Revolution and Counter-Revolution; Or, Germany in 1848Marx, Karl
History
Revolution and Counter-Revolution; Or, Germany in 1848
Marx, Karl
Germany -- History -- Revolution, 1848-1849
But at Olmütz the Court found itself in very different circumstances
from what it had been at Innspruck. It was now in a position to open
immediately the campaign against the Revolution. It was surrounded by
the Slavonian deputies of the Constituent, who flocked in masses to
Olmütz, and by the Slavonian enthusiasts from all parts of the
monarchy. The campaign, in their eyes, was to be a war of Slavonian
restoration and of extermination, against the two intruders, upon what
was considered Slavonian soil, against the German and the Magyar.
Windischgrätz, the conqueror of Prague, now commander of the army that
was concentrated around Vienna, became at once the hero of Slavonian
nationality. And his army concentrated rapidly from all sides. From
Bohemia, Moravia, Styria, Upper Austria, and Italy, marched regiment
after regiment on routes that converged at Vienna, to join the troops
of Jellachich and the ex-garrison of the capital. Above sixty thousand
men were thus united towards the end of October, and soon they
commenced hemming in the imperial city on all sides, until, on the
30th of October, they were far enough advanced to venture upon the
decisive attack.
In Vienna, in the meantime, confusion and helplessness was prevalent.
The middle class, as soon as the victory was gained, became again
possessed of their old distrust against the "anarchic" working
classes; the working men, mindful of the treatment they had received,
six weeks before, at the hands of the armed tradesmen, and of the
unsteady, wavering policy of the middle class at large, would not
trust to them the defence of the city, and demanded arms and military
organization for themselves. The Academic Legion, full of zeal for the
struggle against imperial despotism, were entirely incapable of
understanding the nature of the estrangement of the two classes, or
of otherwise comprehending the necessities of the situation. There was
confusion in the public mind, confusion in the ruling councils. The
remnant of the German Diet deputies, and a few Slavonians, acting the
part of spies for their friends at Olmütz, besides a few of the more
revolutionary Polish deputies, sat in permanency; but instead of
taking part resolutely, they lost all their time in idle debates upon
the possibility of resisting the imperial army without overstepping
the bounds of constitutional conventionalities. The committee of
safety, composed of deputies from almost all the popular bodies of
Vienna, although resolved to resist, was yet dominated by a majority
of burghers and petty tradesmen, who never allowed it to follow up any
determined, energetic line of action. The council of the Academic
Legion passed heroic resolutions, but was in no way able to take the
lead. The working classes, distrusted, disarmed, disorganized, hardly
emerging from the intellectual bondage of the old _régime_, hardly
awaking, not to a knowledge, but to a mere instinct of their social
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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