Letter to Karl Marx, July 31, 1870

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 31 July 1870


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. IV, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 31 July 1870

Dear Moor,

Enclosed you will find the plan of the Prussian campaign.[1] Please get a CAB immediately and take it round to The Pall Mall Gazette, so that it can come out on Monday evening. It will make me and the P.M.G. tremendously famous. By Tuesday matters may have developed to the point where any ass can figure the business out. I do not know whether my No. II[2] appeared on Saturday as the P.M.G. has not reached the clubs here yet. I am building a fair amount on this business, as it really wasn't easy to guess the plan. T h e deciding factor was the news that a cousin of Gumpert's, a company commander in the 77th regiment, the vanguard of the 7th Army Corps, set off from Aachen for Trier on 27 July. When I heard that everything fell into place.

In addition, it is essential for you to arrange with Greenwood for me to send him the articles direct, so that they can appear the same day. Delay is now fatal for articles of this sort. My idea is to send him an article twice a week on the average, more frequently if the matter is urgent, less often when there is a lull. In between I would send shorter notices when opportune, which he could make use of as he wished.

It is indeed becoming increasingly humiliating for us to be waging war under William.[3] But it is still a good thing that he should be making himself so monstrously ridiculous with his divine mission and his Stieber, without whom German unity could hardly be achieved. The Address of the International[4] was printed here on Saturday in the Tory Courier[5] . Had it been another day of the week, the other papers would have published it too, but the Saturday advertisements were against it. The Address will teach the populus of all classes that nowadays the workers are the only ones to have a real FOREIGN POLICY. It is very good and it was certainly only because of the Russians that The Times declined to accept it.[6] Both the governments and the bourgeoisie will be greatly astonished after the war when they see how the workers simply resume their activities as if nothing had interrupted them at all.

My confidence in the military achievements of the Germans grows daily. We really seem to have won the first serious encounter. The French do not yet appear to have properly grasped the potential of the breech-loader.

Moltke's game is very audacious. On my calculations he will not be ready with his troop concentrations before Tuesday or Wednesday. From Aachen to the frontier is about 20 German miles, i.e. 4-5 hard marches, especially in this heat. That means that the whole 7th Corps can scarcely be on the Saar before tomorrow, and the main battle may already take place today. At all events it is so FINELY CUT that 24 hours either way can make an enormous difference. The battle itself will probably be fought out on the Saar between Merzig and Saarbrücken.[7]

It is good that the French have attacked first on German territory. If the Germans follow on their heels after repelling an invasion, this will certainly not have the same effect in France as it would have done had they marched into the country without being invaded first. This means that on the French side the war will remain more Bonapartist in character.

The ultimate success—i.e. a German victory—is quite beyond doubt in my view. However, Moltke's plan betrays his absolute assurance that he will have overwhelming superiority in the very first battle. We shall probably know by Tuesday evening[8] whether he has not miscalculated. Moltke often reckons without his William.

The more the German philistine cringes before his William who trusts in God and cringes before Him, the more insolent he becomes towards France. The old pack is once again in full cry on the subject of Alsace-Lorraine—the Augsburger[9] in the lead. The peasants of Lorraine, however, will soon show the Prussians that the matter is not so easy.

You are quite right about the treaty.[10] People are not quite as stupid as Bismarck imagines. The only good thing about it is that the whole mess will now come out into the open and then there will be an end to all the duplicity of Bismarck and Bonaparte.[11]

In the whole neutrality business, coal included,[12] the Germans are acting like children, quite in accord with history. These are questions that have never faced the people. Who indeed has ever inquired about them?

The Russians returned herewith.[13] Once a Russian, always a Russian. What an idiotic piece of gossip-mongering. Six Russians quarrelling among themselves as if the mastery of the globe depended on the outcome. And it does not even include the accusations against Bakunin, merely their whining about cliquish- ness in Switzerland. At all events our people seem to be honest in so far as this is possible for a Russian; but I would still proceed cautiously with them. In the meantime it is quite good to know all the gossip; it is after all a fact of life in the diplomacy of the proletariat.

