demarcation between the German and Polish nationalities. The
Revolution of 1848 calling forth at once the claim of all oppressed
nations to an independent existence, and to the right of settling
their own affairs for themselves, it was quite natural that the Poles
should at once demand the restoration of their country within the
frontiers of the old Polish Republic before 1772. It is true, this
frontier, even at that time, had become obsolete, if taken as the
delimitation of German and Polish nationality; it had become more so
every year since by the progress of Germanization; but then, the
Germans had proclaimed such an enthusiasm for the restoration of
Poland, that they must expect to be asked, as a first proof of the
reality of their sympathies to give up _their_ share of the plunder.
On the other hand, should whole tracts of land, inhabited chiefly by
Germans, should large towns, entirely German, be given up to a people
that as yet had never given any proofs of its capability of
progressing beyond a state of feudalism based upon agricultural
serfdom? The question was intricate enough. The only possible solution
was in a war with Russia. The question of delimitation between the
different revolutionized nations would have been made a secondary one
to that of first establishing a safe frontier against the common
enemy. The Poles, by receiving extended territories in the east, would
have become more tractable and reasonable in the west; and Riga and
Milan would have been deemed, after all, quite as important to them as
Danzig and Elbing. Thus the advanced party in Germany, deeming a war
with Russia necessary to keep up the Continental movement, and
considering that the national re-establishment even of a part of
Poland would inevitably lead to such a war, supported the Poles; while
the reigning middle class partly clearly foresaw its downfall from any
national war against Russia, which would have called more active and
energetic men to the helm, and, therefore, with a feigned enthusiasm
for the extension of German nationality, they declared Prussian
Poland, the chief seat of Polish revolutionary agitation, to be part
and parcel of the German Empire that was to be. The promises given to
the Poles in the first days of excitement were shamefully broken.
Polish armaments got up with the sanction of the Government were
dispersed and massacred by Prussian artillery; and as soon as the
month of April, 1848, within six weeks of the Berlin Revolution, the
Polish movement was crushed, and the old national hostility revived
between Poles and Germans. This immense and incalculable service to
the Russian autocrat was performed by the Liberal merchant-ministers,
Camphausen and Hansemann. It must be added that this Polish campaign
was the first means of reorganizing and reassuring that same Prussian
army, which afterward turned out the Liberal party, and crushed the
movement which Messrs. Camphausen and Hansemann had taken such pains
to bring about. "Whereby they sinned, thereby are they punished." Such
has been the fate of all the upstarts of 1848 and 1849, from Ledru
Rolin to Changarnier, and from Camphausen down to Haynau.
The question of nationality gave rise to another struggle in Bohemia.
This country, inhabited by two millions of Germans, and three millions
of Slavonians of the Tschechian tongue, had great historical
recollections, almost all connected with the former supremacy of the
Tschechs. But then the force of this branch of the Slavonic family had
been broken ever since the wars of the Hussites in the fifteenth
century. The province speaking the Tschechian tongue was divided, one
part forming the kingdom of Bohemia, another the principality of
Moravia, a third the Carpathian hill-country of the Slovaks, being
part of Hungary. The Moravians and Slovaks had long since lost every
vestige of national feeling and vitality, although mostly preserving
their language. Bohemia was surrounded by thoroughly German countries
on three sides out of four. The German element had made great progress
on her own territory; even in the capital, in Prague, the two
nationalities were pretty equally matched; and everywhere capital,
trade, industry, and mental culture were in the hands of the Germans.
The chief champion of the Tschechian nationality, Professor Palacky,
is himself nothing but a learned German run mad, who even now cannot
speak the Tschechian language correctly and without foreign accent.
But as it often happens, dying Tschechian nationality, dying according
to every fact known in history for the last four hundred years, made
in 1848 a last effort to regain its former vitality--an effort whose
failure, independently of all revolutionary considerations, was to
prove that Bohemia could only exist, henceforth, as a portion of
Germany, although part of her inhabitants might yet, for some
centuries, continue to speak a non-German language.
LONDON, February, 1852.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Lusiana, an ancient territory of Germany, north of Bohemia, to
which the whole of it originally belonged. Later it belonged to
Saxony, and still later, in 1815, was divided between Saxony (the
northern part) and Prussia (the southern).
