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Letter to Karl Marx, September 13, 1870
Extract published in Marx Engels on Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, 1976;
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44
To Marx in London
Manchester, September 13, 1870[edit source]
Dear Moor,
The Prussians really are incorrigible jackasses! On the orders of Vogel von Falckenstein, they have arrested the whole unfortunate Social-Democratic Committee in Brunswick, including the printer[1] of the well-intentioned and undoubtedly tame proclamation, and have transported them as a body to LĂśtzen[2] in East Prussia. You know that on the pretext of a French landing almost the whole of Northern Germany has been put under martial law, so that the military authorities can arrest people at will. Fortunately, the immediate deportation to East Prussia proves that they are just going to be held in custody until peace is concluded, and not brought before a court martial in which case the lieutenants who have received instructions to hand out punishments would have given them a good ten years hard labour or imprisonment in a fortress. It is clear, though, how panic-stricken the wretches are at the very mention of the word âRepublicâ, and how ill at ease the official world feels when it has no prisoners of state.
With the passing of time the war is assuming an unpleasant character. The French have not yet been thrashed enough, and the German asses have won far too many victories. Victor Hugo writes nonsense in French, and fair William abuses the German language:
âNun lebe wobl mit bewegtem Herzen am Schluss eines solchen Briefes."
[And now farewell, with trembling heart at the close of such a letter]
This would be a king?! And of the most âculturedâ nation in the world! And his wife has it printed! If this sort of thing goes on for another week, people will think that both sides can, etc., etc.
Now fare thee well with throbbing heart, or not, at the end of such a letter.
Your
F. E.