Part 36

The enthusiastic ecstasy in Vienna was of short duration. The democrats did not consider the free constitution free enough. A central political committee was formed as a sort of check on the government. The existence of such a body was declared to be illegal, but popular pressure compelled the government to retract this declaration and to suspend the constitution. In the beginning of May the Emperor fled to Innsbruck. An attempt was made to disband the student brigade, but as this led to a renewal of barricade fighting, the ministry were obliged to desist. The Emperor returned in August. During all this time the capital was in a most excited state; the revolution had put a stop to every kind of business, and the want of employment increased discontent and restlessness. A deep impression was made by the intelligence of the events of June in Paris, Cavaignac's victory being regarded as equivalent to the suppression of the revolution in France. About the same time came the news that Jellatschitsch, the Ban of Croatia, was preparing to invade Hungary. Intercepted letters showed that in this proceeding he had the support of the Court of Vienna and of Latour, the Minister of War; and the consequence was that Count Lamberg, Latour's envoy, was torn to pieces by the mob on his arrival at Pesth (September 28), and Latour himself, having declared his intention of despatching troops to Hungary, was killed (October 7) by the enraged populace of Vienna. In his poem, _Der 7 Oktober_, which is a eulogy of the murdered man, Dingelstedt takes the opportunity to dissociate himself from the revolution and all its doings.

The Emperor now fled from Vienna for the second time. Whilst Radetzky suppressed the insurrection in Lombardy, Windischgrätz, who had been appointed commander-in-chief, surrounded the capital with his troops. In a struggle which lasted from the 24th to the 29th of October the outworks and outlying parts of the town were captured, and the city had already been driven by want of provisions and ammunition to agree to the unconditional capitulation demanded by Windischgrätz, when the cry was heard in the streets: "The Hungarians are coming." They had been seen from the tower of St. Stephen's Church. There was great rejoicing. The agreement to surrender was disregarded, the arms which had already been given up were again seized at the arsenals, and sorties were made to support the Hungarians, whose cannonading was now heard. But the Hungarian army was completely routed by Jellatschitsch. Windischgrätz entered Vienna on the 31st of October, followed by Jellatschitsch on the 2nd of November. A state of siege was proclaimed, and court-martials, sentences of death, and executions became the order of the day.

Simultaneously with the elections for the first German Parliament in Frankfort-on-Main, elections went on in Prussia for the Prussian Constitutional Assembly, which was opened by the King in May. This body numbered few eminent members, the best men having been sent to Frankfort. Berlin was in an almost anarchic condition; the arsenal was stormed and plundered, the political clubs terrorised and coerced the Assembly. It rejected the constitution proposed by the government as not sufficiently democratic. The result of this was a first change of ministry. The new ministry made proposals which coincided more closely with the wishes of the Assembly, but found themselves unable to agree to the demand of the majority that it should be made a point of honour with all officers who disapproved of the new constitution to leave the army. A third ministry, with Pfuel for its leader, was formed. On the last day of October, while the Assembly was debating an appeal to the government "to support, by every means in its power, the cause of popular liberty, at present endangered in Vienna," a mob broke in on the meeting, attempted to influence its decision by violent means, and insulted the Pfuel ministry. Then this ministry too resigned, and on the 2nd of November the King put the reins of government into the hands of a war ministry, with his step-uncle, Count Brandenburg, at its head. This new government decreed the transference of the Assembly from Berlin to Brandenburg, and brought the troops that had just returned from Denmark under General Wrangel to Berlin. The citizens were disarmed and a state of siege was proclaimed.

