Chapter II: History (3)

The border counties, now formed into a military zone, were planted exclusively with Croatian colonists as being more trustworthy defenders of the Hungarian frontier than the Hungarians themselves. Moreover, a _neo-acquisita commissio_ was constituted to inquire into the title-deeds of the Magyar landowners in the old Turkish provinces, and hundreds of estates were transferred, on the flimsiest of pretexts, to naturalized foreigners. Transylvania since 1690 had been administered from Vienna, and though the farce of assembling a diet there was still kept up, even the promise of religious liberty, conceded to it on its surrender in 1687, was not kept. No wonder then if the whole country was now seething with discontent and only awaiting an opportunity to burst forth in open rebellion. This opportunity came when the emperor, involved in the War of the Spanish Succession, withdrew all his troops from Hungary except some 1600 men. In 1703 the malcontents found a leader in Francis Rakoczy II. (q.v.), who was elected prince by the Hungarian estates on the 6th of July 1704, and during the next six years gave the emperor Joseph I., who had succeeded Leopold in May 1705, considerable anxiety. Rakoczy had often as many as 100,000 men under him, and his bands penetrated as far as Moravia and even approached within a few miles of Vienna. But they were guerillas, not regulars; they had no good officers, no serviceable artillery, and very little money; and all the foreign powers to whom Rakoczy turned for assistance (excepting France, who fed them occasionally with paltry subsidies) would not commit themselves to a formal alliance with rebels who were defeated in every pitched battle they fought. On the other hand, if the Rakoczians were easily dispersed, they as quickly reassembled, and at one time they held all Transylvania and the greater part of Hungary. In the course of 1707 two Rakoczian diets even went so far as formally to depose the Habsburgs and form an interim government with Rakoczy at its head, till a national king could be legally elected. The Maritime Powers, too, fearful lest Louis XIV. should materially assist the Rakoczians and thus divert part of the emperor's forces at the very crisis of the War of the Spanish Succession, intervened, repeatedly and energetically, to bring about a compromise between the court and the insurgents, whose claims they considered to be just and fair. But the obstinate refusal of Joseph to admit that the Rakoczians were anything but rebels was always the insurmountable object in all such negotiations. But when, on the 7th of April 1711, Joseph died without issue, leaving the crown to his brother the Archduke Charles, then fighting the battles of the Allies in Spain, a peace-congress met at Szatmar on the 27th of April, and, two days later, an understanding was arrived at on the basis of a general amnesty, full religious liberty and the recognition of the inviolability of the ancient rights and privileges of the Magyars.

Charles III.

Pragmatic Sanction, 1723.

Thus the peace of Szatmar assured to the Hungarian nation all that it had won by former compacts with the Habsburgs; but whereas hitherto the Transylvanian principality had been the permanent guardian of all such compacts, and the authority of the reigning house had been counterpoised by the Turk, the effect and validity of the peace of Szatmar depended entirely upon the support it might derive from the nation itself. It was a fortunate thing for Hungary that the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession introduced a new period, in which, at last, the interests of the dynasty and the nation were identical, thus rendering a reconciliation between them desirable. Moreover, the next century and a half was a period of domestic tranquillity, during which Hungary was able to repair the ruin of the long Turkish wars, nurse her material resources, and take the first steps in the direction of social and political reform. The first reforms, however, were dynastic rather than national. Thus, in 1715, King Charles III.[36] persuaded the diet to consent to the establishment of a standing army, which--though the diet reserved the right to fix the number of recruits and vote the necessary subsidies from time to time--was placed under the control of the Austrian council of war. The same centralizing tendency was shown in the administrative and judicial reforms taken in hand by the diet of 1722. A Hungarian court chancery was now established at Vienna, while the government of Hungary proper was committed to a royal stadholdership at Pressburg. Both the chancery and the stadholdership were independent of the diet and responsible to the king alone, being, in fact, his executive instruments. It was this diet also which accepted the Pragmatic Sanction, first issued in 1713, by which the emperor Charles VI., in default of his leaving male heirs, settled the succession to his hereditary dominions on his daughter Maria Theresa and her heirs. By the laws of 1723, which gave effect to the resolution of the diet in favour of accepting the principle of female succession, the Habsburg king entered into a fresh contract with his Hungarian subjects, a contract which remained the basis of the relations of the crown and nation until 1848. On the one hand it was declared that the kingdom of Hungary was an integral part of the Habsburg dominions and inseparable from these so long as a male or female heir of the kings Charles, Joseph and Leopold should be found to succeed to them. On the other hand, Charles swore, on behalf of himself and his heirs, to preserve the Hungarian constitution intact, with all the rights, privileges, customs, laws, &c., of the kingdom and its dependencies. Moreover, in the event of the failure of a Habsburg heir, the diet reserved the right to revive the "ancient, approved and accepted custom and prerogative of the estates and orders in the matter of the election and coronation of their king."

The reign of Charles III. is also memorable for two Turkish wars, the first of which, beginning in 1716, and made glorious by the victories of Prince Eugene and Janos Pallfy, was terminated by the peace of Passarowitz (July 21, 1718), by which the Temeskoz was also freed from the Turks, and Servia, Northern Bosnia and Little Walachia, all of them ancient conquests of Hungary, were once more incorporated with the territories of the crown of St Stephen. The second war, though undertaken in league with Russia, proved unlucky, and, at the peace of Belgrade (Sept. 1, 1739), all the conquests of the peace of Passarowitz, including Belgrade itself, were lost, except the banat of Temesvar.

Maria Theresa.

