Troop transfer

Berlin, 29 May. The democratic party in the civic militia is now decidedly the predominant one. The government intends to carry out a fresh coup d’état and to make the attempt to disarm the artisans’ company, on the pretext that its drill is conducted irregularly. It goes without saying that this attempt will be a complete failure.
(*A. D. Z.*) *Berlin, 31 May. According to an article in the *Pr. St. A.*, the Berlin arsenal forms the central arms depot for the whole country; consignments of arms to the provincial depots can therefore “as purely administrative measures of the War Ministry, not give rise to any particular alarm, and with good reason (!).” The precautions taken to secure the arsenal have in no way been altered as compared with before. — Naturally; if the ministry removes all the arms from the arsenal and distributes them to the reactionary peasants of the Uckermark and other Märker and to petty-bourgeois Philistines, that can “as a purely administrative measure, not give rise to any particular alarm, and with good reason!”
*Osnabrück, 1 June. Numerous addresses have already been pronounced against Stüve’s separatist patriotism; the “valiant coastal dwellers” appear not at all so averse to a closer union with the rest of Germany as Herr Stüve imputes to them. For today a great assembly for the whole country has been summoned by the popular assemblies of Hoya and Verden to Eistruch, which will probably also speak out against separation. In Hanover itself popular indignation at Stüve’s reactionary endeavours has made itself felt through noisy demonstrations and window-smashing. The Prime Minister, Count Bennigsen, and the city director Evers have also received their share of this. A strange fatality it was, however, that even more reactionary endeavours than those of the ministry had to provide the occasion. Our industrial code, newly created last year, interferes to some degree disruptively in the guild relations, especially through the provision contained in § 222, according to which “the artisans’ guilds existing in a locality cannot prevent members of the merchants’ guild from also trading in such articles as they are exclusively authorised to manufacture.” In a new deliberation of the Second Chamber the retention of this paragraph had been resolved, while another, according to which artisans may also stock their shops with purchased wares of their trade, was to be repealed. The artisans, however, want suspension of the entire industrial law and the complete restoration of the protection which the old guild order afforded them. A deputation was to lay its wishes before Minister Stüve; he had to accompany it to the Prime Minister, whereupon the crowd that soon gathered began the performance of the above-mentioned spectacle. Through the Chamber’s assurance that it would restore the old guild relations as far as possible, the artisans appear to have been pacified, but not so the people, who demand quite different things. Stüve’s adherents, whose number is still fairly large here, are vainly endeavouring to deprive this demonstration of its significance by representing it as a purely trade affair; not many, however, are deceived by this; the people cannot be so easily stirred up against a popular minister; the medieval cravings of the Hanoverian country squires would not have found such general support against the liberal Stüve. Even in the Chamber the ministry has suffered a defeat, even if only a temporary one. Despite the resistance of Ministers Stüve, Braun and Lehzen, Hantelmann’s motion for the equality of all denominations was carried by 35 to 26, thus with a relative majority of 9 votes, whereas the absolute majority requires 41 votes. The question is, therefore, whether at the next two votes six of the 19 missing votes will join the present majority. Of truly classical narrow-mindedness is the remark of Stüve “that the adoption of the Hantelmann motion would pave the way for American coarseness to take the place of German culture”. It is said that Stüve and Bennigsen intend to resign their portfolios; a Hantelmann ministry would then be highly probable. Our aristocracy is indeed already beginning to bristle up mightily again; the new composition of the First Chamber is already too much for it; it also hopes for the fall of the ministry, but it no longer has enough vitality to form a new one from its midst. Our petty bourgeoisie is gradually beginning to feel itself, and much as it clamours for tranquillity and order at any price, the attempt at a new rule by the aristocracy could soon fill it again with revolutionary cravings. It believes its rule is already secured and would like to rest on the laurels so easily won; after this good fortune it sighs in vain. The Chamber of Peers, however, will overthrow itself all the more easily the bolder the exertions it makes to safeguard its rights, and drag the whole two-chamber system down with it in its fall, despite the fact that the Second Chamber has now also made it its own in its third vote.
