Written by Friedrich Engels on March 13, 1854; first published as a leading article in The People’s Paper, No. 98, March 18, 1854, and, with a different ending, as a leading article in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 4040, March 30, 1854. Text of the Tribune after The Eastern Question, edited by Eleanor Marx Aveling and Edward Aveling (London, 1897), pp. 279-284, where it is ascribed to Marx; the authorship and dates are those given in Marx/Engels, Werke, vol. 10 (Berlin, 1961), pp. 135-139, which translates the text of The People’s Paper. Misprints of the scanned text corrected; italics after the German version in the Werke. The title is that of the 1897 edition. Traducción al español.
The Russians have retreated from Kalafat, and have, it is stated, entirely remodelled their plan of operations. This is the glorious end of the efforts and risks of a three months' campaign, during which the last resources of Wallachia have been completely exhausted. This is the fruit of that inconceivable march into Lesser Wallachia, which appeared to have been undertaken in utter contempt of the simplest rules of strategy. In order to take Kalafat, a simple bridge-head held by the Turks on the left bank of the Danube, the mass of the Russian army was concentrated on its extreme right, in a position where the weakened centre and left appeared completely abandoned to any attack that the enemy might chance to undertake, and where a degree of indifference was shown to the lines of communication and retreat which is without parallel in the history of warfare. How it happened that Omer Pasha has not profited by this blunder, we have already had occasion to show. How it is that after all the Russians have to retreat disgracefully, without having effected their purpose, we shall now demonstrate. We say that they have to retreat disgracefully, because an advance preceded by blustering, crowned by taking up a merely threatening position, and ending in a quiet and modest retreat, without even an attempt at serious fighting — because a movement composed of an uninterrupted series of mistakes and errors, resulting in nothing but the General's conviction that he has made a complete fool of himself — is in the very highest degree disgraceful. Now to the state of the case:
The Russians had, by the end of 1853, the following troops in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bessarabia:
I. 4th army corps (Dannenberg), three divisions infantry, one division cavalry, four brigades artillery; total, after deducting losses, 45,000 men.
II. Of the 5th corps (Lüders), one division of infantry, one division cavalry, two brigades artillery; say 15,000 men.
III. 3rd corps (Osten-Sacken), three divisions infantry, one division cavalry, four brigades artillery; say 55,000 men.
Total, about 115,000 men, besides non-combatants and one division of Lüders' corps in the neighbourhood of Odessa, which, being wanted for garrison duty, cannot be taken into account.
The troops under Dannenberg and Lüders were the only forces in the Principalities up to the beginning of December. The approach of Osten-Sacken's corps was to be the signal for the grand concentration and the attack on Kalafat. His place on the Bug and the Pruth was to be filled by the 6th corps (Tsheodayeff), then on the road from Moscow. After the junction of this latter corps the Danubian army would have consisted of about 170,000 men, but might have turned out to be stronger if the new levies of recruits from the south-western provinces were at once directed to the theatre of war. However, 115,000 to 120,000 men appeared to the Russian commander a sufficient force to defend the whole line of the Danube from Braila to Nicopolis, and to spare a sufficient number from the extreme right to be concentrated for an attack on Kalafat. When this movement was commenced, towards the end of December, Kalafat could hardly shelter more than 10,000 to 12,000 defenders, with 8,000 more at Widdin, whose support might be considered dubious, as they would have to cross a violent river in a bad season. The slowness of the Russian movements, however, the indecision of Prince Gortschakoff, and, above all, the activity and boldness of Ismail Pasha, the commander at Kalafat, permitted the Turks to concentrate some forty thousand men on the menaced point, and to change Kalafat from a simple bridge-head, stormable by a force the double of its defenders, into a fortification which could shelter at least 30,000 men, and withstand any but a regular siege attack. It has been justly said that the highest triumph in the construction of a field fortification is the necessity for the enemy to open his trenches against it; if the Russians did not actually open their trenches, it was merely because, even with that extreme means, they saw no way of taking Kalafat in the time they could set apart for the operation. Kalafat will henceforth rank with Frederic II.'s camp at Bunzelwitz, with the lines of Torres Vedras, and with the Archduke Charles's intrenchments behind Verona, as one of those efforts of field fortification to be named as classical applications of the art in warlike history.
