Letter to Friedrich Engels, July 28, 1870

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To Engels in Manchester

[London,] 28 July 1870

DEAR FRED,

I forwarded your article at once to the Pall Mall EDITOR (F. Greenwood), with the request to return it immediately if he does not wish to print it. I have no doubt that, in that event, we could place it with The Times or The Daily News.

The Times had given us every reason, via Eccarius, to believe it would print our (i.e. t he International’s) ADDRESS. It did not appear, probably because of a HIT AT RUSSIA. Whereupon (MONDAY LAST) I sent the thing off without delay to the Pall Mall and also wrote to the EDITOR, in accordance with the agreement with their WAR CORRESPONDENT (Thieblin, now in Luxembourg), about the MILITARY CORRESPONDENCE. Requested an ANSWER. NO REPLY. Nor was the Address printed. So today on sending your article to the EDITOR of the Pall Mall, I wrote a curt letter, SPEAKING ONLY OF THE MILITARY CORRESPONDENCE, i.e. I simply asked whether yes or no.

Last Tuesday the General Council ordered a thousand copies of the Address to be printed. Today I expect the proof-sheets.

The singing of the Marseillaise in France is a parody just like all the Second Empire. But that scoundrel at least feels that ‘Going off to Syria’ would not do. In Prussia, on the other hand, such buffoonery is not necessary. ‘Lord, in Thee is all my trust!’, sung by William I, with Bismarck on the right and Stieber on the left, is the German Marseillaise. Like in 1812 seqq, the German philistine seems to be really delighted because he can now give free vent to his innate servility. Who would have thought it possible that twenty-two years after 1848 a national war in Germany would be given such theoretical expression!

It is fortunate that this whole demonstration originated with the middle class. The working class, with the exception of the direct adherents of Schweitzer, takes no part in it. The war of classes in both countries, France and Germany, has fortunately reached such an extent that no war abroad can seriously turn back the wheels of history.

By publishing the TREATY (on Belgium), Bismarck too has overstepped the mark. Even London RESPECTABILITY no longer ventures to talk of the integrity of Prussia. Macaire et Co.! Incidentally, shortly before 1866, I recollect reading articles in the organ of the worthy Brass and in the Kreuz-Zeitung, in which Belgium was denounced as a ‘nest of Jacobins’ (!) and its annexation by France was recommended. On the other hand, the moral indignation of John Bull is no less comic! RIGHT OF TREATIES! THE DEVIL! After all, it was Palmerston who made it a maxim of English policy that when you solemnly conclude a treaty, you do not necessarily swear to abide by it, and England has acted accordingly ever since 1830! ON ALL SIDES, nothing but war and immorality.

Charming of the Kreuz-Zeitung to demand that England should refuse to supply the French with coal, i.e. that she should violate the Anglo-French commercial treaty, i.e. declare war on France. That coal can be a military commodity is a fact that was vividly brought home to Pam by the opposition at the time. He fobbed them off with bad jokes. So the point is one that was by no means overlooked when the treaty was concluded. Urquhart wrote fierce denunciations about it during the negotiations. So if England does not declare war de prime abord she must continue to supply the French with coal. As far as a declaration of war is concerned, that could produce some extremely serious ill-feeling between the POWERS THAT BE and the London proletariat. The mood of the workers here is DECIDEDLY against such ostentatious gestures.

At last a letter from the Russians in Geneva. I enclose it. Return it soon, SAY MONDAY NEXT, since I have to reply.

From the enclosed letter by E. Oswald (an Urquhartite, but relatively rationalised in a continental spirit), you can see that even the democrats wish to do something. I have written to him that I have already signed an Address of the INTERNATIONAL which, as far as the purely political aspect is concerned, puts forward essentially similar views. In further letters, yesterday and today, he insists that I should attend their MEETING in his house this afternoon. (He lives very near here.) He also sends me an extract from a letter by Louis Blanc.

However, I cannot possibly go at the moment. Who can guarantee that where Louis Blanc is, Karl Blind won’t turn up also?

I intend to go to Smith right away about the house.

Salut

Your

K. M.