February
89. The Kölnische Zeitung on the Elections[1]
Cologne, January 30. The Kölnische Zeitunghas at last also obtained reports on the elections, and they are indeed reports which to some extent pour oil on its wounds.
"The democratic reports on the elections," exclaims the worthy Brüggemann, intoxicated with joy, "the democratic reports on the elections" (i.e. the Neue Rheinische Zeitung) "have grossly exaggerated. Protests are now reaching us from all sides." a
From all sides! The Kölnische Zeitung intends to crush us with the weight of its "protests". Will two pages of compressed election bulletins, each one a "gross exaggeration" of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, each one proving a victory of the constitutionalists, produce a deep-red blush of shame on our cheeks?
On the contrary. "Protests are now reaching us from all sides." The worthy Brüggemann does not "exaggerate". He actually got summa summarum four whole protests: from the west (Trier), north
(Hamm), south (Siegburg) and east (Arnsberg)! Are those not "protests from all sides" against the "gross exaggeration of the democratic reports on the elections"?
For the time being, let us leave to the Kölnische Zeitung the pleasure of believing that the constitutionalists were victorious in these four decisive localities. At any rate this pleasure is soured by pain because all the same in many places the constitutionalists were defeated owing to the "masses' susceptibility to being seduced".
Naive confession of the constitutionalists that for them the "masses" are not "susceptible to being seduced"!
One consolation, however, remains for the Kölnische Zeitung. And what is this consolation? It is that the Coblenz correspondent of the Deutsche Zeitung is a comrade in misfortune, that in this unfortunate state of affairs he uttered appropriate words, worthy of figuring in the first columns of the Kölnische Zeitung:
"Note that the political question in this point also, as everywhere, becomes a small one compared with the social question, that it becomes entirely merged in the latter."
Until a few days ago the Kölnische Zeitung did not want to hear about the social question. On this subject belonging to the other world it never had occasion to speak, or at most it did so with a certain frivolity (insofar as it is possible for the Kölnische Zeitung to be frivolous). It adopted an atheistic, disbelieving, free-thinking attitude towards it. Then suddenly it underwent the same experience as the fisherman in A Thousand and One Nights. Just as, before the fisherman, the genie arose gigantically out of the bottle he had fished up from the sea-bed and unsealed, so before the trembling Kölnische Zeitung there suddenly arises out of the election urn the menacing gigantic spectre of the "social question". Terrified, the worthy Brüggemann sinks to his knees; his last hope vanishes, the spectre at a gulp swallows his entire "political question", which for years he had tenderly cherished, together with its legal basis and accessories.
Clever policy of the Kölnische Zeitung. It tries to put a good face on its political defeat by means of its social defeat.
This discovery that it has been defeated not only in the political field, but in the social field as well, is the greatest experience it has gained from the primary elections!
Or was perhaps the Kölnische Zeitung enthusiastic even earlier over the "social question"?
In point of fact, Montesquieu LVI had stated in the Kölnische Zeitung that the social question was infinitely important and that recognition of the imposed Constitution was the solution of the social question.(1)
But recognition of the imposed Constitution — that is pre-eminently what the Kölnische Zeitung calls the "political question".
Prior to the elections, therefore, the social question became merged in the political question, after the elections the political question becomes merged in the social question. That, therefore, is the difference, that is the experience from the primary elections, namely, that what is correct after the elections is exactly the opposite of what was gospel truth prior to the elections.
"The political question becomes merged in the social question"!
Let us leave out of account that already before the elections we explained as clearly as possible that there could be no talk of a "social question" as such, that each class has its own social question, and that this social question of a definite class involves at the same time a definite political question for this class.[3] Let us leave out of account all these light-hearted marginal notes when confronting the serious, solid Kölnerin, and let us analyse as far as possible the line of thought and mode of speech of this strong-charactered and profound newspaper.
By the social question, the Kölnische Zeitung understands the question: how are the petty bourgeoisie, the peasants and the proletariat to be helped?
And now, since at the primary elections the petty bourgeoisie, peasants and proletarians emancipated themselves from the big bourgeoisie, the upper nobility and the higher bureaucracy, now the
Kölnische Zeitung exclaims: "The political question becomes merged in the social question"!
A fine consolation for the Kölnische Zeitungl Therefore the fact that the workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie routed by striking majorities the big bourgeois and other highly respected constitutional candidates of the Kölnische Zeitung is no defeat of the "constitutionalists", but merely a victory of the "social question"! The fact that the constitutionalists were defeated does not prove that the democrats were victorious, but that politics has no part to play in the face of material questions.
Profound thoroughness on the part of our neighbouring jour-nalist(2)! These petty bourgeois, hovering on the brink of ruin, are they enthusiastic about the imposed Constitution? These peasants, oppressed by mortgages and usurers, and crushed under feudal burdens, are they enthusiastic about the finance and feudal barons who are their exploiters, and for whose direct benefit the imposed Constitution was invented? And, finally, these proletarians, who suffer simultaneously from the administrative passion of our bureaucrats and from the lust for profit of our bourgeoisie, have they any reason to rejoice that the imposed Constitution provides a new tie linking these two classes that suck the blood of the people?
Are not all these three classes interested above all in the abolition of the First Chamber, which represents not them, but their direct opponents and oppressors?
In point of fact, the Kölnische Zeitung is right: the social question swallows up the political question. In the interest of the "social question" the classes that have newly joined the political movement will vote against their own political interests and for the imposed Constitution!
Can the petty bourgeois and peasants, and, the more so, the proletarians, find a better political form for representing their interests than the democratic republic? Are not precisely these classes the most radical, the most democratic, of society as a whole? Is it not precisely the proletariat that is the specifically red class?—That does not matter, exclaims the Kölnische Zeitung, the social question swallows up the political question.
According to the Kölnische Zeitung, the victory of the social question is at the same time the victory of the imposed Constitution.
But the "social question" of the Kölnische Zeitunghas also a very special feature. Read the report of the Kölnische Zeitung on the elections to the First Chamber[270] and their "fortunate outcome", which consists in the fact that Herr Joseph Dumont has become an elector. That at any rate solves the real social question for the
Kölnische Zeitung, and compared with it all the subordinate "social questions" which could perhaps crop up in connection with elections to a plebeian Second Chamber disappear.
May the storm of the world-historic "political question", which at the present time is menacingly rising in Paris, not mercilessly break to pieces the Kölnische Zeitungs delicate "social question"!
Written by Marx on January 30, 1849
90. The Struggle in Hungary
Cologne, February 2. The war in Hungary is nearing its end. "Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus." (1)
Thus spoke the Kölnische Zeitung a few days ago.(2) It had been fooled by Weiden into thinking that the Assembly in Debreczin had dissolved both itself and the army, and that Kossuth was about to flee to Grosswardein with the rest of his following.
The mountain in labour this time was none other than the Kölnische Zeitung itself.
The 17th Army Bulletin/ to which Weiden imputed the above lie, reports two new operations of the imperial troops: firstly, the departure of a corps from Pest via Gyöngyös to Miskolcz, and secondly, Schlick's plan to operate in two columns against Tokaj, one via Kaschau, the other via Janosfalva and Baranya. Both are concentric movements against the Theiss, behind which the Magyars have taken up positions.
From the border of Transylvania to Szegedin the Theiss describes a semicircle the centre of which is Grosswardein: this semicircle forms the Magyar defence line. On the Upper Theiss it is covered by the fortresses of Sziget and Munkâcs; on the Middle Theiss by impassable swamps which begin a few miles from Munkâcs, accompany the Theiss on both sides to its mouth and render an attack from north and west very difficult. In the south the Koros and its tributaries offer a line of defence which is likewise covered by uninterrupted swamps and moreover by the advanced fortress of Temesvar. So, defended on three sides by swamps and rivers, the Debreczin Heath stretches away to the Transylvanian hills and offers the Magyars an excellent point for concentrating their armies, all the better since Bern has freed their rear by the conquest of Transylvania.
So long as the Magyars hold their ground on the Drava and in the Banat, Debreczin, the centre of their operations, can only be attacked from the north (Schlick) and west (Windischgrätz), and both the above movements are said to be preludes to this attack.
Miskolcz and Tokaj, the two towns to which the imperial troops are now marching, are barely six miles(3) from each other. Tokaj is one of the most advantageous crossing points over the Theiss; Miskolcz lies close enough to enable the troops sent there, depending on circumstances, to join Schlick's corps at Tokaj or to cross the Theiss by themselves a little lower down and if successful to advance on Debreczin.
This plan of the imperial army, which the 17th Bulletin trumpets around the world with such pomp, is, however, not so easy to carry out. From Pest to Miskolcz is more than 30 miles, across desolate heath land, inhabited either by hardly anybody or else by enemies. From Eperies to Tokaj it is also 30 miles, also through decidedly hostile and poor country. The provisioning alone of the two advancing corps would greatly delay their march; the bad roads, which with the present thaw are becoming completely impassable, make it quite impossible for them to reach their destination in less than a fortnight. And once arrived they will find themselves facing the Magyar army, at the crossings of the Theiss, entrenched between swamps, in positions with covered flanks, where the imperial troops cannot deploy their superior strength, where, on the contrary, a few regiments can hold up a whole army. Nay, even were they to succeed in forcing the crossings over the Theiss, the Austrian artillery and heavy cavalry would be utterly lost between the swamps, in marshy ground, in which they will constantly be bogged.
What grandiose successes these two columns have had so far can already be seen from the fact that the 18th Army Bulletin, which we reported yesterday,(4) is completely silent about them. Where they are, how far they have advanced, what successes they have had — of that Weiden tells us not one syllable, and for good reasons. But, says Weiden,
"according to the news received from Hungary, our troops enjoy brilliant success everywhere"
—and the Kölnische Zeitung believes Herr Weiden.
Let us look a little more closely at these "brilliant successes". Four "successes" are reported. Of these three are in areas where there is no decisive fighting, but where the Magyars are merely striving to keep the imperial troops busy at points of secondary importance and thus to divide them. Only the fourth "success" has been won on the Theiss, where Hungary's fate is being decided.
In the north-west, between the Waag and the Gran, in the south-west, between the Drava and the Danube, and in the south, in the Banat, three Hungarian corps are so far keeping a considerable part of the imperial forces busy, thereby preventing Windischgrätz from pushing forward to the Theiss with any considerable numbers. Against these three corps the imperial forces, so they say, have had "brilliant successes". Voyons!a
First success. In the north-east, where "Slovakia"[272] is now placed, Baron Csorich has beaten General Görgey at Schemnitz and has taken Schemnitz. When one considers that Görgey's corps is simply a lost outpost which has to stand its ground in the rear of the imperial army as long as possible; and when one considers that Görgey is operating not on Magyar but on purely Slovak ground, one sees that this success is not very "brilliant".
Moreover, Csorich was to be supported by Götz and Sossay's columns. But Sossay was urgendy called to Neutra "there to assist in the pacification of the part of the country already occupied" (a purely Slav comitatb), and Götz had his hands full "maintaining his position at Mossocz and protecting the Turöcz comitat from the insurgents whom Lieutenant-Field Marshal Csorich had beatenand scattered(ll)"'.
"The at-last-to-be-hoped-for" (hence still a long way off) "capture of Leopoldstadt and the occupation of Neuhäusel ... should suffice to strengthen the good spirit which is beginning (I) to develop everywhere in the Trentschin comitat and to contribute to the restoration of law and order."
What brilliant successes! The at-last-to-be-hoped-for capture of a not-yet-captured fortress offers the hope that the much-hoped-for good spirit of a long since occupied region will not, one hopes, always remain a pious wish, and the hope that law and order may at least partially approach realisation!
An uncaptured fortress, a beaten armv which nevertheless threatens an entire comitat and keeps several army corps in check, a much-hoped-for good spirit here, an only too real bad spirit there, risings threatened everywhere, and all this on Slovak, not Magyar territory — that is the first "brilliant success"!
Second "brilliant success". A second doomed outpost of the Magyars is in the south-west, between the Danube and the Drava, under the partisan leader Damjanich. Here the brilliant success consists in Count Nugent having ordered the occupation of Kaposvâr so as to reach the enemy's flank. What brilliant success there is in that is not yet clear. The occupation of Eszék by imperial troops is, it is true, reported by several papers, but the 18th Bulletin does not yet know of it and does not even expect it.
Third "brilliant success". General Todorovich has captured Werschetz in the Banat and is "energetically pursuing" the Magyars to Moravicza.
From Werschetz to Moravicza is exactly three miles and the position at Moravicza between the Alibunar swamp and the mountains is far more favourable than that at Werschetz.
At any rate it is well known that the Banat is so far from the centre of operations and that the attacks against the Magyars have been so sporadic that even the most brilliant successes of the imperials would here be of no importance whatsoever.
Fourth "brilliant success". Hitherto we have seen the imperial troops, it is true, operating on not very decisive terrain, but at least we saw them operating with some semblance of success. Now at last we come to a decisive terrain, and here the success consists in a defeat of the imperial troops.
General Ottinger had advanced from Pest as far as the Theiss, to Szolnok. The road was fairly good; from Pest to Szolnok there is a railway, and all that was needed was to follow the rails. The imperial advanced guard had already occupied the bridge at Szolnok. The crossing of the Theiss appeared to be secured for the right wing of the imperial troops. The left wing under Schlick, operating from Tokaj, the centre from Miskolcz, the right wing under Ottinger from Szolnok, were to force the Theiss crossings and march concentrically on Debreczin. But the imperial gentlemen had reckoned without their host. The Magyars crossed the frozen river, drove Ottinger back four miles all the way to Czegléd, and only gave up the pursuit when Ottinger had received reinforcements near Czegléd and taken up a strong position. According to the Bulletin, it is true, the Magyars are supposed to have gone back across the Theiss, but at all events they now control the crossing and Herr Ottinger, having so hastily retreated, will hardly force it so soon.
These are the "brilliant successes" of the imperial troops against the disbanded, demoralised, scattered army of Kossuth's rebels. A glance at the map shows that the Magyars have lost nothing since they decided to retreat behind the Theiss. As the latest Austrian unofficial reports announce, they are at Miskolcz and await the attacks of Schlick and Windischgrätz. They will not accept battle there either, but will withdraw behind the Theiss. The decisive battle will be fought at the crossings of this river, or, if these are forced, in the Debreczin Heath. And even if the Magyars are routed here, guerilla warfare will begin in the heaths and swamps of Lower Hungary and in the Transylvanian mountains in the same way as it has already begun in the "parts of the country already occupied", to the great regret of the 18th Bulletin. What such warfare can achieve in a sparsely populated country and on a suitable terrain has been prcved by the Carlist bands in Spain, and is now being proved again by Cabrera.[273]
But Kossuth has not come to that yet. Although the Kölnische Zeitung in its childlike naivety had him taken prisoner yesterday, he is still free and has a considerable army at his disposal. For him it is no longer a question of standing his ground for months on end; he only needs to offer resistance for three or four more weeks. In three to four weeks at most the tables will be turned in Paris: either the Restoration wins there for the moment, and then Hungary may fall, too, so that the counter-revolution may be altogether triumphant; or the revolution will win, and then the Austrian gendemen will march in haste to the Rhine and to Italy, to be chased back to Hungary by the Red Pantaloons.[3]
In conclusion, let us note the most brilliant of all the imperial troops' successes: Herr Welden's bulletins have at last found a believer who swears by them — and this One is the Kölnische Zeitung.
Written by Engels on February 2, 1849
91. Camphausen
Cologne, February 3. We learn from an entirely reliable source that the Brandenburg Ministry will resign before the Chambers open, and that Herr Camphausen will be presented to the Chambers at their opening as the new Prime Minister.
We were sure that something of the kind was being prepared when, a few days ago, the shrewd statesman's friends here spread a rumour that he was tired of political activity:
Oh! the bustle makes me weary; What use all the joy and pain? Sweet peace come, and In my heart begin your reign!
and for that reason wanted to withdraw into peaceful domestic life and restrict his reflections to the less agitating field of speculation in dairy produce.
It should be clear to every intelligent person: Herr Camphausen felt the need to get himself invited once again to save the Crown and, "touched by his own magnanimity", to play a second time the role of "midwife of the constitutional throne" with his well-known aplomb.
The bourgeois opposition in the Chamber will rejoice at this parliamentary "victory". The Germans are forgetful and easily forgive. Those same Lefts who last year opposed Herr Camphausen will gratefully welcome his new accession to office as a great concession on the part of the Crown.
But in order that the people should not allow itself to be deceived a second time, we shall briefly recall the most outstanding deeds of this thinking statesman.
Herr Camphausen resurrected the United Diet that was buried on March 18 and reached agreement with it on some of the basic principles of the future Constitution.[274]
Herr Camphausen thereby reached agreement on the legal basis, i.e. indirect denial of the revolution.
Herr Camphausen furthermore conferred on us the blessing of indirect elections.[275]
Herr Camphausen once again denied the revolution as regards one of its chief results, by transforming the Prince of Prussia's flight into a study trip and recalling him from London.[276]
Herr Camphausen organised the civic militia in such a way that from the outset it was transformed from being the arming of the people into the arming of a class, so that the people and the militia confronted each other as enemies.
At the same time Herr Camphausen allowed the old-Prussian bureaucracy and army to be reconstituted and to become daily more capable of preparing counter-revolutionary coups d'état.
Herr Camphausen was responsible for the memorable shrapnel slaughter of practically unarmed Polish peasants.[277]
Herr Camphausen began the war against Denmark to provide an outlet for superabundant patriotism and to restore the popularity of the Prussian Guards. Having achieved this aim, he made every effort to help secure the adoption in Frankfurt of the disgraceful Malmö armistice,[278] which was essential for Wrangel's march on Berlin.
Herr Camphausen confined himself to abolishing a few reactionary old-Prussian laws in the Rhine Province, but left the whole police-state civil-code legislation in existence in all the old provinces.
Herr Camphausen was the first to intrigue against the unity — at that time still definitely revolutionary — of Germany, first of all by convening alongside the Frankfurt National Assembly his Berlin agreement parliament and subsequently by acting in every way against the decisions and influence of the Frankfurt Assembly.
Herr Camphausen demanded of his Assembly that it should restrict its constitutional mandate merely to "reaching agreement".
Herr Camphausen further demanded of it that it should issue an address to the Crown in which it acknowledged this — as if it were a constitutional chamber which could be adjourned or dissolved at will.
Herr Camphausen further demanded of it that it should deny the revolution and even made this a question of confidence in the Cabinet.
Herr Camphausen laid before his Assembly a draft Constitution, which is on much the same lines as the imposed Constitution(1) and aroused a universal storm of indignation at the time.
Herr Camphausen boasted of having been the Minister of mediation, but this mediation was nothing but mediation between the Crown and the bourgeoisie for joint betrayal of the people.
Herr Camphausen at last resigned when this betrayal had been fully negotiated and was sufficiently mature to be put into practice by the Government of Action and its constables.[279]
Herr Camphausen became the ambassador to the so-called Central Authority and continued to be so under all the Ministries. He remained ambassador at the time when in Vienna the Croatian, Ruthenian and Wallachian troops violated German territory, fired on Germany's leading city and set it ablaze and treated it more outrageously than any Tilly treated Magdeburg.[280] He remained ambassador and did not lift a finger.
Herr Camphausen remained ambassador under Brandenburg, thereby taking his share in the Prussian counter-revolution, and subscribed his name to the recent Prussian Circular Note which openly and without disguise demanded the restoration of the old Federal Diet.[281]
Herr Camphausen now at last takes over the Ministry in order to cover the retreat of the counter-revolutionaries and to safeguard the November and December achievements for us for a long time to come.
These are some of the great deeds of Herr Camphausen. If he now becomes Minister he will hasten to add to the list. For our part, we shall keep the most precise possible account of them.
Written by Marx on February 3, 1849
92. From the Banat
Front the Banat. Hardly have the Serbs, Austrians, Banat Germans, Croats, Gipsies and Turkish Serbs succeeded in pushing the Magyars back a litde when the bitterest quarrels are breaking out in the newly-manufactured Banat-Serbian nation. Stratimirovich stood on his own initiative as candidate for the dignity of voivode and thereby incurred such enmity from Patriarch Rajachich that the latter issued an order to arrest and deliver the most popular Serbian leader wherever he might be found.
Up to now the Turkish Serbs have supplied 20,000 auxiliary troops to the Banat Serbs. How many Russians are among them it is difficult to say. As recently as on January 19, 700 Serbs and 400 armed Gipsies crossed the Danube at Boljevcze and Pancsova to help the Banatians. That is how the Austrian united monarchy [Gesamt-monarchie] is keeping alive!
The power of the Hungarian insurrection is by no means destroyed, but at present is still very considerable, for numerous volunteers flock to the Magyar detachments from all parts of the country. The Magyars still have four strong army corps in the field: in Upper Hungary under Görgey, on the Theiss under Kossuth, in the Banat against the Serbs and in Transylvania under Bern; these can still fight for several months if they carefully avoid any major blow. The fighting has already lasted six whole weeks, and yet the number of Hungarian fighters has increased rather than decreased.
If they succeed, as is their intention, in prolonging hostilities until war breaks out in Upper Italy, the cause is by no means lost. Even in the Ödenburg comitat right on the Austrian border, one finds the liveliest sympathy for Kossuth among the country people; quite recently in a village, after a black-and-yellowa sermon, the peasants cheered the dictator,[282] whereupon a detachment of troops came, arrested the seven most respected persons in the place and marched them off; to this hour nobody knows what has become of them.
Written by Engels on February 3, 1849
Colours of the Austrian flag.—Ed.
93. The 19th Army Bulletin and Commentaries on It
The 19th Army Bulletin has been published.[3] Even assuming we give credence to this document, the recent advantages gained by the imperial troops are hardly worthy of mention.
We are told nothing of the army corps in the Slovak (north-west) comitats. Obviously, therefore, this corps still has its hands full with "pacifying the parts of the country already occupied".
We are also told nothing of the troops sent from Pest to Miskolcz, who were to establish contact between Windischgrätz and Schlick, and who, as will no doubt be remembered, we prophesied would have rather a long journey .(1) Of these troops, whose advanced posts, according to supposed letters from Schlick's camp, are said to be already at Miskolcz, we also hear nothing. Proof that they have not got very far.
We likewise hear nothing of the Banat Gipsy bands. And, lastly, we are told nothing whatsoever of the troops sent out against Bern. In general, for some time now not only the official bulletins but also the otherwise so boastful unofficial fabrications have maintained a total silence with respect to Bern. Sufficient proof that the imperial troops have not won any laurels fighting against him either. Thus, with no news whatsoever of Bern, we ought not to be at all surprised if very soon he suddenly appears at Schlick's rear, or on his flanks, and manages to upset the whole imperial plan.
We hardly need mention that the Bulletin does not say a word either about the storming of Leopoldstadt, a lie which has been spread six times by the martial-law newspapers, and six times believed by Mama Dumont.a We must assume therefore that there is still "hope" that this fortress will be captured.
All this, then, is not said in the Bulletin. What does it actually say?
It has knowledge of the situation in three places: on the Slavonian border, at Szolnok, and on the Upper Theiss. Of course, from these three places it once more reports "brilliant successes".
First:
"Master of the Ordnance Count Nugent, who set out on January 25 from Kanizsa to march to Fünfkirchen in order to disperse the rebels who had banded together there, transferred his headquarters to Fünfkirchen on January 29. The rebels, numbering 4,000 men with 10 cannon, left that town on January 26 and may have taken the direction of Esseg to assemble there, sheltered by the fortress which is occupied by the rebels. They will not, however, succeed in doing this as that fortress is encircled by the brigade of Colonel van der Null of the Gradiskan border regiment, and Master of the Ordnance Count Nugent also will follow them in that direction. The appearance of the royal imperial army in the Baranya and Tolna comitats has completely annihilated the elements hostile to the Government."
Let us first note that according to this the Esseg fortress on the Drava has not been taken, as the rumours circulating since the establishment of martial law maintained, but has so far only been "encircled", an encirclement which is all the more likely to be broken by the "4,000 men with 10 cannon" as it is absolutely impossible to maintain an encirclement on the left bank of the Drava because of the extensive swamps.
The further success is that Nugent has advanced as far as Fünfkirchen. As, according to the 18th Bulletin, Kaposvâr had been occupied by the imperial troops, all that has been gained is that the army has advanced its position by some ten miles parallel to the Drava. The result of this is nothing but more difficulty in provisioning, which will grow worse in the same measure as the army approaches the heart of Hungary. Incidentally the Magyars appear to be pursuing the same tactics here as Görgey did in the Slovak region: they hold the towns as long as possible and then begin to fight a guerilla war in the countryside. What is said about the pacification of the Baranya and Tolna comitats reminds one entirely of the way Slovakia was pacified. We shall soon be hearing that the army has been unable to advance here either because it has first to restore peace and order in the comitats that have already been conquered.
Second:
"As was already reported in the 18th Bulletin, the Ottinger cavalry brigade, reinforced by three battalions of infantry and two batteries of foot-artillery, has taken up position at Czegléd. On receiving the news that the rebels intended to attack that position, Field Marshal Prince Windischgrätz felt decided to march against them with all available troops, hoping that the rebels would accept batde. However, they did not dare to risk a decisive engagement this time either, and seeing the reinforcements approaching, they hastily withdrew across the Theiss, with the Grammont brigade in pursuit."
Well then! The fact that Windischgrätz himself went to Czegléd "with all available troops" proves that Herr Ottinger must have suffered a severe set-back there. Even the "three battalions and two batteries" received as reinforcements were of no avail! All the gains amount to is that the Austrians are at Szolnok, that is once more on the Theiss.
It is odd that Windischgrätz should be annoyed that the rebels have yet again refused to accept battle. As though it had not been the plan from the very outset where possible for the time being to avoid all decisive battles, to lure the imperial troops as far into Hungary as possible and to organise peasant war and guerillas in their rear! When the time is ripe they will "risk a decisive engagement".
Third:
"Having already successfully cleaned up the Zips, Lieutenant-Field Marshal Count Schlick has by now achieved the same with respect to the rebels in the Zemplin comitat, and has then set out for Tokaj where Kossuth's supporters have gathered from various points. On January 19 the advanced guard of Lieutenant-Field Marshal Schlick, under the command of Major Piattoli, encountered the enemy at Szanto and drove him back towards Tokaj. On January 21 reconnaissance showed that the enemy had retreated and taken up a rather favourable position at Tokaj, Tarczal and Keresztur. On January 22 Lieutenant-Field Marshal Count Schlick opened the general assault on that position. Major Herczmanovsky led his gallant Stephan battalion along with a squadron of imperial light cavalry and four cannon in the attack on Keresztur, while Lieutenant-Field Marshal Count Schlick advanced on Tarczal via Tallya and Mad with the main column. The batde ended in victory for the imperial troops. The enemy suffered considerable losses, particularly in dead among the Polish legion.(2)"
This advantage comes as a complete surprise. Schlick drove the Hungarians' advanced posts back a few miles and met them in battle at Tallya and Keresztur. "The battle ended in victory for the royal imperial troops," says the laconic report of success. Not a word about whether Tallya and Keresztur have been taken, or whether the Magyars have withdrawn across the Theiss. The same will probably happen with this battle, which was such a great victory and so singularly lacking in success, as happened with Ottinger's last victory, which in the end turned out to be a defeat. No skill is required to "clean up the Zips" since the Zips is inhabited mainly by Germans. The Zemplin comitat is inhabited by Ruthenians,[283] who for the time being are still friendly towards the imperial troops, and here, too, it sounds odd to hear talk of "cleaning up".
The main conclusion to be drawn from the Bulletin is that the imperial troops are occupying two positions on the Theiss at a great distance from each other. The two corps have no contact with each other. Kossuth will probably quite soon attempt the decisive blow: he will either throw all his forces into separate attacks on the two corps, or break through between them, march on Pest, and attack the Austrians from the rear.
And while this state of affairs persists, while the imperial troops, despite their superior strength, advance only with extreme hesitation and caution, all their columns operating individually without thinking of concentrating their forces, while the Magyars stand armed on the other side of the Theiss, the martial-law press reports that Kossuth has been taken prisoner near Stry in Galicia. And German newspapers reprint that.
Written by Engels on February 5, 1849
94. The First Trial of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Speech by Karl Marx
Gentlemen of the jury! The proceedings today have a certain importance because Articles 222 and 367 of the Code pénal[285]
invoked in the indictment against the Neue Rheinische Zeitung are the only ones from Rhenish legislation available to the state authorities, unless there is direct incitement to revolt.
You are all aware of the very special predilection of the prosecuting magistrates for taking legal action against the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. In spite of all their diligence, however, up to now they have not succeeded in accusing us of any other offences than those envisaged in Articles 222 and 367. In the interests of the press, therefore, I consider it necessary to make a closer examination of these articles.
But before I enter into a legal analysis, allow me to make a personal observation. The Public Prosecutor has described as a vilification the passage in the incriminated article which states: "Is Herr Zweiffei perhaps combining the executive with the legislative power? Are the laurels of Chief Public Prosecutor supposed to cover the weak points of the people's representative?"(1) Gentlemen, it is quite possible for someone to be a very good Chief Public Prosecutor and at the same time a bad people's representative. He is perhaps a good Chief Public Prosecutor only because he is a bad people's representative. The prosecution seems to be little versed in parliamentary history. What underlies the question of incompatibili-ty, which takes up so much space in the proceedings of the constitutional Chambers? The distrust of executive officials, the 3œrt nolitifdjc flrujclTc
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And under these circumstances the public prosecution dares to assert that it is not a question of a denunciation, but of a petty malicious calumny? This view is based on a peculiar misunderstand-ing. As far as I am concerned, I assure you, gentlemen, that I prefer to follow the great events of the world, to analyse the course of history, than to occupy myself with local bosses, with the police and prosecuting magistrates. However great these gentlemen may imagine themselves in their own fancy, they are nothing, absolutely nothing, in the gigantic battles of the present time. I consider we are making a real sacrifice when we decide to break a lance with these opponents. But, firstly, it is the duty of the press to come forward on behalf of the oppressed in its immediate neighbourhood. And furthermore, gentlemen, the edifice of servitude has its most specific support in the subordinate political and social powers which directly confront the private life of an individual, of a living person. It is not sufficient to fight against general relationships and the highest authorities. The press must decide to enter the lists against a specific police officer, a specific Public Prosecutor, a specific Landrat. What caused the defeat of the March revolution? It reformed only the highest political summit, it left all the groundwork of this summit intact — the old bureaucracy, the old army, the old boards of prosecuting magistrates, the old judiciary which had been created, had developed and grown grey in the service of absolutism. The first duty of the press now is to undermine all the foundations of the existing political state of affairs. (Applause in the hall.)
Speech by Frederick Engels
Gentlemen of the jury, the previous speaker has been concerned mainly with the charge of insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, Herr Zweiffei. Permit me now to draw your attention to the accusation of calumniating the police. It is primarily a matter of the legal provisions on which the indictment is based.
Article 367 of the Penal Code states:
"A person is guilty of the offence of calumny who in public places or in public meetings, or in an authentic and public document or in a printed or unprinted writing which has been exhibited, sold or distributed, accuses anyone of such facts which, if they were true, would expose the one to blame for them to criminal or police court proceedings or even merely to the contempt or hatred of the citizens."
Article 370 adds:
"If through process of law the fact constituting the object of the accusation is proved to be true, the author of the accusation is free from all punishment.... Only proof which arises from a judicial verdict or some other authentic document is regarded as legal proof."
Gentlemen, the public prosecution has given you its interpretation of these provisions of the law and on that basis has asked you to pronounce us guilty. Your attention has already been drawn to the fact that these laws were promulgated at a time when the press was under censorship and political relationships were quite different from what they are now, and on these grounds my defence counsel(1)
has expressed the opinion that you should no longer consider these obsolete laws as binding upon you. The public prosecution has concurred with this view, at least as regards Article 370. It made a statement to the following effect: "For you, gentlemen of the jury, it will be mainly a question of whether the truth of the facts in question has been proved"—and I thank the prosecution for this admission.
But even if you should not be of the opinion that at least Article 370 in its limitation of the proof of truth is obsolete, you will certainly think that the articles cited must have a different interpretation from that which the public prosecution tries to give them. It is precisely the privilege of the jury to interpret the laws, independently of all traditional judicial practice, as their common sense and conscience dictate. We are indicted under Article 367 for having accused the police officers in question of actions which, if they were true, would expose them to the contempt and hatred of the citizens. If you interpret these words "hatred and contempt" in the sense that the prosecution would like to give them, then, so long as the provisions of Article 370 remain in force, all freedom of the press ceases to exist. In that case, how can the press fulfil its primary duty, the duty of protecting the citizens against excesses committed by officials? As soon as it denounces such an excess to public opinion, it will be brought before the assize court and — if things turn out as the prosecution would like — will be sentenced to imprisonment, a fine and loss of civil rights; unless it is able to adduce a judicial verdict, i.e. unless it publishes its denunciation only when it no longer serves any purpose!
How little appropriate to present-day conditions are the passages of the laws that have been cited, at least in the interpretation that the prosecution would like to give them, is proved by a comparison with Article 369. This states:
"With regard to calumnies which have been given currency by means of foreign newspapers, legal proceedings can be taken against those who sent the articles to the newspapers ... or who helped towards the import and circulation of these newspapers within the country."
