Once Again "Herr Vogt"

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Engels’ article “Onc e Again ‘Herr Vogt’ “ is connected with Marx’s Herr Vogt, published in 1860 (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp . 21-329), in which Marx exposed the petty-bourgeois democrat Karl Vogt as a paid Bonapartist agent and a disseminator of slanderous inventions about proletarian revolutionaries.

The direct reason for writing the article was the appearance, in the autumn of 1870, after the collapse of the Second Empire, of Vogt’s new pamphlet Karl Vogt’s Politische Briefe an Friedrich Kolb, in which the author tried to camouflage his past ties with the Bonapartists. In his article, Engels also used newly-published data, confirming Marx’s conclusion, made in 1860, that Vogt was a paid agent of Bonaparte. Marx wrote about this in his letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht on April 10, 1871 (see present edition, Vol. 44), that is, before Engels’ article appeared. Der Volksstaat (No. 31, April 15) published the following short message, which, in the main, reproduced the text of Marx’s letter to Liebknecht: “In the official Papiers et correspondance de la famille impériale, published in the report of the French government, we find, on the alphabetic list of recipients of Bonapartist money, under the letter V, literally the following:’Vogt; il lui est remis en août 1859, 40,000 Fr. (Vogt received 40,000 francs in August of 1859).’”

The editor of Der Volksstaat provided this information, published on Marx’s behalf, with the following comment: “The Party comrades who reproached us for ignoring Vogt’s writings against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine and were not content with our referring them to the well-known pamphlet by Marx, will surely be satisfied now. But we request our Paris friends to send us the complete register. We are certain to find many an old acquaintance on it who once dealt in Bonapartism as ‘fellow-rogues’ of Vogt’s and now, for the same motives and with equal enthusiasm, peddle Bismarck’s patriotism.”

Engels’ article was included in his collection Internationales aus dem “Volksstaat” (1871-75), Berlin, 1894 and reprinted in Der New Yorker Volkszeitung, Sonntagsbl., No. 19, May 12, 1895.

Ever since the Augsburg Campaign of 1859 had brought him such a sound drubbing,

Herr Vogt appeared to have had his fill of politics. He put all his energy into the natural sciences where he already had, in his own words, such “astounding” discoveries to his credit. Thus, at the same time as Küchenmeister and

Leuckart had described the immensely complex evolution of the intestinal worm and thereby made a really great advance in science, he had made the astounding discovery that intestinal worms fall into two classes: round-worms, which are round, and flat-worms, which are flat. Now he has made an even greater discovery beside the first one. The discovery of large numbers of fossilised human bones from pre-historic times had started a fashion for the comparative study of the skulls of different human races. Skulls were measured from every conceivable angle, the measurements were compared, they were discussed, but no conclusion was reached until Vogt, confident of victory as ever, announced the solution to the riddle: all human skulls fall into two classes, namely those which are long (dolichocephalic) and those which are rounded (brachycephalic). What the most scrupulous and diligent observers had not achieved in the course of laborious studies over a period of years, was solved by Vogt by dint of the simple application of his worm principle. If, in addition to these astounding discoveries, we also mention the discovery of a new species in the realm of political zoology, the discovery namely of the Brimstone Gang, even the least modest person would have to allow that Vogt had done as much as could be done in a lifetime. But the great spirit of our Vogt was still restless. Politics retained its irresistible charm for the man who had already achieved so much in the ale-houses. The wounds from the drubbing of Annoa sixty had by now happily healed; Marx’s Herr Vogt was no longer obtainable in the book shops, and all the rotten scandals were long since dead and buried. Our Vogt had undertaken lecture tours and received the plaudits of the German philistines, had swaggered around at every scientific conference, at all ethnographic and antiquarian congresses, forcing his company on the true giants of science. Consequently, he could again think himself “respectable” after a fashion, and believe himself called upon to coach the German philistines, whom he had coached in scientific matters, in political affairs as well. Great events were underway: Napoléon le Petit had capitulated at Sedan, the

Prussians were at the gates of Paris, Bismarck was demanding Alsace and Lorraine. It was high time for Vogt to make his weighty contribution.

