[„Neue Rheinische Zeitung“ 
No. 4 of 4 June 1848] 

** Cologne, 3 June. Times change, and we change with them. That is a little saying of which our Herren Ministers Camphausen and Hansemann also know a thing or two to relate. In those days, when they still sat as modest deputies on the school benches of a provincial Diet, what things did they have to put up with from government commissioners and marshals !!°?! How were they kept on a short rein in the second form, at the Rhenish Provincial Diet, by His Serene Highness the Headmaster Solms-Lich! And even when they were moved up to the first form, into the United Diet!”*!, they were to be sure permitted a few exercises in eloquence, but how their schoolmaster, Herr Adolf v. Rochow, still wielded the cane most graciously handed down to him! How humbly did they have to accept the impertinences of a Bodelschwingh, how devoutly admire the stammering German of a Boyen, what a limited subject’s understanding!! was made a duty for them in the face of the gross ignorance of a Duesberg! 

Now all that has changed. The 18th of March put an end to all political schoolmastering, and the Diet pupils declared themselves ready to graduate. Herr Camphausen and Herr Hansemann became ministers and delightedly felt all their greatness as “indispensable men”. | 

How “indispensable” they believe themselves to be, how high-spirited their liberation from school has made them, has been felt by everyone who came into contact with them. 

They immediately began by provisionally re-establishing the old schoolroom, the United Diet. Here the great act of transition from the bureaucratic grammar school to the constitutional university, the solemn issuance of the leaving certificate for the Prussian people, was to be settled in all the prescribed form. 

30 Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels - „Neue Rheinische Zeitung“ 

The people declared in numerous memoranda and petitions that it wanted to have nothing to do with the United Diet. 

Herr Camphausen replied (see, e.g., the sitting of the Constituent Assembly of 30 May"), that the convocation of the Diet was a matter of life and death for the ministry, and with that, to be sure, the matter was settled. | 

The Diet met!””), an assembly despairing of the world, of God, of itself, dejected, contrite. It had been given to understand that it was merely to accept the new electoral law, but Herr Camphausen demands of it not only a paper law and indirect elections, but twenty-five ringing millions. The curias fall into confusion, become bewildered about their competence, stammer incoherent objections; but nothing helps, it has been resolved in the council of Herr Camphausen, and if the funds are not granted, if the “vote of confidence” is refused, then Herr Camphausen will go to Cologne and leave the Prussian monarchy to its fate. At this thought a cold sweat breaks out on the brow of the gentlemen of the Diet, all resistance is abandoned, and the vote of confidence is voted with a sweet-and-sour smile. One can see these twenty-five millions, currently quoted in the airy realm of dreams!”, where and how they were voted. | 

The indirect elections are proclaimed. A storm of addresses, petitions, deputations rises up against them. The ministerial gentlemen answer: The ministry stands or falls with indirect elections. At once all is quiet again, and both parties can go to sleep. 

The Assembly of Agreement meets. Herr Camphausen has resolved to have an address in reply made to his speech from the throne. Deputy Duncker must make the proposal. The discussion unfolds. There is fairly lively speaking against the address. Herr Hansemann is bored by the endless confused toing and froing of the clumsy assembly, which becomes intolerable to his parliamentary tact, and declares curtly: One could spare oneself all that; either one produces an address, in which case all is well, or one does not, in which case the ministry will resign. The discussion continues nonetheless, and Herr Camphausen finally mounts the tribune himself to confirm that the question of the address is a matter of life and death for the ministry. Finally, when even this does not help, Herr Auerswald likewise steps up and protests for the third time that the ministry stands or falls with the address. Now 

1 See present volume, pp. 25-25 

Lebens- und Sterbensfragen 3] 

the assembly was sufficiently convinced and naturally voted for the address. | 

Thus our “responsible” ministers have, in two months, already arrived at that experience and assuredness in conducting an assembly which Herr Duchâtel, who was certainly not to be despised, acquired only after several years of intimate intercourse with the penultimate French Chamber of Deputies. In latter years, Herr Duchâtel, too, used to declare, when the Left bored him with its long-winded tirades: The Chamber is free, it can vote for or against; but if it votes against, we shall resign — and the timid majority, for whom Herr Duchâtel was the “most indispensable” man in the world, gathered round their threatened leader like a flock of sheep in a thunderstorm. Herr Duchâtel was a frivolous Frenchman and drove the game on until it became too much for his fellow countrymen. Herr Camphausen is a capable-minded and calm German and will know how far he can go. 

To be sure, when one is as sure of one’s people as Herr Camphausen is of his “agreement-men”, one saves time and arguments in this way. One cuts off the opposition’s speech pretty well altogether when one makes every point a cabinet question. That is why this method is also best fitted for resolute men who know once and for all what they want, and for whom all further useless chatter becomes intolerable — for men like Duchâtel and Hansemann. For men of discussion, however, who love “in a great debate to express and exchange their views, about the past and the present as well as about the future” (Camphausen, sitting of 31 May), for men who stand on the ground of principle and survey the events of the day with the penetrating gaze of the philosopher, for higher spirits like Guizot and Camphausen, this earthly little device, as our Minister President will find in his practice, cannot be at all suitable. Let him leave it to his Duchâtel, Hansemann, and keep to the higher sphere in which we so gladly observe him. 

