XV. The Triumph of Prussia
[New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3517, July 27, 1852]
We now come to the last chapter in the history of the German Revolution: the conflict of the National Assembly with the Governments of the different States, especially of Prussia; the insurrection of Southern and Western Germany, and its final overthrow by Prussia.
We have already seen the Frankfort National Assembly at work. We have seen it kicked at by Austria, insulted by Prussia, disobeyed by the lesser States, duped by its own impotent Central "Government," which again was the dupe of all and every prince in the country. But at last things began to look threatening for this weak, vacillating, insipid legislative body. It was forced to come to the conclusion that "the sublime idea of German Unity was threatened in its realization, "which meant neither more nor less than that the Frankfort Assembly, and all it had done and was about to do, were very likely to end in smoke. Thus it set to work in good earnest in order to bring forth as soon as possible its grand production, the "Imperial Constitution."
There was, however, one difficulty. What Executive Government was there to be? An Executive Council? No; that would have been, they thought in their wisdom, making Germany a Republic. A "President"? That would come to the same. Thus they must revive the old imperial dignity. But—as of course a prince was to be Emperor—who should it be? Certainly none of the DU minorum gentium,[3] from Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz-Lobenstein-Ebersdorfb up to Bavariac; neither Austria nor Prussia would have borne that. It could only be Austria or Prussia. But which of the two? There is no doubt that, under otherwise favorable circumstances, this august Assembly would be sitting up to the present day discussing this important dilemma without being able to come to a conclusion, if the Austrian Government had not cut the Gordian knot and saved them the trouble.
Austria knew very well that from the moment in which she could again appear before Europe with all her provinces subdued, as a strong and great European power, the very law of political gravitation would draw the remainder of Germany into her orbit, without the help of any authority which an imperial crown conferred by the Frankfort Assembly could give her. Austria had been far stronger, far freer in her movements, since she shook off the powerless crown of the German Empire—a crown which clogged her own independent policy, while it added not one iota to her strength, either within or without of Germany. And supposing the case that Austria could not maintain her footing in Italy and Hungary—why, then she was dissolved, annihilated in Germany too, and could never pretend to re-seize a crown which had slipped from her hands while she was in the full possession of her strength. Thus Austria at once declared against all imperialist resurrections, and plainly demanded the restoration of the German Diet, the only Central Government of Germany known and recognized by the treaties of 1815; and on the 4th of March, 1849, issued that Constitution which had no other meaning than to declare Austria an indivisible, centralized, and independent monarchy, distinct even from that Germany which the Frankfort Assembly was to reorganize.
This open declaration of war left, indeed, the Frankfort wiseacres no other choice but to exclude Austria from Germany, and to create out of the remainder of that country a sort of Lower Empire,[3] a "Little Germany," the rather shabby imperial mantle of which was to fall on the shoulders of his Majesty of Prussia. This, it will be recollected, was the renewal of an old project fostered already some six or eight years ago by a party of South and Middle German liberal doctrinaires^ who considered as a godsend the degrading circumstances by which their old crotchet was now again brought forward as the latest "new move" for the salvation of the country.
They accordingly finished, in February and March, 1849, the debate on the Imperial Constitution, together with the Declaration of Rights and the Imperial Electoral Law[56]; not, however, without being obliged to make, in a great many points, the most contradictory concessions—now to the Conservative or rather Reactionary party—now to the more advanced fractions of the Assembly. In fact, it was evident that the leadership of the Assembly, which had formerly belonged to the Right and Right Center (the Conservatives and Reactionists), was gradually, although slowly, passing toward the Left or Democratic side of that body. The rather dubious position of the Austrian Deputies in an Assembly which had excluded their country from Germany, and in which yet they were called upon to sit and vote, favored the derangement of its equipoise; and thus, as early as the end of February, the Left Center and the Left found themselves, by the help of the Austrian votes, very generally in a majority, while on other days the Conservative fraction of the Austrians, all of a sudden and for the fun of the thing, voting with the Right, threw the balance again on the other side. They intended by these sudden soubresauts0 to bring the Assembly into contempt, which, however, was quite unnecessary, the massof the people being long since convinced of the utter hollowness and futility of anything coming from Frankfort. What a specimen of a Constitution, in the NEW-YORK DAILY TRIBÜNE, TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1852.
