The Refounding of the German Empire, 1848-1871 ... With portraits and plans

Front matter

- ' - ■ Ai< (>,,,/,, ,;■,■ //,//,',,,„ J. THE REFOUNDING OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1848-1871 BY COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.I. AUTHOR OF 'THE INDIAN MUTINY,' 'HISTORY OF THE FRENCH IN INDIA,' ' THE BATTLEFIELDS OF GERMANY,' ETC, ETC With Portraits and Plans LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED ESSEX STREET, STRAND CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE — THE RENUNCIATION OF FRANCIS II. THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD — FROM 1815 TO 1848 1848 TO 1852, . . 1 II. PRUSSIA FROM 1852 TO 1857, . . .36 III. THE REGENCY OF THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA — THE PERIOD OF AWAKENING, . . . .49 IV. THE KINGSHIP OF WILLIAM I. THE POLICY OF 'BLOOD AND IRON,' . . . . .66 V. THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN INVASION OF SCHLESWIG- HOLSTEIN, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, . . 86 VI. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF AUSTRIA — PREPARATIONS FOR WAR — ACTION OF THE LESSER STATES OF GERMANY — MOLTKE — PRINCE FREDERIC CHARLES THE CROWN PRINCE HERWARTH VON BITTEN- FELD — BENEDEK — THE WAR BREAKS OUT, . 1 03 VII.

THE WAR OF 1866 — HANOVER AND ELECTORAL HESSE — LANGENSALZA AND WILHELMSHOHE, . 119 VIII. THE CAMPAIGN IN BOHEMIA — COMBATS OF LIEBENAU — OF PODOL — OF MUNCHENGRATZ — OF GITSCHIN — OF TRAUTENAU — OF SOOR — OF NACHOD — OF SKALITZ — OF SCHWEINSCHADEL, . . . 132 IX. THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRATZ, . . .154 Contents. IV CHAP. PAGE X. THE BATTLE OF CUSTOZA — THE CAMPAIGN IN BAVARIA — THE MARCH OF THE PRUSSIANS ON VIENNA — THE ARMISTICE OF NIKOLSBURG AND TREATY OF PRAGUE, . . . • r75 XI. NAPOLEON III. AND BISMARCK — FOUR YEARS OF SMOULDERING IN PARIS AND BERLIN THE HOHENZOLLERN CANDIDATURE — KING WILLIAM AND BENEDETTI AT EMS EXCITEMENT IN PARIS THE BERLIN FICTIONS RENDER WAR INEVITABLE, . . . . .194 XII. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR THE NUMBERS AND RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS — THE LEADERS ON BOTH SIDES — AUSTRIA AND ITALY — SAAR BRUCKEN — WORTH — SPICHEREN, . . 222 XIII.

COLOMBEY — VIONVILLE AND MARS - LE - TOUR — GRAVE LOTTE, . . . . • 255 XIV. SEDAN, ...... 279 XV. THE LAST PHASES OF THE WAR, . . .296 XVI. THE CROWNING OF THE EDIFICE, . . .314 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE the emperor william I., . . Frontispiece PRINCE BISMARCK, . . . . .74 FREDERICK, CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA, . .166 COUNT VON MOLTKE, . . . . .230 MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA, To face 155 PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRATZ, . . 156 PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF CUSTOZA, . . .178 MAP OF PART OF FRANCE INVADED BY THE GERMANS, To face 225 PLAN OF THE BATTLES OF VIONVILLE AND GRAVE- LOTTE, ...... 260 %* The Portraits of the Emperor William, Prince Bismarck and Count Von Moltke are engraved by permission of Messrs Loescher & Petsch ; that of the Crown Prince Frederick by permission of Messrs Reichard & Lindner.

Preface

This book deals especially with a period of German history of twenty-three years' duration. Beginning with the French Revolution of 1848 it records the rousing in Germany of passions long pent-up, and, for the time, difficult to be controlled or directed ; the manner in which these passions were eventually mastered ; the great void and the fierce longing they left behind them ; the use made by one of the chief Powers of Germany of the feelings and aspirations thus dormant, and, finally, the complete reversal, by the means employed by that Power, of the positions held in Europe till that period by Austria and Prussia on the one side, by France and Germany on the other. During this period of twenty-three years there occurred in Europe five wars ; and although, of those five wars, two, the Crimean war and the Franco-Austrian war require in this volume but a cursory notice, the other three, viz., the Danish war, the Austro- Prussian war, and the Franco-German war constitute the three steps which made possible the resounding of the German Empire.

