Chapter XVI: Part 16

"The peace of Carlowitz, which disposed of the Hungarian
territory without the will or knowledge of the Hungarian
States, in utter contempt of repeatedly confirmed laws, was in
itself a deep source of new discontent,—which was
considerably increased by the general policy continually
pursued by the Court of Vienna. Even after the coronation of
Joseph I., a prince who; if left to himself, might have
perhaps followed a less provoking line of conduct, Leopold,
the real master of Hungary, did not relinquish his design of
entirely demolishing its institutions. … The high clergy
were ready to second any measure of the government, provided
they were allowed full scope in their persecutions of the
Protestants. … Scarcely had three years passed since the
peace of Carlowitz was signed, when Leopold, just embarking in
the war of the Spanish succession, saw the Hungarians suddenly
rise up as one man in arms. … The head and soul of this new
struggle in Hungary was Francis Rakoczy II., the son of Helen
Zriny, by her first husband, after the death of whom she
became the wife of Tököli." Rakoczy entered the country from
Poland, with a few hundred men, in 1703, and issued a
proclamation which brought large numbers to his support. The
Austrian forces had been mostly drawn away, by the war of the
Spanish succession, into Italy and to the Rhine, and during
the first year of the insurrection the Hungarian patriot
became master of the greater part of the country. Then there
occurred a suspension of hostilities, while the English
government made a fruitless effort at mediation. On the
reopening of warfare, the Austrians were better prepared and
more encouraged by the circumstances of the larger contest in
which they were engaged; while the Hungarians were
correspondingly discouraged. They had promises of help from
France, and France failed them; they had expectations from
Russia, but nothing came of them. "The fortune of war
decidedly turned in favour of the imperialists, in consequence
of which numerous families, to escape their fury, left their
abodes to seek shelter in the national camp; a circumstance
which, besides clogging the military movements, contributed to
discourage the army and spread general consternation." In 1710
Rakoczy went to Poland, where he was long absent, soliciting
help which he did not get. "Before his departure, the chief
command of the troops was entrusted to Karoly, who, tired of
Rakoczy's prolonged and useless absence in Poland, assembled
the nobles at Szathmar, and concluded, in 1711, a peace known
as the Treaty of Szathmar. By this treaty the emperor engaged
to redress all grievances, civil and religious, promising,
besides, amnesty to all the adherents of Rakoczy, as well as
the restitution of many properties illegally confiscated.
Rakoczy protested from Poland against the peace concluded by
Karoly; but of what effect could be the censure and
remonstrance of a leader who, in the most critical emergency,
had left the scene of action in quest of foreign assistance,
which, he might have foreseen, would never be accorded. …
After the peace of Szathmar, Hungarian history assumes a quite
different character." Revolts are at an end for more than a
century, and "Hungary, without producing a single man of note,
lay in a state of deep lethargy." In 1714, the Emperor Charles
VI. (who, as King of Hungary, was Charles III.) began a new
war against the Porte, with Prince Eugene again commanding in
Hungary. "The sultan Achmet III., anticipating the design of
the imperial general [to concentrate his troops on the
Danube], marched his army across the Save, and, as will be
seen, to his own destruction.
{1683}
After a small success gained by Palfy, Eugene routed the Turks
at Petervardein [August 13, 1716], and captured besides nearly
all their artillery. Profiting by the general consternation of
the Turks, Eugene sent Palfy and the Prince of Wurtemberg to
lay siege to the fortress of Temesvar, which commands the
whole Banat, and which was surrendered by the Turks after a
heavy siege. By these repeated disasters the Mussulmans lost
all confidence in the success of their arms; and in the year
1717 they opened the gates of Belgrade to the imperial army.
The present campaign paved the way for the peace of
Passarowitz, a little town in Servia,—a peace concluded
between the Porte and the Emperor in 1718. In virtue of the
provisions of this treaty, the Porte abandoned the Banat, the
fortress of Belgrade, and a part of Bosnia, on the hither side
of the Unna, promising besides the free navigation of the
Danube to the people of the Austrian empire."

_E. Szabad,
Hungary, Past and Present,
part 2, chapter 5-6._

ALSO in:
_L. Felbermann,
Hungary and its People,
chapter 4._

See, also,
TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1739:
Belgrade restored to the Turks.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1740.
The question of the Austrian Succession.
The Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738; and 1740.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1740-1741.
Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession:
Faithlessness of Frederick the Great.
His seizure of Silesia.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1741.
The War of the Austrian Succession:
Maria Theresa's appeal and the Magyar response.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1780-1790.
Irritations of the reign of Joseph II.
Illiberality of the Hungarian nobles.

