oken out; it used this power to no other purpose but to
destroy the effects of the insurrection. Wherever an armed conflict
had brought matters to a serious crisis, there the shopkeepers stood
aghast at the dangerous situation created for them; aghast at the
people who had taken their boasting appeals to arms in earnest; aghast
at the power thus thrust into their own hands; aghast, above all, at
the consequences for themselves, for their social positions, for their
fortunes, of the policy in which they were forced to engage
themselves. Were they not expected to risk "life and property," as
they used to say, for the cause of the insurrection? Were they not
forced to take official positions in the insurrection, whereby, in the
case of defeat, they risked the loss of their capital? And in case of
victory, were they not sure to be immediately turned out of office,
and to see their entire policy subverted by the victorious
proletarians who formed the main body of their fighting army? Thus
placed between opposing dangers which surrounded them on every side,
the petty bourgeoisie knew not to turn its power to any other account
than to let everything take its chance, whereby, of course, there was
lost what little chance of success there might have been, and thus to
ruin the insurrection altogether. Its policy, or rather want of
policy, everywhere was the same, and, therefore, the insurrections of
May, 1849, in all parts of Germany, are all cut out to the same
pattern.

In Dresden, the struggle was kept on for four days in the streets of
the town. The shopkeepers of Dresden, the "communal guard," not only
did not fight, but in many instances favored the proceedings of the
troops against the insurgents. These again consisted almost
exclusively of working men from the surrounding manufacturing
districts. They found an able and cool-headed commander in the Russian
refugee Michael Bakunin, who afterwards was taken prisoner, and now is
confined in the dungeons of Munkacs, Hungary. The intervention of
numerous Prussian troops crushed this insurrection.

In Rhenish Prussia the actual fighting was of little importance. All
the large towns being fortresses commanded by citadels, there could be
only skirmishing on the part of the insurgents. As soon as a
sufficient number of troops had been drawn together, there was an end
to armed opposition.

In the Palatinate and Baden, on the contrary, a rich, fruitful
province and an entire state