hand, the workmen rushed forward to the gates of the inner town. In one
district they found the town gates closed against them, and cannon
placed on the bastion near; but in others the authorities were
unprepared; and the workmen burst into the inner town, tearing down
stones and plaster to throw at the soldiers.

In the mean time the representatives of the Estates had reached the
Castle, and were trying to persuade the authorities to yield to the
demands of the people. Metternich persisted in believing that the whole
affair was moved by foreign influence, and particularly by Italians and
Swiss; and he desired that the soldiers should gather in the Castle, and
that Prince Windischgraetz should be appointed commandant of the city.
Alfred Windischgraetz was a Bohemian nobleman who had previously been
known chiefly for his strong aristocratic feeling, which he was said to
have embodied in the expression "Human beings begin at barons." But he
had been marked out by Metternich as a man of vigor and decision who
might be trusted to act in an emergency.

Latour, who had been the previous commandant of the Castle in Vienna,
showed signs of hesitation at this crisis; and this gave Metternich the
excuse for dismissing Latour and appointing Windischgraetz in his place.
To this arrangement all the ruling council consented; but, when Archduke
Louis and Metternich proposed to make Windischgraetz military dictator
of the city, and to allow him to bring out cannon for firing on the
people, great opposition arose. The Archduke John was perhaps one of the
few councillors who really sympathized with Liberal ideas; but several
of the Archdukes, and particularly Francis Charles, heartily desired the
fall of Metternich; and Kolowrat shared their wish. This combined
opposition of sincere reformers and jealous courtiers hindered
Metternich's policy; and it was decided that the City Guard should first
be called out, and that the dictatorship of Windischgraetz should be
kept in reserve as a last resource.

In the mean time the struggle on the streets was raging fiercely.
Archduke Albert had found to his cost that the insurrection was not, as
he had supposed, the work of a few discontented men. The students fought
gallantly; but a still fiercer element was contributed to the
insurrection by the workmen who had come in from the suburbs. One
workman was wounded in his head, his arm, and his foot; but he continued
to encourage his friends, and cried out that he cared nothing for life;
either he would die that day, or else "the high gentlemen should be
overthrown." Another who had had no food since the morning entreated for
a little refreshment that he might be able to fight the better; and he
quickly returned to the struggle. In those suburbs from which the
workmen had not been able to break into the inner town, the insurrection
threatened to assume the form of an attack on the employers. Machines
were destroyed, and the houses of those employers who had lowered wages
were set on fire.

It was this aspect of the insurrection which encouraged the nobles to
believe that, by calling out the guard, they would induce the richer
citizens to take arms against the workmen; and this policy was carried
still further when, on the application of the rector of the University,
the students also were allowed the privilege of bearing arms. But the
ruse entirely failed; the people recognized the City Guard as their
friends, and refused to attack them; and the rumor soon spread that the
police had fired on the City Guard. It was now evident that the citizen
soldiers were on the side of the people; and the richer citizens sent a
deputation to entreat that Metternich should be dismissed.

But the Archduke Maximilian was resolved that, as the first expedient
proposed by the Council had failed, he would now apply some of those
more violent remedies which had been postponed at first. He therefore
ordered that the cannon should be brought down from the Castle to the
Michaelerplatz. From this point the cannon would have commanded, on the
one side the Herren Gasse, where the crowd had gathered in the morning,
and in front the Kohlmarkt, which led to the wide street of Amgraben.
Had the cannon been fired then and there, the course of the insurrection
must, in one way or other, have been changed. That change might have
been as Maximilian hoped, the complete collapse of the insurrection; or,
as Latour held, the cannon might have swept away the last vestige of
loyalty to the Emperor, and the republic might have been instantly
proclaimed. But in any case the result must have been most disastrous to
the cause both of order and liberty; for the passions which had already
been roused, especially among the workmen, could hardly have failed to
produce one of those savage struggles which may overthrow one tyranny,
but which usually end in the establishment of another. Fortunately,
however, the Archduke Maximilian seems to have had no official authority
in this matter; and, when he gave the order to fire, the master-gunner,
a Bohemian named Pollett, declared that he would not obey the order,
unless it was given by the commander of the forces or the commander of
the town. The Archduke then appealed to the subordinates to fire, in
spite of this opposition; but Pollett placed himself in front of the
cannon and exclaimed: "The cannon are under my command; until there
comes an order from my commander, and until necessity obliges it, let no
one fire on friendly unarmed citizens. Only over my body shall you
fire." The Archduke retired in despair.

