Cologne, October 18.

“A peculiar destiny seems to hold sway over Germany. When one believes that one
has reached the point where it is possible to help with the reconstruction of the
common fatherland, when one raises one’s eyes gratefully towards heaven for this blessing,
then the thunderclouds which are still hanging over Europe, discharge new and
mighty claps and make the hands tremble which have dedicated themselves to the
drawing up_of a Constitution for Germany. We have just experienced such a
thunderclap again in Vienna.”

Thus complains the Frankfurter Oberpostamts-Zeitung, the Moniteur
of the Imperial Administration. This worthy paper, whose recent
editor? appeared on the list of Guizot’s paid creatures, took itself au
sérieux for a moment. The Central Authority with its parliamentary
framework, the Council of Frankfurt, appeared to it as a serious
power. Instead of issuing their counter-revolutionary orders directly
to their subjects, the 38 German governments let the Central
Authority in Frankfurt issue to them the order to carry out
their own decisions. Everything was running smoothly just as at the
time of the Direct Commission of Mainz.’ The Central Authority
was able to imagine that it was a power and its Moniteur was able to
imagine that it was a Moniteur. It sang “Now thank ye all our God,
your hands raised up to heaven”.

And now we “experience” a thunderclap from Vienna. The
“hands” of our Lycurguses “tremble” in spite of the army in spiked
helmets which are so many lightning-conductors of the revolution; in
spite of the decrees which declare criticism of black-red-golden

? Karl Peter Berly.— Ed.

persons and gesta* to be a criminal offence”; and in spite of the
strong ee of those gigantic figures, Schmerling, Mohl and
Gagern. The revolutionary monster roars anew —and in Frankfurt
they “tremble”. The Frankfurter Oberpostamts-Zeitung is frightened out
of its thanksgiving prayer. It tragically grumbles at its iron fate.

In Paris the party of Thiers is in control, in Berlin the Pfuel
Government with Wrangels in all the provinces; in Frankfurt a
central gendarmerie; in all Germany a more or less hidden state of
siege; Italy pacified by the gentle Ferdinand and Radetzky; after the
annihilation of the Magyars Jellachich, the commander of Hungary,
proclaiming together with Windischgratz “Croatian freedom and
order” in Vienna; in Bucharest the revolution drowned in blood; the
Danube principalities blessed by the good deeds of the Russian
regime; in England all the Chartist leaders arrested and deported;
Ireland too starved to be able to move—tell me, what more do you
want?”

The Viennese revolution has not yet won. Its first summer
lightning suffices, however, to illuminate all the positions of the
counter-revolution in Europe and thus to render inevitable a
universal fight to the death.

The counter-revolution is not yet destroyed but it has made a fool
of itself. With the hero Jellachich all its heroes are transformed into
comical figures, and with Fuad Effendi’s proclamation after the blood
bath of Bucharest,*”° all proclamations of the friends of “constitutional freedom and order”, from the proclamations of the Imperial
Diet down to the most insignificant statement of the wailers, are
parodied to death.

Tomorrow we shall discuss at length the immediate situation in
Vienna and the Austrian situation in general.