With Maria Theresa (1740-1780) began the age of enlightened despotism. Deeply grateful to the Magyars for their sacrifices and services during the War of the Austrian Succession, she dedicated her whole authority to the good of the nation, but she was very unwilling to share that authority _with_ the people. Only in the first stormy years of her reign did she summon the diet; after 1764 she dispensed with it altogether. She did not fill up the dignity of palatine, vacant since the 26th of October 1765, and governed Hungary through her son-in-law, Albert of Saxe-Teschen. She did not attack the Hungarian constitution; she simply put it on one side. Her reforms were made not by statute, but by royal decree. Yet the nation patiently endured the mild yoke of the great queen, because it felt and knew that its welfare was safe in her motherly hands. Her greatest achievement lay in the direction of educational reform. She employed the proceeds of the vast sums coming to her from the confiscation of the property of the suppressed Jesuit order in founding schools and colleges all over Hungary. The kingdom was divided into ten educational districts for the purpose, with a university at Buda. Towards all her Magyars, especially the Catholics, she was ever most gracious; but the magnates, the Batthyanis, the Nadasdys, the Pallfys, the Andrassys, who had chased her enemies from Bohemia and routed them in Bavaria, enjoyed the lion's share of her benefactions. In fact, most of them became professional courtiers, and lived habitually at Vienna. She also attracted the gentry to her capital by forming a Magyar body-guard from the cadets of noble families. But she was good to all, not even forgetting the serfs. The _urberi szabalyzat_ (feudal prescription) of 1767 restored to the peasants the right of transmigration and, in some respects, protected them against the exactions of their landlords.

Joseph II.

Joseph II. (1780-1790) was as true to the principles of enlightened despotism and family politics as his mother; but he had none of the common sense which had led her to realize the limits of her power. Joseph was an idealist and a doctrinaire, whose dream was to build up his ideal body politic; the first step toward which was to be the amalgamation of all his dominions into a common state under an absolute sovereign (see AUSTRIA-HUNGARY; and JOSEPH II., Emperor). Unfortunately, the Hungarian constitution stood in the way of this political paradise, so Joseph resolved that the Hungarian constitution must be sacrificed. Refusing to be crowned, or even to take the usual oaths of observance, he simply announced his accession to the Hungarian counties, and then deliberately proceeded to break down all the ancient Magyar institutions. In 1784 the Language Edict made German the official language of the common state. The same year he ordered a census and a land-survey to be taken, to enable him to tax every one irrespective of birth or wealth. Protests came in from every quarter and a dangerous rebellion broke out in Transylvania; but opposition only made Joseph more obstinate, and he endeavoured to anticipate any further resistance by abolishing the ancient county assemblies and dividing the kingdom into two districts administered by German officials.

In taking this course Joseph made the capital mistake of neglecting the Machiavellian maxim that in changing the substance of cherished institutions the prince should be careful to preserve the semblance. In substance the county assemblies were worse than ineffective: mere turbulent gatherings of country squires and peasants, corrupt and prejudiced, representing nothing but their own pride of race and class; and to try and govern without them, or to administer in spite of them, may have been the only expedient possible to statesmen. But to the Magyars they were the immemorial strongholds of their liberties, the last defences of their constitution; and the attempt to suppress them, which made every county a centre of disaffection and resistance, was the action not of a statesman, but of a visionary. The failure of Joseph's "enlightened" policy in Hungary was inevitable in any case; it was hastened by the disastrous Turkish war of 1787-92, which withdrew Joseph altogether from domestic affairs; and on his death-bed (Feb. 22, 1790) he felt it to be his duty to annul all his principal reforms, so as to lighten the difficulties of his successor.

Leopold II., 1790-1792.

Francis I., 1792-1835.

Leopold II. found the country on the verge of revolution; but the wisdom of the new monarch saved the situation and won back the Magyars. At the diet of 1790-1791 laws were passed not only confirming the royal prerogatives and the national liberties, but leaving the way open for future developments. Hungary was declared to be a free, independent and unsubjected kingdom governed by its own laws and customs. The legislative functions were to be exercised by the king and the diet conjointly and by them alone. The diets were henceforth to be triennial, and every new king was to pledge himself to be crowned and issue his credentials[37] within six months of the death of his predecessor. Latin was still to be the official language, but Magyar was now introduced into the university and all the schools. Leopold's successor Francis I. (1792-1835) received a declaration of war from the French Legislative Assembly immediately on ascending the throne. For the next quarter of a century he, as the champion of legitimacy, was fighting the Revolution on countless battle-fields, and the fearful struggle only bound the Magyar nation closer to the Habsburg dynasty. Ignaz Jozsef Martinovics (1755-1795) and his associates, the Hungarian Jacobins, vainly attempted a revolutionary propaganda (1795), and Napoleon's mutilations of the ancient kingdom of St Stephen did not predispose the Hungarian gentry in his favour. Politically, indeed, the whole period was one of retrogression and stagnation. The frequent diets held in the earlier part of the reign occupied themselves with little else but war subsidies; after 1811 they ceased to be summoned. In the latter years of Francis I. the dark shadow of Metternich's policy of "stability" fell across the kingdom, and the forces of reactionary absolutism were everywhere supreme. But beneath the surface a strong popular current was beginning to run in a contrary direction. Hungarian society, not unaffected by western Liberalism, but without any direct help from abroad, was preparing for the future emancipation. Writers, savants, poets, artists, noble and plebeian, layman and cleric, without any previous concert, or obvious connexion, were working towards that ideal of political liberty which was to unite all the Magyars. Mihaly Vorosmartyo, Ferencz Kolcsey, Ferencz Kazinczy and his associates, to mention but a few of many great names, were, consciously or unconsciously, as the representatives of the renascent national literature, accomplishing a political mission, and their pens proved no less efficacious than the swords of their ancestors.

