Friedrich Engels 
Volunteer Engineers 

The Volunteer Journal, 
for Lancashire and Cheshire. 
Nr. 12, 24. November 1860 

Volunteer Engineers. 

The volunteer army has had, for some time, its infantry and artillery in 
considerable numbers; it has had its small complement of cavalry too; and 
now, the last branch of military service, the engineering branch, is gradually 
being taken up. The subject of volunteer engineers is at present very widely 
discussed, and it deserves the attention it enjoys. The corps of Royal En- 
gineers is too weak already for the numerous duties it has to perform at home 
and in the colonies. What will it be in case of awar, and anticipated invasion? 
Then the numerous fortifications which now are in course of erection, and 
by means of which the dockyards are being surrounded by vast entrenched 
camps, will require a considerable number of engineer officers and men for 
their garrison; and the army in the field, swelled to twice or three times its 
present number by the addition of the volunteers, will also be in want of a 
certain complement of engineers, to give it its full liberty of action before 
the enemy. Unless the corps of Royal Engineers is considerably increased, 
the duties of this branch of the service must either be imperfectly performed, 
or they must be performed by volunteers trained for them beforehand. 

The number of engineers to be attached to an army in the field is, after 
all, not very numerous; three or four companies to an army corps of two 
divisions (16 to 24 battalions of infantry, with a due proportion of cavalry 
and artillery) would be quite sufficient. Supposing a field-army of 40,000 of 
the line,20,000 militia, and 100,000 volunteers, in all 160,000, or 200 battalions, 
this would give from eight to ten corps, and require about thirty companies 
of engineers. We will suppose ten companies to be furnished by the Royal 
Engineers; this would leave twenty companies to be supplied by the volun- 
teer movement. About the same number more volunteer engineers would be 
sufficient to assist the royals in the defence of the fortified dockyards; so 
that something like forty companies of volunteer engineers would appear an 

ample complement for the present strength of the volunteer infantry and 
artillery. If the number of volunteers should so far increase as to enable them 
to appear in the field, after deducting garrisons, with more than 100,000 men, 
one additional engineer for every hundred additional riflemen would be 
enough; giving 200 engineers (or three companies) for every army corps of 
20,000 men. 

For the present, then, forty companies, or about 3,000 effectives, would 
be the maximum engineer force which it might be advisable to create. And 
it will require a great deal of energy to make them engineers not only inname, 

but also in reality. We find already now that among artillery volunteers a great 
deal of time is devoted to company and battalion drill, carbine in hand, 
although all this work serves for parade purposes only, and will never avail 
them one jot on active service, be it with field-guns, or be it in fortifications. 
And we are afraid it will be the same with the engineers. They should, above 

all things, bear in mind that every hour spent on company drill, beyond what 
is required to give them a mihtary bearing, aready and instantaneous obedi- 
ence to orders, and the capability of moving in good order on a march, is 
an hour lost to them; that they have quite different things to learn, and that 
on these, and not on steady marching past, depends their efficiency. They 

will have to acquaint themselves—men as well as of fleers—with the elements 

of field and permanent fortification; they will have to practice the con- 
struction of trenches and batteries, and the making and repairing of roads. 
If means can be found, they will have to construct mihtary bridges, andeven 
to dig mines. Some Of these branches, it is to be feared, can only be taught 
theoretically, as fortresses in England are scarce, and pontoons also ; and not 
every volunteer can be expected to go to Portsmouth or Chatham to study 
fortification or assist at the laying down of a pontoon bridge. But there are 
others which it is in the power of every company to practice. Ifthere was 
a company of engineers formed here in Manchester, we could show them 
plenty of lanes in as bad a state as any to be passed by a column in war, and 
where those whom it concerns would very likely be only too glad to allow 
them to practice road-making to their heart's content. It would not be very 
difficult for them to find a plot of land on which they could construct a few 
field-works, dig trenches, and erect batteries ; especially as such aplot of land 
would offer both the artillery and rifle volunteers an opportunity of practic- 
ing such parts of their service as they could otherwise not be made to go 
through. They might even find spots where they would be allowed occasion- 
ally to throw a small bridge of chevalets over one of those high-banked rivers 
of our neighbourhood, which offer such capital facilities for this kind of 
bridges wherever their bottom is firm. Such things, and many others of the 
same kind, should constitute their chief practice; company drill should be 

gone through rapidly at first, and only taken up again when the corps have 
got on fairly with their real engineering business; then, in the second winter, 

the nights may be used for drill with advantage. But if the engineers make 

it a point, from the beginning, to compete with the rifles in the style of 
marching past, and in battalion evolutions, to the detriment of their specific 
education; if the attention of the officers is directed more towards the duties 

of an infantry officer than to professional education—then the volunteer 
engineers may depend upon it that in acampaign they will far offener be used 

as infantry than as engineers. 

There will be little difficulty in finding very efficient officers, if they are 
selected from the only class fit for the post—the civil engineers. A few 
months' theoretical study, and an occasional journey to Chatham, Ports- 
mouth, or Aldershott, will soon make them conversant with most branches 
of military engineering, and the military education of their companies will 
help them on. They will learn by teaching. Their own profession compels 
them to know all the principles of military engineering, and as they musibe 
very intelligent and well-informed men, the application of these principles 
to military subjects will give them but little difficulty. 

