PLEVNA, or Pleven, the chief town of one of the provinces in the principality of Bulgaria, lies in the midst of a series of hills (whose crests rise above it for 200 to 600 feet) and about 6000 yards to the east of the river Vid (a tributary of the Danube), into which the streamlets by which it is traversed discharge. Its position at the meeting place of roads from Widdin, Sofia, Shipka, Biela, Zimnitza, and Nikopoli gives it a certain military importance, and in the Russian campaign of 1877 it became one of the great centres of operation. The Russians, who had been defeated in two minor attacks on the 20th and 30th of July, were again repulsed with a loss of 18,000 men in an assault (September 7-13) in which they employed 75,000 infantry and 60,000 cavalry. They formally invested the town on October 24th and obliged Osman Pasha to surrender on December 10th. In 142 days the assailants had lost 40,000 men and the defenders 30,ι)00. Plevna, which contains two old Christian churches as well as a number of mosques, had 11,129 inhabitants in 1881, the province at the same date containing 100,870.

See F. V. Greene, The Russian Army and its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-78, London, 1879.