Hungarian revival.

It was a direct attack upon the constitution which, to use the words of Istvan Szechenyi, first "startled the nation out of its sickly drowsiness." In 1823, when the reactionary powers were meditating joint action to suppress the revolution in Spain, the government, without consulting the diet, imposed a war-tax and called out the recruits. The county assemblies instantly protested against this illegal act, and Francis I. was obliged, at the diet of 1823, to repudiate, the action of his ministers. But the estates felt that the maintenance of their liberties demanded more substantial guarantees than the dead letter of ancient laws. Szechenyi, who had resided abroad and studied Western institutions, was the recognized leader of all those who wished to create a new Hungary out of the old. For years he and his friends educated public opinion by issuing innumerable pamphlets in which the new Liberalism was eloquently expounded. In particular Szechenyi insisted that the people must not look exclusively to the government, or even to the diet, for the necessary reforms. Society itself must take the initiative by breaking down the barriers of class exclusiveness and reviving a healthy public spirit. The effect of this teaching was manifest at the diet of 1832, when the Liberals in the Lower Chamber had a large majority, prominent among whom were Francis Deak and Odon Beothy. In the Upper House, however, the magnates united with the government to form a conservative party obstinately opposed to any project of reform, which frustrated all the efforts of the Liberals.

The alarm of the government at the power and popularity of the Liberal party induced it, soon after the accession of the new king, the emperor Ferdinand I. (1835-1848), to attempt to crush the reform movement by arresting and imprisoning the most active agitators among them, Louis Kossuth and Miklos Wesselenyi. But the nation was no longer to be cowed. The diet of 1839 refused to proceed to business till the political prisoners had been released, and, while in the Lower Chamber the reforming majority was larger than ever, a Liberal party was now also formed in the Upper House under the brilliant leadership of Count Louis Batthyany and Baron Joseph Eotvos. Two progressive measures of the highest importance were passed by this diet, one making Magyar the official language of Hungary, the other freeing the peasants' holdings from all feudal obligations.

Kossuth.

The results of the diet of 1839 did not satisfy the advanced Liberals, while the opposition of the government and of the Upper House still further embittered the general discontent. The chief exponent of this temper was the Pesti Hirlap, Hungary's first political newspaper, founded in 1841 by Kossuth, whose articles, advocating armed reprisals if necessary, inflamed the extremists but alienated Szechenyi, who openly attacked Kossuth's opinions. The polemic on both sides was violent; but, as usual, the extreme views prevailed, and on the assembling of the diet of 1843 Kossuth was more popular than ever, while the influence of Szechenyi had sensibly declined. The tone of this diet was passionate, and the government was fiercely attacked for interfering with the elections. Fresh triumphs were won by the Liberals. Magyar was now declared to be the language of the schools and the law-courts as well as of the legislature; mixed marriages were legalized; and official positions were thrown open to non-nobles.

Revolution of 1848. The March Laws.

The interval between the diet of 1843 and that of 1847 saw a complete disintegration and transformation of the various political parties. Szechenyi openly joined the government, while the moderate Liberals separated from the extremists and formed a new party, the Centralists. Immediately before the elections, however, Deak succeeded in reuniting all the Liberals on the common platform of "The Ten Points": (1) Responsible ministries, (2) Popular representation, (3) The incorporation of Transylvania, (4) Right of public meeting, (6) Absolute religious liberty, (7) Universal equality before the law, (8) Universal taxation, (9) The abolition of the _Aviticum_, an obsolete and anomalous land-tenure, (10) The abolition of serfdom, with compensation to the landlords. The ensuing elections resulted in a complete victory of the Progressives. All efforts to bring about an understanding between the government and the opposition were fruitless. Kossuth demanded not merely the redress of actual grievances, but a reform which would make grievances impossible in the future. In the highest circles a dissolution of the diet now seemed to be the sole remedy; but, before it could be carried out, tidings of the February revolution in Paris reached Pressburg[38] (March 1), and on the 3rd of March Kossuth's motion for the appointment of an independent, responsible ministry was accepted by the Lower House. The moderates, alarmed not so much by the motion itself as by its tone, again tried to intervene; but on the 13th of March the Vienna revolution broke out, and the king, yielding to pressure or panic, appointed Count Louis Batthyany premier of the first Hungarian responsible ministry, which included Kossuth, Szechenyi and Deak. The Ten Points, or the March Laws as they were now called, were then adopted by the legislature and received the royal assent (April 10). Hungary had, to all intents and purposes, become an independent state bound to Austria only by the fact that the palatine chanced to be an Austrian archduke.

The non-Magyar races.

In the assertion of their national aspirations, confused as these were with the new democratic ideals, the Magyars had had the support of the German democrats who temporarily held the reins of power in Vienna. On the other hand, they were threatened by an ominous stirring of the subject races in Hungary itself. Croats, Vlachs, Serbs and Slovaks resented Magyar domination--a domination which had been carefully secured under the revolutionary constitution by a very narrow franchise, and out of the general chaos each race hoped to create for itself a separate national existence. The separatist movement was strongest in the south, where the Rumans were in touch with their kinsmen in Walachia and Moldavia, the Serbs with their brethren in Servia, and the Croats intent on reasserting the independence of the "Tri-une Kingdom."

Jellachich.