"The reign of Joseph II. is described by the historians of
Hungary and Bohemia as a disastrous time for the two
countries. Directly he ascended the throne he began to carry
out a series of measures which deeply irritated the Magyars.
With his philosophical ideas, the crown of Hungary was to him
nothing more than a Gothic bauble, and the privileges of the
nation only the miserable remains of an age of barbarism; the
political opinions of the Hungarians were as distasteful to
him as their customs, and he amused himself with ridiculing
the long beards and the soft boots of the great nobles. He
never would be crowned. He annoyed the bishops by his laws
against convents, while his tyrannical tolerance never
succeeded in contenting the Protestants. … On the 7th of
April, 1784, he ordered that the holy crown should be brought
to him in Vienna and placed in the imperial treasury. To
confiscate this symbol of Hungarian independence was, in the
eyes of the Magyars, an attempt at the suppression of the
nation itself, and the affront was deeply resented. Up to this
time the official language of the kingdom had been Latin, a
neutral tongue among the many languages in use in the various
parts of Hungary. Joseph believed he was proving his liberal
principles in substituting German, and that language took the
place of Latin. … Joseph II. soon learned that it is not
wise to attack the dearest prejudices of a nation. The edict
which introduced a foreign language was the signal for the new
birth of Magyar. … At the time of the death of Joseph II.
Hungary was in a state of violent disturbance. The 'comitat'
of Pesth proclaimed that the rule of the Hapsburgs was at an
end, and others threatened to do the same unless the national
liberties were restored by the new sovereign. All united in
demanding the convocation of the diet in order that the
long-suppressed wishes of the people might be heard. The
revolutionary wind which had passed over France had been felt
even by the Magyars, but there was this great difference in
its effect upon France and Hungary—in France, ideas of
equality had guided the revolution; in Hungary, the great
nobles and the squirearchy who formed the only political
element claimed, under the name of liberties, privileges which
were for the most part absolutely opposed to the ideas of the
Revolution of 1789. … Among the late reforms only one had
found favour in the eyes of the Magyars, and that was
toleration towards Protestants, and the reason of this was to
be found in the fact that the small landowners of Hungary were
themselves to a large extent Protestant; yet a democratic
party was gradually coming into existence which appealed to
the masses. … When France declared war against Francis II.
the Magyar nobles showed themselves quite ready to support
their sovereign; they asked for nothing better than to fight
the revolutionary democrats of Paris. Francis was crowned very
soon after his accession, and was able to obtain both men and
money from the diet; but before long, the reactionary measures
carried by Thugut his minister, lost him all the popularity
which had greeted him at the beginning of his reign. The
censorship of the press, the employment of spies, and the
persecution of the Protestants—a persecution, however, in
which the Hungarian Catholics themselves took an active
part—all helped to create discontent."

_L. Leger,
History of Austro-Hungary,
chapters 23 and 28._

HUNGARY: A. D. 1787-1791.
War with the Turks.
Treaty of Sistova.

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1815-1844.
The wakening of the national spirit.
Patriotic labors of Szechenyi and Kossuth.

