Friedrich Engels 
The siege of Sevastopol 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 4340,17. Marz 1855 

The siege of Sevastopol. 

Still no decisive news from the Crimea. The position of the Allies has 
"somewhat improved." The very unpleasant, but unavoidable, step has 
at last been taken; the British infantry has been withdrawn from the 
5 trenches, and sent to Balaklava "for reorganization", after which it will 
take its position on the hights round that harbor, for its defense. Of the 
six divisions sent out, beside supplementary regiments fully amounting to 
another division, 10,500 bayonets are all that remain under arms, and 
one half of these, above all things, require a thorough physical reorgan- 
10 ization before they can do any good in the field. It must have been a 
hard day for the British infantry when, after losing four fifths of their 
strength by sheer mismanagement of the home Government, and by the 
incapacity and negligence of their own commanders, they had to march 
down from the trenches, leaving the whole of the siege and the eventual 
15 assault to the French; leaving even their own artillery and naval brigade 
in the batteries, to be virtually commanded by the French general. But 
there was no other means of saving the remainder of the British army. 
The French are said now to muster about 75,000 men, but we should say 
60,000 would be nearer the mark; for they, too, have had serious losses. 
20 Thus, including the British artillery and naval brigade, there may be from 
70,000 to 75,000 men concentrated on the Heracleatic Chersonese; but 
that is the very outside. Of these, 40,000 men are necessary for the con- 
duct of the siege, at the very least; for the great proximity of the trenches 
to the Russian works now obliges the besiegers to keep a considerable 
25 force always concentrated in the parallels in order to repel sorties, and 
this force must be daily relieved. If not, it would soon share the fate of 
the British army, which was especially knocked up by constant trench 
duty and want of rest. There remain from 30,000 to 35,000 men to guard 

Friedrich Engels 

the line of circumvallation from Balaklava to the lower Chernaya, and to 
make such advances in the field as may be practicable to such a force. It 
is, however, evident that while the Russians have superior forces at hand, 
these 35,000 men cannot venture out very far from their intrenched po- 
sition. That even now they are not able to complete the investment ofthe 5 
south side of Sevastopol, is confessed by Lord Raglan himself, in his last 
dispatch, by the admission that large convoys of wagons, laden with 
ammunition and other stores, passed into Sevastopol in the beginning of 
February. If they cannot be prevented from entering the place, how will 
it be possible to obstruct the entrance, on a sudden, of reénforcements, 10 
enabling the Russians to sally forth in such strength as to drive the 
French at least out of the first two parallels, while a simultaneous attack 
on Balaklava and the hights of the Chernaya occupies the covering army? 
Hitherto we have been sparing in our criticism upon the scientific con- 
duct of the siege; the lines of trench have, of course, not been put into 15 
published maps, and the maps that professed to show these lines and the 
sites of the batteries, deserved no credit. Under such circumstances, it 
was impossible to form a judgment upon the engineering portion of the 
operations, until events should have given some clue which might, to a 
degree, take the place of a knowledge of detail impossible to obtain. 20 
Now, however, we may say, that even taking into account all the diffi- 
culties which have or may have obstructed the progress of the engineers, 
the conduct of the siege appears to have been characterized up to the last 
by the most thorough mediocrity. Sevastopol is situated on the lowest 
point of a long and gradual slope, interrupted by ravines and partial 25 
elevations of ground; accordingly it is in the worst possible position for a 
fortress subject to a land-attack, because it is commanded. Militarily 
speaking, a fortification is commanded when there are points of the sur- 
rounding ground, within gun-shot range, whence you can see into its 
interior, and especially whence you have a view of the inside, or rear of 30 
some of its lines. Higher ground outside, within gunshot-range, generally 
determines command. Now, from the broken nature of the ground, both 
in and out of Sevastopol, it is evident that there is hardly a point in the 
interior of the place which is not commanded, and consequently exposed 
to the direct horizontal fire of the enemy, if he knows how to place his 35 
batteries. It reflects the highest credit upon the Russian engineers that, 
under these extremely disadvantageous circumstances, they have succeed- 
ed in raising fortifications capable of such a resistance. The disadvanta- 
ges of a situation commanded from without can only be avoided by 
defilading /defilement) or raising the ramparts to such a hight that no 40 
point of the surrounding ground, within gun-range, is elevated enough to 

The siege of Sevastopol 

afford a view of the interior. But not only is there a limit to this defilad- 
ing; the erection of such works, requires so great an amount of labor 
that the application of the principle on a large scale becomes impossible. 
Indeed, the reports from the camp show that there are points within 

