Chapter 19

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.

The only way in which he could hope to obtain the support of the court of Vienna and of the majority of the Upper House for his politico-economical measures, was to remain as neutral as possible in politics. The idea which chiefly governed his actions was that the country should be first strengthened internally, and that afterward it would be easy for the nation to bring about the triumph of her national and political aspirations.

After 1840, however, the bulk of the nation, and especially the small gentry whose preponderating influence was making itself continually felt, were unwilling to follow Szechenyi in his one-sided policy. The reformatory work of Szechenyi during the preceding fifteen years had educated public opinion up to new and great ideas, but the leaders of that public opinion were now to be found in the House of Representatives in the persons of Francis Deak and Louis Kossuth. They wished to obtain for their country both political liberty and material prosperity. They knew the effect of political institutions upon the material well-being and civilization of a nation, and they no longer deemed it possible to attain these objects without a modern constitutional government.

Louis Kossuth, who was born in 1802, was the very incarnation of the great democratic ideas of his age. He was entirely a man of work and entered the legal profession, after he had completed his studies with great distinction, for the purpose of supporting himself by it. Kossuth was present at the Diet of 1832, when the Government, which conducted itself most brutally and arbitrarily toward the press, refused to allow the newspapers to print reports of the deliberations of the Diet in spite of the repeated urgings by the Deputies for such an authorization, and it was owing to his ingenuity that this prohibition was evaded. The censorship was exercised on printed matter only and did not extend to manuscripts. Kossuth wrote out the reports of the Diet himself, had numerous copies made of them in writing, and circulated them, for a slight fee, in every part of the country, where they were looked for with feverish expectation, and, owing to the spirit of opposition with which they were colored, were read with the greatest eagerness.

This manuscript newspaper produced quite a revolutionary movement among the people, frightening even the Austrian Government. The latter now attempted to silence Kossuth by gentle means, promising him high offices and a pension, but he refused the enticing offers and continued his work for the benefit of the nation. Foiled in the attempt to lure Kossuth from his duty, the Government resorted to violence, seized the lithographic apparatus by means of which Kossuth planned to multiply his manuscript newspaper, and gave directions to the postmasters to detain and open all those sealed packages which were supposed to contain the reports. But these arbitrary proceedings of the Government could not put an end to the circulation of the newspaper; the country gentlemen, by their own servants, continued to send each other single copies, and the matter was given up only when the Diet ceased to be in session.

Then Kossuth, at the urgent request of his friends and, one might say, of the whole country, started a new manuscript newspaper at Budapest, which reported the deliberations of the county assemblies. The effect produced by this new paper was fraught with even greater consequences than the first had created, for it was instrumental in bringing the counties into contact with one another, thus giving them an opportunity to combine against the Government. The latter, however, soon prohibited its publication, but the prohibition gave rise to a storm of indignation throughout the whole country. The counties in solid array addressed protests to the Government against the illegal act and in behalf of Kossuth, who continued to publish the paper in spite of the inhibition. The Government at last resorted to the most barefaced brutality. Kossuth, the brave champion of liberty, its eloquent pen and herald, was dragged to a damp and dark subterranean prison-cell in the castle of Buda, and detained there, while his father and mother and his family, who were looking to him solely for their support, were robbed of the aid of their natural protector.

Although at that period lawlessness was the order of the day, yet this last cruel and illegal act of the Government greatly exasperated the public mind, which was already in a ferment of excitement. But while the excited passions raged throughout the country, the Government, nothing loth, caused Kossuth to be prosecuted for high treason, and, having obtained his conviction, had him sentenced to an imprisonment of three years. Kossuth applied himself during his detention to serious studies, and acquired also, while in prison, the English language to such an extent that he was enabled to address in that language, during his exile, with great effect and impressiveness, large audiences both in England and in the United States of America. His imprisonment lasted two long years, after the lapse of which he obtained, in 1840, a pardon in consequence of the repeated and urgent representations of the Diet.

