It might be reasonably doubted how far such a war would excite the sympathies of the Romans. The Piedmontese Ministry had recently attempted to suppress the liberties of Rome; and although that Ministry had fallen, Charles Albert was himself known to be strongly Monarchical in his feelings about the government of Rome. The Roman Assembly, which met on February 5, had, on the 9th, declared the Pope deposed, and had proclaimed the Republic; a step which they might naturally expect to widen the breach between them and the Piedmontese. Some were even disposed to think that Charles Albert had given another sign of hostility in ignoring the former league with Rome, and declaring an Italian war without any consultation with, or notice to the Roman Ministry. But any doubts or hesitations as to the right attitude of Rome towards Piedmont at this crisis were put an end to by Mazzini. He had been chosen by Leghorn as their representative in the Roman Assembly, and had taken his seat on March 6, the whole Assembly rising to greet him. When, then, the news came that Charles Albert had declared war once more on Austria, Mazzini appealed to the Romans to join in the struggle. "There must," he said, "be only two kinds of Italians in Italy: the friends and the enemies of Austria. Republican Rome will make war by the side of Monarchical Piedmont." Mazzini never considered that ready or eloquent speech was a power that he possessed; and, what is more to the point, some of those who loved and admired him held the same opinion; but the intensity of his conviction seemed to take the place of readily-turned phrases or imagery; and, as he went on to speak of the sacrifices that the war demanded of all Romans, there fell upon the table beside him, in showers, the jewels which the ladies in the gallery had plucked off, as their offerings for the good of their country. The Assembly voted war, almost unanimously, and twelve battalions of the National Guard were despatched to Lombardy.

The war was little worthy of their enthusiasm. The Piedmontese officers were so little trusted by Charles Albert that he chose a Pole named Chrzanowski as his Commander-in-Chief, while the second in command was that Ramorino who had betrayed Mazzini in the Expedition of 1833-4. The three or four days of the war were mere scenes of mutual distrust, mismanagement, and, possibly, treachery; and it is pleasant to turn for a moment from the Piedmontese battles to the one part of the struggle which redeemed this episode from utter contempt. On March 23, Brescia, from which a portion of the Austrian forces had, for a time, then withdrawn, sprang to arms, drove out the remaining troops, and raised the Italian flag. Tito Speri, a Mantuan, organized the poorer citizens, and led them against the forces of Nugent, which were advancing on the city. After a sharp struggle, the Brescians were driven back with some loss; but, two days later, Speri made another sortie, and, though attacked by the cavalry, succeeded in driving them back, and in occupying the hills which overlook Brescia. He now attempted to treat with the Austrians; but Nugent answered that he would enter Brescia, either by force or by love; to which Speri replied, "Perhaps by force, but never by love!" Rumours came of Charles Albert's defeat, but the Brescians refused to believe it; and Nugent was forced to retreat from Brescia, after having, apparently, concluded an armistice with the citizens. But, on March 30 or 31, Haynau appeared before the city; and, in answer to the appeal of the Brescians to the terms of the armistice, he declared that, if they did not yield in two hours, he would reduce the city to ashes. But the Brescians were resolved, as their own inscription tells us, to teach "that defeat may be more glorious and fruitful than victory;" and they, therefore, refused to yield. On April 1, Haynau bombarded the city; and, after a fierce struggle at Porta Torlunga, in which General Nugent was mortally wounded, Haynau forced his way into the city, and put men, women, and children to the sword—the cruelties of his proceedings gaining for him, among the Italians, the title of "the Tiger of Brescia."

