desirous still to revert to the patriarchal system that had been
overturned, saw in the established constitutional freedom of Hungary
the greatest impediment to the success of their plans. Seeking
everywhere the means of producing a reaction, it found in Croatia a
party which had been endeavouring to get up a Sclavonic movement in
favour of what they called Illyrian nationality, and which was
therefore opposed to Majjar ascendency in Hungary. The peculiar
organisation of the military frontier, which extends from the Adriatic
to the frontiers of Russia, and which is in fact a military colony in
Hungary, under the immediate influence and authority of Austria, and
composed almost exclusively of a Sclavonic population, afforded
facilities for exciting disturbances in Hungary. But it was necessary
to provide leaders for the Sclavonic revolt against the Hungarians.
Baron Joseph Jellachich, colonel of a Croat regiment in the army of
Italy, was selected by the agitators for reaction as a man fitted by
his position, his character, and military talents, as well as by his
ambition, to perform this duty in Croatia. He was named Ban of that
province, without consulting the Hungarian ministry, whose
countersignature was necessary to legalise the nomination. This was
the first breach of faith committed by the imperial government; but
the Hungarian ministry, desirous to avoid causes of difference,
acquiesced in the appointment, and invited the Ban to put himself in
communication with them. His first act was to interdict the Croat
magistrates from holding any communication with the government of
Hungary, of which Croatia is a province, declaring that the Croat
revolt was encouraged by the king. On the representation of the
Hungarian ministry, the king, in an autograph letter, dated 29th May,
reprobated the proceedings of the Ban, and summoned him to Innspruck.
On the 10th of June, by a royal ordinance, he was suspended from all
his functions, civil and military; but Jellachich retained his
position, and declared that he was acting in accordance with the real
wishes and instructions of his sovereign, while these public
ordinances were extorted by compulsion. At the same time, and by
similar means, a revolt of the Serbes on the Lower Danube was
organised by Stephen Suplikacs, another colonel of a frontier
regiment, aided by the Greek patriarch. Several counties, some of
which were principally inhabited by Hungarians, Wallacks, and
Germans, were declared to have been formed into a Serbe Vayoodat or
government, which was to be in alliance with Croatia. The Serbes,
joined by bands from Turkish Servia, attacked the neighbouring
Hungarian villages, slaughtered the inhabitants, and plundered the
country. But this did not prevent Jellachich, who had been denounced
and charged with high treason, or the Greek patriarch Rajaesis, the
accomplice of Suplikacs, from being received by the emperor and his
brother, the Archduke Francis Charles, at Innspruck. In a letter,
dated the 4th of June, addressed to the frontier regiments stationed
in Italy, Jellachich declared that the imperial family of Austria
encouraged the insurrections against the Hungarians. Meanwhile the
Serbes were carrying on a war of extermination, massacring the
inhabitants, burning towns and villages, even when they encountered no
resistance; and a force was collected on the frontiers of Croatia with
the manifest intention of invading Hungary.
"In such a crisis," says Count L. Teleki, "the Hungarian
government experienced the most painful feelings. Condemned
to inaction while entire populations were being exterminated,
it acquired the sad conviction that the Austrian ministry
only kept the national troops out of the country, and
abandoned Hungary to the protection of foreign troops,
through connivance with the enemy."
The revolt continued to be pushed forward in the name of the
emperor-king, and the diet was about to be opened. The Hungarian
ministers, therefore, entreated his majesty to open the diet in
person, in order by his presence to prove the falsehood of the enemies
of Hungary; but the invitation had no effect.
