Letter to Karl Marx, November 24, 1863

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 24 November 1863


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 24 November 1863

Dear Moor,

As I have heard nothing more from your wife, I can only hope your health has improved in the meantime, and that you are rid of your boils. The main thing is to stick to wine-drinking and meat-eating. During the past few days my evenings at the office—the only time I can contemplate writing private letters— have been much interrupted, otherwise you'd have heard from me before.

Things are getting critical in Germany. In one way, the Danish business[2] has come at the wrong time, while, in another, it can only precipitate the crisis. Funny, how the English press is suddenly finding the Schleswig-Holstein question so absolutely crystal-clear, when for years it has claimed it was so complicated that, as Dundreary[3] says, 'NO EELLOW CAN UNDERSTAND THAT'. For us, however, the admissions in the English press suffice. But what a masterly stroke the Protocol of 1852 was on the Russians' part! So long as my only source of information was the stupid Free Press, I couldn't make head or tail of it; really, the gift those jackasses have for confusing everything surpasses even Dundreary's. That Prussia and Austria should have signed the Protocol was an unspeakable infamy, and those concerned must pay for it with their blood.

Again, it's really rather funny that the whole question of the succession should now turn on whether the Augustenburg fellow, as the child of a morganatic marriage, is qualified to succeed.

In Prussia, Bismarck's insolence would seem to be wavering a bit after all. The disavowal of the Landrat election intrigues, and the repeal of the Press Decree are significant omens. J'espère qu'ils ne reculent que pour mieux sauter}[4] Lassalle, too, is playing a part in the press controversy. Wagener was tactless enough (vis-à-vis his tacit ally, Lassalle) to cite his opinion of the liberal press[5] in justification of the Press Decree.[6] This evoked roars of laughter and bad jokes from Virchow and Gneist. Lassalle has made a thorough mess of his campaign, which won't, of course, prevent him from beginning all over again. Yet the jackass could have found out perfectly well from the Manifesto[7] what attitude one ought to adopt towards the bourgeoisie at times such as these.

Many regards to your wife and the girls.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Excerpts from this letter were first published in English in a footnote in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.
  2. ↑ The death, on 15 November 1863, of the childless King Frederick VII terminated the personal union of the duchés of Schleswig and Holstein with Denmark. The enthronement of Christian IX, named heir to the Danish Crown by the London Protocol of 8 May 1852 (see notes 324 and 380), and the promulgation, on 18 November, of a new Constitution proclaiming the final incorporation of Schleswig and Holstein into the domains of the Danish monarch led to a rise of the anti-Danish national liberation movement in the two duchies and a sharp aggravation of Danish-German differences.
  3. ↑ Presumably Palmerston.
  4. ↑ I hope they are only withdrawing, the better to advance.
  5. ↑ This refers to Lassalle's pamphlet, Die Feste, die Presse und der Frankfurter Abgeordnetentag. Drei Symptome des offentliehen Geistes. Düsseldorf, 1863.
  6. ↑ Wagener's speech in the Chamber of Deputies on 19 November 1863, Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 326, 22 November 1863.
  7. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party.