The Insurrection of May 1849 (Engels)

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This article was based on Engels’ letter to Paul Lafargue of November 14, 1885 (see present edition, Vol. 47). On November 13 Engels was requested to write it by Lafargue, who was preparing Engels’ biography for a series on outstanding international socialists carried by Le Socialiste. The article was anonymously printed by the newspaper on November 21, 1885 as the second part of Engels’ biography. The paper also carried Engels’ portrait by Clarus sent to Engels by Lafargue together with the letter of November 13.

Part of this article was published in English for the first time in Marx K., Engels F., Writings on the Paris Commune, New York-London, 1971, p. 234.

The insurrection of May 1849, which roused the Rhenish provinces and South Germany to revolt, was provoked by the refusal of most of the governments of the small states to accept the constitution approved by the National Assembly at Frankfurt. This Assembly never had any real power and, to make matters worse, had neglected to take the necessary steps to acquire some; once it had finished its constitution on paper it lost the last remains of its moral power. Although rather romantic, the constitution was the sole banner to rally around to try to launch a new movement, even if it meant not implementing it after the victory.

The rising started in Dresden on 3 May; a few days later it spread to the Bavarian Palatinate and the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Grand Duke hastened to flee as soon as he had seen the troops fraternising with the people.

The Prussian Government, which had crushed the revolutionary movement in November 1848, disarmed Berlin and placed Prussia under a state of siege, became the protector of all the governments of the other states. It immediately sent troops to Dresden who, after four days of fighting and heroic resistance, defeated the insurgents.

But to subdue the Palatinate and the Duchy of Baden an army was needed: in order to form it, Prussia had to call the Landwehr to arms. At Iserlohn (Westphalia) and Elberfeld (Rhenish Prussia) men refused to march. Troops were sent. The towns barricaded themselves and repulsed them. Iserlohn was taken after two days of fighting. Elberfeld offering no opportunities for resistance, the insurgents, about a thousand in number, resolved to force a way through the troops surrounding them and to reach the south in full revolt. They were cut to pieces, and their commander, Mirbach, was taken prisoner; nevertheless, a large number of insurgents, aided by the populace of the countryside, did manage to get through to the south. Engels was Mirbach’s aide-de-camp; but the latter, before putting his plan into action, sent him on a mission to Cologne, which was in the hands of the Prussian army. The truth is that Mirbach did not want to have this known communist in his corps, lest he should scare the bourgeois of the country which he intended to pass through.

In the meantime the rising spread throughout the south of Germany; but as in Paris in 1871 the revolutionaries committed the fatal blunder of not attacking. The troops of the surrounding small states were demoralised and looking for an excuse to join the insurrection: at that time they were determined not to fight against the people. The insurgents could have got the population to rise up and join them by announcing that they were going to the rescue of the Frankfurt Assembly, surrounded by Prussian and Austrian troops. Engels and Marx, after the suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, went to Mannheim to propose to the leaders of the movement that they should march on Frankfurt. They refused to listen to them. They pleaded as an excuse that the troops were disorganised by the flight of their former officers, that they were short of ammunition, etc.

Whereas the insurgents remained with shouldered arms, the Prussians, united with the Bavarians and reinforced by the troops of the small states, which the insurgents could have won over with greater daring, advanced in forced marches on the rebellious areas. The reactionary army, 36,000 men strong, cleared the Palatinate in a week of the 8-9,000 insurgents who were occupying it: it must be said that the two fortresses of the country had remained in the hands of reaction. The revolutionary army fell back on the Baden troops comprising roughly 10,000 men of the line and 12,000 irregulars. There were four general engagements: the reactionary forces were only victorious thanks to their numerical superiority and to the violation of Württemberg territory, which allowed them to turn the revolutionary army’s flank at the decisive moment. After six weeks of fighting in the open country the remains of the rebel army had to take refuge in Switzerland. During this last campaign Engels was aide-de-camp to Colonel Willich, commander of a corps of communist irregulars. He took part in three engagements and in the final decisive battle of the Murg. Colonel Willich, having fled to the United States, died with the rank of general, which he won during the war of secession.

This stubborn resistance in open country, mounted by a few thousand insurgents with no organisation and almost without artillery against a skilfully disciplined Prussian army, shows what our friends, the socialists beyond the Rhine, will be able to achieve the day the revolutionary clarion call rings out in Europe.