Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

From the moment of Jellachich's nomination to the office of Ban of Croatia, without the consent of the responsible Hungarian ministry, his concert with a party hostile to Hungary at the imperial court had not been doubtful; and that party had now prevailed upon the emperor-king to adopt their views. The influence of the Ban was not shaken by his defeat. The court had previously identified itself with his proceedings, and he had faithfully, though not hitherto successfully, espoused its cause. He had declared against the laws of April and the separate ministry in Hungary, which these laws had established, and in favour of a central government at Vienna for the whole dominions of the emperor, which he proposed to force the Hungarians to accept. He was no longer a Croat chief, asserting the national pretensions of his countrymen, but an Austrian general, assailing the constitution and the independence of Hungary. From the position at Raab, on the road to Vienna, to which he had retreated after his reverse, he applied for reinforcements to enable him again to advance towards Pesth. It was the refusal of these reinforcements to march that led to the second revolution at Vienna, which has been attributed to Hungarian agency. It is probable that the Hungarians would employ all the influence they could command to prevent or impede the march of troops to attack them; but it is remarkable that the prosecutions of persons engaged in that revolution do not appear to have elicited anything that would justify us in attributing the revolt of the Viennese to the Hungarians. Attempts have also been made to implicate the Hungarians in the atrocious murder of Latour, the minister of war, by the insurgents of Vienna, but we have not been able to trace any foundation for such a charge. The Hungarians were formidable enemies, and to them every atrocity was attributed.

The Emperor of Austria was now at war with Hungary, and his enemies, therefore, became her allies. The revolutionary party at Vienna for a time regained the ascendency, and signalised it by the crime to which we have referred. After Windischgratz and Jellachich had invested the city, the Viennese applied to the Hungarians for aid; but their levies and national guards had returned in great numbers to their homes, and their army was not in a condition to make any impression upon that of the emperor. It advanced, and was repulsed. The Austrian government, by allying itself with rebellion and anarchy to subvert the established constitution of Hungary, had driven the Hungarians, in self-defence, into an alliance with the revolutionary party in Vienna against the government.

The error into which it had been led ought now to have been manifest to the Austrian cabinet; and it was not yet too late to remedy the evil. By returning to the course of legality and good faith, the Imperial government might have disarmed and regained Hungary. If there was in that country, as there no doubt was, a party which was disposed to sympathise with the republicans, and even with the worst of the anarchists in Austria, they were without power or influence, and their evil designs would at once have been frustrated, their opinions repudiated, and the loyalty of the nation confirmed; but the court had unfortunately placed itself in a position that left it but the choice of abandoning and breaking faith with the rebels to Hungary, whose eminent services at Vienna it was bound to acknowledge, or of persevering in the breach of faith with Hungary, which his advisers had forced upon the emperor-king. That the Hungarians had been ready to support the cause of monarchy and order, so long as faith had been kept with them, was put beyond all question by the vote of the diet, which, on the motion of the responsible Hungarian ministry formed in April, had placed forty thousand Hungarian troops at the disposal of the emperor, for service in Italy, "to preserve the honour of the Austrian arms," then endangered by the first reverses of Marshal Radetski. The Wessemberg ministry appears to have contemplated restoring the king of Hungary and his subjects to their legal and constitutional relations, for it issued a circular declaring that the king intended to fulfil the engagements he had entered into in April. But the power of the minister was subordinate to that of a party at the court, whose views were opposed to his own; and the acts of the government were not such as to restore confidence in its sincerity, at all times a difficult task for a government that has justly forfeited the confidence of a whole nation. Hungary did not dare to suspend her preparations for resistance; and the second revolution at Vienna, by occupying the troops destined to attack her, gave her time to improve her means of defence.

Had there been at Vienna a government capable of inspiring confidence in its sincerity – a government possessing power or influence enough to carry out conciliatory measures, to fulfil the engagements it might contract – the differences between Austria and Hungary might still have been amicably adjusted, by restoring the constitutional government established in April. All the bloodshed and misery that has ensued, and all the evils that may yet follow from the war, would thus have been averted. But irresponsible advisers had more influence at the court than the ostensible cabinet, and were blindly bent on returning to the irretrievable past. They founded their hopes upon the devotion of that noble army which had re-established order in Austria, and which, if employed only to maintain order and the just rights of the monarchy, would have encountered no opposition that it could not overcome. Hungary, cordially reunited to Austria under the same sovereign, would again have become, what the Emperor Francis declared it to be, "the chief bulwark of the monarchy;" and the empire would have resumed its position as the guardian of peace and order in Eastern Europe, and a powerful support to the cause of constitutional monarchy and rational liberty everywhere.

Unhappily for the Austrian empire, for Europe, and for "the good cause," evil counsels prevailed, and Hungary was again invaded. Many of the leading magnates adhered to the court, at which they had spent their lives, and which was in fact their home. But there was hardly a great family of which some wealthy and influential members did not declare for their native country. A great majority of the resident aristocracy – the numerous class of resident country gentlemen, almost without exception – the body of inferior nobles or freeholders – the peasant-proprietors and the labouring population, espoused the cause of Hungary. The Protestant clergy in the Majjar country, to a man, and the Roman Catholic clergy of Hungary in a body, urged their flocks to be patient and orderly, to obey the government charged with the defence of the country, and to be faithful and valiant in defending it.

