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Re: Turkish Infantry, paint guide

I am not worthy my friend.

but look here paint guide

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?num=0&parent_id=245307&word=&snum=&s=¬word=&d=&c=&f=&k=0&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&imgs=12&pNum=

Re: Re: Turkish Infantry, paint guide

Good work Hank dude. Was Kalafat part of the Crimean War? The reason I'm asking is I thought the Crimea didn't start till 1854.

Re: Re: Re: Turkish Infantry, paint guide

you know well, like Americans think WAR 2/ww2 started in 1943. war1 /ww1 etc brittain france allied had been fighting since 1939/1914 .....

crimean war was really another russo turk war but allied intervention called it crimean war.similar to the russians "great patriotic war" differs from there opponents and allied name.Just as Waterloo and La Belle Alliance..

1853 The Turks attacked russians on danube ,Kalafat one of those victorys ,against odds .SlistrA perhaps better known ,many other ones also.

more soon

Re: Re: Re: Re: Turkish Infantry, paint guide

Thanks Hank, looking forward to more info

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Turkish Infantry, paint guide

I agree, both interesting question and interesting answer. Thanks to both of you. As for me, someone "not in the know" of the CW history, I enjoy learning about it via your Q&A's on the forum.

Thanks

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Turkey Russia clashes 1853

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
http://marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME0799en.html


It is now very near a twelvemonth since a small Turkish corps, two battalions, succeeded in crossing the Danube near Turtukai, opposite Oltenitza, threw up intrenchments there, and being attacked by the Russians, repulsed them in a very spirited little affair, which, being the first engagement in the war, took the style and title of the Battle of Oltenitza. There the Turks alone were opposed to the Russians; they had no British or French troops behind them as a reserve, and could not even expect any support from the allied fleets. And yet they held their ground on the Wallachian side of the river for a fortnight at Oltenitza, and for the whole winter at KALAFAT.

Since then, England and France have declared war against Russia; sundry exploits, of a doubtful nature it is true, have been achieved. Black Sea fleets, Baltic fleets, and an army of now nearly a hundred thousand English and French soldiers are there to assist the Turks or to make diversions in their favor. And the upshot of all this is nothing but a repetition of the Oltenitza business on a larger scale, but rather less successfully than last year.

The Russians laid siege to Silistria. They went about it stupidly but bravely. They were defeated day after day, night after night; not by superior science, not by Captain Butler or Lieutenant Nasmyth, the two British officers present who, according to The Times, saved Silistria . They were defeated by the ignorance of the Turks, an ignorance extending so far as not to know when a fort or rampart ceases to be tenable, and sticking doggedly to every inch of ground, every molehill which the enemy appears to covet. They were defeated, besides, by the stolidity of their own Generals, by fever and cholera; finally by the moral effect of an allied army menacing their left, and an Austrian army menacing their right wing. When the war began, we stated that the Russian army had never been able to lay a regular siege, and the ill-managed operations before Silistria show that they have not improved since. Well, they were defeated; they had to decamp in the most discreditable way imaginable; they had to raise the siege of an incomplete fortress in the midst of a fine season, and without any troops coming to relieve the garrison. Such an event occurs not more than once in a century; and whatever the Russians may try to do in the autumn, the campaign is lost, disgracefully lost for them.

