Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

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[The Austrian Court and Hungary.]

The effects of Radetzky's triumph were felt in every province of the
Empire. The first open expression given to the changed state of affairs was
the return of the Imperial Court from its refuge at Innsbruck to Vienna.
The election promised in May had been held, and an Assembly representing
all the non-Hungarian parts of the Monarchy, with the exception of the
Italian provinces, had been opened by the Archduke John, as representative
of the Emperor, on the 22nd of July. Ministers and Deputies united in
demanding the return of the Emperor to the capital. With Radetzky and
Windischgraetz within call, the Emperor could now with some confidence face
his students and his Parliament. But of far greater importance than the
return of the Court to Vienna was the attitude which it now assumed towards
the Diet and the national Government of Hungary. The concessions made in
April, inevitable as they were, had in fact raised Hungary to the position
of an independent State. When such matters as the employment of Hungarian
troops against Italy or the distribution of the burden of taxation came
into question, the Emperor had to treat with the Hungarian Ministry almost
as if it represented a foreign and a rival Power. For some months this
humiliation had to be borne, and the appearance of fidelity to the new
Constitutional law maintained. But a deep, resentful hatred against the
Magyar cause penetrated the circles in which the old military and official
absolutism of Austria yet survived; and behind the men and the policy still
representing with some degree of sincerity the new order of things, there
gathered the passions and the intrigues of a reaction that waited only for
the outbreak of civil war within Hungary itself, and the restoration of
confidence to the Austrian army, to draw the sword against its foe.
Already, while Italy was still unsubdued, and the Emperor was scarcely safe
in his palace at Vienna, the popular forces that might be employed against
the Government at Pesth carne into view.

[The Serbs in Southern Hungary.]

[Serb Congress at Carlowitz, May 13-15.]

In one of the stormy sessions of the Hungarian Diet at the time when the
attempt was first made to impose the Magyar language upon Croatia the
Illyrian leader, Gai, had thus addressed the Assembly: "You Magyars are an
island in the ocean of Slavism. Take heed that its waves do not rise and
overwhelm you." The agitation of the spring of 1848 first revealed in its
full extent the peril thus foreshadowed. Croatia had for above a year been
in almost open mutiny, but the spirit of revolt now spread through the
whole of the Serb population of Southern Hungary, from the eastern limits
of Slavonia, [428] across the plain known as the Banat beyond the junction
of the Theiss and the Danube, up to the borders of Transylvania. The Serbs
had been welcomed into these provinces in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries by the sovereigns of Austria as a bulwark against the Turks.
Charters had been given to them, which were still preserved, promising them
a distinct political administration under their own elected Voivode, and
ecclesiastical independence under their own Patriarch of the Greek Church.
[429] These provincial rights had fared much as others in the Austrian
Empire. The Patriarch and the Voivode had disappeared, and the Banat had
been completely merged in Hungary. Enough, however, of Serb nationality
remained to kindle at the summons of 1848, and to resent with a sudden
fierceness the determination of the Magyar rulers at Pesth that the Magyar
language, as the language of State, should thenceforward bind together all
the races of Hungary in the enjoyment of a common national life. The Serbs
had demanded from Kossuth and his colleagues the restoration of the local
and ecclesiastical autonomy of which the Hapsburgs had deprived them, and
the recognition of their own national language and customs. They found, or
believed, that instead of a German they were now to have a Magyar lord, and
one more near, more energetic, more aggressive. Their reply to Kossuth's
defence of Magyar ascendency was the summoning of a Congress of Serbs at
Carlowitz on the Lower Danube. Here it was declared that the Serbs of
Austria formed a free and independent nation under the Austrian sceptre and
the common Hungarian Crown. A Voivode was elected and the limits of his
province were defined. A National Committee was charged with the duty of
organising a Government and of entering into intimate connection with the
neighbouring Slavic Kingdom of Croatia.

[Jellacic in Croatia.]