The attacks of Jellachich, and of that portion of the Croats and Serbes which had declared against Hungary, had failed to bring about the submission of the diet, and had produced an alliance, dangerous to the court, between its enemies in the Hereditary States and the Hungarians, with whom it was now at war. The national assembly or congress that met at Vienna was tainted with republican notions, and divided into factions, influenced for the most part by feelings of race. German unity, Sclave ascendency, and Polish regeneration, were the ultimate objects of many of those who talked of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The discussion of the constitution revealed the discord in their opinions, and they seemed to agree in nothing but the determination to overturn the ancient system of the empire.

Wearied by contentions, in which his character and feelings unfitted him to take a part; distracted by diverse counsels; involved by a series of intrigues, from which he could not escape, in conflicting engagements; dreading the new order of things, and diffident of his own ability to perform the duties it demanded of him, the Emperor Ferdinand abdicated; and by a family arrangement the crown of Austria was transferred, not to the next heir, but to the second in succession. The crown of Hungary, as we formerly stated, had been settled by statute on the heirs of the House of Hapsburg; but no provision had been made for the case which had now arisen. The Hungarians held that their king had no power to abdicate; that so long as he lived he must continue to be their king; that if he became incapable of performing the regal functions, the laws had reserved to the diet the power to provide for their due performance; that the crown of Hungary was settled by statute on the heirs of the House of Hapsburg, and the Emperor Francis Joseph was not the heir. The laws of Hungary required that her king should be legitimately crowned according to the ancient customs of the kingdom, and should take the coronation oath before he could exercise his rights or authority as sovereign. If he claimed the crown of Hungary as his legal right, he was bound to abide by the laws on which that right was founded. But these laws required that he should be crowned according to the customs of Hungary, and that he should bind himself by a solemn oath to maintain the constitution and the laws, including those passed in March, sanctioned and put into operation in April 1848. In short, that he should concede what Hungary was contending for.

The abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand, and the accession to the Imperial throne of his youthful successor, presented another opportunity of which the Austrian government might have gracefully availed itself, to terminate the differences with Hungary. The young emperor was fettered by no engagements, involved in none of the intrigues that entangled his unwary predecessor, and entailed so great evils upon the country. He was free to take a constitutional course in Hungary, to confirm the concessions which had been voluntarily made, and which could not now be recalled – to restore to the Imperial government a character for good faith; and thus to have won the hearts of the Hungarians. Supported by their loyal attachment to their king, he might have peacefully worked out the reforms in the government of his empire which the times and the circumstances demanded or justified. But Count Stadion, the real head of the new ministry, though possessed of many eminent qualities as a statesman, was deeply imbued with the old longing after unity in the system of government: he hoped to effect, by means of a constitution devised and framed for that purpose, the amalgamation of the different parts of the empire, which abler men had failed to accomplish under an absolute monarchy, in circumstances more favourable to success. The opposition that was inevitable in Hungary he proposed to overcome by force of arms; and, at a moment when a desire for separate nationality was the predominant feeling in the minds of all the different races in the empire, he had the hardihood to imagine that he could frame a constitution capable of overcoming this desire, and of fusing them all into one. It was considered an advantage that the emperor, unfettered by personal engagements to Hungary, was free to prosecute its subjugation, to subvert its constitution, and to force the Hungarians to accept in its place the constitution of Count Stadion, with seats in the Assembly at Vienna for their representatives, under one central government for the united empire. This may have been a desirable result to obtain; it might, if attainable, have been ultimately conducive to the strength of the empire and the welfare of all classes; but it was not to claim the hereditary succession to a throne secured and guarded by statutes – it was rather to undertake the conquest of a kingdom.

Windischgratz and Jellachich occupied Pesth without opposition, set aside the constituted authorities, and governed the country, as far as their army extended, by martial law. The Committee of Defence retired beyond the Theis to Debreczin, in the heart of the Majjar country, and appealed to the patriotism of the Hungarians. The army was rapidly recruited, and was organised in the field, for the campaign may be said to have endured throughout the whole winter. From time to time it was announced from Vienna that the war was about to be terminated by the advance of the imperial army, and the dispersion or destruction of Kossuth's faction. The flight of Kossuth, and his capture as a fugitive in disguise, were reported and believed. The delay in the advance of the imperial army was attributed to the rigour of the season and the state of the roads; and, when these impediments no longer existed, to the incapacity of Windischgratz, who was roughly handled by the government press of Vienna. The true cause was carefully concealed. The resistance was not that of a faction, but of a nation. That fact has been fully established by the events in this unfortunate, unnecessary, and unnatural war.

The Austrian armies employed in Hungary have probably exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand regular troops, aided by irregular bands of Croats and Serbes, and latterly by a Russian corps of ten thousand men. They established themselves both in Transylvania and in Hungary, and were in possession of the whole of the fertile country from the frontiers of Austria to the Theis, which flows through the centre of the kingdom. From Transylvania, both the Austrian and the Russian forces have been driven into Wallachia. From the line of the Theis the imperial army has been forced across the Danube, on which they were unable to maintain their positions. The sieges of Komorn and Peterwardein, the two great fortresses on the Danube, of which the capture or surrender has so often been announced, have been raised; and the question is no longer whether Debreczin is to be occupied by the Emperor's forces, but whether Vienna is safe from the Hungarians. Opposed to the admirable army of Austria, these results could not have been obtained unless the great body of the nation had been cordially united, nor even then, unless by a people of great energy, courage, and intelligence.

