VII. The Augsburg Campaign

• • Introduction and preface
  • I. The Brimstone Gang
  • II. The Bristlers
  • III. Police Matters
  • IV. Techow's Letter
  • V. Imperial Regent and Count Palatine
  • VI. Vogt and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
  • VII. The Augsburg Campaign
  • VIII. Dâ-Dâ Vogt and his Studies "Sine Studio"
  • IX. Agency
  • X. Patrons and Accomplices
  • XI. A Lawsuit
  • XII. Appendices

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Shortly after the citizen of the Canton of Thurgau had concluded his Italian war, the citizen of the Canton of Berne launched his Augsburg campaign.

"There" (in London) "it was the Marx clique that had always supplied the greater part of the reports" (of the Allgemeine Zeitung), "and ever since 1849 its relations with the 'Allgemeine Zeitung' had been continuous" ("Magnum Opus p. 194).

Although Marx has only been living in London since the end of 1849, i.e. since he was expelled from France for the second time, the "Marx clique" appears to have lived in London always, and although the Marx clique has "always supplied the greater part of the reports of the Allgemeine Zeitung", "its relations" with the Allgemeine Zeitung have only been "continuous ever since 1849" . At all events, Vogt's chronology is divided—and this is not to be wondered at since before 1848 the man "had not yet contemplated any political activity" (loc. cit., p. 225)—into two great periods, viz., the period "always" up to 1849, and the period from 1849 up to "this" year.

Between 1842 and 1843 I edited the old Rheinische Zeitung, which waged a life-and-death war with the Allgemeine Zeitung. From 1848 to 1849 the Neue Rheinische Zeitung revived the polemic. What remains, then, of the period "always up to 1849" apart from the fact that Marx had fought against the Allgemeine Zeitung "always", while Vogt had been its "constant collaborator" from 1844 to 1847? (See "Magnum Opus", p. 225.)

Now for the second period of world history à la Vogt.

The reason why I maintained "continuous relations with the Allgemeine Zeitung" from London, "continuous ever since 1849", is that "from 1852" a certain Ohly had been chief London correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung. It is true that Ohly had no relations whatever with me, either before or after 1852. I have never seen him in my life. Inasmuch as he played any part among the London refugees it was as a member of Kinkel's Emigration Association. But this has no bearing on the case, for,

"The former oracle of Altenhöfer, that old Bavarian who had learnt English, was my" (Vogt's) "fellow-countryman, the blond Ohly, who having started out as a communist, strove to attain a loftier poetic standpoint in politics and literature. At first in Zurich, but from 1852 in London, he was the chief correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung until he ended his days in a madhouse." ("Magnum Opus", p. 195.)

Edouard Simon, the police spy, has Frenchified this Vogtiad as follows:

"En voici d'abord un qui de son point de départ communiste, avait cherché à s'élever aux plus hautes conceptions de la politique." ("Loftier poetic standpoint in politics" was beyond the genius even of an Edouard Simon.) "À en croire M. Vogt, cet adepte fut l'oracle de la Gazette d'Augsbourg jusqu'en 1852, époque où il mourut dans une maison de fous" (Revue contemporaine, Vol. XIII, Paris, 1860, p. 529).

"Operam et oleum perdidi," Vogt may well say of his "Magnum Opus" and his Ohly. Whereas he makes his "fellow countryman" the London correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung from 1852, until he "ends his days in a madhouse", Edouard Simon says that "if we may believe Vogt, Ohly had been the oracle of the Allgemeine Zeitung up to 1852 when he" (who, it will be noted, is still alive) "died in a madhouse". But Edouard Simon knows his Karl Vogt. Edouard knows that once one has resolved to "believe" Karl, it is quite irrelevant what one believes, whether it is what he says, or the opposite of what he says.

"Herr Liebknecht," says Karl Vogt, "replaced him" (namely Ohly) "as correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung." "Only after Liebknecht had been openly proclaimed a member of the Marx party, was he accepted as a correspondent by the Allgemeine Zeitung" (loc. cit., p. 169).

That proclamation was made during the Cologne communist trial, i.e. at the end of 1852. In fact in the spring of 1851 Liebknecht became a contributor to the Morgenblatt where he reported on the Great Exhibition in London. Through the mediation of the Morgenblatt he was made correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung in September 1855.

"His" (Marx's) "comrades do not write a single line of which Marx has not been previously informed" (loc. cit., p. 194).

The proof is simple: "He" (Marx) "has absolute control over his people" (p. 195) whereas Vogt is absolutely obedient to his Fazy and Co. We are confronted here by a peculiarity of Vogt's myth-making. The pygmy standards of Giessen or Geneva, the small-town framework and the fug of Swiss taverns are everywhere. Naively translating the leisurely provincial cliquism of Geneva to one of the great cities of the world, London, he will not allow Liebknecht to write "a single line" in the West End of which I "have not been previously informed" four miles away in Hampstead. And I perform the identical services of a La Guéronnière every day for a whole host of "comrades" scattered all over London and writing their reports to the four corners of the globe. A delightful profession—and a profitable one! With the unmistakable delicacy of the artist, Vogt's mentor, Edouard Simon, who does not know London, but is at least familiar with conditions in Paris, provides the account of his uncouth "friend from the country" with the veneer of the big city:

"Marx, comme chef de la société, ne tient pas lui-même la plume, mais ses fidèles n'écrivent pas une ligne sans l'avoir consulté: La Gazette d'Augsbourg sera d'autant mieux servie" (loc. cit., p. 529). That is to say, "Marx as head of the society does not write himself, but his trusted associates do not write a single line without first consulting him. In this way the Augsburger Zeitung is the better served."

