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

CHAPTER X.
THE LAST EFFORTS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM. JUNE, 1848-MARCH, 1849.

Difference of the Prussian movement from the other March movements.—The Silesian question.—The Rhine Province.—The Berlin workmen.—The grievances of the other Prussian Liberals.—Hansemann and his concessions.—The proposal of a Workmen's Parliament.—The "German" movement in Prussia.—The fall of Hansemann.—The reaction in Berlin.—The deputation to Potsdam.—"Das Unglück der Könige."—"Brandenburg in the Chamber, or the Chamber in Brandenburg."—The struggle between the Parliament and the King.—The refusal to pay taxes.—The final dissolution.—Value of the resistance of the Prussian Liberals.—The offer of the Crown of Germany to Frederick William.—Consequences of his refusal.—Abdication of Ferdinand of Austria.—The Parliament at Kremsier.—Its character.—Its dissolution.—Difficulties of Pius IX. and of his Ministers.—Rossi as Prime Minister.—The contradictions in his position.—His opposition to Italian ideas.—His murder.—The rising in Rome.—The democratic Ministry.—The flight to Gaeta.—Mamiani's theories.—The Forli petition.—The summons to the Roman Assembly.—Leopold of Tuscany and Guerrazzi.—Flight of the Grand Duke.—Guerrazzi and Mazzini.—Difficulties of Gioberti.—His schemes for restoring the Pope and the Grand Duke.—Their failure.—Radetzky's breaches of faith in Lombardy.—The appeal of the Lombards.—The declaration of war by Charles Albert.—Attitude of the Roman Assembly.—Mazzini's appeal and its effect.—The blunders of Charles Albert and his officers.—Tito Speri at Brescia.—"Defeat more glorious than victory."—The "Tiger of Brescia."—Novara.—Abdication of Charles Albert.—End of the "Constitutional" efforts for freedom.

While the Frankfort Parliament had been discussing personal liberties, Constitutional arrangements, and the relation of the different races to each other; while in Italy, Hungary, and Bohemia the questions of national independence and race equality had thrown every other into the background; while in Vienna the republican aspirations of the students, the contest between German and Bohemian, and the discontent of the workmen, had all merged into one common element of confusion, so as at last to make government impossible; in Prussia the condition of the workmen had assumed a position of such paramount importance, during the period from April to August, as to obscure even the most pressing Constitutional questions. The workmen's petition had been the first step in the March movement in Berlin; and the miseries of the Silesian famine had quickened the desire for the improvement of the condition of the poor. This Silesian question, indeed, may perhaps be reckoned as the chief cause of the difference between the Prussian movement, and those which were taking place in the other countries of Europe. In that unfortunate province, the aristocracy seem to have tried to combine the maintenance of their old feudal power with such advantages as they could gain from modern commercial ideas. Thus the millers, who carried on the chief industry of Silesia, still paid enormous dues to the landlords for the use of their mills, while, at the same time, the landlords would start mills of their own in competition with the millers, who were paying dues to them; and, as the landlord was free from those imposts, he was often able to ruin those who were at once his rivals and dependents. Other dues of a peculiar kind were paid for protection supposed to be given by the landlord; others, again, were exacted under the pretext of supplying education to the children; while at the same time excessive preservation of game was hindering the natural development of agriculture. At the same time on the Western side of Prussia, in the Rhine Province, the French influence was colouring the feelings of the population; and the socialistic June risings in Paris excited the sympathies of the citizens of Cologne.

All these causes, combined with those new hopes for a change of condition which had been roused by the Revolution, tended to excite the workmen of Berlin to action of a more definitely socialistic kind than was possible even in Vienna; and on May 21 the workmen's union of Berlin called upon all the unions of workmen throughout the Kingdom to send representatives to the capital. This naturally tended to fix the attention of the Prussian politicians on the questions specially affecting the working classes; and Hansemann, a moderate Conservative, promised to bring forward measures for curing the distresses of the workmen. In Berlin, as elsewhere, the suffering classes found that these things were more easily promised than fulfilled; and the disappointment of their hopes produced a continual tendency to riot and disorder.

But the discontent roused by these causes was considerably strengthened by other grievances of a different kind. The aristocratic character of the Prussian Constitution which was proclaimed in April, had excited indignation in members of the Prussian Liberal party, who had little sympathy with socialistic agitations. The return of the Prince of Prussia to Berlin was reckoned as a sign of still further reactionary intentions on the part of the Government; while a more justifiable ground of complaint than either of these was found in the cruelties with which General Pfuel was stamping out in Posen a movement originally sanctioned by the Prussian King and Parliament. He had stirred up riots and encouraged the Germans to insult the Poles, some of whom were branded and had their heads shaved; their priests had been murdered, and images desecrated. These cruelties and insults provoked not only anger, but fear; for some of the Prussian Liberals believed that the troops then used against the Poles might end in trampling out the liberties of Berlin. If we add to these causes of discontent that tyrannical conduct of the Prussian soldiers in Mainz, which had so provoked the Frankfort Liberals; the apparent defiance to the French Republic, by the massing of troops in the Rhine Province, combined with the neglect to guard the North-eastern frontier of Prussia against the Russian troops which were fast gathering there; and last, but not least, the sluggishness and hesitation shown in the Schleswig-Holstein war, we shall see how naturally the bitter disappointment of the workmen chimed in with the feelings of suspicion felt by other classes of Liberals. The Berlin students, indeed, endeavoured to prevent the workmen from continually betaking themselves to violence; but they were unable to accomplish much in this direction. The workmen had despaired of peaceable remedies; and on June 8 they broke into the Assembly, attacked the Ministers, and were with difficulty restored to order.