Had the government of Austria known how to win the hearts of the Hungarians for their sovereign – had they but preserved the good faith and the sanctity of the monarchy in Hungary, how secure and imposing might the position of the Emperor have now been, in the midst of all the troubles in Germany! Hungary desired no revolution; she had peacefully obtained, by constitutional means, all she desired. Her revolution had been effected centuries ago; and, with indigenous institutions, to which her people were warmly attached, she would have maintained, as she did maintain, her internal tranquillity and her constitutional monarchy, whatever storms might rage around her.

The resources that Hungary has put forth in this contest have surprised Europe, because Europe had not taken the trouble to calculate the strength and the resources of Hungary. With a compact territory, equal in extent to Great Britain and Ireland, or to Prussia, and the most defensible frontier of any kingdom on the continent of Europe; with a population nearly equal to that of England, and not much inferior to that of Prussia;[6 - The extent of Hungary, including Transylvania, is above 125,000 square miles; that of Great Britain and Ireland is 122,000, and that of Prussia about 116,000. The population of Hungary, according to the best authorities, is nearly fourteen millions; that of England (in 1841) was nearly fifteen millions; that of Prussia about sixteen millions.] with a climate equal to that of France, and soil of greater natural fertility than any of these; with a representative government long established, and free indigenous institutions, which the people venerate; with a brave, energetic, and patriotic population, predisposed to military pursuits, jealous of their national independence, and of their personal liberty – ambitious of military renown, proud of their traditionary prowess, and impressed with an idea of their own superiority to the surrounding populations – Hungary, as all who know the country and the people were aware, would be found a formidable antagonist by any power that might attack her. But, paradoxical and incredible as it may appear, we believe it is not the less true, that, little as Hungary was known in most of the countries of Europe, there was hardly a capital, in that quarter of the globe, where more erroneous notions regarding it prevailed than in Vienna. In other places there was ignorance; in the capital of Austria there was the most absurd misapprehension. Though generally a calm, sensible man, possessing a considerable amount of general information, an Austrian, even after he has travelled, appears to be peculiarly incapable of understanding a national character different from his own: this is true even in respect to other Germans; and neither the proximity of the countries, nor the frequent intercourse of their inhabitants, seems to have enabled him to form any reasonable estimate of the Hungarian character or institutions. We might adduce curious evidence of this ignorance, even in persons of distinction; but we shall content ourselves with quoting Mr Paget's observations on the subject, in June 1835: —

"The reader would certainly laugh, as I have often done since, did I tell him one half of the foolish tales the good Viennese told us of the country we were about to visit – no roads! no inns! no police! We must sleep on the ground, eat where we could, and be ready to defend our purses and our lives at every moment. In full credence of these reports, we provided ourselves most plentifully with arms, which were carefully loaded, and placed ready for immediate use… It may, however, ease the reader's mind to know, that no occasion to shoot anything more formidable than a partridge or a hare presented itself, and that we finished our journey with the full conviction, that travelling in Hungary was just as safe as travelling in England.

Why, or wherefore, I know not, but nothing can exceed the horror with which a true Austrian regards both Hungary and its inhabitants. I have sometimes suspected that the bugbear with which a Vienna mother frightens her squaller to sleep must be an Hungarian bugbear; for in no other way can I account for the inbred and absurd fear which they entertain for such near neighbours. It is true, the Hungarians do sometimes talk about liberty, constitutional rights, and other such terrible things, to which no well-disposed ears should be open, and to which the ears of the Viennese are religiously closed."

