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Hi, I'm Jesse Alexander,

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and thank you for supporting this companion episode of Glory and Defeat.

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In several episodes so far,

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we've quoted Friedrich Engels.

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He is of course famous for being

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a socialist theorist and the co-author of The Communist Manifesto.

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But he was also quite an insightful military observer as a journalist.

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Engels also clearly recognized the reasons that the French war plan had failed.

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The disposition of the French at the time of the declaration of war was excellent.

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But this disposition was calculated for an attack.

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For defense, it was absolutely defective.

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More than 151 years later,

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Engels war reports still make for fascinating reading and they reveal

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an often overlooked side of one of the most famous people of the 19th century.

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Thanks again for supporting Glory and Defeat.

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I'll see you next week.
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Engels did view the war as part of an ideological class struggle.

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But his military analysis was also informed by

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his service as a volunteer in the Berlin Guard Artillery.

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Now, thanks to the telegraph and war reporters,

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news from the battlefields of 1870 reached the reading public daily,

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including a neutral countries like the United Kingdom.

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Initially, British opinion was sympathetic to

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the Germans since the French had declared war.

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But British readers eagerly consumed

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Engels accurate and biting commentary in the conservative London Pall Mall Gazette.

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Karl Marx shared some British praise for his friend Engels in a letter in August 1878.

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Eight days ago, The Spectator declared your articles

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to be the only important ones in the English press.

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A typical example of Engels style is this description of the bombardment of Strasbourg.

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The Germans say they must have the city for political reasons.

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If this is so, the shelling whose severity is unprecedented was not only a crime,

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but also a stupidity.