"Unless Görgei interferes."
"Ah!" said the colonel, "he loves his country too much for that," and we walked on without further conversation.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE QUARREL WITH COUNT BEULA.
One result of the declaration of independence was an inrush of foreigners: Poles, Germans, French, Italians swarmed into the country on all sides.
These men were all red-hot republicans, and, except the Poles, fought not so much out of love to Hungary as from hatred to the Austrian government.
Naturally they helped to swell Kossuth's party, and talked loudly of maintaining the struggle till Hungary was acknowledged an independent republic; while some, going still farther, demanded that the Russians should be expelled from Poland, and the two countries joined together.
At first, however, the real dispute centered on the next step in the war. Görgei, who had returned to Pesth, pointed out that by staying to capture Buda we should lose our only opportunity of crushing the Austrians while they were still weak and feeble.
Kossuth, on the other hand, had resolved that Buda should first fall; and at length the general reluctantly yielded.
It was a great mistake, and we of the army felt it to be such; but a soldier's duty is to obey, and not to question.