with twenty thousand men, carrying four days' rations in their haversacks and ten days' additional rations in the wagons which followed each regiment.
The march for the passage of the Balkans began on the 17th of July, and so admirably was the movement conducted, that the Turks were taken completely by surprise and offered scarcely any resistance. Aidos, on the southern side of the mountains, was full of military stores, which were abandoned by the Turks as the Russians approached, and other important captures of the same nature were made. Communication was opened with the Russian fleet at Bourgas and other points; the Turkish troops seemed panic-stricken and fled in dismay to the capital, and altogether General Diebitsch had things pretty much to his liking. But he was in a critical position, as his army was much smaller than the Turks generally believed it to be; the Bulgarians had spread the rumor that the Russians were countless as the leaves of the forest, and the Turkish scouts reported them at least sixty thousand strong, when they were really less than half that number.
The conquering army reached Adrianople August 20th, and on the following morning entered the city without bloodshed. Eight days later was signed the Treaty of Adrianople, by which the former treaties of Ackerman, Bucharest, and Kainardjii were ratified to their fullest extent, together with the conventions relating to Servia. The passage of the Dardanelles was declared open to Russian merchant ships, in common with those of other nations; Turkey was to pay an indemnity of £750,000 sterling to Russian subjects who had been despoiled of their property, while the Russian government was to receive a war indemnity of £5,000,000 sterling, and the conquered provinces were to be held by the Russians until the indemnity was paid. The Turkish provinces to the north of the Danube were to be practically independent of Turkey, and the Porte engaged not to maintain any
