The Hungarian Struggle

On 18 March of this year, when an attempt was made to build a barricade in Landsbergerstrasse, the officers of the detachment posted there were imprudent enough not immediately to order fire to be opened. This untimely humanity aroused Wrangel’s wrath, and there soon followed the famous order of the day, but the five officers have now been brought before a court martial and all sentenced to longer or shorter terms of fortress arrest. This fact allows us to infer what expectations the army of the Reich can entertain under Prussian emperorship.

Sitting of the Second Chamber. President Grabow opens the sitting at 11.30. Deputy Seeger, who was refused six weeks’ leave, resigns his mandate. Minister Manteuffel: By a royal order of the 20th of this month I am empowered to present to the Chamber a law on the commutation of burdens and a law on the establishment of rent-banks. ‒ The Chamber resolves to refer these draft laws to the joint Legal and Agrarian Commission to report. Keller and comrades table the urgent motion that no one should any longer be allowed the floor for a factual or personal observation. ‒ This motion is sufficiently supported. Bucher interpellates the minister regarding the false report given by the Prussian consul general in London, that the armistice with Denmark had been prolonged until 15 April, whereas hostilities began as early as 3 April, which has caused great disadvantages to the provinces engaged in maritime trade, especially Pomerania. The interpellant goes into more detail on the policy pursued on this occasion, recalling the Wildenbruch note of the previous year and the rumour that the negotiations in London are only for show, while the real ones are being conducted under Russia’s protectorate. Minister Arnim replies that the aforementioned rumour is unfounded, and that as soon as he received the news erroneously disseminated by the London consul general he immediately corrected it in the *Staatsanzeiger*. Schneider (Westphalia) interpellates the war minister as to why the Westphalian Landwehr battalions have been sent to Schleswig, why married men have been called up while the young men of the line lie quietly in their garrisons. He relates with what reluctance the Landwehr crossed the Elbe and how basely the commanding general behaved on that occasion. The interpellant says that he knows very well that his words are of no avail, for we live only in a constitutional sham state, but his constituents, who do not yet appear to share this conviction, are pressing him to raise this matter. ‒
The war minister replies as usual. He knows nothing of the Landwehr’s discontent or insubordination, because the commanding general has sent him no reports on the subject. He can also give no information about the general’s address, since the speeches of generals in the field are not yet taken down in shorthand. ‒
Herr interpellates the Minister of the Interior on account of the illegal seizure of the civic guard’s weapons in his district town of Wetzlar. ‒
Manteuffel replies that he had already received a petition on this matter in March and immediately asked the government in Coblenz for a report, which, however, despite repeated reminders, has not yet replied to this day. ‒
Then they proceed to the Club Law. In place of § 12 the following amendment by Wentzel (Ratibor) is adopted:
“For all public open-air meetings, the promoter, organiser, director or the person who provides the ground for it must give notice to the local police authority at least 24 hours before the beginning of the meeting, stating the place and time of the same, and the authority shall immediately issue a certificate to that effect. ‒ The provisions of §§ 2 – 6 apply to all public open-air meetings.”
In place of § 13 the following draft of the commission is adopted:
“The local police authority is empowered to prohibit any open-air meeting in the event of imminent danger to public security or order.”
Deputy Pape moves the amendment: “This prohibition shall be drawn up in writing and shall state the reasons.” ‒ Grabow declares that this amendment is rejected. This gives rise to numerous protests on the part of the Left, since they maintain that at least a count ought to have been taken given the doubtful result. The Left, they say, is just as strong as the Right. But Grabow the Honourable relies on the rules of procedure: he has declared, with the concurrence of the two secretaries, that the amendment is rejected, and that must stand. ‒
The addition: “The prohibition shall be drawn up in writing” is adopted by 323 votes against 3. D’Ester declares that the Left has now demanded a roll‑call vote in order to establish whether they had had the majority before in the dubious vote. Dierschke now proposes a new additional paragraph:
“The written order of the police authority must contain the grounds for the prohibition,” which, after a roll‑call vote, is rejected by 167 to 166. ‒
§ 14. “During the entire duration of the session period of both chambers of the people’s representation, open-air meetings may not take place within a distance of five miles from the seat of the same.”
Amendments are proposed to set “2 miles” and 1/2 mile instead of “5 miles”. A vote is first taken on “5 miles” and it is rejected. “Two miles” is adopted by 173 votes to 152. The section thus amended is adopted, after a roll‑call vote, by 186 votes to 146. (End of sitting.)

