"Dear Children,—I have just been condemned to death, and in three hours more the sentence will be put into execution. If anything gives me pain, it is the thought of you, who are without a mother, and who now are losing your father. But there are good men who will advise and help you for your father's sake. The Hungarian foundling whom I adopted, I entreat you to continue to take care of; only if its parents should wish for it, they have a nearer claim. Except for this, I have nothing more in this world. The children of my church at Meschen, and my Nimisch people I think of in love. May God make these communities become rich in the fruits of godliness, like fruit-trees whose loaded boughs hang down to the ground! In my writing-table are the prospectuses of the school and church newspaper which is to be published. The body of the nation is broken to pieces. I do not believe in any binding together of its limbs any more. So much the more do I desire the keeping alive of the spirit which once lived in these forms. For that purpose I entreat my brother clergy whom I leave behind to take care to carry on this newspaper, in order to keep alive the character, pure manners, and honesty of will of our people. But, if it is decreed in the Counsels of History that it must perish, may it perish in a manner that shall not bring shame on its ancestors! Time flies. I know not if my sick body can honourably support my willing spirit. All whom I have insulted I heartily entreat for pardon. For my part, I leave the world without hate, and pray God to forgive my enemies. So let the end come in God's name!
"Klausenburg, 11th May, 1849.
"I must add that neither in life nor death have I been an enemy of the Hungarian nation. May they believe this, on the word of a dying man, in the moment when all hypocrisy falls away!"
He was shortly after led out to execution. When his sentence was read out to him, in which he was accused of having taken the sword instead of the Bible, and of having led on the Saxon and Wallack hordes, he cried out indignantly, "It is not true. I never carried a sword." He refused to have his hands bound; and, with his face to the soldiers, he fell, after the third shot. The captain in command of the soldiers was so much impressed by the spectacle, that he exclaimed, "Soldiers, learn from this man how to die for one's people."
But long before Csanyi's reign of terror had reached this climax, the aspect of affairs in other parts of Hungary had gone through important changes. The removal of Görgei and the appointment of Dembinski had caused great irritation among the friends of the former. This irritation might be somewhat excused by the fact that nearly a month had elapsed between the time when Görgei had sent his proclamation to Windischgrätz and his deposition from command; and the deposition even received an appearance of injustice and hardship from its announcement at the moment when Görgei had just obtained a victory. But the opposition to this change of command would have been almost as certain if the removal had taken place earlier, and under different circumstances. It was looked upon as a blow struck by the politicians of Buda-Pesth at the politicians of the army; and the appointment of a foreigner added an element of national prejudice to the outburst of professional irritation. Moreover, Dembinski seems to have been exactly the kind of officer whom Görgei most disliked. His reputation rested on certain brilliant feats of guerilla warfare in the Polish insurrection of 1830; and of course Görgei and his friends may have been right in thinking that such a man was ill fitted to carry on the more regular warfare which was needed for the defeat of Windischgrätz. But, whatever excuse they may have had for opposition to the appointment, they clearly put themselves in the wrong by their evident determination not to allow Dembinski a fair chance. Görgei, indeed, at first affected to discourage the protests against Dembinski's appointment; but the language in which he did so was so evidently defiant in intention as to call forth a censure from his personal friend, the War Minister Meszaros; nor was it long before Görgei threw off even this slender mask, and openly defied Dembinski's authority.
Görgei's faction among the officers was so strong, and the dislike to Dembinski so general, that the commanders of divisions at last agreed to demand the deposition of their chief. Kossuth came down to the camp to inquire into the circumstances; and he found the feeling against Dembinski so violent that he consented to his removal. Görgei seems to have used this opportunity for once more discussing the political situation with Kossuth; and, strange to say, he made to him the very proposal which Batthyanyi had rejected when it was put forward by Jellaciç; namely, that the War and Finance Ministries should be removed to Vienna. If this proposal had been unsatisfactory when Vienna was free, and Ferdinand on the throne, it could have sounded little short of treason to the cause of Hungary, when Vienna was under the absolute rule of Windischgrätz; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that, though Kossuth was willing to remove Dembinski, he preferred appointing General Vetter as Commander-in-Chief to trusting Görgei with the leadership.
