Letter to Karl Marx, October 1, 1860

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ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 1 October 1860

Dear Moor,

Where has your family been to, if they are now safely back home? I'm completely in the dark. To the SEASIDE, perhaps, or to the country? I hope it has done them good.

'NAVY' is most inconvenient just now. I'm having the hell of a time with the LAWYERS over matters connected with the firm—no one in Germany has an inkling of the way things drag on here, and it's precisely this week that the fellows must needs descend on me with a mass of files, etc. However, I shall do my best but it certainly won't be a quick job, for I'm in no way au fait. Quanto a Vogt: I must say that I don't like your title at all. If you want to give him a nickname, surely it must be one that is comprehensible to people without their having to read the book; alternatively it should only appear in the actual book after the explanatory bit. To my mind, the simpler and more unaffected the title the better, except that Bonaparte, or at least Plon-Plon, should, if possible, figure in it as well as Vogt. If you object to 'Carl' Vogt, call him Herr Vogt, though I don't see why 'Carl' cannot appear above 'Karl'—no one is going to make a joke about it.

Printing in London: I have no confidence in a publishing operation that requires us to advance all or half the money. The enclosed letter from Siebel shows that he was far from giving up the affair for lost, quite the contrary, and was only waiting for instructions in order to act (let me have it back, it hasn't been answered yet). I've seen only too often what happens when things are printed abroad, and I fear that it will be exactly the same this time. If Vogt is an exception (and, after all, his thing was printed in Frankfurt), he was also backed up by the press, which certainly isn't going to happen to us. Besides, Mr Petsch is having to pay for the advertisements, etc., etc., and hence won't be particularly keen to advertise too much. Tu verras At all events, you would certainly have been able to find a publisher in Germany long ago, had you get Siebel moving properly, and I always prefer it this way; furthermore, Hirschfeld's little press is not going to be in overmuch of a hurry. However, the thing is under way, and we shall have to see how it turns out. It would be best, I think, if, in addition to the title, you were to include nothing but the chapter headings in the advertisement; that would be quite sufficient. And, above all, see that the thing gets finished.

When 3-4 sheets have been printed, you might send me copies. Apropos: What do 5 or 10 of Dana's pages amount to? I've no idea.

Lamoricière has been ignominiously surprised by the Piedmontese. He was completely unprepared on that flank, his defences were directed exclusively against Garibaldi, and he had manned the worthless citadels in the towns with small garrisons fit only to deal with uprisings. Hence the succession of surrenders; overall, the Piedmontese were 6 to 1. At Castelfidardo the Austrians fought very well, likewise at Ancona, which is in no sense a fortress on the landward side; but, on the whole, the papal army shows how little can be achieved with a force which, though good in part, is heterogeneous and commanded by all kinds of foreign officers. Admittedly the Piedmontese were 3 to 1.

From a military point of view, Garibaldi appears to be getting short of breath. He has dispersed his good troops among the Sicilian and Neapolitan battalions to such an extent that he no longer has any kind of organisation, and as soon as he reaches a moderately well defended river line with a fortress he does not command, as at Capua, he comes to a halt. Not that it matters much for the time being, since the 30,000 Neapolitans can't subsist on that small strip of land, and will have to disband in a fortnight or advance, which they won't succeed in doing. But, unless he has some really exceptional strokes of luck, it's hardly likely that G. will reach the Quirinal so quickly. On top of that, the Cavourians are now raising a hubbub; before long, these wretched bourgeois will be able to make his position untenable, so that as a pis aller he'll be forced to attack before he's capable of winning. Apart from this, it would be essential to trounce the Neapolitans as quickly as possible and then induce the Piedmontese to fraternise before Victor Emmanuel joined them, for by then it would be too late, and they would stay loyal to Victor Em. But it is of the utmost significance that the French in Rome should have been publicly placed by G. in the same category as the Austrians in Venice. Whether their expulsion will or will not be effected forthwith is of lesser significance.

Things in Austria look splendid. A National Association philistine, a Rhenish Prussian, who lives in Bavaria (Franconia), relates that people from Munich, who recently attended the railway festival in Vienna, never doubting the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung's reports about conditions in Austria, returned quite dumbfounded, so different had they found everything. The Austrians had told them that it was all humbug and that conditions there were no longer bearable. He also said that the bourgeoisie in Austria already had a specific for the financial imbroglio: in Austria 20% of all landed property belongs to the clergy, and this must be confiscated. Can one imagine a more splendid revolutionary situation? What is all that supercilious Prussian sophistry along with its National Association when compared with such a programme?

The writings of Prince Frederick Charles and Mr Waldersee have convinced me beyond doubt that the Prussians have organised and trained their army so splendidly that they must inevitably be beaten. In order to remedy the defect arising from 45 years' lack of war experience, they have created a mock conventional war in the shape of manoeuvres where everything is different from real war, and where soldiers and officers are expressly instructed to retreat on any pretext and where completely wrong notions and things are drummed into them. E.g., on manoeuvres soldiers are not, of course, permitted to enter and occupy houses; the houses, therefore, are marked as being occupied by posting soldiers round the outside. In Schleswig during a battle a Prussian captain received the order to occupy a farm, whereupon he posted his men round its perimeter fence, just as though on manoeuvres! Waldersee saw this with his own eyes. Prince Fr. Charles, by the way, is by no means a bad chap as soldiers go and absolutely detests the pointless grind of the Prussian parade ground. But, whether he's any good as a commander, it is impossible to say.

Your

F. E.