The second and third of these wars would Preface VIII have been impossible without their predecessor. For if the first of the three, the Danish war, may be regarded as a small thing — the whole of Germany being pitted against the smallest country in Europe — it was, nevertheless, the necessary prelude to the wars that followed. That war, and the two greater wars of 1866 and 1870, had been predetermined in the mind of the regenerator of Germany before a shot in the first had been fired. The initial war, in fact, was needed to cause the second ; the second to produce the third. The Danish war, then, far from being a war of secondary importance, was the first act of a deliberately planned system ; the first consequence of the introduction of that policy of ' Blood and Iron ' which, in one of his earliest speeches to the Prussian parliament, Count Bismarck declared to be necessary for the solution of the great questions which were agitating Germany.

The writer of a book professing to deal with these subjects had, therefore, to record (1st) the effect in Germany of that outburst in Paris of February 1848, which acted as a match to the inflamed imaginations of the populations of the great centres of thought in the Fatherland ; (2d) the manner in which that outbreak seized hold of the German mind ; how it was viewed by princes and peoples ; the action it induced ; the several movements that followed ; the precipitancy of the mob, and the patient waiting of sovereigns ; until the fire of the movement had been spent, and the sovereigns were enabled to recover all that they had temporarily lost. It will then be shown how the popular feeling, though crushed for the time, never died out ; how it remained, a remini scence full of hope, to encourage those to whom the Preface IX prospect of German Unity had ever been a living ideal ; how, again, the feelings and aspirations which had been aroused were, whilst still dormant, utilised by politicians to prepare a machine which, placing the necessary power in the hands of men who knew their own minds, who had a fixed policy, and who were to be deterred by no scruples, would, at the proper time, deal the blows which were to secure for Germany the union which had been her dream ; how the policy of ' Blood and Iron ' was invented for that end ; how other Powers, not in Germany alone, played into the hands of the masters of the machine.

Then will follow the story of the wars which had been planned. It will be told finally, how, in 1871, the adventurous but far-sighted policy was crowned with success. In preparing a continuous account of this policy and of these events the main difficulty of the writer has been to compress in the allotted number of pages events so momentous and so diverging : the diverse actions of Austria, of Prussia, of the German Diet, of France, of Italy. The battles of the three wars above noted — the secret plans and hopes of the several Courts have all demanded the most careful study. How difficult it has been to give a sufficiently clear description of the several battles, many of them of the first importance, may be gathered from the fact that Major Henderson, the most eminent of the younger officers of the British army, has devoted to the consideration of only one battle, that of Spicheren, a number of words at least equal to the whole of those contained in this volume.1 1 ' The Battle of Spicheren,' by Brevet-Major Henderson.

This volume counts three hundred pages, but, in the type of this volume, the contents would require a few pages more. Preface X I am bound to add that in Major Henderson's volume I do not find a single redundant page. It is throughout admirable ; for the military student invaluable. I call attention to the fact simply to illustrate the difficulty of a writer who has to describe, within a given compass equal to that considered by Major Henderson necessary for one battle, not one only, but many battles, some of them of even greater importance than Spicheren, for they were more decisive of the war. The author has been forced then to endeavour to produce, by bold and correct outlines, results which may atone for want of detail. He would fain hope that he has succeeded in producing such sketches of the principal battles as will convey a clear meaning of the movements on both sides to the general reader.

With respect to some of them, those of 1866 in particular, he has enjoyed the advantage of a personal acquaintance with many officers who served in the campaign of Bohemia, and he can confidently assert that, although his account of that campaign may differ in some details from the story told by some English writers, it will be accepted in Vienna as the true one. He may add that a distinguished foreign officer, whom he consulted this year, has endorsed every word of it. Regarding the political events, also, the writer is not without personal experience. He was in Westphalia in the summer and autumn of 1858, and again during 1863-4, and witnessed the growing discontent of large classes of the people, and their distrust of Count Bis marck. There never was a policy so unpopular as that involved by the military system of Von Roon ; never a minister so detested as was Bismarck.