Kossuth returned to the scene of his former activity as the martyr of free speech and the victim to the cause of the nation. He very soon found a new field in which to labor. The Government perceived at last that violence was of little avail, and that those questions which were occupying the minds to such a degree could no longer be kept from being publicly discussed by the press. Kossuth now obtained permission to edit a political daily paper. Its publication was commenced under the title of _Pesti Hirlap_ ("Newspaper of Pest") in 1841, and may be said to have created the political daily press of Hungary. It disseminated new ideas among the masses, stirred up the indifferent to feel an interest in the affairs of the country, and gave a purpose to the national aspirations. It proclaimed democratic reforms in every department; the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and of their exemption from taxation, equal rights and equal burdens for all the citizens of the State, and the extension of public instruction, and it endeavored to restore the Hungarian nationality to the place it was entitled to claim in the organism of the State.

The wealth of ideas thus daily communicated to the country appeared in the most attractive garb, for Kossuth possessed a masterly style, and his leaders and shorter articles showed off to advantage so many unexpected beauties of the Hungarian language that his readers were fairly enchanted and carried away by them. His articles were a happy compound of poetical elevation and oratorical power, gratifying common-sense and the imagination at the same time, appealing by their lucid exposition to the reader's intelligence, and exciting and warming his fancy by their fervor. Kossuth always rightly guessed what questions most interested the nation, and the daily press became, in his hands, a power in Hungary, electrifying the masses, who were always ready to give their unconditional support to his bold and far-reaching schemes.

The extraordinary influence obtained by Kossuth through his paper frightened Szechenyi, and, to even a greater degree, those whose prejudices were shocked or ancient privileges and interests were endangered by the democratic agitations for reform. Kossuth was attacked in books, pamphlets, and newspapers, but he came out victorious from all contests. In vain did Szechenyi himself, backed by his great authority in the land, assail him, declaring that he did not object to Kossuth's ideas, but that his manner and his tactics were reprehensible, and that the latter were sure to lead to a revolution. The great mass of the people felt instinctively that revolution had become a necessity and was unavoidable if Hungary was to pass from the old mediaeval order to the establishment of modern institutions and was to become a state where equality before the law should be the ruling standard. The masses were strengthened in this conviction by the unreasonable, short-sighted, and violent policy pursued by the Government of Vienna, which obstructed the slightest reforms in the ancient institutions and opposed every national aspiration, and under whose protecting wing the reactionary elements of the Upper House were constantly paralyzing the noblest and best efforts made by the Lower House for the public weal, while the same Government arbitrarily supported claims of the Catholic clergy, in flat contradiction to the rights and liberties of the various denominations inhabiting the country.

The Government, in its antipathy to the national movement, went even further. It secretly incited the other nationalities, especially the Croats, against the Hungarians, and thus planted the seeds from which sprang the subsequent great civil war. In observing the dangerous symptoms preceding the last-mentioned movement, and the bloody scenes and fights provoked at every election by the hirelings of the Government, in order to intimidate the adherents of reform, the friends of progress became more and more convinced that the period of moderation, such as preached by Szechenyi, had passed by, and must give way to that resolute policy, advocated by Kossuth, which recoiled from no consequences. Numerous magnates, all the chief leaders of the gentry boasting of enlightenment and patriotism, and imbued with European culture, rallied around Kossuth, until finally the public opinion of the country and the enthusiasm of which he was the centre caused him to be returned, in 1847, together with Count Louis Batthyanyi, as Deputy from the foremost county of the country, the county of Pest.

During the first months of the Diet of 1847-1848, which was to raise Hungary to the rank of those countries that proclaimed equal rights and possessed a responsible parliamentary government, it differed very little from the one preceding it. The opposition initiated great reforms, as before, but there was no one who believed that their realization was near at hand. Kossuth repeatedly addressed the House, and soon convinced his audience that he was as irresistible an orator as he had proved powerful as a writer. But there was nothing to indicate that the country was on the eve of a great transformation.

