THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE.
The revolutionary history of the Austrian empire during the year 1848 was instructive, and full of the most eventful changes and great results. On another page the progress of affairs in Austrian Italy was sketched, and the relation of the kasir’s interests there to contiguous Italian states pointed out. The whole empire was, however, convulsed, and the throes of every part communicated its vibrations to the whole. The revolt in Hungary constituted the most interesting and important part of the great transactions which occurred within the limits of the empire. The government of the kasir succeeded, by exciting the jealousy of Magyar and German, Croat and Hungarian, metropolitan and provincial, in holding the difficult balance, and in preserving the empire in its integrity from the flood which flowed over it with such disintegrating force.
The revolution in Hungary was completely successful, and Vienna itself was menaced by a Hungarian army. The heroism of an Englishman, General Guyon, rendered the greatest military services; and the eloquence and wisdom of a civilian, Louis Kossuth, guided the aspirations and resolves of armed Hungary. Ultimately, indeed, by the aid of Russian armies, the Austrian was enabled once more to tread out the fire of Hungarian liberty; but 1848 saw the gallant Magyars victorious.
The Viennese, notwithstanding their contiguity to the court and their close dependence upon the kasir, rose in arms, and obtained an extensive recognition of those rights which the people everywhere claimed. Those who by extreme measures and views marred the cause of freedom elsewhere, did so at Vienna. The socialist element was the ruin of the revolution. The thinking and the morally sound portions of the citizens were detached from the popular cause, in and out of Vienna, and the arms of the emperor finally triumphed over the barricades of the capital.