The war of Preface XI 1866 was, in its inception, nowhere so unpopular as in Prussia. But success atoned for everything. All the previous high-handed measures of the ministry were forgotten, and the annexations and other advan tages which followed it produced the most complete revulsion in the public mind with regard to the minister theretofore so detested. With respect to events generally, the writer has consulted all the German, and many of the English and French works written on the subject. He has also been allowed to peruse journals of some of the actors, hitherto unpublished. To all he is greatly indebted. But he is bound to admit that he has met with no writer whose knowledge of the incidents which led to the war of 1866 is so ample, or whose con clusions are so just, as those of Sir Alexander Malet, at the time H.M.'s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Frankfort.

In his book, 'The Over throw of the Germanic Confederation by Prussia in 1 866,' the keys of the Foreign Office at Berlin are placed in the readers' hands, and the mind of the statesman who, after excluding Austria from Germany, completed his policy of ' Thorough ' by the humiliation of France, is laid, an open book, before the generation that witnessed ' the resounding of the German Empire.' G. B. M. The Refounding of the German Empire

Chapter I. The Empire Of Charlemagne

— RENUNCIATION BY FRANCIS II. — THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD — FROM l8lS TO 1848 — FROM 1848 TO 1852. THE Holy Roman Empire, founded by Charlemagne, and dating from Christmas day 800, died on the 6th of August 1806. It had lived just over a thousand years. The hopes of the great Charles that the sceptre would descend in perpetuity to members of his own family had not been realised. The family became extinct in 911. From that date the numerous dukes and counts who had been content to serve as officers of the imperial court asserted their independence, and with it the right to elect their supreme overlord. The method of election, under the arrangement originally settled, was gradually found to be in practice crude, unwieldy, and unworkable. In the thirteenth century, then, the electoral basis was narrov/ed by restricting the voting power to seven of the most influential magnates of the land.

In 1648 the number was increased to eight, and in 1692 to nine. It was reduced to eight in 1777, but the peace of Lune ville (February 9, 1801) increased it to ten. From the year 1407 onwards the electing body had, with rare A The Renunciation of Francis I. 2 exceptions, conferred the dignity on the representative of the House of Habsburg. Alike in his capacity as Emperor of Germany and the hereditary ruler of the several States he had inherited from his ancestors, the Emperor Francis II. had taken a prominent part in the wars of the French Revolution. Up to the year 1796 the victories gained and the defeats sustained by his armies and those of his allies were not very un evenly balanced. In 1795 the tide had seemed to turn rather decisively in his and their favour, but in the following year the genius of Napoleon Bonaparte turned the scale very effectually against him.

The same genius forced him the year immediately following to accept a peace x by which he yielded the Low Countries and the Ionian islands to France, and Milan, Mantua, and Modena to the newly formed Cisalpine republic, receiving, by a secret article, Venice as compensation. The war was renewed a year later. Bonaparte was absent in Egypt, and Austria, powerfully aided by Russia, carried at the outset all before her. The return of Bonaparte on the 9th of October, his successful blow at the existing constitution exactly one month later, his nomination as First Consul, and, finally and chiefly, the campaign of Marengo, changed into despair the bright hopes to which the earlier successes of the war had given birth at Vienna. The peace of Luneville which followed confirmed the advantages to France obtained by the preceding treaty, and in addition secured for her a preponderating influence in western Germany.

The conditions imposed by the conqueror were lenient. It was the only time, if we may except the conditions regarding Russia of the treaty of Tilsit, when the young ' Treaty of Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. The Consequences of Austerlitz. 3 conqueror whose work it was showed consideration • to a defeated enemy. His subsequent words and acts proved that he had come to believe that in displaying that consideration he had made a blunder. The peace between France and Austria lasted four years. Meanwhile the conqueror of Marengo had become Emperor of the French (May 18, 1804), and the Emperor Francis of Germany had, nearly three months iater, as sumed, by letters patent, the position of hereditary Emperor of Austria, under the title of Francis I. (August 11, 1804). When he assumed the rank and position of Emperor of the French, Napoleon was, and for some time previously had been, engaged in making gigantic preparations for the invasion of England.