This contribution was called: Carl Vogt’s Political Letters to Friedrich Kolh, Biel, 1870. It consisted of twelve letters that first appeared in the Vienna Tages-Presse and were reprinted in Vogt’s Moniteur, the Biel Handels-Courier. Vogt came out against the annexation and against the Prussianization of Germany, and he was furious that in these views he was simply following in the footsteps of the hated Social-Democrats, i.e. the Brimstone Gang. There is no need to go into the general content of the pamphlet, since Vogt’s opinion on such matters is quite immaterial. Moreover, the arguments he adduces are just those of the most banal beer-swilling philistines with their political claptrap, except that on this occasion Vogt reflects the views of the Swiss rather than the German philistines. What interests us is solely the agreeable personality of Herr Vogt himself as it winds its way through its various phases and transformations.

So, we take Vogt’s little pamphlet and compare it with that other unfortunate product of his pen, the Studies on the Present Situation in Europe of 1859, the after-effects of which had caused him so much distress for so long. Here we find that for all the intellectual affinity between the two, for quite the same slovenliness of his style—on page 10 Vogt reaches his “views with his own ears”, and ears like that must indeed be quite remarkable—we find that Herr Vogt today maintains the exact opposite of what he preached eleven years ago. The Studies were intended to persuade the German philistine that Germany had no interest in intervening in the war that Louis Bonaparte planned against Austria at that time. To this end, Louis Bonaparte had to be represented as a “Man Appointed by Destiny”, who was to liberate peoples, and had to be defended against the current attacks from Republican quarters and even from various bourgeois liberals. And the would-be Republican Vogt allows himself to descend to this—admittedly with an extremely bitter-sweet expression and not without people seeing how much it pained him, but he did so, nevertheless. Malicious tongues and members of the Brimstone Gang wanted to maintain that the good Vogt only submitted to all these belly-aches and grimaces in return for what the English call a CONSIDERATION, i.e. hard cash, from the Bonapartist camp. And indeed all manner of suspicious things had occurred. Vogt had made offers of money to various people on condition that they would support his views in the press, i.e. that they would praise Louis Bonaparte’s liberationist intentions. Herr Brass whose virtue is well known to be above suspicion ever since he took over the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, publicly spurned the “French feeding-trough Vogt wished to put before him”. But we prefer to say no more about these disagreeable matters and instead surmise that Vogt’s belly-aches and grimaces were his by nature. Now, in the meantime, the disaster of Sedan had taken place and with it everything has changed for Herr Vogt. The French liberator emperor himself is now treated with a certain reserve, and all that we learn about him is that

“the revolution was at his heels. Even without the war the Empire would not have seen the New Year of 1871 at the Tuileries “ (p. 1).

But his wife! Just listen:

“Of course, if Eugénie had been victorious (for this uneducated Spanish woman who cannot even spell correctly, stands, or rather stood in the field with an entire dragon’s tail of fanatical priests and peasants behind her), if Eugénie had been victorious, the situation would for a moment have become even more terrible” than after the Prussian victories, etc.

So, what it amounts to is this: when the French defeated the Austrians in 1859, it was Bonaparte the liberator who conquered; if they had been victorious over the Prussians in 1870, it would have been uneducated Eugénie with her dragon’s tail who was victorious. The progress can be seen.

An even worse fate is in store for the dragon’s tail of Louis Bonaparte, for it turns out now that he has one, too. Already on p. 4 we find a reference to his “terrible squandering of the resources of the Empire”, and on p. 16, to the “rabble that stood at the head of the Imperial army and administration”. This squandering and this rabble were already fully apparent in 1859 and long before. Vogt, who overlooked them at the time, now sees them quite clearly. Further progress. But even this is not sufficient. Even though Vogt does not exactly abuse his erstwhile liberator, he still cannot refrain from quoting from a letter by a French scholar who writes:

“If you have any influence at all, try to save us from the worst disgrace of all —celle de ramener l’infâme” (that of bringing the infamous one. Louis Bonaparte, back). “Rather Henri V, the Orléans, a Hohenzollern, anyone rather than this crowned Traupmann1 ^ who contaminates everything he touches” (p. 13).

