Loudon free press. (Loudon, Tenn.) 1852-1855, 1854-04-11
From the y. Y. Tribune.
THE RUSSIAN RETREAT.

The Russians have r5treated from kaleIat;
and have, it is stated entirely remodeled their
plan Of operations This is the glorious end of
the alforts and risk of three months cam
/ paign, during which the last resources Of Wal
achia have been completely exhausted. This
/ is the fruit Of that inconcivabe march into Les
/ ser Wallachia, which appeared TO have been
undertaken IN utter contempt OF the simplest
rules of strategy. In order to take Kalafat,
simple bridge head held by the Turks on the
! left bank of the Danube, the mass of the Rus
/ sian army was concentrated on its extreme
/ right, in a position where the weakened cen
! tire and left appeared completely abandoned
to any attack that the enemy might chance to
! undertake, and where 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 profted y this blunder, we have AZ
ready had occasion to show. How 1t IS that,
after ell, the Russians have to retreat disgrace
fully without having effected stheir- -pETa acse, I've
shall now demonstrate. We say they have to
retreat disgracefully because an advance pre-
/ ceeded by clustering, crowned by taking up
merely thl eatening position, and ending in
quiet and modest retreat, without even an at
/ tempt at serious fghting-because move
ment composed of an uninterrupted series OF
/ 1nlSLdhCS anu GAlOAsf lSoUAIli'S III bue
/ the Generals conviction that he has made
! complete fool of himself-is in the highest de
| gree dscraceful. Now to the state of the case.
| The Russians had, by the end of 1853, the
| following troops in Wallachia, Moldavia and
| Bessarabia:
l. 4th army-corps, (Dannenberg,) 3 divisions
! infnatry division cavalry, brigades artillery;
| total otter deducting losses. 1900 men.
| 3 OF the 5th corps, (Luders,) division of
infantry, division cavalry brigades artillery,
| say $4,000 men.
! ,. Sd corps, (Osten Sacken,) 5 divisions in
/ fantry, division cavalry, brigades artillery,
! say $1,000 men.
| Total about $4,000 men, besides non COM
| batants and one division Of Lader's corps in the
/ neighborho0d ofOdessa which, being wanted
/ for garrison duty, cannot be taken into the ac-
/ count.
! The troops under Dannenberg and Luders
were the ouly forces III the PrincpaEties up to
/ the beginning Of December. The approach Of
/ Osten-Sackcn's corps was to be the signal for
the concentration and the attack on Kalafat-
His place en- the Bug and the Pruth was to be
filed by the Sixth Corps, (Tsheodaeff) then
on the road from Moscow. After the junction
Of this latter corps the Danubian army would
/ have consisted of about 70,O9J men, but might
have turned out to be stronger if the new levies
of recruits from the theatre of war. However,
/ Il5,GG0 to 10000 men appeared TO the Rus
! sian Commander a sufficient force to defend
the whole line of the Danube from BrailOw to
! NicOpOls and to spare a sufficient number
! from the extreme right to be concentrated for
an attack on kalafat. When this movement
! was commenced, t0.salt The end of Dec, Kale-
| fat could hardly shelter more than 10000 TO
/ 10000 defenders, with 5000 more at Widdin,
whose support might be considered dubious,
as they would have to cross violent river In
! bad season. The slowHesS Of the Russian
! movenaents, however. the indecison Of Prince
| Gorcha6olf, and above all, the activity and
boldness Of Ismael Pasha, the commander at
Kalatat, permitted the Turks to concentrate
some forty thousand men on the menaced point,
and to change kalafat from a simple bridge
| head, stormable by force the double of its
! defenders, into fertilization which could shell
! ter at least 1000 men, and withstand any but
a regular seige attack. 1t has been Justly said
that the highest triumph in the construction of
field fortifcation is the necessity for the enc
my to open his trenches against it; if the Rus
slams 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 lis
camp at Bunzelwitz, with the lines of Torres
! Fedras and with the Archduke Charles's en-
renchments behind Verona, as one of those
efforts of field fertilization to be named as clas-
| sical applications Of the art in warlike history
Now let us look at the Russian means of at
tack. That they meut in good earnest to take
Kalatat is shown by their parks Of field artillery
having been brought forward as far as Kariova.
That Omer Pasha, we may state by the way,
allowed these guns to 20 and return freely, is
one Of the many military inconceiveablities of
the war to be explained only by diplomatic
influence. The only thing necessary, then, for
the Russians was sufficient mass of troops to
drive in the Turks to protect trenches and
batteries, and to storm the breaches as soon as
they could be opened. Here again Ismeal Pa.
sha acted like an energetic and clever comman-
der. His sally towards Tshetate on the 9th OF
January, his vigorous attack ending in the
defeat of a superior Russian force and the
continued attacks of similar nature which
executed while the Russian concentration was
still going on, until he was fairly blockaded
on his small Danubian peninsula: by supe-
rior force-in short, his system of defending
himself by concentrating offensive blows a
gainst simple points Of the Russian line, and
thereby destroying his enemy as far as be could
in detail, was exactly what q commander under
his circumstances should have done, and forms
a cheering contrast with Omer Pasha's previ- !
Gus defence at Ohenitza, 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 of
at the proper moment, but continued for days |
and days on the same point with blind ohStl--
macy, even when no result could be expected !
from them-these petty attacks do not count |
when movement across the Danube with forty |
to sixty thousand men was what was wanted.
After all, the Russians completed, by the lat .
ter end of January, their concentration around
Kalefa.. They were evidently superior in the
open field, and must therefore have had there
some 10000 or 10000 men. Now, deduct
these from 5000 and then deduct, say 10000 I
or $4,000 men more for the defence of the line
from Brailow to the sea, and there remained for
the whole Of Greater Wallachia. inclusive OF
garrisons, from $4,000 to G5,O0O men--an army
far from sufficient to defend such long line
Of attack and line Of communication run
ming parallel acih tie line Of attack at a short
distance behind it. A vigorous assault on any
point, even with force inferior to the whole of
these $1,000 men, could not but have ended In
the utter defeat in detail Of all these dispers-
ed Russian corps, and in the capture of ali the
Il D