At Agram, the Croatian capital, all established authority had sunk in the
catastrophe of March, and a National Committee had assumed power. It
happened that the office of Governor, or Ban, of Croatia was then vacant.
The Committee sent a deputation to Vienna requesting that the colonel of
the first Croatian regiment, Jellacic, might be appointed. Without waiting
for the arrival of the deputation, the Court, by a patent dated the 23rd of
March, nominated Jellacic to the vacant post. The date of this appointment,
and the assumption of office by Jellacic on the 14th of April, the very day
before the Hungarian Ministry entered upon its powers, have been considered
proof that a secret understanding existed from the first between Jellacie
and the Court. No further evidence of this secret relation has, however,
been made public, and the belief long current among all friends of the
Magyar cause that Croatia was deliberately instigated to revolt against the
Hungarian Government by persons around the Emperor seems to rest on no
solid foundation. The Croats would have been unlike all other communities
in the Austrian Empire if they had not risen under the national impulse of
1848. They had been murmuring against Magyar ascendency for years past, and
the fire long smouldering now probably burst into flame here as elsewhere
without the touch of an incendiary hand. With regard to Jellacic's sudden
appointment it is possible that the Court, powerless to check the Croatian
movement, may have desired to escape the appearance of compulsion by
spontaneously conferring office on the popular soldier, who was at least
more likely to regard the Emperor's interests than the lawyers and
demagogues around him. Whether Jellacic was at this time genuinely
concerned for Croatian autonomy, or whether from the first, while he
apparently acted with the Croatian nationalists his deepest sympathies were
with the Austrian army, and his sole design was that of serving the
Imperial Crown with or without its own avowed concurrence, it is impossible
to say. That, like most of his countrymen, he cordially hated the Magyars,
is beyond doubt. The general impression left by his character hardly
accords with the Magyar conception of him as the profound and far-sighted
conspirator--he would seem, on the contrary, to have been a man easily
yielding to the impulses of the moment, and capable of playing
contradictory parts with little sense of his own inconsistency. [430]

[Affairs of Croatia April 14-June 16.]

Installed in office, Jellacic cast to the winds all consideration due to
the Emperor's personal engagements towards Hungary, and forthwith permitted
the Magyar officials to be driven out of the country. On the 2nd of May he
issued an order forbidding all Croatian authorities to correspond with the
Government at Pesth. Batthyany, the Hungarian Premier, at once hurried to
Vienna, and obtained from the Emperor a letter commanding Jellacic to
submit to the Hungarian Ministry. As the Ban paid no attention to this
mandate, General Hrabowsky, commander of the troops in the southern
provinces, received orders from Pesth to annul all that Jellacic had done,
to suspend him from his office, and to bring him to trial for high treason.
Nothing daunted, Jellacic on his own authority convoked the Diet of Croatia
for the 5th of June; the populace of Agram, on hearing of Hrabowsky's
mission, burnt the Palatine in effigy. This was a direct outrage on the
Imperial family, and Batthyany turned it to account. The Emperor had just
been driven from Vienna by the riot of the 15th of May. Batthyany sought
him at Innsbruck, and by assuring him of the support of his loyal
Hungarians against both the Italians and the Viennese obtained his
signature on June 10th to a rescript vehemently condemning the Ban's action
and suspending him from office. Jellacic had already been summoned to
appear at Innsbruck. He set out, taking with him a deputation of Croats and
Serbs, and leaving behind him a popular Assembly sitting at Agram, in
which, besides the representatives of Croatia, there were seventy Deputies
from the Serb provinces. On the very day on which the Ban reached
Innsbruck, the Imperial order condemning him and suspending him from his
functions was published by Batthyany at Pesth. Nor was the situation made
easier by the almost simultaneous announcement that civil war had broken
out on the Lower Danube, and that General Hrabowsky, on attempting to
occupy Carlowitz, had been attacked and compelled to retreat by the Serbs
under their national leader Stratimirovic. [431]

[Jellacie, the Court, and the Hungarian Government.]

It is said that the Emperor Ferdinand, during deliberations in council on
which the fate of the Austrian Empire depended, was accustomed to occupy
himself with counting the number of carriages that passed from right and
left respectively under the windows. In the struggle between Croatia and
Hungary he appears to have avoided even the formal exercise of authority,
preferring to commit the decision between the contending parties to the
Archduke John, as mediator or judge. John was too deeply immersed in other
business to give much attention to the matter. What really passed between
Jellacic and the Imperial family at Innsbruck is unknown. The official
request of the Ban was for the withdrawal or suppression of the rescript
signed by the Emperor on June 10th. Prince Esterhazy, who represented the
Hungarian Government at Innsbruck, was ready to make this concession; but
before the document could be revoked, it had been made public by Batthyany.
With the object of proving his fidelity to the Court, Jellacic now
published an address to the Croatian regiments serving in Lombardy,
entreating them not to be diverted from their duty to the Emperor in the
field by any report of danger to their rights and their nationality nearer
home. So great was Jellacic's influence with his countrymen that an appeal
from him of opposite tenor would probably have caused the Croatian
regiments to quit Radetzky in a mass, and so have brought the war in Italy
to an ignominious end. His action won for him a great popularity in the
higher ranks of the Austrian army, and probably gained for him, even if he
did not possess it before, the secret confidence of the Court. That some
understanding now existed is almost certain, for, in spite of the
unrepealed declaration of June 10th, and the postponement of the Archduke's
judgment, Jellacic was permitted to return to Croatia and to resume his
government. The Diet at Agram occupied itself with far-reaching schemes for
a confederation of the southern Slavs; but its discussions were of no
practical effect, and after some weeks it was extinguished under the form
of an adjournment. From this time Jellacic held dictatorial power. It was
unnecessary for him in his relations with Hungary any longer to keep up the
fiction of a mere defence of Croatian rights; he appeared openly as the
champion of Austrian unity. In negotiations which he held with Batthyany at
Vienna during the last days of July, he demanded the restoration of single
Ministries for War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs for the whole Austrian
Empire. The demand was indignantly refused, and the chieftains of the two
rival races quitted Vienna to prepare for war.