The revolutions of Vienna and Berlin had been fruitless; alike fruitless were the proceedings of the first German Parliament (Reichstag), which met at Frankfort on the 18th of May 1848, and was forcibly dispersed by troops at Stuttgart on the 18th of June 1849. The President it chose, Archduke John, did his best to subject it to the domination of Austria; it made a vain offer of the imperial crown of Germany to Frederick William IV. in April 1849; its sacred inviolability was disregarded as early as November 1848, when Windischgrätz ordered the execution of one of its members, Robert Blum, at Brigittenau; it lost importance as a representative assembly by the gradual desertion of its conservative members. When it was dispersed at Stuttgart, the reaction was once more triumphant throughout Europe:

"Da sah man die letzten der Getreuen, Die ausgeharrt beim Heiland, zerstreuen Sich, wandernd nach alien Seiten und Winden, Das Wort des Heiles zu verkünden, Wohl wissend, dass ein langes Exil Und Armuth, Noth und Dulden ihr Ziel, Und Qual und Tod und Kerkermauern. 'Das Wort des Heils wird sie überdauern' Das merkt euch, ihr Knechte und blutigen Horden: Das Wort ist Fleisch und ist Gott geworden.[15]

Thus sang Moritz Hartmann, one of the last of the faithful. He rightly felt that the ideas survived the outward changes.

By the end of 1848 the poets of the revolution had nothing left to sing of but fallen heroes and extinguished hopes. Among these poets Freiligrath and Hartmann rank highest, and as typical of the elegies written on the fallen heroes, we may take the verses composed by these two authors on Robert Blum, whose firm, gentle character, simplicity, and prudence, stamped him in the minds of his contemporaries as the ideal of a popular leader.

In his _Reimchronik_ Hartmann writes mournfully:

"So ruhe sanft und gut, mein Robert! Nicht braucht's der Wunsch, dass leicht dir werde Die blutgetränkte Wiener Erde, Der Boden, den du dir erobert. Du bist nicht todt, trotz aller Klage Des deutschen Volks, trotz aller Lieder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ein Mythus geht: der Robert lebt, Der Robert Blum, den sie erschossen Und jedes deutsche Herz erbebt: Das theure Blut ist nicht geflossen-- Die Hoffnung raunt uns in die Ohren: Entflort, entflort die Trikoloren, Noch, noch ist Deutschland nicht verloren. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allüberall ist der dabei! Er wendet mit den Geisterhänden Und fängt mit seiner Brust das Blei, Das uns die Fürstenväter senden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Und wandeln muss er, bis entrafft Das deutsche Volk sich dem Verräther Bis er entfürstet und entpfafft Den heilgen Boden seiner Väter."[16]

And a week after Blum's death, Freiligrath writes the magnificent verses on the commemoration service in the Cathedral of Cologne, where the mighty organ pealed forth Neukomm's requiem music:

"Und heut in diesem selben Köln zum Weh'n des Winterwindes Und zu der Orgel Brausen schallt das Grablied dieses Kindes. Nicht singt die Ueberlebende, die Mutter, es dem Sohne: Das ganze schmerzbewegte Köln singt es mit festem Tone. Es spricht: Du, deren Schoos ihn trug, bleib still auf deinem Kammer! Vor deinem Gott, du graues Haupt, ausströme deinen Jammer; Auch ich bin seine Mutter, Weib! Ich und noch eine Hohe-- Ich und die Revolution, die hohe, lichterlohe! Bleib du daheim mit deinem Schmerz! wir wahren seine Ehre-- Des Robert Requiem singt Köln, die revolutionäre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Was greift ihr zu den Schwertern nicht, Ihr Singer und Ihr Beter? Was werdet Ihr Posaunen nicht, Ihr ehr'nen Orgeltuben, Den jüngsten Tag ins Ohr zu schrein den Henkern und den Buben? Den Henkern, die ihn hingestreckt auf der Brigittenaue-- Auf festen Knien lag er da im ersten Morgenthaue! Dann sank er hin--hin in sein Blut--lautlos!--heut vor acht Tagen! Zwei Kugeln haben ihm die Brust, eine das Haupt zerschlagen."[17]

It is to Hartmann's _Reimchronik des Pfaffen Mauritius_ that we must have recourse if we desire to view all the successive events and impressions of 1848 in the mirror of poetry. Many of the details of this poem have become difficult to understand; the reader of to-day comes upon lists of names, of whose owners he knows little or nothing--men like Bassermann, the parliamentary debater, and Hansemann, the financier, in their day famous members of the Parliament of Frankfort, now forgotten--but from parts of it, without the assistance of any commentary, he gains a vivid impression of men's feelings, of their exalted frame of mind, in that year of revolution. Very affecting is a final outburst, in which the poet bewails the want of men:

