Letter to Karl Marx, June 10, 1854

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 10 June 1854


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 10 June 1854

Dear Marx,

I was very sorry I was unable to send you an article for Tuesday's post,[1] but it was a sheer impossibility because of the many jobs to be done at the office which now absolutely preclude my writing articles for you precisely on Mondays or Thursdays. On top of that, my present lodgings are almost 3/4 of an hour's walk away from the post, so that nothing more can be done late at night for the second post. Hence I have to work on Saturdays and on Wednesday evenings. Tomorrow I shall send you a comprehensive article on the siege of Silistria[2] which ought to cause a stir; maybe, too, some notes on Napier's absurd naval frolics[3] and on the condition of the army in Bulgaria.

I am now swotting the Hungarian campaign in real earnest and shall, I think, have worked my way through all the sources by October; come what may, I shall write the book this winter}. The more I go into it, the prettier the thing gets on both sides. At present I am comparing Görgey and Windischgrätz,[4] and find that in his self-apology the latter is as mendacious as in his bulletins[5] he hasn't the courage to disown. Delightful, how each of the two adversaries tries to make his own army out to be worse than the opposing one. Père Windischgrätz, incidentally, proves himself the ass we know him to be—HE HAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN HIMSELF DOWN AN ASS—and was most ably abetted in his tomfoolery by men even more stupid, if such a thing is possible, than himself, namely his subordinate generals Wrbna, Csorich and, above all, the chivalrous Banus Jellacic. Görgey's cynicism enables him to record the facts much more frankly and correctly than that mendacious apologist Windischgrätz. However, it is a campaign altogether worthy of the year '48/49.

Cold feet on both sides, the old armies and the revolutionary forces both discredited. Next week I hope to receive the official Austrian book[6] and one of these days I shall go through the Brockhaus catalogues to find what sources are still required. Another thing I need is Klapka[7] ; then I shall have all the principal stuff.

The thing for The Times[8] will be written next week; I now have all the sources and need only do a little more work on them. Could you find out in London what military periodicals are published there? Just in case of need.

Now I must go to the bookseller's if I am not to find it shut; let's hear from you soon.

Dronke, drunk as usual, was run over by a CAB, and is now in bed; will be confined to his room for some 8 or 10 days, otherwise nothing serious.

I shall make inquiries about Otto.[9]

Your

F. E.

I hope your wife is well again.

  1. ↑ 6 June
  2. ↑ F. Engels, 'The Siege of Silistria'.
  3. ↑ Engels apparently refers to Napier's report published in The Times, No. 21758, 3 June 1854. It described the action between an English frigate and steamer and three Russian merchant ships near the fortress of Gustavsvaern on 23 May. Two Russian ships were sunk, the third captured. The report called this 'a very gallant feat of arms'
  4. ↑ In June 1854 Engels simultaneously made notes from A. Görgei, Mein Leben und Wirken in Ungarn in den Jahren 1848 und 1849 (Bd. I-II, Leipzig, 1852) and from F. Hellwald von Heller, Der Winter-Feldzug 1848-1849 in Ungarn (Wien, 1851) written on Windischgrätz's instructions
  5. ↑ Engels refers to military reports of the Austrian Command published in the official Wiener Zeitung and also in Der Lloyd, Österreichischer Correspondent, Die Presse and other Austrian newspapers, mostly over Windischgrätz's signature. Engels used them as his main source when writing articles for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on the course of the 1848-49 revolutionary war in Hungary against the Austrian monarchy (see present edition, vols. 8 and 9)
  6. ↑ Probably Sammlung der für Ungarn erlassenen Allerhöchsten Manifeste und Proklamationen, dann der Kundmachungen der Oberbefehlshaber der kaiserlichen Armee in Ungarn. See this volume, pp. 435 and 437-38.
  7. ↑ G. Klapka, Memoiren. April bis Oktober 1849.
  8. ↑ See this volume, pp. 309-10.
  9. ↑ See this volume, p. 458.