Does Vogt appreciate all the subtlety of this correction?

I had as much to do with Liebknecht's reports to the Allgemeine Zeitung from London as I had with Vogt's reports to the Allgemeine Zeitung from Paris. Moreover, Liebknecht's reports were praiseworthy in every respect—a critical presentation of English politics, which he described in exactly the same way in the Allgemeine Zeitung as in his reports for the radical German-American newspapers written at the same time. Vogt himself, who has anxiously searched through whole years of the Allgemeine Zeitung in the hope of discovering something detrimental in Liebknecht's letters, confines his critique of their contents to stating that the symbol used by Liebknecht to indicate his authorship consisted of "two thin slanting lines" ("Magnum Opus", p. 196).

The fact that the lines were on a slant showed of course that the reports themselves were not quite straight. But even worse, they were "thin"! If only Liebknecht had chosen instead of two "thin lines", two round blobs of grease for: his reports! But even if there is nothing reprehensible about his reports apart from these "two thin slanting lines", there is still the objection that they were printed at all in the Allgemeine Zeitung. And why should they not? It is a known fact that the Allgemeine Zeitung allows the most widely divergent views to be expressed in its columns, at least on such neutral topics as that of English politics, and in addition it is the only German paper with a more than local significance in the eyes of the world. Liebknecht could without hesitation dispatch his London letters to the very newspaper for which Heine wrote his "Paris Letters" and Fallmerayer his "Oriental Letters". Vogt reports that lewd persons also wrote for the Allgemeine Zeitung. It is well known that he himself was a contributor from 1844 to 1847.

As far as Frederick Engels and myself are concerned—I mention Engels because we work to a common plan and after prior agreement—it is true that in 1859 we did enter into a "relationship" of a sort with the Allgemeine Zeitung. That is to say during January, February and March 1859 I published a series of leading articles in the New York Tribune in which inter alia the theory advanced by the Allgemeine Zeitung about a "Central European great power" and that paper's claim that it was in the Germans' interest to maintain Austria's rule in Italy were subjected to searching criticism. Shortly before the outbreak of war, and with my agreement, Engels published Po and Rhine, Berlin, 1859, a pamphlet directed specifically against the Allgemeine Zeitung. To quote Engels' own words (from his pamphlet Savoy, Nice and the Rhine, Berlin, 1860, p. 4) it provided scientific military proof that "Germany does not need any part of Italy for its defence and that France, if only military considerations counted, would certainly have much stronger claims to the Rhine than Germany to the Mincio". This polemic against the Allgemeine Zeitung and its theory of the necessity of Austrian despotic rule in Italy went hand in hand with a polemic directed against Bonapartist propaganda. For instance, I argued in detail in the Tribune (see e.g. February 1859) that the financial and internal political problems of the "bas empire" had reached a critical point and that only a foreign war could prolong the rule of the coup d'état in France and hence the counter-revolution in Europe. I demonstrated that the Bonapartist liberation of Italy was a mere pretext to keep France in subjection, to subject Italy to the rule of the coup d'état, to shift France's "natural frontiers" to Germany, to transform Austria into a tool of Russia and to force the nations into a war waged by the legitimate counter-revolution against the illegitimate counter-revolution. All this took place before the ex-Regent of the Empire, Karl Vogt, issued his clarion call from Geneva.

Ever since Wolff's article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Revue (1850), I had completely forgotten the "well-rounded character". I wasreminded of the merry fellow once more in the spring of 1859, on an evening in April, when Freiligrath gave me a letter of Vogt's to read together with an accompanying political "Programme". This was no act of indiscretion since Vogt's circular was intended "for communication" to the friends not of Vogt, but of the addressee.

Asked what I found in the "Programme", I replied: "Political hot air." I could see at once that the old joker had not changed, from his request to Freiligrath to persuade Herr Bucher to become political correspondent for the propaganda sheet to be published in Geneva. Vogt's letter was dated April 1, 1859. It was well known that in the reports he sent from London to the Berlin National-Zeitung since January 1859, Bucher advocated views directly antithetical to those in Vogt's Programme. But all cats are grey to the man of "critical immediacy".

After this incident which I did not think of sufficient importance to mention to anyone, I received a copy of Vogt's Studien zur gegenwärtigen Loge Europas, a woeful document which left me in no doubt about his connection with Bonapartist propaganda.