The new national assembly of Hungary, returned for the first time by
the suffrage of all classes of the nation, was opened at Pesth, when
it was found that, with scarcely an exception, all the members of the
diet, formerly elected by the nobles, had been again returned--so
calmly had the people exercised their newly-acquired privileges. On
the 2d of July the Archduke Palatine, who had been unanimously chosen
by the diet on the presentation of the king, alluded in his opening
speech to a revolt in Croatia, and to the proceedings of armed bands
in the counties of the Lower Danube. His Imperial Highness made the
following statement:--
"His majesty the king has seen with profound grief, after
having spontaneously sanctioned the laws voted by the last
diet, because they were favourable to the development of the
country, that agitators, especially in Croatia and the Lower
Danube, had excited against each other the inhabitants of
different creeds and races, by false reports and vain alarms,
and had urged them to resist the laws and the legislative
authority, asserting that they were not the free expression
of his majesty's will. Some have gone so far to encourage the
revolt, as to pretend that their resistance is made in the
interest of the royal family, and with the knowledge and
consent of his majesty. For the purpose, therefore, of
tranquillising the inhabitants of those countries, I declare,
in the name of his majesty, their lord and king, that his
majesty is firmly resolved to protect the unity and the
inviolability of the royal crown of Hungary, against all
attack from without or disturbance in the interior of the
kingdom, and to carry out the laws which he has sanctioned.
At the same time that his majesty would not allow any
infraction of the lawful rights of his subjects, he blames,
and in this all the members of the royal family agree with
him, the audacity of those who have dared to pretend that
illegal acts are compatible with the wishes of his majesty,
or were done in the interest of the royal family. His majesty
sanctioned, with the greatest satisfaction, the incorporation
of Transylvania with Hungary, not only because he thus
gratified the ardent desire of his beloved people--both
Hungarians and Transylvanians--but also because the union of
the two countries will give a more firm support to the throne
and to liberty, by the combined development of their power
and their prosperity."
The diet, rejoiced by these assurances, immediately sent a deputation
to entreat the king to repair to Pesth, as the only means of
disabusing the minds of the Croats and Serbes, who were made to
believe that his public acts were the result of coercion. The prayer
of the deputation was refused. The Servian insurrection continued to
gain ground; the Austrian troops stationed in Hungary, for the defence
of the country, refused to obey the government, and at length a
communication to the Hungarian ministry, dated the 29th of June, three
days prior to the speech of the Archduke Palatine, announced the
intention of the Austrian ministry to put an end to the neutrality it
had hitherto observed, and to support Croatia openly. All the
Hungarians were then convinced that their constitution, and the
independence of the country, must be defended by force of arms. But
the ministry and the diet would not depart from the constitutional and
legal course. A levy of 200,000 men was decreed, as well as an issue
of bank-notes to cover the deficits; and the acts were presented for
the royal assent by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice:
but a long time elapsed before any reply could be obtained. In the
mean time the situation of the country every day became worse, and
another deputation was sent to the king, headed by the president of
the Chamber of Deputies, to obtain the royal assent to the laws
already presented; the recall of the Hungarian troops of the line,
quartered everywhere except in Hungary; and orders to the foreign
troops stationed in that country to discharge their duty faithfully.
Finally the king was again entreated to come into his kingdom, to
restore to her peace and order. The deputation received an evasive
reply. But at the same time, and while the two ministers were at
Vienna, the king, without acquainting them, despatched, on the 31st of
August, a letter to the Palatine, directing him to send several
members of the Hungarian ministry to Vienna, for the purpose of
concerting measures with the Austrian ministry, to consolidate and
insure the unity of the government and of the monarchy, and to open
negotiations with the Croats for the reconciliation of their
differences. But the king declared it to be an indispensable condition
that the Ban Jellachich--who in the end of May had been denounced as a
traitor--should take a part in the conferences; that all preparations
for war should cease on both sides; and that the districts of the
military frontier, which have always formed part of Hungary, should be
provisionally subject to the Austrian ministry. _In this same
document_ a communication was made to the Hungarian ministry, of a
note of the Austrian government, on the relations to be established
between Austria and Hungary. It was stated "that the provisions of the
law of 1848, by which the Archduke Palatine had been appointed
depository of the royal authority, and chief of the executive power in
the absence of the king--and by which a responsible ministry had been
conceded to Hungary, detaching from the central government of Vienna
the administration of war, finance, and commerce--were contrary to the
Pragmatic Sanction, opposed to the legal relations between Austria and
Hungary, and detrimental alike to the interests of Hungary and
Austria. These concessions were declared illegal and of none effect,
under the pretext that they had not been consented to by the
responsible Austrian ministry; and although they had been sanctioned
by the royal word on the 11th of April, and again formally recognised
in the speech from the throne on the 2d July, it was announced that
these laws were to be considerably modified, in order that a central
power might be established at Vienna."
