Friedrich Engels

The Holy War

Written about October 27, 1853.

From the English.

["New-York Daily Tribune" No. 3925 of November 15, 1853, leading article]

At last the war on the Danube has begun—a war of religious fanaticism on both sides, a war of traditional aspirations on the part of the Russians, a war of life and death for the Turks. As expected, it was Omer Pasha who opened hostilities; it was his duty at least to make a show of driving the invaders by force of arms from Ottoman territory. It is, however, by no means certain that he has thrown 30,000 to 50,000 men across the Danube, as the rumour from Vienna has it; and if he has done so, it is to be feared with good reason that he has committed a fatal mistake. The bank he leaves offers him sufficient defensive possibilities and a good position; the bank he is making for offers but little chance of attack, and in case of failure he cannot retreat. Doubt must therefore be entertained of the news of his crossing in such masses until we learn something more precise.

While the war in Europe has begun for Turkey under unfavourable circumstances, the case in Asia is different. There the frontier districts between Russia and Turkey divide, from the military point of view, into two sharply separated theatres of operations. It is the high mountain crest, or rather the mountain range, connecting the Caucasus with the high plateau of Central Armenia and forming the watershed between the tributaries of the Black Sea and the waters which the Araxes carries to the Caspian Sea or the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. This crest, formerly dividing Armenia from Pontus, now forms the dividing line between the two different areas in which the war will be carried on. Across this chain of steeply sloping and almost bare rocks there are very few roads, the two most important being those from Trebizond and Batum to Erzerum. For all military purposes, therefore, these mountains may be regarded as almost impassable, and they compel both parties to have separate bodies of troops on each side, operating more or less independently.

The country on the shore of the Black Sea is intersected by a number of rivers and mountain torrents, forming just as many military defensive positions. Both Russians and Turks have fortified posts at important points. In this fairly intersected region (only the valley of the Rion forms a sort of plain), a defensive war could be waged with great success against a superior army (since, on account of the mountains, very few positions can be forced from the land side), were it not for the intervention of the respective fleets. By bringing up troops and, if necessary, landing them on the enemy’s flank while the land army holds him to the front, a fleet could overcome all these strong positions one after another and render those fortifications, which are not very considerable on either side of the border, militarily ineffective, if not destroy them. Therefore the possession of the Black Sea coast falls to him who commands the sea; or, in other words, if the allied fleets do not actively intervene in favour of the Turks, it will in all probability belong to the Russians.

The interior country, on the landward side of the mountains, embraces the region in which the Euphrates, the Araxes, and the Kur (Cyrus) have their sources; on one side of the frontier lies the Turkish province of Armenia, on the other the Russian province of Georgia.

This country, too, is extremely mountainous and generally impassable for armies. Erzerum on the Turkish side, Tiflis on the Russian, may be regarded as the two immediate bases of operations, with whose loss the whole of the adjacent territory would inevitably be lost. Thus the storming of Erzerum by the Russians decided the Asiatic campaign of 1829.

What, however, is the direct base of operations for one party is the direct object of operations for the other. The roads connecting Tiflis and Erzerum will therefore be the lines of operations for both. There are three routes: one leads along the upper Kur via Akhaltsikh, another along the upper Araxes via Erivan, the third runs in the middle, between the two, via Kars straight through the mountains. All these roads are secured on each side by fortified towns and points, and it would be difficult to decide which road would be the most favourable for the Turks or for the Russians. Suffice it to mention that a Turkish army on the road via Akhaltsikh could most rapidly march into the insurgent districts of the Caucasus, but that a Russian corps advancing from Batum through the valley of the Chorokh via Olti on Erzerum could threaten this very advance of the Turks. The road from Batum joins that from Tiflis only about 15 miles before Erzerum, so that a Russian corps advancing in the direction indicated would be in a position to cut the Turkish communications. It might, if strong enough, even seize Erzerum, whose fortifications are constructed only in the Asiatic manner and are incapable of any serious resistance.

