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

In spite, however, of the encouragement which he had sent to Manin, Kossuth's own position was one of increasing danger. The Declaration of Independence of April 14 had been followed by the resignation of several Hungarian officers; and Görgei, though unwillingly retaining his command, became more and more antagonistic in his attitude towards Kossuth. This mutual distrust was one of the main causes of a step not very creditable to either party, and which is reckoned by military critics one of the most unfortunate in the war. On April 26, Görgei and General Klapka had, by a desperate march, rescued the fortress of Komorn from the Austrians; and Klapka and others believed that, if Görgei had followed up this success by marching to Raab, he might have been able to reopen communications with Vienna. Kossuth, however, was anxious that Buda-Pesth should not be allowed to remain in the hands of the Austrians, and he therefore desired Görgei to turn his forces to the deliverance of the capital. Görgei, in common with all the military leaders, believed this proposal to be a mistake; but he has frankly recorded his reasons for readily obeying Kossuth's orders. If he had followed up his advantages and marched into Austria, a Republic, he believed, would have been proclaimed in Hungary; and a compromise with the Austrian Government would have become impossible; whereas, by occupying Buda-Pesth, he thought that he should gain a vantage ground which would enable him to persuade both parties to accept the modified Constitution for Hungary which he desired. Hence it came to pass that the greater part of May was taken up by the siege of the fortress of Buda, while Görgei was intriguing with Kossuth's opponents in the Diet, and the Austrians were gaining ground in Hungary. And while he was with difficulty holding his own against Görgei's intrigues, Kossuth was alarmed by the news that a more formidable enemy had once more appeared on the scene.

On May 1 the Emperor of Austria had formally appealed to the Russians to assist him against his Hungarian subjects; and in June the Russian forces began to gather near the passes of the Carpathians. On the 17, Colonel Szabò encountered the Russians near the Temos Pass. When he first advanced to meet them, he believed that he had only to do with some skirmishing troops, such as those with whom he had previously dealt. But more and more soldiers pressed in to the attack, and Szabò was compelled to retreat. Two days later Colonel Kiss, at the head of a band of Szeklers, came up to resist the invaders; and, while those who were on the hills above hurled down stones and wood on the Russians, the soldiers below, though only 400 in number, resisted so gallantly that the Russians at first fled before them. At last, however, Kiss was laid senseless by a shot, and his soldiers were seized with a panic and fled in disorder.

Bem, who had returned to Transylvania about the end of May, now attempted to rally the Szekler by inspiriting appeals to the memories of their former struggles. On June 25 he recaptured the Saxon town of Bistritz, and then encountered in the open field a combined corps of Russians and Austrians. For seven hours he held out against them; but new reinforcements came up, and he was compelled to retreat. The enormous numbers of the Russians seem to have impressed Bem's followers, and to have increased their original panic. The country was overrun by the enemy; Hermannstadt was captured and recaptured, and when, on August 5, it at last fell into the hands of the Russians, Bem narrowly escaped with his life. Even then he wished to continue the struggle; but on August 7 he was summoned to North Hungary by Kossuth, to advise him in his difficulties with Görgei.

After an attempt to supersede Görgei by Meszaros, Kossuth had been compelled to allow the former to resume the command; but he had by no means recovered confidence in him, and he felt ready to clutch at any proposal which would extricate himself and his country from their difficulties. Amongst other suggestions he proposed to offer to Jancu and the Roumanian leaders independent commands in the Hungarian Army, and to concede to them most of the points about which they had been fighting. He had even opened negotiations with Jancu for this purpose; but Bem steadily opposed the scheme, and the negotiations came to nothing. But Kossuth's great hope was to supersede Görgei by Bem. This proposal, however, was opposed, not only by Görgei himself, but also by Csanyi, who seems throughout to have sympathised with Görgei, as against Kossuth. Bem, therefore, returned to the war. Kossuth, left unsupported, became more and more alarmed. Csanyi and Görgei pressed for his resignation; and, while he was doubting, he received the news that Bem had been dangerously wounded in battle. The report, indeed, was exaggerated; and Bem wrote a letter to assure Kossuth of the slightness of his wound, and to encourage him to stand firm. But this letter never arrived, and the next news which Bem received was that Kossuth had abdicated, and Görgei been declared Dictator of Hungary. Bem wrote a letter of remonstrance to Kossuth, and, at the same time, marched towards Lugos, in the Banat, to meet the Russians. Dembinski, who was now in Bem's army, disobeyed his orders, and Bem was defeated. On that very day, August 13, Görgei surrendered at Vilagos with all his forces to the Russian general.

