| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 9 January 1877 |
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
London, 9 January 1877
Dear Hermann,
Your letter duly received, with the remittance of £300 with which I shall credit you in accordance with the statement. Many thanks for this and also for the current account which I shall take a look at. Your having somewhat increased the amount of your remittance doesn't make any difference. I got it on Saturday evening[1] when I had visitors here and, because of the plethora of visiting and PARTIES at this time of year, could not send you an acknowledgement of receipt until today, which you will, I hope, excuse.
I had no idea Hermann and Moritz[2] were at university. It will do them no harm at all to study for a year or two and, if they then want to go into the business, the knowledge they have gained will be all the more useful to them; the past two decades have thoroughly demolished the old commercial superstition that in business what is above all required is three years of quill driving, a good hand, the most execrable German, and a notable lack of knowledge. And should they wish to try something else, the whole world will be open to them.
Things may go hopelessly wrong for the Russians. I have always held that the introduction of general conscription[3] would ruin the Russian army. But that it would happen so fast and so gloriously was something I didn't expect. Everything's going to pieces, discipline and administration, officers and soldiers, there's a shortage of everything—far more so even than there was during your splendid mobilisation in 1852, for in Russia theft is assuming really grandiose proportions. The more stores and depots there are for mobilisation purposes, the less there is in them, since they merely provide occasion for theft. And, what is more, the Turks have never been in such good shape as they are today; they already have more troops in Bulgaria than the Russians would be able to throw in with their four army corps (144,000 men on paper). And those four army corps also comprise all the reserves called up in Poland, who would go over at the first opportunity. The Romanian army is there simply for the purpose of being taken prisoner, and the Serbian peasant militia won't find it so easy to muster any more men, and such as it does muster will have already had quite enough.
I am being summoned to table and it's half past five—time for the post. Love to all from
Your
Friedrich