The attitude of the distracted imperial government towards these movements was at first openly suspicious and hostile. The emperor and his ministers hoped that, having conceded the demands of the Magyars, they would receive the help of the Hungarian government in crushing the revolution elsewhere, a hope that seemed to be justified by the readiness with which Batthyany consented to send a contingent to the assistance of the imperialists in Italy. That the encouragement of the Slav aspirations was soon deliberately adopted as a weapon against the Hungarian government was due, partly to the speedy predominance at Pest of Kossuth and the extreme party of which he was the mouthpiece, but mainly to the calculated policy of Baron Jellachich, who on the 14th of April was appointed ban of Croatia. Jellachich, who as a soldier was devoted to the interests of the imperial house, realized that the best way to break the revolutionary power of the Magyars and Germans would be to encourage the Slav national ideas, which were equally hostile to both; to set up against the Dualism in favour at Pest and Vienna the federal system advocated by the Slavs, and so to restore the traditional Habsburg principle of _Divide et impera_. This policy he pursued with masterly skill. His first acts on taking up his office were to repudiate the authority of the Hungarian diet, to replace the Magyar officials with ardent "Illyrians," and to proclaim martial law. Under pressure from the palatine of Batthyany an imperial edict was issued, on the 7th day of May, ordering the ban to desist from his separatist plans and take his orders from Pest. He not only refused to obey, but on the 5th of June convoked to Agram the Croatian national diet, of which the first act was to declare the independence of the Tri-une Kingdom. Once more, at the instance of Batthyany, the emperor intervened; and on the 10th an imperial edict stripped Jellachich of all his offices.

Meanwhile, however, Jellachich had himself started for Innsbruck, where he succeeded in persuading the emperor of the loyalty of his intentions, and whence, though not as yet formally reinstated, he was allowed to return to Croatia with practically unfettered discretion. The Hungarian government, in fact, had played into his hands. At a time when everything depended on the army, they had destroyed the main tie which bound the Austrian court to their interests by tampering with the relation of the Hungarian army to the crown. In May a national guard had been created, the disaffected troops being bribed by increased pay to desert their colours and join this; and on the 1st of June the garrison of Pest had taken an oath to the constitution. All hope of crushing revolutionary Vienna with Magyar aid was thus at an end, and Jellachich, who on the 20th issued a proclamation to the Croat regiments in Italy to remain with their colours and fight for the common fatherland, was free to carry out his policy of identifying the cause of the southern Slavs with that of the imperial army. The alliance was cemented in July by a military demonstration, of which Jellachich was the hero, at Vienna; as the result of which the government mustered up courage to declare publicly that the basis of the Austrian state was "the recognition of the equal rights of all nationalities." This was the challenge which the Magyars were not slow to accept.

Jellachich invades Hungary.

In the Hungarian diet, which met on the 2nd of July, the influence of the conservative cabinet was wholly overshadowed by that of Kossuth, whose inflammatory orations--directed against the disruptive designs of the Slavs and the treachery of the Austrian government--precipitated the crisis. At his instance the diet not only refused to vote supplies for the troops of the ban of Croatia, but only consented to pass a motion for sending reinforcements to the army in Italy on condition that the anti-Magyar races in Hungary should be first disarmed. On the 11th, on his motion, a decree was passed by acclamation for a levy of 200,000 men and the raising of L4,500,000 for the defence of the independence of the country. Desultory fighting, in which Austrian officers with the tacit consent of the minister of war took part against the Magyars, had already broken out in the south. It was not, however, until the victory of Custozza (July 25) set free the army in Italy, that the Austrian government ventured on bolder measures. On the 4th of September, after weeks of fruitless negotiation, the king-emperor threw down the gauntlet by reinstating Jellachich in all his honours. Seven days later the ban declared open war on Hungary by crossing the Drave at the head of 36,000 Croatian troops (see AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: _History_). The immediate result was to place the extreme revolutionaries in power at Pest. Szechenyi had lost his reason some days before; Eotvos and Deak retired into private life; of the conservative ministers only Batthyany, to his undoing, consented to remain in office, though hardly in power. Kossuth alone was supreme.

Fall of Vienna.

The advance of Jellachich as far as Lake Balaton had not been checked, the Magyar troops, though--contrary to his expectation--none joined him, offering no opposition. The palatine, the Austrian Archduke Stephen, after fruitless attempts at negotiation, laid down his office on the 24th of September and left for Vienna. One more attempt at compromise was made, General Count Lamberg[39] being sent to take command of all the troops, Slav or Magyar, in Hungary, with a view to arranging an armistice. His mission, which was a slight to Jellachich, was conceived as a concession to the Magyars, and had the general approval of Batthyany. Unhappily, however, when Lamberg arrived in Pest, Batthyany had not yet returned; the diet, on Kossuth's motion, called on the army not to obey the new commander-in-chief, on the ground that his commission had not been countersigned by a minister at Pest. Next day, as he was crossing the bridge of Buda, Lamberg was dragged from his carriage by a frantic mob and torn to pieces. This made war inevitable; though Batthyany hurried to Vienna to try and arrange a settlement. Failing in this, he retired, and on the 2nd of October a royal proclamation, countersigned by his successor, Recssey, placed Hungary under martial law and appointed Jellachich viceroy and commander of all the forces. This proclamation, together with the order given to certain Viennese regiments to march to the assistance of Jellachich, who had been defeated at Pakozd on the 29th of September, led to the _emeute_ (Oct. 3) which ended in the murder of the minister of war, Latour, and the second flight of the emperor to Innsbruck. The fortunes of the German revolutionaries in Vienna and the Magyar revolutionists in Pest were now closely bound up together; and when, on the 11th, Prince Windischgratz laid siege to Vienna, it was to Hungary that the democrats of the capital looked for relief. The despatch of a large force of militia to the assistance of the Viennese was, in fact, the first act of open rebellion of the Hungarians. They suffered a defeat at Schwechat on the 30th of October, which sealed the fate of the revolutionists in Vienna and thus precipitated a conflict _a outrance_ in Hungary itself.