In the mean time the deputation of citizens had reached the Castle. At
first the officials were disposed to treat them angrily, and even tried
to detain them by force; but the news of the concession of arms to the
students, the urgent pressure of Archduke John, and the accounts of the
growing fury of the people finally decided Metternich to yield; and,
advancing into the room where the civic deputation was assembled, he
declared that as they had said his resignation would bring peace to
Austria he now resigned his office, and wished good luck to the new
government. Many of the royal family and of the other members of the
Council flattered themselves that they had got rid of a formidable enemy
without making any definite concession to the people. Windischgraetz
alone protested against the abandonment of Metternich by the rulers of
Austria.

Metternich had hoped to retire quietly to his own villa, but it had been
already burned in the insurrection; and he soon found that it was safer
to fly from Vienna and eventually to take refuge in England. He had,
however, one consolation in all his misfortunes. In the memoir written
four years later he expressed his certainty that he at least had done no
wrong, and that if he had to begin his career again, he would follow the
same course he took before, and would not deviate from it for an
instant.

When, at half-past eight in the evening of March 13th, men went through
the streets of Vienna, crying out "Metternich is fallen!" it seemed as
if the march of the students and the petition of Fischhof had produced
in one day all the results desired. But neither the suspicions of the
people nor the violent intentions of the princes were at an end. The
archdukes still talked of making Windischgraetz dictator of Vienna. The
workmen still raged in the suburbs; and the students refused to leave
the University for fear an attack should be made upon it. But in spite
of the violence of the workmen the leaders of the richer citizens were
more and more determined to make common cause with reformers. Indeed
both they and the students hoped to check the violence of the riots,
while they prevented any reactionary movement. The Emperor also was on
the side of concession. He refused to let the people be fired on, and
announced on the 14th the freedom of the press. But unfortunately he was
seized with one of his epileptic fits; and the intriguers, who were
already consolidating themselves into the secret council known as the
"Camarilla," published the news of Windischgraetz's dictatorship, and
resolved to place Vienna under a state of siege while the Emperor was
incapable of giving directions.

The news of Windischgraetz's accession to power so alarmed the people
that they at once decided to march upon the Castle; but one of the
leading citizens, named Arthaber, persuaded them to abandon their
intention, and instead to send him and another friend to ask for a
constitution from the Emperor. A struggle was evidently going on between
Ferdinand and his courtiers. Whenever he was strong and able to hold his
own, he was ready to make concessions. Whenever he was either ill or
still suffering from the mental effects of his illness, the Government
fell into the hands of Windischgraetz and the archdukes, and violent
measures were proposed.

Thus, though Arthaber and his friends were received courteously and
assured of the constitutional intentions of the Emperor, at eleven
o'clock on the same night there appeared a public notice declaring
Vienna in a state of siege. But even Windischgraetz seems to have been
somewhat frightened by the undaunted attitude of the people; and when he
found that his notice was torn down from the walls, and that a new
insurrection was about to break out, he sent for Professor Hye and
entreated him to preserve order. In the mean time the Emperor had to
some extent recovered his senses; and he speedily issued a promise to
summon the Estates of the German and Slavonic Provinces and the
congregations of Lombardo-Venetia.

But the people had had enough of sham constitutions; and the Emperor's
proclamation was torn down. This act, however, did not imply any
personal hostility to Ferdinand; for the belief that the Austrian
ministers were thwarting the good intentions of their master was as
deeply rooted at this time in the minds of the Viennese as was a similar
belief with regard to Pius IX and his cardinals in the minds of the
Romans; and when the Emperor drove out on March 15th, he was received
with loud cheers.

But as Ferdinand listened to these cheers he must have noticed that,
louder than the "_Es lebe der Kaiser_" of his German subjects and the
"_Slawa_" of the Bohemians, rose the sound of the Hungarian "_Eljen_."
For mingling in the crowd with the ordinary inhabitants of Vienna was
the Hungarian deputation, which had at last been permitted by the Count
Palatine to leave Presburg, and which had arrived in Vienna to demand
both freedoms that had been granted to the Germans and also a separate
responsible ministry for Hungary. They arrived in the full glory of
recent successes in the Presburg Diet; for, strengthened by the news of
the Viennese rising, Kossuth had carried, in one day, many of the
reforms for which his party had so long been contending. The last
remnants of the dependent condition of the peasantry had been swept
away; taxation had been made universal; and freedom of the press and
universal military service had been promised. Szechenyi alone had
ventured to raise a note of warning, and it had fallen unheeded.

