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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5044, 24 May 1877, Page 2

From Von Moltke’a description of the Dobruflsoha and fortified places on the Danube we learn that the locality, about the alleged invasion of which by the Russians so much is being written at present, is not for strategic purposes of much importance as regards the invasion of Turkey by the Russians. Yon Moltke says :—“ The Dobrudscha is not properly a part of Bulgaria, altough on the Bulgarian side of the river, and is always spoken of by the Turks as a distinct territory. It is a district skirting the Danube on its northern aud western bounds, the Black Sea on its eastern bounds, and Bulgaria to the south and south-west. Its extreme measurement is from 90 to 100 miles by 35. It is perfectly flat, and lower than the Danube, in most places marshy, and the deadly marsh malaria prevailing to a degree more fatal perhaps than anywhere else in Europe. In other places it is dry and stei ile, and* water cannot be obtained by digging to any depth. There are no roads, and even the paths are dangerous to the solitary traveller. The outlets from this district toßoumelia are commanded by fortifications of great strength, with a fertile country behind them; so that an army hemmed in within this dismal plain is exposed to certain destruction—they will waste away without any attack from a foe. Tlie Russians calculated upon forcing a passage into Bulgaria, as they did in 1828, when Silistria aud Varna were captured by them ; but at that time they had command of tlieEuxiue, upon which the Allies,at the time we now treat of, kept up a sort of marine patrol. There remained, therefore, nothing for the Russians but to force their way to the Balkan. As the Allies occupied Varna later in the spring, the Russians could make no attempt iu this direction ; or the deeds of Mensclukoff and Woronzoif, in 1828, might have been again enacted.”