Karl Marx

* Cologne, January 8. That the pastor and the cantor, the sexton and the organ-bellows-treader, the barber and the night-watchman, the field-guard, the gravedigger, etc., congratulate us on the new year, is a custom as old as it is constantly recurring, which leaves us indifferent.

But the year 1849 is not content with the traditional. It marked its entry with something unprecedented, with a New Year’s greeting from the King of Prussia.

A New Year’s wish came about, not to the Prussian people, nor “To My dear Berliners”, but “To my Army”.

This royal New Year’s missive looks “with pride” upon the army, because it remained loyal, “when (the March) insurrection disturbed the peaceful development of the free-minded institutions towards which I wished calmly to lead My people”.

Formerly they spoke of March events, of “misunderstandings” and the like. Now there is no more need for concealment: the March “misunderstandings” are flung in our face as “insurrection”.

From the royal New Year’s greeting the same spirit wafts towards us as from the columns of the Cross-Knightess. Just as the former speaks of “insurrection”, so the latter speaks of ignominious “March criminals”, of criminal rabble who in March disrupted the tranquillity of Berlin palace life.

If we ask why the March “insurrection” is so utterly outrageous, the reply is: “because it disturbed the peaceful development of the free-minded (!!) institutions”, etc. —

Were you not sleeping in Friedrichshain, you insurgents of March, you would now have to be graced with “powder and lead” or life-long penitentiary. For in your infamy you have indeed disturbed “the peaceful development of the free-minded institutions”! Does it really require the reminder of that royal-Prussian development of “free-minded institutions”, of the most free-minded development of money-squandering, of the “peaceful” expansion of bigotry and royal-Prussian Jesuitry, of the peaceful development of police- and barrackdom, of espionage, of deceit, of hypocrisy, of arrogance, and finally of the most disgusting brutishness of the people alongside the most shameless corruption in the so-called higher classes? This reminder is all the less necessary as we need only look around us, only stretch out our hands, to see that “disturbed development” again in fullest bloom before us and to refresh ourselves with the doubled edition of the aforesaid “free-minded institutions”.

“My army”, it continues in the royal congratulatory letter, “has proved its old glory and harvested new.”

Yes indeed! It has harvested so much glory that at most the Croats might claim a greater share.

But where and how harvested? First, “it adorned its banners with new laurels when Germany required Our arms in Schleswig”.

Major Wildenbruch’s Prussian note addressed to the Danish government is the foundation on which the new Prussian glory piled itself up. The entire conduct of the war matched excellently that note, which assured the Danish Mr. Cousin: it was not at all serious to the Prussian government, it was only throwing a bait to the republicans and throwing dust in the eyes of other people, in order merely to gain time.

And gain time, gain everything. Later one would come to an amicable understanding.

General Wrangel, about whom public opinion was misled for a long time, General Wrangel left Schleswig-Holstein secretly like a thief in the night. He travelled in civilian clothes so as not to be recognised. In Hamburg all the innkeepers declared that they could not lodge him. Their houses and the windows and doors in them, they would much rather have, than the laurels of the Prussian army, despised by the people but embodied in this glory-laden gentleman. Let us also not forget that the only success in this campaign of useless and senseless marches and counter-marches, which was entirely reminiscent of the procedure of the old Imperial courts (see our numbers of that time), was a strategic mistake.

The only surprising thing about this campaign is the unexampled audacity of the Danes, who wantonly baited the Prussian army and completely cut off Prussia from the world market.

To complete the Prussian glory on this side, there belong further the peace negotiations with Denmark and the Malmö armistice that arose from them.

When the Roman emperor, smelling a coin that had been received as a urine tax, could say: “non olet” (it does not stink), by contrast on the Prussian laurels harvested in Schleswig-Holstein there stands in indelible characters: “Olet!” (It stinks!)

Secondly, “My army victoriously withstood hardships and dangers when the insurrection had to be fought in the Grand Duchy of Posen”.

