The June Uprising

JAN 01 1848 · 12:00

Barricades across the Old Town, June 1848, period lithograph Place: Barricades across the Old Town and Lesser Town; Field Marshal's batteries on Letná and Hradčany Figures: Alfred I, Prince of Windischgrätz, commanding · Karel Sabina and the radical students · the Slavic Congress (in session) The first pan-Slav congress in history is meeting in Prague at the Žofín island hall, delegates arriving from Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, and Galicia. František Palacký presides. The mood across Europe is the mood of 1848: Vienna has had its March, Paris its February, and Prague has just had a partial constitutional concession from the new emperor Ferdinand. On Whitsun Monday, June 12, students and radicals hold an open-air mass on Wenceslas Square, then march. By afternoon there are barricades. Field Marshal Alfred I, Prince of Windischgrätz, commands the garrison from the Lesser Town. He withdraws his troops across the river, takes them up to Letná plain and the Hradčany ridge, and trains the imperial guns on the city below. Five days of intermittent shelling follow.