| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 31 December 1857 |
ENGELS TO MARX[1]
IN LONDON
[Manchester,] 31 December 1857
Dear Moor,
I have searched the whole town for newspapers containing INDIAN NEWS, having sent you my Guardians on the subject the day before yesterday. I can't get hold of the relevant numbers, either from the Guardian itself or from the Examiner & Times, nor has Belfield any left. I thought you had already dealt with this affair on Tuesday. In the circumstances I cannot do the article,[2] which is
all the more vexing in that this is the first afternoon in 4 weeks on which I'd have been able to do it without having to neglect urgent business. In future, let me know as early as possible what your intentions are as to military articles; just now 24 hours makes quite a difference to me.
In any case, detailed information is so frightfully scarce, what there is being based almost wholly on telegraphic despatches from Cawnpore to Calcutta, that it's virtually impossible to write a critical analysis. The only points I can think of are these: It is 40 MILES from Cawnpore to Lucknow (Alam Bagh)—Havelock's forced marches show that in India 15 miles a day over a protracted period is a very long march. Accordingly, with only 2-3 marches ahead of him, Colin[3] ought to have arrived at Alam Bagh no later than the 3rd day after his departure from Cawnpore, WITH PLENTY OF DAYLIGHT STILL LEFT TO ATTACK AT ONCE. It is by these standards that Colin's march must be judged; I can no longer recall the dates. 2. He had, after all, some 7,000 men (far more had been counted on, so between Calcutta and Cawnpore the march must have gone atrociously badly and a great many men been lost) and if he beat the Oudhi with approximately 7,000 men (including the garrisons of Alam Bagh and Lucknow), it was no great feat. *An army of 5-7,000 Englishmen has always been thought fully sufficient to go anywhere and do anything in the open field in India. That stamps the opponents at once.* A further consideration is that the Oudhi, although the most warlike race of the Ganges valley, were greatly inferior to the Sepoys as regards discipline, cohesion, weapons, etc., etc., precisely because they had never come under direct European organisation. Hence the main battle took the form of *a running fight, that is to say a skirmishing engagement in which the Oudhians were pushed back from post to post. Now it is true the British are, with the Russians, the worst light infantry in Europe, but they have learnt something in the Crimea, and at all events they had this great advantage over the Oudhians that their line of skirmishers was properly and regularly supported by pickets and lines the whole under one individual commander and cooperating towards a single end; while their opponents in the normal Asiatic manner, dispersed in irregular clusters, everyone pressing to the front, thus offering a sixfold aim to the British, having no regular supports or reserves and each cluster com- manded by its own clannish chief, acting independently of every other clan. For it must be repeated, up to now we have not heard
in a single instance that any insurrectionary army in India had been properly constituted under a recognized chief.* No other indication as to the nature of the fighting is given in the despatches nor, for that matter, any description of the terrain or particulars about the employment of troops, so that it's absolutely impossible for me to say anything further (let alone from memory).
As to France, you are right IN EVERY PARTICULAR, so far as I can judge. There, too, things have taken a normal course up till now. Over here the affair is in its infancy so far as HOME TRADE is concerned; it is to this category that the two London houses in the Manchester TRADE belong. But that's only a beginning. This kind of firm can only become seriously embroiled when the pressure has lasted for 8-12 months. The course of the present crisis would seem to me to have more affinity with that of 1837-42 than with any other—if one disregards the splendid universality and all-embracing nature of the present one. Just now people here are deluding themselves into thinking that THE CRISIS IS OVER because the first phase, the monetary crisis with its immediate consequences, is over. AM fond[4] each individual bourgeois still believes that his particular branch of business, and notably his own business, has been THOROUGHLY SOUND and, being able to measure themselves aga- inst the STANDARD of such splendid swindlers as Monteith, Macdo- nald, etc., etc., they naturally imagine themselves to be uncom- monly virtuous. Nevertheless, this will not compensate Mr. Troost for losing 2/3 to 3/4 of his fortune on his 35,000 sacks of coffee, nor Mr SENATOR Merck for the fact that his shipments and other such operations to the tune of 22 million banco marks will eat up the whole of his capital. John Pondu, a Scot who has shot up here like a gigantic mushroom over the past 5 years, has, together with 5 others, 7,000 bales of silk in transit on which the loss will be £300,000. All this will not come to a head until March or April, and the tremendous efforts to push up prices on the commodity market will be frustrated at regular intervals as vessels arrive. It would seem that icy weather and east winds are at present preventing ships from arriving here. Should this continue for a week or a fortnight, the price of all produce will undoubtedly rise, only to fall all the more precipitously as soon as a west wind brings in an entire fleet. Voilà ce qui s'appelle l'offre et la demande en temps de crise.[5] STOCKS of cotton, too, are beginning to
pile up in Liverpool—400,000 bales by today's count, A RATHER MORE
THAN AVERAGE STOCK. There's still better to come and COTTON is sure to fall again in the spring; it has just risen i'l?d because de Jersey & Co.—a local firm which supplies almost the whole of the Russian market—having heard last week that their cancellation of all the orders they had placed in America had duly arrived—went and bought about 6,000 bales in Liverpool. That livened up the market, and any spinners who could afford to do so went in and bought something so as to supply their needs at the low prices. This alarmed, or rather put heart into, some other houses here and they, too, bought yarn and cloth so as to come in at the 'bottom'. It won't last long; to start with we shall, I think, have moderate UPS AND DOWNS here, the tendency being generally down- ward, perhaps also rising a little—one can't say exacdy—until somewhere or other the lightning strikes again. At all events, there's a bad year ahead for spinners and manufacturers, if only because of insufficient demand and excessive supply. Stagnating pressure—that is the greatest danger so far as our local bourgeois are concerned. Monetary crises are of small account here, since all credits are extremely short-term (2-6 weeks).
On Saturday I went fox-hunting—7 hours in the saddle. That sort of thing always keeps me in a state of devilish exhilaration for several days; it's the greatest physical pleasure I know. I saw only 2 out of the whole FIELD who were better horsemen than myself, but then they were also better mounted. This will really put my health to rights. At least 20 of the chaps fell off or came down, 2 horses were done for, 1 fox killed (I was in AT THE DEATH); otherwise no mishaps. Admittedly there were no real fox-hunters at the meet; they ride far better than I do, of course. I shall pass your thing on to Lupus.
And now, a happy New Year to all your family and to the year of strife 1858.
Your
F. E.