Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/225

 pitiably inadequate. In the Palatinate a small number of Bavarian soldiers had come out for the popular cause—that is to say, they had left their colors and taken the oath of allegiance to the national constitution and to the provisional government. Aside from these regular soldiers, the provisional government had at its disposition the civic guard of some of the cities, which, however, could be used only for local service, and were indifferently armed. Then they had the little corps under Zitz—some six or seven hundred men—and a small corps under Blenker, and finally the military bodies which were still to be organized on a large scale, but which so far were insignificant as a fighting force. It would probably not have been difficult to raise in the Palatinate an army corps of twenty to twenty-five thousand men had the provisional government had firearms at its disposal. Multitudes of volunteers offered themselves, but as no guns could be put into their hands and they could only be armed with spears, many of them went home again. An attempt to import muskets from Belgium failed, because they were intercepted by Prussian customs officers on their way through Prussian territory. An expedition led by Blenker to surprise the fortress of Landau, situated in the Palatinate, which contained considerable stores of arms and military equipments, also failed. Thus the want of arms remained one of the most pressing cares.

The provisional government consisted of highly honorable, well-meaning, and brave men, who should not be blamed for not having mastered a situation which would have tested the resources of a great organizing genius. Nor did they succeed in finding military men equal to the gigantic task. The chief command of such military organization as they had they gave first to a former leader of the civic guard in Vienna, Fenner von Fenneberg, a man who had developed into a