The Vienna Correspondent of the “Kölnische Zeitung”

* Cologne, February 17. Issue No. 225, February 18, 1849
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

A riddle less in world history! Mr. Schwanbeck, † editor of the “Kölnische Zeitung”, who at the same time corresponds from Vienna under the †+† sign in the same “Kölnische Zeitung”, has notoriously, under both firms, slandered the Magyars as long as possible, accused them of cowardice and baseness, not only beaten but repeatedly annihilated them, and dithyrambised the summary-court-martial entry of the entire army into the various towns and counties of Hungary.

Mr. Schwanbeck now solves the riddle himself; like Achilles our Schwanbeck can only himself heal the wounds he has struck.

And the solution of the riddle? – The fear of Welden. Hence the besmirching of the Viennese and the Magyars, the pitiful lies concerning the Austrian successes of arms, the tail-wagging and ogling of Croats and Pandours.

For, says the famous Schwanbeck, for, says he:

“Up to now one was formally given the lie and honoured by Governor Baron Welden with the honorific title of a malicious rogue if one ventured to doubt the victorious advances of the imperial army at all points of the monarchy.” (No. 40 of the Kölnische Zeitung.)

Out of respect for Welden, the readers of the “Kölnische Zeitung” had to be lied to and cheated for two months in the †+† Vienna correspondence about the Hungarian war.

Goethe said with reference to Pustkuchen: “Even the whale has its louse, so must I have mine.” The same may Kossuth say of Schwanbeck.

The “Kölnische Zeitung” on the Magyar Struggle

* Cologne, February 17.
No. 225, February 18, 1849
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

“I have now found the ground,
Wherein my anchor ever holds” –
sings the valiant Schwanbeck with the Protestant hymn-book. The indignant hero of virtue appears, despite the “Austrian note” and the “feeling of deepest indignation”, at last also on the front page of the Kölnische Zeitung in support of Windischgrätz.

Just listen:

“The so-called democratic press in Germany has sided with the Magyars in the Austro-Hungarian struggle ... Strange enough indeed! The German democrats on the side of that high-aristocratic caste for whom their own nation, despite the 19th century, never ceased to be the misera contribuens plebs, the German democrats on the side of the most arrogant oppressors of the people!”

We do not precisely recall whether we have already drawn the public’s attention to a peculiar trait of the valiant Schwanbeck, namely that he is in the habit of making nothing but consequent clauses without antecedent clauses. The above sentence is one of those consequent clauses whose antecedent clause has never seen the light of day.

And even if the Magyars were a “high-aristocratic caste” of “the most arrogant oppressors of the people”, what would that prove? Is Windischgrätz, the murderer of Robert Blum, a hair’s breadth better for that? Do the knights of the “complete monarchy”, the special enemies of Germany and the friends of Schwanbeck, the Windischgrätzes, Jellachichs, Schlicks, etc., intend perhaps to suppress the “high-aristocratic caste”, to introduce freedom of peasant landed property? Did the Croats and Czechs perhaps fight for the Rhenish parcelling and the Code Napoléon?

The “Kölnische Zeitung” on the Magyar Struggle

When the Poles rose against Russia in 1830, was there any talk then of whether only a “high-aristocratic caste” stood at their head? At that time the first thing at stake was the expulsion of the foreigners. The whole of Europe sympathised with the “high-aristocratic caste” which certainly opened the movement; for the Polish aristocratic republic was always a giant advance compared with Russian despotism. And was not the French census suffrage, the monopoly of the 250,000 voters of 1830, in substance a political bondage of the misera contribuens plebs just as great as the Polish aristocratic rule?

Suppose the Hungarian March revolution was a purely aristocratic revolution. Does the Austrian “complete” monarchy therefore have the right to suppress the Hungarian nobility and thereby the Hungarian peasants in the same way that it suppressed the Galician nobility and, through them (cf. the Lemberg Diet proceedings of 1818), the Galician peasants? But, of course, the great Schwanbeck is not obliged to know that the greater part of the Hungarian nobility, just like the greater part of the Polish nobility, consists of mere proletarians, whose aristocratic privilege is limited to not being allowed to be given a cudgelling.

The great Schwanbeck, however, is even much less obliged to know that Hungary is the only country in which the feudal burdens on the peasant have, since the March revolution, legally and in fact entirely ceased to exist. The great Schwanbeck declares the Magyars to be a “high-aristocratic caste”, the “most arrogant oppressors of the people”, “aristocrats” – and the same great Schwanbeck does not know or does not wish to know that the Magyar magnates, the Esterházys etc., deserted immediately at the beginning of the war and went to Olmütz to pay homage, and that it was precisely the “high-aristocratic” officers of the Magyar army who, from the beginning of the struggle to the present day, daily committed fresh treason against their nation’s cause! Or why is the majority of the Chamber of Deputies still with Kossuth in Debreczin, while only eleven magnates are there?

So much for the Schwanbeck of the front page, the lead-dithyrambist Schwanbeck. But the man of the third page, the man who has stormed Leopoldstadt six times, taken Eszek four times and crossed the Theiss on various occasions, the strategist Schwanbeck, had to have his revenge as well.

“But now the war took a pitiable, truly lamentable course. Unhaltingly, almost without a struggle, the Magyars retreated from all their positions; without resistance they even evacuated their fortified royal city, retreated before Jellachich’s Croats beyond the Theiss.”

“Almost without a struggle”, i.e., after having held up the Austrians from the Leitha to the Theiss for two full months, they retreated “almost without a struggle”. Good Schwanbeck, who judges a general’s greatness not by his material results but by how many men he has let be knocked dead!

