Letter to Philipp Pauli, March 26, 1877

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 26 March 1877


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO PHILIPP PAULI

IN RHEINAU

[London, 26 March 1877]

Dear Pauli,

I can't let this curious letter from Pumps go off without saying once again how very grateful my wife[1] and I are to you and your wife[2] for all the love and kindness you have shown the girl. I hope that when your children are bigger there will at last be an opportunity of squaring the account.

When will you be coming? Schorlemmer swears black and blue that you have to visit England before the summer, but that's all we can find out, and yet it would be very nice to know, approximate- ly, when you will be turning up. Your room is ready; if you were to arrive at the end of this week, Schorlemmer could take advantage of the holidays and come too.

We spent three weeks in Brighton,[3] which did my wife a power of good; she returned stronger than even after last year's long spell at the seaside and recuperative trip, and she had been remarkably low. If only it lasts until the summer.

So after all the endless shilly-shallying it now looks as though they are going to come to blows in the Orient after all[4] and I shall be delighted if the Russians take a pasting. The Turks are people of a quite peculiar stamp, who cannot be judged by European standards, and their position, complete with fortresses, between the Danube and the Balkans is inferior in strength only to the position Metz-Strasbourg-Mainz-Koblenz. The Russians may yet break many a tooth there.

And now, warm regards to your wife and children and you yourself from my wife and

Your

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Lizzie Burns
  2. ↑ Ida Pauli
  3. ↑ From about 20 February to 17 March and in the second half of May 1877, Engels stayed in Brighton with his sick wife.
  4. ↑ Engels' forecast based on an in-depth analysis of European policy in the Levant proved correct. The Russo-Turkish war began on 24 April 1877 and ended in defeat for Turkey. On 3 March 1878, the preliminary San Stefano Treaty (see Note 430) was signed, which granted complete sovereignty to Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.