There were, no doubt, elements of discord in Hungary, of which Austria, on former occasions as well as now, took advantage; but their value to her in the present war has been greatly overrated. The population of the kingdom, like that of the empire, is composed of various races, amongst which there are differences of language, religion, customs, and sentiments. Of the 14,000,000 of people who inhabit Hungary, not more than 5,000,000 are Majjars, about 1,262,000 are Germans, 2,311,000 Wallacks, and, of the remaining 5,400,000, nine-tenths or more are Sclaves. The Sclaves are therefore as numerous as the Majjars; and, although these races had at all times combined against foreign enemies, it was probable that they would not unite in a domestic quarrel, as that with Austria might be considered. When a great part of the colonists of the military frontier, chiefly Croats and Serbes, took part against the government of Hungary, and asserted a Sclave nationality as opposed to the Hungarian nationality, it was too hastily assumed, by persons imperfectly informed, that the whole Sclavonic population, equalling the Majjars in number, would be available to Austria in the war. But the Sclaves of Hungary are a disunited race, divided into nine different tribes, the greater part of which have nothing in common except their origin. Most of these tribes speak languages or dialects which are mutually unintelligible; and the Sclaves of different tribes are sometimes obliged to use the Majjar tongue as their only means of communication. Some belong to the Roman Catholic Church, some to the Greek; others are Protestants – Lutheran or Calvinist: and some, while they have submitted to the see of Rome, retain many of their Greek forms and services, adhere to the Greek calendar, and constitute a distinct communion. The Slovacks of Northern Hungary, numbering 1,600,000, are partly Roman Catholics, partly Protestants – and have no intercourse or community of language or feeling with the Sclaves of Southern and Western Hungary, from whom they are separated by the intervention of the Majjar country. The Ruthenes, also in Northern Hungary, are distinct from the Slovacks, occupy a different portion of the slopes and spurs of the Carpathians, and have no connexion with the Sclaves on the right bank of the Danube, from whom they are separated by the whole breadth of Hungary and Transylvania at that point – they amount to about 400,000. The Croats, not quite 900,000 in number, are partly Roman Catholics and partly belong to the Greek Church. When religious toleration was established in Hungary, they exercised the power enjoyed by the provincial assembly to exclude Protestants from the country. The Shocks of Sclavonia Proper, and the Rasciens of that province and of the Banat, amounting respectively to above 800,000, and nearly half a million, are tribes of the Serbe stock, of whom the greater part adhere to the Greek Church, and whose language is different from that of the Croats, the Slovacks, and the Ruthenes. The Bulgarians, about 12,000, the Montenegrins, about 2000, and the Wends from Styria, about 50,000, are small distinct tribes, speaking different languages, and divided by religious differences. But the whole of these Sclavonic tribes have this in common, that they are all animated by a feeling of hatred to the German race; and more than half of the Sclave population of Hungary has joined the Hungarians against Austria.

There was also a belief that the Hungarians had oppressed the Sclaves, and that the whole Sclave race would therefore combine to put down their oppressors. This was another misapprehension. Great efforts have been made by some of their poets and their journalists to persuade the Sclaves that they were oppressed; and the Croat newspapers and pamphlets of M. Gay, and the Austrian journals, have circulated this belief over Germany, whence it was disseminated over Europe; but there seems to have been no foundation for the charge. The Sclaves enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the Hungarians; they were protected by the same laws; they have shared equally with the Hungarians in all the concessions obtained by the Diet of Hungary, to which the Sclaves sent their own representatives, from the sovereign; they bore less than their due proportion of the public burdens, and they were left in the enjoyment of their own internal and municipal administration. Croatia, where the movement in favour of what was called Illyrian nationality originated fifteen or sixteen years ago, and where it was fostered, curiously enough, by the patronage of two imperial governments – Croatia does not appear to have any reason to complain of Hungarian oppression. The Croats had their own provincial assembly or diet, which regulated the internal affairs of the province, their own county assemblies, their own Ban or governor, they elected their own county and municipal officers; a great part of the province was organised as a part of the military frontier, and was therefore removed from the control of the Hungarian Diet, and brought more directly under the authorities at Vienna. The only specific charge, so far as we have been able to discover, that they brought against the Hungarians was, that the Majjars desired to impose their language upon the Croats. The history of the matter is this, – Latin had been the language of public business, of debates, and of the decisions of courts of law in Hungary, till the attempt of Joseph II. to substitute the German excited a strong national movement in favour of the Majjar. From 1790 this movement has been persevered in with the greatest steadiness; and in 1830 an act was passed by the Diet, and sanctioned by the king, which decreed that, after the 1st of January 1844, no one could be named to any public office who did not know the Majjar. This completed the series of measures which substituted that language for the Latin, a language unintelligible to the great body of the people. If a living was to be substituted for a dead language, no other than the Majjar could well be selected. Besides being greatly more numerous than any other tribe speaking one language, the Majjars were the wealthiest, the most intelligent and influential; and their language was spoken not only by their own race, but by a large proportion of the other inhabitants of the country – probably by six or seven times as many persons as used any other Hungarian dialect. The Croats, whose language was not that of any other tribe, could not expect it to be chosen, and all that was required of them to employ the Majjar where they had hitherto employed the Latin language, and nowhere else. The county of Agram, the most important and populous of the three counties of Croatia, repudiated the notion of a separate Illyrian nationality, of which, however, the county town was the centre; and clung to Hungary as the safeguard of its liberty. The truth is that the Croats, of whose hostility to the Hungarians we have heard so much, are nearly equally divided between Hungary and Austria; and, but for the military organisation which places so large a portion of that people at the disposal of Austria – and that the most formidable portion – the agitators for Illyrian nationality would probably have been put down by their own countrymen. The Slovacks, a people of Bohemian origin, refugees from religious persecution, have joined the Hungarians. A great part of the people of Sclavonia Proper have refused to take part against Hungary. The tribes that have engaged most extensively and violently in hostilities against the Hungarians have been the people of Servian race, and of the Greek church, in the counties of the Lower Danube, and in Croatia. Amongst the Hungarian Sclaves of the Greek church, it is well known that foreign influence has long been at work, for which the Greek priesthood are ready instruments. The hopes of these tribes have been turned towards the head of their church, and the sympathies of thirty millions of Eastern Sclaves who belong to the same church.

