Friedrich Engels 
The great Crimean blunder 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 4452, 27. Juli 1855 

The great Crimean blunder. 

If "time is money" in trade, time is victory in war. To let the favorable 
moment slip away, to miss the opportunity when your own superior 
strength should be brought to bear upon your opponent, is as great a 
fault as can be committed before an enemy. The fault is doubled if you 5 
commit it when acting on the offensive; for while merely defending a 
position the consequences of your neglect may be remedied, but when 
you are in an enemy's country, on an errand of invasion, then such 
inattention may involve the ruin of your army. All this is very trite, and 
there is not a lieutenant or cornet in the world but would treat it as a 10 
matter of course. Yet there is no rule of strategy or tactics sinned against 
offener than this; and it would appear as if Gen. Pélissier, the impetuous 
man of action, the "Marshal Forward" of the Crimean army, were the 
very man doomed to exemplify in his own person this common neglect of 
commonplace things. 15 
The road into Sevastopol leads round by Inkermann to the north side 
of the fortress, as we have said over and over again. It is not to be 
supposed that Pélissier and his staff do not know this as well as we do. 
But to go to the north side the allied army must take the field with its 
main strength and defeat the Russians, afterward investing the north 20 
side, and detaching a corps to keep the Russian field-army at a distance. 
The moment to do this was when the Sardinian corps had arrived, and 
the Turks, under Omer Pasha, were at Kamiesh. At that time the Allies 
must have been considerably stronger than the Russians. But nothing of 
the sort was done. The expedition to Kertch and the Sea of Azoff was 25 
undertaken, and assault after assault was attempted. The field operations 
were confined to reconnoissances and to an extension of the camping 
ground to the entrance of Baidar Valley. Now, at last, we learn what is 

The great Crimean blunder 

the professed reason for this inactivity: the means of transport are not 
forthcoming, and after fifteen months campaigning the Allies are as 
much tied to the sea, to Kamiesh and Balaklava harbors, as ever! 
This is really intolerable. The Crimea is not a desert island somewhere 
5 about the North Pole. It is a country the resources of which may certain- 
ly be exhausted as to food, but which is still able to furnish plenty of 
provender, draught animals, carts and beasts of burden, to anybody who 
has the boldness to take them. Cautious and slow movements, forward 
and backward within a few miles of the Chernaya, are of course not the 

10 means to get hold of these useful articles; but even if we leave the camels, 
ponies and arabas of the Crimea entirely out of the question, there is 
plenty of means of transport to be had on the Asiatic and European 
shores of the Black Sea, within two days' steaming from Balaklava. Why 
are they not impressed into the allied service? We say impressed, for 

15 impressment, commonly called requisition, is the proper way to make 
them available. To employ Spanish muleteers and Bulgarian laborers at a 
high price will never do; and in a country like Turkey even less than 
anywhere else. A regiment of cavalry scouring the shores of Anatolia 
would very soon bring hundreds of conveyances and thousands of ani- 

20 mais together, along with the forage required. The war is prosecuted on 
behalf of the Turks, and to furnish means of transport is the least that 
can be expected of them. In every continental war the country in which 
armies operate is expected to do the same. To be more delicate with 
Turks is doubly absurd; if the Turks have not to work for their Allies, 

25 they will have to work for their Pashas, who will treat them much worse. 
They may not like it, but neither do they like to toil for their Pashas; and 
if they will not yield to discipline and order, a little application of martial 
law will soon break them in, as the Pashas always keep them under a 
similar sort of law. It is perfectly ridiculous that, with such resources 

30 within reach, the allied Generals should still complain of inability to 
move for want of transports. 

The Russians, indeed, have given them lessons enough how they 
should act. The 3d, 4th, and 5th army-corps, beside several divisions of 
the reserves, were transported into the Crimea at a time when the Allies 

35 could not bring up food from Balaklava to the trenches. The troops were 
partly carried across the steppes in wagons, and they always had plenty 
of food. And yet the country within a semicircle of 200 miles around 
Perekop is but very thinly inhabited. But the resources of the more dis- 
tant provinces were put under contribution; and surely, to bring the 

40 wagons of Ekaterinoslav, Poltava and Charkoff, to assist the Russians in 
the Crimea, is more difficult than to get the conveyances of Anatolia and 
Roumelia to work there for the Allies. 

Friedrich Engels 

Nevertheless, under the pretext of want of transports, the opportunity 
to conquer the Crimea as far as Sympheropol has been allowed to slip by. 
Now the situation is different. The Russians have formed a reserve army 
for the Crimea between Odessa and Cherson. What this army consists of 
we can judge by the simple fact that from the Western army the whole of 5 
the second army-corps and two divisions of grenadiers have been de- 
tached toward the formation of this new force. The advanced guard of this 
reénforcement must already have passed Cherson. These troops consist 
in all of five divisions or eighty-two battalions of infantry; one division or 
thirty-two squadrons of cavalry; and from fifty to eighty guns. To these 10 
we must add a number of reserves, and also a division at least of the 
reserve cavalry; and as the above eighty-eight battalions belong to the 
troops which have been chiefly under the eye of the Emperor, they must 
have their full war numbers. Allowing, therefore, for the loss on the 
march, the whole force assembled between Odessa and Perekop, and 15 
intended for the Crimea, may safely be estimated at something like 
70,000 to 80,000 men. The heads of their columns must be past Cherson, 
perhaps past Perekop, by this time; and before July is out they will begin 
to tell upon the Allies. 

Now, what have the Allies to oppose to these reénforcements? Their 20 
ranks are again thinned by cholera and fever, no less than by the slaugh- 
ter of the different assaults. The British reénforcements are slow in ar- 
riving, and very few regiments indeed are being sent off. The French 
Government state that they do not intend to send out fresh divisions, but 
merely detachments from the depots to fill up the gaps made in the ranks 25 
of the various regiments at the seat of war. If these reénforcements arrive 
in time they will hardly suffice to bring up the allied army to the strength 
it had in the beginning of June; that is to say, 210,000 men at the outside, 
including Turks and Sardinians. The propability is it will never exceed 
180,000 men at any time; to which force the Russians, by the beginning 30 
of August, will be able to oppose at least 200,000 men in good positions, 
in command of the country at their rear, and in possession of the south 
side of Sevastopol as a bridge-head. 

Then the chances are that the Allies will be driven back upon the 
plateau behind the Chernaya, unable to move forward or backward, and 35 
with an army now so numerous that it must change this narrow piece of 
ground into one hotbed of disease. And then Pélissier will repent his warn 
of energy and resolution as regards the advance into the field, and his 
excess of energy as regards the storming of the place. Still, there is yet 
time for a move in the field. The best moment has passed, but for all that, 40 - 
a bold advance might secure even now a wider range of ground to the 

The great Crimean blunder 

Allies. But it does not look as if they were going to avail themselves of 
this chance. 

It must, however, be stated, in fairness to Pélissier, that public opinion 
in Paris, and in Europe generally, lays the prinicipal fault at the door of 
Louis Bonaparte. That unfortunate would-be general is said to meddle in 
everything. The matter is not quite clear yet, but in a short time the 
nature of the interference of this ambitious adventurer in the Crimean 
military operations must be cleared up, and we shall then know where the 
blame of these enormous blunders is to be placed.