The Prussian Warrant for the Arrest of Kossuth

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Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 21 January 1849


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Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 8, p. 269;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 207, January 28, 1849.
Collection(s): Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Keywords : Arrest, Germany, Hungary, Lajos Kossuth, Repression, Revolutions of 1848

Cologne, January 21. We have just received the following edifying document published in the Oppelner Kreisblatt:

“Warrant of Arrest. According to a statement of the royal imperial Austrian governmental commission in Cracow, measures have been taken in Hungary to enable Kossuth under a false name to reach Hamburg via Breslau. It is supposed that he will take the route through Myslowitz, Gleiwitz and Kosel.

“On the basis of instructions from the Herr Oberpräsident of the province of Silesia, I order all police authorities, local courts and gendarmerie to keep a sharp look-out for Kossuth, whose description is given below, and in the event of his appearance on their territory to arrest him and to deliver him to me safely for further steps.”

(Here follows, as already stated, Kossuth’s description.) This edifying document is signed:

“Oppeln, January 17, 1849
Royal Landrat Hoffmann”

What have our readers to say to that? The Manteuffels of Upper Silesia by the grace of God would be quite pleased to arrest the great agitator Kossuth if he were defeated and succeeded in crossing the frontier, and to deliver him to his executioners for the speediest pardon with gunpowder and shot. If Kossuth is in actual fact handed over, this will be the most foul betrayal, the most infamous violation of international law that history has ever known.

Under the old legislation of the German Confederation,[1] of course, Prussia was obliged to hand over to German Austria, on the demand of the latter, political refugees charged with actions carried out on the territory of the German Confederation. The revolution overthrew the old legislation of the German Confederation, and even under the Pfuel Government refugees from Vienna were safe in Berlin.

But Prussia has no such obligations in relation to Hungary. Hungary is an independent state and if Prussia hands over Hungarian refugees who can be charged only with actions carried out on Hungarian territory, it commits the same disgraceful and infamous deed as if it handed over Russian or Polish refugees to Russia.

Even under the Bodelschwingh regime the authorities did not dare to hand over to Austria the refugees from Galicia and Cracow who had crossed the border into Prussia.[2] But, on the other hand, of course, at that time we were under an absolute monarchy, and today we are a constitutional state!

Moreover, if Kossuth crosses into Prussian territory he will not be a political refugee but a belligerent party that has crossed into neutral territory.

German Austria, an independent union of states, is waging war against Hungary, an independent state; the reason for it is no concern of Prussia’s. Even in 1831 the authorities did not dare to hand over to Russia the Poles who had crossed the border into Prussia[3]; but at that time, too, we were under an absolute monarchy, and today we are a constitutional state!

We draw the attention of public opinion to the benevolent intentions of the Prussian Government in regard to Kossuth. We are convinced that this will suffice to arouse such a storm of sympathy for the greatest man of the year 1848, and such a storm of indignation against the Government, that even a Manteuffel will not dare to oppose it.

But, of course, for the time being Kossuth still rules in Debreczin, with the enthusiastic support of the entire Magyar people; his valiant hussars still gallop over the Hungarian plains,[4] Windischgrätz still stands in perplexity facing the swamps of the Theiss, and your warrants of arrest are ridiculous rather than frightening!

  1. ↑ The German Confederation — an association of German states formed by the Vienna Congress on June 8, 1815. It initially included 34 states and 4 free cities with a feudal-absolutist system of government. The Confederation consolidated the political and economic fragmentation of Germany and retarded its development
  2. ↑ The reference is to the refugees who fled to Prussia from the free city of Cracow and from Galicia, which was under Austrian domination, after the suppression of the Cracow uprising and of the Ukrainian peasant movement in Galicia in 1846 The reference is to the events in early 1846. In February an unsuccessful attempt at a national liberation uprising was made in the Polish lands. Only in the Republic of Cracow, which from the Vienna Congress of 1815 had been under the joint control of Austria, Russia and Prussia, did the insurgents seize power on February 22 and create a National Government, which issued a manifesto abrogating all feudal obligations. The uprising was suppressed in early March 1846 and Cracow was again incorporated into the Austrian Empire. During the uprising the Austrian authorities provoked clashes between Ukrainian (Ruthenian) peasants and detachments of Polish insurgents, taking advantage of the oppressed peasants’ hatred of the Polish nobility. But when the uprising was crushed, the participants in the peasant movement in Galicia were subjected to severe repressions. The Ruthenians — the name given in nineteenth-century West-European ethnographical and historical works to the Ukrainian population of Galicia and Bukovina, which was separated at the time from the bulk of the Ukrainian people. The reference is to the joint actions of Austria, Prussia and Russia against the Cracow Republic during the national liberation uprising in the free city of Cracow, and the agreement concluded by these powers on incorporating Cracow into the Austrian Empire. The reference is to the events in early 1846. In February an unsuccessful attempt at a national liberation uprising was made in the Polish lands. Only in the Republic of Cracow, which from the Vienna Congress of 1815 had been under the joint control of Austria, Russia and Prussia, did the insurgents seize power on February 22 and create a National Government, which issued a manifesto abrogating all feudal obligations. The uprising was suppressed in early March 1846 and Cracow was again incorporated into the Austrian Empire. During the uprising the Austrian authorities provoked clashes between Ukrainian (Ruthenian) peasants and detachments of Polish insurgents, taking advantage of the oppressed peasants’ hatred of the Polish nobility. But when the uprising was crushed, the participants in the peasant movement in Galicia were subjected to severe repressions. The Ruthenians — the name given in nineteenth-century West-European ethnographical and historical works to the Ukrainian population of Galicia and Bukovina, which was separated at the time from the bulk of the Ukrainian people.
  3. ↑ Engels refers to the Polish national liberation insurrection of 1830-31. The majority of its participants were revolutionary nobles and most of its leaders came from the aristocracy. The insurrection was suppressed by Russian troops, with the support of Prussia and Austria. After the troops sent by Nicholas 1 captured Warsaw in September 1831, the remnants of the insurgent army crossed the Prussian and Austrian borders early in October and were interned there
  4. ↑ The Hungarian plains between the Danube and the Theiss
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