Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels between June 14 and 16, 1854, and published as a leading article in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 4125, July 8, 1854. Text after The Eastern Question, edited by Eleanor Marx Aveling and Edward Aveling (London, 1897), pp. 379-386; the authorship is that given in Marx/Engels, Werke, vol. 10 (Berlin, 1961), pp. 287-293. Scanning errors corrected after the page images; the misprint “Svendborg” corrected to “Sveaborg”; italics after the 1897 edition. Traducción al español.
Besides the curious coincidence of the Russians evacuating and of the Austrians occupying Wallachia, the very manner in which the siege of Silistria was undertaken, carried on, and finally abandoned, indicates that agencies were at work altogether distinct from mere military considerations. From the official Russian report, which comes down to the night of May 28, and which differs from the Turkish bulletins only with regard to the respective numbers of killed and wounded, it appears that the operations were of a strangely precipitate character, that the rudest efforts to dismount the outworks were not made until the impossibility of taking the place by storm was practically ascertained, and that the attack was more wild and unscientific than any known even in the annals of Russian sieges. As to the operations between the 28th of May and the 15th of June, the reports which we have received are yet too fragmentary to allow of a detailed description; the fact, however, that during the repeated desperate assaults nearly all the commanding officers were wounded and disabled—Paskevitch, Schilders, whose leg has since been amputated, Gortschakoff, Lüders and Orloff, who was shot through the eye—clearly proves that the Russians were under orders, not merely to take the place at any cost, but to take it within a certain fixed time. Indeed, the whole affair was conducted on their part in a manner which reminds us more of the barbarian method of carrying the cities of Kurdistan by Timour Tamerlane than of the proceedings of regular modern warfare. On the other hand, it is evident that the heroic and able defence of Silistria caused equal surprise to the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Divan. Our readers may remember that about six weeks ago the allied commanders met at Varna, that they discovered that the Balkan line formed the natural defence of Turkey, and that now many of the British journals not only confess, but glory in the avowal, that Silistria was not relieved by a single French or English soldier. Lastly, it cannot be denied that Silistria was a point of great military importance, that the fate of this fortress decides the fate of the campaign, and that with the abandonment of its siege and the sudden retreat of the Russians upon the Sereth, the whole of the Russian conquests of territory made this year as well as last are lost.
Still it must be said that our English contemporaries many of them greatly exaggerate the extent of the present Muscovite reverses. It certainly requires a high degree of credulity to believe that the sortie made by the garrison of Silistria on June 13, and the succour of 2,000 men they are said to have received from Omer Pasha, resulted in the total defeat of the Russians, and forced 90,000 to 100,000 men to fly before 15,000. The sudden retreat of the Russians is, so far as we can judge, quite as mysterious as their sudden attack. It is only to be explained by a previous understanding with Austria, involving the occupation of Wallachia by Austrian troops. Under these circumstances the following passage, which we find in a letter of The Morning Chronicle’s Constantinople correspondent, revealing this plot on June 10, so early as four days before the conclusion of the Austro-Turkish treaty, is of a peculiarly interesting character:
“The Turks think that diplomacy is playing with them, and that it is their (the Allies) intention to allow Silistria to fall into the hands of Russia.
“These suspicions receive confirmation from the news that has been received here of the preparation of a new Protocol at Vienna, in which the fall of Silistria is, I learn, spoken of as if it were accomplished; and the military honour of Russia being satisfied, Austria would consider the time to have arrived for her intervention to bring about an arrangement by the means of her co-operation—occupying the Danubian Principalities, which would be evacuated by the armies of Russia.”
According to this, if the Russians had taken Silistria in due time, all would have been right. But though they did not succeed in satisfying the military honour of the Czar, they must, according to the compromise with Austria, beat back in a somewhat inglorious manner. The Russians receding behind the Sereth, the Austrians advance to the Sereth and Danube, and thus place themselves between the Muscovites and the Turks and their allies. In this position they are arbiters of the quarrel, preventing both parties from moving forward. The Russians remain in Moldavia, while the Vienna Conference will now more than ever busy itself with protocols, and thus the winter will be gained. If the Conference end in nothing—a result which is sure, since the Emperor of Russia has got the money on his new loan of £7,400,000 from Hope and Co. of Amsterdam—the position of the Russian army behind the Danube and the Sereth will be twice as strong as was its line between Bucharest and Kustendji. Besides, if we look at the relative strength of the Russians before Silistria and in Bulgaria, and now on their retreat behind the Sereth, and of the allied armies as far as they can, thanks to their ingenious arrangements, be thrown at all into the balance, it is plainly seen that, with even the best intentions, the latter would not be capable of baffling this combination of Austria with Russia.