As for the “victorious hardships”, they are the following: Prussia first exploited the noble-minded illusion of the Poles, nourished from Berlin on smooth words, who saw in the “Pomeranians” German comrades-in-arms against Russia, therefore calmly disbanded their own army, let the Pomeranians march in, and only reassembled the scattered cadres when the Prussians were most infamously brutalising the unresisting. And now the Prussian heroic deeds! Not during the war, but after the war occur the heroic deeds of the “glorious” Prussian army. When Mierosławski was presented to the victor of June, Cavaignac’s first question was how the Prussians had gone about getting themselves beaten at Milosław? (We can prove this by ear-witnesses.) 3,000 Poles, barely armed with scythes and pikes, twice rout and twice force to retreat 20,000 well-organised and amply cannon-supplied Prussians. The Prussian cavalry itself, in wild flight, rode down the Prussian infantry. The Polish insurrection held Milosław after twice driving out the counter-revolution from the town. Even more disgraceful than the defeat of the Prussians at Milosław was their eventual victory at Wreschen, prepared by a defeat. When an unarmed but Herculean opponent confronts a coward armed with pistols, the coward flees and fires the pistols from a proper distance. That is what the Prussians did at Wreschen. They fled to a distance where they could fire case-shot, shells filled with 150 balls, and shrapnel, upon pikes and scythes, which, as is well known, do not strike at a distance. Shrapnel had previously been fired only by the English against East Indian semi-savages. Only the brave Prussians, in fanatical fear of Polish bravery and in the feeling of their own weakness, applied shrapnel against so-called fellow-citizens. Naturally, they had to seek a means of killing the Poles en masse from a distance. The Poles at close quarters were too terrible. That was the glorious victory at Wreschen. But, as said, after the war begin the heroic deeds of the Prussian army, like the heroic deeds of jailers after the passing of sentence.

That this glory of the Prussian army will live on in history, is guaranteed by the thousands of Poles murdered by Prussian treachery and black-white malice with shrapnel, pointed bullets, etc., and later hellstoned.

Of this second bundle of laurels of the counter-revolutionary army, ample testimony has been given by the villages and towns set on fire by Prussian heroes, the Polish inhabitants clubbed and bayoneted to death in their homes, the plunderings and Prussian brutalities of all kinds.

Immortal glory for these Prussian warriors in Posen, who paved the way on which, soon afterwards, the Neapolitan hangman’s lackey strutted along, when he shot together his loyal capital and handed it over to the soldiery for twenty-four hours of plunder. Hail and glory to the Prussian army from the Posen campaign! For it shone before the Croats, Sereczaners, Ortochaners, and other hordes of Windischgrätz and his associates as an example which, as Prague (in June), Vienna, Pressburg, etc. prove, stimulated to the worthiest emulation.

And finally, even this courage of the Prussians against the Poles occurred only out of fear of the Russians.

“All good things come in threes.” Thus “My army” had to harvest a threefold glory. The opportunity for it did not fail. For “its co-operation in maintaining order (!) in South Germany earned the Prussian name new recognition”.

Only malice or the itch for disparagement could deny that “My army” rendered the most excellent bailiff’s and gendarme services to the Federal Diet — which, on being rechristened, modernised itself and had itself called the Central Authority. It is likewise not to be disputed that the Prussian name has earned complete recognition in devouring South German wine, meat, cider, etc. The famished Brandenburgers, Pomeranians, etc. have fattened themselves a patriotic little paunch, the thirsty have refreshed themselves, and in general everything that their South German quartermasters set before them they knew how to devour with such heroic courage that the Prussian name there finds the loudest recognition everywhere. A pity that the billeting bills have not yet been paid: the recognition would be even louder.

The glory of “My army” is actually inexhaustible; yet it must not be passed over that, “where I called, it stood ready, in full loyalty, in full discipline”, and it is equally remarkable to impart to posterity that “My army opposed its excellent spirit and noble manly discipline to abominable slanders”.

How flattering is the congratulation for “My army”, as in it “full discipline” and “noble manly discipline” and withal once again their heroic deeds in the Grand Duchy, besides the laurels in Mainz, Schweidnitz, Trier, Erfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Koblenz, Münster, Minden, etc. are brought to pleasant remembrance. But we others, who do not belong to “My army”, widen thereby our limited subject’s notions. Shooting down old men and pregnant women, stealing (recorded in the protocol near Ostrowo), maltreating peaceful citizens with rifle butts and sabres, demolishing houses, marching out at night with weapons hidden under coats against unarmed people, highway robbery (recall the adventure near Neuwied); this and similar heroism is called in Christian-Germanic: “full discipline”, “noble manly discipline”! Long live manly discipline and discipline, since those murdered under that label are dead anyway.

The few passages we have touched upon from the royal Prussian New Year’s greeting show us that this document, in its significance and its spirit, stands on the same level as the Manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick of 1792.

Nr. 190, 9 January 1849

Neue Rheinische Zeitung.