He was still pushing forward these preparations when, on the 5th of August 1805, the Emperor Francis, yielding to the solicitations of Pitt, declared war against him. How Napoleon, with marvellous skill, suddenly trans ferred his army from the shores of the ocean to southern Germany, how he compelled one Austrian army to capitulate at Ulm, and completely defeated another allied with the Russians, on the anniversary of his coronation (December 2) at Austerlitz, need not be told here in detail. Napoleon had prefaced the war by telling his soldiers that he would not again spare the enemy to whom he had been too merciful at Campo Formio and at Luneville, and he kept his word. The treaty of Pressburg, the consequence of Austerlitz, rent Venice from Austria, transferred to Bavaria Tirol, Voral berg, the principality of Eichstadt, and part of the Bishopric of Passau ; to Baden the greater part of the Brisgau, with Constance ; to Wiirtemberg Augsburg and a portion of Suabia.

The Electors of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg became kings, and Baden was recognised The Confederation of the Rhine : 4 as a sovereign State. In the words of the latest English historian x of the period : ' The constitution of the empire ceased to exist even in name.' But another and a fiercer blow directed against that constitution was to follow. Napoleon employed the comparative leisure which followed the signature of the peace of Pressburg (December 26, 1805) to devise a still more potent method for crippling Germany. On the ruins of the empire he had broken up he designed to constitute in Germany a new power, independent alike of Austria and Prussia, pushed in as a wedge between the two, a province of France in all but in name, and de riving from France all its motive power. He worked at this project with his accustomed energy during the earlier months of 1806.

In July of that year he had arranged every detail. Sixteen prominent princes of western and southern Germany declared their separation from the German Empire and Emperor, and formed under the protection of the French Emperor, a league to be styled ' The Confederation of the Rhine.' On the 6th of August, the Emperor Francis, under the pressure of Napoleon, dissolved by decree the Germanic confederation, and formally abdicated his title as chief of the Holy Roman Empire. Before the close of the year the adhesion of Saxony had brought within that league almost every German who was not either Austrian or Prussian.2 The territories thus amalgamated for offence and defence became virtually a French province. They counted a population of more than fourteen millions, and had an extent of over 125,000 square miles.

The military forces they disposed of, fixed after the union of Saxony at 1 Fyffe's History of Modern Europe, Vol. I. page 300. - In December 1S06 the Confederation consisted of France, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, and Westphalia, seven grand duchies, six duchies, and twenty principalities. Lts Strength and its Weakness. 5 1 19,180 men, were drilled by French officers. The frontiers were regarded to all intents as the frontiers of France. The Confederation, thrust into the very heart of Ger many, was a standing menace to Austria and Prussia. Its formation, from the standpoint of the actual moment, seemed to its author and to Europe generally to be the outcome of the highest political genius. With the con sent of a great part of Germany Napoleon had, it seemed, rendered German union against France for ever impossible.

Nor can it be doubted that the German people admitted within the Confederation derived great immediate advantages from the amalgamation. Justice was made easy to all; the taxes were spread in more even pro portions over the several classes ; whilst to the ambitious a career was opened such as, under the petty govern ments which had been swept away, had been impossible. Yet it can scarcely be doubted now that the measure in the form it took was adverse to the interests of France; that it really contributed, and greatly, to the cause of German unity. The existence of the Confederation was only possible under the condition of continued success on the field of battle. The campaign of 1812 in Russia, still more the campaign of 1813 in Germany, proved the instability of the foundations on which it rested.

Nor was the evil — to France — confined to the 'sudden disaffection which immediately preceded and immediately followed the battle of Leipsig. The Confederation had introduced into the very heart of Germany that power of combination for the cause of national union which we have seen fructify in our own day. There were, indeed, in 1806 some shrewd men, some of them Frenchmen, who deprecated the policy of Napoleon because, in their view, it was bound to lead to such results. One of these, the Baron de Marbot, at the time How it contributed to German Unity. 6 aide-de-camp to Marshal Augereau, has detailed, in one of the most charming autobiographies1 ever given to the world, the opinions he formed at that period. In the presence of accomplished facts they are worthy of being transcribed. ' Although,' wrote the Baron, ' I was very young at this epoch I thought that Napoleon com mitted a great fault in reducing the number of the small principalities of Germany.

