Chapter XX (1)

Austria and Italy--Vienna from March to May--Flight of the Emperor-- Bohemian National Movement--Windischgrätz subdues Prague--Campaign around Verona--Papal Allocution--Naples in May--Negotiations as to Lombardy--Reconquest of Venetia--Battle of Custozza--The Austrians enter Milan--Austrian Court and Hungary--The Serbs in Southern Hungary--Serb Congress at Carlowitz--Jellacic--Affairs of Croatia--Jellacic, the Court and the Hungarian Movement--Murder of Lamberg--Manifesto of October 3 Vienna on October 6--The Emperor at Olmütz--Windischgrätz conquers Vienna--The Parliament at Kremsier--Schwarzenberg Minister--Ferdinand abdicates--Dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament--Unitary Edict-- Hungary--The Roumanians in Transylvania--The Austrian Army occupies Pesth--Hungarian Government at Debreczin--The Austrians driven out of Hungary--Declaration of Hungarian Independence--Russian Intervention-- The Hungarian Summer Campaign--Capitulation of Vilagos--Italy--Murder of Rossi--Tuscany--The March Campaign in Lombardy--Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Victor Emmanuel--Restoration in Tuscany--French Intervention in Rome--Defeat of Oudinot--Oudinot and Lesseps--The French enter Rome--The Restored Pontifical Government--Fall of Venice-- Ferdinand reconquers Sicily Germany--The National Assembly at Frankfort-- The Armistice of Malmö--Berlin from April to September--The Prussian Army--Last days of the Prussian Parliament--Prussian Constitution granted by Edict--The German National Assembly and Austria--Frederick William IV. elected Emperor--He refuses the Crown--End of the National Assembly--Prussia attempts to form a separate Union--The Union Parliament at Erfurt--Action of Austria--Hesse Cassel--The Diet of Frankfort restored--Olmütz--Schleswig-Holstein--Germany after 1849-- Austria after 1851--France after 1848--Louis Napoleon--The October Message--Law Limiting the Franchise--Louis Napoleon and the Army-- Proposed Revision of the Constitution--The Coup d'État--Napoleon III. Emperor

[Austria and Italy.]

The plain of Northern Italy has ever been an arena on which the contest between interests greater than those of Italy itself has been brought to an issue, and it may perhaps be truly said that in the struggle between established Governments and Revolution through out Central Europe in 1848 the real turning point, if it can anywhere be fixed, lay rather in the fortunes of a campaign in Lombardy than in any single combination of events at Vienna or Berlin. The very existence of the Austrian Monarchy depended on the victory of Radetzky's forces over the national movement at the head of which Piedmont had now placed itself. If Italian independence should be established upon the ruin of the Austrian arms, and the influence and example of the victorious Italian people be thrown into the scale against the Imperial Government in its struggle with the separatist forces that convulsed every part of the Austrian dominions, it was scarcely possible that any stroke of fortune or policy could save the Empire of the Hapsburgs from dissolution. But on the prostration or recovery of Austria, as represented by its central power at Vienna, the future of Germany in great part depended. Whatever compromise might be effected between popular and monarchical forces in the other German States if left free from Austria's interference, the whole influence of a resurgent Austrian power could not but be directed against the principles of popular sovereignty and national union. The Parliament of Frankfort might then in vain affect to fulfil its mandate without reckoning with the Court of Vienna. All this was indeed obscured in the tempests that for a while shut out the political horizon. The Liberals of Northern Germany had little sympathy with the Italian cause in the decisive days of 1848. Their inclinations went rather with the combatant who, though bent on maintaining an oppressive dominion, was nevertheless a member of the German race and paid homage for the moment to Constitutional rights. Yet, as later events were to prove, the fetters which crushed liberty beyond the Alps could fit as closely on to German limbs; and in the warfare of Upper Italy for its own freedom the battle of German Liberalism was in no small measure fought and lost.

[Vienna from March to May.]

