Napoleon's Apology (1855)

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A German version of this article dated April 14, 1855 was published in the Neue Oder-Zeitung, No. 177, on April 17 under the heading "Kritik des napoleonischen 'Moniteur'-Artikels" ("A Critique of Napoleon's Article in Le Moniteur"). The article was translated into German and edited by Marx. The more important changes are indicated in the footnotes.

Under the heading "Napoleon's Apology" the English version was included in The Eastern Question.

The first sentence of the article in the New York Daily Tribune shows editorial interference. It was evidently the editors who added the lines concerning the reprinting in the Tribune of passages from the Moniteur leading article (actually there was only a brief summary of the article in the "Letters from Europe" column of the New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 1035, April 27, 1855).

Napoleon III, in his quality as chief editor of the Moniteur, has published a long leading article on the Crimean Expedition, the important portions of which we have duly published. The purpose of this manifesto is evidently to console the French nation for the failure of the enterprise, to shift the responsibility of it from the Imperial shoulders, and at the same time to reply to the famous pamphlet lately issued by Prince Napoleon. In that half familiar, half dignified style, characteristic of the man who writes at the same time for French peasants and for European Cabinets, a sort of history of the campaign is given, with the alleged reasons for each step. Some of these reasons merit a special examination.

The Imperial adventurer informs us that the allied troops were brought up to Gallipoli, because otherwise the Russians might have crossed the Danube at Rustchuk, and turning the lines of Varna and Shumla, passed the Balkan and marched upon Constantinople. This reason is the worst ever given for the landing at Gallipoli. In the first place Rustchuk is a fortress, and not an open town, as the illustrious editor of the Moniteur seems to fancy. As to the danger of such a flank march of the Russians, it is well to recollect that an army of 60,000 Turks, firmly established between four strong fortresses, could not safely be passed without leaving a strong corps to observe them; that such a flank march would have exposed the Russians, in the ravines of the Balkan, to the fate of Dupont at Baylen, and of Vandamme at Culm; that in the most favorable case they could not bring more than 25,000 men to Adrianople; and that whoever thinks such an army dangerous to the Turkish metropolis, may have his opinions corrected by reading Major Moltke's well-known observations on the campaign of 1829 lately republished in English at London.

In case there should be no danger to Constantinople, the Allies were, as we learn from the Moniteur, to push some divisions to Varna, and to end any attempt at besieging Silistria. This done, two other operations would offer themselves—a landing near Odessa, or the seizure of the Crimea. Both were to be discussed by the allied Generals on the spot. Such were the instructions to St. Arnaud, which wound up with some sound military advice in the form of maxims and apothegms:—

Always know what your enemy is doing; keep your troops together, divide them on no account; or if you must divide them, manage so that you can reunite them on a given point in twenty-four hours—and so forth.

Very valuable rules of conduct, no doubt, but so trite and common-place, that the reader must at once conclude St. Arnaud to have been, in the eyes of his master, the greatest dunce and ignoramus in the world. After this, the instructions wind up with:

"You have my entire confidence, Marshal. Go, for I am certain that, under your experienced leadership, the French eagles will earn new glory!"

As to the main point, the Crimean Expedition, Mr. Bonaparte confesses that it was certainly a favorite idea with him, and that at a later period he sent another batch of instructions to St. Arnaud respecting it. But he denies having elaborated the plan in its details, and sent it to headquarters; according to him the Generals still had the choice of landing near Odessa. As a proof of this, a passage from his fresh instructions is given. In it he proposes a landing at Theodosia (Kaffa), on account of its offering a safe and capacious anchorage to the fleets, which must form the base of operations of the army. What a base of operations is he had explained to St. Arnaud in his first instructions, in terms which leave no doubt that the illustrious Marshal was supposed never to have read any standard work whatever upon his profession. From this point—Kaffa—the army was to march upon Sympheropol, drive the Russians into Sevastopol, before the walls of which a battle would probably be fought, and, finally, to besiege Sevastopol. "Unfortunately" this "plan was not followed up by the allied generals"—a circumstance very fortunate for the Emperor, as it allows of his shuffling off the responsibility of the whole affair, and leaving it on the shoulders of the generals.

