Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung December 1848

The New “Holy Alliance”

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 211;
Written: on December 30, 1848:
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 183, December 31, 1848.

Cologne, December 30. It is already generally known that some months ago a new “Holy Alliance” was concluded between Prussia, Austria and Russia^[200]. The treaty itself will very shortly be brought into the light of day and it will be possible for it to be made public. The soul of this alliance of the rulers “by the grace of God and the knout” is Russia. On the other hand, the whole of Russian policy and diplomacy, with few exceptions, is borne on the shoulders of Germans or German Russians. Indeed, wherever absolutism and counter-revolution are actively at work, Germans are always to be found, but nowhere more so than at the focal point of the permanent counter-revolution, Russian diplomacy. There, in the first place, is Count Nesselrode, a German Jew; then come Baron von Meyendorf, ambassador in Berlin, from Estonia, and his assistant, adjutant of the Tsar, Colonel Count Benkendorff, also from Estonia. Working in Austria is Count Medem, a — Courlander, with several assistants, including a Herr von Fonton, all of them Germans. Baron von Brunnow, Russian ambassador in London, also a Courlander, acts as an intermediate and mediating link between Metternich and Palmerston. Finally, in Frankfurt, Baron von Budberg, a Livonian, acts as Russian chargé d'affaires. These are a few examples. We could cite several dozen more, without mentioning the creatures of the Petersburg Tsar who occupy high and highest posts in Germany and at the same time are in high Russian pay.

The role played by the Austrian Archduchess Sophia, now the Dowager Empress, in the cause of the Holy Alliance and the enemies of the people, is so notorious as to need no description. Sophia herself, however, is in turn powerfully influenced by Grand Duchess Helena, wife of Grand Duke Michael and daughter of Prince Paul von Württemberg. Helena serves as the most intimate link between Nicholas and Sophia and the notorious Archduke Ludwig.

Moreover, already some months ago these persons agreed on the plan according to which the Austrian martial-law Emperor will marry the surviving daughter of the Grand-ducal married couple in order that the new “Holy Alliance” will be indissolubly welded together and Russia brought ever closer to its goal, the establishment in Germany of the most complete rule of the knout.