Letters from Germany (Engels)

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Note from MECW :

Letters from Germany by Engels, as well as his series of articles Letters from France were written for the Chartist journal The Democratic Review of British and Foreign Politics, History and Literature published by George Julian Harney in 1849 and 1850. Harney had invited Engels to make regular contributions to the new journal as early as March 1849. But Engels was only able to start contributing in November 1849, when he came to London. In London Marx and Engels established close contacts with the revolutionary wing of the Chartist party and used The Democratic Review to disseminate the ideas of scientific communism and explain the character of events on the Continent to the English working people.

I.

Source: MECW Volume 10, p. 7-9;

Written: Cologne, Dec. 18th, 1849;

First published: in The Democratic Review, January 1850.

"Order reigns in Germany." Such is the present great motto of our rulers, be they princes, aristocrats, bourgeois, or any other fraction of that recently formed party which you might call in English the party of Ordermongers. "Order reigns in Germany"; and yet never was there, not even under the "Holy Roman Empire" of yore, such a confusion in Germany as there is at present under the reign of "Order".

Under the old system, before the revolution of 1848, we knew at least who governed us. The old Federal Diet of Frankfort made itself felt by laws against the liberty of the press, by exceptional courts of law, by checks imposed even upon the mock constitutions with which certain German populations were allowed to delude themselves. But now! We hardly know, ourselves, how many Central Governments we have got in this country. There is, firstly, the Vicar of the Empire, instituted by the dispersed National Assembly, and who, although without any power, sticks to his post with the greatest obstinacy. There is secondly the "Interim", a sort of thing--nobody knows exactly what--but something like a revival of the old Diet, got up under the old prevalent influence of Prussia, and which "Interim" is poking at the old Vicar (who more or less represents the Austrian interest), to resign his place into their hands. In the meantime neither has the slightest power. Thirdly, there is the "Regency of the Empire", elected in Stuttgart by the National Assembly during the latter days of its existence, and the remains of that Assembly, the "Decided Left" and the "Extreme Left", which two Lefts, along with the "Regency", represent the "moderate and philosophical" Democrats and Shopocrats of Germany. This "Imperial" government holds its sittings in a public house in Berne in Switzerland," and has about as much power as the two preceding. Fourthly, there is what is called the Three-Kings'-League, or the "Confined (or Refined, I don't know which) Federal State", got up for the purpose of making the King of Prussia Emperor over all the lesser states of Germany. It is called the "Three-Kings'-League" because all kings, with the exception of the King of Prussia, are opposed to it! and it calls itself the "Confined Federal State", because, although travailing in birth ever since the 28th of May last, there is no hope of its ever producing anything likely to live!! There are, fifthly, the Four Kings, of Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg, who are determined to do as they like themselves, and not to submit to any of the above "Central Impotencies"; and lastly, there is Austria, trying every means to keep up her supremacy in Germany, and supporting, therefore, the Four Kings in their efforts for independence from Prussian ascendancy. The real governments. in the meantime, those who hold the power, are Austria and Prussia. They rule Germany by military despotism, and make and unmake laws at their liking. Between their dominions and dependencies lie, as quasi neutral ground, the four kingdoms, and it will be upon this ground, and particularly in Saxony, that the pretensions of the two great powers will meet each other. There is, however, no chance of a serious conflict between them. Austria and Prussia, both, know too well that their forces must remain united if they want to keep down the revolutionary spirit spread all over Germany, Hungary, and those parts of Poland belonging to the powers in question. In case of need, besides, "our beloved brother-in-law" the orthodox Czar of all the Russias, would step in and forbid his lords-lieutenant of Austria and Prussia to quarrel any more amongst themselves.

This never equalled confusion of governments, of pretensions, of claims, of German Federal Law, has, however, one enormous advantage. The German Republicans were, up to this time, divided into Federalists and Unitarians; the first having their principal force in the south. The confusion ensuing upon every attempt to re-organise Germany into a Federative State, must make it evident that any such plan will prove abortive, impracticable, and foolish, and that Germany is too advanced in civilisation to be governable under any form but the German Republic, One and Indivisible, Democratic and Social.

I should have liked to have said a few words on the acquittal of Waldeck and Jacoby, but want of room prevents me doing so. Suffice it to say, that for at least some months to come it will be quite impossible for the government in Prussia to obtain in political trials a verdict of guilty, excepting, perhaps, in some remote corners where the jury-class are as fanaticised as the Orangemen of Ulster.

