31

Baba Konak

Gourko having shown that he was one of the few superior commanders to have discovered the secret of success, it was no surprise that it was he who was charged with the responsibility for conducting operations in the open field west and south-west of Plevna. At the beginning of November it had became known that the Turks were assembling an army to relieve Plevna in the area between Orkhanie and Sofia, and that it was apparently intended that Mehemet Ali should command this force. To deal with any attempt at relief a covering force was necessary, and this task was assigned to Gourko. Before, however, he commenced operations he was to await the final tranche of reinforcements, due to arrive on November 15.

Meanwhile, although there had been little general activity around the perimeter of Plevna since the investment had been completed, there had been two significant operations. The first of these was an assault by the Roumanians upon Grivitza No 2. By mid October the siege works around the fort had been advanced to within forty yards, and although the capture of the fort would have little effect on the investment, the Roumanians were keen to make an attempt to seize it. The plan was to take the fort by a sudden assault in immense force, trusting to the short distance to be crossed to limit casualties. On October 19 the assault took place, strong columns of infantry rushing forward, albeit in the face of fierce rifle fire from the Turkish defenders, who were well prepared. In spite of this the Roumanians succeeded in taking the fort and for twenty minutes held it under heavy fire. At the end of that time, the casualties steadily mounting and with no supporting activity on either flank, they fell back, having lost about 1,000 men killed and wounded. It had been a brave but ultimately pointless effort, and served only to demonstrate the futility of assaults upon the well-fortified Turkish positions.1

On the southern side of the city an operation was mounted with a more logical purpose. Since the third battle the Turks had held, and heavily fortified, the Green Hills that had been the scene of Skobelev’s prolonged struggle in this sector. In particular the hill immediately above and to the north-east of Brestovetz (the first knoll) had been a considerable nuisance to the Russians, projecting the Turkish line into the lines of investment and obliging the Russians to undertake a journey of six or seven miles between Skobelev’s position and that of Zotov. Todleben saw this as a weak point in the Russian lines, and ordered that the hill be taken. The task was assigned to Skobelev, now in command of the 16th Division. On November 4 he occupied Brestovetz, his troops digging in around the village. The attack was carefully prepared; Skobelev concentrated between 11,000 and 12,000 troops there for the assault, which went in during the early evening of November 9, his columns scrambling up the slopes on the east, south and west of the hill. The Turks were taken completely by surprise, and although putting up a brave resistance were driven off the hill by a bayonet charge. In the course of the fighting Skobelev was, for the first time, himself slightly wounded. The Russians now fell to the task of entrenching the position; by the morning of November 10 a great deal had been done to render the hill secure, and all that day the work continued, albeit under continuous fire from the Turkish positions. That night the Turks launched two powerful attacks in an effort to retake the heights, requiring Skobelev to throw in all his reserves before they were driven back. Over the next three days further attacks were made, all of which failed with considerable loss. After this the Turks contented themselves with the construction of fresh redoubts, one of which was no more than 150 yards from Skobelev’s positions.2

Apart from these operations, the activity on both sides was confined to the strengthening of the existing defences and the construction of new works, particularly on the west side of Plevna, and opposite Bukova, where the Roumanians extended their right flank opposite the Turkish works on the heights of Opanetz. Todleben reckoned that Osman could not have provisions for more than two months, and he was in no doubt that investment was the correct course to follow, as he reported after the fall of the city:

It only remained to follow strictly this line of action, without making any attempts at assault, which could lead to no definite result, and would have only increased the number of our losses: it was necessary simply to endeavour to make the circle of investment as close as possible, and to take all the necessary measures to prevent the enemy from being able to force it at any point.³

Meanwhile the War Council at Constantinople had indeed decided that Mehemet Ali, who had been intended for the command of the Turkish forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, should be appointed to the army to be assembled for the relief of Plevna. On his way to Sarajevo, therefore, he received a message to take up instead the command at Sofia. The troops being collected for this army came from various sources. Some units, earmarked to join Suleiman’s army around Shumla and Rasgrad, were also diverted to Mehemet Ali. A number of Arab regiments, and some from Armenia, were identified as available, together with a considerable number of Circassians, while a somewhat battered Bosnian division was transferred from the Shipka sector. It was not an impressive force:

Many who came would have been better away, had the commander in chief been able to select his men; but that was impossible, and the consequence was that the bulk of the army consisted of a rabble, hurried together with a view to numerical force alone, and without any regard to efficiency. Without unity or cohesion, ignorant of each other, composed to a great extent of conscripts, badly victualled and without any staff – such an army constituted the poorest and most imperfect instrument of offence.4

Russian medical services in action near the front. (Budev)

It was far too late to improvise such a force; the opportunity to do so was after Osman’s victory in September. Nonetheless, Mehemet Ali did put together some 20,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 36 guns, which he organised in two divisions under Chakir Pasha and Redjib Pasha, with a cavalry brigade and a reserve brigade under Valentine Baker who, disenchanted with Suleiman’s leadership, had left him in the hope of being able to take part in operations to assist Osman in Plevna.