Never, we venture to say, was a discreditable breach of public faith
palliated on pretexts more futile. Hungary is as independent of the
Hereditary States as the Hereditary States are of Hungary; and, in
matters relating to Hungary, the ministers of Austria, responsible or
irresponsible, have no more right to interfere between the King and
his Hungarian ministers, or Hungarian diet, than these have to
interfere between the Emperor of Austria and his Austrian ministers,
in matters relating to the Hereditary States. The pretension to submit
the decisions of the Hungarian diet, sanctioned by the King, to the
approval or disapproval of the Austrian ministers, is too absurd to
have been resorted to in good faith. The truth appears to be, that the
successes of the gallant veteran Radetzki, and of the Austrian army in
Italy, which has so well sustained its ancient reputation, had
emboldened the Austrian government to retrace the steps that had been
taken by the emperor. Trusting to the movements hitherto successful in
Croatia and the Danubian provinces of Hungary,--to the absence of the
Hungarian army, and of all efficient preparation for defence on the
part of the Hungarian government, and elated with military success in
Italy,--the Austrian ministers resumed their intention to subvert the
constitution of Hungary, and to fuse the various parts of the
emperor's dominions into one whole. Their avidity to accomplish this
object prevented their perceiving the stain they were affixing to the
character of the empire, and the honour of the emperor; or the injury
they were thereby inflicting on the cause of monarchy all over the
world. "Honour and good faith, if driven from every other asylum,
ought to find a refuge in the breasts of princes." And the ministers
who sully the honour of their confiding prince, do more to injure
monarchy, and therefore to endanger the peace and security of society,
than the rabble who shout for Socialism.
The Austrian ministry did not halt in their course. They made the
emperor-king recall, on the 4th September, the decree which suspended
Jellachich from all his dignities, as a person accused of high
treason. This was done on the pretext that the accusations against the
Ban were false, and that he had exhibited undeviating fidelity to the
house of Austria. He was reinstated in all his offices at a moment
when he was encamped with his army on the frontiers of Hungary,
preparing to invade that kingdom. In consequence of this proceeding,
the Hungarian ministry, which had been appointed in March, gave in
their resignation. The Palatine, by virtue of his full powers, called
upon Count Louis Bathianyi to form a new ministry. All hope of a
peaceful adjustment seemed to be at an end; but, as a last resource, a
deputation of the Hungarian deputies was sent to propose to the
representatives of Austria, that the two countries should mutually
guarantee to each other their constitutions and their independence.
The deputation was not received.
Count Louis Bathianyi undertook the direction of affairs, upon the
condition that Jellachich, whose troops had already invaded Hungary,
should be ordered to retire beyond the boundary. The king replied,
that this condition could not be accepted before the other ministers
were known.
But Jellachich had passed the Drave with an army of Croats and
Austrian regiments. His course was marked by plunder and devastation;
and so little was Hungary prepared for resistance, that he advanced to
the lake of Balaton without firing a shot. The Archduke Palatine took
the command of the Hungarian forces, hastily collected to oppose the
Ban; but, after an ineffectual attempt at reconciliation, he set off
for Vienna, whence he sent the Hungarians his resignation.
The die was now cast, and the diet appealed to the nation. The people
rose _en masse_. The Hungarian regiments of the line declared for
their country. Count Lemberg had been appointed by the king to the
command of all the troops stationed in Hungary; but the diet could no
longer leave the country at the mercy of the sovereign who had
identified himself with the proceedings of its enemies, and they
declared the appointment illegal, on the ground that it was not
countersigned, as the laws required, by one of the ministers. They
called upon the authorities, the citizens, the army, and Count Lemberg
himself, to obey this decree under pain of high treason. Regardless of
this proceeding, Count Lemberg hastened to Pesth, and arrived at a
moment when the people were flocking from all parts of the country to
oppose the army of Jellachich. A cry was raised that the gates of Buda
were about to be closed by order of the count, who was at this time
recognised by the populace as he passed the bridge towards Buda, and
brutally murdered. It was the act of an infuriated mob, for which it
is not difficult to account, but which nothing can justify. The diet
immediately ordered the murderers to be brought to trial, but they had
absconded. This was the only act of popular violence committed in the
capital of Hungary.
