The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany Part 13

The revolutionary enthusiasm of the students was further whetted by the events which were taking place in Galicia. That unfortunate province had been so hampered by the effects of the abortive movement of 1846, that it had not been able to join in the March insurrection of the rest of Southern Europe. But by the beginning of April even the Galicians had taken heart; and they sent a deputation to the Emperor asking for a State recognition of the Polish language, a separate army for Galicia, and the concession of the different liberties which were then being demanded throughout the Empire. Even the Preparatory Parliament of Frankfort had pa.s.sed a resolution in favour of the reconst.i.tution of Poland; and the students of Vienna were prepared to be far more generous in their recognition of Galicia's claim to a share in Polish independence, than the Frankfort Parliament had been in its att.i.tude towards Posen. So alarming did the movement appear to the Austrian Governor of Galicia, that he forbade any emigrants to return to his province unless they could prove that they had been born there. The Galicians rose in indignation, and imprisoned the Governor; but he was set free, and, after a sharp struggle, the insurrection was suppressed.

But, if their Polish sympathies tended to rouse the revolutionary fervour of the Viennese students, their anger, on the other hand, was kindled by the growing tendency of the rich merchants to abandon the position which they had taken up in March, to accept the April Const.i.tution, and to fall into more peaceable methods of action. Even the Reading and Debating Club, which had been the first centre of the Liberal movement, was now the object of hostile demonstrations on the part of the students. The Students' Committee had been strengthened by the adhesion of many of the National Guard, and had received the name of the Central Committee; Hoyos, the commander of the National Guard, was alarmed at this sign of revolutionary feeling, and forbade his subordinates to take part in any political movement. The Central Committee entreated him to withdraw this prohibition, to which Hoyos answered that he would withdraw his prohibition if the Central Committee would dissolve itself. The Committee met to consider this proposal; but, while they were still sitting, a report arrived that the soldiers and the National Guard had been called out to put them down by force. The truth appeared to be, that the soldiers had been called out to suppress a supposed attack by the workmen; but that, finding that no such attack was intended, the military leaders seemed disposed to turn their hostility against the University. Thereupon the students at once rose and marched to the Castle. It seems that their exact object was at first uncertain; but on someone demanding of them their intentions, Dr. Giskra, one of their leaders, answered with, a shout, "Wir wollen eine Kammer" (we want a single Chamber.) The cry was taken up by the students; Pillersdorf advised the Emperor to yield, and on May 16 Ferdinand issued a proclamation granting a one Chamber Const.i.tution. But whether the shock had been too much for his feeble health, and had struck him with a panic, or whether he yielded to the advice of his courtiers, Ferdinand suddenly resolved to leave Vienna, and on May 17 he fled secretly to Innspruck.

These events produced a somewhat peculiar effect on opinion in various parts of the Empire. In Bohemia the extreme national feeling had been hitherto represented by the Swornost, a body corresponding almost exactly to the Students' Legion in Vienna; and they had been held somewhat in check by the n.o.blemen and citizens, who had organized the March movement. But the Vienna rising of May 15, and the flight of the Emperor, roused the indignation of men like Count Thun and Count Deym; and they decided to take the important step of breaking loose altogether from the Viennese Ministry, summoning a special Bohemian a.s.sembly in June, and inviting the Emperor to take refuge in Prague.

The Swornost, on their part, felt some reluctance to take any steps which seemed to condemn the abolition of the Upper Chamber by the Viennese; but the bitter hostility, which the Germans of Vienna had so repeatedly shown against the Bohemians during the months of April and May, prevented the possibility of any understanding between the Democrats of Prague and those of Vienna; and thus the students of Prague were ready to approve, not only the a.s.sertion of Bohemian independence, but even the proposed deputation to the Emperor.

Kossuth, on his part, saw in these events an opportunity for increasing the growing friendliness between the Magyars and the Emperor; and he induced the Hungarian Ministry to invite Ferdinand to Pesth. This att.i.tude of the Magyar leaders was due to one or two causes. In the first place the Viennese, as mentioned above, had been growing alarmed at the separate position granted to Hungary, and had feared that they would lose their hold over that kingdom altogether.

This naturally produced an att.i.tude of hostility on their part, which provoked a counter-feeling of antagonism in the Magyars; and thus the latter became more friendly to Ferdinand as the representative of the anti-democratic principle, and therefore the opponent of the ruling spirits of Vienna. There was also a second reason of a stranger kind, which placed the leaders of the Magyar movement in hostility to the Democratic party in Vienna. In spite of the strong German feeling which prevailed among the leading Democrats of Vienna, it was the opinion of some of those Hungarians who were best acquainted with that city, that the change from indirect to direct elections, which was one of the results of the May rising, would tend to increase the power of the large Slavonic population of Vienna.

But the great cause of the growing sympathy between the Magyars and the Emperor was the att.i.tude taken up by the latter in the questions at issue between Hungary and Croatia. Although the appointment of Jellacic, as Ban of Croatia, had been considered as an undue exertion of the power of the Court to the disadvantage of the Magyars, yet the independent tone which Jellacic had adopted since his appointment, seemed to alarm the Emperor as much as it did Batthyanyi or Kossuth.

Immediately after his appointment, Jellacic announced that "the Revolution has changed our relations to our old ally, Hungary"; and that "we must take care that the new relation shall be consistent with independence and equality"; and he had then proceeded to summon the a.s.sembly of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia to meet at Agram in June.

This independent att.i.tude had brought rebukes upon Jellacic from Ferdinand and the Hungarian Ministry alike; and the Croatian Council, while appealing to the Emperor to strengthen the hands of the Ban, had threatened that, if pressed too hard by the Magyars, they would take measures to defend themselves. It was not unnatural, therefore, that at this moment the Croats should be more disposed to sympathise with the Democrats of Vienna; and that Kossuth should try to draw closer the bond between the Emperor and the Magyars.