It was evident to Mehemet Ali that this force was incapable of confronting Gourko in the open field, and he concentrated the bulk of his troops at the Baba Konak Pass, with detachments at Orkhanie, Etropol and Slatitza. The crucial task as he saw it was to hold the line of the Balkans, and to cover Sofia; it was simply not realistic to undertake an offensive in the direction of Plevna, let alone to relieve the city. A different view was held in Constantinople, however, as Baker had found when arriving there from Shumla:

A kind of spell seemed to hang over the military authorities at Constantinople at this time, which induced them to completely ignore common-sense views. They had scrambled together all the newly-raised Mustafiz battalions that could be collected, and they were rapidly assembling at Sofia. Mehemet Ali would command, I was assured, eighty-seven battalions; with those the relief of Plevna ought to be easy. It was in vain that I pointed out that good troops would be requisite, and that guns, cavalry, and an effective administrative department of supply would be necessary to feed an army that had to advance for so considerable a distance.⁵

Before leaving to take up the promised command of a force under Mehemet Ali, Baker paid a final visit to Edhem Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and made a last appeal that some of the good troops should be withdrawn from the Montenegrin and Serbian frontiers, ‘but was met by the stereotyped answer that every part of the Empire must be watched and guarded.’ Baker had one pleasant surprise on his journey to Sofia; on the station platform at Adrianople he caught sight of his friend, the dashing Captain Frederick Burnaby of the Blues. He had come to Turkey determined to make his way into Plevna, a project that horrified Baker. Burnaby agreed to accompany Baker to Sofia, and to discuss his plan with Mehemet Ali.

Sultan Abdul Hamid visiting wounded in a Constantinople hospital. (Strantz)

The force with which Gourko was to deal with any attempt to relieve Plevna consisted of the 1st and 2nd Guard Divisions, the Guard Rifle Brigade, the 2nd Guard Cavalry Brigade and the Caucasian Cossack Brigade, a total of 36 battalions, 36 squadrons and 120 guns, amounting in all to about 36,000 men. By this time the reinforcements arriving at Plevna had brought the total Russian forces there to a total of 191 battalions, 120 squadrons and 650 guns, or about 160,000 men, which meant that a detachment of the size of Gourko’s force could easily be spared.6 Even before he embarked on his march southwards the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Lovtcha, had marched south to Trojan and from there, on October 31, moved on Tetevan, which it captured after a brief combat. The division was not strong enough to advance any further for the moment, and was ordered to await Gourko’s movement.

Gourko set off on November 15, the bulk of his force taking the high road to Sofia. Before this, to his right, 20 squadrons of cavalry entered the Isker valley and thence southwards to Vratza, a place which they captured on November 9. The Cossack brigade had previously taken Jablonitza; on November 18 Gourko’s infantry marched into the town, where they were joined by the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Division from Tetevan. Gourko’s immediate concern was with the strong position at Orkhanie, which provided Mehemet Ali with a firm base of operation from which he could advance in the direction of Plevna. If it was possible by taking the offensive that the principal passes through the mountains could be seized, it would effectively shut the gate in Mehemet Ali’s face.

Gourko’s patrols found the Turks occupying a strong position at Pravetz, on the east side of the road to Orkhanie. It appeared to him to be too strong to fall to a direct attack, and he decided to combine such a forward movement with a flanking movement. For this he assigned Rauch, with one regiment of the Guard, two rifle battalions, one horse artillery battery and six squadrons. This force was to move up the valley of the Little Isker, to the left of the high road.7 The high road itself was in good condition, although it followed a sharply twisting route through the mountains and often was as steep as 1:10. The other roads, such as those Rauch was to traverse, were primitive in the extreme.

Rauch’s column would be one of three under the overall command of Lieutenant-General Shuvalov. Major-General Ellis, with five battalions, three sotnias and fourteen guns was to take the high road and attack the front of the Pravetz position, while five battalions, two squadrons and eight guns constituted the reserve. Another part of Gourko’s force was under the command of Major-General Dandeville; the 12th Regiment, with eight guns and three sotnias was to take the road from Tetevan to Etropol; the Preobrazhensky Regiment, with four guns and three sotnais was to follow the road through the Little Isker valley towards Etropol; four battalions, the 4th Dragoon Regiment and twenty four guns stood in reserve. Dandeville’s mission was to make a strong demonstration against Etropol, although if he judged that the weakness of the enemy justified it he could launch a serious attack.⁸ Gourko retained three regiments, with two squadrons and seventy-two guns, as a general reserve on the high road at the junction with the Etropol road, and dispatched two cavalry regiments in the direction of Lutikova, on the left of the Turkish position at Orkhanie.

