Letter to Karl Marx, July 15, 1877

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 15 July 1877


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Ramsgate, 15 July 1877
2 Adelaide Gardens

Dear Moor,

We have been installed here since Wednesday,[1] but this time, alas, the effect of the sea air has not been as rapid in my wife's case as we hoped; she can't quite get her appetite back. In my case, on the other hand, the aftermath of the excursion to Manchester is already 'out of sight, out of mind'.

The enclosed letter has been forwarded to me along with one from the selfsame Wiede[2] (who thus must obviously be someone other than our merry little hunchback[3] ). Write and tell me what you say to the worthy fellow so that we proceed unisono.

The first proof of the 'Political Economy' is already here.[4]

Sheet 6 of the 'Philosophy', from which 29 lines were omitted, is being reprinted; let's hope there is no further unpleasantness in store.[5]

I still find the collapse of the Russians in Asia somewhat inexplicable. The Caucasian army has a strength of 8 divisions à 16 battalions, i.e. 128 battalions of the line (apart from riflemen, garrison troops and new formations), but Loris-Melikov is said to have only 40-50 batts in all just now. If we estimate the flying columns near Batum and Bayazid[6] at a further 30 batts (certainly too high), there remain 50-60 batts to be accounted for. These must therefore have remained in the Caucasus to cover the lines of communication. If this assumption runs counter to the vainglorious claims originally made by the Russians, that is no reason for rejecting it. Anyhow the landing at Sukhum-Kaleh—whatever its real and immediate results may have been—would appear fully to have succeeded in achieving the aim of tying up almost half the Caucasian army in the Caucasus proper.

In Bulgaria the Russians are apparently feeling their way for the time being, an easy enough task thanks to the purely passive resistance of the Turks (which has reduced the Kölnische Zeitung's Prussian lieutenants to utter despair). At all events they are, it seems, preparing to make a rapid thrust through the Balkans, either via Gabrovo-Kazanlyk or via Sofia-Philippopolis.[7] If they do so, and the Turkish government refuses to let itself be intimidated thereby, this 'most modern form of warfare' could end in disaster. To maintain three army corps in Thrace and keep them supplied with ammunition, etc., when you have no negotiable lines of communication to your rear, is a feat that may be the undoing of even the great Nikolai Nikolayevich.

The fact of the matter is that a few Europeans are necessary to the Turks. These people think in terms either of attack alone or defence alone. A combination of the two is beyond them. Like that Turkish major who said to the Kölnische Zeitung's lieutenant: You see all those Russians over there on the far side of the Danube?—Dammit, aren't your guns going to fire at them?—Yok, efendim, no Sir, but just let the Russians fire at us, and they'll see what sort of an answer we'll give them!—Meanwhile the Russians are setting up their batteries completely at their leisure. Had Silistria been defended like this in 1853, it would soon have fallen.[8]

Kindest regards from family to family,

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels and his sick wife stayed in Ramsgate between 11 July and 28 August 1877.
  2. ↑ In his letters to Marx of 9 July and to Engels of 10 July 1877, Franz Wiede proposed that they contribute to the Neue Gesellschaft magazine he was planning to start (the first issue appeared in Zurich in October 1877). In a letter to Engels of 20 July 1877, Wiede asked for a speedy reply to his proposal.
  3. ↑ Johannes Wedde
  4. ↑ Engels is referring to the proofs of Part II of Anti-Dühring (see Note 155), which appeared in the Vorwärts between 27 July and 30 December 1877 as a series of articles under the general heading 'Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der politischen Oekonomie'.
  5. ↑ In July 1877 the first part of Anti-Dühring was published in Leipzig as a separate pamphlet headed 'Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. I. Philosophie'.
  6. ↑ Modern Turkish name: Doğubayazıt
  7. ↑ Bulgarian name: Plovdiv
  8. ↑ A reference to the Russian army's siege of Silistria, a Turkish fortress (Bulgarian name: Silistra), in May-June 1854, during the Crimean War of 1853-56.