The Political Situation in Europe (October 1886)

Author(s) Frederick Engels
Written 25 October 1886


First published in Le Socialiste, No. 63, November 6, 1886
Printed according to the newspaper
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 26
Collection(s): Le Socialiste

This article is a letter written by Engels to Paul Lafargue on October 25, 1886 (see present edition, Vol. 47), with slight abridgements and editorial changes. Engels wrote this letter in reply to Lafargue's request for his opinion on the situation in the Balkans and the course the foreign policy of the European powers would take in connection with the growing rivalry between Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. This article is the only one Engels wrote for the press in the 1880s on questions of foreign policy. The German translation of the article was published in the New York paper Sozialist on November 20 and 27 and December 4, 1886. It was also translated into Romanian and printed in the magazine Revista Sociala, No. 2, December 1886; an abridged version of the article was published in German translation in the newspaper Sozialdemokrat on December 12, 1886.

In March 1879[1] Disraeli sent four armour-plated ships into the Bosporus; their presence alone was sufficient to halt the Russians' triumphal march on Constantinople and to break the Treaty of San Stefano. The Peace of Berlin regulated the situation in the Orient for some time.[2] Bismarck managed to bring about an accord between the Russian Government and Austrian Government. Austria was to dominate behind the scenes in Serbia, whereas Bulgaria and Rumelia were to be abandoned to the overwhelming influence of Russia. This allowed one to predict that if, later on, Bismarck permitted the Russians to take Constantinople, he was reserving Salonica and Macedonia for Austria.

But what is more, Austria was given Bosnia too, just as in 1794 Russia had abandoned the greater part of Poland proper to the Prussians and Austrians, only to take it back in 1814.[3] Bosnia was a permanent drain on Austria, a bone of contention between Hungary and Western Austria, and above all it was proof to Turkey that the Austrians, just like the Russians, were preparing for it the same fate that Poland had suffered. Henceforth Turkey could have no confidence in Austria: an important victory for Russian government policy.

Serbia had Slavophile, and hence Russophile, tendencies; but since its emancipation it has drawn all its means of bourgeois development from Austria. Young people go to study in the Austrian universities; the bureaucratic system, the code, the court procedure, the schools—everything has been copied from the Austrian models. It was natural. But Russia had to prevent this imitation in Bulgaria; it did not wish to pull Austria's chestnuts out of the fire. So Bulgaria was organised as a Russian satrapy. The administration, the officers and the non-commissioned officers, the staff, in fact the entire system were Russian: the Battenberg who was bestowed on it was the cousin of Alexander III.

The domination of the Russian Government, at first direct and then indirect, was sufficient to stifle in less than four years all Bulgarian sympathy for Russia, though it had been great and enthusiastic. The population grew increasingly fractious in the face of the insolence of their "liberators"; and even Battenberg, a man without any political ideas, with a pliant character, who sought merely to serve the Tsar but clamoured for esteem, became more and more intractable.

Meanwhile, things were developing in Russia: by taking severe action the government was able to disperse the Nihilists and break up their organisation for a time.[4] But that was not enough, it needed some support in public opinion, it needed to turn minds away from the contemplation of the growing social and political ills at home; finally, what it needed was a little patriotic phantasmagoria. Under Napoleon III the left bank of the Rhine had served to deflect revolutionary passions towards the exterior; similarly, the Russian Government snowed a troubled and restless people the conquest of Constantinople, the "deliverance" of Slavs oppressed by the Turks and their unification into one great federation under Russian tutelage. But it was not sufficient to evoke this phantasmagoria—it was necessary to do something to translate it into the sphere of reality.

Circumstances were favourable. The annexation of Alsace and Lorraine had sown seeds of discord between France and Germany which seemed bound to neutralise these two powers. Austria on her own could not stand up to Russia, because its most effective weapon, the appeal to the Poles, would always be held in the scabbard by Prussia. And the occupation, the theft, of Bosnia was an Alsace between Austria and Turkey. Italy was offered most, that is with regard to Russia, who offered it Trentino and Istria, along with Dalmatia and Tripoli. And England? The peace-loving Russophile Gladstone had listened to the tempting words of Russia; he had occupied Egypt, in a time of peace,[5] which guaranteed England a perpetual quarrel with France and, in addition, ensured the impossibility of an alliance between the Turks and the English, who had just robbed them by appropriating a Turkish fief, Egypt. Moreover, the Russian preparations in Asia were sufficiently far advanced to give the English plenty of trouble in the Indies in the event of war. Never before had the Russians been presented with so many chances: their diplomacy was triumphing all along the line.