Metternich once banished from Vienna, the first popular demand was for a Constitution. His successors in office, with a certain characteristic pedantry, devoted their studies to the Belgian Constitution of 1831; and after some weeks a Constitution was published by edict for the non-Hungarian part of the Empire, including a Parliament of two Chambers, the Lower to be chosen by indirect election, the Upper consisting of nominees of the Crown and representatives of the great landowners. The provisions of this Constitution in favour of the Crown and the Aristocracy, as well as the arbitrary mode of its promulgation, displeased the Viennese. Agitation recommenced in the city; unpopular officials were roughly handled the Press grew ever more violent and more scurrilous. One strange result of the tutelage in which Austrian society had been held was that the students of the University became, and for some time continued to be, the most important political body of the capital. Their principal rivals in influence were the National Guard drawn from citizens of the middle class, the workmen as yet remaining in the background. Neither in the Hall of the University nor at the taverns where the civic militia discussed the events of the hour did the office-drawn Constitution find favour. On the 13th of May it was determined, with the view of exercising stronger pressure upon the Government, that the existing committees of the National Guard and of the students should be superseded by one central committee representing both bodies. The elections to this committee had been held, and its sittings had begun, when the commander of the National Guard declared such proceedings to be inconsistent with military discipline, and ordered the dissolution of the committee. Riots followed, during which the students and the mob made their way into the Emperor's palace and demanded from his Ministers not only the re-establishment of the central committee but the abolition of the Upper Chamber in the projected Constitution, and the removal of the checks imposed on popular sovereignty by a limited franchise and the system of indirect elections. On point after point the Ministry gave way; and, in spite of the resistance and reproaches of the Imperial household, they obtained the Emperor's signature to a document promising that for the future all the important military posts in the city should be held by the National Guard jointly with the regular troops, that the latter should never be called out except on the requisition of the National Guard, and that the projected Constitution should remain without force until it should have been submitted for confirmation to a single Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage.

[Flight of the Emperor, May 17.]

[Tumult of May 26.]

The weakness of the Emperor's intelligence rendered him a mere puppet in the hands of those who for the moment exercised control over his actions. During the riot of the 15th of May he obeyed his Ministers; a few hours afterwards he fell under the sway of the Court party, and consented to fly from Vienna. On the 18th the Viennese learnt to their astonishment that Ferdinand was far on the road to the Tyrol. Soon afterwards a manifesto was published, stating that the violence and anarchy of the capital had compelled the Emperor to transfer his residence to Innsbruck; that he remained true, however, to the promises made in March and to their legitimate consequences; and that proof must be given of the return of the Viennese to their old sentiments of loyalty before he could again appear among them. A certain revulsion of feeling in the Emperor's favour now became manifest in the capital, and emboldened the Ministers to take the first step necessary towards obtaining his return, namely the dissolution of the Students' Legion. They could count with some confidence on the support of the wealthier part of the middle class, who were now becoming wearied of the students' extravagances and alarmed at the interruption of business caused by the Revolution; moreover, the ordinary termination of the academic year was near at hand. The order was accordingly given for the dissolution of the Legion and the closing of the University. But the students met the order with the stoutest resistance. The workmen poured in from the suburbs to join in their defence. Barricades were erected, and the insurrection of March seemed on the point of being renewed. Once more the Government gave way, and not only revoked its order, but declared itself incapable of preserving tranquillity in the capital unless it should receive the assistance of the leaders of the people. With the full concurrence of the Ministers, a Committee of Public Safety was formed, representing at once the students, the middle class, and the workmen; and it entered upon its duties with an authority exceeding, within the limits of the capital, that of the shadowy functionaries of State. [424]

[Bohemian national movement.]

[Windischgrätz subdues Prague, June 12-17.]

