Friedrich Engels

Written about July 20, 1855.

From the English.

["New-York Daily Tribune" No. 4459, August 4, 1855, leading article]

According to our latest reports, a standstill had occurred in the war operations in the Crimea. No more assaults; the cannons are almost silent, and were it not for the constant exchange of rifle fire between the two lines of entrenchments, the Allies pushing forward their position by mining and sapping on the Malakhov hill, and the Russians making occasional sorties, one might consider hostilities suspended. This is the calm that precedes the storm. In all probability a battle has already been fought at Sevastopol, fiercer than at Inkerman, the Green Mamelon, or the assault of June 18.

The month of August must, at a certain point, decide the outcome of the campaign. By that time the greater part, if not all, of the Russian reinforcements will have arrived, while the ranks of the Allies must have been thinned by disease. If they hold their own on the plateau of the Chersonese, that will already be a great deal. The capture of the south side of Sevastopol this year is a notion that has now been abandoned even by the English press. All that remains to them is the hope of battering down the town piece by piece, and if they manage it, proceeding with the same haste as hitherto, the siege will in duration equal that of Troy. There is absolutely no reason to believe that they will accomplish their task at accelerated speed, for we are now as good as officially informed that the faulty system followed so far is to be stubbornly continued. The Crimean correspondent of the Paris “Constitutionnel”, a man of high rank in the French army—it is believed to be General Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, commander of the Guards—has plainly stated that the public may spare itself the trouble of indulging in speculations about a campaign in the open field and the eventual investment of the north side of Sevastopol. Under the present circumstances, he says, that cannot be done without raising the siege and abandoning the whole plateau to the Russians. It has therefore been decided to hammer away as hard as possible at the position once attacked, until its complete destruction. Now, the announcements of this letter may be relied upon, as there is every reason to believe not only that the French Emperor approves of them, but even that he revises every report from this source before printing. Besides, Regnault is one of his special favourites.

What the consequence of all this must be is easy to foresee. The Russian army in and around Sevastopol now consists of the 3rd and 4th Corps, two divisions of the 5th, and one division of the 6th Corps, besides marines, sailors, local troops, Cossacks, and cavalry, forming an armed force of 180 battalions, or 90,000 infantry and 30,000 artillery and cavalry, besides some 40,000 sick and wounded. Even the French “Moniteur” estimates their effective strength under arms at 110,000 men. Now the entire 2nd Corps (50 battalions, 32 squadrons, 96 guns) and two grenadier divisions with one division of cavalry (24 battalions, 32 squadrons, 72 guns) are on the march or already near Sevastopol. They represent an additional force of 55,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry and Cossacks, and 5,000 artillery. The Russians will thus soon have concentrated a force of at least 175,000 men, or considerably more than the Allies can have left after their latest losses from fighting and epidemics. That the Russians will thus be able at least to hold their ground hitherto is certainly the least that can be expected of them, especially as they can constantly relieve the troops of the garrison, exhausted by their exertions, with fresh ones.