On the evening of May 9, 1859 I found myself on the platform. at a public meeting arranged by David Urquhart because of the Italian war. Before the meeting had got under way I saw a solemn figure approaching me portentously. From the Hamlet-like expression on his countenance I realised at once that "something was rotten in the state of Denmark". It was the homme d'état, Karl Blind. After a few preliminaries he began to talk about Vogt's "intrigues" and he assured me with much shaking of the head that Vogt was in receipt of Bonapartist subsidies for his propaganda, that a South German writer, whose name he could "unfortunately" not reveal, had been offered 30,000 guilders as a bribe by Vogt—I was in some doubt as to which South German writer could possibly be worth 30,000 guilders—that there had been attempts at bribery in London, that as early as 1858 there had been a meeting between Plon-Plon. Fazy & Co. in Geneva where the Italian war had been discussed and the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia had been named as the future king of Hungary, that Vogt had also tried to enlist him (Blind) for his propaganda, and that he had proofs of Vogt's treasonable intrigues against his country. Blind then withdrew to his seat at the other corner of the platform next to his friend J. Fröbel; the meeting began and in a detailed report D. Urquhart tried to present the Italian war as the fruit of Franco-Russian intrigue.

Towards the end of the meeting Dr. Faucher, foreign-news editor of The Morning Star (the organ of the Manchester School), came up to me to tell me that a new London German weekly, Das Volk, had just appeared. Die Neue Zeit, a workers' paper published by Herr A. Scherzer and edited by Edgar Bauer, had just folded up as the result of an intrigue by Kinkel, the publisher of the Hermann. Hearing this news, Biscamp, who had been a reporter for Die Neue Zeit up to that time, gave up his teaching post in the South of England in order to go to London and set up Das Volk in opposition to the Hermann. The German Workers' Educational Society and other London societies sup-ported the newspaper, which like all such workers' newspapers was naturally edited and written gratis. Although as a free-trader he, Faucher, did not agree with the general policy of Das Volk, he was opposed to there being a monopoly in the German press in London and therefore, together with some London acquaintances, he had set up a Finance Committee in support of the paper. Biscamp had already written to Liebknecht, whom he had not yet met, with a request for literary contributions, etc. Finally, Faucher asked me to join in the venture.

Although Biscamp had been living in England since 1852, we had not yet made each other's acquaintance. The day after the Urquhart meeting Liebknecht brought him to my home. From lack of time I could not accept the invitation to write for Das Volk for the moment, but I promised to ask my German friends in England for subscriptions, financial donations and literary contributions. In the course of the conversation we came to speak of the Urquhart meeting and this led on to Vogt, whose Studien Biscamp had already read and correctly evaluated. I told him and Liebknecht of the contents of Vogt's "Programme" and also of Blind's revelations, adding, however, with respect to the latter, that South Germans were inclined to paint in rather exaggerated colours. To my surprise, No. 2 of Das Volk (May 14) printed an article with the title "Der Reichsregent als Reichsverräther" [The Imperial Regent as Imperial Traitor] (see "Magnum Opus", Documents, pp. 17, 18) in which Biscamp mentioned two of the facts reported by Blind—the 30,000 guilders, which, however, he reduced to 4,000, and the Bonapartist sources of Vogt's funds. For the rest his article consisted of witticisms in the manner of Die Hornisse, which he had edited in Cassel with Heise in 1848-49. In the meantime, as I learned long after the appearance of the "Magnum Opus" (see Appendix 8), the London Workers' Educational Society had commissioned Herr Scherzer, one of its leaders, to invite the workers' educational associations in Switzerland, Belgium and the United States to support Das Volk and to combat Bonapartist propaganda. Biscamp himself sent a copy of the above-mentioned article published in Das Volk on May 14, 1859 to Vogt, who simultaneously received Herr A. Scherzer's circular from his own Ranickel.

With his familiar "critical immediacy" Vogt at once cast me in the role of the demiurge behind these attempts to ensnare him. Without hesitation he at once published an outline of his later travesty of history in the oft-quoted "special supplement to No. 150 of the 'Schweizer Handels-Courier'". This original gospel which first revealed the mysteries of the Brimstone Gang, the Bristlers, Cherval, etc., beneath the date Berne, May 23, 1859 (and hence more recently than the gospel according to the Mormons), bore the title Zur Warnung and its content 'corresponds to that of a piece translated from a pamphlet by the notorious E. About.

Vogt's anonymous original gospel Zur Warnung was reprinted, as I have already remarked, in Das Volk at my request.

In the beginning of June I left London to visit Engels in Manchester, where a subscription of about £25 was collected for Das Volk. This contribution, whose "nature" induced the "curious" Vogt to cast his "eyes across the Channel" towards Augsburg and Vienna ("Magnum Opus p. 212), came from Frederick Engels, Wilhelm Wolff, myself and finally three German physicians resident in Manchester, whose names are recorded in one of the legal documents I sent to Berlin. As to the money collected in London by the original Finance Committee, Vogt should consult Dr. Faucher.

Vogt informs us on p. 225 of the "Magnum Opus":

"But it has always been a device of the reactionaries to require the democrats to do everything for nothing while they" (that is the reactionaries, not the democrats) "claim the right to demand payment and to be paid."

