From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

by Henry M. Field

Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,

With the wan moon overhead,

There stood, as in an awful dream,

The army of the dead.

It needs but little imagination on the spot to call up indeed an "army of the dead." Standing on this old bridge, one could almost hear, above the rushing Moldau, the drums of Zisca calling the Hussites to arms on the neighboring heights, a battle sound answered in a later century by the cannon of Frederick the Great. Above us is the vast pile of the Hradschin, the abode of departed royalties, where but a few weeks ago poor old Ferdinand, the ex-Emperor of Austria, breathed his last. He was almost an imbecile, who sat for many years on the throne as a mere figurehead of the State, and who was perfectly harmless, since he had little more to do with the Government than if he had been a log of wood; but who, when the great events of 1848 threatened the overthrow of the Empire, was hurried out of the way to make room for younger blood, and his nephew, Francis Joseph, came to the throne. He lived to be eighty-two years old, yet so utterly insignificant was he that almost the only thing he ever said that people remember, was a remark that at one time made the laugh of Vienna. Once in a country place he tasted of some dumplings, a wretched compound of garlic and all sorts of vile stuff, but which pleased the royal taste, and which on his return to Vienna he ordered for the royal table, greatly to the disgust of his attendants, to whom he replied, "I am Kaiser, and I will have my dumplings!" This got out, and caused infinite merriment. Poor old man! I hope he had his dumplings to the last. He was a weak, simple creature; but he is gone, and has been buried with royal honors, and sleeps with the Imperial house of Austria in the crypt of the Church of the Capuchins in Vienna.

But all these memories of Prague, personal or historical, recent or remote, I must leave, to come at once to the Austrian capital, one of the most interesting cities of Europe. Vienna is a far more picturesque city than Berlin. It is many times older. It was a great city in the Middle Ages, when Berlin had no existence. The Cathedral of St. Stephen was erected hundreds of years before the Elector of Brandenburg chose the site of a town on the Spree, or Peter the Great began to build St. Petersburg on the banks of the Neva. Vienna has played a great part in European history. It long stood as a barrier against Moslem invasion. Less than two hundred years ago it was besieged by the Turks, and nothing but its heroic resistance, aided by the Poles, under John Sobieski, prevented the irruption of Asiatic barbarians into Central Europe. From the tower of St. Stephen's anxious watchers have often marked the tide of battle, as it ebbed and flowed around the ancient capital, from the time when the plain of the Marchfeld was covered with the tents of the Moslems, to that when the armies of Napoleon, matched against those of Austria, fought the terrible battles of Aspern, Essling, and Wagram.

But if Vienna is an old city, it is also a new one. In revisiting Germany, I am constantly struck with the contrast between what I see now, and what I saw in 1858. Then Vienna was a pleasant, old-fashioned city, not too large for comfort, strongly fortified, like most of the cities of the Middle Ages, with high walls and a deep moat encompassing it on all sides. Now all has disappeared—the moat has been filled up, and the walls have been razed to the ground, and where they stood is a circle of broad streets called the Ring-strasse, like the Boulevards of Paris. The city thus let loose has burst out on all sides, and great avenues and squares, and parks and gardens, have sprung into existence on every hand. The result is a far more magnificent capital than the Vienna which I knew seventeen years ago.

Nor are the changes less in the country than in the capital. There have been wars and revolutions, which have shaken the Empire so that its very existence was in danger, but out of which it has come stronger than ever. Austria is the most remarkable example in Europe of the good effects of a thorough beating. Twice, since I was here before, she has had a terrible humiliation—in 1859 and in 1866—at Solferino and at Sadowa.

In 1858 Austria was slowly recovering from the terrible shock of ten years before, the Revolutionary Year of 1848. In '49 was the war in Hungary, when Kossuth with his fiery eloquence roused the Magyars to arms, and they fought with such vigor and success, that they threatened to march on Vienna, and the independence of Hungary might have been secured but for the intervention of Russia. Gorgei surrendered to a Russian army. Then came a series of bloody executions. The Hungarian leaders who fell into the hands of the Austrians, found no pity. The illustrious Count Louis Batthyani was sent to the scaffold. Kossuth escaped only by fleeing into Turkey. Gen. Bem turned Mussulman, saying that "his only religion was love of liberty and hatred of tyranny," and served as a Pacha at the head of a Turkish army. It is a curious illustration of the change that a few years have wrought, that Count Andrassy, who was concerned with Batthyani in the same rebellion, and was also sentenced to death, but escaped, is now the Prime Minister of Austria. But then vengeance ruled the hour. The bravest Hungarian generals were shot—chiefly, it was said at the time, by the Imperious will of the Archduchess Sophia, the mother of Francis Joseph. There is no hatred like a woman's, and she could not forego the savage delight of revenge on those who had dared to attack the power of Austria. Proud daughter of the Cæsars! she was yet to taste the bitterness of a like cruelty, when her own son, Maximilian, bared his breast to a file of Mexican soldiers, and found no mercy. I thought of this to-day, as I saw in the burial-place of the Imperial family, near the coffin of that haughty and unforgiving woman, the coffin of her son, whose poor body lies there pierced with a dozen balls.