‘What is the purpose of an imposed committee that stands in mid-air, that 
confers authority on itself although it has not done any work, has not been elected 
and has not asked the people whom it claims to represent whether they wish to be 
represented by such men?” 

“Everyone who knows Ruge, knows that the mania for proclamations is his 
incurable disease.” —‘“In parliament“ Ruge did not even acquire the influence of a 
Raveaux or a Simon of Trier’.—‘Where revolutionary energy in action, 
organisational work, discretion or reticence are necessary, Ruge is dangerous 
because he cannot hold his tongue, he cannot hold his ink and always claims that 
he represents everybody. When Ruge meets Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin this is 
translated into Rugean and published in all the papers as: Germany, France and 
Italy have banded together fraternally to serve the revolution.” — “This pretentious 
imposition of a committee, this boastful inactivity determined Ruge’s most intimate 
and intelligent friends, such as Oppenheim, Meyen and Schramm, to join forces 
with other men.” —‘“‘Behind Ruge there is no ncteanly defined section of the people, 
but only a clearly outlined pigtail of peace.” 

“How many hundreds of people ask themselves daily who is this Tausenau and 
there is no one, no one who can give an answer. Here and there you can find a 
Viennese who will assure you that he is one of those democrats from Vienna with 
whom the reaction used to reproach the Viennese democrats so as to put them 
in a bad light. But that is the concern of the Viennese. At any rate Tause- 
nau is an unknown factor, and it is even less known whether he is a factor 
at all.” 

“Let us take another look at these worthy men who regard everyone else 
as an immature politician. Sigel, the supreme commander. If anyone ever asks the 
muse of history how such an insipid nonentity was given the supreme command 
she will be completely at a loss for a reply. Sigel is only his brother’s” brother. His 
brother became a popular officer as a result of his critical remarks about the 
government, remarks which had been provoked by his frequent arrests for 
disorderly behaviour. The young Sigel thought this reason enough in the early 
confusion prevailing at the outbreak of revolution to proclaim himself supreme 
commander and minister of war. The Baden artillery, which had often proved its 
worth, had plenty of older and more experienced officers who should have taken 
precedence over this young Lieutenant Sigel, and they were more than a little 
indignant when they had to obey an unknown young man whose inexperience was 
only matched by his incompetence. But there was Brentano, who was so mindless 
and treacherous as to permit anything that might ruin the revolution.... The total 
incompetence that Sigel displayed during the whole Baden campaign.... It is 
certainly noteworthy that Sigel left the bravest soldiers of the republican army in 
the lurch at Rastatt and in the Black Forest without the reinforcements he had 
promised while he himself drove around Zurich with the epaulettes and the carriage 
of Prince von Furstenberg and paraded as an interesting unfortunate supreme 
commander. This is the well-known magnitude of this mature politician who, 
understandably proud of his earlier heroic deeds, imposed himself as supreme 
commander for a second time, on this occasion in the Agitation Union. This is the 
great well-known man, the brother of his brother.” 

“It is really laughable when such people” (as the agitators) “reproach others 
with half-heartedness, for they are political nonentities who neither half nor whole 
are anything at all.”,—‘‘Personal ambition is the whole secret of their fundamental 
position.” — “As a society the Agitation Union has meaning only for a very limited 
group, like a literary circle or a billiard club, and therefore it has no claim to be 
taken into consideration or given a voice.”—“You yourselves have cast the dice! 
Let the uninitiated be initiated so that they may judge for themselves what kind of 
people you are!’’—(Baltimore Correspondent.) 

One must say that in their understanding of each other these 
gentlemen have almost achieved an understanding of themselves. 

XV 

In the meantime the secret finance committee of the “émigrés” 
had elected a managing committee consisting of Kinkel, Willich 
and Reichenbach and it now resolved to take serious measures in 
connection with the German loan. As reported in the New York 
Schnellpost, the New-Yorker Deutsche Zeitung and the Baltimore 
Correspondent at the end of 1851, student Schurz was sent on a 
mission to France, Belgium and Switzerland where -he sought out 
all old, forgotten, and vanished parliamentarians, imperial re- 
gents,”'* deputies of Chambers and other noteworthy men, right 
down to the late Raveaux, to get them to guarantee the loan. The 
forgotten unfortunates hastened to give their guarantee. For what 
else was the guarantee of the loan if not a mutual guarantee of 
government posts in partibus*; and Messrs. Kinkel, Willich and 
Reichenbach likewise obtained by this means guarantees of their 
future prospects. And these worried worthies in Switzerland were 
so obsessed with “organisation” and the guarantee of future posts 
that they had long before worked out a plan by which government 
posts would be awarded according to seniority—which produced a 
terrible scandal about who were to have Nos. 1, 2 and 3. In short, 
student Schurz brought back the guarantee in his pocket and so 
they all went to work. Some days earlier Kinkel had, it is true, 
promised in another meeting with the “agitators” that he would 
not go ahead with an “Emigration” loan without them. For that 
very reason he departed taking the signatures of the guarantors 
and carte blanche from Reichenbach and Willich— ostensibly to find 
customers for his aesthetic lectures in the north of England, but in 
reality to go to Liverpool and embark for New York where he 

hoped like Perceval to find the Holy Grail, the gold of the 
democratic parties. 

And now begins that sweet-sounding, strange, magniloquent, 
fabulous, true and adventurous story of the great battles fought 
on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean between the Emigrés and the 
Agitators. It was a war waged with renewed bitterness and with 
indefatigable persistence. In it we witness Gottfried’s crusade in 
the course of which he contends with Kossuth and after great 
labours and indescribable temptations he finally returns home with 
the Grail in the bag. 

Or, bei signori, io vi lascio al presente, 

E se voi tornerete in questo loco, 

Dir6é questa battaglia dov’io lasso 

Ch’un altra non fu mai di tal fracasso. 
(Boiardo, Canto 26) 

And there, kind Sirs, I leave you for the present, 
If one day you return unto this place 

I'll give you further news of this great war 

So full of mighty deeds ne’er done before. 

Karl Marx