What a reactionary device on the part of Das Volk, which is not only edited and written for nothing but even induces those who work on it to pay! If that is not proof of the connection between Das Volk and the reaction, then Karl Vogt is at his wit's end.

During my stay in Manchester an event of decisive importance took place in London. Liebknecht discovered in the compositor's room of Hollinger (who printed "Das Volk") the proof-sheet of the anonymous pamphlet against Vogt entitled Zur Warnung. He read it through cursorily, immediately recognised Blind's revelations and to crown it all learnt from A. Vögele, the compositor, that Blind had given the manuscript, which was in his handwriting, to Hollinger for printing. The corrections on the proof-sheet were also in Blind's handwriting. Two days later Hollinger sent Liebknecht the proof-sheet, which he in turn sent to the Allgemeine Zeitung. The type for the pamphlet survived and was used later for a reprint in Das Volk, No. 7 (June 18, 1859).

With the publication of the "warning" by the Allgemeine Zeitung begins the Augsburg campaign of the ex-Vogt of the Empire. He sued the Allgemeine Zeitung for reprinting the pamphlet.

In the "Magnum Opus" (pp. 227-28) Vogt travesties Müllner's "'Tis me, 'tis me; I am the robber Jaromir". He merely translates to be" into to have".

"I have sued because I knew all along that the shallowness, futility and baseness of the editorial board which parades as the 'representative of High German culture', would be forced into the open. I have sued because I knew all along that the connection of its esteemed editors and the Austrian policies they have been exalting to the heavens with the Brimstone Gang and the dregs of the revolution, could not remain hidden from the public."

And so on through another four "I have sued's". The suing Vogt becomes quite sublime, or Longinus is right when he says that there is nothing in the world that is drier than a man with dropsy.

"Personal considerations," the "well-rounded character" declares, "were the least of my motives when I went for the law."

In reality matters stood quite differently. No calf could show greater reluctance to go to the slaughter than Karl Vogt to go to court. While his "close" friends, the Ranickel, Reinach (formerly a peripatetic chronique scandaleuse about Vogt) and the garrulous Mayer from Esslingen, a member of the Rump Parliament, confirmed him in his terror of the court, he was bombarded with urgent requests from Zurich to proceed with his "suit". At the Workers' Festival in Lausanne the fur-dealer Roos told him in front of ,witnesses that he could no longer have any respect for him if he did not take legal proceedings. Nevertheless, Vogt resisted: He did not give a rap for the Augsburg and London Brimstone Gang and would remain silent. Suddenly, however, he spoke. Various newspapers announced the forthcoming trial and the Ranickel declared:

"The Stuttgart people would not leave him" (Vogt) "any peace. He" (Ranickel) "had not given his approval."

We may note in passing that since the "well-rounded one" found himself in a tight corner, an action against the Allgemeine Zeitung was undoubtedly the most promising stratagem. Vogt's self-apologia in response to an attack on him by J. Venedey, who had accused him of Bonapartist intrigues, saw the light in the Biel "Handels-Courier" of June 16, 1859, and hence arrived in London after the appearance of the anonymous pamphlet, which concluded with the threat:

"If, however, Vogt attempts to deny, these accusations, a thing he will hardly dare, this revelation will be followed by No. 2."

Vogt had now issued a denial and revelation No. 2 did not follow. Secure on this front, mischief could only come from his dear friends, whom he knew well enough to rely on their cowardice. The more he exposed himself in public by resorting to legal action, the more surely he could bank on their discretion, for in the person of the "fugitive Imperial Regent" it was in a way the entire Rump Parliament that was standing in the pillory. Parliamentarian Jacob Venedey tells tales out of school in his Pro domo und pro patria gegen Karl Vogt, Hanover, 1860, pp. 27-28:

"Apart from the letters produced by Vogt in his own account of his lawsuit, I have read a further letter of Vogt's which reveals. much more clearly than the letter to Dr. Loening, Vogt's position as the accomplice of those who were making strenuous efforts to localise the war in Italy. I have copied out a few passages from this letter for my own information, but unfortunately I cannot publish them because the man to whom the letter was addressed only showed them to me on condition that I would not publish them. Attempts have been made from personal and party considerations to cover up Vogt's part in this affair which in my view cannot be justified either from a party point of view or in terms of a man's duty to his country. This restraint on the part of many people explains why Vogt can still have the temerity to present himself as a German party leader. It appears to me, however, that the party to which Vogt belonged has by this means become in part responsible for his activities."

If then his action against the Allgemeine Zeitung was not risking all that much, an offensive in that direction provided General Vogt with the most favourable base of operations.. It was Austria that was denigrating the Imperial Vogt through the Allgemeine Zeitung, and moreover, Austria in league with the communists! Thus the Imperial Vogt appeared as the interesting victim of a monstrous coalition of the enemies of bourgeois liberalism. And the "Little Germany" press, which was already prejudiced in the Imperial Vogt's favour, as a diminisher of the Empire, would jubilantly bear him aloft on its shield!

