Chapter XVIII: Part 18

On the 8th of September a deputation from the Hungarian Diet earnestly entreated His Majesty to sanction two acts relating to the levying of troops and taxes. The King refused; but in his answer to the address of the deputation said, "I trust that no one will hereby suppose that I have the intention to set aside or infringe the existing laws. This, I repeat, is far from my intention. On the contrary, it is my firm and determined will to maintain, in conformity with my coronation oath, the laws, the integrity, and the rights of the kingdom, under my Hungarian crown."

The King made this solemn declaration on the 8th of September, and on the 9th of September Jellachich crossed the Drave with 48,000 men to wage war in the King's name on the Hungarian Diet and Ministry. The King had, moreover, on _the 4th of September_, affixed his sign manual to a letter or Royal mandate addressed to Jellachich, and revoking the decree by which he had been deprived of his civil and military offices and dignities. His Majesty, in this letter, also expressed his high approbation of the Ban's conduct. By a Royal decree, dated October 3, the constitution was suspended, martial law proclaimed, and Jellachich, the rebel, appointed His Majesty's Plenipotentiary Commissary for the kingdom of Hungary, and invested with unlimited authority to act, in the name of His Majesty, within the said kingdom.

Hungary, so far from commencing the revolution, was not even prepared to meet the invasion of the Croatian Ban. He was defeated near Stuhlweissenburg by the Landsturm. The Hungarian Government only began to organize regular troops in October.

That the Diet did not recognize a decree that suspended the constitution and invested Jellachich with the dictatorship, will be found quite natural, if not by you, at least by every Englishman who cherishes constitutional freedom, the more so as its proceedings on this occasion were founded on legal right, viz., on act 4, sect. 6, of 1847-8, which expressly ordains that "the annual session of the Diet shall not be closed, nor the Diet itself dissolved, before the budget for the ensuing year has been voted."

From this short but faithful account of what actually occurred, it clearly appears that the Hungarian nation had not recourse to arms until the Ban of Croatia entered the Hungarian territory with an Austrian-Croatian army. It is also an undeniable fact that until the promulgation of the Austrian Charter in March, 1849--by which, with a stroke of the pen, the independence of Hungary was destroyed, its constitution abolished, and its territories dismembered--the Hungarian nation never demanded anything else than the maintenance of the laws and institutions which its Sovereign had sanctioned and sworn to maintain inviolate. It was however precisely for the purpose of destroying these laws and institutions that the dynasty began the war. This, of course, they did not venture to avow. It was necessary to conceal the real motives of their perfidious conduct from the civilized world. Hence in their public proclamations they always alleged some pretext or other--all of them equally groundless. At the commencement they said that it was only an insignificant faction they had to deal with; but when they saw that the whole nation was arrayed in arms against them, they declared it was for the suppression of demagogueism, propagated by foreigners, chiefly Poles, that their armies had entered Hungary; and to give a colour to this pretext they industriously spread the report that there were 20,000 Poles in the ranks of the Hungarians. When however it became notorious that no more than 1,000 Poles were fighting under our national standard, the Austrian dynasty appeared as the _soi-disant_ champion and judge of the various nationalities or races. This answered well enough until the system of centralization showed too clearly that an attempt would be made to Germanize these nationalities; when the dynasty again veered about, and, leaving "nationalities" in the lurch, took up the peasantry. We consequently find the Austrian Government assuring the Washington Cabinet (in the note of July 4, 1851) that they had waged war on Hungary in order to crush a turbulent aristocracy that "preach democracy with their tongues, while their whole lives consist in the daily exercise over their fellow-men of arbitrary power in the most repugnant form." This last pretext, so ostentatiously put forth, loses, however, even its plausibility when contrasted with the policy of the dynasty in 1848, for it is an undoubted fact that, although the reforms effected in our _political_ institutions at that period were consented to by the dynasty without much hesitation, it required the most energetic remonstrances on the part of the Diet to obtain the Royal sanction to the act for the liberation of the peasants from feudal bondage.

It is precisely to the fact of all classes, without distinction, being equally aware of the cabals of the dynasty, that may be ascribed the success of the Hungarian insurrection. It was not _one_ man, nor a party, nor a conspiracy, nor terrorism, that awakened that spontaneous enthusiasm with which the people rushed to arms. Kossuth may have been the rallying cry; but he was not the cause of the war. For several months the people had witnessed the equivocal conduct of the dynasty; had seen that its words were belied by its deeds; had seen that the rebels were everywhere led by Imperial officers; and finally beheld Jellachich, a high functionary of the Hungarian Crown, invade the country at the head of an Austro-Croatian army. It was then, and not till then, that the nation cried, as with one voice--_the King is a traitor_. From that day began the Hungarian revolution. On that day the monarchical feeling was extinguished. What no one had thought it possible to accomplish was accomplished by the dynasty itself.

* * * * *

APPENDIX III.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' in February, 1852, by a_, "HUNGARIAN EXILE," _in reply to a Letter from_ SZEMERE, _to the 'London Examiner_.'

[I am personally acquainted with the accomplished and intelligent "Exile;" but as he is absent from England, I cannot obtain permission to publish his name.]

It was more than two months after the civil war had been raging in the Banat and Transylvania that the question of giving fresh troops for the suppression of the Italian war was brought before the Assembly at Pesth, July 22, 1846. Now, what are the accusations M. Szemere brings forth against Kossuth in reference to the Italian question? The pith of M. Szemere's reasoning is, that the ministry agreed, in the protocol of July 5, upon construing the Pragmatic Sanction as binding Hungary to protect the integrity of Austria; "yet that Kossuth, as the organ of the ministry, spoke in a way as if he did not approve of the policy, and sought to make the public believe that the protocol was merely a moral demonstration:" further, that when the opposition denied the obligation of Hungary to defend Austria, the ministry refused to enter into any discussion on an acknowledged principle of constitutional law.

