Published without signature as a leading article in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 4413, June 11, 1855, p. 4; attributed to Friedrich Engels by MEGA² (I/14). Text after the original print of the newspaper (Library of Congress, Chronicling America). Traducción al español
By a rather laborious sifting of the British, French, Belgian and German journals received by the last steamer we are enabled to inform our readers with some precision what was the state of the siege-operations at Sevastopol up to the date of the last report. In truth, since our last examination of the facts of the case, hardly any advance has been made. The progress of the besiegers is exceedingly slow, and appears to be carried on more by fits and starts than by regular and steady steps. Thus a comparatively great activity was shown in the attack upon the Flagstaff bastion, since the Russian counter-guard was carried at the beginning of May, by which the works of the French were advanced at one single bound 150 yards. The main ditch was all but reached by this successful operation, and the turning of the parapets against the Russians, the securing the new establishments against enfilading and rear fire, the connecting it with the trenches in the rear, completed under a close and heavy fire from front and flank and partially even from the rear, does great credit to the bravery and skill of the French engineers and sappers engaged in this work. As we have said before, the Flagstaff bastion can be carried any time the French choose to assault it. Even the lowered tone of the Russian account admits as much, and seems to prepare the public for such an event; but whether the loss inevitable in such an assault will be outweighed by the advantages it will secure, is very doubtful. At any rate the Flagstaff, though connected with the main rampart, may be considered, from the commanding ground in the rear and from its own projecting position, as a mere outwork, the taking of which will admit of the main wall being attacked on this particular point. A redoubt situated a little westward of the Flagstaff in front of the retired curtain connecting the latter with the Central bastion (No. 3 of the Russians, the Flagstaff is their No, 4, the Redan their No. 5, Malakoff their No. 6), is still in the hands of the Russians, as Gorchakoff's report up to the sixth of May distinctly asserts.
Of the operations on the allied right attack—against the Redan, Malakoff and their respective outworks—we have still less definite accounts, as the British newspaper-correspondents profess to abstain from details on military grounds. That the trenches are pretty close to the Russian works, is evident from the great loss the British engineers have suffered since the reopening of the active siege. Out of 60 officers 31 are killed or invalided, or have died by sickness, and most of them were lost in the trenches. New batteries are being constructed, and it was expected that the fire might be opened again about the end of May, from positions far nearer and consequently far more dangerous to the Russians than the last time. Yet, until the Mamelon is taken and fortified by the Allies, and the Russians expelled from Mount Sapun, nothing decisive can be undertaken against the main rampart on that side.
The inner defenses of Sevastopol are stated by the Russians to have been brought to a high degree of efficiency. Not only are the different bastions of the main rampart provided with coupures or second lines of defense to the rear, so that in case the enemy gets hold of one of them, he still finds himself cut off from the town and even from the adjoining portions of the main rampart, but a general and continuous second line is completed, running in the suburb of Karabelnaya (east of the Inner Harbor), about 150 to 200 yards behind the main rampart and parallel to it, while in the place itself it separates the close-built inner town from the stray buildings descending toward the main ramparts, and all but battered down by the French fire. Finally, the large, solid free-stone buildings of the inner town and of the dockyard and other naval establishments of Karabelnaya, which are said to be quite uninjured by the bombardment, have been connected by a labyrinth of masonry barricades forming as many batteries, while the houses themselves have been crenulated for musketry, and where practicable for artillery too. Thus a second Saragossa has been prepared, but upon scientific principles, and with all the advantages offered by accomplished engineering skill; and if this last stronghold should ever be attacked by the Allies it will no doubt be defended with the same bravery as Saragossa was, but with infinitely more system and ability. What under these circumstances an assault must lead to need not be stated.
Meantime the return of warm and wet weather has revived the forms of sickness peculiar to Spring and Summer in that climate. Cholera and ague have reappeared in the allied camp—as yet with no great violence, but severe enough to serve as a warning of what is in store for the army. The miasma from the mass of decomposing animal matter buried only a few inches below the ground all over the Chersonese has begun to make itself observable. The correspondent of The London Times gives a description of some portions of the camp situated among the graves, and of the exhalations rising when the sun shines upon them, which is calculated to excite the worst fears for the health of the army as soon as the hot weather shall have once fairly set in. Everybody knows the terrible effect produced upon health in hot climates by the presence of decaying animal matter. Where the mass of this is so enormous, where the living are so closely packed together on the graves of the dead as on the Chersonese, that effect must be awful. Besides, the graves are extremely shallow, the bodies hardly covered over with a few inches of earth. Of disinfectants, too, there is a scant supply—not enough, indeed, to be of the smallest perceptible use in so enormous a burying ground. How the Allies can expect to carry on the siege under such circumstances it is impossible to imagine. And it may well be doubted whether the preservation of their works during the approaching campaign in the field can be worth the heavy destruction of life which it must occasion.