The Session of the Compromisers on 17 June 1848

** Cologne, 19 June. “Nothing learned and nothing forgotten”—that applies to the Camphausen ministry just as much as to the Bourbons.

On 14 June the people, outraged at the disavowal of the revolution by the Compromisers, force their way into the armory. They want a guarantee against the Assembly, and they know that arms are the best guarantee. The armory is stormed, the people arm themselves.

The storming of the armory, an event without immediate results, a revolution that came to a halt halfway, nevertheless had the effect:
1) that the trembling Assembly revoked its resolution of the previous day and declared that it placed itself under the protection of the Berlin population;
2) that it disavowed the ministry on a vital question, and threw out the Camphausen constitutional draft by a majority of 46 votes.
3) That the ministry immediately fell into complete dissolution, that the ministers Canitz, Schwerin and Auerswald resigned—of whom so far only Canitz has been definitively replaced by Schreckenstein—and that Herr Camphausen on 17 June first asked the Assembly for a three-day extension to complete his shattered cabinet.

All this the storming of the armory had brought about.

And at the very moment when the effects of this self-arming of the people are so strikingly apparent, the government dares to attack the act itself! At the very moment when the Assembly and the ministry acknowledge the uprising, the participants in the uprising are subjected to investigation, treated according to old Prussian laws, reviled in the Assembly and branded as common thieves!

On the same day that the trembling Assembly places itself under the protection of those who stormed the armory, edicts by Messrs Griesheim (War Ministry Commissioner) and Temme (Public Prosecutor) declare the armory stormers “robbers” and “forcible thieves”. The “liberal” Herr Temme, whom the revolution brought back from exile, initiates a rigorous investigation against the continuers of the revolution. Korn, Löwensohn and Urban are arrested. House searches upon house searches are carried out throughout Berlin. Captain Natzmer, who had enough sound judgement to see at once the necessity of his withdrawal from the armory, the man who by his peaceful withdrawal saved Prussia from a fresh revolution and the ministers from the greatest dangers—this man is put before a court-martial, treated under the articles of war which condemn him to death.

The Compromisers likewise recover from their fright. In their session of the 17th they disavow the armory stormers, just as on the 9th they disavowed the barricade fighters. For in this session of the 17th the following took place:

Herr Camphausen explains to the Assembly that he will now communicate the entire facts so that it may decide whether proceedings should be brought against the ministry on account of the storming of the armory.

There was certainly reason to impeach the ministers, and not because they tolerated the storming of the armory, but because they had caused it by juggling away one of the most significant consequences of the revolution—the arming of the people.

Herr Griesheim, Commissioner of the War Ministry, follows him. He gives a more detailed description of the arms located in the armory, especially the rifles “of a completely new invention, the sole secret of Prussia”, the arms “of historic significance” and all the other glories. He describes the guarding of the armory: above, 250 military men, below, the civic guard. He points out that arms deliveries and dispatches from the armory, as the main depot of the entire Prussian state, had hardly been interrupted by the March revolution.

After all these preliminaries, with which he tried to catch the sympathy of the Compromisers for that highly interesting institution, the armory, he finally comes to the events of 14 June.

The people had constantly been made aware of the armory and the arms shipments; they had been told that the arms belonged to them.

Certainly the arms belonged to the people; first, as national property, and second, as part of the conquered and guaranteed arming of the people.

Herr Griesheim “could assure definitely that the first shots were fired from the people upon the civic guard.”

This assertion is the counterpart of the “seventeen military dead” of March.

Herr Griesheim then relates how the people forced their way into the armory, how the civic guard withdrew, and then “1,000 rifles of the new invention were stolen, an irreplaceable loss” (!) Captain Natzmer was persuaded to withdraw, to a “breach of duty”; the military had withdrawn.

But now the War Ministry Commissioner comes to a passage in his report at which his old-Prussian heart bleeds; the people has desecrated the sanctuary of old Prussia. Listen:

“But now veritable atrocities began in the upper rooms. There was stealing, plundering and devastation. New weapons were thrown down and smashed, antiquities of irreplaceable value, rifles with silver and ivory, the artistic artillery models that are difficult to replace, have been devastated, the trophies and flags won with the people’s blood, to which the honour of the nation adheres, have been torn and besmirched!” (General indignation. Cries from all sides: For shame, for shame!)

