Lovtcha on September 3. War correspondents, who knew their
craft, turned to follow Skobeleff, wherever official reports might
otherwise direct them; and the lust of fighting laid hold of the grey
columns when they saw the "white general" approach.

On September 11 Prince Imeritinski and Skobeleff (the order should be
inverted) commanded the extreme left of the Russian line, attacking
Plevna from the south. Having four regiments of the line and four
battalions of sharpshooters--about 12,000 men in all--he ranged them at
the foot of the hill, whose summit was crowned by an all-important
redoubt-the "Kavanlik." There were four others that flanked the
approach. When the Russian guns had thoroughly cleared the way for an
assault, he ordered the bands to play and the two leading regiments to
charge up the slope. Keeping his hand firmly on the pulse of the battle,
he saw them begin to waver under the deadly fire of the Turks; at once
he sent up a rival regiment; the new mass carried on the charge until it
too threatened to die away. The fourth regiment struggled up into that
wreath of death, and with the like result.

[Illustration: Plan of Plevna.]

Then Skobeleff called on his sharpshooters to drive home the onset.
Riding on horseback before the invigorating lines, he swept on the
stragglers and waverers until all of them came under the full blast of
the Turkish flames vomited from the redoubt. There his sword fell,
shivered in his hand, and his horse rolled over at the very verge of the
fosse. Fierce as ever, the leader sprang to his feet, waved the stump in
air, and uttered a shout which put fresh heart into his men. With him
they swarmed into the fosse, up the bank, and fell on the defenders. The
bayonet did the rest, taking deadly revenge for the murderous volleys.

But Osman's engineers had provided against such an event. The redoubt
was dominated from the left and could be swept by cross fire from the
rear and right. On the morrow the Turks drew in large forces from the
north side and pressed the victors hard. In vain did Skobeleff send
urgent messages for reinforcements to make good the gaps in his ranks.
None were sent, or indeed could be sent. Five times his men beat off the
foe. The sixth charge hurled them first from the Kavanlik redoubt, and
thereafter from the flanking works and trenches out on to that fatal
slope. A war correspondent saw Skobeleff after this heart-breaking loss,
"his face black with powder a