The Rhineland Revolution – 1848-1850
The reasons for the outbreak of the wave of revolutions in 1848 have frequently been discussed. Liberal tensions had been rising for decades whilst new radical ideas had swept the continent. At the same time nationalism was on the rise whilst only a few nation states existed. Recent urbanisation had created large numbers of oppressed urban poor whilst in the countryside conditions remained almost medieval. All these rising tensions eventually erupted in an orgy of revolution as the people of Europe demanded to have their say – the was the Springtime of the Peoples.
It began, like so many great movements, in Paris. Just two days after Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto in London the French capital exploded in violent revolution as the people looked to overthrow King Louis-Philippe. The most important figure of this violent period of the revolution in Paris was Blanqui who organised the unruly rabble into a force dedicated to overthrowing the King. The revolution started on February 23rd, two days later Louis-Philippe fled and by February 29th his troops had withdrawn from Paris as well. The Second French Republic from proclaimed and revolutionaries shot to the city like moths to a flame. At the same time revolutions started to spring up across Europe – most notably in Germany and Hungary.
It was in March that the revolution really started to kick off in Germany. Whilst in France Republicanism had been the main unifying force of the revolution in Germany it was pan-nationalism. Across the country the Republican tricolour of the German nation was flown alongside bands of workers and peasants as they rioted for freedom. Yet even at this early stage it was clear that things were different in the Rhineland. Whilst most of Germany was largely rural with only small pockets of proletarians the Rhineland was heavily industrialised and heavily proletarian. In Cologne the main printing presses that published the Communist Manifesto were pumping out copies of Marx’s work and it was here were most of the copies remained. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that the workers of the Rhineland did not carry with them the Republican tricolour but the red flag. They did not riot for the unification of a bourgeoisie nation but for class war and the creation of a state in which the people, not an aristocratic of bourgeois clique, ruled.
As Spring turned to Summer in 1848 things started to go against the revolution. In July Louis-Philippe returned to Paris with a large army from the Southern provinces of France causing an exodus of revolutionaries. Marx and Engels, fearing that the entire revolution was on the verge of collapse fled to Belgium. Meanwhile the Frenchmen Proudhon and Blanqui went to Cologne – now with Paris lost to the counterrevolution Cologne seemed to be the centre of the entire European-wide revolution. Both men were in Cologne by the end of July and found that the Rhineland was already virtually lost to the Prussians.
Before the arrival of the Frenchmen the undisputed leader of the revolution was Weitling. Weitling’s decision to spread the revolution out of the cities is one of the key reasons for its eventual success. His reasons for doing this are not quite so visionary as one might think – by midsummer 1848 the cities were far too volatile to control, the urban proletarians were also much less impressed with Weitling’s ‘evangelical’ socialist rhetoric than the rural population. This meant that Weitling and his German Socialist focussed on spreading revolutionary fervour to new areas and did not preach to the already converted urban poor. Meanwhile in Cologne Weitling’s ideologist in chief Feuerbach helped spread the ideas of the German Socialists across the Rhineland.
As soon as Blanqui arrived he threw himself into the depths of the Rhenish mob in Cologne, seeing the popularity of Marxism with the people he portrayed himself as a Marxist through and through. Around the same time Bakunin arrived in the Rhineland after failing to stir the Slavs of the Austrian Empire into revolution and started to organise the Anarchists into revolutionary units.
The speed at which Blanqui worked to whip the Marxist rabble into shape was quite extraordinary. On September 5th, after barely a month in Germany, he led the Marxists in the armed seizure of the Rhineland’s greatest city – Cologne. Suddenly it became apparent to revolutionary and counterrevolutionary alike that in the Rhineland there was a serious chance of the socialists succeeding. On September 10th Blanqui requested Marx’s presence in Cologne to help his legitimise his leadership of the Marxists – the great man arrived on September 20th and was joined two days later by Engels.
At this moment Prussian High Command, which was still fighting for control of Berlin and Silesia, ordered Weydemeyer (a man they had feared to use early in the revolution due to his apparent sympathies with the revolutionaries) to march on Cologne with his 3,000 men. Instead Weydemeyer declared his army for the revolution and swore allegiance to the revolutionary government in Cologne.
Following the capture of Cologne the Anarchists, German Socialists and Marxists seemed to engage in a race to see which side could secure the most cities and territory as possible in the absence of any meaningful Prussian resistance. As it started to become apparent to the Marxists and Anarchists that Weitling’s forces were vastly superior to their own the two most ideologically opposed leftist factions of the revolution agreed to unite under the banner of the People’s Party.
The architect of the formation of the People’s Party in December and January was the Anarchist leader Proudhon. Proudhon used his political nous to convince Engels that the Marxists needed to join forces with the Anarchists. By getting Engels firmly on side Proudhon was then able to convince a reluctant Karl Marx to agree to the alliance in the name of the revolution. On a high from his success with the Marxists Proudhon then began to bring the most powerful leftist faction – the German Socialists – into the People’s Party but despite a receptive Feuerbach their leader, Weitling, remained confident that he could achieve victory for his party alone. By the start of Spring 1849 Prussian influence in the Rhineland had been crushed. Along the Rhine itself and throughout the Ruhr the People’s Party (split roughly 65-35 between Marxists and Anarchists respectively) was more powerful than the German Socialists but outside of these areas its influence remained rather weak. Weitling’s party remained the clear leaders of the revolution.
Both sides had also started to build up their own armies. Weitling commanded an impressive 80,000 men however they were a poorly armed, pathetically trained and badly disciplined rabble. The People’s Party on the other hand had Weydemeyer and the energetic Blanqui training their army. Weydemeyer had added to his 3,000 ex-Prussian troops with another 5,000 men who were now trained almost up to the same standard. Blanqui on the other hand had concentrated on drilling large numbers of men and had around 25,000 men – all were armed and his force was mostly disciplined but still far behind Weydemeyer’s troops. All this was just as well for in March 30,000 Prussian soldiers entered the North-Eastern Rhineland. Weitling was quick to lead his large army out to face them.