This indignation of the old war-horse at the frivolity of the people has a truly comic effect. The people committed “veritable atrocities” on the old spiked helmets, Landwehr shakos and other junk “of irreplaceable value”! It threw down “new weapons”! What an “atrocity” for a lieutenant-colonel grown grey in the service, who was only allowed to admire the “new weapons” reverently in the armory, while his regiment drilled with the most worn-out rifles! The people devastated the artillery models! Does Herr Griesheim really demand that the people should first put on kid gloves when making a revolution? But the most dreadful thing is yet to come—the trophies of old Prussia have been besmirched and torn!

Herr Griesheim here reports a fact from which it emerges that the Berlin people displayed a very correct revolutionary tact on 14 June. The people of Berlin disavowed the wars of liberation by trampling underfoot the flags captured at Leipzig and Waterloo. The first thing the Germans have to do in their revolution is to break with their entire disgraceful past.

But the old-Prussian Assembly of Compromisers naturally had to cry For shame, for shame! at an act in which the people for the first time rises up in revolution not only against its oppressors, but also against the brilliant illusions of its own past.

Amidst all his indignation which makes his moustache bristle at such sacrilege, Herr Griesheim does not forget to remark that the whole affair “costs the state 50,000 thalers and deprives several battalions of troops of their arms.”

He continues: “It is not the striving for the arming of the people which gave rise to the attack. The arms were sold for a few groschen.”

According to Herr Griesheim, the storming of the armory was merely the deed of a number of thieves who stole rifles in order to sell them again for a schnapps. Why the “robbers” plundered the armory of all places, and not rather the rich shops of the goldsmiths and money-changers, is an explanation the War Ministry Commissioner has left owing.

“A very lively sympathy has been shown for the unfortunate (!) captain, precisely because he violated his duty in order, as is said, to avoid shedding the blood of citizens; indeed the deed has been represented as deserving recognition and gratitude; there was even a deputation visiting him today which demands that the deed should be acknowledged as deserving gratitude for the entire fatherland. (Indignation.) They were deputies of various clubs under the chairmanship of Assessor Schramm. (Indignation on the right and ‘For shame!’) It is established that the captain broke the first, the foremost law of the soldier—he abandoned his post, despite the instruction expressly issued to him not to do so without special order. He was talked into believing that his withdrawal would save the throne, that all troops had left the city and the king had fled from Potsdam. (Indignation.) He acted in the same way as that fortress commander in 1806 who also simply surrendered what had been entrusted to him instead of defending it. As for the objection that he prevented the shedding of citizens’ blood by his withdrawal, this falls to the ground quite of itself; not a hair would have been harmed, since he surrendered the post at the moment when the rest of the battalion was advancing to his aid. (Cheers on the right, hisses on the left.)”

Herr Griesheim has naturally again forgotten that Captain Natzmer’s restraint saved Berlin from a new armed conflict, the ministers from the greatest danger, the monarchy from overthrow.

Herr Griesheim is once again entirely the lieutenant-colonel; he sees in Natzmer’s act nothing but insubordination, cowardly abandonment of his post and treason in the well-known old-Prussian manner of 1806. The man to whom the monarchy owes its continued existence is to be condemned to death. A fine example for the whole army!

And how did the Assembly react to Herr Griesheim’s narration? It was the echo of his indignation. The Left finally protests by—hissing. The Berlin Left in general always behaves more cowardly, more equivocally. These gentlemen, who exploited the people at the elections, where were they on the night of 14 June, when the people, out of mere perplexity, soon let slip the advantages it had won, when only a leader was lacking to make the victory complete? Where were Messrs Berends, Jung, Elsner, Stein, Reichenbach? They stayed at home, or made harmless remonstrances to the ministers. And that is not enough. They do not even dare to defend the people against the slander and abuse of the government commissioner. Not a single speaker gets up. Not a single one wants to be answerable for the act of the people which secured them their first victory. They dare do nothing but—hiss! What heroism!