According to this article, gentlemen, it would be the duty of the public prosecution daily and hourly to institute proceedings against the royal Prussian postal officials. For is there even a single one of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year on which the Prussian postal service by the conveyance and delivery of some foreign newspaper or other does not help towards "the import and circulation" of calumnies in the sense of the prosecution? Nevertheless, it does not occur to the public prosecutors to institute proceedings against the postal service.
Furthermore, bear in mind, gentlemen, that these articles of the law were written at a time when the censorship made it impossible to calumniate officials through the press. According to the legislator's intention, therefore, those articles could only serve the purpose of protecting private persons, but not officials, from calumny, and in that way only have they any meaning. But owing to the fact that since the winning of freedom of the press the actions of officials also can be placed before the forum of public opinion, the point of view is essentially altered. And it is precisely here, where there are such contradictions between old legislation and new political and social conditions, it is precisely here that the jury has to intervene and by a new interpretation adapt the old law to the new conditions.
But, as already stated: the prosecution itself has recognised that, despite Article 370, for you, gentlemen, it is mainly a question of whether the truth has been proved. The prosecution has therefore attempted to invalidate the proof of truth as we placed it before you by the evidence of witnesses. Let us therefore look at the newspaper article in question to test whether the accusations have in fact been proved and whether, at the same time, they really constitute a calumny. At the beginning of the article, it is stated:
"Six to seven policemen entered Anneke's residence between 6 and 7 in the morning, immediately maltreated the maid in the hall"(2)
etc.
Gentlemen, you have heard Anneke's evidence on this point. You will recall that I wanted to question the witness Anneke again about the maltreatment of the servant girl and that the presiding judge declared this interrogation superfluous since the matter had been sufficiently established. I ask you now: have we calumniated the police in this matter?
Further: "Once they found themselves in the anteroom, the urging turned into assault during which one of the policemen smashed a glass door. Anneke was pushed down the stairs." Gentlemen, you heard the evidence of the witness Anneke; you will recall that the witness Esser told how the policemen came out of the house with Anneke "at full speed" and bundledhim into the van. I ask you again, gentlemen, have we committed any calumny here?
Finally, there is a passage in the article the correctness of which has not been proved with literal exactitude. It is as follows: "One of these four pillars of justice was already at this early hour somewhat unsteady, being filled with 'spirit', the true fluid of life: firewater."
I admit, gentlemen, that all that has been established here by what Anneke expressly stated is as follows: "Judging by their behaviour, the policemen could very well have been drunk", that it has only been established that the policemen behaved as if they were drunk. But, gentlemen, compare what we said two days later in reply to the rejoinder of Public Prosecutor Hecker. "The insult could only refer to one of the policemen of whom it was said that he was unsteady at an early hour for more or less spiritual or spirituous reasons. If the investigation, however, as we do not doubt for one moment, should prove the correctness of the evidence, namely the brutalities committed by the agents of the public authority, then we believe that we shall have only acted in the interests of the gentlemen accused by us by carefully emphasising, with the complete impartiality becoming the press, the only extenuating circumstance. And this affable statement of the only extenuating circumstance is transformed into an insult by the Public Prosecutor."[3]
You see from this, gentlemen, that we ourselves called for an investigation of the facts in question. It is not our fault that the investigation did not take place. Moreover, as far as the reproach of drunkenness is concerned, I ask you of what importance can it be for a royal Prussian policeman if it is said that he has drunk a glass too much? As to whether that can be regarded as a calumny, I appeal to public opinion throughout the Rhine Province.
And how can the prosecution speak of calumny when the alleged victims of calumny are not named, not even precisely indicated? There is the mention of "six to seven policemen". Who are they? Where are they? Have you heard, gentlemen, of any particular policeman who has been exposed to "the hatred and contempt of the citizens" as a result of this article? The law expressly demands that the calumniated individual must be precisely indicated. In the passage of the article in question no particular policeman but at most the royal Prussian police as a whole can find that it has been defamed. It can feel insulted by newspapers making public the fact that illegal and brutal acts are committed by members of this corps with impunity. But, gentlemen, it is no crime to accuse the royal Prussian police in general of brutal behaviour. I challenge the public prosecution to show me the passage in the law which makes it punishable to insult, defame or calumniate the royal Prussian corps of policemen, if indeed there can be any talk of calumny here.
In general, the public prosecution has regarded the article in question as merely proof of an unbridled passion for calumniation. Gentlemen, the article has been read to you. Did you find in it that we considered in isolation the more or less unimportant illegalities which occurred at the time in Cologne, that we exploited them and exaggerated them in order to satisfy our alleged rancour against the lower officials? Did we not, on the contrary, put these facts in their place as a link in the great chain of attempts on the part of reaction which were taking place at the time throughout Germany? Did we confine ourselves to the police and the prosecuting magistrates in Cologne, or did we go into the matter more thoroughly and trace its causes as far back as the secret Ministry of State in Berlin?[290] But, of course, it is less dangerous to attack the great secret Ministry of State in Berlin than the little Public Prosecutor's office in Cologne — and as a proof of this we stand here before you today.
Look at the end of the article.(3) It states: "Those are the actions of the Government of Action, the Government of the Left Centre, the Government of transition to an old aristocratic, old bureaucratic and old Prussian Government. As soon as Herr Hansemann has fulfilled his transitory function, he will be dismissed."
You will remember, gentlemen, what happened in August of last year: how Hansemann was "dismissed" as superfluous, of course under the more decent form of voluntary resignation, and how the Pfuel-Eichmann-Kisker-Ladenberg Ministry, literally an "old aristocratic, old bureaucratic, old Prussian Ministry", immediately succeeded him.
The article says further: "The Berlin Left, however, must realise that the old regime is willing to let it keep its small parliamentary victories and large constitutional designs as long as the old regime in the meantime is able to seize all the really important positions. It can confidently recognise the revolution of March 19 inside the Chamber provided the revolution can be disarmed outside of it."
I certainly need waste no words in proving how correct this view of the situation was. You yourselves know that in proportion as the power of the Left in the Chamber increased, the power of the people's party outside the Chamber was destroyed. Do I need to enumerate for you the unpunished brutal actions of the Prussian soldiery in innumerable cities, the increasing imposition of states of siege, the many cases of disarming the civic militia, and finally Wrangel's heroic expedition against Berlin, in order to show how the revolution was actually disarmed and how in actual fact the old power seized all decisive positions.
And then at the end is the remarkable prophecy: "Some fine day the Left may find that its parliamentary victory coincides with its real defeat."
How literally this came to pass! The very day on which the Left at last achieved a majority in the Chamber was the day of their real defeat. It was precisely the parliamentary victories of the Left that led to the coup d'état of November 9, to the removal and adjournment of the National Assembly, and finally to its dissolution and the imposing of a Constitution. The parliamentary victory of the Left directly coincided with its complete defeat outside parliament.[291]
This political forecast which has so literally come true, gentlemen, is therefore the result, the summing up, the conclusion that we drew from the acts of violence which had taken place throughout Germany, including Cologne. And yet there has been talk of a blind passion for calumniation. In actual fact, does it not look as if we have been brought before you today, gentlemen, in order to answer for the crime that we correctly reported correct facts and drew the correct conclusions from them?
To sum up: You, gentlemen of the jury, have at the present moment to decide about freedom of the press in the Rhine Province. If the press is to be forbidden to report what occurs before its very eyes; if in every complicated case it has to wait until a judicial verdict has been passed on it; if it must first ask every official, from the Minister down to the policeman, whether he would feel his honour or delicacy impugned by the facts of the case being mentioned, irrespective of whether these facts are true or not; if the press is faced with the alternative of either falsifying events or remaining completely silent — then, gentlemen, freedom of the press is at an end, and if that is what you want, then pronounce us "guilty"]
Delivered on February 7, 1849 Printed according to the newspaper
95. The Trial of the Rhenish District Committee of Democrats
[SPEECH BY KARL MARX]
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 231, February 25, 1849]
Gentlemen of the jury, if this action had been brought before December 5, I could have understood the charge made by the Public Prosecutor. Now, after December 5, I do not understand how he dares to invoke against us laws which the Crown itself has trampled under foot.
On what does the public prosecution base its criticism of the National Assembly and of the decision on the refusal to pay taxes? On the laws of April 6 and 8, 1848.[293] And what did the Government do on December 5, when it on its own authority granted a Constitution and imposed a new electoral law on the country? It tore up the laws of April 6 and 8, 1848. These laws are no longer valid for the supporters of the Government, so why should they still be valid for the opponents of the Government? On December 5 the Government took its stand on a revolutionary basis, namely, on a counter-revolutionary basis. In relation to it there are now only revolutionaries or accomplices. Even the mass of citizens who act on the basis of the existing laws, who uphold the existing law in face of infringements of that law, have been turned into rebels by this Government itself. Before December 5 opinion concerning the removal of the National Assembly, its dispersal and the introduction of a state of siege in Berlin could have been divided. After December 5 it is a well-established fact that these measures were intended to usher in the counter-revolution and that therefore every means was permissible against a group that itself no longer recognised the conditions under which it was a government and consequently could no longer be acknowledged by the country as a government.
Gentlemen, the Crown could have preserved at least the semblance of legality, but it has not deigned to do so. It could have dispersed the National Assembly and then let the Ministry come forward and tell the country: "We have dared to carry out a coup
12-3780 7
I d'état — circumstances have forced us to do it. Formally, we have exceeded the bounds of the law, but there are moments of crisis when the very existence of the state is at stake. At such moments there is only one inviolable law — the existence of the state. There was no Constitution when we dispersed the Assembly. Therefore no Constitution could be infringed. But there exist two organic laws — those of April 6 and 8, 1848. Actually there is only one organic law, the electoral law. We call on the country to carry through new elections in accordance with this law. We, the responsible Ministry, will then appear before the Assembly that has emerged from these primary elections. This Assembly, we trust, will recognise that the coup d'état was a saving action necessitated by circumstances. It will subsequently sanction the coup d'état. It will declare that we infringed a legal formula in order to save the country. Let it pass judgment on us."
If the Ministry had acted in this way, it could have had some semblance of right to arraign us. The Crown would have saved the semblance of legality, but it could not, it would not do it.
The March revolution, as seen by the Crown, was a savage fact. One savage fact can be erased only by another savage fact. By rejecting new elections on the basis of the law of April 1848, the Ministry denied its own responsibilities and rejected the very court to which it was responsible. At the very outset it turned the appeal from the National Assembly to the people into a mere pretence, a fiction, a deception. By inventing a First Chamber based on the property qualification as an integral part of the Legislative Assembly, the Ministry tore up the organic laws, departed from the legal basis, falsified the people's elections and prevented the people from passing any verdict on the "saving action" of the Crown.
And so, gentlemen, the fact cannot be denied, and no future historian will deny it: the Crown has made a revolution, it has overthrown the existing legal system, it cannot appeal to the laws it has itself so scandalously annulled. After successfully carrying out a revolution one can hang one's opponents, but one cannot convict them. They can be put out of the way as defeated enemies, but they cannot be arraigned as criminals. After a revolution or counter-revolution has been consummated the annulled laws cannot be used against the defenders of these laws. That would be a cowardly pretence of legality which you, gentlemen, will not sanction by your verdict.
I have already told you, gentlemen, that the Government has falsified the verdict which the people passed on the "saving action of the Crown". The people nevertheless has already decided against the Crown and for the National Assembly. The elections to the Second Chamber are the only lawful elections because they alone were based on the law of April 8, 1848. Practically all the deputies who were for the refusal to pay taxes were re-elected to the Second Chamber, many of them even two or three times. Schneider II, my co-defendant, is himself a deputy for Cologne. Thus, the question of the National Assembly's right to vote for the refusal to pay taxes has in fact been decided already by the people.
But irrespective of this highest pronouncement, you will all agree with me, gentlemen, that in the present case no crime in the ordinary sense of the word has been committed, that no infringement of the law falling within your, jurisdiction has occurred. Under ordinary conditions the existing laws are enforced by the public authorities; whoever breaks these laws or prevents the public authorities from enforcing them is a criminal. In the present case one public authority has broken the law, another public authority, it makes no difference which, has upheld it. The struggle between two political powers lies neither within the sphere of civil law, nor within the sphere of criminal law. The question of who was in the right, the Crown or the National Assembly, is a matter for history. All the juries, all the courts of Prussia together cannot decide it. Only one power can supply the answer — history. I do not understand, therefore, how, on the basis of the Code pénal, we could be placed in the dock.
That this was a struggle between two powers, and only power can decide between two powers — that, gentlemen, has been declared by both the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary press. This was proclaimed even by an organ of the Government a short time before the struggle was decided. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, the organ of the present Ministry, clearly realised this. A few days before the crisis it said approximately the following: It is no longer a question of right but of power, and the old monarchy by the grace of God will show that it still has this power. The Neue Preussische Zeitung correctly understood the situation. Power against power. Victory would decide between them. The counter-revolution carried the day but we have seen only the first act of the drama. The struggle in England lasted over twenty years. Charles I came out on top several times and ended up on the scaffold. Who, gentlemen, can guarantee to you that the present Ministry and the officials who acted and continue to act as its tools will not be convicted of high treason by this Chamber or its successors?
Gentlemen, the Public Prosecutor has tried to base his accusation on the laws of April 6 and 8. I have been compelled here to demonstrate to you that it is these laws which acquit us. But I make
12* no secret of the fact that I have never recognised these laws and never will. They never had any validity for the deputies elected by the people, still less could they prescribe the course of the March revolution.
How did the laws of April 6 and 8 come into being? By agreement between the Government and the United Diet. It was an attempt to maintain continuity with the old legal system and to play down the revolution which had done away with that system. Men like Camphausen thought it important to preserve a semblance of legal continuity. And how did they preserve this semblance? By a series of obvious and absurd contradictions. Let us for a moment adopt the old legal point of view. Was not the very existence of Minister Camphausen, a responsible Minister, a Minister who had not climbed the ladder of officialdom, unlawful? The position of Camphausen, the responsible Prime Minister, was unlawful. This official, who has no legal existence, convenes the United Diet to have it pass laws it was not legally competent to pass. This inconsistent and self-contradictory playing with formalities was called legal progress, maintenance of the legal basis!
But let us leave aside the formal aspect, gentlemen. What was the United Diet? It represented old, decayed social relations. It was against these relations that the revolution was directed. And the representatives of the vanquished society are asked to endorse organic laws designed to recognise, guide and organise the revolution against this old society! What an absurd contradiction! The Diet was overthrown together with the old monarchy.
On this occasion we are directly confronted by the so-called legal basis. It is the more necessary for me to deal with this point since we are justly regarded as opponents of the legal basis, and since the laws of April 6 and 8 owe their existence merely to the formal recognition of the legal basis.
The Diet represented primarily big landed property. Big landed property was indeed the foundation of medieval, feudal society. Modern bourgeois society, our own society, on the other hand, is based on industry and commerce. Landed property itself has lost all its former conditions of existence, it has become dependent on commerce and industry. Agriculture, therefore, is carried on nowadays on industrial lines, and the old feudal lords have now sunk to the level of producers of cattle, wool, corn, beetroots, spirits etc., i.e. people who trade in industrial products just as any other merchant. However much they may cling to their old prejudices, they are in fact being turned into bourgeois, who manufacture as much as possible and as cheaply as possible, who buy where they can get goods at the lowest price and sell where they can obtain the highest price. The mode of living, production and income of these gentlemen therefore gives the lie to their traditional pompous notions. Landed property, as the predominant social factor, presupposes a medieval mode of production and commerce. The United Diet represented this medieval mode of production and commerce which had long since ceased to exist, and whose representatives, though they clung to the old privileges, likewise enjoyed and exploited the advantages of the new society. The new bourgeois society, grounded on an entirely different foundation, on a changed mode of production, was bound to seize also political power, which had to be wrenched from the hands of those who represented the interests of a declining society, a political power, whose whole structure has arisen out of entirely different material conditions of society. Hence the revolution. The revolution was consequently directed as much against the absolute monarchy, the supreme political expression of the old society, as against the representation by estates, which represented a social system that had been long ago destroyed by modern industry or, at most, the still presumptuous ruins of the dissolved estates which bourgeois society was overtaking and pushing into the background more and more every day. How then was the idea conceived to allow the United Diet, the representative of the old society, to dictate laws to the new society which asserted its rights through the revolution?
Allegedly in order to maintain the legal basis. But, gentlemen, what do you understand by maintaining the legal basis? The maintenance of laws belonging to a bygone social era and framed by representatives of vanished or vanishing social interests, who consequently give the force of law only to those interests which run counter to the public needs. But society is not founded upon the law; that is a legal fiction. On the contrary, the law must be founded upon society, it must express the common interests and needs of society — as distinct from the caprice of the individuals — which arise from the material mode of production prevailing at the given time. This Code Napoléon, which I am holding in my hand, has not created modern bourgeois society. On the contrary, bourgeois society, which emerged in the eighteenth century and developed further in the nineteenth, merely finds its legal expression in this Code. As soon as it ceases to fit the social relations, it becomes simply a bundle of paper. You cannot make the old laws the foundation of the new social development, any more than these old laws created the old social conditions.
They were engendered by the old conditions of society and must perish with them. They are bound to change with the changing conditions of life. To maintain the old laws in face of the new needs and demands of social development is essentially the same as hypocritically upholding out-of-date particular interests in face of the up-to-date general interests. This maintenance of the legal basis aims at asserting such particular interests as if they were the predominant interests when they are no longer dominant; it aims at imposing on society laws which have been condemned by the conditions of life in this society, by the way the members of this society earn their living, by their commerce and their material production; it aims at retaining in function legislators who are concerned only with particular interests; it seeks to misuse political power in order forcibly to place the interests of a minority above the interests of the majority. The maintenance of the legal basis is therefore in constant conflict with the existing needs, it hampers commerce and industry, it prepares the way for social crises, which erupt in political revolutions.
That is what adherence to the legal basis and the maintenance of the legal basis really mean. Relying on these phrases about the legal basis, which arise either from conscious deceit or unconscious self-deception, the United Diet was convoked, and this Diet was made to frame organic laws for the National Assembly the need for which was created by the revolution and which owed its existence to the revolution. And on the strength of these laws the National Assembly is to be judged!
The National Assembly represented modern bourgeois society as against the feudal society represented in the United Diet. It was elected by the people for the purpose of independently enacting a Constitution appropriate to the conditions of life which had come into conflict with the old political organisation and laws. It was therefore from the very beginning a sovereign, constituent assembly. The fact that it all the same stooped to entertain the point of view of the agreement was mere formal courtesy towards the Crown, mere ceremony. I need not here go into the question whether the Assembly — in opposition to the people — had the right to adopt the standpoint of agreement. It considered that a collision with the Crown should be averted by a display of goodwill on both sides.
One thing is certain, however: the laws of April 6 and 8, which were agreed with the United Diet, were formally invalid. The only material significance they have is that they state and lay down the conditions under which the National Assembly could really express the sovereign will of the people. The laws passed by the United Diet were merely a formula by which the Crown was saved the humiliation of having to proclaim: I have been defeated!
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 232, February 27, 1849]
Now, gentlemen of the jury, I shall proceed to examine more closely the speech of the Public Prosecutor.[3]
He said:
"The Crown ceded part of the power which had been wholly in its hands. Even in the ordinary course of things a deed of renunciation does not go beyond what is clearly stated in the words of renunciation. But the law of April 8, 1848, neither grants the National Assembly the right to refuse to vote taxes, nor stipulates that Berlin must necessarily be the seat of the National Assembly."
Gentlemen, power lay broken in the hands of the Crown, and the Crown ceded power in order to save the fragments. You will remember that immediately after his accession to the throne, the King(1) formally pledged his word of honour at Königsberg and Berlin not to concede constitutional government. You will remember that when opening the United Diet in 1847 the King solemnly swore that he would not allow a scrap of paper to come between him and his people.[294] After the March events of 1848, in the imposed Constitution, the King proclaimed himself a constitutional monarch. He put this abstract, outlandish flummery, that scrap of paper, between himself and his people. Will the Public Prosecutor dare to assert that the King voluntarily contradicted in so manifest a way his own solemn declarations, that in the eyes of the whole of Europe he voluntarily committed the glaring inconsistency of permitting the agreement or the Constitution! The King made the concessions which the revolution compelled him to make. Neither more nor less.
The popular analogy which the Public Prosecutor has made unfortunately proves nothing. It is true that if I renounce anything, I renounce only what I have expressly renounced. If I made you a gift, it would indeed be impudent if, on the basis of the deed of gift, you tried to compel me to undertake further obligations. But after the March events it was the people that made the gift and the Crown which received it. Obviously, the nature of the gift must be interpreted in accordance with the intentions of the giver and not those of the receiver, i.e. in accordance with the intentions of the people and not those of the Crown.
The absolute power of the Crown was broken. The people had won the day. The two sides concluded a truce and the people was cheated. The Public Prosecutor himself has taken pains to demonstrate at some length that the people was deceived. To challenge the right of the National Assembly to refuse to vote taxes, the Public Prosecutor has explained to you in detail that if there was something of this kind in the law of April 6, 1848, it was certainly no longer to be found in the law of April 8, 1848. The interval of two days was thus used to deprive the representatives of the people of the rights which had been conceded to them two days earlier. Could the Public Prosecutor have more strikingly compromised the honesty of the Crown, could he have more irrefutably proved the intention to deceive the people? The Public Prosecutor says further:
"The right to transfer and prorogue the National Assembly is a consequence of the executive power and is recognised in all constitutional countries."
As to the right of the executive to transfer the meeting place of the legislative Chambers, I challenge the Public Prosecutor to cite even a single law or example in support of his assertion. In England, for instance, according to an old historical prerogative, the King could convene Parliament wherever he pleased. There is no law stating that London is the legal seat of Parliament. As you know, gentlemen, in England the most important political freedoms are in general sanctioned not by Statute Law but by Common Law; such, for instance, is the case with freedom of the press. But should an English Ministry take it into its head to transfer Parliament from London to Windsor or Richmond, it is sufficient to put the idea into words to realise how impossible it is.
True, in countries that have a constitutional government, the Crown has the right to prorogue the Chambers. But it must not be forgotten that on the other hand all constitutions specify for how long the Chambers can be prorogued and when they have to be summoned again. Prussia had no Constitution, it was only going to be created; no legal time-limit for summoning a prorogued Chamber existed, consequently no prorogation right of the Crown existed. Otherwise the Crown could have prorogued the Chamber for ten days, for ten years, or for ever. How could one be sure that the Chambers would ever be summoned or allowed to meet for any length of time? The existence of the Chambers alongside the Crown was left to the discretion of the Crown, the legislative power — if one could speak of legislative power in this context — had become a fiction.
Gentlemen, this example shows where any attempt to compare the conflict between the Prussian Crown and the Prussian National Assembly with the conditions obtaining in constitutional countries leads to. It leads to the maintenance of absolute monarchy. On the one hand, the rights of a constitutional executive power are conferred upon the Crown, on the other, there is no law, no tradition, no organic institution able to impose on it the restrictions proper to a constitutional executive power. The representatives of the people are expected to play the role of a constitutional Chamber confronting an absolute monarchy!
Is there any need to explain that in the case under consideration no executive power confronted a legislative power, that the constitutional division of powers cannot be applied to the Prussian National Assembly and the Prussian Crown? Let us disregard the revolution and consider only the official theory of agreement. Even according to this theory two sovereign powers confronted each other. That is beyond any doubt. One of these two powers was bound to break the other. Two sovereign powers cannot function simultaneously, side by side, in one state. This is an absurdity, like the squaring of the circle. Material force had to decide the issue between the two sovereign powers. But it is not our task here to go into the question of whether agreement was possible or impossible. It is sufficient that two powers entered into relations with each other in order to conclude an agreement. Camphausen himself admitted that agreement might not be achieved. From the rostrum he pointed out to the agreers the danger that faced the country if the agreement did not come into being. The danger lay in the initial relationship of the Agreement Assembly to the Crown, and after the event an attempt is made to hold the National Assembly responsible for this danger by denying this initial relationship, by turning the Assembly into a constitutional Chamber! It is an attempt to overcome a difficulty by leaving it out of account.
Gentlemen, I think I have shown you that the Crown had no right either to transfer or to prorogue the Assembly of agreers.
But the Public Prosecutor did not confine himself to examining whether the Crown had the right to transfer the National Assembly; he has tried to prove that this transfer was expedient. "Would it not have been expedient," he exclaims, "if the National Assembly had obeyed the Crown and moved to Brandenburg?" According to the Public Prosecutor, the expediency of such an act was due to the position of the Chamber itself. The Chamber was not free in Berlin, and so forth.
But is it not obvious what purpose the Crown pursued in ordering this transfer? Had not the Crown itself divested all officially advanced reasons for the transfer of any semblance of veracity? It was not a question of freedom of deliberation, but of whether the Assembly should be sent home and a Constitution imposed, or whether a spurious Assembly should be created by summoning more docile representatives. When, unexpectedly, a sufficient number of deputies arrived in Brandenburg to form a quorum, the pretence was abandoned and the National Assembly was declared to be dissolved.
Incidentally, it goes without saying that the Crown had no right to declare the National Assembly either free or unfree. No one but the Assembly itself could decide whether it had the necessary freedom of deliberation or not. Nothing would be more convenient for the Crown than, whenever the National Assembly passed resolutions the Crown disliked, to declare that it was not free, that it was irresponsible, and to ban it!
The Public Prosecutor has also spoken about the Government's duty to protect the dignity of the National Assembly against the terrorism of the Berlin population.
This argument sounds like a satire on the Government. I will not speak here of its treatment of individuals, of men who, after all, were the elected representatives of the people. It sought to humiliate them in every possible way, they were persecuted in the most infamous way and a sort of wild chase[295] was organised against them. But let us leave aside individuals. How was the dignity of the National Assembly and of its work maintained? Its archives were given over to the soldiery who used the documents of the various departments, the royal messages, draft laws and preliminary studies, as spills to light pipes with, burned them in stoves, and trampled on them.
Not even the formalities of a legal warrant were observed; the archives were seized without even an inventory being drawn up.
It was part of the plan to destroy all this work which had cost the people so much, in order to make it easier to vilify the National Assembly and to quash the planned reforms which were abhorrent to the Government and the aristocracy. Is it not simply ridiculous to assert after all this that the Government transferred the National Assembly from Berlin to Brandenburg out of tender concern for its dignity?
Now I come to the statement of the Public Prosecutor regarding the formal validity of the decision to refuse payment of taxes.
The Public Prosecutor says that in order to make the decision on the refusal to pay taxes formally valid, the Assembly should have submitted it to the Crown for sanctioning.
But, gentlemen, the Crown in its own person did not face the Assembly, it was represented by the Brandenburg Ministry. Consequently, according to the absurd claim of the Public Prosecutor, the Assembly should have reached an agreement with the Brandenburg Ministry to proclaim that Ministry guilty of high treason and to prevent it from collecting taxes. What meaning can this demand have other than that the National Assembly should submit unconditionally to every request of the Brandenburg Ministry?
Another reason why the tax refusal decision was formally invalid, says the Public Prosecutor, was that a motion can become law only after the second reading.
On the one hand, when dealing with the National Assembly essential forms of procedure are ignored which ought to have been binding and, on the other, the National Assembly is expected to observe even the most unessential formalities. As simple as that! A Bill objectionable to the Crown is passed in the first reading, after which the second reading is prevented by force of arms, and the Bill remains invalid because there was no second reading. The Public Prosecutor does not take into consideration the exceptional state of affairs that obtained when, threatened with bayonets in their meeting hall, the people's representatives adopted this decision. The Government commits one arbitrary act after another. It has flagrantly violated the principal laws, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Civic Militia Law.[296] It arbitrarily establishes an unlimited military despotism under the guise of the state of siege. It sends the people's representatives to the devil, and while on the one hand impudently infringing all laws, it, on the other hand, demands the most punctilious observation of even the rules of procedure.
Gentlemen, I do not know whether it is deliberate misrepresenta-tion — I am far from assuming this on the part of the Public Prosecutor — or ignorance when he says:
"The National Assembly did not want any negotiations" and it "did not seek any negotiations".
If the people blame the Berlin National Assembly for anything, it is for its desire for negotiations. If the members of the Assembly themselves regret anything, it is their desire for an agreement. It was this desire for an agreement which gradually alienated the Assembly from the people, caused it to lose all its positions, and finally, when it was not backed by the nation, exposed it to the attacks of the Crown. When at last it wanted to assert its will it found itself alone and powerless, precisely because it had no will and had not been able to assert it at the right time. It first manifested this desire for an agreement when it renounced the revolution and sanctioned the theory of agreement, when it degraded itself by turning from a revolutionary National Assembly into a dubious society of agreers. It carried the weakness for negotiation to extremes when it accepted Pfuel's pseudo-recognition of Stein's army order as valid. The publication of this army order was itself a farce, since it could only be regarded as a comical echo of Wrangel's army order.[297] Nevertheless, instead of going beyond it, the Assembly snatched at the attenuated interpretation of the Pfuel Ministry, which made the order meaningless. To avoid any serious conflict with the Crown, the Assembly accepted the feeble semblance of a demonstration against the old reactionary army as a real demonstration. It hypocritically pretended seriously to regard what was no longer even a pseudo-solution of the conflict as the real solution of the conflict. As little as the Assembly wanted to fight, so eager was it for negotiations — and the Public Prosecutor describes it as pugnacious and quarrelsome.
Need I mention another symptom showing the conciliatory nature of this Chamber? You will remember, gentlemen, the agreement between the National Assembly and Pfuel about the law suspending commutations.[3] If the Assembly was unable to destroy the enemy in the army, then it was above all necessary to win a friend in the peasantry. But it refrained from attempting even this. To negotiate, to avoid a conflict with the Crown, to avoid it at any cost — that was the Assembly's chief concern, which it placed above even its own self-preservation. And this Assembly is blamed for not wanting to negotiate, not attempting to negotiate!
It still tried to negotiate when the conflict had already broken out. You know, gentlemen, the pamphlet by Unruh,b a man of the Centre. You will have seen from it that every attempt was made to avoid a clash; that deputations were sent to the Crown and were turned away; that some deputies tried to argue with the Ministers and were superciliously and arrogantly rebuffed; that the Assembly offered to make concessions and that these were derided. Even at the time when it could only be a matter of preparing for war, the Assembly still wanted to make peace. And the Public Prosecutor accuses this Assembly of not wanting to negotiate and not attempting to negotiate!
The Berlin National Assembly was obviously abandoning itself to a very great illusion and did not understand its own position and its own conditions of existence, when before the conflict and even during the conflict it believed that an amicable arrangement and negotiation with the Crown was still possible and worked towards it.
See this volume, p. 175.—Ed.
H. V. Unruh, Skizzen aus Preussens neuester Geschichte, Magdeburg, 1849.—Ed.
The Crown did not want and could not want any negotiation. Gentlemen of the jury, let us not deceive ourselves concerning the nature of the struggle which began in March and was later waged between the National Assembly and the Crown. It was not an ordinary conflict between a Ministry and a parliamentary opposition, it was not a conflict between men who were Ministers and men who wanted to become Ministers, it was not a struggle between two political parties in a legislative Chamber. It is quite possible that members of the National Assembly belonging to the minority or the majority believed that this was so. The decisive factor, however, is not the opinion of the agreers, but the real historical position of the National Assembly as it emerged both from the European revolution and the March revolution engendered by the latter. What took place here was not a political conflict between two parties within the framework of one society, but a conflict between two societies, a social conflict, which had assumed a political form; it was the struggle of the old feudal bureaucratic society with modern bourgeois society, a struggle between the society of free competition and the society of the guild system, between the society of landownership and the industrial society, between the society of faith and the society of knowledge. The political expression corresponding to the old society was the Crown by the grace of God, the bullying bureaucracy and the independent army. The social foundation corresponding to this old political power consisted of privileged aristocratic landownership with its enthralled or partially enthralled peasants, the small patriarchal or guild industries, the strictly separated social estates, the sharp contradiction between town and country and, above all, the domination of the countryside over the town. The old political power — the Crown by the grace of God, the bullying bureaucracy, the independent army — realised that its essential material basis would disappear from under its feet, as soon as any encroachment was made on the basis of the old society, privileged aristocratic landownership, the aristocracy itself, the domination of the countryside over the town, the dependent position of the rural population and the laws corresponding to these conditions of life, such as the local government regulations, the criminal law and so forth. The National Assembly made such an attempt. On the other hand, that old society realised that political power would be wrenched from its hands, as soon as the Crown, the bureaucracy and the army lost their feudal privileges. The National Assembly wanted to abolish these privileges. It is not surprising, therefore, that the army, the bureaucracy and the nobility joined forces in urging the Crown to effect a coup de main, and it is not surprising that the Crown, knowing that its own interests were closely linked with those of the old feudal bureaucratic society, allowed itself to be impelled to a coup d'état. For the Crown represented feudal aristocratic society, just as the National Assembly represented modern bourgeois society. The conditions of existence in modern bourgeois society require that the bureaucracy and the army should be reduced from being rulers of commerce and industry to their tools, and turned into mere organs of bourgeois intercourse. This society cannot tolerate that restrictions are placed on agriculture by feudal privileges and on industry by bureaucratic tutelage. This is contrary to free competition, the vital principle of this society. It cannot tolerate that foreign trade relations should be determined by considerations of the Court's international policies instead of by the interests of national production. It must subordinate fiscal policy to the needs of production, whereas the old state has to subordinate production to the needs of the Crown by the grace of God and the patching up of the monarchical walls, the social pillars of this Crown. Just as modern industry is indeed a leveller, so modern society must break down all legal and political barriers between town and country. Modern society still has classes, but no longer social estates. Its development lies in the struggle between these classes, but the latter stand united against the estates and their monarchy by the grace of God.
