Friedrich Engels 
The Progress of the Turkish War 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.3934, 25. November 1853 

The Progress of the Turkish War. 

There is no longer a doubt that military operations have begun on the Danube. 
Omer Pasha has crossed that river at Widdin, occupied Kalafat, a village on 
the opposite side, and marched his advanced guard upon Krajova, while 
another attack of the Turks, from Rustchuk, has been made upon the op- 
posite town of Giurgevo, and a third and fourth attack in the direction of 
Ibraila and Turna are spoken of. At the same time another engagement, in 
which the Russians were the attacking party, has taken place at Oltenitza. 
This last affair is reported by one of our dispatches to have lasted three hours 
and to have ended in the repulse of the Russians; while another dispatch, 
received from Vienna on the evening of the 8th inst., states that the battle 
lasted twenty-eight hours, and that even the result was not ascertained. The 
former account seems more likely to be true. 

The results of the other rencontres are also variously stated. That at 
Giurgevo appears by all accounts to have been fruitless; of the effects of 
those near Ibraila and Turna, we are ignorant; as to the advance from Kalafat, 
some telegraphs report advantages gained by the Turks and a repulse of the 
Russians—others, the Turks to have been checked at once, and driven back 
upon Kalafat. The probabilities remain in favor of the first report. 

What is certain, in the whole, is this: Omer Pasha, from reasons hereafter 
to be considered, has abandoned what we have before this declared to be 
the natural position of the Turks on this frontier, namely, the defensive. He 
has taken offensive steps, and profiting by the withdrawal of the Russians 
from Lesser Wallachia, he crossed the Danube at the extreme left of his own 
position, at Widdin, on the 28th of October; with what force, we are utterly 
at a loss to make out. However, as since then we have only heard of simulated 
or partial attacks of the Turks on other points, and as it would be agratuitous 
madness to pass a river like the Danube in the face of a powerful enemy, 
with a force of no consequence, we may take it for granted that Omer Pasha 

Friedrich Engels 

has with him the main portion of his disposable active army. For, unless 
convinced by undoubtable intelligence, we will not believe that he has 
committed himself so far as some dispatches maintain, by crossing the 
Danube with 7,000 men and having no nearer supports or reserves than 
8,000 men at Sofia, 150 miles off. Yet, as the main body of the Turkish army 
has but very lately been concentrated at Varna, Shumla and Rustchuk, we 
find it equally difficult to explain how Omer Pasha should all atonce succeed 
in concentrating the gross of his army at Widdin, 250 miles, on an average, 
distant from the above places. 

The most probable solution is, that on seeingthe advance ofthe Russians 
toward Widdin, Omer Pasha has shifted the position of his army in a con- 
siderable degree to the left; leaving the defense of the direct road to Con- 
stantinople to the garrisons of Rustchuk, Silistria, Varna and Shumla, he has 
taken Rustchuk for the support of his right, Widdin for that of his left wing, 
Nicopolis for the rallying point of his center. In this position, extending from 
Rustchuk to Widdin, some 200 miles, he has rallied to his left wing whatever 
troops he could collect with him, and passed the Danube, thus apparently 
turning the right wing of the Russians. He expected to fall upon their advance 
corps and to force them to retreat behind the river Shill, the passage of which 
he might either force in front, or by sending near Rahova another corps 
across the Danube, which would thus turn the Shill. The river Aluta, the 
second tributary of the Danube which runs across the road from Widdin to 
Bucharest, might be forced in the same way, by throwing another portion 
of the Turkish center across the Danube at Nicopolis and Turna, below the 
junction of this river with the Aiuta. Finally, simulated attacks lower down, 
at Giurgevo and Ibraila, might contribute to lead the Russians into error as 
to the real points at which the Turks were arriving. 

There can be hardly a doubt that, leaving political motives for amoment 
out of the question, such must have been the plans of Omer Pasha. The 
London Times speaks of an actual passage of the Turks at Giurgevo; but 
this is an evident falsehood. There is not an ensign in any disciplined army 
who would commit such a blunder as to cross the greatest river in Europe— 
where it is broadest and most difficult, too—with two corps, attwo different 
points, 250 miles asunder, in the presence of arespectable and concentrated 
enemy. 

