Karl Marx: A Biography

45 2

KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY

has already sounded at Paris',^8 ' Marx pronounced the war to be, so far as

Germany was concerned, a war of defence but castigated Prussia for

encouraging the war by constructing a counterfeit Bonapartist regime in

Germany. The Address warned: 'if the German working class allow the

present war to lose its strictly defensive character and degenerate into a

war against the French people, victory or defeat will prove alike disas-

trous'.^88 However, Marx continued optimistically, 'the principles of the

International are too widely spread and too firmly rooted amongst

the German working class to apprehend such a sad consummation'. There

was the inevitable reference to the 'dark figure of Russia' and the Address

concluded with the assertion that the exchange of good-will messages

between the French and German workers proved that 'in contrast to the

old society, with its economic miseries and political delirium, a new

society is springing up, whose International rule will be Peace, because

its national ruler will be everywhere the same - Labour'.^89 The General

Council could have no material influence on the course of events, but

the Address was very well received in Britain: John Stuart Mill sent a

message of congratulation to the General Council, even Morley expressed

his approval, and the Peace Society financed a print order of 30,00 0

copies.

Engels was more firmly on the German side than Marx and wrote to

him in mid-August:

If Germany wins, then French Bonapartism has had it in any case, the

eternal squabbling about the establishment of German unity will be

ended at last, the German workers will be able to organise themselves

on a far broader national basis than previously, and the French workers

will also have much greater freedom of movement than under Bonapar-

tism, no matter what sort of a government may follow there.^90

Marx, too, had the impression that 'the definitive defeat of Bonaparte will
probably provoke a revolution in France, whereas the definitive defeat of
Germany would only perpetuate the present situation for another twenty
years'.^91 Events followed quickly: the French Emperor was completely
outmanoeuvred and forced to surrender at Sedan. On the night of 4
September a republic had been proclaimed in Paris. The Brunswick Com-
mittee issued an appeal for an honourable peace, and against the annex-
ation of Alsace and Lorraine, but were immediately arrested and put in
chains.

With Germany's adopting a less 'defensive' military posture, the Gen-
eral Council issued a Second Address, also drafted by Marx. After noting
that the prophecy of the First Address about the end of the Second
Empire had been fulfilled, Marx protested that the defensive war had now