The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany Part 6

The spirit of literary independence in North Germany, and the rivalry of languages in the Austrian Empire, were both forcing themselves on the attention of the public during the period of Metternich's rule. To outward appearance there was no time at which the condition of Germany must have seemed more helpless and hopeless than between 1819 and 1840.

The German insurrections of 1831 could not be compared for their historical importance with either the English reform movement of the same period, or with the Italian uprisings; nor for dramatic brilliancy with the Polish insurrection of 1830. Even the Hanoverian Const.i.tution of 1833, which seemed to be firmly established, went down four years later without a sword being drawn in its defence; while the heavy burdens of the Carlsbad decrees of 1819 and the Frankfort decrees of 1832 were made still heavier in 1834 by a new Edict, pa.s.sed at Vienna, establishing courts of arbitration, elected by members of the Bund, to decide questions at issue between sovereigns and parliaments. If the a.s.semblies, in defending their rights of taxation, should refuse to appeal to this Court, the sovereign might then proceed to levy, without further delay, the supplies which had been granted by the previous a.s.sembly.

Yet Germany was not dead. Apart from the continual a.s.sertions of independence by the South German States, the growth of German literature was keeping alive the sense of union between the different parts of the nation. Stein, after his retirement from political affairs, had devoted himself to the encouragement of German literature, and particularly of German history. For this purpose he brought together historians from different parts of Germany; and Perthes, the bookseller, who had helped to defend Hamburg against the French, exerted himself to promote a book trade which was to unite the North and South of Germany. Occasionally, some prince, like the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, would show an inclination to play the part of the Duke of Weimar as a patron of literature, but could only call attention thereby to such life as still remained, not evoke any new life. The German Muse was still to thrive by her own labours, and the great proof of the existence of a still independent literary cla.s.s was given in 1837, when the King of Hanover suppressed the Const.i.tution which his predecessor had established.

On November 17th, 1837, seven professors of Gottingen University drew up against this act of tyranny a protest which so ably connected the feeling of the true literary man and the true teacher with that of the independent citizen that it deserves to be given at length. They said that the whole chance of the success of their work depended not more certainly on the scientific worth of their teaching than on their personal blamelessness. Should they appear before the young students as men who would play carelessly with their oaths, then at once the blessing of their work would be gone; and what importance could the oath of homage possibly have, if the King had received it from men who just before had audaciously violated another oath? This protest was signed by Dahlmann, Albrecht, Gervinus, the brothers Grimm, Weber, and Ewald. They were summarily dismissed from their offices by the King, who declared that he could buy professors anywhere for money, as easily as dancers. At once the greatest enthusiasm broke out in different parts of Germany. In Leipzig and Konigsberg subscriptions were opened for the professors, and in twelve hours the Leipzigers had subscribed nearly 1,000 thalers. The subscription of Leipzig was followed by a public reception given to Albrecht and Dahlmann; an address was delivered in which the professors were told that the whole heart of the German people beat with them. The man who delivered this address, and who thus first made his appearance before the public, was the Leipzig bookseller, Robert Blum. In Saxony the Const.i.tution which had been won in 1831 was still nominally in existence, and the Prime Minister was even called a Liberal. The Members of the Parliament hoped to seize this opportunity of putting Saxony forward as the champion of German rights; but the Government shrank from that position, and seemed disposed even to check the independent movement among the people.

Now in spite of the steady courage that had shown itself among the literary men of Germany, the bulk of the nation was still essentially monarchical, and they needed some king at the head of the movement for freedom and unity. However much of Liberalism might occasionally have been shown by some of the smaller princes of Germany, none of them were in a position to take the leading part in any common German movement. The Emperor of Austria, even had his policy tended in that direction, was hindered by his connection with non-German territories from a.s.suming such a leadership. And the memories of 1813 gathered, if not round the King of Prussia, at least round his kingdom. The inst.i.tution of the Zollverein formed one point of attraction between Prussia and the Liberals of Germany; the position of Prussia as the great Protestant Power strengthened her influence in Northern Germany; and just at the time when the King of Hanover was dismissing the professors of Gottingen, the King of Prussia was supporting at the University of Bonn professors whom the Archbishop of Cologne was trying to suppress. The prohibition of mixed marriages by the same Archbishop further excited Frederick William's opposition; and, unable to secure obedience by other methods, the King seized and imprisoned the Archbishop. An act of tyranny in the interests of liberty seems to commend itself more readily to Continental revolutionists than to those who have been bred up under the principle of mutual forbearance produced by Const.i.tutional life; and there can be little doubt that much of the strongest part of North German feeling was enlisted on the side of the King of Prussia. But Frederick William III. was not a man to take the lead in anything. By the mere accident of his position he had become the figure-head of the rising of 1813; and by the same accident he continued to attract the wishes, one can hardly say the hopes, of those who desired to counteract in Germany the policy of Metternich. He could at no time have done much to help forward the unity of Germany; and he had long since abandoned any wish to work in that direction.

