A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 43

The first act of the a.s.sembly, which met on the 4th of May, was to declare that the Provisional Government had deserved well of the country, and to reinstate most of its members in office under the t.i.tle of an Executive Commission. Ledru Rollin's offences were condoned, as those of a man popular with the democracy, and likely on the whole to yield to the influence of his colleagues. Louis Blanc and his confederate, Albert, as really dangerous persons, were excluded. The Jacobin leaders now proceeded to organise an attack on the a.s.sembly by main force. On the 15th of May the attempt was made. Under pretence of tendering a pet.i.tion on behalf of Poland, a mob invaded the Legislative Chamber, declared the a.s.sembly dissolved, and put the Deputies to flight. But the triumph was of short duration. The National Guard, whose commander alone was responsible for the failure of measures of defence, soon rallied in force; the leaders of the insurgents, some of whom had installed themselves as a Provisional Government at the Hotel de Ville, were made captive; and after an interval of a few hours the a.s.sembly resumed possession of the Palais Bourbon. The dishonour done to the national representation by the scandalous scenes of the 15th of May, as well as the decisively proved superiority of the National Guard over the half armed mob, encouraged the a.s.sembly to declare open war against the so-called social democracy, and to decree the abolition of the national workshops. The enormous growth of these establishments, which now included over a hundred thousand men, threatened to ruin the public finances; the demoralisation which they engendered seemed likely to destroy whatever was sound in the life of the working cla.s.ses of Paris. Of honest industry there was scarcely a trace to be found among the ma.s.ses who were receiving their daily wages from the State.

Whatever the sincerity of those who had founded the national workshops, whatever the anxiety for employment on the part of those who first resorted to them, they had now become mere hives of disorder, where the resources of the State were lavished in acc.u.mulating a force for its own overthrow. It was necessary, at whatever risk, to extinguish the evil. Plans for the gradual dispersion of the army of workmen were drawn up by Committees and discussed by the a.s.sembly. If put in force with no more than the necessary delay, these plans might perhaps have rendered a peaceful solution of the difficulty possible. But the Government hesitated, and finally, when a decision could no longer be avoided, determined upon measures more violent and more sudden than those which the Committees had recommended. On the 21st of June an order was published that all occupants of the public workshops between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five must enlist in the army or cease to receive support from the State, and that the removal of the workmen who had come into Paris from the provinces, for which preparations had already been made, must be at once effected. [422]

[The Four Days of June, 23-26.]

The publication of this order was the signal for an appeal to arms. The legions of the national workshops were in themselves a half-organised force equal in number to several army-corps, and now animated by something like the spirit of military union. The revolt, which began on the morning of the 23rd of June, was conducted as no revolt in Pans had ever been conducted before. The eastern part of the city was turned into a maze of barricades.

Though the insurgents had not artillery, they were in other respects fairly armed. The terrible nature of the conflict impending now became evident to the a.s.sembly. General Cavaignac, Minister of War, was placed in command, and subsequently invested with supreme authority, the Executive Commission resigning its powers. All the troops in the neighbourhood of Paris were at once summoned to the capital, Cavaignac well understood that any attempt to hold the insurrection in check by means of scattered posts would only end, as in 1830, by the capture or the demoralisation of the troops. He treated Paris as one great battle-field in which the enemy must be attacked in ma.s.s and driven by main force from all his positions. At times the effort appeared almost beyond the power of the forces engaged, and the insurgents, sheltered by huge barricades and firing from the windows of houses, seemed likely to remain masters of the field. The struggle continued for four days, but Cavaignac's artillery and the discipline of his troops at last crushed resistance; and after the Archbishop of Paris had been mortally wounded in a heroic effort to stop further bloodshed, the last bands of the insurgents, driven back into the north-eastern quarter of the city, and there attacked with artillery in front and flank, were forced to lay down their arms.

[Fears left by the events of June.]