It was at this crisis that the event occurred which was mentioned in the last chapter, and which hastened on the final phase of the movement. Encouraged, as Görgei believed, by the victories of Windischgrätz, Francis Joseph and his advisers suddenly dismissed the Parliament at Kremsier, and proclaimed a Constitution "octroyè" for the occasion. Hungarians of all parties condemned this act as a violation of their old laws and customs, and an assertion of the arbitrary will of the sovereign. For, indeed, the discontent now aroused was far from being confined to the Magyars; and it would have been strange had it been otherwise. The dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament was, even irrespective of all that followed it, the most barefaced act of despotism that had been committed since the March risings of the previous year. Even Ferdinand of Naples could plead that barricades had been thrown up in the streets before his coup d'état of May 15. The unfortunate June insurrection at Prague had given a plausible excuse for preventing the meeting of the Bohemian Parliament; the murder of Lamberg had, no doubt, seemed to Ferdinand of Austria to supply at least a palliation for his dissolution of the Hungarian Diet; the murder of Latour and the persecution of the Bohemian deputies supplied Windischgrätz with sufficient argument for depriving Vienna of its liberties; and even the violent dispersal of the deputies of Berlin could be defended by the King of Prussia by reference to the previous riots of August. But not a single excuse of this kind could, with the least show of plausibility, be urged in defence of the dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament. Indeed, Francis Joseph betrayed the weakness of his case by pleading in his defence the nature of the subjects that had been discussed in the Parliament; and he could not even pretend that it had either exceeded its powers or exercised them in a disorderly manner.
Nor was the Constitution, which was offered as a sequel to this dissolution, any more acceptable than the dissolution itself; and a general protest went up from nearly every race in the Empire. However much the Viennese might, under other circumstances, have liked a Constitution which was centralised at Vienna, they none of them would welcome it when it was combined with the rule of Windischgrätz. The Bohemian leaders felt themselves doubly offended; first by the dissolution of a Parliament to which they had specially trusted for justice; and secondly by the refusal of any real provincial independence to Bohemia. The Croats indignantly denounced the restoration of the military rule on the frontier, and the consequent separation from Croatia of the Slavs who inhabited the frontier district. The Serbs, ever since January, had been complaining of the advance of military rule in the Serb districts, and the gradual diminution of the power of the Voyvode; and they now felt that all their local institutions were still further endangered by the centralisation of the new Constitution. Some of the bitterest protests came from the Roumanians. They had been treated from the first with the greatest contempt by most of the Imperialist officers; and directly after the capture of Hermannstadt by Bem, they found themselves suddenly deserted by the Austrian forces, which were withdrawn into Wallachia. While they were still smarting under this treachery, the news of the new Constitution reached them; and they found that they were as far off as ever from obtaining that separate national organization for which they had so long been pleading; while a part of the Banat, which they considered specially Roumanian, was to be placed, by the new arrangement, under the Serbs.
In this state of general discontent, it might have seemed that Kossuth would have had a fair chance of rallying round him all the races of the Empire, in a common desire for local independence, and a common hostility to the rule of Francis Joseph. But the divisions and mutual suspicions between the various races of the Empire had gone too deep to allow of this change. As for co-operation between the Bohemians and Germans, even if such a combination had been possible after the various causes of bitterness mentioned in the preceding chapters, little good could be effected by it at this crisis, when both Prague and Vienna were at the mercy of the conqueror. The important question, therefore, was the attitude to be taken up towards the new Constitution, by the various races in the Kingdom of Hungary; and here it must be owned that it was not wholly the fault of Kossuth, that he did not succeed in combining them in this emergency.
Many both of the Croats and Serbs expressed plainly their discontent with the treatment which they had received from the House of Austria, but both Croats and Serbs were paralysed by the leaders whom they had accepted. The Banal Council[23] of Croatia protested against the publication of the new Constitution; but Jellaciç declared that he was bound to see that it was published, and that the Council were only to carry out his orders. In a similar manner, many of the leading Serbs remonstrated with Rajaciç on his acceptance of the vague promises, which were the substitute in the new Constitution, for those ancient liberties which the Serbs claimed as their due. But Rajaciç maintained his authority over his countrymen, and accepted a place of completer subordination to the Austrian General than that which he had hitherto held. On the other hand, Kossuth seems to have neglected the opportunity offered by the general feeling of discontent, which prevailed at this time among the Serbs and Croats; and it was not till months later, when driven to desperation, that he proposed to make those concessions, which had by that time lost all grace. Towards the Roumanians, indeed, Kossuth seemed disposed to make concessions, by which he hoped to draw them away from the Saxons; and he chose a negotiator, whom he thought well fitted for this purpose. But Jancu distrusted Kossuth's emissary, and perhaps also Kossuth himself; and so the negotiation broke down.
And if Kossuth failed to draw round him, at this crisis, the different races who were discontented with the new Constitution, it was a much stranger fact that he was unable to maintain the union between the different parties in the Magyar nation itself. This was all the stranger, because just at this time both the personal and political grounds for difference between Kossuth and Görgei seemed to be suddenly removed. Deep as had been Görgei's irritation at the appointment of Vetter, it had naturally been brought to a close by the sudden illness which removed Vetter from the command, and which was followed on March 31 by the appointment of Görgei as provisional Commander-in-Chief; while, as to political opinions, Görgei and Kossuth were both agreed in denouncing the circumstances under which Francis Joseph had been thrust on to the throne of Hungary, and the character and origin of the Constitution which he had just issued. Under these circumstances, it seemed as if there could be no further ground for division between the military party who followed Görgei, and the larger body of Magyars, who accepted Kossuth as their leader. But it soon appeared that this was not the case.