A tout seigneur, tout honneur? Let us start with Prussia. The King of Prussia is doing his best to push the present situation of tepid agreement, of inadequate compromise, towards a crisis.[195]
He bestows a constitution and, after various unpleasantnesses, creates two Chambers which revise this constitution. Just so that the constitution may appear as acceptable as possible to the Crown, the Chambers delete every article which might in any way be objectiona-ble to it, and believe that now the King will confirm the constitution with his oath straight away. But on the contrary. In order to give the Chambers a proof of his "royal conscientiousness" Frederick William issues an announcement(1) in which he makes new proposals for the improvement of the constitution, proposals whose acceptance would deprive the said document of even the least trace of the most insignificant so-called constitutional civil guarantees. The King hopes that the Chambers will reject these proposals — on the contrary. If the Chambers had been disappointed with the Crown, then they now made sure that the Crown would be disappointed with them. They accept everything: peerage and extraordinary courts,
Landsturm and entailment,[196] merely in order not to be sent home, merely to force the King at last to swear a solemn "corporeal" oath. Thus does a Prussian constitutional bourgeois take his revenge.
The King will find it difficult to invent a humiliation which might appear too harsh for these Chambers. He will finally feel himself obliged to declare that "the more sacred he holds the sworn vow he is to give, the more do the duties laid upon him by God for the beloved fatherland appear before his soul", and the less does his "royal conscientiousness" permit him to confirm by oath a constitution which offers him everything, but the country nothing.
The gentlemen of the defunct "United Diet",[197] who are now together again in the Chambers, are so afraid of being driven back to their old situation, as it was prior to March 18, because they would then again have before them the revolution, which will bring them no roses this time. What is more, in 1847 they were still able to refuse the loan for the alleged Eastern railway, whereas in 1849 they first actually granted the government the loan in question, and afterwards most humbly raised with the government the matter of the theoretical right of granting the money.
In the meantime the bourgeoisie outside the Chambers is taking its pleasure in jury decisions acquitting those accused of political offences, thus demonstrating its opposition to the government. In these trials, on the one hand the government and on the other the democracy represented by the accused and the public, discredit themselves at regular intervals. We remind our readers of the trial of the "ever constitutional" Waldeck, the trial in Trier.[198] etc.
When old Arndt asks: "What is the fatherland of a German?"(2)
Frederick William IV replies: Erfurt.[199] It was not very difficult to travesty the Iliad in the Battle of the Frogs and the Mice, but nobody has hitherto dared contemplate a travesty of the Battle of the Frogs and the Mice. The Erfurt Plan succeeds in travestying even the battle of the frogs and the mice of St. Paul's Church itself.[200] It is of course completely irrelevant whether the unbelievable assembly in Erfurt in fact assembles or whether the Orthodox Tsar(3) forbids it, just as irrelevant as the protest against its competency, in issuing which Herr Vogt will undoubtedly enter into an agreement with Herr Venedey. The whole invention is of interest only to those profound politicians for whose leading articles the question of a "Great Germany" or a "Little Germany" was a mine as rich as it was indispensable, and to those Prussian bourgeois who live in the comforting belief that the King of Prussia will grant everything in Erfurt precisely because he has refused everything in Berlin.
If the Frankfurt "National Assembly" is to be more or less faithfully reflected in Erfurt, then the old Federal Diet will be reborn in the "Interim"[201] and simultaneously reduced to its simplest expression, to an Austro-Prussian federal commission. The Interim has already materialised in Württemberg and will shortly materialise in Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
While Prussia has been able for a long time to scrape its budget together by means of emissions of paper money, stealthy loans from the Seehandlung,[202] and the remains of the state treasury, and has only now rushed forward down the road of public loans, in Austria state bankruptcy is in full bloom. A deficit of 155 million guilders in the first nine months of the year 1849, which is bound to have increased to 210-220 million by the end of December; the complete ruin of state credit at home and abroad after the resounding failure of the attempt at raising a new loan; total exhaustion of the internal financial resources: ordinary taxes, contributions, emissions of paper money; the necessity of imposing new and desperate taxes on the country which had already been sucked dry, taxes which, one can see in advance, will not be paid in — these are the main features in which naked financial need reveals itself in Austria. Simultaneously the decay of the Austrian state organism is proceeding ever more rapidly. In vain does the government counter it by means of convulsive centralisation; the disorganisation has already reached the furthest extremities of the state organism, and Austria is becoming intolerable even to the most barbaric nationalities, to the principal pillars of the old Austria, to the Southern Slavs in Dalmatia, Croatia, and the Banat, the "trusty" borderers.[203] Only an act of desperation remains, offering a slight chance of rescue — an external war; this external war to which Austria is irresistibly being driven must rapidly complete its total dissolution.