Such was the conflict of the Four Days of June, a conflict memorable as one in which the combatants fought not for a political principle or form of Government, but for the preservation or the overthrow of society based on the inst.i.tution of private property. The National Guard, with some exceptions, fought side by side with the regiments of the line, braved the same perils, and sustained an equal loss. The workmen threw themselves the more pa.s.sionately into the struggle, inasmuch as defeat threatened them with deprivation of the very means of life. On both sides acts of savagery were committed which the fury of the conflict could not excuse. The vengeance of the conquerors in the moment of success appears, however, to have been less unrelenting than that which followed the overthrow of the Commune in 1871, though, after the struggle was over, the a.s.sembly had no scruple in transporting without trial the whole ma.s.s of prisoners taken with arms in their hands. Cavaignac's victory left the cla.s.ses for whom he had fought terror-stricken at the peril from which they had escaped, and almost hopeless of their own security under any popular form of Government in the future. Against the rash and weak concessions to popular demands that had been made by the administration since February, especially in the matter of taxation and finance, there was now a deep, if not loudly proclaimed, reaction. The national workshops disappeared; grants were made by the Legislature for the a.s.sistance of the ma.s.ses who were left without resource, but the money was bestowed in charitable relief or in the form of loans to a.s.sociations, not as wages from the State. On every side among the holders of property the cry was for a return to sound principles of finance in the economy of the State, and for the establishment of a strong central power.

[Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon.]

[Louis Napoleon elected Deputy but resigns, June 14.]

General Cavaignac after the restoration of order had laid down the supreme authority which had been conferred on him, but at the desire of the a.s.sembly he continued to exercise it until the new Const.i.tution should be drawn up and an Executive appointed in accordance with its provisions.

Events had suddenly raised Cavaignac from obscurity to eminence, and seemed to mark him out as the future ruler of France. But he displayed during the six months following the suppression of the revolt no great capacity for government, and his virtues as well as his defects made against his personal success. A sincere Republican, while at the same time a rigid upholder of law, he refused to lend himself to those who were, except in name, enemies of Republicanism; and in his official acts and utterances he spared the feelings of the reactionary cla.s.ses as little as he would have spared those of rioters and Socialists. As the influence of Cavaignac declined, another name began to fill men's thoughts. Louis Napoleon, son of the Emperor's brother Louis, King of Holland, had while still in exile been elected to the National a.s.sembly by four Departments. He was as yet almost unknown except by name to his fellow-countrymen. Born in the Tuileries in 1808, he had been involved as a child in the ruin of the Empire, and had pa.s.sed into banishment with his mother Hortense, under the law that expelled from France all members of Napoleon's family. He had been brought up at Augsburg and on the sh.o.r.es of the Lake of Constance, and as a volunteer in a Swiss camp of artillery he had gained some little acquaintance with military life. In 1831 he had joined the insurgents in the Romagna who were in arms against the Papal Government. The death of his own elder brother, followed in 1832 by that of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, made him chief of the house of Bonaparte. Though far more of a recluse than a man of action, though so little of his own nation that he could not p.r.o.nounce a sentence of French without a marked German accent, and had never even seen a French play performed, he now became possessed by the fixed idea that he was one day to wear the French Crown. A few obscure adventurers attached themselves to his fortunes, and in 1836 he appeared at Strasburg and presented himself to the troops as Emperor. The enterprise ended in failure and ridicule. Louis Napoleon was shipped to America by the Orleanist Government, which supplied him with money, and thought it unnecessary even to bring him to trial. He recrossed the Atlantic, made his home in England, and in 1840 repeated at Boulogne the attempt that had failed at Strasburg. The result was again disastrous. He was now sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, and pa.s.sed the next six years in captivity at Ham, where he produced a treatise on the Napoleonic Ideas, and certain fragments on political and social questions. The enthusiasm for Napoleon, of which there had been little trace in France since 1815, was now reviving; the sufferings of the epoch of conquest were forgotten; the steady maintenance of peace by Louis Philippe seemed humiliating to young and ardent spirits who had not known the actual presence of the foreigner.