"The battle of Waterloo, in 1815, put an end to the terrible
struggle by which every country in Europe had for twenty years
been agitated. The sovereigns of the continent now breathed
freely … and their first act was to enter into a league
against their deliverers, to revoke all their concessions, and
break all their promises. … The most audacious of all those
who joined in framing the Holy Alliance was the emperor of
Austria. The Hungarians reminded him, in 1815, of his repeated
promises to redress their grievances, while they were voting
him men and money to defend his capital against the assaults
of Napoleon. He could not deny the promises, but he
emphatically declined to fulfil them. They asked him to
convoke the diet, but he … determined to dispense with it
for the future. … At last the popular ferment reached such a
pitch, that the government found it absolutely necessary to
yield the point in dispute. In 1825, Francis I. convoked the
diet, and from that moment the old struggle, which the wars
with France had suspended, was renewed. … The session was
… rendered for ever memorable by an incident, in itself of
trifling importance, but of vast significance when viewed in
connexion with subsequent events.
{1684}
It was in it that Count Stephen Szechenyi made his first
speech in the Magyar language. The life of this extraordinary
man is more remarkable as an instance of what may be achieved
by well-directed energy, labouring in obedience to the
dictates of patriotism, than for any brilliant triumphs of
eloquence or diplomacy. … He was no great orator; so that
his influence over the Magyars—an influence such as no
private individual has ever acquired over a people, except,
perhaps, Kossuth and O'Connell—must be looked upon rather as
the triumph of practical good sense and good intentions than
of rhetorical appeals to prejudices or passion. … The first
object to which his attention was directed was the restoration
of the Magyar language, which, under the Germanizing efforts
of Austria, had fallen into almost total disuse amongst the
higher classes. He knew how intimately the use of the national
language is connected with the feeling of nationality. … But
the Magyar was now totally neglected by the Magyar gentlemen.
Latin was the language of the diet, and of all legal and
official documents, and German and French were alone used in
good society. Szechenyi, as the first step in his scheme of
reformation, set about rescuing it from the degradation and
disuse into which it had fallen; and as the best of all ways
to induce others to do a thing is to do it oneself first, he
rose in the diet of 1825, and, contrary to previous usage,
made a speech in Magyar. His colleagues were surprised; the
magnates were shocked; the nation was electrified. … The
diet sat for two years, and during the whole of that period
Szechenyi continued his use of the native language, in which
he strenuously opposed the designs of the court, and was soon
considered the leader of the opposition or liberal party,
which speedily grew up around him. His efforts were so
successful, that before the close of the session, Francis was
compelled to acknowledge the illegality of his previous acts,
formally to recognize the independence of the country, and
promise to convoke the diet at least once in every three
years. … He [Szechenyi] soon had the satisfaction of seeing
the Hungarian language growing to general use, but he was
still vexed to see the total want of unity, co-operation, and
communion which prevailed amongst the nobles, owing to the
want of a newspaper press, or of any place of re-union where
political subjects could be discussed amongst men of the same
party with freedom and confidence. This he remedied by the
establishment of the casino, at Pesth, upon the plan of the
London clubs. He next turned his attention to the
establishment of steam navigation on the Danube. … He …
rigged out a boat, sailed down the Danube right to the Black
Sea, explored it thoroughly, found it navigable in every part,
went over to England, studied the principles of the
steam-engine as applied to navigation, brought back English
engineers, formed a company, and at last confounded the
multitude of sceptics, who scoffed at his efforts, by the
sight of a steam-boat on the river in full work. This feat was
accomplished in October, 1830. … In the interval which
followed the dissolution of the diet, Szechenyi still followed
up his plan of reform with unwearied diligence, and owing to
his exertions, a party was now formed which sought not merely
the strict observance of the existing laws, but the reform of
them, the abolition of the unjust privileges of the nobles,
the emancipation of the peasantry, the establishment of a
system of education, the equal distribution of the taxes, the
equality of all religious sects, the improvement of the
commercial code and of internal communication, and though
last, not least, the freedom of the press. These projects were
all strenuously debated, but on this occasion without any
practical result. The next meeting was for a long time
delayed, upon one pretext or another. At last it was convened
in 1832, and proved in many respects one of the most important
that had ever assembled. … The man who in future struggles
was destined to play so prominent a part, during the whole of
these … proceedings, was merely an intent and diligent
looker-on. … He was a gentleman of noble origin, of course,
but his whole fortune lay in his talents, which at that period
were devoted to journalism—a profession which the Hungarians
had not yet learned to estimate at its full value. He was
still but thirty years of age, and within the diet he was
known as a promising young man, although, amongst the world
without, his name—the name of Louis Kossuth, which has since
become a household word in two hemispheres—had never yet been
heard. … Whether from the jealousy of the government or the
apathy of the Magyars, no printed reports of the parliamentary
proceedings had ever yet been published. … To supply this
defect, Kossuth resolved to devote the time, which would
otherwise have been wasted in idle listening, to carefully
reporting everything that took place, and circulated it all
over the country on a small printed sheet. The importance of
the proceedings which then occupied the attention of the diet
caused it to be read with extraordinary eagerness, and Kossuth
rendered it still more attractive by amplifying, and often
even embellishing, the speeches. The cabinet, however, soon
took the alarm, and although the censorship was unknown to the
Hungarian law, prohibited the printing and publication of the
reports. This was a heavy blow, but Kossuth was not baffled.
He instantly gathered round him a great number of young men to
act as secretaries, who wrote out a great number of copies of
the journal, which were then circulated in manuscript
throughout Hungary. The government was completely foiled, and
new ardour was infused into the liberal party. When the
session was at an end he resolved to follow up his plan by
reporting the meetings of the county assemblies, which were
then the scenes of fiery debates. … The government stopped
his journal in the post-office. He then established a staff of
messengers and carriers, who circulated it from village to
village. The enthusiasm of the people was fast rising to a
flame. A crisis was imminent. It was resolved to arrest
Kossuth. … He was seized, and shut up in the Neuhaus, a
prison built at Pesth by Joseph II. He was, however, not
brought to trial till 1839, and was then sentenced to four
years' imprisonment. The charge brought against him was, that
he had circulated false and inaccurate reports; but the real
ground of offence was, as everyone knew, that he had
circulated any reports at all. … Kossuth, after his
liberation from prison, had taken up his abode for a short
period at a watering place called Parad, for the purpose of
recruiting his shattered health, and for a time wholly
abstained from taking any part in public affairs.
{1685}
On the first of January, 1841, however, a printer in Pesth,
named Landerer, obtained permission to publish a journal
entitled 'Pesthi Hirlap,' or the Pesth Gazette. He offered the
editorship to Kossuth, who accepted it, but only on condition
that he should be perfectly untrammelled in the expression of
his opinions. … Kossuth … soon raised the circulation of
his paper to 10,000 copies—an immense number in a country
where the newspaper press had hitherto hardly had a footing.
He made vigorous onslaughts upon the privileges of the
noblesse, and pleaded the cause of the middle and lower
classes unanswerably. … In 1844, owing to a change of
ministry which threw the liberals out of office, he lost the
editorship of the Gazette; but he had kindled a flame which
now blazed fiercely enough of itself."

_E. L. Godkin,
History of Hungary,
chapter 21._

HUNGARY: A. D. 1847-1849.
The struggle for National Independence and its failure.

