Manchester, 9 May 1854 
Dear Marx, 

I cannot understand the Jate arrival of the Tribune article.? The 
letter was specially entrusted to the messenger-boy, who took it to 
the post at a quarter past 7, at the same time as the business letters, all 
of which arrived punctually. Even if it had not left until the 2nd 
post, it should have been in your hands by 2 o’clock at the latest. I 
can only regard it as evidence of Mr Palmerston’s solicitude for 
you. Since the bit about the battle has not materialised in the 
meantime, I can only hope you haven't sent off the article. 

With regard to Urquhart’s military stuff,“ something in my next. 
I can, of course, deal with this subject only in notes, which I shall 
write straight off in English for you. You will then have to work 
them into your article. 

The story of Dr Wiss is most edifying and Cluss will certainly 
ensure that it reaches the right people.*° 

As for that poor devil Miskowsky, the Noble One‘ can now say 

ain the end - > See this volume, p. 448. - ¢ ibid., pp. 422 and 448. -4 August 
Willich 

995, Engels to Marx. 9 May 1854 45] 

after all that he ultimately ‘vanished without trace’.**’ When I read 
the story in the London papers, it immediately struck me that 
those who had been burnt to death were most certainly 
refugees.” 

If at all possible, I shall set Heise to work—which, indeed, he 
cannot possibly avoid the moment I begin to hold off. The fellow’s 
presently in Bradford, whither he was summoned by the little 
man* during the absence of the latter’s principal” and whence, in 
any case, he returns in an exceedingly tipsy condition, so that he 
has to spend a few days in quarantine before he’s good for 
anything. I was much tickled by the little man’s little article‘ 
because of the care with which he retrieves and repeats all the 
Neue Rheinische Zeitung's old chestnuts about Schleswig-Holstein, 
Belgium,’ etc., etc. 

Feldzug der Schleswig-Holsteinischen Armee und Marine 1850, by 
A. Liitgen, sometime Major, is the first sensible and comprehen- 
sive book about the Willisen episode. It confirms everything I had 
already deduced from preliminary studies of the affair.“ Monsieur 
Willisen’s original plan was a very good one,—if somewhat 
over-extended—so good that even the botched and _ belated 
attempt to revert to it instilled thoughts of withdrawal in the 
minds of the Danes, who were 36,000 strong against 26,000, 
almost all of their troops being already committed, whereas the 
Schleswig-Holsteiners had certainly 1, of their troops still uncom- 
mitted. But when Monsieur Willisen actually found himself face to 
face with the enemy, he lost his head amidst the contradictory 
reports and the even more confused suggestions that were being 
made to him. Even the night before the battle, he detached his 
own reserves to a point on the left, right off the battle-field, to 
face an imaginary enemy and at the same time deferred the order 
for the attack, upon which all the dispositions had been based. 
Thus, concentration of reserves on the left where no enemy 
existed, exposure of the centre, which received the main attack, 
confusion on the right wing, which was to launch the main 
counter-attack. This alone is enough to explain the outcome, and 
even then he might have emerged victorious had he not too 

a Ernst Dronke - » John Buckup - * E. Dronke, ‘Naturgeschichte der Demokratie’, 
Die Reform, 12 April 1854. - 4 Articles by Marx and Engels: “The War Comedy,’ 
‘The Faedreland on the Armistice with Denmark’, ‘The Armistice with Denmark’, 
‘The Armistice ‘‘Negotiations”’, ‘Armistice Negotiations with Denmark Broken 
Off’, ‘The Danish-Prussian Armistice’, ‘Ratification of the Armistice’, ‘The “Model 
State” of Belgium’, ‘The “Model Constitutional State”’, ‘The Antwerp Death 
Sentences’, etc. (see present edition, Vol. 7). - ¢ See this volume, pp. 103-04.