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command of the whole Austrian army; the prince of Coburg, however, retained that of the division which was to keep open the communications with the Russians; and again he gave such numerous proofs of his incapacity to conduct any great undertakings, or even to help himself out of trifling difficulties, that the history of the campaign of 1789 alone ought to have prevented the emperor Leopold from entrusting him with the command against the French, who possessed generals and soldiers of a very different kind from those of the Turks. Selim III had succeeded in getting on foot a very considerable force which was destined to operate on the extreme point of Moldavia, where that country touches upon Transylvania, and is separated from Wallachia by a small river, which also divides the little town of Fokshani into two parts, one belonging to Moldavia, and the other to Wallachia. Coburg was advancing thither slowly and methodically, when the Turkish army encamped in the neighbourhood of the town turned suddenly upon him, and filled him with such apprehensions of being completely shut in that, instead of boldly doing what Suvarov afterwards did, he anxiously besought that general's speedy assist

ance.

Suvarov's army was lying at Belat in Moldavia; when the news reached him he at once began a march of between forty and fifty miles in a direct line over mountains, across ravines and pathless wilds, and in less than thirty-six hours reached the Austrians on the 30th of July, at five o'clock in the evening. At eleven that night he sent the plan of the attack upon the Turks, which was to commence at two in the morning, to the astonished prince, who had never heard of such rapidity of movement, or seen it equalled even on parade. The bewildered prince went three times to Suvarov's quarters without having seen him; in the battle he made no claim to the supreme command, which should have belonged to him as the eldest general, but submitted as a subor-. dinate to Suvarov's orders. The Turks, to the number of between fifty and sixty thousand men, were in position at Fokshani when the Russians and Austrians with forty thousand men passed the river Purna and stormed their fortified camp, mounting the ramparts and driving them in at the point of the bayonet, as if they were assaulting ordinary field-works. The camp was taken in an hour, with the loss of about eight hundred men; the whole body of the Turkish infantry fell into disorder, their cavalry galloped off, were scattered in all directions, and pursued for some miles with the greatest impetuosity and vehement zeal. The whole of the baggage and artillery, all the stores collected in Fokshani, a hundred standards and seventy pieces of cannon, fell into the hands of the victors; the Austrians exhibited the same zeal, perseverance, and courage as the Russians, and had they possessed such a commander as Suvarov, they would have reaped immense fruits from the victory, but they became sensible, as early as August, that they were in want of a proper leader.

Suvarov returned to Moldavia; Coburg looked quietly on whilst the Turks were collecting a new army, and suffered the grand vizir to advance without obstruction in Wallachia. The Turks directed Hassan Pasha, who lay in Ismail, to make an expedition against Repnin, whilst the grand vizir was to march against Prince Coburg, who had taken up a position at Martinesti, on the river Rimnik. The news of this fresh attack no sooner reached the Austrian camp than Coburg, instead of attempting to help himself, again had recourse to Suvarov, who had already drawn nearer to Coburg from Belat. The grand vizir's army, which had been estimated at one hundred thousand men, pushed forward rapidly by Braila (Ibrahil), and compelled the advanced posts of the prince to retire into their camp. Suvarov received the prince's

[1790 A.D.]

letter on the 16th of September, immediately gave orders to march, and two days afterwards succeeded in forming a junction with the Austrians, at the very moment in which they were to have been attacked by the Turks.

Austrian and Russian Valour; Austria's Withdrawal (1789-1790 A.D.)

The Austrians then proved anew that they were not to be surpassed when not commanded as usual by princes and privileged persons, who become generals whilst they sleep. Coburg, as he had previously done at Fokshani, totally relinquished the command at Martinesti to Suvarov, who immediately availed himself of the oversight of the Turks in not fortifying their camp before they offered battle, and attacked them by storm in their unfinished trenches. The issue was as glorious as it had been on the 31st of July at Fokshani; the contest, however, was more obstinately maintained. On this occasion the Russians formed the left wing, whilst the centre and right were occupied by the Austrians, whose admirably served artillery scattered the Turkish cavalry, which had made an attempt to surround and cut off the small body of the Russians. The victory in this dangerous and hard-fought battle was gained not merely by the courage, activity, and bayonets of the Austrian and Russian infantry, but especially by the great military skill of the commander. His orders to avoid the village of Bochsa, and first to drive the Turks out of the woods by which they were covered before commencing the main attack, have been greatly admired, and above all his prudence in not sacrificing the infantry in a blind storm, which was the more remarkable in a general accustomed to bring everything to a rapid determination.

