The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany / With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years

by C. Edmund Maurice

After the first enthusiasm for Kossuth had a little subsided, the Viennese began to reflect that the concession of a separate ministry to Hungary might be a dangerous source of weakness to the central Government; while the growing demands of the Bohemians seemed likely to injure both the position of Vienna, and the cause of German unity. But the Viennese were in many cases aiming at the two incompatible objects of maintaining the position of Vienna as the capital of the Austrian Empire, and gaining for it a new position as the second or third town of United Germany. But a more reasonable cause of discontent arose from the fact that, while parliaments were conceded to Hungary and Bohemia, the Constitution which had been promised in March to the Austrian Empire was as yet unrealized.

Dr. Schütte, a Westphalian by birth, organized a demonstration in favour of a mass petition. Schütte was arrested by the police, and banished from Vienna as a foreign agitator; and, while this irritated the students still further, the Ministry on their side were alarmed at finding that they had failed to secure the one advantage which they had hoped to reap from the power of the students. The men who had succeeded in retaining office after the March Rising, had trusted that the intellectual youths, who had fought for freedom of the Press and freedom of teaching, would have discouraged the coarse socialistic agitations of the workmen, and have separated themselves altogether from their movements. But, though the extremer forms of Socialism found little favour among the leaders of the University, the sympathy between the students and the workmen grew ever closer. If the workmen complained of an employer, the students went to him and warned him to behave better; if any poor man needed money, the students organized the collection; if the cause of a workman was suffering by the undue length of a trial, the students called upon the judges to do their duty; if the workmen wished to state some special grievance in the form of a petition, the students composed the petition for them, or found a lawyer who would do it gratuitously. Reductions of the hours of labour and higher wages frequently resulted from these efforts.

This combination naturally alarmed the authorities, and they showed their fears both by coercion and concession. On the one hand they arrested Schütte and other agitators; on the other hand they consented on April 25 to issue the long promised Constitution. The Constitution, however, at once disappointed the petitioners. The proposed Parliament was to consist of two Chambers; the Upper Chamber to be composed of Princes of the royal House, of nominees of the Emperor, and of 150 landlords chosen by the landlords; and the assent of both Chambers and of the Emperor was to be necessary before the passing of a law. This Constitution was objected to both by the students and the workmen; the former condemning it on the ground of its aristocratic character, the latter becoming discontented when they found that the issue of this document did not free them from the payment of rent.

The revolutionary enthusiasm of the students was further whetted by the events which were taking place in Galicia. That unfortunate province had been so hampered by the effects of the abortive movement of 1846, that it had not been able to join in the March insurrection of the rest of Southern Europe. But by the beginning of April even the Galicians had taken heart; and they sent a deputation to the Emperor asking for a State recognition of the Polish language, a separate army for Galicia, and the concession of the different liberties which were then being demanded throughout the Empire. Even the Preparatory Parliament of Frankfort had passed a resolution in favour of the reconstitution of Poland; and the students of Vienna were prepared to be far more generous in their recognition of Galicia's claim to a share in Polish independence, than the Frankfort Parliament had been in its attitude towards Posen. So alarming did the movement appear to the Austrian Governor of Galicia, that he forbade any emigrants to return to his province unless they could prove that they had been born there. The Galicians rose in indignation, and imprisoned the Governor; but he was set free, and, after a sharp struggle, the insurrection was suppressed.

But, if their Polish sympathies tended to rouse the revolutionary fervour of the Viennese students, their anger, on the other hand, was kindled by the growing tendency of the rich merchants to abandon the position which they had taken up in March, to accept the April Constitution, and to fall into more peaceable methods of action. Even the Reading and Debating Club, which had been the first centre of the Liberal movement, was now the object of hostile demonstrations on the part of the students. The Students' Committee had been strengthened by the adhesion of many of the National Guard, and had received the name of the Central Committee; Hoyos, the commander of the National Guard, was alarmed at this sign of revolutionary feeling, and forbade his subordinates to take part in any political movement. The Central Committee entreated him to withdraw this prohibition, to which Hoyos answered that he would withdraw his prohibition if the Central Committee would dissolve itself. The Committee met to consider this proposal; but, while they were still sitting, a report arrived that the soldiers and the National Guard had been called out to put them down by force. The truth appeared to be, that the soldiers had been called out to suppress a supposed attack by the workmen; but that, finding that no such attack was intended, the military leaders seemed disposed to turn their hostility against the University. Thereupon the students at once rose and marched to the Castle. It seems that their exact object was at first uncertain; but on someone demanding of them their intentions, Dr. Giskra, one of their leaders, answered with, a shout, "Wir wollen eine Kammer" (we want a single Chamber.) The cry was taken up by the students; Pillersdorf advised the Emperor to yield, and on May 16 Ferdinand issued a proclamation granting a one Chamber Constitution. But whether the shock had been too much for his feeble health, and had struck him with a panic, or whether he yielded to the advice of his courtiers, Ferdinand suddenly resolved to leave Vienna, and on May 17 he fled secretly to Innspruck.

These events produced a somewhat peculiar effect on opinion in various parts of the Empire. In Bohemia the extreme national feeling had been hitherto represented by the Swornost, a body corresponding almost exactly to the Students' Legion in Vienna; and they had been held somewhat in check by the noblemen and citizens, who had organized the March movement. But the Vienna rising of May 15, and the flight of the Emperor, roused the indignation of men like Count Thun and Count Deym; and they decided to take the important step of breaking loose altogether from the Viennese Ministry, summoning a special Bohemian assembly in June, and inviting the Emperor to take refuge in Prague. The Swornost, on their part, felt some reluctance to take any steps which seemed to condemn the abolition of the Upper Chamber by the Viennese; but the bitter hostility, which the Germans of Vienna had so repeatedly shown against the Bohemians during the months of April and May, prevented the possibility of any understanding between the Democrats of Prague and those of Vienna; and thus the students of Prague were ready to approve, not only the assertion of Bohemian independence, but even the proposed deputation to the Emperor.

