At page 18 we find the following observations upon Hungary:—
"Cette enemie c'est la Hongrie, j'entend la Hongrie Magyar. De tous les ennemis de la Russie c'est peut-être celui qui la hait de la haine la plus furieuse. Le peuple Magyar, en qui la ferveur révolutionnaire vient de s'associer, par la plus étrange des combinaisons, à la brutalité d'une horde asiatique, et dont on pourrait dire avec tout autant de justice que des Turcs, qu'il ne fait que camper en Europe, vit entouré de peuples Sclaves, qui lui sont tons également odieux. Ennemi personel de cette race, il se retrouve, après des siècles d'agitation et de turbulence, toujours encore emprisonné au milieu d'elle. Tous ces peuple qui l'entourent, Serbes, Croates, Slovaques, Transylvaniens, et jusqu' au petits Russiens des Karpathes, sont les anneaux d'une chaine qu'il croyait à tort jamais briser. Et maintenant il sent, audessus de lui, une main qui pourra quand il lui plaira rejoindre ces anneaux, et resserrer la chaine à volonté. De là sa haine instinctive contre la Russie.
D'autre part, sur le foi de journalisme étranger, les meneurs actuel du parti se sont sérieusement persuadé que le peuples Magyar avait une grande mission à remplir dans l'Europe orthodoxe, que c'était à lui en un mot à tenir en échec les destinés de la Russie."
If these are the mutual sentiments of Russians and Majjars, we may form some idea of the kind of warfare that is about to be waged in Hungary.
It is curious to observe the confidence with which the Russian diplomatist assumes that the influence of his master over all the Sclavonic tribes of Hungary is completely established, and points to the Emperor of Russia, not to their sovereign, as the hand that is to clench the chain by which the Majjars are enclosed. When it is remembered that this memoir was circulated in Paris before any differences had arisen between Austria and Hungary—that the first movement hostile to the Majjars was made by Sclavonic tribes of the Greek Church, headed by the Patriarch—that Austria long hesitated before she resolved to break faith and peace with Hungary—that her own resources were inadequate to the enterprise she undertook—that her own interests appeared to forbid her undertaking it—one is forced to ponder and reflect on the means and influences by which she may have been led into so fatal an error.
We cannot refrain from giving one other extract from the Russian memoir, which is too pungent to be omitted:—
"Quelle ne serait pas l'horrible confusion où tomberaient les pays d'Occident aux prises avec la révolution, si le légitime souverain, si l'empereur orthodoxe d'Orient, tardait longtemps à y apparaître!
L'Occident s'en va; tout croule, tout s'abîme dans une conflagration générale, l'Europe de Charlemagne aussi bien que l'Europe des traités de 1815, la papaute de Rome et toutes les royautés de l'Occident, le catholicisme et le protestantisme, la foi depuis longtemps perdue et la raison réduite à l'absurde, l'ordre désormais impossible, la liberté desormais impossible, et sur toutes ces ruines amoncelées par elle, la civilisation se suicidant de ses propres mains!
Et lorsque, audessus de cet immense naufrage, nous voyons, comme une arche sainte, surnager cet empire plus immense encore, qui donc pourrait douter de sa mission? Et est-ce à nous, ses enfans, à nous montrer sceptiques et pusillanimes?"
Such then, it appears, are the sentiments of some of the most enlightened of the Russian diplomatists—such are the opinions and views presented to the Emperor by the men on whose reports and statements his foreign policy must of necessity be chiefly founded—such, above all, are the feelings and aspirations, the enmities and the means of action, which the nation fosters and on which it relies.
It has been said that, in attacking the Hungarians, Russia is but fighting her own battle against the Poles, who are said to compose a large proportion of the Hungarian army; and those who desire to throw discredit on the Hungarian movement have nicknamed it a Polo-Majjar revolution. They must have been ignorant or regardless of the facts. Whatever the Austrian journals or proclamations may assert, Russia must know full well that in the Hungarian army there are not more than five thousand Poles, and only two Polish general officers, Dembinsk and Bem.
That the Poles may think they see in a war between Russia and Hungary a favourable opportunity to revolt, is not improbable, and that, if the Poles should rise, they will find sympathy and support in the nation that Russia is attacking, must be inevitable.
In the mean time, the Hungarians are preparing for the unequal contest. They have a well-equipped army of 160,000 men in the field, and a levy of 200,000 more has been ordered. Such is the national enthusiasm, that this whole number may probably be raised. This feeling is not confined to the Majjars, but extends to the Sclavonic population also.