On the 29th of September, Jellachich was defeated in a battle fought
within twelve miles of Pesth. The Ban fled, abandoning to their fate
the detached corps of his army; and the Croat rearguard, ten thousand
strong, surrendered, with Generals Roth and Philipovits, who commanded
it.
In detailing the events subsequent to the 11th of April 1848, we have
followed the Hungarian manifesto, published in Paris by Count Ladeslas
Teleki, whose character is a sufficient security for the fidelity of
his statements; and the English translation of that document by Mr
Brown, which is understood to have been executed under the Count's own
eye. But we have not relied upon the Count alone, nor even upon the
official documents he has printed. We have availed ourselves of other
sources of information equally authentic. One of the documents, which
had previously been transmitted to us from another quarter, and which,
we perceive, has also been printed by the Count, is so remarkable,
both because of the persons from whom it emanates, and the statements
it contains, that, although somewhat lengthy, we think it right to
give it entire.
_The Roman-Catholic Clergy of Hungary to his Apostolic
Majesty, Ferdinand V., King of Hungary._
Representation presented to the Emperor-King, in the name of
the Clergy, by the Archbishop of Gran, Primate of Hungary,
and by the Archbishop of Erlaw.
"Sire! Penetrated with feelings of the most profound sorrow
at the sight of the innumerable calamities and the internal
evils which desolate our unhappy country, we respectfully
address your Majesty, in the hope that you may listen with
favour to the voice of those, who, after having proved their
inviolable fidelity to your Majesty, believe it to be their
duty, as heads of the Hungarian Church, at last to break
silence, and to bear to the foot of the throne their just
complaints, for the interests of the church, of the country,
and of the monarchy.
"Sire!--We refuse to believe that your Majesty is correctly
informed of the present state of Hungary. We are convinced
that your Majesty, in consequence of your being so far away
from our unfortunate country, knows neither the misfortunes
which overwhelm her, nor the evils which immediately threaten
her, and which place the throne itself in danger, unless your
Majesty applies a prompt and efficacious remedy, by attending
to nothing but the dictates of your own good heart.
"Hungary is actually in the saddest and most deplorable
situation. In the south, an entire race, although enjoying
all the civil and political rights recognised in Hungary, has
been in open insurrection for several months, excited and led
astray by a party which seems to have adopted the frightful
mission of exterminating the Majjar and German races, which
have constantly been the strongest and surest support of your
Majesty's throne. Numberless thriving towns and villages have
become a prey to the flames, and have been totally destroyed;
thousands of Majjar and German subjects are wandering about
without food or shelter, or have fallen victims to
indescribable cruelty--for it is revolting to repeat the
frightful atrocities by which the popular rage, let loose by
diabolical excitement, ventures to display itself.
"These horrors were, however, but the prelude to still
greater evils, which were about to fall upon our country. God
forbid that we should afflict your Majesty with the hideous
picture of all our misfortunes! Suffice it to say, that the
different races who inhabit your kingdom of Hungary, stirred
up, excited one against the other by infernal intrigues, only
distinguish themselves by pillage, incendiarism, and murder,
perpetrated with the greatest refinement of atrocity.
"Sire!--The Hungarian nation, heretofore the firmest bulwark
of Christianity and civilisation against the incessant
attacks of barbarism, often experienced rude shocks in that
protracted struggle for life and death; but at no period did
there gather over her head so many and so terrible tempests,
never was she entangled in the meshes of so perfidious an
intrigue, never had she to submit to treatment so cruel, and
at the same time so cowardly--and yet, oh! profound sorrow!
all these horrors are committed in the name, and, as they
assure us, by the order of your Majesty.
"Yes, Sire! it is under your government, and in the name of
your Majesty, that our flourishing towns are bombarded,
sacked, and destroyed. In the name of your Majesty, they
butcher the Majjars and Germans. Yes, sire! all this is done;
and they incessantly repeat it, in the name and by the order
of your Majesty, who nevertheless has proved, in a manner so
authentic and so recent, your benevolent and paternal
intentions towards Hungary. In the name of your Majesty, who
in the last Diet of Presburg, yielding to the wishes of the
Hungarian nation, and to the exigencies of the time,
consented to sanction and confirm by your royal word and
oath, the foundation of a new constitution, established on
the still broader foundation of a perfectly independent
government.