The revolution of February, 1848, which broke out in Paris, changed, as if by magic, the relative positions of Austria and Hungary. Metternich's system of government, which was opposed to granting liberty to the people, collapsed at once. The storm of popular indignation swept it away like a house built of cards. At the first news of the occurrences in Paris, Kossuth asked in the Lower House for the creation of a responsible ministry. The motion was favorably received, but in the Upper House it was rejected, the Government not being yet alive to the real state of affairs, and still hoping by a system of negation to frustrate the wishes of the people. But very soon the revolution reared its head in Vienna itself, and the wishes of the Hungarian people, uttered at Budapest, received thereby a new and powerful advocate.

At that time the Hungarian Diet still met at Presburg, but the two sister-cities of Buda and Pest formed the real capital of the country and were the centre of commerce, industry, science, and literature. Michael Vorosmarty, the poet laureate of the nation, lived in Pest, and there the twin stars of literature, Alexander Petofi and Maurice Jokai, shone on the national horizon. Jokai, who is still living (1886) and enjoys a world-wide fame as a novelist, and Petofi, the eminent poet, who was destined to become the Tyrtaeus of his nation, were then both young men, full of enthusiasm and intrepid energy, and teeming with great ideas.

About these two gathered the other writers and youth of the University, and all of them, helping one another, contrived, on hearing the news of the sudden revolutions in Paris and Vienna, to enact in Budapest the bloodless revolution of March 15, 1848, which obtained the liberty of the press for the nation, and at the same time, in a solemn manifesto, gave expression to the wishes of the Hungarians in the matter of reform. The only act of violence these revolutionary heroes were guilty of was the entering of a printing establishment, whose proprietor, afraid of the Government, had refused to print the admirable poem of Petofi entitled _Talpra Magyar_ ("Up, Magyar"), and doing the printing there themselves. The first stanza of this poem, later the war-song of the national movement, runs, in a literal translation, thus:

"Arise, O Magyar! thy country calls. Here is the time, now or never. Shall we be slaves or free? That is the question--choose! We swear by the God of the Magyars, We swear, to be slaves no longer!"

This soul-stirring poem was improvised by Petofi under the inspiration of the moment, and at the same establishment where it was first printed was also printed a proclamation which contained twelve articles setting forth the wishes of the people.

While the capital was resounding with the rejoicings and triumphant shouts of her exulting inhabitants, the proper department of the Government for the carrying through of these movements, the Diet, assembled at Presburg, lost no time, and set to work with great energy to reform the institutions of Hungary, constitutionally, and to put into the form of law the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The salutary legislation met now with no opposition, either from the Upper House or from the court at Vienna, and in a short time the Diet passed the celebrated acts of 1848, which, having received the royal sanction, were proclaimed as laws on April 11th, at Presburg, amid the wildest enthusiasm, in the presence of King Ferdinand V.

By these laws Hungary became a modern state, possessing a constitutional government. The Government was vested in a ministry responsible to the Parliament, all the inhabitants of the country were declared equal before the law, the privileges of the nobility were abolished, the soil was declared free, and the right of free worship accorded to all. The institution of national guards was introduced, the utmost liberty of the press was secured, Transylvania became a part of the mother-country--in a word, the national and political condition of the country was reorganized, in every particular, in harmony with the spirit, the demands, and aspirations of our age. At the same time the men placed at the head of the Government were such as possessed the fullest confidence of the people. The first ministry was composed of the most distinguished patriots. Count Louis Batthyanyi was the President; and acting in conjunction with him were Francis Deak, as Minister of Justice; Count Stephen Szechenyi, as Minister of Home Affairs; and Louis Kossuth, as Minister of Finance.

The great mass of the people hailed with boundless enthusiasm the new Government and the magnificent reforms. The transformation, however, had been so sudden and unexpected, and the old aristocratic world, with all its institutions and its ancient organization, had been swept away with such vehement precipitation that even under ordinary circumstances, in the absence of all opposition, the new ideas and tendencies could have hardly entered into the political life of the nation without causing some confusion and disorder. But, in addition to these natural drawbacks, the new order of things had to contend with certain national elements in the population, which, feeling themselves injured in their real or imaginary interests, were bent on mischief, hoping to be able to rob the nation, in the midst of the ensuing troubles, of the great political prize she had won. Certain circles of the court and classes of the people strove equally hard to surround with difficulties the practical introduction of the Constitution of 1848.