IX.
PANSLAVISM--THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN WAR.
MARCH 15th, 1852.
Bohemia and Croatia (another disjected member of the Slavonic family,
acted upon by the Hungarian, as Bohemia by the German) were the homes
of what is called on the European continent "Panslavism." Neither
Bohemia nor Croatia was strong enough to exist as a nation by herself.
Their respective nationalities, gradually undermined by the action of
historical causes that inevitably absorbs into a more energetic stock,
could only hope to be restored to anything like independence by an
alliance with other Slavonic nations. There were twenty-two millions
of Poles, forty-five millions of Russians, eight millions of Serbians
and Bulgarians; why not form a mighty confederation of the whole
eighty millions of Slavonians, and drive back or exterminate the
intruder upon the holy Slavonic soil, the Turk, the Hungarian, and
above all the hated, but indispensable _Niemetz_, the German? Thus in
the studies of a few Slavonian _dilettanti_ of historical science was
this ludicrous, this anti-historical movement got up, a movement which
intended nothing less than to subjugate the civilized West under the
barbarian East, the town under the country, trade, manufactures,
intelligence, under the primitive agriculture of Slavonian serfs. But
behind this ludicrous theory stood the terrible reality of the
_Russian Empire_; that empire which by every movement proclaims the
pretension of considering all Europe as the domain of the Slavonic
race, and especially of the only energetic part of this race, of the
Russians; that empire which, with two capitals such as St. Petersburg
and Moscow, has not yet found its centre of gravity, as long as the
"City of the Czar" (Constantinople, called in Russian Tzarigrad, the
Czar's city), considered by every Russian peasant as the true
metropolis of his religion and his nation, is not actually the
residence of its Emperor; that empire which, for the last one hundred
and fifty years, has never lost, but always gained territory by every
war it has commenced. And well known in Central Europe are the
intrigues by which Russian policy supported the new-fangled system of
Panslavism, a system than which none better could be invented to suit
its purposes. Thus, the Bohemian and Croatian Panslavists, some
intentionally, some without knowing it, worked in the direct interest
of Russia; they betrayed the revolutionary cause for the shadow of a
nationality which, in the best of cases, would have shared the fate of
the Polish nationality under Russian sway. It must, however, be said
for the honor of the Poles, that they never got to be seriously
entangled in these Panslavist traps, and if a few of the aristocracy
turned furious Panslavists, they knew that by Russian subjugation they
had less to lose than by a revolt of their own peasant serfs.
The Bohemians and Croatians called, then, a general Slavonic Congress
at Prague, for the preparation of the universal Slavonian Alliance.
This Congress would have proved a decided failure even without the
interference of the Austrian military. The several Slavonic languages
differ quite as much as the English, the German, and the Swedish, and
when the proceedings opened, there was no common Slavonic tongue by
which the speakers could make themselves understood. French was tried,
but was equally unintelligible to the majority, and the poor Slavonic
enthusiasts, whose only common feeling was a common hatred against the
Germans, were at last obliged to express themselves in the hated
German language, as the only one that was generally understood! But
just then another Slavonic Congress was assembling in Prague, in the
shape of Galician lancers, Croatian and Slovak grenadiers, and
Bohemian gunners and cuirassiers; and this real, armed Slavonic
Congress, under the command of Windischgraetz, in less than twenty-four
hours drove the founders of an imaginary Slavonian supremacy out of
the town, and dispersed them to the winds.
The Bohemian, Moravian, Dalmatian, and part of the Polish deputies
(the aristocracy) to the Austrian Constituent Diet, made in that
Assembly a systematic war upon the German element. The Germans, and
part of the Poles (the impoverished nobility), were in this Assembly
the chief supporters of revolutionary progress; the mass of the
Slavonic deputies, in opposing them, were not satisfied with thus
showing clearly the reactionary tendencies of their entire movement,
but they were degraded enough to tamper and conspire with the very
same Austrian Government which had dispersed their meeting at Prague.
They, too, were paid for this infamous conduct; after supporting the
Government during the insurrection of October, 1848, an event which
finally secured to them a majority in the Diet, this now almost
exclusively Slavonic Diet was dispersed by Austrian soldiers, the same
as the Prague Congress, and the Panslavists threatened with
imprisonment if they should stir again. And they have only obtained
this, that Slavonic nationality is now being everywhere undermined by
Austrian centralization, a result for which they may thank their own
fanaticism and blindness.