Sitting of the First Chamber. Prime Minister Brandenburg: I have asked for the floor in order to make a communication to the High Chamber as to the manner in which the Government of His Majesty the King intends to position itself with regard to the imperial constitution voted upon in Frankfurt. Before I do so, I regard it as my duty, before the High Chamber and in just as high a degree before the Ministry of State, to give the reasons why it was not possible for me already to deliver the ministry’s declaration at the interpellation that took place here on Friday. On that very day communications from Frankfurt had been promised to the ministry. These also arrived in the course of the day and induced us to take them under deliberation that same evening. As a result of the conference which took place in the Ministry of State, the resolution was adopted which, on the occasion of the motion by the Second Chamber, gave the ministry occasion for the declaration of which this High Chamber will perhaps have received news. That is the reason why it was impossible for me to reply on Friday to the full extent I should have wished. I shall now take the liberty of reading to the High Chamber the communication I have to make to it. (He reads out the declaration delivered the day before yesterday in the Second Chamber.) I take the liberty of adding that those governments which have not yet given their declarations in Frankfurt have in the meantime been requested by us to give them likewise, in particular the governments of the royal courts, all of whom were still in arrears with their declarations. We entertain the hope that in this way the work will, despite all the difficulties it involves, be brought to a happy conclusion, a blessing to the entire German fatherland. Count Dyyrn’s motion to lay before the House the Camphausen instructions, the reply to the Austrian note, and all papers relating to the German question is not recognised as urgent and is therefore withdrawn. On the other hand, urgency is recognised for the following motions:

1. v. Ammon and comrades:
To appoint a commission of 15 members to consider the German constitution in its entire scope, to inform itself thoroughly, to report to the Chamber with all speed, and to table the appropriate motions.
2. Hansemann and comrades:
To refer the imperial constitution, with its [!] annotations, to this commission for consideration.
3. Count Itzenplitz and comrades:
1. That the same commission report as to which provisions of the imperial constitution appear to be dangerous to Prussia’s welfare and independence;
2. to address a petition to the King to accept the crown, if the National Assembly agrees
a. that the King assumes the crown on 1 May in accordance with the principles of the constitution of 28 March,
b. the National Assembly shall be dissolved and the Reichstag convened;
c. revision shall be brought about by a simple majority of both houses,
d. after the revision the oath is taken,
e. only then does the head assume the imperial title,
f. until then imperial laws do not take precedence over state laws,
g. at the first Reichstag the electoral law shall also be appropriately revised.
After the report of the petitions committee the sitting is closed.

Sonnenburg N. M., 16 April. Today the sentence of the first instance was made public to Superintendent Schmutter, who was accused of having taken part in the refusal of taxes; according to it he is to suffer one year’s fortress detention, cassation as superintendent and senior preacher, and loss of the national cockade as punishment. (N. Z.)
61 Breslau, 21 April. The mufti order by which our civic guard is to remain suspended for six months has merely led them to induce the magistrate to induce the withdrawal of the order; the usual German-Chinese revolutionary road to great deeds. In addition, Hansemann’s constitutional ex-Rhenish-Prussian bourgeois slime, now ennobled on the Spree, asserted a few days ago that the Breslau civic guard consisted overwhelmingly only of rabble. In the German People’s Association a certain Friedmann said recently: “The party of the republic at any price is in any case very small. (A turn of phrase already familiar.) Its organ is the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*, which forms a twin pair with the *Neue Preußische*, like Esau and Jacob. It has also accused Ludwig Simon of Reich-simony. With this kind of criticism, which sticks to persons instead of facts (the facts of the persons are so pitiable that one has to take the persons of the facts somewhat into account), I cannot make friends, and the greater part of the German people keeps far from it. It holds fast to the constitution and to the Emperor!” You see, the bourgeois street urchin everywhere trots out the same phrases of cowardice and baseness. For the time being, however, he finds few admirers here; contempt and kicks are his harvest. That is why this People’s Association also has few visitors. It would certainly be better if the consciousness of the proletariat and of the bourgeoisie had come to the fore more sharply than is the case. It is, for example, laughable that a stunted petty bourgeois, so long as he still feels a threepence in his pocket, does not want to belong to the rabble, as the proletariat is called here, and it will be a good while before he transforms himself, together with the real people, into a thinking proletariat. Enough, however, that for the meantime neither speeches nor the God-pitiful little sheets of the bourgeois gentlemen find much favour here. Your newspaper still arrives here so irregularly that I must once again draw your attention to it. I received one issue 24 hours earlier than all the other subscribers. When a few days ago someone wanted to subscribe to Proudhon’s *Peuple*, the post office declared that it could accept no order for this paper. It is very awkward that we basically have no democratic paper here.

