London, 23 July 1892 

Dear August, 

With your usual perspicacity you rightly guessed that I would be 
sending you this letter via the Witch. So to begin with let me thank 
you for the Imperial and Royal Railway Timetable and assure you 
that I shall set my ‘new course’ by the above right royal document. 
I have already fathomed a few of the mysterious signs and wonders to 
be found therein and within the next fortnight hope to get to the bot- 
tom of them all, thereby ensuring that I don’t find myself stuck any- 
where. 

Well, my plans are as follows: Next Wednesday * I go to Pumps in 
Ryde °*° whither all letters will be forwarded. Shall stay there until 
about 10-15 August, depending on circumstances, for I am awaiting 
a letter from Barmen,” the contents of which will determine the day of 
departure. I shan’t go to Barmen, as I have so many nephews and 
nieces there that duty visits alone would take more than a fortnight. 
But I want to spend a few days in Engelskirchen where my brothers 
go in turn for the summer holidays. Thence, on or about the 18th or 
19th, to Zurich where I must pay a visit I have been promising for 
years to my cousin Mrs Beust and family. I shall let you know as soon 
as I arrive and shall then go on to St Gallen on the 24th or 25th. If 
you fetch me, so much the better. We would then set out for Stuckert 
on the Neckar’s banks, pick up Uncle Georg and carry on to Munich 
and — via the Alps if possible — to Vienna, etc. She will be able to tell 
you the rest by word of mouth (I don’t mean Mrs Beust who is the 
grammatical subject but the Witch who is in any case a most un- 
grammatical one). 

According to Tussy, the elections °°* here in the East End of Lon- 
don have aroused wild enthusiasm. The workers have at last realised 
that they are capable of something if only they have the will. The 
Liberal spell has been broken and, what’s more, correspondents from 

4 97 July-° See this volume, p. 473.-° Stuttgart 

far and wide have been proclaiming in the Workman’s Times that an 
Independent Lazour Party is all that is needed. Facts and facts alone 
are what impress hard-headed John Bull and these cannot fail to 
do so. 

The Vollmariad provides further proof that the man has com- 
pletely lost touch with the Party.°?? A break with him is bound to 
come, probably this year or next; he seems intent on ramming state so- 
cialist inanities down the Party’s throat. But since he is an artful in- 
triguer and since I have had wide experience of campaigning against 
people of this sort——- Marx and I often made tactical blunders when 
confronted by this kind and had to pay dearly for it—-I shall now 
take the liberty of offering you a few tips. 

What these people are mainly after is to put us formally in the 
wrong and that we must prevent. Otherwise they’ll keep harping on 
this side-issue in order to obscure the main issue of whose weakness 
they are aware. So be careful what you say both in public and in pri- 
vate. You will have noticed how cleverly the fellow made use of your 
remark about Liebknecht*?* so as to foment trouble between 
him (Liebknecht) and yourself—after all he is perfectly well 
aware of your attitude to one another!— and thus place you in a 
quandary. 

Secondly, since it is important to them to obscure the main issue, 
you must avoid giving them any cause to do so; any side-issue they 
may raise should be dealt with as briefly and conclusively as possible 
so that it is disposed of once and for all. As for yourself, however, you 
must if at all possible ignore all side-issues or red herrings that may 
arise, whatever the temptations. Otherwise the debate will range ever 
wider and the original bone of contention will gradually disappear 
from view. In which case there will no longer be any chance of a 
decisive victory. So far as the intriguers are concerned, that might 
be success enough, but for us, at any rate, it would be a moral 
defeat. 

Thirdly, it follows from 1. and 2. that, when confronted by such 
people, purely defensive tactics are best until such time as they land 
themselves in a real predicament—then you open up with short, 
devastating artillery bombardment before going in with the bayonet 
for the coup de grace. Here, as nowhere else, it is a matter of husban- 
ding one’s ammunition and reserves until the last moment. 

Every time we departed from these rules when fighting the Baku- 
ninists, Proudhonists, German academics and other such riff-raff, we 

had to suffer for it and that is why I now submit them to you again for 
your consideration. 
Well, warm regards to yourself and Mrs Julie* from 

Your 
General 

Siegel’s last letter is enclosed at his request.