If the frontiers of Hungary and Germany had admitted of any doubt,
there would certainly have been another quarrel there. But,
fortunately, there was no pretext, and the interests of both nations
being intimately related, they struggled against the same enemies,
_viz._, the Austrian Government and the Panslavistic fanaticism. The
good understanding was not for a moment disturbed. But the Italian
Revolution entangled at least a part of Germany in an internecine
war, and it must be stated here, as a proof how far the Metternichian
system had succeeded in keeping back the development of the public
mind, that during the first six months of 1848, the same men that had
in Vienna mounted the barricades, went, full of enthusiasm, to join
the army that fought against the Italian patriots. This deplorable
confusion of ideas did not, however, last long.
Lastly, there was the war with Denmark about Schleswig and Holstein.
These countries, unquestionably German by nationality, language and
predilection, are also from military, naval and commercial grounds
necessary to Germany. Their inhabitants have, for the last three
years, struggled hard against Danish intrusion. The right of treaties,
besides, was for them. The Revolution of March brought them into open
collision with the Danes, and Germany supported them. But while in
Poland, in Italy, in Bohemia, and later on, in Hungary, military
operations were pushed with the utmost vigor, in this the only
popular, the only, at least partially, revolutionary war, a system of
resultless marches and counter-marches was adopted, and an
interference of foreign diplomacy was submitted to, which led, after
many an heroic engagement, to a most miserable end. The German
Government betrayed, during the war, the Schleswig-Holstein
revolutionary army on every occasion, and allowed it purposely to be
cut up, when dispersed or divided, by the Danes. The German corps of
volunteers were treated the same.
But while thus the German name earned nothing but hatred on every
side, the German Constitutional and Liberal Governments rubbed their
hands for joy. They had succeeded in crushing the Polish and the
Bohemian movements. They had everywhere revived the old national
animosities, which heretofore had prevented any common understanding
and action between the German, the Pole, the Italian. They had
accustomed the people to scenes of civil war and repression by the
military. The Prussian army had regained its confidence in Poland, the
Austrian army in Prague; and while the superabundant patriotism ("_die
Patriotische Ueberkraft_," as Heine has it) of revolutionary but
shortsighted youth was led in Schleswig and Lombardy, to be crushed by
the grape-shot of the enemy, the regular army, the real instrument of
action, both of Prussia and Austria, was placed in a position to
regain public favor by victories over the foreigner. But we repeat:
these armies, strengthened by the Liberals as a means of action
against the more advanced party, no sooner had recovered their
self-confidence and their discipline in some degree, than they turned
themselves against the Liberals, and restored to power the men of the
old system. When Radetzky, in his camp beyond the Adige, received the
first orders from the "responsible ministers" at Vienna, he exclaimed:
"Who are these ministers? They are not the Government of Austria!
Austria is now nowhere but in my camp; I and my army, we are Austria;
and when we shall have beaten the Italians we shall reconquer the
Empire for the Emperor!" And old Radetzky was right--but the imbecile
"responsible" ministers at Vienna heeded him not.
LONDON, February, 1852.
X.
THE PARIS RISING--THE FRANKFORT ASSEMBLY.
MARCH 18th, 1852.
As early as the beginning of April, 1848, the revolutionary torrent
had found itself stemmed all over the Continent of Europe by the
league which those classes of society that had profited by the first
victory immediately formed with the vanquished. In France, the petty
trading class and the Republican faction of the bourgeoisie had
combined with the Monarchist bourgeoisie against the proletarians; in
Germany and Italy, the victorious bourgeoisie had eagerly courted the
support of the feudal nobility, the official bureaucracy, and the
army, against the mass of the people and the petty traders. Very soon
the united Conservative and Counter-Revolutionary parties again
regained the ascendant. In England, an untimely and ill-prepared
popular demonstration (April 10th) turned out a complete and decisive
defeat of the popular party. In France, two similar movements (16th
April and 15th May) were equally defeated. In Italy, King Bomba
regained his authority by a single stroke on the 15th May. In Germany,
the different new bourgeois Governments and their respective
constituent Assemblies consolidated themselves, and if the eventful
15th of May gave rise, in Vienna, to a popular victory, this was an
event of merely secondary importance, and may be considered the last
successful flash of popular energy. In Hungary the movement appeared
to turn into the quiet channel of perfect legality, and the Polish
movement, as we have seen in our last, was stifled in the bud by
Prussian bayonets. But as yet nothing was decided as to the eventual
turn which things would take, and every inch of ground lost by the
Revolutionary parties in the different countries only tended to close
their ranks more and more for the decisive action.