Weitling’s rabble proved no match was the elite Prussian Army. Things were only made worse by the fact that Weitling, a man who was no General, was facing Generalfeldmarschall von Wrangel – one of Prussia’s finest and most experienced military minds. Out of 80,000 men who entered the battle the socialists lost 10,000 saw a further 20,000 capture whilst the majority of the rest simply dispersed following the battle. Weitling limped back towards Cologne with around 12,000 men (Just 15% of his original force) and sent word to Feuerbach that he was willing to enter the People’s Party and would also give over his remaining troops to Weydemeyer.
Wrangel was no fool and realised that the odds were still against him even after his great victory at the Battle of Munster. He decided to agree to a plan put forth by the Prussian Foreign Office in which the Dutch would invade with 15,000 men from the North and would in exchange receive Cleves (in truth the Dutch were preparing to invade under any circumstance, this merely formalised the invasion). As the Dutch army poured over the border and started to threaten Cologne directly Weydemeyer was left in a perilous position as Wrangel slowed his advance to a crawl. If he marched North to fight the Dutch then Wrangel could easily pounce forward and take Cologne, thus ending the revolution. Yet if he stayed where he was the Dutch would threaten Cologne itself and he could not trust his rearguard to hold the city against 15,000 Dutchmen.
In the end Weydemeyer opted for a high risk strategy. He would ignore the Dutch and march head on into the jaws of the Prussian army. News had reached Weydemeyer that a small force of around 8,000 seasoned troops had just stumbled over the border from Baden and had formed up at Koblenz (where they had been recently beaten by the Badenese Army), these troops could prove invaluable so Blanqui was sent South to gather these troops and to raise whatever soldiers he could on route before returning North. Meanwhile Weydemeyer would, after giving Blanqui a few days head start, march East to face Wrangel with around 40,000 soldiers (8,000 true soldiers, 12,000 from Weitling and 20,000 from Blanqui’s men).
On April 15th Blanqui set out for Koblenz. On April 16th he reached the city and gathered the troops (around 8,000 Badenese and 3,000 other soldiers). On April 17th Weydemeyer set out on his way to Wrangel’s army. On April 18th his troops skirmished with Wrangel’s for the first time. On April 20th (with Blanqui fast approaching from the South) the two armies joined in battle.
Weydemeyer was in an inevitable position. He was forced to go on the offensive against the most feared army in Europe with what was essentially a rabble army with sprinklings of crack troops. Yet Weydemeyer proved to be a master of manoeuvre and was able to use his crack troops in every attack. He divided these units of soldiers and used them in a ratio of 1 to 2 with the irregulars. Each unit of regular soldiers also fought almost continuously whilst the irregulars were used slightly more sparingly. By peppering the Prussian lines with attack after attack, never giving them time to rest Weydemeyer made his small numerical advantage appear much bigger and he started to sap the moral of the Prussians. On the second day of the battle Prussian discipline seemed to start to break down as units frequently broke from combat and Wrangel’s commands failed to filter down to the ranks. It became clear that Wrangel’s army was suffering horrific casualties whilst it appeared that the socialist casualties were much lower (in truth they were about the same, even slightly worse). Realising that he had no need to defeat Weydemeyer this day (by this stage the Dutch were again bearing down on Cologne) Wrangel decided to withdraw his troops from the battle.
This proved to be a costly mistake. Wrangel’s hopes of an orderly withdrawal were not fulfilled as the Prussians lost their formation and their organisation as they fled back Eastward. Weydemeyer pursued them, knowing that Blanqui’s army had managed to position itself around 12 miles behind the Prussians and was ready to block their retreat.
Wrangel and his entire army were captured.
Weydemeyer quickly organised his forces and returned to Cologne to fight off the Dutch. This was indeed accomplished but at great cost. Even with the capital relatively safe his army was in tatters having suffered heavy casualties and the Dutch remained entrenched in the Northern portion of the Ruhr. From May until the start of August Weydemeyer led the revolutionary armies in attack after attack against the Dutch positions until they were forced back into the Netherlands. After this the Dutch King reluctantly made peace with the revolutionaries, fearing an invasion of the Netherlands themselves. For the rest of August peace started to settle upon the Rhineland until September 12th when the Prussians launched their final attempt to reclaim their lost provinces. 12,000 Prussian soldiers and 6,000 Hanoverians entered the North-Eastern territories.
Unlike Wrangel this force actively tried to avoid battle and instead attempted to pick on smaller units of Weydemeyer’s army to try and bleed him dry and sap moral. However the Prussians had miscalculated, as Summer slowly faded away it started to become much more difficult for their army to live off the land and they were forced to reduce their army’s mobility in order to make it easier for supplies to reach it. This allowed Weydemeyer and his lieutenants to start attacking it directly. By start of November it had been thrown out of the Rhineland.
On November 23rd the King of Prussia agreed to a peace treaty with the People’s Party of the Rhineland although he refused to recognise its independence as a state (the treaty was worded as a ceasefire with a rebel army). However it was clear that this really meant admittance by the right that the revolution had succeeded.
On December 20th the United Socialist People’s Republic (Vereinigte Sozialistische Volksrepublik) or VSVR was officially proclaimed and it was decided that the country should be ruled by a Central Committee until Communism could be achieved. The Central Committee officially convened on January 1st 1850, Karl Marx was made the stand in Chairman until an election could take place in which the Chairman and the plan of action for the next 5 years could be decided.