[London,] 3 August 1870 

Dear Fred, 

The unfortunate Oswald has just left a moment ago—7 p.m., 
and although it is too late to catch the post, I shall write it all 
down since I do not know whether I might not be prevented by 
some diversion tomorrow. 

The fellow with Blind was Prof. Goldstiicker, an old-time 
National Liberal. The scene became very stormy.‘ Student Blind 
even lied, asserting that Dr Jacoby was on his side (this was for 
the benefit of the Frenchmen present). On departing the fellows 

a Napoleon III - > 5 August - © See this volume, pp. 23-24. 

let it be understood, not literally but by insinuation, that Oswald 
had been ‘bought? by Bonaparte. 

This threw poor Oswald into convulsions. So he came to me. I 
should sign To BACK HIM. OTHERWISE, HIS POSITION IN LONDON WOULD BE 
DANGEROUSLY DAMAGED. He brought a printed copy of the Address with 
him (just the page proofs).!° I repeated to him d’abord* everything 
I had said previously. I then read the stuff through—feeble, 
verbose and—out of courtoisie to the Frenchmen negotiating with 
him—not a hint at the perensive cuaracter of the war on the part of 
the Germans (to say nothing of Prussia). 

I then proposed that he should drop the whole thing as its 
effect could not be ‘great’, since, as I had told him before, in my 
answer to his first letter,” the working class alone could offer active 
resistance to the national swindle. 

He answered: d’abord, a certain number of Frenchmen had 
already signed and Louis Blanc had declared that he would lend his 
name (a formula to indicate that he had had no part in composing 
the Address). 

Second, if he did not publish it now, Blind would write the next 
day in the German papers that he had prevented the publication of 
this treasonable Address. It would be better to print it. 

The last point is right. I must say that I felt sorry for the lad. So 
I gave him the following ultimatum: 

I too would lend my name (and, like Louis Blanc, not actually 
subscribe) on these two conditions: 

1. that a note would be printed under my name saying 

*‘T agree with the above Address so far as its general sentiments 
coincide with the manifesto issued by the General Council of the 
“International Working Men’s Association”’.’*‘ 

2. that a sentence was added hinting at the defensive character of 
the war on the German side, if only in the most unobtrusive and tactful 
manner. 

He accepted these conditions. The next day at 5 p.m. there would 
be another Meeting in his house, which I would attend. 

He then said: Would Engels not sign too with the same reservations 
as myself? 

I said it was a London Address. I was lending my name on certain 
conditions only out of courtesy to him and wholly against my critical 
judgment. I saw absolutely no reason why you too should 
compromise yourself because Oswald had made the mistake of 

a First of all. - > See this volume, p. 9. - ¢ K. Marx, ‘First Address of the General 
Council of the International Working Men’s Association on the Franco-Prussian War’. 

3* 

involving ex-student Blind in the affair at all. And there the matter 
was left. 

Incidentally, I. had already written to Oswald since Sunday,’ 
drawing his attention to another manoeuvre of Blind’s.” I had read in 
the Rappel a correspondent’s report from Frankfurt (quite rational 
for a change) in which the author was very anti-chauvinistic for a 
Frenchman. Nevertheless, he remarks against the Germans that 

the Frankfurter Zeitung¢ had printed a correspondent’s report from London 
according to which the ‘French republicans in London had invited all known German 
republicans to join in a common protest contre cette guerre napoléonienne4. The German 

republicans had refused to do so because on the Prussian side the war was a defensive 
one.’ 

This was the work of the ex-student who constantly writes of, to, 
for and about Karl Blind and his deeds of heroism. 

The Pall Mall administration sent me a cheque for 2 "lo guineas 
yesterday for the first article ON war © (during JULY), with the comment 
that all correspondents are always paid at the end of the month. The 
younger branche of the Marx * family consisting of the ferocious girl! 
and the illustrious Williams have declared ‘they should seize upon 
these first spoils of war as due to them for brokerage’.* If you wish to 
protest, you should act quickly in view of the energetic nature of 
these ‘neutrals’. I enclose a cutting from yesterday’s Pall Mall in 
which they protest against The Times plagiarism.” If the war lasts 4 
CERTAIN TIME, you will soon be acknowledged as the foremost military 
authority in London. 

Despite all the drawbacks the Pall Mall has two advantages: 

1, Of the respectable newspapers it is the only one which cultivates 
a certain opposition to Russia. This may become important as the war 
progresses. 

2. As the GENTLEMEN’s paper par excellence it sets the fashion in all the 
clubs, and particularly the military ones. 

3. It is the only non-venal paper in London. 

Apropos! Buy a copy of the latest London Illustrated News' for the 
portrait of that scoundrel Brunnow. His face is the very incarnation 
of Russian diplomacy. 

By tue sy. Disraeli came out with that ridiculous guarantee of 
Prussian Saxony for Prussia in the Vienna Treaties, using it as the 

4 31 July-> See this volume, p. 28. -¢ Frankfurter Zeitung und Handels- 
biatt- 4 against this Napoleonic war - ¢ F. Engels, Notes on the War—J. - £ Eleanor 
Marx - 8 Marx’s daughter Jenny, who signed her articles on the Irish question with 
the pseudonym Williams. - * ‘Observations of the News’, The Pall Mali Gazette, 
No. 1707, 3 August 1870. -' The Illustrated London News, Vol. LVII, Nos. 1604, 
1605, 23 July 1870. 

basis for an Anglo-Russian alliance. (He conveniently forgot that the 
independence of Poland was a condition for that guarantee on 
England’s part.*’) This was just a FEELER Thrown out. But the 
Anglo-Russian alliance is actually planned by Gladstone too. The 
ENc.IsH MEMBERS Of the INTERNATIONAL really must take energetic action 
on this. I shall send a letter to the Councu. about it for Next Tuesday.” 

The Belgians have proposed the congress be held in Amsterdam 
on. 5 September. This is the plan of Mr Bakunin. The congress 
would consist chiefly of his roots. I have proposed instead: *Appeal to 
all the sections whether they think not that, under present 
circumstances, where the French and German delegates would be 
excluded from the congress, power should be given to the General 
Council 

1. to postpone the congress; 

2. to enable the Council to convoke congress at the moment it shall 
consider opportune.* This was passed.‘ 

The matter was all the more pressing as we see from the open 
attack on us in the eels Solidarité (using our decision on the Swiss 
matter as a pretext) ** that Bakunin had taken all his precautionary 
measures for the Amsterdam Congress. He would have defeated us 
at the last congress in Basle, had it not been for the German element in 
Switzerland.” 

Lopatin has moved to London from Brighton, where he was 
almost dying of boredom. He is the only ‘reliable’ Russian I have got 
to know up to now, and I shall soon succeed in driving his national 
prejudices out of him. I also learned from him that Bakunin had 
been spreading the rumour that I was an agent of Bismarck—‘mirabile 
dictu*! And, c’est vraiment dréle,” the same evening (last Tuesday, 
yesterday), Serraillier told me that Chatelain, member of THE FRENCH 
BRANCH,” and a particular friend of Pyat, had even informed the 
FRENCH BRANCH IN FULL SITTING how much Bismarck had _ paid 
me—namely 250,000 francs. If, on the one hand, one is in the 
French habit of thinking in francs and if, on the other hand, one 
bears Prussian niggardliness in mind, then this is at least a very 
decent estimate! 

Salut. 
Your 
K. M.