"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – The New "Holy Alliance"

The New "Holy Alliance"

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 183 of December 31, 1848]

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Cologne, December 30. That between Prussia, Austria, and Russia a new “Holy Alliance” was concluded several months ago is already world-renowned. The treaty itself will soon be brought to light and laid before the public. The soul of this league of gentlemen “by the grace of God and the knout” is Russia. The whole of Russian policy and diplomacy, for its part, rests, with few exceptions, on the shoulders of Germans or German-Russians. Wherever absolutism and counter-revolution are at work, we indeed always find Germans, but nowhere more so than in the central point of permanent counter-revolution, Russian diplomacy. There is first Count Nesselrode, German-Hebrew; then Baron von Meyendorf, envoy in Berlin, from Estonia, and his assistant, the Emperor’s adjutant, Colonel Count Benkendorff, likewise an Estonian. In Austria, Count Medem, a Courlander, is working with several assistants, among them a Herr von Fonton, all Germans. Baron von Brunnow, Russian envoy in London, also a Courlander, serves as the connecting and intermediary link between – Metternich and Palmerston. Finally, in Frankfurt Baron von Budberg, a Livonian, acts as Russian chargé d’affaires. These are a few examples. We could cite several dozen more, without speaking of the creatures of the St. Petersburg Tsar who hold high and the highest posts in Germany and are at the same time in high Russian pay.

What role the Austrian Archduchess Sophie, now Empress Mother, plays in the camp of the enemies of the people and of the Holy Alliance needs no elaboration, as it is notorious. Sophie herself, however, is in turn powerfully influenced by the Grand Duchess Helena, consort of Grand Duke Michel and daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg. Helena serves as the most intimate bond between Nicholas and Sophie and the infamous Archduke Ludwig.

Among these persons the plan was arranged months ago according to which the Austrian emperor-under-martial-law <Franz Joseph> will marry the remaining daughter <Katharina> of the grand-ducal couple, so that the new “Holy Alliance” may be welded together indissolubly and Russia be brought ever closer to its goal, the establishment of the completest knout rule in Germany.