Friedrich Engels 
The battle of the Ingour 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 4572,14. Dezember 1855 

The battle of the Ingour. 

Of the battle of the Ingour we now have, thanks to the arrival of the 
Baltic, three distinct accounts: a short and confused official Turkish dis- 
patch, an equally obscure article of the Moniteur, and a letter from 
Mr. Lawrence Oliphant, The London Times's correspondent, who was an 
eye-witness to the operation. Though his report is written with anything 
but military clearness, yet in it we can pretty well distinguish the main 
features of the affair. The Russians had made a small fort called Ruchi, 
on the southern or left bank of the Ingour, the center of their position, 
10 and had constructed several batteries in advance of it, beside felling the 
trees next to the water's edge and making abattis of them. To attack them 
here in front would have been utter madness. But a force of 12,000 to 
16,000 men, mostly Mingrelian militia, was not strong enough to oppose 
effectually, on all points of a generally fordable river, the passage of a 
15 superior army. To turn the position was the simplest way of forcing it. 
Accordingly Omer Pasha had two batteries constructed opposite this 
Russian position, and left Skenda Pasha to occupy the attention of the 
enemy at this point, while he with the main body descended the river 
toward the delta, passed over one branch, and then advanced on the 
20 next. Col. Ballard, a British-Indian officer, led the advanced guard and 
drove the Russians across the main branch of the river, when the Turkish 
main body advanced to force the passage. At this moment, however, the 
Russians unmasked a battery on the left bank, the fire of which arrested 
the Turks. While the firing went on here—as usual, without any result 
25 both parties finding ample cover in the thick woods on the river- 
side—-Omer Pasha dispatched Osman Pasha with six battalions to a ford 
a mile and a half lower down. There was a Russian force here too, but, as it 
appears, not intrenched. Osman Pasha's troops passed the river, the wa- 

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Friedrich Engels 

ter reaching their armpits, and at once charged the Russians, who fled in 
disorder. At the same time Col. Simmonds, another British officer, con- 
centrated two battalions of the line with three companies of rifles in the 
center, under shelter of Col. Ballard's fire; he, too, passed the river and 
took the battery, which, as before stated, had defended the ford; the 5 
Russians, after vainly attempting a flank-attack upon the assailants, were 
completely routed and retired in disorder, leaving five guns in the bat- 
tery. This decided the action. The position at Fort Ruchi, higher up, was 
abandoned by the Russians after they had learned the defeat of their 
center and left wing. 10 

The battle does great honor to the troops of Omer Pasha. It is the first 
time since Tshetate—nearly two years ago—that Turkish troops appear 
with success in the open field; it is the first time that they are successful in 
the open country in Asia. They were, it is true, in superior numbers; they 
also had for opponents troops on whom little reliance was placed; but in 15 
an army as young as the Turkish army in its present European organ- 
ization, such a success shows that the new military system begins to be- 
come familiar to the troops, and that was the greatest obstacle to be 
overcome. The question was, not whether the Turks were naturally brave, 
but whether they are capable of forming a modern army; and they begin 20 
to show that with good commanders, the thing is not impossible. Wheth- 
er it is possible with native chiefs is another question, at least for some 
time to come. 

Omer Pasha conducted this battle very well, as far as we canjudge, and 
the Anglo-Indian officers serving under him have shown that they have 25 
learned how to treat Eastern soldiers. But now comes the most curious 
part of the business. Omer Pasha, at the head of a superior, victorious 
army, employs his victory, not to follow up the beaten Russians, but to 
intrench himself in a defensive position on the Ingour. Here we meet 
again that obstinate fancy of this general for fieldworks and defensive 30 
positions. Whether he conquers or is conquered, there must be field- 
works. From Oltenitza and Kalafat down to Eupatoria and the Ingour, it 
is always the same; and, after all, this shows where the weakness of the 
Turkish troops lies. Omer Pasha certainly knows them as well as any 
man; and if, whenever there is a chance of an attack, he takes care to 35 
intrench his army, he must do it from the certain knowledge that his 
troops are not reliable under all circumstances—that they are easily open 
to panic—that, in one word, they lack solidity. Here he obtains a victory 
which might have been made decisive by resolute pursuit; but instead of 
pursuing the enemy, he intrenches himself in the field he has just won. 40 
We hear nothing at all of following up his advantage, and the few allu- 

The battle of the Ingour 

sions to subsequent forward movements on his part are so slight and so 
indefinite, that we have no doubt he is advancing very slowly and cau- 
tiously, and will perhaps have to force the passage of each successive 
important river by a fight. 

5 But whatever may be the material result of this engagement, the moral 
effect, coming as it does so soon after the defeat of Kars, must be im- 
mense on the Asiatic populations in the neighborhood. The Russians, 
hitherto invincible when fighting in Asia against Asiatics, have now been 
beaten twice in five weeks by the Turks. In this consists the great military 

10 as well as political importance of this battle. Of all the fields and for- 
tresses his troops have lost, or have been repulsed from, no defeat will 
more sorely pain Alexander II. than those of Kars and the Ingour.