The monarchy by the grace of God, the supreme political expression, the supreme political representative of the old feudal bureaucratic society, is consequently unable to make any sincere concessions to modern bourgeois society. Its own instinct of self-preservation, and the society which backs it and on which it leans will constantly impel it to retract the concessions it has made, to maintain its feudal character and to risk a counter-revolution. Counter-revolution is a constantly recurrent condition of existence for the Crown after a revolution.
On the other hand, modern society, too, cannot rest until it has shattered and abolished the political power, the traditional official power, by which the old society still forcibly maintains itself. For the rule of the Crown by the grace of God is the rule of antiquated social strata.
Hence no peace is possible between these two societies. Their material interests and needs bring them into mortal combat. One side must win, the other must lose. That is the only possible negotiation between them. Hence, too, there can be no peace between the supreme political representatives of these two societies, between the Crown and the representatives of the people. Thus, the National Assembly had only the choice of either yielding to the old society or confronting the Crown as an independent power.
Gentlemen, the Public Prosecutor has described the refusal to pay taxes as a measure "which shakes the foundations of society". The refusal to pay taxes has nothing to do with the foundations of society.
Generally speaking, gentlemen, why do taxes, the granting or the refusal of taxes, play such an important role in the history of constitutionalism? The reason is very simple. Just as serfs purchased privileges from the feudal lords with ready money, so do entire nations purchase privileges from feudal monarchs. Monarchs needed money for their wars with foreign nations and especially for their struggle against the feudal lords. The more commerce and industry developed the greater grew their need for money. But the third estate, the middle classes, grew to the same extent and disposed of increasing financial resources; and in the same degree they purchased liberties from the monarchs by means of taxes. To make sure of these liberties they retained the right at definite intervals to renew the monetary obligations, i.e. the right to vote or to refuse to vote taxes. You can trace the details of this development especially well in English history.
In medieval society, therefore, taxes were the only bond between the emerging bourgeois society and the ruling feudal state, a bond which compelled the state to make concessions to bourgeois society, to allow its development and to meet its needs. In modern states this right to grant and refuse taxes has been turned by bourgeois society into a means of controlling the Government, the committee administering its general interests.
You will find therefore that partial tax refusal is an integral part of every constitutional mechanism. This type of tax refusal operates whenever a budget is rejected. The current budget is voted only for a definite period; moreover, after being prorogued the Chambers must be reconvened after a very short interval. Hence it is impossible for the Crown to make itself independent. Rejection of a budget means a definite tax refusal if the Ministry does not win a majority in the new Chamber or if the Crown does not nominate a Ministry in accordance with the wishes of the new Chamber. The rejection of a budget is therefore the parliamentary form of a refusal to pay taxes. This form could not be employed in the conflict under consideration because a Constitution did not yet exist, but had first to be created.
But a refusal to pay taxes as it has occurred here, a refusal which not only rejects a new budget but prohibits even the payment of current taxes, is by no means unprecedented. It happened very frequently in the Middle Ages. Even the old German Imperial Diet and the old feudal Diets of Brandenburg adopted decisions on refusing to pay taxes. Nor is there any lack of examples in modern constitutional states. In England in 1832 the refusal to pay taxes led to the downfall of Wellington's Ministry. And bear in mind, gentlemen, that in England it was not Parliament which decided to refuse taxes, but the people which proclaimed and carried out this decision on its own authority.[298] England, however, is the historic land of constitutionalism. Far be it from me to deny that the English revolution, which brought Charles I to the scaffold, began with refusal to pay taxes. The North American revolution, which ended with the Declaration of Independence of North America from England, started with refusal to pay taxes. The refusal to pay taxes can be the harbinger of very unpleasant events in Prussia too. It was not John Hampden, however, who brought Charles I to the scaffold, but only the latter's own obstinacy, his dependence on the feudal estates, and his presumptuous attempt to use force to suppress the urgent demands of the emerging society. The refusal to pay taxes is merely a sign of the split between the Crown and the people, merely evidence that the conflict between the Government and the people has already reached a menacing degree of tensity. It is not the cause of the split or the conflict, it is merely an expression of this fact. At the worst, it leads to the overthrow of the existing Government, the existing political system. The foundations of society are not affected by this. In the present case, moreover, the refusal to pay taxes was a means of society's self-defence against the Government, which threatened its foundations.
Finally, the Public Prosecutor accuses us of having gone further in the incriminated appeal than the National Assembly itself. He says:
"For one thing, the National Assembly did not publish its decision."
Gentlemen, am I to give a serious reply to the accusation that the decision not to pay taxes was not even published in the Statute Book?
Furthermore, he says that, unlike us, the National Assembly did not incite to the use of force and in general did not take a revolutionary stand, but wanted to remain on a legal basis.
The Public Prosecutor previously described the National Assembly as unlawful, now he considers it lawful — in each case to present us as criminals. But if the collection of taxes is declared unlawful, am I not obliged to resist by force the forcible practice of this illegality? Even from this standpoint, therefore, we were entitled to repel force by force. Incidentally, it is quite correct that the National Assembly wanted to keep to a purely legal basis, that of passive resistance. Two roads were open to it, the revolutionary road — it did not take it, those gentlemen did not want to risk their necks — or the refusal to pay taxes which did not go beyond passive resistance. It took the second road. But to give effect to the refusal to pay taxes the people had to take a revolutionary stand. The conduct of the National Assembly was by no means a criterion for the people. The National Assembly, as such, has no rights; the people has merely entrusted it with the defence of the people's rights. If the Assembly does not act in accordance with the mandate it has received, then this mandate lapses. The people then takes the stage itself and acts on its own authority. If, for example, a national assembly were to sell itself to a treacherous government, the people would have to kick them out, both the Government and the Assembly. If the Crown makes a counter-revolution, the people has the right to reply with a revolution. It does not require the sanction of a national assembly to do this. The fact that the Prussian Government is attempting to commit a treasonable act has been stated by the National Assembly itself.
Gendemen of the jury, to sum up briefly, the Public Prosecutor cannot charge us under the laws of April 6 and 8, 1848, after these laws have been torn up by the Crown itself. These laws by themselves are not decisive, as they were arbitrarily concocted by the United Diet. The decision of the National Assembly regarding the refusal to pay taxes had the force of law both formally and materially. We went further than the National Assembly in our appeal. This was our right and our duty.
In conclusion, I repeat that only the first act of the drama is over. The struggle between the two societies, the medieval and the bourgeois society, will again be waged in political forms. As soon as the Assembly meets, the same conflicts will arise again. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, the organ of the Government, already prophesies — the same people have elected again, that means the Assembly will have to be dispersed a second time.
Whatever new path the new National Assembly may choose, the inevitable result will be — either complete victory of the counter-revolution or a new victorious revolution. It may be that the victory of the revolution is possible only after the counter-revolution has been completed.
Delivered on February 8, 1849 Printed according to the newspaper
96. The Tax-Refusal Trial
Cologne, February 9. If the verdict of the jury the day before yesterday in the case against our newspaper was of great importance for the press, the acquittal yesterday of Marx, Schneider and Schapper is decisive for all tax-refusal cases brought for trial in the Rhenish courts. The fact itself was quite simple and admitted of no doubt. The incriminated document states:
"The Rhenish District Committee of Democrats calls upon all democratic associations in the Rhine Province to have the following measures decided upon and carried out:
"1. Since the Prussian National Assembly itself has ruled that taxes are not to be paid, their forcible collection must be resisted everywhere and in every way.
"2. In order to repulse the enemy a people's militia must be organised everywhere....
"3. The authorities are to be asked everywhere to state publicly whether they recognise the decisions of the National Assembly and intend to carry them out. In case of refusal committees of public safety are to be set up.... Municipal councils opposed to the Legislative Assembly should be elected afresh by a universal vote.,,a
This document is intelligible enough. Quite apart from the question whether the decision on the refusal to pay taxes is legally valid or not the document obviously presented an example of incitement to revolt and to civil war. The accused also did not conceal that the word "enemy" (see Paragraph 2) should be understood as the internal enemy, the armed might of the Government. Neverthe-
See this volume, p. 41 (Marx's italics here).—Ed.
less the state authorities, despairing of a conviction under this article of the Code, have selected a milder indictment: the call for rebellion and resistance to the agents of state power (Article 209 et seq.).
Hence the case turned only on the political question: whether the accused were authorised by the decision of the National Assembly on the refusal to pay taxes to call in this way for resistance to the state power, to organise an armed force against that of the state, and to have government authorities removed and appointed at their discretion.
After a very brief consultation, the jury answered this question in the affirmative.
After this verdict, most likely Lassalle and Cantador will soon also be set free. There is no reason to expect that the Cologne board of indicting magistrates will be of a different opinion from that of the jury in the case of Marx, Schneider and Schapper.
Incidentally, tomorrow we shall return in particular to the question of Lassalle.[299] There seems to be a benevolent intention to drag out his case beyond the next assizes (in March) and thus to impose on him three more months of detention under examination. It is to be hoped, however, that the verdict of the Cologne jury will frustrate such philanthropic plans. Tomorrow we shall give some pleasant details as to how Lassalle is being treated in Düsseldorf prison.(1)
Written by Marx on February 9, 1849
97. Political Trial
POLITICA1 TRIAL
From Weimar Region, February 3. Under this date-line the Frankfurter Journal writes:
"Now at last the days are approaching when our first assize court will deliver its verdict here on the results of the impending political examinations. After the commencement of the proceedings had been continually postponed from one week to the next, now at last, according to what is being said, it is definitely fixed for the 15th of this month. The court sittings will open with the trial of the leaders of the democratic party who were arrested here and in Jena in October last year, Dr. Lafaurie, candidate Rothe, the student Amelung, Dr. Otto and the writer Jade. These are almost the only ones of the mass of people arrested during those days against whom the Public Prosecutor could find material at all for an indictment. The examination conducted against the writer Deinhard, resident here, who was also arrested at that time, yielded so little result that after Deinhard had spent two months in the unhealthy prison cells of our criminal court, the Public Prosecutor was unable even to frame an indictment against him. Candidate Lange from Jena, who was also arrested at that time, suffered four attacks of haemorrhage in Weimar prison, and was only then taken in a half-dead state to his parents in Jena, where he died soon afterwards, on January 7 of this year, after again being interrogated for three consecutive days by the criminal court. Our jurymen, however, will be very surprised when, instead of the alleged plans for high treason, rumours of which have been so much spread and discussed, they will be presented with the simple, trifling facts on which the indictment against the above-mentioned persons is based."
(It is to be hoped that at its next victory the people will not, as in March, be so simple-minded or forgetful as to allow all their executioners to remain in their lucrative posts. On the contrary, it is fairly safe to assume that it will hasten to subject the whole gang of reactionary officials, and among them first and foremost the blood-thirsty legal hypocrites also called "judges", to six months of detention under examination in Pennsylvanian prisons,[300] and then for further reform will use them in railway and road construction.)
Written about February 9, 1849
98. Lassalle
Cologne, February 10. We promised yesterday[3] to return to the question of Lassalle. Already for eleven weeks Lassalle has been confined in Düsseldorf prison, and only now has the investigation of simple facts which no one denies come to an end, only now is the Council Chamber reaching a decision. The case has been successfully prolonged to a point where the Council Chamber and board of indicting magistrates, by merely keeping to the maximum legal term, can drag out the case beyond the forthcoming Düsseldorf assizes and so favour the prisoner with a further three months of detention under investigation!
And what a detention under investigation that is!
It is well known that recently a deputation of various democratic associations of Cologne handed Prosecutor-General Nicolovius an address signed by several thousand citizens which requested: 1) speedier examination of the case against the Düsseldorf political prisoners, 2) decent treatment of them during their detention under investigation. Herr Nicolovius promised to take these just demands into consideration as far as possible.
From the following example, however, it can be seen how much concern is shown in Düsseldorf prison for the Prosecutor-General, the laws and the most ordinary requirements of decency.
On January 5 a prison warder went so far as to indulge in brutal treatment of Lassalle, and to cap it all he went to the prison governor and complained that Lassalle had assaulted him.
An hour later the prison governor accompanied by the examining magistrateb entered Lassalle's cell and, without greeting him, took
See this volume, p. 341.—Ed. Ebermeier.— Ed.
him to task for what had occurred. Lassalle interrupted him by remarking that among educated people it was customary to offer a greeting when entering anyone's room, and that he considered himself entitled to demand this politeness from the prison governor.
This was too much for the prison governor. In a fury he advanced on Lassalle, pushed him back against the window and, gesticulating furiously, shouted at the top of his voice:
"Listen you, here you are my prisoner and nothing more: you have to comply with the prison rules, and if you don't like it, I shall have you thrown into a dark cell, and something even worse could happen to you!"
At this, Lassalle also lost his temper and told the prison governor that the latter had no right to punish him on the basis of the prison rules since he was in detention under investigation; that loud shouting was no use and proved nothing; and although the building was a prison, this was nevertheless his room, and if the prison governor (pointing his finger at him) came here to him, he had to greet him.
Now the governor completely lost his head. He rushed at Lassalle, brandished his fists at him and shouted:
"Don't point your finger at me or I shall slap you in the face with my own hand so that...."
Lassalle immediately requested the examining magistrate to bear witness to this scandalous treatment and placed himself under his protection. The examining magistrate tried to calm the prison governor, but succeeded only after the latter had several times repeated his threat to strike Lassalle.
After this edifying scene Lassalle addressed a proposal to the Public Prosecutor, von Ammon, that proceedings should be instituted against the prison governor, Herr Morret. Indeed, the violent actions of the governor constitute not only maltreatment and serious insult, but also an act exceeding his official powers.
Herr von Ammon replied that an investigation into prison officials exceeding their official powers could not be instituted without previous permission from the administrative authorities, and told Lassalle to apply to the Government. In so doing he referred to an old Cabinet Order of 1844.[301]
Article 95 of the granted so-called Constitution states:
"No previous permission from the authorities is required for instituting proceedings against public civil or military officials for violating the law by exceeding their official powers."
Article 108 of the same Charter expressly abrogates all laws that contradict this Charter. But it was in vain that Lassalle referred the Public Prosecutor to Article 95. Herr von Ammon insisted on his conflicting view regarding competence and dismissed Lassalle with the pleasant remark: "You seem to forget that you are a prisoner under investigation!"
Were we not right in saying that the so-called Constitution has been granted only against us, and not against the officials?
Thus, threats of slaps in the face, the dark cell and corporal punishment—for that is the "something worse" which Herr Morret was keeping in reserve — that was the "decent treatment" of political prisoners that the deputation was promised!
Incidentally, let us point out that, according to the law, prisons for investigation should be quite separate from penal prisons and that prisoners in the former should be under a totally different regime from that of prisoners serving a sentence. In Düsseldorf, however, there is no special prison for preliminary investigation, and prisoners under investigation, after being illegally confined in a penal prison, must in addition obey the rules for sentenced prisoners, can be put in a dark cell and can be subjected to corporal punishment! In order to achieve this praiseworthy aim in regard to Lassalle, the aforesaid Morret summoned a disciplinary commission which is to see that Herr Lassalle gets a share of the above-mentioned pleasant things. And the Herren examining magistrates and public prosecutors apparently accept all this quite calmly or else they hide behind conflicting views on competence!
Lassalle addressed himself to the Prosecutor-General. We, for our part, are giving publicity to the whole case in order that public opinion will support the prisoner's complaint.
We hear, incidentally, that Lassalle has at last been released from solitary confinement and is at least sharing the same prison as Cantador.
Written by Marx on February 10, 1849
99. War. Discord between the Government and the Southern Slavs
The Kölnische Zeitung, which is known to support Windischgrätz against the Magyars, today describes the reports of Magyar victories appearing in the reactionary Breslauer Zeitung, which is hostile to the Magyars, as "utterly ridiculous exaggerations".[3] We have printed those reports and shall, of course, await further information before going into them in greater detail. This much is certain — that the imperial troops have met unexpected obstacles on the Theiss, otherwise they would have crossed the river long ago; according to "reliable" Austrian reports, Schlick has already marched on Debreczin a dozen times, whereas he has not even crossed the Theiss!
Meanwhile, for the edification of that reliable source, Schwanbeck, we should like to present a few short news items taken from the royal imperial Augsburg newspaper,[15] on whose reliability one can surely depend. It will be remembered that for some time now we have been drawing attention to the so-called democratic group of the Austrian Slavs,(1) and also to the conflict which these fanatics were bound to become involved in with the Olmütz Government. We described Jellachich as the first and Stratimirovich as the second representative of this trend.[302] That this particular group, whose mouthpiece is the
Südslavische Zeitung at Agram, is also gaining ground in Croatia itself is borne out by the following article taken from the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung3:
"As I have already reported, the machinations of the Serbian General Stratimirovich are gaining in importance as he has many followers among the Serbs and seems to exert a particular influence on the Tchaikists. We do not doubt the general claim that his attempts to stir up opposition to Patriarch Rajachich do not stem from any kind of agreement with the Magyars but simply from his own ambitious aims; only how sad it is to see the Slav element, which Austria should and must cling to in the storm, being itself abandoned to the storms of egoistical factionalism! Stratimirovich is offended as he felt he had been thwarted in his hopes of succeeding to the position of voivode on the death of General Suplikac, and he now broods on vengeance. Whether this is at the expense of the union which is so necessary amongst the people and at the expense of the well-being of his own country, does not worry him. Stratimirovich was fortunate enough to distinguish himself at the very beginning of the struggle against the Magyars with a small troop of victorious Serbs ; he was also fortunate enough to make himself indispensable, as it were, and in particular to achieve more at St. Thomas and the Roman ramparts than did many other generals one could name with regular troops. He quickly rose from the rank of Oberleutnant to that of general. Assigned to the deputation which his country sent to Olmütz, he succeeded in helping to fulfil the Serbs' most cherished wishes as far as their nationality and independence were concerned, and when this was followed shortly afterwards by the sudden death of Suplikac, who had only just recently been appointed voivode, the wish of the troops and of the country designated him as the probable successor. That is how things stand from this point of view. But in Croatia, too, things do not seem as bright as they tend to appear in the usual superficial reports. Reliable persons coming from that country assert that people are not happy about the Ban's absence being prolonged and that his popularity is endangered, since the Croats see in him their Ban and not simply the Austrian Lieutenant-Field Marshal. Nor, apparently, is the appointment of Baron Kulmer as Minister meeting with the kind of approval in the country that had been initially expected, as he is generally considered to be a tool in the hands of the Court. The news of his appointment is said even to have given rise to a hostile demonstration during which part of the forest-land he owns in Croatia was set on fire. From all this, and also from the daily increasing irritation revealed in the language of the Agram newspapers, it becomes clear that one will not be able to deal with the Slavs so easily."
On the other hand, the same newspaper confirms Dembinski's arrival at Debreczin. It reports from Pest:
"General Dembinski really is in Debreczin. Members of the Hungarian House of Representatives are there also in large numbers, and by contrast the insurgents can only count 11 magnates among their number. Fortune appears to have turned its back on the rebel leader Bern in Transylvania; at least, despite his boastful reports, refugees seeking help keep arriving at the rump parliament. A decree issued by Kbzlöny of Debreczin, the Magyar Moniteur, states that Meszaros, the Minister of War, has resigned because of illness, and has been replaced by General Vetter."
It contains the following on Dembinski himself:
" Vienna, February 3. The fanatic Magyars expect the talents of that famous Polish general, Dembinski, who is said to have been placed in supreme command of all Magyar troops, to bring them great success. Born in 1791, Dembinski came to Vienna in 1807 to attend the Engineering Academy, fled from the town secretly in 1809 and, at the age of eighteen, joined the ranks of the Fifth Polish Mounted Rifle Regiment. He fought against the Russians and so distinguished himself in the 1812 campaign at the battle of Smolensk that Napoleon promoted him to captain on the very battlefield. Too proud to enter the service of the Russians, he thereupon lived in quiet seclusion for many years, until the Polish revolution of 1830 gave him the opportunity to distinguish himself as a colonel with his cavalry brigade of 4,000 men. He managed to delay the whole Russian force of 60,000 men under Marshal Diebitsch for a whole day during the battle of Grokhov. "
Written by Engels on February 10, 1849
100. The War in Hungary
At last official Austrian reports have again arrived from Transylvania. They confirm Bern's rapid advance to the vicinity of Hermannstadt, which was seriously threatened by him, and inform of a battle which occurred on January 21 somewhere between Hermannstadt and Mediasch (Medgyes), in which the Magyars are said to have been beaten. They are said to have been pursued as far as Stolzenburg, some of them having already taken the road to Torda (Torenburg) in the direction of Klausenburg. Five cannon and four ammunition wagons are said to have fallen into the hands of the Austrians under Puchner. The resistance put up by the Magyars is described as having been very stubborn. We shall await further reports to ascertain whether this "victory" was really so "brilliant". The Austrians give their own losses as 60-70 dead and 98 wounded.
Just how credible the Austrian reports are can be seen from the Transylvanian documents published on this occasion in the Wiener Zeitung.(1)
In an address to the Hermannstadt civic militia on January 19 Bern's army is described as "the Hungarian troops who have been repulsed by the victorious army in Hungary, and have had to flee to Transylvania". Puchner too, in his order of the day, boasts about huge victories in Hungary, which of course for us were long ago reduced to their true value by the news which came later.
The Rumanians are said to have marched 25,000 men of the Landsturm to Hermannstadt. On the other hand, the Szeklers[307] and the Hungarians in Transylvania can hardly be relied on; Puchner, in his order of the day, and the Transylvanian papers agree that the royal imperial black-and-yellowa spirit cannot make any headway amongst them at all, and that they are joining the movement wherever Bern shows himself.
In Hungary itself the peasant risings in the rear of the imperial troops are beginning to assume a serious character. On January 15 the imperial troops occupied and subjugated Gran on the Danube, above Pest, but on January 26 they left the town again. They marched towards Ofenb because Windischgrätz needed them urgently after the battle at Szolnok. Immediately the royal imperial standards and eagles were torn down, Madarasz's posters[308] calling for revolt were put up, and people were heard to shout "Eljenc
Kossuth". The peasants from the left bank of the Danube who had not surrendered their arms came into the town, fired on chief justice Koller, took juror Biro off to Komorn,[309] abolished the jurisdiction of the comitats, and appointed chief notary Palkovicz as president. The imperial troops sent orders for the pontoon bridge to be brought up; Simunich intended to cross the Danube at this point in order to carry out Wrbna's order to march immediately to Pest. Since, however, at the same time a letter arrived from the National Defence Committee[310] at Debreczin with the order that the Landsturm was to be organised^ and the enemy's supplies cut off or destroyed, it was decided that the bridge should not be brought up and that the orders from Debreczin would be carried out. The comitat moved to Batorkesz, where it is protected from Komorn. Furthermore troops are said to have been sent from Ofen to Gran. This news is taken from the official Wiener Zeitung.
For the rest, the very fact that the Austrians have no fresh news whatsoever from the Theiss to a certain extent provides confirmation— by way of omission — of the Magyars' reports that they have been victorious. On the other hand, the Magyar correspondent of the Breslauer Zeitung again reports a number of interesting and highly probable facts. Colonel Montecuccoli of the royal imperial army is reported taken prisoner by the Magyars at Gyöngyös. Kövesd (five miles this side of Miskolcz) and Keresztur (north of Tokaj) are said to be in the hands of the Magyars. The imperial troops sallying forth from Temesvâr are said to have been almost completely annihilated by the Hungarians hurriedly approaching from Szegedin. The newspaper then adds:
"Very bad blood has been caused in Ofen by the fact that the lovable poet and Catholic priest Czuczar has been led away in heavy irons to six years' confinement in a fortress because of an inspiring war-song he had composed. In general one notices that the military rule is becoming much stricter here since the most recent defeats suffered by the Austrian troops. Arrests for the most innocuous remarks are the order of the day. Any strangers coming here from Debreczin and the surrounding area are immediately taken off to police headquarters, subjected to strict interrogation, and then released with the prohibition to say a word about events. Curiosity, however, knows no restraint and people here are fairly well informed. It is believed that the Hungarian Theiss army will renew its attack on the imperial troops at Szolnok in the next few days.— The news has come from Debreczin that the Hungarian General Môr Perczel has been appointed commander in Transylvania. Bern will head the Banat army in Hungary.
"The Hungarian regular forces are given at 160,000, and if one considers that these forces are being led by two world-famous generals, Dembinski and Bern, and that in addition to the natural defences afforded by Transylvania and the great Theiss area, the Hungarians also have the majority of the fortresses and the most important of them under their control, then it seems more than ridiculous that warrants of arrest should be made out for Kossuth in Vienna. They must think the public is totally blind to be fooled by manoeuvres of that kind."
Meanwhile new quarrels are breaking out daily among the little nations which have been liberated from what is described as the oppression of the Magyars — they are quarrelling either among themselves or with the Austrian Government. The Constitutionelles Blatt aus Böhmen says:
"A deputation of Rumanians was due to arrive at Olmütz to lodge a complaint about the encroachments of the Serbs from the Banat.— In Istria, where language and customs are pre-eminently Italian, people are most strenuously resisting the plan to incorporate this province in Croatia, and protests against it have been made and published."
In the Voivodina the Karlowitz Government has voiced support for Stratimirovich and annulled the warrant for his arrest issued by Patriarch Rajachich. The Patriarch will not have anything to do with a voivode; before the Voivodina is constituted, he says, the districts of Kikinda and Becse, of Bacs and Baranya must be united with it. He says this should be aimed at and, on the other hand, the machinations and intrigues of ambitious people should be restrained, "so that the imperial army does not treat the Serbs as it did the Magyar rebels" !a The Südslavische Zeitung is already beginning to make serious complaints, but these dreamers will, of course, only open their eyes when it is too late and military rule has been established in their province. Incidentally anyone can see that these differences of opinion can only be most helpful to the Magyar cause.
Here is just a sample of the way in which these Serbs wage war, and it is confirmed by two South-Slav newspapers, Vestnik and Napredak, dated January 27. Weisskirchen in the Banat wanted to surrender and sent a deputation to General Todorovich to this end. Todorovich had already heard earlier that the people of Weisskirchen had killed all the Serbs in their town, and he asked the deputation: "Who among you delegates is a Serb?" The Germans shrugged their shoulders. "Go then," said Todorovich, "I'm not going to negotiate with you." Thereupon the Serbian army stormed Weisskirchen and captured it. Only two Serbs were found in the town, and both of them had had their eyes put out. Travellers say that Todorovich then had fifty main culprits sought out and all fifty hanged. He stood the rest in a line and had every fifth person shot. Reports have it that 400 were shot in this way.
Those are the valiant heroes with whom the Kölnische Zeitung sympathises!
Written by Engels on February 10, 1849
101. The Division of Labour in the Kölnische Zeitung
Cologne, February 10. With the best will in the world, we were unable last week to pay attention even to our best friends, our nearest neighbours. Other matters — everyone knows which — kept us busy.[3]" Let us hasten now to make up for the omission and turn our gaze first of all to our neighbouring journalists.
The division of labour is carried out in the Kölnische Zeitung with rare team work. We shall disregard the more remote part of the newspaper, pages 3 and 4, where the noble Wolfers praises Belgium and does his best to ensure that Henry V regains the throne of his forefathers and grants a Constitution "on the Belgian model". We shall keep only to the newspaper's frontispiece, its first page. Here our friend Schucking has his own little nook in the basement where he displays for his votaries the latest products of his doctrinaire fantasy and fantastic doctrinairism in prose and verse. Who does not know the interesting "Political Conversations", in which the talented author endeavoured — as he himself says — to extricate a Mephistopheles from the pigskin of a German professor, but succeeded only in producing a Wagner?[312] Above this basement nook, on the first floor, Herr Dumont has opened his spacious political salons, in which these great men Brüggemann and
Schwanbeck (not to be confused with Weissbrodt) do the honours of the house. Brüggemann is responsible for the thinking part, for saving principle in all catastrophes, for preserving the legal basis despite all earthquakes, for the elegiac genre, for swan-songs and requiems. Schwanbeck is responsible for the declamatory part, for the exalted lyricism, for moral indignation, for dithyrambs and storms. Intoxicated with enthusiasm, Schwanbeck's phraseology reaches the highest peaks of Olympus, and if its course is not always steady, it never ceases to be rhythmical and, in fact, it accounts for almost all the involuntary hexameters in which the Kölnische Zeitung abounds.
The first one whom we come across today is precisely this same sublime Schwanbeck. In an article, de dato "Cologne, February 7",(1)
he enlightens us about the after-pains of absolutism and the after-pains of revolution.
The great Schwanbeck pours out all the vials of his wrath on the Prussian people because it either did not vote at all or voted in the wrong way.
"This National Assembly should put the finishing touch to the construction of a constitutional-monarchical state, and yet, who still doubts that some in this Assembly will undermine this construction work because they are no longer monarchists, and others because they are still absolutists and have not yet become constitutionalists, and both of them because they are just not supporters of a constitutional monarchy? From the two opposite poles storms will blow, a dead past will fight against a distant, perhaps never attainable future, and who knows whether the present will not be lost as a result!"
Note the mighty strength of the style resulting from these classic lines. Every phrase is a rugged, compressed entity, every word has the stamp of moral indignation. Picture in your mind as tangibly as possible the struggle between the "dead past" and the "distant, perhaps never attainable future". There cannot be anyone who does not seem to see how the "perhaps never attainable future" will nevertheless be attained by the "dead past", how like furies the two of them come to blows, and how, precisely because of the unattainability of the one and the dead state of the other, the present is being increasingly lost while storms blow from the opposite poles!
Do not regard this as a trifle. For if we are allowed to pronounce an opinion about such great men, we must say: if in Brüggemann the thought usually runs away with the style, in Schwanbeck, on the other hand, the style runs away with the thought.
And, in fact, who would not in virtuous indignation lose sight of the style when one finds that an Assembly to whom not only the King of Prussia but also the Kölnische Zeitung itself has given the mission of putting the finishing touch to the construction of a constitutional-monarchical state, that such an Assembly consists of people either too far to the Left or too far to the Right to achieve the aforesaid benevolent aim? Especially when "storms blow from the opposite poles" and "the present will be lost" for the Kölnische Zeitungl It is bad enough for the Kölnische Zeitung when the people elect deputies who do not want what they "should" want according to the Kölnische Zeitung; but it is even worse for the people when it scoffs at the Cassandra voice of a Schwanbeck and, instead of a man of a constitutional-monarchical pattern from "the great centre of the nation", it elects people who have either ceased to be monarchists or have not yet become constitutionalists. Tu l'as voulu, George Dandina Schwanbeck will exclaim sadly when the terrible conflict between the dead past and the perhaps never attainable future swallows up the present!
"In other words, the signs of reaction and the signs of a new or, rather, a permanent revolution have not failed to appear."
After this notable discovery, Cassandra-Schwanbeck takes a look at Austria. Schwanbeck's look at Austria is always watchful. Austria is his second fatherland; here earlier, he waxed indignant at the tyranny of Viennese demagogy, here he now devours the Magyars, here the author of lofty dithyrambs is finally moved also by a tender feeling, a slight pang of conscience over those on whom martial law bestowed the mercy of gunpowder and shot! Hence the tender glance which the prophet full of foreboding casts on Austria in each of his leading articles.
"What then has changed?" (namely, in Austria). "Unrestricted bureaucracy has been replaced by unrestricted democracy, and then by unrestricted military power, and in the end everything has remained as it was!"
Sad result of the revolutions, melancholy consequence of peoples never having been willing to heed the voice of misunderstood Cassandras! "In the end everything has remained as it was!" True, Metternich's traditional government differs in many respects from the present counter-revolutionary military rule; and, in particular, the good-natured Austrian people of Metternich's time is quite different from the present revolutionary people which grinds its teeth in fury; moreover, in history the counter-revolution has always led merely to a more thoroughgoing, bloodier revolution. But what does that matter? "In the end everything has remained as it was", and despotism remains despotism.
The philistine pot-house politicians who constitute "the great centre of the German nation", to use one of Schwanbeck's expressions, these worthies who at every temporary counterblow exclaim: "What was the use of rebellion, we are again precisely where we were before", these profound experts on history who can never see more than two paces in front of them — they will be delighted to find that the great Schwanbeck has precisely the same point of view as they have.
After this inevitable glance at Austria, Cassandra once more turns to Prussia and prepares to cast a glance into the future. The elements of reaction and the elements of revolution are duly weighed against each other. The Crown and its servants, Wrangel, martial law (with pious wishes for its abolition), and the "Prussian associations"[313] are each in turn subjected to a thorough scrutiny. Then he goes on to say:
"However, in spite of all that we must nevertheless admit that the number of our reactionaries is not a very heavy item in the balance of forces. Worse is the fact that the great centre of the nation has become so accustomed to absolutism that it is still quite unable to understand self-government, out of sheer laziness. You, who were absent from those elections in such large numbers ... you are the true supporters of absolutism! ... There is no more disgusting phenomenon in the whole world than a nation which is too lazy for free political life."
"Great centre of the German nation", you are unworthy of your Schwanbeck!