The Oder-Zeitung merely dabbles most timidly in democracy, until it can once again dabble in ultramontanism. One sees at first glance that botch-work is repugnant to it, when one runs through the daily register which it has planted in place of leading articles, and when one pays attention to the absence of all democratic citations. In recent days it even busied itself with biographies of the Uckermark triple-star of Arnim and continues to believe in the eternal sanctity of the Austrian imperial state. Do the local democrats lack the power or the will to seize the editorial office of this paper?

Some time ago I prophesied to you that the Habsburgs would yet treat Windischgrätz as a traitor. It now seems to be coming true. The Habsburgs have always been monsters who have also strangled their saviours. Now they are blaming the failure of the Hungarian war on a man who in any case knows how to assess the conditions of the country better than the common butcher Welden. Windischgrätz correctly recognised that the brutal subjugation of the Magyars has become an impossibility for Austria alone. He only hesitated because nature bade him hesitate, indeed he would have embarked upon a politically prudent pacification. We shall see in a few days that the brutal murderer Welden achieves far less than Windischgrätz and that the Magyars can only rejoice at this change in the command of the Austrian army. It now becomes clear that the bourgeoisie of the West is closely fraternised with the absolutism of the East; therefore, for freedom everything depends on the victory of the Magyars and on the victory of the French proletariat.

If the Berlin democracy, as is generally rumoured, actually lets the sneaking skirt-chaser Schütte be octroyed upon it by Hinkeldey for the newspaper management of its affairs, then it deserves a thrashing. The state of siege is no longer tenable, and the ventriloquists on the Spree should at last understand that Hinkeldey, in order to filter their first wild fougue, must already hold in readiness a police-organised democratic organ, which he has Schütte hold out to the ventriloquists. That is Schütte’s task and role. I could moreover serve up to you a few dozen wretched boastings that the democratic crony has left behind here and with which he has interested lasses in the beer-cellars and idiotic democrats. Thus the future editor of the Berlin Spree democracy, for example, sought to spread the rumour everywhere here that Archduchess Sophie had so mightily yearned for his famousness that she had dropped Jelačić in order to enjoy the great agitator. While Vienna’s population was fighting, the hero Schütte stayed with the correspondent of the Indépendance on ground far from the shooting, from where they quite comfortably eyed from a bird’s-eye perspective with telescopes the heroic deeds of which the Windischgrätz-Hinkeldey demagogue has boasted around here.

As it is said, orders have arrived here to arm the Silesian fortresses.

From the Vistula, 19 April. Under this date the “N. Z.” communicates the following from the letter of a Landwehr man:

“A Landwehr man had thrown his weapons at the feet of his officer. The following day (Saturday, 7 April) the major, a zealous member of the Prussian Union, made our company close a circle. ‘Should any one of you, comrades, be so stupid as to believe that the world could exist without law and order, let him step forward!’ – No answer. – ‘Landwehr man Sch.! You have violated the articles of war, step forward! You complain about bribery. Who is bribed? Explain yourself clearly!’ – Sch. steps forward, complains about the favouring of the rich, says the families of the poor are suffering hardship, the rich could get along sooner, but they are all discharged, etc. – ‘You will be punished according to the strictness of the law!’ – (Murmuring in the company.) ‘NCOs, front! Report anyone who grumbles!’ – (Louder murmuring.) ‘Now, comrades, I think you will have no objection to that. We must uphold the law. If I were to leave today or tomorrow, I could remit the man’s punishment. But since I intend to stay together with you still longer, that is not possible for me. Are you satisfied?’ – (A few voices: ‘Yes’; the great majority hisses.) ‘Well, your Yes pleases me. I hope we shall remain good friends. – Whole battalion, about turn! right and left wheel! March!’ – Now drilling was carried out and afterwards they went to quarters, where several of those who had called out ‘Yes’ received a thrashing from their comrades. Sunday morning an address bearing numerous signatures was handed to the major, in which the demand was made that the accused not be brought before a court martial. Sunday midday the court-martial proceeding was set aside and the man was only given two days’ arrest. At the same time it was announced to us that this decision had already been resolved upon before the receipt of the address. – Medicine is bitter, but – it helps. The company chief has since become the best man in the world. He has even put on the German cockade and calls us only comrades. Let happen what may, he is always content. On the march out, the major first gave the customary hurrah, which, however, found only a weak echo. Then, however, a thunderous, unending threefold hurrah resounded for the women and children staying behind. – W. told me we would be drilling at the guns. Well, all right then! Who knows against whom I shall one day have to point the cannon.”