In literature two men of eminence worked powerfully upon the national imagination. The history of Thiers gave the nation a great stage-picture of Napoleon's exploits; Beranger's lyrics invested his exile at St. Helena with an irresistible, though spurious, pathos. Thus, little as the world concerned itself with the prisoner at Ham, the tendencies of the time were working in his favour; and his confinement, which lasted six years and was terminated by his escape and return to England, appears to have deepened his brooding nature, and to have strengthened rather than diminished his confidence in himself. On the overthrow of Louis Philippe he visited Paris, but was requested by the Provisional Government, on the ground of the unrepealed law banishing the Bonaparte family, to quit the country. He obeyed, probably foreseeing that the difficulties of the Republic would create better opportunities for his reappearance. Meanwhile the group of unknown men who sought their fortunes in a Napoleonic restoration busily canva.s.sed and wrote on behalf of the Prince, and with such success that, in the supplementary elections that were held at the beginning of June, he obtained a fourfold triumph. The a.s.sembly, in spite of the efforts of the Government, p.r.o.nounced his return valid. Yet with rare self-command the Prince still adhered to his policy of reserve, resigning his seat on the ground that his election had been made a pretext for movements of which he disapproved, while at the same time he declared in his letter to the President of the a.s.sembly that if duties should be imposed upon him by the people he should know how to fulfil them. [423]

[Louis Napoleon again elected, Sept. 17.]

[Louis Napoleon elected President, Dec. 10.]

From this time Louis Napoleon was a recognised aspirant to power. The Const.i.tution of the Republic was now being drawn up by the a.s.sembly. The Executive Commission had disappeared in the convulsion of June; Cavaignac was holding the balance between parties rather than governing himself. In the midst of the debates on the Const.i.tution Louis Napoleon was again returned elected, to the a.s.sembly by the votes of five Departments. He saw that he ought to remain no longer in the background, and, accepting the call of the electors, he took his seat in the Chamber. It was clear that he would become a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, and that the popularity of his name among the ma.s.ses was enormous. He had twice presented himself to France as the heir to Napoleon's throne; he had never directly abandoned his dynastic claim; he had but recently declared, in almost threatening language, that he should know how to fulfil the duties that the people might impose upon him. Yet with all these facts before it the a.s.sembly, misled by the puerile rhetoric of Lamartine, decided that in the new Const.i.tution the President of the Republic, in whom was vested the executive power, should be chosen by the direct vote of all Frenchmen, and rejected the amendment of M. Grevy, who, with real insight into the future, declared that such direct election by the people could only give France a Dictator, and demanded that the President should be appointed not by the ma.s.ses but by the Chamber. Thus was the way paved for Louis Napoleon's march to power. The events of June had dispelled any attraction that he had hitherto felt towards Socialistic theories. He saw that France required an upholder of order and of property. In his address to the nation announcing his candidature for the Presidency he declared that he would shrink from no sacrifice in defending society, so audaciously attacked; that he would devote himself without reserve to the maintenance of the Republic, and make it his pride to leave to his successor at the end of four years authority strengthened, liberty unimpaired, and real progress accomplished. Behind these generalities the address dexterously touched on the special wants of cla.s.ses and parties, and promised something to each. The French nation in the election which followed showed that it believed in Louis Napoleon even more than he did in himself. If there existed in the opinion of the great ma.s.s any element beyond the mere instinct of self-defence against real or supposed schemes of spoliation, it was reverence for Napoleon's memory. Out of seven millions of votes given, Louis Napoleon received above five, Cavaignac, who alone entered into serious compet.i.tion with him, receiving about a fourth part of that number. Lamartine and the men who ten months before had represented all the hopes of the nation now found but a handful of supporters. Though none yet openly spoke of Monarchy, on all sides there was the desire for the restoration of power. The day-dreams of the second Republic had fled. France had shown that its choice lay only between a soldier who had crushed rebellion and a stranger who brought no t.i.tle to its confidence but an Imperial name.

CHAPTER XX.

