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Zawung No.6, January 8, 1850 Published in English for the first 

JANUARY, 1850. 

Frederick Engels 

LETTERS FROM GERMANY‘ 

Cologne, Dec. 18th; 1849 

“Order reigns in Germany.” Such is the present great motto of 
our rulers, be they princes, aristocrats, bourgeois, or any other 
fraction of that recently formed party which you might call in 
English the party of Ordermongers.° “Order reigns in Germany”; and 
yet never was there, not even under the “Holy Roman Empire” of 
yore, such a confusion in Germany as there is at present under the 
reign of “Order”. 

Under the old system, before the revolution of 1848, we knew at 
least who governed us. The old Federal Diet of Frankfort’? made 
itself felt by laws against the liberty of the press, by exceptional courts 
of law, by checks imposed even upon the mock constitutions with 
which certain German populations were allowed to delude them- 
selves. But now! We hardly know, ourselves, how many Central 
Governments we have got in this country. There is, firstly, the Vicar 
of the Empire, instituted by the dispersed National Assembly, and 
who, although without any power, sticks to his post with the greatest 
obstinacy.” There is secondly the “Interim’’,’ a sort of thing——nobody 
knows exactly what—but something like a revival of the old Diet, 
got up under the old prevalent influence of Prussia, and which 
“Interim” is poking at the old Vicar (who more or less represents the 
Austrian interest), to resign his place into their hands.’° In the 
meantime neither has the slightest power. Thirdly, there is the 
“Regency of the Empire”,"’ elected in Stuttgart by the National 
Assembly during the latter days of its existence, and the remains of 
that Assembly, the “Decided Left” and the “Extreme Left”, which 
two Lefts, along with the “Regency”, represent the “moderate and 

philosophical” Democrats and Shopocrats of Germany. This “Impe- 
rial” government holds its sittings in a public house in Berne in 
Switzerland,* and has about as much power as the two preceding. 
Fourthly, there is what is called the Three-Kings’-League,’? or the 
“Confined (or Refined, I don’t know which) Federal State”, got up 
for the purpose of making the King of Prussia? Emperor over all the 
lesser states of Germany. It is called the “Three-Kings’-League”’,, 
because al] kings, with the exception of the King of Prussia, are 
opposed to it! and it calls itself the “Confined Federal State’, 
because, although travailing in birth ever since the 28th of May last,” 
there is no hope of its ever producing anything likely to live!! There 
are, fifthly, the Four Kings, of Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, and 
Wurtemberg, who are determined to do as they like themselves, and 
not to submit to any of the above “Central Impotencies”’; and lastly, 
there is Austria, trying every means to keep up her supremacy in 
Germany, and supporting, therefore, the Four Kings in their efforts 
for independence from Prussian ascendancy. The real governments, 
in the meantime, those who hold the power, are Austria and Prussia. 
They rule Germany by military despotism, and make and unmake 
laws at their liking. Between their dominions and dependencies lie, 
as quasi neutral ground, the four kingdoms, and it will be upon this 
ground, and particularly in Saxony, that the pretensions of the two 
great powers will meet each other. There is, however, no chance of a 
serious conflict between them. Austria and Prussia, both, know too 
well that their forces must remain united if they want to keep down 
the revolutionary spirit spread all over Germany, Hungary, and 
those parts of Poland belonging to the powers in question. In case of 
need, besides, “our beloved brother-in-law” ,? the orthodox Czar of 
all the Russias, would step in and forbid his lords-lieutenant of 
Austria and Prussia to quarrel any more amongst themselves. 
This never equalled confusion of governments, of pretensions, of 
claims, of German Federal Law, has, however, one enormous 
advantage. The German Republicans were, up to this time, divided 
into Federalists and Unitarians; the first having their principal force 
in the south. The confusion ensuing upon every attempt to 
re-organise Germany into a Federative State, must make it evident 
that any such plan will prove abortive, impracticable, and foolish, 
and that Germany is too advanced in civilisation to be governable 

under any form but the German Republic, One and Indivisible, 
Democratic and Social. 

I should have liked to have said a few words on the acquittal of 
Waldeck and Jacoby,'* but want of room prevents me doing so. 
Suffice it to say, that for at least some months to come it will be quite 
impossible for the government in Prussia to obtain in political trials a 
verdict of guilty, excepting, perhaps, in some remote corners where 
the jury-class are as fanaticised as the Orangemen of Ulster. 