But now for the reverse of the medal. Silistria is free. The Russians retreat to the left bank of the Danube. They even prepare for, and gradually execute the evacuation of the Dobrodja. Hirsova and Matchin are dismantled. The Sereth seems to be the line to which the Russians trust for the defense, not of their conquests, but of their own territory. Omer Pasha, the wily old Croat, who can hold his tongue or tell a lie as well as anybody, "in the execution of his duty," at once sends a corps to the Dobrodja and another to Rustchuk, thus engaging the two wings of the Russians at once. There were far better maneuvers possible at the time, but poor old Omer appears to know the Turks and the allies better than we do. The correct military move to be made would have been to march through the Dobrodja or by Kalarash upon the communications of the enemy; but after what we have seen, we cannot even accuse Omer of having missed a good opportunity. We know that his army is very badly cared for—provided with almost nothing—and cannot, therefore, execute rapid movements which would remove it to a distance from its base, or open up fresh lines of operation. These movements, decisive as they are in their effect, when undertaken by a sufficient force, are not within the reach of an army which lives from hand to mouth, and has to pass through a barren country. We know that Omer Pasha went to Varna, imploring the aid of the allied generals, who at that time had 75,000 capital soldiers there, within four days' march of the Danube; but neither St. Arnaud nor Raglan thought proper to come up to where they could meet the enemy. Thus Omer could do no more than he has done. He sent 25,000 men toward the Dobrodja, and marched with the rest of his army to Rustchuk. Here his troops passed from island to island until the Danube was crossed, and then, by a sudden march to the left, took Giurgevo in the rear, and forced the Russians to quit it. On the next day the Russians were drawn up on some hights to the north of Giurgevo, where the Turks attacked them. A sanguinary battle ensued, remarkable for the number of English officers who, with rare success, competed for the honor of being shot first. They all got their bullets, but with no benefit to anybody, for it would be preposterous to think that the sight of a British officer being shot could inflame a Turkish soldier to invincibility. However, the Russians having a mere advanced guard on the spot—a brigade, the two regiments of Kolyvan and Tomsk—got beaten, and the Turks made good their footing on the Wallachian bank of the Danube. They at once set about fortifying the place, and as they had British sappers, and as at Kalafat they did very well for themselves, there is no doubt that they were making a formidable position of it. But thus far they were allowed to go, and no further. That Emperor of Austria who now for eight months has been trying hard to act the part of an independent man, steps in at once. The Principalities have been promised to his troops as a feeding ground, and he intends to have them. What business have the Turks there? Let them go back to Bulgaria. So down comes the order from Constantinople to withdraw the Turkish troops from the left bank, and to leave "all that plot of land" to the tender mercies of the Austrian soldiers. Diplomacy is above strategy. Whatever may. come of it, the Austrians will save their own frontiers by occupying a few yards of ground, beyond; and to this important end even the necessities of the war must give way. Besides, is not Omer Pasha an Austrian deserter? And Austria never forgets. In Montenegro she interrupted his victorious career; and she repeats the process again, to make the renegade feel that he is not yet out of the allegiance of his lawful sovereign.

Turkey Russia clashes 1853 Part II

Now to the state of the case.

The Russians had, by the end of 1853, the following troops in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bessarabia:

http://marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME1875en.html


1. 4th corps of the army (Dannenberg) three divisions infantry, one division cavalry, four brigades artillery total, after deducting losses, say 45,000 men.
2. Of the 5th corps (Lüders) one division infantry, one division cavalry, two brigades artillery say 15,000 men.

3. 3rd corps (Osten-Sacken) three divisions infantry, one division cavalry, four brigades artillery say 55,000 men.

Total about 115,000 men, besides non-combatants and one division of Lüders' corps in the neighbourhood of Odessa, which, being wanted for garrison duty, cannot be taken into account.

The troops under Dannenberg and Lüders were the only ones that had been in the Principalities up to the beginning of December. The approach of Osten-Sacken's corps was to be the signal for the grand concentration for the attack on Kalafat . His place, on the Bug and the Pruth, was to be filled up by the 6th corps (Cheodayeff), then on the road from Moscow. After the junction of this latter corps, the Danubian army would have consisted of about 170,000 men, but might have turned out to be stronger, if the new levies of recruits from the South Western provinces were at once directed to the theatre of war.

However, 115,000 to 120,000 men appeared to the Russian Commander a sufficient force to defend the whole line of the Danube from Braille to Nicopolis, and spare a sufficient number to be concentrated, from the extreme right, for an attack on Kalafat.

When this movement was commenced, towards the end of December, Kalafat could hardly harbour more than 10,000 to 12,000 defenders, with 8,000 more at Vidin, whose support might be considered dubious, as they had to cross an unruly river in a bad season. The slowness of the Russian movements, however, the indecision of Prince Gorchakoff, and above all the activity and boldness of Ismail Pasha, the commander at Kalafat, permitted the Turks to concentrate some 40,000 men on the menaced point, and to change Kalafat from a simple bridgehead stormable by a force double that of its defenders into a fortification which could shelter at least 30,000 men, and withstand any but a regular siege attack. It has been justly said that the highest triumph for the constructor of a field fortification is the necessity for the enemy to open his trenches against it; if the Russians did not actually open the trenches, it is merely because, even with that extreme means, they did see no way of taking Kalafat in the time they might set apart for the operation. Kalafat will henceforth rank with Frederick II's camp at Bunzelwitz, with the lines of Torres-Vedras, with the Archduke Charles' entrenchments behind Verona, as one of those efforts of field fortification that are named as classical applications of the art in warlike history.[64]

BRING THEM ON

Re: Turkey Russia clashes 1853 Part II

Thanks for the info Hank. Wow! a lot to take in. You are obviously into the Turks Hank. Are you of Turkish origin?

Re: Re: Turkey Russia clashes 1853 Part II

There is a pile more on those early battles along teh Danube River .The towns were repeatedly war zones in 1877 Russo Turk War and even WW2 same names all strageic places to ontrol teh river and coommuncitaions etc.Btw yes we are all Turks.