In the meantime the antagonism between the Czechs and the Germans in Bohemia was daily becoming more bitter. The influence of the party of compromise, which had been dominant in the early days of March, had disappeared before the ill-timed attempt of the German national leaders at Frankfort to include Bohemia within the territory sending representatives to the German national Parliament. By consenting to this incorporation the Czech population would have definitely renounced its newly asserted claim to nationality. If the growth of democratic spirit at Vienna was accompanied by a more intense German national feeling in the capital, the popular movements at Vienna and at Prague must necessarily pass into a relation of conflict with one another. On the flight of the Emperor becoming known at Prague, Count Thun, the governor, who was also the chief of the moderate Bohemian party, invited Ferdinand to make Prague the seat of his Government. This invitation, which would have directly connected the Crown with Czech national interests, was not accepted. The rasher politicians, chiefly students and workmen, continued to hold their meetings and to patrol the streets; and a Congress of Slavs from all parts of the Empire, which was opened on the 2nd of June, excited national passions still further. So threatening grew the attitude of the students and workmen that Count Windischgrätz, commander of the troops at Prague, prepared to act with artillery. On the 12th of June, the day on which the Congress of Slavs broke up, fighting began. Windischgrätz, whose wife was killed by a bullet, appears to have acted with calmness, and to have sought to arrive at some peaceful settlement. He withdrew his troops, and desisted from a bombardment that he had begun, on the understanding that the barricades which had been erected should be removed. This condition was not fulfilled. New acts of violence occurred in the city, and on the 17th Windischgrätz reopened fire. On the following day Prague surrendered, and Windischgrätz re-entered the city as Dictator. The autonomy of Bohemia was at an end. The army had for the first time acted with effect against a popular rising; the first blow had been struck on behalf of the central power against the revolution which till now had seemed about to dissolve the Austrian State into its fragments.

[Campaign around Verona, April-May.]

At this point the dominant interest in Austrian affairs passes from the capital and the northern provinces to Radetzky's army and the Italians with whom it stood face to face. Once convinced of the necessity of a retreat from Milan, the Austrian commander had moved with sufficient rapidity to save Verona and Mantua from passing into the hands of the insurgents. He was thus enabled to place his army in one of the best defensive positions in Europe, the Quadrilateral flanked by the rivers Mincio and Adige, and protected by the fortresses of Verona, Mantua, Peschiera, and Legnano. With his front on the Mincio he awaited at once the attack of the Piedmontese and the arrival of reinforcements from the north-east. On the 8th of April the first attack was made, and after a sharp engagement at Goito the passage of the Mincio was effected by the Sardinian army. Siege was now laid to Peschiera; and while a Tuscan contingent watched Mantua, the bulk of Charles Albert's forces operated farther northward with the view of cutting off Verona from the roads to the Tyrol. This result was for a moment achieved, but the troops at the King's disposal were far too weak for the task of reducing the fortresses; and in an attempt that was made on the 6th of May to drive the Austrians out of their positions in front of Verona, Charles Albert was defeated at Santa Lucia and compelled to fall back towards the Mincio. [425]

[Papal Allocution, April 29.]

[Naples in May.]

A pause in the war ensued, filled by political events of evil omen for Italy. Of all the princes who had permitted their troops to march northwards to the assistance of the Lombards, not one was acting in full sincerity. The first to show himself in his true colours was the Pope. On the 29th of April an Allocution was addressed to the Cardinals, in which Pius disavowed all participation in the war against Austria, and declared that his own troops should do no more than defend the integrity of the Roman States. Though at the moment an outburst of popular indignation in Rome forced a still more liberal Ministry into power, and Durando, the Papal general, continued his advance into Venetia, the Pope's renunciation of his supposed national leadership produced the effect which its author desired, encouraging every open and every secret enemy of the Italian cause, and perplexing those who had believed themselves to be engaged in a sacred as well as a patriotic war. In Naples things hurried far more rapidly to a catastrophe. Elections had been held to the Chamber of Deputies, which was to be opened on the 15th of May, and most of the members returned were men who, while devoted to the Italian national cause were neither Republicans nor enemies of the Bourbon dynasty, but anxious to co-operate with their King in the work of Constitutional reform. Politicians of another character, however, commanded the streets of Naples. Rumours were spread that the Court was on the point of restoring despotic government and abandoning the Italian cause. Disorder and agitation increased from day to day; and after the Deputies had arrived in the city and begun a series of informal meetings preparatory to the opening of the Parliament, an ill-advised act of Ferdinand gave to the party of disorder, who were weakly represented in the Assembly, occasion for an insurrection. After promulgating the Constitution on February both, Ferdinand had agreed that it should be submitted to the two Chambers for revision. He notified, however, to the Representatives on the eve of the opening of Parliament that they would be required to take an oath of fidelity to the Constitution. They urged that such an oath would deprive them of their right of revision. The King, after some hours, consented to a change in the formula of the oath; but his demand had already thrown the city into tumult. Barricades were erected, the Deputies in vain endeavouring to calm the rioters and to prevent a conflict with the troops. While negotiations were still in progress shots were fired. The troops now threw themselves upon the people; there was a struggle, short in duration, but sanguinary and merciless; the barricades were captured, some hundreds of the insurgents slain, and Ferdinand was once more absolute master of Naples. The Assembly was dissolved on the day after that on which it should have met. Orders were at once sent by the King to General Pepe, commander of the troops that were on the march to Lombardy, to return with his army to Naples. Though Pepe continued true to the national cause, and endeavoured to lead his army forward from Bologna in defiance of the King's instructions, his troops now melted away; and when he crossed the Po and placed himself under the standard of Charles Albert in Venetia there remained with him scarcely fifteen hundred men.