What, then, does Omer Pasha's maneuver amount to? It is an attempt to 
turn the flank of the enemy, and to roll up by simultaneous flank and front 
attacks, his whole line of battle. Such a maneuver is perfectly justified when 
you can bring, unawares, your own main strength upon the enemy's flank; 
when your front is safe from attack; when your retreat, in case of a check, 
is secured; and when, by rolling up, from one flank to the other, the enemy's 

The Progress of the Turkish War 

position, you cut off his communications with his base of operations. Now, 
in the present instance, the latter conviction is not fulfilled. On the contrary, 
while Omer Pasha's retreat may be menaced by the right wing of his corps 
in Wallachia being outflanked, and the road to Kalaf at thus cut off, (in which 

5 case his only retreat would be into Austria,) the attack from Kalaf at toward 

Bucharest does not at all interfere with the Russian line of retreat. It will 
be recollected that, upon that ground, we stated some time ago, the only 
useful line of attack for the Turks, to be that from the Danube toward the 
Sereth, or the narrow strip of land which divides Bessarabia from the 
Austrian frontier. Instead of the movement which would at once have 
menaced, if not interrupted the Russian line of communications, the Turks 
attack atthe opposite end where, even in case of victory, no decisive success 
is to be expected. As to the Turkish front being safe from attack, that may 
be the case, in so far as the main operations taking place between Widdin 
and Krajova or Slatina, the Russians are not likely to cross the Danube lower 
down—unless they were bolder in their strategy than we know them to be. 
But at the same time, the Turkish front from Widdin to Rustchuk is equally 
impeded by the large river which separates it from the enemy, and there must 
be comparative inaction in that quarter. 

The main condition, however, is not fulfilled in this instance. 

We have a splendid historical example of this sort of maneuver in the battle 
of Jena. Napoleon succeeded in bringing the mass of his forces unawares 
upon the left flank of the Prussians, and in eight hours rolled them up so 
completely, that the Prussian army was cut off from its retreat, and annihilat- 
ed, and has never been heard of since as an army. But that took place on 
a ground twenty miles square and within twenty hours. Here we have a 
territory two hundred miles by fifty, with no roads, and the duration of every 
movement corresponding thereto. The surprise, the vigor and impetuosity 
of attack, to which Napoleon at Jena owed his complete success, must here, 
after a few efforts, literally stick fast in the mud. This will be more apparent 
if we look at the map. The Turks, from Kalaf at, have to march upon Krajova. 
Here they meet with the first of those rivers, which descending from the 
Transylvanian Alps to the Danube, traverse Wallachia from north to south, 
and form as many lines of defense to be forced by an attacking army. The 
country is exactly similar in this respect to Lombardy, and the two rivers 
here in question, the Shill and Aluta, may be compared to the Mincio and 
Adige, whose military importance has so often been conspicuous. 

Supposing the Turks force the passage of the Shill, which they may per- 
haps do, they will meet the first serious resistance on the Aluta, near Slatina. 
The Alutais amuch more formidable barrier by its width and depth; besides, 
with a little alacrity, the Russians may there concentrate an army capable 

Friedrich Engels 

not only of repelling all Turkish attacks, but of following up the victory at 
once. Indeed, a Russian victory at Krajova, unless very strongly defined, 
would not be of much importance, as inthree forced marches the Turks could 
reach Kalaf at and the Danube, and thus escape pursuit. Buta Turkish defeat 
at Slatina, besides being more decisive from the greater mass of Russian 
troops collected there, would give the Russians five or six days of pursuit; 
and everybody knows that the fruits of a victory are not collected on the 
field of battle, but during the pursuit, which may bring about a total disorga- 
nization of the discomfited army. It is, then, not likely that Omer Pasha, 

if Gorchakof f wishes to oppose him there, will ever be able to cross the Aluta; 

for taking every chance in favor of the Turks, Omer Pasha cannot bring more 
than 25,000 men to the banks of that river, while Gorchakoff may easily 
collect 35,000 in good time. As to the flank attacks of the Turks from the 
southern shore of the Danube, they are tolerably harmless, if the attacking 
force does not dispose of a prodigious quantity of pontoons and other 
materials very rarely met with among the Turks. But supposing that even 
the Aluta were forced, and even the Ardsish, another important river further 
east, who will imagine that Omer Pasha can succeed in forcing the Russian 
retrenchments at Bucharest, and in putting to flight, in a pitched battle, an 
army which must certainly out-number by about one third the troops he could 
bring against it? 

If the war, then, is conducted upon anything like military principles on the 
Russian side, Omer Pasha's defeat appears certain; but if itis carried on not 
according to military but to diplomatic principles, the result may be dif- 
ferent. 

