ABSTRACT
Life in six cities in three countries helped to mould Karl Marx’s closest friend and colleague into a communist. In Barmen, his birthplace, Friedrich Engels learned to hate the millowners and the Puritan way of life. In Bremen the life of a great seaport gave him his first glimpse of a wider world than that of a small provincial manufacturing town. In Berlin he gained his first experience of military affairs when he served for a year in the Prussian army while at the same time he received intellectual stimulus from his attendance at University lectures and from his contacts with the Young Hegelians. In London he met a group of exiled German workers who had become professional revolutionaries. In Manchester Engels became aware of the social evils brought about by the industrial revolution and he met Julian Harney, James Leach and other Chartists. And a brief visit to Paris in the autumn of 1844 saw the beginning of his collaboration with Karl Marx that lasted for nearly forty years.