[Negotiations as to Lombardy.]

[Reconquest of Venetia, June, July.]

It thus became clear before the end of May that the Lombards would receive no considerable help from the Southern States in their struggle for freedom, and that the promised league of the Governments in the national cause was but a dream from which there was a bitter awakening. Nor in Northern Italy itself was there the unity in aim and action without which success was impossible. The Republican party accused the King and the Provisional Government at Milan of an unwillingness to arm the people; Charles Albert on his part regarded every Republican as an enemy. On entering Lombardy the King had stated that no question as to the political organisation of the future should be raised until the war was ended; nevertheless, before a fortress had been captured, he had allowed Modena and Parma to declare themselves incorporated with the Piedmontese monarchy; and, in spite of Mazzini's protest, their example was followed by Lombardy and some Venetian districts. In the recriminations that passed between the Republicans and the Monarchists it was even suggested that Austria had friends of its own in certain classes of the population. This was not the view taken by the Viennese Government, which from the first appears to have considered its cause in Lombardy as virtually lost. The mediation of Great Britain was invoked by Metternich's successors, and a willingness expressed to grant to the Italian provinces complete autonomy under the Emperor's sceptre. Palmerston, in reply to the supplications of a Court which had hitherto cursed his influence, urged that Lombardy and the greater part of Venetia should be ceded to the King of Piedmont. The Austrian Government would have given up Lombardy to their enemy; they hesitated to increase his power to the extent demanded by Palmerston, the more so as the French Ministry was known to be jealous of the aggrandisement of Sardinia, and to desire the establishment of weak Republics like those formed in 1796. Withdrawing from its negotiations at London, the Emperor's Cabinet now entered into direct communication with the Provisional Government at Milan, and, without making any reference to Piedmont or Venice, offered complete independence to Lombardy. As the union of this province with Piedmont had already been voted by its inhabitants, the offer was at once rejected. Moreover, even it the Italians had shown a disposition to compromise their cause and abandon Venice, Radetzky would not have broken off the combat while any possibility remained of winning over the Emperor from the side of the peace-party. In reply to instructions directing him to offer an armistice to the enemy, he sent Prince Felix Schwarzenberg to Innsbruck to implore the Emperor to trust to the valour of his soldiers and to continue the combat. Already there were signs that the victory would ultimately be with Austria. Reinforcements had cut their way through the insurgent territory and reached Verona; and although a movement by which Radetzky threatened to sever Charles Albert's communications was frustrated by a second engagement at Goito, and Peschiera passed into the besiegers' hands, this was the last success won by the Italians. Throwing himself suddenly eastwards, Radetzky appeared before Vicenza, and compelled this city, with the entire Papal army, commanded by General Durando, to capitulate. The fall of Vicenza was followed by that of the other cities on the Venetian mainland till Venice alone on the east of the Adige defied the Austrian arms. As the invader pressed onward, an Assembly which Manin had convoked at Venice decided on union with Piedmont. Manin himself had been the most zealous opponent of what he considered the sacrifice of Venetian independence. He gave way nevertheless at the last, and made no attempt to fetter the decision of the Assembly; but when this decision had been given he handed over the conduct of affairs to others, and retired for awhile into private life, declining to serve under a king. [426]

[Battle of Custozza July 25.]

[Austrians re-enter Milan, Aug. 6.]

