Ramsgate, 15 July 1877 
2 Adelaide Gardens 

Dear Moor, 

We have been installed here since Wednesday,” but this time, 
alas, the effect of the sea air has not been as rapid in my wife’s 
case as we hoped; she can’t quite get her appetite back. In my 
case, on the other hand, the aftermath of the excursion to 
Manchester is already ‘out of sight, out of mind’. 

The enclosed letter has been forwarded to me along with one 
from the selfsame Wiede*” (who thus must obviously be someone 
other than our merry little hunchback*). Write and tell me what 
you say to the worthy fellow so that we proceed unisono. 

The first proof of the ‘Political Economy’ is already here.” 
Sheet 6 of the ‘Philosophy’, from which 29 lines were omitted, is 
being reprinted; let’s hope there is no further unpleasantness in 
store.” 

I still find the collapse of the Russians in Asia somewhat 
inexplicable. The Caucasian army has a strength of 8 divisions 4 
16 battalions, i.e. 128 battalions of the line (apart from riflemen, 
garrison troops and new formations), but Loris-Melikov is said to 
have only 40-50 batts in all just now. If we estimate the flying 
columns near Batum and Bayazid° at a further 30 batts (certainly 
too high), there remain 50-60 batts to be accounted for. These must 
therefore have remained in the Caucasus to cover the lines of 
communication. If this assumption runs counter to the vainglori- 
ous claims originally made by the Russians, that is no reason for 
rejecting it. AnyHow the landing at Sukhum-Kaleh—whatever its 
real and immediate results may have been—would appear fully to 
have succeeded in achieving the aim of tying up almost half the 
Caucasian army in the Caucasus proper.”? 

In Bulgaria the Russians are apparently feeling their way for the 
time being, an easy enough task thanks to the purely passive 
resistance of the Turks (which has reduced the Kélnische Zeitung’s 
Prussian lieutenants to utter despair). At all events they are, it 

7 

a Johannes Wedde - > Modern Turkish name: Dogubayazid 

174. Marx to Engels. 18 July 1877 24) 

seems, preparing to make a rapid thrust through the Balkans, 
either via Gabrovo-Kazanlyk or via Sofia-Philippopolis.* If they do 
so, and the Turkish government refuses to let itself be intimidated 
thereby, this ‘most modern form of warfare’ could end in disaster. 
To maintain three army corps in Thrace and keep them supplied 
with ammunition, etc., when you have no negotiable lines of 
communication to your rear, is a feat that may be the undoing of 
even the great Nikolai Nikolayevich. 

The fact of the matter is that a few Europeans are necessary to 
the Turks. These people think in terms either of attack alone or 
defence alone. A combination of the two is beyond them. Like that 
Turkish major who said to the Kdélnische Zeitung’s lieutenant: You 
see all those Russians over there on the far side of the 
Danube?— Dammit, aren’t your guns going to fire at them?— Yok, 
efendim, no Sir, but just let the Russians fire at us, and they'll see 
what sort of an answer we’ll give them!— Meanwhile the Russians 
are setting up their batteries completely at their leisure. Had 
Silistria been defended like this in 1853, it would soon have 
fallen 

Kindest regards from family to family, 

Your 
F. E.