For all that, however bad the Ex-Emperor and his uneducated spouse with their respective dragon’s tails might be, Vogt consoles us that at least one member of the family is an exception: Prince Napoleon, better known by the name of Plon-Plon. Of him Vogt says on p. 33 that Plon-Plon himself told Vogt that “he would have no respect for the South Germans if they were to act otherwise” (i.e. if they did not join in the war against the French); that he was also convinced that the war would end in failure and had made no secret of it. So, who would venture to accuse Vogt of ingratitude? Is it not touching to see how the “republican” extends a fraternal hand to the “Prince” even in misfortune, and writes him a reference to which the latter may appeal when the great competition opens to find a replacement for the “infamous one”?

In the Studies Russia and Russian politics are commended throughout. Since the abolition of serfdom the Russian Empire has been “an ally of the liberation movement rather than its opponent”; Poland is well on the way to merging with Russia (as was demonstrated by the uprising of 1863!), and Vogt thinks it perfectly natural that Russia should

“form the strong point around which the Slav nations strive increasingly to unite”.

And the fact that at that time, in 1859, Russian policies and those of Louis Napoleon went hand in hand, was, of course, a great virtue in Vogt’s eyes. Now, however, all is changed—we now hear:

“I do not doubt for a moment that a conflict between the Slav and the Germanic world is imminent ... and that Russia will assume the leadership of one side in it” (pp. 30, 31).

And he goes on to argue that, after the annexation of Alsace, France will immediately take the side of the Slavs in this conflict, and will even do everything possible to hasten the breaking out of the conflict in order to regain Alsace. Thus, the same FrancoRussian alliance that had been deemed a piece of good fortune for Germany in 1859 is now held out as a bugbear and nightmare. But Vogt knows his German philistine. He knows he can say anything to him and even contradict himself a dozen times over. But we can’t help asking ourselves how Vogt could have had the effrontery eleven years previously to praise to the skies an alliance between Russia and Bonapartist France as the best guarantee of the free development of Germany and Europe?

And as for Prussia! In the Studies Prussia is clearly given to understand that she should lend in direct support to Louis Napoleon’s plans against Austria and confine herself to the defence of the territory of the German Confederation, and then “she would receive her reward at the subsequent peace negotiations in the form of concessions in the North German plains”. The frontiers of the later North German Confederation—the Erzgebirge, the Main and the sea—were already being held out to Prussia as bait even at this time. And in the Postscript to the second edition which appeared during the Italian War, at a time when the flames were already licking at the Bonapartists’ fingernails and there was no time to be wasted on circumlocutions and figures of speech, Vogt suddenly bursts out with the candid demands that Prussia launch a civil war in Germany in order to set up a unified central government and incorporate Germany into Prussia—such a unification of Germany would not cost as many weeks as the war in Italy would cost months. Well and good. Exactly seven years later, and likewise in agreement with Louis Napoleon, Prussia acts precisely in accordance with the Bonapartist insinuations mechanically echoed by Vogt; she plunges into a civil war, seizes her reward in the North German plains in the meantime, establishes a unified central government at least for the North—and what does Herr Vogt do? Herr Vogt suddenly comes up to us, whining and bewailing the fact that “the war of 1870 was the necessary and inexorable consequence of the war of 1866” ! (P. 3.) He complains about the policy of insatiable conquest pursued by Prussia which always “bites at a proffered conquest like a shark at a piece of bacon” (p. 20).

“Nowhere have I ever seen a state and a people who so deserved this name (robber state) as Prussia” (p. 35).

He deplores the incorporation of Germany into Prussia as the greatest misfortune that could happen to Germany and Europe (Letters 8 and 9). So, that’s what Bismarck gets for following Vogt’s advice, and that’s what Vogt gets for offering advice to Bismarck.

