Progress of the War

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This is an enlarged version of an article published under the same heading in the New-York Daily Tribune and the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune (see this volume, pp. 563-67, and Note S82). It shows clear signs of editorial interference. This applies especially to the passages which do not occur in the Daily or Semi-Weekly Tribune (the details of the capture of Kinburn by the Allies on October 17, 1855). In all probability, the editors added the second passage on the fighting at Kinburn during the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-91 (on which see Note 384) and the part played in it by Rear-Admiral Paul Jones, a veteran of the American War of Independence (1774-83).

The news from the war is abundant. We have the official accounts of the cavalry action at Kurulu, near Eupatoria, before reported — the intelligence of an unsuccessful assault of the Russians on Kars, of the destruction by the Allies of Taman and Phanagoria, and of the capture of Kinburn at the mouth of the Dnieper.

The cavalry action near Eupatoria was fought by twelve French squadrons (fourth hussars, sixth and seventh dragoons). According to Gen. d’Allonville’s report, which is plain and intelligible, the French and Turks made an extensive reconnaissance toward the interior on three different roads—one to the south and two to the north of Lake Sasik. The two latter columns met at a village called Dolshak, where they discovered the approach of the Russian cavalry. Here the reports begin to disagree. Gen. d’Allonville maintains that eighteen squadrons of Russians—while the French were dismounted, baiting their horses—tried to turn them by the south and cut off their retreat to Eupatoria; that he then ordered his men to mount, fell upon the flank of the Russians, routed and pursued them for two leagues. Gorchakoff says that the Russians were only one regiment (eighteenth lancers) or eight squadrons; that they were surprised by the French after having dismounted in order to unlimber a battery of artillery, and that under these circumstances they had to run for their lives. He makes Gen. Korff responsible for this mistake. Now what business a whole regiment of lancers had to dismount and assist in unlimbering a

battery of eight guns, and how it was that the gunners, whose business it was to do this work, were not at hand, we are left to guess for ourselves. The whole report of Gorchakoff is so confused, so unmilitary, so impregnated with the desire to palliate this first cavalry disaster, that it is impossible to treat it as a serious statement of facts. At the same time we see Gen. Korff made responsible for this defeat, as Selvan was made responsible for Silistria, Soimonoff for Inkermann, Read for the Chernaya. Gorchakoff, though defeated in every action, is still invincible. It is not he who is beaten, far from it; it is some unlucky subaltern who upsets the general’s wise plans by some clumsy mistake, and who generally gets killed in action in punishment for this crime. In this instance, however, the blunderer is unfortunate enough to preserve his life. Perhaps he may, hereafter, have something to say to Gorchakoff’s dispatch. In the mean time he has the satisfaction that his opponent represents him in a far better light than his infallible commander-in-chief does. Since then, the British light cavalry division has been sent to Eupatoria to reenforce the French.

The defeat of the Russians before Kars will very probably prove to be the crowning event of the campaign in Armenia. The Turks, badly organized and short of every requisite, had played but a poor part in this portion of the seat of war. Unable to hold the field, they confined themselves to the occupation of Kars, Erzeroum and the country immediately under the command of these fortresses. Gen. Williams, who had entered the Turkish service, commanded at Kars and superintended the construction of proper defensive works. For the greater part of the Summer the whole campaign on either side was confined to skirmishes, forays and foraging expeditions in the hill country; the general and first result of which was that the Russians, gradually gaining ground, succeeded in blockading Kars and even in cutting off its communications with Erzeroum. Kars is situated in a lateral valley of the Upper Araxes; Erzeroum at the sources of the Euphrates; Batoum on the mouth of the Churuk Su (Bathys), the upper course of which passes near both to Kars and to Erzeroum, so that one of the roads between these two places follows the basin of the Churuk Su as far as Olti, whence it strikes off across the hills toward Kars. Olti was, therefore, the central point for the Turks, as a road from Batoum there joins the one mentioned above; and Batoum was the place from which the nearest and strongest reenforcements were to be expected. Had the Russians succeeded in taking Kars, their first step would have been to establish themselves at Olti, thereby cutting off Erzeroum from its nearest and best communication with the Black Sea and Constantinople. The Turks, however, were so dispirited that they retired as far as Erzeroum, merely occupying the mountain pass between the Upper Euphrates and the sources of the Araxes, while Olti was all but completely neglected.