"It is for this reason that the Hungarian nation, deeply
grateful to your Majesty, accustomed also to receive from her
king nothing but proofs of goodness really paternal, when he
listens only to the dictates of his own heart, refuses to
believe, and we her chief pastors also refuse to believe,
that your Majesty either knows, or sees with indifference,
still less approves the infamous manner in which the enemies
of our country, and of our liberties, compromise the kingly
majesty, arming the populations against each other, shaking
the very foundations of the constitution, frustrating legally
established powers, seeking even to destroy in the hearts of
all the love of subjects for their sovereign, by saying that
your Majesty wishes to withdraw from your faithful Hungarians
the concessions solemnly sworn to and sanctioned in the diet;
and, finally, to wrest from the country her character of a
free and independent kingdom.
"Already, Sire! have these new laws and liberties, giving the
surest guarantees for the freedom of the people, struck root
so deeply in the hearts of the nation, that public opinion
makes it our duty to represent to your Majesty, that the
Hungarian people could not but lose that devotion and
veneration, consecrated and proved on so many occasions, up
to the present time, if it was attempted to make them believe
that the violation of the laws, and of the government
sanctioned and established by your majesty, is committed with
the consent of the king.
"But if, on the one hand, we are strongly convinced that your
majesty has taken no part in the intrigues so basely woven
against the Hungarian people, we are not the less persuaded,
that that people, taking arms to defend their liberty, have
stood on legal ground, and that in obeying instinctively the
supreme law of nations, _which demands the safety of all_,
they have at the same time saved the dignity of the throne
and the monarchy, greatly compromised by advisers as
dangerous as they are rash.
"Sire! We, the chief pastors of the greatest part of the
Hungarian people, know better than any others their noble
sentiments; and we venture to assert, in accordance with
history, that there does not exist a people more faithful to
their monarchs than the Hungarians, when they are governed
according to their laws.
"We guarantee to your majesty, that this people, such
faithful observers of order and of the civil laws in the
midst of the present turmoils, desire nothing but the
peaceable enjoyment of the liberties granted and sanctioned
by the throne.
"In this deep conviction, moved also by the sacred interests
of the country and the good of the church, which sees in your
majesty her first and principal defender, we, the bishops of
Hungary, humbly entreat your majesty patiently to look upon
our country now in danger. Let your majesty deign to think a
moment upon the lamentable situation in which this wretched
country is at present, where thousands of your innocent
subjects, who formerly all lived together in peace and
brotherhood on all sides, notwithstanding difference of
races, now find themselves plunged into the most frightful
misery by their civil wars.
"The blood of the people is flowing in torrents--thousands of
your majesty's faithful subjects are, some massacred, others
wandering about without shelter, and reduced to beggary--our
towns, our villages, are nothing but heaps of ashes--the
clash of arms has driven the faithful people from our
temples, which have become deserted--the mourning church
weeps over the fall of religion, and the education of the
people is interrupted and abandoned.
"The frightful spectre of wretchedness increases, and
develops itself every day under a thousand hideous forms. The
morality, and with it the happiness of the people, disappear
in the gulf of civil war.
"But let your majesty also deign to reflect upon the terrible
consequences of these civil wars; not only as regards their
influence on the moral and substantial interests of the
people, but also as regards their influence upon the security
and stability of the monarchy. Let your majesty hasten to
speak one of those powerful words which calm tempests!--the
flood rises, the waves are gathering, and threaten to engulf
the throne!
"Let a barrier be speedily raised against those passions
excited and let loose with infernal art amongst populations
hitherto so peaceable. How is it possible to make people who
have been inspired with the most frightful thirst--that of
blood--return within the limits of order, justice, and
moderation?
"Who will restore to the regal majesty the original purity of
its brilliancy, of its splendour, after having dragged that
majesty in the mire of the most evil passions? Who will
restore faith and confidence in the royal word and oath? Who
will render an account to the tribunal of the living God, of
the thousands of individuals who have fallen, and fall every
day, innocent victims to the fury of civil war?