D espite his unexpected successes hitherto Arnold had not yet arrived at the goal of his labours. As Germany's representative by the grace of Mazzini, he was under the obligation on the one hand to obtain confirmation of his appointment at least by the German emigration and, on the other hand, to present the Central Committee with people who respected his leadership. He did indeed claim that in Germany "there was a clearly defined part of the people behind him" but this hind portion could scarcely inspire much confidence in Mazzini and Ledru as long as they could see nothing but the Ruge front portion. Suffice it to say that Arnold had to look around among the émigrés for a "clearly defined'' tail.
At about this time Gottfried Kinkel came to London and together with him or soon afterwards a number of other exiles partly from France, partly from Switzerland and Belgium: Schurz, Strodtmann, Oppenheim, Schimmelpfennig, Techow, etc. These new arrivals some of whom had already tried their hand at forming provisional governments in Switzerland, infused new life into the London emigration and for Arnold the moment seemed more favourable than ever. At the same time Heinzen again took over the Schnellpost in New York and so Arnold could now make his "frequent appearances" on the other side of the ocean and not ust in the local Bremen paper. Should Arnold ever find his Strodtmann the latter would surely declare the monthly numbers of the Schnellpost from the beginning of 1851 on to be a priceless source of information. One has to see this infinitely feeble mixture of gossip, silliness and nastiness, this ant-like self-importance with which Arnold deposits his dung, for otherwise one would not believe it. While Heinzen portrays Arnold as a European Great Power, Arnold treats Heinzen as an American newspaper oracle. He tells him the secrets of European diplomacy and in particular the latest events in the history of world emigration.
Arnold sometimes figures as the anonymous correspondent in London and Paris in order to keep the American public informed of some of the great Arnold's fashionable movements.
"Once again Arnold Ruge has the communists by the throat" -- "Arnold Ruge yesterday (dated from Paris so that the dating gives the old joker away) made an excursion from Brighton to London." And again: "Arnold Ruge to Karl Heinzen: Dear Friend and Editor .... Mazzini sends his greetings ... Ledru-Rollin gives his permission to translate his pamphlet on the June 13th" and so on.
A letter from America has this comment to make:
"As I see from Ruge's letters in the Schnellpost Heinzen must be writing Ruge (privately) all sorts of funny stories about the importance of his paper in America, while Ruge seems to act as if he were a major European govemment. Whenever Ruge imparts a momentous piece of information to Heinzen he never omits to add: You can ask other newspapers to reprint this. As if they would hesitate to print news regardless of Ruge's authorisation.
Incidentally, I have never seen these momentous reports actually appear anywhere else despite Ruge's advice and permission."Father Ruge employed both this paper and the Bremer TagesChronik to win over new arrivals by flattery: Kinkel is here now, the patriot and poet of genius; Strodtmann, a great writer; Schurz, a young man as amiable as he is bold, and a whole array of distinguished revolutionary warriors.
Meanwhile in contrast to the Mazzini Committee a plebeian European Committee was formed with the support of the "inferior refugees"and the émigré dregs of the various European nations.
At the time of the battle of Bronzell this committee had issued a manifesto that included the following outstanding German signatories: Gebert, Majer, Dietz, Schärttner, Schapper, Willich. This document was couched in peculiar French and contained the information that at that moment (10 November 1850) the Holy Alliance of Tyrants had assembled 1,330,000 soldiers backed by another 700,000 armed lackeys in reserve; that "the German papers and the Committee's own contacts" had revealed the secret intentions of the Warsaw Conferences [52] and that these were to massacre all the republicans of Europe. This was followed by the inevitable call to arms. This "manifeste-Faneron-Caperon-Gouté" as it was described by the Patrie (to whom they sent it) was overwhelmed with ridicule by the reactionary press. The Patrie called it "the manifesto of the dii minorum gentium, written without chic, without style and equipped with only the most banal clichés, 'serpents', 'sicaires' and 'égorgements'".
The Indépendence Belge states that it was written by the most obscure soldiers of democracy, poor devils who had sent it to their correspondent in London even though their paper was conservative.
Greatly as they longed to get into print, they would nevertheless not publish the names of the signatories as a punishment. Despite their attempts to beg from the reaction these noble people did not manage to obtain recognition as dangerous conspirators.
The establishment of this rival firm spurred Arnold on to even greater efforts. Together with Strave, Kinkel, R. Schramm and Bucher, etc.
he tried to found a Volksfreund , or, if Gustav were to insist, a Deutscher Zuschauer. But the plan fell through. Partly because our "good-humoured" Gottfried demanded payment in cash whereas Arnold shared Hansemann's view that in money matters there is no room for good humour.