Nor has Russia proved rich enough to pay for its fame, which it had to purchase for cash into the bargain. In spite of the widely vaunted gold-mines of the Urals and the Altai, in spite of the inexhaustible treasures in the vaults of the Peter and Paul fortress, in spite of the annuity purchases in London and Paris, allegedly made out of a surplus of money, the Orthodox Tsar feels himself constrained not only to remove 5,000,000 silver rubles, using all kinds of false pretexts, from the bullion stores lying in the Peter and Paul fortress as security for his paper currency, and to order the sale of his annuities on the Paris Bourse, but also to beg the unbelieving City of London for an advance of 30 million silver rubles.
Russia has become so deeply involved in European politics on account of the movements of the years 1848 and 1849 that it will have to execute its old plans against Turkey, against Constantinople, "the key to its house",[3] as speedily as it can if they are not to become for ever impossible to execute. The progress of the counter-revolution and the daily growing power of the revolutionary party in Western Europe, the internal situation in Russia itself and the bad state of its finances are forcing it towards rapid action. We recently saw the diplomatic prelude to this new oriental drama of state [204]; in a few months we shall witness the drama itself.
War against Turkey is necessarily a European war. So much the better for Holy Russia, which is thus given an opportunity of obtaining a firm foothold in Germany, leading the counter-revolution there energetically to its conclusion, helping Prussia to conquer Neuchâtel, and, in the last instance, marching on the centre of the revolution, on Paris.
In such a European war England cannot remain neutral. It must take a stand against Russia. And for Russia England is by far the most dangerous antagonist. If the land armies of the Continent cannot help weakening themselves more and more as a result of their having to spread out more the further they press forward into Russia, if their advance, upon the penalty of a repetition of 1812, must come to an almost complete halt on the eastern frontier of the former Poland, England has the means of tackling Russia on its most vulnerable flanks. Apart from the fact that it can force Sweden to reconquer Finland, St. Petersburg and Odessa stand open to its navy. The Russian navy is known to be the worst in the world, and Kronstadt and Schlüsselburg are as vulnerable to capture as Saint-Jean d'Acre and San Juan de Ulua.[205] And Russia without St. Petersburg and Odessa is a giant with its hands chopped off. Moreover Russia cannot dispense with England either for the sale of its raw materials or the purchase of industrial products for even as little as six months, which emerged clearly at the time of Napoleon's continental blockade,[206] but is now the case to a far greater degree. Cutting off from the English market would in a few months induce the most violent convulsions in Russia. England, on the other hand, can not only do without the Russian market for a time, but it can also procure all Russian raw materials from other markets. One can see that the dreaded Russia is by no means so very dangerous. It must assume such a terror-inspiring shape for the German burgher, however, since it directly controls his princes and since he quite rightly suspects that Russia's barbarian hordes will before long inundate Germany and to some extent play a messianic role there.
The phrase was used by Alexander I in a conversation with the French Ambassador Caulaincourt in 1808.— Ed.
Switzerland's attitude to the Holy Alliance in general resembles that of the Prussian Chambers to their King in particular. Except that Switzerland has behind it an additional scapegoat to which it can pass on all the blows it receives from the Holy Alliance two- or threefold, a scapegoat which is defenceless into the bargain and quite abandoned to its favour or disfavour — the German refugees. It is true that a section of the "radical" Swiss in Geneva, in Vaud and in Berne has protested against the cowardly policy of the Federal Council[207]—cowardly both in respect of the Holy Alliance and of the refugees; it is, however, just as true that the Federal Council was correct when it maintained that its policy was "that of the huge majority of the Swiss people". In the midst of all this the Central Authority quite tranquilly continues to carry out small bourgeois reforms internally: centralisation of customs, of coinage, of the post, of weights and measures — reforms which assure it the applause of the petty bourgeoisie. To be sure it dares not carry out its decision concerning the repeal of the military enlistment agreements, and the men of the L/r-cantons still go in droves daily to Como to get themselves enlisted in the service of Naples.[208] But in spite of all its humility and complaisance towards the Holy Alliance, a fatal storm threatens Switzerland. In the first flush of high spirits after the war against the Sonderbund and in complete euphoria after the February Revolution, the otherwise so timid Swiss allowed themselves to be tempted to imprudent actions. They ventured the enormity of wanting at last to be independent; they gave themselves a new constitution instead of the one guaranteed by the powers in 1814, they recognised the independence of Neuchâtel[209] contrary to the treaties. For this they will be punished, in spite of all their bowing and scraping, their readiness to oblige and their police services. And once it is involved in the European war Switzerland will not find itself in the most pleasant of situations; if Switzerland has insulted the holy allies, it has on the other hand betrayed the revolution.