Though feelings of nationality and of race have been developed in Hungary, as elsewhere, to an extent hitherto unexampled, they have there to contend with the craving for liberty, which has at the same time acquired intensity, and which amongst the Sclaves has been fostered and inflamed by the efforts of those who, for the purpose of exciting them against the Majjars, would persuade them that they were the victims of oppression. The more intelligent and influential are now convinced, that it is to Hungary – to which they owe the liberty they enjoy – and not to anarchy, or to Austria, against the attacks of whose government Hungary has so long defended their freedom and her own, that they must look for advancement.

The relative positions of the peasants and the nobles, and the antagonism of these classes, enabled Austria to exercise great influence and even power in Hungary. The peasant population, amounting to three millions or more, now emancipated from their disabilities and exclusive or disproportionate burdens, and raised to the rank and wealth of freeholders and proprietors, by the liberality of the nobles, have an equal interest with them in defending the institutions to which they owe their elevation.

The elements of discord, although they were such as enabled agitators to raise a part of the Sclaves against the Hungarians, when it was resolved to retract the concessions that had been made to them, would hardly have been found available for that purpose, had not the instigators of the revolt acted in the name of the King of Hungary, and of more than one imperial government; nor even then, perhaps, had they not been enabled to dispose of the resources of the military frontier. Now that the Hungarians have obtained important successes, it is probable that the Sclaves will all join them. The movement of these tribes against the Hungarians, which was caused by other influences in addition to that of Austria, has thus tended to lead the imperial government into hostility with Hungary, without contributing much to its strength.

When the Austrian government resolved to subjugate Hungary, it was presumed that they undertook the conquest of that country relying on their own resources. But the success of the enterprise was so doubtful, and a failure so hazardous to the empire, that we never could believe it possible that it had been undertaken without an assurance of support. It is true that the imperial government might at that time have expected an adjustment of their differences with Sardinia; but Venice still held out, peace with Sardinia had not been concluded, the state of Italy was daily becoming more alarming, and the Austrian cabinet knew that they could maintain their hold of Lombardy, and reduce Venice, only by means of a powerful army. They were aware that the condition of Galicia, and even of Bohemia, was precarious, and that neither could safely be denuded of troops. The state of affairs in Germany was not such as to give them confidence, still less to promise them support; and the attitude they assumed towards the assembly at Frankfort, though not unworthy of the ancient dignity of Austria, was not calculated to diminish her anxiety. Even in the Hereditary States all was not secure. They were aware that old sentiments and feelings had been shaken and disturbed; that, although order had for the time been restored, by the fidelity and courage of the army, men's minds were still unsettled; and that, both in the capital and in the provinces, there were factions whose sympathies were not with the imperial government, and which, in case of disasters, might again become formidable. The capital alone required a garrison of twenty thousand men, to keep it in subjection – to preserve its tranquillity. Putting aside, therefore, every consideration as to the justice of the war, and looking merely to its probable consequences, it is obvious that, without such a preponderance of power and resources as would not only insure success, but insure it at once – by one effort – it would have been madness in Austria, for the purpose of forcing her constitution upon the Hungarians, to engage in a contest in which she staked her power – her existence – and which could not fail to be dangerous to her if it became protracted.

Let us then examine the resources of both parties, and see what was the preponderance on the side of Austria, which would justify her in undertaking so hazardous an enterprise, on the supposition that she relied solely on her own resources.

The Austrian empire contains a population of 36,000,000; of these about 7,000,000 are Germans – about 15,500,000 are Sclaves, – nearly 8,000,000 are of Italian and Dacian races, and about 5,600,000 of Asiatic races, including 5,000,000 of Majjars. If from these 36,000,000 we deduct the population of Hungary, 14,000,000, of Lombardy and Venice, 4,876,000 – or, together, nearly 19,000,000, hostile to Austria – and the population of Galicia, 4,980,000, which did not contribute to her strength, to say nothing of Bohemia or Vienna, or Crakow, there will remain to Austria, to carry on the war, only 12,144,000. But, as probably two millions of the Sclaves and other tribes of Hungary, including the military frontier, may have been reckoned as on her side, that number may be deducted from Hungary and added to Austria. There will then remain to Hungary a population of 12,000,000, concentrated in their own country for its defence, and to Austria about 14,000,000, whose military resources must be distributed over her whole dominions – from the frontiers of Russia to those of Sardinia, from the frontiers of Prussia to the confines of Turkey – to re-establish her authority in Lombardy, to reduce Venice to submission, to hold the Sardinians and the Italian republicans in check, to control and overawe Galicia and Crakow, to garrison Vienna and maintain tranquillity at home, and, finally, to conquer 12,000,000 of Hungarians. It is true she had a noble army, and Hungary then had almost none, except such levies as she had hastily raised, and which were as yet without skilful commanders. But Austria knew by experience the difficulties and hazards of a war in Hungary. Her government must have known the resources of the country, the courage and patriotism of its inhabitants, and the success that had attended their resistance to her forces on more than one former occasion. Surrounded by difficulties at home, in Italy, and in Germany, with full one half of the population of the empire hostile to the government, she was undertaking an enterprise which her forces, in circumstances far more favourable to success, had repeatedly failed to accomplish.

