Friedrich Engels 
Crimean prospects. January 22, 1855 


Crimean prospects. 


When the Allied Expedition—late in the season, and, in strength too 
great for a coup de main, too small for a campaign or even a siege—set 
sail for the Crimea, and when the British and French press were reveling 
in the presentiment of the victories which this army was to win, we point- 
ed to the disastrous expedition of the British to Walcheren in 1809. We 
showed that in expeditions based upon the presence of a fleet, as soon as 


they degenerate into a lengthened campaign, disease is more to be feared 
than the sword of the enemy, and that with the already evident malad- 

ministration in the British army, a result similar to that of Walcheren was 
now probable. The intelligence which has reached us for some time past 
has gone far to show that the fate of the Walcheren expedition was steadi- 
ly, though not inevitably, approaching the British army in the Crimea. 
But now, from our correspondence and journals received yesterday by 

the Atlantic, we have almost the certainty that Walcheren is being repeat- 
ed over again, and even improved upon, before Sevastopol. 

The London Times of Jan. 20, in a leading article, of which we last 
week had an extract by telegraph from Halifax, and which we this mor- 
ning copy entire, declares, that in the face of the increasing mismanage- 

ment in the Crimea, and the helplessness of the Government at home, it 
would be criminal to hide any longer the full truth from the British 
public. And then it startles John Bull with the information that of the 
50,000 or 60,000 men who went to the East, not more than 14,000 infan- 
try, and perhaps 1,500 artillery and sappers and miners are fit for duty, 

the remainder being dead, sick or wounded, while the cavalry, as a force, 
is broken up, the horses having been turned over to the ordnance to 
convey guns and provisions to the trenches. And even of these 15,000 
men the great majority are only by courtesy fit for duty; they are weak 


and exhausted, harboring the germs of disease; they are disabled by sick- 
ness at the rate of a thousand a week, and the deaths number from 300 or 
400 a week; there is no chance of this mortality decreasing, for the work 

to be done by a force which becomes weaker and weaker every day, 
remains the same, and overworking is as great a cause of disease among 
these soldiers as any; and of the less than two thousand men who are 
reported to have been actually in good health on the Ist January, very 
many must have been reduced to helpless fever and dysentery by this 
time. Another article from the same journal on Jan. 25, which we also 
copy, sums up the dreadful facts of the case by saying, that at the existing 
rate of diminution, Lord Raglan and his staff would, by the middle of 
March, be the only survivors of the expedition; and Lord John Russell, in 
his speech in Parliament in explanation of his resignation, stated that the 
accounts from Sevastopol were "not only painful, but horrible and heart- 
rending." The number of deaths in the camp Lord John also states at 
from 90 to 100 daily. It is therefore impossible to suppose that the alle- 
gations of the London journals on the subject are mere partisan exag- 
gerations, as has been pretended in some quarters. 

It is plain, then, that if it were not for the French, the miserable rem- 
nant of the British army would have been cut up and destroyed long 
since. But the admirable management of the French army has at all 
events contrived to keep that army intact. This management is not the 
merit of any particular administration—it is the consequence of the war- 
like spirit of the French; of that other quality, in which they excel, of 
arranging details in the most harmonious and practical manner, and, 
finally, of twenty-five years experience of Algerian war. This system was 
not created either by Louis Philippe, the Republic, or Louis Bonaparte; it 
is the result of circumstances, of a continued series of necessities, and of 
the labor of many generals of division, of brigade, and their subordi- 
nates. 

The French, although posted on the extremity of the Chersonese, where 
they are entirely dependent upon their fleet, while with skill and cour- 
age the British might habe foraged out the fruitful Valley of Baidar—the 
French have plenty of everything; because, in the French service, nine 
men out of ten know their business—which, in the British service, is the 
case with, perhaps, one man out of a hundred—and this exceptional 
individual is generally placed in such a position that he would appear 
presumptuous, and wanting in discipline, if he should offer his advice. If 
the British are spared the disgrace of a reémbarkation without having 
taken Sevastopol, or being able to bring their guns with them, they will 
have the French to thank for it. There is now hardly a doubt that we 


shall soon hear of part of the British lines having been handed over to the 
French, and the British army being reduced to a puny division, composed 
of a few thousand, indomitably courageous, but sickly and helpless men, 
who will stick to the post of honor, although unable to hold it without 
constant support from their stronger and more skillful allies. 

Whoever has seen anything of actual warfare knows that individual 
courage in the soldier is a great thing; but yet comparatively insignificant 
where organization, good officers, and especially good commanders and 
a good commissariat and medical staff, are wanting. But never was there 
such a striking illustration of the fact as this British Crimean expedition. 

The admirable daring of the soldiers is made worse than useless by the 

incapacity and nonchalance of the commander—by the ignorance of the 

officers—by the helplessness of every man in the army, and by the total 
want of any organization, beyond that required for the parade-ground. It 
is this combination of individual courage and individual cleverness in the 

soldiers, of military science and practical experience in the officers, of a 

well-defined and comprehensive division of labor among all departments, 

of simplicity and efficiency in the administration, which makes a French 

army, upon the whole, the best on earth, and enables the French to 
maintain the reputation of the military nation par excellence. 