The Allies, on the other hand, have no chance of receiving similar reinforcements. They now count 21 divisions of infantry (12 French, 4 English, 3 Turkish, and 2 Piedmontese) or about 190 battalions, 3 divisions of cavalry (1 French, 1 English, and 1 Turkish) or about 60 squadrons, and a corresponding number of guns. As, however, their battalions and especially their squadrons have been very severely thinned by the losses of the campaign, their total strength will not exceed 110,000 infantry, 7,500 cavalry, and 20,000 to 25,000 <In the “Neue Oder-Zeitung” the figures 30,000-35,000 are given (see present volume, p. 375)> artillery, train, and men unfit for duty. If the forces of the two belligerent parties are now, before the arrival of the Russian reinforcements, so nearly balanced, the scale must obviously incline against the Allies as soon as those arrive. All the Allied reinforcements that have arrived and are now being sent after them are merely detachments from the depots to refill the engaged battalions and squadrons, and are not very strong, if we give credence to the assertions of the press. However, three divisions are said to be marching to Marseille and Toulon, where steamers are concentrating, while in England the regiments destined for the Crimea have received orders to hold themselves in readiness for immediate embarkation. They will number about one division of infantry and one division of cavalry. Thus, during the months of August and September, about 33,000 infantry with perhaps 2,500 cavalry and artillery may gradually arrive in the Crimea; but all this depends very much on how speedily their transport is effected. At any rate, the Allies will once more be numerically inferior and may again be cooped up on the plateau where they spent the last miserable winter. Whether the Russians will this time succeed in driving them out of this strong hiding-place, we dare not decide. But to hold their own ground is evidently all that the Allies can expect, unless they receive reinforcements on a truly gigantic scale. Thus the war promises to be reduced to a series of inconclusive bloody encounters, in which each side will send out fresh bodies of troops day by day to meet the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting, whether on the ramparts of the town, the parapets of the trenches, or the escarped heights around Inkerman and Balaclava. No situation of hostile armies can be devised where greater bloodshed leads to more insignificant results than is to be expected from such combats.

There is, however, a chance that something decisive will occur. If the Russians could manage to bring up, beyond the troops already moved up, a further 50,000 men, so as to secure their army an incontestable superiority, they could inflict serious defeats on the Allies and thus compel them to re-embark. To judge this possibility, we must examine the forces that the Russians keep under arms along their whole extended frontier. The Crimean army, including the reinforcements mentioned above, we calculated at about 175,000 men. In the Caucasus, where, besides the local troops and Cossacks, the 16th and 17th Divisions are engaged, they may have about 60,000 men. In Bessarabia they have, it is said, 60,000 men under the command of Lüders; it may be assumed that these troops consist mainly of combined battalions and reserves, since only one infantry division of the 5th Corps is there and it has never been communicated that troops of the 1st or 2nd Corps had marched thither. In Poland and Volhynia there would remain two Guards divisions, one grenadier division, two divisions of the 1st Army Corps, and various reserves—together about 160,000 men. The greater part of the reserves and part of the Guards are concentrated on the Baltic in the following manner: 50,000 men under Sievers in the German Baltic provinces, 30,000 men under Berg in Finland, and 50,000 men under Rüdiger as a reserve army in and around St. Petersburg; altogether about 585,000 men. The rest of the Russian forces, about 65,000 men, are in the interior of the country; thus the total armed force would amount to 650,000 men. Considering the enormous levies carried out in Russia, this figure by no means appears exaggerated.

Now, it is clear that at this advanced season of the year the Russians have no serious danger of a landing on the Baltic coast to apprehend and that a general shifting of the various detachments stationed there to the south could take place, so as—let us say—to set free 30,000 men, who would be replaced by Opolchenie or other troops from the interior of the country. These 30,000 men, if they went to Poland, would release an equal number of troops in that country, and when the Austrians have reduced their army on the frontier to the harmless strength of 70,000 or 80,000, which is to happen in the immediate future, a further 30,000-40,000 men could be spared from the Polish army. Thus the troops for such a reinforcement could be found, which would preclude any possibility of the Allies ever dominating the Crimea alone, and this reinforcement could be brought to the theatre of war towards the middle of October. However, the question arises whether the government will be able to maintain such a large number of troops during the winter, especially now that the Sea of Azov has been cleared of Russian ships. As far as that is concerned, we have no sufficient data to express an opinion; but if this can be done and that measure were resorted to, the Allies might just as well bombard the rocks surrounding the harbour of Balaclava as the ramparts of Sevastopol, which would be defended, directly and indirectly, by a force of 250,000 men.

Hitherto, 300,000 Austrians have held Russia in check on the flank of its line of communication with the Crimea. Let Russia once shake off this fetter, and the Allies will soon become aware what a power they have to deal with. They have allowed the time to slip by when, indirectly supported by Austria, they could have captured Sevastopol. Now, when Russia is beginning to feel secure on this side and has only the Allies to deal with, it is too late.