Austria and Italy--Vienna from March to May--Flight of the Emperor-- Bohemian National Movement--Windischgratz subdues Prague--Campaign around Verona--Papal Allocution--Naples in May--Negotiations as to Lombardy--Reconquest of Venetia--Battle of Custozza--The Austrians enter Milan--Austrian Court and Hungary--The Serbs in Southern Hungary--Serb Congress at Carlowitz--Jellacic--Affairs of Croatia--Jellacic, the Court and the Hungarian Movement--Murder of Lamberg--Manifesto of October 3 Vienna on October 6--The Emperor at Olmutz--Windischgratz conquers Vienna--The Parliament at Kremsier--Schwarzenberg Minister--Ferdinand abdicates--Dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament--Unitary Edict-- Hungary--The Roumanians in Transylvania--The Austrian Army occupies Pesth--Hungarian Government at Debreczin--The Austrians driven out of Hungary--Declaration of Hungarian Independence--Russian Intervention-- The Hungarian Summer Campaign--Capitulation of Vilagos--Italy--Murder of Rossi--Tuscany--The March Campaign in Lombardy--Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Victor Emmanuel--Restoration in Tuscany--French Intervention in Rome--Defeat of Oudinot--Oudinot and Lesseps--The French enter Rome--The Restored Pontifical Government--Fall of Venice-- Ferdinand reconquers Sicily Germany--The National a.s.sembly at Frankfort-- The Armistice of Malmo--Berlin from April to September--The Prussian Army--Last days of the Prussian Parliament--Prussian Const.i.tution granted by Edict--The German National a.s.sembly and Austria--Frederick William IV. elected Emperor--He refuses the Crown--End of the National a.s.sembly--Prussia attempts to form a separate Union--The Union Parliament at Erfurt--Action of Austria--Hesse Ca.s.sel--The Diet of Frankfort restored--Olmutz--Schleswig-Holstein--Germany after 1849-- Austria after 1851--France after 1848--Louis Napoleon--The October Message--Law Limiting the Franchise--Louis Napoleon and the Army-- Proposed Revision of the Const.i.tution--The Coup d'etat--Napoleon III.

Emperor

[Austria and Italy.]

The plain of Northern Italy has ever been an arena on which the contest between interests greater than those of Italy itself has been brought to an issue, and it may perhaps be truly said that in the struggle between established Governments and Revolution through out Central Europe in 1848 the real turning point, if it can anywhere be fixed, lay rather in the fortunes of a campaign in Lombardy than in any single combination of events at Vienna or Berlin. The very existence of the Austrian Monarchy depended on the victory of Radetzky's forces over the national movement at the head of which Piedmont had now placed itself. If Italian independence should be established upon the ruin of the Austrian arms, and the influence and example of the victorious Italian people be thrown into the scale against the Imperial Government in its struggle with the separatist forces that convulsed every part of the Austrian dominions, it was scarcely possible that any stroke of fortune or policy could save the Empire of the Hapsburgs from dissolution. But on the prostration or recovery of Austria, as represented by its central power at Vienna, the future of Germany in great part depended. Whatever compromise might be effected between popular and monarchical forces in the other German States if left free from Austria's interference, the whole influence of a resurgent Austrian power could not but be directed against the principles of popular sovereignty and national union. The Parliament of Frankfort might then in vain affect to fulfil its mandate without reckoning with the Court of Vienna. All this was indeed obscured in the tempests that for a while shut out the political horizon.

The Liberals of Northern Germany had little sympathy with the Italian cause in the decisive days of 1848. Their inclinations went rather with the combatant who, though bent on maintaining an oppressive dominion, was nevertheless a member of the German race and paid homage for the moment to Const.i.tutional rights. Yet, as later events were to prove, the fetters which crushed liberty beyond the Alps could fit as closely on to German limbs; and in the warfare of Upper Italy for its own freedom the battle of German Liberalism was in no small measure fought and lost.

[Vienna from March to May.]

Metternich once banished from Vienna, the first popular demand was for a Const.i.tution. His successors in office, with a certain characteristic pedantry, devoted their studies to the Belgian Const.i.tution of 1831; and after some weeks a Const.i.tution was published by edict for the non-Hungarian part of the Empire, including a Parliament of two Chambers, the Lower to be chosen by indirect election, the Upper consisting of nominees of the Crown and representatives of the great landowners. The provisions of this Const.i.tution in favour of the Crown and the Aristocracy, as well as the arbitrary mode of its promulgation, displeased the Viennese.

