Friedrich Engels

Once Again "Herr Vogt"

Written on 5 May 1871.

[Der Volksstaat, No. 38, 10 May 1871]

Since the Augsburg campaign of 1859, which had earned him such a mighty thrashing, Herr Vogt seemed to have had his fill of politics. He turned with all his energy to the natural sciences, in which, as he himself says, he had already earlier made such "astonishing" discoveries. Thus, about the same time that Küchenmeister and Leuckardt had demonstrated the highly complicated development history of the intestinal worms and thereby achieved a really great advance in science, he made the astonishing discovery that intestinal worms consist of two classes: roundworms, which are round, and flatworms, which are flat. Now he placed an even greater achievement alongside this mighty feat. The finding of numerous fossil human bones from prehistoric times had brought the comparative study of skulls of different human races into fashion. Skulls were measured in all directions, compared, discussed, and no result was reached, until Vogt finally, with his customary triumphal certainty, proclaimed the solution of the riddle: that all human skulls fall into two classes—those which are oblong (long-heads, dolichocephalic) and those which are roundish (short-heads, brachycephalic). What the most precise and industrious observers had not been able to bring about through years of laborious work, Vogt achieved by the simple application of his worm principle. If we place alongside these astonishing discoveries the discovery of a new species in the field of political zoology, namely the discovery of the sulphur gang, even the least modest will have to admit that Vogt had done enough for one human lifetime.

But our Vogt’s great intellect had no rest. Politics retained its irresistible charms for the man who also accomplished such great things on the beer-bench. The thrashing of ’60 had fortunately healed, Marx’s *Herr Vogt* was no longer to be had in the book trade, grass had grown over all the shady affairs time and again, our Vogt had made lecture tours amid the applause of the German philistine, had spread himself over all natural scientists’ assemblies, ethnographic and antiquarian congresses, and had pushed his way close to the really great figures of science; he could therefore once again consider himself somewhat "respectable" and feel called upon to drill the German philistine, whom he had already crammed with natural science, now also politically. Great events were unfolding: Napoleon the Little had capitulated at Sedan, the Prussians were before Paris, Bismarck was demanding Alsace and Lorraine. Then it was high time for Vogt to utter his weighty word.

This word is entitled: *Carl Vogt’s Political Letters to Friedrich Kolb*, Biel 1870; it contains twelve letters that first appeared in the Vienna *Tages-Presse*, and were also reprinted in Vogt’s Moniteur, the *Bieler Handels-Courier*. Vogt declares himself against annexation and against the Prussianisation of Germany, and it vexes him shamefully that he stands here as a mere imitator of the hated Social Democrats, i.e., the "sulphur gang". It would be superfluous to go into the general content of the pamphlet, since it is utterly indifferent how a Vogt thinks about such things. Besides, the arguments he advances are only those of the most commonplace beer-philistine twaddle, except that this time Vogt reflects not the German philistine but the Swiss one. We are interested only in the agreeable person of Herr Vogt himself, as he wends his way through his various twists and turns.

We therefore take up the little brochure and place beside it Vogt’s unlucky book, the *Studies on the Present Situation of Europe*, 1859, from whose after-effects he has suffered so heavily and so long. There we find, for all the intellectual affinity, the wholly identical slovenliness of writing—on page 10 Vogt obtains his "views" "with his own ears", which must indeed be quite peculiar ears—we find that today Herr Vogt says precisely the opposite of what he preached eleven years ago. The *Studies* had the purpose of persuading the German philistine that Germany had no interest in mixing in the war which Louis Bonaparte was then planning against Austria. To this end Louis Bonaparte had to be depicted as a people-liberating "man of destiny", had to be defended against the current attacks of the republicans and even of many bourgeois liberals. And the would-be republican Vogt lent himself to this—with a terribly sour-sweet mien, to be sure, and not without one noticing some inward groaning on his part, but he did it all the same. Malicious tongues and people of the "sulphur gang" claimed that the worthy Vogt undertook all these strains and grimaces only because he had received from the Bonapartist side what the English call "consideration", namely ready money. All sorts of suspicious things had also occurred. Vogt had offered money to various persons if they would work in the press in his sense, i.e., in praise of the people-liberating intentions of Louis Bonaparte. Herr Braß, whose virtue has notoriously been above all suspicion since he has been editing the *Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung*, even Herr Braß publicly "rejected the French feeding-trough that Vogt wanted to set before him". But we shall not speak further of these unpleasant affairs and shall assume for the moment that Vogt’s inward groaning and grimaces were his own ancestral property. Well, since then the misfortune of Sedan has occurred, and with it everything changes for Herr Vogt. The people-liberating French emperor himself is still treated with some restraint; it is merely said of him that:

"the revolution was already breathing down his neck. Even without the war the Empire would not have seen the New Year 1871 in the Tuileries." (p. 1.)

