response the Saxon troops fired on the crowd. Within hours the town was in chaos, with 108 barricades erected. In the early hours of 4 May 1849, the king and his ministers managed to escape and fled to the fortress of Königstein. Three members of the dissolved Democratic parliament now became the leaders of the revolution: Samuel Erdmann Tzschirner, Karl Gotthelf Todt and Otto Leonhard Heubner formed a provisional government with the aim of forcing the acceptance of the constitution. Tzschirner called in another member, Alexander Heinze, to organise fighting and bring in more communal guards from outside Dresden. Reinforcements joined the revolutionaries from as far away as Chemnitz, Zwickau and Marienberg, and the struggle grew extremely violent. The Saxon troops were also backed up by arriving Prussian soldiers. They planned to encircle the rebels and corner them on the Altmarkt (Old Market), but the number of barricades meant they had to fight for every street, even in the houses. Recent studies place the number of revolutionaries at around 3,000, compared with 5,000 government troops from Saxony and Prussia. Apart from being outnumbered, the rebels were also untrained in battle, disorganised and lacked weapons, so they stood little chance of success. On 9 May the majority (1,800) were forced to flee. Most of the others gave up, and the rest were tracked down to the Frauenkirche and arrested. Prominent figures amongst the revolutionaries Before the events of May 1849, Dresden was already known as a cultural centre for liberals and democrats; the anarchist Dresdner Zeitung newspaper was partly edited by the music director August Röckel and contained articles by Mikhail Bakunin, who came to Dresden in March 1849. The Saxon government later accused Bakunin of being the revolutionaries' ringleader, although this is unlikely to have been the case. Röckel also published the popular democratic newspaper Volksblätter. Richard Wagner the composer, at the time Royal Saxon Court Conductor, had been inspired by the revolutionary spirit since 1848 and was befriended by Röckel and Bakunin. He wrote passionate articles in the Volksblätter inciting people to revolt, and when fighting broke out he took a very active part in it, making hand grenades and standing as a look out at the top of the Kreuzkirche. The architect Gottfried Semper was until 1849 less politically active, but had made known his democratic beliefs and felt compelled to stand up for them, also taking a