II. Curious Revelations Concerning the Despots of Germany.-Intended War Against France.-The Coming Revolution

Source: MECW Volume 10, p. 10-13;

Written: Cologne, Jan. 20th, 1850;

First published: in The Democratic Review, February 1850.

The day after I sent you my last, news reached here of the "settlement of the question" who was to rule over all Germany. The "Interim", consisting of two Austrian and two Prussian delegates, have at last prevailed upon old Archduke John to retire from business. They have consequently taken the reins of a power which, however, will not be of long duration. It expires in the month of May next, and there is good reason to expect that even before that term certain "untoward events" will sweep away these four provisional rulers of Germany. The names of these four satellites of military despotism are very significant. Austria has sent M. Kubeck, minister of finance under Metternich, and General Schonhals, the right hand of the butcher Radetzki. Prussia is represented by General Radowitz, member of the Jesuit order, favourite of the king, and principal inventor of all those plots by which Prussia has succeeded, for the moment, in putting down the German revolution; and by M. Botticher, governor, before the revolution, of the province of Eastern Prussia, where he is fondly (?) remembered as a "putter down" of public meetings and organiser of the spy system. What the doings of such a lot of rogues will be you will not need to be told. I will name one instance only. The Wurtemberg government, forced by the revolution, had contracted with the Prince of Thurn and Taxis--who, you know, has the monopoly of forwarding letters by post and conveying of passengers in a large part of Germany, to the exclusion of the governments--the Wurtemberg government, I say, had contracted with this robber on a national scale to part, for a handsome sum, with his monopoly in favour of the said government. Times having got better for those who live upon national plunder, Prince Thurn and Taxis values his monopoly higher than the sum contracted for, and won't part with it. The Wurtemberg government, freed from the pressure from without, find this change of opinion quite reasonable; and both parties apply--the prince publicly, the government aforesaid secretly--to the "Interim", which, taking for pretext an article of the old act of 1815, declares the contract void and unlawful. This is all right. It is far better that M. Thurn and Taxis keeps his privilege a few months longer; the people, when they finish with the whole lot of privileges, will take it not only from him without giving him anything, but will, on the contrary, make him give up even the money he has robbed them of up to this time.

The military despotism in Austria is getting more intolerable every day. The press almost reduced to annihilation, all public liberties destroyed, the whole country swarming with spies--imprisonments, courts-martial, floggings in every part of the country--this is the practical meaning of those provincial constitutions which the government publish from time to time, and which they do not care a straw about breaking in the very moment of publication. There is, however, an end to everything, even to states of siege and the rule of the sword. Armies cost money, and money is a thing which even the mightiest emperor cannot create at his will. The Austrian government have, up to this time, managed to keep their finances afloat by tremendous issues of paper money. But there is an end to this, too; and, in spite of that Prussian lieutenant who once would challenge me to a duel, because I told him a king or emperor could not make as many paper dollars as he liked--in spite of that profound political economist, the Emperor of Austria sees his paper money, though inconvertible, at the discount of from twenty to thirty per cent against silver, and almost fifty per cent against gold. The foreign loan he intended has dropped to the ground through the exertions of Mr. Cobden. Foreign capitalists have subscribed to the amount of L500,000 only, and he wants fifteen times that sum; while his exhausted country cannot afford to lend him anything. The deficit, fifteen millions and a half at the end of September last, will, by this time, have reached from twenty to twenty-four millions--the greater part of the Hungarian war expenses being payable in the last quarter of 1849. Thus there is only one alternative for Austria: either bankruptcy, or a foreign war to make the army pay itself, and to reconquer commercial credit by battles gained, provinces conquered, and war contributions imposed. Thus Mr. Cobden, in opposing the Austrian and Russian loans on the plea of the preservation of peace, has more than any one else contributed--for Russia is in the same awkward state as Austria--to hasten that coalesced campaign against the French Republic which cannot, under any circumstances, be long delayed.