The rebellion of the Bulgarians against Russian despotism provided the opportunity to enter into the fray. In the summer of 1885 they dangled before the eyes of the Bulgarians and the Rumelians the possibility of this union promised by the peace of San Stefano and destroyed by the Treaty of Berlin. They were told that if they threw themselves once again into the arms of Russia the liberator the Russian Government would fulfil its mission by bringing about this union; but to achieve this the Bulgarians had to start by chasing out Battenberg. The latter was warned in time; unusually for him he acted promptly and vigorously; he brought about, for his own ends, this union which Russia hoped to make against him.[6] From this moment there was relentless warfare between him and the Tsar.

To begin with, this war was waged slyly and indirectly. Louis Bonaparte's splendid doctrine, whereby when a hitherto scattered people such as Italy or Germany was united and attained nationhood, the other states such as France were entitled to territorial compensation, was revived for the small states of the Balkans. Serbia swallowed the bait and declared war on the Bulgarians; Russia triumphed by making this war, instigated in its own interests, appear in the eyes of the world to be under the auspices of Austria, who dared not prevent it for fear of seeing the Russian side coming to power in Serbia. For its part, Russia threw the Bulgarian army into confusion by recalling all the Russian officers, that is to say the entire general staff and all the senior officers, including the battalion commanders.

But contrary to all expectations the Bulgarians, without their Russian officers, and fighting two against three, beat the Serbs hands down and won the respect and admiration of an astonished Europe. These victories were due to two things. Firstly, Alexander of Battenberg, although a weak politician, is a good soldier; he waged the war as he had learnt from the Prussian school, while the Serbs followed the strategy and tactics of their Austrian models. So it was a second edition of the 1866 campaign in Bohemia.[7] Moreover, the Serbs had lived for sixty years under a bureaucratic Austrian regime which, without giving them a powerful bourgeoisie and an independent peasantry (the peasants are already all mortgaged), had ruined and disorganised the remains of collectivism of the gens which had been their strength in their battles with the Turks. Amongst the Bulgarians, on the other hand, these primitive institutions had been left intact by the Turks—which explains their superior gallantry.

So, a further setback for the Russians; they had to begin from scratch. Slavophile chauvinism, stoked up as a counter-weight to the revolutionary element, was growing day by day and already becoming a threat to the government. The Tsar goes off to Crimea; and the Russian newspapers announce that he is about to do something great; he tries to attract the Sultan by showing him his old allies (Austria and England) betraying and despoiling him, with France following suit and at the mercy of Russia. But the Sultan turns a deaf ear and the enormous armaments of Western and Southern Russia remain idle for the time being.

The Tsar returns from Crimea (last June). But meanwhile the chauvinist tide rises, and the government, unable to repress this aggressive movement, is increasingly dragged along behind it; so much so that it is necessary to allow the mayor of Moscow[8] to speak publicly about the conquest of Constantinople in his address to the Tsar.[9] [10] The press, under the influence and the protection of the generals, says openly that it expects from the Tsar an energetic operation against Austria and Germany, who are hindering him, and the government lacks the courage to silence it. Slavophile chauvinism is more powerful than the Tsar, he will have to give way[11] for fear of revolution, the Slavophiles would ally with the constitutionalists, with the nihilists,[12] and finally with all malcontents.

The dire financial plight complicates the situation. Nobody is willing to lend to this government which, from 1870 to 1875, borrowed 1 billion 750,000 francs from London and which threatens the peace of Europe. Two or three years ago Bismarck facilitated a loan of 375 million francs in Germany; but this has long since been swallowed up; and without Bismarck's signature the Germans will not hand over a farthing. But this signature cannot be obtained without humiliating conditions. The manufacture of warrants at home has produced too much, the silver rouble is worth 4 frs, the paper rouble 2 frs 20. Armaments cost no end of money.