In France, where the bourgeoisie itself is leading the reaction in its own interests, and where the republican form of government permits reaction its freest and most consistent development, the suppression of the revolution is being executed in the most shameless and violent fashion. In the short space of one month the following measures were taken one after another: the restoration of the drink tax, which directly completes the ruin of half the rural population, the d'Hautpoul circular, which appoints the gendarmes as spies even upon the civil servants, the law on schoolteachers, which declares that all elementary schoolteachers are to be subject to arbitrary dismissal by the prefects, the education law, which hands the schools over to the priests, the deportation law, in which the bourgeoisie unleashes the whole of its pent-up lust for vengeance on the June insurgents and, in the absence of any other executioner, delivers them up to the most deadly climate in the whole of Algeria. We will not even mention the innumerable deportations of even the most innocent foreigners, which have never ceased since June 13.a
The purpose of this violent bourgeois reaction is, of course, to restore the monarchy. However, the monarchist restoration is considerably hindered by the various pretenders themselves, and by the parties they have in the country. The Legitimists and the Orleanists, the two strongest monarchist parties, more or less counterbalance each other; the third party, the Bonapartists, is by far the weakest. Louis Napoleon does not, in spite of his seven million votes, even possess a real party, he merely has a coterie. Although he is given constant support by the majority of the Chamber in the general handling of the reaction, he finds himself abandoned as soon as his particular interests as pretender emerge, abandoned not only by the majority but also by his ministers, who each time give him the lie and force him to declare in writing the next day in spite of everything that they have his confidence. The quarrels in which he thus gets embroiled with the majority, however serious the consequences to which they might lead, have for this reason so far only been comical episodes in which the President of the Republic has each time played the part of the dupe. It goes without saying that in these conditions each monarchist faction is conspiring with the Holy Alliance on its own initiative. The Assemblée nationale is brazen enough to threaten the people publicly with the Russians'[3]; there is already ample evidence that Louis Napoleon is plotting with Nicholas.
At the same rate as the reaction advances, the forces of the revolutionary party naturally grow too. The great mass of the rural population, ruined by the consequences of land parcelling, by the tax burden and the purely fiscal nature of most of the taxes, damaging even from the point of view of the bourgeoisie, disappointed with the promises of Louis Napoleon and the reactionary deputies, the mass of the rural population has thrown itself into the arms of the revolutionary party and professes a socialism which is, admittedly, still very crude and bourgeois for the most part. The revolutionary mood of even the most legitimist départements is proved by the latest
See this volume, pp. 105-07.— Ed. Presumably a reference to the leading article in L'Assemblée nationale No. 23, January 25, 1850.— Ed.
election in the Gard département,[210] the centre of royalism and of the "white terror" of 1815, where a red was elected.(4) The petty bourgeoisie, oppressed by big capital, which has once more adopted exactly the same position in commerce and politics as under Louis Philippe, has followed the rural population. The turnabout is so marked that even the traitor Marrast and the grocers' journal, the
Siècle, have had to declare themselves socialists. The position of the various classes in relation to one another, for which the mutual relationships of the political parties are only another expression, is again almost exactly the same as on February 22, 1848. Except that other matters are now at stake, that the workers are much more conscious, and that in particular a class hitherto dead politically, the peasantry, has been dragged into the movement and won for the revolution.
In this lies the necessity for the ruling bourgeoisie of trying to abolish universal franchise as rapidly as possible; and in this necessity lies in turn the certainty of impending victory for the revolution even disregarding external circumstances.
The tension of the situation in general is revealed by the comical bill proposed by people's representative Pradié,(5) who attempts in approximately 200 clauses to prevent coups d'état and revolutions by a decree of the National Assembly. And the vast lack of confidence felt by high finance for the "order" now apparently restored here and in other capitals can be seen in the fact that a few months ago the various branches of the house of Rothschild only prolonged their deeds of partnership for one year—a period of unprecedented brevity in the annals of large-scale commerce.
