The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany / With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years

by C. Edmund Maurice

These signs of weakness were no doubt observed by the Government; and it was not wonderful that, under these circumstances, Metternich and Kolowrat should have been able to persuade themselves that they could still play with the Viennese, and put them off with promises which need never be performed. Archduke Louis alone seems to have foreseen the coming storm, but was unable to persuade his colleagues to make military preparations to meet it. In the meantime the movement among the students was assuming more decided proportions; and their demands related as usual to the great questions of freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, and freedom of teaching; and to these were now added the demand for popular representation, the justifications for which they drew from Kossuth's speech of March 3.

But, while Hungary supplied the model of Constitutional Government, the hope for a wider national life connected itself more and more with the idea of a united Germany. Two days after the delivery of Kossuth's speech an impulse had been given to this latter feeling by the meeting at Heidelberg of the leading supporters of German unity; and they had elected a committee of seven to prepare the way for a Constituent Assembly at Frankfort. Of these seven, two came from Baden, one from Würtemberg, one from Hesse Darmstadt, one from Prussia, one from Bavaria, and one from Frankfort. Thus it will be seen that South Germany still kept the lead in the movement for German unity; and the President of the Committee was that Izstein, of Baden, who had been chiefly known to Germany by his ill-timed expulsion from Berlin. But, though this distribution of power augured ill for the relations between the leaders of the German movement and the King of Prussia, yet the meeting at Heidelberg was not prepared to adopt the complete programme of the Baden leaders, nor to commit itself definitely to that Republican movement which would probably have repelled the North German Liberals.

The chief leader of the more moderate party in the meeting was Heinrich von Gagern, the representative of Hesse Darmstadt. Gagern was the son of a former Minister of the Grand Duke of Nassau, who had left that State to take service in Austria, and who had acted with the Archduke John in planning a popular rising in the Tyrol in 1813. Heinrich had been trained at a military school in Munich. He had steadily opposed the policy of Metternich, had done his best to induce the Universities to co-operate in a common German movement, and had tried to secure internal liberties for Hesse Darmstadt, while he had urged his countrymen to look for the model of a free Constitution rather to England and Hungary than to France. During the Constitutional movement of 1848 he had become Prime Minister of Hesse Darmstadt; and he seems to have had considerable power of winning popular confidence. Although he was not able to commit the meeting to a definitely monarchical policy, he had influence enough to counteract the attempts of Struve and Hecker to carry a proposal for the proclamation of a Republic; and his influence steadily increased during the later phases of the movement.

It was obvious that, in the then state of Viennese feeling, a movement in favour of German unity, at once so determined and so moderate in its character, would give new impulse to the hopes for freedom already excited by Kossuth's speech; and the action of the reformers now became more vigorous because the students rather than the professors were guiding the movement. Some of the latter, and particularly Professor Hye, were beginning to be alarmed, and were attempting to hold their pupils in check. This roused the distrust and suspicion of the students; and it was with great difficulty that Professors Hye and Endlicher could prevail on the younger leaders of the movement to abstain from action until the professors had laid before the Emperor the desire of the University for the removal of Metternich. This deputation waited on the Emperor on March 12; but it proved of little avail; and when the professors returned with the answer that the Emperor would consider the matter, the students received them with loud laughter and resolved to take the matter into their own hands. The next day was to be the opening of the Assembly of the Estates of Lower Austria; and the students of Vienna resolved to march in procession from the University to the Landhaus.

In the great hall of the University, now hidden away in an obscure part of Vienna, but still retaining traces of the paintings which then decorated it, the students gathered in large numbers on the 13th of March. Various rumours of a discouraging kind had been circulated; this and that leading citizen was mentioned as having been arrested; nay, it was even said that members of the Estates had themselves been seized, and that the sitting of the Assembly would not be allowed to take place. To these rumours were added the warnings of the professors. Füster, who had recently preached on the duty of devotion to the cause of the country, now endeavoured, by praises of the Emperor, to check the desire of the students for immediate action; but he was scraped down. Hye then appealed to them to wait a few days, in hopes of a further answer from the Emperor. They answered with a shout that they would not wait an hour; and then they raised the cry of "Landhaus!" Breaking loose from all further restraint, they set out on their march, and, as they went, numbers gathered round them. The people of Vienna had already been appealed to, by a placard on St. Stephen's Church, to free the good Emperor Ferdinand from his enemies; and the placard further declared that he who wished for the rise of Austria must wish for the fall of the present Ministers of State. The appeal produced its effect; and the crowd grew denser as the students marched into the narrow Herren Gasse. They passed under the archway which led into the courtyard of the Landhaus; there, in front of the very building where the Assembly was sitting, they came to a dead halt; and, with the strange hesitation which sometimes comes over crowds, no man seemed to know what was next to be done. Suddenly, in the pause which followed, the words "Meine Herren" were heard from a corner of the crowd. It was evident that someone was trying to address them; and the students nearest to the speaker hoisted him on to their shoulders. Then the crowd saw a quiet-looking man, with a round, strong head, short-cropped hair, and a thick beard. Each man eagerly asked his neighbour who this could be; and, as the speech proceeded, the news went round that this was Dr. Fischhof, a man who had been very little known beyond medical circles, and hitherto looked upon as quite outside political movements. Such was the speaker who now uttered what is still remembered as the "first free word" in Vienna.

