The Eastern Question. The Revolution in Spain. The Madrid Press

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 14 August 1854


Written on August 14 and 15, 1854
First published in the New York Daily Tribune, No. 4172, September 1;
reprinted in the New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 968, September 5
and the New York Weekly Tribune, No. 678, September 9, 1854 (abridged)
Reproduced from the New York Daily Tribune
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 13 (pp.364-371), Progress Publishers, Moscow 1980
Collection(s): New York Tribune, The Eastern Question (Marx)

This article is entered in the Notebook as "Dienstag. 15. August. Dänemark und U.St.—Bundestags Gesetz-[gebung]—Serbische Antwort an die Pforte wegen der Entwaffnun [illegible] Osterreichs [illegible] Frage der Wiener Konferenz—Clarendons Revelation in H[ouse] etc.—Spanien". The first part of the article under the title "Servia—England, France and Constantinople" was published in The Eastern Question.

London, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 1854

It is stated in the Cologne Gazette[1] that

"after many years negotiations the American Government has declared its refusal to renew the existing treaty with Denmark, unless article V. be replaced by a stipulation according free passage through the Sound to all American vessels. At the same time the United States Government has declined to offer any compensation. Denmark, menaced by these American measures, has appealed to the other powers, and the Prussian Government is said to be willing to send 20,000 men for the protection of the Sound."

Since the Sound duties weigh on no one more oppressively than on Prussia herself, the measure attributed to her would marvellously suit the genius of Prussian policy. Altogether se non è vero, è ben trovato.[2]

The Frankfort Diet has published the new law on the press and association which has occupied its deliberations for a long time. The law affecting public associations simply prohibits every sort of political meetings or reunions, and the law on the press imposes heavy sums of cautionnement[3] , makes the issue of all publications dependent on Government permission, and withdraws offenses of the press from the jurisdiction of the jury trial.

The long-pending affair of the Berlin revolutionist conspiracy[4] has been abandoned by the Prussian Government, the chief witness against the accused parties, Mr. Hentze, being declared "suspect" by the public prosecutor. This Hentze is the same person on whose evidence, at the Cologne trial, a number of my friends were condemned to imprisonment in 1852[5] . But we are no longer in 1852, and the Prussian Government perhaps did not like to run the risk of seeing all its police agents branded a second time, reviving the souvenirs of Cologne in the very Capital, and at a time when the terreur of counter-revolution no longer imposes on the people.

On the 1st of August the Servian Government sent a courier to Brestovac, where Prince Alexander is using the waters, with the answer proposed to be made to the injunctions of the Sublime Porte[6] . The answer was signed by the Prince and immediately forwarded to Constantinople. It alleges the impossibility of a disarmament, disarmament, on account of the many dangers that would surround it, but states that in deference to the wishes of Austria and the orders of the Porte the military exercises had been suspended. Izzet Pasha, the Governor of Belgrade, has been recalled, at his own request. His successor is not yet known.

Ten thousand Turks are said to occupy Bucharest; but at the same time we read in today's Moniteur that Austria is only waiting for the reply of Omer Pasha to the last communication of Colonel Kalik, in order to command the entrance of an Austrian corps into the Principalities[7] . When Count Buol received the notification I min Prince Gorchakoff, announcing the departure of the Russians from the Principalities, he answered that

the Austrian troops would occupy the Principalities, but that such occupation had nothing hostile to Russia."[8]

By the prorogation of Parliament in 1854 the Eastern Question is brought back to the stage it occupied at the prorogation of Parliament in 1853. The Vienna Conference[9] is once more to set to work, to paralyze active operations, to bewilder public opinion, and to offer a new occasion to Sir James Graham, at the reopening of Parliament, to say that a noble mind is slow to suspect[10] . It is worthy of observation that the dodge originates this time not with Austria, but with England itself, as you will see from The Times Vienna correspondence:

"The English and French Ministers have informed Count Buol that they have been instructed by their Governments to propose that the Vienna Conference should meet. The reply is said to have been that nothing could be more agreeable to the Imperial Court."[11]

The basis of the new deliberations of the Conference is a sort of revived Vienna note, furnished by the answer of M. Drouyn de Lhuys to the last communication of M. de Nesselrode, the cardinal points of which differ very little from what I expected they would be after the analysis I gave you in my last letter[12] of the terms named by The Times. There is not a word about an indemnity to the Turks, nor even to the allies. The usurped Russian protector-ate over Moldavia, Wallachia and Servia, is to be transformed into European usurpation; the same is to be done with the "protector-ate" over the Christians in Turkey; the fruits of the Turkish victories to be restricted to free navigation of the Danube for Austria, and a change of the treaty of 1841[13] in favor, not of the Porte, but of the Powers.