While the Continent has been occupying itself for the past two years with revolutions, counter-revolutions and the floods of rhetoric inseparable from these, industrial England has been dealing in a quite different article: prosperity. Here the commercial crisis which broke out in due course(6) in the autumn of 1845 was interrupted twice — at the beginning of 1846 by the Free Trade decisions of Parliament,[211] and at the beginning of 1848 by the February Revolution. A quantity of commodities depressing overseas markets had in the meantime gradually found outlets. The February Revolution eliminated competition from continental industry precisely in these markets, while English industry did not lose much more because of the disturbed continental market than it would have done anyway in the further development of the crisis. In this way the February Revolution, momentarily bringing continental industry to an almost complete standstill, helped the English to weather a year of crisis in a quite tolerable fashion, contributed substantially to clearing away the piled-up stocks of goods in the overseas markets, and made a new industrial upswing possible in the spring of 1849. This upswing, which incidentally extended to a great part of continental industry, has reached such a level in the last three months that the manufacturers are claiming that they have never experienced such good times before — a claim always made on the eve of a crisis. The factories are overloaded with orders and are working at an accelerated rate; every means is being sought to dodge the Ten Hours' Bill[3] and gain new hours of labour; new factories are being built in great numbers in all parts of the industrial regions, and the old ones are being extended. Cash is pouring into the market, idle capital wants to take advantage of the occasion of universal profit; speculation is brimming over with discount-dealing, which is throwing itself into production b or into the raw materials trade, and almost all articles show an absolute and all a relative rise in price. In short, England is blessed with "prosperity" in its most splendid bloom, and the only question is how long this intoxication will last. Not very long, at all events. Several of the largest markets, East India in particular, are already almost glutted; export is already less favourable to the really great markets than to the emporia of world trade, from which the commodities may be directed to the most favourable markets. Soon the markets still left, particularly those of North and South America and Australia, will be similarly glutted, given the colossal forces of production which English industry added to those it already had between 1843 and 1845, in 1846 and 1847, and especially in 1849, and which are still being daily added to. And with the first reports of this glut, panic0 will break out simultaneously in speculation and production — perhaps as soon as towards the end of spring, in July or August at the latest. This crisis, however, since it is bound to coincide with great collisions on the Continent, will bring forth results quite different from those of all previous crises. Whereas every crisis hitherto has been the signal for a new advance, a new victory of the industrial bourgeoisie over landed property and the finance bourgeoisie, this crisis will mark the beginning of the modern English revolution, a revolution in which Cobden will assume the role of a Necker.
And now we come to America. The most important thing to have occurred here, more important even than the February Revolution, is the discovery of the Californian gold-mines. Already now, after barely eighteen months, one may predict that this discovery will have much more impressive consequences than the discovery of America itself. For three hundred and thirty years the whole of Europe's trade with the Pacific Ocean has been carried with the most moving patience around the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. All proposals for cutting through the Isthmus of Panama have come to grief because of the petty jealousies of the trading nations. It is a mere eighteen months since the Californian gold-mines were discovered, and the Yankees have already started work on a railway, a large highway and a canal from the Gulf of Mexico, steamships are already making regular trips from New York to Chagres and from Panama to San Francisco, the Pacific trade is already becoming concentrated on Panama and the route around Cape Horn is obsolete. A coast thirty degrees of latitude in length, one of the most beautiful and fertile in the world, hitherto as good as uninhabited, is visibly being transformed into a rich and civilised country, densely populated by people of all races, from Yankee to Chinaman, from Negro to Indian and Malay, from Creole and Mestizo to European. Rivers of Californian gold are pouring over America and the Asiatic coast of the Pacific Ocean, and dragging the most reluctant barbarian nations into world trade, into civilisation. For the second time world trade is taking a new direction. The role played by Tyre, Carthage and Alexandria in antiquity, and Genoa and Venice in the Middle Ages, the role of London and Liverpool until now — that of the emporia of world trade — is now being assumed by New York and San Francisco, San Juan de Nicaragua(7) and Leon, Chagres and Panama. The centre of gravity of world commerce, Italy in the Middle Ages, England in modern times, is now the southern half of the North American peninsula. The industry and trade of old Europe will have to make huge exertions if they are not to fall into the same decay as the industry and trade of Italy since the sixteenth century, if England and France are not to become what Venice, Genoa and Holland are today. In a few years we shall have a regular steam-packet service from England to Chagres and from Chagres and San Francisco to Sydney, Canton and Singapore. Thanks to Californian gold and the tireless energy of the Yankees, both coasts of the Pacific Ocean will soon be as populous, as open to trade and as industrialised as the coast from Boston to New Orleans is now. And then the Pacific Ocean will have the same role as