The victory was splendid, the booty immense, the Turkish army a second time utterly dispersed a necessary consequence of the nature of its composition and the number of killed and wounded much greater than at Fokshani. Prince Coburg, on account of this victory, in which he was entitled to little share, was created a field-marshal; Suvarov received the dignity of a count of the empire from the emperor Joseph, and the empress of Russia for once gave an honourable surname to a man who had really earned it by his personal services; she raised him to a level with her Tchesmian Orlov and her Taurian Potemkin, and called him Rimnikski, from the name of the river on the banks of which he had been victorious.

The victory of Rimnik and the capture of Belgrade by Laudon on the 9th of October were the harbingers of greater success. Hassan Pasha, the Turkish high-admiral and celebrated conqueror of Egypt, whose confidence in his good fortune had encouraged him to assume the command of an army, was totally defeated at Tobak, in Bessarabia, by Prince Potemkin, and his discomfiture was followed by the surrender of Bender, Akerman, Kilia Nova, and Isatza, and by the investment of Ismail. At the same time the prince of Coburg took Bucharest and Hohenlohe, forcing the passes which lead into Wallachia, made himself master of Rimnik and Krajova. Laudon also reduced Semendria and Kladova, and blockaded Orsova, which, being situated in an island of the Danube, was inaccessible to regular attacks. By these conquests the allies became masters of the whole line of fortresses which covered the Turkish frontier; the three grand armies, originally separated by a vast extent of country, were rapidly converging to the same point, and threatened, by their united force, to overbear all opposition, and in another campaign to complete the subversion of the Ottoman empire in Europe.

But in the midst of this successful career, the increasing ferment in the hereditary states of Austria, the rebellion in the Netherlands, and, still more,

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the interposition of the maritime powers and Prussia, checked the hopes of Joseph at the very moment when his projects of aggrandisement seemed hastening to their completion. Justly alarmed at the successes of the two imperial courts, the three combined powers incited Poland to throw off the yoke of Russia, delivered the king of Sweden from Danish invasion, and laid the foundation of a general alliance for reducing the overgrown power of Austria and Russia. The king of Prussia even encouraged the rising discontents in Hungary, fomented the troubles which the impolitic innovations of Joseph had excited in the Netherlands, and, in the beginning of 1790, opened a negotiation with the Porte for the conclusion of an offensive alliance, intended not only to effect the restoration of the dominions conquered during the existing war, but even of the Crimea, and the territories dismembered by the two imperial courts from Poland.

The only power to which Joseph might have turned as a counterpoise to this combination was France, from whose recent change of system he had flattered himself with hopes of a cordial support, and from which he had even received private largesses to a considerable amount. But now France was in the throes of her great revolution, and Joseph was left without a resource. Worn down by innumerable calamities and disease, he died in February, 1790; and his successor, Leopold, was fortunate enough to conclude a separate peace with the Porte.

Russia Prosecutes the War; the Storm of Ismail (1790 A.D.)

Russia continued to prosecute the war against the Turks without the aid of Austria. Ismail still held out, and Potemkin, who had been besieging it for seven months, began to grow impatient. Living in his camp like one of those satraps whom he even surpassed in luxury, he was surrounded by a crowd of courtiers and ladies, who exerted every effort to amuse him. Öne of these ladies, pretending to read the decrees of fate in the arrangement of a pack of cards, predicted that he would take the town at the end of three weeks. Potemkin answered, with a smile, that he had a method of divination far more infallible. He instantly sent orders to Suvarov to come from Galatz and take Ismail in three days. Suvarov arrived and took such measures as would seem to indicate that he designed a renewal of the regular siege; he drew together the scattered divisions of the troops, formed them into a large besieging army of about forty thousand men, and ordered the small Russian fleet to come into the neighbourhood of the city; but his real design was to follow the course he had successfully pursued before Otchakov, take advantage of the frost, and reduce the fortress by storm.

Had not Ismail, according to ancient usage, been built without advanced works, even a general like Suvarov would scarcely have ventured on such an attack, which in the actual condition of the defences was attended by such murderous consequences. On the 21st of September the city was twice summoned, and on both occasions the garrison and inhabitants were threatened with the fate of Otchakov. The Turks, however, did not suffer themselves to be terrified into submission, and the fearful storm was commenced on the 22nd, at four o'clock in the morning. The wall was not mounted till eight o'clock, after an unexampled slaughter; but still the hottest part of the struggle took place in the city itself. Every street was converted into a fortress, every house became a redoubt, and it was twelve o'clock before the Russians, advancing through scenes of carnage and desperate resistance, reached the market-place, where the Tatars of the Crimea were collected.