The Russian forces employed against Turkey and the Allies on the European shores of the Black Sea amount to thirteen divisions of infantry, three of the third, three of the fourth, one of the fifth, three of the sixth, army corps, and three reserve divisions. Besides these, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth divisions of light cavalry, and the third, fourth, and fifth divisions of artillery. These troops, making up nearly one-half of the grand army of operations, should amount, according to the official statements, to 16,000 men per division of infantry, 5,000 per division of cavalry, and 160 guns per division of artillery; altogether something like 250,000 to 260,000 men, inclusive of train and camp followers. But if we measure the strength of a Russian army by what it actually was in the Hungarian war, we cannot estimate a division of Russian infantry at more than 13,000 to 14,000 men, and the cavalry and artillery must be reduced in proportion. The actual forces, then, which the Russians have successively marched into the Principalities would be reduced to about 210,000 men, and even from this number must be deducted, on account of loss in battles and by sickness, at least 20,000 to 25,000 more. Recollecting the ravages made by the March fever in the ranks of the Russian army during 1828-29, and comparing the letters of a Russian surgeon in the Vienna Medical Journal, we cannot consider a loss of from eight to ten per cent. upon the total of the army as exaggerated. Thus, about 180,000 Russians are left as the disposable number of their army.
It is interesting to learn what portion of this force can have been employed in the operation against Silistria. A large body of troops was required to guard the communications and magazines established in the rear of the line of battle. Bucharest and the line of the Dobrudscha had to be occupied. Detachments were indispensable to cover the flanks and partly the front of the army; and if we deduct 60,000 men for these various duties, we obtain a net result of 130,000 men available for the siege of Silistria and the covering of that operation. This is rather above than below the mark. Now the position of Silistria on a large river made it unavoidable that the besieging army should divide itself, with a view to enclose the fortress from all sides. It further necessitated the establishment of strong reserves on the northern bank, in order to rescue the troops pushed forward from the southern bank in case of a defeat. Finally, these troops occupying the southern or right bank had to divide themselves again into a double army, the one to carry on the siege and to repel any sallies of the besieged, the other to cover the siege and defeat any army marching to the relief of the fortress. About 35,000 to 40,000 men were required to occupy the right bank and carry on the siege on the left. Thus an army of 80,000 Russians would have remained available for active field operations against a relieving army, and this was the utmost the Russians could bring to battle on Bulgarian ground within from ten to twenty miles of Silistria.
Now let us see what force the Allies have to oppose to the 180,000 Russians all told at this moment. The Turkish army of Schumla was stated, some time ago, to be about 80,000 strong, but short of everything required for action in the open field, and is, according to the latest report of Lord Raglan and the French staff officers, badly officered; altogether in a condition which peremptorily forbids offensive operations. It is neither our purpose nor within our present means to determine the accuracy of this report. Suffice it to say that such is the character of the Turkish main army in the official opinion of its allies. Since then the troops from Kalafat have been drawn to Rustchuk, where a camp of 40,000 men is said to be establishing. It would be difficult to conceive the policy of thus rendering idle a corps of such strength, which, if it had marched upon Bucharest instead of Rustchuk, might have compelled the Russians to raise immediately the investment of Silistria, but for the conduct of the war being entirely in the hands of diplomacy. Setting apart the present garrison at Rustchuk, and the garrison and reserve at Schumla, it may well be doubted whether the Turks can muster 50,000 men in the open field in a condition fit for the work before them. An Anglo-French soldier being equal, in the estimation of Western military authorities, to at least two Russians, there would still be required a force of 65,000 Allies to balance the strength of the Russian army of occupation. Unless, therefore, they can muster that force at Varna, they would hardly go to battle, the case of extreme necessity excepted.