Kossuth, on his part, saw in these events an opportunity for increasing the growing friendliness between the Magyars and the Emperor; and he induced the Hungarian Ministry to invite Ferdinand to Pesth. This attitude of the Magyar leaders was due to one or two causes. In the first place the Viennese, as mentioned above, had been growing alarmed at the separate position granted to Hungary, and had feared that they would lose their hold over that kingdom altogether. This naturally produced an attitude of hostility on their part, which provoked a counter-feeling of antagonism in the Magyars; and thus the latter became more friendly to Ferdinand as the representative of the anti-democratic principle, and therefore the opponent of the ruling spirits of Vienna. There was also a second reason of a stranger kind, which placed the leaders of the Magyar movement in hostility to the Democratic party in Vienna. In spite of the strong German feeling which prevailed among the leading Democrats of Vienna, it was the opinion of some of those Hungarians who were best acquainted with that city, that the change from indirect to direct elections, which was one of the results of the May rising, would tend to increase the power of the large Slavonic population of Vienna.

But the great cause of the growing sympathy between the Magyars and the Emperor was the attitude taken up by the latter in the questions at issue between Hungary and Croatia. Although the appointment of Jellaciç, as Ban of Croatia, had been considered as an undue exertion of the power of the Court to the disadvantage of the Magyars, yet the independent tone which Jellaciç had adopted since his appointment, seemed to alarm the Emperor as much as it did Batthyanyi or Kossuth. Immediately after his appointment, Jellaciç announced that "the Revolution has changed our relations to our old ally, Hungary"; and that "we must take care that the new relation shall be consistent with independence and equality"; and he had then proceeded to summon the Assembly of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia to meet at Agram in June. This independent attitude had brought rebukes upon Jellaciç from Ferdinand and the Hungarian Ministry alike; and the Croatian Council, while appealing to the Emperor to strengthen the hands of the Ban, had threatened that, if pressed too hard by the Magyars, they would take measures to defend themselves. It was not unnatural, therefore, that at this moment the Croats should be more disposed to sympathise with the Democrats of Vienna; and that Kossuth should try to draw closer the bond between the Emperor and the Magyars.

It might indeed seem that the appeal of the Bohemians to the Emperor under these circumstances would have brought them out of sympathy with the Slavs of Croatia and Slavonia; but not only did the Emperor refuse to go to Prague, but the Tyrolese followed up that refusal by a sharp rebuke to the Bohemians for their proposal of a Slavonic Congress in Prague. Though, however, the Slavs of Hungary looked forward to the Slavonic Congress, and were willing to accept Prague as the centre of their political deliberations, it was in the Hungarian provinces themselves that the most vigorous action in defence of their rights was at present to be found. For while the Croatian Council were protesting against the Emperor's rebuke to Jellaciç, the Serbs were gathering for their Conference of May 13 in Carlowitz, and resolving to send deputies to the Croatian Assembly, and to the Emperor himself, and also to choose representatives for the Prague Congress. Crnojeviç, who had been sent by the Magyars to enforce martial law on the Serbs of the Banat and Bacska, after the riot at Kikinda, denounced the meeting, and called on Rajaciç to prevent it. Rajaciç would have hesitated about further action, but Stratimiroviç and his more fiery friends answered the threat by burning Crnojeviç's letter publicly; and the meeting took place in defiance of his warning.

From every district where the Serb language was spoken, there came to Carlowitz representatives wearing the old national costume. Carlowitz is little more than a village; and it would have required a large city to provide for the crowds who arrived on this occasion. Hundreds, therefore, lay out by night in the streets, to wait for the meeting in the morning. In the garden which lies between the Archbishop's library and the small room where the archives of Carlowitz are kept, there met on May 13 the Assembly of the newly-roused Serb people. Rajaciç appeared, accompanied by some of the clergy, and presented to the Assembly the old charters which had been granted by the Emperor in 1690 and 1691, and on which the liberties of the Serbs were based. Physicians, lawyers, and young students denounced the abolition of their Voyvodeschaft, claimed back the provinces which Maria Theresa had abandoned to Hungary, and demanded the removal of all hindrances to the development of their life, language, and history. They then proceeded to revive the old dignity of Patriarch in the person of Rajaciç and to choose as their Voyvode a man named Suplikaç, who was then serving in the army in Italy. Finally they appointed a committee to prepare rules, and gave it the power to call the Assembly together when circumstances required it. Hrabowsky, the commander of the fortress of Peterwardein, had been uncertain what attitude he should assume towards this movement. Sometimes he seemed to be personally friendly to the Serbs; but, in his official position, he felt doubtful whether to support the extreme Magyar authority, or to wait for orders from Ferdinand; and this confusion of mind led him to give doubtful and contradictory answers to the Serb deputations which waited on him. Under these circumstances, the Serbs were compelled to rely, even more markedly than before, on the support of their own countrymen, and of those races whom a common oppression had driven into sympathy with them. It was not only to the Croatians and Bohemians that they now appealed; even the Germans of the Bacska were expected to look with friendly eyes on the Serb movement, and Stratimiroviç believed that beyond the old Serb provinces there were races to whom they might look for alliance.