Kaiserslautern, June 2. The counter-revolutionary German news- 
papers try in every way to cast suspicion on the revolution in the 
Palatinate and Baden. They are not ashamed to assert that the trend 
of the entire uprising is tantamount “to betraying” the Palatinate, 
Baden and, indirectly, the whole of Germany “to the French”. They 
thereby seek to conjure up afresh the counter-revolutionary hatred 
of the French stemming from the so-called good old times, believing 
that in this way they will be able to deprive us of the sympathy of our 
brothers in North and East Germany. The filthy, lying newspapers 
which accuse the Palatinate and Baden of having sold themselves to 
France happen, however, to be precisely those which are in favour of 
the Russian invasion of Hungary, the Russians’ march through 
Prussia, and even the new Holy Alliance*** between Russia, Austria 
and Prussia. As proof of this, we name only one of these newspapers: 
the Kolnische Zeitung. 

Thus, the fact that the Russians march into German, into Prussian, 
territory in order to suppress Hungarian freedom is no betrayal of 
the country! If the King of Prussia? concludes an alliance with the 
Croats and the Russians in order that the last remnants of German 
freedom shall be trampled under the hooves of Cossack horses, that 
is no betrayal of the country! If all of us, if the whole of Germany 
from the Niemen to the Alps is sold by cowardly despots to the 
Russian Emperor,” that is no betrayal of the country! But if the 
Palatinate enjoys the sympathy of the French and especially of the 

* Frederick William IV.— Ed. 
6 Nicholas I.— Ed. 

The Revolutionary Uprising in the Palatinate and Baden 475 

Alsatian people, if it does not out of foolish self-conceit reject the 
expression of this sympathy, if it sends persons to Paris to obtain 
information about the state of feeling in France and about the new 
turn which will take place in the policy of the French Repub- 
lic,**°—that is indeed betrayal of the country, that is high treason, 
and means selling Germany to France, to the “hereditary enemy”, to 
the “enemy of the Empire”. That is how the counter-revolutionary 
newspapers argue. 

It is true, gentlemen “by the grace of God”, that the Palatinate and 
Baden did do all this and neither of them will be ashamed of its 
actions. Of course, if that is betrayal of the country, then the entire 
people of the Palatinate and Baden consists of two-and-a-half million 
traitors to their country. The people of the Palatinate and Baden did 
certainly not make a revolution in order to support the despots in the 
imminent great struggle between the free West and the despotic 
East. The people of the Palatinate, and those of Baden, made their 
revolution because they do not want to share the guilt of the 
despicable acts in the destruction of freedom by which Austria, 
Prussia and Bavaria have so shamefully distinguished themselves in 
recent months, and because they have not allowed themselves to be 
misused for the enslavement of their brothers. The army of the 
Palatinate and Baden joined the movement without reservations; it 
disclaimed loyalty to the perfidious sovereigns and has to a man 
sided with the people. Neither the citizens nor the soldiers want to 
fight in the ranks of the Croats and Cossacks against freedom. If the 
despots of Olmitz, Berlin and Munich still find soldiers who have 
sunk so deep as to put themselves on a level with Bashkirs, 
Pandours, Croats and similar predatory rabble, and to fight 
under the same flag as such hordes of barbarians, so much the worse. 
It may occasion us sorrow, but we shall never treat such mercenaries 
as German brothers; we shall treat them as Cossacks and Bashkirs, 
and it will not worry us if a treacherous imperial ex-Minister of War 
stands at their head.°**' 

But at the present time when we are on the threshold of a 
European war, a people’s war,it is altogether ludicrous to speak of 
“betrayal of the country” and similar accusations smacking of 
demagogue*” hunting. In a few weeks, perhaps even in a few days, 
the huge armies of the republican West and the enslaved East will 
advance against each other to fight out a great struggle on German 
soil. Germany—to such lengths has she been brought by her 
sovereigns and the bourgeois—Germany will not be asked at all for 
her permission. Germany does not want the war, the war will be 
brought into this country without its consent and it will be unable to 

prevent it. Such is the glorious position of Germany in relation to the 
imminent European war, thanks to the March rulers, the March 
Chambers, and not least to the March National Assembly. There can 
be no talk of German interests, of German freedom, of German unity, 
of German welfare, when it is a question of the freedom or 
enslavement, of the weal or woe, of the whole of Europe. Here all 
questions of nationality cease, here there is only one question! Do 
you want to be free, or do you want to be Russian? And in this 
situation the counter-revolutionary newspapers still talk of “betrayal 
of the country”, as if there was still anything that could be betrayed in 
relation to the Germany that will soon enough be abandoned to the 
two contending armies as an inert arena! It is true that last year 
things were different. Last year the Germans could have undertaken 
the struggle against Russian oppression, could have liberated the 
Poles and so waged the war on Russian territory and at Russia’ 
expense. Now, on the contrary, thanks to our sovereigns, the war will 
be waged on our soil, and at our expense; as matters stand now, the 
European war of liberation is for Germany at the same time a civil 
war in which Germans fight against Germans. 

We owe that to the treachery of our sovereigns and the supineness 
of our people’s representatives, and if anything is betrayal of the 
country, it is that! In short, in the great struggle for freedom which is 
spreading through the whole of Europe, the Palatinate and Baden 
will stand on the side of freedom against slavery, of revolution 
against counter-revolution, of the people against the sovereigns, of 
revolutionary France, Hungary and Germany against absolutist 
Russia, Austria, Prussia and Bavaria; and if the wailers*” call that 
betrayal of the country, in the whole of the Palatinate and the whole 
of Baden nobody cares two hoots about it. 

Freiheit, Wohiftand, Bildung fir Alle.