the Atlantic has now and the Mediterranean had in antiquity and in the Middle Ages — that of the great water highway of world commerce; and the Atlantic will decline to the status of an inland sea, like the Mediterranean nowadays. The only chance the civilised nations of Europe have, not to fall into the same industrial, commercial and political dependence to which Italy, Spain and Portugal are now reduced, lies in a social revolution which, so long as there is still time, will revolutionise the mode of production and commerce in accordance with the needs of production themselves as they emerge from the modern forces of production, thus making possible the creation of new forces of production, which can ensure the superiority of European industry and so compensate for the disadvantages of its geographical position. And finally, another characteristic curiosity from China, which the well-known German missionary Gützlaff has brought back with him.[212] The slowly but steadily growing over-population in this country had long made social conditions there particularly oppressive for the great majority of the nation. Then came the English and extorted free trade for themselves in five ports.[213] Thousands of English and American ships sailed to China and before long the country was glutted with inexpensive British and American industrial manufactures. Chinese industry, dependent on manual labour, succumbed to competition from the machine. The imperturbable Middle Kingdom was aroused by a social crisis. The taxes no longer came in, the state reached the brink of bankruptcy, the population sank en masse into pauperism, erupted in revolts, refused to acknowledge the mandarins of the Emperor or the priests of Fo, mishandled and killed them. The country reached the brink of ruin and is already threatened with a mighty revolution. But worse was to come. Among the rebellious plebs individuals appeared who pointed to the poverty of some and to the wealth of others, and who demanded, and are still demanding a different distribution of property, and even the complete abolition of private property.[214]
When Herr Gützlaff came among civilised people and Europeans again after an absence of twenty years, he heard talk of socialism and asked what this might be. When it had been explained to him he cried out in horror:
Now Chinese socialism may admittedly be the same in relation to European socialism as Chinese philosophy in relation to Hegelian philosophy. Nevertheless, it is a gratifying fact that in eight years the calico bales of the English bourgeoisie have brought the oldest and least perturbable kingdom on earth to the eve of a social upheaval, which, in any event, is bound to have the most significant results for civilisation. When our European reactionaries, on their presently impending flight through Asia, finally come to the Great Wall of China, to the gates leading to the stronghold of arch-reaction and arch-conservatism, who knows if they may not read the following inscription upon them:
RÉPUBLIQUE CHINOISE LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ
London, January 31, 1850
* * *
The wishes of the Prussian bourgeoisie have been fulfilled: the "man of honour" has confirmed the constitution with his oath on condition that "it be made possible" for him "to govern with this constitution".(8) And in the few days which have passed since February 6 the bourgeois gentlemen in the Chambers have already granted this wish in full. Before February 6 they said: "We must make concessions, only to get the constitution sworn to; once the oath is taken we can behave quite differently." After February 6 they say: "The constitution has been confirmed by oath, we have every conceivable guarantee; we can therefore make concessions in all tranquillity." They grant eighteen million for armaments, for the mobilisation of 500,000 men against an as yet unknown enemy, without any discussion, without any opposition, almost unanimously; the budget is voted through in four days, all the government's proposals pass through the Chambers in the twinkling of an eye. It is evident that the German bourgeoisie still lacks neither cowardice nor excuses for this cowardice.
Thanks to this benevolent Chamber the King of Prussia has had enough opportunities to realise the advantages the constitutional system offers over the absolutist one and indeed for the rulers as well as for those they rule. If we think back to the financial straits of 1842-48, to the vain attempts at getting credit from the Seehandlung and the Bank, to Rothschild's refusals, to the loan refused by the United Diet, to the depletion of the state treasury and the public coffers, and if we compare with all this the financial abundance of 1850 — three budgets with a deficit of seventy million covered by a grant of the Chambers, loan certificates, treasury bonds placed in mass circulation, the state on better terms with the Bank than it ever was with the Seehandlung, and on top of all this another thirty-four million of granted loans in reserve — what a contrast!
According to the statements of the Minister of War the Prussian Government thus considers eventualities likely which could force it to mobilise its whole army, in the interests of European "order and tranquillity".[2] With this declaration Prussia has proclaimed its renewed entry into the Holy Alliance loudly and clearly enough. The identity of the enemy who is to be the target of the new crusade is clear. The centre of anarchy and insurrection, the Gallic Babylon, is to be wiped out. Whether France will be attacked directly, or whether this will be preceded by diversions against Switzerland and Turkey, will often depend solely b on developments in Paris. In any case the Prussian Government now has the means to raise its 180,000 soldiers to 500,000 within two months; 400,000 Russians are deployed in Poland, Volhynia and Bessarabia; Austria has at least 650,000 men standing in readiness. Merely to feed these colossal armed forces Russia and Austria will have to begin a war of invasion before this year is out. And as regards the initial direction of this invasion a remarkable document has just been made public.
