THE BOMBARDMENT OF RUSTCHUK.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 4, 27 October 1877, Page 2

THE BOMBARDMENT OF RUSTCHUK.

Deplorable accounts have reached us of the havoc wrought by the Russian bombardment of Rustclnik. Whether intentionally or not, the Russian guns were levelled at hospitals and consulates as well as at fortresses, and the British flag did not purchase immunity from destruction for the building over which it waved. Mr. Reade, the English Consul at Rustchuk, finding that this was the case, and willing to suppose that the emblem of British nationality might be unnoticed by the Russian artillerymen, caused a bigger flag to lie hoisted. That, too, was fired at, and in such a manner as to leave no doubt that the aim was deliberate.

The " Times" special correspondent sends the following:—" On Sunday, July I, al«)Ut .') in the afternoon, some Englishmen were sitting in the ganlen of the Hotel Hislah Haue, drinking coffee; the eftplanade fronting the river was lined with the usual holiday loungers, men, women, and children, in Sunday finery,

f, r the late rumours of peace had induced uumUrs to return to ttmtelrak, A Milieu I*h,iii and puff of white smoke across the Danube, and the screaming of t> hell, which seemed to pan immediately iver the hotel, excited interest, but no mat alarm. That shell fell in the \rmeiiian quarter, "After the first scare lure was laughter among the riverside crowd and conversation in the garden. Fifteen minutes later a puff along the opposite bank announced that the bombardment of Hustchuk had liegun in earnest. Holy Russia had selected that peaceful Sunday afternoon for sending her iron messengers of deliverance to Bulgarians, Greeks, ami Turks, with cynical impartiality ; the noise was deafening, especially when, as they did soon afterwards, the Turkish batteries replied. As the shells began to fall around, somebody cried out, ' Why, they are not tiring on the forts, but at the town.' It was true. A shell exploded in the garden. It was time to go. A second, still nearer, accelerated the strategic movement-, but where was the place of safety < In the streets crash after crash, blinding smoke, and the noise of falling building material, gave rise to very confused notions upon that subject. Hour after hour the pitiless storm fell upon us. The scene near the principal hospital was at once grand and painful. It was well known at Guirgevo that the principal building with two red cresents on a white ground was a hospital. On that building the chief fire was directed from the first. When I saw Rustchuk yesterday it was razed to the ground. The sick were brought out and laid upon mattresses on the ground. The Turkish women exhibited remarkable sangfroid, as if tired of their uneventful lives. They were to he seen quietly shuffling across the open square under a storm # of shells, while women of other and men of all races ran like rabbits into any hole which seemed to offer shelter. So the work went on till sunset. It was found that the British Consulate had suffered great damage, as also had several houses in the same street, which is near no fort nor battery."