He began by dwelling on the importance of the day and on the need of "encouraging the men who sit there," pointing to the Landhaus, "by our appeal to them, of strengthening them by our adherence, and leading them to the desired end by our co-operation in action. He," exclaimed Fischhof, "who has no courage on such a day as this is only fit for the nursery." He then proceeded to dwell at some length on the need for freedom of the Press and trial by jury. Then, catching, as it were, the note of Kossuth's speech of the 3rd of March, he went on to speak of the greatness which Austria might attain by combining together "the idealist Germans, the steady, industrious, and persevering Slavs, the knightly and enthusiastic Magyars, the clever and sharp-sighted Italians." Finally, he called upon them to demand freedom of the Press, freedom of religion, freedom of teaching and learning, a responsible Ministry, representation of the people, arming of the people, and connection with Germany.[9]

In the meantime the Estates were sitting within. They had gathered in unusually large numbers, being persuaded by their president that they were bound to resist the stream of opinion. Representatives as they were of the privileged classes, they had little sympathy with the movement which was going on in Vienna. Nor does it appear that there was anyone among them who was disposed to play the part of a Confalonieri or Szechenyi, much less of a Mirabeau or a Lafayette. Many of them had heard rumours of the coming deputation; but Montecuccoli, their president, refused to begin the proceedings before the regular hour. While they were still debating this point they heard the rush of the crowd outside; then the sudden silence, and then Fischhof's voice. Several members were seized with a panic and desired to adjourn. Again Montecuccoli refused to yield, and one of their few Liberal members urged them to take courage from the fact of this deputation, and to make stronger demands on the Government.

But before the Assembly could decide how to act the crowd outside had taken sterner measures. The speakers who immediately followed Fischhof had made little impression; then another doctor, named Goldmark, sprang up and urged the people to break into the Landhaus. So, before the leaders of the Estates had decided what action to take, the doors were suddenly burst open, and Fischhof entered at the head of the crowd. He announced that he had come to encourage the Estates in their deliberations, and to ask them to sanction the demands embodied in the petition of the people. Montecuccoli assured the deputation that the Emperor had already promised to summon the provincial Assemblies to Vienna, and that, for their part, the Estates of Lower Austria were in favour of progress. "But," he added, "they must have room and opportunity to deliberate." Fischhof assented to this suggestion, and persuaded his followers to withdraw to the courtyard. But those who had remained behind had been seized with a fear of treachery, and a cry arose that Fischhof had been arrested. Thereupon Fischhof showed himself, with Montecuccoli, on the balcony; and the president promised that the Estates would send a deputation of their own to the Emperor to express to him the wishes of the people. He therefore invited the crowd to choose twelve men, to be present at the deliberations of the Estates during the drawing up of the petition. While the election of these twelve was still going on, a Hungarian student appeared with the German translation of Kossuth's speech. The Hungarian's voice being too weak to make itself heard, he handed the speech to a Tyrolese student, who read it to the crowd. The allusion to the need of a Constitution was received with loud applause, and so also was the expression of the hopes for good from the Archduke Francis Joseph.

But, however much the reading of the speech had encouraged the hopes of the crowd, it had also given time for the Estates to decide on a course, without waiting for the twelve representatives of the people; and, before the crowd had heard the end of Kossuth's speech, the reading was interrupted by a message from the Estates announcing the contents of their proposed petition. The petition had shrunk to the meagre demand that a report on the condition of the State bank should be laid before the Estates; and that a committee should be chosen from provincial Assemblies to consider timely reforms, and to take a share in legislation. The feeble character of the proposed compromise roused a storm of scorn and rage; and a Moravian student tore the message of the Estates into pieces. The conclusion of Kossuth's speech roused the people to still further excitement; and, with cries for a free Constitution, for union with Germany, and against alliance with Russia, the crowd once more broke into the Assembly. One of the leading students then demanded of Montecuccoli whether this was the whole of the petition they intended to send to the Emperor? Montecuccoli answered that the Estates had been so disturbed in their deliberations that they had not been able to come to a final decision. But he declared that they desired to lay before the Emperor all the wishes of the people. Again the leaders of the crowd repeated, in slightly altered form, the demands originally formulated by Fischhof. At last, after considerable discussion, Montecuccoli was preparing to start for the Castle at the head of the Estates when a regiment of soldiers arrived. They were, however, unable to make their way through the crowd, and were even pressed back out of the Herren Gasse.

The desire now arose for better protection for the people; and a deputation tried to persuade the Burgomaster of Vienna to call out the City Guard. Czapka, the Burgomaster, was, however, a mere tool of the Government; and he declared that the Archduke Albert, as Commander-in-Chief of the army, had alone the power of calling out the Guard. The Archduke Albert was, perhaps next to Louis, the most unpopular of the Royal House; he indignantly refused to listen to any demands of the people, and, hastening to the spot, rallied the soldiers and led them to the open space at the corner of the Herren Gasse, which is known as the Freyung. The inner circle of Vienna was at this time surrounded with walls, outside of which were the large suburbs in which the workmen chiefly lived. The students seem already to have gained some sympathy with the workmen; and, for the previous two years, the discontent caused by the sufferings of the poorer classes had been taking a more directly political turn. Several of the workmen had pressed in with the students, in the morning, into the inner town; and some big men, with rough darned coats and dirty caps over their eyes, were seen clenching their fists for the fight. The news quickly spread to the suburbs that the soldiers were about to attack the people. Seizing long poles and any iron tools which came to hand, the workmen rushed forward to the gates of the inner town. In one district they found the town gates closed against them, and cannon placed on the bastion near; but in others the authorities were unprepared; and the workmen burst into the inner town, tearing down stones and plaster to throw at the soldiers.