It might indeed seem that the appeal of the Bohemians to the Emperor under these circ.u.mstances would have brought them out of sympathy with the Slavs of Croatia and Slavonia; but not only did the Emperor refuse to go to Prague, but the Tyrolese followed up that refusal by a sharp rebuke to the Bohemians for their proposal of a Slavonic Congress in Prague. Though, however, the Slavs of Hungary looked forward to the Slavonic Congress, and were willing to accept Prague as the centre of their political deliberations, it was in the Hungarian provinces themselves that the most vigorous action in defence of their rights was at present to be found. For while the Croatian Council were protesting against the Emperor's rebuke to Jellacic, the Serbs were gathering for their Conference of May 13 in Carlowitz, and resolving to send deputies to the Croatian a.s.sembly, and to the Emperor himself, and also to choose representatives for the Prague Congress. Crnojevic, who had been sent by the Magyars to enforce martial law on the Serbs of the Banat and Bacska, after the riot at Kikinda, denounced the meeting, and called on Rajacic to prevent it. Rajacic would have hesitated about further action, but Stratimirovic and his more fiery friends answered the threat by burning Crnojevic's letter publicly; and the meeting took place in defiance of his warning.

From every district where the Serb language was spoken, there came to Carlowitz representatives wearing the old national costume. Carlowitz is little more than a village; and it would have required a large city to provide for the crowds who arrived on this occasion. Hundreds, therefore, lay out by night in the streets, to wait for the meeting in the morning. In the garden which lies between the Archbishop's library and the small room where the archives of Carlowitz are kept, there met on May 13 the a.s.sembly of the newly-roused Serb people. Rajacic appeared, accompanied by some of the clergy, and presented to the a.s.sembly the old charters which had been granted by the Emperor in 1690 and 1691, and on which the liberties of the Serbs were based.

Physicians, lawyers, and young students denounced the abolition of their Voyvodeschaft, claimed back the provinces which Maria Theresa had abandoned to Hungary, and demanded the removal of all hindrances to the development of their life, language, and history. They then proceeded to revive the old dignity of Patriarch in the person of Rajacic and to choose as their Voyvode a man named Suplikac, who was then serving in the army in Italy. Finally they appointed a committee to prepare rules, and gave it the power to call the a.s.sembly together when circ.u.mstances required it. Hrabowsky, the commander of the fortress of Peterwardein, had been uncertain what att.i.tude he should a.s.sume towards this movement. Sometimes he seemed to be personally friendly to the Serbs; but, in his official position, he felt doubtful whether to support the extreme Magyar authority, or to wait for orders from Ferdinand; and this confusion of mind led him to give doubtful and contradictory answers to the Serb deputations which waited on him.

Under these circ.u.mstances, the Serbs were compelled to rely, even more markedly than before, on the support of their own countrymen, and of those races whom a common oppression had driven into sympathy with them. It was not only to the Croatians and Bohemians that they now appealed; even the Germans of the Bacska were expected to look with friendly eyes on the Serb movement, and Stratimirovic believed that beyond the old Serb provinces there were races to whom they might look for alliance.

For while the Serbs were still discussing their grievances and the remedies for them, the Roumanians were meeting in their village of Blasendorf to make their protest against Magyar rule. They, like the other Peoples of the Empire, had been disposed to sympathise with the March movement; but when it became known that the Magyars at Pesth had put forward as one of their twelve points the union of Transylvania with Hungary, the Roumanians became alarmed. Had the Transylvanian Diet met under the extended suffrage now granted in Hungary, the Roumanians would have had a majority in the Diet; and the influence of this majority would have been far more important under the new parliamentary system than in the old days of centralised officialism.

If, on the other hand, they were to be absorbed in Hungary, they naturally feared that the fanaticism of the Magyars in enforcing the use of the Magyar language, would be directed with even greater vigour against the despised Roumanians, than it had been against Serbs and Croats; and that the Greek Church to which the Roumanians belonged, and which had always been at a disadvantage in Transylvania, would be crushed, or, at any rate, discouraged. The tradition of their Roman descent recorded in the Libellus Wallachorum, had given some of them hopes for leadership in Transylvania, and had strengthened, even in the less ambitious, the desire for a dignified equality. Animated by these motives, they met on May 15 at Blasendorf.

This little capital of the Roumanian race lies in one of the large open plains of Transylvania. It is still little more than a straggling village of low huts; but it is apparently as important to the Roumanians as Carlowitz is to the Serbs and Hermannstadt to the Saxons. Crowds of the strange figures, whom one may still see in the villages of Transylvania, flocked in to this meeting, covered with their rough sheep-skins and dark, flowing hair, and showing in their handsome faces at once the consciousness of the new life that was awakening, and their pride in those dim traditions of the past, which were supposed to unite them with the glories of ancient Rome. Even here, too, there were found some of the ruling race, who were prepared to make common cause with this, the most despised and oppressed of the races of Hungary; for a Magyar n.o.ble named Nopcsa was prominent in the meeting. But now, as ever, the chief hope for the Roumanians was in their clergy, and specially in their bishops; and Lemenyi, the bishop of the United Greeks,[13] appeared side by side with the more popular and influential Schaguna. Speaker after speaker dwelt on the great traditions of the Roumanian nation, and their determination to obtain an equality with the Magyar, Szekler, and Saxon. They avowed their loyalty to Ferdinand, and declared that they had no desire to oppress any other nation; but that they would not suffer any other nation to oppress them; that they would work for the emanc.i.p.ation of industry and trade, for the removal of the feudal burdens, for the securing of legal justice, and for the welfare of humanity, of the Roumanian nation, and of the common fatherland. They then proceeded to ask for a separate national organization, for the use of the Roumanian language in all national affairs, and for representation in the a.s.sembly in proportion to their numbers. They further demanded a Roumanian national guard to be commanded by Roumanian officers. They claimed to be called by the name of Roumanian, instead of the less dignified epithet of Wallach. They also asked for an independent position for their Church; for the foundation of a Roumanian University; for equality with the other races of Hungary in the endowment of their clergy and schools. These were the chief points of their pet.i.tion; but along with these came the demands for the ordinary freedoms of the time, and for the redress of special local grievances. At the close of the pet.i.tion, came the prayer which specially explained the urgency of their meeting at that time. They entreated that the Diet of Transylvania should not discuss the question of the proposed union with Hungary until the Roumanians were fully represented in the Diet. This pet.i.tion Schaguna carried to Vienna on behalf of the meeting.