But his wife! Let us hear:

"Of course, if Eugénie had been victorious (for she stands or rather stood, this uneducated Spanish woman who cannot even write orthographically, in the field with the whole dragon’s tail of fanatical priests and rural population behind her), if Eugénie had been victorious, the situation would momentarily have become even more dreadful" than after the Prussian victories etc.

So: If the French were victorious over the Austrians in 1859, the people-liberating Bonaparte was victorious; if they were victorious over the Prussians in 1870, then the uneducated Eugénie with her dragon’s tail was victorious. One sees the progress.

Still worse is the dragon’s tail of Louis Bonaparte, for it now turns out that he too has one. Right on p. 2 there is talk of "the fearful squandering of the Empire", on p. 16 of the "rabble that stood at the head of the imperial army and administration". This squandering and this rabble were already in full bloom in 1859 and long before; Vogt, who then had no eyes for them, now sees them quite precisely. Again a progress. Nor is that all. Even if Vogt himself does not directly abuse his former liberator, he cannot refrain from quoting a letter from a French scholar, in which it says:

"If you have any influence, try to avert from us the worst disgrace—celle de ramener l’infâme" (that of bringing back the infamous one—Louis Bonaparte). "Dear Henry V., the Orléans, a Hohenzollern, anything rather than this crowned rogue who poisoned everything he touched." (p. 13.)

However bad the ex-emperor and his uneducated consort together with their respective dragons’ tails may be, Vogt consoles us with the fact that there is yet one in the family who is an exception: Prince Napoleon, better known under the name of Plon-Plon. Of him Vogt says on p. 33 that Plon-Plon had told Vogt himself that "he would have no respect for the South Germans if they acted otherwise" (i.e., if they did not join the march against the French); also that he had been convinced of the unfortunate outcome of the war and had made no secret of it. Who will now accuse Vogt of ingratitude? Is it not touching to see how he, the "republican", extends the hand of brotherhood to the "prince" even in misfortune and gives him a testimonial on which the latter can rely when the great competition is announced for a substitute for the "infamous one"?

In the *Studies* Russia and Russian policy are praised throughout; since the abolition of serfdom this empire is said to be "rather a companion of the liberal movement than an opponent of it"; Poland is said to be well on the way to merging with Russia (as the uprising of 1863 has proved!), and Vogt finds it quite natural that Russia "forms the fixed point around which the Slav nationalities are more and more striving to group themselves".

And that at that time, 1859, Russian policy went hand in hand with Louis Napoleon was, of course, in Vogt’s eyes an enormous merit. Now it is all different—now he says:

"I have not a moment’s doubt that a conflict between the Slav and Germanic world is impending ... and that Russia will assume the leadership on the one side in it." (pp. 30, 31.)

And now it is demonstrated that after the annexation of Alsace France will immediately take the side of the Slavs in this conflict, indeed will hasten its outbreak as much as possible in order to regain Alsace, so that the same Russo-French alliance which in 1859 was supposed to have been a piece of good fortune for Germany is now held up before it as a bogey and terrifying spectre. But Vogt knows his German philistine. He knows that he can offer him anything, contradict himself ten times over. We now ask involuntarily, how did it come about that Vogt, eleven years ago, could have had the shamelessness to trumpet an alliance between Russia and Bonapartist France as the best guarantee of the free development of Germany and Europe?

And finally Prussia! In the *Studies* Prussia is given clearly to understand that it may indirectly support Louis Napoleon’s plans against Austria, confine itself to defending the territory of the German Confederation, and then "receive its reward in the North German flatlands at the subsequent peace negotiations". The borders of the later North German Confederation—the Erzgebirge, the Main and the sea—are already held out before Prussia as bait at that time. And in the epilogue to the second edition, which appeared during the Italian war, when the Bonapartists’ fire was already burning under their fingernails and there was no more time to waste on circumlocutions and phrases—there Vogt also blurts out directly, calling upon Prussia to begin a civil war in Germany for the establishment of a unitary central authority, for the incorporation of Germany into Prussia—this unification of Germany would not cost as many weeks as the war in Italy had months. Well and good. Exactly seven years later, and likewise in agreement with Louis Napoleon, Prussia acts precisely according to the Bonapartist insinuations parroted by Vogt; it plunges into a civil war, for the time being takes its reward in the North German flatlands, creates at least for the North a unitary central authority—and Herr Vogt? Herr Vogt now suddenly comes and whines to us that "the war of 1870 was the necessary and inevitable consequence of that of 1866"! (p. 1.) He laments the insatiable policy of conquest of Prussia, which has always "snatched at a proffered conquest like a shark at a piece of bacon" (p. 20).