The plan of landing 60,000 men at Kaffa and marching thence upon Sevastopol is indeed original. Taking as a general rule that the offensive strength of an army in an enemy's country decreases in the same ratio as its distance from its base of operations increases, how many men would the Allies have brought to Sevastopol after a march of more than 120 miles? How many men were to be left at Kaffa? How many to hold and fortify intermediate points? How many to protect convoys, and to scour the country? Not 20,000 men could have been collected under the walls of a fortress requiring three times that number barely to invest it. If Louis Napoleon ever goes to the war himself, and conducts it upon this principle, he may as well order quarters at Mivart's Hotel, London, at once, for he will never see Paris again.

As to the safety of the anchorage at Kaffa, every mariner in the Black Sea knows, and every chart shows that it is an open roadstead, with shelter against northerly and westerly winds alone, while the most dangerous storms in the Black Sea are from the south and south-west. Of this the storm of the 14th of November is an instance. Had the fleets then been at Kaffa they would have been driven upon a lee-shore. In this way our hero clears himself from the responsibility thrown upon him by his cousin; but it would never do to sacrifice Raglan and Canrobert. Accordingly, to show the cleverness of the said Generals, a very decent sketch is given of siege-operations according to Vauban—a sketch which, from the total ignorance of the subject it supposes in the reader, might have been written for the benefit of Marshal St. Arnaud. This sketch, however, but serves to show how Sevastopol was not to be taken, for it winds up with the assertion that all these rules were inapplicable to Sevastopol. For instance,

"in a common siege where one front is attacked, the length of the last parallel would be about 300 yards, and the whole length of trenches would not exceed 8,000 yards; here the extent of parallel is 3,000 yards, and the whole linear length of all the trenches is 41,000 yards."

This is all true enough, but the question here is why has this enormous extent of attack been adopted, when every circumstance called for the greatest possible concentration of fire upon one or two determined points? The answer is:

"Sevastopol is not like any other fortress. It has but a shallow ditch, no masonry scarps, and these defenses are replaced by abattis and palisades; thus our fire could make but little impression on the earth breastwork."

If this was not written for St. Arnaud, it is surely written for the French peasantry alone. Every sub-lieutenant in the French army must laugh at such nonsense. Palisades, unless at the bottom of a ditch, or at least out of the sight of the enemy, are very soon knocked over by shot and shell. Abattis may be set on fire, and must be at the foot of the glacis, about 60 or 80 yards from the breastwork, else they would obstruct the fire of the guns. Moreover, these abattis must be large trees laid on the ground, the pointed branches toward the enemy, and the whole firmly connected together; but where such trees could have come from, in a woodless country like the Crimea, the Moniteur does not say. The absence of masonry scarps has nothing to do with the protracted siege, for according to the description in the Moniteur itself., they only come into play when the breaching batteries have been established on the top of the glacis—a position from which the Allies are yet far distant. That palisades are an improvement upon masonry scarps, is certainly new; for these wooden ramparts can be very easily destroyed by enfilading fire, even at the bottom of the ditch; and thus they allow of an assault as soon as the defending guns are silenced.

In conclusion, we are told by this new military authority, that all the facts show that the allied generals have done what they could—have done more than, under the circumstances, could have been expected from them—and have, indeed, covered themselves with glory. If they could not properly invest Sevastopol—if they could not drive away the Russian army of observation if they are not yet in the place—why, it is because they are not strong enough. This is also true: but who is responsible for this greatest of all faults? Who but Louis Bonaparte! Such is the final conclusion which the whole French public must inevitably draw from this wordy, round-about, shuffling, and ridiculous explanation of their Emperor.