They have, however, been most careful not to drop at once into the field in such force as would leave no further pretext for abstaining from active operations. The whole Anglo-French force now in Turkey does not amount to more than 80,000 men, besides from 15,000 to 20,000 more now on their way thither, including almost the entire cavalry and artillery. The amount of transports at hand in the Bosphorus is, whether intentionally or not, very limited, so that it would take many a journey there and back, if they were to be transported to Varna by sea alone. But, “according to the latest and most accurate accounts,” says the correspondent we have already quoted, “there are at present but 12,000 British and foreign troops who have been transported by sea, while the bulk of the French army is slowly advancing from Gallipoli toward Constantinople and Adrianople.” The roads being notoriously bad, and the difficulty of victualling extreme, this is an arrangement which allows their famous general, St. Arnaud, to be permanently under steam between Varna and Constantinople, where we may be sure he does not lose an opportunity of turning every intrigue in the Divan to a solid advantage for his unfathomable purse. As to the two British divisions still at Scutari, we are informed by the same correspondent that “they do not seem ready to start yet, though there is a whole fleet of transports and steamers at anchor, waiting to embark them.”
From all these facts it is sufficiently clear to everybody that the allied Powers have taken full care not to be in a state to frustrate directly the present arrangement between Russia and Austria. For, if it were intended to pursue that object, a very simple alternative for doing so offers itself either by an Anglo-Swedish alliance in the Baltic, which would give a basis of operations for auxiliary troops by facilitating an invasion of Finland and a turning on the land-side of the fortresses of Sveaborg and Cronstadt, or by a combined attack by sea and land on the Crimea and Sebastopol. With regard to the first supposition, it is amusing to see how the London Times, which not three weeks before preached the necessity of sending the Black Sea squadron to the Baltic, now recommends a simple blockade of the harbours of the Baltic, and an immediate return of the greater portion of the Baltic fleet to the Black Sea, where it suddenly advocates the occupation of the Crimea. This is the same journal which affected to regret that nothing could be undertaken by Napier before the French fleet should have joined him. Now that it has done so, it is supposed that nothing will be done, after all, and that both the French and English fleet had better take another excursion through the Cattegat, the Channel, and the Straits of Gibraltar round to the Euxine. Reflecting on the time which the juncture of these fleets has required, and again on the time which their junction with the forces under Admiral Dundas would require, it becomes plain that to do nothing either in the Baltic or in the Black Sea is the great object of these propositions.
The only point on which the Russians—apart from their unforeseen and unexpected defeat at Silistria—have undergone substantial losses and are surrounded with dangers is the Caucasus, though this is not altogether certain. They had abandoned nearly all their fortresses on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, not from any fear of the allied fleets, but in order to strengthen their Georgian army. On their retreat across the Dariel Pass, they are stated to have been suddenly attacked by a large force of mountaineers in the van and rear, to have had their advanced guard cut to pieces, while their centre and rear were compelled to retire with severe loss. At the same time the army of Selim Pasha advanced from St. Nicholas upon Ozurgeti, whence the Russians had frequently molested and menaced the Turks, and now forced the Russians to evacuate that fortress, a result by which the communications between Selim Pasha and the main Turkish army at Kars has been secured. When it is recollected that even this army was throughout the winter and spring in the most deplorable state of inefficiency, the manœuvre of the Russians indicates at least that they felt their position in Georgia to be no less precarious, and that they were sadly in want of reinforcements from the coast. If now this reported defeat at Dariel be true, or even partially so, the consequence is that the army of Woronzow is cut off, and must try either to procure a tenable basis at Tiflis, with a view to hold out till next winter—a matter of no slight difficulty—or it must attempt to make its way, at any loss, through the pass. This operation would, at all events, be preferable to a retreat upon the Caspian Sea, the pass leading thither being of infinitely greater danger than that of Dariel. On this point, however, we shall be better able to speak positively on the receipt of more complete and authentic information from that quarter. So far we may set down Russia as having certainly gained two victories by the recent operations—one in the loan from Hope and Co., and one in the Austrian treaty with the Porte; and as having suffered one defeat—that of Silistria. Whether the former will have permanent advantages enough to compensate for the disgrace of the latter, the future only can decide.