In Vienna Kossuth was welcomed almost as cordially as in Presburg; for
the German movement in Vienna had tended to produce in its supporters a
willingness to lose the eastern half of the empire in order to obtain
the union of the western half with Germany. So the notes of Arndt's
"_Deutsches Vaterland_" were mingled with the cry of "_Batthyanyi Lajos,
Minister Praesident!_" Before such a combination as this, Ferdinand had
no desire, Windischgraetz no power, to maintain an obstinate resistance;
and, on March 16th, Sedlnitzky, the hated head of the police, was
dismissed from office. On the 18th a responsible ministry was appointed;
and on the 22d Windischgraetz announced that national affairs would now
be guided on the path of progress.

In the mean time that German movement from which the Viennese derived so
much of their impulse had been gaining a new accession of force in the
north of Germany. In Berlin the order of the Viennese movements had been
to some extent reversed. There the artisans, instead of taking their
tone from the students, had given the first impulse to reform. The King
indeed had begun his concessions by granting freedom of the press on
March 7th; but it seemed very unlikely that this concession would be
accompanied by any securities that would make it a reality. The King
even refused to fulfil his promise of summoning the Assembly; and it was
in consequence of this refusal that the artisans presented to the Town
Council of Berlin a petition for the redress of their special
grievances. The same kind of misery which prevailed in Vienna had shown
itself, though in less degree, in Berlin; and committees had been formed
for the relief of the poor. The Town Council refused to present the
petition of the workmen, and, in order to take the movement out of their
hands, presented a petition of their own in favor of freedom of the
press, trial by jury, representation of the German people in the
Bundestag, and the summoning of all the Provincial Assemblies of the
kingdom. This petition was rejected by the King; and thereupon, on March
13th, the people gathered in large numbers in the streets. General Pfuel
fired on them; but instead of yielding, they threw up barricades, and a
fierce struggle ensued.

On the 14th the cry for complete freedom of the press became louder and
more prominent; and the insurgents were encouraged by the first news of
the Vienna rising. The other parts of the kingdom now joined in the
movement. On the 14th came deputations from the Rhine Province, who
demanded in a threatening manner the extension of popular liberties. On
the 16th came the more important news that Posen and Silesia were in
revolt. Mieroslawsky, who had been one of the leaders of the Polish
movement of 1846, had gained much popularity in Berlin; and he seemed
fully disposed to combine the movement for the independence of Posen
with that for the freedom of Prussia, much in the same way as Kossuth
had combined the cause of Hungarian liberty with the demand for an
Austrian constitution. In Silesia, no doubt, the terrible famine of the
previous year, and the remains of feudal oppression, had sharpened the
desire for liberty; and closely following on the news of these two
revolts came clearer accounts of the Viennese rising and the happy
tidings of the fall of Metternich.

The King of Prussia promised, on the arrival of this news, to summon the
Assembly for April 2d; and two days later he appeared on the balcony of
his palace and declared his desire to change Germany from an alliance of
states into a federal state.

But the suspicions of the people had now been thoroughly aroused; and on
March 18th, the very day on which the King made this declaration, fresh
deputations came to demand liberties from him; and when he appealed to
them to go home his request was not complied with. The threatening
attitude of the soldiers, and the recollection of their violence on the
preceding days, had convinced the people that until part at least of the
military force was removed they could have no security for liberty.

The events of the day justified their belief; for, while some one was
reading aloud to the people the account of the concessions recently made
by the King, the soldiers suddenly fired upon them, and the crowd fled
in every direction. They fled, however, soon to rally again; barricades
were once more thrown up; the Poles of Posen flocked in to help their
friends, and the black, red, and gold flag of Germany was displayed.
Women joined the fight at the barricades; and on the 19th some of the
riflemen whom the King had brought from Neuchâtel refused to fire upon
the people. Then the King suddenly yielded, dismissed his ministers, and
promised to withdraw the troops and allow the arming of the people.

The victory of the popular cause seemed now complete; but the bitterness
which still remained in the hearts of the citizens was shown by a public
funeral procession through Berlin in honor of those who had fallen in
the struggle. The King stood bare-headed on the balcony as the
procession passed the palace; and on March 21st he came forward in
public waving the black, red, and gold flag of Germany.




(1848) THE REVOLT OF HUNGARY, Arminius Vambery


Deep interest throughout the civilized world was aroused by the
unavailing struggle of Hungary, in 1848, for national independence. The
name of Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot and famous orator, became
celebrated in many lands; and in the various countries where he
sojourned as an exile from his own--especially in the United States
(1851-1852) and in England--his eloquent appeals awakened profound
sympathy for his people's cause. Vambery, however, regards Kossuth's
compatriot, Count Stephen Szechenyi (born in 1791) as "the greatest
Hungarian of the nineteenth century." He was descended from a
distinguished family, which had given to its country many champions of
liberty. The great aim of his life was to revive the drooping energies
of the nation. As a youth he served in the army. Entering the famous
Diet of 1825, in which, by right of birth, he took his seat in the Upper
House, he distinguished himself by his liberal leadership, and as a
writer and an advocate of public endowments accomplished much for the
education of his people.