But while the excitement arising from the tyranny of the King of Hanover, and the struggle of the King of Prussia with the Archbishop of Cologne, were still distracting Germany, Frederick William III.

died, and was succeeded by Frederick William IV. The new King was a man of somewhat poetical and enthusiastic temperament, with a strong religious bias, desirous in a way of the welfare of his people, and not ill disposed to play a Liberal part within due limits. He restored Arndt to his position at Bonn; he set free not only Jahn, but also the Archbishop of Cologne; he found a post for Dahlmann in the University of Bonn; and he began also to talk Const.i.tutionalism in a way which roused new hopes in Germany. He inspired no confidence in those who looked more closely into matters; but his career began at a time when the Germans were in a state of eager expectation, which had been quickened by a movement already preparing in other parts of Germany.

The first utterance of the new reformers was a protest against religious superst.i.tion. A Roman Catholic priest, named Ronge, denounced the famous worship of the Holy Coat at Treves. This protest attracted attention, and was followed by an attack on a number of other corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church. The movement spread; a reformed Catholic Church was founded in Posen and Silesia, and Ronge was appointed minister of the first congregation of the new faith.

It was in 1845 that the movement reached Saxony. Two years before, the Liberal Ministry had retired; a complete reaction had set in, and Robert Blum had been subjected to a fine and four weeks' imprisonment for an article in which he had advocated publicity of trial. Nothing daunted by this, Blum threw himself heartily into the new movement, and, although a Roman Catholic himself, denounced the practice of the confessional and the celibacy of the clergy. The Ultramontanes raised a riot in which Blum was personally attacked, and the Saxon Ministry declared their determination to put down "the sects." Such a threat naturally gave new force to the reformers, and they raised the cry, so often to be heard in the coming Liberal movements, of "Down with the Jesuits!" That unfortunate Society, so often the object of hatred both to kings and Peoples, was in this case specially obnoxious to the Liberals from the patronage which was extended to it by the heir to the throne. When the Prince appeared to review the troops at Leipzig he was received in silence, and when he had retired to his hotel the crowd gathered round it with cries of "Long live Ronge!" and "Down with the Jesuits!" accompanied by the singing of "Ein fester Burg ist unser Gott," and followed by songs of a different description. Stones soon began to fly. Then the soldiers were called out, they fired on the crowd, and many were killed.

On the following day the students of Leipzig gathered to hear an address from Robert Blum. He urged them to abstain from violence, but to put into form their demand for legal remedies; and for this purpose a committee was chosen. The following demands were laid before the Town Council--viz., that the preservation of order should be entrusted to the civic guard; that the soldiers should be removed from the town; that inquiries should be made into the circ.u.mstances of the riot, and a solemn burial given to those who had been shot. The Town Council yielded, and though the soldiers were soon sent back into Leipzig, a beginning had been made which might lead to a larger reform. Blum then founded a debating society; and, at the end of 1845, he was chosen representative of Leipzig in the Lower House of Saxony.

But while the national feeling of Germany was gathering round the intellectual leaders of that country, the feeling for national peculiarities and national language was producing widely different results in those countries where the unfortunate policy of Joseph II.

had made the German language a symbol of division rather than of unity.

The movement for subst.i.tuting the Magyar language for the Latin (which had previously been customary in the Diet at Presburg) was the revival of a struggle which had begun in the very time of Joseph II.; and, had Hungary been a h.o.m.ogeneous country, the movement might have pa.s.sed as naturally into a struggle for freedom as the enthusiasm for German poetry and German learning had chimed in with the desire for German political unity. But Hungary had never been a country of one race or of common aspirations. Several waves of conquest and colonization had pa.s.sed over different parts of it, without ending, in any case, in that amalgamation between the different races which alone could secure national unity.

Yet it is just possible that, had the leadership of the Magyars fallen into the hands of a man of wider sympathies and more delicate feeling than Kossuth, an understanding might have been effected between the different peoples of Hungary. During the struggle against Joseph II., the other races seem to have submitted to the leadership of the Magyars, and to a great extent to have adopted the Magyar language, because it was not then thrust on them by force. But when, after the Diet of 1830, Hungary began to reawaken to the desire for liberty, signs of national feeling soon showed themselves among other races than the Magyars.

The first race who felt the new impulse were the Croats. They, more than any of the other peoples who had been annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary, had preserved their separate government and traditions of independence. In 1527 they offered the throne of Croatia to the Hapsburgs, without waiting for any decision by the Magyars; and when Charles VI. was submitting to the Powers of Europe and to the inhabitants of his different dominions the question of the Pragmatic Sanction, Croatia gave her decision quite independently of the Diet at Presburg.

But apart from her actual legal rights to independence, there remained a tradition of the old period when the Kingdom of Croatia had been an important Power in Europe, and had extended over Slavonia and Dalmatia. But these claims were not undisputed. The hold which Venice had gained over Dalmatia and Istria had introduced into those provinces an Italian element; and when, in the sixteenth century, the Serbs were called into Hungary in large numbers, Slavonia had developed a variety of the Slavonic tongue which must have weakened the absolute supremacy of the Croats. The sense, however, of a connection between the dialects of the different Slavonic States was a bond of union between those States which might at any time be drawn closer.