"Ich seh' Gelehrte und Professoren Und Präsidenten und Assessoren, Weinküfer seh' ich und Redakteure Superintendenten und Accoucheure Und Börsenleute und Zeitungsschreiber, Astronomen und Steuereintreiber, Lumpenhändler und Alterthumskenner, Biedermänner, Hansemänner, Bassermänner-- Allein wo sind die _Männer_, die _Männer?_ "[18]

When Hartmann wrote these words he was living on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, a banished man, and the best men of Germany and Austria who had survived the great discomfiture were either in prison or, like himself, in exile.

1848 is a year of no decisive political significance, although it was in this year that the old order of things was for the first time disturbed simultaneously in almost every country of Europe. The local revolutions of 1789 and 1830, whatever they resulted in, were successful revolutions, but the general European revolution of 1848 was nothing in any single country but an unsuccessful attempt.

Yet 1848 is a year of great spiritual significance. After it men feel and think and write quite otherwise than they did before it. In literature it is the red line of separation that divides our century and marks the beginning of a new era. It was a year of jubilee, like that instituted by the old Hebrew law, that fiftieth year, in which the trumpet was to be sounded throughout all the land, which was to be hallowed, and in which liberty was to be proclaimed "throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Lev. xxv. 8, &c). This year, with its quick heart-beat, its all-subduing youthful ardour, was, like that Bible year of jubilee, a year of returning into possession, a year of redemption, in which "they that had been sold were redeemed again." To this day we imbibe youthful enthusiasm from its days of March and learn important lessons from its days of November.

It is the year of jubilee, the year of mourning, the boundary year.

[1] 'Twas in the mountains the first shot was fired--in the mountains, against the priests! That shot loosened the avalanche--three countries sprang to arms! Switzerland can already rest on her laurels; the eternal mountains are trembling to their centres with joy.

The sport soon spread to Italy--Scylla and Charybdis, Vesuvius and Etna broke loose; explosion upon explosion, blow upon blow!' "This is becoming serious, my royal, my imperial brother!" is the message from Vienna to Berlin, from Berlin to Vienna; even Nick begins to tremble.

And now the paving-stones are once more torn up, the stones of those streets on to which ere now two kings have been ruthlessly flung by armed liberty.

[2] In front of the castle in threatening line stand the cannon, awaiting the word of command--the gates are shuddering and yielding--the moment has come, brave gunner!

Forward to the muzzle he goes, as if the order had been to stop the mouths of the destroyers; fearlessly he cries: "First me, then the defenceless citizen!"--No farther command is given. Thou hast shamed them! All thanks to thee, brave gunner!

[3] Frhr. von Helfert: _Wiener Parnass im Jahre_ 1848.

[4] The press is free! Peal the bells! sound the glad tidings far and wide! Proclaim to the farthest-off of Germany's sons: The press is free, the ramparts of liberty are stormed!

[5] All hail to thee, my Emperor! Full of joy in their accomplished work, thy people greet thee, whom they have always known to be of noble mind.

[6] As your swords leap from their scabbards, let a song, O my brothers, come from your hearts! Let the song of songs resound through your rejoicing ranks--bright as burnished armour, clear as ringing steel, the song of the Garde-National!

[7] Let the black draperies flutter in the wind, and let a sad lament resound for those who have laid down their lives in the cause of liberty.

[8] Ye have rightly understood the nature of liberty; we cannot half possess her; if we but let her little finger be taken from us, she will soon be gone. That little finger is our honour. Who lets that go knows not what honour is. Therefore with strong arms and good swords ye have defended it.

[9]

In secret hiding-place and gloom Long time we have concealed it; But now at last the day is come, The day that has revealed it. Ha! how the smoke is round it rolled! Hurrah! thou Black and Red and Gold! Powder is black, Blood is red, Golden glows the flame! (JOYNES.)

[10] _Des deutschen Volkes Erhebung im Jahre_ 1848, _sein Kampf um freie Institutionen und sein Siegesjubel._ Von J. Lasker und Fr. Gerhard. Danzig, 1848.