Rauch’s men had a fearful time of it. They set off from Jablonitza on November 21, with orders to march all night. The force was led by a party of men, working in two reliefs of sixty each, using the 120 picks and shovels which were the only tools available. The route was extremely difficult:

The path led along a ravine where the Mali-Isker twisted and turned among the crags; and before they left the river to take the direction of the village of Kalugerovo, the next village on the route, they had crossed it ten times – each time with much trouble. The way led over great ledges of hard, flinty rock, full of seams and fissures, so difficult for the horses to pass that the feet of several were caught in the crevices and the hoofs torn from the bone.⁹

Due to reach the position assigned to him by noon on November 22, it was not until the following afternoon that Rauch arrived, after a march which Hozier thought was ‘one of the finest achievements of the campaign.’ On the morning of November 23 Rauch’s troops encountered Turkish resistance for the first time, and were held up for two hours by a Turkish force on the heights above a ravine through which they were advancing.

Shuvalov had arrived in position on November 22 as arranged, to carry out the frontal assault in conjunction with Rauch; when the latter did not appear, he engaged in an artillery bombardment on that day and the following day. When Rauch’s men arrived on November 23 on the flank of the Turkish position they were confronted by an enemy force posted to prevent a turning movement, but which had not had time to entrench itself. In spite of their exhaustion, Rauch’s troops were at once launched in an assault, and drove back their opponents. Harried from one position to another, and under a heavy cannonade from Shuvalov’s advance in their front, the Turks broke and fled, covered as they went by a thick mist, which hampered any pursuit. Thus the Russians took the strong Pravetz position at the remarkably low cost of 72 killed and wounded.

While this was going on, the cavalry force sent towards Lutikova had got into serious trouble, running into what amounted to a cul de sac in the mountains. Surrounded and cut off by Turkish infantry, a large part of the force had to fight their way out of the trap, abandoning two guns by throwing them over a precipice and losing a third to capture by the Turks. 79 men were killed or wounded. The setback had one positive aspect; the appearance of the cavalry on their left flank may have focused Turkish attention on this sector rather than on Pravetz, the key point of the Russian attack.10

Dandeville’s advance on Etropol encountered much of the difficulty that Rauch had faced. He finally reached the Turkish positions around the town by November 23. The Turks here were commanded by Mustapha Pasha, and occupied a position of some considerable strength based on a series of redoubts on heights which were regarded as inaccessible. Mehemet Ali, who had arrived at Vrachesti, a few miles behind Orkhanie, on November 22 to inspect the positions held by his troops, had no expectation that a Russian assault was imminent, and his forces were disposed in anticipation of an advance to the north rather than in preparation to face an attack.

He was, therefore, dismayed to see on November 23, when he rode out with his staff to the position taken up in front of Orkhanie, the Russian advance guard coming down the high road from Plevna, evidently aiming to launch an attack on the first line of the position. Unfortunately for him, this line was held only by Mustafiz troops, and as soon as the Russians got near enough to attack, they panicked and ran back to the second line of defence. Mehemet Ali hoped to make a stand here; but the retreat had uncovered the entrance to the Orsikovo Pass, through which Gourko was able to advance to the village of Jasan. With the Russians almost on top of them again, the undisciplined Turkish infantry panicked again, and could not be made to stand and fight, and Mehemet Ali was obliged to fall back to the third line of fortifications directly in front of Orkhanie. Even here there was chaotic disorganisation and the Mustafiz troops began to fall back into the town before Chakir Pasha restored some sort of order with a regiment of regular troops.

This was bad enough; but at this point Mehemet Ali heard from Mustapha, at Etropol, that his situation there was critical, and seeking permission to evacuate and burn the town. Reluctantly, he gave his consent if it was absolutely necessary to retreat. Mustapha needed no more; at 8.00 am on November 24 he began his retreat from Etropol, pursued by Russian troops who threatened to cut off his artillery and baggage train. Ultimately he made it to the road over the Balkans, reaching Tashkessen in considerable disorder. Gourko occupied Etropol on November 25.

