try to impart the
impulse of a mighty convulsion to the surrounding countries.
Accordingly, when, on the 23rd of June, 1848, the bloody struggle
began in Paris, when every succeeding telegraph or mail more clearly
exposed the fact to the eyes of Europe, that this struggle was carried
on between the mass of the working people on the one hand, and all the
other classes of the Parisian population, supported by the army, on
the other; when the fighting went on for several days with an
exasperation unequalled in the history of modern civil warfare, but
without any apparent advantage for either side--then it became evident
to every one that this was the great decisive battle which would, if
the insurrection were victorious, deluge the whole continent with
renewed revolutions, or, if it was suppressed, bring about an at least
momentary restoration of counter-revolutionary rule.

The proletarians of Paris were defeated, decimated, crushed with such
an effect that even now they have not yet recovered from the blow. And
immediately, all over Europe, the new and old Conservatives and
Counter-Revolutionists raised their heads with an effrontery that
showed how well they understood the importance of the event. The Press
was everywhere attacked, the rights of meeting and association were
interfered with, every little event in every small provincial town was
taken profit of to disarm the people to declare a state of siege, to
drill the troops in the new manoeuvres and artifices that Cavaignac
had taught them. Besides, for the first time since February, the
invincibility of a popular insurrection in a large town had been
proved to be a delusion; the honor of the armies had been restored;
the troops hitherto always defeated in street battles of importance
regained confidence in their efficiency even in this kind of struggle.

From this defeat of the _ouvriers_ of Paris may be dated the first
positive steps and definite plans of the old feudal bureaucratic party
in Germany, to get rid even of their momentary allies, the middle
classes, and to restore Germany to the state she was in before the
events of March. The army again was the decisive power in the State,
and the army belonged not to the middle classes but to themselves.
Even in Prussia, where before 1848 a considerable leaning of part of
the lower grades of officers towards a Constitutional Government had
been observed, the disorder introduced into the army by the Revolution
had