In fact in the ancient wars against France the 800 princes of the Germanic corps could not act together. There was some of them who furnished only a company, some only a platoon, many but half a soldier ; so that the reunion of these different contingents composed an army totally deprived of any principle of combination, and disbanded at the very first reverse. But when Napoleon had reduced to thirty two the number of the principalities he introduced the spirit of union into the forces of Germany. The sovereigns preserved and aggrandised formed a small but well-constituted army. That indeed was the end which the Emperor proposed to himself in the hope of thus utilising to his profit all the military resources of the country. This was the case so long as we were successful. But at the very first reverse the thirty-two sove reigns, having a common understanding, combined against France, and their coalition with Russia overthrew the Emperor Napoleon.' The Confederation of the Rhine, wounded to the death by the campaign of 18 1 2, and killed by the battle of Leipsig, was succeeded, in 181 5, by a new league called 'The Germanic Federation.' In the autumn of 1814 the work of forming a scheme for the reorganisation of Germany had been committed to Austria, Prussia, 1 Memoires du Gen. Baron de Marbot, Vol. I. page 275.

Paris, Plon Nourrit & Co., iSyi. The Germanic Federation. 7 and three of the minor powers. The scheme itself, promulgated June 8, 1815, fell short of the hopes that had been roused during the life and death struggles of 1813-14. The blighting influence of Metternich had suc cessfully restricted the wider-reaching aspirations of the patriots of northern Germany. That many difficulties existed in the way of satisfying the latter must be ad mitted. The kings whom Napoleon had made, released from his yoke, were resolved to maintain, as far as was possible, the absolutism which had their rule during the preceding eight years. Austria was bound hand and foot to the same principle. And though the general feeling of Prussia, as a nation, was strongly in favour of progress, the King and his ministers were in their hearts not one whit more inclined to it than was Metternich himself.

The outcome, then, of the deliberations of the five powers was unsatisfactory. Germany became federated only in name. The act of June 1 81 5 created a Federal Diet at which seventeen members, the representatives of States, or groups of States or free cities, were to meet. These representatives were nominated by the rulers of the respective States or groups. The place of meeting was the city of Frankfort on the Main. From its first meeting, in November 18 16, to its last, in August 1866, the Diet was powerless to assure the real union of Germany. Throughout that period the influence of Austria was predominant; and during the arbitrary rule of Metternich, 1815 to 1848, and again during the reaction which followed the outbreaks of 1848, Austria used that influence to stifle every aspiration for freedom.

Her principle was, 'to aggrandise Austria, to humiliate Prussia.' During its life of fifty-one years, inclusive of the suspension of its powers from July 1848 to May 1851, the Diet, with opportunities favourable for The Revolution of 1 848. the development of sound patriotic principles, displayed only a genius for intrigue and a capacity for repression. To the Diet, thus playing a part at once subordinate and humiliating, the mouthpiece in matters pertaining to Germany of Metternich, the revolution of February 1 848 in Paris was a very rude awakener. To the people of every State in Germany the same event acted as a call to prompt and resolute action. It happened that at the moment (February 27) a meeting of patriotic men was being held at Mannheim to devise how to procure for the Fatherland a few moderate reforms.

These were, the freedom of the press, trial by jury, liberty to carry arms, national representation. The terror inspired in ruling circles by the movements in Paris caused these proposals to be everywhere accepted. Baden led the way. The other States followed. In a few days not only had the modest requests I have mentioned been all but universally granted, but the governments, those of Austria and Prussia excepted, had promised to revoke the exceptional laws ; to impose on the army an oath of fidelity to the constitution ; to declare the political equality of all creeds ; the responsibility of the ministers of the crown ; the independence of the judges ; the aboli tion of the remnants of feudalism. But little opposition was offered by the rulers. In Bavaria, indeed, there were tumults ; but the abdication of King Louis (March 20) promptly put an end to these.

