["Neue Oder-Zeitung" Nr. 179 vom 18. April 1855]

London, 15 April. The siege of Sevastopol drags on, slowly, tediously, empty of events and decisions, barely enlivened here and there by a few resultless skirmishes or desultory attacks, in which the last is always the copy of the penultimate and the original of the one that follows. With the exception of the superiority which the defence is developing in the engineering department, certainly few campaigns of equal duration present the spectacle of equal mediocrity in the commanding officers on both sides.

The French and English official reports on the affair of 23 March lie before us; a detailed Russian report we have not yet seen. As usual, the reports of the allied generals are wrapped in such artful semi-obscurity that we can gather nothing definite from them. With the help of English private letters and newspaper correspondence, however, the main outlines of the event can be recovered. The
right attack
of the allies, directed against the south-eastern front of Sevastopol, has been pushed forward to within 600 yards of the first Russian line by means of 3 lines of approaches, or zigzags, which are connected with one another at their ends by the so-called second parallel. Beyond this, the 3 zigzags are being advanced further, although slowly and irregularly; the object is to connect them by a third parallel and to form, on the central approach, a place of arms, or a covered space, roomy enough to shelter a reserve. Of the 3 approaches, the middle one is in the hands of the English, whilst the right and the left are occupied by the French. These two flank approaches have been pushed further forward than the central one, so that here the French trenches are

about 50 yards nearer to the place than the position occupied by the English.

On 23 March, before daybreak, considerable Russian forces, about 12 battalions, advanced from the town against the siege works. Well knowing that the trenches have been constructed with complete neglect of the traditional and regulation precautions, that their flanks are neither sufficiently withdrawn nor defended by redoubts, and that consequently a bold thrust against the extreme flanks of the parallel must carry into the trenches, the Russians began their attack with a sudden and rapid movement, whereby the eastern and western extremities of the parallel were turned. A frontal attack engaged the trench guard and its reserves, whilst the flanking columns, despite the brave resistance of the French, descended into the works and swept the trench until they arrived at the central position defended by the British. The British lines, secured from serious disquiet in front, were not molested until the fusillade taking place on the right and left had called up a part of their reserves, and even then the frontal attack was not of great violence, since the strength of the sortie was concentrated in the flanking columns. But these, too, had lost their first fire as a result of the great extent of the trench which they had already overrun, and when they came upon the British, their officers had constantly to keep in view the chance of eventual retreat. The struggle, therefore, very soon reached the point where both sides hold their ground, and that is the moment when a sallying detachment must think of safe retreat. This the Russians did. Without making a serious attempt to dislodge the British from their position, they kept up the fight until the majority of their troops had considerably neared Sevastopol, and then their rearguard ran off, severely damaged by the French and British reserves.

The Russians must have expected to find many cannon, considerable munitions and other war matériel in the second parallel. To destroy these can have been the sole object of their sortie. But they found almost nothing of all this, and thus gained nothing by the sortie, except the assurance that they are still capable, at this distance from their own lines, in the first or second hour of a sortie, and before the enemy’s reserves can assemble, of showing a very strong front. This is worth something, but hardly the losses of such a sortie. The material damage which they inflicted on the siege works was repaired in a day or two, and the

moral effect produced by this sortie is to be put at zero. Since every sortie ends in a retreat, the besiegers always regard themselves as the victors. Unless the loss of the besieged is disproportionately slight compared with that of the besiegers, the moral effect is, on average, more encouraging for the latter than for the former.

In this case, since Canrobert and Raglan were in need, more than ever, of an apparent success, this sortie, with its diminutive fruits and its final hasty retreat, came extremely opportunely. The French troops take particular credit for having pursued the enemy to within a short distance of the lines of Sevastopol. This, however, is not so difficult in similar circumstances, since the cannon of the place cannot fire for fear of hitting their own troops. The British, for their part, whilst passing over in silence their exceptionally set-back position, which gives them more the character of a reserve than that of a corps of troops in the first battle-line, once again boast — this time, however, with less ground than ever before — of their own invincibility and the unbending courage which forbids the British soldier to yield so much as an inch. The British officers in the hands of the Russians, picked up from the midst of these unbending soldiers and safely conveyed to Sevastopol — Colonel Kelly and others — know what all this
Cant
<
Scheinheiligkeit
>

amounts to.

Meanwhile, the great strategists of the British press continue to declare, with considerable emphasis, that, before a storming of Sevastopol can be thought of, the outworks newly erected by the Russians absolutely must be taken; and they hope that this will soon come to pass. Their assertion is certainly as true as it is commonplace, but the question is,
how
to take them, when the allies could not even prevent their completion under the eyes of their own batteries? The attack on Selenginsk (on the Sapun Hill) showed clearly enough that such a work can be taken possession of for a moment, at great sacrifice of life, but it is difficult to say with what profit, when it cannot even be held during the time necessary for its destruction. The fact is that these new works, which form an integral part of the Russian defensive system and are commanded on the flanks and in rear by the main Russian line, cannot be taken, except by applying the same means against them as against the main line. Approaches must be pushed forward to a suitable

distance, covered parallels with places of arms completed, batteries to engage the Russian main line erected and armed, before an attack on these outworks and the seizure of them can be seriously contemplated. The
Times
, loudest in its cry for the capture of these outworks, merely forgot to communicate the new method by which this difficult task was to be solved in a couple of hours, as it confidently announced. Hardly had it betrayed its sanguine hopes when a letter from its Crimea correspondent arrived, declaring the new Russian outworks not only to be impregnable, but at the same time to be merely the first boundary-mark of a planned further advance of Russian counter-approaches. The rifle-pits in front of the Mamelon redoubt (called Kamchatka by the Russians) have been connected with one another by a regular trench, and thus form a new defensive line. Between the Mamelon redoubt and the Selenginsk redoubt (on Sapun Hill) another trench has been dug, forming 3 sides of a square and enfilading a part of the French approaches. So much is clear: that a complete system of advanced posts is aimed at by the Russians, to cover Malakhov on both sides in front, and perhaps finally to establish themselves in the allied trenches. Should such an attempt succeed, the siege lines on this side of the attack would be broken through. Whilst the allies in the last 6 months have only held their ground and have strengthened their batteries rather than advanced them, the Russians have, in a single month, advanced considerably upon them and are still advancing. Certainly! Many a defence has been more glorious than that of Sevastopol, but it is impossible, since the siege of Troy, to point to a siege in the annals of war so incoherent, idea-less and inglorious as the siege of Sevastopol.