In the end it is necessary to act.— Success in the direction of Constantinople, or revolution.— Giers goes to see Bismarck and explains the situation to him; he understands it very well. Out of consideration for Austria he would have liked to hold back the government of the Tsar, whose insatiability worries him. But revolution in Russia means the fall of the Bismarck regime. Without Russia, the great reserve army of reaction, the domination by the Prussian squirearchy, would not last a single day. Revolution in Russia would change the situation in Germany immediately; it would destroy at a stroke this blind faith in Bismarck's omnipotence which secures him the cooperation of the ruling classes; it would bring revolution in Germany to a head.

Bismarck, who knows that the existence of Tsarism is the basis of his whole system, would hurry to Vienna to inform his friends that in the face of such danger it is no longer the time to dwell on questions of amour-propre; that it is necessary to allow the Tsar some semblance of triumph, and that it is in the interests of Austria and Germany, as they well realise, that they should bow before Russia. Moreover, if the Austrians insist on meddling in Bulgaria's affairs he would wash his hands of them; they would see what would happen. Kalnoky gives way, Alexander Battenberg is sacrificed, and Bismarck runs off to carry the news to Giers in person.

Unfortunately the Bulgarians display unexpected political skill and energy, intolerable in a Slav nation "delivered by holy Russia". Battenberg is arrested by night, but the Bulgarians arrest the conspirators, appoint a government that is capable, energetic and incorruptible, qualities completely intolerable in a nation that is scarcely liberated; they recall Battenberg; the latter displays all his spinelessness and takes flight. But the Bulgarians are incorrigible. With or without Battenberg they resist the sovereign orders of the Tsar and compel the heroic Kaulbars to make a fool of himself in front of the whole of Europe.[13]

Imagine the fury of the Tsar. Having forced Bismarck to submit, broken the Austrian resistance, he sees himself pulled up short by this tiny people of yesteryear which owes its "independence" to him or his father,[14] and refuses to realise that this independence means nothing more than blind obedience to the orders of the "liberator". The Greeks and the Serbs were ungrateful; but the Bulgarians are really overdoing it. Fancy taking their independence seriously! What a crime!

To save himself from revolution the poor Tsar is obliged to take another step forward. But every step becomes more dangerous, because it is only taken at the risk of a European war, which Russian diplomacy has always sought to avoid. It is certain that if there is direct intervention by the Russian government in Bulgaria and if it leads to further complications, the moment will come when the hostility between Russian and Austrian interests will break out into the open. It will then be impossible to localise the war—it will become general. Given the honesty of the rogues who govern Europe, it is impossible to predict how the two camps will form up. Bismarck is quite capable of siding with the Russians against the Austrians if he can see no other way of delaying the revolution in Russia. But it is more likely that if war breaks out between Russia and Austria, Germany will come to the aid of the latter in order to prevent its complete annihilation.

While waiting for spring, for the Russians will not be able to mount a major winter campaign on the Danube before April, the Tsar is working to lure the Turks into his net, and the treason of Austria and England towards Turkey are making the task easier for him. His goal is to occupy the Dardanelles and thus to transform the Black Sea into a Russian lake; to turn it into an inaccessible shelter for the organisation of powerful fleets which would emerge to dominate what Napoleon called a "French lake", the Mediterranean. But he has not managed it yet, although his supporters in Sofia have betrayed his secret thought.

This is the situation. In order to escape a revolution in Russia the Tsar needs Constantinople; Bismarck hesitates, he would like to find the means to avoid one eventuality as well as the other.

* * *

And France?

The patriotic French, who have been dreaming of revenge for sixteen years, believe there is nothing more natural than to grasp any opportunity which may present itself. But for our party the matter is not so simple; nor is it any simpler for' Messieurs the chauvinists. A war of revenge, conducted with the alliance and under the aegis of Russia, could lead to a revolution or a counter-revolution in France. In the eventuality of a revolution which brought the socialists to power, the Russian alliance would collapse. First, the Russians would immediately make peace with Bismarck to fling themselves with the Germans on revolutionary France. Then France would not bring the socialists to power in order to prevent by a war a revolution in Russia. But this eventuality is hardly likely; the monarchist counter-revolution is more so. The Tsar wants the restoration of the Orléans, his intimate friends, the only government which offers him the conditions of a good and solid alliance. Once the war was under way, good use would be made of the monarchist officers to prepare it. At the slightest partial defeat, and there would be some, the cry would go up that it is the fault of the Republic, that in order to win victories and to obtain the full cooperation of Russia, a stable, monarchist government is needed, in other words Philippe VII [15] ; the monarchist generals would act feebly so as to be able to blame their lack of success on the Republican government; and there you are—the monarchy is back. With Philippe VII restored, the kings and emperors will reach immediate agreement and instead of devouring one another they will divide Europe up, swallowing the small states. With the French Republic dead, a new congress of Vienna would be held where, perhaps, the sins of the French republicans and socialists would be used as a pretext to deny France Alsace-Lorraine, either in part or entirely; and the princes would mock the republicans for having been so naive as to believe in the possibility of a true alliance between Tsarism and the Republic.

