in modern
warfare, as illustrating the immense power that quick-firing rifles
confer upon the defence. Given a nucleus of well-trained troops, with
skilled engineers, any position of ordinary strength can quickly be
turned into a stronghold that will foil the efforts of a far greater
number of assailants. Experience at Plevna showed that four or five
times as many men were needed to attack redoubts and trenches as in the
days of muzzle-loading muskets. It also proved that infantry fire is far
more deadly in such cases than the best served artillery. And yet a
large part of Osman's troops--perhaps the majority after August--were
not regulars. Doubtless that explains why (with the exception of an
obstinate but unskilful effort to break out on August 31) he did not
attack the Russians in the open after his great victories of July 31 and
September 11-12. On both occasions the Russians were so badly shaken
that, in the opinion of competent judges, they could easily have been
driven in on Nicopolis or Sistova, in which case the bridges at those
places might have been seized. But Osman did not do so, doubtless
because he knew that his force, weak in cavalry and unused to
manoeuvring, would be at a disadvantage in the open. Todleben, however,
was informed on good authority that, when the Turkish commander heard of
the likelihood of the investment of Plevna, he begged the Porte to allow
him to retire; but the assurance of Shevket Pasha, the commander of the
Turkish force at Sofia, that he could keep open communications between
that place and Plevna, decided the authorities at Constantinople to
order the continuance of defensive tactics[152].

[Footnote 152: A. Forbes, _Czar and Sultan_, p. 291. On the other hand,
W.V. Herbert (_op. cit._ p. 456) states that it was Osman's wish to
retire to Orkanye, on the road to Sofia, and that this was forbidden.
For remarks on this see Greene, _op. cit._ chap. viii.]

Whatever may have been the cause of this decision it ruined the Turkish
campaign. Adherence to the defensive spells defeat now, as it has always
done. Defeat comes more slowly now that quick-firing rifles quadruple
the power of the defence; but all the same it must come if the assailant
has enough men to throw on that point and then at other points. Or, to
use technical terms, while modern inventions alter tactics, that is, the
dispositions of troops on the field of battle--a fact which the Russians
seemed to ignore at Plevna--