[Imminent breach between Austria and Hungary.]

[Jellacic restored to office, Sept. 3. He marches on Pesth.]

The Hungarian National Parliament, elected under the new Constitution, had
been opened at Pesth on July 5th. Great efforts had been made, in view of
the difficulties with Croatia and of the suspected intrigues between the
Ban and the Court party, to induce the Emperor Ferdinand to appear at Pesth
in person. He excused himself from this on the ground of illness, but sent
a letter to the Parliament condemning not only in his own name but in that
of every member of the Imperial family the resistance offered to the
Hungarian Government in the southern provinces. If words bore any meaning,
the Emperor stood pledged to a loyal co-operation with the Hungarian
Ministers in defence of the unity and the constitution of the Hungarian
Kingdom as established by the laws of April. Yet at this very time the
Minister of War at Vienna was encouraging Austrian officers to join the
Serb insurgents. Kossuth, who conducted most of the business of the
Hungarian Government in the Lower Chamber at Pesth, made no secret of his
hostility to the central powers. While his colleagues sought to avoid a
breach with the other half of the Monarchy, it seemed to be Kossuth's
object rather to provoke it. In calling for a levy of two hundred thousand
men to crash the Slavic rebellion, he openly denounced the Viennese
Ministry and the Court as its promoters. In leading the debate upon the
Italian War, he endeavoured without the knowledge of his colleaugues to
make the cession of the territory west of the Adige a condition of
Hungary's participation in the struggle. As Minister of Finance, he spared
neither word nor act to demonstrate his contempt for the financial
interests of Austria. Whether a gentler policy on the part of the most
powerful statesman in Hungary might have averted the impending conflict it
is vain to ask; but in the uncompromising enmity of Kossuth the Austrian
Court found its own excuse for acts in which shamelessness seemed almost to
rise into political virtue. No sooner had Radetzky's victories and the fall
of Milan brought the Emperor back to Vienna than the new policy came into
effect. The veto of the sovereign was placed upon the laws passed by the
Diet at Pesth for the defence of the Kingdom. The Hungarian Government was
required to reinstate Jellacic in his dignities, to enter into negotiations
at Vienna with him and the Austrian Ministry, and finally to desist from
all military preparations against the rebellious provinces. In answer to
these demands the Diet sent a hundred of its members to Vienna to claim
from the Emperor the fulfilment of his plighted word. The miserable man
received them on the 9th of September with protestations of his sincerity;
but even before the deputation had passed the palace-gates, there appeared
in the official gazette a letter under the Emperor's own hand replacing
Jellacic in office and acquitting him of every charge that had been brought
against him. It was for this formal recognition alone that Jellacic had
been waiting. On the 11th of September he crossed the Drave with his army,
and began his march against the Hungarian capital. [432]

[Mission of Lamberg, He is murdered at Pesth, Sep. 28.]