In the meantime the Saxons were preparing to express their opposition to the proposed union with Hungary in a separate protest of their own.

The peculiar organization which the Saxons had enjoyed had become very dear to them; and they had hoped to retain their old inst.i.tutions under the new Government. But when they appealed to the Hungarian Ministry, Deak told them that they had no right to make conditions; and it soon became evident that, in the larger matter of the union of Transylvania with Hungary, they would have as little chance of a fair hearing as in the smaller question of their own race organization.

Count Teleki, the Governor of Transylvania, had announced, on May 2, that the union was practically settled already; and that only questions of detail had now to be arranged. This direct attack on the legal power of the Transylvanian Diet naturally alarmed the Saxons, and Count Salmen, the Comes der Sachsen or Chief Magistrate of the Saxon colony, organized the opposition to the proposed union. Hitherto the Saxons, with the exception of a few generous-minded men like Roth, had been as bitterly scornful of the Roumanians as any Magyar or Szekler could be; but now the sense of a common danger drew these races together; and the Saxons offered to allow the Roumanians to hold office in the Saxon towns and villages, and to be admitted to apprenticeships by the tradesmen of those towns. The opposition of the Saxons to the Magyars was, no doubt, strengthened by the sympathy of the former with that German feeling which would lead to the strengthening of the influence of Vienna; and they declared that they would rather send representatives to a Viennese a.s.sembly than to a Diet at Presburg.

And while, on the one hand, common danger to their liberties was drawing together the Saxons and the Roumanians, the sympathies of race and a common antipathy to aliens was drawing together the Magyar and the Szekler. As early as May 10 Wesselenyi issued an appeal to the Szekler to arm themselves as guardians of the frontiers, and to be prepared to suppress any rising of the Roumanians; and on May 19 Batthyanyi appealed to them to march to Szegedin. But it was not to the Szekler alone that the Magyars trusted to enforce their will on the Transylvanian Diet. The fiery young students of Pesth hastened down, on May 30, to Klausenburg, where the deputies were gathering for the final meeting of the Diet. A Roumanian deputation, coming to entreat the Parliament not to decide till the Roumanians were adequately represented in it, were contemptuously refused a hearing, and one of their leaders was roughly pushed back. Banners were displayed bearing the words, "Union or Death!" and the young lawyers from Pesth filled the galleries of the a.s.sembly, and even crowded into the Hall. The Saxon representatives, more used to quiet discussion, or to commercial transactions, than to the fiery quarrels in which the Magyar and Szekler delighted, tremblingly entered the Hall; and, unable to gain courage for their duties, they gave way to the storm, and voted for the union. Thus ended the local independence of Transylvania, which was to be revived twelve years later by the Germanizing Liberalism of Schmerling, and then to be finally swept away in the successful movement for Hungarian Independence.

The bitterness roused by the pa.s.sing of the Act of Union was not long in leading to actual bloodshed. The immediate quarrel, however, arose out of a matter connected, not with the race contest, but with the new land laws of the country. The Hungarian Diet had decided that the peasant should not only be freed from his dependence on the landlord, but should be also considered by his previous payment of dues to have earned the land on which he had worked. Naturally, disputes arose as to the extent of the land so acquired; and in more than one case the peasants were found to be claiming more than their own share. It was to redress a blunder of this kind that, on June 2, a party of National Guards, composed partly of Szeklers and partly of Magyars, entered the Roumanian village of Mihalzi (Magyar, Mihacsfalva). The exact circ.u.mstances of such a collision as that which followed will always be told differently by the most honest narrators; but it seems probable that the Roumanians, in some confused way, connected this visit with the recent struggle about the Union; and it is certain that the race-hatred between the Szekler and the Roumanians soon became inflamed. The National Guard fired, and several of the Roumanians fell. The others fled; but their previous resistance soon produced a rumour of a general Roumanian insurrection. The Magyars were seized with a panic; the Roumanian National Committee was dissolved, and several of their clergy and other leaders were imprisoned. Had the Roumanians been now organized by Austrian officers it is possible that less might have been heard of the savagery of the new warfare. Had some of their own leaders, who afterwards tried to control them, been ready at this time to take the lead, many of the actual cruelties might never have taken place. But just at this time the Emperor answered the deputation of May 15 by referring the Roumanians to the Magyar Ministry for the redress of their grievances, and declaring that equality could only be carried out by enforcing the Act of Union.

This rebuff was accompanied by a letter from Schaguna written somewhat in the same sense; and thus, finding that some of their leaders had deserted them; that others were imprisoned; that the Emperor was discouraging their complaints; that the Magyars were denouncing them as rebels, and the Szekler making raids on their territory, the Roumanians began to defend themselves by a warfare which rapidly became exceptionally barbarous and savage.