Up to the time at which Vambery, the celebrated historian of Hungary,
begins the present narrative, the growth of the national spirit had been
more and more evident each year since the end of the Napoleonic wars.
For more than two centuries Hungary had been under the oppressive rule
of Austria. Hungary had furnished soldiers to Austria in her struggle
against Bonaparte, and the Austrian Emperor had repeatedly promised to
redress Hungarian grievances; but after the fall of Napoleon these
promises were repudiated. Hungary so emphatically showed her indignation
that the Emperor was compelled to convoke the Diet in which Szechenyi
distinguished himself. The subsequent career of this leader, the
character and aims of Kossuth, and the insurrection they did so much to
incite are powerfully described by Vambery, who writes not only as an
author fully versed in his country's annals, but also as a patriot
jealous of her liberties, proud of her heroic sons, and loyal to her
fame.

For fifteen years, up to 1840, the popularity of Szechenyi extended over
Hungary, and his name was cherished by every patriot in the land. About
this time, however, the great statesman was destined to come into
collision with a man who was his peer in genius and abilities. The two
patriots were representatives of different methods, and in the contest
produced by the shock of antagonistic tendencies Szechenyi was compelled
to yield to Louis Kossuth, his younger rival. Although there was no
material difference between their aims--for both wished to see their
country great, free, constitutionally governed, prosperous, and advanced
in civilization--yet in the ways and means employed by them to attain
that aim they were diametrically opposed to each other.

Szechenyi, who descended from a family of ancient and aristocratic
lineage, and presented himself to the nation with connections reaching
up into the highest circles of the court, with the lustre of his ancient
name, and with his immense fortune, wished to secure the happiness of
his country by quite different methods from those adopted by Louis
Kossuth, a child of the people, who, although he was a nobleman by
birth, yet belonged to that poorer class of gentry who support
themselves by their own exertions, and who, in Hungary, are destined to
fulfil the mission of the citizen-classes of other countries. It is from
this class of the gentry, for the most part, that are recruited the
trades-people, the smaller landowners, professional men, writers,
subordinate officials, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, teachers, and
professors. By virtue of their nobility, it is true, they belonged to
the privileged class of the country, and were not subjected to the
humiliations of the oppressed peasantry, yet they had to earn a living
by their own work, and were therefore not only accessible to, but were
ready enthusiastically to receive, the lofty message of liberty and
equality which the French Revolution of 1830 began to proclaim anew
throughout Europe.

These doctrines formed a sharp contrast to the views of Count Stephen
Szechenyi, views which, owing to the social position of the man who held
them, were not devoid of a certain aristocratic tinge, and according to
which the most important part in the regeneration of the Hungarian
nation was assigned to the aristocracy. It was a part, however, which
the Hungarian aristocracy was itself by no means disposed to assume.
Among its younger members, indeed, could be found, here and there,
enthusiastic men who were devotedly attached to the person of the lordly
reformer, but the great majority of his class were hostilely arrayed
against Szechenyi's aims, and, obstructing the granting of even the most
inoffensive demands of the nation, supported the Viennese Government;
which was rigidly opposed to political reforms and to any changes in the
public institutions of the country. This attitude of the aristocracy
compelled Szechenyi to avoid as much as possible all questions
concerning constitutionality and liberty, and to confine the work of
reform chiefly to the sphere of internal improvements.

The only way in which he could hope to obtain the support of the court
of Vienna and of the majority of the Upper House for his
politico-economical measures, was to remain as neutral as possible in
politics. The idea which chiefly governed his actions was that the
country should be first strengthened internally, and that afterward it
would be easy for the nation to bring about the triumph of her national
and political aspirations.

After 1840, however, the bulk of the nation, and especially the small
gentry whose preponderating influence was making itself continually
felt, were unwilling to follow Szechenyi in his one-sided policy. The
reformatory work of Szechenyi during the preceding fifteen years had
educated public opinion up to new and great ideas, but the leaders of
that public opinion were now to be found in the House of Representatives
in the persons of Francis Deak and Louis Kossuth. They wished to obtain
for their country both political liberty and material prosperity. They
knew the effect of political institutions upon the material well-being
and civilization of a nation, and they no longer deemed it possible to
attain these objects without a modern constitutional government.

