The Second Address[2]
September 9, 1870
[Prussian Occupation of France]
In our first
manifesto of the 23rd of July, we said:
"The death-knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris.
It will end, as it began, by a parody. But let us not forget that it is
the governments and the ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis Bonaparte
to play during 18 years the ferocious farce of the Restored Empire."
Thus, even before war operations had actually set in, we treated the Bonapartist
bubble as a thing of the past.
If we were not mistaken as to the vitality of the Second Empire,
we were not wrong in our apprehension lest the German war should "lose
its strictly defensive character and degenerate into a war against the
French people". The war of defense ended, in point of fact, with the surrender
of Louis Bonaparte, the Sedan capitulation, and the proclamation of the
republic at Paris. But long before these events, the very moment that the
utter rottenness of the imperialist arms became evident, the Prussian military
camarilla had resolved upon conquest. There lay an ugly obstacle
in their way — [Prussian] King William's own proclamations at the commencement of
the war.
In a speech from the throne to the North German Diet, he had solemnly
declared to make war upon the emperor of the French and not upon the French
nation, where he said:
"The Emperor Napoleon having made by land and sea an attack on the
German nation, which desired and still desires to live in peace with the
French people, I have assumed the command of the German armies to repel
his aggression, and I have been led by military events to cross the frontiers
of France."
Not content to assert the defensive character of the war by the statement
that he only assumed the command of the German armies "to repel aggression",
he added that he was only "led by military events" to cross the frontiers
of France. A defensive war does, of course, not exclude offensive operations,
dictated by military events.
Thus, the pious king stood pledged before France and the world
to a strictly defensive war. How to release him from his solemn pledge?
The stage managers had to exhibit him as reluctantly yielding to the irresistible
behest of the German nation. They at once gave the cue to the liberal German
middle class, with its professors, its capitalists, its aldermen, and its
penmen. That middle class, which, in its struggles for civil liberty, had,
from 1846 to 1870, been exhibiting an unexampled spectacle of irresolution,
incapacity and cowardice, felt, of course, highly delighted to bestride
the European scene as the roaring lion of German patriotism. It re-vindicated
its civic independence to affecting to force upon the Prussian government
the secret designs of that same government. It does penance for its long-continued,
and almost religious, faith in Louis Bonaparte's infallibility, but shouting
for the dismemberment of the French republic. Let us, for a moment, listen
to the special pleadings of those stout-hearted patriots!
They dare not pretend that the people of Alsace and Lorraine pant
for the German embrace; quite the contrary. To punish their French patriotism,
Strasbourg, a town with an independent citadel commanding it, has for six
days been wantonly and fiendishly bombarded by "German" explosive shells,
setting it on fire, and killing great numbers of its defenceless inhabitants!
Yet, the soil of those provinces once upon a time belonged to the whilom
German empire.[A] Hence, it seems, the soil and the human beings grown on
it must be confiscated as imprescriptible German property. If the map of
Europe is to be re-made in the antiquary's vein, let us by no means forget
that the Elector of Brandenburg, for his Prussian dominions, was the vassals
of the Polish republic.[B]
The more knowing patriots, however, require Alsace and the German-speaking
Lorraine as a "material guarantee" against French aggression. As this contemptible
plea has bewildered many weak-minded people, we are bound to enter more
fully upon it.
There is no doubt that the general configuration of Alsace, as
compared with the opposite bank of the Rhine, and the presence of a large
fortified town like Strasbourg, about halfway between Basle and Germersheim,
very much favour a French invasion of South Germany, while they offer peculiar
difficulties to an invasion of France from South Germany. There is, further,
no doubt that the addition of Alsace and German-speaking Lorraine would
give South Germany a much stronger frontier, inasmuch as she would then
be the master of the crest of the Vosges mountains in its whole length,
and of the fortresses which cover its northern passes. If Metz were annexed
as well, France would certainly for the moment be deprived of her two principal
bases of operation against Germany, but that would not prevent her from
concentrating a fresh one at Nancy or Verdun. While Germany owns Coblenz,
Mayence, Germersheim, Rastatt, and Ulm, all bases of operation against
France, and plentifully made use of in this war, with what show of fair
play can she begrudge France Strasbourg and Metz, the only two fortresses
of any importance she has on that side? Moreover, Strasbourg endangers
South Germany only while South Germany is a separate power from North Germany.
From 1792 to 1795, South Germany was never invaded from that direction,
because Prussia was a party to the war against the French Revolution; but
as soon as Prussia made a peace of her own[C] in 1795, and left the South
to shift for itself, the invasions of South Germany with Strasbourg as
a base began and continued till 1809. The fact is, a united Germany
can always render Strasbourg and any French army in Alsace innocuous by
concentrating all her troops, as was done in the present war, between Saarlouis
and Landau, and advancing, or accepting battle, on the line of road between
Mayence and Metz. While the mass of the German troops is stationed there,
any French army advancing from Strasbourg into South Germany would be outflanked,
and have its communication threatened. If the present campaign has proved
anything, it is the facility of invading France from Germany.
