T he great drama of the democratic emigration of 1848-52had been preceded by a prelude eighteen years previously: the democratic emigration of 1830-31. Even though with the passage of time most of the players had disappeared from the stage there still remained a few noble ruins who, stoically indifferent to the course of history and their own lack of success, continued their activities as agitators, devised comprehensive plans, formed provisional governments and hurled proclamations into the world in every direction. It is obvious that these experienced swindlers were infinitely superior to the younger generation in business know-how.
It was this very know-how acquired through eighteen years practice in conspiring, scheming, intriguing, proclaiming, duping, showing off and pushing oneself to the fore that gave Mr. Mazzini the cheek and the assurance to install himself as the Central Committee of European democracy supported only by three straw men of much smaller experience in such matters.
No one was more favoured by circumstances to become the very type of the émigré agitator than our friend Harro Harring. And indeed he did become the prototype whom all our heroes of the Exile, all the Arnolds, Gustavs and Gottfrieds strove more or less consciously and with varying success to emulate. They may even equal him if circumstances are not unfavourable, but they will hardly surpass him.
Harro who like Caesar has himself described his own great deeds (London 1852) was born on the "Cimbrian peninsula" and belongs to that visionary North Frisian race which has already been shown by Dr. Clement to have produced all the great nations of the world.
"Already in early youth" he attempted to "set the seal of action upon his enthusiasm for the cause of the peoples" by going to Greece in 1821. We see how Friend Harro had an early premonition of his mission to be everywhere where confusion reigned. Later on "a strange fate led him to the source of absolutism, to the vicinity of the Czar and he had seen through theJesuitism of constitutional monarchy in Poland".
So Harro fought for freedom in Poland also. But "the crisis in the history of Europe following the fall of Warsaw greatly perplexed him", and his perplexity led him to the idea of "the democracy of nations", which he at once "documented in the work: The Nations , Strasbourg, March 1832". It is worth remarking that this work was almost quoted at the Hambacher Fest. [48] At the same time he published his "republican poems: Blutstropfen [Drops of Blood]; The History of King Saul or the Monarchy; Male voices on Germany's Freedom" and edited the journal Deutschland in Strasbourg. All these and even his future writings had the unexpected good fortune to be banned by the Federal Diet on November 4, 1831. This was the only thing he still lacked, only now did he achieve real importance and also the martyr's crown. So that he could exclaim "My writings were everywhere well received and echoed loudly in the hearts of the people. They were mostly distributed gratis.
In the case of some of them I did not even receive enough to cover the Costs of printing."But new honours still awaited him. In 1831 Mr. Welcker had vainly attempted in a long letter "to convert him to the vertical horizon of constitutional monarchy". And now, in January 1832, there came a visit from Mr. Malten, a well-known Prussian agent abroad, who proposed that he should enter Prussian service. What double recognition this was -- and from the enemy too! Enough, Malten's offer "triggered off the idea that in the face of this dynastic treachery he should give birth to the concept of Scandinavian nationality", and "from that time on at least the word Scandinavia was reborn after having been forgotten for centuries".
In this manner our North Frisian from South Jutland who did not know himself whether he was a German or a Dane acquired at least an imaginary nationality whose first consequence was that the men of Hambach would have nothing to do with him.
With all these events behind him Harro's fortune was made. Veteran of freedom in Greece and Poland, the inventor of "democracy of nations", re-discoverer of the word "Scandinavia", poet acknowledged by the ban of the Federal Diet, thinker and journalist, martyr, a great man esteemed even by his enemies, a man whose allegiance constitutionalists, absolutists and republicans vied with each other to possess and, with all that, empty-headed and confused enough to believe in his own greatness -- what then was needed to make his happiness complete? But Harro was a conscientious man and as his fame grew so did the demands which he made upon himself What was missing was a great work that would present in an entertaining and popular form the great doctrines of freedom, the idea of democracy, and of nationality and all the sublime struggles for freedom on the part of the youthful Europe arising before his very eyes. None but a poet and thinker of the very first rank could produce such a work and none but Harro could be this man. Thus arose the first three plays of the "dramatic cycle" The People , of which there were twelve parts in all, one of them in Danish, a labour to which the author devoted ten years of his life. Unfortunately eleven of these twelve parts have "hitherto remained in manuscript".
However, this dallying with the muse was not to last forever.
"In the winter of 1832-1833 a movement was prepared in Germany -- which was brought to a tragic end in the skirmish in Frankfurt. I was entrusted with the task of taking the fortress (?) in Kehl on the night of 6 April.
Men and weapons were at the ready."
Unfortunately it all came to nothing and Harro had to retire to the depths of France where he wrote his Words of a Man. From there he was summoned to Switzerland by the Poles arming themselves for their march on Savoy.