We have read a statement in the Army and Navy Gazette respecting some 
immense military engineering organisation, which is to comprise all the lines 
of railway in the country, and to promise vast results in case of an invasion. 
The principal features of the plan are reproduced in last week's Volunteer 
Journal. The shape in which this plan is presented before the public is 
excessively vague; so far, we do not see the immense advantages that are 
ascribed to it, and rather think that two different things have been mixed up 
together. No doubt it is of the highest importance to study the strategical 
bearings of every single line of railway in the kingdom, as well as of the whole 
network of railways combined. This is so important that we should consider 
it a grave delinquency if it had not been done long ago, and if there were 
not now lying in the archives of the Horse Guards, as well as of the 
various district commanders, very extensive papers embodying the results 
of these studies. But this is the duty of the staff, and not of the engineers. 

As to forming the engineers, firemen, platelayers, and navies of every 
railway Une into a corps of military engineers, we do not see the great 
advantage of this. These men have already, so to say, a military organisation, 
and are under stricter discipline than any volunteer corps in the country. 
What they are expected to do in their quality as volunteer engineers, they 

are quite as capable of doing in their present capacity. And as in time of war 
their presence at their present posts would be far more indispensable than 
now, there can be no earthly use in training them to special branches of 
military engineering. 

These remarks apply to the plan only as far as it has been made public; 
if it should turn out, hereafter, that it contains other features, we must, of 
course, reserve our opinion. 

The Volunteer Journal, 
for Lancashire and Cheshire. 
Nr. 13, 1. Dezember 1860 

Volunteer Engineers.—As a supplementary note to our article of last week 
upon the value of volunteer engineer corps and their proper sphere of action, 
we may be permitted to point out another advantage to which the vast amount 
of engineering intelligence in this country may be turned. Most armies have, 
besides the officers connected with the sappers and miners, a number of 
engineer officers unattached to any companies, and doing special duties. 
Why not give the civil engineers of England achance of preparing themselves 
for this service? The College of Civil Engineers might be made the means 
to effect this purpose. A few courses of lectures on military engineering, and 
a short practical course with a company of engineers would do all that is 
required; an examination, strictly confined to military subjects, and which 
in this case would be absolutely necessary, might be made the principal test 
of admission to the Corps of Unattached Volunteer Engineer Officers; the 
Government to have, of course, the power to reject candidates considered 
ineligible. Such officers would be of great service, for it is upon the in- 
telligence of the officers that in this case everything depends; and on an 
emergency they would better get on with a few volunteer riflemen or artil- 
lerymen, placed under their command for the execution of some engineering 
work, than regular engineer officers with a section or two of infantry of the 
line told off to them for the same kind of duty. 

Karl Marx 
Erklärung 
24. November 1860 

Erklärung, 

Die Redaction der Allgemeinen Zeitunghatte die Güte Anfang Februar 1860 
eine Erklärung von nur zu veröffentlichen, die mit den folgenden Worten 
begann: 

„Ich zeige hiermit an, daß ich vorbereitende Schritte gethan zur An- 
hängigmachung einer Verläumdungsklage gegen die Berliner ‚National- 
zeitung'wegen der Leitartikel N. 37 und N. 41 über Vogt's Pamphlet: ‚Mein 
Prozeß gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung.’ Eine literarische Antwort auf Vogt 
behalte ich für später vor." 

Ich machte im Laufe Februar 1860 zu Berlin eine Verläumdungsklage 
anhängig gegen F.Zabel, verantwortlichen Rédacteur der „Nationalzei- 
tung". Mein Rechtsanwalt, Herr Justizrath Weber, wählte zuerst das Unter- 
suchungsverfahren. Durch Verfügung vom 18. April 1860 verweigerte der 
Staatsanwalt gegen F. Zabel ,,einzuschreiten", weü „kein öffentliches Inter- 
esse" dazu Anlaß gebe. Am 26. April 1860 ward seine Zurückweisung durch 
den Ober-Staatsanwalt bestätigt. 

Mein Rechtsanwalt schlug nun das Civilproceßverfahren ein. Das König- 
liche Stadtgericht, durch Verfügung vom 8. Juni 1860, verbot nur mit der 
Klage vorzugehn, weü die wirklich ehrenrührigen „Aeusserungen und Be- 
hauptungen" F.Zabels „in bloßen Citaten anderer Personen bestehen", 
auch nicht „die Absicht zu beleidigen" obwaltet. Das Königliche Kammer- 
gericht erklärte seinerseits durch Verfügung vom 11. Juli 1860, die angebliche 
Form des Citats ändere nichts an der Strafbarkeit der Artikel, aber die darin 
enthaltenen ehrenrührigen Stehen bezögen sich nicht auf meine „Person". 
Ausserdem sei „in vorliegendem Fall" die Absicht zu beleidigen „nicht 
anzunehmen". Das Königliche Kammergericht bestätigte demgemäß die 
zurückweisende Verfügung des Stadtgerichts. Das Königliche Obertribunal, 
durch Verfügung vom 5. October 1860, die nur am 23. October d. J. zukam, 

fand, daß „in vorliegendem Fall" kein „Rechtsirrthum" auf Seiten des 
Königlichen Kammergerichts ,,erhelle". Es blieb also definitiv bei dem 
Verbot den F. Zabel zu verklagen und kam zu keiner öffentlichen Gerichts- 
verhandlung. 

Meine Antwort auf Vogt erscheint in einigen Tagen. 

London, 24. November 1860. Karl Marx.