When, then, Szechenyi began to stir up the Magyars to develop their language and literature, it occurred to a Croatian poet to link together the different dialects of the Southern Slavs into one language. The Croatians had been so far in advance of their neighbours the Serbs that they had abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet, which had been introduced at the time of their first conversion to Christianity, and had adopted the ordinary Latin alphabet. But the Croatian dialect, by itself, would not have been accepted by the other Slavs; and the softer language and higher culture of the old Republic of Ragusa supplied a better basis for the development of the new language. Louis Gaj, the Croatian poet, had studied at the University of Leipzig, which seems to have been the centre of a good deal of Slavonic feeling; and he hoped to link together, not merely the three provinces of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, but several, also, of the south-west provinces of Austria; and, on the other hand, he wished to draw into this bond of sympathy those Slavonic countries which still groaned under the Turkish yoke. It was necessary, however, to find a new name for a language which was a new combination of dialects. To call it the Croatian language would have implied a claim to superiority for Croatia which it was most desirable to avoid; and as none other of the Slavonic provinces could well be treated as the G.o.dmother of the new language, Gaj went back to the seventeenth century for a name.

At that period Leopold I. of Austria had granted special privileges to the _Illyrian_ nation, and it was only in the eighteenth century that the _Illyrian_ Chancellery at Vienna had been abolished. Here, then, was a name, recognized by Imperial authority in legal doc.u.ments, and giving no superiority to any one of the Slavonic provinces over the others. To carry out his purposes, Gaj started a journal in 1835 to which at first he gave the name of the "Gazette of Croatia," but which he soon renamed the "National Gazette of Illyria." This newspaper was written in the new language, and the Hungarian authorities refused to sanction it. Nor were they the only opponents of the new movement. The Turkish Pasha in Bosnia was alarmed at the attempt to draw the subjects of the Sultan into closer alliance with the Slavs in Hungary; and he tried to persuade Francis that Gaj was attempting to shake the Imperial authority and found a separate kingdom. At the same time the Bishop of Agram warned the Pope of the evident tendency of this movement to give the upper hand to the members of the Greek Church, who formed the majority of the Southern Slavs, over the Roman Catholics of Croatia. But these efforts failed. Metternich saw in Gaj's movement an opportunity of weakening the Magyars; Francis sent a ring to Gaj, as a sign of his approval; and Gregory XVI. was so far from being influenced by the Bishop of Agram's appeal that he removed him from his see for having made it.

The fact that Francis had encouraged, and Metternich at all events not disapproved, this movement was enough to alarm the sensibilities of the Magyars; and when Gaj appeared in the Hungarian Diet of 1840, Deak rebuked him for his work. Gaj answered in words which became afterwards only too memorable. "The Magyars," he said, "are an island in the Slavonic ocean. I did not make the ocean, nor did I stir up its waves; but take care that they do not go over your heads and drown you." The words were certainly not conciliatory; but they had been provoked by the evident signs of hostility on the part of the Magyars.

If the latter had been content to ignore the movement, it might have remained, for their time at least, a purely literary effort; or, if it had taken a political form, it might have drifted into union with the Bohemian struggle against German supremacy, or even into a crusade against the Turks. It is, however, more than probable that the attempt to found this new language would have been earlier abandoned had it not been for the opposition which it called forth. For Gaj, however zealous as a patriot, and however ingenious as a philologer, seems to have been deficient in the power of producing such a great work of imagination as that which enabled Dante to unite the not less diverse elements of the Italian language.

But the Magyar cry of alarm at the demands of the Slavs was now echoed by a fiercer voice than that of Deak. In 1841, the year after the dissolution of that Presburg Diet by which Metternich had been so signally defeated, Kossuth started a paper called the "Pesti Hirlap"

(the Gazette of Pesth), which soon became at once the most determined champion of those liberties which Kossuth desired for his countrymen, and the bitterest opponent of those liberties which he grudged to the other races of Hungary. For it was not merely in provinces marked off from the Magyar world like Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, that a movement like Gaj's would produce effect. The Slavs were scattered about in nearly all the districts of Hungary, and though they might not all desire separate political organizations like those which the Croats demanded, the question of the preservation of their language concerned even those who had no separate political existence; and they too resented any attempt on the part of the Magyars to subst.i.tute for it the language of the ruling race. Kossuth was as indignant at this hindrance to his schemes of national unity as Joseph II. had been at the hindrances which had been thrown in the way of the Germanizing of the Empire. The same year, 1841, which saw the starting of the journal in which Kossuth was to vindicate the liberties of Hungary against Metternich, was also the year in which he dealt his first decided blow against the liberties of the Slavonic races of Hungary. At a general convention of the Hungarian Protestants, he proposed that certain of the schools in which the Slavonic clergy studied physical science, and other branches of knowledge, should be deprived of these teachings, and that mere practice in writing sermons should be subst.i.tuted. This proposal was defended on the ground that Slavonic gatherings, unless carefully limited, must be a source of danger to the country. Any one who ventured to defend the Slavonic cause at this meeting was howled down, and Kossuth's motion was carried.

