Under the Red Crescent

In submitting to the popular verdict this book, which aims at being a plain, straightforward account of the experiences of a young Australian in the last great battles which have been fought in Europe, I feel that a few words of explanation are necessary.

In the first place, it may be asked why I have allowed twenty years to elapse before giving these reminiscences to the world. I must answer that, as a hard-working surgeon leading a very busy life, I had but little "learned leisure" at my disposal; and I must also admit that I did not feel myself equal to the literary labour of writing a book. Indeed it might never have been written if my friend Mr. Sandes had not agreed to my suggestion that he should reproduce in a literary and publishable form the language of the armchair and the fireside, and so enable me to relate to the world at large some of the incidents which my own immediate friends, when listening over the cigars to my recollections, have been good enough to call interesting. So much for the matter of the book, and also for its manner.

In the second place, military critics as well as the general public may be inclined to wonder how it was that a young army surgeon, a mere lad in fact, should have been allowed to play such an independent part in the field operations at Plevna as is disclosed in the following pages, and should have been permitted to move about the battle-field and engage in active service, with the apparent concurrence of the general staff and of the officers commanding the different regiments. In reply, I have to explain that the Ottoman army was not guided by the hard-and-fast regulations which no doubt would render it impossible for a junior surgeon in any other European army to act on his own volition and carry on his work as he might think best himself. Furthermore, I may mention that through my close friendship with Prince Czetwertinski, who was the captain of Osman Pasha's bodyguard, I was always kept in touch with the progress of the military operations; and I am also proud to say that I enjoyed the confidence of Osman Pasha himself, and was on terms of the closest intimacy with that gallant and true-hearted soldier Tewfik Bey, who won the rank of pasha for his magnificent courage when he led the assault that drove Skobeleff from the Krishin redoubts.

These facts may explain many of the adventures narrated in this book which would be inexplicable to critics accustomed to the rigid discipline under which medical officers do their work in other European armies.

It is only right to say, in conclusion, that I consider myself singularly fortunate in my coadjutor, who, while he has brightened this narrative of my early adventures with all the resources of the practised writer, has nevertheless left the truth of every single incident absolutely unimpaired. At a time when the Eastern Question looms like a huge shadow over Europe, and when the very existence of the Turkish Empire is once more threatened, may I hope that this story of the military virtues of the Ottoman troops may not be found without real interest?

CHARLES S. RYAN. Melbourne, July, 1897.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PAGE FROM MELBOURNE TO SOFIA.

Autobiographical--My Wanderjahr--First Glimpse of Servians--Rome--A Prospective Mother-in-law--Sad Result of eating Chops--A Spanish Poet--The Chance of a Lifetime--How I seized it--Garcia's Gold Watch--The Via del Poppo--Off to London--Engaged by the Turkish Government--Vienna revisited--Stamboul--Origin of the Crescent--Misserie's Hotel--The Turkish Character--A Splendid Belvedere--View from the Seraskierat Tower--Scutari and Florence Nightingale--Stamboul by Day and Night--Scene in a Bazaar--Three Sundays a Week--A Trip to Sweet Waters--Veiled Beauties--I am gazetted to a Regiment--An Official Dinner--Off to the Front--A Compulsory Shave--My Charger--The March to Sofia--My First Patient--Prescription for a Malingerer--Mehemet Ali--My Soldier Servant--Diagnosing my Cases--Bulgarians at Home--At Sofia--MacGahan the War Correspondent--Learning Turkish--A Dinner in Camp--Leniency to Bulgarians--A Lady Patient--So near and yet so far--From Pirot to Nish--The Wounded--My First Operation 1