Francis Joseph.

In Austria the army was now supreme, and the appointment of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg as head of the government was a guarantee that its power would be used in a reactionary sense without weakness or scruple. The Austrian diet was transferred on the 15th of November to Kremsier, remote from revolutionary influences; and, though the government still thought it prudent to proclaim its constitutional principles, it also proclaimed its intention to preserve the unity of the monarchy. A still further step was taken when, on the 2nd of December, the emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his nephew Francis Joseph. The new sovereign was a lad of eighteen, who for the present was likely to be the mere mouthpiece of Schwarzenberg's policy. Moreover, he was not bound by the constitutional obligations unwillingly accepted by his uncle. The Magyars at once took up the challenge. On the 7th the Hungarian diet formally refused to acknowledge the title of the new king, "as without the knowledge and consent of the diet no one could sit on the Hungarian throne," and called the nation to arms. Constitutionally, in the Magyar opinion, Ferdinand was still king of Hungary, and this gave to the revolt an excuse of legality. Actually, from this time until the collapse of the rising, Louis Kossuth was the ruler of Hungary.

War of Independence.

Battle of Kapolna.

The struggle opened with a series of Austrian successes. Prince Windischgratz, who had received orders to reduce Hungary by fire and sword, began his advance on the 15th of December; opened up the way to the capital by the victory of Mor (Oct. 30), and on the 5th of January 1849 occupied Pest, while the Hungarian government and diet retired behind the Theiss and established themselves at Debreczen. A last attempt at reconciliation, made by the more moderate members of the diet in Windischgratz's camp at Bieske (Jan. 3), had foundered on the uncompromising attitude of the Austrian commander, who demanded unconditional submission; whereupon the moderates, including Deak and Batthyany, retired into private life, leaving Kossuth to carry on the struggle with the support of the enthusiastic extremists who constituted the rump of the diet at Debreczen. The question now was: how far the military would subordinate itself to the civil element of the national government. The first symptom of dissonance was a proclamation by the commander of the Upper Danube division, Arthur Gorgei, from his camp at Vacz (Jan. 5) emphasizing the fact that the national defence was purely constitutional, and menacing all who might be led astray from this standpoint by republican aspirations. Immediately after this proclamation Gorgei disappeared with his army among the hills of Upper Hungary, and, despite the difficulties of a phenomenally severe winter and the constant pursuit of vastly superior forces, fought his way down to the valley of Hernad--and safety. This masterly winter-campaign first revealed Gorgei's military genius, and the discipline of that terrible month of marching and counter-marching had hardened his recruits into veterans whom his country regarded with pride and his country's enemies with respect. Unfortunately his success caused some jealousy in official quarters, and when, in the middle of February 1849, a commander-in-chief was appointed to carry out Kossuth's plan of campaign, that vital appointment was given, not to the man who had made the army what it was, but to a foreigner, a Polish refugee, Count Henrik Dembinski, who, after fighting the bloody and indecisive battle of Kapolna (Feb. 26-27), was forced to retreat. Gorgei was immediately appointed his successor, and the new generalissimo led the Honveds from victory to victory. Ably supported by Klapka and Damjanich he pressed forward irresistibly. Szolnok (March 5), Isaszeg (April 6), Vacz (April 10), and Nagysarlo (April 19) were so many milestones in his triumphal progress. On the 25th of May the Hungarian capital was once more in the hands of the Hungarians.

Proclamation of a united empire.

Meanwhile, the earlier events of the war had so altered the political situation that any idea which the diet at Debreczen had cherished of a compromise with Austria was destroyed. The capture of Pest had confirmed the Austrian court in its policy of unification, which after the victory of Kapolna they thought it safe to proclaim. On the 7th of March the diet of Kremsier was dissolved, and immediately afterwards a proclamation was issued in the name of the emperor Francis Joseph establishing a united constitution for the whole empire, of which Hungary, cut up into half a dozen administrative districts, was henceforth to be little more than the largest of several subject provinces. The news of this manifesto, arriving as it did simultaneously with that of Gorgei's successes, destroyed the last vestiges of a desire of the Hungarian revolutionists to compromise, and on the 14th of April, on the motion of Kossuth, the diet proclaimed the independence of Hungary, declared the house of Habsburg as false and perjured, for ever excluded from the throne, and elected Kossuth president of the Hungarian Republic. This was an execrable blunder in the circumstances, and the results were fatal to the national cause. Neither the government nor the army could accommodate itself to the new situation. From henceforth the military and civil authorities, as represented by Kossuth and Gorgei, were hopelessly out of sympathy with each other, and the breach widened till all effective co-operation became impossible.

Intervention of Russia.

Meanwhile the humiliating defeats of the imperial army and the course of events in Hungary had compelled the court of Vienna to accept the assistance which the emperor Nicholas I. of Russia had proffered in the loftiest spirit of the Holy Alliance. The Austro-Russian alliance was announced at the beginning of May, and before the end of the month the common plan of campaign had been arranged. The Austrian commander-in-chief, Count Haynau, was to attack Hungary from the west, the Russian, Prince Paskevich, from the north, gradually environing the kingdom, and then advancing to end the business by one decisive blow in the mid-Theissian counties. They had at their disposal 375,000 men, to which the Magyars could only oppose 160,000. The Magyars, too, were now more than ever divided among themselves, no plan of campaign had yet been drawn up, no commander-in-chief appointed to replace Gorgei, whom Kossuth had deposed. Haynau's first victories (June 20-28) put an end to their indecisions. On the 2nd of July the Hungarian government abandoned Pest and transferred its capital first to Szeged and finally to Arad. The Russians were by this time well on their way to the Theiss, and the terrible girdle which was to throttle the liberties of Hungary was all but completed. Kossuth again appointed as commander-in-chief the brave but inefficient Dembinski, who was utterly routed at Temesvar (Aug. 9) by Haynau. This was the last great battle of the War of Independence. The final catastrophe was now unavoidable. On the 13th of August Gorgei, who had been appointed dictator by the panic-stricken government two days before, surrendered the remnant of his hardly pressed army to the Russian General Rudiger at Vilagos. The other army corps and all the fortresses followed his example, Komarom, heroically defended by Klapka, being the last to capitulate (Sept. 27). Kossuth and his associates, who had quitted Arad on the 10th of August, took refuge in Turkish territory. By the end of the month Paskevich could write to the Emperor Nicholas: "Hungary lies at the feet of your Imperial Majesty."

The "Bach System."

From October 1849 to July 1850 Hungary was governed by martial law administered by "the butcher" Haynau. This was a period of military tribunals, dragooning, wholesale confiscation and all manner of brutalities.[40] From 1851 to 1860 pure terrorism was succeeded by the "Bach System," which derives its name from the imperial minister of the interior, Baron Alexander von Bach. The Bach System did not recognize historical Hungary. It postulated the existence of one common indivisible state of which mutilated Hungary[41] formed an important section. The supreme government was entrusted to an imperial council responsible to the emperor alone. The counties were administered by imperial officials, Germans, Czechs and Galicians, who did not understand the Magyar tongue. German was the official language. But though reaction was the motive power of this new machinery of government, it could not do away with many of the practical and obvious improvements of 1848, and it was not blind to some of the indispensable requirements of a modern state. The material welfare of the nation was certainly promoted by it. Modern roads were made, the first railways were laid down, the regulation of the river Theiss was taken in hand, a new and better scheme of finance was inaugurated. But the whole system, so to speak, hung in the air. It took no root in the soil. The Magyar nation stood aloof from it. It was plain that at the first revolutionary blast from without, or the first insurrectionary outburst from within, the "Bach System" would vanish like a mirage.

The October Diploma, 1860.

Meanwhile the new Austrian empire had failed to stand the test of international complications. The Crimean War had isolated it in Europe. The Italian war of 1859 had revealed its essential instability. It was felt at court that some concessions were now due to the subject nationalities. Hence the October Diploma (Oct. 20, 1860) which proposed to prop up the crazy common state with the shadow of a constitution and to grant some measure of local autonomy to Hungary, subject always to the supervision of the imperial council (Reichsrath).[42] This project was favoured by the Magyar conservative magnates who had never broken with the court, but was steadily opposed by the Liberal leader Ferencz Deak whose upright and tenacious character made him at this crisis the oracle and the buttress of the national cause. Deak's standpoint was as simple as it was unchangeable. He demanded the re-establishment of the constitution of 1848 in its entirety, the whole constitution and nothing but the constitution.

The February Patent, 1861.

The October Diploma was followed by the February Patent (Feb. 26, 1861), which proposed to convert the Reichsrath into a constitutional representative assembly, with two chambers, to which all the provinces of the empire were to send deputies. The project, elaborated by Anton von Schmerling, was submitted to a Hungarian diet which assembled at Pest on the 2nd of April 1861. After long and violent debates, the diet, on the 8th of August, unanimously adopted an address to the crown, drawn up by Deak, praying for the restoration of the political and territorial integrity of Hungary, for the public coronation of the king with all its accompaniments, and the full restitution of the fundamental laws. The executive retorted by dissolving the diet on the 21st of August and levying the taxes by military execution. The so-called _Provisorium_ had begun.

The Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

The Compromise of 1867.

But the politicians of Vienna had neither the power nor the time to realize their intentions. The question of Italian unity had no sooner been settled than the question of German unity arose, and fresh international difficulties once more inclined the Austrian government towards moderation and concession. In the beginning of June 1865, Francis Joseph came to Buda; on the 26th a provisional Hungarian government was formed, on the 20th of September the February constitution was suspended, and on the 14th of December a diet was summoned to Buda-Pest. The great majority of the nation naturally desired a composition with its ruler and with Austria, and this general desire was unerringly interpreted and directed by Deak, who carried two-thirds of the deputies along with him. The session was interrupted by the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, but not before a committee had been formed to draft the new constitution. The peace of Prague (Aug. 20, 1866), excluding Austria from Italy and Germany, made the fate of the Habsburg monarchy absolutely dependent upon a compromise with the Magyars. (For the Compromise or _Ausgleich_, see AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: _History_.) On the 7th of November 1866, the diet reassembled. On the 17th of February 1867 a responsible independent ministry was formed under Count Gyula Andrassy. On the 29th of May the new constitution was adopted by 209 votes to 89. Practically it was an amplification of the March Laws of 1848. The coronation took place on the 8th of June, on which occasion the king solemnly declared that he wished "a veil to be drawn over the past." The usual coronation gifts he devoted to the benefit of the Honved invalids who had fought in the War of Independence. The reconciliation between monarch and people was assured.

Parties in Independent Hungary.

Andrassy.

Kalman Tisza.

Hungary was now a free and independent modern state; but the very completeness and suddenness of her constitutional victory made it impossible for the strongly flowing current of political life to keep within due bounds. The circumstance that the formation of political parties had not come about naturally, was an additional difficulty. Broadly speaking, there have been in Hungary since 1867 two parties: those who accept the compromise with Austria, and affirm that under it Hungary, so far from having surrendered any of her rights, has acquired an influence which she previously did not actually possess, and secondly, those who see in the compromise an abandonment of the essentials of independence and aim at the restoration of the conditions established in 1848. Within this broad division, however, have appeared from time to time political groups in bewildering variety, each adopting a party designation according to the exigencies of the moment, but each basing its programme on one or other of the theoretical foundations above mentioned. Thus, at the outset, the most heterogeneous elements were to be found both on the Left and Right. The Extreme Left was infected by the fanaticism of Kossuth, who condemned the compromise and refused to take the benefit of the amnesty, while the prelates and magnates who had originally opposed the compromise were now to be found by the side of Deak and Andrassy. The Deak party preserved its majority at the elections of 1869, but the Left Centre and Extreme Left returned to the diet considerably reinforced. The outbreak of the Franco-German War of 1870 turned the attention of the Magyars to foreign affairs. Andrassy never rendered a greater service to his country than when he prevented the imperial chancellor and joint foreign minister, Count Beust,[43] from intervening in favour of France. On the retirement of Beust in 1871, Andrassy was appointed his successor, the first instance, since Hungary came beneath the dominion of the Habsburgs, of an Hungarian statesman being entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs. But, however gratifying such an elevation might be, it was distinctly prejudicial, at first, to Hungary's domestic affairs, for no one else at this time, in Hungary, possessed either the prestige or the popularity of Andrassy. Within the next five years ministry followed ministry in rapid succession. A hopeless political confusion ensued. Few measures could be passed. The finances fell into disorder. The national credit was so seriously impaired abroad that foreign loans could only be obtained at ruinous rates of interest. During this period Deak had almost entirely withdrawn from public life. His last great speech was delivered on the 28th of June 1873, and he died on the 29th of January 1876. Fortunately, in Kalman Tisza, the leader of the Liberal (_Szabadelmu_, i.e. "Free Principle") party, he left behind him a statesman of the first rank, who for the next eighteen years was to rule Hungary uninterruptedly. From the first, Tisza was exposed to the violent attacks of the opposition, which embraced, not only the party of Independence, champions of the principles of 1848, but the so-called National party, led by the brilliant orator Count Albert Apponyi, which aimed at much the same ends but looked upon the Compromise of 1867 as a convenient substructure on which to build up the Magyar state. Neither could forgive Tisza for repudiating his earlier Radical policy, the so-called Bihar Programme (March 6, 1868), which went far beyond the Compromise in the direction of independence, and both attacked him with a violence which his unyielding temper, and the ruthless methods by which he always knew how to secure victory, tended ever to fan into fury. Yet Tisza's aim also was to convert the old polyglot Hungarian kingdom into a homogeneous Magyar state, and the methods which he employed--notably the enforced magyarization of the subject races, which formed part of the reformed educational system introduced by him--certainly did not err on the side of moderation.[44] Whatever view may be held of Tisza's policy in this respect, or of the corrupt methods by which he maintained his party in power,[45] there can be no doubt that during his long tenure of office--which practically amounted to a dictatorship--he did much to promote the astonishing progress of his country, which ran a risk of being stifled in the strife of factions. Himself a Calvinist, he succeeded in putting an end to the old quarrel of Catholic and Protestant and uniting them in a common enthusiasm for a race ideal; nominally a Liberal, he trampled on every Liberal principle in order to secure the means for governing with a firm hand; and if the political corruption of modern Hungary is largely his work,[46] to him also belongs the credit for the measures which have placed the country on a sound economic basis and the statesmanlike temper which made Hungary a power in the affairs of Europe. In this latter respect Tisza rendered substantial aid to the joint minister for foreign affairs by repressing the anti-Russian ardour of the Magyars on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, and by supporting Andrassy's execution of the mandate from the Berlin Congress to Austria-Hungary for the occupation of Bosnia, against which the Hungarian opposition agitated for reasons ostensibly financial. Tisza's policy on both these occasions increased his unpopularity in Hungary, but in the highest circles at Vienna he was now regarded as indispensable.

Material progress.

The following nine years mark the financial and commercial rehabilitation of Hungary, the establishment of a vast and original railway system which won the admiration of Europe, the liberation and expansion of her over-sea trade, the conversion of her national debt under the most favourable conditions and the consequent equilibrium of her finances. These benefits the nation owed for the most part to Gabor Baross, Hungary's greatest finance minister, who entered the cabinet in 1886 and greatly strengthened it. But the opposition, while unable to deny the recuperation of Hungary, shut their eyes to everything but Tisza's "tyranny," and their attacks were never so savage and unscrupulous as during the session of 1889, when threats of a revolution were uttered by the opposition leaders and the premier could only enter or leave the House under police protection. The tragic death of the crown prince Rudolph hushed for a time the strife of tongues, and in the meantime Tisza brought into the ministry Dezso Szilagyi, the most powerful debater in the House, and Sandor Wekerle, whose solid talents had hitherto been hidden beneath the bushel of an under-secretaryship. But in 1890, during the debates on the Kossuth Repatriation Bill, the attacks on the premier were renewed, and on the 13th of March he placed his resignation in the king's hands.

First Wekerle Ministry, 1892. The religious question.

Banffy Ministry, 1894.

Szell Ministry, 1899.

The army language question.