But, before Brescia had fallen, Charles Albert, betrayed by his officers, distrusted by his soldiers, and out of heart, had been defeated at Novara; and, in response to a demand which he had made to Radetzky for a truce, he had been asked terms which he considered too dishonourable to accept. His officers, however, told him that his army was in too disorganised a state to be depended on, and he then answered in these words: "For eighteen years I have always used every possible power for the advantage of my people. It is painful to me to find my hopes deceived; not so much for my sake, as for my country's. I have not been able to find on the field of battle the death that I so ardently desired. Perhaps my person is the only obstacle to the obtaining of just terms from the enemy. The continuation of the war having become impossible, I abdicate the Crown in favour of my son, Victor Emmanuel, in the hope that a new King may be able to obtain more honourable terms, and to secure for the country an advantageous peace." So ended the chequered career of Charles Albert, a man of many attractive qualities and noble aspirations, but who, by a fatal weakness of will made more evident by a painfully difficult situation, had been constantly dragged into acts of cruelty and treachery from which a man of stronger purpose would have been saved. With his fall ended the Constitutional struggles of this period; and, during the remaining months of the Revolution, the Peoples of Rome, Venice, Sicily, and Hungary had to depend, in their struggles for liberty, on the force of popular feeling, and on the guidance of those leaders whom they had themselves placed at the head of affairs.

CHAPTER XI.
THE DEATH STRUGGLE OF FREEDOM.—OCTOBER 1848-AUGUST 1849.

Division of Feeling among the Magyar Leaders.—Arthur Görgei.—Ground of his quarrels with Kossuth.—Bem.—The Volunteers.—The Plan of Defence.—The Flight to Debreczin—The Proclamation at Waitzen.—Effect of Hungarian Conscription Law in Transylvania. Puchner and the Roumanians.—Puchner finally adopts their Cause.—Avraham Jancu.—The Saxons and Roumanians.—Bem in Transylvania.—His Character and Work.—The Appeal to General Lüders.—The Russians in Transylvania.—The Capture of Hermannstadt.—Bem and Csanyi.—The Reign of Terror.—The Death of Roth.—Görgei and Dembinski.—Effect of Francis Joseph's coup d'état.—Why it did not produce greater results.—The Race Feuds.—The Constitutional Difficulty.—The Declaration of Independence.—Kossuth's Power and its Causes.—The Struggle in Rome.—The Triumvirate and their Difficulties.—Order and Liberty.—The Danger from France.—A Pacific Candidate.—The Collapse of the Tuscan Movement.—The Final Struggle and Fall of Sicily.—The French Expedition.—The Landing at Civita Vecchia.—Oudinot and Manara.—The Occupation of Civita Vecchia.—The March to Rome.—Guerra! Guerra!—The Repulse of the French.—The Debates in France.—The Defence of Bologna.—Lesseps in Rome.—Lesseps and Oudinot.—French Treachery.—Garibaldi and Roselli.—Further Treachery.—The Fight by the Vascello.—Ledru Rollin's Insurrection.—The Final Struggle for German Liberty and its Failure.—The Final Struggle in Rome.—Mazzini's Proposals.—Decision of the Assembly.—Garibaldi's last Effort.—"Cardinal" Oudinot in Rome.—The Struggle in Venice.—Manin and Kossuth.—Kossuth's Blunder.—Görgei's Policy.—The Russian Invasion of Transylvania.—The Struggle at the Temos Pass.—Bem and Kossuth.—Kossuth's Resignation.—The Surrender at Vilagos.—The Cholera in Venice.—The Final Surrender.—Manin's Stone.—General Estimate of the Struggle and its Results.