This surrender is now believed to have been necessary on military grounds. The advances made by the Austrians during the siege of Buda, and the Russian conquest of Transylvania had placed Hungary at the mercy of the conqueror. Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that the quarrel between Görgei and Kossuth, and the factions which the former had stirred up in the army, had tended considerably to bring about this result; while, with regard to the terms of surrender, General Görgei has never been able to explain how it was that, while the amnesty was so scrupulously observed towards himself both by the Austrians and Russians, the generals, whose only fault was that they had served under him, were ruthlessly put to death by Haynau. Anyhow, whatever may have been the excuses for the act, the surrender of Vilagos produced a startling close to the Hungarian War. Bem, indeed, hastened back to Transylvania, and attempted to rouse his former followers; and General Klapka held out for a month longer at Komorn. But Bem's efforts were of no avail; Klapka's defence only served to secure rather better terms; and both these generals, as well as Kossuth, were forced to take refuge in Turkey.

The news of the surrender of Vilagos did not reach Venice till August 20. There Manin had had much difficulty in still retaining the control which had been necessary for the guidance of affairs; and on August 6 a minority of 28 in the Assembly had protested against his reappointment as Dictator. The cholera had now been added to the other horrors of the siege; provisions were growing scarce; and thus the news of Görgei's surrender came as the last straw to break down the hopes of the defenders of Venice. On the 22nd, therefore, the Government agreed to yield. Manin succeeded in preventing the riots which seemed likely to break out on the news of the capitulation; and on August 30 the final surrender of Venice to the Austrians brought to a close the long struggle for liberty which had begun with the Sicilian rising of 1848.

On December 20, 1849, there appeared the following statement in a Swiss paper: "In front of Manin's door was a stone on which his name was engraved. The Austrians broke it to pieces; but the smallest fragments of it have been collected by the Venetians as sacred relics."

So ended the revolutionary period of 1848 and 1849. Those Revolutions had displayed, in a way unknown before, the strength and the weakness of the national principle. The enthusiasm for liberty, and the power of generous self-sacrifice, which was kindled by the feeling for a common language and common traditions, had been shown in each of the Revolutions; and they had struck a blow at the merely diplomatic and military settlements of States which produced a lasting effect. But, on the other hand, with the love for men of the same race and language there awoke in all these nations, with terrible force, the hatred and scorn for men of other races and languages; and thus, while the leaders of the movement taught tyrants their danger, they supplied them at the same time with a defence against that danger,—with another justification of the old maxim of tyrants, "Divide et impera." And so the work of the Revolutionists did not fail; but yet it could not achieve all the noble ends for which it was intended.

The time which followed the defeat of the Revolutionists was to show both their failure and their success. The dreary period of reaction from 1849 to 1859 could not have been expected by any sane man to be of long duration. But the time of reawakening was not like the time of the first dawn of hope. The work which had been ennobled by the thought of Mazzini, by the sword of Garibaldi, by the statesmanship of Manin, and the eloquent enthusiasm of Ciceruacchio, was to be carried to completion by the intrigues of Cavour, and the interested speculation of Louis Napoleon. In the place of the wisdom of Robert Blum, and the wild popular energy of Hecker, was to arise the stern hard policy of "blood and iron"; and, as Germany had failed to absorb Prussia, Prussia was finally to absorb Germany. The blunders and prejudices of the leaders of the Vienna Revolution were to be reproduced by Schmerling, without their self-sacrifice or generosity. But at the same time Francis Deak, the wise statesman, who had stood aside in dislike of the fiercer and more unscrupulous policy of other Magyar leaders, was to re-establish gradually for his country the freedom which she had lost for a time during the Revolutionary struggle. The race struggles of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were to be renewed in a milder form, and the solution of their difficulties postponed to a distant future; while the yet more dangerous problems of Socialism, which had forced themselves in so untimely a manner on the citizens of Vienna and Berlin, were gradually to assume ever greater prominence in the affairs of Europe. Thus it will be seen that the Revolutions of 1848 to '49 were but the climax of movements of which we have not yet seen the end; but, for good and for evil, they left a mark on Europe, which is never likely to be entirely effaced.

THE END.