The withdrawal of Tisza scarcely changed the situation, but the period of brief ministries now began. Tisza's successor, Count Gyula Szapary, formerly minister of agriculture, held office for eighteen months, and was succeeded (Nov. 21, 1892) by Wekerle. Wekerle, essentially a business man, had taken office for the express purpose of equilibrating the finances, but the religious question aroused by the encroachments of the Catholic clergy, and notably their insistence on the baptism of the children of mixed marriages, had by this time (1893-1894) excluded all others, and the government were forced to postpone their financial programme to its consideration. The Obligatory Civil Marriage Bill, the State Registries Bill and the Religion of Children of Mixed Marriages Bill, were finally adopted on the 21st of June 1894, after fierce debates and a ministerial interregnum of ten days (June 10-20); but on the 25th of December, Wekerle, who no longer possessed the king's confidence,[47] resigned a second time, and was succeeded by Baron Dezso (Desiderius) Banffy. The various parties meanwhile had split up into some half a dozen sub-sections; but the expected fusion of the party of independence and the government fell through, and the barren struggle continued till the celebration of the millennium of the foundation of the monarchy produced for some months a lull in politics. Subsequently, Banffy still further exasperated the opposition by exercising undue influence during the elections of 1896. The majority he obtained on this occasion enabled him, however, to carry through the Army Education Bill, which tended to magyarize the Hungarian portion of the joint army; and another period of comparative calm ensued, during which Banffy attempted to adjust various outstanding financial and economical differences with Austria. But in November 1898, on the occasion of the renewal of the commercial convention with Austria, the attack on the ministry was renewed with unprecedented virulence, obstruction being systematically practised with the object of goading the government into committing illegalities, till Banffy, finding the situation impossible, resigned on the 17th of February 1899. His successor, Kalman Szell, obtained an immense but artificial majority by a fresh fusion of parties, and the minority pledged itself to grant an indemnity for the extra-parliamentary financial decrees rendered necessary by Hungary's understanding with Austria, as well as to cease from obstruction. As a result of this compromise the budget of 1899 was passed in little more than a month, and the commercial and tariff treaty with Austria were renewed till 1903.[48] But the government had to pay for this complacency with a so-called "pactum," which bound its hands in several directions, much to the profit of the opposition during the "pure" elections of 1901. On the reassembling of the diet, Count Albert Apponyi was elected speaker, and the minority seemed disposed to let the government try to govern. But the proposed raising of the contingent of recruits by 15,000 men (Oct. 1902) once more brought up the question of the common army, the parliament refusing to pass the bill, except in return for the introduction of the Hungarian national flag into the Hungarian regiments and the substitution of Magyar for German in the words of command. The king refusing to yield an inch of his rights under clause ii. of Law XII. of the Compromise of 1867, the opposition once more took to obstruction, and on the 1st of May 1903 Szell was forced to resign.

First Khuen-Hedervary Ministry, 1903.

Every one now looked to the crown to extract the nation from an _ex-lex_, or extra-constitutional situation, but when the king, passing over the ordinary party-leaders, appointed as premier Count Karoly Khuen-Hedervary, who had made himself impossible as ban of Croatia, there was general amazement and indignation. The fact was that the king, weary of the tactics of a minority which for years had terrorized every majority and prevented the government from exercising its proper constitutional functions, had resolved to show the Magyars that he was prepared to rule unconstitutionally rather than imperil the stability of the Dual Monarchy by allowing any tampering with the joint army. In an ordinance on the army word of command, promulgated on the 16th of September, he reaffirmed the inalienable character of the powers of the crown over the joint army and the necessity for maintaining German as the common military language. This was followed by the fall of Khuen-Hedervary (September 29), and a quarrel _a outrance_ between crown and parliament seemed unavoidable. The Liberal party, however, realized the abyss towards which they were hurrying the country, and united their efforts to come to a constitutional understanding with the king. The problem was to keep the army an Hungarian army without infringing on the prerogative of the king as commander-in-chief, for, unconstitutional as the new ordinance might be, it could not constitutionally be set aside without the royal assent. The king met them half way by inviting the majority to appoint a committee to settle the army question provisionally, and a committee was formed, which included Szell, Apponyi, Count Istvan Tisza and other experienced statesmen.

Istvan Tisza Ministry, 1903.

Crisis of 1904-1906.

The "Coalition."

A programme approved of by all the members of the committee was drawn up, and on the 3rd of November 1903, Count Istvan Tisza was appointed minister president to carry it out. Thus, out of respect for the wishes of the nation, the king had voluntarily thrown open to public discussion the hitherto strictly closed and jealously guarded domain of the army. Tisza, a statesman of singular probity and tenacity, seemed to be the one person capable of carrying out the programme of the king and the majority. The irreconcilable minority, recognizing this, exhausted all the resources of "technical obstruction" in order to reduce the government to impotence, a task made easy by the absurd standing-rules of the House which enabled any single member to block a measure. These tactics soon rendered legislation impossible, and a modification of the rule of procedure became absolutely necessary if any business at all was to be done. The Modification of the Standing-orders Bill was accordingly introduced by the deputy Gabor Daniel (Nov. 18, 1904); but the opposition, to which the National party had attached itself, denounced it as "a gagging order" inspired at Vienna, and shouted it down so vehemently that no debate could be held; whereupon the president declared the bill carried and adjourned the House till the 13th of December 1904. This was at once followed by an anti-ministerial fusion of the extremists of all parties, including seceders from the government (known as the Constitutional party); and when the diet reassembled, the opposition broke into the House by force and wrecked all the furniture, so that a session was physically impossible (Jan. 5, 1905). Tisza now appealed to the country, but was utterly defeated. The opposition thereupon proceeded to annul the Lex Daniel (April 7) and stubbornly to clamour for the adoption of the Magyar word of command in the Hungarian part of the common army. To this demand the king as stubbornly refused to accede;[49] and as the result of the consequent dead-lock, Tisza, who had courageously continued in office at the king's request, after every other leading politician had refused to form a ministry, was finally dismissed on the 17th of June. (R. N. B.; W. A. P.)

Fejervary Government.