Meanwhile, in Frank fort, the population of which, like the populations of all the great cities in Germany, was wild with enthusiasm and excitement, the Diet had passed a resolution (March 3) empowering every federal State to abolish the cen sorship, and, under certain guarantees, to sanction the freedom of the press. On the 10th, noting the continued swelling of the storm, it despatched to the rulers of Lts First Effect in Germany. 9 Germany an invitation to send to Frankfort commis saries to discuss the reorganisation of the country. This invitation was its own death-warrant. In the tumult of the national aspirations it passed from the minds of men, and apparently expired. For nearly three years, from July 1848 to May 185 1, it ceased to meet. But for Austria, fresh from her triumph over the internal foes of her unpopular sway, the Diet would never have been heard of again.

But we shall presently see how, in May 185 1, the powerful representative of the am bitious policy of that power needing the semblance of a national sanction to the schemes he was planning, summoned it from its tomb, and used its phantom form to impress the will of Austria on the Fatherland. How it existed for fifteen years, and then, under the treatment of Count Bismarck, went the way of other shams, will be told in due course. In considering the course of events which in Germany followed the explosion of 1848 it must be borne in mind that during the first eighteen months Austria was too much occupied with her own affairs to take a decisive part in the settlement of German questions, and that it was not to her but to Prussia that the patriots of the Fatherland looked for the action which should make Germany a nation.

It will then be only necessary to state that no country in Europe was apparently so com pletely shattered by the storm of the revolution as was the composite empire ruled over by the Habsburgs. For some time it seemed absolutely impossible that she could escape shipwreck. What with risings in Lombardy, at Venice, in Bohemia, in Hungary, in her own capital, Austria had the appearance of a gallant ship cast upon a lee shore combating with the breakers. The time came indeed when she righted herself, and made for a few Frederic William IV. of Prussia. 10 years a show as proud and as defiant as that which she had presented before February 1848. But for the moment she seemed a wreck, and all eyes and all hearts turned with hope and expectation to Prussia and her king. It seems advisable, under these circumstances, before we enter upon a sketch of the troubles at Berlin and at Frankfort, with their gradual subsidence in favour of a policy which, if responded to, might have antici pated by twenty years the great event at Versailles of January 187 1, to examine very briefly the character of the sovereign who then ruled in Prussia.

Frederic William IV., King of Prussia, was in his fifty-fourth year when Paris dismissed the King of the French and his family. Though he had served as a youth in the stirring campaigns of 1811-14-15,1 he had none of the instincts of the soldier. The term 'dreamer' describes accurately what he was. He had unbounded confidence in, almost a worship for the Czar Nicholas, a dread of offending Austria, a reverence for royalty and for ruling princes, such as placed them on a pedestal not to be approached by the common people. A senti mentalist, irresolute, enthusiastic, and indolent, he wished the happiness of his subjects provided they would leave himself and his nobles in the enjoyment of the power and privileges he and they had inherited. He was ever ready with soft cajoling words, but he would not give them, if he could avoid it, any of the political food for which they clamoured.

He was ready to promise without intending to perform. If he had ruled in France in the place of Louis XVI. he would have displayed no more 1 Baron Marbot records how his father, in 1812, earnestly begged Napoleon to allow the young prince lo accompany him to Russia, on his staff, and how Napoleon, to his surprise, refused. Berlin in 1 848. 1 1 firmness than did that ill-fated monarch. But there was this difference in the positions of the two men. In France, in 1789-90, the army sided with the people. In Prussia, in 1848, the soldiers were loyal to the sovereign. Popular aspirations and popular enthusiasm had, early in March 1848, found a very strong expression in Berlin. With the cry for constitutional freedom in its broadest sense was joined the demand for the reorganisation of Germany on the principle of unity.

The King was not disposed to grant any but the very slightest concession. On the 5th of March he attempted to disarm the leaders of the movement by telling them that their proposals would be considered by the Prussian Diet, the periodical meeting of which had been assured. Three days later the public were informed that the revision of the press laws was under consideration ; but these paltry and half hearted concessions rather irritated than satisfied the people. For the six days that followed Berlin was paraded by an angry mob, which seemed inclined even to court a contest with the soldiery. On the 14th the King, who had been apparently delaying action until he should ascertain the results of the movements in other large centres, especially in Vienna, driven by the attitude of the people to do something, made another feeble attempt to calm men's minds.