Through the fault of the Post Office my copies of the Volksstaat arrive quite irregularly. The issue of the 23rd had a band round it with a post mark from the 19th; so that's the sort of trick they get up to. Many issues have not arrived at all. In the last two Wilhelm[14] was not very actively stupid; he was sheltering behind the FRATERNISATION of the French and German workers.

Schorlemmer has two brothers in the Hesse division, one-year NCOs.

Have heard nothing more from Smith.[15] Many thanks for your efforts. If I hear nothing this week, I shall write Smith a fairly blunt letter. What a crazy idea for an aristocrat like that to gather his own information on the spot here! If he had left it to his BANKER, he would have had all he needed in three days. But the man has to act the BUSINESSMAN. The ox! Best regards to you all. Lizzie's knee is well on the way to recovery.

Dupont had let himself be landed with a house, probably[16] through Mothet, situated in the unhealthiest of neighbourhoods, close by the stinking river. However, I have seen to it that he has taken another. But do not say anything about it to him, it is all settled. He has not brought Mothet to me again, however. Serraillier will have written to him about it, and Dupont himself seems to feel relief now that he hasn't got the fellow round his neck day and night.

Your

F. E.

[Notes attached to the letter][17]

Army of the North German Confederation[18]

1 Guards corps and 12 corps of the line:

summa 114 infantry regiments à[19] 3 battalions = 342 bat. Chasseurs and rifle battalions = 16 " Hesse division: 4 reg. à 2 bat. & 2 bat. of Chasseurs = 10 "

Battalions of the line 368

Landwehr[20]

93 reg. à 2 bat. and 12 odd bat. = 198 bat. Hesse, estimate 6 " 204 "

Total bat. already organised 572

Reserves are to be set up as soon as the field army and the Landwehr have been mobilised, and without any further specific orders:

Troops of the line: the 4th battalions of 114 regiments 114 Landwehr: the 3rd " " 93 " 93

779 battalions

The officers for these reserves are to be picked out at the start of mobilisation; they can be ready 4-6 weeks after the order to mobilise has been issued. They are the best battalions in the whole army. As soon as they have been set up a start will be made with the 5th battalions of the line and the 4th of the Landwehr, etc. Hence the organisation is as follows:

Troops of the line 368 bat. à 1,000 men 368,000 Landwehr 204 " à 800 " 163,200

531,200

Envisaged for organisation:

Troops of the line 114 bat. à 1,000 men 114,000 Landwehr 93 " à 800 " 74,400 188,400[21]

Infantry total 719,600

2 Bavarian army corps, say 50 bat.+ 30 bat. Landwehr = 80 1 Württemberg division, say 16 bat.+ 10 bat. Landwehr = 36 1 Baden division, say 9 bat.+ 5 bat. Landwehr = 14[22]

130 bat.=ca. 110,000

I have kept the figures of the South Germans down to the minimum. I have left cavalry and artillery completely out of account just so as to compare the relative strength of the infantry, since this is what decides the issue.

The French have:

Guards—33 bat.; line—100 reg. à 3 bat. 333 bat. Zouaves[23] —3 reg.=9 bat. Turcos—3 reg.=9 bat. Foreign, etc., 5 bat. 23 " Chasseurs-à-pied[24] 20 "

376 bat.

There are 8 companies to the battalion; if, as in 1859, the 24 companies of the battalion are divided into 4 battalions à 6 companies, then the company can be raised to 150 men, forming the 4th reserve battalion, which makes in 115 regiments the total of

115 bat.

491 bat.

If much of the Garde mobile[25] is organised, it comes to 100

Infantry: 580,000 men=591 bat.

Anything additional must be newly formed by officers withheld from the field army or recalled to active service. At the same time the Garde mobile cannot be deployed in the field on its own for the next 2-3 months at the least, since it has only exercised 2 weeks a year since 1868. The units of the French army (of the line), on the other hand, are too small to be able to contain large numbers of untrained or under-trained reserves. The entire new system has only existed since 1868. Incidentally, I must await further information about this new system, which leaves the internal organisation of the French army almost entirely unchanged. It may be that all sorts of things are being done on the quiet. At any rate, the units that have been trained only suffice to put the organised battalions of the line on a war-footing.

