Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, January 23, 1852 (Engels)

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 23 January 1852


First published in part in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 2, No. 29, Stuttgart, 1906-07 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934
Published in English for the first time, slightly abridged, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895, International Publishers, New York, 1953
Published in English in full in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


ENGELS TO JOSEPH WEYDEMEYER

IN NEW YORK

Manchester, 23 January 1852

Dear Weydemeyer,

I hope that in the meantime you will have received my first letter, which I posted on 18 or 19 December in time for the STEAMER Africa.[1] It contained an article written in haste and a letter, likewise written in haste. You should have had it long before the 5th, but it may have only gone with the next STEAMER. Meanwhile, last week I sent you by the Niagara an article unaccompanied by a letter,[2] but doubt whether I posted it in time; if it was too late, it will arrive with this one, by the Europa, in which case you will have some material in hand. You'll have already had several things from Marx, an anti-Kinkel poem from Freiligrath[3] and also, perhaps, something from Lupus and Pieper. Weerth is very busy just now and has not really settled down in Bradford (Yorkshire); however, he has promised me he will send something by the next STEAMER. I shall probably see him here tomorrow and prod him yet again to make him keep his promise. Unfortunately Marx has been seriously ill for the past fortnight as a result of an almighty binge when I was in London over the New Year, and I was prevented from working until last week, partly because of the fortnight spent in London and partly because of various snags that subsequently cropped up. However, I think I shall be able to send you something regularly each week now, and shortly, perhaps, something for a feuilleton by way of a change.

I am settled here in Manchester for the present, luckily in a position which, besides much independence, affords me various advantages; Marx and other friends occasionally come up from London to see me and, so long as Weerth is in Bradford, we arrange a regular shuttle-service between here and there, as the railway journey only takes 2 1/2 hours. But now he will probably leave; he cannot abide that beastly hole, Bradford, and he's never happy anywhere if he has to spend more than a year sitting on his backside in the same place. I am considering a trip to the STATES, either next summer or, if there are no political changes in the meantime, the summer after that; to the STATES, New York, and particularly New Orleans. But this depends on my old man,[4] not me, and also on how things go in the cotton market.

Fifty copies of the Revolution is too much and the cost will probably be enormous, i.e. four shillings or more each time. In view of the wholesale arrests, dispersion, etc., and the German press laws, we can count on only a few subscribers here and, in Germany, only one or two at most in Hamburg, hence specimen numbers will be of no use to us. Newspapers, one or more to a wrapper, open at the sides, cost 1d (2 cents) per sheet. So send 4 to me and 6-8 direct to London, for otherwise I have to restamp them from here to London and I can hardly saddle the business with these massive postal charges. Ten to twelve copies will suffice for us and, if there seems to be any prospect of subscribers here, we can organise a regular agency in London to which the back numbers can be sent all at one time and under the same cover to complete the series. I shall discuss the matter with the people in London and see what can be done.

In France, things are going splendidly. Yesterday evening the Patrie reported that the creation of a Police Ministry for de Maupas would be announced in today's Moniteur.[5] De Morny who, along with Fould and a few others, represents the material interests of the bourgeoisie (but not their participation in political power) in the Cabinet, will be thrown out, and the reign of those died-in-the-wool adventurers Maupas, Persigny and Co. will begin. That will be the start of imperial true socialism[6] ; the first socialist measure will be the confiscation of Louis Philippe's property,[7] for the Act of 6 August 1830, by which he left his property to his children instead of to the State as ancient custom demanded, is invalid. The portion of the Condé estates inherited by Aumale is also to be seized. The news might even arrive by next Saturday's STEAMER if things develop quickly enough. In the southern départements, the insurgents are still being hunted like game.[8]

The English Press is now the only reliable one for French news, and occasionally too, the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. The paper in which you will find the best news about France is the London Daily News, which I therefore specially commend to you. The Tribune takes it, and you will certainly also be able to lay hands on it elsewhere, it being far too expensive to take. You will, I am sure, have no difficulty in finding it in the coffee houses of the CITY'S commercial quarter.

Dronke may soon be paying you a visit; I hear that anyone who has to leave Switzerland is sent via France only to America, not to England. But now he will be compelled to leave; as we have heard nothing whatever from him he must be in hiding.

Gnam, a former Baden artilleryman and brewer, who went over on the same ship as Heinzen, is a sterling fellow. With them went Rothacker, a student from Upper Baden; he used to be a good chap but he may have changed and is, moreover, dangerous on account of his versifying. Little Schickel of Mainz, whose address you can get from Cluss (away in the Alleghenies), will exert himself on behalf of the Revolution. Please send him my kind regards, which may be done through Cluss.