At last, when Kars was more closely hemmed in, they attempted to form a convoy of provisions at Olti, and with a strong escort to force an entrance into Kars. Part of the cavalry from Kars, having been sent away, as it was useless there, actually fought its way through the Russians as far as Olti, and the convoy started shortly afterward; but this time the Russians were better on the alert—the Turks were completely defeated, and the convoy was captured by the Russians. Kars, in the mean time, began to run short of provisions; Omer Pasha was, indeed, sent to take the command in Asia and to organize at Batoum an army fit to act in the field; but this creation of a new army takes a deal of time, and a march direct to the relief of Kars by Olti would not have been the best course he could take, as Kars might any day be compelled to surrender from want of provisions before relief could arrive.

In this difficult position the Turks stood at the end of September; Kars was considered as good as lost, and the Russians were sure, by merely blockading the town, to starve it out. But the Russians themselves appear not to have been willing to wait until the last flour was baked and the last horse cooked in Kars. Whether from the fear of approaching Winter, the state of the roads, shortness of provisions, superior orders, or the fear of Omer Pasha’s relieving corps, they at once made up their minds to act vigorously. Siege-guns arrived from Alexandropol, a fortress on the frontier but a few leagues from Kars, and after a few days of open trenches and cannonading, Kars was assaulted by the concentrated main body of the Russian army under Muravieff. The combat was desperate, and lasted eight hours. The Bashibazouks and foot irregulars, who had so often run before the Russians in the field, here fought on more congenial ground. Though the attacking forces must have been from four to six times more numerous than the garrison, yet all attempts to get into the place were in vain. The Turks had here at last recovered their courage and intelligence. Though the Russians more than once succeeded in entering the Turkish batteries (very likely lunettes open at the gorge, so as to be commanded by the fire of the second line of defense), they could no where establish themselves. Their loss is said to have been immense; four thousand killed are stated to have been buried by the Turks; but before crediting this we must have more detailed and precise information.

The capture of Kinburn was effected by the same fleet which made a demonstration before Odessa, whence, however, they sailed away without firing a shot, on their real errand, which was the reduction of Kinburn. This place is situated near the extremity of a tongue of land which on the south incloses the estuary of the Dnieper and Bug. At this point, the estuary is about three miles wide; a bar with fifteen feet of water (according to the Russian charts) hinders its entrance. On the north side of this entrance is situated Otshakoff, on the south side of Kinburn. Both these places first came into notoriety during the Russo-Turkish campaign of 1787, when the Bug formed the frontier of the two empires, and consequently Otshakoff belonged to the Turks and Kinburn to the Russians. At that time, Suvaroff commanded the left wing of the Russian army (under Potemkin), and was stationed at Kinburn. The Turks, then masters of the Black Sea, crossed over from Otshakoff. They first made a diversion by landing behind the town of Kinburn, to the south-east; but when they saw that Suvaroff was not to be led astray by this false maneuver, they landed with their main body at the north-western extremity of the spit, exactly opposite Otshakoff. Here they intrenched themselves, and attacked the fortress; but Suvaroff sallied forth with a far inferior number of men, engaged them, and, with the help of reenforcements, drove them into the sea. Their loss was enormous. Suvaroff himself, however, was wounded during this action, which was followed up in the following year, 1788, by the storming of Otshakoff.

The few details yet known respecting the taking of Kinburn confirm the experience of former episodes in this war, while they again tend to prove the intentional incorrectness of the Russian charts. On all their best charts there is no water of sufficient depth for ships-of-the-line or heavy frigates to be found anywhere within some miles of Kinburn. Yet when the allied fleets sent out gun-boats to take soundings within easy range of Kinburn, they found fully four and a half fathoms at sixteen hundred yards from the walls—at least, so it appears—on the north side within the estuary. Nine heavy steam-frigates could approach to that distance and shell the place; and while the mortar-boats did the same from much nearer stations, the gun-boats enfiladed the faces of the bastions, and the floating batteries—which must have approached to some six hundred or seven hundred yards, if not closer—succeeded in making several breaches in the sea-walls.