The voluntary retreat of the Russians from the important military position 
of Kalaf at, after so many troops had been sent there to menace Servia; the 
unresisted passage of the Danube by Omer Pasha; his comparatively un- 
molested and very slow movements in Lesser Wallachia, (the country west 
of the Aluta;) the insignificance, as far as we can judge, of the Turkish attacks 
on all other points; lastly, the strategical errors implied in the advance from 
Widdin, and which nobody can for a moment suppose Omer Pasha to have 
overlooked—all these facts seem to give some ground for a conclusion which 
has been adopted by some competent judges, but which appears rather 
fanciful. It is, that there is a sort of tacit understanding between the two 
opposing generals, by which Lesser Wallachia is to be ceded by the Russians 
to the Turks. The Aluta, say those who entertain this opinion, forms a very 
comfortable natural barrier, across which the two armies may look at each 
other the whole dreary winter long, while the diplomatists again busy them- 
selves to find out a solution. The Russians, by receding as far, would not 
only show the generosity and peaceable feelings, but they would at the same 

5 

The Progress of the Turkish War 

time get a sort of right upon the usurped territory, as a joint occupation of 
the Principalities by Russians and Turks is athing exceedingly in harmony 
with existing treaties. They would, by this apparent generosity in Europe, 
escape real dangers in Asia, where they appear to be worse off than ever, 
and above all, they would at any moment be strongenoughto drive the Turks 
out of the strip of territory allowed to them on the left bank of the Danube. 
Curious but by no means satisfactory evidence in favor of this theory may 
be found in the fact that it is openly propounded by Vienna journals enjoying 
the confidence of the Court. A few days will show whether this view ofthe 
question is correct, or whether actual war, in good earnest is to be carried 
on. We shall be disappointed if the latter does not prove to be the case. 
In Asia we begin to find out that both parties are agood deal weaker than 
was supposed. According to the Journal de Constantinople, the Turks had, 
on the 9th October, in Erzerum 10,000 men, as a reserve; in Batum, 4,000 
regulars and 20,000 irregulars, intended, evidently, for an active army; in 
Bayazid, on the Persian frontier, 3,000 men; in Kars and Ardahan, the two 
most important points on the Russian frontier, (next to Batum) advanced 
guards of, together, 16,000 men. These were to be reénforced in a few days 
by 10 or 12,000 fresh troops from Syria. This certainly is a very considerable 
reduction from what otherreports led us to suppose; they are 65,000 instead 
of 100,000! But on the other hand, if the news by way of Constantinople is 
to be trusted, the main pass ofthe Caucasus, connecting Tiflis and Georgia 
with Russia is in the hands of the mountaineers; Shamyl has driven the 
Russians back to within nine miles of Tiflis; and Gen. Woronzoff, com- 
mander in Georgia, has declared that in case of a Turkish war he could not 
hold that province unless reénf orced by 50,000 men. How far these accounts 
may be correct we cannot judge; but the reénforcements sent in great haste 
by seato Jerkkum Kalé, Redut Kalé and other points on the Transcaucasian 
coast prove that the star of Russia does not shine very brilliantly in that 
quarter. As to the strength of these reénforcements, reports differ; it was 
first said 24,000 men had been sent, but where were the Russians to get ships 
for such an army? It now turns out that the 13th Division, the first of the 
5th corps (General Lüders) has been sent thither; that would be some 
14,000 men, which is more than likely. As to the story of the Cossacks of 
the Black Sea having rounded by land, the western point of the Caucasus, 
and succeeded in passing undisturbed along the rocky and narrow shore 
toward Redut Kalé, to the strength of 24,000 men, (this seems to be a favorite 
number with the Russians) the longer we look at it, the more incredible it 
seems. The Tchornomorski Cossacks have plenty to do to guard the line of 
the Kuban and the Terek, and as to cavalry passing, single-handed and 
unattacked, in such force, a defile of one hundred and fifty miles, through 

Friedrich Engels 

a hostile population, where a few men might stop them or cut their column 
in two—these things are only heard of in Russia, where up to the present day 
it is affirmed that Suwaroff beat Masséna at Zurich. 

Here, then, is the best ground for the Turks to act. Rapid, concentrated 
attacks of the regulars on one main road to Tiflis —along shore, if the Turks 
can hold out at sea; by Kars or Ardahan, in the interior, if they cannot— 
accompanied by an indefatigable, energetic, sudden warfare, according to 
their own fashion, by the irregulars, would soon put Woronzoff in an inex- 
tricable position, open a communication with Shamyl, and ensure a general 
insurrection of the whole Caucasus. But here more than on the Danube 
boldness, rapidity, and ensemble of action is required. It remains to be seen 
whether these qualities belong to the Turkish commanders in that region.