"Only to he avoid misunderstandings, I must say that even last year, when I wrote my pamphlet, I heartily wished that Prussia should declare war against Napoleon"
About this Quote
Lassalle opens with a bureaucrat's throat-clear, then slides in a political hand grenade. "Only to he avoid misunderstandings" reads like damage control, but it's also a preemptive strike: he's trying to police how his enemies will weaponize his past words. The syntax is defensive, almost legalistic, because he's speaking from inside a world where a single pamphlet line can be repackaged as treason, opportunism, or naive romanticism.
The jolt is the confession that follows: he "heartily wished" for Prussia to declare war on Napoleon. That adverb matters. "Heartily" signals conviction, not reluctant calculation, and it dares critics to call him a warmonger. In mid-19th-century Europe, Napoleon III wasn't just a foreign ruler; he was a symbol of authoritarian modernity, plebiscites, censorship, and the managed spectacle of popular legitimacy. For German liberals and radicals, France could represent revolution and emancipation, but Napoleon III represented its counterfeit.
Lassalle's subtext is strategic nationalism: war as the ugly midwife of political transformation. A conflict with France could consolidate German unity, weaken reactionary coalitions, and create openings for constitutional reform and mass politics - the terrain Lassalle wanted to organize. He's not praising Prussian militarism so much as trying to harness it, insisting his earlier writing wasn't anti-Prussian but anti-Bonapartist.
It's a risky posture: advocating war while claiming democratic intent. The line shows a politician trying to keep one foot in principled opposition and the other in the realpolitik mud, betting that history's violence can be redirected toward a more modern state.
The jolt is the confession that follows: he "heartily wished" for Prussia to declare war on Napoleon. That adverb matters. "Heartily" signals conviction, not reluctant calculation, and it dares critics to call him a warmonger. In mid-19th-century Europe, Napoleon III wasn't just a foreign ruler; he was a symbol of authoritarian modernity, plebiscites, censorship, and the managed spectacle of popular legitimacy. For German liberals and radicals, France could represent revolution and emancipation, but Napoleon III represented its counterfeit.
Lassalle's subtext is strategic nationalism: war as the ugly midwife of political transformation. A conflict with France could consolidate German unity, weaken reactionary coalitions, and create openings for constitutional reform and mass politics - the terrain Lassalle wanted to organize. He's not praising Prussian militarism so much as trying to harness it, insisting his earlier writing wasn't anti-Prussian but anti-Bonapartist.
It's a risky posture: advocating war while claiming democratic intent. The line shows a politician trying to keep one foot in principled opposition and the other in the realpolitik mud, betting that history's violence can be redirected toward a more modern state.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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