In the meantime the other subject races of Hungary were preparing in their own way for resistance to the Magyars. The Croatian a.s.sembly at Agram, finding themselves discouraged by the Emperor, were disposed to strengthen their union with the Serbs of Slavonia; and, on June 6, Gaj and Jellacic both supported proposals at Agram for uniting the Serbs and Croats under one rule. Rajacic, who happened to be pa.s.sing through Agram, heartily responded to these proposals; and it was resolved that the relations between the Ban of Croatia and the Voyvode of the Serbs should be left to be settled at a later period. But the Serbs, though heartily desiring sympathy with the Croats, were not disposed to trust to alliances, however welcome, or to Const.i.tutional arrangements, however ingenious, for the settlement of their grievances against the Magyars; for they, too, had been forced to abandon peaceable discussions for actual warfare. Crnojevic, not having been found sufficiently stern in the Magyar service, was being driven into more violent courses by the addition of a fiercer subordinate; and the cruelties inflicted on the Serbs of the Bacska had so roused their kinsmen in other parts of Hungary that an old officer of the military frontier had crossed the Danube at the head of his followers and seized the town of t.i.tel.

At the same time the Serbs sent a deputation to Hrabowsky, the Governor of Peterwardein, to complain of the cruelties of the Magyar bands. Hitherto Hrabowsky had seemed to hesitate between the two parties; but he now grew angry in the conference with the Serb deputation, and disputed the right of the Serbs to stay in Hungary.

The Serbs, alarmed at these threats, began once more to gather at Carlowitz; and they now tried to draw recruits from friendly neighbours. Stratimirovic had succeeded in persuading some of the regiments from the frontier to take up the Serb cause; but he perhaps relied still more on the help of those Serbs from the princ.i.p.ality of Servia, who were now flocking in across the border to defend their kinsmen against the Magyars. Of the leaders of these new allies the most important was General Knicsanin, who helped to organize the forces in Carlowitz. The Serbs of Carlowitz had, however, not yet entered upon actual hostilities, when, on June 11, during one of the meetings of their a.s.sembly, Hrabowsky suddenly marched out of Neusatz, dispersed a congregation who were coming out of a chapel half way on the road between Neusatz and Carlowitz, and reached the latter town before the Serbs were aware of his intention. The Serbs, though taken by surprise, rushed out to defend their town, with a Montenegrin leader at their head. The contest continued for several hours; but at last Hrabowsky and his soldiers were driven back into Neusatz. Two days later ten thousand men were in arms in Carlowitz to defend their town and their race.

But while the Slavs in Hungary were girding themselves for this fierce war, they had not forgotten the more peaceable union proposed to them by the Bohemians; and on May 30 representatives from the different Slavonic races of the Empire had been welcomed in Prague by Peter Faster and other Bohemian leaders. On June 1 the National Committee of Prague, while deliberating on the future Const.i.tution of Bohemia, were joined by several of their Slavonic visitors; and out of this combination the Congress was formed. It was speedily divided into three sections: one representing Poles and Ruthenians, one the Southern Slavs (that is not only the Serbs and Croats, but also the Slovenes of Krain and the adjoining provinces), and the third the Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians, and the Slovaks of North Hungary. Many of the members of the Congress appeared in old Bohemian costumes, and from the windows of the town waved the flags of all the different Slavonic races. At 8 a.m.

on June 2 the members of the Congress went in solemn procession through the great square called the Grosser Ring, so soon to be the scene of a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict, to the Teynkirche, the church in which Huss preached, and where his pulpit still stands. In front of the procession went the Students' Legion, singing patriotic songs; two young men followed, one in the Polish dress, the other bearing a white, blue, and red flag, which was supposed to symbolize the union of the Slavonic peoples. A division of the Swornost corps followed these; then came the Provisional Committee, and then the representatives of the three sections of the Congress. The Poles were led by Libelt, a leader in the recent rising in Posen, and the Bohemians by the philologist Szaffarik.

At the altar, which was sacred to the bishops Cyril and Methodius, the presiding priest offered thanks to G.o.d for having put unity and brotherly love into the hearts of the Slavs; and he prayed that the Lord of Hosts would bless the work to the salvation of the nation, as well as of the whole fatherland. From the church they proceeded to the hall in the Sophien-Insel. That hall had been decked with the arms of the different Slavonic races. At the upper end of it was a table covered with red and white, the Bohemian colours; and the choir began the proceedings with an old national song. The Vice-President, after formally opening the a.s.sembly, resigned his seat to Palacky, who had been chosen President.

Palacky then rose and addressed the meeting. He spoke of the gathering as the realisation of the dreams of their youth, which a month ago they could hardly have hoped for. "The Slavs had gathered from all sides to declare their eternal love and brotherhood to each other.

Freedom," he continued, "which we now desire, is no gift of the foreigner, but of native growth, the inheritance of our fathers. The Slavs of old time were all equal before the law, and never aimed at the conquest of other nations. They understood freedom much better than some of our neighbours, who cannot comprehend the idea of aiming at freedom without also aiming at lordship. Let them learn from us the idea of equality between nations. The chief duty of our future is to carry out the principle of 'What thou wouldst not that men should do unto thee, that do not thou to another.' Our great nation would never have lost its freedom if it had not been broken up, and if each part had not gone its own separate way, and followed its own policy. The feeling of brotherly love and freedom could secure freedom to us. It is this feeling and Ferdinand that we thank for our freedom." For himself, Palacky continued, he could say, "Lord now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the salvation which Thou hast prepared for us before the face of the whole world. A light for the enlightenment of the peoples, and the glory of the Slavonic race." Then, addressing the a.s.sembly, he concluded with these words: "Gentlemen, in virtue of the office entrusted to me by you, I announce and declare that this Slavonic a.s.sembly is open; and I insist on its right and duty to deliberate about the welfare of the fatherland, and the nation, in the spirit of freedom, in the spirit of unity and peace; in the name of our old, renowned Prague, which protects us in its bosom; in the name of the Czech nation, which follows our proceedings with hearty sympathy; in the name of the great Slavonic race, which expects from our deliberations its strengthening and eternal regeneration. So help us G.o.d." Other speeches followed from representatives of the different Slavonic races; and pet.i.tions to the Emperor were prepared in favour of the demands made by the Serbs at Carlowitz, and of the rights of the Poles and Ruthenians; while plans were drawn up for the equalization of the rival languages in the schools.

