XIV
To show how pleasantly the war was waged between Agitation and Emigration we append here a few excerpts from the German-American papers.
AGITATION
Ruge declares that Kinkel is an "agent of the Prince of Prussia". Another agitator discovers that the outstanding men of the Émigré Club consist of
"Pastor Kinkel together with three Prussian lieutenants, two insipid Berlin literati and one student".
Sigel writes:
"It cannot be denied that Willich has gained some support. But when a man has been a preacher for three years and only tells people what they wish to hear, he would have to be very stupid not to be able to win some of them over. The Kinkelites are attempting to take these supporters over. The Willich supporters are whoring with the Kinkel supporters."
A fourth agitator declares that Kinkel's supporters are "idolators". Tausenau gives this description of the Émigré Club:
"Divergent interests beneath the mask of conciliatoriness, the systematic deception to obtain majorities, the emergence of unknown quantities as organising party leaders, attempts to impose a secret finance committee and all the other manoeuvres and subterfuges with which immature politicians have always tried to control the fates of their country in exile, while the first glow of the revolution disperses all such vanities like a morning mist."
Lastly, Rodomonte-Heinzen announces that the only reputable refugees in England personally known to him were Ruge, Goegg, Fickler and Sigel. The members of the Émigré Club were "egoists, royalists and communists". Kinkel was "an incurably vain fool and a theorising aristocrat", Meyen, Oppenheim, Willich, etc., were people "who do not even come up to his, Heinzen's, knee and as for Ruge, they do not even reach to his ankle" (New York Schnellpost, New-Yorker Deutsche Zeitung, Wecker, etc., 1851).
EMIGRATION
"What is the purpose of an imposed committee that stands in mid-air, that confers authority on itself although it has not done any work, has not been elected and has not asked the people whom it claims to represent whether they wish to be represented by such men?"
"Everyone who knows Ruge, knows that the mania for proclamations is his incurable disease." — "In parliament"[1] Ruge did not even acquire the influence of a Raveaux or a Simon of Trier".— "Where revolutionary energy in action, organisational work, discretion or reticence are necessary, Ruge is dangerous because he cannot hold his tongue, he cannot hold his ink and always claims that he represents everybody. When Ruge meets Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin this is translated into Rugean and published in all the papers as: Germany, France and Italy have banded together fraternally to serve the revolution." — "This pretentious imposition of a committee, this boastful inactivity determined Ruge's most intimate and intelligent friends, such as Oppenheim, Meyen and Schramm, to join forces with other men." — "Behind Ruge there is no clearly defined section of the people, but only a clearly outlined pigtail of peace."
"How many hundreds of people ask themselves daily who is this Tausenau and there is no one, no one who can give an answer. Here and there you can find a Viennese who will assure you that he is one of those democrats from Vienna with whom the reaction used to reproach the Viennese democrats so as to put them in a bad light. But that is the concern of the Viennese. At any rate Tausenau is an unknown factor, and it is even less known whether he is a factor at all."
"Let us take another look at these worthy men who regard everyone else as an immature politician. Sigel, the supreme commander. If anyone ever asks the muse of history how such an insipid nonentity was given the supreme command she will be completely at a loss for a reply. Sigel is only his brother's brother. His brother became a popular officer as a result of his critical remarks about the government, remarks which had been provoked by his frequent arrests for disorderly behaviour. The young Sigel thought this reason enough in the early confusion prevailing at the outbreak of revolution to proclaim himself supreme commander and minister of war. The Baden artillery, which had often proved its worth, had plenty of older and more experienced officers who should have taken precedence over this young Lieutenant Sigel, and they were more than a little indignant when they had to obey an unknown young man whose inexperience was only matched by his incompetence. But there was Brentano, who was so mindless and treacherous as to permit anything that might ruin the revolution.... The total incompetence that Sigel displayed during the whole Baden campaign.... It is certainly noteworthy that Sigel left the bravest soldiers of the republican army in the lurch at Rastatt and in the Black Forest without the reinforcements he had promised while he himself drove around Zurich with the epaulettes and the carriage of Prince von Fürstenberg and paraded as an interesting unfortunate supreme commander. This is the well-known magnitude of this mature politician who, understandably proud of his earlier heroic deeds, imposed himself as supreme commander for a second time, on this occasion in the Agitation Union. This is the great well-known man, the brother of his brother."
The Frankfurt National Assembly.— Ed. Albert Sigel's.—Ed.
"It is really laughable when such people" (as the agitators) "reproach others with half-heartedness, for they are political nonentities who neither half nor whole are anything at all." — "Personal ambition is the whole secret of their fundamental position." — "As a society the Agitation Union has meaning only for a very limited group, like a literary circle or a billiard club, and therefore it has no claim to be taken into consideration or given a voice." — "You yourselves have cast the dice! Let the uninitiated be initiated so that they may judge for themselves what kind of people you are!" — (Baltimore Correspondent.)
One must say that in their understanding of each other these gentlemen have almost achieved an understanding of themselves.
Endnotes
[1] Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany was written after Charles Dana, one of the editors of the New-York Daily Tribune, had suggested to Marx, early in 1851, that he contribute to the newspaper. Being engaged in economic research, Marx asked Engels, on August 14, 1851, to write "a series of articles about Germany, from 1848 onwards". Engels agreed, and in the course of thirteen months he wrote 19 articles about the German revolution of 1848-49. He intended to write one more, concluding article, but it did not appear in the Tribune and most probably was not written at all. Engels used as the main source of reference a file of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, apart from some additional material given him by Marx, whom he constantly consulted and who read every article before mailing it. The series of articles, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany, was printed in the New-York Daily Tribune over the signature of Karl Marx, the paper's official correspondent. It was only in 1913, when the correspondence between Marx and Engels was published, that it became known that the articles had in fact been written by Engels. Daring Marx's and Engels' lifetime the work was never republished, apart from the first two articles, which were reprinted in the New-Yorker Abendzeitung, a newspaper of the German refugees in the United States, at the end of October 1851. The first separate edition of this work in English was prepared in 1896 by Marx's daughter, Eleanor Marx-Aveling; the same year a German translation appeared. In this and a number of later editions Marx was given as the author. In the New-York Daily Tribune the articles were printed under the general heading: Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, and numbered in Roman figures. In the 1896 English edition Eleanor Marx-Aveling provided subheadings which are preserved in this edition.