This "centre of the nation" which "is too lazy for free political life" is, as it later turns out, no other than the bourgeoisie. A painful admission, hardly made less bitter by the self-satisfaction of moral indignation about this disgraceful "indolence" of the great centre of the nation!
"But matters are still worse with the after-pains of the revolution. Our nation is richer than one would imagine in persons of a romantic and fantastic character, in clever demagogues" (a naive admission!) "and in thoughtless masses devoid of any trace of political education. The year 1848 had to show us for the first time what a mass of anarchical elements was concealed in this calm, justice-loving, sensible people, how a vague yearning for revolution took possession of it, and how the convenient means" (at any rate far more "convenient" than profound leading articles full of dithyrambs in the Kölnische Zeitung) "of revolution came to be regarded ... as a panacea."
Whereas the "centre" is too lazy, the periphery, the "mob", the "thoughtless masses" are too industrious. The "clever demagogues" linked with the "mass of anarchical elements", in contrast to the "laziness" and "indolence" of the bourgeoisie, are bound, of course, to evoke gloomy forebodings in the soul of a Schwanbeck!
and powerful to make these deviations to the Left and the Right an impossibility. We have before us a North-German newspaper in which ... the following is written: '... the bourgeoisie has already gained the upper hand over both extremes — the Left and the Right — and the future belongs to it alone!' We fear this rejoicing is still premature; if proof of this is desired 'the elections in Prussia will provide it'."
Such is the great song of lamentation expressing the moral indignation of the newest Cassandra at the wrongness of this wicked world, which is unwilling to advance along the lines advocated by the
Kölnische Zeitung. Such is the result of Schwanbeck's researches into the "dead past", the "distant, perhaps never attainable future", and the doubtful "present": The real, decisive struggle is being waged not between the feudal bureaucratic monarchy and the bourgeoisie, nor between the bourgeoisie and the people, it is being waged between the monarchy and the people, between the absolutists and the republicans; and the bourgeoisie, the constitutionalists are with-drawing from the field of battle.
We shall not indulge here in any further comments on whether the bourgeoisie has really withdrawn from the struggle, whether it has done this from laziness or from weakness, and what the elections in Prussia prove. It is sufficient, the Kölnische Zeitung admits, that in the present struggle the bourgeoisie is no longer in the forefront, that it is no longer its interests which are at stake, and that the struggle is being waged for an absolute monarchy or a republic.
And now compare that with the Neue Rheinische Zeitung since November of last year, and say whether we did not give an analysis in every issue and at every opportunity — on the occasion of the counter-revolution in Vienna, the counter-revolution in Berlin, and the imposed Constitution — and whether in the long article "The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution"[3], and in several articles before the primary elections, we did not explain in detail how the weakness and cowardice of the German bourgeoisie made counter-revolution possible, and how the counter-revolution, for its part, pushed the bourgeoisie aside and made inevitable a direct struggle between the relics of feudal society and the extreme pole of modern society, between the monarchy and the republic! What we, three months ago, described as historically inevitable due to the whole course of the German revolution, the Kölnische Zeitung presents in the form of a weak and confused conjecture, as the result of charlatan attempts to guess the contents of the ballot-box in the forthcoming elections on March 5. And this weak and confused conjecture is held to be such a discovery that it is at once put forward piping hot for the indulgent public to enjoy in the shape of a turgid, pompous leading article prefaced with the sign A . Naive Kölnerini
Written by Marx on February 10, 1849
102. From the Theatre of War
We print below the fifth report of the Galician army corps,[3] which confirms in part the Magyars' reports of victory. It is clear that Schlick suffered defeat at Tarczal and Tokaj before the Theiss, otherwise he would not have retreated as far as Boldogkövaralya, five miles from the battlefield. The description of the battle is also significantly uncertain. What is certain, however, is that Schlick retreated from the Theiss after being involved in heavy fighting there. The report that he later drove the Hungarians back across the Theiss is no more than a martial-law rumour.
News coming in from Transylvania is quite different from what Puchner's latest reports of victory would lead one to expect. Instead of fleeing to Thorenburg after the battle at Hermannstadt, Bern threatened that town once more on January 26. Although he had received reinforcements, Puchner was forced to withdraw all his troops and concentrate them before the town of Hermannstadt. This makes it appear as if the battle of Hermannstadt and all the later encounters were no more than a prelude and as if the really decisive battle was still to be fought. In the Bukovina also there is already fear of another invasion by Bern, who, even according to Austrian reports, has 40,000 men with him.
In the South, according to letters from Agram which have appeared in the Constitutione lies Blatt aus Böhmen, which is hostile to the Magyars, the town of Esseg has been stormed by the imperial
See "Fünfter Armeebericht des F. M. Z. Schlick", Wiener Zeitung No. 33, February 8, 1849.—Ed.
troops. The Magyar garrison is meanwhile still holding out inside the fortress. The differences of opinion between Stratimirovich and Rajachich still persist.
Written by Engels on February 12, Printed according to the newspaper 1849
103. Democratic Pan-Slavism[3]
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222, February 15, 1849]
Cologne, February 14. We have often enough pointed out that the romantic dreams which came into being after the revolutions of February and March, such as ardent fantasies about the universal fraternal union of peoples, a European federative republic, and eternal world peace, were basically nothing but screens hiding the immeasurable perplexity and inactivity of the leading spokesmen of that time. People did not see, or did not want to see, what had to be done to safeguard the revolution; they were unable or unwilling to carry out any really revolutionary measures; the narrow-mindedness of some and the counter-revolutionary intrigues of others resulted in the people getting only sentimental phrases instead of revolutionary deeds. The scoundrel Lamartine with his high-flown declarations was the classical hero of this epoch of betrayal of the people disguised by poetic floridity and rhetorical tinsel.
The peoples who have been through the revolution know how dearly they have had to pay because in their simplicity at the time they believed the loud talk and bombastic assurances. Instead of safeguards for the revolution — everywhere reactionary Chambers which undermined the revolution; instead of fulfilment of the promises given at the barricades — counter-revolution in Naples, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, the fall of Milan, and the war against Hungary; instead of the fraternal union of peoples — renewal of the Holy Alliance on the broadest basis under the patronage of England and Russia. And the very same persons who in April and May responded jubilantly to the high-flown phrases of the epoch, now only blush with shame at the thought of how at that time they allowed themselves to be deceived by idiots and rogues.
People have learned by bitter experience that the "European fraternal union of peoples" cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by profound revolutions and bloody struggles; they have learned that the question is not that of a fraternal union of all European peoples under a single republican flag, but of an alliance of the revolutionary peoples against the counter-revolutionary peoples, an alliance which comes into being not on paper, but only on the battlefield.
Throughout Western Europe these bitter but necessary experiences have completely discredited Lamartine's phrase-mongering. In the east, on the other hand, there are still sections, ostensibly democratic, revolutionary sections, which are not tired of echoing these phrases and sentimental ideas and preaching the gospel of the European fraternal union of peoples.
These sections — we leave out of account some ignorant German-speaking dreamers such as Herr A. Ruge etc.—are the democratic pan-Slavists of the various Slav peoples.
The programme of democratic pan-Slavism lies before us in the shape of a pamphlet: Aufruf an die Slaven. Von einem russischen Patrioten, Michael Bakunin, Mitglied des Slavencongresses[315] in Prag. Koethen, 1848.(1)
Bakunin is our friend. That will not deter us from criticising his pamphlet.
Hear how Bakunin at the very beginning of his Appeal adheres to the illusions of last March and April:
"The very first sign of life of the revolution was a cry of hate against the old oppression, a cry of sympathy and love for all oppressed nationalities. The peoples ... felt at last the disgrace with which the old diplomacy had burdened mankind, and they realised that the well-being of the nations will never be ensured as long as there is a single nation anywhere in Europe living under oppression.... Away with the oppressors! was the unanimous cry; all hail to the oppressed, the Poles, the Italians and all the others! No more wars of conquest, but only the one last war fought out to the end, the good fight of the revolution for the final liberation of all peoples! Down with the artificial barriers which have been forcibly erected by congresses of despots(2)
in accordance with so-called historical, geographical, commercial and strategical necessities! There should be no other frontiers than those natural boundaries drawn in accordance with justice and democracy and established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics. Such is the call issued by all the peoples." Pp. 6, 7.
In this passage we already find reproduced all the rapturous enthusiasm of the first months after the revolution. There is not a word about the actually existing obstacles to such a universal liberation, or about the very diverse degrees of civilisation and the consequent equally diverse political needs of the individual peoples. The word "freedom" replaces all that. There is not a word about the actual state of things, or, insofar as it does receive attention, it is described as absolutely reprehensible, arbitrarily established by "congresses of despots" and "diplomats". To this bad reality is counterposed the alleged will of the people with its categorical imperative, with the absolute demand simply for "freedom".
We have seen who proved to be the stronger. The alleged will of the people was so disgracefully deceived precisely because it trusted in such fantastic abstraction from the conditions actually prevailing.
"By its plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved; dissolved the Prussian state ... Austria ... the Turkish Empire ... and, finally, the last hope of the despots ... the Russian Empire ... and as the final goal of all — the universal federation of the European republics." P. 8.
As a matter of fact, here in the west it must strike us as peculiar that after all of these beautiful plans have come to grief at the first attempt to fulfil them they can still be regarded as something meritorious and great. Certainly, the unfortunate thing was precisely that although the revolution "by its own plenipotentiary power declared the despotic states dissolved", at the same time "by its own plenipotentiary power" it did not lift a finger to carry out its decree.
At that time the Slav Congress was convened. The Slav Congress adopted completely the standpoint of these illusions. Listen to this:
"With a lively sense of the common ties of history (?) and blood, we swore not to allow our fates to separate us again from one another. Pronouncing a curse on the policy of which we have so long been the victims, we ourselves asserted our right to complete independence and vowed that henceforth this should be common to all the Slav peoples. We recognised the independence of Bohemia and Moravia ... we held out our fraternal hand to the German people, to democratic Germany. In the name of those of us who live in Hungary, we offered the Magyars, the furious enemies of our race ... a fraternal alliance. Nor did we forget in our alliance fo*- liberation those of our brothers who groan under the Turkish yoke. We solemnly condemned the treacherous policy which three times cut Poland into pieces.... All that we proclaimed, and together with the democrats of all peoples (?) we demanded freedom, equality and the brotherhood of all nations". P. 10.
Democratic pan-Slavism today still puts forward these demands:
"Justice", "humanity", "freedom", "equality", "fraternity", "independence"—so far we have found nothing in the pan-Slavist manifesto but these more or less ethical categories, which sound very fine, it is true, but prove absolutely nothing in historical and political questions. "Justice", "humanity", "freedom" etc. may demand this or that a thousand times over; but if the thing is impossible it does not take place and in spite of everything remains an "empty figment of a dream". The pan-Slavists' illusions ought to have become clear to them from the role played by the mass of the Slavs after the Prague Congress. They ought to have understood that all pious wishes and beautiful dreams are of no avail against iron reality, and that their policy at any time was no more the "policy of revolution" than was that of the French Republic. Nevertheless, today, in January 1849, they still come to us with the same old phrases, in the content of which Western Europe has been disillusioned by the bloodiest counter-revolution!
Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of "boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.
How did it happen that over Texas[316] a war broke out between these two republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been "fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical, commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilisation? Or is it perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by rapid exploitation of the Californian gold mines will increase the means of circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to civilisation, and for the third time in history give world trade a new direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Califor-nians and Texans may suffer because of it, in some places "justice" and other moral principles may be violated; but what does that matter compared to such facts of world-historic significance?
We would point out, incidentally, that this theory of universal fraternal union of peoples, which calls indiscriminately for fraternal union regardless of the historical situation and the stage of social development of the individual peoples, was combated by the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung already long before the revolution, and in fact in opposition to their best friends, the English and French democrats. Proof of this is to be found in the English, French and Belgian democratic newspapers of that period.[317]
As far as pan-Slavism in particular is concerned, in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 194a we showed that, apart from the well-meaning self-deceptions of the democratic pan-Slavists, it has in reality no other aim than to give the Austrian Slavs, who are split up and historically, literarily, politically, commercially and industrially dependent on the Germans and Magyars, a basis of support, in Russia on the one hand, and on the other hand in the Austrian united monarchy, which is dominated by the Slav majority and dependent on Russia. We have shown how such little nations, which for centuries have been taken in tow by history against their will, must necessarily be counter-revolutionary, and that their whole position in the revolution of 1848 was actually counter-revolutionary. In view of the democratic pan-Slavist manifesto, which demands the independence of all Slavs without distinction, we must return to this matter.
Let us note first of all that there is much excuse for the political romanticism and sentimentality of the democrats at the Slav Congress. With the exception of the Poles — the Poles are not pan-Slavists for very obvious reasons — they all belong to peoples which are either, like the Southern Slavs, necessarily counter-revolutionary owing to the whole of their historical position, or, like the Russians, are still a long way from revolution and therefore, at least for the time being, are still counter-revolutionary. These sections, democratic owing to their education acquired abroad, seek to bring their democratic views into harmony with their national feeling, which is known to be very pronounced among the Slavs; and since the real world, the actual state of things in their country, affords no basis, or only a fictitious basis for such reconciliation, there remains for them nothing but the other-worldly "airy kingdom of dreams",b the realm of pious wishes, the policy of fantasy. How splendid it would be if the Croats, Pandours[318] and Cossacks formed the vanguard of European democracy, if the ambassador of a republic of Siberia were to present his credentials in Paris! Certainly, such prospects would be very delightful; but, after all, even the most enthusiastic pan-SIavist will not demand that European democracy should wait for their realisation — and at present it is precisely those nations for whom the manifesto specially demands independence that are the special enemies of democracy.
We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs, no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilisation already came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of civilisation only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect of language and history, have never had a history of their own. Bohemia has been chained to Germany since the time of Charles the Great. The Czech nation freed itself momentarily and formed the Great-Moravian state, only immediately to come under subjection again and for five hundred years to be a ball thrown from one to another by Germany, Hungary and Poland. Following that, Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation" puts forward claims to independence?
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper. Where is the history of the Illyrian Slovenes, the Dalmatians, Croats and Shokazians[319]? Since the eleventh century they have lost the last semblance of political independence and have been partly under German, partly under Venetian, and partly under Magyar rule. And it is desired to put together a vigorous, independent, viable nation out of these tattered remnants?
More than that. If the Austrian Slavs were a compact mass like the Poles, the Magyars and the Italians, if they were in a position to come together to form a state of 12-20 million people, then their claims would surely be more serious. But the position is just the opposite. The Germans and Magyars have pushed themselves in between them like a broad wedge to the farthest extremities of the Carpathians, almost to the Black Sea, and have separated the Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks from the Southern Slavs by a broad band 60-80 miles[3] wide. To the north of this band are 5 V2 million Slavs, to the south 5V2 million Slavs, separated by a compact mass of 10-11 million Germans and Magyars, made allies by history and necessity.
But why should not the 5 V2 million Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks form one state, and the 5 V2 million Southern Slavs together with the Turkish Slavs form another state?
Take a look at any good linguistic map at the distribution of the Czechs and their neighbours akin to them in language. They have thrust themselves into Germany like a wedge but on both sides they have been eaten into and pressed back by the German element. One-third of Bohemia speaks German; for every 34 Czechs in Bohemia there are 17 Germans. Yet it is precisely the Czechs who are supposed to form the core of the intended Slav state; for the Moravians, too, are considerably interspersed with Germans, and the Slovaks with Germans and Magyars and furthermore completely demoralised in a national respect. And what a Slav state that would be, in which in the final analysis the German urban bourgeoisie would hold swayl
The same thing applies to the Southern Slavs. The Slovenes and Croats cut off Germany and Hungary from the Adriatic Sea; but Germany and Hungary cannot allow themselves to be cut off from the Adriatic Sea on account of "geographical and commercial necessities", which, it is true, are no obstacle to Bakunin's fantasy, but which nevertheless do exist and are just as much vital questions for Germany and Hungary as, for example, the Baltic Sea coast from Danzig to Riga is for Poland. And where it is a question of the existence, of the free development of all the resources of big nations, such sentimental considerations as concern for a few scattered Germans or Slavs will not decide anything! This apart from the fact that these Southern Slavs are likewise everywhere mingled with German, Magyar, and Italian elements, that here too a mere glance at a linguistic map shows the planned South-Slav state torn into disconnected tatters, and that at best the whole state would be delivered into the hands of the Italian bourgeois of Trieste, Fiume and Zara, and the German bourgeois of Agram, Laibach, Karlstadt, Semlin, Pancsova and Weisskirchen!
But could not the Austrian Southern Slavs unite with the Serbs, Bosnians, Morlaks[320] and Bulgarians? Certainly they could if, besides the difficulties mentioned above, there did not exist also the age-old
German mile equals 4.7 English miles.—Ed.
hatred of the Austrian frontier dwellers for the Turkish Slavs on the other side of the Sava and Unna; but these people, who for centuries have considered one another as rascals and bandits, despite all their racial kinship hate one another infinitely more than do the Slavs and Magyars.
In point of fact, the position of the Germans and Magyars would be extremely pleasant if the Austrian Slavs were assisted to get their so-called rights! An independent Bohemian-Moravian state would be wedged between Silesia and Austria; Austria and Styria would be cut off by the "South-Slav republic" from their natural débou-ché(3)— the Adriatic Sea and the Mediterranean; and the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilising the stubborn Czechs and Slovenes, and introducing among them trade, industry, a tolerable degree of agriculture, and culture!
But it is precisely this yoke imposed on the Slavs under the pretext of civilisation that is said to constitute one of the greatest crimes of the Germans and Magyars! Just listen to this:
"Rightly do you rage, rightly do you breathe vengeance against that damnable German policy, which has thought of nothing but your ruin, which has enslaved you for centuries...." P. 5.
"...The Magyars, the bitter enemies of our race, who number hardly four millions, have presumed to seek to impose their yoke on eight million Slavs...." P. 9
"I know all that the Magyars have done to our Slav brothers, what crimes they have committed against our nationality, and how they have trampled underfoot our language and independence." P. 30.
What then are the great, dreadful crimes committed by the Germans and Magyars against the Slav nationality? We are not speaking here of the partition of Poland,[321] which is not at issue here, we are speaking of the "centuries of injustice" supposed to have been inflicted on the Slavs.
In the north, the Germans have reconquered from the Slavs the formerly German and subsequently Slav region from the Elbe to the Warthe; a conquest which was determined by the "geographical and strategical necessities" resulting from the partition of the Carolin-gian kingdom. These Slav areas have been fully Germanised; the thing has been done and cannot be undone, unless the pan-Slavists were to resurrect the lost Sorbian, Wendish and Obodritian languages[322] and impose them on the inhabitants of Leipzig, Berlin and Stettin. But up to now it has never been disputed that this conquest was to the advantage of civilisation.
In the south, the Germans found the Slav races already split up. That had been seen to by the non-Slav Avars,[323] who occupied the region later inhabited by the Magyars. The Germans exacted tribute from these Slavs and waged many wars against them. They fought also against the Avars and Magyars, from whom they took the whole territory from the Ems to the Leitha. Whereas they carried out Germanisation here by force, the Germanisation of the Slav territories proceeded much more on a peaceful basis, by immigration and by the influence of the more developed nation on the undeveloped. German industry, German trade and German culture by themselves served to introduce the German language into the country. As far as "oppression" is concerned, the Slavs were not more oppressed by the Germans than the mass of the German population itself.
As regards the Magyars, there are certainly also a large number of Germans in Hungary, but the Magyars, although numbering "hardly four millions", have never had the occasion to complain of the "damnable German policy"! And if during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars!
But, of course, the greatest "crime" of the Germans and Magyars is that they prevented these twelve million Slavs from becoming Turkish] What would have become of these scattered small nationalities, which have played such a pitiful role in history, if the Magyars and Germans had not kept them together and led them against the armies of Mohammed and Suleiman, and if their so-called oppressors had not decided the outcome of the battles which were fought for the defence of these weak nationalities! The fate of the "twelve million Slavs, Wallachians and Greeks" who have been "trampled underfoot by seven hundred thousand Osmans" (p. 8), right up to the present day, does not that speak eloquently enough?
And finally, what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical necessity", the Germans and Magyars united all these small, stunted and impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken. But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon had been capable of being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history! And are the Persians, Celts and Christian Germans of less value than the Czechs, Ogulians and Serezhans[324]?
Now, however, as a result of the powerful progress of industry, trade and communications, political centralisation has become a much more urgent need than it was then, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. What still has to be centralised is being centralised. And now the pan-Slavists come forward and demand that we should "set free" these half-Germanised Slavs, and that we should abolish a centralisation which is being forced on these Slavs by all their material interests!
In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the Magyar people can boast of in their history.
Moreover, as far as the Magyars are concerned, it should be specially pointed out here that, particularly since the revolution, they have acted much too submissively and weakly against the puffed-up Croats. It is notorious that Kossuth made all possible concessions to them, excepting only that their deputies were not allowed to speak the Croatian in the Diet. And this submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is the only thing with which the Magyars can be reproached.
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 223, February 16, 1849]
Cologne, February 15. We concluded yesterday with the proof that the Austrian Slavs have never had a history of their own, that from the historical, literary, political, commercial and industrial points of view they are dependent on the Germans and Magyars, that they are already partly Germanised, Magyarised and Italianised, that if they were to establish independent states, not they, but the German and Italian bourgeoisie of their towns would rule these states, and finally, that neither Hungary nor Germany can tolerate the detachment and independent constitution of such unviable, small intercalated states.
All that, however, would still not be decisive. If at any epoch while they were oppressed the Slavs had begun a new revolutionary history, that by itself would have proved their viability. From that moment the revolution would have had an interest in their liberation, and the special interest of the Germans and Magyars would have given way to the greater interest of the European revolution.
Precisely that, however, never happened. The Slavs — once again we remind our readers that here we always exclude the Poles — were always the main instruments of the counter-revolutionaries. Oppressed at home, outside their country, wherever Slav influence extended to, they were the oppressors of all revolutionary nations.
Let no one object that we speak here on behalf of German national prejudices. In German, French, Belgian and English periodicals, the proofs are to be found that it was precisely the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung who already long before the revolution most decisively opposed all manifestations of German national narrow-mindedness.[3 5] Unlike many other people, they did not castigate the Germans at random or on the basis of mere hearsay; on the contrary, they proved from history and mercilessly exposed the despicable role that Germany has certainly played in history, thanks to its nobles and burghers and thanks to its crippled industrial development; they have always recognised the superiority of the great historical nations of the west, the English and the French, compared with the backward Germans. But precisely for that reason we should be permitted not to share the fantastic illusions of the Slavs and allowed to judge other peoples as severely as we have judged our own nation.
Up to now it has always been said that the Germans have been the Lanzknechte[3] of despotism throughout Europe. We are far from denying the shameful part played by the Germans in the shameful wars against the French revolution from 1792 to 1815, and in the oppression of Italy since 1815 and of Poland since 1772; but who stood behind the Germans, who used them as their mercenaries or their vanguard? England and Russia. After all, up to the present day the Russians boast of having brought about the fall of Napoleon through their innumerable armies, which is at any rate largely correct. This much, at least, is certain, that of the armies which by their superior power drove back Napoleon from the Oder as far as Paris, three-quarters consisted of Slavs, Russians or Austrian Slavs.
And then, too, the Germans' oppression of the Italians and Poles! A wholly Slav power and a semi-Slav power competed in the partition of Poland; the armies which crushed Kosciuszko consisted for the most part of Slavs; the armies of Dibich and Paskevich were exclusively Slav armies. And in Italy for many years the Tedeschi(4)
alone had the ignominy of being regarded as oppressors. But, once again, what was the composition of the armies which best let themselves be used for oppression and for whose savage acts the Germans were blamed? Once again, they consisted of Slavs. Go to Italy and ask who suppressed the Milan revolution; people will no longer say: the Tedeschi—since the Tedeschi made a revolution in Vienna they are no longer hated — but: the Croati. That is the word which the Italians now apply to the whole Austrian army, i.e. to all that is most deeply hated by them: i Croatil
Nevertheless, these reproaches would be superfluous and unjus-tified if the Slavs had anywhere seriously participated in the movement of 1848, if they had hastened to join the ranks of the revolutionary peoples. A single courageous attempt at a democratic revolution, even if it were crushed, extinguishes in the memory of the peoples whole centuries of infamy and cowardice, and at once rehabilitates a nation, however deeply it had been despised. That was the experience of the Germans last year. But whereas the French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Magyars raised high the banner of the revolution, the Slavs one and all put themselves under the banner of the counter-revolution. In the forefront were the Southern Slavs, who had already for many years upheld their counter-revolutionary separatist aims against the Magyars; then came the Czechs, and behind them — the Russians, armed for battle and ready to appear on the battlefield at the decisive moment.
It is well known that in Italy the Magyar hussars went over to the Italians en masse, that in Hungary whole Italian battalions put themselves at the disposal of the Magyar revolutionary Government and are still fighting under the Magyar flag; it is well known that in Vienna the German regiments sided with the people and even in Galicia were by no means reliable; it is well known that masses of Austrian and non-Austrian Poles fought against the Austrian armies in Italy, in Vienna and in Hungary, and are still fighting in the Carpathians; but where has anyone ever heard of Czech or South-Slav troops revolting against the black-and-yellow flag[3]?
On the contrary, up to now it is known only that Austria, which was shaken to its foundations, has been kept alive and for the time being is once again in safety owing to the enthusiasm of the Slavs for the black-and-yellow flag; that it was precisely the Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Czechs, Moravians and Ruthenians who put their contingents at the disposal of Windischgrätz and Jellachich for suppressing the revolution in Vienna, Cracow, Lemberg and Hungary; and what furthermore we have now learned from Bakunin is that the Prague Slav Congress was dispersednot by Germans, but by Galician, Czech and Slovak Slavs, and " nothing but Slavs" ! P. 33.
The revolution of 1848 compelled all European peoples to declare themselves for or against it. In the course of a month all the peoples ripe for revolution had made their revolution, and all those which were not ripe had allied themselves against the revolution. At that time it was a matter of disentangling the confused tangle of peoples of Eastern Europe. The question was which nation would seize the revolutionary initiative here, and which nation would develop the greatest revolutionary energy and thereby safeguard its future. The Slavs remained silent, the Germans and Magyars, faithful to their previous historical position, took the lead. As a result, the Slavs were thrown completely into the arms of the counter-revolution.
But what about the Slav Congress in Prague? We repeat: the so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either scoundrels or fantasts, and the latter, who do not find any fertile soil among their people for the ideas imported from abroad, have been continually led by the nose by the scoundrels. At the Prague Slav Congress the fantasts had the upper hand. When the fantasy seemed dangerous to the aristocratic pan-Slavists, Count Thun, Palacky & Co., they betrayed the fantasts to Windischgrätz and the black-and-yellow counter-revolution. What bitter, striking irony is contained in the fact that this Congress of dreamers, defended by the dreamy Prague youth, was dispersed by soldiers of their own nation, and that, as it were, a military Slav Congress was set up in opposition to the day-dreaming Slav Congress! The Austrian army which captured Prague, Vienna, Lemberg, Cracow, Milan and Budapest — that is the real, active Slav Congress!
How unfounded and vague was the fantasy at the Slav Congress is proved by its results. The bombardment of a town like Prague would have filled any other nation with inextinguishable hatred of its oppressors. But what did the Czechs do? They kissed the rod which had bloodily chastised them, they eagerly swore obedience to the flag under which their brothers had been slaughtered and their wives ravished. The street-fighting in Prague was the turning-point for the Austrian democratic pan-Slavists.[326] In return for the prospect of obtaining their pitiful "national independence", they bartered away democracy and the revolution to the Austrian united monarchy, to the "centre", "the systematic enforcement of despotism in the heart of Europe", as Bakunin himself says on p. 29. And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs.
It has at last become clear to these traitors that they have nevertheless been cheated by the counter-revolution and that for the Austrian Slavs there can be no thought of either a "Slav Austria" or a "federative state of nations with equal rights", and least of all of democratic institutions. Jellachich, who is no bigger a scoundrel than most of the other democrats among the Austrian Slavs, bitterly regrets the way in which he has been exploited, and Stratimirovich, in order not to allow himself to be exploited any longer, has proclaimed an open revolt against Austria. The Slovanska-Lfpa associations[327] once more everywhere oppose the Government and every day gain fresh painful experience of the trap into which they let themselves be enticed. But it is now too late; powerless in their own homeland against the Austrian soldiery, which they themselves re-organised, rejected by the Germans and Magyars whom they have betrayed, rejected by revolutionary Europe, they will have to suffer the same military despotism which they helped to impose on the Viennese and Magyars. "Submit to the Emperor so that the imperial troops do not treat you as if you were rebellious Magyars" — these words of the Patriarch Rajachich express what they have to expect in the immediate future.
How very differently have the Poles behaved! For the last eighty years oppressed, enslaved, plundered, they have always been on the side of the revolution and proclaimed that the revolutionisation of Poland is inseparable from the independence of Poland. In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Hungary, the Poles shared the fighting in all the revolutions and revolutionary wars, regardless whether they were fighting against Germans, against Slavs, against Magyars, or even against Poles. The Poles are the only Slav nation that is free from all pan-Slavist aspirations. They have, however, very good reasons for that: they have been oppressed mainly by their own so-called Slav brothers, and among the Poles hatred of Russians takes precedence over hatred of Germans, and with full justification. But because the liberation of Poland is inseparable from the revolution, because Pole and revolutionary have become synonymous, for Poles the sympathy of all Europe and the restoration of their nation are as certain as are for the Czechs, Croats and Russians the hatred of all Europeans and a most bloody revolutionary war of the entire west against them.
The Austrian pan-Slavists ought to understand that all their desires, insofar as they can be fulfilled, have been realised in the restoration of the "Austrian united monarchy" under Russian protection. If Austria collapses, what is in store for them is the revolutionary terrorism of the Germans and Magyars, but by no means, as they imagine, the liberation of all the nations enslaved under the sceptre of Austria. They must therefore wish that Austria continues to hold together, and indeed that Galicia remains with Austria, so that the Slavs retain a majority in the state. Here, therefore, pan-Slavist interests are already directly opposed to the restoration of Poland, for a Poland without Galicia, a Poland that does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians, is no Poland. But equally for that reason a "Slav Austria" is still a mere dream; for without the supremacy of the Germans and Magyars, without the two centres of Vienna and Budapest, Austria will once again fall apart, as its whole history up to recent months has proved. Accordingly, the realisation of pan-Slavism would have to be restricted to Russian patronage over Austria. The openly reactionary pan-Slavists were therefore quite right in holding fast to the preservation of the united monarchy; it was the only means of saving anything. The so-called democratic pan-Slavists, however, were in an acute dilemma: either renunciation of the revolution and at least a partial salvation of nationality through the united monarchy, or abandonment of nationality and salvation of the revolution by the collapse of the united monarchy. At that time the fate of the revolution in Eastern Europe depended on the position of the Czechs and Southern Slavs; we shall not forget that at the decisive moment they betrayed the revolution to Petersburg and Olmütz for the sake of their petty national hopes.
What would be said if the democratic party in Germany commenced its programme with the demand for the return of Alsace, Lorraine, and Belgium, which in every respect belongs to France, on the pretext that the majority there is Germanic? How ridiculous the German democrats would make themselves if they wanted to found a pan-Germanic German-Danish-Swedish-English-Dutch alliance for the "liberation" of all German-speaking countries! German democracy, fortunately, is above such fantasies. German students in 1817 and 1830 were peddling that kind of reactionary fantasies and today throughout Germany are being given their deserts. The German revolution only came into being, and the German nation only began to become something, when people had freed themselves completely from these futilities.
But pan-Slavism, too, is just as childish and reactionary as pan-Germanism. When one reads the history of the pan-Slavist movement of last spring in Prague, one could imagine oneself back in the period of thirty years ago: tricolour sashes, ancient costumes, ancient Slav Masses, complete restoration of the time and customs of the primeval forests; the Svornost — a complete replica of the German Burschenschaft, the Slav Congress — a new edition of the Wartburg Festival,[328] the same phrases, the same fantasies, the same subsequent lamentation: "We had built a stately house",[3] etc. Anyone who would like to read this famous song translated into Slav prose has only to read Bakunin's pamphlet.
Just as in the long run the most pronounced counter-revolutionary frame of mind, the most ferocious hatred of Frenchmen, and the most narrow-minded national feeling, were to be found among the members of the German Burschenschaften, and just as later they all became traitors to the cause for which they had pretended to be enthusiastic — in exactly the same way, only more speedily, because 1848 was a year of revolution, the democratic semblance among the democratic pan-Slavists turned into fanatical hatred of Germans and Magyars, into indirect opposition to the restoration of Poland (Lubomirski), and into direct adherence to the counter-revolution.
And if some sincere Slav democrats now call on the Austrian Slavs to join the revolution, to regard the Austrian united monarchy as their chief enemy, and indeed to be on the side of the Magyars in the interests of the revolution, they remind one of a hen which despairingly circles the edge of a pond where the young ducklings which she has hatched out now suddenly escape from her into a totally foreign element into which she cannot follow them.