[11] Eine Rotte von Bösewichtern, meist aus Fremden bestehend, die sich seit einer Woche, obgleich aufgesucht, doch zu verbergen gewusst haben, haben diesen Umstand im Sinne ihrer argen Pläne durch augenscheinliche Lüge verdreht und die erhitzten Gemüther von vielen meiner treuen und lieben Berliner mit Rachegedanken um vermeintlich vergossenes Blut erfullt und sind so die greulichen Urheber von Blutvergiessen geworden.

[12] _Des deutschen Volkes Erhebung_, p. 54. Varnhagen: _Tagebücher_, Adolf Streckfuss: _Erinnerungen aus dem Jahre_ 1848; _Der Zeitgeist_, 1889, Nr. 51.

[13]

With bullets through and through our breast--our forehead split with spike and spear, So bear us onward shoulder-high, laid dead upon a blood-stained bier; Yea, shoulder-high above the crowd, that on the man that bade us die, Our dreadful death-distorted face may be a bitter curse for aye; That he may see it day and night, or when he wakes or when he sleeps, Or when he opes his holy book, or when with wine high revel keeps; That ever like a scorching brand that sight his secret soul may burn; That he may ne'er escape its curse, nor know to whom for aid to turn; That always each disfeatured face, each gaping wound his sight may sear, And brood above his bed of death, and curdle all his blood with fear!

[14] PRUSSIAN MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

The big, incredulous town of Berlin has become the home of miracles. For two whole days they have been shooting, storming, burning there without a pause; thousands are lying in the bloody dust. The King is distressed by what has occurred; he says: "The guns went off of themselves; the whole has been a misunderstanding."

In the old, incredulous town of Berlin strange tricks are being played; a King decks himself in black, red, and gold, and declares himself to be the leader of Germany, the arch-demagogue, chosen of heaven to bring about German unity. But Germany only laughs and shouts: "This is a misunderstanding."

[15] Then the last of the faithful, who had remained true to their saviour, scattered to the four winds of heaven, to proclaim the word of salvation, knowing full well that what awaited them was exile and poverty, want and suffering, torture, imprisonment, and death. "The word of salvation will survive them"; note this, ye slaves, ye bloody hordes: The word has become flesh, has become God.

[16] Rest peacefully, rest well, my Robert! No need is there for us to wish that light upon thy breast may lie the blood-drenched earth of Vienna, the soil thy valour captured. Thou art not dead, despite the loud laments and songs of mourning of the German people.... From mouth to mouth spreads the report: "Our Robert lives, that Robert Blum the tyrants shot"--and every German heart beats high. That precious blood has not been shed; hope whispers in our ears: "The tri-coloured standard is trailed in the dust, but Germany is not lost."... He is with us everywhere! With his spirit hands he turns back the bullets, or receives them in his breast--these bullets rained on us by our paternal rulers.... A wanderer he, until the German people have released themselves from the betrayer's grip, until he has cleared the sacred land of his fathers, of princes and of priests.

[17]

In this same city of Cologne, 'mid moaning winds of winter wild, To-day in deepest organ-tones resounds the grave-song of this child. 'Tis not the mother bow'd in grief who sings it o'er her fallen son; Nay, all Cologne bewails the death of him whose toil too soon is done. With solemn woe the city speaks: Thou who didst bear the noble dead, Remain to weep within thy home, and bow to earth thine aged head; I also am his mother! Yea, and yet a mightier one than I, I and the Revolution's self, for whom he laid him down to die. Stay thou within and nurse thy woe. 'Tis we will do him honour here; 'Tis we will watch and requiem sing for thy dead son upon his bier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why grasp ye not your swords in wrath, O ye that sing and ye that pray? Ye organ-pipes, to trumpets turn, and fight the scoundrels with your breath, And din into their dastard ears the dreadful news of sudden death, Those scoundrels who the order gave, the cruel murder dared to do-- The hero leant him on his knee in that autumnal morning's dew, Then silent fell upon his face in blood--'tis eight short days ago-- Two bullets smote him on the breast, and laid his head for ever low. (JOYNES.)

