Letter to Karl Marx, March 4, 1859

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 March 1859


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 4 March 1859

Dear Moor,

Little Jew Braun[1] has managed things well; I agree to half the net profits. The work is going ahead fairly quickly,[2] 9 long double pages of the kind I send you for the Tribune are ready, 2 or 3 more will see the finish of the Po and then comes the Rhine, which won't be as long—barely 3 sheets in all. This evening, Saturday and Sunday will certainly dispose of the better part of the thing, and I shall let you have it by Wednesday, provided all goes smoothly. However I must be on my guard since I'll have all the official military writers against me, and if they can pick any holes in the thing they'll certainly do so. So better too short than too long, and the historical examples can be done quite briefly. Besides, if the manuscript arrives in Berlin at the end of next week, it will be soon enough; after all, there's going to be war.[3]

So there's no need to worry about time. It's impossible just now to absent myself from the WAREHOUSE for several days. There's no real need and it wouldn't be much help. What holds one up is poring

over the map, which must be done staccato otherwise one gets bemused.

I'm not doing a foreword. That would be asking for too much.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Ferdinand Lassalle
  2. ↑ Engels' work on Po and Rhine
  3. ↑ This refers to the war preparations of the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and France against Austria. The war (29 April to 8 July 1859) was launched by Napoleon III, who under the banner of the 'liberation of Italy' strove for aggrandizement and needed a successful military campaign to shore up the Bonapartist regime in France. Piedmont ruling circles hoped that French support would enable them to unite Italy under the aegis of the Savoy dynasty. The war caused an upsurge of the national liberation movement in Italy. The Austrian army suffered a series of defeats. However Napoleon III, frightened by the scale of the liberation movement in Italy, abruptly ceased hostilities. On 11 July, the French and Austrian emperors concluded a separate preliminary peace in Villafranca. France received Savoy and Nice; Lombardy was annexed to Sardinia; the Venetian Region remained under the Austrians.—380, 399, 401, 405, 462, 537