But while these peaceable discussions were proceeding in the Slavonic Congress, more fiery elements were at work in other parts of the city.

During the months of April and May there had been signs of various kinds of discontent among different sections of the population.

Workmen's demonstrations about wages had attracted some attention; while one public gathering, approaching to a riot, had secured the release of an editor, supposed to have been unjustly arrested, and had hastened the resignation of Strobach, the Mayor of Prague. But the most fiery agitations were those which had been stirred up among the students by a man named Sladkowsky, with the object of weakening as far as possible the German element in Prague. So alarming did these demonstrations become that Count Deym resigned his seat on the National Committee; and Count Leo Thun, the Governor of Prague, threatened to dissolve the Swornost in order to hinder further disorder; but the opposition to this proposal was so strong that he was obliged to abandon it.

The great cause of the students alarm was the appointment of Windischgratz to take the command of the forces in Bohemia. His proceedings during the March movement in Vienna were well known; and the fear caused by his arrival was still further increased by the threatening position that he had taken up; for he had mounted his cannon on two sides of the city; namely, on the commanding fortress of the Wissehrad, on the South, from which he could have swept a poor and crowded part of Prague; and in the Joseph's barrack, on the North-East. The members of the Town Council tried to check the demonstrations of the students, and to persuade them to appeal to Windischgratz in a more orderly manner. In order to give dignity to the proceedings, the Burgomaster consented to accompany the students on the proposed deputation. Windischgratz, however, answered that he was responsible to the King, and not to the Council; though, when Count Leo Thun appealed to him, he consented to withdraw the cannon from the Joseph's barrack, declaring that there was no need for its presence there; but that he had been determined not to yield to the students.

While the students succeeded in further irritating against them a man whose haughty and overbearing spirit was naturally disposed to opposition, they were still more rash and unfortunate in their relations with some whom they had had greater hopes of conciliating.

The aristocratic leaders of the Bohemians, while a.s.serting the independence of Bohemia, and the need for protecting Slavonic liberties, were most anxious to make as many concessions to German feeling as could be made consistently with these objects. One of the n.o.blemen, who had been fiercest in his denunciations of the rising of May 15th, even thought it well to send to Vienna a long explanation and modification of his protest; while Palacky and other leading nationalists inaugurated a feast of reconciliation in which many of the German Bohemians took part. So successful had this policy appeared to be that the town of Saatz, which had been the first to express alarm at the Bohemian att.i.tude towards the Germans, declared on May 20 its sympathy with the Prague address to the Emperor, and its desire for union between the German and Bohemian elements in Bohemia. But the students seemed doomed to weaken the effect produced by their more moderate countrymen. They combined a strong Czech feeling with a great desire for democratic government; and while they thought they could enlist the sympathies of the Vienna students by the latter part of their creed, they seemed to be unaware that Germanism was to the students of Vienna what Czechism was to them. On June 5th, the very same day on which the Slavonic Congress was deciding to send its pet.i.tion to the Emperor, more than a hundred students of Prague started on a deputation to their comrades in Vienna. But on their way, they thought it necessary to attack and insult the German flag, wherever it was displayed. They arrived in Vienna to find the Viennese students suspicious even towards those who had been their champions, and still smarting from the recollection of a struggle between their Legion, and the National Guard, who had attempted to suppress them. It was while they were in this state of irritation, that the Czech students appeared in the Hall of the University; and, unfortunately, at the same time, there arrived from Prague the representatives of two German Bohemian Clubs. Schuselka, Goldmark, and other Viennese leaders, urged a reconciliation between the two races; but the news of the insults to the German flag so infuriated the Viennese students, that they drove the Czechs from the Hall, and ordered them to leave Vienna within twenty-four hours.

The unfortunate deputation returned to Prague to find that the Slavonic Congress was approaching its final acts, and was preparing two appeals, one to the Emperor, and one to the Peoples of Europe. The latter appeal was based on a general complaint of the oppressions from which the Slavs suffered. It demanded the restoration of Poland, and called for a European Congress to settle international questions; "since free Peoples will understand each other better than paid diplomatists." In the appeal to the Emperor, the Congress went into greater detail, as to the special demands of the different Slavonic races of Austria. The Bohemians, indeed, mainly expressed their thanks for the independence which now seemed legally secured. The Moravians suggested an arrangement which would combine the common action of Moravia and Bohemia with a provision for Moravian local independence.

The Galicians pointed out how much they had been left behind by the other Austrian provinces in the struggle for freedom, and proposed an arrangement for securing equality between the Polish and Ruthenian languages in Galicia, and for granting to Galicia the same provincial freedom that had already been secured to Bohemia. The Slovaks of North Hungary demanded protection for their language against the Magyar attempt to crush it out; equal representation in the Hungarian a.s.sembly; official equality between the Slovak, Ruthenian, and Magyar languages; and freedom for those Slovaks who had recently been arrested and imprisoned by the Magyars, for defence of their national rights.