[18] I see scientists and professors, presidents and assessors, wine merchants and editors, superintendents and accoucheurs; I see financiers and journalists; I see astronomers and tax-collectors, rag merchants and antiquarians; I see Messrs. Biedermann, Hansemann, Bassermann--but where are the _men_, the _men?_

XXX

CONCLUSION

It is a mighty panorama, this, which the study of the feelings and thoughts of Germany, first oppositionist, then revolutionary, between 1815 and 1848, unrolls to our view. We see the spirit of Metternich, a spirit of shallowness, brooding over Austria and the whole of Germany. We follow the new intellectual movement from the time when it first finds expression at the Wartburg Festival in 1817. We see how the assassination of Kotzebue gives occasion to the open persecution of Liberalism and introduces a long period of ruthless reaction and oppression, during which Goethe is regarded as the Quietist foe of liberty and lauded or denounced as such, and German philosophy under the auspices of Hegel becomes, in a rather questionable manner, conservative. The oppositionist tendency finds occasional expression in the writings of poets like Chamisso, Platen, and Heine, but the general intellectual condition is one of depression, relieved by outbursts of self-ridicule. The state of stagnation is put an end to by the news of the Revolution of July 1830, which electrifies public feeling and gives both poets and prose writers new courage and fresh inspiration. The remembrance of Byron's life and death influences men in the same direction, and the Polish revolt awakens sympathy and enthusiasm in spite of the part that Germany takes in the annihilation of Poland as a nation. Börne becomes the most eminent advocate of Liberalism in politics, holds high the banner of liberty and justice, shows a noble example in the matter of strength of character and conviction, but at the same time displays a naïve and fanatical optimism which proves that his is not the temperament required in a statesman. In Heine, the greatest poet of the period, we feel the vibration of its every nerve. In him modern poetry casts off the swaddling-clothes of Romanticism. In love, in appreciation of nature, in his political, social, and religious views, in his descriptive, poetic, and satiric style, he is the man of our own day--fitter, as we pointed out, than any other to grapple with modern life in its hardness and ugliness, its charm and its restlessness, and its wealth of violent contrasts. About the same time, in a different and yet kindred manner, Immermann, in his best book, marks the transition to a more realistic style of art.

The Revolution of July had not only changed the tone of literature, it had also altered the character of the Hegelian philosophy, which from this time onwards is to be regarded as one of the strongest influences in the revolutionising of men's conception of life; from the doctrines of the master who died such a strong Conservative, his pupils draw reformatory or revolutionary inferences and principles. And now, with the echoes of the Revolution of July sounding in their ears, appear a group of young authors; they are influenced by the philosophy of Hegel and the poetry of Goethe, this last interpreted as anti-Christian; Heine and Börne are their masters, Rahel and George Sand their muses; they come to be known by the name of Young Germany. They desire to assimilate literature with life, to subvert existing religious and moral doctrines, to introduce a freer morality in the matter of marriage and divorce and a new species of pantheistic piety. The impeachment of these men by Menzel in 1835 is the signal for a new series of persecutions directed against all that in that day went by the name of the literature of movement (Bewegungslitteratur). Very few of the representatives of the young generation show strength of character when thus put to the test, but both the highly gifted men (Gutzkow) and those of moderate ability (Laube, &c.) develop their talents amidst these persecutions, and works are produced which accurately mirror the hopes and struggles of the age, the thoughts and feelings, temptations, mistakes, and victories of the individual.

Between the years 1830 and 1840 something has been happening quietly, deep down in men's minds--Goethe's poetry and Goethe's philosophy of life, at first championed exclusively by enthusiastic women, have been steadily gaining influence over the cultivated, making them proof against theological impressions but receptive to all great human ideas. The cult of Goethe leads by degrees, even in the case of women, to the cult of political liberty and social reform.

In 1840 German philosophy begins to develop in the direction of Radicalism, and the poets begin openly to advocate the cause of political liberty. The men of this new generation, too, owe their philosophic training to Hegel, but they have metamorphosed his doctrine into an atheistical, anti-monarchical doctrine. They regard the standpoint of Young Germany with contempt as being purely belletristic, and busy themselves with the nature of Christianity and the idea of the state.