Page 237 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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ActA
and naval bombs between September 05 and 08. The allied attacks under that intense
gunfire support could succeed only in Malakoff bastion area and this important bastion
was seized by French General Mac Mahon. 33
Tolstoy was assigned as the head of a five-cannon battery during the attack on the
city, and he was among the last defenders crossing the floating bridge. He just reached
the age of 27 that day but the scene in front of his eyes was very tragic. He would later
write the following lines: “I cried when I saw the city in flames, with French flags over
our bastions.”
While the Allied armies entered Sevastopol on September 12, the Tsar wrote to
Gorchakov, the Commander-in-Chief, on September 14 as follows: “Remember 1812”.
“Sevastopol is not Moscow, and Crimea is not Russia. Two years after the burning of
Moscow, our victorious troops were in Paris. We are still the same Russians and God is
with us.”
In order to have an upper hand in the negotiations following the fall of Sevastopol,
Tsar Alexander increased his influence on Kars, which was a Turkish border city. The
34
seizure of Kars would threaten the British interests on the route to India.
35*
Thus, in June 1855, when Russians began to besiege Kars , allied powers initiated
several efforts to rescue Kars. However, they did not want to start a military operation
except for reaching a final end in Sevastopol. After achieving a success in Sevastopol,
the Allies allowed for a land operation towards inner Georgia.
It is a reality that Commander-in-chief Marshal Omer Lutfi Pasha could hardly start
the operation on Georgia with an approximately two-month delay. Although the operation
on Georgia that had started with the arrival of Omer Pasha in Sohumkale [Sukhumi] on
03 October 1855 reached the shores of At (Çanışkal) river following the victory in Ingur
Battle, a continuously rainy and snowy weather prevented any further advance, and in
the end, Omer Pasha had to give the order for withdrawal. If this operation had been
conducted on time and not hindered by the delays of the allied states, it could have
reached its aim easily. However, the greatest strategic action of the Crimean War ended
in failure due to the “foolish” stance of the allied powers, as in the words of General
36
Fadayev.
The Castle of Kars, which was defended by a Polish unit, Italian troops and many
Hungarian engineers who had revolted against Austria between 1848-1849, was
surrendered to the Russians on 28 November 1855.
37
It is known that numerous generals and officers both from the Turkish and the Russian
side lost their lives in the Crimean War. Likewise, Marshal Musa Pasha fell martyr

33 1853-1856 Kırım Harbi’nde 3ncü Ordu, 3rd Army Command Publications, February 1991, Erzincan.
34 Orlando Figes, pp. 401-406.
35 The siege of Kars, which took place in the second half of 1855 and which was considered among the most
significant sieges in the world, was examined in the article of Karl Marx in New York Daily Tribune dated 08
April 1856.
36 Mustafa Budak, 1853-1856 Kırım Savaşı’nda Kafkas Cephesi, Doctoral Thesis, Istanbul, 1993, pp.188-195.
37 Enver Güney, Atlas Tarih, “160.Yılında Kırım Savaşı-Ruslar Neden Kars’ın Peşinde”, Dogan Yayincilik,
Istanbul, Issue 20, June-July 2013, pp. 80-81.