the
Roumanians well knew, after the declared enmity of the Porte, that the
defeat of the Russians and their withdrawal into their own territories
would at once have been followed by all the incidents of Turkish rule,
of which for centuries they had had such a bitter experience.

Amongst the valuable services which Prince Charles had rendered to his
adopted country before the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war was the
organisation of a national army on the German model. Under Prince Couza
the whole standing army of the two Principalities was at first 8,400
men, but he raised it to 25,000 strong, and officered it on the French
system. When Prince Charles received the investiture at the hands of
the Sultan in 1867, the army was limited to 30,000 men of all ranks; but
he substituted German for French officers, and sent young Roumanians to
Germany to study military tactics. In 1874 the standing army numbered
18,542 men of all arms, and the territorial forces 43,744, making a
total of 62,286 men and 14,353 horses; these were armed with 52 steel
Krupp guns, besides about 200 of an inferior description; 25,000 Peabody
rifles, and 20,000 Prussian needle-guns, raised in 1875 to 100,000
rifles of the best description.[174] The sanitary services and the
military hospitals had been organised by General Dr. Davila, a French
physician, of whom we have frequently spoken elsewhere, and who still
occupies the post of Director of Hospitals, &c., and of the Medical
School at Bucarest.[175]

[Footnote 173: The critics of her conduct during and immediately after
the close of the war were more bitter than at the present day, charging
her with perfidy of the worst kind, and predicting that she would become
a vassal state of Russia. See, amongst others, Ollier, _History of
Russo-Turkish War_, vol. i. p. 537.]

[Footnote 174: These details are from Von Wittinghausen's work on
Roumania, from a military point of view (Vienna: Carl Gerold's Sohn).]

[Footnote 175: The army organization has progressed rapidly since the
war of complete liberation, and it is estimated that in 1884 the total
forces of Roumania, regular militia, and Landsturm, will exceed 215,000
men. Full information will be found in Von Wittinghausen, Obedenare and
in the _Gotha Almanack_, 1881, p. 903, where the present state of the
forces is given in detail.]

III.

With an army thus constituted and disciplined, Prince Charles went into
the Russo-Turkish war as an ally of t