General Skobeloff the Younger.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3117, 13 February 1879, Page 1

General Skobeloff the Younger.

"Where did yon learn English, General P" said an Englishman at tho breakfast-table of one of the best journalists and best fellows in the world one day last spring in Pe*ra. Skobeloff replied to the somewhat abrupt question with • beaming look from- his light blue eyes, and a pleasant smile wreathing his mobile lips, which are the only-parti of his face whereto the portraits fail to do full justice. He said, "In the* nursery, to be sure." And only so oould he hare acquired our tongue as well as he knows it. He lores us English irfdivWttlly, whatever he may think of us eoHectively. He is nerer so happy as when in the company of choice English spirits-^ except when he baa for hit companion an old American friend 'like him whose radiant face none will-see more on earth, and who lies in the'pretty cemeterjLof Ferenkeni, where even the Turkish Wirf must lie lightly over the manly heart of poor MaoGahan, to whose dear memory Lady Strangford has set up a marble cross. "Why should we Russians and you English fight P" said Skobeloff again, one day, sitting in his own room on the' ground floor of the house in which " the Surrender of Stefano" was dictated, to an ' English journalist and two gallant young English officers. "If wedo fight, it will be the work of the diplomatists, and not' of the soldiers." Once more: "Your English 'artillery and, I think, Tour, cavalry also "—a bow from a gallant Hussar—" are the finest in the world. I hope, we shall never meet them bat as friends. And why otherwise P >We were" friends once. Why should we quanel P I would gladly see-all ended without Russia being- the richer by an inch of territory. I have fought,,and my fellows have fought, not for the lust of land, but for freedom to Bulgaria. What is there to fight for over that between England and Russia P Good Godl It would be a prime on our part and on yours."* And' again: " Yes a number of our fellows were great thieves at the beginning of the war, but praotice'has given us the means of checking all the the .plundering [that went on by regimental commanders. * The Emperor means to carry the thing* through; and the first officer I catch at anything of the sort will not have the honor of being shot—he .will be —*-." And hero there was a significant touch of' a finger to a hinge of the-jaw. On another occaaion: "There" is no one in Turkey I* want to see so much as Moukhtar Pasha: he seems to be an admirable man in every way." ' When an illustration of the meeting between himself and Osman Pasha • at- Berieybey Palace appeared in The Illustrated Newt, and it was shown him. - Skobeloff cried, " Why make so much of-sufeinrn'inrf * T !■■■ mi hi—,'■ ■i „

of course W shook.bands as friends, and as soldiers. Why- not-P--And,-to eondude these agreeable reminiscences: " I assure you I stoppea three times to ask Baker Pacha whether,^ was *e»Ny m^tmt toinrite me to a cbnfereriser at the key of his position at Beilik. \3e;,.told me the summons came from his 1 superior officer, but he sent on Colonel Ailix to make sure, and that officer wared us* on by order of the Commander-in-Chief, so that getting into the fort was no fault of mine. The Turks chose the place of meeting themselves, and General Ellis was there before me." Yet one last, positively the last, anecdote r^-Said Lady Strangford, " Tell General Gourk'o he is the greatest brute I ever met." Skbbeloit took out his handkerchief, put a knot on it, and then said: "I 1 shall aot^ fail to convey to his Excellency in Hie morning your ladyship's compliment." No one who knows him tails to like him; many who never saw him think him a blagueur. We who have the honor of his intimacy do not deem him precisely a Muscovite Verdant Green; but take him as he is, there is not another division commander, and only one other com* ' raander in the Bnssian army, worthy to be named with him." , Michael SkobelofF was born in 1844, in the district of Raiian, near Moscow... He graduated in the. Military Academy of St. Petersburg in 1868 for the staff, but he did not pass the Guard as a young " blood" should. He went to Turkestan in command of a corps of Cossacks and after three year's service there he was in 1872 transferred to the Caucasus, where he was put on the staff of the singularly silly Grand Pake Michael, but soon passed to the command of the 3rd Battalidn 74th Begiment. In 1873 he commanded the advance guard of Lomakiu's. column, which moved on Shiva from Kinderli Bay. Those who find fault with English transport should bear his story of that expedition. After the; occupation' of Khiva.. he and MacGahan remained behind one whole night without a guard in the very harem of the Khan to prosaically finish a report for General Kauffmann. - Returning home he went 4» lourgeoite to study war with the Carlists, and was present at Penar Muro and Abar Zoza. Then he returned to Turkestan, and in 1875 commanded the cavalry at the battle of Makhran in Khokand, where he executed a turning movement, by which he captured fifty-eight guns, Soon he was appointed chief of the staff of General Trotsky and led the assault upon Andijah. Falling back; and the enemy pressing the brigade, Skobeloffimade'» night... attack with a handful of, horsejoa the camp of the enemy,'numbering over 6,000 men, who all fled. Left in command on Trotsky's return to Tashkend, the city of Namargand revolted, and he took it by storm, for which he was promoted to Major-General. In the second Khokand war he had chief command, and won the campaign after three months' fighting, becoming Governor of Khoknnd on iti annexation., In 1877 he was recalled to join the Grand Duke Nicholas at Kischeneff, and acted as chief of the staff to his father, who commanded an independent division of cavalry. When thw waa broken up, Skobeloff the younger served as a volunteer, and swam the Danube on '

bombaok. Before Krudenor's. attack on Plevna On July 31st Skobeloff received command of a flying detachment, with which he actually entered Plevna for a few minutes by the Loftcha road. He covered the Russian retreat and took off all his wounded. He was Imeritinsky's cl if of the staff in the second attack on Plevna, where he led four regiments to the attack, captured two redoubts on the Loftcha road, held them for twenty-four Lours, and had to fall back for want of support with a loss of 8,600 men out of 12,000, as well as three guns. He subsequently commanded the Bussian line on the '• Greenhill," being now Lieut.General and Chief of his .beloved 16th Division. At the passage of the Balkans he turned the Turkish left, attacked Vessel Pasha at Shenova, and on 10th January, after Mirsky and . Badetsky had tailed, he took the village. He led the advance on Adrianople, which he entered after forced marches on January IBth, and on February 6th, thanks to the treason of Server Pasha, he was allowed, in the teeeth of Moukhtar's protests, to occupy Tchataldja. The rest of his biogritphy every reader, can supply for himself/ In visiting Constantinople he specially affected the. society of Englishmen, especially of those who could forget-politics in private society, and behave as " soldiers and gentlemen." He would be thought a gentleman above all things. This is his ideal. To many of us he seemed very nearly to realise the highest type of the ideal; and he is most disliked where he is least known. His military career is without a stain, except that he did not pass through the Imperial Guard, and in some quarters this is an offence that will never be forgiven him. In hiß 36th year, he is still in many things a big boy. He has a generous contempt for diplomacy, and yet it was he who mafic the-Czar break his Imperial plighted word in the matter of the annexation, of Khokand; he and Kauffman the. HalfEmperor, the " Yarim-Padischab," whom Skobeloff will probably one day succeed in the Government of Central Asia. — Whitehall Beview.