The decisive action drew near. It could be fought in France only; for
France, as long as England took no part in the revolutionary strife,
or as Germany remained divided, was, by its national independence,
civilization, and centralization, the only country to impart the
impulse of a mighty convulsion to the surrounding countries.
Accordingly, when, on the 23rd of June, 1848, the bloody struggle
began in Paris, when every succeeding telegraph or mail more clearly
exposed the fact to the eyes of Europe, that this struggle was carried
on between the mass of the working people on the one hand, and all the
other classes of the Parisian population, supported by the army, on
the other; when the fighting went on for several days with an
exasperation unequalled in the history of modern civil warfare, but
without any apparent advantage for either side--then it became evident
to every one that this was the great decisive battle which would, if
the insurrection were victorious, deluge the whole continent with
renewed revolutions, or, if it was suppressed, bring about an at least
momentary restoration of counter-revolutionary rule.
The proletarians of Paris were defeated, decimated, crushed with such
an effect that even now they have not yet recovered from the blow. And
immediately, all over Europe, the new and old Conservatives and
Counter-Revolutionists raised their heads with an effrontery that
showed how well they understood the importance of the event. The Press
was everywhere attacked, the rights of meeting and association were
interfered with, every little event in every small provincial town was
taken profit of to disarm the people to declare a state of siege, to
drill the troops in the new manoeuvres and artifices that Cavaignac
had taught them. Besides, for the first time since February, the
invincibility of a popular insurrection in a large town had been
proved to be a delusion; the honor of the armies had been restored;
the troops hitherto always defeated in street battles of importance
regained confidence in their efficiency even in this kind of struggle.
From this defeat of the _ouvriers_ of Paris may be dated the first
positive steps and definite plans of the old feudal bureaucratic party
in Germany, to get rid even of their momentary allies, the middle
classes, and to restore Germany to the state she was in before the
events of March. The army again was the decisive power in the State,
and the army belonged not to the middle classes but to themselves.
Even in Prussia, where before 1848 a considerable leaning of part of
the lower grades of officers towards a Constitutional Government had
been observed, the disorder introduced into the army by the Revolution
had brought back those reasoning young men to their allegiance; as
soon as the private soldier took a few liberties with regard to the
officers, the necessity of discipline and passive obedience became at
once strikingly evident to them. The vanquished nobles and bureaucrats
now began to see their way before them; the army, more united than
ever, flushed with victory in minor insurrections and in foreign
warfare, jealous of the great success the French soldiers had just
attained--this army had only to be kept in constant petty conflicts
with the people, and the decisive moment once at hand, it could with
one great blow crush the Revolutionists, and set aside the
presumptions of the middle class Parliamentarians. And the proper
moment for such a decisive blow arrived soon enough.
We pass over the sometimes curious, but mostly tedious, parliamentary
proceedings and local struggles that occupied, in Germany, the
different parties during the summer. Suffice it to say that the
supporters of the middle class interest in spite of numerous
parliamentary triumphs, not one of which led to any practical result,
very generally felt that their position between the extreme parties
became daily more untenable, and that, therefore, they were obliged
now to seek the alliance of the reactionists, and the next day to
court the favor of the more popular factions. This constant
vacillation gave the finishing stroke to their character in public
opinion, and according to the turn events were taking, the contempt
into which they had sunk, profited for the movement principally to the
bureaucrats and feudalists.