Charles Albert now renewed his attempt to wrest the central fortresses from the Austrians. Leaving half his army at Peschiera and farther north, he proceeded with the other half to blockade Mantua. Radetzky took advantage of the unskilful generalship of his opponent, and threw himself upon the weakly guarded centre of the long Sardinian line. The King perceived his error, and sought to unite with his the northern detachments, now separated from him by the Mincio. His efforts were baffled, and on the 25th of July, after a brave resistance, his troops were defeated at Custozza. The retreat across the Mincio was conducted in fair order, but disasters sustained by the northern division, which should have held the enemy in check, destroyed all hope, and the retreat then became a flight. Radetzky followed in close pursuit. Charles Albert entered Milan, but declared himself unable to defend the city. A storm of indignation broke out against the unhappy King amongst the Milanese, whom he was declared to have betrayed. The palace where he had taken up his quarters was besieged by the mob; his life was threatened; and he escaped with difficulty on the night of August 5th under the protection of General La Marmora and a few faithful Guards. A capitulation was signed, and as the Piedmontese army evacuated the city Radetzky's troops entered it in triumph. Not less than sixty thousand of the inhabitants, according to Italian statements, abandoned their homes and sought refuge in Switzerland or Piedmont rather than submit to the conqueror's rule. Radetzky could now have followed his retreating enemy without difficulty to Turin, and have crushed Piedmont itself under foot; but the fear of France and Great Britain checked his career of victory, and hostilities were brought to a close by an armistice at Vigevano on August 9th. [427]

[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 Windischgrätz 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 came 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 Jellacic 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. Batthyány, 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 Batthyány turned it to account. The Emperor had just been driven from Vienna by the riot of the 15th of May. Batthyány 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 Batthyány 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]

[Jellacic, 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 Batthyány. 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 Batthyány 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 colleagues 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, Sept. 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. Batthyány 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. Batthyány, 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 Batthyány, 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 Olmütz.]

[Windischgrätz 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 Olmütz 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 Windischgrätz 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; Windischgrätz 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.

[Windischgrätz 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 Hungarian 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 Windischgrätz 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 Windischgrätz 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 Fröbel, 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 Windischgrätz'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 Windischgrätz, 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 Windischgrätz 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.

[The Parliament at Kremsier, Nov. 22.]

[Schwarzenberg Minister.]

In the subjugation of Vienna the army had again proved itself the real political power in Austria; but the time had not yet arrived when absolute government could be openly restored. The Bohemian deputies, fatally as they had injured the cause of constitutional rule by their secession from Vienna, were still in earnest in the cause of provincial autonomy, and would vehemently have repelled the charge of an alliance with despotism. Even the mutilated Parliament of Vienna had been recognised by the Court as in lawful session until the 22nd of October, when an order was issued proroguing the Parliament and bidding it re-assemble a month later at Kremsier, in Moravia. There were indications in the weeks succeeding the fall of Vienna of a conflict between the reactionary and the more liberal influences surrounding the Emperor, and of an impending _coup d'etat_: but counsels of prudence prevailed for the moment; the Assembly was permitted to meet at Kremsier, and professions of constitutional principle were still made with every show of sincerity. A new Ministry, however, came into office, with Prince Felix Schwarzenberg at its head. Schwarzenberg belonged to one of the greatest Austrian families. He had been ambassador at Naples when the revolution of 1848 broke out, and had quitted the city with words of menace when insult was offered to the Austrian flag. Exchanging diplomacy for war, he served under Radetzky, and was soon recognised as the statesman in whom the army, as a political power, found its own peculiar representative. His career had hitherto been illustrated chiefly by scandals of private life so flagrant that England and other countries where he had held diplomatic posts had insisted on his removal; but the cynical and reckless audacity of the man rose in his new calling as Minister of Austria to something of political greatness. Few statesmen have been more daring than Schwarzenberg; few have pushed to more excessive lengths the advantages to be derived from the moral or the material weakness of an adversary. His rule was the debauch of forces respited in their extremity for one last and worst exertion. Like the Roman Sulla, he gave to a condemned and perishing cause the passing semblance of restored vigour, and died before the next great wave of change swept his creations away.

[Ferdinand abdicates, Dec. 2. Francis Joseph Emperor.]

[Dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament, March 7, 1849.]

[The Unitary Constitutional Edict, March, 1849.]