The speech of Lord Clarendon on Thursday, the main points of which I have already reported, contained a most important revelation on the policy observed by the English Ministry in the Oriental question. He stated in plain words:

"I beg you to remember, that it was on the 29th of March that war was declared —a little more than four months ago—and it was then universally believed—and, when I say universally believed I do not speak of her Majesty's Government, but of the most able and experienced officers both of England and France—that at that time Russia meditated a war of further aggression. Nobody believed that, with the great forces she had concentrated on the north of the Danube, with all the efforts she had made, and with all the vast supplies she had accumulated, she did not intend—on the contrary that she did intend—a march southward. Although we did not doubt the known bravery of the Turks, we could not bring ourselves to believe that they would be able to resist the well-disciplined and numerically superior Russian troops, under the most experienced generals, while the only Turkish general whom we know even by name was Omer Pasha, who had not then had the opportunity, which he has since so nobly profited by, to establish for himself a lasting fame and renown. So much were the French Government and we convinced of this that Sir J. Burgoyne and an experienced French officer of engineers were sent to Constantinople in order to devise means of defending that capital and the strait of the Dardanelles, and so much importance was attached to their mission, and so entirely was the whole plan of the campaign supposed to be connected with it, that the departure of Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud was delayed, in order that they might have personal communications with the officers sent out on that service. The united armies of the Allies then went to Gallipoli where great works were thrown up. They went to Constantinople, always having the necessity of defending the Dardanelles in view."[14]

The whole plan, then, of the Allied Powers, was that Russia should advance into and occupy the provinces, and the allied forces the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles. Hence the delays and all the misunderstood movements of the Anglo-French forces. The bravery of the Turkish troops which baffled this Russo-Anglo-French trick was, of course, "unexpected."

Some months before the outbreak of the present Spanish revolution, I told your readers that Russian influences were at work in bringing about a Peninsular commotion[15] . For that Russia wanted no direct agents. There was The Times, the advocate and friend of King Bomba[16] , of the "young hope" of Austria[17] , of Nicholas, of George IV, suddenly turned indignant at the gross immoralities of Queen Isabella and the Spanish Court. There were, besides, the diplomatic agents of the English Ministry, whom the Russian Minister Palmerston had no difficulty in bamboozling with visions of a Peninsular Coburg kingdom[18] . It is now ascertained that it was the British Embassador[19] who concealed O'Donnell at his palace, and induced the banker Collado, the present Minister of Finance, to advance the money required by O'Donnell and Dulce, to start their pronunciamento. Should anybody doubt that Russia really had a hand in Peninsular affairs, let me remind him of the affair of the Isla de Leon. Considerable bodies of troops were assembled at Cadiz, in 1820, destined for the South American colonies. All at once the army stationed on the Isle declared for the Constitution of 1812, and its example was followed by troops elsewhere. Now, we know from Chateaubriand, the French Embassador at the Congress of Verona[20] , that Russia stimulated Spain to undertake the expedition into South America, and forced France to undertake the expedition into Spain. We know, on the other hand, from the message of the United States President[21] , that Russia promised him to prevent the expedition against South America[22] . It requires, then, but little judgment to infer as to the authorship of the insurrection of the Isla de Leon. But I will give you another instance of the tender interest taken by Russia in the commotions of the Spanish Peninsula. In his Historia politica de la España moderna, Barcelona, 1849, Señor de Marliani, in order to prove that Russia had no reason to oppose the constitutional movement of Spain, makes the following statement:

"There were seen on the Neva Spanish soldiers swearing to the Constitution (of 1812) and receiving their banners from imperial hands. In his extraordinary expedition against Russia Napoleon formed from the Spanish prisoners in France a special legion, who, after the defeat of the French forces, deserted to the Russian camp. Alexander received them with marked condescension, and quartered them at Peterhoff, where the Empress[23] frequently went to visit them. On a given day Alexander ordered them to assemble on the frozen Neva, and made them take the oath for the Spanish Constitution, presenting them at the same time with banners embroidered by the Empress herself. This corps, thenceforth named 'Imperial Alexander', embarked at Kronstadt, and was landed at Cadiz. It proved true to the oath taken on the Neva, by rising, in 1821, at Ocaña for the reestablishment of the Constitution."

While Russia is now intriguing in the Peninsula through the hands of England, it, at the same time, denounces England to France. Thus we read in the New-Prussian Gazette[24] that England has made the Spanish revolution behind the back of France.

What interest has Russia in fomenting commotions in Spain? To create a diversion in the West, to provoke dissensions between France and England, and lastly to seduce France into an intervention. Already we are told by the Anglo-Russian papers that French insurrectionists of June[25] constructed the barricades at Madrid. The same was said to Charles X at the Congress of Verona.

"The precedent set by the Spanish army had been followed by Portugal, spread to Naples, extended to Piedmont, and exhibited everywhere the dangerous example of armies meddling in measures of reform, and by force of arms dictating laws to their country. Immediately after the insurrection had taken place in Piedmont, movements had occurred in France, at Lyons and in other places, directed to the same end. There was Berton's conspiracy at Rochelle in which 25 soldiers of the 45th regiment had taken part. Revolutionary Spain retransfused its hideous elements of discord into France, and both leagued their democratic factions against the monarchical system."[26]

Do we say that the Spanish revolution has been made by the Anglo-Russians? By no means. Russia only supports factious movements at moments when it knows revolutionary crises to be at hand. The real popular movement, however, which then begins, is always found to be as much opposed to the intrigues of Russia as to the oppressive agency of the Government. Such was the fact in Wallachia in 1848 such is the fact in Spain in 1854.

The perfidious conduct of England is exhibited at full length by the conduct of its Embassador at Madrid, Lord Howden. Before setting out from England to return to his post, he assembled the Spanish bondholders, calling upon them to press the payment of their claims on the Government, and in case of refusal, to declare that they would refuse all credit to Spanish merchants. Thus he prepared difficulties for the new Government. As soon as he arrived at Madrid, he subscribed for the victims fallen at the barricades. Thus he provokes ovations from the Spanish people.

The Times charges Mr. Soulé with having produced the Madrid insurrection in the interest of the present American Administration[27] . At all events, Mr. Soulé has not written The Times's articles against Isabella II, nor has the party inclined to Cuban annexation gained any benefit from the revolution. With regard to this question, the nomination of General de la Concha as Captain-General of the Island of Cuba is characteristic, he having been one of the seconds of the Duke of Alba in his duel with the son of Mr. Soule. It would be a mistake to suppose that the Spanish Liberals in any way partake in the views of the English Liberal, Mr. Cobden, in reference to the abandonment of the colonies[28] . One great object of the Constitution of 1812 was to retain the empire over the Spanish colonies by the introduction of a united system of representation into the new code[29] . In 1811 the Spaniards even equipped a large armament, consisting of several regiments from Galicia, the only province in Spain then not occupied by the French, in order to combine coercion with their South American policy. It was almost the chief principle of that Constitution not to abandon any of the colonies belonging to Spain, and the revolutionists of today share the same opinion.

No revolution has ever exhibited a more scandalous spectacle in the conduct of its public men than this undertaken in the interest of "morality." The coalition of the old parties forming the present Government of Spain (the partisans of Espartero and the partisans of Narvaez) has been occupied with nothing so much as the division of the spoils of office, of places, of salaries, of titles, and of decorations. Dulce and Echague have arrived at Madrid, and Serrano has solicited permission to come, in order to secure their shares in the plunder. There is a great quarrel between Moderados and Progresistas, the former being charged with having named all the generals, the latter with having appointed all the political chiefs. To appease the jealousies of the "rabble," Pucheta the toreador has been promoted from a director of the slaughter-houses to a director of police. Even the Clamor Publico, a very moderate paper, gives vent to feelings of disappointment.