"A strong spirit of nationality had been growing up for many
years, greatly fostered by Louis Kossuth, a newspaper editor.
The old Magyar language, which had been treated as barbarous,
was cultivated. Books and papers were printed in the tongue,
all with the spirit of independence as a country and a race
apart from that of the Austrians. In November, 1847, Ferdinand
V. had opened the Diet in person, and proposed reforms in the
Constitution were put before him. Count Batthyani, Prince
Esterhazy, Kossuth, and others, drew up a scheme which was
laid before the Emperor in the April of 1848, amid the crash
of revolutions, and was assented to by him. But the other
tribes within the kingdom of Hungary, the Rascians and Croats,
began to make separate demands, and to show themselves
stronger than the Magyars and Germans scattered among them. It
was strongly suspected that they were encouraged by the
Austrian powers in order to break down the new Hungarian
constitution. The Hungarian council applied to have their
national troops recalled from Lombardy, where, under Radetzky,
they were preserving the Emperor's power; but this could not
be granted, and only a few foreign regiments, whom they
distrusted, were sent them. Disturbances broke out, and at the
same time the Wallachians in Transylvania rose, and committed
ravages on the property of Hungarians. The confusion was
great, for these insurgents called the constitutional
government of Hungary rebels, and professed to be upholding
the rights of the Emperor, and, on the other hand, the
Hungarian government viewed them as rebels. … Meantime a
high-spirited Croatian officer, Baron Jellachich, had been
appointed Ban of Croatia, and collected forces from among his
wild countrymen to put down the Hungarian rule. … Jellachich
advanced upon Pesth, and thus showed the Government there that
in Ferdinand's eyes they were the rebels. Batthyani resigned,
and Kossuth set himself to raise the people. Jellachich was
defeated, and entered the Austrian states, appearing to menace
Vienna. The effect of this was a tremendous insurrection of
the Viennese, who seized Latour, the minister at war, savagely
murdered him, and hung his body, stripped naked, to a
lamp-post. The Viennese, under the command of the Polish
General Bern, now prepared for a siege, while Windischgrätz
and Jellachich collected a large army of Austrians and
Croatians, besieged the city, stormed it on the 30th of
October, and made an entrance, when all the ringleaders of the
rebellion were treated with great severity. Jellachich then
prepared to lead his Croats into Hungary, which was a very
different matter, since the constitutional government there
had been formed under the sanction and encouragement of
Ferdinand. Kossuth and the rest of the ministry therefore
thought themselves justified in naming a committee of public
safety, and voting the raising of an army of 200,000 men.
Ferdinand V., now an old man, felt himself no longer capable
of coping with all the discordant forces of the empire; a
family council was held at Olmütz, whither the Court had
retired, and it was decided that he should abdicate, and that
his next brother, Francis Charles, should waive his right in
favour of his son, Francis Joseph, a promising and amiable
young man of twenty, who, it was hoped, would conciliate
matters. On December 2d, 1848, the change was made, and the
new Emperor put forth a proclamation, promising constitutional
government, liberty of the press, and all that could conduce
to true freedom, but called on all faithful subjects to
repress the rebellions that were raging in the provinces. Both
in Lombardy and in Hungary this was taken as defiance; indeed,
the Magyars considered that neither the abdication of
Ferdinand, nor the accession of Francis Joseph to their
throne, was valid without the consent of the Diet. Prince
Windischgrätz was sent to reduce them with a considerable
army, while Kossuth showed remarkable ability in getting
together supplies for the Hungarian force, which was commanded
by Generals Bem and Görgei. The difficulties of passing the
mountains in the winter told much against the Austrians,
though a corps of Russians was sent to their assistance. Five
considerable battles were fought in the early spring of 1849,
and in April Windischgrätz was fairly driven across the Danube
out of the country."

_C. M. Yonge,
Landmarks of Recent History,
chapter 3, part 5._

"On the 4th of March [1849] a new Imperial Charter was
promulgated at Olmütz, containing many excellent provisions,
but having this fatal defect, that in it Hungary was merged
completely in the Austrian Empire, and all its ancient
institutions obliterated. On the 14th of April the Imperial
Decree was answered by the Declaration of Independence, in
which the Hapsburg dynasty was proclaimed to have forfeited
all right to the Hungarian throne, and to be banished for ever
from the country. Kossuth was appointed Governor, and a new
Ministry was chosen, under the Premiership of M. Szemere, the
late Minister for Home Affairs in the Batthyány Government.
For a while the national army was victorious. … But the
despotic princes of Europe were now recovering from the panic
that had demoralised them and their principles in 1848; the
time had come for absolutism to rally its forces and reassert
itself after the old fashion. Acting on the maxim that 'La
raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure,' the Emperor of
Austria, after previous arrangement with his imperial brother
in St. Petersburg, felt at liberty to disavow and ignore the
arguments for constitutional government which had seemed so
cogent to his predecessor. … In July the Czar's troops a
second time entered Hungary, this time with no disavowal of
political motives, but on the ground that His majesty, having
always reserved to himself entire freedom of action whenever
revolutions in neighboring States should place his own in
danger, was now convinced that the internal security of his
empire was menaced by what was passing and preparing in
Hungary.'
{1686}
… In August, Gorgei, the commander-in-chief of the national
army, who had been nominated Dictator in the place of Kossuth,
was invested with full powers to treat for a peace, and
instructed to act according to the best of his ability to save
the national existence of Hungary. At Vilagós, on the 13th of
August, the Hungarian army, by order of the new Dictator, laid
down their arms, and surrendered—not to the Austrians, but to
the Russian general Rudiger. Thanks to the united efforts of
300,000 of the flower of the Austrian and Russian troops, the
Hungarian rebellion was at an end. … General Haynau presided
over the Bloody Assizes of Pesth and Arad, and the long roll
of Hungarian patriots condemned to death at the hands of the
Austrian hangman was headed by such names as Count Batthyány
and General Damyanics, the wounded leader of the 'Redcaps,'
the famous student brigade. Those who escaped death found a
refuge in England, America, or Turkey, whither they carried
with them bitter memories of wrong and suffering inflicted,
and an undying 'love for the country of their birth. Those
bitter memories have happily died away, under the healing
influence of time, and still more of that great work of
reconciliation which a wise generosity on both sides has
effected between the two countries."

_Francis Deak,
Hungarian Statesman: a memoir,
chapter 14._

See, also,
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1849-1850.
Contemplated recognition of the revolutionary government by
the United States.
The Hülsemann Letter of Daniel Webster.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850-1851.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1849-1859.
Completed Emancipation of the peasantry.
Restoration of pure absolutism.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1859.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1856-1868.
Recovery of nationality.
Formation of the dual Austro-Hungarian empire.