Nevertheless, it must not be imagined that the French are in an envi- 

able condition before Sevastopol. The very fact that nine full divisions 

have been sent out, of which eight and a half (17 brigades) are in the 

Crimea, occupying a very small space of ground, is sufficient to show 
that they, too, must have suffered severely. A French brigade of infantry 

generally counts two regiments of two field-battalions each, and one bat- 

talion of riflemen—or five battalions in all. The French battalion, on the 
war-footing, numbers, upon an average 1,100 men. Thus, each brigade 
amounts to 5,500, and each division to 11,000 men at least, besides cav- 
airy and artillery, sappers and miners. The whole French infantry sent 
out to the Crimea should, therefore, muster about 94,000 men, and the 
whole force, with artillery, cavalry, and engineering troops, at least 
110,000 men. Now, it is materially impossible that more than 65,000 

Frenchmen should, at this time, be on the Heracleatic Chersonese. They 
could not be bivouacked on this small piece of ground, as far as its 

occupation falls to the share of the French. Thus, a loss of 45,000 men, in 

dead, wounded and sick, has fallen upon the French, and if we consider 
that the losses at Varna and during the expedition into the Dobrodja 
amounted to some 10,000 men—that the Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, 
cost them about 4,500—that the losses in the trenches must be something 
like 1,500—there will remain about 29,000 to be counted as victims of 


disease. This loss, though heavy, is not at all out of the way in a four 
months' campaign, accompanied with such hardships and sufferings as 
that in the Crimea at the present season. Ten per cent, a month is a very 
commonly adopted deduction from the effective force of a campaigning 
army, and the French have hardly exceeded this proportion; but for all 
that, a 110,000 men sent from France are equivalent only to 65,000 fit for 
duty in the Crimea; and such an army, even if judicious arrangements 
have enabled it to keep in pretty good health, to do no more duty than 
the men can well manage, to remove their sick to hospital, and to keep 
roads, trenches and batteries in good repair—such an army is nowise 
strong enough to take Sevastopol, even the south side, and at the same 
time to keep at bay the Russian army in the field. 

But the Turks are landing north of the Alma! So they are, and it will be 
well for them if they can manage to get back again without any material 
injury. The Turks, who are expected to land in the course of January to 
the number of some 60,000, (some of which are, however, not yet con- 
centrated,) are no longer the men of the late Danubian campaign. These 
have gone the same way of all flesh with the British guards. The present 
Turkish forces are mostly a herd of raw recruits or of reserves (redifs) the 
former too fresh, the latter too much spoiled by family life to make good 
soldiers. The mismanagement and disorganization of the Turkish army 
administration is worse than even that of the British; and if the Russians 
do not annihilate the Turks in a battle, their own bad management and 
fatalistic neglect will do the business quite as effectively. Besides, the 
faulty strategy of the Allies, which, as we have previously stated, makes 
them operate with two distinct corps, incapable of supporting each other 
against an active and clever enemy, invites the Russians to fall upon the 
Turks separately and drive them back into the sea before the French can 
get out of their mouse-trap in the Chersonese. 

In the meanwhile the Russians are far from inactive. The sixth and 
part of the fifth corps formed the original garrison of the Crimea; the 
fourth corps arrived a few days before the battle of Balaklava; now the 
third corps is in the Peninsula; the eighth division entered Baktchisarai 
on the 28th ult, at which date the seventh and ninth divisions, with the 
first division of dragoons, about 140 guns, and four regiments of Cos- 
sacks had taken up a position on the neck of the peninsula, at Perekop. 
The light cavalry division, (the third) belonging to this corps, is advanced 
toward Eupatoria, which it observes. Thus about one-half of the Russian 
active army (exclusive of the reserves) is now engaged in the Crimea, or 
garrisoning Odessa, Cherson, and Nicolaief, and portions of the second 
corps, under Paniutin, are said to be marching to support them. What 


effective numbers these twelve divisions of infantry and six of cavalry 
actually represent, after the losses of an unlucky campaign and immense 
marches, it is of course impossible to say, for we cannot know whether 
any of these losses have been made up. But at all events they must rep- 
resent at least 100,000 men available in the field, not counting what 
soldiers there may be in Sevastopol, beside sailors and marines. Now, 
with the two corps of the enemy divided and unable to support each 
other, with the men of Inkermann rotting by disease, with Sevastopol 
built up stronger than ever, this force can hardly fail to drive the Allies 
into the sea, unless the Russians are conducted with a contempt of strat- 
egy hitherto unparalleled. 
And now look at the curious manner in which England is going to 
make up for her past shortcomings. An expedition goes out to construct 
a railway—aye, a railway, double line of rails, stationary engines and 
all—from Balaklava to Sevastopol—a railway! while nobody seems to 
have thought of the more simple and practical plan of constructing a 
good road! Not satisfied with this, a submarine telegraph is actually on 
the way to be laid down from Varna to Balaklava, while the telegraph 
from Bucharest to Varna is not yet in a fair way of completion. After 
putting the cart before the horse, and having locked the stable after the 
horse was stolen, John Bull has worked himself up into such zeal that, in 
his bustle, he no longer knows what he is about at all. He has allowed his 
soldiers to starve, but he is constructing a railway to carry the dead 
bodies off. He has mismanaged the medical department, and sent out 
incompetent men in every branch of the service—but, in two months, the 
head doctor will be able to report by telegraph direct. His commanding 
general is imbecile, and his officers—according to the avowal of his own 
Secretary-at-War—quite unfit for their functions. But who knows wheth- 
er, at this moment, a fate infinitely more miserable than death in battle, 
has not forever removed them from human blame and retribution? It is a 
melancholy, an awful spectacle, which almost saddens criticism and al- 
most silences the voice of truth itself.