In one of its most recent issues the Schweizerische National-Zeitung communicates to its readers a memorandum alleged to have been written by the Austrian General Schönhals, which contains a complete plan for the invasion of Switzerland.0 The main points of this plan are as follows:
Prussia brings around 60,000 men together on the Main, near the railways; a corps of men from Hesse, Bavaria and Württemberg is concentrated partly at Rottweil and Tuttlingen, partly at Kempten and Memmingen. Austria draws up 50,000 troops in Vorarlberg and in the direction of Innsbruck and forms a second corps in Italy between Sesto-Calende and Lecco. In the meantime Switzerland will be held off with diplomatic negotiations. Once the moment for attack arrives, the Prussians will rush to Lörrach by rail, and the small contingents to Donaueschingen. The Austrians will concentrate more closely at Bregenz and Feld-kirch, and the Italian army at Como and Lecco. One brigade remains at Varese threatening Bellinzona. The envoys deliver the ultimatum and leave. Operations commence. The principal pretext is that of restoring the Federal Constitution of 1814 and the freedom of the Sonderbund cantons. The attack itself is a concentric one against Lucerne. The Prussians press towards the Aare by way of Basle, and the Austrians towards the Limmat by way of St. Gallen and Zurich. The former deploy from Solothurn to Zurzach, and the latter from Zurzach through Zurich to Uznach. At the same time a detachment of 15,000 Austrians advances against the Spliigen Pass by way of Chur and links up with the Italian corps, whereupon both press forward through the Vorderrhein valley to the St. Gotthard Pass where they will once again link up with the corps from Varese and Bellinzona, and raise an insurrection in the t/r-cantons. Meanwhile these will have been cut off from Western Switzerland and the sheep separated from the goats by the advance of the main armies, which will be joined by the smaller contingents via Schaffhausen, and by the conquest of Lucerne. At the same time France, which by the "secret treaty of January 30" is obliged to provide 60,000 men in Lyons and Colmar, occupies Geneva and the Jura under the same pretext as it occupied Rome. Berne will thus have become impossible to defend and the "revolutionary" government will be forced either to capitulate immediately or to starve to death with its troops in the Bernese High Alps.
One can see that the project is not at all bad. It takes the nature of the terrain into account, as it should; it suggests capturing first of all the flatter and more fertile Northern Switzerland, and forcing the only serious position in Northern Switzerland, that behind the Aare and the Limmat, with united main forces. It has the advantage of cutting off the Swiss army from its granary and leaving it, to begin with, only the more difficult mountain terrain. Thus the project can be put into action as early as the beginning of spring, and the earlier it is executed the more difficult will be the situation of the Swiss pressed back into the mountains.
On the basis of purely internal evidence it is difficult to decide whether the document has been published against the will of its authors or whether it has been deliberately composed to be manoeuvred into the hands of a Swiss paper for publication. In the latter case, it could only have the purpose of making the Swiss exhaust their finances with a rapid and large-scale call-up of their troops, and making them show themselves more and more submissive towards the Holy Alliance, as well as of misleading public opinion in general about the intentions of the Allies. The sabre-rattling now taking place, with the war preparations of Russia and Prussia and the war plans against Switzerland, seems to support this interpretation. As does also a sentence in the memorandum itself, in which the greatest speed is recommended in all operations so that the largest possible area may be conquered before the contingents have been withdrawn from it into concentrations and marched off. On the other hand, just as much internal evidence speaks for the genuineness of the memorandum as being an invasion plan against Switzerland which has really been put forward.
This much is certain: the Holy Alliance will march before the year is out, be it against Switzerland or Turkey to begin with, or directly against France, and in both cases the Federal Council should put its house in order. Whether the Holy Alliance or the revolution arrives first in Berne, the Council will itself have brought about its fall because of its cowardly neutrality. The counter-revolution cannot be satisfied with its concessions, since its origin is more or less revolutionary; the revolution cannot for an instant tolerate such a treacherous and cowardly government in the heart of Europe in the midst of the three nations most intimately involved in the movement. The behaviour of the Swiss Federal Council provides the most striking and it is to be hoped the last example of what the alleged "independence" and "autonomy" of small nations sandwiched between the great nations of today really mean.
Written January 31-February 1850
Endnotes
[194] The international reviews in the second, the fourth and the double fifth-sixth issues of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue were simply entitled "Revue" ("Review") and were not signed. The authors provided the third of these reviews with the subheading "May to October". In the present edition the editors have therefore added corresponding subheadings to the first and second reviews. Numerous passages in the works and letters of Marx and Engels show that they wrote the reviews together. The first review was intended for the first issue of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue (see Engels' letter to Jakob Schabelitz of December 22, 1849) and the greater part of it dated January 31,1850, but for lack of space the review was transferred to the second issue, the reader being notified of this by an editorial note. The closing part of the review was written in February. Excerpts from the first review were first published in English in the collection: K. Marx and F. Engels, On Colonialism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1960. In the present edition, account has been taken of the corrections in the list of misprints appended to the fourth issue of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, as well as those made later by Engels in his copy of the journal (see Note 63).