In 1856, the Emperor, Francis Joseph, "proclaimed an amnesty
against the political offenders, and in the following year he
decreed the restoration of their estates, and further steps
were taken to study the wishes of the Hungarians. In 1859
other concessions were made, notably as to provincial
Governments in Hungary, and they were given free
administration as to their educational and religious rites in
the Magyar tongue. In 1860 the 'Curia Regia' were reinstated,
and finally, in 1861, the whole Constitution was restored to
Hungary and its dependencies, Transylvania, Croatia, and
Slavonia. The Hungarian Parliament, which had been closed for
so many years, reopened its gates. These concessions, however,
did not satisfy the Magyars, who wanted perfect autonomy for
their country. … The Hungarians refused to pay taxes, which
therefore had to be collected by military aid. In 1865 the
Hungarian Parliament was opened by the Emperor in person, who
gave his assent to the Self-Government of Hungary, but further
details had still to be arranged, and the war which broke out
between Austria, Prussia and Italy in 1866 prevented these
from being carried out. On the strength of the Emperor's
promise to accede to the wishes of his Hungarian subjects, the
Hungarians fought most bravely in Germany and in Italy for the
Austrian cause, but the disorganized system that then existed
in the Austrian army was the cause of their defeat, and the
dissolution of the German confederation, over which Austria
presided for so many years. The final result of this was that
a perfect autonomy for Hungary was reinstated in 1867, and the
Dual System was introduced, by which Hungary received perfect
freedom and independence as to the administration of its
affairs without any interference from Austria, and became, so
to say, a partner in the newly-formed Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, as also
described in the able 'Memoir' on Francis Deák, to which Sir
Mountstuart E. Grant-Duff wrote a preface, is constituted as
follows:

I. The Common Ministry for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy
consists of a Minister for Foreign Affairs, for War, and for
Finance.

II. In each half of the monarchy there is a separate Ministry
of Worship, of Finance, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, and
National Defence, headed respectively by a Minister-President
of the Council.

III. The Lower House in the Austrian Reichsrath consists of
353 members, in the Hungarian Diet of 444, now chosen in both
cases by direct election.

IV. The Delegations, composed respectively of sixty members
from each half of the monarchy, are elected annually from
amongst their parliamentary representatives of the majority in
each province by the members of the two Houses of the Austrian
and Hungarian Legislatures.

V. The two Delegations, who meet alternately at Vienna and
Budapest, deliberate separately, their discussions being
confined strictly to affairs of common interest, with regard
to which the Delegations have the right to interpellate the
Common Minister and to propose laws or amendments. In case of
disagreement between the two Delegations the question of
policy at issue is discussed by an interchange of written
messages; drawn up in the official language—German or
Hungarian—of the Delegation sending the message, and
accompanied by an authorized translation in the language of
the Delegation to which it is addressed.

VI. If, after the interchange of three successive notes, an
agreement between the two bodies is not arrived at, the
question is put to the vote by ballot without further debate.
The Delegates, of whom in a plenary session there must be an
equal number present from each Delegation, vote individually,
the Emperor-King having the casting vote.

VII. By virtue of the present definition of common affairs,
the cost of the diplomatic service and the army, except the
Honvéds (militia), is defrayed out of the Imperial revenues,
to which Hungary contributes a proportion of 30 per 100.

VIII. With reference to the former, it is stipulated that all
international treaties be submitted to the two Legislatures by
their respective Ministries; with reference to the latter,
that whilst the appointment to the military command of the
whole army, as also to that of the national force of Hungary,
is in the hands of the Sovereign, the settlement of matters
affecting the recruiting, length of service, mobilization, and
pay of the Honvéd army (the militia) remains with the
Hungarian Legislature.

{1687}

IX. Those matters which it is desirable should be subject to
the same legislation, such as customs, indirect taxation,
currency, etc., etc., are regulated by means of treaties,
subject to the approval of the two Legislatures. In cases
where the two parties are unable to come to an agreement, each
retains the right to decide such questions in accordance with
their own special interests.

X. In common affairs, the decisions arrived at by the
Delegations (within the scope of their powers), and sanctioned
by the Sovereign, become thenceforth fundamental laws; each
Ministry is bound to announce them to its respective National
Legislature, and is responsible for their execution.

It should be here mentioned that the late great and lamented
Hungarian statesman, Deák, and also the late Count Beust, have
by their personal efforts contributed a great deal to these
concessions being granted. The Hungarian Parliament was
reopened in 1867, and the late Count Julius Andrássy, … who
escaped to England from the noose of the hangman, became its
Prime Minister. … In 1868 the Emperor and Empress entered in
great state the town of Buda, and were crowned with the
greatest pomp with the Apostolic crown of St. Stephen."

_L. Felbermann,
Hungary and its People,
chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_Francis Deak: a memoir,
chapters 26-31._

_Count von Beust,
Memoirs,
volume 2, chapter 38._

See, also,
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867,
and FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS: MODERN FEDERATIONS.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1866-1887.
Difficulties and promises of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Its ambitions in southeastern Europe.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1887.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1894.
Death of Kossuth.

Louis Kossuth, the leader of the revolutionary movement of
1848, died at Turin on the 20th of March, 1894, aged
ninety-two years. He had refused to the end of his life to be
reconciled to the Austro-Hungarian government, or to
countenance the acceptance by the Hungarians of the dual
nationality established by the constitution of 1867, and
remained an exile in Italy. After his death his remains were
brought to Budapest, and their burial, which took place on
Sunday, April 1st, was made the occasion of a great national
demonstration of respect.

----------HUNGARY: End--------

HUNIADES AND THE HUNGARIAN WARS WITH THE TURKS.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1442-1458;
and TURKS (OTTOMANS): A. D. 1402-1451.

HUNINGEN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

HUNKERS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.

----------HUNS: Start--------

HUNS, Gothic account of the.