In Prussia, we assist at another act of "royal conscientiousness". You know that Frederick William IV, the man who never broke his word, in November, 1848, dispersed by force the national representation, and forced upon his people a constitution after his own heart; that he agreed that this beautiful piece of workmanship was to be revised by the first parliament to be assembled; that in this parliament the Second Chamber (House of Commons) was, even before they got to the revising business, dissolved, another electoral reform forced upon the people, by which universal suffrage was very nicely done away with, and a majority of landed nobility, of government officials, and of bourgeois, was secured. This Chamber, to vote for the election of which every democrat refused, so that it has been elected by one fifth or one-sixth of the whole number of voters — this Chamber, in conjunction with the old First Chamber, set about revising the Constitution, and made it, of course, even more agreeable to the king than he himself had made it originally. They have now almost done with it. Now, you think, his Majesty will please to accept this amended Constitution, and take the oath prescribed in it? Not he, indeed. He sends his faithful parliament a royal message, stating that he is very much pleased with what his two Chambers have made of his Constitution, but that, before his "royal conscientiousness" permits him to take the oath aforesaid, his own Constitution must be altered in about a dozen points. And what are these points? Why, his Majesty is modest enough not to require any more than the following trifles. 1. The First Chamber, now elected by the large landed proprietors and capitalists, to be a complete House of Lords, containing the royal princes, about one hundred hereditary peers chosen by his Majesty, sixty peers elected by the large landed proprietors, thirty by the large monied interest, six by the universities. 2. Ministers to be responsible to the king and country, not to the parliament. 3. All taxes now upon the budget to be levied for ever, without power of parliament to refuse. 4. A “Star Chamber”, or High Court of Justice, to try political offences — no mention being made of juries. 5. A special law to define and restrain the powers of the Second Chamber of parliament, &c. Now what do you think of this? His Majesty forces upon the good Prussians a new Constitution, to be amended by parliament. His parliament amends it by striking out everything like a remnant of popular rights. And the king, not content with that, declares that his "royal conscientiousness" forbids him to accept his own Constitution, amended in his own interest, without the above further modifications. Verily this is a truly "royal" sort of conscientiousness! There is little chance of even this present mock parliament bowing to such impudence. The consequence will be dissolution, and the end of all parliaments for the moment in Prussia. The secret of all this is the anticipation of the great coalition war, mentioned above. The "conscientious" gentleman on the throne of Prussia expects to have his rebellious country overrun by the month of March or April, by a million of Asiatic barbarians, to march, along with "his own glorious army", against Paris, to conquer that fair country which produces his heart-cherished champagne. And the Republic once done away with, the scion of Saint Louis restored to the throne of France, what then would be the use of constitutions and parliaments at home?

In the meantime the revolutionary spirit is rapidly reviving all over Germany. The most inveterate ex-liberal who, after March, 1848, joined the king to combat the people, now sees that--as the saying is in Germany--although he gave to the devil only the end of his little finger, that gentleman has since seized the whole hand. The incessant acquittals by juries in political trials are the best proofs of this. Every day brings a new fact in this way. Thus, a few days ago, the Mulheim workpeople--who, in May, 1849, tore up the railway, in order to stop the sending of troops to insurged Elberfeld--have been acquitted here at Cologne. In the south of Germany, financial difficulties and increased taxation show to every bourgeois that this present state cannot last. In Baden the very same bourgeois who betrayed the last insurrection, and hailed the arrival of the Prussians, are punished and driven to madness by these very same Prussians and by the government, which under their protection drives them to ruin and despair. And the working people and peasantry everywhere are on the qui vive, waiting for the signal of an insurrection which, this time, will not subside until the political dominion and social progress of the proletarians shall have been secured. And this revolution is drawing nigh.

III. The Prussian King Swearing to the Constitution and "Serving the Lord!".-Grand Conspriacy of the Holy Alliance.-The Approaching Onslaught on Switzerland.-Projected Conquest and Partition of France!

Source: MECW Volume 10, p. 14-16;

Written: Cologne, Feb. 18th, 1850;

First published: in The Democratic Review in January-March 1850, marked by the editors "From Our Own Correspondent"

At last His Majesty, the King of Prussia, has taken the oath to the so-called "Constitution". Had it not been for the occasion of making a speech, there is no doubt but that royal farce would never have taken place. But his speech-loving majesty, for the sake of the speech, resolved to swallow the oath, quite as humbly as he has been seen to swallow so many unpalatable things before, such as the celebrated "Hat off!" shouted to him by the people of Berlin on the 19th of March, 1848. The oath is of no consequence. What is the oath of a king, and particularly of a Frederick William IV! The speech is the principal feature, and a precious speech it is. Think of the Prussian Majesty declaring most seriously, and neither him nor any one else in the assembly bursting forth in laughter, that he is a man of honour, and that he is about to give what is dearest to him--his royal word! But, he continues--after a series of most whimsical oratorical efforts--he gives his word on one condition only: that it be made possible for him to govern with this constitution, and to fulfil the promise he made three years ago, viz., "I and my house will serve the Lord!"