Christian streets, they were fined if not more severely punished. It was under such fool oppres-sions, however, that the fortunes of his house took their rise and began to flourish. At the entrance of this street is still the bureau, the council-rooms of their imperial firm, where they receive tributes from the principalities and powers of the world. A poor devil of a Christian clerk sits there alone on Saturdays, to deal out email sums to travelers and others on letters of eredit,
Jews settled in Frankfort under some imperfect, dearly-paid protection of the German Emperors as early as the twelfth century. In 1339 their wretched habitations were set fire to by religious fanatics, called Flagellants. In 1462 they built in the present Judengaue, or New-Egypt, as it is sometimes named. Fire came upon them yet again in 1711. I roughly translate a brief account of the last conflagration, as illustrative of the spirit of that time : " Meanwhile, all the houses were burned up stock and branch, and indeed in such wise that not a single one of so many houses, nay, not so much as a stick of wood of an arm's length remained, which is surely marvelous. It waa remarkable, also, that when one side of the street was burned down, the wind turned about as though it had finished there the business on which it was sent, and would now carry it on further; so that by this the other and greater part of the street was seized on by the fire and laid in iKhes. The fire broke out almost in the middle of the street, in the house of the Rabbi Naphthali, their most famous Poctor. It is related fora certain truth, that when their Rabbi, who was besides a good Cabal Ut, was minded to teach his scholars the Cabala, and had kindled for expéri-menta great heap of wood in his house, he be* came confused in his incantation, and in place of conjuring the water-spirit to extinguish the fire kindled bv him, called up the lire-spirits. Where-fore it wa» altogether in vain to try to save the smallest Jewish huilding. This is also to be considered in this conflagration, that of the many Christian houses near by, not a single une was consumed." Seeing OD one side this account, written about one hundred years, and the perse-cutions and oppressions under which the Jews existed until the close of ttie last century; and seeing on the other side the friendly terms on
world had made progress. Mure, however, be made. Some additional measure of justice was dealt oui tu the Jews in the Revolution of 1848 ; but they are not yet admitted to a full political equality w.th the Christian citizens uf i'rankfurt. Just at tins time the question of revising the constitution of the city is much discuswd, and Bum» propose, as one of the alterations, tba ad-missibility of Jews to the Senate. With the pre-
tiguiag.
Local event« of the day, or some gone-
to-seed item of foreign news, are the fcnmt« topics
of a low-toned conversation, freely punctuated
with long whiffs of tobacco-smoke from the mouths
of the interlocutors.
As for helping out their
Historic by any gesticulation or ruing from their
seats to command more attention, such French
vivacity is never indulged in-
The services of one
hand are engaged to hold the pipe, while the
other attends t o the glass, and the rest of the
body, once seated, never leaves its moorings till
bedtime. These gentlemen must bave had pe-
riods in their IÎVCB of greater mental activity than
they indicate at these meetings, which are very
possibly, to their habit, only an anodyne taken
after the agitation of the day s business, as a prep-
aration to full repose.
They answer a question-
ing stranger intelligently and politely.
May they
sleep well! with quiet consciences and good diges-
tions.
They retire mostly before I0j o'clock.
The
Frankfort era generally are early to bed.
Think of my coming home from Don Pasquale at
the theater last night, at a tittle after 9 u clock !
XV. REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION. We now come to the last chapter in the history of the German Revolution : the conflict of the National Assembly with the Governments of the different States, especially of Prussia ; the insurrection of Southern and Western Germany, and its final overthrow by Prussia.
We have already seen the Frankfort
National
Assembly at work.
W e have seen it kicked at by
Austria, insulted by Prussia, disobeyed by the
lesser States, duped by its own impotent Central
"Government," which again was the dupe of all
and every prince in the country.
But at last
things began to look threatening for this weak
vacillating, insipid legislative body.
It was forced
to come to the conclusion that " the Bublime idea
of German Unity was threatened in its realization,"
—which meant neither more nor lest* than that the
Frankfort Assembly, and all it had done and was
about to do, were very likely to end in smoke. Thus
t set to work in good earnest in order to bring
forth as soon as possible its grand production, the
"Imperial Constitution."
There was, however, one difficulty.
What Kx-
ecutivr Government was there to be ? An Execu-
tive Council?
N o ;
that would have been, thev
thought in their wisdom, making Germany a Re-
public.
A "President"?
That would come to
the same.
Thus thev must revive the old impe-
rial dignity.
But—as of course a prince was tobe
Emperor—who should it be ! Certainly none of
Hie Dii minorvn
gentium,
from Reuse-Schlei tz-
Greitz-I.obcnstein-Eberedorf
up
to
Bavaria;
neither Austria nor Prussia would have borne that,
a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with the solemn conviction that the whole world, its history * n d future, are governed and determined by s majority of votes in that particular representative body which has the honor to countthem among its members, and that all and everything going on outside the walls of their house—wars, revolutions, railway-constructing, colonizing of whole new continents, California gold discoveries, Central American canals, Russian armies, and whatever else may have some little claim to influence upon the destinies of mankind—is nothing compared to the incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, whatever it may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of their honorable House. Thus it was the Democratic party of the Assembly, by effectually smuggling a few of their nostrums into the " Imperial Constitution," first became bound to support it, although in «very essential point it flatly contradicted their own oft-proclaimed principles; and at last, when this mongrel work was abandoned and bequeathed to them by its main authors, accepted the inheritance, and held out for this monarchical Constitution even in opposition to everybody who then proclaimed their own republican principles.