5 range from which a great part of the interior of the place can be survey- 
ed; and reports, maps and views concur in one thing: that there is hardly 
a siege-point in Sevastopol which is not commanded by, and therefore 
exposed to, direct horizontal fire from some point outside. This being the 
case, what shall we say of the Anglo-French Engineers who have not 

10 even been able to profit by this uncommonly favorable circumstance? 
Every sergeant of engineers in every army knows this much, that he 
would, in a siege, consider a commanding point as an unexpected god- 
send; yet these Generals ignore it. It will be recollected that a month or 
two ago reports from the allied camp stated that it was an easy matter to 

15 take a regular fortress, because in that case everything to be done was 
properly prescribed and laid down beforehand, but such an irregular 
fortification as this Sevastopol was a puzzle to all the engineers! There 
can be no better proof of the spirit of routine ruling in the Engineer 
Corps of the besiegers. A place like Sevastopol, commanded on every 

20 side, defended by works thrown up according to no general plan, but 
constructed one after another as emergencies arose, and time was gain- 
ed—such a place, more difficult to take than a regular fortress, where 
every possible chance has been foreseen, every single work brought into 
harmony and close connection with all the remainder! Not to speak of 

25 the sleepy British Engineers, the maxim is quite worthy of the Engineers 
of the French Lower Empire. Give them a regular Vauban front to at- 
tack, and they may manage to carry it; but anything out of the way, 
though offering points of glaring weakness, will not do for them. It is not 
that the French Engineer Corps does not count many first-rate officers; 

30 on the contrary, it is, perhaps, the first in the world. But professional 
merit has nothing to do with appointment to commands in the age ofa 
Louis Bonaparte, Saint Arnaud, Magnan, Persigny, Fould & Co. 

It may be said, the difficulties presented by the rocky ground were so 
great as to prevent the Allies from erecting batteries on the most com- 

35 manding points. But the ground inside the town is as rocky as outside, 
and yet the Russians have managed on a far smaller space, and with a 
necessity for a deal of defilading and traverse work, to erect batteries 
which compel the admiration of the besiegers themselves. Besides, have 
the French already forgotten how the Prussians, in a couple of days, and 

40 on ground at least quite as rocky, took Méziéres from them by sand-bag 
batteries? And is not the railway now constructing a flagrant contradic- 
tion to all such statements? 

Friedrich Engels 

But the engineering department is not alone to blame. The general 
conduct of the operations has been nowise better; and we shall hence- 
forth have to put down Canrobert as well as Raglan as a pure mediocrity 
in generalship. There is now no denying that those who, on the first 
appearance of the Allies on the hights above Sevastopol, on the 28th 5 
September, pronounced for an immediate assault of the incomplete and 
badly armed works, have been fully justified by the event. At that time, 
the Allies could have brought some 35,000 infantry to the assault; they 
were in the first flush of victory; they found the Russians surprised, 
shaken, unprepared; hardly more than 15,000 infantry could be opposed 10 
by the besieged, and what is more, one single successful rush would have 
carried the place. Under such circumstances, we, too, are of opinion that 
the assault should have been attempted, even if the chances of success 
were, to those of defeat, as forty to sixty only. But the generals allowed 
this opportunity to slip away, and resolved upon the siege; though if too 15 
weak for an immediate assault, they were in a far greater proportion too 
weak for a siege. It was not, however, to be a regular siege; it was to be 
an accelerated, summary proceeding; a few days engineering, a few days 
cannonading, an then the storm. This proceeding failed entirely; the Rus- 
sian works proceeded far more quickly, far more systematically than 20 
those of the Allies; three weeks elapsed before the fire could be opened, 
and when the day for unmasking the batteries came, the Russians could 
unmask two guns to the Allies' one. However, the fire was opened; the 
French fire was silenced in half a day; the English guns silenced some few 
Russian batteries, but could not subdue the fire from the town in any 25 
way. In a couple of days the Allies had fired away all their ammunition, 
without any result; they were reduced to a few rounds per day, fired for 
no purpose unless as a pretext for official statements that the batteries 
were still active. This useless waste of ammunition which it took months 
to replace, was another egregious blunder; the aspect of the Russian 30 
works, the number of their guns, and the distance of the allied batteries, 
(from 1,200 to 2,500 yards,) must have shown at once to any sensible 
officer that there was no chance of such a distant and short-lived fire 
having any effect upon the ramparts, or being capable of protecting the 
advance of storming columns. But the allied Generals acted like Tarquin 35 
when the Sybilline books were offered to him. They allowed the first set 
to be burned when they resolved not to storm Sevastopol on the 28th 
September; they had the second set burned when they destroyed all their 
stock of ammunition in a cannonade, the uselessness of which must have 
been evident to every gunner; and, less fortunate than Tarquin, they will 40 
not only not get the third set at the original price asked for the whole 
lot—they will not get it at all. 