Fierce attacks on the Slavs and their language now appeared in the "Pesti Hirlap," and Kossuth refused to insert the answers to these attacks. Count Zay, who had just been appointed chief inspector of the Protestant Congregations and Schools, openly announced in a public circular his determination to Magyarize the Slavs. The Slavonic speech, he said, would prevent the Slavs from being firm in the Protestant faith; and while they used that speech they would not be capable of freedom, and could not even be considered to have a proper share in humanity. The Magyarizing of the Slavs was the holiest duty of every genuine patriot of Hungary, every defender of freedom and intelligence, and every true subject of the Austrian House. Others accused the Slavs of offering sacrifices to their old deity Svatopluk; while that great bugbear, the fear of Russian influence, was pushed forward on every occasion. Slavonic hymns, previously sung in the churches, were prohibited; and Magyar preachers were thrust upon congregations who did not understand a word of the Magyar language.

It was while this bitter feeling was at its height that the elections began for the Diet of 1843 at Presburg, and for the Croatian a.s.sembly at Agram. The Hungarian elections turned, to some extent, on the quarrel with the Slavs; but partly also on the question, which was now coming to the front, of the exemption of the so-called n.o.bles of Hungary from taxation. These "n.o.bles" were not confined to the great families who sat in the House of Magnates, but included all the freeholders of the country; and great injustice had arisen from the fact that the men who laid on the taxes were, in the main, not those who paid them. Szechenyi, as before mentioned, had tried to diminish this injustice; but the fiery methods of Kossuth, and the growing tendency to opposition to the Austrian rule, had alarmed Szechenyi; and he shrank more and more from the leaders of the popular movement.

It was not, however, merely the extreme character of their aims, nor their rough-and-ready methods, which alienated him; it was also their growing injustice to the Slavs. Szechenyi, who had been so much the first in reviving an interest in Magyar language and literature, now came forward, as President of the Hungarian Academy, to denounce any step for spreading the Magyar language which could offend the Croats.

On the other hand, the peasant n.o.bles of Hungary protested fiercely against the attempt to deprive them of their exemption from taxation, and they gathered at the county meetings in a riotous manner, breaking, in one case, into the Hall of Election, with knives in their hands, and shouting, "Freedom for ever! We will not pay taxes."

This fierce intimidation on the part of the opponents of reform provoked reprisals from the reformers. And, where they were unable to hold their own by intimidation, they resorted to bribery. One protest was made against this defection from the true principles of liberty which was of vital importance to the future history of Hungary. The election of Zala county had ended once more in the return of Francis Deak; and the electors were gathered to hear the announcement of the election, when, to their dismay, Deak came forward and stated that, in consequence of the way in which the election had been conducted, he should refuse to sit as their representative. His friends pressed round him, some entreating him not to desert their cause; some even venturing to reproach him with cowardice in shrinking from the struggle. But he replied that, if he went to the Diet after this election, he should always "see bloodstains on his mandate." Thus, at a crisis when they most needed a man who would combine genuine popular feeling with moderation and justice, the reformers were deprived of _the_ leader in the Lower House who possessed those qualities in the largest degree. As for Deak himself, it must be remembered that he was sacrificing the undoubted position of leader of the reforming party, at the time when its objects were becoming more and more definite, and its leadership was in consequence growing more attractive to a man of courage and patriotism. Though he was still to play a useful part in the coming struggles, it was of necessity a secondary one; and it was not till twenty-three years later that he was to resume the first place in the Hungarian national movement.

In the meantime the Croatian question had become more complicated by an element of internal division. In a district not far from Agram, there was established a complete settlement of Croatian "n.o.bles," of a similar type to those who had been raising the cry against equal taxation in the Hungarian counties. These men claimed the right, much disputed by the other Croats, to attend the county meetings at Agram _en ma.s.se_, instead of returning representatives like other citizens.

In this Diet of 1843, Count Jozipovic, leader of this band of "n.o.bles," a.s.serted their right in a very imperious manner; and a fierce fight followed in the streets of Agram. Thus began a contest which extended, with various degrees of violence, over several years.

The Croatian a.s.sembly, however, at first attempted to place their claims in a moderate manner before the Magyars; and instructed Haulik, Bishop of Agram, to a.s.sure the Magyars of their desire to live on good terms with them, if they were secured in those rights which had been granted by law, and guaranteed by the oath of the King.

They pointed out that many of them were ignorant of the Magyar language, and that the Magyars were in many cases ignorant of theirs.

On the former ground they desired to maintain the right of their representatives to speak Latin in the Hungarian Diet. On the latter ground they objected to censors being appointed over the Croatian press, who were ignorant of the Croatian language. The former right was the first to be tested; for no sooner did the Croatian deputies begin, according to old custom, to speak Latin in the Diet of Presburg than they were interrupted by a clattering of sabres from the Magyar members, and a demand that they should speak in the Magyar language.

