Karl Marx

["Neue Oder-Zeitung" No. 395, 25 August 1855]

London, 22 August. The reports of Admirals Penaud and Dundas confirm the judgement we have passed on the “glorious destruction of Sweaborg, the Gibraltar of the North” (Times terminology). Today we read, moreover, in a London daily:

“Such is the great bombardment of Sweaborg that it can only be said that the enemy may possibly have sustained considerable damage from the spreading of the fire. It does not seem, however, that we have gained much. The success was neither brilliant nor solid. Everything in the Baltic still remains to be done.”

The Times, however, which during the Queen’s stay in France needs fine weather and good news, which for some days has been painting only couleur de rose <rose-coloured> and feigning to suffer from optimistic epilepsy, The Times stubbornly insists on dreaming of a destruction of the “city” of Sweaborg.

As regards the Chernaya affair, closer reports are above all necessary for its assessment. Everything depends on how far the fighting turned on the defile passages of the Chernaya and how far the water level made the river a real obstacle. If the battle took place without such an obstacle in front of the French front, it reflects great disgrace on the Russians. If, on the other hand, it was a matter of forcing defiles that could not be turned, the heavy Russian loss is explained and the battle may be honourable for both sides. However, it remains unclear why the Russians themselves did not attempt a turning movement through the Baidar Valley. This much is certain: if the Allies do not voluntarily quit their positions, the Russians have now proved their inability to drive them from the plateau and the Chernaya line. Thus the old impasse is re-established.

The storming of the Malakhov can be expected any day. If it fails, the Allies find themselves in a bad position. If it succeeds, which is after all possible, albeit with enormous losses, the south side is still not lost on that account, unless it has to be evacuated for want of provisions. In any event, however, the Allies would then have gained the prospect of driving the Russians out of it before winter. The news concerning the state of health of the English army in the Crimea is contradictory. According to one report, 1,000 English soldiers are rendered unfit for duty in the trenches each month. What is certain is that out of a single regiment, the 10th Hussars, 676 strong, 161 are sick. Dr Sutherland, head of the sanitary commission sent by the government to the Crimea, writes in a letter addressed to the Earl of Shaftesbury, among other things:

“Week ending July 7: Strength of the English army 41,593; total deaths 150; death from cholera 71; from fever 17; from diarrhoea 19; from dysentery 2. Week ending July 14: Strength of the army 42,513; total deaths 123; death from cholera 55; from fever 18; from diarrhoea 10; from dysentery 5. Died of wounds in the first week 44, in the second 30, total 74.”

Deaths from disease thus stand to deaths from wounds during the first two weeks of July almost as 4:1. Dr Sutherland draws the following contrast between the state of health of the army in the past winter and in the present summer:

“The winter mortality has a quite different character from the summer mortality. Hardly one of the causes – namely, bad food, lack of rest, overwork, lack of clothing and shelter, exposure to the elements, which produced scurvy in almost the whole army – now exists. At that time all cases of sickness were scorbutic, and hence the dreadful mortality in the hospitals at Scutari; it could only be compared with the famine pestilence in Ireland; now, on the other hand, we have fever and cholera, whose intensity in our camp has undoubtedly been mitigated by great care for the soldiers.”

The state of health of the besieged army is at this moment indisputably worse than that of the besiegers. Dr Sutherland’s letter can, however, claim all the less unconditional confidence as a recent incident proves that criticism in the English camp is punished. About six weeks ago, The Times published an anonymous letter in which the inexcusable treatment of the wounded after the bloody butchery of 18 June was denounced. The War Department demanded to obtain the name of The Times’s correspondent. The demand was refused, unless Mr Frederick Peel expressly promised not to vex the correspondent on account of his disclosures. Peel did not agree to this condition, but denounced the refusal of The Times in Parliament. Mr Bakewell (Assistant Surgeon <Assistenzarzt>), the author of the letter in question, had meanwhile been granted sick leave to Scutari. This happened in mid-July. The authorities in the camp discovered his authorship by one means or another. Behind his back and during his absence, a court of inquiry was set up out of the higher medical officers, themselves largely compromised by Bakewell’s letter, which condemned him without giving him the opportunity of defending himself or of proving his charges. On 3 August his dismissal was made known in a general order of the day <Tagesbefehl> of the army. By this incident the credibility of the English official or semi-official reports on the state of health of the army, care of the wounded, etc., is to be measured.