A vividly topical eye-witness account of a key episode in the long struggle between Islam and Christendom. The author reported the 1877 war between the Russian and Ottoman Turk empires that resulted in a Russian victory and the establishment of Bulgaria after centuries of Turkish rule from both sides of the lines. Written some two decades later, this book gives an unsparing narrative of a war correspondent’s war, complete with many fine – some of them gruesome – illustrations and battle maps showing the fall of Plevna. The tone and style of the book is that of a graphic Victorian journalist rather than an objective historian, but it is none the worse for that, and gives the reader a good idea of the endemic religious and ethnic hatreds that still trouble the Balkans to this very day.
LIBERATION OF BULGARIA, WAR NOTES IN 1877
War correspondent’s graphic view of the 1877 war between Russia and Turkey that led to the liberation of Bulgaria after centuries of Ottoman rule.