The Ministry now in office at Vienna was composed in part of men who had
been known as reformers in the early days of 1848; but the old order was
represented by Count Wessenberg, who had been Metternich's assistant at the
Congress of Vienna, and by Latour, the War Minister, a soldier of high
birth whose career dated back to the campaign of Austerlitz. Whatever
contempt might be felt by one section of the Cabinet for the other, its
members were able to unite against the independence of Hungary as they had
united against the independence of Italy. They handed in to the Emperor a
memorial in which the very concessions to which they owed their own
existence as a Constitutional Ministry were made a ground for declaring the
laws establishing Hungarian autonomy null and void. In a tissue of
transparent sophistries they argued that the Emperor's promise of a
Constitution to all his dominions on the 15th of March disabled him from
assenting, without the advice of his Viennese Ministry, to the resolutions
subsequently passed by the Hungarian Diet, although the union between
Hungary and the other Hereditary States had from the first rested solely on
the person of the monarch, and no German official had ever pretended to
exercise authority over Hungarians otherwise than by order of the sovereign
as Hungarian King. The publication of this Cabinet memorial, which appeared
in the journals at Pesth on the 15th of September, gave plain warning to
the Hungarians that, if they were not to be attacked by Jellacic and the
Austrian army simultaneously, they must make some compromise with the
Government at Vienna. Batthyany was inclined to concession, and after
resigning office in consequence of the Emperor's desertion he had already
re-assumed his post with colleagues disposed to accept his own pacific
policy. Kossuth spoke openly of war with Austria and of a dictatorship. As
Jellacic advanced towards Pesth, the Palatine took command of the Hungarian
army and marched southwards. On reaching Lake Baloton, on whose southern
shore the Croats were encamped, he requested a personal conference with
Jellacic, and sailed to the appointed place of meeting. But he waited in
vain for the Ban; and rightly interpreting this rejection of his overtures,
he fled from the army and laid down his office. The Emperor now sent
General Lamberg from Vienna with orders to assume the supreme command alike
over the Magyar and the Croatian forces, and to prevent an encounter. On
the success of Lamberg's mission hung the last chance of reconciliation
between Hungary and Austria. Batthyany, still clinging to the hope of
peace, set out for the camp in order to meet the envoy on his arrival.
Lamberg, desirous of obtaining the necessary credentials from the Hungarian
Government, made his way to Pesth. There he found Kossuth and a Committee
of Six installed in power. Under their influence the Diet passed a
resolution forbidding Lamberg to assume command of the Hungarian troops,
and declaring him a traitor if he should attempt to do so. The report
spread through Pesth that Lamberg had come to seize the citadel and bombard
the town; and before he could reach a place of safety he was attacked and
murdered by a raging mob. It was in vain that Batthyany, who now laid down
his office, besought the Government at Vienna to take no rash step of
vengeance. The pretext for annihilating Hungarian independence had been
given, and the mask was cast aside. A manifesto published by the Emperor on
the 3rd of October declared the Hungarian Parliament dissolved, and its
acts null and void. Martial law was proclaimed, and Jellacic appointed
commander of all the forces and representative of the sovereign. In the
course of the next few days it was expected that he would enter Pesth as
conqueror.

[Manifesto of Oct. 3.]

[Tumult of Oct. 6 at Vienna. Latour murdered.]

In the meantime, however confidently the Government might reckon on
Jellacic's victory, the passions of revolution were again breaking loose in
Vienna itself. Increasing misery among the poor, financial panics, the
reviving efforts of professional agitators, had renewed the disturbances of
the spring in forms which alarmed the middle classes almost as much as the
holders of power. The conflict of the Government with Hungary brought
affairs to a crisis. After discovering the uselessness of negotiations with
the Emperor, the Hungarian Parliament had sent some of its ablest members
to request an audience from the Assembly sitting at Vienna, in order that
the representatives of the western half of the Empire might, even at the
last moment, have the opportunity of pronouncing a judgment upon the action
of the Court. The most numerous group in the Assembly was formed by the
Czech deputies from Bohemia. As Slavs, the Bohemian deputies had
sympathised with the Croats and Serbs in their struggle against Magyar
ascendency, and in their eyes Jellacic was still the champion of a national
cause. Blinded by their sympathies of race to the danger involved to all
nationalities alike by the restoration of absolutism, the Czech majority,
in spite of a singularly impressive warning given by a leader of the German
Liberals, refused a hearing to the Hungarian representatives. The Magyars,
repelled by the Assembly, sought and found allies in the democracy of
Vienna itself. The popular clubs rang with acclamations for the cause of
Hungarian freedom and with invectives against the Czech instruments of
tyranny. In the midst of this deepening agitation tidings arrived at Vienna
that Jellacic had been repulsed in his march on Pesth and forced to retire
within the Austrian frontier. It became necessary for the Viennese
Government to throw its own forces into the struggle, and an order was
given by Latour to the regiments in the capital to set out for the scene of
warfare. This order had, however, been anticipated by the democratic
leaders, and a portion of the troops had been won over to the popular side.
Latour's commands were resisted; and upon an attempt being made to enforce
the departure of the troops, the regiments fired on one another (October
6th). The battalions of the National Guard which rallied to the support of
the Government were overpowered by those belonging to the working men's
districts. The insurrection was victorious; the Ministers submitted once
more to the masters of the streets, and the orders given to the troops were
withdrawn. But the fiercer part of the mob was not satisfied with a
political victory. There were criminals and madmen among its leaders who,
after the offices of Government had been stormed and Latour had been
captured, determined upon his death. It was in vain that some of the
keenest political opponents of the Minister sought at the peril of their
own lives to protect him from his murderers. He was dragged into the court
in front of the War Office, and there slain with ferocious and yet
deliberate barbarity. [433]

[The Emperor at Olmuetz.]