This state of things naturally produced a general feeling of suspicion and bitterness among all classes; and while, on the one side, a movement began in Berlin, and some of the other Prussian towns, in favour of a more Conservative Ministry, and the extreme champions of reaction even talked of removing the Parliament to Potsdam, the miseries of Silesia and Posen so roused the feelings of the Prussian Democrats that every step in the Conservative direction, however apparently innocent, gave cause for new outbreaks. Thus when new gates were put up to bar the entrance to the royal castle at Berlin, they were seized and carried off by the crowd; and when a deputation of thirty starving workmen, bearing the German flag, with the red flag by its side, were repulsed by the Ministers, there arose a cry for the general arming of the people; and when this was refused, the workmen stormed the armoury and carried off about 3,000 weapons.

The Ministry now became alarmed for the peace of Berlin; and, in spite of a decision of the Assembly to the contrary, they sent for three new battalions of militia, and prosecuted the men who had taken part in the attack on the armoury. The time, however, had not yet come for a complete reaction; and it was therefore unavoidable that concessions should be made to so strong a popular movement. So on June 23 Camphausen fell; Hansemann, who had promised relief to the workmen, formed a Ministry; and on the same day a scheme was brought forward in the Prussian Parliament, for abolishing the feudal dues. Hansemann further promised to develope municipal government; and he repudiated the attacks which Camphausen had made on the March movement. Then proposals were brought forward, with the approval of the Minister of Trade, for a Commission of Enquiry into the condition of the Silesian workmen. But the workmen were determined, to a great extent, to keep matters in their own hands; and the proposal for a conference of their unions had now grown into a demand for a Workmen's Parliament which was to meet in August, and to carry out a great many points of the modern socialistic programme; such as the guarantee of work for all; the care by the State for those who were helpless or out of work; the regulation of hours of labour; and the support by the State of workmen's associations. And if the programme of Hansemann did not prevent workmen from insisting on their extremer demands, neither did it suppress the riotous methods by which they asserted their claims. Many members of the Assembly were still alarmed by hearing of attacks on machinery in Breslau, and by seeing demonstrations of workmen in Berlin; and the provision of special work on the railways produced just as much, and just as little satisfaction, as such temporary expedients usually do.

In the meantime the growing collision between the power of Prussia and the power of the Assembly at Frankfort was exciting new divisions in Berlin. During the months of June and July the democratic feeling in Prussia had been strongly in favour of Frankfort as against Berlin; while, on the other hand, the military party desired more and more to assert the independence of the King of Prussia against any central Parliament, and more particularly against one which had given its highest post to an Austrian prince. The workmen's movement thus, by a natural process, began to be coloured by the desire of the more cultivated Liberals for a united Germany; and the special demands of the workmen began to fall into the background as the larger questions of the freedom and unity of the whole country came more prominently to the front. The fears of the Ministry were naturally increased by this alliance; and early in August several members of the Prussian Left were suddenly arrested; and amongst them Rodbertus, one of the more moderate members who had helped to place Hansemann in power. The new quarrel threatened to be as bitter as the old one; collisions took place in various parts of the kingdom between the Prussian soldiers and the champions of German unity; and when the members of the Left began to demand the dismissal from the army of reactionary officers, and to make demonstrations against the Ministry, the Ministers met them by passing a law for the suppression of public meetings, while the fiercer reactionists circulated a petition in favour of making the Prince of Prussia the Commander-in-Chief of the forces.

The truce of Malmö brought the crisis to a head; and the members of the Left resolved that if the Ministry would not remove the reactionary officers, the Liberal members would leave the Assembly. Thus the Schleswig-Holstein crisis consolidated completely the different elements of opposition; and on September 16 a vote of want of confidence in the Hansemann Ministry was carried in the Assembly. The greatest enthusiasm was roused by this vote; the members who voted for it were carried on the shoulders of the people, and it seemed, for a moment, as if a constitutional solution had been found for the difficulties of Prussia. But the riots at Frankfort, and the triumph which they secured to the reactionary party in Parliament, gave new courage to the King of Prussia in resisting the opposition; and he entrusted the formation of a Ministry to General Brandenburg, a man of more fiercely despotic principles than any who had recently held office. New prosecutions were begun; and, for the first time since the March insurrection, a newspaper was seized and confiscated. The Liberals, however, were not disposed to yield; and, as if to strengthen their alliance with the champions of provincial and class liberties, they carried by a small majority a motion in favour of securing special rights to the province of Posen, and adopted unanimously a report for finding work for the spinners and weavers in certain parts of the kingdom; while demonstrations were made in favour of sending help to Vienna in its struggle against Windischgrätz.