Second Address of The General Council Of The International Working Men’s Association On The Franco-Prussian War [1]¶
Core Argument¶
In this second address to the International Working Men’s Association, drafted in the immediate aftermath of Sedan and the proclamation of the French republic, Marx argues that the Franco-Prussian War has decisively lost its defensive character and become a war of Prussian conquest. The core narrative thrust is to expose the hypocrisy of the Prussian monarchy and the German middle class in justifying the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. Marx begins by recalling the First Address’s warning that the war would degenerate, noting that the moment Bonapartist military collapse became evident, the Prussian military camarilla resolved upon conquest, despite King William’s solemn pledge to wage war only against the emperor and not the French nation. The king’s own proclamations are cited as evidence of this pledge, which the Prussian ruling class then sought to escape by staging a reluctant yielding to the “irresistible behest” of German patriotism.
Marx’s key claims are directed against the arguments for annexation. He dismisses the historical claim that Alsace and Lorraine once belonged to the German empire as an “antiquary’s vein” that would equally entitle Poland to reclaim Brandenburg. He demolishes the “material guarantee” argument—that the territories are needed to secure Germany against French aggression—by demonstrating its absurdity and anachronism. Military frontiers, he insists, can never be final; they always impose the conqueror’s will and carry the seed of fresh wars. The example of the first Napoleon’s Tilsit Treaty is deployed: the “material guarantees” he extracted from Prussia proved a rotten reed. Marx also draws on recent history, noting that a united Germany can render Strasbourg innocuous by concentrating troops between Saarlouis and Landau, as the present campaign itself proved the facility of invading France from Germany.
The polemic is multi-directional. Marx attacks the German liberal middle class for its cowardice and hypocrisy, contrasting its sudden roar of patriotism with its long record of irresolution since 1846. He excoriates the “sycophants of the powers that be” who poison the popular mind with mendacious self-praise, pointing to German silence on Russian fortifications at Warsaw and Modlin while railing against French ones. A sharp geopolitical analysis follows: the tsar’s influence over Europe roots in his hold on Germany, and forcing France into Russia’s arms would leave Germany the choice of becoming a tool of Russian aggrandisement or preparing for a war of races against Slavonic and Roman peoples. Marx also targets the British press, which deified Louis Bonaparte for twenty years and cheered the slaveholders’ rebellion, and the British government’s dilatoriness in recognising the French republic.
The address concludes by turning to the working class. Marx notes that the German Social-Democratic Workmen’s Party has already protested annexation and pledged solidarity with French workers, but he is not sanguine of immediate success. He warns the French working class against being swayed by the national souvenirs of 1792, urging them instead to build the future through class organisation. The fate of the republic, he insists, hinges on their energies and wisdom. The address is a sustained intervention against the logic of conquest, dynastic intrigue, and the betrayal of the war’s original defensive purpose, framed within the International’s commitment to proletarian internationalism.