A pass over the Balkans had been secured at the cost of two men killed and three wounded.

Gurko was almost justified in sending to the Grand Duke Nicholas the proud vaunt that none but Russian soldiers could have brought field artillery over such a pass, and in the short space of three days (July 11-14)[140].
[Footnote 140: _General Gurko's Advance Guard In 1877_, by Colonel Epauchin, translated by H.Havelock (The Wolseley Series, 1900), ch.
ii.; _The Daily News War Correspondence_ (1877), pp.

263-270.] After bringing his column of 11,000 men through the pass, Gurko drove off four Turkish battalions sent against him from the Shipka Pass and Kazanlik.

Next he sent out bands of Cossacks to spread terror southwards, and delude the Turks into the belief that he meant to strike at the important towns, Jeni Zagra and Eski Zagra, on the road to Adrianople.

Having thus caused them to loosen their grip on Kazanlik and the Shipka, he wheeled his main force to the westward (leaving 3500 men to hold the exit of the Khainkoi), and drove the Turks successively from positions in front of the town, from the town itself, and then from the village of Shipka.