Foreword

Contents
I. The Sulphur Gang

Foreword

Under date “London, 6 February 1860” I published in the Berlin “Volks-Zeitung”, the Hamburg “Reform” and other German papers a declaration which begins with the following words:

“I hereby give notice that I have taken preparatory steps for the filing of a libel suit against the Berlin ‘National-Zeitung’

on account of the leading articles Nos. 37 and 41 on Vogt’s pamphlet: ‘My Action against the Allgemeine Zeitung’. I reserve a literary reply to Vogt for a later date.”

Why I decided to answer Karl Vogt in a literary way, but the “National-Zeitung” in a court of law, will be seen from the present work itself.

In the course of the month of February 1860 I filed the libel suit against the “National-Zeitung”. After the case had passed through four preliminary instances, I received on 23 October of this year the order of the Royal Prussian Supreme Tribunal, by which the right of action was cut off in the last instance, thus the suit was quashed before it came to public hearing. Had the latter, as I might have expected, actually taken place, I would have been spared the first third of the present work. A simple reprint of a shorthand report of the court proceedings would have sufficed, and I would thereby have escaped the extremely repugnant labour of answering accusations against my person, i.e., of having to speak about myself. I have always avoided this so carefully that Vogt could count on some success for his pack of lies. However, sunt certi denique fines [but there are, after all, certain limits]. Vogt’s botched concoction, summarised in its own fashion by the “National-Zeitung”, accused me of a series of defamatory actions which now, after the public judicial refutation has been definitively cut off, demand a literary refutation. But apart from this consideration, which left me no choice, I had other motives for dealing more fully with Vogt’s tall tales about me and my party associates, since I was obliged to go into them anyway. On the one hand, the almost unanimous cry of triumph with which the so-called “liberal” German press greeted his alleged disclosures. On the other hand, the opportunity which the analysis of the botch offered for a characterisation of that individual who represents a whole tendency.

The reply to Vogt compelled me, here and there, to uncover une partie honteuse [a shameful chapter] of the history of the emigration. In doing so, I make use only of the right of “self-defence”. For the rest, with the exception of a very few persons, nothing can be blamed on the emigration but illusions which were more or less justified by the circumstances of the time, and follies which necessarily arose from the extraordinary situation in which it unexpectedly found itself placed. I am speaking here, of course, only of the first years of the emigration. A comparison of the history of governments and of bourgeois society, from about 1849 to 1859, with the simultaneous history of the emigration would be the most brilliant apology that could be written for the latter.

I know in advance that the same shrewd gentlemen who, when Vogt’s concoction appeared, gravely shook their heads over the importance of his “disclosures”, will now be completely unable to understand how I could waste my time on refuting such childish nonsense, while the “liberal” penny-a-liners who, with malicious haste, peddled Vogt’s crude vulgarities and worthless lies through the German, Swiss, French and American press, will find my manner of dealing with them and their hero criminally offensive. But never mind!

The political as well as the juridical part of this work require no special preface of their own. To avoid possible misunderstandings, I shall merely remark: Men who, already before 1848, were agreed in upholding the independence of Poland, Hungary and Italy not only as a right of those countries, but as the interest of Germany and Europe, put forward diametrically opposed views concerning the tactics which Germany was to adopt vis-à-vis Louis Bonaparte on the occasion of the Italian war of 1859. This opposition of views arose from opposed judgments of factual assumptions, the decision about which must be left to a later time. For my part, I have only to do in this work with the views of Vogt and his clique. Even the view which he pretended to represent and, in the imagination of an undiscerning crowd, did represent, falls in fact outside the limits of my criticism. I am dealing with the views which he actually represented.

Finally, I express my heartfelt thanks for the willing assistance which, in the preparation of this work, was given me not only by old party friends, but also by many members of the emigration in Switzerland, France and England who formerly stood aloof from me and some of whom I still do not know personally.

London, 17 November 1860