II 

CURIOUS REVELATIONS CONCERNING 
THE DESPOTS OF GERMANY.— 
INTENDED WAR AGAINST FRANCE.— 
THE COMING REVOLUTION 

Cologne, Jan. 20th, 1850 

The day after I sent you my last, news reached here of the 
“settlement of the question” who was to rule over all Germany. The 
“Interim”, consisting of two Austrian and two Prussian delegates, 
have at last prevailed upon old Archduke John to retire from 
business. They have consequently taken the reins of a power which, 
however, will not be of long duration. It expires in the month of May 
next, and there is good reason to expect that even before that term 
certain “untoward events” will sweep away these four provisional 
rulers of Germany. The names of these four satellites of military 
despotism are very significant. Austria has sent M. Kiibeck, minister 
of finance under Metternich, and General Schénhals, the right hand of 
the butcher Radetzki. Prussia is represented by General Radowitz, 
member of the Jesuit order, favourite of the king, and principal 
inventor of all those plots by which Prussia has succeeded, for the 
moment, in putting down the German revolution; and by 
M. Botticher, governor, before the revolution, of the province of 
Eastern Prussia, where he is fondly (?) remembered as a “putter 
down” of public meetings and organiser of the spy system. What the 
doings of such a lot of rogues will be you will not need to be told. I 
will name one instance only. The Wurtemberg government, forced 
by the revolution, had contracted with the Prince of Thurn and 
Taxis—who, you know, has the monopoly of forwarding letters by 
post and conveying of passengers in a large part of Germany, to the 
exclusion of the governments—the Wurtemberg government, I say, 
had contracted with this robber on a national scale to part, for a 
handsome sum, with his monopoly in favour of the said government. 
Times having got better for those who live upon national plunder, 
Prince Thurn and Taxis values his monopoly higher than the sum 

contracted for, and won’t part with it. The Wurtemberg govern- 
ment, freed from the pressure from without, find this change of 
opinion quite reasonable; and both parties apply—the prince 
publicly, the government aforesaid secretly—to the “Interim”, 
which, taking for pretext an article of the old act of 1815, declares 
the contract void and unlawful. This is all right. It is far better that 
M. Thurn and Taxis keeps his privilege a few months longer; the 
people, when they finish with the whole lot of privileges, will take it 
not only from him without giving him anything, but will, on the 
contrary, make him give up even the money he has robbed them of 
up to this time. 

The military despotism in Austria 1s getting more intolerable every 
day. The press almost reduced to annihilation, all public liberties 
destroyed, the whole country swarming with spies—imprisonments, 
courts-martial, floggings in every part of the country—this is the 
practical meaning of those provincial constitutions which the 
government publish from time to time, and which they do not care a 
straw about breaking in the very moment of publication. There is, 
however, an end to everything, even to states of siege and the rule of 
the sword. Armies cost money, and money is a thing which even the 
mightiest emperor cannot create at his will. The Austrian govern- 
ment have, up to this time, managed to keep their finances afloat by 
tremendous issues of paper money. But there is an end to this, too; 
and, in spite of that Prussian lieutenant who once would challenge 
me to a duel, because I told him a king or emperor could not make as 
many paper dollars* as he liked—in spite of that proteund political 
economist, the Emperor of Austria? sees his paper money, though 
inconvertible, at the discount of from twenty to thirty per cent 
against silver, and almost fifty per cent against gold. The foreign 
loan he intended has dropped to the ground through the exertions 
of Mr. Cobden. Foreign capitalists have subscribed to the amount of 
£500,000 only, and he wants fifteen times that sum; while his 
exhausted country cannot afford to lend him anything. The deficit, 
fifteen millions and a half at the end of September last, will, by this 
time, have reached from twenty to twenty-four millions—the greater 
part of the Hungarian war expenses being payable in the last quarter 
of 1849. Thus there is only one alternative for Austria: either 
bankruptcy, or a foreign war to make the army pay itself, and to 
reconquer commercial credit by battles gained, provinces conquered, 
and war contributions imposed. Thus Mr. Cobden, in opposing the 

Austrian and Russian loans? on the plea of the preservation of peace, 
has more than any one else contributed—for Russia is in the same 
awkward state as Austria—to hasten that coalesced campaign against 
the French Republic which cannot, under any circumstances, be long 
delayed. 