*Munich, 30 May. The labours of the Chambers are closed; the feudal law, the redemption law, the law on the bases of future legislation, and the game law have at last been “agreed upon” between the two Chambers and the ministers. What significance these laws will have for the future of Bavaria emerges from the following sentence in the *A. A. Z.*: “The law on the bases of future legislation was agreed upon in that the councillors of the realm — against the votes of Count C. Seinsheim and Baron v. Aretin — consented to the abolition of eligibility by seal as a privilege, upon the coming into force of the expected notaries’ law and press law.” — The effects of the much-praised “German civic right” emerge ever more clearly. In Munich, for example, the shoemakers have stopped work and are demanding higher wages. Thereupon a wall poster dated the 28th inst., from the royal police directorate, threatens all journeyman shoemakers who by tomorrow morning cannot either prove they are working for a master or collect their travelling-books from the police, with police expulsion from the city and forcible conveyance to their native place! Naturally! The shoemakers can only have been incited by secret agitators (says the *Augsb. A. Z.*) who grudge the city its tranquillity. They are pressing for an increase in wages, holding meetings and even flaunting their discontent in the streets. The authorities are, however, intervening vigorously, and with the help of the riflemen stationed here, 160 such restless heads have been caught between yesterday and today, and for the most part already dispatched by forcible conveyance to their respective homes. They are pressing for higher wages — horrible! They are holding meetings — appalling! Indeed, they even flaunt their discontent in the streets! What crimes in “free” Bavaria, where eligibility by seal is no longer a privilege!
*Vienna, 30 May. The ministry has issued a “proclamation to the inhabitants of the capital”, in which it attempts to give explanations of its actions and intentions and especially to defend itself against the reproach of planlessness. This laboriously compiled document, in which one greatly misses the old Metternichian adroitness, will not make the slightest impression on the Viennese; it also appears to be intended solely for the provinces, in order at least to save appearances there and to gloss over with doctrinaire phrases the continued existence of the ministry, which after the latest events would be a complete impossibility if the Viennese were not good-natured enough to have patience until the formation of a new one. — The constitution of 25 April is presented as the “programme”, as the “confession of faith” of the ministry. “The movements in May,” it goes on, “have shown that here not all wishes regarding all the provisions of the constitution coincide. But none of its foundations was attacked. The character of the constitution as a completed charter was disputed; doubts were raised against the expediency of the electoral arrangements in some of their provisions; objections made themselves felt against the composition of the first chamber. These objections and those doubts were removed (sic); the first Reichstag was recognised as a constituent one.” So a constitution is not attacked in any of its foundations when such “objections and doubts” arise, when its entire foundation, the plenitude of imperial power as an emanation of which it was granted, has been overthrown! It makes no essential difference whether a constitution is octroyed by the grace of God, whether it is agreed upon with the people, or whether it has proceeded purely from the popular will! — The ministry therefore sees in the victory of the democratic principle only “a longer path” in order “to arrive at the organic laws which must supplement the constitution, at the order of the internal household of the monarchy, at those institutions and arrangements which are to consolidate confidence and promote material welfare.” It is the old trick of counterposing philanthropic phrases to political reforms. Meanwhile, the ministry promises faithfully to fulfil “the longer path” as well (sic) because it has been recognised as “the more excellent one”. Then come protestations of integrity. It had, it says, strictly adhered to the constitution; only one “administrative measure” had met with “violent resistance”. “They (the ministers) have answered on the sole constitutional path by resigning their offices; the will of the monarch detained them in these offices until the appointment of their successors, and the declarations of the most distinguished corporate bodies of the capital have joined themselves to this will.” One sees, the imperial will is no longer authoritative; it needs the sanction of the Viennese population. That is why the ministers then turn to the latter and appeal for its confidence, because they “have — striven — to vouch for the monarchy’s strength and respect abroad, order, freedom and security at home, confidence, trade and the promotion of all interests conducive to prosperity”! Indeed, these voucher-strivings are even said to have brought it about that “the townsman as well as the countryman already possess in all parts of the Empire freedoms and alleviations such as the most fortunate countries of this part of the world enjoy”!! This bold assertion is then mitigated by the admission that “many things could be accelerated, a hand laid more rapidly to the necessary reforms, a more resolute course of government developed towards all parts of the Empire.” But for this, confidence is once again required, and therefore the gentlemen ministers declare: “they know of no reaction which is endeavouring to paralyse their course or which would be capable of taking back what the monarch has conceded.” Reaction thus appears to exist only in memory, and if Montecuccoli and Bombelles have been hanged in effigy from the gallows in Vienna, that has no significance for the future.

