Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 17, 1857

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 17 September 1857


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN RYDE

[London,] 17 September[1] [1857]

Dear Engels,

Bernadotte is a difficult subject. The French generals who wrote under Louis Philippe are mostly his unqualified PARTISANS, just as the present writers under Boustrapa[2] are his unqualified opponents. The main points at issue upon which I should appreciate information from you are:

1. His part in the battle of Austerlitz[3] as a consequence of the manoeuvres he executed before the same.

2. His conduct at the batde of Jena[4] ; and before the batüe of Eylau.[5]

3. His conduct at the battle of Wagram.[6]

As regards his embassy in Vienna, things were not quite as you present them.[7] It has been shown (by inter alia Schlosser, Zur Beurtheilung Napoleons) that the Bonapartist journals in Paris denounced Bernadotte as a royalist because he did not hang out the French flag. They drove him into taking the step which Bonaparte subsequently disavowed.

All in all, Bonaparte sensed that Bernadotte was the 'statesman' amongst his generals and one intent on pursuing his 'own plans'. He, and more notably his brothers, by their base and petty intrigues against Bernadotte, gave him greater prominence than he could otherwise have laid claim to.

Napoleon was, in general, beastly to anyone he suspected of 'self-seeking'.

Your

K. M.

Blücher. I'd like you to write something about his principal battles, his military qualities generally and, finally, the tactical merits upon which Griesheim lays so much stress.[8]

Bessières, Brune, Brown, Bugeaud, ditto. Bosquet in the Crimean campaign. Let me have Dana's list of B's as I have lost my copy.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ April in the original
  2. ↑ Boustrapa—nickname of Louis Bonaparte, composed of the first syllables of the names of the places where he and his supporters staged Bonapartist putsches: Boulogne (August 1840), Strasbourg (October 1846) and Paris (coup d'état of 2 December 1851).—31, 94, 170, 230, 256, 290, 336, 425, 435
  3. ↑ The battle of Austerlitz (see Note 46) was an important event in the war of the Third Coalition (Austria, Russia, Britain and Sweden) against Napoleonic France (1805).—170, 174
  4. ↑ At the battle of Jena (14 October 1806) the French army, commanded by Napoleon, routed the Prussian army, thus forcing Prussia to surrender. At Austerlitz (Czech name: Slavkov) Napoleon's army defeated the Austrians and Russians on 2 December 1805.—37, 170, 180, 461
  5. ↑ Here and below Engels describes events during the war of the Fourth Coalition (Britain, Russia, Prussia and Sweden) against Napoleonic France. After the defeat of the Prussian army by Napoleon in the spring of 1806 the main theatre of war shifted to East Prussia, where Napoleon encountered stubborn resistance from the allied army of Russia and Prussia. The battle of Preussisch-Eylau on 7-8 February 1807 between the French army and Russian and Prussian forces was indecisive.—162, 170, 175
  6. ↑ At the battle of Wagram (Austria) on 5-6 July 1809 during the war of the Fifth Coalition (Austria, Britain), Napoleon's army defeated the Austrians.—170, 175, 176
  7. ↑ See this volume, p. 165.
  8. ↑ G. von Griesheim, Vorlesungen über die Taktik.