Louis Kossuth, who was born in 1802, was the very incarnation of the
great democratic ideas of his age. He was entirely a man of work and
entered the legal profession, after he had completed his studies with
great distinction, for the purpose of supporting himself by it. Kossuth
was present at the Diet of 1832, when the Government, which conducted
itself most brutally and arbitrarily toward the press, refused to allow
the newspapers to print reports of the deliberations of the Diet in
spite of the repeated urgings by the Deputies for such an authorization,
and it was owing to his ingenuity that this prohibition was evaded. The
censorship was exercised on printed matter only and did not extend to
manuscripts. Kossuth wrote out the reports of the Diet himself, had
numerous copies made of them in writing, and circulated them, for a
slight fee, in every part of the country, where they were looked for
with feverish expectation, and, owing to the spirit of opposition with
which they were colored, were read with the greatest eagerness.

This manuscript newspaper produced quite a revolutionary movement among
the people, frightening even the Austrian Government. The latter now
attempted to silence Kossuth by gentle means, promising him high offices
and a pension, but he refused the enticing offers and continued his work
for the benefit of the nation. Foiled in the attempt to lure Kossuth
from his duty, the Government resorted to violence, seized the
lithographic apparatus by means of which Kossuth planned to multiply his
manuscript newspaper, and gave directions to the postmasters to detain
and open all those sealed packages which were supposed to contain the
reports. But these arbitrary proceedings of the Government could not put
an end to the circulation of the newspaper; the country gentlemen, by
their own servants, continued to send each other single copies, and the
matter was given up only when the Diet ceased to be in session.

Then Kossuth, at the urgent request of his friends and, one might say,
of the whole country, started a new manuscript newspaper at Budapest,
which reported the deliberations of the county assemblies. The effect
produced by this new paper was fraught with even greater consequences
than the first had created, for it was instrumental in bringing the
counties into contact with one another, thus giving them an opportunity
to combine against the Government. The latter, however, soon prohibited
its publication, but the prohibition gave rise to a storm of indignation
throughout the whole country. The counties in solid array addressed
protests to the Government against the illegal act and in behalf of
Kossuth, who continued to publish the paper in spite of the inhibition.
The Government at last resorted to the most barefaced brutality.
Kossuth, the brave champion of liberty, its eloquent pen and herald, was
dragged to a damp and dark subterranean prison-cell in the castle of
Buda, and detained there, while his father and mother and his family,
who were looking to him solely for their support, were robbed of the aid
of their natural protector.

Although at that period lawlessness was the order of the day, yet this
last cruel and illegal act of the Government greatly exasperated the
public mind, which was already in a ferment of excitement. But while the
excited passions raged throughout the country, the Government, nothing
loth, caused Kossuth to be prosecuted for high treason, and, having
obtained his conviction, had him sentenced to an imprisonment of three
years. Kossuth applied himself during his detention to serious studies,
and acquired also, while in prison, the English language to such an
extent that he was enabled to address in that language, during his
exile, with great effect and impressiveness, large audiences both in
England and in the United States of America. His imprisonment lasted two
long years, after the lapse of which he obtained, in 1840, a pardon in
consequence of the repeated and urgent representations of the Diet.

Kossuth returned to the scene of his former activity as the martyr of
free speech and the victim to the cause of the nation. He very soon
found a new field in which to labor. The Government perceived at last
that violence was of little avail, and that those questions which were
occupying the minds to such a degree could no longer be kept from being
publicly discussed by the press. Kossuth now obtained permission to edit
a political daily paper. Its publication was commenced under the title
of _Pesti Hirlap_ ("Newspaper of Pest") in 1841, and may be said to have
created the political daily press of Hungary. It disseminated new ideas
among the masses, stirred up the indifferent to feel an interest in the
affairs of the country, and gave a purpose to the national aspirations.
It proclaimed democratic reforms in every department; the abolition of
the privileges of the nobility and of their exemption from taxation,
equal rights and equal burdens for all the citizens of the State, and
the extension of public instruction, and it endeavored to restore the
Hungarian nationality to the place it was entitled to claim in the
organism of the State.

The wealth of ideas thus daily communicated to the country appeared in
the most attractive garb, for Kossuth possessed a masterly style, and
his leaders and shorter articles showed off to advantage so many
unexpected beauties of the Hungarian language that his readers were
fairly enchanted and carried away by them. His articles were a happy
compound of poetical elevation and oratorical power, gratifying
common-sense and the imagination at the same time, appealing by their
lucid exposition to the reader's intelligence, and exciting and warming
his fancy by their fervor. Kossuth always rightly guessed what questions
most interested the nation, and the daily press became, in his hands, a
power in Hungary, electrifying the masses, who were always ready to give
their unconditional support to his bold and far-reaching schemes.