But it must be confessed that in this the contradiction was merely apparent. The indeterminate, self-contradictory, immature character of the Imperial Constitution was the very image of the immature, confused, conflicting political idea« uf these democratic gentlemen. And if their own sayings and writings—as far as they could write— were not sufficient proof of this, their actions would furnish such proof; for among sensible people it is a matter of course to judge of a man not by his professions but by his actions; not by what he pretends to be, but by what he doea and what he really is ; and the deeds of these heroes of German Democracy speak loud enough for themselves, as we shall learn by and by. However, the Imperial Constitution with all its appendages and para-phernalia was definitively passed, and on the 28th of March the King of Prussia was, by 390 votes, against 248 who abstained and some 300 who were absent, elected Emperor of Germany, minus Austria. The historical irony wan complete ; the imperial farce executed in the streets of astonished Berlin, three days after the Revolution of March 1H, 1848, by Frederick William IV. while in a state which elsewhere would come under the Maine Liquor Law—this disgusting farce, just one year afterward, had been sanctioned by the pretender! Kepresentstive Assembly of all Germany. That, then, was the resultof the German Révolu
KAU >ndon. Julç, 1R62.
Part of a page from the New-York Daily Tribune containing Engels' article from the series Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany
meantime, was framed under such jumping and counter-jumping, may easily be imagined.
The Left of the Assembly—this élite and pride of revolutionary Germany, as it believed itself to be—was entirely intoxicated with the few paltry successes it obtained by the good-will, or rather the ill-will, of a set of Austrian politicians acting under the instigation and for the interest of Austrian despotism. Whenever the slightest approxi-mation to their own not-very-well-defined principles had, in a homoeopathically diluted shape, obtained a sort of sanction by the Frankfort Assembly, these Democrats proclaimed that they had saved the country and the people. These poor, weak-minded men, during the course of their generally very obscure lives, had been so little accustomed to anything like success, that they actually believed their paltry amendments, passed with two or three votes' majority, would change the face of Europe. They had from the beginning of their legislative career been more imbued than any other fraction of the Assembly with that incurable malady, parliamentary cretinism, a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with the solemn conviction that the whole world, its history and future, are governed and determined by a majority of votes in that particular representative body which has the honor to count them among its members, and that all and everything going on outside the walls of their house—wars, revolutions, railway-constructing, colonizing of whole new continents, California gold discoveries, Central American canals, Russian armies, and whatever else may have some little claim to influence upon the destinies of mankind—is nothing compared to the incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, whatever it may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of their honorable House. Thus it was the Democratic party of the Assembly, by effectually smuggling a few of their nostrums into the "Imperial Constitution," that first became bound to support it, although in every essential point it flatly contradicted their own oft-proclaimed principles; and at last, when this mongrel work was abandoned and bequeathed to them by its main authors, accepted the inheritance, and held out for this monarchical Constitution even in opposition to everybody who then proclaimed their own republican principles.
But it must be confessed that in this the contradiction was merely apparent. The indeterminate, self-contradictory, immature character of the Imperial Constitution was the very image of the immature, confused, conflicting political ideas of these democratic gentlemen. And if their own sayings and writings—as far as they could write—were not sufficient proof of this, their actions would furnish such proof; for among sensible people it is a matter of course to judge of a man not by his professions, but by his actions; not by what he pretends to be, but by what he does and what he really is; and the deeds of these heroes of German Democracy speak loud enough for themselves, as we shall learn by and by. However, the Imperial Constitution with all its appendages and paraphernalia was definitively passed, and on the 28th of March the King of Prussia was, by 290 votes against 248 who abstained and some 200 who were absent, elected Emperor of Germany, minus Austria. The historical irony was complete; the imperial farce executed in the streets of astonished Berlin, three days after the Revolution of March 18, 1848, by Frederick William IV,[57] while in a state which elsewhere would come under the Maine Liquor Law—this disgusting farce, just one year afterward, had been sanctioned by the pretended Representative Assembly of all Germany. That, then, was the result of the German Revolution!
London, July, 1852
Endnotes
[3] Serfdom was abolished in the territories along the left bank of the Rhine annexed to France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, as were the privileges of the nobility and the clergy, and the church estates.
[3] Serfdom was abolished in the territories along the left bank of the Rhine annexed to France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, as were the privileges of the nobility and the clergy, and the church estates.
[56] [Editorial note 56: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[57] [Editorial note 57: text not recovered from the source scan.]