What the precise nature of the defenses of Kinburn was, we cannot as yet make out very distinctly. The small town stretching right across the narrow spit was defended by a sort of continuous rampart of masonry, something like a bastioned pentagon or square, with guns firing on barbette, or through masonry embrasures. The guns for the most part stood uncovered, but on the points where their fire was to act with the greatest force there were two tiers, the lower one casemated, the upper one firing through masonry embrasures in a wall erected on the flat roof of the casemates. As at Bomarsund, the masonry, as soon as it was acted upon by a vastly superior fire from the ships, crumbled away, and three breaches, it appears, were formed by the floating batteries in from six to eight hours. This is explained by the very small number of guns in the fortress, of which there were only seventy; and, as the attack could be expected from any side, every front of the fortress had to be armed, so that against the main attack no more than from sixteen to twenty guns could be brought to bear. That their fire should soon have been silenced by the vertical fire of the mortar-boats, the enfilading shots of the gun-boats, the shell-storm of the steam-frigates, and the breaching front fire of the floating batteries, bringing into action at least eight to tenfold their number of guns, is not to be wondered at. And as the day was exceedingly calm, the fire from the floating batteries was as steady as it would have been from any shore battery; it therefore could really act as breaching fire. These unwieldy, floating masses, helpless and useless as soon as the least amount of swell destroys their steadiness, must necessarily be able to do great execution in perfectly calm weather, and in situations where the large vessels can approach within range and thereby draw upon themselves the principal fire of the enemy. Such favorable circumstances, however, occur but seldom; and where fortresses like Kronstadt, Sweaborg, or the sea-forts of Sevastopol, were the objects of their attack, the floating batteries would prove more cumbersome than useful. Thus on the whole, the affair at Kinburn cannot be said to have proved anything in favor of these clumsy sea-monsters.

The allied troops who landed to the south-east of Kinburn must have amounted to a couple of thousand: for of the English alone there were six battalions on board the fleet numbering, with artillery, nearly four thousand men, of which but a portion, however, was landed; while the French had another brigade on board their ships. The part taken by the troops in this action was very inconsiderable; they sent skirmishers and field guns against the place, but as there was a broad wet ditch in front of it, the Russians appear to have treated this impotent demonstration with sovereign contempt, not even opening a heavy fire on them, for we do not hear that the allied troops lost anything to speak of. It was the overwhelming fire of the fleets alone which forced the place to surrender, and as soon as its guns had been silenced, the fleets offered a capitulation, which was accepted. The garrison marched out with the honors of war and surrendered themselves prisoners. Then it was found that the whole force in the fortress consisted of thirteen hundred or fourteen hundred men; and this at once proves what sort of a fortress Kinburn was. In bastioned fortresses, especially small ones, it is generally considered that one weak battalion, or from five hundred to six hundred men, is required for every bastion; a bastioned square, the smallest fortification possible in the bastioned system, requiring from two thousand to two thousand five hundred men for its defense. Here a little over one-half of that number only were present, and yet they had to defend not only plain ramparts, but also to serve the guns in the casemates. Thus, either the fortifications, then, must have been very insignificant indeed, or else very weakly defended; and in either case, the success of the allied fleets before Kinburn does not in any way affect the generally adopted opinion that one gun ashore, well sheltered behind earth ramparts, is worth more than six on board ship coming to attack it.

The entrance to the estuary of the Dnieper once having been forced by the Allies, and the pretended existence of a bar of great shallowness at that point having been proved to be a mere Russian stratagem, the whole estuary is opened to the action of the French and English fleets. The interior of the estuary is known to have a great depth of water, at least in the central channel, though nearer to the shores it abounds in sand-banks, none of which, however, are formidable to gun-boats and other light vessels. Thus Otshakoff, Glubokoye and other points on the shores of the estuary are exposed to the attacks of the Allies and very likely will have to suffer from them.

That the entrance to the estuary is not the shallow channel indicated on the charts, the allied admirals might have inferred from the history of the campaign of 1788. And here we may be allowed to refer again to that campaign, not only because it gives us a clear insight into what the nature of this estuary is with reference to naval warfare, but also because it was then the scene of some of the exploits of our Revolutionary hero, Paul Jones.