Now let us look at the Russian means of attack. That they meant in good earnest to take Kalafat is shown by their parks of siege artillery having been brought forward as far as Crajova. That Omer Pasha, we may state by the way, allowed these guns to go and return freely, is one of the many military inconceivabilities of this war, to be explained only by diplomatic influence. The only thing necessary, then, for the Russians was a sufficient mass of troops to drive in the Turks, to protect the trenches and batteries, and to storm the breaches as soon as they could have been opened. Here again Ismail Pasha acted like an energetic and clever commander. His sally towards Tchetalea on the 6th of January, his vigorous attack ending in the defeat of a superior Russian force, and the continued attacks of a similar nature which he executed, while the Russian concentration was still going on, and until he was fairly blockaded on his small Danubian peninsula by a superior force — in short, his system of defending himself by concentrated offensive blows against single points of the Russian line, and thereby destroying his enemy as far as lie could in detail, was exactly what a commander under his circumstances should have done, and forms a cheering contrast to Omer Pasha's previous defence at Oltenitza, or his lazy passivity all this while on the Lower Danube. For the petty attacks carried on by him here and there, which appear never to have been broken off at the proper moment, but continued for days and days on the same point with blind obstinacy, even when no result could be expected from them — these petty attacks do not count when a movement across the Danube with forty to sixty thousand men was what was wanted.
After all, the Russians completed, by the latter end of January, their concentration around Kalafat. They were evidently superior in the open field, and must therefore have had there some 30,000 or 40,000 men. Now, deduct these from 115,000, and then deduct, say, 20,000 or 30,000 men more for the defence of the line from Braila to the sea, and there remain for the whole of Greater Wallachia, inclusive of garrisons, from 50,000 to 65,000 men — an army far from sufficient to defend such a long line of attack and a line of communication running parallel with the line of attack at a short distance behind it. A vigorous assault on any point, even with a force inferior to the whole of these 65,000 men, could not but have ended in the utter defeat in detail of all these dispersed Russian corps, and in the capture of all the Russian magazines. Omer Pasha will, some time or other, have to explain his motives for neglecting such an opportunity.
With all their efforts, then, the Russians could merely concentrate before Kalafat a force barely sufficient to drive in the Turkish outposts, but not to attack the stronghold itself. They took nearly five weeks to effect even this momentary and illusory success. General Schilders, of the Engineers, was sent with positive orders to take Kalafat. He came, he saw, and he resolved to do nothing, until the arrival of Tsheodayeff should allow fresh troops to come up from the centre and left. Five weeks the Russians stood in this dangerous position, their rear and flanks exposed, as if provoking that attack which they could not have resisted a moment. And five weeks Omer Pasha stood menacing their flank and rear in a position where he could see their weakness without spectacles or telescopes, and he did nothing. Verily this system of modern warfare under the patronage of the Allied Powers is above comprehension!
All at once the news reaches us that the Russians are in full retreat from Kalafat. The English journals hereupon exclaim, that it is the effect of their Allies, the Austrians, having concentrated an army in Transylvania, in the rear of the Russians! That it is the effect of the glorious Austrian alliance, which is again the effect of the glorious policy of Lord Aberdeen. But presently an authentic Austrian manifesto shows that no Austrian alliance exists, and that the Austrians have not said, and as yet do not appear to know themselves, for what purpose they have sent that army where it is. And consequently our British contemporaries are in great uncertainty as to the cause of the Russian retreat. But what is the cause of it? Why, simply this: French and British troops are to go to Constantinople. Nothing more easy or more plain than to send them thence to Odessa or Bessarabia and cut off the communications of the Russians.
However harmless the real intentions of the Coalition may be, pressure from without may force them to act seriously. Gortschakoff evidently does not trust in the merely diplomatic mission of the Western armies. If he were quite sure of England, he could not be so of France. If he were sure of all the Cabinets, he could not be so of the Generals. He might risk flank marches in the presence of the Turks, but he supposes the matter must become serious as soon as French and British troops arrive and threaten to fall on his flanks. Consequently, Tsheodayeff is stopped in his march to form a camp of 30,000 or 40,000 men above Odessa. Consequently he cannot furnish any troops for the Pruth or Sereth. Consequently, no troops can come to reinforce Gortschakoff before Kalafat. Consequently, the attack upon that place becomes an impossibility. Consequently, Prince Gortschakoff has to retreat in as good order as he came. And thus ends the great tragi-comedy of the Russian march against Kalafat.