with forty standards, fell a prize to the victorious Russians.
During the siege the Turks displayed great bravery and determination, but they also displayed great ignorance of the art of war. The siege lasted forty-four days from the first investment, thirty-five from the time the first parallel was opened, twenty-five after the third parallel, and nine days after the mines had made a perfectly practicable breach under bastion number five. Twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventy-six shots were fired into the fort. The chief causes of capitulation seem to have been lack of harmony between the commanders and lack of provisions. It is greatly to the credit of the Russians to have forced an enemy outnumbering them two to one, and behind walls, to surrender, especially with their insufficient equipment. But the poor condition of the fort, the incompetency and quarrels of the commanders, and the miserable handling of the garrison assisted them materially. The most remarkable fact was this: that but little use was made of artillery, the reduction having been made principally by sapping and mining. Silistria was taken at a cost to the Russians of three thousand men and seven weeks' time, a saving of men, certainly, since the loss in one day's assault on the fortress of Brailov was greatly in excess of this number.
Mention has been made of the withdrawal of a portion of the investing army during the siege, and its employment elsewhere. The main body of the Turkish army was at Shumla under the command of Redschid Pasha, grand vizier; it numbered about forty thousand men, mostly irregular troops, and by no means able to cope with a corresponding force of Russians. At Rustchuk on the Danube was Hussein Pasha, with eight or ten thousand men, watching the course of events, and waiting to move at the orders of the grand vizier. Varna to the east of Shumla was held by the Russians, and so was Pravadi,