But let us not harbour any illusions. Among all the pan-Slavists, nationality, i. e. imaginary common Slav nationality, takes precedence over the revolution. The pan-Slavists want to join the revolution on condition that they will be allowed to constitute all Slavs without exception, regardless of material necessities, into independent Slav states. If we Germans had wanted to lay down the same fantastic conditions, we would have got a long way in March! But the revolution does not allow of any conditions being imposed on it. Either one is a revolutionary and accepts the consequences of the revolution, whatever they are, or one is driven into the arms of the counter-revolution and one day finds oneself, perhaps without knowing or desiring it, arm in arm with Nicholas and Windischgrätz.
We and the Magyars should guarantee the Austrian Slavs their independence — that is what Bakunin demands, and people of the calibre of Ruge are capable of having actually made such promises to him in secret. The demand is put to us and the other revolutionary nations of Europe that the hotbeds of counter-revolution at our very door should be guaranteed an unhindered existence and the free right to conspire and take up arms against the revolution; it is demanded that we should establish a counter-revolutionary Czech
A song by August Binzer written in 1819 on the dissolution of a student association in Jena.—Ed.
state in the very heart of Germany, and break the strength of the German, Polish and Magyar revolutions by interposing between them Russian outposts at the Elbe, the Carpathians and the Danube!
We have no intention of doing that. To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria, and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies.
And if Bakunin finally exclaims:
"Truly, the Slav should not lose anything, he should winl Truly, he should live! And. we shall live. As long as the smallest part of our rights is contested, as long as a single member is cut off from our whole body, so long will we fight to the end, inexorably wage a life-and-death struggle, until the Slavs have their place in the world, great and free and independent—
if revolutionary pan-Slavism means this passage to be taken seriously, and in its concern for the imaginary Slav nationality leaves the revolution entirely out of account, then we too know what we have to do.
Then there will be a struggle, an "inexorable life-and-death struggle", against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror — not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!
Written by Engels on February 14-15, 1849
104. Prussian Financial Administration under Bodelschwingh and Co
Cologne, February 16. Herr von Bodelschwingh, the Minister who was "dismissed" in March, is in a hurry to step back into the light from the concealment where he has meantime been: von Bodelschwingh has been elected deputy to the Second Chamber. A worthy choice by the Teltow Peasants' Association.
If the democratic press has hitherto concerned itself little with the ex-Ministers and other ex-individuals, it is now time to illuminate the former doings of this species of persons. We now refresh the memories of our readers and of the Public Prosecutor as to Herr von Bodelschwingh's conduct in office as Finance Minister.
Herr von Bodelschwingh became Finance Minister in the spring of 1842 and occupied this post until May 3, 1844.
He used to enjoy talking of his conduct in office. He had a predilection for "revelations". For instance he revealed to the commissions of the estates[329] on October 24, 1842, that "the finances in Prussia are subject to a limited publicity, namely, that resulting from the triennial publication of the state budget estimates in the Collected Statutes". He went on to explain the manner in which a Prussian state budget is drawn up. It is based "principally on aver-ages calculated from the final accounts of the administration in the three years preceding the drawing up of the budget estimates".
On October 26 the same Herr von Bodelschwingh revealed further that revenue in the last seven years had risen by more than 5V2 million talers and that a further increase was to be expected (Staats-Zeitung Nos. 306 and 307(1)). At that time one had no choice but to believe the Finance Minister because the "limited publicity" surrounded Prussia's finances with an impenetrable obscurity. Now, however, one must at least doubt the truth of the assurances the Finance Minister then gave, because a number of things have recently become public about the way the finances were formerly administered.
The financial estimates published in the Collected Statutes are supposed to be based on the calculation of the average special budget estimates of the individual departments of the administration, which are produced on the basis of the actual revenue of the previous 3 years. If this is correct, each budget estimate in the Collected Statutes must contain the approximate average of actual revenue and expenditure over the previous years. If this is not the case, the budget estimate, according to Herr von Bodelschwingh's own statement, is fraudulent, a fraudulent public document.
In 1844 a budget estimate was published in the Collected Statutes (p. 96)a which was countersigned by Herr von Bodelschwingh. In this estimate, the sum of 57,677,194 talers concludes both the income and expenditure columns. That then must have been the amount of the average revenue and expenditure of the previous years. In fact, however, both revenue and expenditure in the years before were far higher. The Government later informed the members of the First United Diet of the final accounts of the Exchequer for 1840-46.[33]°
According to these the amounts are
for revenue for expenditure
1843 73,822,589 talers 79,102,787 talers 1842 73,876,338 " 75,269,431 " 1841 71,987,880 " 74,185,443 "
219,686,807 talers 228,557,661 talers
So the correct average total revenue was 73,228,935 talers, and expenditure 76,185,887 talers. Herr von Bodelschwingh therefore understated both revenue and expenditure, to be specific, he failed to mention 15,551,741 talers of revenue and 18,508,693 talers of expenditure for each year. These sums, it is true, might have to be adjusted to some extent when precisely accounted for, insofar as the triennial averages of the special budget estimates for the individual departments of administration are not drawn up entirely anew when each budget is drawn up and may stretch back beyond 1841, indeed as far back as 1838. A significant reduction in the sums not accounted for will however not be produced as a result; for in 1840, annual revenue again amounted to 71,059,475 talers and expenditure to as much as 77,165,022 talers. We have no official figures for the years 1839 and 1838. However, since with the same financial legislation the state income in peacetime does not alter suddenly but only gradually, one can safely assume that the state revenue in 1838 and 1839 totalled at least 70 million talers.
Herr von Bodelschwingh's budget estimate is, therefore, fraudulent like many, probably, of those of his predecessors and of his two successors up to 1848. Herr von Bodelschwingh must have known that he was publishing something incorrect. The real condition of the state finances was not unknown to him. The divergences from the truth were so conspicuous that Bergius, a Regierungsrat in Breslau, and following him even Bülow-Cummerow, without being acquainted with the accounts, publicly pointed out these inaccuracies in advance. Of course, if Herr von Bodelschwingh had come out with the truth, his revelations and speeches before the commissions of the Provincial Diets would have met with a different reception. With the "limited publicity" given to Prussian finances, he was able to cut a fine figure, whereas with full publicity only disgrace and censure would have awaited him. He spoke with satisfaction of the increase of 5V2 million talers in revenue, but failed to mention that from 1840 to 1843 expenditure had exceeded revenue by 14,976,401 talers. Although the country had had to provide 290,746,282 talers in those 4 years, these large sums still could not cover the inordinate expenditure of 305,722,683 talers. Such an expenditure without war, without adequate representation of industrial and commercial interests abroad, without a navy, without significant financial assistance for agriculture and trades at home! Magnificent buildings for the King, favouritism in the civil service, presents to junkers and bureaucrats, and the army with its parades and reviews had cost the country enormous sums. Well, of course,
Herr von Bodelschwingh was not the man to confess that. So he drew up a fraudulent budget to persuade the people that less was being taken in revenue and less spent.
The drawing-up of fraudulent budgets is and will always be a dubious undertaking. The laws of Prussia prescribe severe penalties for such misconduct by officials. The budget estimates published in the Collected Statutes are after all public documents. No one will question that. It is true Prussian Law has laid down no special penalties for civil servants drawing up fraudulent public documents. However, a decree of June 3, 1831 (von Kamptz's Jahrbücher, Vol. 37, p. 40T) stipulates that in the case of such acts the penalties for fraud or misconduct by officials are applicable. And the findings of the Prussian courts have since then been in accordance with this. Concerning misconduct by officials, Prussian Law, Part II, Section 20, § 333 b, lays down the following:
"Whoever wilfully contravenes the regulations of his office shall be immediately dismissed and furthermore sentenced, according to the nature of the misconduct and the injury caused, to an appropriate fine or imprisonment or confinement in a fortress and declared ineligible for all public offices."
Dismissal and a declaration of ineligibility for all public offices along with fine or imprisonment are then what according to the law awaits persons who draw up fraudulent budgets. Should Herr von Bodelschwingh not be able to clear himself of the strongest suspicion of having published a fraudulent budget, it is the duty of the judge to pass these sentences on him. We demand that he and the Public Prosecutor should elucidate the affair.
The fine, imprisonment or confinement in a fortress are to be decided according to the nature of the injury caused. The injury which Herr von Bodelschwingh in company with his predecessors and his successors in office has inflicted on the country is so great, is of such magnitude, as can only be inflicted on a whole people by Ministers and other persons in the highest positions. It is our intention here to establish the amount involved; at the same time we observe that we immediately encounter in this connection a further ministerial abuse of office.
The Cabinet Order of January 17, 1820 fixes the necessary expenditure for the Prussian state budget at 50,863,150 talers. It then goes on to say verbatim:
"The aforementioned sum, which We have accepted as the requirement for current administration, may in no circumstances be increased. The heads of the individual administrative departments are personally responsible in this to Us, and the whole Ministry of State the more so, particularly as the total sum approved by Us is sufficient for the purposes indicated in the budget instructions to date."
What is meant by the "requirement of current administration" emerges quite unambiguously from the further context, in which the administration of the government debt is contrasted with "current administration". Expenditure for current administration means all
K. A. Kamptz, Jahrbücher für die Preussische Gesetzgebung, Rechtswissenschaft und Rechtsverwaltung, Bd. 37, Berlin, 1831.— Ed.
Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preussischen Staaten, 2. Theil, 20-sten Titel, § 333.— Ed.
those payments from the treasury which are not used for paying the interest on or paying off the national debt. These, as we have seen, according to the Cabinet Order of January 17, 1820, which has not been rescinded to this day, must never exceed the sum of 50,863,150 talers. The Cabinet Order is published in the Collected Statutes of 1820, and there has never been any doubt that such orders published before the declaration of constitutional monarchy had legal force in Prussia. Any excess over the legally prescribed sum therefore contravenes the law and is abuse of office by the Ministers.
The accounts for the state financial administration for 1840-46 which were conveyed to the First United Diet and the digests of the final accounts of the financial administration for 1847(2) which were submitted to the now dissolved National Assembly, provide proof that every Minister from 1840 to 1847 failed each year to comply with his obligations. Each year they spent more, substantially more, on current administration than they were legally entitled to. To put matters in a more balanced perspective, we shall now stop referring to Herr von Bodelschwingh alone, and refer instead to all the Ministers of Finance from 1840 to 1847. To be specific, they were: Count Alvensleben from 1835 to 1842, von Bodelschwingh from 1842 to 1844, Flottwell from May 3, 1844, to August 16, 1846, and von Duesberg from that time until the overthrow of the Ministry by the March revolution. All these Ministers are equally involved. A simple presentation of the facts will make it clear how the nascent prosperity of a country is ruined by a succession of corrupt senior officials.
Current expenditure, that is expenditure for the year, after deduction of the part used for the national debt, could not, as we have seen, legally amount to more than ... 50,863,150 talers.
In 1840 however expenditure was 77,165,022 talers. From this subtract:
for the paying off of debts 8,579,345 " allegedly transferred to the
treasury reserves 613,457 "
Total 9,192,802 talers
What is left is therefore the expenditure on current administration . . 67,972,220 talers Accordingly in that year were illegally disbursed
In 1841 expenditure was Of which the national debt and the treasury reserves took
Therefore for current administration . Thus in excess of the legal
In 1842 expenditure was Of this, nothing was transferred to the treasury reserves, and the national debt took
Current expenditure therefore remains
Thus in excess of the legal sum . . . . In 1843 expenditure was
The treasury reserves and the national debt took
Expenditure on current administration according to this amounted to . Above the legal
was spent
In 1844 expenditure amounted to . . . Of this, deduct for the treasury reserves and for paying the interest on and paying off the debts
So that current expenditure remained In other words, in excess of the . . . .
In 1845 expenditure amounted to . . . Nothing is transferred to the treasury In 1846 expenditure was Nothing is passed to the treasury reserves, and the national debt took
Expenditure for current administration remained Therefore in excess of the legal . .
78,562,335 talers
7,423,831 "
71,138,504 talers 50,863,150 "
In 1847 expenditure amounted to . From this deduct
expended on social relief and . . for the national debt, a total of .
20,275,354 talers
80,392,730 talers
6,207,650 " 7,209,192 " 13,416,842 "
There remains therefore expenditure on current administration 66,975,888 talers Thus in excess of the legal . . 50,863,150 "
16,112,738 talers
Total 135,999,646 talers
Almost one hundred and thirty-six million talers have been illegally squandered in the last 8 years under the administration of Ministers Alvensleben, Bodelschwingh, Flottwell and Duesberg out of the state coffers, that is out of the people's purse, the earnings of the poor! And these people are walking about with their stars and their medals, and, as in the case of Flottwell, still hold high offices of state! The daily press recently aired the case of an official in the judiciary — thought to be a democrat — who was imprisoned because he was accused of having parted improperly with 50 talers. 50 talers and 136 million!
It may be that the sum fixed in 1820 no longer corresponded to the needs of the state in more recent times. But then the Government ought to have come forward openly and legally announce new budget estimates. But it did not wish, it did not dare to do so. It did not wish to because of its absolutist hankerings, it did not dare to because it was afraid to lay bare the administration of finances. Reviews with Queen Victoria, christenings, weddings, churches, the Bishopric of Jerusalem, the old, half-forgotten papers of Frederick II,[331] knights' castles, helmets, Guards lieutenants, junkers, priests and bureaucrats etc., etc., what role these plagues of the people have played and still play in the finances of Prussia is not for the people to know. So the Prussian management was continued in secret, and Ministers became criminals even in the eyes of the law in force. They have not, of course, found a judge yet.
The manner in which the management of the Prussian finances under Frederick William IV is exhausting the state coffers emerges from the following analysis.
1840. Carried over from previous years 16,949,157 talers Revenue for current year 71,059,475
Total 88,008,632 talers
From this deduct expenditure
for current year 77,165,022
Balance in hand 10,843,610 talers
1841. Carried over from previous years 10,843,610 talers Revenue for current year 71,987 880 "
Total 82,831,490 talers From this deduct expenditure
for current year at 74,185,443
Balance in hand 8,646,047 talers
(The budget drawn up by Alvensleben in the Collected Statutes is balanced with 55,867,000 talers for revenue and expenditure!)
1842. Carried over from previous years 8,646,047 talers Revenue for current year 73,876,338
Total 82,522,385 talers Expenditure for current year .75,269,431 "
Balance in hand 7,252,954 talers
1843. Carried over from previous years 7,252,954 talers Revenue for current year 73,822,589 "
Total 81,075,543 talers
Expenditure for current year 79,102,787
Balance in hand 1,972,756 talers 1844. Carried over from previous years 1,972,756 talers Revenue for current year 75,976,613 "
Total 77,949,369 talers
Expenditure for current year 78,243,308
Deficit 293,939 talers
1845. Revenue for current year 77,025,034 talers Deduct from this deficit from 1844 293,939 "
Leaving 76,731,095 talers Expenditure for current year ; . 77,903,361
Thus deficit 1,172,266 talers
1846. Revenue for current year 75,721,698 talers Deduct from this deficit from 1845 1,172,266
Leaves 74,549,432 talers Expenditure for current year 78,562,335
Thus deficit 4,012,903 talers
(The First United Diet is convened by the Royal Decree of February 3. It does not however vote any credits.)
1847. Revenue for current year 79, 518,543 talers Deduct from this deficit from 1846 4,012,903
Leaves 75,505,640 talers
Expenditure for current year amounts to 80,392,730
Thus deficit 4,887,090 talers
In order to meet the most necessary expenditure, 4,000,000 talers are drawn from the treasury reserves, by which means revenue is raised to 83,518,543 talers. So the old administration began the year 1848 with a deficit in the treasury, and with the depletion of the treasury reserves. The balance in the current account was reduced over the 8 years 1840-47 from 16,949,157 talers to a deficit of 4,887,090, that is by 21,836,247 talers.
Revenue in the 8 years amounted to . . . 598,988,170 talers Expenditure 620,824,417 "
A deficit therefore of exacdy the
sum just calculated 21,836,247 talers
14-3780 No denials can undo this reduction in the reserves, even though the Government seeks to conceal it by carrying over balances of revenue and expenditure from one year to another, in fact in such a way that an apparent credit balance is still shown in the accounts when there is already a deficit. Thus in "peacetime", when "calm" and "order" prevailed, the Prussian finances were ruined by the Prussian Government. When the movements of 1848 came and the money-market suffered, the state was not able to support the private sector but at this time of depression was forced to demand new sacrifices to ensure its survival. The Herren bourgeois have the Prussian ex-Ministers and their aiders and abettors to thank for that. If the latter had not violated the law when in office, there would have been 136 million talers ready cash available instead of the deficit, and credit could then have been maintained. That is the injury caused, to which § 333 of the Prussian criminal law refers.
Deficit in the treasury — and just look at the revenue! Every year we have noted a revenue from over 71 to approximately 80 million. But that is only the net revenue, that is the surplus from the various administrative departments after deduction of administrative costs. In taxation, customs, the post-office, forestry etc., all the salaries, office expenses etc. concerning these departments of the administration have been subtracted in advance, and only the remaining balance is entered as revenue. And yet the country has had to pay for the salaries and office expenses for tax, forestry, postal officials etc., as well as the gratuities and presents to the Oberpräsidenten and commanding generals. These administrative expenses deducted in advance are estimated at 20,887,541 talers in the budget estimates for 1847. If we add this, annual revenue amounted to between 90 and 100 million and annual expenditure was actually over 100 million talers. The people produced sums of this order — and an empty treasury is the result!
The Cabinet Order of January 17, 1820, contained, as we have seen, an instruction concerning how Ministers should conduct their official business. Herr von Bodelschwingh has acted, we cannot assume otherwise, knowingly and wilfully in defiance of this instruction. He therefore again incurs the penalty of the above-mentioned § 333, Section 20, Part II of Prussian Law. The law passes sentence upon him of dismissal, a fine or confinement in a fortress and ineligibility for all public offices. Since the injury he has inflicted upon the country is of the greatest magnitude, the severest sentence of imprisonment permitted by the law must be applied to him.
The ex-Ministers von Alvensleben, Flottwell and von Duesberg find themselves in exactly the same situation.
The civil laws themselves stipulate that these ex-ministerial gentlemen are obliged to compensate the country for the injury inflicted on it, in other words the illegally disbursed 136 million talers. In this case Prussian Law, § 341, Section 20, Part II, decrees:
"Whenever an official cannot make good the injury done to the state or to any third person by deliberate dereliction of duty, he shall, after serving his sentence, be detained for labour in a public institution until such time as the injury has by one means or another been made good."
And one more trifle! As administrative surpluses the following sums were transferred to the treasury reserves:
From the administration of 1840 613,457 talers " 1 8 4 1 2,837,000 " " 1 8 4 3 1,000,000 " " 1 8 4 4 2,000,002 "
Together 6,450,459 talers
According to accounts relating to the treasury reserves, however, since July 1, 1840, only 6,423,332 talers[3] from administrative savings were transferred to the treasury. In the Government's current account, therefore, 27,127 talers(3) more were entered as transferred to the treasury than the latter received. Herr von Alvensleben, Herr von Bodelschwingh, Herr Flottwell and Herr von Duesberg, what has become of the 27,127 talers? They were surely not embezzled, by any chance, were they?
Will a Public Prosecutor and a bench of judges be found for these ex-ministerial gentlemen? Meanwhile Herr von Bodelschwingh is a member of the Second Chamber!
Written by Marx on February 16, 1849
105. Stein
Cologne, February 16. The Breslau "Association for Law and Order" (an association "with God for King and Fatherland"[332]) has addressed an open letter to Dr. Julius Stein which states, inter alia, that the Neue Rheinische Zeitunglet itself be deceived just as much as the worthy philistines of Breslau by the conservative speeches of Herr Stein and "considered him lost for the cause of democracy".
We like definite positions. We have never flirted with a parliamentary party. The party we represent, the party of the people, exists in Germany as yet only in an elementary form. But where it is a matter of a struggle against the existing Government, we ally ourselves even with our enemies. We accept as a fact the official Prussian opposition as it has arisen out of the hitherto pitiful conditions of German culture, and therefore, during the electoral struggle, we put our own views into the background.[3] Now, after the elections, we are again asserting our old ruthless point of view in relation not only to the Government, but also to the official opposition.
The "Association for Law and Order" is mistaken. We do not consider Herren Stein, Waldeck and Co. as "lost for the cause of democracy". We have always congratulated democracy on not being represented by people like Stein, Waldeck and Co.
In one of our first issues we stated that the extreme Left of the Berlin Agreement Assembly, with the exception of three or four persons, would form the extreme Right in a Convention.[5] We never included Stein and Waldeck among these three or four persons.
As for Herr Stein himself, we recall the time when he attacked the republicans on fanatically constitutional grounds, when in the Schlesische Zeitung he roundly denounced the representatives of the working class and had them denounced by a schoolteacher whose ideas were akin to his own and who is now a member of the "Association for Law and Order".
Just as pitiful as the Agreement Assembly itself was the so-called democratic group of this Assembly. It could be foreseen that these gentlemen, in order to be re-elected, would now recognise the imposed Constitution. It is characteristic of the standpoint of these gentlemen that after the elections they are disavowing in the democratic clubs what before the elections they assented to at meetings of the electors. This petty, crafty liberal slyness was never the diplomacy of revolutionaries.
106. Three Stars versus Triangle
Cologne, February 16. A few davs ago we offered condolences to the leading article of the Kölnische Zeitung signed A which saw in the elections to the Second Chamber (see No. 33 of the Kölnische Zeitung) the defeat of the "great Centre" of the German nation and discerned two Chambers, one of which would not yet be constitutional, the other not yet monarchical.[3]
"Storms will blow from opposite poles, a dead past will fight against a distant, perhaps never attainable future."
And what will become of the " Centre of the German nation"? Thus wailed Schwanbeck.
Brüggemann, of the three stars, is storming from the "opposite pole" against his friend in today's issue of the same Kölnische Zeitung}(1)
No Centre, says the man of the "legal basis", the merry gentleman who, with solemn pedantry, invariably raises the status quo to an immortal principle; no Centre, that is the joke of it. No Centre, that is no cowardice, no indecision, no hollow ambitionl No Centre, that is the doctrine of it! The Centre will in future dissolve into a "true" Left and a "true" Right! That is the true meaning of it.
Thus Brüggemann, the "true" man of "true" decision.
In other words: Brüggemann shifts from the Centre to the Right: the "parliamentary correspondence" has brought him to parleying. We tremble for the Right.
But let the melancholy A , dying argue with the merry three stars.
Written by Marx on February 16, 1849
)f too much thinking in the night,
Ça ne nous regarde pas![3]
107. The Vienna Correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung
Cologne, February 17. One riddle less in world history! Herr Schwanbeck, editor of the Kölnische Zeitung who writes under the sign A , and at the same time writes reports for that paper from Vienna under the sign^ Q, has, as is well known, continued as long as possible under both trade marks to slander the Magyars, accusing them of cowardice and villainy, and has not merely defeated but repeatedly annihilated them, and acclaimed in dithyrambs the entry of the combined army with its courts martial into the various towns and comitats of Hungary.
Herr Schwanbeck himself now solves the riddle; like Achilles, only our Schwanbeck himself can heal the wounds he has caused.
And what is the solution of the riddle?—It is fear of Weiden. Hence the vilification of the Viennese and Magyars, the miserable lies about the military successes of the Austrians, the crawling and ogling in relation to the Croats and Pandours.[333]
For, says the famous Schwanbeck, for, he says:
"Up to now, in fact, anyone who dared to doubt the victorious advance of the imperial army at all points of the monarchy was formally belied by Governor Baron Weiden and awarded the honorary title of malicious scoundrel" (Kölnische Zeitung No. 40).a
Out of respect for Weiden, readers of the Kölnische Zeitung have for two months had to be lied to and deceived by the Vienna reports about the war in Hungary under the sign of A A.
Goethe said of Pustkuchen:
"If even whales have lice, then I must have mine too." (1)
Kossuth can say the same of Schwanbeck.
Written by Engels on February 17,1849
108. Saedt
Cologne, February 17. Every little market town has its esprit fort*; the Cologne prosecuting magistrates have theirs too. The esprit fort of the Cologne prosecuting magistrates is a certain Saedt, homo novus atque ignotus(1) (which being translated means profound thinker).
There are two kinds of audacity: the audacity of superiority and the audacity of intellectual poverty which derives its strength from its official position, from being conscious of fighting with privileged weapons etc. Which of the two kinds the esprit fort of the Cologne prosecuting magistrates showed yesterday afternoon in expounding his case against Kinkel,[334] the public themselves will decide when the minutes of the court proceedings are available to them. At the same time they will take into consideration that Herr Saedt is still young.
However, it would not be in accordance with our journalistic function if we were any longer to withhold from the European public one utterance of our esprit fort. We know that the Demosthenes of the Cologne prosecuting magistrates tried by means of a subsequent interpretation to make amends for the passage we shall cite. But we have too much respect for the original inspiration of the ebullient genius to allow us to depreciate it by the enfeebling commentary arising from subsequent reflection.
Herr Saedt, deputy Public Prosecutor, said: In German: "Sie dürfen alles, was ich sage, widerlegen, aber Sie dürfen meinen Vortrag nicht kritisieren."
In French: M. Saedt, substitut du procureur du roi, s'adressant à l'accusé:
"Libre à vous de réfuter tout ce que je viens de dire, mais il ne vous appartient pas de critiquer le réquisitoire d'un substitut du procureur du roi." (Avis[3] à la Réforme, à la République et à la Révolution.)
In English: The Queen's Counsel, Mr. Saedt, to the defendant: "You may refute all I say, but you have no right to criticise my speech" (N.B. Our English contemporaries, principally the Northern Star, are requested to publish the above).
In Italian: Sig. Saedt, accusatore publico, replicô: "Dite quanto voleté in rifutazione di questo che ho detto, ma vi è difeso di criticare il mio requisitorio. " (Avvisoa all' Alba, al Contemporaneo ed alia Concordia.)
In Spanish: El fiscal, Sennor Saedt, dijo, hablando al acusado: "Sennor, Vmd puede refutar todo que ho dicho; pero el que vengo de decir por requisitorio, es defendido de tocarlo." (Prega-mos los jornales radicales de Madrid de publicar esas lineas.b)
In Danish: "De kunne gjensige alt hvad jeg siger, men De have intet Ret at kritisere mit Réquisitoire (Angreb)." (De danske demokratiske Tidender ville vaere meget glaedt at meddele det danske Publikum den foregaaende Bewiis af de preussiske Magi-straters Sandhed.0)
Let Herr Saedt decide for himself in which language his utterance sounds most amusing.
Written by Engels on February 17,1849
109. The Kölnische Zeitung on the Magyar Struggle
Cologne, February 17.
"I have now the basis found Wherein my anchor holds for ever"
—sings the brave Schwanbeck from the Protestant hymn-book. The indignant champion of virtue, despite the "Austrian Note" and the "feeling of deepest indignation",[3] finally comes forward in support of Windischgrätz on the front page of the Kölnische Zeitung}"
Listen to this:
"The so-called democratic press in Germany has sided with the Magyars in the Austro-Hungarian conflict.... Certainly strange enough! The German democrats siding with that aristocratic caste, for which, in spite of the nineteenth century, its own nation has never ceased to be misera contribuens plebsc; the German democrats siding with the most arrogant oppressors of the people!"
We do not quite remember whether we have already drawn the attention of the public to one peculiar characteristic of the brave Schwanbeck, namely, that he is accustomed to give only conclusions without any premises. The passage quoted above is just such a conclusion, the premise of which has never seen the light of day.
But even if the Magyars were an "aristocratic caste" of the "most arrogant oppressors of the people", what does that prove? Does it make Windischgrätz, the murderer of Robert Blum, the slightest bit better? Do the knights of the "united monarchy", the special enemies of Germany and friends of Schwanbeck — Windischgrätz, Jellachich, Schlick and their like — want perhaps to suppress the "aristocratic caste" and introduce freedom of peasant landownership? Are the Croats and Czechs perhaps fighting for Rhenish par-cellation of the land and the Code Napoleon?
In 1830, when the Poles rose against Russia, was it then a question whether merely an "aristocratic caste" was at their head?[335] At that time it was in the first place a question of driving out the foreigners. The whole of Europe sympathised with the "aristocratic caste", which certainly started the movement; for the Polish republic of the nobility was at any rate a huge advance compared with Russian despotism. And was not the French suffrage of 1830, which was the monopoly of 250,000 voters, in point of fact just as great a political' enslavement of the misera contribuens plebs as the rule of the Polish nobility?
Let us suppose that the March revolution in Hungary was purely a revolution of the nobility. Does that give the Austrian "united" monarchy the right to oppress the Hungarian nobility, and thereby also the Hungarian peasants, in the way it oppressed the Galician nobility and, through the latter, the Galician peasants as well (cf. the Proceedings of the Lemberg Provincial Diet of 1818)? But the great Schwanbeck, of course, is not obliged to know that the greater part of the Hungarian nobility, just like the greater part of the Polish nobility, consists of mere proletarians, whose aristocratic privileges are confined to the fact that they cannot be subjected to corporal punishment.
The great Schwanbeck, of course, is even less obliged to know that Hungary is the only country in which since the March revolution feudal burdens on the peasants have legally and in fact totally ceased to exist. The great Schwanbeck declares the Magyars to be an "aristocratic caste", "most arrogant oppressors of the people", "aristocrats"—and this same great Schwanbeck does not know, or does not want to know, that the Magyar magnates, the Esterhâzys etc.,
deserted at the very beginning of the war and came to Olmütz to pay homage, and that it is precisely the "aristocratic" officers of the Magyar army who from the beginning of the struggle until now have every day carried out a fresh betrayal of their national cause! Otherwise, how is it that today the majority of the Chamber of Deputies is still with Kossuth in Debreczin, whereas only eleven magnates are to be found there?[336]
This is the Schwanbeck of the front page, the Schwanbeck of the dithyrambs in the leading article. But the Schwanbeck of the third page, the man who stormed Leopoldstadt[2] six times, captured Eszék four times, and several times crossed the Theiss, Schwanbeck the strategist had after all to have his revenge.
"But then the war took a lamentable, truly pitiable course. Continually, almost without a struggle, the Magyars abandoned all their positions; without any resistance they evacuated even their fortified royal city, and faced with Jellachich's Croats retreated beyond the Theiss."
"Almost without a struggle"—i.e. after they had held back the Austrians for two whole months between the Leitha and the Theiss— they retreated "almost without a struggle". Gallant Schwanbeck, who judges the greatness of a general not by the material results he achieves but by how many men he has allowed to be killed!
"Without any resistance, they evacuated their fortified royal city"! But one should know that Ofen is indeed fortified on the western side, but not on the eastern side. The Danube was ice-bound, so the Austrians could march across it with cavalry and carts, occupy Pest and from there bombard defenceless Ofen.
If Deutz had not been fortified and the Rhine had been frozen over and if, in view of that, a French army had marched across the Rhine in the neighbourhood of Wesseling and Worringen, and at Deutz had trained 100 cannon on Cologne, then gallant Schwanbeck would surely have advised Colonel Engels to defend Cologne to the last man..Brave Schwanbeck!
The Magyars, "faced with Jellachich's Croats retreated beyond the Theiss". And will the great Schwanbeck deny that these "Croats" totalled 250,000-300,000 men, including the corps of Windischgrätz, Jellachich, Götz, Csorich, Simunich, Nugent, Todorovich, Puchner etc., etc., and the irregular troops at the River Drava and in the Banat? And all those are "Jellachich's Croats"? Incidentally, that a Schwanbeck, himself a kinsman of the Croats and not much in his element in history and geography, should be enthusiastic about the Croats is easy to understand.
But of course: "... we, too, are far from regarding the official reports from the Austrian army headquarters as gospel truth." On the contrary, Schwanbeck at times finds in reports, for example Schlick's,
"o gap which the reader has to fill in with all kinds of suppositions and in the end it is not surprising (!!) that these suppositions turn out to be more doubtful than they ought to
A district in Vienna.—Ed.
be (!!!). We suspect that Puchner, too, is accustomed to draw up his bulletins in somewhat too rosy colours. According to them, he is having a most splendid triumphal march against the 'rebel general'.(1) Then suddenly to our very great astonishment (!) we read an appeal from him in which he implores the Saxons and Wallachians at all costs not to lose heart, and then we suddenly learn that the defeated Bern is in front of Hermannstadt in the middle of Saxony, and the poor Germans (!!) finally can think of no better resort than to look to the Russians for protection. There is a slight contradiction here between the official reports and the events, a contradiction for which only the inaccuracy (!!) of the former can be blamed."
Citizen Schwanbeck confesses that the Austrian bulletins, and following them the Kölnische Zeitung, lied most shamelessly about the alleged progress .of the Austrians; when later on it is no longer possible to deny that it was a lie, truth-loving Schwanbeck calls it "a slight contradiction between the official reports and the events"!
"But if we by no means regard the Austrian army reports as oracles, that still does not mean the Magyar victory bulletins have gained the least bit in our eyes" (which have been busy with the above "slight contradiction"). "They are the products of fantasy, and would be quite pleasant reading if only they were not so dreadfully ludicrous."
These "bulletins" are so "dreadfully ludicrous" that up to now they have asserted nothing but what the great Schwanbeck himself has to admit is in accordance with the facts. Or is Tokaj in the hands of Schlick? Has a single Austrian crossed the Theiss at Szolnok? Have the imperial troops advanced a single step in the last 14 days?
