The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-14 00:00:00

CIVIL WAR IN PRUSSIA.
(From the Chronicle.)
The plot thickens at Berlin. The die is cast.
Frederick William has accepted the alternative forced
upon him by the failure of his last attempt to retain,
under the external symbols of Constitutional Govern-
ment, a remnant of that power which his Parliament
contends has centred, in indivisible completeness, in
their own. Ever on the defensive, yet ever receding,
the King has long struggled to maintain an attitude
of contentious equality towards an Assembly, which
he was neither sufficiently powerful to command, nor
sufficiently humbled to obey. The contest which, in
the constitutional history of our own country, ex-
tends over a period of many generations, interrupted
by the struggle in which monarchy was struck down,
and renewed after it had risen from the dust, and
which English legists loved to imagine still subsisting
long after the extension of the prerogative of Puha.
ment had set it at rest for ever, has, in Prussia, tra-
velled through its first, perhaps its single and only, '
stage in the eight months which have elapsed since
the revolution of March. The Crown has started into
an aggressive position, and taken a step in advance,
and we have now entered upon a new chapter of the
history of the revolution in Germany.

(From the Post.)
Affairs at Berlin seem to have come at last to what
is technically termed a dead-lock. It was a contin-
gency which all expected, and which could scarcely
fail to take its place in the stream of events at some
period or another. Such being the case, we feel the
less compunction at entertaining a certain degree of
satisfaction at the event. This feeling is partly due
to principle • partly, we do confess, to mere human
weakness, which positively sickened at the wretched
exhibition of hypocrisy and pretence which for some
time past has characterised, on both sides, the rela-
tions between the King and the faction which called
itself the people. For months past, Frederic William
has been twaddling in parodies on Parisian cant,
perfectly conscious, all the while, that the democratic
movement with which he was affecting to sympathise
must, in its development, rob him of his throne and
plunge his realm into anarchy; and, for the same
period of time, has Frederick William's faithful
people, so far as it is represented by Assembly dema-
gogues, by street spouters, and by Radical newspa-
pers, slavered forth their lip loyalty and grandiloquent
patriotism, every word a lie. The farce grew weari-
some, and the audience longed for the curtain to
fall, and the actors to be men again. That mockery
is over, and order and faction are now fairly pitted
against each other. The Prussian monarchy must
conquer or fall. Whatever may be thought of the
appointment of Count Brandenburg in the first
instance, it is now apparent that to succumb to the
arbitrary demands of a lawless and usurping majority
of the Assembly would inevitably be the subversion
of the royal house of Frederick the Great, and the
demolition of all rule in Prussia. But the King of
Prussia has an arduous task before him. He will
now dipcoyer the value of the ground which he has
lost. His temporising policy, his selfish regard to
his own individual schemes of ambition, and his rea-
diness to sacrifice to them the safety of those monar-
chical institutions whose guardianship had devolved
upon him—all this has already alienated from him
many a true heart in Prussia, and has emboldened
and strengthened those whose projects are mixed
up in his overthrow. Whether he will succeed in
retrieving these errors now remains to be seen.