ACHIEVEMENTS OF FIELD ARTILLERY. 
15 
Aladja Dagh. Lazareff was to continue "his advance towards Yizinkioi. 
One brigade of Heimann’s command was moved forward from Great 
Yahni to cover the road from Yizinkioi to Avliar with its artillery, and 
frustrate any movement along it which the Turks might make. 
The Grand Duke Michael and General Loris Melikoff arrived on the 
field near Hadji Yeli between 5 and 6 a.m., and the battle opened 
about daylight. Heimann’s 64 guns were gradually pushed forward 
until they were within 1500 yards of the Turkish works on the lower 
slopes of the Avliar Hill. 
The Turks had but 6 guns to oppose them on this hill, and, there¬ 
fore, too much should not be made of a feat accomplished with 
inordinate odds on one side; but, at the same time, it should be noted 
how different were the tactics adopted from those at Plevna, and credit 
must be given to the Russian gunners, whose fire appears from all 
accounts to have been extraordinarily effective. The Turks, as at 
Plevna, were strongly entrenched, and from the earthworks their rifle 
fire at a range of 1500 yards must have been biting in the extreme. 
The Grenadiers lay down while the guns prepared the way for them, 
and so thoroughly was the work done that, when the assault was 
ordered about noon, the task which fell to their share was a compara¬ 
tively easy one. 
Lieutenant Greene says “they (the guns) did most terrible execution 
with shrapnel, which they planted on the lines of the Turkish trenches 
with great accuracy.” 
The Correspondent of the Daily News with the Russians writes thus:— 
“ This time the Russian gunners behaved well. They had placed their 
pieces at the reasonable distance of 1800 yards, and, laying aside the 
inefficient shells, concentrated a shrapnel shower on that part of the 
enemy’s front which had been selected to be assailed by the stormiug 
battalions. Balls of white smoke, waving for a while in the calm air 
like balloons, indicated that the terrible messengers of death and 
destruction had burst at the proper point for sending fragments and 
bullets amongst the lines of the defenders. 
I observed how the musketry ceased after the bursting on a certain spot , 
and only a few minutes afterwards it began again, when living men had 
replaced the dead and wounded.” 1 2 
The correspondent with the Turks writes of the same incidents as 
seen from the other side — 
“ At half-past seven o’clock the artillery opened fire on Evliatepessi” 
(Avliar in the other accounts) “ the shells falling with an accuracy 
that contrasted strongly with previous artillery fire. The two heavy 
guns near Hadji Yeli continued their terrible fire, each shell falling 
right in the middle of the redoubt on Evliatepessi, an isolated hill 
blocking the road between the two ravines, the shells rained inces¬ 
santly.” 3 
About noon the cannonade ceased, and the columns of attack began 
climbing the sides of the hill as rapidly as the rough ground permitted. 
1 “ The War Correspondence of the Daily News , 1877,” page 565. 
2 “ The War Correspondence of the Daily News, 1877,” page 579. 
