Manchester, 16 May 1866 

Dear Moor, 

The Freiligrath affair is very amusing and very gratifying. 
That’s what comes of him attaching himself to the respectable 
people among the émigrés and renouncing the ‘party’. As regards 
Blind, the fitting cry in respect of his: manus haec inimica tyrranis? 
should be that children ought not to play with guns. It is 
incidentally quite clear from the affair that Bismarck wears an 
armoured shirt.° The shots must all have hit him, the last 3 are 
admitted to have been direct hits, and as the revolver was so 
designed that it could not be fired in contact with the target, there 
is just no other possibility. They make these things very fine and 

a K. Marx, ‘A Warning’ - » this hand is hostile to tyrants (see this volume, p. 273) 

yet strong nowadays. His friend Bonaparte will no doubt have 
supplied him with one and recommended it to him. 

Monsieur Bismarck has obviously been gravely disappointed in 
the smaller states, hinc* the threat of an imperial constitution and 
Bennigsen. There must also have been some financial mishaps. 
But can one conceive of anything more comical than that the same 
William, who as top general in the year 1849 bore the imperial 
constitution to its grave, now wants to resuscitate it, or rather has 
to. Bismarck as restorer of the ‘German fundamental rights’, it’s 
too funny. Things are not looking quite as they should in the 
militia and in the reserves, who have been recalled, either; in 
G6rlitz there was a serious fracas amongst them, soldiers of the 
line had to be called out and then withdraw because the fellows 
were not willing to tolerate intervention of that kind. If these 
people are kept hanging around under arms for another 3-4 
weeks, there is no knowing what they might do. And since neither 
Prussia nor Italy is ready to attack, they will presumably have to 
stick there until the end of May at least. 

This much is certain: Monsieur Bismarck has ridden into a 
morass with which neither he nor any of the present regime can 
cope. If things are settled peaceably, he will have burnt up the 
available funds and therefore he will no longer be able to help 
himself, and if there is war, he will have to Acheronta movere,” who 
will certainly consume him. In these circumstances, even a direct 
victory of the Chamber-burghers will be revolutionary in character 
and is bound to lead to other things. 

For all that, I still cannot think that in the middle of the 19th 
century North and South Germany will come to blows with each 
other, just because Bismarck would have it so in the interests of 
the Russians and Bonaparte. However, if the storm does break, it 
may go ill with the Prussians. This time, the Austrians seem to be 
intent on going to the limit of their strength, and, even if their big 
talk of 900,000 men is nonsense, it is still possible that they may 
take the field in Saxony with substantial numerical superiority. 
Against Austria, Prussia cannot draw on the Rhenish and 
Westphalian corps at all, and only on part of the Saxon. There 
remain the other six army corps, which will scarcely be able to 
muster 240,000 men to face the enemy. If, as is suggested, the 
Austrians initially remain on the defensive in Italy, they will only 
need 150,000 men there, and can perfectly well send 300-350,000 
men against Prussia—unless the Russians compel them to keep a 

a hence - > call the powers of the underworld to his aid (Virgil, Aeneid, VII, 312).