"The conduct of the generals and chiefs would have been more dignified if they had resigned promotion, giving a noble example of disinterestedness, and conforming themselves to the principles of morality proclaimed by the revolution."[30]

The shamelessness of the distribution of the spoils is marked by the division of the Embassadors' places. I do not speak of the appointment of Señor Olozaga for Paris, although being the Embassador of Espartero at the same Court in 1843, he conspired with Louis Philippe, Cristina and Narvaez; nor of the appointment for Vienna of Alejandro Mon, the Finance Minister of Narvaez in 1844; nor of that of Rios y Rosas for Lisbon, and Pastor Diaz for Turin, both Moderados of very indifferent capacity. I speak of the nomination of Gonzalez Bravo for the Embassy of Constantinople. He is the incarnation of Spanish corruption. In 1839 he published El Guirigay (The Slang), a sort of Madrid Punch, in which he made the most furious attacks against Cristina. Three years afterward his rage for office transformed him into a boisterous Moderado. Narvaez, who wanted a pliant tool, used him as Prime Minister of Spain, and then kicked him away as soon as he could dispense with him. Bravo, in the interval, appointed as his Minister of Finance one Carrasco, who plundered the Spanish treasury directly. He made his father Under-Secretary of the Treasury, a man who had been expelled from his place as a subaltern in the Exchequer because of his malversation; and he transformed his brother-in-law, a hanger-on at the Principe Theater, into a state-groom to the Queen. When reproached with his apostasy and corruption, he answered: "Is it not ridiculous to be always the same?" This man is the chosen Embassador of the revolution of morality.

It is somewhat refreshing to hear, in contrast with the official infamies branding the Spanish movement, that the people have forced these fellows at least to place Cristina at the disposal of the Cortes, and to consent to the convocation of a National Constituent Assembly, without a Senate, and consequently neither on the election law of 1837 nor that of 1845[31] . The Government has not yet dared to prescribe an election law of their own, while the people are unanimously in favor of universal suffrage. At Madrid the elections for the National Guard have returned nothing but Exaltados.[32]

In the provinces a wholesome anarchy prevails, juntas being constituted, and in action everywhere, and every junta issuing decrees in the interest of its locality one abolishing the monopoly of tobacco, another duty on salt. Contrabandists are operating on an enormous scale, and with the more efficiency, as they are the only force never disorganized in Spain. At Barcelona' the soldiers are in collision, now among each other, and now with the workmen. This anarchical state of the provinces is of great advantage to the cause of the revolution, as it prevents its being confiscated at the capital.

The Madrid press is at this moment composed of the following papers: España, Novedades, Nación, Época, Clamor Público, Diario Español, Tribuno, Esperanza, Iberia, Catolico, Miliciano, Independencia, Guarda Nacional, Esparterista, Union, Europa, Espectador, Liberal, Eco de la Revolutión. The Heraldo, Boletin del Pueblo, and the Mensajero, have ceased to exist.

