost whatever coherence it might have had.
The immediate battle was however, by no means over. At 5.00 am Dragomirov arrived with the 56th Regiment, the leading unit of his 14th Division, which had marched thirty-eight miles the previous day. It was followed closely by the 55th Regiment. Radetzky wasted no time in committing these fresh troops, sending the 1st Battalion of the 56th Regiment across the ravine to attack the Bald Mountain in flank, while the two remaining battalions were posted on the road in reserve. Radetzky was standing on the slope of the Northern hills, watching the progress of the attack, when Dragomirov joined him after posting his troops. The 1st Battalion of the 56th Regiment was pinned down by the Turkish rifle fire, and the 2nd Battalion was moved forward in support. As the two generals discussed the position Dragomirov, who had dismounted, was severely wounded in the knee. Forbes watched as Dragomirov’s horrified staff turned to help:
One of the best generals in the Russian Army is hors de combat. He is as brave as he is skilful. He never so much as takes his spectacles off, but when we have borne him into comparative shelter quietly sits down, and, ripping up his trouser leg, binds a handkerchief round the wound. Surgeons gather round him; but, like the true soldier he is, he says he will take his turn when it comes. He is carried further out of the line of fire, his boot removed, and the limb bandaged.15
As he was placed in a litter, the 2nd Battalion defiled past to take up its position. ‘Go on, my brave fellows,’ called out Dragomirov: ‘Don’t flinch before the fire. Everyone has his fate, and if one is killed, ma foi, it is no great matter.’16
Turkish dead at the Shipka Pass. (Illustrated London News)
For about two hours the battle at this point raged with first one side and then the other seeming to gain the upper hand; but at about noon the Turkish artillery were seen to withdraw, and Radetzky personally led forward all the troops that he could collect in an assault on the Turkish infantry. The attack met with limited success; the first line of Turkish trenches was taken, but the other positions on Bald Mountain were obstinately defended, and as night fell they remained in Turkish hands.
Meanwhile Suleiman, aware that the arrival of the Russian reinforcements meant that his opportunity was beginning to slip away, had launched a further assault on St Nicholas. The point of attack was once again the Steel battery, and on this occasion the leading Turkish troops succeeded in getting into the Russian trenches, where a fierce hand-to-hand struggle with the bayonet ensued. In the course of this fight, which ended with the attackers falling back to their start line, the leading Turkish battalion of about 500 men was virtually annihilated.17
During August 24 the rest of Dragomirov’s division had continued to arrive, and by nightfall Radetzky had nearly 20,000 men at his disposal. This figure did not include the battered remnants of the Bulgarian battalions who were sent back through the pass to Gabrova for a well-earned rest. Radetzky’s immediate concern was the continued Turkish possession of Woody Mountain, which commanded his right and posed a serious threat to the road, and for August 25 he planned a further assault in this sector. For this he proposed to employ the 1st Battalion of the 56th Regiment, together with three battalions stationed under Colonel Lipinsky on the right of the Central Hills. The 1st Battalion was soon in trouble, and it was not until noon that it succeeded in getting across the ravine and up the Bald Mountain spur. Once it was engaged with the Turkish troops there, the gunfire served as a signal to Radetzky to launch the other three battalions towards the Woody Mountain, During the morning Darozhinsky had fallen, shot through the heart; practically the whole of the Russian position was exposed to the dropping fire of the Turkish skirmishers, and casualties continued to mount in this way.
Lipinsky, moving up the high road and preceded by a dense cloud of skirmishers, reached the foot of Woody Mountain during the afternoon. His central column rushed up the slope and seized the first line of Turkish trenches, whose defenders fell quickly back, abandoning their second line as well. The Russians charged on, arriving in disorder at the principal line of Turkish trenches, where they were first halted, and then driven back. Two battalions of the 53rd Regiment were sent forward to reinforce them, and the battle continued through the evening and into the night. Colonel Count Adlerberg, commanding the troops occupying the first line of Turkish trenches, to which the Russians had retreated, was hard pressed and called for reinforcement; but Radetzky, with only one regiment left in reserve, felt unable to provide any further troops for this sector, and ordered Adlerberg to retreat on the morning of August 26.
The battle had continued throughout the night. An observer described the spectacle:
It was a rare sight, this great battle in those dark woods at night. The flashes of fire passed along the line like an electric spark, and a strange effect was produced by the red light reflected on the columns of smoke that hung suspended over the combatants in the still night air. The whole of the top of the mountain seemed ablaze for hours with musketry and cannon discharges, and at certain moments the whole summit appeared to be on fire.18
During August 26 there was a brief and unofficial truce to allow the dead to be buried; when it ended, the firing was desultory, and the only attack was mounted during the evening by the Russians, but not in great force. Suleiman, whose artillery kept up an exchange with the Russian guns during the following two days, pulled back the bulk of his exhausted troops to Kazanlik, leaving small detachments to hold the positions that he had gained. On their side, the Russian troops in the Shipka Pass were also utterly worn out; during this period further troops were brought up to relieve them, and the total force in and around the pass was increased to thirty-nine battalions, ensuring that there was no danger of its capture. Nepokoitschitsky, arriving on August 29, concluded that no further reinforcement was necessary, and sent back the further units that were en route.
Assessing the final casualty list is difficult. The Russians reported that the total of wounded was 2,731 with about 1,000 men killed. Casualties had been particularly high among the officers, whose white uniforms made them an easy target for Turkish sharpshooters. On the Turkish side, estimates were made on the basis of the number of wounded counted by foreign observers as passing through Kazanlik, Philippopolis and Adrianople. A total of 8,350 was arrived at, while the number of killed was reckoned to be at least 4,000. If Suleiman had 40,000 troops at the start of the battle, this meant that he had suffered casualties of 30%. Later estimates put the total even higher.19 Suleiman at once applied for reinforcements of 20.000 men, and by a remarkable effort the bulk of these were supplied, including units from the garrison of Constantinople and the police. For the moment, however, the sector remained quiet.