which Russian armies engaged the most sanguinary of the century.

The treaty of Bucharest finally brought this war to a conclusion; by this convention the Russian frontier was advanced to the Pruth, the navigation of the Danube was secured, and all the Turkish fortresses in Servia were demolished. Had it not been for the great and pressing danger which then menaced the Muscovite empire, there can be little doubt that terms far more severe, and territory far more extended, would have been exacted from the Porte.

After the fall of Napoleon, the weariness of wars and the desire for peace which possessed Western Europe seem also to have extended to Russia, since, up to the year 1828, we find her at peace with Turkey, although the pretexts for getting up a quarrel during that period were perhaps more numerous and certainly were more justifiable than frequently has been the case, either in former or in later years. In fact, Turkish misgovernment and cruelty seem about this time to have reached a pitch unequalled before or since. Insurrections and subsequent massacres appear to have been of no unfrequent occurrence; the struggle for Greek independence, which may be said to have lasted more or less from 1822 till 1830, was little more than a perpetual succession of atrocities perpetrated almost equally by both sides. Of these outrages the massacre of Scio by the Turks was the most celebrated and the most revolting. The slaughter lasted for ten

days, and it is said that 40,000 persons of both sexes were put to the sword.

In July 1827 the treaty of London was signed by Russia, Great Britain and France, on behalf of Greece, and in October of the same year there was the destruction of the Ottoman navy by the combined fleets of these powers at the battle of Navarino. There then followed the campaign of 1828 and 1829, the only contest, by which the great European peace of fifty years was broken; strange to say, it was destined that these very same powers should again be the first to interrupt that peace, and the wars that have followed may be traced to that fatal interruption.

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CHAPTER II.

THE POSITION AND RESOURCES OF THE TWO COMBATANTS AT THE OPENING OF THE WAR IN 1828.

Position of Russia in Europe in 1828-Position of Turkey-Condition of her army and her fleet-Convention of Akkerman-Forces available to be brought into the field by Turkey-Forces available for invasion by Russia -Disposition of forces at opening of campaign -Lines of defence possessed by Turkey-The Pruth-The Danube -The Balkans-Kuchuk Chekmedge.

APPARENTLY the Emperor Nicholas had everything in his favour when he embarked in the war with Turkey in the spring of 1828. His prestige in Europe was at its zenith, his credit was excellent, his people were devoted, and his army was supposed to be highly trained and thoroughly efficient. He had no avowed enemies, but many faithful and devoted allies. Russia had temporarily outlived the suspicion and mistrust with which the constant aggressions of successive rulers had in former years caused it to be regarded throughout Europe. Prussia, then a second-rate power, was benevolently neutral, Austria not actually hostile, France was complacent and indifferent. England, led away by sympathy for the Greeks, and by a righteous

indignation against Turkish barbarities, had become oblivious of the interests of her Eastern empire, and would have acquiesced in the transfer of the Muscovite capital from St. Petersburg to Constantinople almost without a murmur. Last, but not least, the Turkish fleet had been annihilated at Navarino, and Russia, mistress of the Black Sea, had the inestimable advantage of being able to feed and supply her armies by water transport. Nevertheless, if we look at the other side of the picture, the prospect was by no means so encouraging. Russia had not yet recovered the exhaustion caused by the wars of Napoleon, while her army had lost the efficiency which stood it in such good stead at Borodino and Leipsic. She had been engaged in a series of successful but most trying wars with Persia. Her military system had only just been reorganised; Poland was still a thorn in her side, and Austria, although professedly neutral, maintained an attitude of hostile expectancy and thereby detained on the Transylvanian frontier a body of troops that would have sufficed to place the Russian standard on the dome of St. Sophia.

If, however, the condition of Russia in '28 was in some respects unsatisfactory, that of Turkey was infinitely. worse. The war of Greek independence had been going on for six years, and had seemingly strained the resources of the Porte to the utmost, while it had estranged all the allies that, under other circumstances, might have afforded it assistance. The Ottoman navy, as before stated, had

been destroyed on October 20th, 1827, by the combined navies of Russia, England, and France, and as regards the army, it was practically non-existent as a body, while what remained of it, by spreading disaffection, was a source of weakness rather than of strength. In order to explain how this was brought about, it is necessary to revert to the history of the Janissaries, and to the manner in which they were destroyed.

When the Turks first entered Europe, and their exploits carried terror into the courts of every Christian king, their battles were won, not by those who were born followers of Islam, but principally by compulsory renegades, the children of Christian parents, torn from their homes when young, and afterwards converted into staunch followers of the Prophet. These mercenary soldiers, Janissaries as they were called, soon discovered their power, and, like the standing armies of other countries in those days, not unfrequently ruled the sovereign whom they nominally served. But as their turbulence increased, their military valour diminished; discipline, the first necessity in an army that hopes for success, deserted them, and the only command they obeyed with readiness was the order to retreat. For three centuries they had been the support of the Ottoman empire, now they became its bane. Sultan after Sultan had attempted to cajole them, to conciliate them, to subdue them; but Sultan after Sultan failed; some lost their lives, others their thrones, others succumbed, but the power of the Janissaries and of