Friedrich Engels

Critique of the Napoleonic “Moniteur” Article

[“Neue Oder-Zeitung” No. 177 of 17 April 1855]

London, 14 April. The public, even in France, seems to have got behind the mysteries of the siege of Sevastopol. Louis Bonaparte therefore, in his capacity as editor-in-chief of the “Moniteur”, has once again let loose a long leading article on this subject. Various purposes are to be achieved with it: in general, to console the public over the lack of success of the undertaking; in particular, to shift the responsibility for the failure from the shoulders of Napoleon’s successor; in detail, to reply to the Brussels pamphlet. In that half-confidential, half-dignified style characteristic of the man who writes simultaneously for the French peasants and the European cabinets, a kind of history of the campaign is given, with alleged reasons for every step. The document is in the highest degree impolitic, because it is weak and inadequate beyond all measure. Yet the “pressure from without” must be alarmingly strong if Bonaparte has to come forward in this way and defend himself.

After a dragging introduction, a part of the instructions which S[ain]t-Arnaud received at the beginning of the campaign is communicated, and it is set forth why the allied troops were first taken to Gallipoli. The Russians, it is said, could cross the Danube at Rushchuk, and, bypassing the lines of Varna and Shumla, cross the Balkans and march on Constantinople. Of all the reasons that were supposed to speak for the landing at Gallipoli, this is the worst. First, Rushchuk is a fortress and not an open town, as the illustrious editor of the “Moniteur” seems to imagine. This recalls the historical blunder which the “Moniteur” recently committed in its obituary of the Emperor Nicholas, in which, among other things, the Treaty of Adrianople is confused with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. As for the danger of such a Russian flank march, it may be recalled that a Turkish army of 60,000 men, firmly established between four strong fortresses, could not be left behind with impunity without detaching a strong corps to occupy it; that this flank march would have exposed the Russians in the mountain gorges of the Balkans to the fate of Dupont at Bailén and Vandamme at Kulm, and that at best they could have brought only 25,000 men to Adrianople. Whoever considers such an army dangerous for Constantinople may learn better from the works of Major Moltke on the Russo-Turkish war of 1828/1829.

Let us hear further. In case Constantinople was not threatened, the Allies were to push forward a few divisions to Varna, to repel any attempt to besiege Silistria. Once this was done, two further operations presented themselves: to land near Odessa, or to seize the Crimea. Both were to be considered on the spot by the allied generals. The instructions end with a few sound pieces of military advice in the form of maxims and apophthegms:

“Keep yourselves constantly informed of what the enemy is doing. Keep your troops together, do not divide them; but if you must divide them, arrange it so that you can reunite them at a given point in 24 hours, etc.”

All this, indeed, very valuable rules of conduct, but so frightfully hackneyed, so indescribably platitudinous, that one must immediately conclude that St-Arnaud must have been considered a complete ignoramus in the eyes of his master, to need such good advice. And suddenly the instructions break off unexpectedly with:

“You possess my full confidence, Marshal! Go, for I am sure that under your experienced leadership the French eagle will capture new glory.”

As regards the main point, the Crimean expedition, Bonaparte admits that it was his favourite plan and that he later sent a second batch of instructions to St-Arnaud with reference to it. But he denies having worked out the plan in its detail and sent it to headquarters. According to him, the generals remained free to prefer the landing at Odessa. By way of proof, a passage from these new instructions is communicated. Bonaparte proposes in it a landing at Feodosia (Kaffa) in consideration of the safe and spacious anchorage it offers for the fleets, which would always have to form the base of operations of the army. What a base of operations is, he had already sought to make clear to the famous marshal in the first instructions in the most detailed and elementary manner. From this point – Kaffa – the army was to march on Simferopol, throw the Russians back on Sevastopol, before whose walls a battle would probably take place, and finally besiege Sevastopol. “Unfortunately” this plan was not followed by the allied generals! This “unfortunate” circumstance is all the more fortunate as it allows Bonaparte to shake off the whole responsibility for the vexatious affair and shift it onto the shoulders of the generals.

