Letter to Karl Marx, July 4, 1866

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 July 1866


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 4 July 1866

Dear Moor,

The other half of the note enclosed. Unfortunately, your telegram reached me after 12 o'clock so that I could not make use of the first post.

What do you say to the Prussians? Their initial successes were exploited with enormous vigour, and, if it had not been for this intensity, Benedek would probably have quietly withdrawn to Olmütz,[1] but he was obviously forced to come to battle yesterday, and there could be no doubt about the issue after what had befallen. To determine the outcome of such a decisive battle in 8 hours is quite unprecedented; in other circumstances, it would have lasted 2 days.[2] But the needle-gun is a merciless weapon, and then these fellows really do fight with a verve that I have never before observed in such peace-time troops. For the defender, the attacker's need to take positions by storm compensates for his superiority in weapons, and here too the Prussians appear to have accomplished a great deal. Benedek, with his deep 'plan', turns out to have been not merely a jackass but a dullard as well. How splendidly he could, with sufficient men, have caught those fellows in the mountains!

At all events, Bismarck will now try to set up his Imperial Germany, and that should include Bohemia, which he hopes to take from the Austrians and thereby establish a link between Silesia and Bavaria. In the treaty with Italy, he did after all stipulate un territoire autrichien équivalent à la Vénétie.[3]

Berlin is again acting with the vileness for which it is famed and yesterday even went so far as to elect a whole load of ministers. What will those camels of men of Progress say now?

The farce up in the North-West is delightful and will probably soon be no less so in the South, too.

The only safeguard against the betrayal that Bismarck has plotted with Bonaparte is the quite unexpected magnitude of the victories. He will now find it difficult to cede much, and the Belgians will probably have to pay part of the price.[4]

Kindest regards to the LADIES.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Czech name: Olomouc
  2. ↑ A reference to the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian war (see Note 345), which was fought at Königgrätz (Hradec-Krâlové) not far from the village of Sadowa (Bohemia) on 3 July 1866. The battle of Sadowa resulted in grave defeat for the Austrian forces. It is also known as the battle of Königgrätz.
  3. ↑ 'Austrian territory equivalent to Venetia'
  4. ↑ At the end of 1865 and the beginning of 1866, Bismarck conducted negotiations with Napoleon III through the Prussian ambassador to Paris, von der Holtz. In the course of the negotiations, wishing to secure France's neutrality in the war against Austria which was being prepared by him, Bismarck sought to make Napoleon believe that the war would be extremely exhaustive for Prussia and hinted vaguely at the possibility of territorial expansion for France at the expense of Belgium and Luxemburg, as well as certain German territories on the Rhine.