Moreover, is it true that General Boulanger is saying to anyone who will listen to him, "A war is necessary to prevent the social revolution"? If it is true, may it serve as a warning to the socialist party. This fine Boulanger has boastful airs, for which as a soldier he may be forgiven, but they give a poor idea of his political sense. He is not the one who will save the Republic. Between the socialists and the Orleanists[16] it is possible that he will reach an arrangement with the latter if they assure him of the Russian alliance. In any case, the bourgeois republicans in France are in the same position as the Tsar; they see the spectre of social revolution looming up ahead of them, and they know but one means of salvation: war.

In France, Russia and Germany events are turning out so well for us that, for the time being, we can only desire the continuation of the status quo. If revolution broke out in Russia it would create a set of most favourable conditions. A general war would, on the other hand, propel us into the realm of the unforeseen. Revolution in Russia and Germany would be delayed; our party in Germany would meet the fate of the Commune of 1871. Without a doubt events will finish by turning in our favour; but what a waste of time, what sacrifices, what new obstacles to surmount.

The forces in Europe which are pushing towards a war are powerful. The Prussian military system, adopted everywhere, requires twelve to sixteen years for its complete development; after this interval the reserve lists are filled with men who are experienced in handling arms. These twelve to sixteen years have elapsed everywhere; everywhere there are twelve to sixteen year groups which have passed through the army. So everywhere people are ready, and the Germans have no special advantage on their side. That is to say: this war which is threatening us would throw ten million soldiers into the field of battle. And old William is probably going to die. Bismarck will see his position shaken, more or less, and perhaps he will push for war as a means of hanging on. Indeed, the Stock Exchange everywhere believes in war as soon as the old man has breathed his last.

If there is a war, it will be with the sole aim of preventing revolution: in Russia to forestall the common action of all the malcontents, Slavophiles, constitutionalists, nihilists, peasants; in Germany to keep Bismarck in office; in France to drive back the victorious movement of the socialists and restore the monarchy.

Between French socialists and German socialists there is no Alsace question. The German socialists know only too well that the annexations of 1871, against which they have always protested, have been the main focus of Bismarck's reactionary politics, both at home and abroad. The socialists of the two countries have an equal interest in preserving the peace; it is they who will pay all the costs of the war.

