Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 397, November 1848. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ the continuance of our five florins a-day. So that, in the mean time, you may be sure we shall be moderate in that quarter. Bavaria may do as she pleases. If the others yield, that power must necessarily succumb."

      "Then I want to understand a little about the justice of your cause. You have claimed Schleswig-Holstein as part of Germany, and you have sent German troops, for the purpose of recovering it as your right?"

      "Quite true."

      "And at the same time Germany, or you as its representatives, have acknowledged the right of all foreign nations to their own independence?"

      "We have."

      "Then, will you have the kindness to explain to me how it is that your philanthropic parliament, holding such principles, has not thought proper to insist that every Austrian soldier, belonging to the confederation, should be immediately withdrawn from Lombardy and Hungary? How is it that General Wrangel, in the north, has ceased to be a Prussian, and become a German soldier, whilst Marshal Radetsky, in the south, is fighting without remonstrance at the head of troops which you claim as your own, and against that independence of a foreign nation, which you have thought proper expressly to recognise? If Germany claims Schleswig on the ground of unity of race and language, how can she, at the same time, countenance a subordinate German power in infringing the very principle which she has so determinedly proclaimed?"

      Neither on this occasion, nor on any other, could I obtain a satisfactory reply to the above question. In fact, from the very beginning, the conduct of the men who have put themselves at the head of the present movement, has been checkered by contradictions of the most glaring and obvious kind. On the fifth of May, the present vice-president, Von Soiron, put forth an address to the inhabitants of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, calling upon them to co-operate and join with the German confederacy, and to send representatives to the union. Two of these states are comprised in the Austrian, and one in the Prussian dominions; but none of them are German. If nationality is to be recognised as the ruling principle – and the scheme of German confederation and empire contemplated nothing else – these countries would fall to be excluded, since, by language and race, they form part of a totally different branch of the European family. But before the ink on their proclamation of strict unity and independence was dry, – that proclamation containing the following remarkable words, "The Germans shall not be induced, on any consideration, to abridge or deprive other nations of that freedom and independence which they claim for themselves as their own unalienable right," – we find the Germans calmly annexing Polish Posen to their league, proposing to include Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia in the limits of the empire, and by their official congratulatory address to Radetsky, giving national countenance to the war of subjugation in Lombardy. Even were their case otherwise good, such acts as these form an irresistible argument against their present claim for Schleswig; for upon no principle whatever are they entitled to add, on one side, to the possessions of the empire by foreign annexation, and on the other to repudiate annexation, when in favour of a foreign power.

      But it is useless, in their present state, to demand explanation from the Germans. They are like men who, in attempting to cross a ford, have been carried off their feet by the swollen waters, and are now plunging in the pool, unable to reach the shore. Imperium in imperio is clearly unattainable. German unity, as at present contemplated, with a common army, common taxes, and common constitutions, under one central government, can only be achieved by an entire prostration of the princes, and the abolition of the kingly dignity. Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and all the states, must be blotted from the map of Europe, their boundaries erased, their conditions forgotten, and their names for ever proscribed. The republican party know this well, and it is in this conviction that they are still labouring on, taking advantage of the unhappy state of Austria in relation to its foreign possessions, sympathising with the Hungarian revolt, and exciting the clubs at Vienna; whilst, at the same moment, they are availing themselves to the utmost of the weak and foolish blunder committed by the king of Prussia, and appealing to his own declaration in favour of German unity, whenever he shows the slightest symptom of receding from the popular path. There is hardly a shade of difference between the opinions entertained by a large mass of the Frankfort parliament, and those professed by Hecker and Struve, the leaders of the Baden insurrections. The aim of both parties was the same; but the insurgents sought to attain their end by a speedy and violent process, for which the others were not prepared. They proposed to undermine the power of the sovereigns by a continued course of agitation, to arm a burgher guard throughout Germany, as a countercheck to the troops, and, wherever it is possible, to seduce the latter from their allegiance. In this latter scheme, as recent events have shown, they have been unfortunately too successful; and the military system of Germany had afforded them great facilities. The German regiments are not, as is the case in Britain, transferred from town to town, and from province to province, in a continual round of service. They are quartered for years in the same place, make alliances with the town-folks, and become imbued with all their local and prevalent prejudices. They are, in fact, too much identified with the populace to be thoroughly relied on in the case of any sudden emeute, and too much associated with the landwehr or militia, to be ready to act against them. Let those who have not reflected upon this serious element of discord, consider what in all probability would be the state of an Irish regiment, if quartered permanently among the peasantry of Tipperary – exposed, not for a short time, but for years, to the baneful influences of agitation and deliberate seduction, and never having an opportunity of contemplating elsewhere the advantages of order and obedience? The circumscribed dimensions of some of the German states has increased this evil enormously; and the example set by General Wrangel, when, in the case of the Swedish armistice, he declared himself to be an Imperial and not a Prussian commander, cannot but have had a powerful effect in sapping the loyalty of the troops. If Wrangel took that step in consequence of secret orders from his master, as is by no means improbable, he may be personally absolved from blame, but only by shifting to the royal shoulders such a load of obloquy and scorn as never monarch carried before. If, on the contrary, Wrangel did this on his own authority, the Prussian government has evinced lamentable weakness, in not having him tried by a court-martial, and shot for audacious treason.

      If the monarchies of Germany are to be preserved, it must be through the resolution of the troops. A congress is at this moment obviously impossible, nor can it be attempted until the Frankfort parliament has ran its course – a consummation which some people think is not only devoutly to be desired, but very near at hand. Things have now gone so far, that it is difficult to see how any kind of order can be restored, without the disastrous alternative of commotion and civil war. There are again symptoms of republican gatherings in the north, which Prussia cannot this time overlook, without sacrificing the fragments of her honour. At Vienna, the insurrection has been successful. The emperor has, a second time, quitted Schönbrunn, and has openly announced that, when he next returns to his capital, it will be at the head of an avenging army. There is nothing improbable in this announcement. The Austrian army is less liable to the impairing influence already noticed than that of any other German state; and though there never was a time when its services were so urgently required at so many menacing points as at the present, there may yet be strength enough left to crush the insurgent capital. Of course, in such an event, all men may be prepared to hear from the liberals the same howl of horror which issued from their sympathising throats, when the populace of Naples manfully and boldly espoused the cause of their legitimate sovereign. Sicilian cannibalism can be pardoned, but Neapolitan loyalty, never!

      It is a vain dream to associate German unity with the existing system of principalities. Whether Von Gagern is really in earnest, in attempting to labour towards this end, or whether he is merely keeping up the appearance of such a union, for the purpose of paving the way to a more sweeping measure of democracy, may be the subject of legitimate doubt. If the former be the case, he has committed a grave error, in allowing the Diet to be annihilated. Though difficult, it was by no means impossible to have adjusted the separate constitutions of the German states upon a liberal basis, and to have devolved upon the chambers the right of nominating the members of the imperial diet. Such a system might have secured as much unity of purpose as was requisite for general administration, without resorting to the dangerous СКАЧАТЬ