RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 73 



of both armies, but also to the innocent victims of the war, the 

 women and children, the aged and the infirm, who perished by 

 thousands from famine and exposure, or by the ruthless massacres of 

 the Cossack and Circassian, who save neither Moslem nor Christian 

 in their wild blind fury for blood. 



It is unnecessary, however, to refer at length to the dismal 

 record of those military events, which characterised this War; 

 the gathering of the Russian Armies in Europe and Asia, their 

 advance from Bessarabia across the Danube into Bulgaria; 

 and from Alexandropol into Armenia, a great military drama, 

 in which scenes full of thrilling and painful incidents pass 

 before us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always ex- 

 hibiting a ghastly spectacle of mangled humanity, a war of races and 

 creeds developed in all its horror and repulsiveness. 



Such was the heroic defence for many weary months of Plevna, 

 under Osman Pasha, the terrible struggle in the Shipka Pass, 

 defended with terrible loss by Suleiman Pasha, the siege and capture 

 of Kars, the battles which succeeded it in Armenia, the daring advance 

 of the Russians across the Balkans, in face of the tempests and the 

 snows of winter, the fierce conflicts around Sophia, and in the Rhodope 

 Mountains, and the final struggles to resist the march of the invaders 

 from Adrianople to the shores of the Bosphorus. 



On the last day of the year 1877 Turkey, in a despatch of great 

 moderation anxious to avoid a further effusion of blood, appealed to 

 the Mediation of England, and to the honor of England her Govern- 

 ment appealed to Russia, whether, enough had not been achieved by 

 the armies of both Empires, to satisfy all questions of Military 

 honor. 



This appeal was at first unsuccessful ; Russia refused on the ground 

 that she would receive overtures only direct from her vanquished foes, 

 but the appeal of England was not to be denied, backed by the 

 voice of Europe, and by the movement of the British Fleet to the 

 Dardanelles, was firmly pressed, and Russia slowly and sullenly gave 

 way, by consenting to an armistice, and the preliminaries for Peace 

 were accordingly signed at Adrianople on the i8th January, 1878. 



In the little village of San Stefano, the plenipotentiary for Turkey, 

 Safvet Pasha, and for Russia, General Ignatieff, surrounded with all 

 the pomp and triumphs of a victorious army, deliberated for many 

 anxious weeks over the exacting terms dictated by the Conqueror. 



The conditions contained in the Treaty of San Stefano, signed 

 on the 3rd March, 1878, sent a shudder through Europe, and 



