Manchester, 15 August 1870 

Dear Moor, 

When one has had severe stomach trouble for three days like 
me, with slight fever from time to time, it’s no great pleasure at 
all, even when starting to feel better, to expatiate on Wilhelm’s* 
politique. But since you must get this rubbish back, here goes.” 

a Wilhelm Liebknecht’s 

How far Bracke, who is certainly a very weak fellow, has allowed 
his national enthusiasm to run away with him I cannot tell, and as 
I receive at most one issue of the Volksstaat every fortnight, I am 
also unable to judge the position of the Committee* in this regard 
except from Bonhorst’s letter to Wilhelm, which on the whole is 
coo, but betrays theoretical uncertainty. In contrast with this, 
Liebknecht’s narrow-minded and self-confident dogmatism un- 
doubtedly shows up, very favourably as usual. 

The case seems to me to be as follows: Germany has been 
driven by Badinguet” into a war for her national existence. If 
Badinguet defeats her, Bonapartism will be strengthened for years 
and Germany broken for years, perhaps for generations. In that 
event there can be no question any more of an independent 
German working-class movement either; the struggle to restore 
Germany’s national existence will absorb everything, and at best 
the German workers will be dragged in the wake of the French. If 
Germany wins, French Bonapartism will at any rate be smashed, 
the endless row about the establishment of German unity will at 
last be over, the German workers will be able to organise on a 
national scale quite different from that prevailing hitherto, and 
the French workers, whatever sort of government may succeed 
this one, are certain to have a freer field than under Bonapartism. 
The whole mass of the German people of every class have realised 
that this is first and foremost a question of national existence and 
have therefore at once flung themselves into the fray. That in 
these circumstances a German political party should preach total 
abstention 4@ la Wilhelm and place all sorts of secondary 
considerations before the main one, seems to me impossible. 

To this must be added that Badinguet would never have been 
able to wage this war without the chauvinism of the mass of the 
French population: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, the 
peasants and the imperialistic, Haussmannist building-trade pro- 
letariat stemming from the peasants, which Bonaparte created in 
the big towns.” Until this chauvinism is knocked on the head, and 
knocked good and proper, peace between Germany and France is 
impossible. One might have expected a proletarian revolution to 
take this work over, but since the war is already on there is no 
choice for the Germans but to attend to the job themselves and 
quickly. 

a the Committee of the German Social-Democratic Workers’ Party in Bruns- 
wick - > 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. 

Now come the secondary considerations. For the fact that 
Lehmann,’ Bismarck & Co, are in command in this war and that it 
must minister to their temporary gloire if they conduct it 
successfully, we have to thank the miserable state of the German 
bourgeoisie. It is certainly very unpleasant, but cannot be altered. 
But to magnify anti-Bismarckism into the sole guiding principle on 
that account would be absurd. In the first place, now, as in 1866, 
Bismarck is doing a bit of our work, in his own way and without 
meaning to, but all the same he is doing it. He is clearing the deck 
for us better than before. Moreover it is no longer the year 1815. 
The South Germans are now bound to enter the Reichstag and 
this will develop a counterweight to Prussianism. Then there are 
the national duties which devolve on him and which, as you wrote, 
forbid the Russian alliance from the outset. In general it is 
senseless to try a la Liebknecht to set back the clock of history on 
all that has happened since 1866, just because it is not to his 
liking. But we know our model South Germans. There is nothing 
to be done with these fools. 

I think our people can: 

1) join the national movement— you can see from Kugelmann’ s 
letter how strong it is—insofar and for so long as it is limited to 
the defence of Germany (which does not exclude an offensive, in 
certain circumstances, until peace is attained); 

2) at the same time emphasise the difference between German 
national and dynastic-Prussian interests; 

3) oppose any annexation of Alsace and Lorraine—Bismarck is 
now intimating an intention of annexing them to Bavaria and 
Baden; 

4) as soon as a non-chauvinistic republican government is at the 
helm in Paris, work for an honourable peace with it; 

5) constantly stress the unity of interests between the German 
and French workers, who did not approve of the war and are also 
not making war on each other; 

6) Russia, as in the Address of the International.” 

Amusing is Wilhelm’s assertion that because Bismarck is a 
former accomplice of Badinguet’s the correct position would be to 
remain neutral. If that were the general opinion in Germany, we 
should soon have the Confederation of the Rhine again and the 
noble Wilhelm should see what sort of role he would play in that, 
and what would become of the workers’ movement. A people that 

a nickname of William I - > K. Marx, ‘First Address of the General Council of the 
International Working Men’s Association on the Franco-Prussian War’. 

gets nothing but kicks and blows is indeed the right one to make a 
social revolution, above all in the innumerable small states so 
beloved of Wilhelm! 

How nice of the poor little fellow to seek to call me to account 
for something that was ‘supposed’ to have been in the Elberfelder 
Zeitung! Poor animal! 

The débacle in France seems to be frightful. Everything 
squandered, sold, swindled away. The chassepots” are badly made 
and misfire in action; there are none left of them and the old 
flintlocks have got to be hunted out again. Nevertheless a 
revolutionary government, if it comes soon, need not despair. But 
it must abandon Paris to its fate and carry on the war from the 
South. There would then still be a possibility of its holding out 
until arms have been bought and new armies organised which 
would gradually force the enemy back to the frontier. This would 
really be the true end of the war, both countries reciprocally 
furnishing proof that they are unconquerable. But if this does not 
happen quickly the game is up. Moltke’s operations are a 
model—old William seems to give him a perfectly free hand—and 
the fourth battalions are already joining the army, while the 
French ones are not yet in existence. 

If Badinguet is not out of Metz yet it may go badly with him. 

Sea-bathing is no good for rheumatism. But Gumpert, who is 
spending four weeks in Wales, maintains that sea air is particularly 
wholesome. I hope you will soon be relieved of your pain. It’s 
something terrible. At any rate it’s not dangerous and the 
restoration of your general health is much more important. 

Best regards. 

Your 
F. E. 

You can see, incidentally, how the wretched Wilhelm constantly 
flirts with the reactionary particularists’ 1_ Wulster, Obermüller, 
etc., and drags the Party in with him. 

Wilhelm has obviously counted on Bonaparte’s victory, simply in 
the hope that it would finish off his dear Bismarck. You recollect 
how he always threatened him with the French. And it goes 
without saying, of course, that you too are on Wilhelm’s side!*