Agitation recommenced in the city; unpopular officials were roughly handled the Press grew ever more violent and more scurrilous. One strange result of the tutelage in which Austrian society had been held was that the students of the University became, and for some time continued to be, the most important political body of the capital. Their princ.i.p.al rivals in influence were the National Guard drawn from citizens of the middle cla.s.s, the workmen as yet remaining in the background. Neither in the Hall of the University nor at the taverns where the civic militia discussed the events of the hour did the office-drawn Const.i.tution find favour. On the 13th of May it was determined, with the view of exercising stronger pressure upon the Government, that the existing committees of the National Guard and of the students should be superseded by one central committee representing both bodies. The elections to this committee had been held, and its sittings had begun, when the commander of the National Guard declared such proceedings to be inconsistent with military discipline, and ordered the dissolution of the committee. Riots followed, during which the students and the mob made their way into the Emperor's palace and demanded from his Ministers not only the re-establishment of the central committee but the abolition of the Upper Chamber in the projected Const.i.tution, and the removal of the checks imposed on popular sovereignty by a limited franchise and the system of indirect elections. On point after point the Ministry gave way; and, in spite of the resistance and reproaches of the Imperial household, they obtained the Emperor's signature to a doc.u.ment promising that for the future all the important military posts in the city should be held by the National Guard jointly with the regular troops, that the latter should never be called out except on the requisition of the National Guard, and that the projected Const.i.tution should remain without force until it should have been submitted for confirmation to a single Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly elected by universal suffrage.

[Flight of the Emperor, May 17.]

[Tumult of May 26.]

The weakness of the Emperor's intelligence rendered him a mere puppet in the hands of those who for the moment exercised control over his actions.

During the riot of the 15th of May he obeyed his Ministers; a few hours afterwards he fell under the sway of the Court party, and consented to fly from Vienna. On the 18th the Viennese learnt to their astonishment that Ferdinand was far on the road to the Tyrol. Soon afterwards a manifesto was published, stating that the violence and anarchy of the capital had compelled the Emperor to transfer his residence to Innsbruck; that he remained true, however, to the promises made in March and to their legitimate consequences; and that proof must be given of the return of the Viennese to their old sentiments of loyalty before he could again appear among them. A certain revulsion of feeling in the Emperor's favour now became manifest in the capital, and emboldened the Ministers to take the first step necessary towards obtaining his return, namely the dissolution of the Students' Legion. They could count with some confidence on the support of the wealthier part of the middle cla.s.s, who were now becoming wearied of the students' extravagances and alarmed at the interruption of business caused by the Revolution; moreover, the ordinary termination of the academic year was near at hand. The order was accordingly given for the dissolution of the Legion and the closing of the University. But the students met the order with the stoutest resistance. The workmen poured in from the suburbs to join in their defence. Barricades were erected, and the insurrection of March seemed on the point of being renewed. Once more the Government gave way, and not only revoked its order, but declared itself incapable of preserving tranquillity in the capital unless it should receive the a.s.sistance of the leaders of the people. With the full concurrence of the Ministers, a Committee of Public Safety was formed, representing at once the students, the middle cla.s.s, and the workmen; and it entered upon its duties with an authority exceeding, within the limits of the capital, that of the shadowy functionaries of State. [424]

[Bohemian national movement.]

[Windischgratz subdues Prague, June 12-17.]

In the meantime the antagonism between the Czechs and the Germans in Bohemia was daily becoming more bitter. The influence of the party of compromise, which had been dominant in the early days of March, had disappeared before the ill-timed attempt of the German national leaders at Frankfort to include Bohemia within the territory sending representatives to the German national Parliament. By consenting to this incorporation the Czech population would have definitely renounced its newly a.s.serted claim to nationality. If the growth of democratic spirit at Vienna was accompanied by a more intense German national feeling in the capital, the popular movements at Vienna and at Prague must necessarily pa.s.s into a relation of conflict with one another. On the flight of the Emperor becoming known at Prague, Count Thun, the governor, who was also the chief of the moderate Bohemian party, invited Ferdinand to make Prague the seat of his Government. This invitation, which would have directly connected the Crown with Czech national interests, was not accepted. The rasher politicians, chiefly students and workmen, continued to hold their meetings and to patrol the streets; and a Congress of Slavs from all parts of the Empire, which was opened on the 2nd of June, excited national pa.s.sions still further. So threatening grew the att.i.tude of the students and workmen that Count Windischgratz, commander of the troops at Prague, prepared to act with artillery. On the 12th of June, the day on which the Congress of Slavs broke up, fighting began. Windischgratz, whose wife was killed by a bullet, appears to have acted with calmness, and to have sought to arrive at some peaceful settlement. He withdrew his troops, and desisted from a bombardment that he had begun, on the understanding that the barricades which had been erected should be removed. This condition was not fulfilled.

