Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung November 1848

The Latest News from Vienna, Berlin and Paris

by Karl Marx

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 135 Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org

Cologne, November 4. The outlook brightens.

There is no direct news yet from Vienna. But even according to the official Prussian papers, it is clear that Vienna has not surrendered and that Windischgratz deliberately or as a result of a misunderstanding had given to the world a false telegram. The "good" press, like an orthodox, multilingual echo, has willingly repeated the message although it has tried hard to mask its malicious glee behind a woebegone countenance. Stripped of all their fantastic and self-contradictory trash, the reports from Silesia and Berlin bring out the following facts. By October 29 the imperial bandits had obtained control only of a few suburbs. The reports received up till now do not show that they have gained a foothold in Vienna itself. The whole story of Vienna's surrender boils down to a few treasonable proclamations of the Vienna town council. The advanced guard of the Hungarian army attacked Windischgratz on October 30, and was said to have been driven back. On October 31 Windischgratz resumed the shelling of Vienna -- without result. His army is now between the Viennese and the over 80,000-strong Hungarian army. Windischgratz's infamous manifestos called forth uprisings or at least very threatening movements in all provinces. Even the Czech fanatics in Prague, the neophytes of Slovanska Lipa, [84] have awakened from their wild dreams and declared for Vienna against the imperial Schinderhannes. [85] Never before has the counter-revolution dared to proclaim its plans with such fatuous brazenness. Even at Olmutz, that Austrian Koblenz, [86] the crowned idiot can feel the ground shaking beneath his feet. The fact that the troops are led by the world-famed Sipehsalar [Commander-in-Chief. -- Ed] Jellachich -- whose name is so great that "at the flash of his sabre the frightened moon hides behind the clouds" and "the roar of cannon" always "points the way" in which he must hurriedly decamp -- leaves no doubt that the people of Hungary and Vienna

Horsewhip that scum into the Danube River,
Go castigate that overweening rabble,
Those starveling beggars, all so tired of living,
That horde of miscreants, rogues and vagabonds,
Croatian riff-raff, abject peasant hirelings,
That vomit, spewed up by a glutted homeland
For desperate ventures and for certain doom.

Later reports will give appalling details of the crimes perpetrated by Croats and other knights "of law and order and constitutional freedom". The European bourgeoisie ensconced in stock exchanges and other convenient observation posts will loudly acclaim the gory spectacle; the same wretched bourgeoisie that broke into screams of moral indignation because of a few harsh acts of popular justice and with a thousand voices unanimously anathemized the "murderers" of honest Latour and noble Lichnowski.

The Poles, avenging the Galician murders, are once more advancing at the head of the liberators of Vienna, just as they march at the head of the Italian people and everywhere act as high-minded generals of the revolution. Three cheers for the Poles!

The Berlin camarilla, intoxicated with the blood of Vienna, blinded by the pillars of smoke rising from the burning suburbs, stunned by the Croats' and Hungarians' shouts of victory, has dropped its cloak. "Peace has been restored in Berlin." We shall see.

Finally, from Paris come the first subterranean rumbles announcing the earthquake that will bury the genteel republic under its own ruins.

The outlook brightens.