But, in good faith, is it not altogether an absurdity and an anachronism
to make military considerations the principle by which the boundaries of
nations are to be fixed? If this rule were to prevail, Austria would still
be entitled to Venetia and the line of the Minicio, and France to the line
of the Rhine, in order to protect Paris, which lies certainly more open
to an attack from the northeast than berlin does from the southwest. If
limits are to be fixed by military interests, there will be no end to claims,
because every military line is necessarily faulty, and may be improved
by annexing some more outlying territory; and, moreover, they can never
be fixed finally and fairly, because they always must be imposed by the
conqueror upon the conquered, and consequently carry within them the seed
of fresh wars.
Such is the lesson of all history.
Thus with nations as with individuals. To deprive them of the
power of offence, you must deprive them of the means of defence. You must
not only garrote, but murder. If every conqueror took "material guarantees"
for breaking the sinews of a nation, the first Napoleon did so by the Tilsit
Treaty, and the way he executed it against Prussia and the rest of Germany.
Yet, a few years later, his gigantic power split like a rotten reed upon
the German people. What are the "material guarantees" Prussia, in her wildest
dreams, can or dare imposes upon France, compared to the "material guarantees"
the first Napoleon had wrenched from herself? The result will not prove
the less disastrous. History will measure its retribution, not by the intensity
of the square miles conquered from France, but by the intensity of the
crime of reviving, in the second half of the 19the century, the policy
of conquest!
But, say the mouthpieces of Teutonic [German] patriotism, you must not
confound Germans with Frenchmen. What we want is not glory, but
safety. The Germans are an essentially peaceful people. In their sober
guardianship, conquest itself changes from a condition of future war into
a pledge of perpetual peace. Of course, it is not Germans that invaded
France in 1792, for the sublime purpose of bayonetting the revolution of
the 18th century. It is not Germans that befouled their hands by the subjugation
of Italy, the oppressions of Hungary, and the dismemberment of Poland.
Their present military system, which divides the whole able-bodied male
population into two parts — one standing army on service, and another
standing army on furlough, both equally bound in passive obedience to rulers
by divine right — such a military system is, of course, "a material guarantee",
for keeping the peace and the ultimate goal of civilizing tendencies! In
Germany, as everywhere else, the sycophants of the powers that be poison
the popular mind by the incense of mendacious self-praise.
Indignant as they pretend to be at the sight of French fortresses
in Metz and Strasbourg, those German patriots see no harm in the vast system
of Moscovite fortifications at Warsaw, Modlin, and Ivangorod [All strongholds of the Russian Empire] . While gloating
at the terrors of imperialist invasion, they blink at the infamy of autocratic
of autocratic tutelage.
As in 1865, promises were exchanged between Gorchakov and Bismarck.
As Louis Bonaparte flattered himself that the War of 1866, resulting in
the common exhaustion of Austria and Prussia, would make him the supreme
arbiter of Germany, so Alexander [II of Russia] flattered himself that the War of 1870,
resulting in the common exhaustion of Germany and France, would make him
the supreme arbiter of the Western continent. As the Second Empire thought
the North German Confederation incompatible with its existence, so autocratic
Russia must think herself endangered by a german empire under Prussian
leadership. Such is the law of the old political system. Within its pale
the gain of one state is the loss of the other. The tsar's paramount influence
over Europe roots in his traditional hold on Germany. At a moment when
in Russia herself volcanic social agencies threaten to shake the very base
of autocracy, could the tsar afford to bear with such a loss of foreign
prestige? Already the Moscovite journals repeat the language of the Bonapartist
journals of the War of 1866. Do the Teuton patriots really believe that
liberty and peace will be guaranteed to Germany by forcing France into
the arms of Russia? If the fortune of her arms, the arrogance of success,
and dynastic intrigue lead Germany to a spoilation of French territory,
there will then only remain two courses open to her. She must at all risks
become the avowed tool of Russian aggrandizement, or, after some
short respite, make again ready for another "defensive" war, not one of
those new-fangled "localized" wars, but a war of races — a war
with the Slavonic and Roman races.[D]
The German working class have resolutely supported the war, which
it was not in their power to prevent, as a war for German independence
and the liberation of France and Europe from that pestilential incubus,
the Second Empire. It was the German workmen who, together with the rural
laborers, furnished the sinews and muscles of heroic hosts, leaving behind
their half-starved families. Decimated by the battles abroad, they will
be once more decimated by misery at home. In their turn, they are now coming
forward to ask for "guarantees" — guarantees that their immense sacrifices
have not been bought in vain, that they have conquered liberty, that the
victory over the imperialist armies will not, as in 1815, be turned into
the defeat of the German people[E]; and, as the first of these guarantees,
they claim an honorable peace for France, and the recognition
of the French republic.
The Central Committee of the German Social-Democratic Workmen's
Party issued, on September 5, a manifesto,
energetically insisting upon these guarantees.
"We," they say, "protest against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine.
And we are conscious of speaking in the name of the German working class.
In the common interest of France and Germany, in the interest of western
civilization against eastern barbarism, the German workmen will not patiently
tolerate the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine.... We shall faithfully
stand by our fellow workmen in all countries for the common international
cause of the proletariat!"