New acts of violence occurred in the city, and on the 17th Windischgratz reopened fire. On the following day Prague surrendered, and Windischgratz re-entered the city as Dictator. The autonomy of Bohemia was at an end. The army had for the first time acted with effect against a popular rising; the first blow had been struck on behalf of the central power against the revolution which till now had seemed about to dissolve the Austrian State into its fragments.

[Campaign around Verona, April-May.]

At this point the dominant interest in Austrian affairs pa.s.ses from the capital and the northern provinces to Radetzky's army and the Italians with whom it stood face to face. Once convinced of the necessity of a retreat from Milan, the Austrian commander had moved with sufficient rapidity to save Verona and Mantua from pa.s.sing into the hands of the insurgents. He was thus enabled to place his army in one of the best defensive positions in Europe, the Quadrilateral flanked by the rivers Mincio and Adige, and protected by the fortresses of Verona, Mantua, Peschiera, and Legnano. With his front on the Mincio he awaited at once the attack of the Piedmontese and the arrival of reinforcements from the north-east. On the 8th of April the first attack was made, and after a sharp engagement at Goito the pa.s.sage of the Mincio was effected by the Sardinian army. Siege was now laid to Peschiera; and while a Tuscan contingent watched Mantua, the bulk of Charles Albert's forces operated farther northward with the view of cutting off Verona from the roads to the Tyrol. This result was for a moment achieved, but the troops at the King's disposal were far too weak for the task of reducing the fortresses; and in an attempt that was made on the 6th of May to drive the Austrians out of their positions in front of Verona, Charles Albert was defeated at Santa Lucia and compelled to fall back towards the Mincio. [425]

[Papal Allocution, April 29.]

[Naples in May.]

A pause in the war ensued, filled by political events of evil omen for Italy. Of all the princes who had permitted their troops to march northwards to the a.s.sistance of the Lombards, not one was acting in full sincerity. The first to show himself in his true colours was the Pope. On the 29th of April an Allocution was addressed to the Cardinals, in which Pius disavowed all partic.i.p.ation in the war against Austria, and declared that his own troops should do no more than defend the integrity of the Roman States. Though at the moment an outburst of popular indignation in Rome forced a still more liberal Ministry into power, and Durando, the Papal general, continued his advance into Venetia, the Pope's renunciation of his supposed national leadership produced the effect which its author desired, encouraging every open and every secret enemy of the Italian cause, and perplexing those who had believed themselves to be engaged in a sacred as well as a patriotic war. In Naples things hurried far more rapidly to a catastrophe. Elections had been held to the Chamber of Deputies, which was to be opened on the 15th of May, and most of the members returned were men who, while devoted to the Italian national cause were neither Republicans nor enemies of the Bourbon dynasty, but anxious to co-operate with their King in the work of Const.i.tutional reform.

Politicians of another character, however, commanded the streets of Naples.

Rumours were spread that the Court was on the point of restoring despotic government and abandoning the Italian cause. Disorder and agitation increased from day to day; and after the Deputies had arrived in the city and begun a series of informal meetings preparatory to the opening of the Parliament, an ill-advised act of Ferdinand gave to the party of disorder, who were weakly represented in the a.s.sembly, occasion for an insurrection.

After promulgating the Const.i.tution on February both, Ferdinand had agreed that it should be submitted to the two Chambers for revision. He notified, however, to the Representatives on the eve of the opening of Parliament that they would be required to take an oath of fidelity to the Const.i.tution. They urged that such an oath would deprive them of their right of revision. The King, after some hours, consented to a change in the formula of the oath; but his demand had already thrown the city into tumult. Barricades were erected, the Deputies in vain endeavouring to calm the rioters and to prevent a conflict with the troops. While negotiations were still in progress shots were fired. The troops now threw themselves upon the people; there was a struggle, short in duration, but sanguinary and merciless; the barricades were captured, some hundreds of the insurgents slain, and Ferdinand was once more absolute master of Naples.

