In one village
were visible the bodies of some Turkish soldiers whom the Bulgarians had
stoned to death, the corpses half covered with the heaps of stones and
bricks which had been hurled at them.

Beyond this was reached a vast mass of closely packed wagons extending
widely over roads and fields, not fewer than twenty thousand in all. The
oxen were still in the yokes, but the people had vanished, and Bulgarian
plunderers were helping themselves unresisted to the spoil. The great
company, numbering fully two hundred thousand, had fled in terror to the
mountains from some Russian cavalry who had been fired upon by the
escort of the fugitives and were about to fire in return. Abandoning
their property, the able-bodied had fled in panic fear, leaving the old,
the sick, and the infants to perish in the snow, and their cherished
effects to the hands of Bulgarian pilferers.

In advance lay Adrianople, the ancient capital of Turkey and the second
city in the empire. Here, if anywhere, the Turks should have made a
stand. But news came that this stronghold had been abandoned by its
garrison, that the wildest panic prevailed, and that the Turkish
population of the city and the surrounding villages was in full flight.
At daylight of the 20th of January the city was entered by the cavalry,
and on the 22d Skobeleff marched in with his infantry, at once
despatching the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The defence
of Adrianople had been well provided for by an extensive system of
earthworks, but not an effort was made to hold it, and an incredible
panic seemed everywhere to have seized the Turks.

Russia had almost accomplished the task for which it had been striving
during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks
still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every
shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, and their powers
of resistance to be at an end. They were in a state of utter
demoralization and ready to give way to Russia at all points and accept
almost any terms they could obtain. Had they decided to continue the
fight, they still possessed a position famous for its adaptation to
defence, behind which it was possible to hold at bay all the power of
Russia.

This was the celebrated position of Buyak-Tchek-medje, a defensive line
twenty-five miles from Constantinople and of remarkable military
strength. The peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmo