KARL MARX

COLOGNE 187
establishment, had fallen while Marx was in Berlin; the controversial
armistice with Denmark also contributed to the general feeling of unrest
throughout Germany. Marx hurried back to Cologne on 11 September
to experience the most tempestuous month of that turbulent year.
Relations in Cologne between the citizens and the soldiers (most of whom
came from East Prussia) were tense in any event; and on 13 September,
after a particularly brutal provocation and looting by the soldiers, Wolff
and Burgers summoned a public meeting on Cologne's main square.
Several thousands surrounded the tribune draped in a black, red and
gold flag; the flysheet with the Seventeen Demands was distributed, and a
Committee of Public Safety of thirty members was elected 'to represent
those portions of the population not represented by the present authorities'.
45 The Committee included Marx and most of the staff of the Neue
Rheinische Zeitung; its five-man executive committee, of which Marx was
not a member, was headed by Hermann Becker. The last act of the
meeting was to send an Address, proposed by Engels, to the Prussian
Assembly urging them to stand firm in the face of government pressure.
The Committee of Public Safety summoned a mass meeting at Worringen
just outside Cologne for the following Sunday, 17 September, in
order to support the Frankfurt Assembly against the Prussian Government
over Denmark. It was also hoped that the choice of venue would help to
draw into the revolutionary movement peasants and factory workers who
lived in the villages. About 10,000 people arrived to hear a series of
speeches in favour of a Social-Democratic Republic from, among others,
1 lenry Brisbane (editor of the New York Daily Tribune) and Lassalle (whose
championship of Countess von Hatzfeld in a cause celebre had already
provided him with a national reputation), representing the Diisseldorf
radicals. On Engels' proposal a motion was carried that, if a conflict broke
out between Prussia and the other German states, the participants 'would
give life and limb for Germany'. 46 The news had not yet arrived that the
Frankfurt Assembly (which had not even been previously consulted) had
reluctantly agreed to the armistice of Malmo that Prussia had signed with
Denmark. This aroused nationwide protests, particularly from Democrats
who considered that Prussia had merely dishonoured Germany and had
rejected all aspirations towards national unity. Barricades were erected in
Frankfurt and two conservative deputies were lynched. The momentum
of protest in Cologne was continued on 20 September with a mass
meeting called in support of the Frankfurt insurgents by the Democratic
Society and the Workers' Association as well as the Committee of Public
Safety. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung opened a subscription for them and
their families.
But the movement had already passed its zenith: the Frankfurt uprising