Karl Marx 
Garibaldi in Sicily—Affairs in Prussia 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.5972, U.Juni 1860 

Affairs in Prussia. 

From Our Own Correspondent. 
Berlin, May 28, 1860. 

The prevailing topic of conversation here, as everywhere all over Europe, 
is, of course, Garibaldi's adventures in Sicily. Now, you are aware that never 
before has the telegraph been put to such impudent work as in the present 
instance, both on the part of Naples and Genoa or Turin. Locusts have never 
poured upon Europe in such multitude as do now the electric canards. It 
seems, therefore, worth while to state, in a few words, the views here en- 
tertained of Sicilian affairs in the most competent military circles. In the first 
instance, the insurrection, as is generally known, was kept up for a whole 
month before the arrival of Garibaldi; but, of paramount importance as this 
fact is, it may be overvalued, as shown by the Paris Constitutionnel. The 
military forces Naples disposed of in Sicily before Gen. Lanza was sent over 
with fresh troops could hardly amount to 20,000 men, the far greater part 
of whom had to be concentrated in the fortresses of Palermo and Messina, 
so that the flying corps left available for the pursuit of the insurgents might 
boast of several successful encounters, disperse the enemy on certain points, 
and harass him in different directions, but must prove altogether insufficient 
to thoroughly stifle the insurrection. At the present moment, there seem to 
be about 30,000 Neapolitan troops gathered at Palermo, two-thirds of them 
holding the fortress, while one-third encamp beyond its precincts. Fifteen 
thousand Neapolitans are said to hold Messina. Now Garibaldi had, ac- 
cording to the latest news, not pushed beyond Monreale. It is true that this 

Garibaldi in Sicily—Affairs in Prussia 

place is situated on hills which command Palermo from the land side, but 
to improve the opportunities offered by this position, Garibaldi as yet lacks 
the principal requisite—siege artillery. The immediate chances of Garibaldi, 
whose army musters about 12,000 men, will consequently depend upontwo 
main circumstances—the rapid spread of the insurrection throughout the 
island, and the attitude of the Neapolitan soldiers at Palermo. If the latter 
waver, and get into quarrels with the foreign mercenaries mterrningled with 
them, Lanza's means of defense may break up in his own hands. If the 
insurrection developes much vital power, Garibaldi's army will be swelled 
to more formidable dimensions. If Garibaldi should get into Palermo, he will 
sweep everything before him save Messina, where the difficult task will again 
begin. You remember that, in 1848-49, the Neapolitans had lost everything 
save Messina, serving as a fete-de-pont between Sicily and Naples; but 
Messina then sufficed to regain the whole island. The fall of Palermo, and 
the military hold by the patriots of the whole island, except Messina, would, 
however, this time prove more decisive than in 1848-49, because of the 
altered political conjunctures. If Garibaldi masters Palermo, he will be offi- 
cially supported by the "King of Italy." If he fails, his invasion will be 
disavowed as a private adventure. There is something of ironical pathos in 
the words addressed to Victor Emanuel by Garibaldi, who tells the King that 
he will conquer for him a new province, which he hopes the King will not 
again bargain away, like Nice, Garibaldi's birthplace. 
Among the topics of Prussian politics, the first place in the public mind 
is naturally occupied by the Prince of Prussia's private letter to the Prince 
Consort of England, of which the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, Louis 
Bonaparte's Embassador at the Court of Berlin, had not only the impudence 
to present a copy to Herr von Schleinitz, the Prussian Foreign Minister, but 
went the length of asking explanations on some ofits passages reflecting on 
the character and plans of the great Paris saltimbanque. This incidentreminds 
one of a similar accident that happened shortly before the ratification of the 
treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, 1833. The Grand Vizier having at that time com- 
municated a copy of the secret treaty, drawn up by Count Orloff, to the 
British Embassy at Constantinople, was much bewildered when a day later, 
to his not agreeable surprise, Count Orloff returned him the identical copy, 
with the spiteful advice, to find better confidants for the future. At Berlin 
everybody feels sure that the Prince Regent's letter, having been transmitted 
by’post via Ostend not via Calais, was tampered with at the English Post- 
Office, where a numerous personnel is notoriously employed in prying into 
suspected letters—a practice carried to such a degree that at the time of the 
Coalition-Cabinet, the Earl of Aberdeen confessed that he dared not confide 
to the post his own letters addressed to his metropolitan friends. Lord 

Karl Marx 

Palmerston, having thus got acopy of the Prince Regent's letter, is supposed, 
out of spite against Prince Albert and in the interest of the Anglo-French- 
Russian alliance, to have placed a copy of that letter into the hands of the 
French Embassador at London. At all events the course of the intended and 
much talked-of Anglo-Prussian alliance runs anything but smooth. 

