As it was, these generals dealt heavy losses to the invaders, but failed to drive them back on the Danube.
Moreover, Russian reinforcements began to arrive by the middle of August, the Emperor having already, on July 22, called out the first ban of the militia and three divisions of the reserve of the line, in all some 224,000 men[145].
[Footnote 145: F.V.Greene, _The Campaign in Bulgaria_, p.

225.] The bulk of these men did not arrive until September; and meanwhile the strain was terrible.

The war correspondence of Mr.Archibald Forbes reveals the state of nervous anxiety in which Alexander II.

was plunged at this time.

Forbes had been a witness of the savage tenacity of the Turkish attack and the Russian defence on the hills commanding the Shipka Pass.