Reviewing the whole of these considerations, therefore, we hold it to be quite incredible that the Austrian government, having the alternative of restoring peace, by permitting the King of Hungary to fulfil his engagements to his subjects, could have preferred a war for the subjugation of Hungary, if she had relied solely on her own resources, or followed only her own impulses and the dictates of her own interest. We cannot doubt that she was assured of foreign aid – that her resolution to make war upon Hungary, rather than keep faith with her, was adopted in concert with the power by which that aid was to be furnished. If this inference be just, we may find in that concert a reason for the extraordinary accumulation of Russian troops in Wallachia and Moldavia, which appeared to threaten the Ottoman Porte, but which also threatened Hungary, where the only corps that has been actively employed found occupation. The feeling of Germany made it unsafe to bring Russian troops into Austria; but the massing of Russian troops in the Danubian principalities of Turkey excited no jealousy in Germany. Austria, too, shrinking instinctively from the perils of Russian intervention, while in reliance on that support she pursued a bold and hazardous policy, with a confidence which otherwise would have been unintelligible and misplaced, hoped perhaps to escape the danger of having recourse to the aid on which she relied.

Having employed all her disposable means in the war, Austria now maintains it at a disadvantage, for her own defence. Her armies have been defeated, her resources exhausted or crippled, her capital is in danger, and she must either concede the demands of the Hungarians, or call in the armies of Russia to protect her government and enforce her policy. What the demands of the Hungarians may now be, we know not; but if they have wisdom equal to the courage and energy they have displayed, they will be contented with the restitution of their legal rights, which Austria may grant without dishonour, because in honour and good faith they ought never to have been rejected. If they are wise as they are brave, the Hungarians will seek to restore unity and peace to the empire with which their lot has been cast – whose weakness cannot be their strength – whose independence is necessary to their own security. That the intervention of Russia would be fatal to the Austrian empire, to its dignity, its power, its capacity to fulfil the conditions of its existence as a great independent state – the guardian of eastern Europe – is, we think, unquestionable. Attributing no interested design to Russia – assuming that she desires nothing so much as the strength and stability of the Austrian empire – we cannot doubt that the re-establishment and maintenance of the imperial government's authority by the military force of Russia, were it the best government that ever existed, would desecrate, in the heart of every German, the throne of the Kaiser, and cover it with dust and ashes. In a contest between the Russians and the Hungarians, the sympathy of all Germany, of all western Europe, would be with the Majjars. Half the Emperor of Austria's own heart would be on the side of the loyal nation to which his house owes so large a debt of gratitude; who, he must be aware, have been alienated only by the errors and the injustice of his advisers, and who, if they are sacrificed, will not, and cannot be sacrificed to his interests. Hungary was perfectly satisfied with her constitution and her government, as established by the laws of April 1848. She was loyal to her king, and careful of the honour of Austria, which she sent her best troops to defend in another country; her crimes have been her attachment to established institutions, and the courage and patriotism with which she has defended them. This is not the spirit which it can ever be the interest of a sovereign to extinguish in his own subjects. The desire to overturn established institutions is the very evil which the Emperors of Austria and Russia profess to combat, and their first efforts are to be directed against the only Christian nation between the frontiers of Belgium and Russia – between Denmark and Malta, which was satisfied with its institutions and government, and determined to maintain them.

If Russia engages seriously in the war, she will put forth her whole strength, and Hungary may probably be overpowered; but can she forget her wrongs or her successes? – will she ever again give her affection to the man who, claiming her crown as his hereditary right, has crushed her under the foot of a foreign enemy? If anything can extinguish loyalty in the heart of a Hungarian, the attempt of the Emperor to put the Muscovite's foot upon his neck will accomplish it. We can imagine no degradation more deeply revolting to the proud Majjar, or more likely to make him sum up all reasoning upon the subject with the desperate resolution to sell his life as dearly as he can. There is therefore much reason to fear lest a people, who but a few weeks ago were certainly as firmly attached to monarchy as any people in Europe, not excepting either the Spaniards or ourselves, should be driven by the course Austria has pursued, and especially by the intervention of Russia, to renounce their loyalty and consort with the enemies of monarchy. Their struggle is now for life or death – it ceases to be a domestic quarrel from the moment Russia engages in it; and Hungary must seek such support as she can find. Austria has done everything she could to convert the quarrel into a war of opinion, by representing it and treating it as such; and now that she has brought to her aid the great exemplar and champion of absolute monarchy, it is not impossible that she may succeed.

Russia comes forward to re-establish by force of arms the authority of a government which has been unable to protect itself against its own subjects; and, when re-established, she will have to maintain it. How long this military protection is to endure, after all armed opposition is put down, no man can pretend to foretell. It must depend upon events which are beyond the reach of human foresight. But a government that is dependent for its authority on a foreign power, must, in every sense of the term, cease to be an independent government. Is it under Russian protection that Austria is to preserve Lombardy, or to maintain her influence in Germany? Would the Sclavonic population of Austria continue to respect a German government protected by a nation of Sclaves – would they not rather feel that the real power was that of their own race? Would the Austrians forget the humiliation of Russian protection, or forgive the government that had sacrificed their independence? Dependent upon Russian protection, the Austrian government could no longer give security to Turkey, or counterbalance the weight with which the power of Russia, whatever may be the moderation of the reigning emperor, must continue to press upon the frontiers of weaker countries. In such a state of things, the relations of Austria to the rest of Europe would be changed – reversed. Instead of being the bulwark of Germany and the safeguard of Turkey against Russia, she would become the advanced post of Russia against both. Is it to bring her to this condition that she has allowed herself to be involved in the war with Hungary? Is it to arrive at this result that she will consent to prolong it?

