tle worth. Its value always lay in its nearness to their main line of
advance, but they were not tied to that line. It is safe to say that, if
Moltke had directed their operations, he would have devised some better
plan than that of hammering away at the redoubts of Plevna.

In fact, the Russians made three great blunders: first, in neglecting to
occupy Plevna betimes; second, in underrating Osman's powers of defence;
third, in concentrating all their might on what was a very strong, but
not an essential, point of the campaign.

The closing scenes of the war are of little interest except in the
domain of diplomacy. Servia having declared war against Turkey
immediately after the fall of Plevna, the Turks were now hopelessly
outnumbered. Gurko forced his way over one of the western passes of the
Balkans, seized Sofia (January 4, 1878), and advancing quickly towards
Philippopolis, utterly routed Suleiman's main force near that town
(January 17). The Turkish commander-in-chief thus paid for his mistake
in seeking to defend a mountain chain with several passes by
distributing his army among those passes. Experience has proved that
this invites disaster at the hands of an enterprising foe, and that the
true policy is to keep light troops or scouts at all points, and the
main forces at a chief central pass and at a convenient place in the
rear, whence the invaders may be readily assailed before they complete
the crossing. As it was, Suleiman saw his main force, still nearly
50,000 strong, scatter over the Rhodope mountains; many of them reached
the Aegean Sea at Enos, whence they were conveyed by ship to the
Dardanelles. He himself was tried by court-martial and imprisoned for
fifteen years[153].

[Footnote 153: Sir N. Layard attributed to him the overthrow of Turkey.
See his letter of February 1, 1878, in _Sir W. White: Life and
Correspondence_, p. 127.] A still worse fate befell those of his
troops which hung about Radetzky's front below the Shipka Pass. The
Russians devised skilful moves for capturing this force. On January 5-8
Prince Mirsky threaded his way with a strong column through the deep
snows of the Travna Pass, about twenty-five miles east of the Shipka,
which he then approached; while Skobeleff struggled through a still more
difficult defile west of the central position. The total strength of the
Russians was 56,000 men. On the 8th, when their cannon were heard
thundering in the rear of the Turkish earthworks a