Thereupon Jozipovic saw an opportunity of making new friends for his cause; and, while he disputed the legality of the election of his opponents, he declared that he and his supporters were "body and soul Hungarian." Kossuth at once a.s.sumed the justice of the cause of Jozipovic; and, while he was eagerly opposing the privileges of the n.o.bles in Hungary, he thus supported in Croatia an aristocratic privilege of doubtful legality, and undoubtedly disorderly and unjust in its effects. The Magyars responded to Kossuth's appeal; and the Lower House of the Hungarian Diet pa.s.sed a resolution forbidding the use of any language but Magyar in the Diet. The House of Magnates, doubtless under the influence of Szechenyi, were disposed to make concessions to the Croats; but even they were not able to do much to check the storm.

In the meantime the Emperor had been trying to exercise a moderating influence on these conflicts. Finding the bitterness caused in Hungary by Gaj's movement, Ferdinand prohibited the use of the name "Illyrian"

in newspapers and in public discussions; but at the same time he promised to encourage the development of the Croatian language, and urged the Magyars to suspend for six years their prohibition of Latin in the Hungarian Diet. While, too, the Magyar language was to be used in Church boards and legal tribunals of Hungary, Hungarian officials were to accept Latin letters from Croatia and the other outlying districts that were united with Hungary. But these proposals, unfortunately, did not satisfy the feeling of the Magyars; and some of them actually ventured on the extraordinary statement that, if the Croat boards could understand letters written in the Magyar language, they must necessarily be able to compose Magyar letters in answer; and they maintained that the Croats ought not to be allowed to elect any members to the Diet who could not then speak the Magyar language.

Thus, although in all parts of the Kingdom of Hungary there was a growing demand for freedom and equality, each question in turn became complicated by this quarrel between the members of the different races. On the one hand, a proposal for admitting men not hitherto recognized as "n.o.bles" to the possession of land was met by an amendment to limit this concession to those who knew Magyar; and this exclusion was rejected by only twenty-eight votes against seventeen; while a proposal to limit offices to those who could speak Magyar was rejected by a majority of only two. On the other hand, the Croats successfully resisted a proposal to allow Protestants to settle in Croatia as a part of the scheme for Magyarizing their country. But though these divisions hindered the co-operation of the members of the different nations who might have worked together for freedom and progress, it should always be noted that the desire of each nation was, in the first instance, for the development of a free national life, connected with true culture and learning, and independent of mere officialism. If the Magyars were tyrannical and overbearing towards the Croats, it was partly because they believed that these divisions, (the fault of which they attributed to the Croats) were tending to strengthen the hands of their common oppressors. If, on the other hand, the Croats appealed to the Emperor for protection against the Magyars, it was not from any courtier-like or slavish desire to strengthen the hands of despotism; but partly because they felt that the position of the Emperor enabled him to judge more fairly between the contending parties, partly because they found from experience that Ferdinand of Austria was a juster-minded man than Louis Kossuth.

While the growth of national feeling in Hungary and Croatia was tending at once to a healthier life and to dangerous divisions, a much more remarkable awakening of new and separate life was showing itself in the province of Transylvania. The geographical isolation of that province from the rest of Hungary is very striking, even now that railways have connected the different parts of the kingdom; but in 1848 this isolation was far greater, and had a considerable effect on the political history of the time. The Carpathians almost surround the country, and form a natural bulwark. Between this high wall of mountains on the north-east and Buda-Pesth stretches a vast plain. No province of the Empire contained a greater variety of separately organized nations. The Transylvanian Diet was not, like the other local a.s.semblies, the result of an attempt to express the feelings of a more or less united people, but arose merely from the endeavour to give reasonable solidity to an alliance between three distinct peoples. Of the three ruling races, the first to enter Transylvania were the Szekler, a people of the same stock as the Magyar, but slower to take the impress of any permanent civilization. They conquered the original inhabitants of the country, a race probably of mixed Dacian and Roman blood, called Wallachs or Roumanians. Towards the end of the ninth century came in the Magyars, before whom the Szekler retreated to the north-east, where the town of Maros-Vasarhely became their capital. This town is on the River Maros, which, rising in the Carpathians, flows all across Transylvania.

The Magyars in the meantime extended their rule over all parts of Hungary, but the position which they gained in Transylvania was one of much less undisputed supremacy than that which they established in Northern Hungary; for in the former province they remained a second nation, existing by the side of the Szekler, neither conquering nor absorbing them.

Much of the country, however, was still uncolonized, and was liable to inroads from dangerous neighbours; so in the twelfth century a number of German citizens who lived along the Rhine, and some of the German knights who were seeking adventures, came into Transylvania to offer their services to the King of Hungary. The German knights were unable to come to a satisfactory agreement with the King, and went north to try to civilize the Prussians; but the citizens remained, acquired land, developed trade, and developed, also, a power of self-government of which neither Szekler nor Magyar were at that time capable. That portion of the country which has been colonized by the Saxons has a look of greater neatness and comfort than the rest. The little homesteads are almost English in their appearance, with, occasionally, gardens and orchards. Hermannstadt, the capital of this district, bears traces of its former greatness in several fine old churches, a law academy, and picture gallery. Its fortifications must have been almost impregnable in old times, with strong watch-towers and walls of great height. The portions of the walls that remain show marks of the sieges of 1849. The Carpathians, on the south-east, are many miles distant, but the Rothenthurm Pa.s.s, through which the terrible Russian force made its way into the country, is visible in some lights.