Of the effect, in Germany, of the Russian intervention in Austria, it is almost superfluous to speak. The advance of Russian armies, simultaneously with the dissolution of more than one refractory assembly, has raised in the minds of men, already in a state of furious excitement, a suspicion that these events are not unconnected, and that the Emperor of Austria is not the only German sovereign who is in league with the Czar! The time has arrived when the question must be determined whether order or anarchy is to prevail; and we have no doubt that, in Germany as in France, the friends of order will speedily gain a complete ascendency – if there be no foreign, and above all, no Russian intervention. But to very many of the patriotic friends of order in Germany, Russian intervention in her affairs, or an appearance of concert between their own government and Russia for the purpose of influencing German interests, and suppressing German feelings, would be intolerable. There is reason to apprehend that a great body of true-hearted Germans, especially in the middle classes – whose power must, after all, decide the contest, and who desire social order and security under a constitutional monarchy – may fancy they see in the advance of Russian forces, at a moment when the sovereigns, supported by their armies, are making a stand against popular tyranny, cause to fear that even their constitutional freedom is in danger. We are satisfied that there are no reasonable grounds for such fears – that the other governments of Germany are too wise to follow the example of Austria in her conduct towards Hungary; but that example cannot fail to produce distrust in many minds already disposed to it; and popular movements are more influenced by passion than by reason.

It is impossible not to feel that Russia is about to occupy a new position in Europe, which, if no event occurs to obstruct her in her course, must greatly increase her influence and her power for good or for evil. She is to be the protector of Austria, not against foreign enemies, but against one of the nations of which that empire is composed. She is to re-establish and maintain, by military force, a government which has been unable to maintain itself against its internal enemies – a government which a nation of fourteen millions of people has rejected, fought, and beaten. A great power cannot interfere in the internal affairs of another state, to the extent of maintaining there by force of arms a government incapable of maintaining itself against the nation, without getting involved in the relations of the government it upholds, to an amount of which it is impossible to fix or to predict the limits, but of which the tendency has ever been, and must ever be, progressively to increase the power of the protecting over the protected government; and the single fact that the interests of Austria were in this manner inseparably bound up, for a time of indefinite duration, with those of Russia, would give to the great northern power a preponderance, both in Europe and in Asia, such as no hereditary monarchy has possessed in modern times.

With 150,000 or 180,000 men in Hungary, Wallachia, and Moldavia, the Russian armies would encircle the frontiers of Turkey, from the shores of the Adriatic to the frontiers of Persia. With a government in Austria dependent upon the support of those armies, the power that has hitherto been the chief security of Turkey against the military superiority of Russia, would be at the command of the court of St Petersburg. The Sclavonic tribes, which form the chief part of the Turkish population in Europe, seeing themselves enveloped by the armies of Russia, guiding and controlling the power of Austria, in addition to her own, must be thoroughly demoralised, even if Russia should abstain from all attempts to debauch them. They will feel that they have no course left but to court her, to look to her whose force is visibly developed before them, is in contact with them, surrounds them, and appears to be irresistible everywhere. They will find in the unity of race an inducement to adhere to the rising destinies of the great Sclavonic empire – their instincts will teach them to abandon, in time, the fabric that is about to fall.

Forced to involve herself in all the relations of the government she upholds, Russia will come into immediate contact with the minor German monarchies, whose governments may also stand in need of protection. There is no one kingdom in Germany that could then pretend to counterbalance her power, or to resist her policy. The same interests would carry her influence, and it may be her arms, into Italy. It will no longer be necessary to negotiate the passage of the Dardanelles by her fleet – the road will be open to her troops, and the passage of her fleet will no longer be opposed.

We have not attributed to the Emperor Nicholas, or to Russia, any ambitious ulterior views in affording assistance to Austria – we have supposed him to be influenced only by the most generous feelings towards a brother emperor. But, to suppose that he has no desire to extend his own or his country's influence and power – that he will not take advantage of favourable circumstances to extend them – would be absurd; and were he to set out with the firmest resolution to avoid such a result, the course on which he is now said to have entered, if he conducts it to a successful issue, must, in spite of himself, lead to that result. It is no answer, therefore, to say that the Emperor of Russia does not desire to extend his territory; that he has abstained with singular moderation from interfering in the affairs of Europe, while every capital was in tumult, and every country divided against itself. Giving him credit for every quality that can adorn the loftiest throne, the consequences of his present policy, if it be successfully carried out, are equally inevitable.