The extraordinary influence obtained by Kossuth through his paper
frightened Szechenyi, and, to even a greater degree, those whose
prejudices were shocked or ancient privileges and interests were
endangered by the democratic agitations for reform. Kossuth was attacked
in books, pamphlets, and newspapers, but he came out victorious from all
contests. In vain did Szechenyi himself, backed by his great authority
in the land, assail him, declaring that he did not object to Kossuth's
ideas, but that his manner and his tactics were reprehensible, and that
the latter were sure to lead to a revolution. The great mass of the
people felt instinctively that revolution had become a necessity and was
unavoidable if Hungary was to pass from the old mediaeval order to the
establishment of modern institutions and was to become a state where
equality before the law should be the ruling standard. The masses were
strengthened in this conviction by the unreasonable, short-sighted, and
violent policy pursued by the Government of Vienna, which obstructed the
slightest reforms in the ancient institutions and opposed every national
aspiration, and under whose protecting wing the reactionary elements of
the Upper House were constantly paralyzing the noblest and best efforts
made by the Lower House for the public weal, while the same Government
arbitrarily supported claims of the Catholic clergy, in flat
contradiction to the rights and liberties of the various denominations
inhabiting the country.

The Government, in its antipathy to the national movement, went even
further. It secretly incited the other nationalities, especially the
Croats, against the Hungarians, and thus planted the seeds from which
sprang the subsequent great civil war. In observing the dangerous
symptoms preceding the last-mentioned movement, and the bloody scenes
and fights provoked at every election by the hirelings of the
Government, in order to intimidate the adherents of reform, the friends
of progress became more and more convinced that the period of
moderation, such as preached by Szechenyi, had passed by, and must give
way to that resolute policy, advocated by Kossuth, which recoiled from
no consequences. Numerous magnates, all the chief leaders of the gentry
boasting of enlightenment and patriotism, and imbued with European
culture, rallied around Kossuth, until finally the public opinion of the
country and the enthusiasm of which he was the centre caused him to be
returned, in 1847, together with Count Louis Batthyanyi, as Deputy from
the foremost county of the country, the county of Pest.

During the first months of the Diet of 1847-1848, which was to raise
Hungary to the rank of those countries that proclaimed equal rights and
possessed a responsible parliamentary government, it differed very
little from the one preceding it. The opposition initiated great
reforms, as before, but there was no one who believed that their
realization was near at hand. Kossuth repeatedly addressed the House,
and soon convinced his audience that he was as irresistible an orator as
he had proved powerful as a writer. But there was nothing to indicate
that the country was on the eve of a great transformation.

The revolution of February, 1848, which broke out in Paris, changed, as
if by magic, the relative positions of Austria and Hungary. Metternich's
system of government, which was opposed to granting liberty to the
people, collapsed at once. The storm of popular indignation swept it
away like a house built of cards. At the first news of the occurrences
in Paris, Kossuth asked in the Lower House for the creation of a
responsible ministry. The motion was favorably received, but in the
Upper House it was rejected, the Government not being yet alive to the
real state of affairs, and still hoping by a system of negation to
frustrate the wishes of the people. But very soon the revolution reared
its head in Vienna itself, and the wishes of the Hungarian people,
uttered at Budapest, received thereby a new and powerful advocate.

At that time the Hungarian Diet still met at Presburg, but the two
sister-cities of Buda and Pest formed the real capital of the country
and were the centre of commerce, industry, science, and literature.
Michael Vorosmarty, the poet laureate of the nation, lived in Pest, and
there the twin stars of literature, Alexander Petofi and Maurice Jokai,
shone on the national horizon. Jokai, who is still living (1886) and
enjoys a world-wide fame as a novelist, and Petofi, the eminent poet,
who was destined to become the Tyrtaeus of his nation, were then both
young men, full of enthusiasm and intrepid energy, and teeming with
great ideas.

About these two gathered the other writers and youth of the University,
and all of them, helping one another, contrived, on hearing the news of
the sudden revolutions in Paris and Vienna, to enact in Budapest the
bloodless revolution of March 15, 1848, which obtained the liberty of
the press for the nation, and at the same time, in a solemn manifesto,
gave expression to the wishes of the Hungarians in the matter of reform.
The only act of violence these revolutionary heroes were guilty of was
the entering of a printing establishment, whose proprietor, afraid of
the Government, had refused to print the admirable poem of Petofi
entitled _Talpra Magyar_ ("Up, Magyar"), and doing the printing there
themselves. The first stanza of this poem, later the war-song of the
national movement, runs, in a literal translation, thus:

"Arise, O Magyar! thy country calls.
Here is the time, now or never.
Shall we be slaves or free?
That is the question--choose!
We swear by the God of the Magyars,
We swear, to be slaves no longer!"