The Serbs, of course, demanded the acceptance of the programme put forward at Carlowitz; and the Croats the recognition of the legality of the acts of Jellacic, and of the munic.i.p.al independence of the a.s.sembly of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. Lastly, the Slovenes desired that the provinces of Steiermark, Krain, Carinthia, and some neighbouring districts, should be formed into a separate kingdom, in which the Slovenian language should be the official one. All the Slavs combined in the desire that Austria should be a federal State, and in the protest against that absorption in Germany, the fear of which had led to the calling of the Congress.

But sober and rational as was the tone of the Slavonic Congress, as a whole, there were turbulent spirits in Prague, who were determined that the matter should not end peaceably. The extremer representatives of Polish feeling desired the separation of Poland, and disliked any plan which would reconcile Galicia to remaining part of Austria. On the other hand, there had appeared in Prague at this period an adventurer named Turansky, who while professing to be a champion of the Slovaks of North Hungary, seems undoubtedly to have acted as an "agent provocateur." Such men as these were easily able to act upon the excited feelings of the students; and were further aided in stirring up violent feeling by a strike among the cotton workers which was just then going on.

Finally, the outburst came on June 12. The Slavonic Congress at Prague, already preparing to break up, met on that day to celebrate a last solemn ma.s.s. Once more they all gathered in front of the statue of S. Wenzel; but now the numbers were so great that they spread down the whole length of the Wenzels Platz. In spite of the peaceable intentions of the majority, a number of the workmen had come bearing arms. The ma.s.s went off quietly enough; but several of those who had attended it, had had their national feelings excited to the utmost; and, as they left the Wenzels Platz, they marched back singing Bohemian songs, and howling against Windischgratz. As they pa.s.sed under the Pulverthurm into the narrow and busy Zeltnerga.s.se, which leads to the Grosser Ring, some soldiers, as ill luck would have it, came out of the neighbouring barrack. The house of Windischgratz was in the street, and the crowd were hooting against him. Under these circ.u.mstances a collision was unavoidable. The crowd were dispersed by the soldiers; some of the students attempted to rally them, and were arrested; the workmen then tried to rescue the students; the soldiers charged, and drove them back under the Pulverthurm, and round into the wider street of Am Graben, and right up to the National Museum, which was the head-quarters of the Swornost. After a fierce struggle the soldiers stormed the Museum, and captured many of the students; but the panic had now spread to other parts of the town. Sladkowsky, at the head of the workmen, broke into the depot of the Town Watch, and seized arms; while others rushed into the country districts round Prague, and spread the rumour that the soldiers were trying to take away all that the Emperor had granted, and to restore the feudal dues.

In the meantime the leaders of the March movement were greatly startled at hearing of the outbreak. Some of them had already been alarmed at the growing tendency to disturbances in Prague; several of them hastened out to check the riots, and some of them even fought against the insurgents. Count Leo Thun, the Governor of Prague, hastened down to the Grosser Ring to try to still the disturbance; but the students seized him, and carried him off prisoner into the Jesuit College near the Carlsbrucke. They seem to have had very little intention of violence; but they thought to secure by this means his promise of help in a peaceful settlement of the contest. He refused, however, to promise anything while he was kept a prisoner. Some of the students went to the Countess to try to get her to persuade her husband to yield; but though she was so alarmed for his safety that her hair turned white from fear, she firmly refused to comply.

Meanwhile, one of the more moderate men went to Windischgratz to entreat him to give up the students who had been taken prisoners, on condition of the barricades being removed. But Windischgratz demanded that Count Leo Thun should first be set free. While the discussion was going on, the fight was still raging in the Zeltner Ga.s.se; and Princess Windischgratz coming to the windows was struck by a shot which mortally wounded her. Windischgratz hastened to the room where his wife was dying, while the soldiers guarded the house against further attacks. With all his hardness, Windischgratz was entirely free from the blood-thirstiness of Radetzky and Haynau; and under this terrible provocation he seems to have exercised a wonderful self-restraint. While the Burgomaster and some members of the Town Council were exerting themselves to restore order, Windischgratz sent an offer to make peace, if Count Leo Thun were released, if guarantees were given for the peace of the town, and if Count Leo Thun and he were allowed to consult together about the restoration of order; and he even promised to await the deliberations of the Town Council on this subject.

But the fight was raging so hotly that the Town Council were unable, for some time, to deliberate. At last, however, temporary suspension of firing was secured, and the Burgomaster, with the a.s.sistance of Palacky, Szaffarik and others organized a new deputation to Windischgratz. Windischgratz insisted on his former terms; and at last Count Leo Thun was set free, giving a general promise to use his efforts for securing peace. The students, however, put forward the conditions, that Bohemia should be under a Bohemian commander who should be in most things independent of Vienna; that Bohemian soldiers, alone, should be used in the defence of Bohemia; that the officers and soldiers should take their oath to the Const.i.tution, both of Bohemia and of Austria; that the gates of Prague should be defended by the citizens and students alone; and lastly that Windischgratz should be declared the enemy of all the Peoples of Austria, and tried by a Bohemian tribunal. As Windischgratz was, obviously, one of the people to whom these conditions would be referred, it was not very likely that the last of these requests would be complied with. He seems still, however, to have retained some desire for concession; and on June 15 he withdrew his soldiers from the other parts of the town to the North side of the river. But new acts of violence followed; and Windischgratz began to cannonade the town. Again the Burgomaster appealed to him; and he consented to resign in favour of Count Mensdorff, on condition that the barricades should be instantly removed. On the 16th the town seemed to have become quiet; but the barricades were not yet removed; the soldiers indignantly demanded that Windischgratz should be restored to his command, as the conditions of his resignation had not been fulfilled; and the first act of Windischgratz, on rea.s.suming power, was to threaten to bombard the town, if it did not surrender by six o'clock a.m. on the 17th.

