Letter to Karl Marx, November 11, 1866

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 11 November 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,] 11 November 1866 86 Mornington St.

Dear Moor,

Many thanks for The Free Press. Can you send me the August and September issues? I have not received them.

Encl. the 2nd halves of the £30. I would have liked to send you more, but I really cannot. I'll see what I can do next month, and on 31 December we shall be doing our accounts again; if they turn out well, no doubt we shall be able to manage a bit more.

The news that the manuscript[1] has gone off is a load off my mind. So, a commencement d'exécution[2] at last, as the Code pénal has it.[3] To that end I shall drink a special glass to your particular health. The book has greatly contributed to wrecking your health; once you have got it off your back, you'll be quite a different fellow again.

I hope that Birch despatched the port yesterday, but I am none too sure of it; at all events, however, it is sure to arrive by Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

Prussians will be Prussians. As a reward for voting for the indemnity, Twesten and Frenzel are arraigned for speeches made in the Chamber.[4] Such stupidity is quite incomprehensible, but it is a point of principle. The burghers[5] of Frankfurt are still furious, they are now playing the part of Poles, going about in mourning and wearing cravats with the city colours of Frankfurt.[6] A Prussian lieutenant entered a Sachsenhausen tavern and found all the seats taken. Someone got up in one corner and left, at which his neighbour drew the lieutenant's attention to the empty chair, but he said thank you very much, he did not like to sit on a warm chair. Oh, said the other, you have no need to worry about that, our bums are all freezing since the Prussians have been here.

I have heard the most marvellous stories here from eyewitnesses about the Imperial warfare.[7] Such things are unprecedented. E.g., the Nassauers were ordered to bridge the Main at Höchst. Having failed once on account of a storm (a storm on the Main!), they found upon their 2nd attempt that they had too few pontoons and could only bridge the Main half-way. They therefore wrote to Darmstadt, asking for the loan of a few pontoons, which did eventually arrive then, and thus the bridge over the horrendous stream was completed. Then the Nassauers immediately received orders to march south. They left the bridge standing, without a guard, merely leaving it to the care of an old boatman to see that it did not drift away down the Main. A few days later, the Prussians arrived, took possession of the completed bridge, fortified it and marched across!

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ of the first volume of Capital
  2. ↑ commencement of proceedings
  3. ↑ The Code pénal was introduced in 1811 in Napoleon's France and in the regions of Western and South-Western Germany conquered by the French. Article 2 of the Code says: 'Any attempt to commit an offence that manifested itself in practical acts and was accompanied by the commencement of the commitment of the offence and that was interrupted or was not carried out owing solely to circumstances that were beyond the control of the person in question shall be equivalent to an offence proper.'
  4. ↑ Early in September 1866 the Prussian Chamber of Deputies passed an Indemnity Bill submitted by Bismarck. The Bill relieved the government of any responsibility for expenditures which had not been legally approved during the constitutional conflict (see Note 100). Thus the conflict ended with the complete capitulation of the bourgeois opposition to the Bismarck government. Deputies Karl Twesten and Frenzel, who belonged to the opposition and had more than once criticised the government, now voted for the Bill. Nevertheless, early in November 1866 they were once again put on trial on the basis of the Supreme Tribunal's decision of 29 January 1866 (see Note 292) for their former speeches in the Prussian Provincial Diet but were again acquitted.
  5. ↑ Engels uses the South German dialect here: 'Borjer'.
  6. ↑ On 16 July 1866, during the Austro-Prussian war, the free city of Frankfurt am Main, which sided with Austria, was captured by the Prussian army. An indemnity of six million guldens was imposed on it, the city senate was disbanded and the garrison and military organisations disarmed. On 19 July the Prussians raised the indemnity to twenty-five million guldens and demanded from the burgomaster Karl Fellner a list of the wealthiest and most influential citizens, whose property was to be a pledge for the payment of the indemnity. He hanged himself in protest on the night of 23 July.
  7. ↑ Engels refers to the Austrian Empire and its allies in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866.