The plan of landing at Kaffa with 60,000 men and marching from there to Sevastopol is indeed original. Assuming it as a general rule that the offensive power of an army in enemy country diminishes at least in the same proportion as the distance from its base of operations increases, how many men would the Allies have brought to Sevastopol after a march of more than 120 miles? How many men would have had to be left behind at Kaffa? How many to hold and fortify intermediate points? How many to protect transports and cleanse the country? Not 20,000 men could have been concentrated under the walls of a fortress that requires three times that number merely for its blockade. If Bonaparte ever takes the field himself and wages war according to these principles, the same family will at any rate represent the most astonishing antagonism in the history of warfare.

As for the safe anchoring at Kaffa, every sailor in the Black Sea knows, and every chart shows, that Kaffa is an open roadstead with protection only against north and west winds, while the most dangerous storms in the Black Sea threaten from south-east and south-west winds. For example, the storm of 14 November. If the fleets had been lying at anchor at Kaffa then, they would undoubtedly have been cast onto the windward side.

Now comes the most difficult part of the work. Louis Bonaparte himself, as he believes, has happily shifted the responsibility which the Brussels pamphlet throws upon him. But he does not go so far as to sacrifice Raglan and Canrobert. Accordingly, in order to prove the efficiency of the said generals, a sketch of the art of siege warfare is drawn up. This sketch, however, serves only to show how Sevastopol must not be taken, for it unfolds with the assurance that all these rules were inapplicable to Sevastopol.

“For example”, it says, “in an ordinary siege, where one front is attacked, the length of the last parallel would be about 300 mètres and the total length of the trenches not more than 4,000 mètres. Here, on the other hand, the extent of the parallel is 3,000 mètres and the total linear length of the trenches 41,000 mètres.”

Quite so, but that is precisely the question: why was this enormous extension of the attack adopted, when all circumstances dictated the greatest possible concentration of fire on one or two definite points? The answer is:

“Sevastopol is not like another fortress. It has only a shallow ditch, no masonry escarps, and these defence works are replaced by abattis and palisades. Thus our fire could have only weak effect on the earth breastworks.”

Since this cannot have been written for Marshal St-Arnaud, who might perhaps have believed it, it must have been written exclusively for the benefit and behoof of the French peasantry, for any non-commissioned officer in the French army will laugh at such galimatias. Palisades, when not at the bottom of a ditch or at least out of the enemy’s line of sight, are very quickly shot down by case-shot. Abattis can be set on fire. They must be at the foot of the glacis, about 60-80 yards from the breastworks, otherwise they are in the way of the fire of the cannons. Where the wood for these abattis – long trees laid on the ground, with the pointed branches turned towards the enemy, the whole firmly fastened together – where this wood was to come from in this woodless country, the “Moniteur” passes over in silence.

That palisades are an advance upon masonry escarps is certainly news; for these wooden defences can very easily be set on fire and thus permit a storm as soon as the enemy’s cannons have been silenced.

Finally, we are told, the exposé just examined is to prove that the allied generals did what was possible, indeed more than could have been expected of them under the given circumstances, indeed, that they even covered themselves with glory. Too bad for the glory that must be proved and is proved in this way! If the gentlemen generals could not invest Sevastopol, if they could not drive away the Russian army of observation, if they are not yet in Sevastopol – well, that is only because they were not strong enough! In fact, they are not. But if they were not, who is responsible for this greatest of all blunders? None other than Bonaparte. That is the necessary conclusion to which the leading article of the “Moniteur” led. What impression it produced in Paris is shown by the following extract from the letter of the otherwise so servile Paris correspondent of the “Times”:

“Many people regard this article simply as a preface to the complete evacuation of the Crimea. In a legitimist circle they say: We were led to expect war à la Napoleon; but it seems we are now to have a peace à la Louis-Philippe. On the other hand, impressions of a similar kind prevail in the minds of the working class of the Faubourg Saint Antoine. They interpret the article as an open admission of impotent weakness.”