London, 16 September 1870 
My dear Sir, 

You must excuse my bothering you again with a letter, but 4 la 
guerre comme a la guerre. 

aK. Marx, ‘Second Address of the General Council of the International 
Working Men’s Association on the Franco-Prussian War’. - > The Pall Mall Gazette, 
No. 1745, 16 September 1870.-¢ One must take the rough with the smooth 
(literally: that’s how it is in wartime). 

The worst anticipations of the two Addresses of the General 
Council of the International* have already been realised. 

Having declared to make war against Louis Bonaparte and not 
against the French people, Prussia makes now war upon the 
French people and peace with Bonaparte. It has let out the 
murder. It has declared its intention of restoring him or his family 
to the Tuileries. The infamous Times affects to-day to treat this as 
mere gossip.” It knows, or ought to know that the thing has been 
printed in the Berlin Staats-Anzeiger (the Prussian Moniteur). From 
semi-official Prussian papers, such as the Cologne Gazette,“ I see 
that that old ass, King William, true to his Hohenzollern family 
traditions, already prostrates himself at the feet of the Czar“ and 
implores him to be so magnanimous as to employ him as his 
man-servant against the Turks! Lastly, the reaction has already set 
in in Germany. Our people at Brunswick, to begin with, have, 
as I wrote you, been marched off in chains like common felons 
to the Eastern frontier." But this is only one fact amongst 
hundreds. 

After the first war of German Independence against 
Napoleon I,° the wild and ferocious Government's chase upon the 
so-called demagogues (die demagogischen Untersuchungen‘) lasted 
fully for 20 years! but they set in only after the end of the war. 
They now begin before the conclusion of peace. 

Then their persecutions were directed against the windy idealists 
and frothy youths (the students at the Universities) of the middle 
class, bureaucracy and aristocracy. They are now directed against 
the working class. 

For my part, I am delighted at all those misdeeds of the Prussian 
Government. They will stir Germany. Now what I think you ought 
to do is this: The first Address of the General Council on the war 
was only published in full by the Pall Mall but extracts and even 
leading articles on it appeared in many other papers. This time, 
although the Address has been forwarded to all London papers, 
not one has taken the least notice of it, except the Pall Mall, which 
gives a very short extract." 

(By-the-by, this paper, which handles you so nicely in its 
yesterday’s number, ™ has certain private obligations towards me, I 

a The first and second Addresses of the General Council of the International Wor- 
king Men’s Association on the Franco-Prussian War. -> ‘The Emperor Napole- 
on’, The Times, No. 26857, 16 September 1870 (leader). -° Kélnische Zeitung - 
d Alexander II - ¢ the war of 1813-14 - f investigation of the demagogues - § The 
Pall Mall Gazette, No. 1702, 28 July 1870. - » See this volume, p. 84. 

having proposed there my friend Engels’ Notes on the War. I 
did so at the request of A—B—* who, from time to time, had 
smuggled some paragraphs on the ‘International’ into the Pall 
Mall. Hence our second address is not altogether burked in that 
paper.) 

From the Continent, where people were and are used, even at 
Moscow and St Petersburg, even in the French papers under the 
Bonapartist rule, even now at Berlin, to see the manifestoes of the 
International treated seriously and reproduced in full by some 
journal or other, we have been once and again taunted for our 
negligence in not using the ‘free’ London press. They have, of 
course, no idea whatsoever, and will not believe in the utter 
corruption, of that vile concern, long since branded by William 
Cobbett as ‘mercenary, infamous, and illiterate’. 

Now I believe you would do the greatest possible service to the 
International, and I should take good care to have your article 
reproduced in our journals in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, 
Holland, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, France, and the United 
States—if you in the Fortnightly Review would publish something 
on the International,” the manifestoes of the General Council on 
the war and the treatment we have to undergo at the hands 
of that paragon press, that ‘free’ English press! Those fellows 
are in fact more enslaved to the Prussian police than the Berlin 
papers. 

Lafargue, now editor of a paper at Bordeaux, sends you and 
Mrs Beesly his best compliments. 

Yours truly, 
Karl Marx