[Ramsgate,] 17 August* 1870 

Dear FRrep, 

My best thanks (ditto from Mrs Marx for the letter to her) for 
the pains you took under such circonstances aggravantes. Your 
letter’ tallies completely with the plan of the answer I have 
already worked out in my head. Nevertheless, in such an 
important matter—it is not a question of Wilhelm but of 
instructions to the German workers as to their line of conduct—I did not 
want to act without first consulting with you.” 

Wilhelm infers his agreement with me: 

a respectable people - > Lydia Burns - © In the original ‘17 April’, which is a slip of 
the pen. - 4 See previous letter. - © worsening circumstances - f See this volume, 
pp. 45-48. - § Wilhelm Liebknecht 

1) from the Address of the International,’ which he of course first 
translated into his own, Wilhelminian language; 

2) from the fact that I approved his and Bebel’s statement in 
the Reichstag.*' That was a ‘moment’ when harping on principles 
was un acte de courage? but it by no means follows that the 
moment still continues, much less that the attitude of the German 
proletariat toward a war which has become national is com- 
prehended in Wilhelm’s antipathy to the Prussians. It would be just 
as if we were to object to the relative independence which Italy 
received as a result of this war merely because at a suitable 
moment we had raised our voices against the ‘Bonapartist’ 
liberation of Italy. 

The lust for Alsace and Lorraine seems to predominate in two 
circles: the Prussian camarilla and the South-German beer-patriots. 
It would be the greatest misfortune that could befall Europe and 
above all Germany. You will have seen that most of the Russian 
newspapers are already talking of the necessity of European 
diplomatic intervention in order to maintain the balance of power 
in Europe. 

Kugelmann confuses a defensive war with defensive military 
operations.© So if a fellow falls upon me in the street I may only 
parry his blows but not knock him pown, because then I should 
turn into an aggressor! The want of dialectics peeps out of every 
word these people utter. 

I have not slept a wink the fourth night running because of the 
rheumatism, and all that time fantasies about Paris, etc., run 
through my mind. I shall have Gumpert’s sleeping potion 
prepared for me this evening. 

With the Death-KNELL of the Szeconp Empire THAT WILL END AS IT BEGAN, BY 
a paropy,? I hit the neil on the head with my Bonaparte, after all! 
Can one imagine a finer parody of Napoleon’s 1814 campaign? I 
believe we two are the only folks who grasped the whole mediocrity 
of Boustrapa 54 EROM THE BEGINNING, regarded him as a mere sHOwMAN, 
and never allowed ourselves to be misled by his momentary 
successes. 

Apropos! The bourgeois Peace Society has sent the General 

a K. Marx, ‘First Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’s 
Association on the Franco-Prussian War’. - > an act of courage - © A reference to 
Kugelmann’s letter to Marx of 7 August 1870. - 4 See Marx’s ‘First Address of the 
General Council of the International Working Men’s Association on the Franco- 
Prussian War’. 

Council of the International £20 for printing the Manifesto in the 
French and German languages. 
Salut. 

Your 
K. M. 

The Times, Telegraph,*? Daily News, etc., all of which fawned so 
prettily on Bonaparte for 20 years! 

The Brunswick suggestion that the General Council should 
request Borkheim to draw up a pamphlet against Russia is really 
hilarious! 

How naive can people be! 

The sea air is very good for me and at any rate this attack 
would have been far more unpleasant in London. 

I don’t agree with you about the house rent for 3'/2 years.” 
Thanks to the French catastrophe, gentlemen’s dwellings in London 
will now go up in price and you will be able to get rid of the house 
any day ‘with ease’.