These three ruling nations--the Magyar, the Szekler, and the Saxon--though separate in their organization, had more than one common interest. They were united by a common love of freedom and a common temptation to tyranny. In 1438 they formed a union against the Turks, which in 1459 was changed into a union in support of their freedoms and privileges, "for protection against inward and outward enemies, against oppression from above or insurrection from below." And when, in the seventeenth century, they separated for a time from Hungary, the three nations accepted the Prince of Transylvania as their head. When Transylvania and Hungary had both pa.s.sed under the rule of Austria, Leopold I., in 1695, established a separate Government for Transylvania, and Maria Theresa increased the importance and the independence of this position. It will be noted that among the objects for which the three nations combined is mentioned "insurrection from below;" and this was a bond of great importance; for, while the Magyar, Szekler, and Saxon were enjoying an amount of freedom and independence in Transylvania not generally allowed by the House of Austria to its subjects, the original population of the country, the Wallachs, or Roumanians, as they prefer to be called, were hated and attacked by the Szekler, made serfs of by the Magyar, excluded from their territory by the Saxons, and despised by all. Even the full benefit of the village organization, which was the great protection of the Hungarian peasant, was not extended to the Roumanians in Transylvania, for they were never allowed to choose one of their own men as president of the village community; and while the landowners oppressed them in the country, the Saxon guilds excluded them from the trade of the towns. So they remained a race of shepherds, without culture and wealth, among the warriors of the Magyar and Szekler, and the prosperous traders of the Saxons.

When, then, the reforming zeal of Joseph II. was extended to Transylvania, the Roumanians alone hailed it with delight; for, while, in his eagerness for a united Empire, the Emperor tried to sweep away all the special organizations of separate self-government so dear to the ruling races, he introduced sweeping reforms in favour of the serfs. He put forth an Edict, securing to the peasant an amount of liberty not hitherto enjoyed by him. No peasant was to be hindered from marriage, or from studying in other places, or from following different kinds of work; none was to be turned out of his village or land at bidding of the landlord; the power of the landlord to impose new burdens (already restricted by the Urbarium of Maria Theresa) was to be still further limited; and the county officials were to protect the dependant from any oppression of his landlord. The hopes of the Roumanians were naturally raised by this Edict; and many of them believed, when a general conscription followed, that by entering the army they could escape serfdom. The lords, backed by many of the officials, hindered this attempt, and interfered to prevent the carrying out of the Edict. Thereupon the Roumanians rose in insurrection, under two leaders, Hora and Kloska; and all those horrors followed which are naturally connected with an agrarian rising of uncivilized serfs, and the violent suppression of it by hardly more civilized tyrants.

But among the bishops of the Roumanians, to whom they always granted great authority, were some who saw a better way than insurrection for the cure of the sufferings of their countrymen. Having observed that when the three dominant races were protesting against the reforms of Joseph II. they had appealed continually to historic rights, these Roumanian leaders drew up a pet.i.tion, which was called the "Libellus Wallachorum," and was presented to the Diet of 1791. It was in this doc.u.ment that the Roumanians first put forward that claim to descent from the ancient Romans which has ever since exercised such influence on the imagination of this singular race. The pet.i.tion further declared that, in the first inroad of the barbarians, the Roumanians had continued to maintain that Christianity which they had learned under the Roman Empire; and that when the Magyars came into the country, the Roumanians had voluntarily accepted the Magyar chief as their leader; that though their name was then changed by the invaders from Roumanians into Wallachs, their independent rights were still secured. They went on to say that even the union of the three ruling races in 1438 had not been intended originally to deprive the Roumanians of their rights; it was not till the seventeenth century that they had been crushed down into their present position. They therefore entreated that they might be restored to all the civil and political rights which they had possessed in the fifteenth century; that the clergy of the Greek Church, to which they belonged, might be placed on an equality with those of other religions; and that, wherever the Roumanians had a majority in any villages, those villages might be called by Roumanian names. The reading of this pet.i.tion was received by the representatives of the three ruling races, after a brief silence, with fierce protests; only the Saxons thought it necessary to make even vague promises of concession; and those promises were not fulfilled.

But, when this demand had once been put into form, the memory of it lingered on among the Roumanians; and in 1842, during the general wakening of national feeling, they attempted again to make an appeal to the Transylvanian Diet for special recognition. Again they failed; but their leaders did not, therefore, lose heart. Some of them, indeed, were disposed to resort to their old method of insurrection; and a few years later they rose, under the leadership of a woman named Catherine Varga, and for a long time held their own against the Magyar officials. But it is to the suppressor of this movement, rather than to its leader, that the Roumanians look back as their national hero.