Unfortunately, we cannot feel sanguine of their immediate success. If the
French workmen amidst peace failed to stop the aggressor, are the German
workmen more likely to stop the victor amidst the clamour of arms? The
German workmen's manifesto demands the extradition of Louis Bonaparte as
a common felon to the French republic. Their rulers are, on the contrary,
already trying hard to restore him to the Tuileries[F] as the best man to
ruin France. However that may be, history will prove that the german working
class are not made of the same malleable stuff as the German middle class.
They will do their duty.
Like them, we hail the advent of the republic in France, but at
the same time we labor under misgivings which we hope will prove groundless.
That republic has not subverted the throne, but only taken its place, become
vacant. It has been proclaimed, not as a social conquest, but as a national
measure of defence. It is in the hands of a Provisional Government composed
partly of notorious Orleanists, partly of middle class republicans, upon
some of whom the insurrection of June 1848 has left its indelible stigma.
The division of labor amongst the members of that government looks awkward.
The Orleanists have seized the strongholds of the army and the police,
while to the professed republicans have fallen the talking departments.
Some of their acts go far to show that they have inherited from the empire,
not only ruins, but also its dread of the working class. If eventual impossibilities
are, in wild phraseology, promised in the name of the republic, is it not
with a view to prepare the cry for a "possible" government? Is the republic,
by some of its middle class undertakers, not intended to serve as a mere
stop-gap and bridge over an Orleanist restoration?
The French working class moves, therefore, under circumstances
of extreme difficulty. Any attempt at upsetting the new government in the
present crisis, when the enemy is almost knocking at the doors of Paris,
would be a desperate folly. The French workmen must perform their duties
as citizens; but, at the same time, they must not allow themselves to be
swayed by the national souvenirs of 1792, as the French peasant
allowed themselves to be deluded by the national souvenirs of the
First Empire. They have not to recapitulate the past, but to build up the
future. Let them calmly and resolutely improve the opportunities of republican
liberty, for the work of their own class organization. It will gift them
with fresh herculean powers for the regeneration of France, and our common
task — the emancipation of labor. Upon their energies and wisdom hinges
the fate of the republic.
The English workmen have already taken measures to overcome, by
a wholesome pressure from without, the reluctance of their government to
recognize the French republic.[G] The present dilatoriness of the British
government is probably intended to atone for the Anti-Jacobin war [1792]
and the former indecent hast in sanctioning the coup d'etat.[H] The English
workmen call also upon their government to oppose by all its power the
dismemberment of France,which a part of the English press is shameless
enough to howl for. It is the same press that for 20 years deified Louis
Bonaparte as the providence of Europe, that frantically cheered on the
slaveholders' rebellion.[I] Now, as then, it drudges for the slaveholder.
Let the sections of the International Working Men's Association
in every country stir the working classes to action. If they forsake their
duty, if they remain passive, the present tremendous war will be but the
harbinger of still deadlier international feuds, and lead in every nation
to a renewed triumph over the workman by the lords of the sword, of the
soil, and of capital.
Vive la Republique!
Chapter 3: [France Capitulates & the Government of Thiers]
[A]
The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, founded in the 10th century and constituting a union of feudal principalities and free towns which recognized the supreme of authority of an emperor.
[B]
In 1618 the Electorate of Brandenburg united with the Prussian Dutchy (East Prussia), which had been formed early in the 16th century out of the Tetonic Order possessions and which was still a feudal vessel of the Kingdom of Poland. The Elector of Brandenburg, a Prussian Duke at the same time, remained a Polish vassel until 1657 when, taking advantage of Poland's difficulties in the war against Sweden, secured sovereign rights to Prussian possessions.
[C]
The Treaty of Basle concluded by Prussia, a member of the first anti-French coalition of the European states, with the French Republic on April 5, 1795.
[D]
Marx's clear assessment of Germany's historical position took some time to completely fufill itself, but when it did Germany's war on races occurred in full force.
[E]
Marx refers here to the triumph of fuedal reaction in Germany after the downfall of Napoleon. The fuedalist unity of Germany was restored, the fuedal-monarchist system was established in the German states, which retained all the privileges of the nobility and intensified the semi-fuedal exploitation of the peasantry.
[F]
The Tuileries Palace in Paris, a residence of Napoleon III.
[G]
Campaigns by English workers to secure recognition of the French Republic proclaimed on Sept. 4, 1870. On Sept. 5 a series of meetings and demonstrations began in London and other big cities, at which resolutions and petitions were passed demanding that the British Government immediately recognize the French Republic. The General Council of the First International took a direct part in the organization of this movement.
[H]
Marx is alluding to England's active part in forming a coalition of feudal monarchies which started a war against revolutionary France in 1792, and also to the fact that the English oligarchy was the first in Europe to recognize the Bonapartist regime in France, established as a result of the coup d'etat, by Louis Bonaparte on December 2, 1851.
[I]
During the American Civil War (1861-65) between the industrial North and the slave-owning South, the English bourgeois press took the side of the South.