He saw clearly how the zeros of the capital account advanced from one side in ordered lines and how, from the other, the figures from all the small account items pressed into the fray in masses that were indeed disorderly but all the wilder for it. Some columns of red interest figures, which bore the most striking resemblance to the republican infantry of foreign countries, made their front appear even more gruesome and contributed not a little to making the royal blood of the zeros curdle with terror. Only the commanding prince, a zero of the purest water, the idol of the legitimist soldiery, had his terrible heart in the right place; he had buckled two great historical knightly spurs to the heels of his most high boots; in his royal fist he bore a notched, very antique sword from the heyday of absolutism. Though he sometimes rode an English constitutional charger, today he mounted a native, sturdy nag. Stroking his moustache, he commanded the advance in that notorious princely accent; the Guard blew upon their shawms the dreadful song: “Love, love is my life, love is needful for me,” and unstoppably the throng of the zeros surged towards their enemies. The latter, with bourgeois dung-forks, with modern basalt blocks and highly disquieting iron bars, also formed up in rank and file. Tender women were preparing to anoint the royal zeros from the roofs for a second time with heated but nonetheless ambrosial rape-oil, while the children strewed not roses and auriculas, but shards of genuine crystal, towards the approaching foe. Even the most despised dogs of the people and the most amorous cats of March seemed today resolved to place their bravery beyond all question and, in response to the janissary music of the royal Guard, raised that heart-lifting national howling and hissing which can soften stone and drive men mad. While the two parties, as yet barely separated by the distance of an involuntary mutual respect and by a few barricades erected in pure Gothic style, sought to close with one another, hot, heavy drops rolled from the dreamer’s brow into the front of his innocence-pure shirt.
For Mr Preiß did not at all recognise the world-historical significance of his dream. In the revolt of the figures against the zeros of his capital account he saw solely a menace to his commercial interests. He would therefore have liked to shut the fateful ledger at once, so as to stifle both parties in the birth of their quarrel. The nearer the outbreak of hostilities approached, the more reactionary cravings seized hold of him. In the end you will have to pay out of your good money the costs of this certainly very interesting but nevertheless reprehensible upheaval … he thought, and I ask any impartial person whether the worthy merchant was not perfectly entitled to break out into a most salutary sweat.
The rattle of his dream anxiety was, however, to grow still greater when at last the first royal canister shot fell with inconceivable impudence upon the bold revolutionary figures’ heads and was forthwith answered by such a meteorite shower that two royal zeros passed away lamenting. The battle was now opened, and with horror the dreamer noticed how the attack of the zeros was only followed by an ever more wildly blazing fury of the figures. The sabres of the insurgents, the bullets of their fowling-pieces and the paving-stones dripping from every roof annihilated whole columns of his capital account. To this was added the tolling of the tocsin bells, as gruesome as the clatter of counterfeit ducats; he felt now no otherwise than if he had seven uninsured shiploads of coffee at sea in an equinoctial storm; his noble merchant’s heart beat like the alarm on a Black Forest clock, and with every zero that went down to the Styx, a new anxious sweat-drop rolled down his Olympian brow.
All this, however, the soul of the tormented man still endured; with true heroism the magnificent sufferer watched the thousands become tens or units through the falling of two or three zeros; but when at last the pebbles, the musket balls, the Delphic oil-flasks and the broken beer glasses were even followed by the firebrand, when an attempt was made to set fire to the whole ledger with all the imperial, royal, countly and similar zeros: then he started up with the cry of despair, the cotton nightcap slipped from his skull, and pushing the covers aside and flying out of bed with both be-nightcapped legs at once, he seized like a man possessed one of the Turkish pistols from the bedside table; right and left candlesticks and sulphur matches, slippers and chamber pot crashed down — the pistol went off and the bedchamber resounded to its last mousehole.
Bookkeeper Lenz, who was just then thinking of waking his employer and burst into the room in hair-raising fear that he had impiously done himself an injury, found the worthy principal standing blissfully smiling at the window. Mr Preiß saw that he had been dreaming, and he looked over inquisitively at the nearest church tower, from whose top the black-red-gold flag fluttered merrily in the morning wind.