# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 04 02_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

124

other smashed his skull with a smith's hammer; then they tore the clothes from the corpse, unmanned it, and hung the naked and shamefully mutilated body upon the lamp-post before the palace, to the delight and loud laughter of the women of the rabble standing around. All this happened before the eyes of the grenadiers, who stood by quietly and looked on. The mob, however, stormed into the arsenal, drove out the weak garrison, and plundered it clean. And the Reichstag decreed amnesty for everything that had occurred, had not a word of indignation over that abominable assassination, but many words of disapproval that the unfortunate Emperor had “for the second time forgotten his duty” and had again left Vienna. As a few months before to Innsbruck, so now he had fled to Olmütz in Moravia. The Reichstag, from which, however, a considerable number of members also had fled, had declared itself permanent and had apparently taken the reins of government into its hand, though in truth the Aula with its following led them; some 100,000 inhabitants left the city of terror; anarchy ruled completely. Now it was high time to be in earnest, and they were in earnest. The Emperor, by manifesto, transferred the Reichstag to Kremsier in Moravia, because in rebellious Vienna he could no longer deliberate freely. But the Reichstag did not obey, declared itself free enough, and the ministers who had signed that decree, traitors. The Ban Jellachich had already marched out against the Hungarians, had defeated them once, now let them be, and turned against Vienna. Prince Windisch-Grätz had his regiments from Bohemia also march against the capital, and when enough troops were assembled, he laid before the Viennese his conditions, which alone could preserve them from disgrace and ruin. Among other things it was demanded therein that all newspapers, pamphlets, and placards must cease to appear, except the Wiener Zeitung, and that this might bring only official articles; that all assemblies be suspended; that three named persons and besides these others be delivered up, whom the prince would designate later. Besides, Vienna was of course declared in a state of siege until quiet, order, and safety should be restored, and as long as the state of siege, so long should those regulations also remain in force. But those very conditions called forth an enormous excitement, not only in Vienna, but, as in Vienna, so in all Germany; the Vienna Reichstag resolved upon defense against the rebel Windisch-Grätz; the newspapers styled him bloodhound, Alba, traitor; the Left in Frankfurt wanted to have him called to account by the imperial ministry. He, however, troubled himself not about all this, but set his term for the acceptance of his conditions, among which he let himself be bargained out of the one, that they must deliver up also whomever he should name later; but since the Viennese, in confidence upon the promise of the Hungarians that they would come to the city's help, did not agree to them, but, under their self-chosen commandant Messenhauser, an officer who had resigned under the promise never to bear arms against the Austrian colors, and a playwright, prepared for the utmost defense, the fight began on the 24th of October, and on the 30th Vienna surrendered at discretion, but on the next day, when men thought they saw the Hungarians from St. Stephen's tower, broke the capitulation again, so that the murderous fight blazed up anew and Windisch-Grätz at last, on the 1st of November, entered the conquered city. He was received by the citizens with loud jubilation, with waving of flags and handkerchiefs from the windows, for in the time since Latour's murder they had stood under a fearful reign of terror. Robert Blum, in a speech which he had held in the Aula, had summoned with words spitting fire and flame, that everyone who did not take up arms against the enemy outside should himself be treated as such an enemy; had then given himself as leader of a corps of the elite and defended a barricade; yes, he is said, according to the testimony of many witnesses, to have said in a public speech that two hundred more must be latourized if things were to go well in Vienna. To this were added 24,000 proletarians, who would never allow that the city negotiate or surrender, who fetched the citizen out of the houses and drove him before them into the fight, and at last set fire to the imperial library building in order to burn down the Burg itself, which was prevented only by the entry of the troops. The roof of the library, however, burned off. In the market and on public squares the rabble had its watch-fires and did the most shameless things with the venal women; yes, even into the fight the harlots hurried armed, and drove the respectable citizen with scorn and threats of murder to the same course. From such freedom the prince had to free Vienna. At first, to be sure, he exercised severity, shut off the city hermetically from the suburbs in order to lay hold of the leaders of the uprising, which, however, he accomplished only in part. But Robert Blum was shot, after him Messenhauser and others. Then there was once more fire on all sides in Germany, that “noble Blum” had been “murdered,” without so much as asking the National Assembly. But Windisch-Grätz declared that the Frankfurt resolutions were not yet recognized in Austria, and that Blum, the barricade fighter, had divested himself of his dignity as a member of the National Assembly. What was one to do? One satisfied oneself with funeral celebrations here and there, at which — Luther's hymn: “Ein feste Burg” was struck up!

In Berlin, meanwhile, the much-discussed and much-feared Congress of Democrats had assembled, and after they had reproached and disparaged one another, had dispersed again with shame and disgrace.

Thus the blowing up of the National Assembly had to be omitted, to be sure. In return the Berlin Provincial Assembly wanted to show itself so much the more valiant. It had abolished the nobility with one stroke, wanted to forbid the King the “by the grace of God,” wanted to forbid him to retain the new ministry “Brandenburg,” and not to let itself be removed to Brandenburg. The latter the King had ordered, because anarchy had already broken in upon Berlin to such a degree that the members not voting in the sense of the Left and of the mob were threatened with death, were waited for with ropes, axes, and hammers, so that they escaped a sad fate only through the darkness of night. Therefore the King adjourned the assembly, in order to let it deliberate further freely later in Brandenburg. But the Left declared itself permanent, and since Berlin was declared in a state of siege and no regard was paid to its sovereignty, it resolved, half in flight, the refusal of taxes. Thereupon it was driven from place to place by military force and at last dispersed. At first the steps of the government and the resistance of the Provincial Assembly aroused great excitement everywhere, naturally against the government, which at present belongs to the order of things with us; there came in from all sides approving and encouraging addresses to the Provincial Assembly; in Frankfurt also it was resolved to send a deputation to Berlin, which was to try to bring it about that the Brandenburg ministry should give way to another and the Provincial Assembly be left in Berlin. But in vain. Instead of the envoys being able to do anything against the government, they rather convinced themselves by their own observation of the state of affairs that it had been high time for the Prussian government to step in, and that it could not well act otherwise. Moreover, the refusal of taxes, by which the Rump Parliament believed it was performing its greatest heroic deed, had suddenly changed the mind of the people. It was seen what fearful confusion would arise if it were carried through, and many rich people offered the government to pay in advance their taxes for the coming year, if it should be put in embarrassment by the refusal of others; yes, some placed their whole property at its disposal. Meanwhile the members of the Right and of the Center assembled in Brandenburg for the Provincial Assembly that was to be reopened, and the Left also came along. Yet by their conduct they hindered all orderly deliberation, and the government saw itself compelled to dissolve the assembly and to issue writs for new elections, in order that in February 1849 a new Provincial Assembly might convene. But because with the former the intended agreement upon a new constitution was not to be attained, the King now gave one himself, or rather he surprised his people with it in every respect. For this “octroyed constitution” is so liberal, so all the pre-