In Prussia, we assist at another act of “royal conscientiousness”’. 
You know that Frederick William IV, the man who never broke his 
word, in November, 1848, dispersed by force the national represen- 
tation, and forced upon his people a constitution after his own 
heart; that he agreed that this beautiful piece of workmanship was to 
be revised by the first parliament to be assembled; that in this 
parliament the Second Chamber (House of Commons) was, even 
before they got to the revising business, dissolved, another electoral 
reform forced upon the people, by which universal suffrage was very 
nicely done away with, and a majority of landed nobility, of 
government officials, and of bourgeois, was secured. This Chamber, 
to vote for the election of which every democrat refused, so that it 
has been elected by one-fifth or one-sixth of the whole number of 
voters—this Chamber, in conjunction with the old First Chamber, 
set about revising the Constitution, and made it, of course, even 
more agreeable to the king than he himself had made it originally. 
They have now almost done with it. Now, you think, his Majesty will 
please to accept this amended Constitution, and take the oath 
prescribed in it? Not he, indeed. He sends his faithful parliament a 
royal message, stating that he is very much pleased with what his two 
Chambers have made of his Constitution, but that, before his “royal 
conscientiousness” permits him to take the oath aforesaid, his own 
Constitution must be altered in about a dozen points.'” And what are 
these points? Why, his Majesty is modest enough not to require any 
more than the following trifles. 1. The First Chamber, now elected 
by the large landed proprietors and capitalists, to be a complete 
House of Lords, containing the royal princes, about one hundred 
hereditary peers chosen by his Majesty, sixty peers elected by the 
large landed proprietors, thirty by the large monied interest, six by 
the universities. 2. Ministers to be responsible to the king and 
country, not to the parliament. 3. All taxes now upon the budget to 
be levied for ever, without power of parliament to refuse. 4. A “Star 
Chamber’’, or High Court of Justice, to try political offences—no 
mention being made of juries. 5. A special law to define and restrain 
the powers of the Second Chamber of parliament, &c. Now what do 

January 19, 1850.)— Ed. 

you think of this? His Majesty forces upon the good Prussians a new 
Constitution, to be amended by parliament. His parliament amends 
it by striking out everything like a remnant of popular rights. And 
the king, not content with that, declares that his “royal conscientious- 
ness” forbids him to accept his own Constitution, amended in his 
own interest, without the above further modifications. Verily this is a 
truly “royal” sort of conscientiousness! There is little chance of even 
this present mock parliament bowing to such impudence. The 
consequence will be dissolution, and the end of all parliaments for 
the moment in Prussia. The secret of all this is the anticipation of the 
great coalition war, mentioned above. The “conscientious” gentle- 
man on the throne of Prussia expects to have his rebellious country 
overrun by the month of March or April, by a million of Asiatic 
barbarians, to march, along with “his own glorious army”’,'? against 
Paris, to conquer that fair country which produces his heart- 
cherished champagne. And the Republic once done away with, the 
scion of Saint Louis* restored to the throne of France, what then 
would be the use of constitutions and parliaments at home? 

In the meantime the revolutionary spirit is rapidly reviving all over 
Germany. The most inveterate ex-Liberal who, after March, 1848, 
joined the king to combat the people, now sees that—as the saying is 
in Germany—although he gave to the devil only the end of his little 
finger, that gentleman has since seized the whole hand. The incessant 
acquittals by juries in political trials are the best proofs of this. Every 
day brings a new fact in this way. Thus, a few days ago, the Mulheim 
workpeople—who, in May, 1849, tore up the railway, in order to 
stop the sending of troops to insurged Elberfeld—have been 
acquitted here at Cologne. In the south of Germany, financial 
difficulties and increased taxation show to every bourgeois that this 
present state cannot last. In Baden the very same bourgeois who 
betrayed the last insurrection, and hailed the arrival of the Prussians, 
are punished and driven to madness by these very same Prussians 
and by the government, which under their protection drives them to 
ruin and despair. And the working people and peasantry every- 
where are on the qui vive, waiting for the signal of an insurrection 
which, this time, will not subside until the political dominion and 
social progress of the proletarians shall have been secured. And this 
revolution is drawing nigh. 

Ill 

THE PRUSSIAN KING SWEARING TO THE CONSTITUTION 
AND “SERVING THE LORD!”—GRAND CONSPIRACY OF THE HOLY 
ALLIANGE.—THE APPROACHING ONSLAUGHT ON SWITZERLAND.— 
PROJECTED CONQUEST AND PARTITION OF FRANCE! 

Cologne, Feb. 18th, 1850 

At last His Majesty, the King of Prussia, has taken the oath to the 
so-called “Constitution”.2° Had it not been for the occasion of 
making a speech, there is no doubt but that royal farce would never 
have taken place. But his speech-loving majesty, for the sake of the 
speech, resolved to swallow the oath, quite as humbly as he has been 
seen to swallow so many unpalatable things before, such as the 
celebrated “Hat off!”?! shouted to him by the people of Berlin on 
the 19th of March, 1848. The oath is of no consequence. What is the 
oath of a king, and particularly of a Frederick William IV! The 
speech is the principal feature, and a precious speech it is. Think of 
the Prussian Majesty declaring most seriously, and neither him nor 
any one else in the assembly bursting forth in laughter, that he is a 
man of honour, and that he is about to give what is dearest to him— his 
royal word! But, he continues—after a series of most whimsical 
oratorical efforts—he gives his word on one condition only: that it be 
made possible for him to govern with this constitution, and to fulfil 
the promise he made three years ago, viz., “I and my house will serve 
the Lord!” ”? 

