The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, by C. Edmund (Charles Edmund) Maurice

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Title: The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany

With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years

Author: C. Edmund (Charles Edmund) Maurice

Release Date: April 26, 2012 [eBook #39540]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848-9.

Giuseppe Mazzini.

THE
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
OF 1848-9
IN ITALY, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, AND GERMANY.

WITH SOME EXAMINATION OF THE PREVIOUS
THIRTY-THREE YEARS.

BY
C. EDMUND MAURICE,
AUTHOR OF "THE LIVES OF ENGLISH POPULAR LEADERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES."

WITH AN ENGRAVED FRONTISPIECE AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS.

New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

London: GEORGE BELL AND SONS

1887.

[The right of translation is reserved.]

CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.

PREFACE.

The following book is the result of many years' work. It aims at showing the links which connected together the various movements in Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire in 1848-9. Many as are the books which have been written on the various parts of that struggle, I do not know of any attempt to link them together. How adventurous this effort is I am most painfully aware, and none the less so because I happen to know that the task was undertaken and abandoned by at least one writer who has many qualifications for it to which I can lay no claim. I allude to my friend Dr. Eugene Oswald, who has most generously assisted me in carrying out the work for which he was unable to spare the time. But I may say without arrogance that however deficient my history may be in the learning and ability which Dr. Oswald's would have shown, as well as in that lifelikeness which his personal share in the important rising in Baden would have enabled him to give to the descriptions; yet I shall at least have no temptation to any one-sided estimate of the merits of the various races concerned in the struggle, a temptation from which the most candid German could hardly escape. My only danger in that matter would be that I might be tempted to speak too favourably of all the movements of those various races; seeing that during my investigations in the cities affected by these movements, I received the most extreme courtesy and kindness from German and Bohemian, Magyar and Szekler, Saxon and Roumanian, Serb, Croat, and Italian; and I feel nothing but pain at any word of criticism I have uttered in these pages that may jar on the susceptibilities of any of those races.

It will be noticed, of course, that I have omitted from this history any account of the French Revolution. My reasons for this have been given at the beginning of the seventh chapter. But I may add to what I have said there that I had long felt the disproportionate importance which many people attached to the French Revolution of 1848, in regard to its immediate influence on Europe. From Palermo, not from Paris, came the first revolutionary outburst. From Presburg, not from Paris, came the word that shook Metternich from power, and secured a European character to the Revolution. Under these circumstances, I conceived the idea of telling the story of the European Revolution, without touching on the French part of it, except in the most incidental manner; so that the students of this period may be able fairly to estimate the other influences which produced these great results, unblinded by the splendour which anything done in Paris seems always to have for the student of revolution.

One other peculiarity in my book also needs some explanation. I have, as far as possible, avoided references to authorities in notes. Such references only worry the general reader, while the student will, I think, be more helped by the list of authorities which I append to this preface.

It now only remains for me to thank those friends who have helped me in my work.—For the German part of the Revolution, I have received much help from the kind loan of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" by the late Dr. Karl Marx. For the special Baden part of it I received help not only from Dr. Oswald but also from Dr. Karl Blind, who lent me pamphlets not otherwise accessible. For the Bohemian part of the narrative I owe much to the kind help of Dr. Gabler, Mr. Naprstek, Count Leo Thun the younger, and Dr. Rieger. For hints about the Viennese struggle I owe thanks to Dr. von Frankl, the