In order to show the utter hollowness of this attack, it may be sufficient to look at the date and circumstances M. Szemere talks of. The protocol in question was agreed upon on July 5th, the day when the parliament met to provide for the defence of the country. The members, inexperienced in foreign politics and ignorant of the cabals of courts, although presuming that the civil war was kindled in Vienna, were at first blinded by the royal convocation of the Diet to provide for the safety of the country; putting, moreover, implicit confidence in the sagacity and goodwill of the ministry. When however Kossuth opened the debate on the Italian question, July 22, affairs looked quite different from what they appeared to be when the protocol was drawn up. The treachery of the dynasty broke upon the mind of the most careless, and its connexions with the leaders of the rebellious tribes had become undeniable facts. It was during that short time, from July 5 to July 22, that our national forces met in the Serbian entrenchments of St. Thomas, Földvar, and Turia, regular Austrian soldiers: Meyerhofe, the Austrian consul at Belgrade, was openly recruiting bands of Servians to reinforce the insurgents; nay, it became even evident that General Bechtold, appointed by His Majesty to lead the faithful Hungarians against the rebellious Serbs, led them on in order to get them the sooner decimated and broken. Some members of the opposition, headed by General Perczel, declaimed loudly against the cowardly and fallacious policy of the ministry, resolving to compel ministers to resign or to induce them to take some more efficacious measures. In short, during this space of time, the government and people found themselves in quite a new position. Kossuth, in concert with the ministry, moved a levy of 200,000 men (July 11), which motion the Assembly hailed with unparalleled enthusiasm, and which the people witnessed with approval, as affording a guarantee of their liberties. It was in the midst of these moments of excitement and temporary distress that Kossuth, as the most popular member of the cabinet, was pointed out as the person most fitted to undertake the very difficult task of speaking on the Italian question alluded to by M. Szemere. Public opinion, aided by the opposition of the house, was convinced that Austria, after having subjugated the Lombard-Venetians with Hungarian troops, would then turn to Hungary, the enslavement of which might more easily be executed by the country's being bereft of a number of stout arms indispensable to her own defence. Kossuth therefore, as a man of true liberal principles, while acknowledging the ground to be right upon which the opposition moved, professed in the speech alluded to that he had agreed then with his colleagues in respect to the Italian question, on the ground that the moral power of the protocol would suffice, although as a private individual he could not help rejoicing at the victories of the Italian people. Now, I submit it to every enlightened Englishman to decide whether Kossuth evinced a want of civic virtue in declaring that, as a man who wished freedom for himself, he could not rejoice in the sending of troops to subjugate another people struggling against the same tyrant?

Referring to the policy of the ministry, M. Szemere says "that Count Louis Bathyanyi declared, on the 31st March, that the obligation enjoined by the Pragmatic Sanction was such that Hungary was bound thereby to defend the territorial integrity of the Austrian monarchy, but that they (the ministers) would carefully avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the states that constituted this monarchy." Irrespective of this--that Count Bathyanyi explained the policy in March, when Hungary enjoyed perfect peace, whereas the debate on the Italian question happened in the midst of most threatening civil wars carried on directly by Austria--it must be remembered that if by the 1st article of the Pragmatic Sanction Hungary was bound to afford aid to Austria _etiam contra vim externam_, that same article provided that the States composing the realm of Hungary were to be preserved by the monarch _aeque indivisibiliter_ as his hereditary estates; and that by the 3d article of that celebrated law the Sovereign promised, for himself and his successors, to compel his subjects of every state and degree to observe the laws and rights of Hungary. It is therefore evident that the infraction of this law, by the countenance and aid furnished to the Serbs (as also to Jellachich), fully exonerated the Hungarians from sending troops to Italy before they had provided for the safety of their country, and fully justified them and their responsible minister for drawing the attention of their Sovereign to it in the address to the Crown. M. Szemere talks of protecting the integrity of the Austrian empire, and carefully avoiding to interfere with the internal affairs of other states. The Czar may indeed exclaim, with M. Szemere, that in sending his Cossacks into Hungary he never intended to interfere in our internal affairs.

The second charge, as to Kossuth's striving to concentrate in his person all power and authority, is, I fear, indicative of the animus which prompted M. Szemere to write these letters, namely, jealousy of his great countryman. The charge, however, is entirely without foundation: and the only question is, as to how Kossuth acquired such unbounded influence over his countrymen of every rank and station. The means by which Kossuth gained such an ascendancy over his colleagues, M. Szemere himself must own, were, the implicit confidence the country placed in his patriotism, and the conviction it had acquired of his genius and indefatigable activity. In moments of extreme danger no name was heard but that of Kossuth. I am far from asserting that all Kossuth has done is exempt from censure; but it must, on the other hand, be admitted that all that was grand in our revolution happened by his instrumentality. His mere appearance, as, for instance, in Debreczin, January, 1849, when the second danger seemed to overwhelm the country, roused the frightened people of the Thesis, who crowded under the national standard and shattered to pieces the Austrian forces.

The fall of Hungary can only be traced to the following three circumstances:--1st. That it was not believed that European diplomacy would allow Russian intervention. 2d. That our plan of warfare, directed by the council of war, and not by Kossuth, wanted that concentration which could alone have ensured success. 3d. That the character of Görgei, whom our generals never accused of treacherous designs, was a mystery: nay, the patriotic General Perczel, who proclaimed loudly Görgei's treachery from the very beginning, had the satisfaction to be laughed at and hooted down. To impute these disastrous circumstances to Kossuth alone, is to render one's self guilty of the greatest perversion of generally acknowledged and incontrovertible facts.

A HUNGARIAN EXILE.