"We have ascertained that the nation of the Huns, who
surpassed all others in atrocity, came thus into being. When
Filimer, fifth king of the Goths after their departure from
Sweden, was entering Scythia, with his people, as we have
before described, he found among them certain sorcerer-women,
whom they call in their native tongue Aliorumnas (or
Al-runas), whom he suspected and drove forth from the midst of
his army into the wilderness. The unclean spirits that wander
up and down in desert places, seeing these women, made
concubines of them; and from this union sprang that most
fierce people (of the Huns) who were at first little, foul,
emaciated creatures, dwelling among the swamps, and possessing
only the shadow of human speech by way of language. …
Nations whom they would never have vanquished in fair fight
fled horrified from those frightful—faces I can hardly call
them, but rather—shapeless black collops of flesh, with
little points instead of eyes. No hair on their cheeks or
chins gives grace to adolescence or dignity to age, but deep
furrowed scars instead, down the sides of their faces, show
the impress of the iron which with characteristic ferocity
they apply to every male child that is born among them. …
They are little in stature, but lithe and active in their
motions, and especially skilful in riding, broad-shouldered,
good at the use of the bow and arrows, with sinewy necks, and
always holding their heads high in their pride."

_Jornandes,
De Rebus Geticis,
translated by T. Hodgkin in Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 1._

HUNS:
First appearance in Europe.

See GOTHS: A. D. 376.

HUNS: A. D. 433-453.
The empire of Attila.

After driving the Goths from Dacia, the terrible Huns had
halted in their march westward for something more than a
generation. They were hovering, meantime, on the eastern
frontiers of the empire "taking part like other barbarians in
its disturbances and alliances. Emperors paid them tribute,
and Roman generals kept up a politic or a questionable
correspondence with them. Stilicho had detachments of Huns in
the armies which fought against Alaric; the greatest Roman
soldier after Stilicho,—and, like Stilicho, of barbarian
parentage,—Aetius, who was to be their most formidable
antagonist, had been a hostage and a messmate in their camps.
… About 433, Attila, the son of Mundzukh, like Charles the
Great, equally famous in history and legend, became their
king. Attila was the exact prototype and forerunner of the
Turkish chiefs of the house of Othman. In his profound hatred
of civilized men, in his scorn of their knowledge, their arts,
their habits and religion, and, in spite of this, in his
systematic use of them as his secretaries and officers, in his
rapacity combined with personal simplicity of life, in his
insatiate and indiscriminate destructiveness, in the cunning
which veiled itself under rudeness, in his extravagant
arrogance, and audacious pretensions, in his sensuality, in
his unscrupulous and far-reaching designs, in his ruthless
cruelty joined with capricious displays of generosity, mercy,
and good faith, we see the image of the irreclaimable Turkish
barbarians who ten centuries later were to extinguish the
civilization of [eastern?] Europe. The attraction of Attila's
daring character, and his genius for the war which nomadic
tribes delight in, gave him absolute ascendency over his
nation, and over the Teutonic and Slavonic tribes near him.
Like other conquerors of his race, he imagined and attempted
an empire of ravage and desolation, a vast hunting ground and
preserve, in which men and their works should supply the
objects and zest of the chase."

_R. W. Church,
Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 1._

{1688}

"He [Attila] was truly the king of kings; for his court was
formed of chiefs, who, in offices of command, had learned the
art of obedience. There were three brothers of the race of the
Amales, all of them kings of the Ostrogoths; Ardaric, king of
the Gepidæ, his principal confidant; a king of the Merovingian
Franks; kings of the Burgundians, Thuringians, Rugians, and
Heruli, who commanded that part of their nation which had
remained at home, when the other part crossed the Rhine half a
century before."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 7 (volume 1)._

"The amount of abject, slavish fear which this little swarthy
Kalmuck succeeded in instilling into millions of human hearts
is not to be easily matched in the history of our race.
Whether he had much military talent may be doubted, since the
only great battle in which he figured was a complete defeat.
The impression left upon us by what history records of him is
that of a gigantic bully, holding in his hands powers
unequalled in the world for ravage and spoliation. … Some
doubt has recently been thrown on the received accounts of the
wide extent of Attila's power. … The prince who felt China
on his left, who threatened Persepolis, Byzantium, Ravenna in
front, who ruled Denmark and its islands in his rear, and who
ultimately appeared in arms on the soil of Champagne on his
right, was no minor monarch, and had his empire been as deep
as it was widespread, he might worthily have taken rank with
Cyrus and Alexander. At the same time it is well to remember
that over far the larger part of this territory Attila's can
have been only an over-lordship, Teutonic, Slavonic, and
Tartar chieftains of every name bearing rule under him. His
own personal government, if government it can be called, may
very likely have been confined nearly within the limits of the
modern Hungary and Transylvania."

_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

"As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of
Priscus, this [Attila's] capital appears to have been seated
between the Danube, the Theiss [Teyss] and the Carpathian
hills, in the plains of Upper Hungary, and most probably in
the neighbourhood of Jazberin, Agria, or Tokay. In its origin
it could be no more than an accidental camp, which, by the
long and frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled
into a huge village."

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 34._

HUNS: A. D. 441-446.
Attila's attack on the Eastern Empire.

Attila's first assault upon the Roman power was directed
against the Eastern Empire. The court at Constantinople had
been duly obsequious to him, but he found a pretext for war.
"It was pretended that the Roman bishop of Margus had
surreptitiously introduced himself into the sepulchre of the
Hunnic kings and stolen from it the buried treasure. The Huns
immediately fell upon a Roman town during the time of a fair,
and pillaged everything before them, slaying the men and
carrying off the women. To all complaints from Constantinople
the answer was, "The bishop, or your lives.' The emperor
thought, and with reason, that to give up an innocent man to
be massacred would be displeasing to Heaven, would alienate
the clergy, and only appease for a moment the demands of his
merciless enemy. He refused, though timidly and in vague
terms. The Huns replied by scouring Pannonia, laying Sirmium,
its capital, in ruins, and extending their ravages far south
of the Danube to the cities of Naissa and Sardica, upon both
of which they wrought the extremity of their vengeance. A
truce of four years only increased their fury and aggravated
its effects. The war was suddenly recommenced. This time they
reached Thessaly, and renewed with a somewhat similar result
the far-famed passage of Thermopylæ by the hordes of Xerxes.
Two Roman armies were put to complete rout, and seventy cities
levelled to the ground. Theodosius purchased the redemption of
his capital by the cession of territory extending for fifteen
days' journey south of the Danube, by an immediate payment of
6,000 pounds of gold, and the promise of 2,000 more as an
annual tribute."

_J. G. Sheppard,
Fall of Rome,
lecture 4._

HUNS: A. D. 451.
Attila's invasion of Gaul.

In the spring of the year 451 Attila moved the great host
which he had assembled in the Hungarian plains westward toward
the Rhine and the provinces of Gaul. He hesitated, it was
said, between the Eastern and Western Empires as the objects
of his attack. But the East had found an emperor, at last, in
Marcian, who put some courage into the state,—who refused
tribute to the insolent Hun and showed a willingness for war.
The West, under Valentinian III. and his mother Placidia, with
the Goths, Vandals, Burgundians and Franks in the heart of its
provinces, seemed to offer the most inviting field of
conquest. Hence Attila turned his horses and their savage
riders to the West. "The kings and nations of Germany and
Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the
warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village in the
plains of Hungary his standard moved towards the West, and
after a march of seven or eight hundred miles he reached the
conflux of the Rhine and the Neckar, where he was joined by
the Franks who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of
Clodion. … The Hercynian forest supplied materials for a
bridge of boats, and the hostile myriads were poured with
resistless violence into the Belgic provinces." At Metz, the
Huns "involved in a promiscuous massacre the priests who
served at the altar and the infants who, in the hour of
danger, had been providently baptized by the bishop; the
flourishing city was delivered to the flames, and a solitary
chapel of St. Stephen marked the place where it formerly
stood. From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila advanced into
the heart of Gaul, crossed the Seine at Auxerre, and, after a
long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls of
Orleans."

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 35._

Meantime the energy of the unscrupulous but able Count Aetius,
who ruled the court and commanded the resources of the Western
Empire, had brought about a general combination of the
barbarian forces in Gaul with those of the Romans. It
included, first in importance, the Goths of the kingdom of
Toulouse, under their king Theodoric, and with them the
Burgundians, the Alans, a part of the Franks, and detachments
of Saxons, Armoricans and other tribes. There were Goths, too,
and Franks and Burgundians in the host of the Hun king. The
latter laid siege to Orleans and the walls of the brave city
were already crumbling under his battering rams when the
banners of Aetius and Theodoric came in sight. Attila
retreated beyond the Seine and took a position somewhere
within the wide extent of what were anciently called the
Catalaunian fields, now known as the Champagn country
surrounding Chalons. There, in the early days of July, A. D.
451, was fought the great and terrible battle which rescued
Europe from the all-conquering Tartar.
{1689}
The number of the slain, according to one chronicler, was 162,000;
according to others 300,000. Neither army could claim a
victory; both feared to renew the engagement. The Goths, whose
king Theodoric was slain, withdrew in one direction, to their
own territory; the Huns retreated in the other direction and
quitted Gaul forever. The wily Roman, Aetins, was probably
best satisfied with a result which crippled both Goth and Hun.
As for the battle, its latest historian says: "Posterity has
chosen to call it the battle of Chalons, but there is good
reason to think that it was fought fifty miles distant from
Chalons-sur-Marne, and that it would be more correctly named
the battle of Troyes, or, to speak with complete accuracy, the
battle of Mery-sur-Seine."

_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 2)._

"It was during the retreat from Orleans that a Christian
hermit is reported to have approached the Hunnish king, and
said to him, 'Thou art the Scourge of God for the chastisement
of Christians.' Attila instantly assumed this new title of
terror, which thenceforth became the appellation by which he
was most widely and most fearfully known."

_Sir E. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,
chapter 6._

HUNS: A. D. 452.
Attila's invasion of Italy.