The wiser students saw the uselessness of further resistance, and began to remove the barricades; but some stray shots from the soldiers, whether by accident or intention, hit the mill near one of the bridges; some women in the mill raised the cry that they were being fired on; the mill hands returned the fire, and Windischgratz began at once to bombard the town. The barricades were quickly thrown up again; for four hours the bombardment continued; and, while the students were fiercely defending the Carlsbrucke against the soldiers of Windischgratz, the fire, which had been lighted by the bomb-sh.e.l.ls, was spreading from the mill to other parts of the town. Of such a contest there could be but one result. In the course of the 17th several thousand people fled from Prague; and on the 18th Windischgratz entered the town in triumph, and proclaimed martial law.

The conspiracy had collapsed; but, except Peter Faster, who escaped from the town during the siege, none of the leaders of the March movement were at first suspected of any share in the Rising. Indeed, it was well known that many of them had exerted themselves to suppress it. But Turansky, the agitator above mentioned, suddenly gave himself up to the authorities, and offered to reveal a plot, in which he declared that Palacky, Rieger, and other Bohemian leaders were implicated. The evidence broke down; but it gave excuse for the continuance of the state of siege, for the arrest of many innocent men, and for the refusal to summon the Bohemian a.s.sembly, which was to have met in that very month. This imaginary plot was used as the final pretext for the complete suppression of Bohemian liberty. Turansky was believed, rightly or wrongly, to have been sent by Kossuth to stir up the insurrection; that he had desired the failure of the movement which he stirred up was evident enough; and thus there arose an ineffaceable bitterness between the Bohemians and the Magyars. There also arose out of these events further cause for the bitterness between the Bohemians and the Germans. For, while Prague was still burning, and Windischgratz was still enforcing martial law, a band of Vienna students arrived in Prague, to congratulate Windischgratz on his victory over the liberties of Bohemia. The long-simmering hatred between the Germans and Bohemians seems to have found its climax in that congratulation; and from that time forth, whatever might be the political feeling of the leaders on either side, common action between Bohemians and Germans became less and less possible.

As for the effect of the fall of Prague on the position of the Slavonic races in Austria, they were deprived by that event of their last help of a free centre of national life round which their race could gather. For Prague had supplied such a centre in a way in which none of the other Slavonic capitals ever could supply it. Its fame rested on a past, which was connected with struggles for freedom against German tyranny, and the leading facts of which were clear and undisputed; while its geographical position prevented it from coming into collision with the other Slavonic races. Agram and Carlowitz might at times look upon each other as rivals; but Prague had no interest in preferring one to the other, or in destroying the independence of either, while the connection in language between the Bohemians and the Slovaks of North Hungary ensured the sympathy of the former for any attempts at resistance to Magyar supremacy. Lastly, wedged in as Bohemia is between the Germans of the Archduchy of Austria, and that wider Germany with which so many of the Austrians desired to unite, it could never cherish those separatist aspirations which would have prevented Lemberg, for instance, from ever becoming the centre of an Austrian Slavonic federation. Thus the fall of Bohemian liberty prepared the way for a complete change in the character of the Slavonic movement. The idea of a federation of the different Slavonic races of the Empire might be still cherished by many of the Slavonic leaders; and, for a short time, the struggle of the Slavonic races against Magyar and German supremacy might retain its original character of a struggle for freedom. But it was unavoidable that this movement should now gradually drift into an acceptance of the leadership of those courtiers and soldiers, who hated the Germans and Magyars as the opponents, not of Slavonic freedom, but of Imperial despotism.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Rakoczi is still to a great extent a national hero among the Magyars, as is shown by the name of the Rakoczi March, which is given to one of the national airs; for the Magyars, in the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, were willing to risk the separation of Transylvania from Hungary if thereby they could secure an independent background to their struggles for liberty against Austria, much as the Venetians in 1859 were thankful for the liberation of Lombardy from Austria, though it involved the loss to Venetia of fellow-sufferers under Austrian oppression.

[12] English readers may be reminded by this scene of that fiery debate on the Grand Remonstrance, when the members of the House of Commons would "have sheathed their swords in each other's bowels, had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it."

[13] Out of the various efforts of the Roman Catholics to bring back the Greeks to the Roman Church, there had arisen a community called the United Greeks, which acknowledged the power of the Pope while maintaining the Greek ritual.

CHAPTER IX.

THE REVOLUTION BREAKS INTO SEPARATE PARTS. APRIL TO OCTOBER, 1848.

Att.i.tude of the other races to the Italian struggle.--Inconsistency of Kossuth.--Att.i.tude of the Provisional Government of Lombardy.--Hesitation of Charles Albert.--His two declarations about the Lombard war.--The war adopted by Leopold of Tuscany.--By Ferdinand of Naples.--Confusions of the Pope.--General Durando.--Radetzky at Mantua.--The first battle of Goito.--Mazzini in Milan.--Casati, Charles Albert, and the Italian Volunteers.--The Southern Tyrol.--Venice.--Manin's error.--Durando and Manin.--Charles Albert's att.i.tude towards Venetia.--The Pope's difficulty.--The Encyclical of April 29.--Its effect.--The Mamiani Ministry.--Effect of the Pope's att.i.tude on Charles Albert's position.--The fall of Udine, and its consequences.--Charles Albert and Venetia.--Casati and Mazzini.--The question of the Fusion.--Its effect on opinion.--The Neapolitan Coup d'Etat of May 15.--The recall of the Neapolitan troops from Lombardy.--Pepe and Manin.--Battle of Curtatone.--"The handful of boys."--Second battle of Goito.--Capture of Peschiera.--The vote of fusion.--The emeute of May 29 and its effects.--The struggle and fall of Vicenza.--The Austrian conquest of Venetia.--The vote of fusion in Venice.--The attack on Trieste.--German feeling in Frankfort.--The various difficulties of the Frankfort Parliament.--Effect of Archduke John's election.--Anti-Italian decisions.--The struggle in Italy grows fiercer.--Charles Albert's new blunders.--Mazzini's advice to the Lombard Government.--Charles Albert at Milan.--The final treason.--The Austrian reconquest of Lombardy.--The 8th of August in Bologna.--Repulse of Welden.--The struggle between Frankfort and Berlin.--The question of Posen.--The Schleswig-Holstein war.--The a.s.sembly and the King.--The truce of Malmo.--The fatal vote.--The riots at Frankfort.--The "state of siege."--The Struve-Putsch.--The Vienna Parliament.--The race struggle.--Change of feeling towards the Magyars.--Intrigues of Latour.--Character and policy of Ferdinand.--Jellacic.--The conference at Vienna.--"We meet on the Danube."--Stratimirovic and Rajacic.--Colonel Mayerhoffer.--The Magyar deputation.--The mission and death of Lamberg.--Latour and Pulszky.--Murder of Latour.--Jellacic and Auersperg.--Blum and Bem.--The battle of Schwechat.--Fall of Vienna.--Death of Blum.--General remarks.

