For champions such as these the emotional Slavs will always pour out their blood like water.

But, like the captor of Warsaw, Skobeleff knew when to put aside the bayonet and win the day by skill.

Both were hard hitters, but they had a hold on the principles of the art of war.

The combination of these qualities was formidable; and many Russians believe that, had the younger man, with his magnificent physique and magnetic personality, enjoyed the length of days vouchsafed to the diminutive Suvoroff, he would have changed the face of two continents.
The United States attache to the Russian army in the Russo-Turkish War afterwards spoke of his military genius as "stupendous," and prophesied that, should he live twenty years longer, and lead the Russian armies in the next Turkish war, he would win a place side by side with "Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, and Moltke." To equate these four names is a mark of transatlantic enthusiasm rather than of balanced judgment; but the estimate, so far as it concerns Skobeleff, reflects the opinion of nearly all who knew him[138].
[Footnote 138: F.V.Green, _Sketches of Army Life in Russia_, p.

142.] Encouraged by the advent of Skobeleff and Dragomiroff, the Russians assumed the offensive with full effect, and by the afternoon of that eventful day, had mastered the rising ground behind Sistova.