Mehemet Ali was utterly disheartened by the rapid collapse of his troops, observing to Valentine Baker, when the latter arrived at his headquarters, that as a result he expected to be recalled. He spoke to Burnaby about the latter’s plan to make his way through the Russian lines to Plevna:

You are an English officer, full of energy and courage, but there are plans which are so hazardous that it becomes folly to attempt them … and I feel so strongly that you would be throwing away your life for no useful purpose that I must urgently advise you to give up all thought of proceeding further with your enterprise.11

Burnaby reluctantly accepted this advice, but stayed on with Baker, serving on the latter’s staff.

At Orkhanie things went from bad to worse. The fall of Etropol gave the Russians access to an old road from the town which joined the high road to the south of Orkhanie. Down this road now advanced a column led by Prince Alexander of Oldenburg, and it was immediately apparent to Chakir that to remain where he was in front of Orkhanie was to court disaster. On November 25 he pulled out of the position there, abandoning large quantities of stores, including three million rounds of small arms ammunition, and retreating to Vrachesti. This position also proved untenable, with further troops from Etropol threatening its rear, and on November 29 Chakir retired to the Baba Konak Pass, where strong defensive works had been built. These took the form of six redoubts, one behind the other, commanding each ridge in turn as the mountains rose and culminating in the Yildiz redoubt, at 5,000 feet above sea level the key to the Turkish position.

In eight days, at a cost of less than 500 men killed and wounded, Gourko had dislodged the Turks from a series of strong positions in the foothills of the Balkans, and had driven them back to their principal defensive position on the line of the mountains. MacGahan had gone down from the lines around Plevna to pay a visit to Gourko’s headquarters, and on his return sent a dispatch reporting on the events there:

I was much struck with the manner in which General Gourko handles his forces. He is more cautious than in the summer. There is much more order and foresight displayed, and also more precision in the movements, which begin to remind one of the Prussians. I predict a great success for General Gourko, unless his plans are foiled by the weather.12

Fighting near the Baba Konak Pass. (The Graphic)

Gourko now prepared to attack the Turkish position at Baba Konak. He disposed his troops along the Greote ridge opposite the line of redoubts and about four thousand yards from it. The Turkish line was about seven thousand yards in length on both sides of the high road, and contained 15 guns, and was about fifteen hundred feet above the Greote ridge.

Facing the right of the Turkish position was Rauch, with the Preobrazhensky and Simeonov Regiments, with the 11th Regiment in reserve. Dandeville, with the Ismailov, Finland and 12th Regiments occupied the ridge from Mount Greote to the high road, while Ellis, with the Moscow Regiment and the Rifle Brigade, took up a position west of the high road. The Turks showed on December 1 that they were not yet completely done with; a fierce attack was launched on this day on Ellis’s position inflicting 150 casualties before it was driven back.¹³

The Russians now made a determined attempt to storm the Yildiz redoubt. The position was, however, much too strong, and the assault was driven back with the loss of some 300 men killed and wounded. A Daily News correspondent with the Turks reported on the attack:

A tremendous fire met the assailants, whose weakened ranks were unsupported, and just as everything depended upon their having ample reserves to bring up, the Turks made a rush out of the redoubt, and drove the foremost back at the point of the bayonet. The descending tide carried dismay into the remainder of the advancing column, the retreat had to be sounded, and the day was lost. Six Russian battalions were engaged in the attack. Great was the relief of Mehemet Ali at the result of the day’s fighting. Strong reinforcements had just arrived at the very moment when fortune looked its blackest for him. He openly declared that had the battle been lost he could not have answered for the consequences. Even as it is, his position is far from secure.¹⁴

Although the Russians, by dint of superhuman efforts, succeeded over a period of four days in hauling up sixty guns and placing them in position on the heights they occupied, their use was seriously hampered by dense fog which hung over the ravines between the ridges. In any case, the use of shrapnel against the earthworks was, as usual, ineffective, and it was reckoned that the position was too strong to be carried by a direct assault. For the moment, therefore, Gourko was content to observe the Turkish works, while maintaining a desultory artillery fire.

Frank Millet, another correspondent of the Daily News, made his way up to the Russian positions in the mountains:

When the snow covered the ground the picturesqueness of the mountain bivouacs was without parallel. The tree trunks came out sharply with their deep grey colour against the pure white, and every figure was in distinct silhouette. Now, the grey overcoats of the soldiers harmonise exactly with the colours of the carpet of dead leaves, and it is difficult to distinguish the men from the ground they lie on. In the snow, too, was written more plainly than with words, the history of the movements of each man in the skirmish line. One could follow every step of the advance of the Russians.15

On December 4 Mehemet Ali got the order that he had been gloomily expecting; he was recalled to Constantinople and Chakir appointed to the command of the troops at Baba Konak. Mehemet Ali’s recall was not, however, a mark of disgrace; the reason that he was sent for was to prepare the defence of the capital.