Dear Mohr,

Enclosed you have the Prussian campaign plan. I ask you to take a cab at once and get it to the Pall Mall Gazette, so that it appears on Monday evening. It will earn the P. M. G. and myself an enormous reputation; by Tuesday things may already have developed so far that any ass can make sense of the story. Whether my No. II appeared on Saturday I do not know, as the P. M. G. has not arrived here today in the clubs. I’m rather proud of this business, as it really wasn’t easy to guess this plan. The decisive factor was the news that a cousin of Gumpert’s, a company commander in the 77th Regiment, vanguard of the 7th Army Corps, marched off from Aachen to Trier on the 27th. Then the whole business became clear to me. Besides, it is necessary that you arrange with Greenwood that I send him the articles directly so that they can appear the same day. Loss of time is now fatal for this kind of article. I think of sending him an article twice a week – on average, more often in urgent cases, less often when things are quiet. In between, the occasional short note, which he can use as he sees fit.

It is certainly becoming ever more disgraceful for us to wage war under Wilhelm. But still it’s good that he makes himself so horribly ridiculous, with his divine mission, and his Stieber without whom, it seems, German unity won’t be accomplished. The Address of the International was printed here in the Tory paper Courier on Saturday; if it had been any other weekday, the other papers would have carried it too, but Saturday’s advertisements prevented it. The Address will teach the populus of all classes that now only the workers have a real foreign policy. It is very good, and the Times surely refused it only because of the Russians. The governments, like the bourgeoisie, will be enormously surprised when, after the war, the workers calmly resume their interrupted action, as if nothing at all had happened.

My confidence in the military achievements of the Germans is growing every day. So we have duly won the first serious engagement. The French still seem to have no idea what sort of thing they have been given in their hands with the breech-loader. The game Moltke is playing is very risky. According to my calculation he won’t have completed his concentration before Tuesday or Wednesday. From Aachen to the border is about 20 German miles, 4–5 heavy marches, especially in this heat. So the 7th Corps can hardly be fully on the Saar before tomorrow, and today the main battle may possibly already take place. In any case it is so finely cut that 24 hours more or less will make an enormous difference. The actual battle will probably take place on the Saar between Merzig and Saarbrücken. It is good that the French attacked first on German territory. If the Germans follow on the heels of a repulsed invasion, that certainly does not have the same effect in France as if they march into France without a prior invasion. The war thus remains more Bonapartist on the French side. The final outcome – that the Germans will win in the end – is absolutely indubitable to me, but Moltke’s plan betrays the absolute certainty of being able to appear in the first battle with overwhelming superiority. We shall probably know by Tuesday evening whether he has not miscalculated. Moltke often reckons without his Wilhelm. The more the German philistine grovels before his God-trusting and God-grovelling Wilhelm, the more insolent he becomes towards France. The old howl about Alsace and Lorraine is already well under way again – the Augsburg paper leading the chorus. But the Lorraine peasants will soon teach the Prussians that it’s not as simple as that.

You are quite right about the treaty. People are not quite as stupid as Bismarck imagines. The only good thing about the matter is that the whole filth must now come to light, and then, that the hanky-panky between Bismarck and Bonaparte is now at an end. In the whole neutrality business, coal included, the Germans are behaving quite in character with history, like children. These are questions that have never before been put to the people. Who has ever asked them about them?

The Russians enclosed. Back. Russia remains Russia. What a load of gossip, six Russians squabble among themselves as if the dominion of the world depended on the outcome. And the points of accusation against Bakunin aren’t even in there, only the whining about the clique in Switzerland. In any case our people seem to be honest, as far as a Russian can be, but I would still be careful with them – Meanwhile it’s quite good to know all this gossip; it’s part of the diplomacy of the proletariat.

I receive the Volksstaat very irregularly thanks to the post office. The No. of the 23rd had a wrapper with a postmark of the 19th, that’s how the rogues tamper with it. Many issues are missing entirely. In the last two, Wilhelm was not very actively stupid; he had retreated behind the fraternisation of the German and French workers. Schorlemmer has 2 brothers in the Hessian division, one-year volunteers as non-commissioned officers.

No further news from Smith. Many thanks for your trouble. If I hear nothing this week, I’ll write something blunt to Smith. What an idea, for such an aristocrat to want to make enquiries here himself! If he had left that to his banker, he’d have had all the information in 3 days. But the man must think himself a business man. Blockhead!

Best greetings to all of you. Lizzie’s knee is getting on well. Dupont had let himself be talked into a house in the most unhealthy neighbourhood, right by the stinking river, probably through Mothet, but I have seen to it that he has taken another. But don’t speak to him about it, it’s settled. He hasn’t brought Mothet back to me, however; Serraillier will have written to him about that, & D. seems now to feel relief himself that he no longer has that fellow on his back day and night.

Your F. E.