THE SPRINGTIME OF OTHER NATIONS 255princes who were unable to fend for themselves. The Russian army was restor-
ing order in the Danubian principalities on behalf of the Turks, whilst Louis
Napoleon, newly elected President of the French Republic, was mounting an
expedition to reinstate the Pope in Rome. The King of Prussia, having refused
'to grovel in the gutter' for the crown of Germany offered him by a chastened
German Parliament, proceeded to chase the Parliament from the scene alto-
gether. By the middle of 1849 it was all over. The Poles, like everyone else, were
returned to their several obediences, and had less to show than most for the year
of excitements.
Thus the Poles had found themselves on the defensive in 1848. For reasons
which were hard to comprehend at the time, the most indefatigable of Europe's
oppressed nations was somehow unable to participate fully in Nationalism's
Rites of Spring. Although the Poles of Austria and Prussia were to benefit from
the social and constitutional reforms conceded by the governments, they did so
through no special merit of their own. They made no appreciable progress on
the national issue itself. Both in Cracow and Poznan, they lost such remnants of
national autonomy that they had hitherto enjoyed. The Poles in Russia were
silent. There was no advance whatsoever in reuniting the three Partitions. For
Germany and Italy, 1848 was indeed the year of promise. For Hungary, it spelt
first success and then disaster. But for Poland, it brought forth only two or three
tiny leaves which promptly withered on the bough.