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, Notes on the War.—III.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, Notes on the War.—II.
  3. ↑ William I
  4. ↑ K. Marx, 'First Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian War'.
  5. ↑ Manchester Courier
  6. ↑ See this volume, p. 10.
  7. ↑ Engels' forecast proved correct. On 6 August 1870 one of the major battles of the early period of the war took place at Forbach (in Lorraine, not far from Saarbrücken), in which the Prussian troops defeated the French 2nd Corps under General Frossard. In historical literature this battle is also called the Battle of Spicheren. Engels refers to it as such in several of his letters.
  8. ↑ 2 or 3 August
  9. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung
  10. ↑ In his letter of 18 July 1870, Eugen Oswald, a German refugee, asked Marx to sign an Address on the Franco-Prussian War drawn up by a group of French and German democratic refugees. The Address was published as a leaflet on 31 July 1870; the editions that followed were signed by Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Bebel and other members of the International. Marx and his associates agreed to sign it on conditions outlined by Marx in his letter to Oswald of 3 August 1870 (see this volume, p. 34). Oswald enclosed with his letter an excerpt from Louis Blanc's letter in which he called for the Address on the Franco-Prussian War to be signed by as many people as possible.
  11. ↑ The draft of a secret treaty between France and Prussia, drawn up in 1866, was published in the German press after 20 July 1870. On 25 July it was published in The Times. The draft treaty envisaged the annexation of Belgium and Luxembourg by France in return for which France undertook to observe neutrality in Prussia's war against Austria in 1866. By publishing the draft Bismarck sought to turn public opinion in England and Belgium against France.
  12. ↑ On 23 January 1860 Britain and France signed a commercial treaty under which France renounced its excessively high protective tariffs. Article 2 of the treaty contained a special proviso which obliged France to lower the duties on imported British coal to 15 centimes per 100 kg. France in return was granted the right to export most of her goods to Britain duty-free.
  13. ↑ This refers to the letter of 24 July 1870 written by the members of the Committee of the Russian Section of the International and signed by Nikolai Utin, Victor Bartenev and Anton Trusov. They wrote about the Section's struggle against Mikhail Bakunin and his attacks on members of the Russian Section as well as the Romance Federation. The authors also referred to their intention to publish a pamphlet against Bakunin (their plan was not carried out). The Committee members warned the General Council that Sergei Nechayev and Vladimir Serebrennikov had left for London and that the latter had obtained a recommendation to Dupont. Marx replied to their letter in his letter to Johann Philipp Becker of 2 August 1870 (see this volume, pp. 26-27).
  14. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  15. ↑ Marx means renting a house for Engels who intended to move from Manchester to London for good in September 1870 after retiring from the firm of Ermen & Engels. Jenny Marx took an active part in looking for a suitable house.
  16. ↑ See this volume, p. 11.
  17. ↑ Engels attached these calculations to his article 'Notes on the War.—III', which he enclosed with his letter to Marx. As from 31 July Engels forwarded his articles directly to The Pall Mall Gazette.
  18. ↑ The first page of the notes up to the words The French have: (on p. 21), is crossed out in the original.
  19. ↑ à here means 'each of'
  20. ↑ The Landwehr—a second-line army reserve formed in Prussia during the struggle against Napoleonic rule. In the 1870s, it consisted of men under forty years of age who had seen active service and had been in the first-line reserve. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the Landwehr was used in military actions on a par with the regular troops.
  21. ↑ In the original '188,600'
  22. ↑ This figure is given in the original.
  23. ↑ Zouaves—light infantry units in the French colonial troops who wore a special uniform resembling that of the Zouaves, a North African people.
  24. ↑ light infantry
  25. ↑ Garde mobile—militia units in France. The law concerning the Garde mobile was adopted in France on 1 February 1868. It envisaged military training for all citizens of military age who were not serving in the regular army or in the Garde nationale. In fact, however, the law was carried out only in part. During the Franco-Prussian War the Garde mobile was used as an auxiliary army.