Letter to Karl Marx, May 25, 1866

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 May 1866


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1919
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 25 May 1866 Mornington Street

Dear Moor,

The PANIC has, at all events, come much too soon and may possibly spoil a good solid crisis for us which would otherwise have occurred in 1867 or 1868. If we had not simultaneously chanced to have the big fall in cotton, we would barely have been affected by it here. The collapse of the LIMITED LIABILITY and FINANCING swindles had after all been long foreseen and hardly affected our TRADE at all. But the colossal losses on cotton which occurred simultaneously threaten to make it a grave matter here, so many houses here and in Liverpool are entangled in it through their branches in Bombay, etc., and as it occurred at the same time as the MONEY PANIC and the 10% bank-rate, it may be very grave for those who are holding much cotton. Here at least the business is far from over yet.

If the Austrians are canny enough not to attack, that will surely put the cat among the pigeons in the Prussian army. The fellows have never been as rebellious as they are in the present mobilisation. Unfortunately, one only learns the tiniest part of what is happening, but even that is enough to prove that a war of attack is impossible with this army. Once these lads are concen- trated in large numbers, and begin to count themselves and discover that 3/4 of the army is of one mind, and if they then have to hang around under arms for 3-4 weeks during the congress, things will inevitably lead to a crisis, and one fine morning obedience will be refused. Something is bound to spark it off; and with an army like that, once one battalion starts, it will spread like wildfire. But even if an open outbreak were to be avoided, it is certain that this army, with its MORALE as it is, and commanded by the old William, with Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince[1] under him commanding the wings, would at once be beaten beyond salvation by the furious Austrians under Benedek, who will have none of the Archdukes, nor any interference in the appointment of his staff, and has 300-360,000 men under him. The old jackass[2] knows that, too, and I am convinced that he will withdraw as soon as ever he can, precisely because of the mood in his armies. What I said in my pamphlet[3] last year about the character of the mobilised Prussian army, has been fully confirmed.

Delightful is the embarrassment of the National Association- ites[4] since Bismarck has plagiarised their programme; those fellows will now have to oppose their own Great-Prussia phrases, exactly as the Kreuz-Zeitung did with its own feudal phrases.

The London correspondent of The Manchester Guardian reports that in this solemn performance of state[5] Louis Bonaparte has made the following conditions the price for his approval: Sardinia from Italy, Luxemburg, Saarlouis and Saarbrücken from Prussia (Landau is the only thing he has forgotten)—and that is the minimum.

I shall see if I can complete my article on Poland[6] tomorrow. To be quite frank, it is a sacrifice for me to provide that jackass Miall with contributions when one is for ever being explicitly reminded that the editors do not accept responsibility for the section from contributors, whilst they obviously do so for the asininities printed elsewhere in the paper.[7] If I had known beforehand how our pieces were going to be treated in a paper[8] which is after all supposed to be our own—or at least to belong to the workers' party, and that we were merely going to be thus tolerated in it, and we are supposed to be grateful, as it were, into the bargain,— I would not have written a single line. But you were sick at the time, and I didn't want to do anything that might disturb your convalescence. But I was vexed by it nonetheless. All the same, one has said 'A' and must see that one also says 'B'.

Kindest regards.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Frederick William
  2. ↑ William I
  3. ↑ F. Engels, The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party. c Neue Preussische Zeitung d 'From our London correspondent', The Manchester Guardian, No. 6165, 22 May 1866.
  4. ↑ The National Association (Deutscher National-Verein) was a party of the German liberal bourgeoisie which advocated the unification of Germany (without Austria) in a centralised state under the supremacy of the Prussian monarchy. Its inaugural meeting was held in Frankfurt am Main in September 1859. The National Association was dissolved in November 1867, after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 and the establishment of the North German Confederation.
  5. ↑ Marx uses the term Haupt- und Staatsaktionen ('principal and spectacular actions'), which has several meanings. In the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, it denoted plays performed by German touring companies. The plays, which were rather formless, presented tragic historical events in a bombastic and at the same time coarse and farcial way. Secondly, this term can denote major political events. It was used in this sense by a trend in German historical science known as 'objective historio graphy'. Leopold Ranke was one of its chief representatives. He regarded Haupt- und Staatsaktionen as the main subject-matter of history.
  6. ↑ Engels' series of articles, 'What Have the Working Classes to Do with Poland?', was never finished. This may have been because of the increasing influence of the radical bourgeois on the editorial board of The Commonwealth, where it was being published.
  7. ↑ The Commonwealth, No. 165 of 5 May 1866, carried an editorial statement to the effect that the editors bore no responsibility for the contributions printed below a certain line. The responsibility was to be borne by the authors themselves. The statement was directed primarily against Engels' series of articles 'What Have the Working Classes to Do with Poland?', which were printed below the line marked by the editors.
  8. ↑ The Commonwealth