Friedrich Engels to Joseph Weydemeyer  
in New York  
Manchester, 12 April 1853  

Dear Weydemeyer,

Herewith you receive a statement by Marx about Hirsch’s self-confessions, which you are to get into all possible newspapers at once. If you send a copy to Cluss at once, he will certainly be able to take over a whole part. I think it can do no harm if you add underneath: the undersigned are in complete agreement with the foregoing, E. Dronke, F. Engels. As far as the business with the manuscript is concerned, and our connection with Bangya in general, we are just as responsible as Marx, and it would not be right to let him bear the responsibility alone. The copy handed over is partly in Dronke’s handwriting, the original almost entirely in mine. We now have the prospect of getting the story printed in Switzerland.

This statement is, of course, drawn up only on the basis of the extracts sent to us by Cluss and made by you. Whether the further contents will yet require a new statement we naturally cannot yet know; but you will no doubt have extracted everything relating to us. In a couple of days you will, I hope, have sent us the whole thing in printed form.

As for Bangya, we have him completely in our hands. The fellow has got himself so deeply involved that he is utterly ruined. In order to shield himself against the constantly recurring grounds for suspicion, he was obliged to show Marx, gradually, his whole treasure of documents from Kossuth, Szemere, etc. Thus I still have here the original manuscripts of Szemere’s pamphlet on Kossuth and Görgei. So Herr Kossuth is particularly compromised in Herr Bangya. The petty cunning of the Magyarised Slav foundered on Marx’s tenacity and on the skill with which he drew him in. Now we, and no one else (apart from Szemere perhaps, in part), have the complete proofs of B.’s character in our hands; but what good would it do to raise a row about it now? It is said that the fellow is coming back to London in May, and then one can press him hard and perhaps still get all sorts of useful things out of him.

Between Willich and Hirsch all sorts of things have happened which are by no means yet clear, and if, as you write, Hirsch’s manuscript reached you through Kinkel’s mediation, that also gives rise to all sorts of curious conjectures. *Il faut tâcher d’y voir clair*, and B. can serve for that. So for the present do not speak of it; moreover: let the Hungarian gentlemen now come forward and say their piece, Kossuth in particular. Why should we help them along? If they have compromised themselves in a public statement, *tant mieux*, then we shall come forward.

In the emigration the old filth is going on, though no longer as publicly scandalous as before. When I was in London at Christmas, we used to go *sans façon* into the Kinkel-Willich-Ruge pubs, right among the swarm of fellows there—something hardly to be risked six months earlier without a brawl. The smaller people even came to us sometimes in a quite friendly manner and let themselves be made sport of patiently, especially the noble Meyen-Julius Vindex. Among our own clique things are still going on as before. Lupus is said to wander about very solitary. Dronke has been angling for a commercial clerk’s post for six months; an intrigue is now afoot to procure him one in Bradford, two railway hours from here. Of Weerth I last heard from St. Thomas in the West Indies, where he has been through the yellow-fever season. The red Wolf, who, as you know, is a husband and father, takes wife and child out walking and is rarely seen. Freiligrath lives, as always, in Hackney and devotes himself to commerce under the auspices of Mr Oxenford. I myself have considerably perfected myself this winter in Slavic languages and military matters, and shall probably understand Russian and South Slavic fairly well by the end of this year. In Cologne I picked up the library of a retired Prussian artillery officer for little money and for a time again felt very much the bombardier, between old Plümicke, the brigade artillery school manual, and other tomes you will remember. Prussian military literature is unconditionally the very worst of all; tolerable is only what was written in the still fresh memory of the campaigns of ’13–’15, but from 1822 on there sets in a disgusting strait-laced pretension and know-all pedantry that is the very devil. Quite recently a few passable things have appeared in Prussia, but not many either. French works are, unfortunately, totally inaccessible to me through my unfamiliarity with the specialised literature.