Below, a few supplementary notes on my remarks concerning the prospects for an invasion of England,[9] which will explain things to you:

1. Any landing west of Portsmouth runs the risk of being forced into the wedge formed by Cornwall—hence impracticable.

2. Any landing too far north of, or too close to, Dover faces the same hazard between Thames and sea.

3. London and Woolwich—the first buts d'opération.[10] Detachments to be sent against Portsmouth and Sheerness (Chatham). Strong occupation force in London, strong guard posts between the coast and London. Out of a landing force 150,000 strong, at least 60,000 needed for this purpose (and that not enough). Thus continuation of operations could proceed with 90,000 men.

4. Birmingham the second objective (on account of the arms factories). Secure the area south of the Bristol Channel and the Wash, i.e. a line from Gloucester to King's Lynn; in addition, a strong spearhead aimed at Birmingham. However weak and broken the opposing army might be, I consider this impossible with the 90,000 men available. But assuming it succeeds, no tenable defence position will have been won, particularly if the English Navy bestirs itself. The line will be too long and too weak. Hence it will be necessary to resume the advance.

5. Manchester the third objective; all country south of Mersey (or Ribble) and Aire (Humber) to be secured and this line to be held. It is shorter and more tenable, but here again the forces greatly weakened by the need to detach troops. Hence, since the defenders still have room and resources enough to reorganise, either the advance must continue, or else there must be an early retreat.

6. The first tenable line in the relatively narrow part of northern England, either the Tees or even better the Tyne (the line of the Roman wall against the Picts[11] ) from Carlisle to Newcastle. But then the agricultural, industrial and commercial resources of the Scottish Lowlands still remain in the hands of the defenders.

7. The conquest of England proper can be regarded as complete, and then only for a time, only after the capture of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the retreat of the defenders into the Highlands, and the occupation of the admirably short strong line between Clyde and Firth of Forth, having an extensive railway system to the rear.

Only after the conquest, however, would the difficulty, and an unavoidable one, be felt—that of consolidating once communications with France have been cut.

In such circumstances, how many men are needed to conquer and hold the entire country from Dover to the Clyde, and to present a decent front on the Clyde?

To my mind, 400,000 would not be too many. These CONSIDERATIONS are much too detailed for your paper and I lay them before you as a PROFESSIONAL MAN. Take a look at a map of England and tell me what you think. It is an aspect of the matter that is totally neglected by the English.

The letters are going off to the post. I must close. Kindest regards to your wife.[12]

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ This letter has not been found.
  2. ↑ The letter to Weydemeyer and two articles of the series on England (see Note 17) which Engels mentions have not been found
  3. ↑ F. Freiligrath, 'An Joseph Weydemeyer', I.
  4. ↑ Friedrich Engels senior, Engels' father
  5. ↑ The decree of 22 January 1852 on the creation of a Police Ministry under de Maupas and the decree of 22 January on the resignation of the Minister of the Interior de Morny and appointment of Persigny were printed in Le Moniteur universel, No. 23, 23 January 1852.
  6. ↑ Engels draws an ironical parallel between the policy of Bonapartism in the social sphere and the views of German 'true socialists' (Karl Grün, Moses Hess, Hermann Kriege and others), who in the mid-1840s indulged in the sentimental preaching of love and brotherhood and of pseudo-socialist ideas, and denied the need for political struggle and a revolution. Marx and Engels criticised this ideological trend of the reactionary German petty bourgeoisie particularly in The German Ideology (see present edition, Vol. 5), and in the Circular Against Kriege, German Socialism in Verse and Prose and the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Vol. 6)
  7. ↑ The decree of 22 January 1852 on the confiscation of Louis Philippe's property was printed in Le Moniteur universel, No. 23, 23 January 1852.
  8. ↑ The Bonapartist coup d'état of 2 December 1851 caused a republican uprising of artisans, workers in small towns, local peasants, tradesmen and intellectuals in about 20 departments in South-East, South-West and Central France. The Bonapartists thoroughly concealed the genuine scale of the republican movement. The true character of the movement and its brutal suppression by police and troops became known only in the last years of the Second Empire (see present edition, Vol. 43, Marx to Engels, 19 December 1868)
  9. ↑ Engels has in mind his article 'England' which he intended to send to Weydemeyer with the letter (see Note 17)
  10. ↑ objectives
  11. ↑ The Roman wall (so-called Hadrian's Wall) was erected in North England in the second century to defend the Roman province of Britannia against the raids of the Picts (tribes then inhabiting the territory of what is now Scotland) and extended between the Solway and the Tyne (from Carlisle to Newcastle) over a distance of about 120 kilometres. After the fall of Roman rule in the fifth century Hadrian's Wall was destroyed
  12. ↑ Louise