In the beginning of July 1859, shortly after my return from Manchester, Blind paid me a visit in consequence of an incident of no importance in this context. He was accompanied by Fidelio Hollinger and Liebknecht. During this meeting I gave it as my opinion that Blind was the author of the pamphlet Zur Warnung. He protested the opposite. I repeated what he had told me on May 9 point by point, for in fact his assertions then constituted the entire contents of the pamphlet. He admitted all that but nevertheless insisted that he was not the author of the pamphlet.

About a month later, in August 1859, Liebknecht showed me a letter he had received from the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung who urgently asked him for proof of the allegations made in the pamphlet Zur Warnung. At his request I agreed to go with him to Blind's home in St. John's Wood, for even if Blind was not the author, he at any rate had known as early as the beginning of May what the pamphlet did not reveal to the world until the beginning of June, and he could, moreover, "prove" what he knew. Blind was not there. He had gone to a seaside resort. Liebknecht, therefore, wrote to him explaining the purpose of our visit. No answer. Liebknecht wrote to him a second time, Finally, the following statesman-like document arrived:

"Dear Herr Liebknecht, "Your two letters, which had been wrongly addressed, arrived almost simultaneously. As you will understand I have absolutely no wish to meddle in the affairs of a newspaper with which I am quite unconnected. All the less in the given case, since, as I have already stated, I had nothing whatever to do with the problem in , question. As to the remarks you cite that were made in the course of a private conversation, it is obvious that these were completely misinterpreted. There is evidently a misunderstanding here which I shall discuss with you in due course. I am sorry that your visit to me with Marx was in vain and

"I remain, respectfully yours,

K. Blind

"St. Leonard's, September 8"

This cool, diplomatic note according to which Blind had "nothing whatever to do" with the denunciation of Vogt, reminded me of an article which had appeared anonymously in The Free Press in London on May 27, 1859 and which went as follows:

"The Grand Duke Constantine to be King of Hungary

"A Correspondent, who encloses his card, writes as follows:—

"Sir,—Having been present at the last meeting in the Music Hall, I heard the statement made concerning the Grand Duke Constantine. I am able to give you-another fact: So far back as last summer, Prince Jérôme-Napoléon detailed to some of his confidants at Geneva a plan of attack against Austria, and prospective rearrangement of the map of Europe. I know the name of a Swiss senator to whom he broached the subject. Prince Jérôme, at that time, declared that, according to the plan made, Grand Duke Constantine was to become King of Hungary.

"I know further of attempts made, in the beginning of the present year, to win over to the Russo-Napoleonic scheme some of the exiled German Democrats, as well as some influential Liberals in Germany. Large pecuniary advantages were held out to them as a bribe. I am glad to say that these offers were rejected with indignation." (See Appendix 9.)

This article—though it does not name Vogt but, as far as the German emigration in London was concerned, unmistakably points to him—does in effect contain the core of the pamphlet Zur Warnung that appeared later on. The author of the "future King of Hungary", whom patriotic zeal drove to make an anonymous denunciation of Vogt, had of course to grasp the golden opportunity that the Augsburg trial had thrown into his lap, the opportunity to reveal the treachery in a court of law in full view of the whole of Europe. And who was the author of the "future King of Hungary"? Citizen Karl Blind. The form and content of the article had already made that obvious to me in May and this was now officially confirmed by Mr. Collet, the editor of The Free Press, after I had explained to him the importance of the dispute that was pending and after I had shown him Blind's diplomatic note.

On September 17, 1859, Herr A. Vögele, the compositor, gave me a written declaration (printed in the "Magnum Opus", Documents, Nos. 30, 31), in which he testifies not that Blind was the author of the pamphlet Zur Warnung, but that he (A. Vögele) and his employer, Fidelio Hollinger, had set the type for it in theHollinger print-shop, that the manuscript was in Blind's hand and that Blind had occasionally been mentioned by Hollinger as the author of the pamphlet.

Armed with Vögele's declaration and the "future King of Hungary", Liebknecht again wrote to Blind asking for "proofs" of the denunciations made by that statesman in The Free Press, pointing out at the same time that he had now a piece of evidence about his involvement in the publication of Zur Warnung. Instead of answering Liebknecht, Blind sent Mr. Collet to me. Mr. Collet was supposed to ask me in Blind's name to make no public use of my knowledge of the authorship of the said article in The Free Press. I replied that I could give no such assurance. My discretion would keep pace with Blind's courage.

In the meantime, the date set down for the hearing of the case in Augsburg was drawing nearer. Blind remained silent. Vogt had attempted in various public announcements to make me as the secret source of it all responsible both for the pamphlet and the proof of the facts given in it. To ward off this manoeuvre, to. vindicate Liebknecht and to defend the Allgemeine Zeitung, which in my view had performed a good deed in denouncing Vogt, I informed, the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung via Liebknecht that I was prepared to let them have a document regarding the origin of the pamphlet Zur Warnung, if I received a written request from them. That is how the "lively correspondence came about which is at present carried on by Marx and Herr Kolb" as Herr Vogt states on p.194 of the "Magnum Opus". My "lively correspondence with Herr Kolb" consisted in two letters from Herr Orges to me, both of the same date, in which he asked me for the document I had promised, which I then sent him together with a few lines from myself.