The struggle of races described in the last chapter had not been without its effect on the progress of affairs in Italy. Those Austrians, whose one desire was for the unity of the Empire, spoke of Radetzky's camp as the only place where Austria was truly represented; while, on the other hand, the leaders of the different race movements were divided in their feelings about the Italian war. The Germans, both at Frankfort and Vienna, saw with chagrin that Lombardy and Venetia were slipping away from German rule; but they felt, nevertheless, that they could not entirely condemn a struggle for freedom and independence. The Bohemians, especially in the first part of the struggle, would gladly have let the Italian provinces go, if they could thereby have facilitated the federal arrangement of the rest of the Austrian Empire. Among the Croats there seems to have been some division of feeling on the subject. Gaj and the purely national party had some sympathies with Italian liberty; but Jellacic, and that large body of his followers who mingled military feelings with the desire for Croatian independence, were eager to show their loyalty to the House of Austria by supporting the war in Italy; and they were, moreover, not unmindful of the rivalry between Slavs and Italians in Dalmatia and Istria. The Magyars, in the early days of the March movement, had been more disposed than any race in the Empire to show friendliness to Italy; and Kossuth's Italian sympathies had been specially well known.

But circ.u.mstances changed the att.i.tude of the Croats and Hungarians to Italy, as the struggle went on; for, while the former desired to recall the Croat forces from Italy to the defence of their home, the latter became more and more desirous of conciliating the sympathies of the Emperor. The wish to preserve a strictly legal position led some of the members of the Hungarian Ministry to dwell upon the claims due to the Austrian Government under the Pragmatic Sanction; and Kossuth, without sympathising with this feeling, was easily induced to give way to his colleagues, by his fear of the encouragement which the recall of Croatian regiments would give to the desire for Croatian independence; and therefore, in spite of his belief in the justice of the Italian cause, he strongly supported the use of Hungarian troops in crushing out the freedom of Italy.

But, interesting as the Italian struggle was to all the different races of the Austrian Empire, it was yet working itself out in a way so distinct from either the Austrian or the German movements, that we are compelled to ignore the exact chronological order of European events in order to understand its full significance; and we must therefore now go back to the events which followed the March risings and the flight of Radetzky and Palffy. The centre of interest was still in Milan, where Casati and the Town Council had been changed by the force of circ.u.mstances into the Provisional Government of Lombardy. These men had shown, during the siege, a continual uncertainty of purpose and readiness to compromise; and, when Radetzky had been driven from Milan, they showed an equal unreadiness to follow up their advantages.

In the people, however, there was no want of willingness to carry on the struggle; and at least one general rose to the occasion. Augusto Anfossi had died of his wounds during the siege; but Luciano Manara, the youth who had captured Porta Tosa, was following up the retreat of Radetzky, placing guards in the villages, and cutting roads. Manara found it very difficult to carry out his plans; partly owing to the distrust shown to him by the General whom the Provisional Government had placed over him, partly to the insubordination of Torres, one of the leaders of the Genoese Volunteers, who was nominally acting under him, and whose defiance of Manara seems to have been at least tolerated by the Provisional Government.

For Casati and his friends put their trust not so much in any Lombards as in the help derived from Charles Albert. That Prince, indeed, had hesitated as usual till the last moment. When the news of the Milanese rising had reached Genoa, the Genoese had risen and sent volunteers to a.s.sist the insurgents; but Charles Albert had not only forbidden their march, but had sent troops to drive them back from the frontier. So indignant were the students of Turin at this action that they rose against Charles Albert, and would not submit until they were allowed to volunteer. Several officers even threatened to leave the Army if war was not declared on Austria; Parma and Modena were rising at the same time against the Austrian forces, and demanding annexation to Piedmont; while Mazzini and his friends were issuing appeals from Paris to urge their followers to support Charles Albert, if he would venture on war with Austria. At last Pareto, the most democratic of Charles Albert's Ministers, a.s.sured him that, if he did not act, a rebellion would break out in Piedmont; and so, on March 23, having demanded of the Austrians the evacuation of Parma and Modena, and having been refused, Charles Albert ordered the Austrian Amba.s.sador to leave Turin, and straightway declared war. Yet even now he left doubtful the exact object of the war; for, while he declared to the Provisional Government that he came "to lend to the Peoples of Lombardy and Venetia that a.s.sistance which brother may expect from brother, and friend from friend," he announced to the other Governments of Europe that he had only intervened to prevent a Republican rising. He then despatched General Pa.s.salacqua to Milan, announcing that he himself would not arrive there until he had won a victory over the Austrians.