We must remember, on the other hand, that after all, the Emperor of Russia is but a man – but one man, in an empire containing above sixty millions of people. He is the greatest, no doubt, the most powerful, perhaps the ablest and wisest – the presiding and the guiding mind, with authority apparently absolute – but they little know the details of an autocratic government, who suppose that he is uninfluenced by the will of the nation, or has power to follow out his own intentions. He must see with other men's eyes, he must hear with other men's ears, he must speak with the tongues of other men. How much of what is said and done in his name, in his vast empire, and in every foreign country, is it possible that he can ever know? How much of his general policy must, from time to time, be directed by events prepared or consummated in furtherance of their own views, by his servants, and without his knowledge! How often must he be guided by the form in which facts are placed before him, and by the views of those who furnish them! It is important, therefore, to inquire what are the feelings and opinions, not of the Emperor only, but of his servants and guides – of the men who pioneer for him, and prepare the roads on which per force he must travel.

Shortly after the French revolution of February 1848, a Russian diplomatic memoir was handed about with an air of mystery in certain circles in Paris. M. de Bourgoing, formerly French minister at St Petersburg, and author of a recent work, entitled, Les guerres d'idiome et de nationalité, has published a commentary upon the Russian memoir, which he tells us was prepared by one of the ablest and best-informed employés in the Russian Chancellerie, after the events of February. He further informs us that it was presented to the Emperor of Russia, and, with the tacit consent of the Russian government, was sent to be printed in a German capital, (the impression being limited to twelve copies,) under the title of "Politique et moyens d'action de la Russie impartialement apprécié." The object of M. Bourgoing's commentary, as well as of his previous publication, appears to be to remove exaggerated apprehensions of the aggressive power and tendencies of Russia, and the fears of a general war in Europe, which her anticipated intervention in Austria, and the occupation in force of Wallachia and Moldavia by her troops, had excited in France. His fundamental position appears to be, that the wars of 1848 and 1849 are essentially wars of language and race; that France has therefore nothing to fear from them; and that Russia has neither a sufficient disposable force, nor the slightest desire to interfere, in a manner injurious to France, in the affairs of Western Europe. With this view he combats, with a gentle opposition, the reasoning of the Russian memoir, which he represents as "une déclaration où l'on est autorisé à voir une espèce de manifeste envoyé sans éclat par la Russie à ce qu'elle intitule la révolution." From the tendencies of M. Bourgoing's writings, which occasionally peep out somewhat thinly clothed, though they are generally well wrapped up, we should infer that the "ancien ministre de France en Russie" does not consider his connexion with the court of St Petersburg as finally terminated; and we do not doubt that he has good warrant for all he says of the history of this memoir.

But, whether or not we may be disposed to assign to it a character of so much authority as M. Bourgoing attributes to that document, we cannot but regard it as a curious illustration of the kind of memoirs that Russian diplomatists, "les plus habils et les plus instuits," present to the Emperor, and that the Russian government "tacitly consents" to have transmitted to a German capital to be printed "sur-le-champ."

The Russian memoir commences with the following general proposition, —

"Pour comprendre de quoi il s'agit dans la crise extrême où l'Europe vient d'entrer, voici ce qu'il faudrait se dire: Depuis longtemps il n'y a plus en Europe que deux puissances réelles, la Révolution et la Russie. Ces deux puissances sont maintenant en présence, et demain peut-être elles seront aux prises. Entre l'une et l'autre, il n'y a ni traité ni transaction possibles. La vie de l'une est la mort de l'autre. De l'issue de la lutte engagée entre elles, la plus grande des luttes dont le monde ait été témoin, dépend pour des siècles tout l'avenir politique et religieux de l'humanité.

La Russie est avant tout l'empire chrétien; le peuple russe est chrétien, non-seulement par l'orthodoxie de ses croyances, mais par quelque chose de plus intime encore que la croyance: il l'est par cette faculté du renoncement et du sacrifice, qui sont comme le fond de sa nature morale.

Il y a heureusement sur le trône de Russie un souverain en qui la pensée russe s'est incarnée, et dans l'état actuel du monde la pensée russe est la seule qui soit placée assez en dehors du milieu révolutionnaire pour pouvoir apprécier sainement les faits qui s'y produisent.

Tout ce qui reste à la Bohême de vraie vie nationale est dans ces croyances hussites, dans cette protestation toujours vivante de sa nationalité slave opprimée contre l'usurpation de l'église romaine, aussi bien que contre la domination de la nation allemande. C'est là le lien qui l'unit à tout son passé de lutte et de gloire, et c'est là aussi le chemin qui pourra rattacher un jour le Tchèque de la Bohême à ses frères d'Orient.

On ne saurait assez insister sur ce point, car ce sont précisément ces réminiscences sympathiques de l'église d'Orient, ce sont ces retours vers la vieille foi dont le hussitisme dans son temps n'a été qu'une expression imparfaite et défigurée, qui établissent une différence profonde entre la Pologne et la Bohême, entre la Bohême ne subissant que malgré elle le joug de la communauté occidentale, et cette Pologne factieusement catholique, seide fanatique de l'Occident, et toujours traître vis-à-vis des siens."

We add a few more extracts: —

"Que fera la Bohême, avec les peuples qui l'entourent, Moraves, Slovaques, c'est-à-dire, sept ou huit millions d'hommes de même langue et de même race qu'elle?.. En general c'est une chose digne de remarque, que cette faveur persévérante que la Russie, le nom Russe, sa gloire, son avenir n'ont cessé de rencontrer parmi les hommes nationaux de Prague." – (Page 15.)

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!