Dear Frederick,

I have modified your article according to the latest news.  
I do not believe that you have wasted your time in this way (I was forced to) wading through the parliamentary debates of last Monday. The gist of it was this:  
1) England has been duped during the whole negotiations;  
2) England has decidedly come out for Austria.  
ad 1.) The English ministers had already once announced that everything was settled. This was when the report of the evacuation of Rome was running through all the newspapers. From the statements in the Upper House it follows that the Pope really demanded the evacuation of his territory. France had been constantly howling to England that its position in Rome was false. It wanted to withdraw, but the Pope’s fears on the one hand, and on the other the refusal of the Austrians to withdraw likewise, hindered it. This was even the official pretext by which Boustrapha justified to England the scene with the Austrian envoy on 1st January. Well! The Pope cut away this pretext. Austria actually withdrew 2 battalions from Bologna and had issued orders for the departure of the remaining troops. Thereupon Bonaparte found pretexts for not evacuating, and so the whole affair fell through. This put Lord Derby in a very bad temper, and Bonaparte, to soothe him, opened his heart on the “Italian question” to Lord Cowley, who telegraphed to London and found his demands “satisfactory”. Thereupon Cowley – with the demands of B. accepted by England – was sent to Vienna. (This Cowley is the same swine who intrigued in Vienna in 1848-49 against the German revolution.) This was at the end of February. Austria, which had resolved upon war only with a heavy heart, and at that time had not by far got as far with its armaments as by mid-March, accepted everything. When Cowley passed through London on his way back to Paris, “he” and the “Ministry”, says Derby himself, were completely convinced that everything was settled, and disgraced themselves again by a new statement to this effect before Parliament. So Cowley travels full of hope to Paris. Here he learns that they have been playing blind-man’s buff with him and that, on Russia’s proposal, Boustrapha has accepted a general congress at which, likewise on Russia’s proposal, only the 5 Great Powers are to be represented, and Sardinia thus excluded. Derby says straight out that Russia’s intervention (although arranged with France; but Bonap. could naturally not reject conditions which England, in his name, had put to Austria) is alone to blame for the peace not having come about. Palmerston, the same day, in the House of Commons, said he did not blame Russia, (of course). If English mediation had succeeded, Russia would not have played the role that is certain to fall to it at a congress and that behoves it in European questions. Although very vexed, Derby accepted the Russian proposal, under certain conditions, the principal of which was that the territorial settlements of the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 should not be touched. Austria, which had already imagined that everything was settled, now saw clearly that war had been decided upon and that it was only being led by the nose. In response to the new English proposal, it therefore answered with the impudent demand that Sardinia must disarm as a preliminary to the congress. Thereupon Derby proposed to Bonap. that Sardinia be induced to submit to this disgrace, but that at the same time England and France jointly should contractually guarantee it against a breach of the peace by Austria during the congress. The ass Bonap. refused. Had he accepted it, he could, through his agents on the Austro-Piedmontese border, have provoked some kind of row, and then England would have been bound down to an offensive treaty with France and Sardinia against Austria, and Palmerston would have forced the Tories to be as good as their word. On the other hand, the Austrians were frightened by the ease with which England was prepared to enter into an offensive alliance against them under certain conditions. They now therefore promptly declared themselves in favour of the English proposal and converted the disarmament of Sardinia into general disarmament. Now came the scandal about whether, as Austria said, disarmament should take place before, or, as Bon. said, after the meeting of the congress, then whether Sardinia was to be admitted or not, etc. In short, all the new difficulties emanated from Bonap.: 1) the quibbles about disarmament; 2) he and Russia had, after all, proposed to exclude Sardinia from the congress. Derby was so furious last Monday that he is said to have actually shouted when he declared that England was now making one more ultimate proposal; but he was tired of trifling and, if it failed, would no longer act as mediator, etc.

ad 2.) Bonaparte could accept these last proposals, since they were harmful only to Austria, insofar as the latter was ahead with its armaments. He had to accept them, so as to deprive Derby of the pretext to declare directly against him. Austria had to reject them if it did not want to forfeit all its advantages, etc. Bonaparte, who had reckoned on Derby’s fall and Palmerston’s entry, was in a plight all the worse, since Derby and Disraeli in their speeches directly showed that they were tired of being duped by Bon. and Russia, and moreover took sides outright for Austria. Malmesbury said he did not understand on what pretext Bonap. had interfered in the Italian turmoil. Derby said that England would first maintain armed neutrality, but would then turn against the power that had provoked the war on a “false pretext”. Derby said that England’s interest in the Adriatic did not permit it to fold its arms; he designated an attack on Trieste almost as a casus belli. Disraeli said that Austria had behaved with “dignified moderation”, Sardinia “ambiguous, vexing, and even ambitious”. Finally, they all said that the treaties of 1815 must be maintained, and, directly with reference to the territorial settlement in Italy, these treaties, they repeatedly emphasised, were “intended putting a check upon the encroaching ambition of France”.

So much is certain: Through the trick of Derby’s, instead of resigning, sending Parliament to the devil, and thus banishing Palmerston for the time being into private life, the Russo-French game has come into a serious dilemma.

Only 2 cases are possible.  

I Either Austria allows itself to be intimidated by threatening telegrams from London and Berlin and withdraws Gyulai’s ultimatum to Piedmont. In that case no god can help Bonaparte. Then he must, in fact, disarm, and the army will treat him as Soulouque. In Paris, moreover, the workers are furious about the infamy of Blanqui’s deportation to Cayenne. Or Austria is tired of diplomatic trifling and marches on Turin. In that case Mr Bonap. has won diplomatically because Austria declared war first; but he has purchased this diplomatic victory with an ugly military defeat. In that case I would not give 4 months’ purchase for his crown and dynasty.

Tomorrow I shall send you the Tribunes.

Apropos.

The great Reichs-Vogt has written an epistle to Freiligrath, in which he informs him that this imperial gang is bringing out a new newspaper in Zurich (or Berne, I have forgotten). He calls upon Freiligrath to write for the feuilleton and to recruit the profound Bucher as political correspondent.

The programme on the basis of which Reichs-Vogt wants to form a new “party”, and which, as he himself says, has been received very benevolently by A. Herzen, is this: Germany gives up its non-German possessions. Does not support Austria. French despotism is transient, Austrian despotism permanent. The two despots are to be allowed to bleed each other white. (Even a certain leaning towards Bona is discernible.) German armed neutrality. A revolutionary movement in Germany, as Vogt “knows from the best sources”, is not to be thought of during our lifetime. Consequently, as soon as Austria is ruined by Bon., a moderate liberal-national development, in the spirit of the imperial regency, will commence of itself in the fatherland, and Vogt will perhaps become Prussian court fool. From Vogt’s letter one sees that he believes Freil. no longer has any connection with us. The ignorance of this Reichs-Vogt about the people he has to deal with. Bucher, as an Urquhartite, is Austrian. The great Blind, on the other hand, being in the dilemma that he is against Bona as a German, and against Austria as a V Rotteck, is at the present moment convening a “German parliament”, which the telegraph will soon report to Manchester.

Salut  
D