Letter to Karl Marx, January 6, 1868

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 6 January 1868


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 6 January 1868

Dear Moor,

If you do not want to take arsenic, then for goodness sake do something else, for things cannot go on like this. Have you consulted Allen or another doctor recently? Gumpert was not at home when I called the other day, but I shall take the first opportunity to speak to him.

You did not send the Beobachter or the 2 Urquharts either.[1] However, today Kugelmann sent me the Beobachter and the Württemberg Staats-Anzeiger (I am sending you the latter and when I get it back will send it to Meissner, if you do not send it to him direct). It's fine that these two PAPERS have risen to the bait. I shall now also prepare Kugelmann something for the Schwäbischer Merkur.[2]

Schorlemmer will put together the information for you from the latest annual reports. He was not acquainted with the book by Fraas.[3]

A natural scientist has appeared in Paris who calls himself Chmoulevitch (Schmulsohn!). This even beats Ephraim Artful.

The first instalment of the Austrian official general staff report on the war of 66 first proves that Austria's military organisation was not fit for a simultaneous war with Prussia and Italy, this is followed by the naive passage: Under these circumstances it should really have been the task of state foreign policy to safeguard the state against such a war.[4]

The Prussian 2nd instalment[5] shows quite clearly that on the 28th, and even more on the evening of the 29th,g Benedek was in a position to attack the scattered columns of the Crown Prince[6] with superior force and with almost absolute certainty to throw him back into the mountains and take his guns. The jackass did not do it, and lost the campaign.

Salut.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 508.
  2. ↑ In his letter to Engels of 30 November 1867, Kugelmann asked him to write several reviews of Volume One of Capital by Marx. Kugelmann was going to arrange for their publication with the help of Lieutenant-Colonel Seubert, a writer and an official of the Württemberg War Ministry, to whose daughter he was giving treatment. Seubert promised his assistance in getting the reviews published in such newspapers as Der Beobachter, Staats-Anzeiger für Württemberg and Schwäbischer Merkur. For the first two Engels wrote reviews.
  3. ↑ K. Fraas, Die Natur der Landwirthschaft.
  4. ↑ Österreichs Kämpfe im Jahre 1866..., Bd. I, S. 60-61.
  5. ↑ Der Feldzug von 1866 in Deutschland... (appeared in instalments)
  6. ↑ Frederick William