At that time, Kinburn and the south shore were held by the Russians, and Otshakoff and the north shore, by the Turks. The Russians had a fleet at Glubokoye, between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Bug; its sailing vessels of deep draught were commanded by Rear-Admiral Paul Jones, and consisted of five ships of the line of eighty guns, and eight frigates, while the rowing flotilla of sixty-five light vessels was under the orders of the Prince of Nassau-Siegen. The Turks had about Otshakoff, under Hassan-Pasha, ten ships of the line, six frigates and fifty-three vessels of light draught. A second Turkish fleet of eight sail of the line, eight frigates, and twenty-four smaller sail was cruising in the offing. After a few preliminary engagements, Hassan-Pasha, on the 27th of June, entered the estuary with the whole of his first fleet, sailed up as far as Glubokoye (thus proving that ships of the line, with their full armament on board, could come up so far), and formed in order of battle, the large vessels in the first line. The Russians, on the contrary, covered their liners and frigates with the row-boats. On the morning of the 28th the battle began. The Turkish line advanced, and soon came up within range of the Russian liners. Within an hour a Turkish ship of seventy guns was aground; the admiral’s flag-ship, carrying eighty guns, was ashore a few moments after. Two frigates of forty guns went to succor them, but one of them struck on a shoal almost immediately; while Paul Jones’s large vessels kept the remainder of the Turkish vessels engaged, the row-boats closed up with the stranded vessels, boarded and set fire to them. The remainder of the Turkish fleet soon retired in no enviable state; but still their large ships made such a bold front that their retreat was pretty nearly unmolested by the Russian gun-boats and galleys.

But the measure of their disaster was not yet filled. HassanPasha, having collected the remains of his fleet at Otshakoff, resolved to join the fleet cruising in the Black Sea, and to effect this, he had to pass round the point of the Kinburn spit. Here Suvaroff, who commanded in the peninsula, had constructed a masked battery of twenty-four guns; and when the Turks, on the night of the 30th of June, 1788, attempted to double that cape, the battery opened upon them with great effect. Before daybreak, the fire of the Russians, favored by a bright moonlight, had brought the Turkish fleet into great distress, whose ships had to pass one after the other through the narrow channel, and were all the while within easy range of the battery. Several vessels got ashore, others showed signals of distress, some went down or were in flames; and as day broke the Russian fleet bore down upon them. Paul Jones very wisely kept his large ships back, as there was no room for them to maneuver; and indeed the liner Vladimir, venturing too much forward, was lost on a shoal. But the rowing flotilla closed with the Turks, and destroyed a great many of their ships, so that before noon the whole action was at an end. Three sail of the line, five frigates, and seventeen smaller sail were destroyed, and one liner and two frigates were taken by the Russians. Of the two sail of the line which were saved by the Turks, one went down before it could reach Constantinople, and a frigate sank as soon as she had reached the island of Poresan. A portion of the Turkish fleet sought shelter under the guns of Otshakoff, but even here Prince Nassau-Siegen attacked and destroyed them on the 1st and 2d August.

This campaign shows clearly what sort of a naval battle-field the Dnieper estuary is. The smaller sort of ships of the line, or at least the large fifty and sixty gun frigates, can enter it; but whether they will be able to maneuver in it with any degree of safety, though they be propelled by steam, remains doubtful. But that corvettes, sloops and vessels of lighter draught, especially steamers, can easily maneuver in these waters, while the larger vessels may serve, when once moored, as stationary batteries, there is not the slightest doubt whatever. And with the means of naval warfare now in the possession of the Allies, with due activity they should be able to scour the estuary from Otshakoff to the mouth of the Dnieper and the Bug.

But it is not only with a view to naval operations alone that the possession of this place is of great importance to the Allies. It gives them an unassailable position on the peninsula between the Dnieper and the Crimea; a position commanding the entrance of the estuary of that river and menacing at the same time the communications between Perekop and Kherson. There is a rumor mentioned in the Vienna papers that the Allies had landed thirty thousand men on the spit of Tendra, a long, narrow island stretching within a few miles distance along the southern shore of the peninsula of Kinburn. If the fact of the landing be true, the numbers are evidently exaggerated. But if even a small body only of the allied troops had occupied this spit, it would show their intention of establishing themselves on the peninsula, and of seriously menacing the Russian lines of communications. They might from this position prove as troublesome to Russian convoys as the corps of Gens. d’Allonville and Paget, from Eupatoria, might to the convoys coming down from Perekop to Sympheropol. They might even, by rapidly concentrating a strong force on this peninsula, make a dash at Kherson, and burn everything with the exception of the small citadel—unless, indeed, the Russians have fortified that town too, and can spare a strong garrison to defend it. Anyhow, Kinburn and the long, flat sandy islands along the shore of the gulf leading to Perekop, form a series of positions which the Allies can easily hold with small bodies of troops, and each of which they can turn at any moment into a base for ulterior and rapid operation. The Russians may thus be obliged, by a few battalions, to disseminate a great number of their troops in order to secure most important points from sudden irruptions; and so long as the allied fleets hold command of the sea, these newly gained possessions cannot be attacked by any Russian land force.