Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany

XV.

The Triumph of Prussia

JULY 27th, 1852.

WE now come to the last chapter in the history of the German
Revolution; the conflict of the National Assembly with the Governments of the
different States, especially of Prussia; the insurrection of Southern and
Western Germany, and its final overthrow by Prussia.

We have already seen the Frankfort National Assembly at work: We have seen
it kicked by Austria, insulted by Prussia, disobeyed by the lesser States,
duped by its own impotent Central "Government," which again was the dupe of all
and every prince in the country. But at last things began to look threatening
for this weak, vacillating, insipid legislative body. It was forced to come to
the conclusion that "the sublime idea of Germany unity was threatened in its
realization," which meant neither more nor less than that the Frankfort
Assembly, and all it had done, and was about to do, were very likely to end in
smoke. Thus it set to work in good earnest in order to bring forth, as soon as
possible, its grand production, the "Imperial Constitution." There was,
however, one difficulty. What Executive Government was there to be? An
Executive Council? No; that would have been, they thought in their wisdom,
making Germany a Republic. A "president"? That would come to the same. Thus
they must revive the old Imperial dignity. But—as, of course, a prince
was to be emperor—who should it be? Certainly none of the Dii minorum
gentium, [minor gods] from
Reuss-Schleitz-Greitz-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf up to Bavaria; neither Austria nor
Prussia would have borne that. It could only be Austria or Prussia. But which
of the two? There is no doubt that, under otherwise favorable circumstances,
this august Assembly would be sitting up to the present day, discussing this
important dilemma without being able to come to a conclusion, if the Austrian
Government had not cut the Gordian knot, and saved them the trouble.

Austria knew very well that from the moment in which she could again appear
before Europe with all her provinces subdued, as a strong and great European
power, the very law of political gravitation would draw the remainder of
Germany into her orbit, without the help of any authority which an Imperial
crown, conferred by the Frankfort Assembly, could give her. Austria had been
far stronger, far freer in her movements, since she shook off the powerless
crown of the German Empire—a crown which clogged her own independent
policy, while it added not one iota to her strength, either within or without
Germany. And supposing the case that Austria could not maintain her footing in
Italy and Hungary, why, then she was dissolved, annihilated in Germany too, and
could never pretend to reseize a crown which had slipped from her hands while
she was in the full possession of her strength. Thus Austria at once declared
against all imperialist resurrections, and plainly demanded the restoration of
the German Diet, the only Central Government of Germany known and recognized by
the treaties of 1815; and on the 4th of March, 1849, issued that Constitution
which had no other meaning than to declare Austria an indivisible, centralized,
and independent monarchy, distinct even from that Germany which the Frankfort
Assembly was to reorganize.

This open declaration of war left, indeed, the Frankfort wiseacres no other
choice but to exclude Austria from Germany, and to create out of the remainder
of that country a sort of lower empire, a "little Germany," the rather shabby
Imperial mantle of which was to fall on the shoulders of His Majesty of
Prussia. This, it will be recollected, was the renewal of an old project
fostered already some six or eight years ago by a party of South and Middle
German Liberal doctrinaires, who considered as a godsend the degrading
circumstances by which their old crotchet was now again brought forward as the
latest "new move" for the salvation of the country.

They accordingly finished, in February and March 1849, the debate on the
Imperial Constitution, together with the Declaration of Rights and the Imperial
Electoral Law; not, however, without being obliged to make, in a great many
points, the most contradictory concessions—now to the Conservative or
rather Reactionary party —now to the more advanced factions of the
Assembly. In fact, it was evident that the leadership of the Assembly, which
had formerly belonged to the Right and Right Centre (the Conservatives and
Reactionists), was gradually, although slowly, passing toward the Left or
Democratic side of that body. The rather dubious position of the Austrian
deputies in an Assembly which had excluded their country from Germany, and in
which they yet were called upon to sit and vote, favored the derangement of its
equipoise; and thus, as early as the end of February, the Left Centre and Left
found themselves, by the help of the Austrian votes, very generally in a
majority, while on other days the Conservative faction of the Austrians, all of
a sudden, and for the fun of the thing, voting with the Right, threw the
balance again on the other side. They intended, by these sudden
soubresauts, to bring the assembly into contempt, which, however, was
quite unnecessary, the mass of the people being long since convinced of the
utter hollowness and futility of anything coming from Frankfort. What a
specimen of a Constitution, in the meantime, was framed under such jumping and
counter-jumping, may easily be imagined.

The Left of the Assembly—this elite and pride of revolutionary
Germany, as it believed itself to be—was entirely intoxicated with the
few paltry successes it obtained by the good-will, or rather the ill-will, of a
set of Austrian politicians, acting under the instigation and for the interest
of Austrian despotism. Whenever the slightest approximation to their own not
very well-defined principles had, in a homoeopathically diluted shape, obtained
a sort of sanction by the Frankfort Assembly, these Democrats proclaimed that
they had saved the country and the people. These poor, weak-minded men, during
the course of their generally very obscure lives, had been so little accustomed
to anything like success, that they actually believed their paltry amendments,
passed with two or three votes majority, would change the face of Europe. They
had, from the beginning of their legislative career, been more imbued than any
other faction of the Assembly with that incurable malady Parliamentary
cretinism, a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with the solemn
conviction that the whole world, its history and future, are governed and
determined by a majority of votes in that particular representative body which
has the honor to count them among its members, and that all and everything
going on outside the walls of their house—wars, revolutions,
railway-constructing, colonizing of whole new continents, California gold
discoveries, Central American canals, Russian armies, and whatever else may
have some little claim to influence upon the destinies of mankind—is
nothing compared with the incommensurable events hinging upon the important
question, whatever it may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of
their honorable house. Thus it was the Democratic party of the Assembly, by
effectually smuggling a few of their nostrums into the "Imperial Constitution,"
first became bound to support it, although in every essential point it flatly
contradicted their own oft-proclaimed principles, and at last, when this
mongrel work was abandoned, and bequeathed to them by its main authors,
accepted the inheritance, and held out for this Monarchical
Constitution, even in opposition to everybody who then proclaimed
their own Republican principles.

But it must be confessed that in this the contradiction was merely apparent.
The indeterminate, self-contradictory, immature character of the Imperial
Constitution was the very image of the immature, confused, conflicting
political ideas of these Democratic gentlemen. And if their own sayings and
writings—as far as they could write—were not sufficient proof of
this, their actions would furnish such proof; for among sensible people it is a
matter of course to judge of a man, not by his professions, but his actions;
not by what he pretends to be, hut by what he does, and what he really is; and
the deeds of these heroes of German Democracy speak loud enough for themselves,
as we shall learn by and by. However, the Imperial Constitution, with all its
appendages and paraphernalia, was definitely passed, and on the 28th of March,
the King of Prussia was, by 290 votes against 248 who abstained, and 200 who
were absent, elected Emperor of Germany minus Austria. The historical
irony was complete; the Imperial farce executed in the streets of astonished
Berlin, three days after the Revolution of March 18th, 1848, by Frederick
William IV., while in a state which elsewhere would come under the Maine Liquor
Law—this disgusting farce, just one year afterwards, had been sanctioned
by the pretended Representative Assembly of all Germany. That, then, was the
result of the German Revolution!

LONDON, July, 1852.

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