The 22nd Austrian Bulletin, which we have just received (see below(2)) saves Citizen Schwanbeck the trouble of replying. It makes it clear to us that the Austrians are not yet even as far as was asserted in the 20th and 21st bulletins.
"After all there is no change: the war in Hungary is approaching its end by giant strides."
That is clear. Schwanbeck already said so 14 days ago: "The war in Hungary is coming to an end. Parturiunt montes, nasceiur ridiculus mus.,,c That was on the very day when Schwanbeck announced for the first time that the Austrians had victoriously entered Debreczin. Since then 14 days have elapsed and in spite of the Magyars having "terribly exaggerated", the Austrians have still not crossed the Theiss, much less entered Debreczin.
"It cannot surprise anyone that Bern's crowd which is being joined from all sides by fleeing bands of Hungarians, has swollen into an army for which the numerically small imperial forces in Transylvania are no match."
It certainly does not! But what can surprise us is how it is possible to speak about "being joined from all sides by fleeing bands of Hungarians" so long as the Hungarians occupy the line of the Theiss and Maros and Citizen Schwanbeck, despite his most ardent prayers, is unable to smuggle a single imperial soldier across it; further, it surprises us that the "fleeing bands" suddenly form an army, without the armies which are pursuing them being at once at hand to drive them from each of their new positions. But, of course, the great Schwanbeck believes that the Hungarians, having been beaten in his nebulous fantasy, would immediately flee from the Danube as far as the Aluta, without looking back to see whether they were being pursued or not.
Citizen Schwanbeck has made himself the Carnot of the nineteenth century by discovering the new manoeuvre by which fleeing bands coming from all sides can suddenly form a victorious army.
This new victorious army could, of course, cause serious complications. However, says Schwanbeck:
"We shall see in what way Russia here will pronounce its veto."
The brave Schwanbeck, who here calls on Russia for help against the Magyars, is the same Schwanbeck who on March 22 of last year published an article full of moral indignation against the Russian Tsara and declared that if Russia interfered in our affairs (and after all the Magyar affair is certainly our affair), then he, Schwanbeck, would issue a call that would make the Tsar's throne tremble. This is the same Schwanbeck who from the beginning has had the duty in the
Kölnische Zeitung of salvaging the liberal reputation of the newspaper in the safe countries of Eastern Europe by timely manifestations of hatred against the Russians and obligatory shrewd expression of free-thinking. But the East-European complications seem to annoy him and in order to be able to devote himself wholly to his "feeling of deepest indignation" at the Austrian Note,[337] he calls on the Russians to come to Transylvania to end the struggle.
The best reply to the whole of this moralising and Windischgratz-like blustering article is the 22nd Austrian Army Bulletin, which the readers will find below. In order to explain to Schwan-* beck, who right up to the last sentence of his article reveals partly boundless ignorance of geography and strategy, and partly dependence on the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, where he stands with this Bulletin, we are simultaneously giving our own comments on it.
Written by Engels on February 17, 1849
110. Bulletin No. 22
No. 22, the "Victory Bulletin" of the imperial army, has been published.(1) It is the funniest that has yet appeared.
"Owing to the greater distance of the theatre of war, which, with the retreat of the rebels across the Theiss has been pushed back as far as Transylvania, we have not until now been able to supply news of the successes gained by the army of His Highness Field Marshal Prince zu Windischgrätz."
From the Theiss to Transylvania is after all a distance of forty miles and more. As yet not a single Austrian has crossed the Theiss. Yet when Schlick is on the Hernath and Windischgrätz at Szolnok, with neither of them able to advance one step further, this is described in the swaggering language of royal imperial reports as follows: the theatre of war has been pushed back as far as Transylvania.
And what is the nature of the "successes gained by the army of His Highness Prince Windischgrätz"?
First "success":
"After the retreat from Pest one section of the rebels headed in the direction of Grosswardein and Debreczin, the other under Görgey made their way to Schemnitz and, after plundering the mountain towns, at first set off via Neusohl for Rosenberg. There, however, finding that the St. Marton and Turany passes had already been occupied by Major-General von Götz's troops, they headed for the Zips, where they met with a battalion of Nugent's infantry led by Major von Reisewetter, with whom battle took place at Kirchdorf and Hertnek on February 3 and 4.
"In the meantime reinforcements sent from Eperies by Lieutenant-Field Marshal Count Schlick immediately strengthened the occupation of the Braniszka Pass, and as another column of Deym's brigade advanced from Kaschau via Margitfalva, and the always active Major-General von Götz with Prince Jablonowsky's brigade, which had reached Telgarth via Brisen on the 8th inst., was also immediately detached against Leutschau, it looks as if the rebels, threatened on all sides in the Zips, are even more encircled than ever, all the roads along the Galician border from Neumarkt, Krosci-enko, Piwniczna, Tylicz as far as Dukla having at the same time been occupied in greater numbers under the command of Lieutenant-Field Marshal Vogel operating from Tarnöw, and the Landsturm having been mustered all the way along that section."
The "direction of Grosswardein and Debreczin" is no more than an exaggerated euphemism used by Herr Weiden to describe the fact that the Hungarians have reached the Theiss. He might just as well have claimed that they had withdrawn "in the direction" of the Black Sea.
Weiden then goes on to tell us that Görgey "made for Schemnitz after the retreat from Pest". We have known this for a long time and what Herr Weiden should have informed us of outright is how Görgey was driven out of the town. Earlier there had been a great deal of boasting that Görgey had been thrown back towards the Theiss, and almost annihilated in fact. Now the victory report suddenly admits that he has occupied the Zips, which has already been "cleaned up" by Schlick several times, and is now operating in Schlick's rear. The extent to which Görgey is threatening the imperial troops in this position can be seen from the way in which reinforcements are hurriedly sent against him. Götz's corps was never successful against him (Csorich's corps has disappeared from the battlefield, and one concludes that the "ridiculous exaggerations" of the Magyars must have been right after all when they reported that Windischgrätz recalled it post-haste to Pest); Schlick had sent a column to the Braniszka Pass against Görgey "from Eperies" (i. e. four weeks ago); in addition, a second column was detached against him "from Kaschau", in other words also from Schlick's corps; and yet in spite of all these reinforcements, Görgey, in his position in the Carpathian Mountains, represents such a threat to the Austrians that Vogel in Galicia, operating from Tarnow, has reinforced all the positions on a sector of some twenty miles and has mustered the Landsturm.
In other words: instead of "being threatened on all sides in the Zips" Görgey is in fact himself threatening not only Schlick's position on the Hernath but also Galicia. And that is the worst thing that could happen to the imperial forces. An invasion of this purely Polish part of Galicia could have very unpleasant consequences for the Austrians at a time when the peasants have been disappointed in the royal imperial promises.
Second "success":
"Up to now heavy drifting ice on the Theiss has made the crossing of the river difficult both at Tokaj and Szolnok for that column of the First Army Corps which has advanced as far as the right bank. This has given the enemy time to turn more towards Transylvania, after an unsuccessful attempt on Arad, in order to link up with the column led by Bern, the rebel chief, who, as we have already reported earlier, on being pushed back from the Bukovina, marched via Bistritz and Maros-Vâsârhely to Hermannstadt, where he was so powerfully repulsed by the general-in-command, Baron Puchner.
"The column of rebels which left Grosswardein for Klausenburg headed towards Karlsburg where they attempted to take Mühlenbach on the 5th. In this area, between Deva, Hatzeg and Szâszvâros, there is a formation of 3,000 Rumanians under the command of Captain Czernovich, which is guarding this section against the rebels — there is also a good garrison at the fortified castle at Deva.
"Meanwhile the general in command in the Banat, Lieutenant-Field Marshal Baron Rukavina, has formed a division under Lieutenant-Field Marshal von Gläser and Major-General Baron Mengen out of units of the Todorovich corps, and it is to operate in the Maros valley against Transylvania and simultaneously to threaten Grosswardein."
So the Austrians have still not crossed the Theiss; their successes consist in having for three weeks been unable, here in the decisive sector of the war, to advance one single step.
"Drifting ice" has apparently allowed the Magyars to turn "more" towards Transylvania. What a delightful use of the word "more"! If the Magyars were able to detach a column from Debreczin in the direction of Arad and Klausenburg that is proof that they have more troops than are required to defend the Theiss line. Or would Weiden have us believe that the Magyars would take advantage of drifting ice, which can be over within a week, to expose their most important position and send the troops so urgently needed on the Theiss off on a stroll to Transylvania, which takes at least four to five weeks there and back?
The Hungarian column which fired on Arad came from the Banat according to an earlier bulletin. In addition a second column "from Grosswardein" has therefore gone to Transylvania. After these reinforcements we shall soon be hearing from Bern.
And how do things look in Transylvania? The Magyar reinforcements have advanced as far as Karlsburg and Mühlenbach. But no one need fear that things are going badly for the imperial forces! For there are after all 3,000 Rumanians at Hatzeg, Deva and Szâszvâros "who are guarding this section against the rebels".
Which "section"? Well, the section from Hatzeg etc., namely a "section" which is completely off the Magyars' route, and where it would not occur to them to march! The Magyar column is marching from Karlsburg to Hermannstadt in order to link up with Bem,i. e. in an easterly direction; the 3,000 Rumanians are to the south-west, in the furthermost corner of Transylvania, and will most probably stay there until the second Magyar column moves up the Maros from Arad and disperses them.
In addition, however, the newly formed Banat division led by Gläser is said "to be operating in the Maros valley against Transylvania and simultaneously threatening Grosswardein".
"Simultaneously "!! In order "to threaten Grosswardein" this division — assuming it had already reached the Maros, whereas it is in fact no further than the Temes — would have to cover a distance of 20 miles to the north (in a straight line) crossing the Maros, the White, the Black and the Rapid Koros and three lines of swamps. In order to be able to operate in the Maros valley against Transylvania, the same division would have to march about 30 miles to the east. These two movements, one northwards and the other eastwards, it is supposed to execute "simultaneously" !
Third success:
"The two brigades of Major-General Dietrich and Count Pallfy, which were part of the corps of Master of the Ordnance Count Nugent, have both advanced, the one heading left via Boly to Mohâcs, the other via Siklos-Baranyavar towards Esseg, where the fortress is surrounded by royal imperial troops right up to the foot of the glacis, and has already made surrender proposals."
An important success already credited to Nugent himself two weeks ago, which now turns out not to have been achieved yet, for the "two brigades" have still not reached Esseg!
Fourth success:
"The rebels led by Nemegey crossed the Danube at Mohâcs, and in the defile between Bezdân and Zombor fell into the hands of the Serbs who were in that area having advanced along the left bank of the Danube from the Roman rampart, and on this occasion the greater part of the rebel army was massacred and dispersed by the Serbs."
Assuming this to be correct, it could have been no more than a small-scale guerilla skirmish. Long ago the Austrians trumpeted the news that the Magyars who had been driven back from the Drava were supposed to have retreated as far as Szegedin, i. e. as far as the Theiss!
Fifth and final "success":
"After the surrender of Leopoldstadt the division under Lieutenant-Field Marshal von Simunich received orders from the Herr Field Marshal[3] to advance along the Waag towards Komorn to tighten the blockade of this fortress.—During this advance
Windischgrätz.—Ed.
fighting broke out on the 8th inst. not far from Neuhäusel between the division and a detachment of rebels which had set out from Komorn and crossed the Neutra above Naszvad to plunder the area, and above all to take salt into the fortress, where it is scarce and where diseases are already very much on the increase.—In this battle four companies of the Archduke Wilhelm's infantry and a squadron of Banderial hussars attacked an enemy unit of 1,200 men so courageously that the commander, one officer and 90 Honveds[3] were taken prisoner and a considerable number of dead and wounded were left behind on the battlefield."
Here the "success" amounts to Simunich managing, over a period of more than two weeks, to push forward exactly seven milesin an area which had already been three or four times "pacified", "cleaned up" and "purged", where a "good spirit" has begun to germinate once more — and that comes to half a mile a day; add to that the constant battles and you will understand why Simunich the hero has still not covered the ten miles from Leopoldstadt to Komorn.
These then are the "successes of His Highness Prince Windischgrätz": pompous reiteration of earlier bulletins, boastful statements about what is to happen, and the result of it all is that in reality nothing has happened. The case with the bulletins is exactly the same as that of the great Schwanbeck with the Prussian Chamber: "the present is being lost" for-them through a "dead past" and a "distant, perhaps never attainable future".0
Written by Engels about February 17, 1849
Soldiers of the Magyar Defence Committee.—Ed. Engels refers to the leading article in the Kölnische Zeitung No. 33, February 8, 1849, quoted by Marx tn his article "The Division of Labour in the Kölnische Zeitung" (see this volume, pp. 354-59).— Ed.
111. Croats and Slovaks in Hungary
Cologne, February 18. Whilst for some days now the Austrian papers have been spinning yarns about Ottinger having been victorious over Dembinski — at Debreczin!!—the storm clouds are gathering with increasing density in the Slav provinces of Hungary, threatening the royal imperial united monarchy. For some time now — since the storming of Vienna, in fact(1)—we have been drawing people's attention to the inevitability of a split between the Austrian Government and the Slavs.(2) That split is now an open one.
Let us begin with the Serbs. The Grazer Zeitung received from Temesvâr the following report supporting the Austrian view:
"Serbian encroachments are beginning in the Banat, and, if the signs are not deceptive, this will eventually require armed intervention, especially since some of the Serbs are being more presumptuous than even the Magyarisers in their attempts totally to suppress the other nationalities in the voivodeship, and the Rumanians and the Germans there are therefore arming for open resistance. The split between the senior military authorities and the voivodeship is already almost an open one, and I can assure you that we must prepare ourselves for a struggle with the Serbs. At any event we have now come to see that the sympathy that was supposed to exist for the Austrian cause is not of the same purity as that of the Croats. Matters will shordy come to a head."
It is well known that Karlowitz, the seat of the Banat Government, i. e. of the Serbian chief committee, the vice-president of which is the "rebel" Stratimirovich,[339] has been declared in a state of siege.
But just what is one to make of the "purity" of the Croats' "sympathy"? This is what we hear:
"Prague, February 13. The events in Croatia are causing a great stir in Czech circles. Now, they say, the question of whether Jellachich will stick by his country or by the dynasty will have to be resolved. The officers are already saying quite openly that, when we have finished with Hungary, it will be a case of marching to Croatia. "
This is what the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung[3] says, and the Slav Constitutionelles Blatt aus Böhmen is just as clear:
It has received information dated February 11 from Kremsier to the effect that written reports of dissatisfaction among the Slovaks and Croats were becoming daily more numerous. There were none but Magyars among the newly appointed commissioners of the Austrian Government in the Slovak comitats, their decrees were issued in Magyar, and they "threatened people with death" if they refused to accept their official communications. It is further reported that Jellachich was highly dissatisfied that his troops were to be split up and some of them employed on garrison-duty, whilst other troops were to be placed under his command. The ruse is a good one. Jellachich, who has been under suspicion for six to eight weeks anyway, and has been kept under surveillance by Windischgrätz's agents, is being thus rendered harmless. And at this point the Constitutionelles Blatt aus Böhmen adds:
"What is Jellachich likely to say about the state of siege at Karlowitz? Might his reaction not be to think: It could be your turn next— ? For now there is only Agram, the Croats, who have not had the principle of equality amongst the various nationalities applied to them — for the Germans, the Hungarians, the Poles, the Italians and the Czechs in particular have already become familiar with that equality of status that a state of siege creates."
Furthermore, it is already known that Windischgrätz has appointed a new Hungarian government commission in Pest, which, to the great consternation of the Croats, is laying claim to all the rights which the old Hungarian Government possessed, thus reducing to naught the intended kingdom of the Southern Slavs. The Croats were already dreaming of being independent of Hungary and suddenly a decree arrives from Pest addressed to the Croatian authorities demanding submission — and on top of it all the decree is written in Magyar, without a Croat translation!! The Slavenski jug immediately publishes it in the original and cannot contain its indignation.[340] The Croats are foaming; they are being treated just as they were under Kossuth! And that is the reward they get for their faithful efforts to save the united monarchy!
Anyone wanting to know how all this fits together should read the Vienna Presse. In that paper there is an article in which Prince Windischgrätz is openly reproached for having allowed himself already to become too closely involved with the Hungarian aristocracy. He is accused of allowing a great number of Magyar magnates, some of whom had been captured, others having changed their allegiance, to walk about Pest as they please; he is even said to have conferred distinctions on them and so on.
It is obvious that the aristocrat Windischgrätz knows full well that he can only achieve his goal of maintaining the power of the nobility in Hungary by maintaining the Magyar nobility in power. That is why he is granting the Magyar magnates protection and giving them preferential treatment. He is indifferent to any suffering this may cause to the Croats and the Slovaks: having finished the business of subduing Hungary and restoring the rule of the aristocracy there, he will manage to deal with the Slavs, who are in disarray and powerless without Austrian leadership — just think of Prague![341]
And the great Schwanbeck seeks the nobility not in Windischgrätz's camp but in Kossuth'sl Voilà ce que c'est que d'être un savant sérieux]*
Written by Engels on February 18, 1849
112. Military Art of the Royal Imperial Army
Cologne, February 18. Windischgrätz is exceptionally unlucky. He could have become one of the greatest generals of the century if he did not always have the most unpredictable accidents. Schwanbeck has already proved that he would have done incomparable heroic deeds if the Hungarians had only stood their ground against him. But the worst thing that has happened to the great Windischgrätz is now revealed by the royal imperial semi-official correspondence in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. For in its supplement of February 15 of this year, that newspaper says word for word the following:
"Concerning the operations of Prince Windischgrätz in the month of January, I must recall that eight army columns were intended to march into the interior of Hungary in the middle of December and at that time were ten to twelve days from Buda-Pest. This disposition of the Field Marshal had been made in anticipation of a rational form of warfare. The Magyars thwarted this anticipation by putting up a fabulously superior force everywhere except where it could have produced the most favourable outcome, if such were at all possible. Of the columns to which Windischgrätz had given dates at the Hungarian capitals, only those of the Ban,(1) of Lieutenant-Field Marshal Wrbna and the reserve corps led by the Field Marshal were able to carry out their orders; the superiority of the Magyar forces prevented the other formations from doing so."
Windischgrätz had counted on the Magyars pursuing a "rational form of warfare". If they had conducted this rational warfare, Windischgrätz would have signally defeated them. But what they did was to put up a "fabulously superior force everywhere except where" it could have been at all effective. And in consequence of this boundless irrationality all the dispositions of the great Windischgrätz came to nothing.
Just because the Magyars made one blunder after another, and because even the gods themselves fight in vain against stupidity,
Windischgrätz's most learned combinations foundered on the Magyars' ignorance of strategy!
Did ever a fellow have luck as bad As Burgomaster Tschech has had — (2)
and Field Marshal Windischgrätz, who could not beat his enemies simply because they were too stupid for him?!
Written by Engels on February 18, 1849
113. Proclamation of a Republic in Rome
The Italian Constituent Assembly is quite unlike the Frankfurt National Assembly. The Italians know that the unity of a country split into feudal principalities can only be established by abolishing dynastic rule. The Italians led the dance in 1848, and they are leading again in 1849. But what progress! Italy no longer has Pius IX, nor France her Lamartine. The fantastic period of the European revolution, the period of enthusiasm, goodwill and flowery speeches, was fittingly concluded with fire-balls, massacres on a grand scale and deportations. Austrian Notes, Prussian Notes and Russian Notes were the most appropriate replies to Lamartine's proclamations.
From their Pythian tripod of thoroughness and perseverance the Germans are in the habit of looking down with haughty disdain on the superficiality of the Italians. A comparison between the Italian 1848 and the German 1848 would provide the most striking answer. In drawing this comparison one would above all have to take into account that revolutionary Italy was kept in check by Germany and France, whereas revolutionary Germany was not restricted in her movements.
The republic in Rome is the beginning of the revolutionary drama of 1849.
Written about February 21, 1849
114. Windischgrätz. - Jews and Southern Slavs
Jews are known to be cheated cheats everywhere, but especially in Austria. They exploited the revolution and are now being punished for it by Windischgrätz. Incidentally, anybody who knows how powerful the Jews are in Austria will appreciate what an enemy Windischgrätz has taken on by issuing the following proclamation:
Pest, February 13 (official Wiener Zeitung, evening supplement). "Proclamation. In my proclamations of November 13 and December 13 of last year and of January 7 of this year J acquainted all inhabitants of Hungary with the task I have to solve,-namely, the restoration of peace, order and legality. I have also had the satisfaction of seeing the effect, evident everywhere, of these proclamations. Only individual localities, duped by infamous agitators, are still attempting to disturb the so necessary calm and order by spreading Kossuth's appeals, orders and decisions. Inhabitants of Hungary! You have seen what leniency I have exercised, on the assumption that the majority are misled and seduced rather than truly rebellious people; but whoever still tries to make common cause with the Debreczin party of rebellion, to accept or spread its orders, or to maintain any kind of connection with it and to stir up the communities, can no longer count on any leniency, he must receive the punishment for high treason.
"I am sending out in various directions troops, whose commanders will be authorised to use the jus gladit; anyone found carrying on him a proclamation by Kossuth, or any writing, letter, newspaper etc., issued by his party, will inexorably be treated under martial law, in the same way as anyone concealing arms or inciting people to disobedience.— Any postmaster or postal employee who accepts such writings, letters or proclamations from the area of Debreczin, or worse, forwards them; will be hanged.— Finally, I would like to warn the Jews of Ofen and Pest, but particularly those of Old Ofen, to refrain from entering into any understanding under any name whatever with the traitor Kossuth, the so-called honvédmi bizotmâny,(1)
and the rebel Assembly, for it has come to my knowledge that it is in fact mainly Israelites who allow themselves to be used as spies and suppliers of the rebels, and that they also make it their business to spread false and bad news about the alleged victories of the rebels so as thereby to arouse fear and mistrust; hence, for every Israelite who is sentenced under military or martial law for the above-mentioned offences, the Jewish community to which he belongs will pay a fine of 20,000 guldens C. M. Ofen Headquarters, February 11, 1849.
Alfred Prince zu Windischgrätz m. p.,a Royal Imperial Field Marshal"
It is clear from this proclamation that things are going very badly for "citizen and communist" Windischgrätz.
And, incidentally, to come back to the Jews: Windischgrätz's attempt to filch money from them has already "begun to be put into effect" as the Code Napoleon says. For the Constitutionelles Blatt aus Böhmen reports the following:
"The Jews are to pay a lump sum of 1,200,000 florins in redemption of the abolished toleration tax, and that in five years,but they have not paid the quotas due either last year or this. The amount in arrears has now been called in.— The printer Eisenfels was arrested yesterday."
It seems to us priceless that the Jews must still pay for their emancipation. In Prussian this is called "redemption of feudal dues".
Otherwise there is nothing to report from Hungary except that in Pest the forwarding agent Franz Förster was shot under martial law on February 8 for taking part in a revolt by attempting to confiscate the steamboat Hermine in Gran.
The Leipziger Zeitung reports as follows on the increasingly comical complications among the Slavs (the Neue Rheinische Zeitung has, of course, known this for a long time):
"Vienna, February 14. From several provinces of the monarchy we hear of stubborn refusals to supply the demanded recruits. In the Praschin district of Bohemia the peasants refuse under the pretext that the Imperial Diet has not sanctioned the latest recruiting ordered on such a lavish scale. Quite a noticeable ferment is observed in the countryside even more than in the capital, Prague. If, as we are assured, the Government shortly proposes compensation for the abolished Urbar duties, a new and more serious shock will be added to the innumerable and seemingly endless shocks of our public life. Confusion is growing in the South-Slav areas; but evidendy a most dangerous storm is brewing, the aim and end of which cannot yet be discerned. General Todorovich has had a state of siege declared in Karlowitz, the seat of the Serbian National Committee.0 The chaos in Serbian affairs is further increased by the specifically Austrian efforts of Consul Mayerhofer. With barely concealed fury the Southern Slavs cry: Betrayal! They claim that all the measures taken lately by the Government in Hungary are directed towards restoring ultra-Magyarism, insofar as it is disguised in old aristocratic garb. In Agram, the agitation has reached a
Sign-manual.— Ed. Engels draws a parallel here with the "citizen and communist" Drigalski (see this volume, pp. 75-80).— Ed.
most disturbing degree.—Jellachich is in Szolnok. The following is a reliable fact: He has protested against the separation and dismemberment of his corps. He had to do this in order not to jeopardise his exceptional popularity in the Slav world. In Croatia there is energetic pressure for the convocation of the Provincial Diet.(2) With this the dictatorship with which Jellachich was vested in the summer will come to an end."
Written by Engels on February 21,1849 .
115. Further Contribution on the Old-Prussian Financial Administration
Cologne, February 21. We must supplement our article in No. 224 of the newspaper on von Bodelschwingh and Co. and the Prussian financial administration.(1) At the end of that article we pointed out that the books of the treasury show 27,127 Reichstalers (17,127 is a misprint) less than were transferred to it according to the accounts of the exchequer. Since then we have found in the accounts published by the Government[346] a note which solves the riddle as to th'e whereabouts of this money.
The fact is that the so-called savings on the cost of administration in 1844, amounting to 2,000,002 Reichstalers, were not paid in cash to the treasury but were used to buy Prussian state bonds to this amount. Because of the market rate at the time, a loss of 27,127 Reichstalers was incurred on their purchase. The Prussian Ministers are, or were, brilliant financiers! The present case makes this obvious again. So we no longer need to ask the Herren ex-Ministers what has become of these 27,127 Reichstalers, we can tell them that, owing to their cleverness in this one business deal, not merely 27,000 but more than 400,000 Reichstalers have been lost. This reproach is incurred in the first place by Herr Flottwell, for he was Finance Minister at the time. It may be that he is an honest man. But it makes no difference to the country whether its Ministers harm it owing to incapacity or to ill will. An investigation of this matter can be of interest at most to the Minister's family.
In his memo on the treasury dated April 6, 1847, the then Finance Minister von Thile says quite frankly that in regard to the treasury the following two principles hold good:
1. that the balance in hand must always be in cash, in coin of the realm;
2. that no payments of any kind may be made from the treasury except for the purpose of armaments.
As far as the first principle is concerned, it is correct that, if there is to be a treasury at all, it has a rational meaning only if it consists of cash or precious metal. A government which is unable to rely on the strength of the people may, of course, need a reserve for so-called difficult times. If its credit, too, is impaired on the Stock Exchange, it must have some means in reserve to help it escape from this embarrassment, but that can only be done by means of cash or precious metal. Gold and silver are at all times the means to open the hearts of the bourgeois. But depreciated paper of little worth is the most certain way to lose also the "respect" of the Stock Exchange. When the credit of the state has fallen so low that the aid of the treasury is essential, there is nothing more humiliating on the Stock Exchange than to have to offer state bonds for sale and look for buyers. Anyone who has ever observed the activity of one of the larger stock exchanges will know what contempt is to be seen in the features and gestures of the money speculators when at such times they are offered government securities. For the rest, the speculator may be a Commerce Counsellor and very "well-intentioned".
The purchase of state bonds, therefore, was the most incompetent operation that the Prussian Government could undertake.
Herr von Thile states in the above-mentioned memo that he was compelled to accept state bonds to the value of 1,972,875 Reichstalers instead of 2,000,002 Reichstalers in cash. We do not attach any importance to this excuse of being "compelled". But if the accounts are correct, the purchase of the government securities was carried out by the exchequer. Otherwise the whole amount would have had to be supplied to the state treasury in cash. Hence Herr Flottwell seems to have been closely connected with the successful financial operation.
How petty-bourgeois parsimony, which is eager to save a small sum in interest but is not capable of dealing with the greater financial enterprises of a state, ends most ignominiously by doubling the loss, is evident from the figures given below.
To the loss on purchase compared with the nominal value 27,127 Rt. must be added the far greater loss on sale. From March to the beginning of July 1848 the market rate of the state bonds fluctuated between 66% G. (April 4) and 837[2]% Br.a (March 21). Since the market rate falls at once when a large amount of scrip is put on sale, one must assume that the Government did not receive more than 70% in getting rid of its state bonds. The loss incurred on the sale, therefore, was probably not less than 30% of the nominal value of 1,972,875 Rt., i.e 591,840 Rt. a total of 618,967 Rt. From this loss must be subtracted the interest for 3 years at 69,048 Rt 207,144 Rt. Hence the net loss probably amounts to 411,823 Rt.
Almost a quarter of the total amount has been lost and furthermore the state's credit has become still weaker owing to the depreciated market rate of the state bonds.
We cite this small sample of the wisdom of Prussian Ministers of Finance and Exchequers à la Flottwell-Thile only because it forms a necessary supplement to our article mentioned above. Otherwise we would not concern ourselves with minor matters when great ones provide us with such rich material.
Written by Marx on February 21, 1849
116. A Denunciation
Cologne, February 22. In the Oberpostamts-Zeitung, the former editor[3] of which was a paid agent of Guizot (cf. Taschereau's Revue rétrospective[347]) and an unpaid agent of Metternich, as is notoriously also the entire Thurn und Taxis postal service — that crab-sidling system of national carriers, which is a burden to German industry and is in conflict with the railways; whose continued existence after the March revolution is almost incomprehensible and whose immediate abolition will be one of the first acts of the German Constituent Assembly shortly to be opened (the assembly in St. Paul's Church(1) was notoriously never a Constituent Assembly) for since Joseph II it has never been anything but a refuge for Austrian spies — in this imperial organ for denunciation belonging to the ex-Prince of Thurn und Taxis, the responsible editor H. Malten (already recognisably described by the old Rheinische Zeitung) states the following, asserting that it is a reprint of a Paris report from a newspaper which we do not read(2):
"To the shame of the German name, we have to admit that there are Germans who engage in agitation among us on the most extensive, not to say most shameless scale. There exists here a special Bureau of Reds, by which all inflammatory articles that in any way incite against order in human society are dispatched to the provinces as speedily as possible. It is not enough that Germans participate in this unseemly business on behalf of France; we owe it to them also that a nefarious propaganda is continually spreading its network throughout Germany. From the witches' cauldron of this same revolutionary kitchen the German part of the Rhine valley throughout its entire length is inundated with revolutionary literature about which the Neue Rheinische Zeitung could have a lot to say, if it did not find it fitting to maintain a careful silence on this subject. In Upper Baden, for several months already the lower strata of the people have been subjected to agitation from Paris. That there are connections between the democrats here and the refugees in Switzerland is also a fact."
In reply to this foul denunciation we declare: 1) that we have never concealed our connections with the French, English, Italian, Swiss, Belgian, Polish, American and other democrats, and 2) that we ourselves produce here in Cologne the "revolutionary literature" with which we actually do "inundate the German part of the Rhine valley" (and not it alone!). For that we need no assistance from Paris; for several years we have been accustomed to our Parisian friends receiving more from us than we get from them.
117. Bulletin No. 23. - From the Theatre of War
Army Bulletin No. 23(1) has appeared. It says: "Simultaneously with the already announced successes achieved against the insurgents by our gallant army under Colonel Urban in Northern Transylvania despite the cold and the heavy snowfall, we were gratified to hear of a similar and no less brilliant success at Arad achieved by the troops of Lieutenant-Field Marshal Gläser, who according to his orders is instructed to operate in the Maros valley against Transylvania with his division composed of units from the Todorovich corps.
"The insurgents attempted to cross at Szadorlak in a strong column, and thus threatened our left flank. Thereupon Lieutenant-Field Marshal Gläser ordered two battalions of Peterwardein border guards to capture the first houses of Old Arad and brought up one battalion of Leiningen and then one battalion of Illyrian Banaters for the assault.
"After a drawn-out, bloody engagement the enemy was thrown back, all the batteries set up by the insurgents on the right bank of the Maros facing the fortress were destroyed, and all the cannon mounted in them, 23 in number, were captured; of these, 11 heavy guns were removed to the fortress, 3 were sunk in the Maros, 3 were spiked, 2 were placed at the disposal of the royal imperial Austro-Serbian army corps and 4 dismantled by the valiant Temesvâr artillery; 3 enemy ammunition wagons were captured, and in addition enemy ammunition dumps were blown up in several places.
"Because of the hostility displayed by its inhabitants Old Arad was subjected to a grenade attack from the fortress and in many places fires were started which continued to burn all night.— Forty prisoners were also taken in the fighting.
"According to a dispatch of February 13 just received from Master of the Ordnance Count Nugent in Esseg, the fortress of Esseg surrendered on the same day without waiting to be attacked.
"Three of the gates were immediately occupied by the besieging troops, and on the morning of the 14th the garrison laid down its arms on the glacis.
"On the 13th news came from Berthodfalva, a few hours from Eperies, about the column of General Götz, who — as we have already related — had joined up with the brigade of General Prince Jablonowsky at Tyrnau and pursued the fleeing rebel corps under Görgey towards Leutschau.
"This news said that the enemy column, which is indeed a strong one and is accompanied by a strong train of artillery and wagons, after forcing the Zips where it destroyed all bridges and roads, had taken the road from Eperies to Kaschau in order to seek contact with the other rebel hordes in the area of the Theiss.
"Lieutenant-Field Marshal Count Schlick with his three brigades has taken up a position at Torna on the flank of this laboriously moving and all-devastating enemy column, so as to be best able to attack it as soon as he has linked up with the column under General Götz, which has indeed now been done via Margitfalva, Einsiedl and Schmöllnitz.
