The Palatine, unable to bring about a reconciliation, quitted the country. The Viennese Cabinet appointed Count Lamberg to assume full control of the military affairs in the kingdom; the Hungarians pronounced his appointment unconstitutional, and they were right. On his arrival at Pesth, he was murdered by a mob. This rash crime caused some of the Liberals to withdraw horrified. Batthyányi resigned the premiership, and a Committee of National Defense, in which Kossuth predominated, was chosen. On October 2, the Camarilla, grown truculent, dispatched Recsey to dissolve the Hungarian Assembly, and bade Hungary to submit to Jellachich. The Magyars heeded neither command. Having equity and law on their side, they acted henceforth on the assumption that the orders which emanated from Vienna could not be attributed to Ferdinand without imputing perjury to him.
War could no longer be avoided. The Committee of National Defense displayed great energy in organizing resistance. Kossuth’s eloquence went over the land, and the cloddish peasant left the plough, the well-to-do tradesman deserted his shop, the lawyer dropped his brief, to become volunteers in the service of their country. A third outbreak at Vienna sent the Camarilla hurrying off to Olmütz, and seemed for a moment to assure the final triumph of the revolution. During the three weeks which elapsed before an Austrian army under Prince Windischgrätz—he who said that “human beings begin with barons”—could be brought up, the Hungarians debated whether they should go to the assistance of the Viennese, for they wished to be strictly legal. At last they found justification in the plea that they had a right to pursue Jellachich, who was marching to join Windischgrätz, across the Austrian frontier. But they decided too late. Their troops were beaten at Schwechat, on the outskirts of Vienna, just as Windischgrätz was successfully storming the city (October 29).
For six weeks thereafter Windischgrätz devoted himself to stamping out the rebellion in Vienna, and in preparing for a campaign against Hungary. On December 2 poor, weak-witted Ferdinand abdicated, and his nephew Francis Joseph succeeded him as emperor. This change betokened the returning confidence of the Court party. They now felt sure of crushing the revolution, and of restoring the Old Régime; but they had no intention that, when the rest of Austria was re-subjected to their despotism, Hungary alone should enjoy a constitutional government. Yet this had been promised by Ferdinand, and he had scruples against openly violating his oath. Therefore, by removing him and substituting Francis Joseph, they had a sovereign unhampered by pledges. To this scheme the Magyars naturally did not bend; their Constitution was their life, and that Constitution recognized no king who had not been crowned by the Magyars, and had not sworn to preserve their rights inviolate.
Ten days before Christmas, Windischgrätz opened his campaign. Five armies besides his own invaded Hungary from five different directions. The Magyars had employed the six weeks’ lull in defensive preparations. They gave Arthur Görgei, an ex-officer thirty-one years old,—able, stern, selfish, and inordinately ambitious,—the command of the Army of the Upper Danube. He proposed to abandon the frontier and to mass the Hungarian forces in the interior, where they could choose their own ground; but the Committee of Defense insisted that every inch of Hungarian soil should be contested. A fortnight’s operations proved the wisdom of Görgei’s plan: the Magyars were easily driven back, and on New Year’s eve the Austrians camped within gunshot of Buda-Pesth. The following day, January 1, 1849, a melancholy procession of ministers, deputies, state officials, fearful citizens, and stragglers, set out from Pesth, carrying with them the precious crown of St. Stephen, the public coffers and archives, and the printing-presses for bank-notes. Debreczin, a town forty leagues inland, became the temporary capital. At Buda-Pesth, Windischgrätz celebrated his triumph by holding a Bloody Assize. To envoys from the fugitive government who asked him to state his conditions, he only replied, “I do not treat with rebels.”
Among the Magyars, consternation was quickly succeeded by a mood of desperation,—such a mood as made France invincible in 1792. Again did Kossuth’s eloquence pass like the breath of life over the land; again did his energy direct the equipment of new recruits and fill the gaps of the regiments already in the field. Had the deputies at Debreczin voted as they wished, they would have voted for peace; but they knew that the majority of their countrymen would reject any peace which Austria was likely to offer, and they were ashamed to appear less daring than Kossuth.
The enthusiasm, we might call it the recklessness, with which the Magyars rallied to repel invasion, became a people who counted John Hunyádi and Francis Rakóczy among their national heroes. Thanks to their patriotic fervor, the Hungarian cause, which seemed about to collapse at the beginning of January, seemed about to prevail at the end of March. Bern had worsted the Wallachs and Austrians in Transylvania; Görgei had redeemed Northern Hungary; Klapka and Damjanics had brought Windischgrätz to bay in the midlands.
Well had it been for Hungary if these astonishing successes had prevented internal discord, for twofold dissensions now threatened to sap the growing strength. From one side, the generals chafed at being subordinate to the civilian Committee of Defense; on the other, a large body of soldiers and of civilians were angry at the evident drift of Kossuth and his friends towards a republic. Görgei, the most conspicuous of the generals, led this opposition. He declared in a manifesto that the army would fight to maintain against every foreign enemy the Constitution granted by Ferdinand, but that they would favor no attempt to convert the constitutional monarchy into a republic. The Committee of Defense, most eager in their patriotism, could not refrain from meddling; they suffered from the delusion common to such committees, and believed that they knew better than the trained men of war how war should be waged. They felt, too, political responsibilities which made them all the more active; and they had, as was natural, their favorites among the officers. Had the government been strong, it would have cashiered Görgei; being weak, and solicitous of conciliating so important a man, it tolerated him. But when a government and its generals distrust each other,—as we learned in our civil war,—conciliation can satisfy neither. If Görgei lost a battle, his enemies charged him with lukewarmness or disobedience; he retorted by blaming the committee for failing to support him or for breaking in upon his plans. We need not sift the recriminations in detail: it suffices for us to know that, from January on, Görgei and Kossuth, and their respective partisans, worked thus at odds.
Nevertheless, among the masses these quarrels had but slight effect. The average Magyar was simply bent on avenging his long score of oppression against Austria. He realized that his own existence depended on that of Hungary, and to him Kossuth’s eloquence was like a trumpet-call of duty. That in performing his duty the Magyar might lawfully wreak vengeance on his oppressors, made duty doubly attractive.
In the early spring, Austria closed the way to compromise by proclaiming a new charter for the whole Empire. This charter declared that all the provinces of the Empire were to be reduced to a common equality, deprived of local rights, and governed by a central administration at Vienna.
The Magyars, then, had nothing to hope. Whether they submitted to Austria or were conquered by her, their ancient Constitution would be blotted out. They would cease to be a nation. Accordingly, on April 14, 1849, they proclaimed the independence of Hungary, calling God and man to witness the wrongs she had suffered from the House of Hapsburg, and setting forth the illegality, truculence, and perfidy of Austria during the past thirteen months. A diet was to be summoned, which should determine the form of government that Hungary would permanently adopt; meanwhile Kossuth was chosen president-governor, and by appointing Görgei commander-in-chief he hoped to heal old wounds.