[195] See Note 16
[196] See Note 20.
[197] The jjnited Diet—an assembly of representatives from the eight Provincial Diets of Prussia, similarly based on the estate principle. It sanctioned new taxes and loans, discussed Bills, and had the right to petition the King. The First United Diet, which opened on April 11, 1847, was dissolved in June, following its refusal to vote a new loan. The Second United Diet, convened on April 2, 1848, passed a law on elections to the Prussian National Assembly and sanctioned the loan. The United Diet session closed on April 10, 1848. p. 258
[198] This refers to the trials of Benedikt Waldeck in Berlin (see Note 14) and Karl Grün in Trier. The two were Left-wing deputies to the Prussian National Assembly who were put on trial in 1849 for their political activities. The trials showed that the Prussian authorities were using forgeries to fight their opponents. On the other hand, Waldeck and Grün were doing everything to prove their loyalty to the Prussian Government.
[199] This refers to Frederick William I V's attempts, supported by the sovereigns of the Prussian Union (see Note 12), to unite Germany under Prussian hegemony, to the exclusion of Austria (the plan for a "Little Germany", as against the plan for a "Great Germany" advocated by pro-Austrian circles). These attempts were backed by the liberals who had walked out of the Frankfurt National Assembly and formed, in June 1849, the so-called Gotha party (see Note 187). The latter took part in the elections to the German parliament which was to revise the draft German Constitution drawn up by the Frankfurt National Assembly in a way convenient for Prussian ruling quarters. The parliament met in Erfurt on March 20, 1850, but counteraction by the Austrian Court and the Russian Emperor forced the Prussian Government temporarily to abandon its unification plans and dissolve the Erfurt parliament (April 29, 1850).
[200] See Note 185.
[201] See Note 9.
[202] The reference is to the Preussische Seehandlungsgesellschaft (Prussian Maritime Trading Company), a trade and credit society founded in 1772 and enjoying a number of important state privileges. It granted large credits to the government and from 1820 actually acted as its banker and broker. In 1904 it was made the official Prussian State Bank.
[203] The borderers were inhabitants of what was known as the Military Border Area, i.e. the southern border region of the Austrian Empire under a military administration. The area included part of Croatia and Southern Hungary. Its population was made up of Serbs, Croats and other nationalities who were allotted land in return for military service, the fulfilment of other obligations and payment of duties. The borderers often rose in revolt against this system of military and feudal oppression. '
[204] This refers to the rupture of diplomatic relations between Russia and Turkey in the autumn of 1849 caused by the Turkish Government's refusal to extradite the Polish and Hungarian political refugees as demanded by the Russian and Austrian emperors. Unwilling to incur the hostility of Britain and France, Nicholas I thought it wiser to settle his conflict with Turkey. Towards the end of the year diplomatic relations were resumed.
[205] Saint-Jean d'Acre—a fortress in Syria — was taken by the Egyptians in 1832, during the Turco-Egyptian war of 1831-33. San Juan de Ulua—a fortress in Veracruz, Mexico, the Spaniards' last stronghold during Mexico's war of independence — was taken in 1825.
[206] The continental blockade of the British Isles was proclaimed by Napoleon in November 1806. All the European states dependent on Napoleonic France were forced to join. Russia and Prussia acceeded in 1807 (under the Peace of Tilsit) and Austria in 1809. The forced rupture of trade with Britain greatly harmed Russia's economic interests, which was one of the causes of the Franco-Russian war of 1812.
[207] The Federal Council—the central executive of the Swiss Republic, a body established under the Constitution of September 12, 1848. Its chairman acted as President of the Republic.
[208] Here reference is made to the agreements under which the Swiss cantons supplied mercenaries to European states. They were concluded in the period from the fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. In many West-European countries Swiss mercenaries were used by counter-revolutionary monarchist forces. In 1848 Berne and other cantons concluded a series of such agreements with the counter-revolutionary government of Ferdinand II, King of Naples. The employment of Swiss troops against the revolutionary movement in Italy aroused great indignation among the Swiss progressive circles, and this eventually led to the annulment of these agreements.
[209] The Sonderbund—see Note 25. Neuchâtel's independence—see Note 24.
[210] See Note 37.
[211] This refers to the June 1846 Act of the British Parliament repealing the Corn Laws (see Note 29).