The key to the theatre of war in Asia and to both sides of the mountains is thus Batum, and when this and its importance for trade are considered, one need not wonder how much the Czar has always striven to conquer it. And Batum is therefore the key to the theatre of war, or rather to the whole of Asiatic Turkey, because it commands the only passable road from the coast into the interior, a road which bypasses all the Turkish positions before Erzerum. And that one of the two fleets in the Black Sea which drives the other back into its ports will command Batum.

The Russians are fully aware of the importance of this point. By water and by land they have sent reinforcements to the Transcaucasian coast. Only a short time ago it might be assumed that the Turks, though the weaker party in Europe, yet enjoyed a decided superiority in Asia. Abdi Pasha, the commander of the Asiatic army, was said to have collected 60,000 or 80,000, if not 120,000 men, and daily swarms of Bedouins, Kurds, and other irregular troops were to flock to his standard. Arms and ammunition were to be in abundance for the Caucasian insurgents, and as soon as war was declared, a thrust was to be made into the very centres of resistance to Russia. It is well to bear in mind that Abdi Pasha can scarcely have more than 30,000 regular troops, and that, before he reaches the Caucasus, he will have with these alone to encounter the stubborn resistance of the Russian battalions. His mounted Bedouins and Kurds may be excellently suited for warfare in the mountains, forcing the Russians to detach large detachments and thereby weakening their main force; they may also do much damage to the villages of the Georgians and of the colonists on Russian territory, and even establish a kind of secret communication with the Caucasian mountaineers. But unless Abdi Pasha’s troops are in a position to block the road from Batum to Erzerum and to beat every nucleus of an active army that the Russians may be able to bring up, the success of the irregulars will be only very short-lived. The support of a regular army is nowadays absolutely necessary for the continuance of any irregular war or insurrectionary war against a powerful regular army. The Turkish position on this frontier would resemble Wellington’s in Spain, and we shall see whether Abdi Pasha knows how to make as good use of his auxiliary forces as the British general did against an enemy decidedly superior to him in regular warfare and the means required for it. In 1829 the number of Russian forces in Asia before Erzerum was only 18,000 men; now, taking into account the improvements that have since taken place in the Turkish army (although the Asiatic part has profited least by them), it would have to be said that the Russians would have good prospects of success if they could concentrate 30,000 men at this point today.

Who can at the moment decide whether they will succeed or not, since even less definite information is known about the Russian army in Asia and even more idle rumours are spread about it than about their European forces. The Caucasian army is officially estimated at its full strength at 200,000 men; 21,000 Cossacks of the Black Sea are said to have been set in march towards the Turkish frontier; several divisions are reported to have been embarked from Odessa for Redut Kale on the south Caucasian coast. But everyone knows that the Caucasian army is not half as strong as officially stated, and that the reinforcements sent from beyond the Caucasus cannot, for obvious reasons, have the numbers given by the Russian newspapers. It is altogether impossible, from the contradictory reports that reach us, to estimate even approximately the Russian forces on the Asiatic frontier. We can only say that in all probability the forces of both sides (leaving aside a general rising of the Caucasians) pretty much balance each other; that perhaps the Turks are a little stronger than the Russians and will therefore be fully justified on this theatre of war in taking the offensive.

For the Turks the prospects in Asia are indeed far more encouraging than in Europe. In Asia they have only one important position to maintain, Batum. And an advance towards the Caucasus, whether from Batum or from Erzerum, opens to them, in the event of success, a direct communication with their allies, the mountaineers, and can at one blow cut off the Russian army south of the Caucasus from Russia, at least by land. And this can lead to the complete annihilation of that army. On the other hand, if the Turks are defeated, they run the risk of losing Batum, Trebizond, and Erzerum; but even should this be the case, the Russians would then not be strong enough to advance further. Hence the advantages far outweigh the loss the Turks would suffer in the event of a defeat; and in consideration of these good and sufficient reasons they appear to have well resolved to wage an offensive war in these regions.