"Never and nowhere have I seen a state and a people that better deserved this name" (robber state) "than Prussia." (p. 35.)

He laments the incorporation of Germany into Prussia as the greatest misfortune that could befall Germany and Europe (eighth and ninth letter). That is what Bismarck gets for following Vogt's advice, and that is what Vogt gets for giving Bismarck advice.

So far, however, everything seemed to be going well for our Vogt. The old disreputable stories had truly been forgotten by the philistine, the "Studien" were totally sunk into oblivion, Vogt could again pass himself off as a respectable citizen and passable democrat and pride himself on the fact that these his "Political Letters" confronted the banal philistine current in Germany. Even the fatal agreement on the annexation question with the Social Democrats could only redound to his honour: Since Vogt had not gone over to the sulphur gang, the sulphur gang must necessarily have been converted to Vogt! Then suddenly the eye falls upon a narrow thin line in the recently published lists of the use of Louis-Napoleon's secret funds:

"Vogt il lui a été remis en Août 1859 ... frs. 40,000."

"Vogt – there were remitted to him in August 1859 ... 40,000 francs."

Vogt? Who is Vogt? What a misfortune for Vogt that no further description is given! Indeed, if it said Professor Carl Vogt in Geneva, with street and house number, Vogt could say: That is not me, that is my brother, my wife, my eldest son, anything, only not me – but as it is! Vogt, simply, without description, first name, address – that can only be the one Vogt, the world-famous scholar, the great discoverer of roundworms and flatworms, of long skulls and short skulls and the sulphur gang, the man whose renown is so familiar even to the policemen of the secret funds that any further identification would be superfluous! And then – is there another Vogt who rendered such services to the Bonapartist government in 1859 that they paid him 40,000 francs for them in August of that year
(and Vogt was in Paris just at that time)?
That you did render the services, Herr Vogt, is notorious; your "Studien" are the proof of it; these "Studien" appeared in a first edition in the spring, in a second in the summer; that from 1 April 1859 up to the summer you urged one person after another to work in the Bonapartist interest, against payment by you, you yourself have admitted;
in August 1859, after the end of the war, you were in Paris –
and now we are supposed to believe that the plain Vogt to whom Bonaparte had 40,000 francs paid out in August 1859 was a different, utterly unknown Vogt? Impossible. We swear by all roundworms and flatworms: So long as you do not prove the contrary, we must assume that you are the Vogt in question.

But, you may say, that is an assertion resting on nothing but the word of the present French government, i.e. the Communalists or, what comes to the same thing, Communists, who are also called the sulphur gang; who would believe such people? To this it must be replied that the publication of the "Correspondance et papiers de la famille impériale" was effected by the
"Government of the National Defence",
whose
official
act it is, for which it vouches. And what was your opinion of this government, Jules Favre, Trochu, etc.?

"The men who have now been thrust to the helm are second to none in intelligence, energy and tried sentiment – but they cannot achieve the impossible."

That is what you say of them on p. 52. No, Herr Vogt, they cannot achieve the impossible, but they might at least have suppressed your name as thanks for that warm recognition, which befell them so rarely!

However, as you yourself say, Herr Vogt, "Money is after all the equivalent of the damage which the individual suffers in his person" (p. 24) and, if your worthy person has suffered "damage" – hopefully only moral – through your political leaps of 1859, then kindly console yourself with the "equivalent".

When the war uproar broke out last summer, you were

"convinced that the whole French governmental spectacle was intended only to cover, in apparent armaments, the frightful squandering of the Empire. Under Louis-Philippe this was done by the
woodworms –
the secret expenditures exceeding the budget were written to the wood account of the navy; under the Empire all the woodworms on earth would not have sufficed to cover the deficits". (p. 4.)

So here we are again at the beloved worms, and this time the woodworms. To what class do they belong, roundworms or flatworms? Who could decide that? Only you, Herr Vogt, and you in fact decide it. According to the "Correspondance etc." you yourself belong to the "woodworms" and have eaten up "the secret expenditures exceeding the budget" to the tune of 40,000 francs. And that you are a "roundworm" is known to everyone who knows you.