The a.s.sembly was dissolved on the day after that on which it should have met. Orders were at once sent by the King to General Pepe, commander of the troops that were on the march to Lombardy, to return with his army to Naples. Though Pepe continued true to the national cause, and endeavoured to lead his army forward from Bologna in defiance of the King's instructions, his troops now melted away; and when he crossed the Po and placed himself under the standard of Charles Albert in Venetia there remained with him scarcely fifteen hundred men.

[Negotiations as to Lombardy.]

[Reconquest of Venetia, June, July.]

It thus became clear before the end of May that the Lombards would receive no considerable help from the Southern States in their struggle for freedom, and that the promised league of the Governments in the national cause was but a dream from which there was a bitter awakening. Nor in Northern Italy itself was there the unity in aim and action without which success was impossible. The Republican party accused the King and the Provisional Government at Milan of an unwillingness to arm the people; Charles Albert on his part regarded every Republican as an enemy. On entering Lombardy the King had stated that no question as to the political organisation of the future should be raised until the war was ended; nevertheless, before a fortress had been captured, he had allowed Modena and Parma to declare themselves incorporated with the Piedmontese monarchy; and, in spite of Mazzini's protest, their example was followed by Lombardy and some Venetian districts. In the recriminations that pa.s.sed between the Republicans and the Monarchists it was even suggested that Austria had friends of its own in certain cla.s.ses of the population. This was not the view taken by the Viennese Government, which from the first appears to have considered its cause in Lombardy as virtually lost. The mediation of Great Britain was invoked by Metternich's successors, and a willingness expressed to grant to the Italian provinces complete autonomy under the Emperor's sceptre. Palmerston, in reply to the supplications of a Court which had hitherto cursed his influence, urged that Lombardy and the greater part of Venetia should be ceded to the King of Piedmont. The Austrian Government would have given up Lombardy to their enemy; they hesitated to increase his power to the extent demanded by Palmerston, the more so as the French Ministry was known to be jealous of the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of Sardinia, and to desire the establishment of weak Republics like those formed in 1796.

Withdrawing from its negotiations at London, the Emperor's Cabinet now entered into direct communication with the Provisional Government at Milan, and, without making any reference to Piedmont or Venice, offered complete independence to Lombardy. As the union of this province with Piedmont had already been voted by its inhabitants, the offer was at once rejected.

Moreover, even it the Italians had shown a disposition to compromise their cause and abandon Venice, Radetzky would not have broken off the combat while any possibility remained of winning over the Emperor from the side of the peace-party. In reply to instructions directing him to offer an armistice to the enemy, he sent Prince Felix Schwarzenberg to Innsbruck to implore the Emperor to trust to the valour of his soldiers and to continue the combat. Already there were signs that the victory would ultimately be with Austria. Reinforcements had cut their way through the insurgent territory and reached Verona; and although a movement by which Radetzky threatened to sever Charles Albert's communications was frustrated by a second engagement at Goito, and Peschiera pa.s.sed into the besiegers' hands, this was the last success won by the Italians. Throwing himself suddenly eastwards, Radetzky appeared before Vicenza, and compelled this city, with the entire Papal army, commanded by General Durando, to capitulate. The fall of Vicenza was followed June. July. by that of the other cities on the Venetian mainland till Venice alone on the east of the Adige defied the Austrian arms. As the invader pressed onward, an a.s.sembly which Manin had convoked at Venice decided on union with Piedmont. Manin himself had been the most zealous opponent of what he considered the sacrifice of Venetian independence. He gave way nevertheless at the last, and made no attempt to fetter the decision of the a.s.sembly; but when this decision had been given he handed over the conduct of affairs to others, and retired for awhile into private life, declining to serve under a king. [426]

[Battle of Custozza July 25.]

[Austrians re-enter Milan, Aug. 6.]