I have worked my way through the old campaigns (i.e., since ’92) fairly thoroughly; the Napoleonic ones are so simple that there is little to be spoiled in them. Jomini is, *au bout du compte*, the best exponent of them after all; the natural genius Clausewitz, despite many fine things, does not quite appeal to me.

For the immediate future, i.e., for us, the Russian campaign of 1812 is the most important, the only one where great strategic questions still remain to be solved; Germany and Italy allow no other lines of operation than those laid down by Napoleon, whereas in Russia everything is still wild and confused. The question whether Napoleon’s plan of operations in 1812 was originally to go straight to Moscow, or in the first campaign merely to advance to the Dnieper and the Dvina, repeats itself for us in the question of what a revolutionary army has to do in the event of a successful offensive against Russia. This question—apart from chance occurrences and assuming merely a rough equilibrium of forces—seems to me so far soluble only by water, at the Sound and the Dardanelles, at Petersburg, Riga and Odessa. Apart, naturally, also from internal movements in Russia, and a noble-bourgeois revolution in Petersburg followed by civil war in the interior is among the possible chances. Herr Herzen has made it much easier for himself by constructing (*du progrès des idées révolutionnaires en Russie*) the democratic-social-communist-Proudhonist republic of Russia under the triumvirate Bakunin-Herzen-Golovin in Hegelian fashion, so that it cannot fail. In the meantime it is very uncertain whether Bakunin is still alive, and in any case the vast, sprawling, sparsely populated Russia is a very difficult country to conquer. As for the formerly Polish provinces on this side of the Dvina and the Dnieper, I do not want to hear another word about them, since I know that the peasants there are all Little Russians, and only the nobility and a part of the townspeople are Poles, and that for the peasant there, as in Little Russian Galicia in 1846, the restoration of Poland is synonymous with the restoration of the old, undiminished rule of the nobility. In all these countries, outside the Kingdom of Poland proper, there are scarcely 500,000 Poles!

Besides, it is a good thing that the revolution this time finds in Russia a respectable opponent and not such flabby bogeymen of opponents as in the year ’48.

Meanwhile all sorts of symptoms are appearing. The cotton prosperity here is gradually reaching a height at which one grows dizzy, while individual branches of the cotton industry (coarse fabrics, domestics) are lying utterly prostrate. Speculation believes it can save itself from the giddiness by carrying it on only *en gros* in America and France (railways with English money) but here in a completely fragmented, retail fashion, so that it gradually infects all articles with swindle. The quite abnormal winter and spring weather we are having here must have damaged the corn, and if, as is usual, an abnormal summer follows, the harvest will be ruined. In my view this present prosperity cannot maintain itself beyond the autumn.

Meanwhile, the third English ministry has now been compromising itself for twelve months, and that the last one possible without direct intervention of the radical bourgeoisie. Whigs, Tories, coalitionists fail one after another not on account of a deficit, but on account of a surplus. Thus the whole policy of the old parties is characterised, and at the same time their extreme impotence. If the present ministers tumble, England can no longer be governed without a considerable extension of the *pays légal*; this business therefore falls probably at the beginning of the crisis. The lasting boredom of prosperity makes it almost impossible for the unhappy Bonaparte to maintain his dignity; the world is bored and he bores it. Unfortunately he cannot marry anew every four weeks. This swindler, drunkard and false gambler is perishing because he is obliged to put, for appearance’s sake, “Engel’s Mirror of Princes” into practice. The scoundrel as “Father of the Fatherland”! he is *aux abois*. At that he cannot even start a war: closed ranks everywhere, bristling with bayonets, at the slightest movement on his part. At the same time the quiet gives the peasants a very welcome time for reflection, on how the man who promised to crush Paris in favour of the peasants is now beautifying Paris with the peasants’ money, and how mortgages and taxes, in spite of it all, increase rather than diminish. In short, the thing is preparing itself this time with method, and that promises much.

