Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels

Symptoms of the Approaching War –

Germany Arming

From the English.

["New-York Daily Tribune" No. 5631, May 9, 1859]

London, April 22, 1859

When the students of the German universities, at 11 o’clock in the evening, have been turned out of their various beer-houses by the academic authorities, the several associations of the student corps, weather permitting, usually meet on the market-place. There the members of each association or “couleur” begin a game of “teasing” with students of another couleur, the object of which is to provoke one of those frequent and not very dangerous duels which are among the chief features of student life. In these preliminary controversies on the market-place, the great art consists in dealing one’s thrusts in the verbal skirmish so skilfully that they contain no direct or formal insult, while the opponent is nevertheless irritated to the highest degree, at last loses patience, and utters that conventional, formal insult which compels one to challenge him.

This prelude has now been practised for some months by Austria and France. France began it on January 1st of this year, and Austria did not remain behind with the answer. From word to word, from gesture to gesture, the antagonists came nearer to a challenge; but diplomatic etiquette demands that such a game be played out to the end. Hence proposals and counter-proposals, concessions, conditions, restrictions, and subterfuges without end.

The diplomatic teasing at last assumed the following form: On April 18, Lord Derby declared in the House of Lords that England was making one last attempt, after the failure of which it would cease its efforts at mediation. Scarcely three days later, on April 21, the *Moniteur* announced that England had made the following proposals to the four other great powers: 1. Before the Congress, a general and simultaneous disarmament is to take place. 2. The disarmament is to be regulated by a military or civil commission, independent of the Congress. (This commission is to be composed of six members, one of them a representative of Sardinia.) 3. As soon as the commission has commenced its activities, the Congress is to convene and begin the discussion of the political questions. 4. The representatives of the Italian states are to be invited, immediately upon the Congress assembling, to take their seats alongside the representatives of the great powers, exactly as at the Congress of 1821. At the same time the *Moniteur* proclaimed that France, Russia, and Prussia had given their assent to England’s proposals, and a telegram from Turin gladdened the various exchanges of Europe with the welcome news that Piedmont had been induced by Louis-Napoleon to do the same. So far, things looked unusually peaceful, and there seemed to be hope that all obstacles to the Congress would be removed. In reality, however, the plan was quite transparent. France was not yet “in a position” to take up the struggle. Austria, however, was. To leave no doubt as to his real intentions, Louis-Napoleon had his officious press announce that this disarmament was to apply only to Austria and Piedmont, since France
*could not disarm*
because it had not armed; at the same time he worded his articles in his official journal, the *Moniteur*, so as to give no pledge to include France in the “principle of disarmament.” His next step was evidently to make the officious assertion that France had not armed into an official one, whereby the question would be successfully diverted onto the indefinable terrain of military details, on which it is easy to carry on such a controversy almost endlessly by means of assertions, counter-assertions, demands for proofs, denials, official replies, and other similar tricks. Meanwhile Louis-Napoleon would be able to complete his preparations at his leisure – preparations of which, according to his new principle, he could say that they did not constitute arming, for he was not calling for soldiers (he can summon them at any time), but for matériel and new formations. He has himself declared that his war preparations will not be completed before the coming June 1. In fact, he would have to finish his preparations on May 15 and summon his soldiers on leave on that day so that they could, with the aid of the railways, have reached their units by June 1. It may, however, be reasonably assumed that, as a consequence of the colossal disorder, waste, bribery, and embezzlement that, after the fine example set by the court, prevail in the French military administration, the provision of the necessary matériel will not even be entirely completed by the originally fixed date. Be that as it may, so much is certain: every week of delay means just as much gain for Louis-Napoleon as loss for Austria, which, as a result of such a diplomatic interlude, would not only have to give up the military advantages gained by its head start in arming, but would also be crushed by the enormous expenditures that would be required to maintain its present state of war readiness.

Fully conscious of this situation, Austria has not only rejected the English proposal to hold a Congress under the same conditions as at Laibach, but has also sounded the first signal of war. In the name of Austria, General Gyulay has presented an *ultimatum* to the court at Turin, insisting upon disarmament and the dismissal of the volunteers, Piedmont being given only three days’ reflection for a decision, after the expiry of which war would be declared. At the same time, two additional divisions of the Austrian army, numbering 30,000 men, have been ordered to the Ticino. Thus, diplomatically, Napoleon succeeded in pushing Austria to the wall, forcing it to utter the sacramental word – the declaration of war – first. However, if Austria is not now prevailed upon by threatening notes from London and St. Petersburg to retrace its steps, it may happen that Bonaparte’s diplomatic victory costs him his throne.

In the meantime, the war fever has also seized other states. The smaller German powers, justifiably feeling threatened by Louis-Napoleon’s preparations, have given expression to national sentiments such as have not been heard in Germany since 1813 and 1814. They are acting in accordance with these sentiments. Bavaria and the adjacent states are organizing new formations, calling up the reserves and the *Landwehr*. The seventh and eighth corps of the German Federal Army (furnished by these states), which are officially to have a strength of 66,000 soldiers for field service and 33,000 reserves, will, in all probability, take the field with 100,000 active and 40,000 reserve soldiers. Hanover and the other North German states, which furnish the tenth corps, are arming on the same scale and, at the same time, fortifying their coasts against attacks from the sea. Prussia, whose war equipment, through the preparations made during the mobilization of 1850 and afterwards, has been brought to a higher state of efficiency than ever before, has for some time been calmly preparing for a mobilization of its army, arming its infantry on an increasing scale with the needle-gun, presently supplying the whole of the foot artillery with twelve-pounders, and at the same time putting its fortresses on the Rhine in a state of war readiness. It has ordered three *corps d’armée* to hold themselves in readiness for war. Prussia’s activity in the Federal Military Commission at Frankfort is likewise a clear proof that it is well aware of the danger threatening it from Louis-Napoleon’s policy. And if its government still behaves hesitantly, public opinion is fully at its post. Louis-Napoleon will, without a doubt, be obliged to discover that Germany confronts France united and resolute as never before, and this at a time when there is less enmity between Germans and Frenchmen than ever previously.