[London,] 8 August 1870 

Dear Fred, 

I shall not get away until tomorrow (I’ve been held back by 
business for the International). I shall not be going to Brighton 
after all, but to Ramsgate,” since the former place turned out on 
inquiry to be too hot, and besides it is made unsafe by the 
presence of Arnold Winkelried Ruge.’ 

L'Empire est fait, i.e. the German Empire. By HOOK AND by crook, 
neither in the way intended nor in the manner imagined, it 
appears that all the double-dealing since the Second Empire began 
has finally combined to carry out the ‘national’ aims of 1848— 
Hungary, Italy and Germany! It seems to me that this sort of 
movement will only be complete when a brawl! breaks out between 
the Prussians and the Russians. This is by no means improbable. The 
press of the Muscovite party (I have seen a good deal of it chez 
Borkheim) has attacked the Russian government just as savagely 
for its friendly attitude towards Prussia as the French papers 
sympathetic to Thiers attacked Boustrapa™ in 1866 for his 
flirtation with Prussia. No one but the Emperor," the German- 
Russian party and the official St Petersburg Journal’? were sounding 
the bugle against France. But they did not at all expect 
Prussian-German successes on such a decisive scale. Like 
Bonaparte in 1866, they imagined that the BELLIGERENT Powers would 
exhaust each other in protracted struggles, so that Holy Russia 
might then step in as supreme arbiter. 

But now! Unless Alexander wants to be poisoned, SOMETHING MUST 
BE DONE to appease the national party. The prestige of Russia will 
obviously be ‘harmed’ even more by a German-Prussian Empire 
than was the prestige of the ‘Second Empre’ by the establishment of 
the North German Confederation.” 

So Russia will do just what Bonaparte did between 1866 and 
1870, namely, play tricks on Prussia in order to gain concessions 

a Arnold Winkelried was a legendary folk-hero of the Swiss struggle for 
freedom against the Habsburgs. Used by Marx to deride Ruge. - > The Empire is 
created. - © Alexander 11 - 4 Journal de Saint-Pétersbourg politique, littéraire, com- 
mercial et industriel 

from Turkey, and despite the Russian religion of the Hohenzol- 
lerns, all this trickery will end in war between the tricksters. However 
gullible the German simpleton may be, his newly reinforced 
national sentiment (especially at the present time, when he is no 
longer to be persuaded that he must put up with all sorts of things 
in order to first establish German unity) will hardly allow him 
to be pressed into the service of Russia, for which there is no good 
reason, nor even a PRETEXT anymore. Qui vivra, verra” If our 
handsome William” survives yet awhile, we may well live to see his 
proclamations to the Poles. As orp Carlyle has said: when God 
wishes to accomplish something particularly great, his choice 
always falls on the most stupid people to carry it out. 

What gives me cause for anxiety at the present moment is the 
state of affairs in France itself. The next great battle can hardly 
but go against the French. And what then? If the defeated army 
makes for Paris under Boustrapa’s leadership it will produce the 
most humiliating peace possible for France, perhaps ending in the 
restauration of the Orléans. If a revolution breaks out in Paris, it 
is questionable whether they will have the means and the leaders 
capable of offering serious resistance to the Prussians. One cannot 
remain blind to the fact that the 20-year-long Bonapartist farce 
has brought tremendous demoralisation in its wake. One would 
hardly be justified to rely on revolutionary heroism. What is your 
opinion? 

I understand nothing of military matters, but it is still my 
impression that rarely has a campaign been conducted in a more 
mindless, planless and mediocre manner than this campaign of 
Badinguet’s.© And then, too, the beautiful opening scene with the 
whole Porte St Martin’ melodrama of the Lower Emprre**: the 
father and son at the flash-vent of the cannon, and the infamous 
deeds such as the bombarding of Saarbrücken with which this 
‘sublime’ scene is amalgamated! It’s the man to a T! 

MacMahon pressed for swift action in the original war council in 
Metz, but Leboeuf was of the opposite point of view. 

Apropos! We have heard from Vienna (in a letter from a cousin 
of Eccarius, a 72-year-old man) that Bismarck was there on a secret 
visit! 

Quite in accordance with the spirit of the Lower Empire, we can 
see how in this war—in its commissariat and its diplomacy— 

a Time will tell. - > William I-¢ A derisive nickname of Louis Bonaparte 
(Napoleon III) who, in 1846, fled from prison in Ham in the clothes of a mason by 
the name of Badinguet. - 4 A theatre company in Paris that catered for low tastes 
during the Second Empire. 

everyone acts in obedience to the maxim: steal from one another 
and lie to one another, so that everyone in France, from the 
minister to the clerk, from the marshall to the common soldier, 
from the Emperor to the man who cleans his boots—everyone 
stands amazed as soon as THE TRUE STATE OF THINGS is revealed under 
cannon fire. — 

Mr John Stuart Mill was full of praise for our Address.’ It has 
had a great effect in London generally. Among others, the 
philistine Cobden Peace Society has made a written offer to 
distribute it.°° 

Ad vocem’ Oswald’s Address. I have taken advantage of your 
permission since I was in fact reluctant to act without ‘you’. The 
delay has, of course, only made the Address even more absurd, but 
this is of no concern to us‘as we have only endorsed Ts GENERAL 
SENTIMENTS, etc., so far as, etc. It cannot be withdrawn now, despite 
its ridiculousness, since Louis Blanc, etc., would imagine we had 
done so because of the Prussian victories. 

Apropos! Old Ruge had written to Oswald a week ago saying he 
could not sign. Why not? Because he was ‘convinced that the 
Prussians would proclaim a French republic in Paris’! Can’t you just 
picture to yourself the old woolly muddlehead in all his glory? 

Enclosed are a number of pieces by the Prophet Urquhart. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M. 

P.S. In an article in The Fortnightly Review (August issue) on ‘our 
UNCULTIVATED LANDS’,* I found the following on the soil in Ireland: 

*‘That her soil is fertile is proved upon the testimony etc. etc. and M. de Laveleye: 
the latter gentleman says etc. etc.’ (p. 204).* 

Since the English regard Laveleye as a great authority on 
agronomy because of his books on Belgian and Italian agriculture, 
the passage may be of use to you.”