The Turkish commander-in-chief thus paid for his mistake in seeking to defend a mountain chain with several passes by distributing his army among those passes.

Experience has proved that this invites disaster at the hands of an enterprising foe, and that the true policy is to keep light troops or scouts at all points, and the main forces at a chief central pass and at a convenient place in the rear, whence the invaders may be readily assailed before they complete the crossing.

As it was, Suleiman saw his main force, still nearly 50,000 strong, scatter over the Rhodope mountains; many of them reached the Aegean Sea at Enos, whence they were conveyed by ship to the Dardanelles.

He himself was tried by court-martial and imprisoned for fifteen years[153].
[Footnote 153: Sir N.Layard attributed to him the overthrow of Turkey.
See his letter of February 1, 1878, in _Sir W.White: Life and Correspondence_, p.

127.] A still worse fate befell those of his troops which hung about Radetzky's front below the Shipka Pass.