{London,] 2 November 1853 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

You must let me have something by the day after tomorrow, 
even if only | or 2 pages (if you are short of time) on the crossinc 
of the Danune by the Turks when they took Kalafat. Yesterday I 
reported the news* as very poustruL. But it seems likely to be 
confirmed and tomorrow’s papers will at any rate tell you how 
things stand. Now that scientific opinions are beginning to be 
expressed on the subject, I can neither remain silent nor discuss it 
from the standpoint of ‘sound common sense’.” According to the 
news in the French press, Shamyl has roundly trounced the 
Russians and is actually threatening Tiflis, while General Voron- 
tsov has written to his government informing it that, once he is 
threatened from 2 sides, he will not be able to hold Georgia 
without substantial reinforcements. 

Of late the Tribune has been considerably exercising its 
annexationist policy. To begin with your first military article was 
annexed as a Leaper, then my Palmerston, further instalments of 
which are thus foredoomed to annexation. Strange though it may 
seem to you, by following exactly in the footsteps of the Noble 
Viscount during the past 20 years, I have come to the same 
conclusion as that monomaniac Urquhart—namely that for several 
decades Palmerston has been in the pay of Russia. As soon as you 
have read the further instalments of my article (especially the bits 
about the Turko-Syrian conflict) I would like to have your views 
on the subject. I am glad that chance should have led me to take a 
closer look at the foreign policy—diplomatic—of the past 20 
years. We had very much neglected this aspect, and one ought to 
know with whom one is dealing. 

aK, Marx, ‘War.—Strikes.— Dearth’. - © An allusion to Heinzen’s ‘der gesunde 
Menschenverstand’ (sound common sense). See K. Marx, ‘Moralising Criticism and 
Critical Morality’, present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 317, 330 and 337. - © F. Engels, “Fhe 
Russians in Turkey’; K. Marx, ‘I. Palmerston’, New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3902, 
19 October 1853. An allusion to the fact that the newspaper editors had not named 
the author, - 4 K. Marx, Article HI of the ‘Palmerston’ series: ‘A Chapter of 
Modern History’, New-York Daily Tribune. 

Diplomacy as a whole is nothing but Stieber, Bangya and Co. 
reproduced on a large scale. 

The New-York Enquirer, edited by General Webb (I haven’t read 
the article myself), has attacked the Tribune teaver got from you.’ 
The thing, it says, is scientifically correct, but a Turkish war is 
waged according to different principles. Turks would go into the 
attack whatever the circumstances, etc. 

How is the Factory Pro-le-ta-ri-at doing? 

Your 
K. M.