Some months ago, when Lord John Russell one fine morning discovered 
that England must go in search of new alliances, and when that intimation 
was received with much childish enthusiasm in the official circles of Berlin, 
out came all at once, in the form of an English Parliamentary paper, a 
dispatch addressed by Lord Bloomfield to the Foreign Office at Downing 
street, narrating a private conversation he had held during the last Italian war 
with Herr von Schleinitz, and sadly compromising the good faith of Prussian 
foreign policy. Lord John at the time pleaded guilty of a most strange indis- 
cretion, but the first blow to the new alliance was dealt. The second blow 
has been given by the miscarriage of the Prince Regent's letter. 

You will have seen that in his speech from the throne the Prince speaks 
very emphatically of the maintenance of treaty rights and the united front 
Germany is ready to show against any encroachment upon the independence 
and integrity of the common fatherland. The unpleasant impression produced 
upon the Paris stock exchange by the apparent menace has been allayed 
through the Russian journal Le Nord, which, in a tone of ironicahy conde- 
scending bonhomie, divests the Prince's speech of all serious meaning, calls 
to mind similar phrases uttered by him during the Italian war, and, in con- 
clusion, characterizes the whole passage as a mere compliment paid to 
popular feeling. As to the rest of the Prince's speech, it is, in fact, but a 
summary of legislative failures. The only important projects debated by the 
Chambers—the projected laws on marriage, municipal administration, and 
reform of the land tax, from which the nobility in the greater part of the 
monarchy still remain exempt, have all proved abortive. The Prince, more- 
over, complains of his pet measures relating to the army reform not having 
yet received legislative sanction. 

Though the Government has proved unable, even with the present Cham- 
ber of Representatives—whose large majority consists of Ministerialists—to 
carry its proposed army reform, ithas at last got an extra vote of nine millions 
and a half of dollars, to be laid out in militarv expenditures; while simulta- 
neously, as I am informed by letters from the provinces, the intended changes 
inthe army organization are quietly but practically introduced, so as to leave 
to the Chambers, when reassembling, no other alternative than that of sanc- 
tioning what will then have become a fait accompli. The gist of the intended 
army reform is pointed out in the Baltische Monatsschrift, a Russian-German 
monthly, published at Riga, and printed under the sanction of the Russian 

Garibaldi in Sicily—Affairs in Prussia 

Governor-General of Livonia, Esthonia, and Courland. "The Prussian army 
reform," says that paper, "which was introduced immediately after the peace 
of Villafranca, can hardly serve any other purpose than that of emancipating 
the Government from the direct appeal to the whole people—an appeal which, 
with the old military system, became unavoidable, whenever the Govern- 
ment thought it necessary to support its policy by warlike demonstrations. 
Under the present political combinations of Europe, a State like Prussia, still 
striving for its full acknowledgment as one of the great Powers, can neither 
suspend its whole pacific life on every occasion that seems to necessitate 
the employment of its military forces, nor can it in every case guarantee to 
the nation when once called to arms the ensuing of actual war. There lies 
hidden in the Landwehr system a certain democratical antagonism against 
the monarchic principle. The mobilizations of 1850 and 1859, following each 
other within a relatively short interval, and leading both times to no warlike 
action, but only to demobilization, seem to have impaired with the great part 
of the Prussian people the authority of the State, even in foreign affairs. From 
the very circumstances accompanying both mobilizations, the conclusion 
seemed to have been drawn by the popular mind that the Government was 
bound to obtain the consent of public opinion in every instance of a general 
armament. Even the official declarations made by Prussia in regard to the 
attitude she observed during the Italian conflict contain the confession of 
the mobilization of the Landwehr having encountered unexpected dif- 
ficulties.""" Hence the Russian-German paper concludes that Prussia ought 
to get rid of the Landwehr system, in its present form, but, at the same time, 
intimates with an ironical sneer that "such an alteration of one of the most 
popular institutions, just at a moment when Prussia affects to stand on liber- 
alism," is a very delicate operation. I may here remark that this Baltische 
Monatsschrift, published under Czarist auspices at Riga, forms to some 
degree the counterpart of the Strassburger Correspondent, published under 
Bonapartist auspices at Strassburg. Both skirmish on the German frontiers, 
the one from the east, the other from the west. The writers of the one may 
be considered as literary Cossacks, the writers of the other as literary 
Zouaves. Both affect great tenderness for Germany, and abound in wise 
counsels to the land whose vernacular they still condescend to use. Both try 
to prepare the fatherland for great changes impending, and both smell of the 
entente cordiale just now linking the Caesarism of Paris to the Czarism of 
Petersburg; but here the likeness ends. The Strassburg paper, although 
perfumed with that peculiar scent of false melodramatic dignity character- 
istic of the Bohemian literature of the Second French Empire, is still written 
in the homely style that belongs to Southern Germany. It affects common 
sense, and certainly does not pretend to any literary distinction. The Riga 

Karl Marx 

monthly, on the contrary, struts with a didactic stateliness and a metaphysical 
profoundness savoring of the traditions of the Königsberg University. After 
all, I consider the ebullitions of patriotic rage with which the German press 
assails both the Monatsschrift and the Correspondent, but mainly the latter, 
as silly exhibitions of childish incompetency.