This was Andreas Schaguna, who, at the time of Catherine Varga's insurrection, was holding the position of Archimandrite. He came down to the village, where the Magyar officials had not dared to penetrate, rebuked the Roumanians for their turbulence, and carried off Catherine Varga from their midst, no one daring to resist. But this, though a striking, was not a characteristic exercise of his authority. He was far from thinking that force was a remedy for the grievances of the Roumanians; and he devoted time and thought to the foundation of schools and the education of the people. This education he carried out, not by mere teaching, but by seeking out and advising those whom he saw fitted for more intellectual occupations, and helping them to become lawyers and doctors. Last, but by no means least, he tried to reduce into a more literary form the Roumanian language.

But it was not only in their own ranks that the Roumanians were now finding champions for their national cause. In 1842 appeared a pamphlet by a Saxon clergyman, named Stephen Roth, in which the writer protested against the attempt of the Magyars to crash out the rival languages in Transylvania; for this, as he pointed out, was a new form of tyranny. In North Hungary, indeed, the movement had been accompanied by an attempt to improve the condition of the peasant; and the Magyar language was held out to him as a new boon to be added to the abolition of feudal dues. But in Transylvania little or nothing had been done by the Magyars to improve the condition of the peasant; and therefore there could be no talk of _benefits_ there. If there were to be one official language in Transylvania, it ought, urged Roth, to be the language of the majority of the population, that is, Roumanian; and though it was undesirable to make this or any other language universal, it was certain that the ruling race would never be able to Magyarize the Roumanians; who might, however, be pacified by greater respect for their dignity as men, completer recognition of their form of Christianity, better means of education, provision for material need, and a freer position. This pamphlet of Roth's was notable, as a sign of sympathy felt by a member of the most cultivated race in Transylvania for the complaints of the most uncivilized one.

But it is no reproach to Roth to say that he was thinking, at the time, as much of maintaining the rights of his own race as of redressing the wrongs of the Roumanians. For though the Magyars did not, as yet, venture to lord it over a German People as they did over Slav and Roumanian, they were yet trying, by various underhand methods, to weaken the devotion of the Saxons to their race and language. Roth and his friends tried to counteract this, partly by founding unions for the encouragement of German culture; and also by the more effective way of introducing German immigrants from the old country. A movement of a similar kind had been inaugurated by Maria Theresa about 1731; and for more than forty years it had been carried on with success; the German Protestants, who had been driven out of other countries, finding a natural refuge in the wholly Protestant Saxon settlement of Transylvania. Strange to say, Joseph II. does not seem to have carried on his mother's work; perhaps he had made himself too unpopular in Transylvania to do it with success. But Roth had special friends in the University of Wurtemberg; and in spite of the Liberal tendencies of the King of that State, the taxation in that country was specially heavy. When, then, in 1845, Roth went to Wurtemberg, so many citizens of that State consented to emigrate to Transylvania in the following year that the Government at Vienna and the Magyars at Pesth became alike alarmed. Ferdinand was persuaded that this was a Protestant invasion, and probably, also, a Communistic attempt. The Magyars, on the other hand, cried out that this was part of an attempt to Germanize Transylvania. Roth defended his cause, and refuted the charge of Protestant propagandism by showing that Roman Catholic families were among the emigrants; while, as to the idea of a Communistic proletariat, many of those who had emigrated were well provided with money, and some had been encouraged by the former impulse given to the movement by the Viennese Government. But a vague prejudice, once excited, is rarely got rid of by mere statements of fact; and the Governments, both at Vienna and Pesth, threw such difficulties in the way of the emigrants, that they had to suffer great misery on their journey; and these sufferings tended (with other grounds of prejudice) to excite much indignation against Roth. Nor would the Magyars, at any rate, feel more friendly to him when they found that an organ of the Croatian patriots at Agram claimed him as an ally against the overbearing demands of the Magyars.

Thus, then, it is clear that, during the period from 1840 to 1846, there was a general awakening both in Germany and Hungary of strong national feelings. In Germany those feelings, gathering round a common language and literature, prepared the way directly for a movement towards freedom; while in Hungary the divisions of races and languages hindered the full benefits of the revival, and gave a handle to the champions of despotism. Yet whether among Magyars, Croats, Roumanians, or Saxons, the movement was in itself a healthy one, tending to newer and more natural life, and weakening the traditions of Viennese officialism.

CHAPTER V.

DESPOTISM RETIRING BEFORE CONSt.i.tUTIONALISM, 1844-DECEMBER, 1847.