[Windischgraetz marches on Vienna.]

The Emperor, while the city was still in tumult, had in his usual fashion
promised that the popular demands should be satisfied; but as soon as he
was unobserved he fled from Vienna, and in his flight he was followed by
the Czech deputies and many German Conservatives, who declared that their
lives were no longer safe in the capital. Most of the Ministers gathered
round the Emperor at Olmuetz in Moravia; the Assembly, however, continued to
hold its sittings in Vienna, and the Finance Minister, apparently under
instructions from the Court, remained at his post, and treated the Assembly
as still possessed of legal powers. But for all practical purposes the
western half of the Austrian Empire had now ceased to have any Government
whatever; and the real state of affairs was bluntly exposed in a manifesto
published by Count Windischgraetz at Prague on the 11th of October, in
which, without professing to have received any commission from the Emperor,
he announced his intention of marching on Vienna in order to protect the
sovereign and maintain the unity of the Empire. In due course the Emperor
ratified the action of his energetic soldier; Windischgraetz was appointed
to the supreme command over all the troops of the Empire with the exception
of Radetzky's army, and his march against Vienna was begun.

[Windischgraetz conquers Vienna, Oct. 26-Nov. 1.]

To the Hungarian Parliament, exasperated by the decree ordering its own
dissolution and the war openly levied against the country by the Court in
alliance with Jellacic, the revolt of the capital seemed to bring a sudden
deliverance from all danger. The Viennese had saved Hungary, and the Diet
was willing, if summoned by the Assembly at Vienna, to send its troops to
the defence of the capital. But the urgency of the need was not understood
on either side till too late. The Viennese Assembly, treating itself as a
legitimate and constitutional power threatened by a group of soldiers who
had usurped the monarch's authority, hesitated to compromise its legal
character by calling in a Hurgarian army. The Magyar generals on the other
hand were so anxious not to pass beyond the strict defence of their own
kingdom, that, in the absence of communication from a Viennese authority,
they twice withdrew from Austrian soil after following Jellacic in pursuit
beyond the frontier. It was not until Windischgraetz had encamped within
sight of Vienna, and had detained as a rebel the envoy sent to him by the
Hungarian Government, that Kossuth's will prevailed over the scruples of
weaker men, and the Hungarian army marched against the besiegers. In the
meantime Windischgraetz had begun his attack on the suburbs, which were
weakly defended by the National Guard and by companies of students and
volunteers, the nominal commander being one Messenhauser, formerly an
officer in the regular army, who was assisted by a soldier of far greater
merit than himself, the Polish general Bem. Among those who fought were two
members of the German Parliament of Frankfort, Robert Blum and Froebel, who
had been sent to mediate between the Emperor and his subjects, but had
remained at Vienna as combatants. The besiegers had captured the outskirts
of the city, and negotiations for surrender were in progress, when, on the
30th of October, Messenhauser from the top of the cathedral tower saw
beyond the line of the besiegers on the south-east the smoke of battle, and
announced that the Hungarian army was approaching. An engagement had in
fact begun on the plain of Schwechat between the Hungarians and Jellacic,
reinforced by divisions of Windischgraetz's troops. In a moment of wild
excitement the defenders of the capital threw themselves once more upon
their foe, disregarding the offer of surrender that had been already made.
But the tide of battle at Schwechat turned against the Hungarians. They
were compelled to retreat, and Windischgraetz, reopening his cannonade upon
the rebels who were also violators of their truce, became in a few hours
master of Vienna. He made his entry on the 31st of October, and treated
Vienna as a conquered city. The troops had behaved with ferocity during the
combat in the suburbs, and slaughtered scores of unarmed persons. No
Oriental tyrant ever addressed his fallen foes with greater insolence and
contempt for human right than Windischgraetz in the proclamations which, on
assuming government, he addressed to the Viennese; yet, whatever might be
the number of persons arrested and imprisoned, the number now put to death
was not great. The victims were indeed carefully selected; the most
prominent being Robert Blum, in whom, as a leader of the German Liberals
and a Deputy of the German Parliament inviolable by law, the Austrian
Government struck ostentatiously at the Parliament itself and at German
democracy at large.

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