The two letters from Herr Orges, which were in reality just a double edition of the same letter, arrived in London on October 18, 1859, while the court proceedings were due to begin in Augsburg on the 24th.- I therefore wrote at once to Herr Vögele to arrange a meeting next day in the office at the Marlborough Street Police Court, where he should give his declaration about the pamphlet Zur Warnung the legal form of an affidavit. My letter did not reach him in time. Hence, on October 19, against my original intention, I was compelled to send the above-mentioned written declaration of September 17 instead of the affidavit.

The court proceedings in Augsburg, as is well known, turned into a true comedy of errors. The corpus delicti was the pamphlet Zur Warnung sent by W. Liebknecht to the Allgemeine Zeitung and reprinted by it. The publisher and the author of the pamphlet, however, were involved in a game of blind-man's buff. Liebknecht could not compel his witnesses, who were in London, to appear before the court in Augsburg; the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung, embarrassed by this legal impasse, spouted a lot of political gibberish; Dr. Hermann regaled the court with the tall stories of our. "well-rounded character" about the Brimstone Gang, the Lausanne Festival, etc.; and the court finally dismissed Vogt's suit because the plaintiff had brought the case to the wrong court. The confusion reached its climax when the case in Augsburg had been concluded and the report on the proceedings reached London with the Allgemeine Zeitung. Blind, who had unswervingly preserved his statesman-like silence up to that moment, suddenly leaped into the public arena scared by the testimony of Vögele, the compositor, which had been produced by me. Vögele had not declared that Blind was the author of the pamphlet, but only that he had been referred to as such by Fidelio Hollinger. However, Vögele did declare categorically that the manuscript of the pamphlet had been written in Blind's hand, with which he was familiar, and that it had been set and printed in Hollinger's print-shop. Blind could be the author of the pamphlet even if it had neither been written down in Blind's handwriting, nor set up and printed in Hollinger's print-shop. Conversely, the pamphlet could have been written down by Blind and printed by Hollinger, even though Blind was not the author.

In No. 313 of the Allgemeine Zeitung, beneath the date London, November 3 (see "Magnum Opus", Documents, pp. 37, 38), the citizen and statesman Blind declared that he was not the author of the pamphlet, and as proof he was "publishing" the "following document":

"a) I hereby declare that the assertion of the compositor Vögele printed in the Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 300, to the effect that the pamphlet Zur Warnung mentioned there was printed in my print-shop or that Herr Karl Blind was its author, is a malicious fabrication. "3 Litchfield Street, Soho, London, November 2, 1859

Fidelio Hollinger"

"b) The undersigned, who has lived and worked in No. 3 Litchfield Street for the past eleven months, for his part testifies to the correctness of Herr Hollinger's statement. "London, November 2, 1859

J. F. Wiehe, Compositor"

Vögele had nowhere asserted that Blind was the author of the pamphlet. Fidelio Hollinger therefore invents Vögele's assertion so as to be able to dismiss it as a "malicious fabrication". On the other hand, if the pamphlet was not printed in Hollinger's print-shop, how can the same Fidelio Hollinger be certain that Karl Blind was not its author?

And how can the circumstance that the compositor Wiehe "has lived and worked for eleven months" (up to November 2, 1859) with Hollinger enable him to testify to the "correctness of Fidelio Hollinger's statement"?

My reply to Blind's declaration (in No. 325 of- the Allgemeine Zeitung, see "Magnum Opus", Documents, pp. 39, 40) concluded with the words: "The transfer of the trial from Augsburg to London would resolve the entire Blind-Vogt mystère."

Blind, with all the moral indignation of a beautiful soul cut to the quick, returned to the attack in the "supplement to the 'Allgemeine Zeitung' of December 11, 1859":

"Having repeatedly" (we must take note of this) "based my testimony on the documents signed by Herr Hollinger, the printer, and Herr Wiehe, compositor, I declare here for the last time that the allegation (which is latterly put forward merely as an insinuation) that I am the author of the pamphlet frequently referred to is a downright untruth. The other statements about me contain distortions of the crudest sort."

In a postscript to this declaration the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung remarked that "this discussion is of no further interest to the general public" and they therefore request "the gentlemen concerned to abstain from further replies", a request which our "well-rounded character" interpreted as follows at the end of the "Magnum Opus":

"In other words, the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung request Messrs. Marx, Biscamp and Liebknecht, who stand revealed as barefaced liars, not to compromise themselves and the Allgemeine Zeitung any further."

Thus, for the time being, the Augsburg campaign came to an end. Reverting to the tone of his Lousiad, Vogt made "Vögele the compositor" bear "false witness" to me and Liebknecht ("Magnum Opus", p. 195). He explained the origins of the pamphlet by suggesting that Blind

"may well have conceived various suspicions and have spread them abroad. The Brimstone Gang then used them to fabricate a pamphlet and other articles which they then attributed to Blind who found himself driven into a corner" (loc. cit., p. 218).