Charles Albert now renewed his attempt to wrest the central fortresses from the Austrians. Leaving half his army at Peschiera and farther north, he proceeded with the other half to blockade Mantua. Radetzky took advantage of the unskilful generalship of his opponent, and threw himself upon the weakly guarded centre of the long Sardinian line. The King perceived his error, and sought to unite with his the northern detachments, now separated from him by the Mincio. His efforts were baffled, and on the 25th of July, after a brave resistance, his troops were defeated at Custozza. The retreat across the Mincio was conducted in fair order, but disasters sustained by the northern division, which should have held the enemy in check, destroyed all hope, and the retreat then became a flight. Radetzky followed in close pursuit. Charles Albert entered Milan, but declared himself unable to defend the city. A storm of indignation broke out against the unhappy King amongst the Milanese, whom he was declared to have betrayed. The palace where he had taken up his quarters was besieged by the mob; his life was threatened; and he escaped with difficulty on the night of August 5th under the protection of General La Marmora and a few faithful Guards. A capitulation was signed, and as the Piedmontese army evacuated the city Radetzky's troops entered it in triumph. Not less than sixty thousand of the inhabitants, according to Italian statements, abandoned their homes and sought refuge in Switzerland or Piedmont rather than submit to the conqueror's rule. Radetzky could now have followed his retreating enemy without difficulty to Turin, and have crushed Piedmont itself under foot; but the fear of France and Great Britain checked his career of victory, and hostilities were brought to a close by an armistice at Vigevano on August 9th. [427]

[The Austrian Court and Hungary.]

The effects of Radetzky's triumph were felt in every province of the Empire. The first open expression given to the changed state of affairs was the return of the Imperial Court from its refuge at Innsbruck to Vienna.

The election promised in May had been held, and an a.s.sembly representing all the non-Hungarian parts of the Monarchy, with the exception of the Italian provinces, had been opened by the Archduke John, as representative of the Emperor, on the 22nd of July. Ministers and Deputies united in demanding the return of the Emperor to the capital. With Radetzky and Windischgratz within call, the Emperor could now with some confidence face his students and his Parliament. But of far greater importance than the return of the Court to Vienna was the att.i.tude which it now a.s.sumed towards the Diet and the national Government of Hungary. The concessions made in April, inevitable as they were, had in fact raised Hungary to the position of an independent State. When such matters as the employment of Hungarian troops against Italy or the distribution of the burden of taxation came into question, the Emperor had to treat with the Hungarian Ministry almost as if it represented a foreign and a rival Power. For some months this humiliation had to be borne, and the appearance of fidelity to the new Const.i.tutional law maintained. But a deep, resentful hatred against the Magyar cause penetrated the circles in which the old military and official absolutism of Austria yet survived; and behind the men and the policy still representing with some degree of sincerity the new order of things, there gathered the pa.s.sions and the intrigues of a reaction that waited only for the outbreak of civil war within Hungary itself, and the restoration of confidence to the Austrian army, to draw the sword against its foe.

Already, while Italy was still unsubdued, and the Emperor was scarcely safe in his palace at Vienna, the popular forces that might be employed against the Government at Pesth came into view.

[The Serbs in Southern Hungary.]

[Serb Congress at Carlowitz, May 13-15.]

In one of the stormy sessions of the Hungarian Diet at the time when the attempt was first made to impose the Magyar language upon Croatia the Illyrian leader, Gai, had thus addressed the a.s.sembly: "You Magyars are an island in the ocean of Slavism. Take heed that its waves do not rise and overwhelm you." The agitation of the spring of 1848 first revealed in its full extent the peril thus foreshadowed. Croatia had for above a year been in almost open mutiny, but the spirit of revolt now spread through the whole of the Serb population of Southern Hungary, from the eastern limits of Slavonia, [428] across the plain known as the Banat beyond the junction of the Theiss and the Danube, up to the borders of Transylvania. The Serbs had been welcomed into these provinces in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the sovereigns of Austria as a bulwark against the Turks.

Charters had been given to them, which were still preserved, promising them a distinct political administration under their own elected Voivode, and ecclesiastical independence under their own Patriarch of the Greek Church.