The siege of Sevastopol 

The fact is, we cannot doubt, that the allied Generals are by this time 
perfectly convinced of the impracticability of any assault, with their pres- 
ent means both of artillery and infantry. Three, and in some instances, 
four successive lines of fortifications, cannot be taken at one onset; noth- 

5 ing is clearer than that. They require as many successive sieges, which 
may become shorter with every successive line carried; but they require 
time, renewed trenches, renewed cannonades, renewed assaults, and, of 
course, renewed reénforcements. All this under the supposition that the 
covering army remains in possession of its ground, and that the forts on 

10 the north side of the harbor will not make the place too hot for the Allies 
within twelve hours after its being ultimately carried. As to the covering 
army, we shall return to that presently; as to the north forts, their action 
must begin to tell terribly the moment the south side is in possession of 
the Allies. But what with the restricted means at their command, with the 

15 difficulties of the task, with the enormous sacrifice of men necessarily 
connected with every assault, with the very small chance of large reén- 
forcements arriving, with the extraordinary wear and tear caused to the 
besiegers by the climate, there are at least ten chances to one that the 
south side of Sevastopol will never be taken by the Allies. The Generals 

20 must know this; yet, in order to preserve their troops from complete 
demoralization, the assault must be permanently announced as immi- 
nent. This cannot last forever; other movements must, therefore, be 
made; and they must attempt to get, somehow or other, out of the fatal 
cul-de-sac into which their "celebrated flank-march" has locked them up. 

25 For this purpose the desperate idea of sending Omer Pasha to Eupatoria 
was invented. 

We have more than once pointed out the great fault in forming the 
base of the offensive plan of the Allies—a fault which could, however, 
not be avoided, as it was the consequence of former errors. To operate 

30 from two bases, and upon two distinct lines, with two separate corps, 
against an enemy superior to both these corps put together, is certainly 
the hight of contempt for all rules of warfare. Yet it is done: it offers the 
only chance of gaining a success in the field over the Russians, repelling 
them into the interior of the peninsula, and investing Sevastopol on the 

35 north side too. But what must be the consequence of such proceedings? 
The Turks, once concentrated at Eupatoria, are from sheer necessity driv- 
en to immediate offensive operations, for the place will not hold them. 
They have to advance, with about 25,000 men, or 30,000 men at the very 
outside, in a country where no strong positions for defensive operations 

40 are at their disposal. They have to act in a completely open field, where 
maneuvering decides every battle—and in that, even the Russians are by 

Friedrich Engels 

far their superiors—or else they have to drive the Russians from the 
position of the Alma, or the Katsha; and such feats are not exactly their 
forte. They will, therefore, very likely, be defeated and annihilated, unless 
they are allowed by the Russians to die out quietly by climatic effects and 
maladministration. As to the allied army on the Chernaya, that cannot 
advance in greater strength than about 25,000 men to any distance be- 
yond a short march from its present position. Detachments for securing 
the communication, and the flanks, scouts, &c, would, on the second 
day's march, reduce it to 20,000; and that in a country where no such 

Torres Vedras positions, as on the neck of the Chersonese are to be 10 

found. They, too, would have to maneuver; and every soldier knows that 
in the open field every position can be turned—strategically, by the ene- 
my's maneuvering, before the battle, so as to menace the communica- 
tions of the army, or tactically, by his throwing a corps on its flank and 

rear during the battle. Thus, a superior army can always force a weaker 15 

enemy to retire, with or without fighting, as soon as there is elbow-room 
for maneuvering; and whenever the Allies choose to advance beyond the 
Chernaya, they will be made to feel this very soon. But the very fact of 
the Turks advancing from Eupatoria will force them to make a corre- 

sponding move, and then the crisis of the Crimean campaign will have 20 

arrived. The battle at that place reported in our columns by the Pacific 
and Africa as a victory over the Russians is plainly a skirmish of no 
account. 

The Russians appear to await their third corps from Perekop, and an 

improvement in the weather which will allow them to bivouac in the open 25 

air, in order to begin then, on their side, offensive operations. Neither the 
one nor the other circumstance can now be much retarded, so that about 
the middle or end of March, if an armistice is not concluded in conse- 
quence of the death of Nicholas, and if the season is at all favorable, we 

may expect to see this struggle for the possession of Sevastopol brought 30 

to a final decision. What we expect this decision to be we have stated 
often and plainly enough.