This soul-stirring poem was improvised by Petofi under the inspiration
of the moment, and at the same establishment where it was first printed
was also printed a proclamation which contained twelve articles setting
forth the wishes of the people.

While the capital was resounding with the rejoicings and triumphant
shouts of her exulting inhabitants, the proper department of the
Government for the carrying through of these movements, the Diet,
assembled at Presburg, lost no time, and set to work with great energy
to reform the institutions of Hungary, constitutionally, and to put into
the form of law the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The
salutary legislation met now with no opposition, either from the Upper
House or from the court at Vienna, and in a short time the Diet passed
the celebrated acts of 1848, which, having received the royal sanction,
were proclaimed as laws on April 11th, at Presburg, amid the wildest
enthusiasm, in the presence of King Ferdinand V.

By these laws Hungary became a modern state, possessing a constitutional
government. The Government was vested in a ministry responsible to the
Parliament, all the inhabitants of the country were declared equal
before the law, the privileges of the nobility were abolished, the soil
was declared free, and the right of free worship accorded to all. The
institution of national guards was introduced, the utmost liberty of the
press was secured, Transylvania became a part of the mother-country--in
a word, the national and political condition of the country was
reorganized, in every particular, in harmony with the spirit, the
demands, and aspirations of our age. At the same time the men placed at
the head of the Government were such as possessed the fullest confidence
of the people. The first ministry was composed of the most distinguished
patriots. Count Louis Batthyanyi was the President; and acting in
conjunction with him were Francis Deak, as Minister of Justice; Count
Stephen Szechenyi, as Minister of Home Affairs; and Louis Kossuth, as
Minister of Finance.

The great mass of the people hailed with boundless enthusiasm the new
Government and the magnificent reforms. The transformation, however, had
been so sudden and unexpected, and the old aristocratic world, with all
its institutions and its ancient organization, had been swept away with
such vehement precipitation that even under ordinary circumstances, in
the absence of all opposition, the new ideas and tendencies could have
hardly entered into the political life of the nation without causing
some confusion and disorder. But, in addition to these natural
drawbacks, the new order of things had to contend with certain national
elements in the population, which, feeling themselves injured in their
real or imaginary interests, were bent on mischief, hoping to be able to
rob the nation, in the midst of the ensuing troubles, of the great
political prize she had won. Certain circles of the court and classes of
the people strove equally hard to surround with difficulties the
practical introduction of the Constitution of 1848.

The court and the standing army, the party of the soldier class, feared
that their commanding position would be impaired by the predominating
influence of the people. The non-Hungarian portion of the inhabitants,
choosing to ignore the fact that the new laws secured, without
distinction of nationality, equal rights to every citizen of the State,
were apprehensive lest the liberal constitution would benefit chiefly
the Hungarian element of the nation. They, therefore, encouraged by the
secret machinations of the Government of Vienna, took up arms, in order
to drag the country, which was preparing to take possession of her new
liberties, into a civil war. The Croatians, under the lead of Ban
Jellachich, and the Wallachs and Serbs, led by other imperial officers,
and yielding to their persuasions, rose in rebellion against Hungary,
and began to persecute, plunder, and murder the Hungarians living among
them.

Dreadful atrocities were committed in the southern and eastern portions
of Hungary, hundreds and hundreds of families were massacred in cold
blood, and entire villages and cities were deserted by their
inhabitants, just as had previously happened at the approach of the
Turks, and thousands were compelled to abandon their all to the rebels,
in order to escape with their bare lives. In the course of a few weeks,
the flames of rebellion had spread over a large part of the country, and
the Hungarian element, instead of enjoying the liberties won for the
whole nation after a bitter struggle of many decades, was under the sad
necessity of resorting to armed force in order to reëstablish the
internal peace. The Hungarians now had to prove on the battlefield and
in bloody engagements that they were worthy of liberty and capable of
defending it.

The Government, which, by virtue of the new laws, had meanwhile
transferred its seat to Budapest, displayed extraordinary energy in the
face of the sad difficulties besetting it. As it was impossible to rely
upon the Austrian soldiers who were still in the country, it exerted
itself to create and to organize a national army. A portion of the
National Guard entered the national army under the name of _honveds_
("defenders of the country"), a name which became before long famous
throughout the civilized world for the brilliant military achievements
connected with it. The Hungarian soldiers garrisoning the Austrian
principalities hastened home, braving the greatest dangers, partly
accompanied by their officers and partly without them. The famous
Hungarian hussars, especially, returned in great number to offer their
services to their imperilled country. But all this proved insufficient,
and as soon as the National Assembly, elected under the new
constitution, met, Kossuth, who had been the life and soul of the
Government during this trying and critical period, called upon the
nation to raise large armies for the defence of the country.