In the summer of 451 Attila, retreating from the bloody plain
of Chalons, recrossed the Rhine and returned to his quarters
in Hungary. There, through the following autumn and winter, he
nursed his chagrin and his wrath, and in the spring of 452 he
set his host in motion again, directing its march to the
Julian Alps and through their passes into Italy. The city of
Aquileia, then prominent in commerce, and prosperous and rich,
was the first to obstruct the savage invasion. The defence of
the city proved so obstinate that Attila was at the point of
abandoning his siege, when a flight of storks, which his
shrewdness construed favorably as an omen, encouraged the Huns
to one more irresistible assault and the doomed town was
carried by storm. "In proportion to the stubbornness of the
defence was the severity of the punishment meted out to
Aquileia. The Roman soldiers were, no doubt, all slain. Attila
was not a man to encumber himself with prisoners. The town was
absolutely given up to the rage, the lust, and the greed of
the Tartar horde who had so long chafed around its walls. …
When the barbarians could plunder no more, they probably used
fire, for the very buildings of Aquileia perished, so that, as
Jornandes tells us, in his time, a century later than the
siege, scarcely the vestiges of it yet remained. A few houses
may have been left standing, and others must have slowly
gathered round them, for the Patriarch of Aquileia retained
all through the middle ages considerable remains of his old
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and a large and somewhat stately
cathedral was reared there in the eleventh century. But the
City of the North Wind never really recovered from the blow.
… The terrible invaders, made more wrathful and more
terrible by the resistance of Aquileia, streamed on through
the trembling cities of Venetia." Patavium (modern Padua),
Altinum and Julia Concordia, were blotted out of existence. At
Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia and Milan, the towns
were sacked, but spared destruction, and the inhabitants who
did not escape were carried away into captivity. Many of the
fugitives from these towns escaped the Huns by hiding in the
islands and fens of the neighboring Adriatic coast, and out of
the poor fishing villages that they formed there grew, in
time, the great commercial city and republic of Venice. "The
valley of the Po was now wasted to the heart's content of the
invaders. Should they cross the Appennines and blot out Rome
as they had blotted out Aquileia from among the cities of the
world? This was the great question that was being debated in
the Hunnish camp, and strange to say, the voices were not all
for war. Already Italy began to strike that strange awe into
the hearts of her northern conquerors which so often in later
ages has been her best defence. The remembrance of Alaric, cut
off by a mysterious death immediately after his capture of
Rome, was present in the mind of Attila, and was frequently
insisted upon by his counsellors." So, the grim Hun was
prepared by his superstitions to listen to the embassy from
Rome which met him at the Ticino, praying for peace. At the
head of the embassy was the venerable bishop of Rome, Leo
I.—the first of the great Popes. To his influence the pacific
disposition into which Attila was persuaded has been commonly
ascribed. At all events, the king of the Huns consented to
peace with the Romans, and withdrew beyond the Danube in
fulfilment of the treaty, leaving Italy a desert to the
Appennines, but not beyond.

_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 35._

See, also,
VENICE: A. D. 452.

HUNS: A. D. 453.
Death of Attila and fall of his empire.

Attila died suddenly and mysteriously in his sleep, after a
drunken debauch, some time in the early months of the year
453, and his death was the end of the "reign of terror" under
which he had reduced half the world. "Immediately after his
death, the Germans refused to submit to the divided rule of
his sons. The army of Attila split up into two great camps; on
the one side were the Gepidæ and Ostrogoths, with the majority
of the Teutonic nations; on the other the Huns, the Alans, the
Sarmatians or Slavonians, and the few Germans who still owned
allegiance to the memory of Attila. A vast plain between the
Drave and the Danube was selected to decide this vital
struggle, known as the battle of Netad, which, though less
famous in history, may perhaps claim equal importance with
that of Chalons, as an arbiter of the destinies of
civilization. … Fortune at first seemed to favour the Huns;
but German steadfastness prevailed; Goths and Gepidæ scattered
the less-disciplined bands of Asia; and Ardaric, the king of
the latter tribe for the time, established himself in the
royal residence of Attila, and assumed the leading position in
the barbarian world."

_J. G. Sheppard,
Fall of Rome,
lecture 4._

"Thirty thousand of the Huns and their confederates lay dead
upon the field, among them Ellak, Attila's first-born. … The
rest of his nation fled away across the Dacian plains, and
over the Carpathian mountains to those wide steppes of
Southern Russia in which at the commencement of our history we
saw the three Gothic nations taking up their abode. Ernak,
Attila's darling, ruled tranquilly under Roman protection in
the district between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, which
we now call the Dobrudscha, and which was then 'the lesser
Scythia.'
{1690}
Others of his family maintained a precarious footing higher up
the stream. … There is nothing in the after-history of these
fragments of the nation with which anyone need concern
himself. … Dacia, that part of Hungary which lies east and
north of the Danube, and which had been the heart of Attila's
domains, fell to the lot of the Gepidae, under the wise and
victorious Ardaric. Pannonia, that is the western portion of
Hungary, with Sclavonia, and parts of Croatia, Styria and
Lower Austria, was ruled over by the three Amal-descended
kings of the Ostrogoths."

_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

HUNS:
Attila in Teutonic legend.

"Short as was the sway of Attila (from 434 to 453), the terror
it had inspired and the great commotion it had brought over
the whole Teuton and Roman world, were, not … soon
forgotten. … The memory of the great chieftain hovered for a
long time, like a bloody phantom, in the Roman annals and in
the German sagas. … When we compare the historical Attila,
before whose piercing glance Rome and Constantinople trembled,
with Etzel of the Nibelungen Lied, we find that the latter
bears but a slight resemblance to the former. It is true that
Attila's powerful sway is still reflected in the Nibelungen
Lied, as Kriemhild at her arrival in the land of the Huns is
surprised at seeing so many nations submitted to his sceptre.
Yet upon the whole Etzel plays in the German epic the part of
a weak and sometimes even contemptible king, while glimpses of
his real might can be detected only at rare intervals,
fluttering as it were in the far-distant background of a
by-gone time. … The Eddas and the Volsunga Saga bear the
impress of the early Teutonic era, when the king was little
more than the chosen leader in war; and the Northern people
for a long time had in their political institutions nothing by
which the conception of a great monarchy, or still less of a
far-stretching realm like that of Attila, could be expressed."

_G. T. Dippold,
Great Epics of Mediæval Germany,
chapter 4._

----------HUNS: End--------

HUNS, The White.