Published without signature as a leading article in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 4572, December 14, 1855, p. 4; attributed to Friedrich Engels by MEGA² (I/14). A few letters and stops lost in the print are supplied in square brackets. Text after the original print of the newspaper (Library of Congress, Chronicling America). Traducción al español
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 dispatch, 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, 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 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 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, withou[t] any result 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 water reaching their armpits, and at once charged the Russians, who fled in disorder. At the same time Col. Simmonds, another British officer, concentrated 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 Russians, after vainly attempting a flank-attack upon the assailants, were completely routed and retired in disorder, leaving five guns in the battery. 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.
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 an army as young as the Turkish army in its present European organization, such a success shows that the new military system begins to become 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 were capable of forming a modern army; and they begin to show that with good commanders, the thing is not impossible. Whether 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 can judge, and the Anglo-Indian officers serving under him have shown that they have 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 positions. Whether he conquers or is conquered, there must be fieldworks. From Oltenitza and Kalefat 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 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. We hear nothing at all of following up his advantage, and the few allusions to subsequent forward movements on his part are so slight and so indefinite, that we have no doubt he is advancing very slowly and cautiously, and will perhaps have to force the passage of each successive important river by a fight.
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 immense 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 as well as political importance of this battle. Of all the fields and fortresses his troops have lost, or have been repulsed from, no defeat will more sorely pain Alexander II. than those of Kars and the Ingour.