The session of July 11th, during which Kossuth introduced in the House
of Representatives his motions relating to the subject, presented a
scene which beggars all description. Kossuth ascended the tribune pale
and haggard with illness, but the long-continued applause that greeted
him after the first few sentences soon gave him back his strength and
his marvellous oratorical power. When he had concluded his speech and
submitted to the House his request for two hundred thousand soldiers and
the necessary money, a momentary pause of deep silence ensued. Suddenly
Paul Nyary, the leader of the opposition, arose, and lifting his right
arm toward heaven, exclaimed: "We grant it!" The House was in a fever of
patriotic excitement; all the Deputies rose from their seats, shouting,
"We grant it; we grant it!" Kossuth, with tears in his eyes, bowed to
the representatives of the people and said, "You have risen like one
man, and I bow down before the greatness of the nation."

These sacrifices on the part of the country had become a matter of
urgent necessity. The Serb and Wallach insurrection assumed every day
larger proportions, while the Croats, under the leadership of
Jellachich, entered Hungarian territory with the fixed determination of
depriving the nation of her constitutional liberties. But the Hungarian
Government was already able to send an army against the Croatians, who
were marching on Budapest, plundering and laying waste everything before
them. They were surrounded by the Hungarian forces, and a part of their
army, nine thousand men strong, was compelled to lay down its arms,
while Jellachich, with his remaining forces, precipitately fled from the
country. The young Hungarian army had thus proved itself equal to the
task of repelling the attack of the Croats, but the recent events were
nevertheless fraught with the gravest consequences.

The news of the Croatian invasion filled the Hungarians with deep
anxiety, and the extraordinary excitement caused by it cast a permanent
cloud over the soul of that great and noble man, Count Szechenyi. The
mind of the great patriot who had initiated the national movement gave
way under the strain of the frightful rumors coming from the Croatian
frontier. He had been ailing for some time, and his nervousness
increased so greatly under the pressure of the great events following
one another in rapid succession, that when the news came that the enemy
had invaded the country he thought Hungary was lost. His despair
darkened his mind and he sought death in the waves of the Danube. His
family removed him to a private asylum near Vienna, where he recovered
his mental faculties, and even wrote several books. But he was never
entirely cured of his hallucination, and, exasperated by the vexations
he was subjected to by the Viennese Government, even in the asylum, the
great patriot put an end to his own life on April 8, 1860, by a
pistol-shot.

Jellachich's incursion had other important political consequences. The
attack on Hungary had been made by Jellachich in the name of the
Viennese Government, and the intimate connection between the domestic
disorders and the court of Vienna became more and more apparent. This
state of things rendered inevitable a struggle between Hungary and the
unconstitutional action of the court. The Austrian forces were arming
against Hungary on every side. Vienna, too, rose in rebellion against
the court, and now the Hungarians hastened to assist the revolutionists
in the Austrian capital. Unfortunately the young national army was not
ripe yet for so great a military enterprise, and Prince Windischgraetz,
having crushed the revolution in Vienna, invaded Hungary.

A last attempt was now made by the Hungarians to negotiate peace with
the court, but it failed, Windischgraetz being so elated with his
success that nothing short of unconditional submission on the part of
the country would satisfy him. To accept such terms would have been both
cowardly and suicidal, and the nation, therefore, driven to the sad
alternative of war, determined rather to perish gloriously than
pusillanimously to submit to be enslaved by the court. They followed the
lead of Kossuth, who was now at the head of the Government, while Gorgei
was the Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian Army. The two names of
Kossuth and Gorgei soon constituted the glory of the nation. While these
two acted in harmony they achieved brilliant triumphs, but their
personal antagonism greatly contributed, at a subsequent period, to the
calamities of the country.

Windischgraetz took possession of Buda in January, 1849, thus compelling
Kossuth to transfer the seat of Government to Debreczin, while Gorgei
withdrew with his army to the northern part of Hungary; but the national
army fought victoriously against the Serbs and Wallachs, and the
situation of the Hungarians had, in the course of the winter, become
more favorable all over the country. The genius of Kossuth brought again
and again, as if by magic, fresh armies into the field, and he was
indefatigable in organizing the defence of the country. Distinguished
generals like Gorgei, Klapka, Damjanics, and Bem transformed the raw
recruits, in a wonderfully short time, into properly disciplined troops,
who were able to hold their own and bravely contend against the old and
tried imperial forces whom they put to flight at every point.

The fortunes of war changed in favor of the Hungarians in the latter
part of January, 1849. Klapka achieved the first triumph, which was
followed by the brilliant victory won by one of Gorgei's divisions