Letter to Karl Marx, April 11, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 11 April 1851


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


Dear Marx,

I thought that by today I would at last have been done with my grand strategical treatise.[1] Partly because of interruptions, partly through having to look up details, and partly because the thing is turning out longer than I thought, I shall hardly finish it before the small hours. It is, by the way, wholly unfit for publication, is for private information only, and a kind of exercise for me.

I am gradually gaining a clearer conception of Wellington. A self-willed, tough, obstinate Englishman, with all the bon sens,[2] all the resourcefulness of his nation; slow in his deliberations, cautious, never counting on a lucky chance despite his most colossal luck; he would be a genius if common sense were not incapable of rising to the heights of genius. All his things are exemplary, not one of them masterly.[3] A general like him is as if created for the English army where every soldier, every second lieutenant, is a miniature Wellington in his own sphere. And he knows his army, its self-willed, defensive doggedness, which every Englishman brings with him from the boxing ring, and which enables it, after eight hours of strenuous defensive fighting that would bring any other army to its knees, to launch yet another formidable attack in which lack of élan is compensated by uniformity and steadiness. The defensive battle of Waterloo,[4] until the Prussians arrived, would have been too much for any army not having a nucleus of 35,000 Englishmen.

During the Peninsular War, incidentally, Wellington showed greater insight into Napoleon's military art than those nations upon whose backs Napoleon left the imprint of the superiority of his military art. Whereas the Austrians simply became confused, and the Prussians, because their judgment n'y voyait que du feu,[5] declared imbecility and genius to be identical, Wellington showed a measure of finesse and avoided the blunders committed by the Austrians and Prussians. He never imitated Napoleon's manoeuvres, but made it exceedingly difficult for the French to employ their manoeuvres against himself. He never made a single mistake, unless compelled by political considerations; on the other hand I have never discovered the least evidence of his having ever betrayed so much as a spark of genius. Napier himself[6] says of him that, on occasions when a stroke of genius would have been decisive, no such thing ever entered his mind. So far as I can learn, he never knew how to exploit such an opportunity. He is great in his own way, as great, that is, as it is possible to be without ceasing to be mediocre. He has all the qualities of the soldier, all of them equally developed and in remarkable harmony one with the other; but it is precisely this harmony which prevents any one individual quality from evolving to the point of genius. Tel soldat, tel politique?[7] Peel, his political bosom friend, is to some extent his replica. Both represent a Toryism which has enough bon sens decently to surrender one position after another and to merge with the bourgeoisie. It is the retreat to Torres Vedras.[8] Voilà Wellington.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, 'Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance against France in 1852'.
  2. ↑ common sense
  3. ↑ A pun on the words musterhaft (exemplary) and meisterhaft (masterly).
  4. ↑ In the battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) Napoleon's army was defeated by the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian forces commanded by Wellington and Blücher.
  5. ↑ could not understand it
  6. ↑ W. F. P. Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula...
  7. ↑ As the soldier is, so are his politics.
  8. ↑ Engels compares the policy of some Tory leaders who made forced concessions to the bourgeoisie, with the military tactics of Wellington in the Peninsular war of 1808-14, when the Anglo-Portuguese army under his command retreated to the fortified line at Torres Vedras (near Lisbon) in the autumn of 1810. Wellington left covering forces along the French line of advance which the enemy could overcome only after stubborn fighting. As a result, when the French troops reached Torres Vedras they were so exhausted that they could not attack the fortifications and were compelled to withdraw to the Spanish border in March 1811.