And if the Imperial Vogt failed to resume his indecisive campaign in London, as he had been challenged to do, this was partly because London was "a backwater" ("Magnum Opus", p. 229), but partly because the disputants "were accusing each other of lying" (loc. cit.).

The man's "critical immediacy" can only approve of the intervention of the courts if the parties are not disputing about the truth.

I now pass over three months and resume the thread of my story in the beginning of February 1860. Vogt's "Magnum Opus" had not yet reached London, but we had received the anthology of the Berlin National-Zeitung, which contained the following statement:

"It was very easy for the Marx party to lay the authorship of the pamphlet at Blind's door, just because the latter had previously uttered similar views in conversation with Marx and in the article in The Free Press. By using Blind's statements and turns of phrase the pamphlet could be fabricated so that it looked like his work."

Blind, like Falstaff who thought discretion the better part of valour, esteemed silence as the whole art of diplomacy, and so he began to be silent once again. To loosen his tongue I published a circular in English over my signature and dated London, February 4, 1860. (See Appendix 11.)

The circular, addressed to the editor of The Free Press, stated inter alia:

"Now, before taking any further step, I want to show up the fellows who evidently have played into the hands of Vogt. I, therefore, publicly declare that the statement of Blind, Wiehe and Hollinger, according to which the anonymous pamphlet was not printed in Hollinger's office, 3, Litchfield Street, Soho, is an infamous lie."

Having presented the evidence in my possession I end with the words:

"Consequently, I again declare the above said Charles Blind to be an infamous liar (deliberate liar). If I am wrong, he may easily confound me by appealing to an English Court of Law."

On February 6, 1860 a London daily (the Daily Telegraph)—to which I shall return in due course—reproduced the anthology of the National-Zeitung, under the title "The Journalistic Auxiliaries of Austria". However, I initiated an action for libel against the National-Zeitung, gave the Daily Telegraph notice of similar proceedings and set about assembling the necessary legal material.

On February 1I, 1860 the compositor Vögele swore an affidavit before the Police Court in Bow Street. He repeated the essential contents of his declaration of September 17, 1859, namely that the manuscript of the pamphlet was in Blind's handwriting and that it had been composed in Hollinger's print-shop, partly by him (Vögele) and partly by F. Hollinger. (See Appendix 12.)

Incomparably more important was the affidavit taken out by the compositor Wiehe, whose testimony Blind had repeatedly, and with growing self-confidence, quoted in the Allgemeine Zeitung.

Apart from the original (see Appendix 13) I am therefore giving here a word-for-word translation:

"One of the first days of November last—I do not recollect the exact date—in the evening between nine and ten o'clock I was taken out of bed by Mr. F. Hollinger, in whose house I then lived, and by whom I was employed as compositor. He presented to me a paper to the effect, that, during the preceding eleven months I had been continuously employed by him, and that during all that time a certain German flysheet 'Zur Warnung' (A Warning) had not been composed and printed in Mr. Hollinger's Office, 3, Litchfield Street, Soho. In my- perplexed state, and not aware of the importance of the transaction, I complied with his wish, and copied, and signed the document. Mr. Hollinger promised me money, but I never received anything. During that transaction Mr. Charles Blind, as my wife informed me at the time, was waiting-in Mr. Hollinger's room. A few days later, Mrs. Hollinger called me down from dinner and led me into her husband's room, where I found Mr. Blind alone. He presented me the same paper which Mr. Hollinger had presented me before, and entreated me to write, and sign a second copy, as he wanted two, the one for himself, and the other for publication in the Press. He added that he would show himself grateful to me. I copied and signed again the paper.

"I herewith declare the truth of the above statements and that:

"1) During the eleven months mentioned in the document I was for six weeks not employed by Mr. Hollinger, but by a Mr. Ermani.

"2) I did not work in Mr. Hollinger's Office just at that time when the flysheet 'Zur Warnung' was published.

"3) I heard at the time from Mr. Vögele, who then worked for Mr. Hollinger, that he, Vögele, had, together with Mr. Hollinger himself, composed the flysheet in question, and that the manuscript was in Blind's handwriting.

"4) The types of the pamphlet were still standing when I returned to Mr. Hollinger's service. I myself broke them into columns for the reprint of the flysheet (or pamphlet) 'Zur Warnung' in the German paper Das Volk published by Mr. Hollinger, 3, Litchfield Street, Soho. The flysheet appeared in No. 7, d.d. 18th June 1859, of Das Volk.

"5) I saw Mr. Hollinger give to Mr. William Liebknecht of 14, Church Street, Soho, the proofsheet of the pamphlet 'Zur Warnung', on which proofsheet Mr. Charles Blind with his own hand had corrected four or five mistakes. Mr. Hollinger hesitated at first giving the proofsheet to Mr. Liebknecht, and when Mr. Liebknecht had withdrawn, he, Hollinger, expressed to me and my fellow workman Vögele his regret for having given the proofsheet out of his hands.