  1. ↑ Kölnische Zeitung.—Ed.
  2. ↑ If it is not true, it's cleverly invented.—Ed.
  3. ↑ Caution money.—Ed.
  4. ↑ The so-called "Berlin revolutionist conspiracy" was a police provocation (see The Berlin Conspiracy).
  5. ↑ The Cologne Communist Trial (October 4-November 12, 1852) was a trial of a group of Communist League members charged with "conspiracy bearing the character of high treason". The trial was rigged by the Prussian police on the basis of forged documents and fabricated evidence, which were used not only against the accused but also to discredit the whole proletarian organisation.
    Such evidence included, for instance, the "Genuine Minute-book" of the Communist League Central Authority meetings and other documents forged by police agents, as well as genuine documents of the adventurist Willich-Schapper faction which was responsible for the split in the Communist League. Seven of the twelve accused were sentenced to imprisonment for terms of three to six years. Marx directed the defence from London, sending material revealing the provocative methods of the prosecution, and after the trial he exposed its organisers (see Marx's pamphlet Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne and Engels' article "The Late Trial at Cologne", published in the New York Daily Tribune).
  6. ↑ See The Policy of Austria. The War Debates in The House of Commons—Ed.
  7. ↑ Report from Vienna of August 10, 1854. Le Moniteur universel, No. 226, August 14, 1854.—Ed.
  8. ↑ Report from Vienna of August 10, 1854, reprinted from the Journal français de Francfort in Le Moniteur universel, No. 227, August 15, 1854.—Ed.
  9. ↑ In 1853 and 1854 the Ambassadors of Britain, France and Prussia and the Austrian Foreign Minister Buol held a number of conferences in Vienna. The first, in July 1853, to which the Russian Ambassador was also invited but which he refused to attend, was officially aimed at mediation between Russia and Turkey in view of the worsening relations between them. The words "first Vienna Note" refer to the draft agreement between Russia and Turkey drawn up by Buol and concluded at the end of July 1853. It obliged the Sultan to abide by the Kuchuk-Kainardji (1774) (*) and the Adrianople (1829) (**) treaties on the rights and privileges of the Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Sultan Abdul Mejid agreed to sign the Note but demanded a number of changes and reservations, which the Russian Government found unacceptable.
    (*) The treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji was concluded between Russia and Turkey on July 21, 1774. Russia got territories on the northern shore of the Black Sea between the South Bug and the Dnieper with the fortress of Kinburn, and also Azov, Kerch and Yenikale and secured recognition of the Crimea's independence. Russian merchantmen were granted the right of free passage through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. The treaty obliged the Sultan to grant a number of privileges to the Orthodox Church; Article 14 in particular provided for the building of an Orthodox Church in Constantinople.
    (**) The peace treaty of Adrianople was concluded by Turkey and Russia in September 1829, at the end of the war of 1828-29. Under it Russia obtained the islands in the mouth of the Danube and a considerable part of the eastern coast of the Black Sea south of the Kuban estuary. Turkey was obliged to recognise the autonomy of the Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia and grant them the right to elect hospodars (rulers) independently. Russia was to guarantee this autonomy, which was tantamount to establishing a Russian protectorate over the Principalities. The Turkish Government also pledged to guarantee the autonomy of Greece and Serbia.
  10. ↑ See Debates in Parliament (February 21, 1854) and Parliamentary Debates of February 22. Pozzo di Borgo's Dispatch. The Policy of the Western Powers. —Ed.
  11. ↑ Report from Vienna of August 10. The Times, No. 21820, August 15, 1854.—Ed.
  12. ↑ See Evacuation of Moldavia and Wallachia. Poland. Demands of The Spanish People.—Ed.
  13. ↑ The reference is to the London Convention on the Black Sea Straits of July 13, 1841 (*). The convention annulled the Unkiar-Skelessi treaty which had been very advantageous for Russia (**).
    (*) In 1839 war broke out between Turkey and Egypt, aggravating the Eastern problem and the conflict between the Great Powers. The Western states were afraid that Russia would intervene separately in the Turko-Egyptian war and sent a collective note to the Sultan suggesting their collaboration. However, the struggle between Britain and France for spheres of influence in the Middle East, in Egypt in particular, led to the signing of the London Convention of July 15, 1840 on measures of military aid to the Sultan by Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia without France. The last-named, relying on Mehemet Ali, was soon compelled to yield and leave Egypt to its fate. On July 13, 1841 the London Convention on the Black Sea Straits was signed by Russia, Britain, France, Austria and Prussia, on the one hand, and Turkey, on the other. The convention laid down that in peacetime the Bosphorus and Dardanelles would be closed to warships of all powers. Marx called this convention the treaty of the Dardanelles.
