No 335.
Mr. Maynard to Mr. Evarts.
Constantinople, October 1, 1877. (Received October 23.)
Sir: During the month just closed the Turco-Russian war, judging from the position of the respective armies, has made but little progress Terrible fighting is reported, but nothing decisive.
From Asia we have heard little of military movements. The operations seem to have been confined to the frontier, and on the Russian rather than the Turkish side of it. As far as can be judged at present, the Russian campaign in that quarter has been a total failure.
In Europe there has been ceaseless activity on both sides. The Turks have made tremendous efforts to gain the Shipka Pass, of which I made mention in my dispatch No. 181, dated August 31, 1877; but their enemy still holds it. The bulletins report frightful losses on both sides; on that of the Turks nearly half of the veterans who had fought in Monte negro. The Russians have taken and still bold Loftcha (Lovatz), no doubt an important advantage; and have attempted to retake Plevna, still more important could they have suec eded. The defense has been brilliant and to this time successful, shedding great luster on the Turkish arms and on Osman Pasha, the general in command. On the Russian right, Mehemet Ali Pasha and the Egyptian contingent claim advantages more or less considerable.
The Russians are reported to have been driven from the Lom, a stream which enters the Danube at Rustchuk, and to have retired behind the Yantra, a parallel stream falling into the Danube a few miles farther up, and as a military line for them much stronger than the Lom, no doubt, so long as the Turks hold Rustchuk, Rasgrad, and Shumla. The fall rains have set in, and the season is too far advanced to admit of new enterprises. Should the campaign close now, it will leave a powerful Russian army resting on the Danube and stretching southward to an important pass of the Balkan Mountains, certainly not an inconsiderable achievement.
Judging by another standard, however, the campaign has been decidedly favorable to the Turks. On the one hand, the high Russian military prestige has been lost, and on the other the Turks have gained in this respect, and much more even than their enemy has lost. The effect of this campaign upon the two armies will be to bring them into the field next year under very different conditions, the Russians having a far higher respect for their enemy and the Turks much less for theirs. In fine, Turkey becomes from this time until the end of the war a first-class military power, a fact equally understood by her armies in the field and by her statesmen in the cabinet.
When Russia undertook to execute the judgment of Europe as declared in the conference, the other powers believed—some, indeed, feared—she would easily and effectually accomplish her self-imposed task. Now that she has encountered unexpected difficulties, and has met with a resistance which no one of them anticipated, it will be seen whether they leave her to end the struggle as best she may, or rally to her support, or in the interests of civilization and humanity interfere at a juncture when peace would be tantamount to her defeat.
The Turks continue to be supplied with war-material from abroad. Within the last few days a large English steamer has arrived from America loaded with ordnance stores. Several similar cargoes have been [Page 610] received since the war began, and not a single one has been interrupted. Considering the length of the voyage, and that it is continuous from Long Island Sound to the Golden Horn, we have a significant instance of the inefficiency of the Russian cruisers. In this connection I may observe the superiority of the ammunition used by the Turkish soldiers over that of the Russians has been remarked upon as one of the causes to which their success may be attributed.
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This dispatch may properly close with a reference to Montenegro. After the withdrawal of Suleiman Pasha the mountaineers seem to have had everything their own way. They besieged and took the much-disputed fort of Niksitch; which, for the present at least, they are likely to retain. The garrison which surrendered, expecting the worst, were greatly surprised, it is said, at being allowed to keep their side-arms and to go their way.
I am, &c.,