Johann Friedrich Wiehe

"Declared and signed by the said Friedrich Wiehe at the Police Court, Bow Street, this 8th day of February, 1860, before me,

Th. Henry, Magistrate of the said court" (Police Court) (Bow Street)

The two affidavits of the compositors Vögele and Wiehe proved that the manuscript of the pamphlet had been written in Blind's hand, composed in Hollinger's print-shop and that Blind himself had corrected the proofs. And the homme d'état wrote to Julius Fröbel from London on July 4, 1859:

"A violent attack on Vogt has appeared here, accusing him of corruption. I do not know who is responsible for it. It contains a number of allegations of which we had not previously heard."

And the same homme d'état wrote to Liebknecht on September 8, 1859, saying that

"he had nothing whatever to do with the problem in question".

Not content with these achievements citizen and statesman Blind had fabricated a false declaration and contrived to induce the compositor Wiehe to sign it by promises of money from Fidelio Hollinger and proofs of his own gratitude in the future.

This, his own fabrication with a signature obtained by false pretences and together with Fidelio Hollinger's false testimony, he not only sent to the Allgemeine Zeitung, but in his second declaration he even "refers" "repeatedly" to these "documents", and hurls the reproach of "downright untruth" at my head with every sign of moral indignation.

I had copies made of the two affidavits of Vögele and Wiehe and circulated them in different circles, whereupon a meeting took place at Blind's house attended by Blind, Fidelio Hollinger, and Blind's house-friend Herr Karl Schaible, M.D., a quiet decent fellow who plays the role of tame elephant in Blind's political operations.

In the Daily Telegraph of February 15, 1860 there appeared an item that was later reprinted in German newspapers and which went as follows:

"The Vogt-Pamphlet "To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph

"Sir, "In consequence of erroneous statements which have been current, I feel I owe it to Mr. Blind, as well as to Mr. Marx, formally to declare that neither of them is the author of the pamphlet directed some time ago against Professor Vogt, at Geneva. That pamphlet originates from me; and on me the responsibility rests. I am sorry both with regard to Mr. Marx and Mr. Blind, that circumstances beyond my control should have prevented me from making this declaration earlier.

"London, 14 February, 1860

Charles Schaible, M.D."

Herr Schaible sent me this declaration. I reciprocated his politeness by return of post by sending the affidavits of the compositors Vögele and Wiehe and wrote that his (Schaible's) declaration made no difference either to the false statements that Blind had sent to the Allgemeine Zeitung, or to Blind's conspiracy with Hollinger to obtain Wiehe's signature for the false document he had fabricated.

Blind perceived that he was no longer on the firm territory of the Allgemeine Zeitung, but under the perilous jurisdiction of England. If he wanted to invalidate the affidavits and the "grave insults" of my circular based on them, he and Hollinger would have to swear counter-affidavits; but felony is no joke.

Eisele-Blind is not the author of the pamphlet, because Beisele-Schaibele publicly declares himself its author. Blind has only written the manuscript of the pamphlet; he has only had it printed by Hollinger, corrected the proofs in his own hand, fabricated false statements together with Hollinger in order to refute these facts and sent them to the Allgemeine Zeitung. But he is nevertheless a wronged innocent, because he was not the author or originator of the pamphlet. He acted only as Beisele-Schaibele's secretary. It is just for this reason that on July 4, 1859 he did not know "who" had brought the pamphlet into the world and on September 8, 1859 he had "nothing whatever to do with the problem in question". It may therefore reassure him that Beisele-Schaible is the author of the pamphlet in the literary sense of the word, but Eisele-Blind is its author in the technical sense of the English law, and the responsible publisher in the sense of all civilised legislation. Habeat sibi!

A final word of farewell to Herr Beisele-Schaible.

The lampoon published by Vogt against me in the Biel Handels-Courier, dated Berne, May 23, 1859, bore the title Zur Warnung. The pamphlet composed by Schaible and written out and published by his secretary Blind in the beginning of June 1859, in which- Vogt was arraigned as an agent of Louis Bonaparte, and accused in some detail of both "giving" and "taking bribes", also bears the title Zur Warnung. Furthermore, it is signed X. Although in algebra X represents an unknown quantity, it also happens to be the last letter of my name. Were the title and the signature on the pamphlet an attempt to make Schaible's "warning" look like my reply to Vogt's "warning"? Schaible had promised a Revelation No. 2 as soon as Vogt ventured to deny Revelation No. 1. Vogt not only issued a denial; he instituted an action for libel in reply to Schaible's "warning". And Herr Schaible's Revelation No. 2 has not appeared to this day. At the head of his pamphlet Schaible had printed the words: "For distribution!" And when Liebknecht was obliging enough to "distribute" it through the Allgemeine Zeitung, "circumstances beyond his control" sealed Herr Schaible's lips from June 1859 to February 1860, when they were unsealed again by the affidavits taken out in the Police Court in Bow Street.

However that may be, Schaible, the original denouncer of Vogt, has now publicly accepted responsibility for the information given in the pamphlet. Hence the Augsburg campaign ends not with the victory of the defendant Vogt, but with the appearance on the battlefield at long last of the accuser Schaible.