Dresden, 21 April. In today’s sitting of the first chamber, the report on the decree issued concerning Blum’s murder was on the agenda. The decree states that the government for the time being has reservations about adopting a definitive resolution on the motions put forward by the chambers. The committee, on the other hand (ref. Heubner), moves:

1) insist on the previous motions;
2) declare that in the delay in carrying out these decisions the chamber perceives a system of government endangering the honour and independence of the Saxon people and an incompatibility with the conditions under which alone the chambers are capable of continuing to work together with the state government for the welfare of the fatherland;
3) adhere to the resolution of the second chamber that the government is not to expect from the present popular representation an approval of the expenditure of the costs for the continued Könneritz legation from the state treasury.

Minister von Beust: The government could have referred to the constitutional document which delineates the bounds for the chambers. With regard to the motion to give the government a vote of no confidence, it will not attend the discussion (leaves the chamber). Committee motion 1 is adopted with 1 dissent, 2 against 4, and 3 against 1 dissent.

Schleswig-Holstein, 22 April. What has been reported almost ten times in the local papers as a fact and just as often retracted has finally happened: the vanguard has marched into Jutland. If one looks at the details, however, this only confirms our assertion yesterday that treason is at play. When the armistice was denounced and the war began, our government at last gave in to the pressure of our soap-boilers’ assembly and had coastal defences laid out. That, however, was all for the moment – they were not armed until the war had already lasted 14 days and our octroyed governorship saw that, without committing outright, palpable treason, it could no longer delay the arming. When Bonin, the dictatorial, namely saw that the Danes for the time being had no desire to pay a visit to Eckernförde or Kiel, he finally gave permission! But how?? If, for example, during the Eckernförde battle a ceasefire of a few hours had not set in, the batteries would have had to strike their colours and surrender to the Danes; for it was above all in the south battery that a shortage of ammunition soon arose. Fortunately, ammunition arrived from Rendsburg during the ceasefire.

Furthermore, the Schleswig-Holstein army had for some time been pushed out quite far without having sufficient support from the troops of the former Holy Roman Empire. The intention was this: it was known that the Danes stood at the border with 30,000 men. The Schleswig-Holstein army could be 16,000 strong. It was further known that this army would not later lend itself as an instrument for a heaven-ordained scoundrelly trick; it therefore had to be allowed to be beaten and disorganised. Hence, only very weak detachments of it are sent against the enemy individually. For example now, during the march into Jutland: the 1st and 2nd Jäger corps, together consisting of 1,700 soldiers fit for combat, are sent with the 9th battalion, 800 strong, against 4–5 battalions and 4 squadrons of Danish hussars – hence 2,500 men against at least 4,000 Danes of two arms of service. These, moreover, have to take an enemy town, Kolding, which is occupied by the Danish force. Naturally the Danes withdrew when they could no longer hold out without suffering great losses themselves; in this way at least 30 dead and 90 wounded of this democrat rabble were gotten rid of, of whom, as a certain general octroyed upon us Schleswig-Holsteiners says, hopefully very many more will be shot to cripples. If we now add that the 2nd Jäger corps and 9th battalion consist throughout of republicans, among whom, for example, the song: “Fürsten zum Land hinaus” is not infrequently sung, and that the 1st Jäger corps likewise is composed, at least half, of active democrats, it will be found entirely in order that Bonin is having them shot to pieces as much as possible, and that it would even be desirable if they were utterly wiped off the face of the earth.

Another proof of treason is that a Danish post office still exists in Hamburg, so that the Danes are at least as precisely informed about the position and strength of our troops as our – let us say the Reich commanders, if not indeed the Danes or rather the “amiable” Danish king is kept directly informed of everything necessary via Berlin or Potsdam-Sanssouci.

Likewise, the Landwehr from Posen and the Rhineland have been given the glorious assignment of letting themselves be shot to pieces on the Düppel entrenchments.

Should the lady crusader receive the news that the latter troops have completely vanished, she will probably not break out into a howl of lamentation as over the loss of the Danes at Eckernförde, but rejoice that once again some enemies of the worm-eaten Hohenzollern throne have disappeared from the earth.