The Bandiera insurrection. Its results.--Career of Cesare Balbo, "Le Speranze d'Italia."--Vincenzo Gioberti. "Il Primato degli Italiani."--The insurrection of Rimini. "Ultimi casi di Romagna."--The risings in Galicia.--History of Cracow since 1815.--Causes of the failure of the Galician movement.--The seizure of Cracow. Palmerston's utterances thereon.--Change in Charles Albert's position.--The Ticino treaties.--Mistake of Solaro della Margherita.--"Long live the King of Italy!"--D'Azeglio's policy.--Aurelio Saffi.--Death of Gregory XVI.--State of Roman Government.--Parties in the Conclave.--Election of Pius IX.--His character and career.--The amnesty. Its effect.--Ciceruacchio. His work.--The Congress at Genoa.--Charles Lucien Bonaparte.--Death of Confalonieri.--State of Milan.--Pio Nono's reforms.--The clerical conspiracy.--The occupation of Ferrara. Its effect on Italian feeling.--State of Tuscany.--The Duke of Lucca.--Absorption of Lucca in Tuscany.--The struggle with Modena.--The ma.s.sacre of Fivizzano.--Occupation of Parma and Modena by Austria.--State of Switzerland.--Position of Bern and Zurich.--The Concordat of Seven.--The refugee question in 1838.--The Aargau monasteries.--The Sonderbund.--The Jesuit question.--Metternich's feelings, real and pretended.--Palmerston's att.i.tude.--Relations between Metternich and Guizot.--The decision of the Swiss Diet.--The Sonderbund war.--Effect of the Federal victory.--The Schleswig-Holstein question.--The official view and the popular view.--Metternich's way out of the difficulty.--Effect of the movement on Germany and Prussia.--State of Europe at outbreak of Sicilian insurrection.

The divisions of opinion, which had been hindering progress in Hungary, had, in the meantime, been growing less prominent in Italy; so that the more active political leaders in the latter country were, for a time at least, aiming at a common programme. Yet this point had only been reached after much suffering and failure. Conspiracies with various objects had been rife in Italy, especially in the Papal States; but, though some pa.s.sing attention was attracted by the cruelties exercised in their suppression, these risings had left apparently little mark on the country. But an insurrection took place in 1844 which proved a turning-point in Italian politics. The character and circ.u.mstances of the leaders excited a sympathy which impressed their memories on the hearts of their countrymen; while the failure of the rising led to a change in the general tactics of the Italian Liberals.

The rising in question was that organized by the brothers Emilio and Attilio Bandiera. These youths were the sons of a Venetian n.o.bleman who was an admiral in the Austrian service, and who had attracted attention in 1831 by violating the terms of the capitulation of Ancona, and attempting to seize the exiles who, under protection of that treaty, were on their way to France. Emilio and Attilio had been compelled, while still boys, to enter the service of Austria; but they soon began to feel a loathing for the foreign rulers of their country; and, while in this state of mind, they came into contact with some of those who were already acting with the Giovine Italia. At last, in 1842, Attilio Bandiera wrote to Mazzini expressing the esteem and love he had learned to feel for him, his desire to co-operate with him, and his belief that the Italian cause was but a part of the cause of humanity.

This correspondence with Mazzini was maintained by means of another naval officer in the Austrian service, Domenico Moro; in the following year a pa.s.sing struggle in Southern and Central Italy gave new hopes to the brothers. They fled from their ships and met Domenico Moro at Corfu. But a stronger influence than the fear of Austrian tyranny was put forward to hinder the brothers Bandiera from their attempts. Their mother wrote from Venice calling on them to return, and denouncing them as unnatural for their refusal. Even this pressure, however, they resisted, and they prepared to make their first rising in March, 1844.

The desire to free the Neapolitans, already distracted by so many insurrections, gave rise to this attempt, of which Cosenza was the head-quarters. Unfortunately, the plan of the rising had not been understood by some of the insurgents, and a preliminary effort was easily suppressed by the Neapolitan troops. Nothing daunted by this, the Bandiere planned a new march on Calabria. It was, unfortunately, on this occasion that the correspondence of the Bandiere with Mazzini was opened by the British Postmaster-General, and communicated by him to the Austrians. When, then, the brothers, accompanied by many recruits from various parts of Italy, marched upon Cosenza to deliver the prisoners who had been taken in the former unsuccessful attempt, they found guides prepared to deceive them; and in a wood near Cosenza they were met by a large body of gensdarmes, who had been warned of their coming. They repelled the attack, however, and retreated to Corfu to gather new forces; but the authorities had filled the minds of the inhabitants with the belief that the Bandiere and their followers were Turks. The people rose against them; and when they again marched on Cosenza they were easily overpowered and imprisoned, and soon after condemned to death. The brothers received the news of their condemnation with cries of "Long live Italy! Long live Liberty!

Long live our country!" And, to the priests who tried to exhort them to repentance, they answered that they had acted in the spirit of Christ in trying to free their brethren.

The effect of their death, and of all the circ.u.mstances of their rising, was deep and wide; and their memory seems to have lived longer than that of any previous martyrs for Italian freedom. The bullets with which they were shot were collected as sacred relics; and it was felt that a new impulse had been given to the struggle against Austrian tyranny. But with the indignation at the treachery by which the Bandiera brothers had suffered, and with the reverence for their memories, there arose in Italy a pa.s.sing wave of suspicion against Mazzini and the leaders of the Giovine Italia, as people who wasted the lives of the heroic youth of Italy in useless and ill-organized attempts.

It was at this period that two books, written in 1843, began to attract attention. These were the "Speranze d'Italia" of Cesare Balbo and the "Primato" of Vincenzo Gioberti.