The battle of Schwechat had brought into prominence the great difficulties with which the Hungarian Government had now to contend. The flight of the Count Palatine, and the resignation of Batthyanyi, had thrown the government into the hands of the Committee of Defence, over which Kossuth's power was nearly supreme. But, however much this concentration of authority in the hands of the most popular leader may have given strength to the civil part of the Executive, yet the revolutionary character which it gave to the movement called out scruples in many military men, who had hitherto been willing to work with tolerable heartiness for the Hungarian cause. The flight of Archduke Stephen deprived the Government of that Constitutional sanction which would have been derived from the presence of an official directly representing the Emperor; while at the same time, Ferdinand's approval of Jellaciç and the dissolution of the Hungarian Diet, placed the Emperor and the Magyars in that condition of direct opposition to each other, which most of the Magyar statesmen had desired to avoid. This change of position considerably affected the feelings of the officers, especially of those who had previously served in the Austrian Army, and in whom the military preference for Monarchical Government was strongly developed. This feeling had shown itself even during the struggle against Jellaciç's invasion; and it was this which had led those Magyar officers, who were friendly to the Viennese cause, to ask for a direct summons from the Viennese Parliament before they would cross the frontier. Finally, it was this feeling which had led to those orders and counter orders, and to that general uncertainty of plan which had ruined the Hungarian cause at the Battle of Schwechat. Kossuth, and all who wished to carry on the war vigorously, felt that a change of generals was necessary, if the freedom of Hungary was not to be destroyed by the internal divisions of the country. General Moga had therefore to be removed; and the question was, who was to take his place? It was under these circumstances that Kossuth called to the front a man whose character and actions have ever since been the favourite debating ground of the students of the Hungarian war.[20]

Arthur Görgei had been a lieutenant in the Austrian Army, and, by his own account, had lived away from Hungary until April, 1848, and was "nearly ignorant of his country's customs, and above all, wholly deficient in even a superficial and general acquaintance with civil administration." He had, however, been made a captain in the newly raised regiments of Honveds or Home troops of Hungary, in the summer of 1848. He very soon began to complain of the men who had been placed over his head; and specially at being superseded on one occasion by Moritz Perczel. To Perczel he soon began to show the same insubordinate demeanour which remained ever his characteristic attitude towards his superior officers; and he was only saved by the intercession of friends from being shot for disobeying orders. He had, however, gained credit with some of the fiercer patriots among the Magyars, by his summary execution of Count Eugene Zichy, who had been suspected of treason; and this act, though condemned by the more temperate champions of the cause, was considered to have committed Görgei so strongly to an anti-Austrian policy, that there could be no fear of his lack of zeal in the coming struggle. When then General Moga had shown that, either from military incapacity, or from want of sympathy with the cause, he was not to be trusted with the command of the army, Kossuth turned to Görgei, and offered him the post of which Moga had been deprived. Görgei accepted it; and then there almost immediately began that long series of differences and difficulties which was to ruin the cause of Hungarian liberty.

The quarrel between Kossuth and Görgei will always be judged differently by military and non-military critics; for, setting aside those unfortunate peculiarities of character which marked both these leaders, the struggle was one between the ideas of a statesman and the ideas of a soldier. Kossuth had already had experience of the difficulties which arose from putting confidence in officers who are out of sympathy with the cause for which they are fighting; and he was therefore specially alive to any sign of this want of sympathy in the successor of General Moga. Görgei, on the other hand, had that belief, so common in men of his profession, that all political questions were mainly to be judged from the military point of view; and that his admitted ignorance in matters of civil administration did not disqualify him from laying down the law on the most important affairs of Government. Although he shared Kossuth's distrust for General Moga, he sympathised with Moga's preference for Monarchical Government; and although he had fought bravely against the forces of Windischgrätz at the battle of Schwechat, he had previously declared that he did not see the solidarity between the cause of Hungary and that of Vienna; and he held that the oath which the officers had taken to the March Constitution implied their duty to preserve that Constitution in the exact form in which it had been originally granted.

But if Görgei went beyond his province in his interference with affairs of civil government, Kossuth no doubt, in turn, hampered Görgei in matters in which he was bound to trust him, so long as he retained him in his command. But in periods of revolution there always arise a large number of questions which, in ordinary times, would be decided on purely military grounds, but which, in that abnormal state of affairs, become necessarily complicated with political considerations. It is this peculiarity of circumstances, for which both statesmen and soldiers find it so hard to make allowance, and which makes it so difficult to judge justly in such a controversy as that which we are considering.