The King of Prussia promised, on the arrival of this news, to summon the Assembly for April 2d; and two days later he appeared on the balcony of his palace and declared his desire to change Germany from an alliance of states into a federal state.
But the suspicions of the people had now been thoroughly aroused; and on March 18th, the very day on which the King made this declaration, fresh deputations came to demand liberties from him; and when he appealed to them to go home his request was not complied with. The threatening attitude of the soldiers, and the recollection of their violence on the preceding days, had convinced the people that until part at least of the military force was removed they could have no security for liberty.
The events of the day justified their belief; for, while some one was reading aloud to the people the account of the concessions recently made by the King, the soldiers suddenly fired upon them, and the crowd fled in every direction. They fled, however, soon to rally again; barricades were once more thrown up; the Poles of Posen flocked in to help their friends, and the black, red, and gold flag of Germany was displayed. Women joined the fight at the barricades; and on the 19th some of the riflemen whom the King had brought from Neuchâtel refused to fire upon the people. Then the King suddenly yielded, dismissed his ministers, and promised to withdraw the troops and allow the arming of the people.
The victory of the popular cause seemed now complete; but the bitterness which still remained in the hearts of the citizens was shown by a public funeral procession through Berlin in honor of those who had fallen in the struggle. The King stood bare-headed on the balcony as the procession passed the palace; and on March 21st he came forward in public waving the black, red, and gold flag of Germany.
(1848) THE REVOLT OF HUNGARY, Arminius Vambery
Deep interest throughout the civilized world was aroused by the unavailing struggle of Hungary, in 1848, for national independence. The name of Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot and famous orator, became celebrated in many lands; and in the various countries where he sojourned as an exile from his own—especially in the United States (1851-1852) and in England—his eloquent appeals awakened profound sympathy for his people's cause. Vambery, however, regards Kossuth's compatriot, Count Stephen Szechenyi (born in 1791) as "the greatest Hungarian of the nineteenth century." He was descended from a distinguished family, which had given to its country many champions of liberty. The great aim of his life was to revive the drooping energies of the nation. As a youth he served in the army. Entering the famous Diet of 1825, in which, by right of birth, he took his seat in the Upper House, he distinguished himself by his liberal leadership, and as a writer and an advocate of public endowments accomplished much for the education of his people.
Up to the time at which Vambery, the celebrated historian of Hungary, begins the present narrative, the growth of the national spirit had been more and more evident each year since the end of the Napoleonic wars. For more than two centuries Hungary had been under the oppressive rule of Austria. Hungary had furnished soldiers to Austria in her struggle against Bonaparte, and the Austrian Emperor had repeatedly promised to redress Hungarian grievances; but after the fall of Napoleon these promises were repudiated. Hungary so emphatically showed her indignation that the Emperor was compelled to convoke the Diet in which Szechenyi distinguished himself. The subsequent career of this leader, the character and aims of Kossuth, and the insurrection they did so much to incite are powerfully described by Vambery, who writes not only as an author fully versed in his country's annals, but also as a patriot jealous of her liberties, proud of her heroic sons, and loyal to her fame.
For fifteen years, up to 1840, the popularity of Szechenyi extended over Hungary, and his name was cherished by every patriot in the land. About this time, however, the great statesman was destined to come into collision with a man who was his peer in genius and abilities. The two patriots were representatives of different methods, and in the contest produced by the shock of antagonistic tendencies Szechenyi was compelled to yield to Louis Kossuth, his younger rival. Although there was no material difference between their aims—for both wished to see their country great, free, constitutionally governed, prosperous, and advanced in civilization—yet in the ways and means employed by them to attain that aim they were diametrically opposed to each other.
Szechenyi, who descended from a family of ancient and aristocratic lineage, and presented himself to the nation with connections reaching up into the highest circles of the court, with the lustre of his ancient name, and with his immense fortune, wished to secure the happiness of his country by quite different methods from those adopted by Louis Kossuth, a child of the people, who, although he was a nobleman by birth, yet belonged to that poorer class of gentry who support themselves by their own exertions, and who, in Hungary, are destined to fulfil the mission of the citizen-classes of other countries. It is from this class of the gentry, for the most part, that are recruited the trades-people, the smaller landowners, professional men, writers, subordinate officials, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, teachers, and professors. By virtue of their nobility, it is true, they belonged to the privileged class of the country, and were not subjected to the humiliations of the oppressed peasantry, yet they had to earn a living by their own work, and were therefore not only accessible to, but were ready enthusiastically to receive, the lofty message of liberty and equality which the French Revolution of 1830 began to proclaim anew throughout Europe.
These doctrines formed a sharp contrast to the views of Count Stephen Szechenyi, views which, owing to the social position of the man who held them, were not devoid of a certain aristocratic tinge, and according to which the most important part in the regeneration of the Hungarian nation was assigned to the aristocracy. It was a part, however, which the Hungarian aristocracy was itself by no means disposed to assume. Among its younger members, indeed, could be found, here and there, enthusiastic men who were devotedly attached to the person of the lordly reformer, but the great majority of his class were hostilely arrayed against Szechenyi's aims, and, obstructing the granting of even the most inoffensive demands of the nation, supported the Viennese Government; which was rigidly opposed to political reforms and to any changes in the public institutions of the country. This attitude of the aristocracy compelled Szechenyi to avoid as much as possible all questions concerning constitutionality and liberty, and to confine the work of reform chiefly to the sphere of internal improvements.