Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 397, November 1848. Various
"I believe that I have given those infernal princes their gruel. Lichnowsky had better hold his peace, for the time is coming when a sharp reckoning must be held between the aristocrats and the people."
"Potz tausend!" cried Zitz, "do they think to lord it over us longer with their stars and ribbons? I hold myself to be as good a man as any grand-duke of them all, and a great deal better than some I could name who would give a trifle to be out of Germany."
"And how does the cause of democracy progress in England?" asked Neukirch. "We are somewhat surprised to find that, after all the preparation, there has been no revolution in London."
"As to that," said I, "you must hardly judge us too rashly. Two distinguished patriots, called Ernest Jones and Fussell, were desirous of raising barricades; but, somehow or other, the plan was communicated to Government, the troops refused to fraternise, and the attempt was postponed for the present."
"I see!" cried Zitz, "Russian influence has been at work in England too. Nicholas has been sowing his gold, and the fruit is continued tyranny."
"The fact is," said I, "though I would not wish it to be repeated, that a good many of us are of opinion that we have no tyranny at all, but rather more freedom than is absolutely necessary for our happiness."
"No tyranny!" shouted Zitz; "is there not a chamber of peers?"
"Too much freedom!" roared Simon of Treves; "have you not an Established Church?"
"Is not your sovereign a niece of the odious despot of Hanover?" asked Neukirch.
"Is there not a heavy tax on tobacco?" inquired my friend and preceptor Klingemann.
"Gentlemen all," said I, "these things must perforce be admitted. We have a chamber of peers, and are thankful for it, because it curbs democracy in the Commons. We have an Established Church, and we honour it, because it has taught the people to fear their Creator and to reverence their queen. Our sovereign is a niece of the King of Hanover, and she has no reason whatever to be ashamed of the connexion. And as to the article of tobacco, I may remark to my learned friend the professor, that revenue must necessarily be raised, and that, moreover, I have not smoked a single decent cigar since I set foot in Germany."
"These are reactionary doctrines!" growled Zitz; "I fear you are no true friend of the people."
"A firmer one never sat under the sign of Geordie Buchanan," said I; "but I suspect your estimate of the people is somewhat different from mine. Pray, Herr Neukirch, will you pardon the curiosity of a stranger, if I ask one or two questions upon points which I do not thoroughly comprehend? I observe, from the tenor of the proclamations issued by Herr von Soiron, that you contemplate the erection of one free, united, and indissoluble Germany."
"That is precisely our object."
"Then, am I right in holding that the Reichsverweser concentrates in his own person the whole power and puissance of the different states?"
"Just so. He is president of Germany."
"So that with him and his council rest the whole responsibility of disposing of the troops of the confederation, of making treaties, of proclaiming peace and war, of regulating coinage and customs, and, in fact, of exerting every royal prerogative?"
"Always with consent of the German parliament," said Zitz. "You may believe we are not such fools as to substitute one tyrant for thirty-eight."
"Then, gentlemen, it appears to me that your whole scheme, upon which I am not qualified to express an opinion, resolves itself into one of extensive and entire mediatisation. If the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia have no power to declare peace or war – if their armies are to obey the orders of the central power at Frankfort – it will follow, as a matter of course, that their kingly privileges are at an end. The interchange of ambassadors with foreign states will be a ceremony so clearly futile that it must at once be abandoned, and the monarchs will become merely the first of a titular nobility."
"That is the inevitable and glorious consequence!" cried my new acquaintance, Neukirch. "You see the whole subject in its proper light. First, we clip the wings of the princes till they can do no more than hop about their own home-yards; then we control the proceedings of the Reichsverweser by a parliament elected on the principles of universal suffrage; and finally, we can eject the puppet if necessary, and resolve ourselves into a pure democracy."
"One thing, then," said I, "is only wanting for this desirable consummation, and that is, the consent of the princes. I admit that you may have little trouble with Baden, Wurtemberg, and the like, but what say Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria to this wholesale abdication of their thrones?"
"We don't affect to deny that there may be a crisis approaching. Austria has her hands full for the present with Italy and Hungary, and has given no definite reply. But the clubs are strong and active at Vienna, and on the very first opportunity you will see a general rising. 'Anarchy first – order afterwards,' is our motto. Then, as to Prussia, we do not want to push on matters too rapidly there. The king has been playing into our hands; and, to tell you the truth, we depend upon him alone for the continuance of our five florins a-day. So that, in the mean time, you may be sure we shall be moderate in that quarter. Bavaria may do as she pleases. If the others yield, that power must necessarily succumb."
"Then I want to understand a little about the justice of your cause. You have claimed Schleswig-Holstein as part of Germany, and you have sent German troops, for the purpose of recovering it as your right?"
"Quite true."
"And at the same time Germany, or you as its representatives, have acknowledged the right of all foreign nations to their own independence?"
"We have."
"Then, will you have the kindness to explain to me how it is that your philanthropic parliament, holding such principles, has not thought proper to insist that every Austrian soldier, belonging to the confederation, should be immediately withdrawn from Lombardy and Hungary? How is it that General Wrangel, in the north, has ceased to be a Prussian, and become a German soldier, whilst Marshal Radetsky, in the south, is fighting without remonstrance at the head of troops which you claim as your own, and against that independence of a foreign nation, which you have thought proper expressly to recognise? If Germany claims Schleswig on the ground of unity of race and language, how can she, at the same time, countenance a subordinate German power in infringing the very principle which she has so determinedly proclaimed?"
Neither on this occasion, nor on any other, could I obtain a satisfactory reply to the above question. In fact, from the very beginning, the conduct of the men who have put themselves at the head of the present movement, has been checkered by contradictions of the most glaring and obvious kind. On the fifth of May, the present vice-president, Von Soiron, put forth an address to the inhabitants of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, calling upon them to co-operate and join with the German confederacy, and to send representatives to the union. Two of these states are comprised in the Austrian, and one in the Prussian dominions; but none of them are German. If nationality is to be recognised as the ruling principle – and the scheme of German confederation and empire contemplated nothing else – these countries would fall to be excluded, since, by language and race, they form part of a totally different branch of the European family. But before the ink on their proclamation of strict unity and independence was dry, – that proclamation containing the following remarkable words, "The Germans shall not be induced, on any consideration, to abridge or deprive other nations of that freedom and independence which they claim for themselves as their own unalienable right," – we find the Germans calmly annexing Polish Posen to their league, proposing to include Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia in the limits of the empire, and by their official congratulatory address to Radetsky, giving national countenance to the war of subjugation in Lombardy. Even were their case otherwise good, such acts as these form an irresistible argument against their present claim for Schleswig; for upon no principle whatever are they entitled to add, on one side, to the possessions of the empire by foreign annexation, and on the other to repudiate annexation, when in favour of a foreign power.
But it is useless, in their present state, to demand explanation from the Germans. They are like men who, in attempting to cross a ford, have been carried off their feet by the swollen waters, and are now plunging