In Prussia the government has nicely set the bourgeoisie on its neck with the income tax. The tax quotas are being increased by the bureaucrats with the greatest impudence, and you can imagine with what voluptuousness these noble scribblers are now rummaging around in the commercial secrets and account books of all merchants. Even my thoroughly Prussian old man is foaming with rage. These fellows now have to drain the blessings of the constitutional-fatherly-Prussian government *à bon marché* to the dregs. The Prussian state debt, before 1848 c. 67 million thalers, must since then have swollen to four times that, and they already want to raise loans again! One must say, the fat king will certainly gladly sweat once more the drops of sweat of the March days, if this credit is guaranteed him till his blessed end. At the same time Louis Napoleon has helped him to set the Customs Union on its legs again; Austria, for fear of war, has yielded submissively; “and now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!”

The Austrians are doing their utmost to set Italy, which before the Milan putsch had dissolved entirely in commerce and prosperity as far as was compatible with the taxes, in motion again; and if the whole thing goes on like this for another few months, Europe is splendidly prepared and

Engels to Joseph Weydemeyer, 12 April 1853

only needs the impulse of the crisis. Moreover, the unprecedentedly long and general prosperity — since the beginning of ’49 — has restored the strength of the exhausted parties (insofar as they are not completely worn out like the monarchist ones in France) much more rapidly than was the case, for example, after 1830 in the context of long fluctuating and on the whole colourless trade conditions. In 1848, too, it was only the Paris proletariat, later Hungary and Italy, that were exhausted by serious struggles; the insurrections in France since June ’48 were hardly worth mentioning, and in the end they only ruined the old monarchist parties. Add to this the comical result of the movement in all countries, in which nothing is serious and important except precisely the colossal historical irony and the concentration of Russia’s war resources, and after all this it seems to me, even from the most sober point of view, utterly impossible that the present situation will last beyond the spring of 1854.

It is very fine that this time our party is entering the scene under quite different auspices. All the socialist stupidities that one still had to uphold in 1848 against the pure democrats and South German republicans, the drivel of L. Blanc etc., indeed even things we were forced to put forward merely in order to find points of support for our views in the confused German situation — all this is now already upheld by our gentleman opponents, by Rüge, Heinzen, Kinkel, and so on. The preliminaries of the proletarian revolution, the measures that prepare the battlefield for us and sweep the path — a single and indivisible republic etc., things which we had to uphold at that time against the people whose natural, normal vocation it would have been to carry them through or at least to demand them — all this is now *convenu*, the gentlemen have learned it. This time we begin straight away with the Manifesto, thanks in particular also to the Cologne trial, in which German communism (quite especially through Roeser) passed its matriculation examination.

All this applies, of course, only to theory; in practice, we shall, as always, be reduced to pushing above all for resolute measures and absolute ruthlessness. And there’s the rub. I have a presentiment that our party, thanks to the helplessness and slackness of all the others, will one fine morning be forced into government, in order finally to carry through things which are not in our direct interest but in the general revolutionary and specifically petty-bourgeois interest; on which occasion, driven by the proletarian *populus*, bound by one’s own printed pronouncements and plans — more or less falsely interpreted, more or less passionately thrust forward in the party struggle — one will be compelled to make communist experiments and leaps which one oneself knows best how untimely they are. In the process one loses one’s head — hopefully only *physiquement parlant* — a reaction sets in, and until the world is capable of passing historical judgement on such things, one is considered not only a beast, which would not matter, but also *bête*, and that is much worse. I cannot well see how it could turn out otherwise. In a backward country like Germany, which possesses an advanced party and together with an advanced country like France becomes involved in an advanced revolution, at the first serious conflict, and as soon as real danger arises, the advanced party must take the helm, and that is in any case before its normal time. However, none of that matters, and the best thing is that for such an eventuality the rehabilitation of our party in history is already established in advance in its literature.