"General Götz engaged in a skirmish with a rebel raiding-party at Margitfalva, in which several hussars were captured, who supplied detailed information about the position and intentions of the enemy.
"As a large unit under Lieutenant-Field Marshal Schulzig has taken up positions at Miskolcz, we shall shortly be able to give a detailed report of events in these areas.
"Vienna, February 17, 1849."
From this victory report it emerges, then, that Esseg really has capitulated and that Arad has been relieved by the imperial forces; whether their success on the Maros is of the importance that the bulletin would attribute to it, remains to be seen.
On the other hand, the situation of the imperial forces on the Upper Theiss is very poor. According to the last bulletin, Schlick was at Tokaj firing across the Theiss at the Hungarians drawn up on the other side, and today we find him beating a hasty retreat in a north-westerly direction, to avoid the danger of being attacked in the rear by Görgey and being caught between two fires.
Görgey's manoeuvre is really brilliant. By forcing the Zips into the Sâros comitat, occupying Eperies and continuing from there down the River Hernath, following exactly the same path that Schlick had taken, he fell on him full in the rear and forced him to withdraw from Tokaj more than twelve miles deep into the Torna comitat, and so to take up a position between Götz (in the Zips) and Schulzig (at Miskolcz). Thus Görgey is now able to advance directly to the Theiss and reinforce the main Magyar army with his entire column which is "indeed a strong one", and, as the bulletin itself says, is well equipped with artillery. Perhaps he still has a few words to say to Schlick in passing.
Further unofficial news about Hungary circulating in Vienna is as follows:
Vienna, February 18. According to the latest reports of the 18th from Pest, we may shortly expect decisive news from the Theiss area. After the arrival of the news that Szegedin has surrendered and sent a deputation to meet the advancing Serbs, the Ban of Croatia(2) has set up his headquarters at Szolnok, and everyone is preparing for a major battle. The inhabitants of Szegedin, who had offered to deliver cattle and supplies to the imperial army, have had a levy of half a million guldens imposed on them. The people of Szegedin are known to have hitherto been the keenest supporters of Kossuth. They supplied his army with everything. From Debreczin reports up to the 12th have been reaching Pest through refugees. Mészâros is still in charge of the Ministry of War, and Kossuth is more fanatical than ever. The former has written to Prince Windischgrätz that he and his forces will defend themselves to the last man, and would rather perish than surrender. In view of the very gloomy news from Transylvania, where Bern appears to be the master, this sort of language is quite explicable. According to the war reports of the Kossuth faction in Debreczin, Kronstadt has been captured by the Szeklers[349] after a street-battle etc. Other rumours, however, would have it that the Russians have come to the rescue and saved the situation.
The Breslauer Zeitung has a dispatch from the Hungarian border which is on the whole favourable to the Austnans, but is nevertheless forced to admit that the Austrian war bulletins only give a highly incomplete picture of the battles in Transylvania and beyond the Theiss because they always stress only the gains of the royal imperial troops, and make no mention whatsoever of the thorny way in which they have been achieved, for all reports direct from the theatre of war agree that the Magyars have been defending themselves with the utmost desperation for the last few weeks, and have inflicted severe damage on the royal imperial army. The regiments under Schlick, Ottinger and Götz have already suffered significant losses, and the Croats, who are already longing to be back home and still feel a deep-seated respect for the Hungarian cavalry, are showing signs of a mood that is giving their Ban cause for misgivings.
It is even said that odd units of the Croat battalions have gone over to the Magyars, which I cannot vouch for however. What is causing Prince Windischgrätz most trouble is the condition of the roads, which is quite appalling in the present thaw, especially between the Danube and the Theiss, rendering the transportation of heavy artillery downright impossible; only with the greatest effort and on wagons with wheel-rims a foot across is it possible to move the 3- and 6-pound cannon. Twelve-pound batteries, in which the superiority of Austrian artillery really lies, are totally untransportable, thus creating an equalisation of the armaments of the two sides that must necessarily prolong the fighting. Even if its outcome is not in doubt (!), many a day may well elapse before Windischgrätz can report to Olmütz: "The country is quiet!" In the end the Magyar forces, which still have a strength of 60,000-70,000 men, could concentrate in Transylvania, where Bern reigns supreme, and the nature of the terrain is particularly favourable to a stubborn defence. The Vienna Lloyd(3) also says that Pest is arming strongly:
"Since yesterday (the 14th) reinforcements for the Theiss army have been leaving continuously. A decisive battle is expected to take place there in the next few days. These new forces being sent to the Theiss could number at least 11,000 men."
The Österreichischer Correspondent mentions a victory of the Serbs over a greatly superior force of Magyars at Szento. Unfortunately, the otherwise so omniscient bulletin knows nothing about this.
This much is certain: for the present "the war in Hungary" is not yet "coming to an end".
Written by Engels on February 23, 1849
118. Latest News of the Magyars. - Victory on the Theiss. - Brutality of the Austrians. - State of the War in General
The Allgemeine Oder-Zeitung cites the following, among other things, from the reports of a Hungarian who left Pest on the 17th:
When the Magyar army withdrew from Pest to the other side of the Theiss, the dismay of the inhabitants of the two cities was extreme, especially on the part of the Magyars, who saw their last hope of freedom dashed and lamented that in abandoning the capital the army was disgracing itself before all Europe. Nevertheless, the policy of the Hungarian Government was a shrewd one, fully realising as it did that in their eagerness to save their property the inhabitants of the two cities would have helped the enemy. Later on, of course, when it turned out that the Austrian Government was not sparing any of those involved, these people realised that they were up against an implacable enemy. The atrocities committed by the Austrian troops in the area of Buda-Pest exceeded all bounds. In this, the Croats outdid all the others. What they could not use they destroyed. Two days after the retreat of the Hungarians across the Theiss an army corps of 20,000 men under Ottinger occupied Szolnok, with its rearguard in Abony. In this position the Austrians were attacked by a Hungarian corps about 12,000 strong under Perczel, and would have been completely annihilated had not an advancing Hungarian army unit under Brigadier Kasinsky been delayed. In any case, the Austrians saw themselves forced to flee, which they did under cover of night, and were unable to rally their forces until they reached Czegléd. It was remarkable to watch the terror that seized them — that is the cavalry and the officers — and how they were forever shouting, "Onward! Onward! The butchering dogs" (as they call the Hungarian hussars) "are hard on our heels!"
On the 21st the Hungarians arrived at Abony, and this time they were 22,000 strong. General Dembinski was tvith them, though not in command at that stage. The day after the battle at Szolnok a division of Austrian cuirassiers advanced as far as St. Marton, where the Hungarian outposts were positioned, and what occurred there was incredible: they were attacked by six Hungarian hussars who killed twenty of them and took some of them prisoner.
At dawn on the 23rd the Hungarians reached Czegléd, where the Austrians had taken up a very favourable position. The Hungarians attacked, beat the Austrians and pursued them through the town right out into the vineyards of Alberty. There they heard that an Austrian corps of considerable size was marching via Alau towards Debreczin, and this news compelled them to give up the pursuit. General Dembinski, however, expressed his dissatisfaction with the entire execution of this attack, which in his opinion should have led to the complete annihilation of the Austrian corps.
The news of the defeat of Ottinger's corps reached Pest straightaway, and the townspeople once again sought out their red feathers, but their hopes were soon disappointed. The Hungarians crossed the Theiss and burned the bridge at Szolnok. This was used by the Austrians as a pretext to boast of victories, and fear of their brutality safeguarded them against contradiction. It was a sorry state of affairs for the local populace, who had hoped that they had already been freed from the Austrian yoke. The Austrians came in greater numbers and with demands even harsher than before.
Some houses were forced to billet 30 to 40 soldiers, and the officers were callous enough to throw old men out of their beds and lie down in them themselves, saying, "You Hungarians can sleep on the ground. That's good enough for you dogs."
These reports will be continued.(1)
The Schlesische Zeitung, a reactionary paper every bit as good as the Breslauer Zeitung, gives for its part the following account of the state of affairs in Hungary:
Pest, February 12. The war is dragging on longer than one would have expected, which is primarily due to the fact that the Magyars have found a staunch ally in the mild winter. The overflowing of the rivers as well as the almost completely impassable roads are confronting the Austrian army with well-nigh insuperable obstacles. The Theiss is now the demarcation line between the opposing armies. There is fighting now at one point, now at another, from Tokaj to Szegedin, a distance of more than 40 miles. The halfway point on this line is Szolnok. There has already been fierce fighting at this point, but it still remains under the control of the Magyars. It is of importance because it is situated in the centre of fighting.
On the Upper Theiss, i.e. in the area of Tokaj, the Magyars are rising up in large numbers, the population having been driven to desperation by the cruelties of the war. The population in and around Miskolcz is extremely agitated, as in the whole of Borsod comitat. The gains made here by the Austrians are always quickly snatched away from them again. Downstream from Szolnok, and indeed a long way upstream too, the land on both sides of the Theiss is so badly flooded that it is under water for a mile on either side in many places, which usually lasts well on into April. Only the local inhabitants are familiar with this terrain. Any foreign military force entering it can easily be driven by them into the swamps and floods.
Further downstream around Csongrad and Szanto the roads are at present quite impassable for an army corps, for the artillery would sink in the marshy roads. This is the road to Szegedin and Arad. The Austrian army, particularly the Croats, attempted to push forward here but became convinced that it was impossible. Rumour has it that for this reason Prince Windischgrätz has fallen out with Jellachich. The latter got as far as the steppes of Keczkemet, bur was pushed back again. This region is inhabited by the Cumans and the Jazyges, an extremely powerful race of men who are noblemen every one and recognise only the imperial palatine as their supreme authority. They are impassioned Magyars.
Between the Theiss and the border of Transylvania the towns are considerable distances apart, it is true, but are unusually populous. Thus, for example, the market-town of Csoba has a population of 24,000, and Gozula nearly 18,000. All are enthusiastic Magyars.
Further down in the Banat the Serbs are certainly pressing forward, but the Hungarians, nevertheless, still hold a good deal of country.
If General Bern succeeds in the plan which he now seems to have of setting out from Hermannstadt (in Transylvania) by way of the Szâszvâros and Deva through the mountain passes to Hungary and joining the Magyars there, their cause will take a favourable turn. And there are no particularly great obstacles in his path. For Transylvania is almost completely conquered, and the Wallachians were already defeated when Bern turned on the Saxons. Many of these are said to have joined up with him in the area of Kronstadt, doubtless only because there was no other course open to them. Only the fortress of Karlsburg (between Klausenburg and Mühlenbach) might have offered some resistance, but it is said to be in the hands of the Hungarians already.
On the right bank of the Danube, as in the Carpathians, the fighting is mostly confined to skirmishes. All along the stretch from the borders of Styria to the Danube patrol-corps have been formed which keep the Austrian army under General Nugent on the move. Several of these have respected Hungarians at their head. The occasional sorties made from Komorn serve to protect these guerillas. Even this virginal fortress would have fallen had the winter lasted another month, for it would then have been possible to approach it across the frozen rivers. On one side flow two arms of the Danube; on the other, the Waag and the Neutra. The fortress itself rises scarcely 50 feet above the plains, but from there it is quite inaccessible. Cannon-ball can hardly reach it, whereas the besieged are, on the other hand, able to inflict great damage on the besiegers. When Napoleon sent out Marshal Duroc to Komorn to reconnoitre during the war with the Austrians, not long before the Treaty of Pressburg, the Marshal returned with the laconic verdict: "Sire! imprenable. "(2)
In the Carpathians, too, the Magyars still have support, and neither is there any lack of patrol-corps, particularly in the comitats of Trentschin, Honth and Abaujvâr.
From all this it is evident that the war is still far from being at an end, and that Austria will still have to raise large fighting forces before it conquers an enemy whose morale is improving with every day that passes, and which is now better led, partly by French and Polish officers, than it was in the beginning.
Written by Engels on February 24, 1849
119. More News of the Magyars :
No fresh news direct from the theatre of war. The Allgemeine Oder-Zeitung continues the "Reports of a Hungarian"; owing to lack of space we must hold it over until our next issue. How Görgey is proceeding in Kaschau and what fear he inspires in the Austrians is proved by a letter from Pest dated February 10:
"The news is now spreading that General Görgey has occupied the town of Kaschau. His first measure was to depose the entire Town Council, all the imperial customs officials and salt-office officials, and an enormous levy was imposed on the burghers. Early this morning a fully equipped brigade left the town, consisting of one battalion of fusiliers, two divisions of light cavalry, four battalions of infantry and two cavalry batteries, with all the necessary wagons of ammunition, powder and field-requisites, marching in the direction of Waitzen."
Further we hear again from Transylvania from various sources of the Russians' entry, while the official reports still remain silent about it. Thus reports of the 9th have arrived from Bucharest giving an account of the entry of the Russians at the request of the citizens of Hermannstadt and Kronstadt, adding that the advancing Russians had immediately encountered a unit of Szeklers and given them a sound beating. Yet the newly arrived courier sent by Lieutenant-Field Marshal Puchner from Hermannstadt on the 8th, who reports the destruction of Bern's army at Salzburg, says nothing about the entry of the Russians, and even Puchner's official report is silent on this point.
In Pressburg, J. Csenkly of Hetye in Hungary has been sentenced to four years prison for illegal possession of arms.
In Croatia the conflict between the nationalist Southern Slavs and the royal imperial authorities is becoming increasingly more violent.
Thus the Constitutione lies Blatt aus Böhmen is informed from Agram, February 15:
"Bitterness against the Ministry is growing here from day to day. News comes in almost hourly showing all too clearly that the Government is not in earnest with its pledges to the Croats, indeed indicating on the contrary that it is eager to effect the restoration of the old system of Magyar oppression. The agitation caused by the recently mentioned Magyar official letter from Count Almâsy a had still not subsided when another Magyar order from the Ofen Board of Works arrived, enjoining the chief engineer in Croatia to apply henceforth to the Hungarian central authorities, as all the obstacles which had hitherto disrupted the old" (pre-March) "conduct of official business had been completely eliminated. This Magyar official order, which aroused irritation in all quarters, was followed by another, German, decree from the Vienna Ministry of Trade, whereby the chief engineer, Vauthier-Rauchefort, one of the keenest supporters of the Magyars, about whom there had been frequent complaints that he was in secret communication with Kossuth, was called to the office of the Ministry of Public Works and appointed ministerial adviser."
In consequence of this, the Ban's Council in Agramb has now issued an official edict prohibiting all authorities from carrying out orders originating from "Magyar insolence" and instructing them instead to send such unlawful communications to the Ban's Council, who will see to it that these are used as proof of the usurpation of its authority. At the same time this edict announces that not only is there no Magyar administration in the three united kingdomsc but that no interference from it in official business would ever be tolerated.
At the same time, refusal to be conscripted is on the increase in Bohemia. Today we hear:
The majority of the communities in the Prachin district of Bohemia are refusing to enforce conscription, since they have been informed that the decree in question originated from the Ministry and not from the Imperial Diet. It is to be feared that the peasant disturbances in this region may shortly spread to the whole country.
In short, despite all efforts, old Austria is disintegrating more and more every day. A revolutionary push from Italy or France, and it will belong to the past.
Written by Engels about February 24, 1849
120. The Russians in Transylvania
Cologne, February 26. Ten thousand Russians are in Transylvania. It can no longer be denied, all concealment and obfuscation has become impossible, the facts are there, the official Wiener Zeitung*
itself has admitted it.
So these were the tremendous victories of the imperial hired soldiery, this is the result of all the pompous bulletins of Weiden, Windischgrätz, Schlick and Puchner: the great-power Austria had to call in Russian help to get the better of four and a half million Magyars.
At this new turning-point in Hungarian affairs let us survey once more the course of the war as the most recent news reflects it.
The territory which at this moment is occupied by the Magyars under Kossuth forms a large rectangle, 70-90 miles long and 30-40 miles wide, bounded in the north and the west by the Theiss, in the east by the Carpathians and in the south by the Maros. It embraces in an area of 2,500 square miles the central Hungarian plain and the mountainous regions of Transylvania. In addition Komorn on the Upper Danube is also in the hands of the Hungarians.
In the south, where the Magyars were always weakest, the Austrians, Slovenes and Austrian Serbs succeeded with the help of Turkish Serbs and disguised Russians0 to push the Magyars beyond the Maros. There fighting took place near Arad, in which the Austrians advanced to the northern (right) bank of the Maros.
According to their own assertion they gained a victory and captured fifteen pieces of siege artillery trained on Arad, but, equally according to their own statement, withdrew again across the Maros. As far as we know, up to now they have not yet succeeded in breaking through the line of the Maros and as long as that does not happen there can be no question of the great expedition which Rukavina is supposed to undertake against Grosswardein and Transylvania.
In the west and the north-west the Theiss with its extensive floods and boundless marshes provides the Magyars with an almost impregnable line of cover. As long as the Russians did not take part in the fighting this was the decisive centre of the theatre of war. Once Windischgrätz was in Debreczin the war would have dissolved into mere guerilla fighting. The Magyars knew this and therefore their main army did not offer serious resistance anywhere up to the Theiss. They were only concerned to hold out until the end of the cold weather which enabled the imperial forces to pass all rivers and marshes like firm ground, and which delivered Pest and Ofen into their hands with hardly a chance of resistance. While the main army thus withdrew slowly, the two wings remained in advanced positions, in the north in the Slovak comitats and in the south between the Drava and the Danube, held out as long as they could, forced the enemy army to divide and in the end withdrew, the one through the Carpathians towards the Theiss, the other across the Danube back to the Banat army.
Only the inane ignorance of German hack journalists who had sold themselves to Austria and had never had a map in their hands or followed a strategic operation, could see in this masterly plan, based on detailed knowledge and survey of the terrain, nothing else than cowardice, sheer cowardice, on the part of the Magyars. People of any sense and knowledge would at least have lied and boasted less absurdly than the mass of the German common liars, who had gone grey under censorship, corruption and gross ignorance.
Success has demonstrated the operational skill of the Magyars. It took six weeks for the first imperial soldier of the main army to see the Theiss, and while the river was then still frozen over, the battles of Szolnok, Czegléd, Tarczal and Tokaj showed the Austrians how Hungarians fight when offering serious resistance. Ottinger thrown back beyond Czegléd, Schlick to Boldogkövaralya and a general lament over the Magyars' sudden and unexpected resistance from all the martial-law papers, hitherto delirious with victory — those were the first results of the "victorious" advance of the Austrians to the Theiss. Then followed the thaw, the Magyars withdrew over the Theiss and the ice-drift prevented the imperial troops from following them. The ice-drift ceased, but not the inundations and swamping of both banks to a breadth of several miles. The imperial troops stood helpless facing the swamps and the torrential river and no one dared to cross although Windischgrätz sent reinforcement after reinforcement from Pest. But the Magyars dared to cross, because a short time ago we suddenly heard that Miskolcz, four miles this side of the Theiss, was again in their hands and, as we shall see later, the official royal imperial reports have done more than confirm this.
While Windischgrätz, Jellachich and Schlick were thus glad to be able to hang on to their positions, Nugent in the south gave battle to Damjanich, and in the north Götz, Simunich and Csorich to Görgey. In the south, where the Hungarian Banat army had already been pushed back, the Austrians succeeded in breaking up Damjanich's cut-off corps into guerilla forces, which still keep in check a sizable body of troops in the area between the Drava, the Danube and the forest of Bakony. In the north on the other hand, Görgey, one of the swiftest and most daring insurgent leaders, managed to defend the Slovak comitats for two whole months against three entire army corps by bold large-scale guerilla warfare and a series of brilliant individual actions. Although the royal imperial bulletins annihilated him countless times, he always reappeared on the field of battle, repulsed one Austrian general after another, and prevented their unification through rapid marches and constantly repeated attacks. Only the fall of Leopoldstadt decided his retreat before a three- or fourfold superiority. He retreated into the Upper Carpathians and by that gave the imperial troops such a fright that the whole of Galicia was armed, then thrust forward into the Zips and from there into Eperies and Kaschau. There he stood in the rear of Schlick. The latter, cut off from Windischgrätz by the Magyar corps which had advanced to Miskolcz, and now in danger of being surrounded on three sides, retreated hastily in a north-westerly direction, intending to unite with Götz and his associates in Leutschau. Then suddenly "powerful hostile forces" thrust at Polgâr and Tiszafüred across the Theiss, unite with the column from Miskolcz and advance towards Rimaszombat, i.e. between Windischgrätz and Schlick. This forces Schlick to change his entire plan, leave Götz in the Carpathians to his fate and get ahead of the main column of the Magyars through a hasty south-westerly march in the direction of Rimaszombat.
By this masterly devised manoeuvre of the Magyars Schlick is thrown back into Slovakia, Götz is isolated in the Upper Carpathians, the unification of Görgey with the main Magyar army is assured and the whole of North-East Hungary liberated from the imperial troops.
All these events, which occurred between February 10 and 14, are admitted even in the official Wiener Zeitung. Among the rest of the howling Austrian and German press too, a curious lowering of the tone could recently be observed. Not to mention the mourning of our nearest neighbours, the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung is forced today to admit:
"The struggle may be yet a little prolonged. The country is too big and the insurgents have good leaders in the Poles."[3]
And now even the Constitutionelles Blatt aus Böhmen:
"The reports from Hungary which have arrived here to date vary widely in character. Those from the south are clearly favourable to our forces, those from the north clearly unfavourable."
And in another article: .
"If we glance over the newest facts from Hungary in the various journals of decidedly conservative colour there seems to be a slight up-and-down movement in the successes of the imperial army.
"The occupation of Kaschau by Görgey too is not conducive to a belief in the dissolution of the Hungarian army, its destruction and dispersal and the ending of the war, which was regarded as imminent at the beginning of the year."
It is "still difficult to explain how, with the well-ordered troop combinations and with geographically correct manoeuvres which we have a right to expect from such an excellently organised and led army, isolated bodies of Magyar troops are in a position to move about with not insignificant forces in the line of operations, or behind it, or to converge again in places from which we believed them to have been dislodged for the whole duration of the campaign".
That is how things are in the north-west. It is no longer a case of defending the line of the Theiss against the Austrians; it is the Austrians who must not let themselves be thrown back into Slovakia and behind the Danube. For the last week the Hungarians, not the Austrians, have been the attackers.
And finally in the south-east, in Transylvania? Here the bulletins reported Bern as being defeated again and again by Puchner, here the "rebels" seemed to be completely defeated. Then suddenly the Wiener Zeitung(1) brings the following official lamentation:
"Since the bloody victory which the commanding general, Baron von Puchner, secured on January 21 against the three times stronger enemy at Hermannstadt, the troops retained for the defence of the town could unfortunately not prevent their communication with the Banat and Karlsburg being severed by the enemy, who had settled in the surrounding area like vandals, confiscating all stores of food and animals ready for slaughter and having them carried away together with other pillaged property to the depot at Klausenburg.
"With the shortages which in consequence had arisen on our side, the complaints and petitions of the flourishing chief cities of the loyal Saxon region, Kronstadt and Hermannstadt, became ever louder and more urgent. Even earlier, when these towns were threatened by the marauding and perfidious Szekler hordes, they appealed in their distress to the Russian commanding general in Wallachia, von Lüders, for possible assistance. When, through the severing of the lines of communication with the main imperial army operating in Hungary, all prospects of an early arrival of reinforcements vanished, when the enemy attracted daily new rebel groups and succeeded through deceitful pretences in inciting all the Szeklers anew to disloyalty and armed insurrections, Lieutenant-Field Marshal von Puchner was stormed on all sides with requests to call for Russian support so that the most prosperous part of the loyal Saxon region should not be abandoned to ruin and the blind destructive fury of blood-thirsty marauders.
"Moved by the imperative need to attack Bern, the chief of the rebels, before the rebel mobs who were converging to his assistance from several sides made him overwhelmingly strong, but at the same time unable with his small forces to face the enemy resolutely and protect the Saxon region from the devastation of the Szeklers, Lieutenant-Field Marshal von Puchner felt impelled to listen to the voice of humanity and to take into consideration the requests for Russian assistance made jointly by the Rumanian and Saxon nations, although he had received no authority for this from the Imperial Government. To this end he assembled a Council of War on February 1 in Hermannstadt. Just at the closure of this assembly a courier brought the official news from Kronstadt that the armed Szekler hordes, 15,000 strong, had crossed the frontiers of their region and that as a result, with the rich trading centre of Kronstadt now threatened with inevitable destruction by these bands, delay created the greatest danger.
A lot could be said about this royal imperial Miserere, but it is not necessary. Every line breathes consciousness of defeat, shame at being unable to tell any more lies and at having to abjure all past boastings.
So that was at the bottom of all the official bulletins and of the Magyar "exaggerations"! The Magyars attacking and advancing on the Theiss, the Austrians halted on the Maros, Transylvania irretrievably lost to the imperial cause unless the Russians intervene!
There is in Germany a literary lumpenproletariat, cowardly and lying stay-at-homes, who dare to revile as cowards these Magyars, this heroic nation of a few millions which so ran to earth the whole great Austria, the entire proud "united monarchy", that Austria is lost without the Russians.
"This fact," the official report continues ashamedly, The further reported successes of Puchner, however insignificant, would never have come about without the Russian auxiliary troops, to judge from all that has happened hitherto.
Let it be known and not forgotten that Bulletin No. 24,a which appeared on the previous evening, ascribes the advantages secured from February 4 to 7 solely to the fighting abilities of the imperial troops and is completely silent about the entry of the Russians.
As we know, Bern stood before Stolzenburg. From there Puchner drove him on the 4th to Mühlenbach (where he claims to have captured 16 guns), then on the 6th to Szâszvâros, and on the 7th to Deva. There Bern still is.
Supposing this is true, Puchner would never have succeeded in pushing back 12 miles in 4 days a commander like Bern, who had crossed Transylvania with the greatest speed several times from one end to the other and who had always proved himself far superior to the constantly defeated Austrian, had it not been due to the most crushing superiority in numbers, due to the Russian auxiliary troops and Russian staff officers who are in any case better soldiers than these old-fashioned Austrians.
If Bern stands indeed near Deva his plan is obvious. He has withdrawn from Mühlenbach to the Maros and proposes to leave Transylvania for a time to the Austrians, who have their hands full with the Szekler guerilla bands, and to move down the Maros towards Arad, to push the Serbs back into the Banat and to advance on Kossuth's left wing. That Puchner should pursue him is out of the question for the present. But Gläser at Arad and Rukavina at Temesvâr will soon get to hear of Bern and before a week has passed we shall probably hear how the indefatigable Pole operates against Szegedin and against the right wing of Windischgrätz. At least it is impossible to draw any other conclusions from the direction in which he is moving.
Without the Russians Puchner would have been annihilated and Transylvania subjugated in a few days. The Szeklers and the Magyars of the territory were themselves enough to keep the Saxons and the Wallachians in check. Bern could have followed as the victor the route which he now takes in his retreat, could have joined up with Kossuth and Dembinski and by that means have decided the outcome of the campaign. Victory was assured for their combined forces. Pest would have been taken in a few days and — on March 15 Dembinski was of course in Vienna.
Then the Russians join the fray and throw the weight, of the Tsar's Empire into the scales on Austria's side. And that, of course, is decisive.
Such indeed are the heroic deeds of these brave knights of martial law, Windischgrätzes, Jellachiches, Nugents and Schlicks. To set upon a small nation of four and a half million from eight sides with all Austria's might, to call for help from Turkish Croats, Bosnians and Serbs and in the end, as soon as the small nation has gathered its strength and driven out the traitors from its midst, to be soundly and roundly beaten!
These were indeed glorious laurels which the invincible Windischgrätz gained with the help of Russian reinforcements! Wonderful victories won by the alliance of the united European barbarians against the most advanceed outpost of European civilisation.
No one could have guessed, however, that the most subtle point in the grandiose campaign plan of Windischgrätz, the last strategic trump of the great general,was to be the appeal to the Russians. And yet, one might have known it: Has Austria ever been victorious by other means?
The Magyars, the last indomitable fighters of the revolution of 1848, may well succumb like the heroes of June in Paris or the fighters of October in Vienna, overwhelmed by the superior forces which again surround them on all sides. It will depend on the degree of the Russian participation whether the war against them will come to an end speedily or otherwise. If we West Europeans in the meantime persist in our silent apathy, if we offer only passive resistance and sighs of impotence to the infamous and traitorous attack of the Russians on our Magyar brothers, then the Magyars are lost — and it will be our turn next.
Indeed, the invasion of Transylvania by the Russians is the most infamous betrayal, the most villainous breach of international law in history. What is the open coalition of the despots in 1792, what is the silent connivance of the German powers at Russia in the Polish war, what is the partition of Poland itself[354] in comparison with this cowardly, treacherous strangling of a small heroic nation, carried out underhand and with* typical Russian perfidy. What are all the infamies of past British, Russian and Austrian policies compared with this unmentionable villainy.
Austria wages a war of oppression against the Magyars, Russia attacks them from behind, and Prussia stands at the border, warrant in hand, to arrest the refugees and hand them over to their executioners. One year after the European revolution, on February 21, 1849, the Holy Alliance stands before us resurrected in all its martial-law banditry and police blackguardism.
Thus far have we come. They dare to do such things in front of the whole of Europe and all Europe does not dare to move a finger. The official French Republic quietly rejoices and wishes that it too bordered on Russia so as to exterminate the anarchists the more easily. Why after the revolution in France and in Germany did we show so much generosity, magnanimity, consideration and kind-heartedness, if we did not wish the bourgeoisie again to raise its head and betray us, and the calculating counter-revolution to plant its foot on our neck?
But be patient. The "hydra of revolution" is not yet stilled. Look to Italy — the power of hired bayonets is not the last decisive power of history. Be patient. The day will come, and come soon, when a new revolution will make its bloody round through Europe, a revolution which, instead of bending its knee before mere phrases about the republic or haggling over the paltry "gains of March", will not sheathe its sword until it has avenged all the betrayal and all the infamy of the last nine months. Then we shall call to account all those who have permitted and supported this disgraceful betrayal of our Magyar fellow fighters. And then, despite the Russians, we shall strike off the shackles of Hungary and Poland!
Written by Engels on February 26, 1849
121. Russian Invasion. Š Serbs. Š Prospects for the Avistrians. Š From the Theatre of War
There is absolutely no fresh news from the war theatre. But from all quarters reports are arriving which confirm our report of yesterday about the bad situation in which the imperial troops find themselves everywhere, except in Transylvania freed with the help of the Russians.(1) As proof we are reproducing below a dispatch from the Pressburg correspondent of the Breslauer Zeitung and the concluding paragraphs of the "Reports of a Hungarian" from the
Allgemeine Oder-Zeitung.
The Austrians have without any doubt only reluctantly decided to appeal to the Russians. It is crystal-clear that the Russian invasion is bound to give a new impetus to the pan-Slavist movements of the Czechs and the Southern Slavs. These nationalities who have for a long time been used to look to the Tsar as their natural patron and ultimate liberator, are now receiving striking proof that Austria has neither the power nor the will to ensure their national development. And now for the first time the Russian Tsar(2) enters upon the stage, acts for them at the decisive moment and confirms with deeds the hopes which they place in him. Thus the Tsar now appears before the Austrian Serbs, Croats, Czechs etc. as the supreme protector of the Slav nationality as he did previously before the Turkish Serbs. And that the Slav national aspirations can be as menacing for the Austrian "united monarchy" as the armed resistance of the Magyars we have seen repeatedly.
With the Russian invasion of Transylvania the Tsar has taken a new step towards the realisation of pan-Slavism. He has proclaimed the alliance of the Russians and the Austrian Slavs and made himself the de facto sovereign of the Austrian Slavs. The others are of course already under his sway. The Poles are his servants, the Turkish Slavs his vassals, and now he poses as the protector of the Austrian Slavs too. Only one more step and Austria falls completely under his suzerainty just like Turkey. At this price the "united monarchy" saves itself for a few months from destruction at the hands of the revolution!
At a people's assembly at Mitrowitz in the Banat the Serbs proclaimed the Patriarch[3] supreme ruler of their nation and Stratimirovich a rebel, declaring martial law against all enemies of the Emperor. The Patriarch who in Temesvâr directs the affairs of the Voivodina, together with Todorovich and the Serbian deputies, is said to confirm these resolutions. At the battle of Arad the very popular Serbian Major Jovanovich fell into the hands of the Magyars. The following shows that the Magyars were in any case not defeated as decisively in this battle as the bulletins alleged. The Patriarch offered to the Magyar General Damjanich (who thus, as we incidentally learn, was fortunate enough to reach the Banat army across the Danube and the Theiss) to exchange Jovanovich against 200 Magyars. Damjanich replied that as far as he knew the Serbs did not have 200 Magyar prisoners in their hands! The Serbs, by the way, are arming on some scale in Serbia as within the Banat. In the Serbian principality a national Convention0 has been summoned and is discussing the mobilisation of 1,000 auxiliary troops in each of the country's 18 districts.