32 

[„Neue Rheinische Zeitung“ 
No. 4 of 4 June 1848] 

** Cologne, 3 June. It is known that the French National Assembly of 1789 was preceded by an Assembly of Notables, an assembly which was composed by estates just like the Prussian United Diet. In the decree by which Minister Necker convoked the National Assembly, he referred to the demand voiced by the Notables for the convocation of the Estates-General. Minister Necker thus had a significant advantage over Minister Camphausen. He did not need to await the storming of the Bastille and the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in order subsequently to link the old to the new in a doctrinaire fashion, in order thus laboriously to preserve the semblance that France had arrived at the new constituent assembly through the legal means of the old constitution. He had yet other advantages. He was minister of France and not minister of Lorraine and Alsace, whereas Herr Camphausen is not minister of Germany, but minister of Prussia. And with all these advantages, Minister Necker did not succeed in turning a revolutionary movement into a quiet reform. The great disease was not to be healed with attar of roses.” Still less will Herr Camphausen alter the character of the movement by an artificial theory that draws a straight line between his ministry and the old conditions of the Prussian monarchy. The March revolution, the German revolutionary movement in general, cannot be transformed by any artifice into more or less significant intervening incidents. Was Louis-Philippe elected King of the French because he was a Bourbon? Was he elected although he was a Bourbon? It will be recalled that this question divided the parties shortly after the July revolution. 

Das Ministerium Camphausen 33 

What did the question itself prove? That the revolution was called into question, that the interest of the revolution was not the interest of the class that had come to power and its political representatives. 

The same significance attaches to Herr Camphausen’s declaration that his ministry came into the world not through the March revolution, but after the March revolution. 

Written by Karl Marx. 

3 Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 5 

Die Kriegskomödie'”” 

[„Neue Rheinische Zeitung“ 
No. 5 of 5 June 1848] 

* Schleswig-Holstein. In truth, the annals of all history have no such campaign, no so striking an interplay between armed force and diplomacy to show as our unified-German-national war with little Denmark now offers! The great deeds of the old imperial army with its six hundred commanders, general staffs and councils of war, the mutual chicaneries of the commanders of the coalition of 1792, the orders and counter-orders of the late Imperial-Royal Court War Council, all that — is serious, gripping and tragic compared to the military comedy which the new German Federal Army!” is currently staging in Schleswig-Holstein to the resounding laughter of all Europe. 

Let us briefly follow the intrigue of this comedy. 

The Danes advance from Jutland and land troops in North Schleswig. The Prussians and Hanoverians occupy Rendsburg and the Eider line. The Danes, in spite of all German boasting, a swift, courageous people, attack quickly and throw the Schleswig-Holstein army back onto the Prussians by means of a battle. The latter look on calmly. 

At last the order to advance comes from Berlin. The united German troops attack the Danes and crush them near Schleswig by superior force. The victory is decided notably by the skill with which the Pomeranian guardsmen, as once at Grossbeeren and Dennewitz!*], handle the butt-end. Schleswig is reconquered and Germany is jubilant over the heroic deed of its army. 

Meanwhile the Danish fleet — not counting twenty ships of importance in all — captures German merchantmen, blockades all German ports, and covers the crossings to the islands, whither the army withdraws. Jutland is abandoned and partly occupied by the Prussians, who levy a contribution of 2 million in specie. 

Die Kriegskomödie 35 

Before, however, even a single taler of the contribution has come in, England makes mediation proposals on the basis of a withdrawal and the neutrality of Schleswig, and Russia sends threatening notes. Herr Camphausen walks right into the snare, and on his orders the Prussians, drunk with victory, withdraw from Veile to the Kolding Fjord, to Hadersleben, to Apenrade, to Flensburg. Immediately the Danes, who had vanished until now, are there again; they pursue the Prussians day and night, they spread disorder in their retreat, they land on every corner, defeat the troops of the 10th Federal Army Corps at Sundewitt and yield only to superior numbers. In the engagement of 30 May, the butt-ends again decided the issue, this time swung by the honest fists of the Mecklenburgers. The German residents flee with the Prussians, the whole of North Schleswig is abandoned to devastation and plunder, the Danebrog* flies once more in Hadersleben and Apenrade. It is evident that the Prussian soldiers of all ranks obey orders in Schleswig just as well as in Berlin. 

Suddenly an order comes from Berlin: the Prussians are to advance again. Now it is merrily forward once more to the north. But the comedy is still a long way from its end. We shall wait and see where the Prussians will receive the order to retreat this time. | 

In short, it is a veritable country dance, a martial ballet, which the Camphausen ministry is having performed for its own amusement and for the glory of the German nation. 

Let us not forget only that the lighting of the stage is provided by burning Schleswig villages, and the chorus by the vengeful shouts of Danish marauders and free corps. 

In this affair the Camphausen ministry has attested to its high calling to represent Germany abroad. Schleswig, twice abandoned to Danish invasion through its fault, will retain the first diplomatic experiment of our “responsible” ministers in grateful remembrance. 

Let us rely upon the wisdom and energy of the Camphausen ministry! 

1 Danish state flag 
3*