Incidentally, in other respects too we shall appear on the stage much more respectably than last time. Firstly, *in personalibus* we are happily rid of all the old drones, Schapper, Willich and consorts; secondly, we have after all strengthened ourselves to some extent; thirdly, we can count on younger recruits in Germany (if nothing else, the Cologne trial alone is sufficient to guarantee us that); and finally, we in exile have all profited considerably. To be sure, there are also among us people who start from the principle: what do we need to grind away for, *père* Marx is there, whose vocation it is to know everything; but on the whole the Marx party does grind away fairly hard, and when you look at the other emigration donkeys who have picked up new phrases here and there and have thereby only made themselves thoroughly confused, it is clear that the superiority of our party has increased absolutely and relatively. But it is also necessary — *la besogne sera rude*.

I wish I still had time before the next revolution at least to study and describe from the ground up the Italian and Hungarian campaigns of ’48 and ’49. In general the history is clear enough to me, in spite of deficient maps etc. But it is precisely the accuracy of detail required for description that costs a great deal of effort and expense. The Italians on both occasions behaved like asses; Willisen’s portrayal and criticism is on the whole mostly correct, yet often also foolish, and the complete superiority of the Austrian strategy which he already emphasised in 1848 is first found in the campaign of Novara, which is really the most brilliant feat that has occurred in Europe since Napoleon (for outside Europe old General Charles Napier in 1842 in East India did quite other things, which are truly reminiscent of Alexander the Great; altogether I consider Napier the first living general). Comical in Italy, just as in Baden in 1849, is the traditional superstition regarding positions from the campaigns of the 1790s. Herr Sigel would not have let himself be beaten at any price anywhere but in a position rendered classic by Moreau, and Charles Albert believed no more firmly in the virginity of Mary than in the miraculous power of the plateau of Rivoli. In Italy this was so fixed that the Austrians opened every major manoeuvre with a feint attack on Rivoli, and each time the Piedmontese fell into the trap. The joke was, of course, that the relative positions and lines of communication were quite different. In Hungary, Monsieur Görgei, in spite of everything, remains the fellow who was superior to all and was maliciously attacked by all out of envy; it seems probable to me that, had G. not himself been, despite great military talent, a very petty, vain fellow, these mostly foolish attacks would have finally turned him into a traitor. Since the Világos affair, which militarily is completely justified (not revolutionarily justified), the fellows have hurled such a mass of idiotic, crazy accusations at G. that one might almost be forced to take an interest in the fellow. The actual “treachery” was committed after the relief of Komorn, before the Russians were there, and for that Kossuth bears exactly as much blame as G. A great obscurity still hangs over the chief of the general staff of G., Bayer, who is now in London. From G.’s memoirs and other sources it appears that he was the soul of Görgei’s strategic plans. As Pleyel told me, B. is the principal author of the official Austrian book on the campaign (B. was a prisoner in Pest and ran off); it is said to be very fine; I have not yet been able to procure it. Of Klapka, Görgei speaks with great respect, but everyone admits his great weakness. Perczel is admittedly an ass, the “democratic” Hungarian general. Old Bern always considered himself only a good partisan leader and commander of a detached corps with a definite objective; so far as I can judge he was only that, but in a splendid manner. Twice he committed stupidities: once with his resultless expedition into the blue, towards the Banat, and later when, during the great Russian invasion, he literally repeated his once successful tactical manoeuvre on Hermannstadt and got a drubbing. But Father Dembinski was an absolute fantast and braggart, a partisan leader who believed himself called to conduct a great war and began the craziest things. Smitt’s Polish campaign of 1831 gives fine stories of him.

Apropos. Can you describe to me very briefly the fortifications of Cologne, with a couple of drawings from memory, rough sketches? If I remember rightly, the main rampart is bastioned; the forts are said to be Montalembert-style, what is that like, and how many are there? You may use all fortification technical terms; I have quite passable manuals and drawings here. Do you know any further details of Prussian fortresses? I know Coblenz fairly well, (at least Ehrenbreitstein), of Mainz I have seen a plan. What particularly interests me is the way in which the new Montalembert constructions have been carried out in Germany; with Prussian secretiveness one learns nothing at all about it.
Write soon, and give my best regards to your wife and to Cluss.
Yours,
F. Engels