The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-01-19 00:00:00

daybreak on the 27th the Circassian outposts • were
standing cn a little hill scarcely a mile away, and we
saw an ilficer with his staff come up and take a look,
then gallop away, The Brigade of Kuban Cossacks
was sent down the valley with one regiment of infantry
to the left, and one up on the height to the right.
There was a little popping in the valley. The Turks
in a little rifle pit on the hill fired four rounds and then
retb ed.

The enterprising Kubans pushed ahead and saw out
on the plain a long transport train slowly moving to-
wards Baba-Konak. They received orders to try and
capture it. About three o'clock two squadrons—
scarcely more than an hundred horsemen—dashed
down into the plain and cut off half the train, more
than two hundred waggons laden with provisions and
forage. The two squadrons of Turkish regular
cavalry and Circa9sians retired immediately, when
the Kubans came down; but finding they were not
outnumbered, returned and gave battle. After a
short sharp fight, in which ten Turks were killed and
two Cossacks wounded, the waggons were left in the
Russian bands. The Cossacks cut the telegraph
wires, the infantry took up positions on the hills near
the plain, past the village of Potop, and the passage
of the Balkans was an accomplished fact
Now that the fatigues and dangers of the mountain
climb are over, everybody is exhilirated, and the perils
that menace us from the hands of the Turks seem in-
significant in comparison with those of the passage in
the snow and cold. As I recall the thirty hours I
spent in the mountains without shelter, wit h scanty
food—for my pack-horse, in company w l many
others, had gone astray—it seems a time dull of
touching incidents and dramatic events that it
recurs to my mind more as the phantas-
magoria of a troubled dream than a recollection
of real experience. The panorama of that moun-
tain climb would contain more scenes of personal
devotion and more dramas of human interest than
most of the larger battles of the war. Every step
presented a new picture. Gathered round a small fire
at the foot of a large tree two or three Guardsmen
would be relating the history of Gorni Dubnik, and
with animated gestures illustrating how they dragged
guns up the mountains near Etropol. The small
audience of the soldiers of the line who had spent
weary months in the Plevna trenches could only
stand and wonder at the experience of the Guard,
and, too cold to sleep, they passed the long
night thus in exchanging stories of the war.
Cuddled up against the banked snow on the side
of the pathway at every few paces were the soldiers
who carried up the muskets of those who hauled the
guns, and we stumbled over many lying in the path,
shapeless bundles who could only be recognised as
soldiers from the rifles which were stuck in the snow
and lay scattered about on either side the track, the
men having fallen fast asleep after futile efforts to
make a fire Out of the green wood. When the
soldiers dragging the cannon halted for a moment
they lay down without letting go of the rope and.
slept on the ice, one lying upon the other. Their
feet were wrapped in . rags and skins pointed
capuchins covered their heads, almost hiding
the faces, and most of them wore their shelte
tent as a cloak. A_file of them slowly stalking
past in the darkness had a wondrously strange aspect.
In the intense cold of the night their overcoats became
inflexible like sheets of iron. When the moon rose it
lighted a scene of weird picturesqueness, figures and
trees coming out dark against the mysterious back-
ground of snow, and the winding path being lost far
up in the frosty haze. At intervals along the track
were motionless groups of men, cannon, horses, and
caissons; and little fires twinkled with a ruddy light
all over the mountain side