By the beginning of autumn the relative position of the different
parties had become exasperated and critical enough to make a decisive
battle inevitable. The first engagements in this war between the
democratic and revolutionary masses and the army took place at
Frankfort. Though a mere secondary engagement, it was the first
advantage of any note the troops acquired over the insurrection, and
had a great moral effect. The fancy Government established by the
Frankfort National Assembly had been allowed by Prussia, for very
obvious reasons, to conclude an armistice with Denmark, which not only
surrendered to Danish vengeance the Germans of Schleswig, but which
also entirely disclaimed the more or less revolutionary principles
which were generally supposed in the Danish war. This armistice was,
by a majority of two or three, rejected in the Frankfort Assembly. A
sham ministerial crisis followed this vote, but three days later the
Assembly reconsidered their vote, and were actually induced to cancel
it and acknowledge the armistice. This disgraceful proceeding roused
the indignation of the people. Barricades were erected, but already
sufficient troops had been drawn to Frankfort, and after six hours'
fighting, the insurrection was suppressed. Similar, but less
important, movements connected with this event took place in other
parts of Germany (Baden, Cologne), but were equally defeated.
This preliminary engagement gave to the Counter-Revolutionary party
the one great advantage, that now the only Government which had
entirely--at least in semblance--originated with popular election, the
Imperial Government of Frankfort, as well as the National Assembly,
was ruined in the eyes of the people. This Government and this
Assembly had been obliged to appeal to the bayonets of the troops
against the manifestation of the popular will. They were compromised,
and what little regard they might have been hitherto enabled to claim,
this repudiation of their origin, the dependency upon the anti-popular
Governments and their troops, made both the Lieutenant of the Empire,
his ministers and his deputies, henceforth to be complete nullities.
We shall soon see how first Austria, then Prussia, and later on the
smaller States too, treated with contempt every order, every request,
every deputation they received from this body of impotent dreamers.
We now come to the great counter-stroke in Germany, of the French
battle of June, to that event which was as decisive for Germany as the
proletarian struggle of Paris had been for France; we mean the
revolution and subsequent storming of Vienna, October, 1848. But the
importance of this battle is such, and the explanation of the
different circumstances that more immediately contributed to its issue
will take up such a portion of _The Tribune's_ columns, as to
necessitate its being treated in a separate letter.
LONDON, February, 1852.
XI.
THE VIENNA INSURRECTION.
MARCH 19th, 1852.
We now come to the decisive event which formed the
counter-revolutionary part in Germany to the Parisian insurrection of
June, and which, by a single blow, turned the scale in favor of the
Counter-Revolutionary party,--the insurrection of October, 1848, in
Vienna.
We have seen what the position of the different classes was, in
Vienna, after the victory of 12th March. We have also seen how the
movement of German-Austria was entangled with and impeded by the
events in the non-German provinces of Austria. It only remains for us,
then, briefly to survey the causes which led to this last and most
formidable rising of German-Austria.
The high aristocracy and the stock-jobbing bourgeoisie, which had
formed the principal non-official supports of the Metternichian
Government, were enabled, even after the events of March, to maintain
a predominating influence with the Government, not only by the Court,
the army and the bureaucracy, but still more by the horror of
"anarchy," which rapidly spread among the middle classes. They very
soon ventured a few feelers in the shape of a Press Law, a nondescript
Aristocratic Constitution, and an Electoral Law based upon the old
division of "estates." The so-called Constitutional ministry,
consisting of half Liberal, timid, incapable bureaucrats, on the 14th
of May, even ventured a direct attack upon the revolutionary
organizations of the masses by dissolving the Central Committee of
Delegates of the National Guard and Academic Legion; a body formed for
the express purpose of controlling the Government, and calling out
against it, in case of need, the popular forces. But this act only
provoked the insurrection of the 15th May, by which the Government was
forced to acknowledge the Committee, to repeal the Constitution and
the Electoral Law and to grant the power of framing a new Fundamental
Law to a Constitutional Diet, elected by universal suffrage. All this
was confirmed on the following day by an Imperial proclamation. But
the reactionary party, which also had its representatives in the
ministry, soon got their "Liberal" colleagues to undertake a new
attack upon the popular conquests. The Academic Legion, the stronghold
of the movement party, the centre of continuous agitation, had, on
this very account, become obnoxious to the more moderate burghers of
Vienna; on the 26th a ministerial decree dissolved it. Perhaps this
blow might have succeeded, if it had been carried out by a part of the
National Guard only, but the Government, not trusting them either,
brought the military forward, and at once the National Guard turned
round, united with the Academic Legion, and thus frustrated the
ministerial project.