So that one should see what a small and nationally mixed country the new Serbian Voivodina is and how absurd the pretensions of the pan-Slavists are to create small Slav states in all corners of Hungary, we give the following statistical notes from the Belgrade Serbske Noviny :
"The Voivodina comprises territorially the following: 1. the Sirmische comitat0, 2. the Peterwardein regiment, 3. the comitat of Bacs, 4. the battalion of the Tchaikists, 5. the comitat of Torontal, 6. the former German Banat regiment (now named Pancsova regiment), 7. the former Illyrian Banat regiment (now called Weisskirchen regiment) and the comitat of Temesvâr. The area totals 719 square miles, with 75 towns and market centres, 706 villages, 221,182 houses and 1,605,808 inhabitants. The inhabitants can be divided according to their national origin into 917,916 Serbs, 26,200 Slovaks, 13,000 Bulgarians, 283,000 Wallachians, 278,400 Germans, 6,160 French and 81,132 Magyars. Of the inhabitants 877,620 are Greek Orthodox, 627,994 Roman Catholics, 12,494 United Catholics, 46,311 Lutherans, 30,642 Calvinists, 17 Arians and 10,730 Jews. The Catholic Southern Slavs are included among the 917,916 Serbs. The former border regiment of the Wallachian Banat remains outside the territory of the Voivodina, and will be incorporated into Transylvanian Rumania (Wallachia)."
This small so-called national Serbian country thus contains 700,000 Germans, Wallachians, Magyars etc. compared with 900,000 Serbs. And the 900,000 Serbs are not even all Serbs but include also the "Catholic Southern Slavs", that is the Shokazians[358] of Syrmien and of the comitat of Bacs, who are not Serbs at all. And this is supposed to be a nation with national needs and above all the need to be separate from Hungary!
We now give the report of the Breslauer Zeitung:
"Pressburg, February 18. The wet and stormy weather has made the notorious roads of our country so bottomless that the large army corps can move forward only with untold difficulties, and the heavy artillery and other heavy vehicles are indeed getting stuck. Under these circumstances the numerous Hungarian patrol-corps are gaining one advantage after the other and the Austrian army is being fooled in a variety of ways. The commander-in-chief of the latter[3] seems indeed to have become impatient and would very much like to lead a major attack, for which purpose he has dispatched large forces in the direction of Szolnok. As a result the rumour circulates that a serious encounter has taken place there and that the Magyars have been thrown back beyond the Theiss.— One can, however, entertain a certain suspicion concerning these reports because the Hungarians are at present too well led not to make use of the golden opportunity to draw the enemy into the marshes of the Theiss and to destroy him there without any great difficulty. The many patrol-corps which spring up everywhere in Lower Hungary will not fail to harass him on all sides if he should advance too far, cut off his supplies and capture and destroy any troops which move away from the main army. In a certain sense the war in lower Hungary can be compared with Napoleon's campaign in Russia, and if the Austrian army should advance too far it could meet with fate similar to that of the French at the time.— Under these circumstances Windischgrätz will be in a difficult position. To act quickly and secure with one decisive blow a change of fortune for his cause is virtually impossible, but if he hesitates the strength of the Magyars will continue to grow. Capitulation is said to have been offered but the Magyars have declined with disdain.— If we cast a glance at the map we shall see that the Austrian army, despite its advances and its reported victories, is surrounded by large and small formations of the Magyar army as if by a net. From the borders of Styria via the Plattensee to Esseg in Croatia the country appears to have been conquered but everywhere there are patrol-corps which seriously molest the Austrians.
"On the other side, that is from the Danube to the Carpathians, things are no better. One becomes convinced of this when one reads the reports of the Austrians being driven hither and thither through constant engagements. Here the Hungarian patrol-corps have a particularly suitable terrain, and most of the inhabitants, even the majority of the Slovaks, secretly side with them. Only this explains how the Magyars can continue to make their sallies far into Galicia almost with impunity. In the east the Theiss is the great barrier which protects the Magyars, and wherever the Austrians have attempted to push across they have always been thrown back with losses.
"If it should come to a major battle, and if the Austrians should lose it, as they possibly might, then their retreat would be a very dangerous one. For they could well fear that the people would rise up everywhere. The commander-in-chief does not seem to conceal the precariousness of his situation."
The following is the end of the "Reports of a Hungarian" from the Allgemeine Oder-Zeitung* This could also serve as proof how little "exaggerated" the Magyar reports are.
"Thanks to Kossuth's clever measures all the youth of Pest has gone off to Debreczin. People with detailed knowledge of events on the other side of the Theiss say that the Hungarian army is 120,000-150,000 strong, commanded by three capable Polish generals and supported by a considerable contingent of artillery and that in case of need it could be augmented by the 100,000-strong Hungarian Landsturm. The well-known Rosa with his troops occupies the forest of Bakony.
"The Austrians put three bridges across the Theiss, one near Szolnok, one near Tiszafüred and the third near Zibok, which the Hungarians used to cross the river and to defeat the enemy on the 11th inst.
"Order and the strictest discipline rule throughout the Hungarian army, especially since the Polish generals have assumed supreme command. The comitats on the other side of the Theiss are resolved to defend themselves to the last man and the majority of the young men who fled to Debreczin on the entry of the Austrians into Pest have joined the Hungarian army, whose soldiers range from 17 to 40, and even 60 years of age, all inspired with love for their country.
"Kossuth, I hear from reliable sources, recently made in Debreczin a speech, such as has never been heard before.
"The hall was filled with deputies and other persons, the gallery with ladies; he made the deputies and all present swear to stand by him in the struggle against Austria. All hands rose to take the oath. A long silence followed this taking of the oath, then he pronounced in a strong voice just these words: 'Now the fatherland is saved.'
"The majority of royal imperial troops who were stationed in Pest and Buda were withdrawn in the direction of Erlau and Czegléd and only about 4,000 men remained. There was talk of the headquarters of Prince Windischgrätz being moved to Erlau. In spite of the great victories which the Austrians claimed to have won but which in fact the Hungarians won, they did not fail to train the cannon of the fortress of Buda on the town of Pest. An order was given to the inhabitants of the fortress to lay in provisions for themselves for three months. Those who were unable to do so were to leave their homes.
"Why all these fearful preparations, in absolute contradiction to the absurd news according to which the Austrian army operates now near Debreczin, now in Transylvania! Even the soldiers are demoralised. Officers and soldiers complain loudly that they have been forced to take up arms against the Hungarians, who have not done them any harm. The most stupid and at the same time the most cruel are the Bohemians.
"The former Prime Minister, Count Louis Batthyâny, was interrogated fourteen times and refused fourteen times to answer, saying: 'I was a Minister and I shall only answer when summoned before a tribunal of Hungarian magnates.' Generals Moga and Hrabovsky, two old men whose life was without blemish, were sentenced to twenty years confinement in a fortress; Count Lasar, son-in-law of General Moga and colonel of the Honvéd,[359] was to be executed but the magnanimous Prince Windischgrätz commuted his sentence to 10 years imprisonment in chains, loss of his title of nobility and dismissal in disgrace from the army!!"
Written by Engels on February 27, 1849
Endnotes
[1] Marx's article "The Crisis in Berlin" and his series of articles "Counter-Revolution in Berlin" were written in response to the first moves in the counter-revolutionary coup d'état in Prussia. On November 1, 1848, Frederick William IV dismissed the moderate liberal Pfuel Ministry, and an openly counter-revolutionary Ministry headed by Brandenburg and Manteuffel was formed. On November 9 a royal decree transferred the Prussian National Assembly from Berlin to Brandenburg, a small provincial town. This was the beginning of the coup d'état which ended with the dissolution of the Assembly on December 5, 1848. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung, under Marx's editorship, started a campaign to mobilise the people against the counter-revolution. In English this article was first published in the collection: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Articles from the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung". 1848-49, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was founded by Marx as a militant organ intended to reach and to influence the masses and, by their ideological and political education and consolidation, to prepare the ground for a mass party of the German proletariat. At the same time, it served to direct the activities of the Communist League which Marx and Engels founded in 1847 and regarded as the embryo of the future proletarian party. At the peak of the 1848 revolution, the League itself was too weak and numerically small to immediately rally the workers. There was no point in secret activity during the revolution, and Marx and Engels instructed League members throughout Germany to use the legal opportunities afforded by joining the workers' associations and democratic societies which were being formed. In the situation that had arisen only a proletarian revolutionary newspaper could direct and co-ordinate the activities of Communist League members and mobilise the masses to carry through the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. It was decided to publish the newspaper in Cologne, the capital of the Rhine Province, one of the most economically and politically advanced regions in Germany (here there were considerable cadres of the proletariat, and the Code Napoleon which was in force provided for greater freedom of the press than Prussian Law). The newspaper was given the name of Neue Rheinische Zeitung to emphasise that it was to continue the revolutionary-democratic traditions of the Rheinische Zeitung edited by Marx in 1842 and 1843. Taking account of the specific circumstances, with no independent mass workers' party in Germany, Marx, Engels and their followers entered the political scene as the Left, actually proletarian, wing of the democratic movement. This determined the stand of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which began to appear under the subtitle Organ der Demokratie (Organ of Democracy). The first issue of the newspaper appeared in the evening of May 31, 1848, and was dated June 1. The editorial board consisted of Karl Marx (editor-in-chief), Heinrich Bürgers, Ernst Dronke, Georg Weerth, Ferdinand and Wilhelm Wolff and Frederick Engels, joined in October 1848 by the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath. All the editors were members of the Communist League. The editorial board was known for its unanimity of views, smooth working and precise division of functions. Besides reading and answering letters and helping the editor-in-chief, each member had to deal with a definite range of questions. The editorial board had its correspondents in different parts of Germany and abroad. It established regular contacts with a number of democratic periodicals in other countries. As a rule, Marx and Engels wrote the editorials formulating the newspaper's stand on the most important questions of the revolution. These were marked "* Köln" or "** Köln". Sometimes editorial articles marked with one asterisk were printed in other sections under the heading of News from Italy, France, Hungary, Switzerland and other countries. In addition to editorials, Engels wrote articles on other subjects, including the course of the revolutionary liberation movement in Italy, the revolutionary war in Hungary, the political life of Switzerland, and so on. Wilhelm Wolff contributed articles on the agrarian question, on the condition of the peasants and the peasant movement, particularly in Silesia. He was also responsible for the current events section. Georg Weerth wrote feuilletons and Ernst Dronke contributed various reports (including reports from Paris). The only article which Heinrich Bürgers wrote for the Neue Rheinische Zeitungv/as practically rewritten by Marx. He was more successful as the newspaper's representative at workers' meetings. Freiligrath published his revolutionary poems in the newspaper. The Neue Rheinische Zeitungv/as a daily (from September 1848 it appeared every day except Monday). On some days a second edition was put out in order to supply the readers with prompt information on all the most important revolutionary developments in Germany and Europe; supplements were printed when there was too much material for the four pages of the issue, and special supplements and special editions in the form of leaflets carried the latest and most important news. Even in the first months of the newspaper's existence the bourgeois shareholders started to complain of the consistent revolutionary line of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, its militant internationalism and political denunciations of the Government. Its editors were persecuted by the Government and attacked in the feudal monarchist and liberal bourgeois press. Shareholders were especially scared off by articles in defence of the June 1848 uprising of the Paris proletariat. To make Marx's stay in the Rhine Province more difficult, the Cologne authorities, on instructions from Berlin, refused to reinstate him in his rights as a Prussian citizen (which Marx had renounced in 1845), and on several occasions instituted legal proceedings against him and other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. On September 26, 1848, when a state of siege was declared in Cologne, several democratic newspapers, including the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, were suspended. To avoid arrest, Engels, Dronke and Ferdinand Wolff had to leave Germany for a time. Wilhelm Wolff stayed in Cologne but for several months lived in hiding. When the state of siege was lifted the paper resumed publication on October 12, thanks to the great efforts of Marx who contributed all his ready money to the paper. Until January 1849, the main burden of the work, including editorial articles, lay on Marx's shoulders since Engels had to stay out of Germany (in France and Switzerland). Persecution of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung editors by the legal authorities and the police was particularly intensified after the counter-revolutionary coup in Prussia in November-December 1848. On February 7, 1849, Marx, Engels and Hermann Korff, the responsible publisher, were summoned to appear before a jury in Cologne, and the next day Marx, together with Schapper and lawyer Schneider, was brought to trial as the leader of the Rhenish District Committee of Democrats. But in both cases Marx and his associates were acquitted thanks to skilful defence. The failure of these prosecutions compelled the authorities to resort to other means for the prohibition of the revolutionary periodical. In May 1849, when the counter-revolution went into the offensive all over Germany, the Prussian Government issued an order for Marx's expulsion from Prussia on the grounds that he had not been granted Prussian citizenship. Marx's expulsion and new repressions against other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung put an end to the publication of the newspaper. Its last issue (No. 301), printed in red ink, came out on May 19, 1849. In their farewell address to the workers, the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung said, "Their last word everywhere and always will be: emancipation of the working classF'
[270] The reference is to the article "Elections to the First Chamber" published in the Kölnische Zeitung No. 24, January 28, 1849. The article expressed an opinion that as opposed to "a somewhat revolutionary-democratic Second Chamber", the First Chamber would be "the pillar of the Crown, law and order and genuine freedom", and called upon the electors to see to it that the "highest culture" and "statesmanly wisdom" should be represented in it by people of really outstanding talent.
[272] The reference is to the Slovak corps formed in 1848 by L. Stur and J. Hurbann under the control of Austrian officers. The corps consisted of Slovak and to some extent Czech students. In 1848-49 it took part in the war against revolutionary Hungary. The corps did not enjoy the sympathy of the people of Slovakia.
[273] The reference is to the civil war in Spain in 1833-40 which was unleashed by the clerical and feudal circles headed by Don Carlos, the pretender to the throne. The Carlist forces commanded by Zumalacarregni and Cabrera-y-Grifio operated in Catalonia and the Basque provinces using guerilla methods of warfare. After the 14-thousand-strong army of the Carlists failed to take Madrid in 1837, the Carlist movement declined and was defeated by 1840. In 1848 Cabrera tried to revive it by organising a revolt of the Carlists in Catalonia but was seriously wounded and fled to France.
[274] The United Diet — see Notes 89 and 157.
[275] See Note 261.
[276] See Note 150.
[277] The reference is to the suppression of the Polish national liberation uprising in Posen in April-May 1848 (see Note 151).
[278] See Note 75.
[279] The Government of Action—see Note 153. Constables—see Note 45.
[280] Johan Tilly, the army commander of the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), stormed Magdeburg on May 20, 1631, and allowed his soldiers to plunder it. The town was almost completely burnt down and ruined and about 30 thousand people were killed.
[281] The Prussian Government's Circular Note of January 23, 1849, addressed to all Prussian diplomats in the German states, formulated a plan for restoring the Federal Diet (see Note 63)—the central body of the German Confederation established by decision of the Vienna Congress in 1815.
[282] On September 22, 1848, after the Croatian Ban Jellachich started intervention against revolutionary Hungary, the Hungarian Sejm formed the National Defence Committee headed by Kossuth to exercise control over Count Batthyâny's liberal Government. After Jellachich had been defeated and Batthyâny's Government had resigned, the National Defence Committee took over the Government's functions on October 8 and Kossuth was vested with extensive powers corresponding to a wartime situation.
[283] See Note 223.
[285] See Note 88.
[290] (No. 43, July 13, 1848) and Joseph Wolff (No. 62, August 1, 1848). In response to the last article Public Prosecutor Hecker came out with a refutation (Neue Rheinische ZeitungNo. 64, August 3, 1848), in reply to which the newspaper published the article "Herr Hecker and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung" (No. 65, August 4,1848). An allusion to the reactionary entourage of Frederick William IV (the Gerlach brothers, Radowitz and others). This Court camarilla was frenziedly counter-revolutionary and played an active part in preparing and staging the coup d'état in Prussia in November-December 1848.
[291] On November 9, 1848, after Prime Minister Brandenburg declared that the Prussian National Assembly had to move to Brandenburg, the Ministers and some of the Right deputies left the sitting. The remaining majority, on the insistence of the Left deputies, decided that the King had no right to adjourn or transfer the Assembly without the consent of the people's representatives. However, despite the National Assembly's decision to continue its session in Berlin, the Government, supported by General Wrangel's troops, who arrived in Berlin the next day, carried out the coup d'état (see also Notes 53 and 135).
[293] See Notes 89 and 146.
[294] See Note 167.
[295] See Note 191.
[296] For Habeas Corpus see Note 42. The Civic Militia Law adopted by the National Assembly on October 17, 1848, made the civic militia completely dependent on the Government (see Note 90). Despite this, the counter-revolutionary government circles considered the existence of the civic militia to be dangerous and on November 12, 1848, after Wrangel's troops arrived in Berlin, it was disarmed.
[297] See Note 166.
[298] Marx refers to the reform movement in England. As a result of this movement the British Parliament passed the Reform Act of 1832, which extended the franchise and put an end to the old and corrupt constituencies {"rotten boroughs"). In protest against the opposition to the Reform Bill on the part of the Tories and the House of Lords, the participants in the movement organised mass meetings and advanced the slogan "No Bill, no taxes!" Political unions of the bourgeoisie also called for refusal to pay taxes and withdrawal of deposits from the banks. After the House of Lords rejected the Bill for the third time in March 1832, and Grey's Whig Government, which had proposed the Bill, resigned, the Tories headed by Wellington (Prime Minister in 1828-30) failed to form a government. The King was compelled to turn to the Whigs, who by threatening to pack the House of Lords with new peers succeeded in carrying through the Bill.
[299] Lassalle was arrested in Düsseldorf on November 22, 1848, on the charge of incitement to arming against the Government during the campaign for refusal to pay taxes. The judiciary of the Rhine Province used all means to drag out his case. On Lassalle's request, expressed in his letters to Marx and Engels, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung came out in his defence and that of other persecuted Düsseldorf democrats. It carried a number of articles exposing the abuses and illegal actions of the judiciary and the prison authorities against Lassalle (see this volume, pp. 344-46, 474-76). An article on Lassalle, written later on, is published in Vol. 9 of the present edition. Marx and Engels also participated in the steps taken by the Cologne democratic organisations to induce the judiciary to speed up the investigation of the case. In particular they were among the deputation who visited Prosecutor-General of the Rhine Province Nicolovius on March 3, 1849, and protested against the protraction of Lassalle's case (see this volume, p. 344). The trial was held on May 3 and 4; Lassalle was acquitted.
[300] Pennsylvanian prisons—solitary confinement prisons. The first such prison was built in Philadelphia (State of Pennsylvania) in 1791. In the nineteenth century this system of confinement was widely used in Europe; in Germany it was applied in 1844 in the Moabit Prison in Berlin and in several others.
[301] The reference is apparendy to the law of March 29, 1844, on judicial and administrative and criminal court procedure in bringing an action against officials.
[15] The riot which took place on October 24, 1848, in Freiburg (Fribourg) was organised by the Catholic priests led by Bishop Marilley, and aimed at overthrowing the democratic Government of the canton. It was quickly suppressed.
[302] The reference is to the Government of the Austrian Empire. During the popular uprising in Vienna in October 1848 the Emperor and his court left the capital on October 7 and moved to the provincial town of Olmütz (Olomouc) in Moravia. Olmütz became the centre of the counter-revolutionary forces. Soon after the fall of Vienna in November 1848 a new government was formed of representatives of the landowning aristocracy and the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie headed by Prince Schwarzenberg. Ferdinand II abdicated and his nephew Franz Joseph acceded to the throne on December 2, 1848.
[307] Szeklers—an ethnic group of Hungarians, mostly free peasants. In the thirteenth century their forefathers were settled by Hungarian kings in the mountain regions of Transylvania to protect the frontiers. The region inhabited by them was usually called Szekler land. The majority of Szeklers sided with the Hungarian revolution.
[308] The reference is probably to the appeals of Jozef Madarasz, a Left-winger in the State Assembly of the Hungarian Republic in Debreczin, published in the newspaper Debreczenski Lapok. He called on the people to struggle not only against the Austrians but also against the agreers in the Assembly, demanded that the Assembly should be dissolved and new elections declared, and pointed to the need to organise an insurrectionary movement and render all possible assistance to the Hungarian revolutionary army.
[309] 3 Komorn (Komârom), a fortified camp and fortress in North-Western Hungary, remained in the hands of the Hungarians in the rear of the Austrian army during its offensive in late 1848 and early 1849. Subsequendy the fortress held out against several sieges by the Austrian forces and played an important part in the operations of the Hungarian revolutionary army.
[310] OIU See Note 282.
[312] The reference is to the series "Politische Gespräche" by Levin Schücking published in the Kölnische ZeitungNos. 29, 30, 34 and 35 on February 3, 4, 9 and 10, 1849. Wagner, a character in these "Conversations", says to Professor Urian: "You have always played the part of Mephistopheles a bit."
[313] See Note 242.
[315] See Note 228.
[316] The reference is to the war of 1846-48 between the United States of America and Mexico, as a result of which the USA seized almost half of Mexico's territory, including the whole of Texas, Upper California, New Mexico and other regions. In assessing these events in the article Engels proceeded from the general conception that it was progressive for patriarchal and feudal countries to be drawn into the orbit of bourgeois relations because, he thought, this accelerated the creation of preconditions for a proletarian revolution. In subsequent years, however, he and Marx fully understood the deplorable consequences of colonial conquests and the subjugation of backward countries by large states. In particular, having made a thorough study of the history of US aggression in Mexico and other countries of the American continent, Marx in his article "The Civil War in North America" (1861) described it as expansion in the interests of the then dominant slave-owning oligarchy in the Southern States and of the bourgeois elements in the North which supported it, as a policy aimed at seizing new territories to spread slavery.
[317] The reference is to Marx's and Engels' criticism of bourgeois cosmopolitanism and their substantiation of the internationalist position of the working class in the national question set forth in the proletarian and democratic newspapers (the Chartist newspaper Northern Star, the Brüsseler-Deutsche-Zeitung, the French La Réforme), in particular their speeches "On Poland" (November 29, 1847) and "On the Polish Question" (February 22, 1848), Marx's "Speech on the Question of Free Trade", and Engels' articles "The Anniversary of the Polish Revolution of 1830", "Reform Movement in France.—Banquet of Dijon" and "Louis Blanc's Speech at the Dijon Banquet" (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 388-90, 545-52, 450-65, 391-92, 397-401, 409-11).
[318] See Note 206.
[319] Shokazians—the name of Catholic Serbs.
[320] Morlaks—one of the nationalities inhabiting Dalmatia, descendants of the Romanised Illyrian tribes which lived in Northern Dalmatia (Split and Zadar regions) and Southern Istria and subsequendy merged with die neighbouring Serbs; they were mostly Catholics.
[321] 1 See Note 354.
[322] 324 325 326 These are the languages of the West-Slav tribes which in the Middle Ages lived between the Elbe, Saale and Oder. Wends—originally a general name given in Germany to different Laba (Elbe) Slavs, one branch of which was the Sorbs or Luzice Serbs. Obodrites (Bodryci)—the largest tribe of Laba Slavs living in the region of the Lower Elbe and Mecklenburg Bay. They made up the core of the Wendish Power, an early feudal national Slav grouping formed in the 1040s. In the middle of the twelfth century, as a result of the German feudalists' expansion to the east accompanied by the extermination or enslavement of the local population, the Wendish Power broke up and the Laba Slavs were subjugated and Germanised. Only the Luzice Serbs have preserved their language and national features.
[323] Avars—a union of tribes in which nomadic Turkic tribes dominated. Coming from Asia, the Avars established themselves in the sixth century in the eastern regions of Central Europe and in the Balkans and formed their state, the Avar Khaganate, constantly waging wars with the Slavs, Germanic tribes and Byzantines. However, as a result of the risings of the subjugated Slav tribes and the blows struck by the Byzantines and Franks, the Avarian state was weakened. In the 790s the Avars were utterly defeated by Charlemagne's Frankish army and later on fully assimilated by the peoples of the Western Black-Sea regions and the Danube area.
[324] Ogulians—reservists from the inhabitants of Ogulin (Western Croatia) registered with the Karlstadt (Karlovac) infantry regiment formed by the Austrian authorities in the mid-eighteenth century to guard the frontiers; the headquarters of the regiment was in Ogulin. Serezhans—see Note 112.
[35] In the Freiburg (Fribourg) and other Swiss cantons the Government made recognition of the cantonal Constitution one of the conditions for voting at the elections to the Federal Assembly. In Freiburg this measure was directed against clergymen who tried to get their deputies elected to the National Council. Many members of the National Council, however, regarded this as a violation of the universal suffrage introduced by the 1848 Constitution and managed to have the elections in the Freiburg canton annulled (for details see this volume, pp. 42-43). Subsequendy this decision was reviewed and the annulment of the Freiburg elections reversed (see this volume, pp. 57-58).
[326] An allusion to the changed nature of the Czech national movement after the suppression of the popular uprising in Prague on June 12-17, 1848. In its first stage — from the beginning of the March events to the Prague uprising — the Czech revolutionary democrats played a prominent part in the movement, and the Czech peasants and the urban lower strata, including the working class, actively participated in the struggle against feudalism and absolutism. This struggle was fully in the interests of the European revolutionary movement and was vigorously supported by the Neue Rheinische Zeitung directed by Marx and Engels (see the articles "The Prague Uprising" and "The Democratic Character of the Uprising", present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 91-93, 119-20). In the summer of 1848 the Czech liberals, representing the bourgeoisie and the landowners, took the lead of the national movement which they turned into an instrument against the revolutionary-democratic forces of Germany and Hungary, and a prop for the Habsburg monarchy and, indirecdy, for Russian Tsarism. The orientation of the new leaders of other Slav peoples in Austria towards supporting the Habsburgs and the Tsar so as to secure the satisfaction of their national demands also ran counter to the interests of the revolution. For this reason the Neue Rheinische Zeitung denounced the Austrian Slavs' movement in its new stage. 10 -3780
[327] The Slovanskâ Lipa—a Czech national society founded at the end of April 1848. The leadership of the society in Prague was in the hands of moderate liberals (Safafik, Gauc), who joined the counter-revolutionary camp after the suppression of the Prague uprising in June 1848, whereas the provincial branches were mostly led by representatives of the radical Czech bourgeoisie.
[328] Svornost—the Czech national militia formed after the revolutionary events of March 1848 in the Austrian Empire. It was recruited mainly from among students. Its main detachment guarded the Czech Museum in Prague, where the Slav Congress was in session in June 1848. During the popular uprising in Prague, this detachment was disarmed. The Austrian troops disarmed the national militia despite the fact that it was commanded by moderate representatives of the Czech movement who disapproved of the insurgents. Burschenschaften—German students' associations which sprang up under the influence of the liberation war against Napoleon. They advocated German unification. However, alongside progressive ideas extremely nationalistic ideas were widespread in the Burschenschaften. The Wartburg Festival was organised by German students' associations on October 8, 1817, to mark the 300th anniversary of the Reformation and developed into a demonstration for the unification of Germany and of protest against the reactionary policy of Metternich and the ruling circles of other states of the German Confederation. At the same time the festival revealed strong nationalistic and pan-German sentiments.
[329] The commissions of the estates of the provincial diets, whose competence was limited to local economic and administrative problems, were instituted in Prussia in 1842. They were elected from among the members of the provincial diets on the estate principle and formed a single advisory body known as the "united commissions". With the help of this institution, which was but a make-believe representative body, Frederick William IV hoped to introduce new taxes and obtain a loan.
[33] This article is a report from Berlin worked up by the Neue Rheinische Zeitung editorial board. The most important information was as in this volume printed in larger type and worded by the editors accordingly. The entire conclusion was written by Marx. The rest of the text (published here in small type) contains emphasis by the editors. This was the first time that the Neue Rheinische Zeitung called on the population to refuse to pay taxes in reply to the coup d'état begun by the Prussian counter-revolutionary forces.
[331] In 1841 Frederick William IV donated 430,000 marks to establish an English-German Protestant Bishopric in Jerusalem. Papers of Frederick II were published in Prussia from 1846.
[332] See Note 245.
[5] An allusion to General Pfuel's participation in the suppression of the national liberation uprising in Posen, a duchy under Prussia's rule, which took place in the spring of 1848. On his orders the insurgents who had been taken prisoner had their heads shaved and their hands and ears branded with lunar caustic (in German Höllenstein, i.e. stone of hell); hence his nickname "von Höllenstein".
[333] See Note 206.
[334] On February 16 and 17, 1849, the Cologne court tried Gottfried Kinkel, the editor of the democratic Neue Bonner Zeitung. The indictment against him was that in describing in 1848 the outrages of the Prussian soldiery in Mainz in his newspaper (then called Bonner Zeitung), he had insulted the Prussian garrison of the town. The court sentenced Kinkel to a month's imprisonment.
[335] See Note 258.
[336] The reference is to the Hungarian State Assembly evacuated from Pest to Debreczin during the advance of the Austrian army in December 1848. Some Right-wing deputies went over to Windischgrätz.
[337] The reference is to Austrian Prime Minister Prince Schwarzenberg's Note of February 4, 1849, addressed to the Frankfurt National Assembly, in which, in the name of his Government, he opposed the formation of a united German state. The Note was published in the Wiener Zeitung No. 39, February 15, 1849.
[339] The reference is to the chief committee governing the Serbian Voivodeship or Chief Odbor—an executive body formed by the Assembly (Skupstina) of representatives of the Serbian communities in the South-Slav border regions of the Austrian Empire in May 1848. The Assembly proclaimed the Voivodina an autonomous region within the Empire. The chief committee was the scene of struggle between the liberal group headed by Stratimirovich, who was elected President, and the clerical-feudal group who professed loyalty to the Habsburgs and opposed liberal reforms. Early in 1849 the second group, headed by Patriarch Rajachich, prevailed. It directed the national movement of the Voivodina Serbs towards still closer collaboration with the Austrian counter-revolutionary Government. The latter, however, after using the Serbs to fight revolutionary Hungary, broke its promises and refused, in March 1849, to grant them autonomy.
[340] The reference is to the decree sent to Croatia by Count Moritz Almasy, head of the Hungarian Provisional Finance Chamber formed under the auspices of Windischgrätz in Pest after the Hungarian revolutionary army left the town. The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung No. 45 of February 14, 1849, reprinted the following note to the text of this decree from the Agram newspaper Slavenski jug: "We publish this new act of Austrian politics without comment. The Croatians who have learned that loyalty to our Emperor and King and our Habsburg-Lotharingian Royal House is paid for with blood and money, must now also learn to understand such decrees in Magyar."
[341] The reference is to the cruel suppression by the Austrian reactionaries headed by Windischgrätz of the popular uprising in Prague in June 1848 (see Note 218).
[346] As to the source of the data on the finances of the Prussian monarchy between 1840 and 1846 and in 1847 used in this article, see Note 330.
[347] Issue No. 3 of the Revue rétrospective ou Archives secrètes du dernier Gouvernement, published by Jules Taschereau, carried a list of the secret funds of the July monarchy's Foreign Ministry for 1840, 1842, 1844-47 in which the annual pension of the editor of the Frankfurter Oberpostamts-Zeitung Karl Berly, a secret agent of the Guizot's Government, was mentioned.
[349] See Note 307.
[354] After agreeing on the possibility of joint action against republican France in July 1791, Austria and Prussia signed a treaty in February 1792. The Austro-Prussian alliance encouraged by Tsarist Russia became the core of the first anti-French coalition, which by March 1793 was joined by Britain, Russia, Sardinia, Naples, Spain, Holland and some of the German principalities. In 1795 the coalition broke up. The suppression by the Tsarist army of the 1794 Polish uprising led by Kosciuszko is connected with the first anti-French coalition. The insurgents demanded that the Constitution which had been proclaimed by the Four Years' Sejm (1788-92) should again come into force. The adoption of the Constitution had been used as a pretext for the occupation of Poland by Prussia and Russia in 1793 and led to the second partition of Poland (the first was carried out by Prussia, Russia and Austria in 1772). After the suppression of the Kosciuszko uprising a third partition of Poland between Austria, Prussia and Tsarist Russia took place in 1795 and the Polish state ceased to exist.
[358] See Note 319.
[359] Honvéd—literally: defender of the homeland; the name given to the Hungarian revolutionary army of 1848-49, which was set up by decision of the Hungarian revolutionary Government on May 7, 1848, on the formation of ten battalions of the Honvéd.
[3] This article, as well as a number of other reports below, was written by Engels during his forced stay in Switzerland. On September 26, 1848, a state of siege was declared in Cologne and an order was issued for the arrest of some of the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, including Engels. Engels emigrated from Prussia to Belgium, where he was arrested by the Brussels police and on October 4 deported to France. After a short stay in Paris Engels went on foot to Switzerland (see his travel notes "From Paris to Berne" in Vol. 7 of the present edition, pp. 507-29). About November 9 Engels arrived in Berne via Geneva and Lausanne and remained there until January 1849. While in emigration he regularly sent to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung articles and various items of information.
[2] By the " theory of agreement' { Vereinbarungstheorie) the Prussian liberal bourgeoisie sought to justify its policy of compromise in the revolution. The "agreement theory" meant that the Prussian National Assembly convened in May 1848 was to draft a Constitution and introduce a constitutional system, not on the basis of its sovereign and constitutive rights, but "by agreement with the Crown". By accepting this formula, which was advanced by the Camphausen-Hansemann Government, the Assembly's liberal majority in fact abandoned the principle of popular sovereignty and gave freedom of action to the counter-revolutionaries who wanted to restore the absolute power of the King. Beginning with the early issues of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung Marx and Engels sharply criticised the "theory of agreement" calling its supporters "agreers" and the Berlin Assembly — the "Agreement Assembly". They warned that this theory would only serve the King as a screen for preparing a counter-revolutionary coup d'état and the forcible dissolution of the Assembly.