[212] At the end of 1849 and the beginning of 1850 Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff delivered a series of lectures on China at London University and a number of learned societies. One of these lectures was related in a report published by the conservative Neue Preussische Zeitung (known also as the Kreuz-Zeitung) in its issue No. 7, January 9, 1850. Marx and Engels may have drawn on this report in writing this section of their review.
[213] This refers to one of the main provisions of the Nanking Treaty Britain concluded with China as a result of the Anglo-Chinese war of 1840-42 (known as the first Opium War). It was the first of a series of unequal treaties imposed on China by the Western powers, treaties that reduced it to the status of a semi-colony. Under the Nanking Treaty five Chinese cities — Canton, Shanghai, Amoy, Ninbo and Fuchou — were opened to English trade. In 1844 unequal treaties were imposed on China by the USA and France.
[214] The reference is to the popular unrest then rife in several provinces of China. In mid-1850 it erupted into a peasant war that resulted in the insurgents establishing a state of their own over a considerable part of China's territory. The state was called Taiping Tango (hence the name of the movement — the Taiping uprising). The leaders of the movement put forward a Utopian programme calling for China's feudal social order to be transformed into a paramilitary patriarchal system based on egalitarianism in production and consumption. The Taiping uprising lasted until 1864.
[2] After the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which had been published by Marx and Engels in Cologne from June 1, 1848, till May 19, 1849, was banned Marx did not give up the idea of resuming, in one way or another, the publication of a paper that would continue the revolutionary traditions of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. He wrote about this to Engels in Switzerland on August 1, 1849, inviting him to London to help start one up. Marx succeeded in raising funds and finding a publisher, and in mid-December 1849 a contract to publish the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue was signed between the responsible publisher Konrad Schramm and Schuberth and Co., a Hamburg bookselling firm. The periodical's aims were to assess the results of the 1848-49 revolution, to reveal the nature of the new historical situation, and to develop further the proletarian party's tactics. Most of the articles and literary and international reviews were written by Marx and Engels, who also drew contributions to the Revue from their followers Wilhelm Wolff, Joseph Weydemeyer, and Johann Georg Eccarius. Issue No. 1 also carried an item by Karl Blind, "Oesterreichische und preussische Parteien in Baden", and issue No. 4 — verses by the French democrat Louis Ménard. The cover named the places of publication as London, where Marx and Engels lived at the time, Hamburg, where the journal was printed, and New York since a great number of those who had participated in the 1848-49 revolution in Germany emigrated to America, and Marx and Engels hoped to find suitable ground there for distributing the journal. Presuming the possibility of a new revolutionary upsurge, they intended shortly to make their publication a weekly, and later a daily newspaper (see this volume, pp. 605-06). This plan was not, however, carried out. Altogether six issues were published; the last issue, a double one (5-6),came out at the end of November 1850. All further attempts to continue publication were blocked by police persecution in Germany and lack of funds. Marx sent the text of the Announcement to Joseph Weydemeyer in Frankfurt am Main on December 19, 1849, with a request to publish it in the Neue Deutsche Zeitung. It was printed in Nos. 14, 23 and 31 of January 16 and 26, and February 5, 1850. It was also printed in the Berner Zeitung No. 361 of December 27, 1849; in the Westdeutsche Zeitung (published by Hermann Becker in Cologne) on January 8, 9, 11 (supplement), 12 and 13 (supplement), 1850; in the Schweizerische National-Zeitung, Basle, No. 8, January 10, 1850; in the Düsseldorfer Zeitung No. 9, January 10, 1850; in the Norddeutsche Freie Presse, Hamburg-Altona, No. 254, January 18, 1850; in Der Volksfreund, Lemgo, No. 3, January 18, 1850.
[3] In May 1849, when the counter-revolution was on the upsurge, the Prussian Government issued an order expelling Marx and the other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from Prussia. This measure, prepared well in advance, was applied when the main uprisings in the Rhine Province had been virtually suppressed. On his return to Cologne in April 1848, Marx applied for Prussian citizenship which he had been forced to renounce in 1845 when he was living in Belgium as an emigrant. Despite the Cologne Magistrate's favourable reply to his application, however, the Cologne royal district authorities and the Minister of the Interior refused to grant it, and Marx remained a "foreigner", who could at any moment be accused of abusing hospitality and expelled. The royal district authorities' note to this effect followed on May 11, 1849, and on May 16 Marx was given 24 hours to leave Prussia. Weerth and Dronke, who did not enjoy Prussian citizenship either, received similar orders. Legal proceedings were instituted against Engels for his part in the Elberfeld uprising. The last issue, No. 301, of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung appeared on May 19, 1849.