The Powers of Europe and Fall of Sebastopol

by A British officer

Engaged in all the struggles of the two parties during the most important period of their existence, the principal instrument of progress and of Young Turkey, he always regretted the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow-subjects. It was farthest from his wish to tinge it with blood, even to impose what was, if not the common desire, the common advantage, namely, the improvement of society in all its developments. But of these ill-omened seditions, Turkish subjects were the arms, while the head was invisible, and kept itself in security from his blows, beyond the frontiers.

Often, even far from the noise of arms, he baffled the plots of the insidious enemies of Turkey. The most enviable of his bloodless victories was the cause of Kossuth and the Hungarian refugees, whom he met at Shumla, whither he had purposely repaired. He espoused their cause before the Sultan and the ministers of the Porte. The Sultan’s sentiments regarding them were not less noble than his own; but his protection had for its object to neutralize the effect of foreign threats, lest, by the Sultan’s yielding to them, the cause of progress should be deprived of the most valuable accession of material and intellectual forces which the new-comers might confer on it. His wishes, owing especially to the intervention of the English fleet, were crowned with success, and he succeeded in taking many of them under his command. The immigration, indeed, of Italians, Hungarians, and Poles, has been no inconsiderable help to the progress of Turkey in late years. The popular sentiment hailed them, because they were the enemies of its enemies; and the accession of elements so free, so ardent, and enthusiastic for the cause that drew them to exile, added an immense and rapid impetus to the reform party. They caused no little uneasiness to Russia and Austria, who, in every negotiation with Turkey, even in the last question, always insisted on the banishment of the political refugees to Asia. Russia fears only civilized men, and therefore she must be met by civilization dressed up in its full armor. Turkish civilization would give her the greatest annoyance: not to thwart it by every possible means would be an eternal remorse; and not to succeed in crushing it in the bud would be followed by the bitterest regrets.

The internal contest has now disappeared before the external, and Omer Pacha beholds united under his banner both old and young Turkey.

Long and difficult was the line of country he had to defend along the Danube, but his preparations were well taken, and the Russians could scarcely have crossed at any point without encountering a well-served battery, and, had they even succeeded in penetrating to the Balkan, they would have found every height bristling with fortifications, every defile in the possession of an intrepid foe. The successes of the Russians in 1828–29 depended mainly upon causes which no longer exist. They had then the undisputed mastery of the Black Sea; the Turkish navy had just been annihilated; and the Mussulman army was wholly without organization. The reverse of this was now the case, and the battle of Oltenitza was an earnest of many reverses they were doomed subsequently to sustain.

The Ottoman general, alive to the impolicy of allowing Russian and Austrian intrigue free scope for action during the winter, and aware that his own men could not but become, to a great extent, demoralized by remaining for five months in sight of an arrogant foe, boldly determined to take the initiative, and to attempt, by force of arms, that which diplomacy had been unable to achieve.

Observing at a glance the immense importance of assuming a strong position before Kalafat (in Lesser Wallachia, opposite Widdin), whence he could effectually exclude the Russians from Servia, he adopted a plan for dividing simultaneously the attention and the forces of his adversary. While, therefore, a hostile division advanced, in Lesser Wallachia, upon Crajowa and Slatina, Omer Pacha prepared to land a large body of troops at Giurgevo, and a still larger detachment at Oltenitza. The attempt on Giurgevo, possibly intended only as a feint, was unsuccessful, but at Oltenitza the manœuvre was brilliantly accomplished.

Early on the morning of the 2d November, 1853, the Turks, to the number of 9000, crossed the Danube, between Turtukai and Oltenitza, a small village occupied by the Russians, who, as soon as they perceived the design of the Mussulmans, made a vigorous but futile resistance. Omer Pacha’s troops, eager for the fray, leaped from the boats, long before they touched the bank, fought hand to hand with their antagonists in the water, soon carried the quarantine building, and fortified it with fascines.

The precision with which these various movements were effected, sufficiently attested the presence of the Turkish commander-in-chief.

The Russian General Danenberg, having been informed of this movement by the Turks, arrived, to direct in person measures for driving them back into the Danube. Eleven thousand Russians, under the command of Pauloff, were accordingly hastily collected, and, early on the 4th November, they commenced their attack. A brisk cannonade took place for some time on both sides. The Turks, quitting their entrenchments, threw out swarms of sharpshooters, and compelled a hussar regiment to take shelter in the rear of the infantry. The sharpshooters then formed into battalions, made several smart bayonet charges, and reëntered their entrenchments.