The closing scenes of the war are of little interest except in the domain of diplomacy.  Servia having declared war against Turkey immediately after the fall of Plevna, the Turks were now hopelessly outnumbered.  Gurko forced his way over one of the western passes of the Balkans, seized Sofia (January 4, 1878), and advancing quickly towards Philippopolis, utterly routed Suleiman’s main force near that town (January 17).  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.  The Russians devised skilful moves for capturing this force.  On January 5-8 Prince Mirsky threaded his way with a strong column through the deep snows of the Travna Pass, about twenty-five miles east of the Shipka, which he then approached; while Skobeleff struggled through a still more difficult defile west of the central position.  The total strength of the Russians was 56,000 men.  On the 8th, when their cannon were heard thundering in the rear of the Turkish earthworks at the foot of the Shipka Pass, Radetzky charged down on the Turkish positions in front, while Mirsky assailed them from the east.  Skobeleff meanwhile had been detained by the difficulties of the path and the opposition of the Turks on the west.  But on the morrow his onset on the main Turkish positions carried all before it.  On all sides the Turks were worsted and laid down their arms; 36,000 prisoners and 93 guns (so the Russians claim) were the prize of this brilliant feat (January 9, 1878)[154].

[Footnote 154:  Greene, op. cit. chap. xi.  I have been assured by an Englishman serving with the Turks that these numbers were greatly exaggerated.]