What this new-fashioned ‘man of honour” means by governing 
with the constitution and serving the Lord, is already becoming 
pretty clear. His Majesty’s ministers have come out since that 
swearing farce; firstly, with two laws, doing almost entirely away with 
the liberty of the press and the right of association and of public 
meeting; secondly, with a demand for eighteen millions of dollars 
(two millions and a half sterling) for increasing the army. The meaning 
of this is evident. First destroy in detail the few sham liberties left to 
the people by the precious mock-constitution, and then raise the 
army to the war footing, and march with Russia and Austria against 

France. There is no doubt of the bourgeois chambers agreeing to all 
this, and thus making it possible to the king to govern with the 
constitution, and serve the Lord with his house. 

This Prussian credit for the army “to meet eventualities which 
might present themselves during spring”, must be taken, together 
with the other measures of the Holy Alliance,”? in order to make us 
see clearly through their plots. Prussia, besides these eighteen 
millions, is already treating for a loan of sixteen millions— ostensibly 
for the purpose of constructing the great Eastern Railway. You 
know, too well, since the Russian loan affair, what a splendid pretext 
for raising money railways are made by the governments of the Holy 
Alliance. Prussia, thus, will soon raise five millions sterling.the whole 
of which will be at the disposal of the war-office. Russia, besides the 
five millions sterling already raised, is about to contract for another 
loan of thirty-six millions of roubles silver, or five millions sterling. 
Austria alone, after the shabby result of her late effort to raise 
money, must be satisfied with what she can get at home. Her deficit, 
as I stated in my last, really amounts to two hundred million florins 
(twenty millions sterling) in one year! Thus, while Russia and Prussia 
raise money to make war, Austria must make war in order to raise 
money! 

There is no doubt that if there are no untoward events in France, 
the “holy” campaign will be opened next month against Switzer- 
land,* and perhaps Turkey. Russia keeps in Poland, and its vicinity, 
an army of 350,000 men, ready to march at a moment’s notice. She 
has already contracted for large supplies of victuals, to be delivered 
next month, not in Poland, but in Prussia, at Dantzic. The Prussian 
army—about 150,000 now—can in a month be raised to 350,000, by 
calling in the reserve and the first class of the Landwehr. The 
Austrian army—about 650,000—has never been diminished, but, 
on the contrary, increased by the Hungarian prisoners. The whole of 
the forces, which may be disposable for a foreign war, may be 
something like a million; but two-thirds of the Prussians and 
Austrians are infected with the democratic disease, and would most 
likely pass to the other side, as soon as an opportunity presented 
itself. 

The first pretext for attacking Switzerland is the German refugees 
living in that country. This pretext will soon cease to exist,as the 
cowardly persecutions of the federal government directly or 
indirectly force all refugees to leave Switzerland. There are now 
perhaps 600 German refugees in that country, and even they will 

soon have to Jeave it. But then there is another pretext—the demand 
of Prussia to restore the Prussian king’s authority in the ex- 
principality of Neufchatel, which made itself a republic in 1848.4 
And if even this be complied with, there will be the question of the 
Sonderbund raised again, in connection with the new federal 
constitution, which, in 1848, replaced the old reactionary treaty of 
1814, guaranteed by the Holy Alliance.” Thus, there will be no 
chance for Switzerland escaping war and foreign occupation. 

But the final aim of the Holy Alliance 1s the conquest and partition 
of France. The plan designed to finish at once this great rev- 
olutionary centre is as follows: France, once conquered, will be 
divided into three kingdoms—the South-west, or Aquitania (capital, 
Bordeaux), will be given to Henry, Duke of Bordeaux’; the East, 
or Burgundy (capital, Lyons), will be given to Prince Joinville; and 
the North, or France proper (capital, Paris), will be awarded to Louis 
Napoleon, for the signal services he has rendered to the Holy 
Alliance. Thus France, reduced to the old state of division it was in 
some centuries ago, would be utterly powerless. What do you say to 
this pretty scheme, which no doubt originated in the “historical” 
head of the king of Prussia? 

But, be assured, the People—without whom the Holy Alliance 
have reckoned—will very soon put a stop to all these plots and 
schemes, and that as soon, too, as the Holy Alliance commence to put 
their plans into execution. For the people are wide awake, both in 
France and Germany, and, fortunately, they are strong enough to 
put down al] their opponents, as soon as matters are brought to a 
general, decisive, and open contest. And then the enemies of 
democracy will, to their terror, see that the movements of 1848 and 
49 were nothing, in comparison to the universal conflagration which 
will burn up the old institutions of Europe, and light the victorious 
nations to a future—free, happy, and glorious. 

Written between December 18, 1849,and Reprinted from the journal 
February 18, 1850