[The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II by William James Stillman]@TWC D-Link bookThe Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II CHAPTER XXXI 5/11
Suleiman's campaign was planned on the idea of a triple attack on the heart of Montenegro, by himself from Krstaz, Ali Saib from Spuz, and Mehemet Ali, my old friend in Crete, from Kolashin via the upper Moratsha, the three armies to meet at Danilograd.
Ali Saib and Mehemet Ali were disastrously defeated, though before I left Plana in the morning a third attack from Spuz was begun, and fought out under my eyes while I waited, the Turks being driven back again. I started for a leisurely ride back to Ostrog, and half way there met a fugitive who told me that the Turks were at the convent, and the Prince retreating on the western side of the valley.
Another half hour and I should have been in the hands of the irregulars, who were skirmishing and burning, killing and plundering, as they followed the eastern side, the two armies being hotly engaged in the forests along the crest of the mountains above us around Ostrog.
I retrograded to Plana, and thence, by the urgent counsels of Bozo, to Cettinje, as the position was critical, and the campaign might take an unexpected turn and make my escape impossible. The army of Suleiman took ten days of fighting to cover the distance I had made in three hours' leisurely ride, and reached the plain of Spuz so exhausted and decimated that Suleiman had to reorganize it before he could make another move.
He had narrowly escaped a great disaster, possibly the surrender of his whole army, only by the incompetence of the Montenegrin commander.
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