“Without resistance they evacuated their fortified royal city!” Now, one must know that Ofen is indeed fortified on the west side, but not on the east side. The Danube was frozen, so that the Austrians could march across with horse and wagon, occupy Pest, and from there shoot the defenceless Ofen to pieces.

If Deutz were not fortified and the Rhine were frozen, and if therefore a French army were to cross the Rhine at Wesseling and Worringen and plant 100 cannon at Deutz against Cologne, the bold Schwanbeck would advise Colonel Engels to defend Cologne to the last man. Valiant Schwanbeck!

The Magyars “retreated before Jellachich’s Croats beyond the Theiss”. And will the great Schwanbeck deny that these “Croats” consist of 250-300,000 men, counting the corps of Windischgrätz, Jellachich, Götz, Csorich, Simunich, Nugent, Todorovich, Puchner, etc. etc., including the irregular troops on the Drava and in the Banat? And all that is “Jellachich’s Croats”? Incidentally, that a Schwanbeck, who is himself a tribal kinsman of the Croats and little at home in history and geography, is enthusiastic about the Croats is easily comprehensible.

But of course: “we too are far from regarding the official reports from the Austrian headquarters as a gospel”. On the contrary, from time to time Schwanbeck finds in the reports, for example of Schlick, “a gap which the reader must fill with all sorts of conjectures, and it is after all no wonder (!!) if these conjectures turn out to be more dubious than they should be!!!” “We also suspect Puchner of being in the habit of keeping his bulletins a little too rosy. According to them he was in the finest victorious pursuit of the ‘rebel general’. Then suddenly, to our greatest astonishment (!), we read a proclamation by him in which he adjures Saxons and Wallachians for all the world not to lose courage, then we find the defeated Bem suddenly before Hermannstadt, in the midst of the Saxon country, and the poor Germans (!!) finally know no other way to help themselves than to seek protection from the Russians. Here is a small conflict between the official reports and the events, which can only be blamed on the inaccuracy (!!) of the former.”

The “Kölnische Zeitung” on the Magyar Struggle

The citizen Schwanbeck admits that the Austrian bulletins, and the Kölnische Zeitung following them, have lied most shamelessly about the alleged advances of the Austrians; when the lie can no longer be denied afterwards, the friend of truth Schwanbeck calls that: “a small conflict between the official reports and the events”!

“But if we by no means regard the Austrian army reports as oracles, the Magyar victory bulletins have not thereby gained the slightest thing in our eyes (occupied with the above ‘small conflicts’). They are dictated by fantasy and would read quite pleasantly if they were only not so frightfully ridiculous.”

These “bulletins” are so “frightfully ridiculous” that up to now they have asserted nothing but what the great Schwanbeck is obliged to admit in substance. Or is Tokaj in Schlick’s hands? Has a single Austrian crossed the Theiss at Szolnok? Have the Imperial troops advanced by a single step in the past fortnight?

The 22nd Austrian bulletin, which has just reached us (see below), will save the citizen Schwanbeck the trouble of answering. It enlightens us on the point that the Austrians are not even as far advanced as the 20th and 21st bulletins claimed.

“It cannot be otherwise: the war in Hungary is moving by giant strides towards its end.” That is clear. Fourteen days ago Schwanbeck already said it once: “The war in Hungary is coming to an end. Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.” This was on the very day when he first had the Austrians marching victoriously into Debreczin.

A fortnight has since passed, and although the Magyars have “cut up frightfully”, the Austrians are still not across the Theiss, let alone in Debreczin.

“That Bem’s bands have, through the fugitive bands of Hungarians pressing in from all sides, swollen into an army which the meagre Imperial forces in Transylvania are not equal to, can surprise no one.”

By no means. But what can surprise us is how there can be talk of “fugitive bands of Hungarians pressing in from all sides” so long as the Hungarians hold the line of the Theiss and the Maros and the citizen Schwanbeck cannot, despite the most fervent prayer, smuggle a single Imperial soldier across; further, that “fugitive bands” suddenly form an army without the armies pursuing them being at hand at the same time to drive them out of every new position. But, of course, the great Schwanbeck believes that the Hungarians,

once wounded in his misty fantasy, would immediately run from the Danube to the Aluta without looking round to see whether they were being pursued or not?

Citizen Schwanbeck has turned himself into the Carnot of the 19th century by discovering the new manoeuvre: how fugitive bands, pressing in from all sides, can suddenly form a victorious army.

This new victorious army could certainly bring about serious complications. Yet, says Schwanbeck:

“We shall see in what manner Russia will pronounce its veto here.”

The valiant Schwanbeck, who here calls upon Russia for aid against the Magyars, is the same Schwanbeck who on 22 March of last year published a morally indignant article against the Emperor of Russia, declaring at the time that if Russia were to meddle in our affairs (and the Magyar affair is surely our affair), he, Schwanbeck, would raise a cry before which the throne of the Tsar would tremble! He is the same Schwanbeck who for ever so long held the office at the “Kölnische Zeitung” of salvaging the paper’s liberal renown by means of a timely deployed hatred of Russia and an obligatory, seasoned free-mindedness in regard to harmless east-European countries. But the east-European complications appear to bore him, and so that he may abandon himself wholly to his “feeling of deepest indignation” over the Austrian note, he summons the Russians to Transylvania to put an end to the struggle.

The best reply to the whole moralistic-Windischgrätzian-blustering article is – the 22nd army bulletin, which readers will find below. So that Schwanbeck, who in respect of geography and strategy right up to the closing sentence of his article is in part boundlessly ignorant, in part dependent on the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung,” may know where he stands with this bulletin, we at the same time provide the commentary upon it.