The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Illustrated Edition). Robert Thomas Wilson

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      THE KING OF PRUSSIA ADDRESSING THE BERLINERS. (See p. 346.)

      them by force. The movement began in Baden, where, on the 29th of February, the Grand Duke was compelled to grant a Free Press, a National Guard, and Trial by Jury to his subjects. It spread fast through the minor States. In Munich it ended in the abdication of the King on the 21st of March. In the Odenwald the peasants sacked the baronial castles, and a servile war seemed imminent, even in Coburg. The Queen was therefore excited by every fresh outbreak, her only consolation being that Belgium—her uncle’s kingdom—remained tranquil. The Prince Hohenlohe, the husband of her half-sister, and her half-brother, the Prince of Leiningen, were simply ruined. “All minds,” writes the Princess Hohenlohe to the Queen, “are on the stretch.... Never was such a state of lawless vagabondage as there is now all over Germany, more or less. At all hours of the day young men are walking about the streets doing nothing.” Business was at a standstill: there was neither buying nor selling, marrying nor giving in marriage; and the Queen’s half-sister, in another letter, speaking of herself and her illustrious family, remarks, piteously:—“We are undone, and must begin a new existence of privations.”

      Prussia was stricken sharply by the revolutionary tempest. The very day after Metternich fled from Vienna the mob of Berlin rose against the Government. Riot after riot followed this outbreak, and the concessions proclaimed on the 18th of March came too late—though the King, Frederick William, imagined he would win the sympathies of the German race by advocating the formation of a United Germany, federated under one flag, one army, one law, and one executive. The people, full of joy at their triumph, went to the Palace to congratulate their Sovereign, who came forth to harangue them. A glimmer of steel, however, within the castle quadrangle in an instant transformed the loyal crowd into a raging and rebellious mob. “Bitter experience,” says Mr. Charles Lowe,107 “had taught them to distrust the word of their King. But instead of retiring, a squadron of dragoons, with a company of foot, advanced to clear the square; and either by accident or design, two muskets were fired into the crowd. ‘Treason!’ ‘Revenge!’ ‘To arms!’ was resounded on every side.” Two hundred barricades rose in the streets as if by magic, “and the city was soon one wild scene of carnage,” lit throughout the dark hours of night and morning by the red glare of sacked and burning houses. The troops virtually triumphed, but the King, grief-stricken, because of the slaughter of his “dear Berliners,” suddenly gave the command next morning to “cease firing.” The unpopular Ministers were dismissed. An amnesty was proclaimed, and the troops were ordered to quit the city. A Burger Guard was extemporised, and the King was compelled by the mob to stand bareheaded on the balcony of his Palace, and salute a ghastly procession of the dead who had been slain by his troops. On the 21st of March he rode through the streets, delivering many effusive and emotional speeches, promising a liberal constitution, and pledging himself, even in defiance of Austria, to head the movement for German Unity. The Crown Prince (afterwards Emperor William I.), who was wrongly supposed to have ordered the troops to fire on the people, fled to England, and his Palace was saved solely because some loyal person artfully chalked over it the words “National Property.” He was most hospitably entertained by the Queen till the end of May, when he returned to Berlin. “May God protect him,” writes her Majesty to her uncle, King Leopold. “He is very noble-minded and honest, and most cruelly wronged.”

      Italy, already a hotbed of discontent, naturally participated in the revolutionary movement. Early in March, Lombardy rose against the Austrians, and Venice, led by Daniel Manin, proclaimed a Republic. Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, yielding to popular pressure, put himself at the head of the agitation for Italian unity, and on the 23rd of March advanced to Milanese territory. The people of Tuscany and the Papal States flew to arms, but were pacified by the grant of constitutions, though the Pope was forced by the populace in May to levy war on Austria, his most faithful ally. The Dukes of Parma and Modena fled for their lives from their capitals. In Sicily alone the revolution was suppressed by force. This seems to have disheartened the liberators of North Italy—or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say it encouraged their Austrian masters. Ignoring defeat after defeat, the Austrians, under Radetsky, held on to their Italian provinces with grim tenacity. Pacific mediation was rejected on both sides, and, finally, Charles Albert, who by this time found that Sardinia was expected to bear the brunt of the war single-handed, was rendered helpless by his fatal reverses at Custozza (22nd of July) and Somma Campagna (26th of July). The Pope, alarmed by the liberal movement he had encouraged, lost the confidence of his subjects, and on the assassination of Rossi, his secretary, fled from Rome to Gaeta (24th of November). From thence he issued a protest against the Revolutionary Government of the Holy City, which protest was promptly supported by the armed intervention of France.

      In Spain, however, the Revolution, in May, took a form which gave Queen Victoria the greatest anxiety. At first all parties in the Cortes were opposed to violence. Suddenly, however, the Party of Action waxed strong. The Government foolishly prorogued the Cortes, and this was followed by a protest in the shape of a popular rising in Madrid, on the 26th of March. It was suppressed, and a few of the most distinguished men in Spain were summarily banished beyond the seas. Lord Palmerston here interfered with characteristic recklessness and audacity. On the 16th of March he wrote to Sir Henry Bulwer, the British Minister at Madrid, requesting him to advise the Queen of Spain to change her Ministers. Sir Henry Bulwer not only sent a copy of this despatch to the Duc de Sotomayor, but also procured its publication in the Opposition newspapers. The Spanish Government, incensed at Sir H. Bulwer’s intrigues with the Party of Violence, not only resented this impertinent interference with their affairs, but haughtily returned the despatch to the English Foreign Office. Lord Palmerston replied sarcastically to Sotomayor, and not only approved of the conduct of Sir Henry Bulwer, but caused him to be made a K.C.B. Accordingly, on the 19th of May, the Spanish Government requested Sir Henry to СКАЧАТЬ