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Title: The Conference at Baden-Baden (1860)
Description: Berlin correspondence for the New-York Daily Tribune on Louis Bonaparte’s visit to the German princes at Baden-Baden in June 1860 and on the history of the conflict between Denmark and the German Diet over the constitution and the budget of Holstein.
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1860-07-04
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1860%20The%20Conference%20at%20Baden-Baden
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*Published as a correspondence dated Berlin, June 18, 1860 (“From Our Own Correspondent”), unsigned, under the headline “The Conference at Baden-Baden”, in the* New-York Daily Tribune*, No. 5989, July 4, 1860, p. 5; attributed to Karl Marx by MEGA² (I/18). Text from the original newspaper (Library of Congress, Chronicling America). [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/1860%20La%20conferencia%20de%20Baden-Baden)*

Berlin, June 18, 1860.

Just before Louis Bonaparte’s arrival at Baden-Baden, the little town was flooded with French *mouchards*, policemen, and gensdarmes, masqueraded into artists and dandies. From the railway station where he alighted, they followed him to the Hotel of the Stephanie Bäder, where he took up his residence, huzzaing outrageously on his several exhibitions before the public, although their cries of *Vive l’Empereur* were regularly drowned in the hisses of the German spectators. The repulsively vulgar physiognomies of Generals Fleury and Failly in the Emperor’s suite, somewhat softened the effect produced by the appearance of the hero with the eyes of the owl and the nose of the parrot, who, true to his mimic mission, had donned the historical gray coat. His private conversation with the Prince Regent lasted only forty-five minutes; on all his other interviews with the Hohenzollern he had simultaneously to encounter the whole lot of little German potentates, so that there was hardly an opportunity offered for the transaction of serious business. Before his departure from Paris he had given the signal for the issue of About’s pamphlet, the title page of which had, however, to be altered from “Napoleon III. et la Prusse,” into “La Prusse en 1860.” Before leaving Baden-Baden, he conveyed to the King of Hanover the grand cross of the Legion of Honor, a significant act, since Borries, the Hanoverian Minister, had only some weeks ago raised the general indignation of Germany by stating that Hanover would sooner go over to France than yield to Prussian supremacy.

The real business of the Baden-Baden conference will not commence before next week, when the ministers of most of the German States, together with Gen. von Rzikowski, the first military commissioner of Austria at Frankfort, and the president of the Federal military commission, are to join the Prince Regent. The main questions to be decided turn upon the organization of the German Federal army and steps to be taken against Denmark, who, in her course of open and spiteful violation of the Federal laws is known to be goaded by France and Russia. In order to explain the present Northern crisis, it will be necessary to survey briefly the different phases which the last conflict between Denmark and the German Diet has run through.

On October 2, 1855, as you will remember, the King of Denmark octroyed a whole State Constitution (*Gesamtstaats verfassung*), which not only equalized the law of succession to the throne for the kingdom and the German Duchies, but created, under the name of the Imperial Council (*Reichsrath*), a sort of general legislature for the common affairs of the whole monarchy. Together with this whole State Constitution, there were octroyed new and separate constitutions for Denmark proper, for Schleswig, and for the German Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg (provincial constitutions in unison with the whole State Constitution), and a so-called “normal financial budget,” determining the quota which each part of the whole monarchy had to pay, not for its own administration, but into the common exchequer. The “normal” budget of 1855 was promulgated on the express condition that the respective quota imposed on the different countries should never be augmented without the sanction of the popular estates. In introducing the new financial law of 1855, the Central Government had exhausted all its ingenuity for overcharging the German Duchies to the profit of the Danish kingdom. The revenues from the public domains of the Duchies, although by a notification, dated January 28, 1852, they had been acknowledged to belong to the Provincial Administration, were made over to the common exchequer. A considerable number of direct taxes which had always formed an exclusive resource of the provincial treasury, were, moreover, on false pretenses, laid claim to by the whole-state-chest. Not only was the standard most unfavorable to the Duchies, that of population excepted in the re-partition of the common taxes, but the Duchies were even bound to pay two per cent beyond the quota payable according to that standard. Thus, apart from the revenues derived from the domains, and of direct taxes arbitrarily classed under that rubric, the Duchy of Holstein was alone to contribute the sum of 756,193 rix-dollars for the common expenses of the entire monarchy.

The octroyed whole-state constitution, with its normal budget, its Imperial Council, and its newfangled provincial charters, raised an immense outcry throughout the Duchies. By the new law of succession to the throne they found themselves separated from Germany and bound over to the destinies of Denmark. By the institution of the Imperial Council (*Reichsrath*), in which they could never fancy to sway but a small minority of votes, they would, in point of fact, forfeit their national independence, and become subjected to the dictates of a Danish Legislature. By the normal budget, at last, they were unfairly taxed for swelling the material resources of their antagonists at Copenhagen.

The consequent agitation in the Duchies lasted for more than two years, and their provincial Diets had repeatedly, but vainly, appealed to the German Confederation, when the latter resolved at last to interfere. Here it ought to be recollected that the King of Denmark in his quality as Duke of Holstein and Lauenburg, is a member of the German Confederation, and bound to obey the resolutions of the German Diet. By a resolution of February 11, 1858 the German Diet declared the whole State Constitution of October 2, 1855, to be null and void as far as the German Duchies were concerned—simultaneously it called upon the King of Denmark to take immediately such steps as would restore the relations between the Duchies and the whole monarchy to a state conformable to the federal laws and the promises made by the King himself in 1851-’52. On February 25, 1858, the German Diet published another decree by which the King of Denmark was strictly forbidden to promulgate any new laws contrary to its own resolution of February 11, and to alter anything in the status quo before the settlement of the constitutional question. On March 26, 1858, the Danish King lodged at the German Diet a declaration to the effect that he was willing to conform to the resolution of February 25, but reserved to himself to decide what administrative innovations he might introduce by virtue of the now superseded old provincial charter. In reply to this communication the German Diet, on May 20, 1858, passed another resolution rejecting the interpretation put by the King on the decree of February 25, interdicting again any change, administrative or legislative, to the prejudice of the Duchies, and holding out the menace of a military federal execution to take place in Holstein, if the Diet should become informed of any infringement of its former resolutions. On August 12, 1858, the German Diet went one step further, by the actual appointment of a committee for dispatching federal troops to Holstein and Lauenburg, or carrying out “the military execution,” as it is called in the official language. The Danish Government thought it now fit apparently to give way. By royal patent of November 6, 1858, the whole State Constitution of 1855, while maintained for the Kingdom of Denmark and the Duchy of Schleswig, was abrogated in the German Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg. The first six paragraphs of the provincial charter, octroyed to Holstein in 1855, and relating to the whole State Constitution, were also cut off, and the Imperial Council or *Reichsrath* was purged of its members for Holstein and Lauenburg. On March 10, 1859, the Provincial Diet of Holstein addressed a memorandum to the King, expostulatory of the grievances of the Duchies, and insisting that, until the definitive settlement of their relations with Denmark, no new laws concerning the common affairs of the whole monarchy should be promulgated unless they had been also laid before and obtained the sanction of the Holstein Estates. The Danish Government not deigning to heed these remonstrances, the Holstein Estates again appealed to the German Diet, which then renewed its menace of a military execution in the Duchies. On Nov. 2, 1859, the Danish Government gave a solemn promise to the German Diet, firstly, that it was about summoning a Chamber of Delegates in order to settle the pending difficulties between the Duchies and the monarchy, and secondly, that 1½ per cent should be remitted of the quota fixed by the “normal budget” upon Holstein. The German Diet eagerly caught at this opportunity to stay again, “provisionally,” by decree of March 6, 1860, the threatened military execution, though the conditions put by the federal resolution of Feb. 11, 1858, were as far as ever from being fulfilled. However, the Diet declared simultaneously this new respite to be given to Denmark on the express understanding only, that, during the interim, and before the constitutional settlement, all projects of law presented to the Imperial Council, relating to the common affairs of the whole State, and especially to financial matters, should also be laid before the Estates of Holstein and Lauenburg for their consent. This federal decree of March 6, 1860, winds up with the distinct declaration that any disobedience on the part of the Danish Government would this time be directly punished with the military execution in the Duchies. The Committee appointed to that purpose was even ordered to keep his forces ready for such a case. Well, the Danish Government, said to have meanwhile concluded a secret treaty with France, not only withdrew its own proposal for a meeting of delegates, but, by a law passed on May 15, 1860, through the Danish Imperial Council, and never laid before the Estates of the Duchies, imposes a new financial budget for 1860-61. By virtue of this the Holstein contribution to the whole State Exchequer is to be raised from 756,193 rix dollars to 908,880. Denmark wants money for the new maritime fortifications of Copenhagen, and, finding the provincial treasury of the Duchies well filled, thought fit to provisionally lay hands upon it, relying on the open consent of the Danish “Reichsrath” and the secret support of France and Russia. Now, it is evident that the collision has reached a point which leaves the German Diet no alternative but that of abdicating its powers or realizing its threats. In the Schleswig case the question is somewhat obscured by international complications. In this Holstein case the question regards only the rights of the German Confederation over its own members.