The court and the standing army, the party of the soldier class, feared that their commanding position would be impaired by the predominating influence of the people. The non-Hungarian portion of the inhabitants, choosing to ignore the fact that the new laws secured, without distinction of nationality, equal rights to every citizen of the State, were apprehensive lest the liberal constitution would benefit chiefly the Hungarian element of the nation. They, therefore, encouraged by the secret machinations of the Government of Vienna, took up arms, in order to drag the country, which was preparing to take possession of her new liberties, into a civil war. The Croatians, under the lead of Ban Jellachich, and the Wallachs and Serbs, led by other imperial officers, and yielding to their persuasions, rose in rebellion against Hungary, and began to persecute, plunder, and murder the Hungarians living among them.

Dreadful atrocities were committed in the southern and eastern portions of Hungary, hundreds and hundreds of families were massacred in cold blood, and entire villages and cities were deserted by their inhabitants, just as had previously happened at the approach of the Turks, and thousands were compelled to abandon their all to the rebels, in order to escape with their bare lives. In the course of a few weeks, the flames of rebellion had spread over a large part of the country, and the Hungarian element, instead of enjoying the liberties won for the whole nation after a bitter struggle of many decades, was under the sad necessity of resorting to armed force in order to reëstablish the internal peace. The Hungarians now had to prove on the battlefield and in bloody engagements that they were worthy of liberty and capable of defending it.

The Government, which, by virtue of the new laws, had meanwhile transferred its seat to Budapest, displayed extraordinary energy in the face of the sad difficulties besetting it. As it was impossible to rely upon the Austrian soldiers who were still in the country, it exerted itself to create and to organize a national army. A portion of the National Guard entered the national army under the name of _honveds_ ("defenders of the country"), a name which became before long famous throughout the civilized world for the brilliant military achievements connected with it. The Hungarian soldiers garrisoning the Austrian principalities hastened home, braving the greatest dangers, partly accompanied by their officers and partly without them. The famous Hungarian hussars, especially, returned in great number to offer their services to their imperilled country. But all this proved insufficient, and as soon as the National Assembly, elected under the new constitution, met, Kossuth, who had been the life and soul of the Government during this trying and critical period, called upon the nation to raise large armies for the defence of the country.

The session of July 11th, during which Kossuth introduced in the House of Representatives his motions relating to the subject, presented a scene which beggars all description. Kossuth ascended the tribune pale and haggard with illness, but the long-continued applause that greeted him after the first few sentences soon gave him back his strength and his marvellous oratorical power. When he had concluded his speech and submitted to the House his request for two hundred thousand soldiers and the necessary money, a momentary pause of deep silence ensued. Suddenly Paul Nyary, the leader of the opposition, arose, and lifting his right arm toward heaven, exclaimed: "We grant it!" The House was in a fever of patriotic excitement; all the Deputies rose from their seats, shouting, "We grant it; we grant it!" Kossuth, with tears in his eyes, bowed to the representatives of the people and said, "You have risen like one man, and I bow down before the greatness of the nation."

These sacrifices on the part of the country had become a matter of urgent necessity. The Serb and Wallach insurrection assumed every day larger proportions, while the Croats, under the leadership of Jellachich, entered Hungarian territory with the fixed determination of depriving the nation of her constitutional liberties. But the Hungarian Government was already able to send an army against the Croatians, who were marching on Budapest, plundering and laying waste everything before them. They were surrounded by the Hungarian forces, and a part of their army, nine thousand men strong, was compelled to lay down its arms, while Jellachich, with his remaining forces, precipitately fled from the country. The young Hungarian army had thus proved itself equal to the task of repelling the attack of the Croats, but the recent events were nevertheless fraught with the gravest consequences.