Thus far, all seemed to be going fine for our Vogt for the present. The old scandals really had been forgotten by the philistines, the Studies were long since dead and buried. Vogt could again present himself as a respectable citizen and a passable democrat, and he could even flatter himself that his Political Letters were helping to stem the tide of ordinary philistinism in Germany. Even the fatal coincidence of his views with those of the Social-Democrats on the annexation issue could only redound to his credit: since Vogt had not gone over to the Brimstone Gang, the Brimstone Gang must have gone over to Vogt! But all at once a narrow, thin line catches the eye in the recently published appropriations lists of the secret funds of Louis Napoleon:

“Vogt—il lui a été remis en Août 1859 ... frs 40,000.”

“Vogt—in August 1859 has been sent a remittance of 40,000 francs.”

Vogt? Who is Vogt? What a misfortune for Vogt that the description was not more specific! Had it said, Professor Karl Vogt in Geneva, giving the name of the street and the number of his house, Vogt could have said: It’s not me, it’s my brother, my wife, my eldest son—anyone but me—but as things stand! Just plain Vogt without title, first name, address—well, that can only be the one Vogt, the world-famous scholar, the great discoverer of the round-worms and the flat-worms, of the long skulls and the short skulls, and of the Brimstone Gang, the man whose reputation is so well known, even to the police administering the secret fund, that any more detailed description would be superfluous! And then—is there any other Vogt who could have rendered such services to the Bonapartist government in 1859 that it should have paid him 40,000 francs in the August of that year (and Vogt just happened to be in Paris at the time)? That you rendered the services, Herr Vogt, is public knowledge. Your Studies are the proof of it. The first edition of those Studies came out in the spring, the second appeared in the summer. You yourself have admitted that you offered many people money to act in the Bonapartist interests from April 1, 1859 until well into the summer of that year.

In August 1859, after the war had come to an end, you were in Paris—and are we now supposed to believe that the Vogt to whom Bonaparte paid out 40,000 francs in August 1859 was another, wholly unknown Vogt? Impossible. We swear by all round-worms and flat-worms: until you can prove the opposite to us, we must assume that you are the Vogt in question.

But you will perhaps say, that is an assertion based on nothing but the word of the present French government, that is to say, of the members of the Commune, or what amounts to the same thing, the communists, also known as the Brimstone Gang. Who can believe such people? But the answer to this is that the publication of the Correspondence and papers of the Imperial family was arranged by the Government of National Defence, whose official act it is for which it takes responsibility. And what was your opinion of this government, of Jules Favre, Trochu, etc.?

“The men who have been expedited to the top, are second to no one in their intelligence, energy and tested principles—but they cannot achieve the impossible.”

That is what you say on p. 52. No, Herr Vogt, they cannot achieve the impossible, but they could at least have suppressed your name in gratitude for your warm recognition, something which it has rarely been their lot to receive!

But, as you yourself point out, Herr Vogt, “Money is still the equivalent of the damage which the individual suffers to his person” (p. 24), and if your worthy person has suffered any “damage”, hopefully only “moral” damage, in consequence of your political somersaults of 1859, you can at least console yourself with the “equivalent”.

When the alarms of war broke loose last summer you were

“convinced that the entire performance of the French Government was designed to conceal the tremendous squandering of the resources of the Empire by pretending war preparations. Under Louis Philipp it was the wood-worm that was called upon to perform the same function: all the outgoings of the secret budget were attributed to the timber account of the navy. Under the Empire the wood-worms of the entire globe would not have sufficed to conceal the deficit” (p. 4) So, we have arrived back to our beloved worms, the woodworms in this case. To which class do they belong, to the round-worms or the flat-worms? Who could resolve this riddle? Only you, Herr Vogt, and you resolve it in reality. According to the Correspondence etc., you are yourself one of the “wood-worms” and have helped to consume “the outgoings of the secret budget” to the tune of 40,000 francs. And that you are a “round-worm” is evident to everyone who knows you.