Letter to Karl Marx, November 4, 1859

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 November 1859


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
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 November 1859

Dear Moor,

Freiligrath really deserves to be severely chastised for once and I hope that an opportunity will present itself before the Schiller nonsense is over (or its after-pains).[1] Such poet's vanity and literary presumption combined with toadyism is altogether too much, and on top of that the Augsburger[2] credits him with political virtue!

I suppose you read about Vogt's law-suit[3] in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 297 et seq.[4] ? The thing went quite well, but Biskamp's letter is shockingly discreditable. The fellow could perfectly well have dealt with his private affairs in a separate note but, as things are, it is exceedingly distasteful that the editor of the Volk should send the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung a testimonial, begging to be taken on as correspondent, and that this should appear in print. Vogt will make a great noise about it. Why do we always have such tactless idiots hanging round us?

But most satisfactory is the discrediting of Blind. The statement in your letter[5] and the document[6] have now obliged the worthy diplomat to come creeping out into the open, if only to save himself being discredited still further. He has boasted about the evidence he possesses and, if he holds his tongue, will seem an unmitigated liar.

Vogt is in no less nice a mess. Case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, ordered to pay all the costs, and referred to a jury—what can he do?

He will have to sue either the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung before a Bavarian jury—in which case he will be doomed in advance—or the Volk—and then Blind will be SUBPOENAED—or else Blind himself. In any case, it will turn out badly for him, and I don't see how he can do anything but discredit himself still more.

All this is most consoling. Garibaldi would seem to be playing a somewhat ambiguous role. A general of that ilk is in a difficult position. Once he had been forced to compound with the devil, there was no turning back. For Victor Emmanuel the obvious thing is, of course, first to exploit Garibaldi and then ruin him. Altro esempio[7] of how far you get with a 'practical attitude' in a revolution. It's a pity about the chap, though. Excellent, on the other hand, that Piedmont should lose its spurious character as representative of Italian unity.[8]

I shall do you an article about army reform in Germany when this affair has progressed a little further. Far-reaching things are happening in the sphere of military organisation, not only in Prussia but elsewhere, in Austria, etc. Everywhere the French style of uniform, etc., is being adopted, and in many respects this even means quite definitely putting the clock back. But so far everything's still rather confused; as soon as I can clarify my ideas a little I'll do the article for you.[9]

I also hope that soon there'll be something further for me to report on in China and the Far East GENERALLY. Likewise Morocco.[10]

But none of this has come to a head yet. About Morocco next week perhaps.[11] Have you already written about it, or could you, perhaps, let me have some political information ad vocem[12] Pam on the subject so that I am au fait

At the moment I'm deep in Ulfilas.[13] It was really high time for me to polish off that damned Gothic, which I'd always been so desultory about. To my surprise I find I know far more than I thought; if only I can get hold of another reference book, I think I shall polish this off completely in a fortnight. Then I shall go on to Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon, with which I've never been on more than nodding terms. So far, I've been working without a dictionary or other reference book save the Gothic text and Grimm.[14] However, that old fellow is really splendid.

What I need badly here is Grimm's Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Could you let me have it back?

I think I shall see Lupus this evening. We are having a Schiller festival up here too (programme enclosed). Needless to say, I have nothing whatever to do with the thing. Mr Alfr. Meissner is sending a prologue, and Siebel will do the epilogue, straightforward recitation, of course, but done in proper form. In addition, this flâneur is producing a performance of 'Wallensteins Lager'[15] ; I've been to two of the rehearsals and, if the chaps keep their nerve, it might be quite passable. The committee members are, without exception, a bunch of fools; among the public Borchardt plays at being in opposition. He's no less negatively pompous than the others are positively so, except that his negation is based on the same point of view as the position of the others, i.e. he admits that he is essentially one of their number.

Salut.

Your

F. E. Nil novi ab Ephraim Artful?[16]

  1. ↑ Marx refers to the festivities to mark the centenary of Schiller's birth on 10 November 1859. The preparations in London were handled by a jubilee committee consisting of petty-bourgeois refugees headed by Gottfried Kinkel, who hoped to use the festival for his own publicity purposes.—508, 511, 514, 525
  2. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung The Allgemeine Zeitung carried reports on the case on 25 October 1859 and on the following days.
  3. ↑ On 22 June 1859 the Allgemeine Zeitung reprinted the pamphlet Zur Warnung, which induced Vogt, in July, to bring an action for libel against the paper. The case was heard on 24 October 1859. In early August the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung had asked Liebknecht for proof of the accusations against Vogt contained in Zur Warnung. Liebknecht requested Marx to help him obtain Blind's admission that he, Blind, was the author of the anonymous pamphlet. Marx considered such an admission necessary also because Vogt had declared Marx to be the author of the pamphlet. Besides, Marx wanted to expose the cowardice of this petty-bourgeois democrat who dared not challenge Bonaparte's agents openly and was, as it were, aiding and abetting Vogt in his dispute with the Allgemeine Zeitung. Though Marx emphatically condemned the paper's conservative views, in this case he assisted it in the interests of the common struggle against Bonapartism. The court dismissed Vogt's action (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 111-32, also pp. 3 and 8-9).—488, 503, 507, 514, 519, 520
  4. ↑ Biskamp's letter, dated 20 October 1859, was published in the Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 300, on 27 October 1859.
  5. ↑ to the Editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung
  6. ↑ This refers to August Vögele's written declaration (see Note 469), which Marx sent to the editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung on 19 October 1859 in connection with Vogt's law-suit against the paper (see Note 470).—508, 513, 515, 521
  7. ↑ Another example
  8. ↑ Engels seems to refer to the planned march of Romagnese and Tuscan volunteers under Garibaldi to Central and South Italy with a .view to reactivating the struggle for Italy's unification. The plan had been put forward by Italy's democrats headed by Mazzini, who were not satisfied with the Villafranca treaty (see Note 370). The march was to take place in late October or early November 1859. Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, and his liberal following at first sought to exploit Garibaldi for the unification of Italy under the aegis of the Sardinian dynasty, but fearing an outbreak of popular unrest in Central Italy diey succeeded in having the expedition cancelled.—515
  9. ↑ Somewhat later Engels wrote an article on the subject, entitled 'Military Reform in Germany.
  10. ↑ In the summer of 1859 hostilities resumed in the second Opium War in China (1856-60). In October 1859 Spain declared war on Morocco and invaded the country. This colonial incursion met with stubborn resistance and brought the Spaniards no success. The fighting continued until March 1860. In April a peace treaty was concluded under which Spain received indemnities and insignificant territorial concessions.—515, 523
  11. ↑ Early in December 1859 Engels wrote the article 'Progress of the Moorish War' and later several more articles on the subject.
  12. ↑ as regards
  13. ↑ At the time, Engels was studying the Gothic translation of the Bible made by the Visigothic bishop Ulfilas. The extant fragments of Ulfilas' Bible, the main written monument of the Gothic language, were available in a number of editions prepared by different German scholars.—516
  14. ↑ J. Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, Th. I IV.
  15. ↑ first part of Schiller's trilogy Wallenstein
  16. ↑ No news from Ephraim Artful (Ferdinand Lassalle)?