Friedrich Engels 
Preparations for War in Prussia 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.6097, 8. November 1860 

Preparations for War in Prussia. 

From Our Own Correspondent. 
Berlin, Oct. 23, 1860. 

The anger and the dread felt by our Liberals at the Prince Regent's participa- 
tionin the Warsaw Congress, find, as is usual with the grievances of genuine 
Prussian Liberals, their vent in bitter aspersions of Austria and its new- 
fangled Constitution. In the first place, Francis Joseph wiU never be forgiven, 
for having bereft these gentlemen of their greatest consolation, and the 
standing topic of their verbose self-righteousness, viz., the contrast between 
"constitutional" Prussia and "absolutist" Austria. The Austrian patent, of 
course, is open, not only to cavils, butto serious misgivings of every kind. 
The circumstances under which and the hands by which the gift is bestowed, 
stamp it with the character of a shift, rather than a sincere concession. Once 
before on the 4th of March, 1849, Francis Joseph promulgated the outlines 
of a constitution, only to cancel them the following year, after the fortune 
of war had declared on his side. But, then, there exists no instance on the 
records of history of princes having ever curtailed their own privileges, and 
yielded to popular claims, except under a heavy pressure from without, and 
there exists no instance of their having kept faith whenever they could dare 
to break their oaths and their pledges with impunity. The old Hungarian 
Constitution has not been restored in its integrity, since the two most im- 
portant rights of voting the ways and means, and the levies of troops, are 
transferred from the Diet at Pesth to the Central Imperial Council at Vienna, 
which latter being intended to form the States General of the whole empire, 
finds itself invested with attributes likely to become permanent sources of 
strife between itself and the different national or provincial Diets. The 

Friedrich Engels 

Constitutions of the German and Slavonic provinces being limited to the most 
general and vague outlines, may be made nothing or everything of. The 
greatest fault found with the patent on the part of the Magyars is the separa- 
tion of Croatia, Servia and Transylvania from Hungary, and the grant to those 
provinces of different independent Diets; but if the events of 1848-49 be 
recalled to mind, it may be justly doubted whether the Croats, Slavonians, 
Serbs, and Wallachians will be inclined to share in this Magyar grievance, 
and back it by their support. The Vienna statesmen, in this instance, seem 
rather to have played a clever trick upon the principle of nationality, and 
turned it to their own account. 

But, as for the general Diet of the whole empire, under the name of the 
Imperial Council, seated at Vienna and composed of the respective delegates 
appointed by the different Diets of Galicia, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, 
Servia, Venetia, and the German provinces, being placed beyond the pale 
of allegiance to the Diet of the German Confederation, will itnot cut asunder 
the relations that have hitherto obtained between German Austria and the 
German Confederation? This is the great theme now harped upon by official 
Prussian Liberalism, which will never stand in want of arguments for its pet 
idea, the exclusion of Austrian Germany from the German Confederation. 
But all this reasoning proceeds from a false premise in clinging to the letter 
of Francis Joseph's patent. While the latter must be considered, on the part 
of the Austrian dynasty, as aclever device, it affords to the various peoples 
crushed under Hapsburg sway a precious handle for working out their own 
destinies and reopening the era of revolutions. For the present, the Austrian 
Constitution will have done much good in humbling the Pharisean pride of 
the Prussian mock-Liberals, and stripping the Hohenzollern dynasty of the 
only advantage it could boast over its rival, that of carrying onthe old concern 
of the bureaucrat and the soldier under the more respectable form of con- 
stitutionalism. To give you an insight into the real state of this much-vaunted, 
"regenerated" Prussia, it will be necessary to recur to the changes that have 
lately taken place in the organization of the Prussian army. You will re- 
member that the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, while lacking on the one 
side the courage to affront public opinion by an open sanction of the Govern- 
ment proposals for the reorganization of the army, and lacking on the other 
side the courage to make a decided stand against the martinet leanings of 
the Prince Regent, hit upon the usual expedient of weakness—a middle 
course, neither fish nor flesh. It refused to pass the Government plan for 
the reorganization of the army, but voted $9,500,000 for putting the army into 
a state fit to encounter the dangers apprehended from without. In other 
words, the Prussian Deputies voted the ways and means wanted by the 
Government for carrying out its plan, but voted them on false pretexts. 

Preparations for War in Prussia 

Hardly had the Prussian Parliament been adjourned when the Ministry, 
openly breaking through the conditions on which the grant was obtained, 
began, without further ado, to introduce the changes in the organization of 
the army willed by the Prince Regent and rejected by the so-called repre- 
sentatives. During the recess of the Parliament, the standing army has been 
doubled, being raised from 40 regiments to 72 regiments of the line and 
9 regiments of the guard. The permanent annual expenses for the mihtary 
budget have thus, by the supreme will of the Prince Regent, and in open 
violation, not only of the will of the people, but of the vote of its mock 
Representatives, been raised by 100 per cent. But do not fancy the Prince 
of Hohenzollern or any of his colleagues risks the fate of Strafford. There 
will be some low grumbling, pickled with fervent assertions of dynastic 
loyalty, and unbounded confidence in the Cabinet, and this will be all. Now, 
considering that even the old army organization, founded as it was upon a 
merely agricultural population, had become an intolerable drawback upon 
the resources and the productive activity of a people which in the course 
of time had engaged in manufactures, it will be easily understood how the 
army, now doubled in numbers, must grind down the best energies of the 
masses, and drain the springs of national wealth. The Prussian army may now 
boast of being the largest in Europe in proportion to population and national 
resources. 

You know that a Hohenzollern ruler, when speaking of himself, or when 
spoken of by his cabinet and his officials, goes by the name of Kriegsherr, 
that is to say, "Lord of War." Now this of course, does not mean that 

25 Prussian kings and regents lord it over the chances of war. Their great anxiety 

to keep peace, and their known propensity for being thrashed in the open 
field show better. By that title of "Lord of War," so dearly cherished by 
Hohenzollern rulers, it is rather understood that the true prop of their kingly 
power must be sought for, not in the people, but in a portion of the people, 
separated from the mass, opposed to it, distinguished by certain badges, 
trained to passive obedience, drilled into a mere instrument of the dynasty 
which owns it as its property and uses it according to its caprice. A Prussian 
king would, therefore, rather abdicate than allow his army to swear obedi- 
ence to the Constitution. Hence a Hohenzollern ruler, being the king of his 
people only as far as he is the "Lord of War," in other words, the proprietor 
of the army, must, before ah things, dote on it, fondle it, flatter it, and feed 
it with always increasing morsels of the national wealth. This great aim has 
been obtained by the new military organization. The number of officers has 
been doubled, and the rapid promotion to higher grades in the French, 

40 Austrian, and Russian armies, which the Prussian officers had cast longingly 

anxious eyes upon, has been secured to them without exposing their hves 

Friedrich Engels 

and limbs to the least hazard. Hence there is just now prevailing, not among 
the common soldiers, but among the officers of the Prussian army, a vast 
amount of enthusiasm for the Prince Regent and his "liberal" Ministers. At 
the same time the aristocratic fox-hunters, grumbling at the liberal phrases 
of the new régime, have been quite conciliated by the new occasion afforded 
them for fastening their younger sons on the purse of the country. There is 
one drawback to all this, even from the dynastic standpoint. Prussia has now 
concentrated all its available forces into one standing army. That army once 
beaten, there will be no reserve to fall back upon.