The system of warfare carried on hitherto by the Western
Powers against Russia, has completely broken down. It will not do
to carry on this year’s campaign, if campaign there is to be, upon
the plan which has, so far, been followed up. To concentrate the
whole forces of France, England, Turkey and Sardinia, against
one particular point in the Crimea, a point which, by using
indirect means, might have been gained as an accessory; to fight
for that point eleven long months, and then to obtain only one
half of it; to neglect all other opportunities for dealing effective
blows at the enemy to such an extent that Russia could obtain by
the conquest of Kars, a counterpart to the loss of the south side of
Sevastopol—all that might do for a campaign or two, in a war
where the most vulnerable points of the opposing parties were
covered by the neutrality of Central Europe. But it will do no
longer. The Council of War which has just been sitting in Paris, is
the best proof that now we shall have something like war in
earnest if the war is to continue at all.*’

The war, as hitherto carried on, has been a state of official
hostilities, mitigated by extreme politeness. We do not here allude
to civilities marking the unavoidable intercourse of flags of truce,
but to the civilities which the very councils of war of the
contending parties displayed to their opponents. That the war
arose at all, is the fault of a miscalculation on the part of the
Emperor Nicholas. He never expected that France and England
would join to oppose his designs upon Turkey; he looked out for
a quiet little war of his own with the Sultan,* which might lead his
troops for a second time to the walls of Constantinople,*” arouse
European diplomacy when it would be too late, and finally give his

* Abdul Mejid.— Ed.

own diplomatists a chance of gaining, as usual, twice as much in
conferences and congresses as his troops could have gained by the
sword. Unfortunately, unexpectedly, unwillingly, Russia and the
Western Powers were entangled into war over this business before
they were aware of it, and to war they had to go, though none of
them liked it. Now, either party had a last means of warfare in
perspective which it thought would frighten the other from
resorting to extremities. It was expected to be a war of principles,
and of a more or less revolutionary character in which Germany
and her dependencies, Hungary, Poland, Italy would have to
partake. The ultima ratio* of the West was to be the setting loose
of the oppressed nationalities of Hungary, Poland, Italy, and more
or less of Germany also. The ultima ratio of Russia, on the other
hand, was the appeal to Panslavism, the realization of the dreams
fostered by enthusiasts for the last fifty years, among the Slavonic
population of Europe.

But neither the Russian Government, nor that of Louis
Bonaparte (not to speak of Palmerston) chose to appeal to such
means of action before the last extremity had arrived; and in
consequence the war has been carried on with a mutual
forbearance and urbanity scarcely habitual between legitimate
monarchs of ancient lineage, much less between such upstarts and
usurpers as the Romanoffs, the Hanoverians, and the PseudoBonapartes. The Baltic coast of Russia was scarcely touched; no
attempts at permanent lodgment were made there. There, as in
the White Sea, private property was much more assailed than
Government property; and on the coast of Finland, especially, the
British fleets seemed to have no other end in view than to
reconcile the Fins to the Russian rule. In the Black Sea similar
principles were acted upon. The Allied troops sent there appeared
to have come for the purpose of making the Turks long for a
Russian invasion; for that is the only conclusion to be drawn from
their conduct, ever since 1854 till now. The most innocent portion
of the time they spent in Turkey was during their stay at Varna,
when, incapable of doing good, they did at least no considerable
harm except to themselves. When at last they started for the
Crimea. They managed to carry on the war in such a way that the
Russian Government had every reason to be highly satisfied with
them. The Duke of Cambridge has been, lately, distributing plenty
of medals to the French troops returned from the Crimea; but no
medals, crosses, grand-crosses, stars and ribbons the Russian

* Final argument or last resort.— Ed.

The European War 597

Government can bestow will adequately express the gratitude it
owes to the directors of the campaign of 1854 and 755. Indeed,
when the south side of Sevastopol was abandoned by its Russian
garrison, it had cost the Allies in dead and invalid 250,000 men,
beside millions on millions of money. The Russians, always
worsted in battle, had regularly defeated their enemies in
resolution, activity, and the skill of their commanding engineer.* If
Inkermann was an indelible disgrace to the Russians, the building
up of the redoubts on Sapun and the Mamelon by the Russians,
under the very nose of their opponents, was an indelible disgrace
to both English and French. And, after all, it appears that
Sevastopol did not so much exhaust the forces of Russia as those
of the Allies, for it did not prevent the Russians from taking Kars.

This taking of Kars is, in fact, the most disgraceful thing which
could have happened to the Allies. With the enormous naval
armaments at their disposal, with a number of troops superior,
ever since June, 1855, to the Russians in the field, they never
attacked the weakest points of Russia, the Transcaucasian provinces. Nay, they even allowed the Russians to organize in that
part an independent base of operations, a sort of vice-royalty,
capable of holding out some time against a superior attack, though
the communications with the mother country might be interrupted. Not satisfied with that, not forewarned by the continuous
defeats the Asiatic-Turkish army had suffered in 1853 and ‘54,
they prevented the Turkish army of Omer Pasha from doing any
good in Asia, by keeping it in the Crimea, and in the Crimea they
gave it nothing to do except hewing wood and drawing water for
its Allies. Thus, after the whole coast from the straits of Kertch to
Batoum had been carefully cleared of all Russian settlements, after
thereby a line had been gained on which ten or fifteen points
could be chosen as capital bases for any operations against
Caucasia or Transcaucasia—the weakest part of Russia as we have
often shown’—nothing was done, until at last Kars being hard
pushed, and the army at Erzeroum being fit for nothing, Omer
Pasha was allowed to undertake his unfortunate expedition to
Mingrelia—too late to do any good.

This obstinacy in concentrating the pith of the war in a
Peninsula about the size of Long Island, has certainly served to
keep aside all unpleasant questions. No nationalities, no Panslav-

* Todtleben.— Ed.

© See Engels’ article “The Progress of the Turkish War” (present edition,
Vol. 12, pp. 450-56) and the article by Marx and Engels, “State of the Russian
War” (present edition, Vol. 13, pp. 246-52).— Ed. .

ism, no trouble with Central Europe, no necessities for conquest,
no great decisive results which might embarrass ulterior negotiations by implying the necessity of imposing real sacrifices on any
party, have appeared upon the scene. But to the men engaged in
the actual campaign this is not agreeable. To them, at least from
the Sergeant-Major downward, the war has been a matter of stern,
stubborn fact. Never, as long as there have been wars, has such
brilliant bravery been thrown away for such inadequate results as
in this Crimean campaign. Never have such numbers of first-rate
soldiers been sacrificed, and in such a short time, too, to produce
such indecisive successes. It is evident that such sufferings cannot
be imposed again upon the armies. There must be some more
palpable gain than barren “glory.” You cannot go on fighting at
the rate of two great battles and four or five general assaults per
annum, and yet remain always on the same spot. No army stands
that in the long run. No fleet will stand a third campaign of the
modest nature of the two last, in the Baltic and Black Seas. If the
war is to continue, we hear, accordingly, of the invasion of Finland,
of Esthonia, of Bessarabia; we are promised Swedish auxiliaries,
and Austrian demonstrations. But at the same time we are
informed that Russia has accepted the Austrian proposals as a
basis for negotiation,“’ and while this is far from settling the
question of peace, it opens a possibility of that consummation.
There is, then, a chance that there may not be another campaign; but if one does come, we may presume that it must be much
more extensive and fruitful than those that have preceded it.

Written about January 18, 1856 Reproduced from the newspaper

leading article