What this new-fashioned "man of honour" means by governing with the constitution and serving the Lord, is already becoming pretty clear. His Majesty's ministers have come out since that swearing farce; firstly, with two laws, doing almost entirely away with the liberty of the press and the right of association and of public meeting; secondly, with a demand for eighteen millions of dollars (two millions and a half sterling) for increasing the army. The meaning of this is evident. First destroy in detail the few sham liberties left to the people by the precious mock-constitution, and then raise the army to the war footing, and march with Russia and Austria against France. There is no doubt of the bourgeois chambers agreeing to all this, and thus making it possible to the king to govern with the constitution, and serve the Lord with his house.

This Prussian credit for the army "to meet eventualities which might present themselves during spring", must be taken, together with the other measures of the Holy Alliance, in order to make us see clearly through their plots. Prussia, besides these eighteen millions, is already treating for a loan of sixteen millions--ostensibly for the purpose of constructing the great Eastern Railway. You know, too well, since the Russian loan affair, what a splendid pretext for raising money railways are made by the governments of the Holy Alliance. Prussia, thus, will soon raise five millions sterling the whole of which will be at the disposal of the war-office. Russia, besides the five millions sterling already raised, is about to contract for another loan of thirty-six millions of roubles silver, or five millions sterling. Austria alone, after the shabby result of her late effort to raise money, must be satisfied with what she can get at home. Her deficit, as I stated in my last, really amounts to two hundred million florins (twenty millions sterling) in one year! Thus, while Russia and Prussia raise money to make war, Austria must make war in order to raise money!

There is no doubt that if there are no untoward events in France, the "holy" campaign will be opened next month against Switzerland," and perhaps Turkey. Russia keeps in Poland, and its vicinity, an army of 350,000 men, ready to march at a moment's notice. She has already contracted for large supplies of victuals, to be delivered next month, not in Poland, but in Prussia, at Dantzic. The Prussian army--about 150,000 now--can in a month be raised to 350,000, by calling in the reserve and the first class of the Landwehr. The Austrian army--about 650,000--has never been diminished, but, on the contrary, increased by the Hungarian prisoners. The whole of the forces, which may be disposable for a foreign war, may be something like a million; but two-thirds of the Prussians and Austrians are infected with the democratic disease, and would most likely pass to the other side, as soon as an opportunity presented itself.

The first pretext for attacking Switzerland is the German refugees living in that country. This pretext will soon cease to exist, as the cowardly persecutions of the federal government directly or indirectly force all refugees to leave Switzerland. There are now perhaps 600 German refugees in that country, and even they will soon have to leave it. But then there is another pretext--the demand of Prussia to restore the Prussian king's authority in the ex-principality of Neufchatel, which made itself a republic in 1848. And if even this be complied with, there will be the question of the Sonderbund raised again, in connection with the new federal constitution, which, in 1848, replaced the old reactionary treaty of 1814, guaranteed by the Holy Alliance. Thus, there will be no chance for Switzerland escaping war and foreign occupation.

But the final aim of the Holy Alliance is the conquest and partition of France. The plan designed to finish at once this great revolutionary centre is as follows: France, once conquered, will be divided into three kingdoms--the South-west, or Aquitania (capital, Bordeaux), will be given to Henry, Duke of Bordeaux; the East, or Burgundy (capital, Lyons), will be given to Prince Joinville; and the North, or France proper (capital, Paris), will be awarded to Louis Napoleon, for the signal services he has rendered to the Holy Alliance. Thus France, reduced to the old state of division it was in some centuries ago, would be utterly powerless. What do you say to this pretty scheme, which no doubt originated in the "historical" head of the king of Prussia?

But, be assured, the People--without whom the Holy Alliance have reckoned--will very soon put a stop to all these plots and schemes, and that as soon, too, as the Holy Alliance commence to put their plans into execution. For the people are wide awake, both in France and Germany, and, fortunately, they are strong enough to put down all their opponents, as soon as matters are brought to a general, decisive, and open contest. And then the enemies of democracy will, to their terror, see that the movements of 1848 and '49 were nothing, in comparison to the universal conflagration which will burn up the old institutions of Europe, and light the victorious nations to a future--free, happy, and glorious.