Karl Marx

A Letter from Napier

[“Neue Oder-Zeitung” No. 397, 27 August 1855]

London, 24 August. Sir Charles Napier publishes in today’s daily papers a letter which substantially confirms our view of the Sweaborg affair. We give the following extract from it:

“It will be seen from what I have myself written, as well as from the despatch of Admiral Dundas, that had my plan been followed to the letter, Sweaborg would have already been destroyed. It turns out that the Allies had only 43 gunboats and mortar vessels, and that many mortar boats were disabled. They should have had at least 100. Sir James Graham, in a letter to me in 1854, estimated the requirement at 200. If that number had been available, the bombardment could have been continued by relieving the men, in much the same way as they are relieved in the trenches. The mortars would have had time to cool, and the bombardment could have continued until not one stone was left upon another and an opening had been made for the ships of the line to sail in and finish the job. Instead, the Admiralty appears not to have foreseen that mortars cannot remain in position for ever, though the despatches from Sevastopol must have taught them that. Thus an operation which seems to have been conducted with great judgement had only very partial success, for Admiral Dundas admits in his report that the Russian sea defences were hardly damaged. Had Admiral Dundas’s means been greater, he could have continued his bombardment as long as the fine weather lasted, and the fleets, instead of returning to Nargen, could have cast anchor in Sweaborg.

In the first year the Admiralty might perhaps be excused on the grounds of lack of means, but certainly not in the second year. Instead of building gunboats and mortar boats, it built floating iron batteries which could hardly stay afloat, and even if they had been able to float, would have been useless, because within 400 yards of Sweaborg they were certain to be destroyed, and beyond 400 yards they could do no damage.

The first experiment with iron cost the country a million, and where has that gone? The second experiment not much less than half a million, and these iron batteries have not yet left our harbours and probably never will. That is what comes of having incapable men at the head. The Ministers have been forced to reform the War Department. When will they think of reforming the Admiralty? As long as they do not do so, the people’s money is thrown away. The Admiralty seems not to have understood the effect of a bombardment, although I predicted to them for more than a year what would happen; and if they had read history, they would know that Martinique was taken by mortar vessels, where there were no more casemates for the whole garrison than there were at Sweaborg. Admiral Dundas says that it formed no part of his plan to attempt a general attack by the ships of the line upon the defences, and that his operations were therefore confined to destroying the fortress and arsenals as far as was possible by mortars.

Had Admiral Dundas had sufficient means at his disposal, he would have included in his plan an attack upon the defences and would have concentrated his whole fleet, ready to take advantage of the terror and confusion the gunboats and mortar boats must have caused. The heat of the conflagration they would have kindled would alone have kept the garrison away from the guns; the fleet would have found itself inside Sweaborg and would have blown fortifications, islands, etc. to the devil, instead of merely destroying wooden buildings and arsenals and again postponing the real work until next year.”

Napier ends his letter as follows:

“Sir James Graham was one of the Ministers who sent the British army to Sevastopol in the middle of September, without means of transport, without food, tents, clothing and hospitals, to spend a barren winter and to perish—and he was the Minister who sought to persuade me, at the end of October, to take a British fleet and let it be dashed to pieces under the rocks of Sweaborg, and to his shame he found two naval officers who signed his insulting letter to me, and these men are still at the Admiralty. That is how the navy of this country is managed. The two summers in the Baltic will serve the Admiralty as a lesson. It is in possession of my plans of attack upon Kronstadt, and probably likewise of the plans of Admiral Dundas. Sir James Graham and his two accomplices will therefore probably set out next summer and carry out these plans themselves.”