In my pamphlet The Knight, etc., from which I quoted above, I wrote on p. 5.
“...On July 20, 1851 the ‘Agitation Union’ was founded, and on July 27, 1851 the German ‘Emigré Club’. From that day ... dates the struggle on both sides of the ocean between the ‘Emigrés’ and the ‘Agitators’, the great war between frogs and mice.

Now who will give me words and who has tongue,
To sing of such brave deeds in sonorous sounds!
For ne’er was strife upon this earth begun
More proudly fought on bloodier battle grounds;
Compared to this all other wars are roses.
To tell of it my lyric art confounds
For on this earth there ne’er was seen such glory
Or noble valour bright as in this story.

(After Boiardo, Orlando innamorato,
Canto 27.)”

Now it is by no means my intention to go into the details of “the story” of this strife or into the agreement entitled, verbotenus. “The Preliminary Agreement about the Treaty on the Alliance” (under which name it was publicised throughout the entire German-American press), which was reached between Gottfried Kinkel in the name of the Emigré Club, and A. Goegg on behalf of the “Revolutionary League of the Two Worlds”, on August 13, 1852. I would only remark that with a few exceptions the entire parliamentary emigration joined in the farce on one side or the other. (Of course, names like K. Vogt were at that time avoided by every party if only for propriety’s sake.)
At the end of his revolutionary pleasure and fund-raising tour of the United States, Gottfried Kinkel, the passion flower of German philistinism, wrote a “Denkschrift über das deutsche Nationalanlehn zur Förderung der Revolution”, dated Elmira, N. Y., February 22, 1852, in which he gave vent to views which at least possess the merit of great simplicity. Gottfried believes that engineering a revolution is much like making a railway. Once the money is there, the railway, or the revolution will follow in due course. Whereas the nation should cherish a longing for revolution in its heart, the makers of revolution should have cash in their pockets, and everything therefore depends on a small well-equipped band of men with a plentiful supply of money. It is remarkable into what bizarre byways of thought even melodramatic minds are driven by England’s commercial wind. Since everything here, even public opinion, is organised with the aid of shares, why not float a joint-stock company “for the promotion of the revolution”?

In a public meeting with Kossuth, who was also engaged at that time on a revolutionary fund-raising campaign in the United States, Gottfried expressed himself in highly aesthetic terms:
“Even from your clean hands, Governor, the gift of freedom would be a bitter pill, and I would moisten it with the tears of my shame.”

Hence Gottfried, having looked the gift-horse so sharply in the mouth, assured the governor that if the latter should present to him “the revolution in the east” with his right hand, he, Gottfried, would present to him “the revolution in the west” in return. Seven years later, in the Hermann, a paper he had founded himself, the very same Gottfried assured his readers that he was a man of rare consistency, and that having proclaimed the “Prince Regent” as Emperor of Germany before the military court in Rastatt he had always kept this as his motto.

Count Oskar Reichenbach, one of the three original regents and the Treasurer of the Revolutionary Loan, published the accounts in London on October 8, 1852, together with a statement in which he dissociated himself from the enterprise. At the same time he declared that “in any event I neither can nor will hand the money over to citizens Kinkel, etc.” Instead he invited the shareholders to hand in their provisional loan certificates in exchange for the money in his hands. His own resignation as treasurer, etc., he said,
“was motivated by political and legal considerations.... The assumptions on which the idea of the loan was based have not been realised. The sum of 20,000 dollars which had to be raised before the loan could be proceeded with, has therefore not been acquired.... The proposal to found a periodical and to promote agitation found no echo. Only political charlatans or revolutionary monomaniacs could deem the loan to be practicable at present and imagine that an equitable and hence impersonal, actively revolutionary use of the money by all party groups is possible at this moment.”

But Gottfried’s faith in revolution could not be shaken so easily and so he procured a “resolution” that allowed him to carry on the business under another name.

Reichenbach’s statement of the accounts contains some interesting data.

“The Trustees,” he says, “cannot be held responsible for contributions which may have been made later by the company to persons other than myself, and I would ask the committees to take note of this when calling in the certificates and settling accounts.”

According to his computations £1,587 6s. 4d. was received, of which London had contributed £2 5s., and “Germany” £9. The expenditure amounted to £584 18s. 5d. and was broken down as follows: Kinkel’s and Hillgärtner’s travel expenses: £220; other travel expenses: £54; lithographic press: £11; cost of provisional certificates: £14; lithographed correspondence, stamps, etc.: £106 1s. 6d. On Kinkel’s instructions, etc.: £100.

The Revolutionary Loan ended up with £1,000, which Gottfried Kinkel keeps in the Westminster Bank as earnest money for the first German provisional government. And despite all this, there is still no provisional government. Perhaps Germany believes that 36 actual governments are quite sufficient.

Certain American loan funds which were not incorporated into the central London treasury were at least employed here and there for patriotic purposes. Such was the case with the £100 which Gottfried Kinkel gave to Karl Blind early in 1858 to transform into “radical pamphlets”, etc.