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Engels' letter has "winter of 1879". The erroneous date was preserved in the article. The English squadron entered the Sea of Marmara (not the Bosporus) in February 1878.— Ed
  2. ↑ The Preliminary Peace Treaty between Russia and Turkey, which put an end to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, was concluded on March 3 (February 19), 1878 in San Stefano (near Constantinople). The Treaty envisaged the creation of an autonomous Bulgarian principality nominally dependent on Turkey, state independence for Serbia, Montenegro and Romania as well as their territorial expansion, etc. The Treaty considerably strengthened the position of Russia in the Balkans which caused a sharp reaction on the part of Great Britain and Austria-Hungary, including a show of military force (e.g. the despatch of English warships to the Sea of Marmara and other measures). This forced Russia to agree to the convocation of an international congress for the purpose of revising the treaty, since it affected "general European" problems. The representatives of Russia, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Germany, France and Italy took part in the congress which was held in Berlin between June 13 (1) and July 13 (1), 1878. The Berlin Treaty signed at this Congress radically changed the provisions of the San Stefano Treaty to the detriment of Russia and the Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula. The territory of self-governing Bulgaria, stipulated by the San Stefano Treaty, was cut more than twice; an autonomous province known as "Eastern Rumelia", which remained under the power of the sultan, was formed at the expense of Bulgarian regions lying south of the Balkan Ridge; the territory of Montenegro was substantially curtailed. The Berlin Treaty endorsed the return to Russia of the part of Bessarabia severed from it in 1856, and at the same time sanctioned the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary. The decisions of the Berlin Congress turned the Balkans into the hotbed of conflict which led to the outbreak of the First World War.
  3. ↑ The suppression of the Polish national insurrection was followed, in 1795, by the third partition of Poland between Austria, Prussia and Russia, and the final abolition of the Polish state. By decision of the Vienna Congress (1814-15) the Kingdom of Poland was formed within the Russian Empire. It incorporated the greater part of lands seized by Prussia and Austria during the third partition of Poland.
  4. ↑ Engels is referring to the reprisals instituted by the Tsarist government against the members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) organisation in the early 1880s, which practically destroyed it. Nihilism—a system of views held in the 1860s by the progressive-minded Russian intellectuals of different social estates. The Nihilists refused to recognise the dominant ideology and morality, rejected religion and demanded freedom of the personality. In West European writing, the term was applied to participants in the Russian revolutionary movement of the 1870s and 1880s, notably the Narodnaya Volya members.
  5. ↑ The reference is to the occupation of Egypt by Great Britain as a result of the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882. In the 1870s, capitalising on the financial difficulties facing the Egyptian government, above all, its considerable foreign debt, England and France, its principal creditors, established financial control over the country. This led to the growth of the national liberation movement and attempts to shake off foreign dependence in the early 1880s. In the summer of 1882, Great Britain provoked a conflict with Egypt and launched military operations which terminated in September 1882. To all intents and purposes, Egypt was turned into a British colony, although on paper it was still part of the Ottoman Empire. As a result of Britain's actions, its relations with France deteriorated.
  6. ↑ In September 1885, an uprising of Bulgarian patriots took place in Eastern Rumelia. The Turkish governor was overthrown. Rumelia was reunited with Bulgaria.
  7. ↑ The reference is to the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which ended in victory for Prussia (see also notes 171 and .172). The principal theatre of operations was Bohemia (Cechy). Engels compares this campaign with the military operations conducted by Bulgaria in the war against Serbia, which began on November 14 (2), 1885. The war was triggered off by the attempt of Serbia, instigated by AustriaHungary, to reverse the results of the unification of Eastern Rumelia and the Bulgarian Principality that had taken place in September 1885. In the first month of the war, Bulgarian troops defeated the Serbian army and soon entered Serbia. Under pressure from Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria called a halt to the advance of its troops. The frontiers of the united Bulgaria were confirmed by the Bucharest Peace Treaty of 1886.
  8. ↑ N. A. Alexeyev.— Ed
  9. ↑ See "Morning Post. Wednesday, May 14", Novoye Vremya, No. 3666, May 15 (27), 1886.— Ed.
  10. ↑ Greeting Alexander III on May 13 (25), 1886, on his return to Moscow from the Crimea, the city mayor Alexeyev said, "Our faith is strengthening that the cross of Christ will shine on St. Sophia" (he meant St. Sophia's Cathedral in Constantinople).
  11. ↑ The rest of the paragraph is missing in Engels' letter; instead it says: "or else—the Slavophiles would rebel".— Ed.
  12. ↑ Slavophilism—a trend in Russian social thought in the 1840s-60s, which advocated a special path of historical development for Russia, one differing fundamentally from that of Western Europe. Engels is referring here to those representatives of Russian society who in the 1880s championed active use of the slogan of Slavic unity in the foreign policy pursued by the Tsarist autocracy. On the Nihilists, see Note 268.
  13. ↑ The reference is to the political crisis of 1886-87 in Bulgaria. After the deposition of the Prince of Battenberg and the establishment of the Regency in August 1886, the Russian government sent General Kaulbars to Burgaria on a special mission to prepare the ground for the election of a Russian candidate to the Bulgarian throne. The mission failed, however, partly because of the stand taken on the Bulgarian issue by West European powers headed by Britain. Kaulbars was recalled, and diplomatic relations between Russia and Bulgaria were broken off in November 1886.
  14. ↑ Alexander II.— Ed.
  15. ↑ Louis Philippe Albert d'Orléans, count of Paris.— Ed.
  16. ↑ The Orleanists were supporters of the Orleans dynasty which held power in France during the July monarchy (1830-48). They upheld the interests of the financial aristocracy and the big industrial bourgeoisie and were members of the so-called Party of Order (see Note 202).