    (**) The Unkiar-Skelessi treaty of defensive alliance was concluded by Russia and Turkey on July 8 (June 26), 1833. It provided for mutual aid in the event of war with a third power. A secret article of the treaty freed Turkey from the obligation to give military aid to Russia in return for an undertaking to close the Straits to all foreign warships on Russia's demand.
  14. ↑ Lord Clarendon's speech in the House of Lords on August 10, 1854. The Times, No. 21817, August 11, 1854.—Ed.
  15. ↑ See English and French War Plans. Greek Insurrection. Spain. China..—Ed.
  16. ↑ Ferdinand II.—Ed.
  17. ↑ Francis Joseph I.—Ed.
  18. ↑ An allusion to the marriage planned in 1845 of Prince Leopold Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—a cousin of the English Queen's husband, Prince Albert, and Queen Isabella II of Spain which would have led to a strengthening of Britain's position in the Peninsula. Palmerston, who became Foreign Secretary in 1846, vigorously supported this plan. It was not put into effect. Queen Isabella II of Spain married Don Francisco de Asis in 1846, and Infanta Maria Luisa Fernanda married the Duke of Montpensier, son of King Louis Philippe of France. If Isabella had no direct heirs, the Duke of Montpensier would have become one of the first pretenders to the Spanish throne. This victory of French diplomacy caused great dissatisfaction in Britain.
  19. ↑ John Caradoc, Baron Howden.—Ed.
  20. ↑ The Congress of Verona of the Holy Alliance was held from October to December 1822. It adopted the decision on France's armed intervention against revolutionary Spain, and on continuance of Austria's occupation of the kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia, and condemned the national liberation uprising of the Greek people against the Turkish yoke.
  21. ↑ James Monroe.—Ed.
  22. ↑ All this information is taken from David Urquhart, Progress of Russia in the West, North, and South, pp. 31-35, 40-50.—Ed.
  23. ↑ Yelizaveta Alexeyevna.—Ed.
  24. ↑ Neue Preußische Zeitung.—Ed.
  25. ↑ Marx alludes to the editorial of The Times of August 14 which contained the following passage: "It is notorious that on the occurrence of this revolution—and, indeed, for some time before—the signal had been given throughout Europe for the disbanded soldiers of sedition to repair to Madrid, and that several hundred of the disciples of the French Red Republic are at present in that capital, assisting the insurrection, teaching the noble art of street fighting, and endeavouring to exasperate the Spanish people to the last extremities against the Court."
    Insurrectionists of June—participants in the June 1848 uprising of the Paris proletariat.
  26. ↑ Marliani, Historia politico de la Espana moderna, p. 293.—Ed.
  27. ↑ The Times, No. 21820, August 15, 1854, leader.—Ed.
  28. ↑ The Manchester textile manufacturer Richard Cobden was one of the Free Trade leaders who demanded, in the interests of English industrial bourgeoisie, a reduction in expenses on the state administration. Among these they listed expenses connected with conquest of colonies and their administration. Cobden, Bright and others considered that Britain, being the most developed industrial power, could conquer any market, ousting her rivals by means of cheaper industrial goods. The centre of Free Trade agitation was Manchester, hence the name of the Manchester School, denoting the Free Trade trend in English economic thinking.
  29. ↑ Under the Cadiz Constitution of 1812 (see Revolutionary Spain) the population of the Spanish colonies, excluding the Negroes, received Spanish citizenship and equal political rights with the population of Spain proper, including the right to elect their representatives to the Cortes. By creating a semblance of equality between colonies and the mother country the Spanish liberals who drafted the Constitution tried to prevent the war for independence which was developing at the time in the Spanish colonies in America.
  30. ↑ The quotation from El Clamor Público is given according to L'Indépendance belge, No. 221, August 9, 1854.—Ed.
  31. ↑ On June 18, 1837, during the Spanish revolution of 1834-43, a new Constitution was adopted. Being a compromise between some bourgeois liberals and the liberal nobility, the 1837 Constitution gave the Cortes the right of free convocation, the king retaining the right to veto and dissolve the Cortes. Qualifications for election to the Lower Chamber were reduced; its deputies were elected by direct vote, the Senate was appointed by the king from a list submitted to him by special electoral collegiums. Catholicism was recognised as the state religion. The 1837 Constitution remained in force till 1845. In 1845 the Cortes adopted a law revising the Constitution of 1837. The new law raised the electoral qualifications, gave the king the exclusive right to appoint senators, abolished the right of the Cortes to convene without special permission of the monarch, and reserved to the Crown the right to define the range of questions for discussion by the Cortes.
  32. ↑ Exaltados, - Marx used this term to characterise the Spanish republicans during the fourth revolution in Spain (1854-56)