Hampden, and of the first
efforts of the Americans in the War of Independence. Berlin was
declared in a state of siege, and Berlin remained tranquil; the
National Guard was dissolved by the Government, and its arms were
delivered up with the greatest punctuality. The Assembly was hunted
down during a fortnight, from one place of meeting to another, and
everywhere dispersed by the military, and the members of the Assembly
begged of the citizens to remain tranquil. At last the Government
having declared the Assembly dissolved, it passed a resolution to
declare the levying of taxes illegal, and then its members dispersed
themselves over the country to organize the refusal of taxes. But
they found that they had been woefully mistaken in the choice of their
means. After a few agitated weeks, followed by severe measures of the
Government against the Opposition, everyone gave up the idea of
refusing the taxes in order to please a defunct Assembly that had not
even had the courage to defend itself.

Whether it was in the beginning of November, 1848, already too late to
try armed resistance, or whether a part of the army, on finding
serious opposition, would have turned over to the side of the
Assembly, and thus decided the matter in its favor, is a question
which may never be solved. But in revolution as in war, it is always
necessary to show a strong front, and he who attacks is in the
advantage; and in revolution as in war, it is of the highest necessity
to stake everything on the decisive moment, whatever the odds may be.
There is not a single successful revolution in history that does not
prove the truth of these axioms. Now, for the Prussian Revolution, the
decisive moment had come in November, 1848; the Assembly, at the head,
officially, of the whole revolutionary interest, did neither show a
strong front, for it receded at every advance of the enemy; much less
did it attack, for it chose even not to defend itself; and when the
decisive moment came, when Wrangle, at the head of forty thousand men,
knocked at the gates of Berlin, instead of finding, as he and all his
officers fully expected, every street studded with barricades, every
window turned into a loophole, he found the gates open, and the
streets obstructed only by peaceful Berliner burghers, enjoying the
joke they had played upon him, by delivering themselves up, hands and
feet tied, unto the astonished soldiers. It is true, the Assembly and
the people, if they