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Title: The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany - With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years
Author: Maurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
Language: English
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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848-9.
Es reden und träumen die Menschen viel
Von bessern künftigen Tagen:
Nach einem glücklichen, goldenen Ziel
Sieht man sie rennen und jagen.
Die Welt wird alt, und wird wieder jung;
Doch der Mensch hofft immer Verbesserung.
* * * * *
Es ist kein leerer schmeichelnder Wahn,
Erzeugt im Gehirne des Thoren.
Im Herzen kündet es laut sich an:
Zu was Besserm sind wir geboren;
Und was die innere Stimme spricht,
Das täuscht die hoffende Seele nicht.
SCHILLER.
[Illustration: _Giuseppe Mazzini._]
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT OF 1848-9 IN ITALY, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY,
AND GERMANY.
With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years.
by
C. EDMUND MAURICE,
Author of "The Lives of English Popular Leaders in the Middle Ages."
With an Engraved Frontispiece and Other Illustrations.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
London: George Bell and Sons
1887.
[The right of translation is reserved.]
Chiswick Press:--C. Whittingham and Co., Tooks Court,
Chancery Lane.
PREFACE.
The following book is the result of many years' work. It aims at
showing the links which connected together the various movements in
Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire in 1848-9. Many as are the
books which have been written on the various parts of that struggle, I
do not know of any attempt to link them together. How adventurous this
effort is I am most painfully aware, and none the less so because I
happen to know that the task was undertaken and abandoned by at least
one writer who has many qualifications for it to which I can lay
no claim. I allude to my friend Dr. Eugene Oswald, who has most
generously assisted me in carrying out the work for which he was
unable to spare the time. But I may say without arrogance that however
deficient my history may be in the learning and ability which Dr.
Oswald's would have shown, as well as in that lifelikeness which his
personal share in the important rising in Baden would have enabled him
to give to the descriptions; yet I shall at least have no temptation
to any one-sided estimate of the merits of the various races concerned
in the struggle, a temptation from which the most candid German could
hardly escape. My only danger in that matter would be that I might be
tempted to speak too favourably of _all_ the movements of those
various races; seeing that during my investigations in the cities
affected by these movements, I received the most extreme courtesy and
kindness from German and Bohemian, Magyar and Szekler, Saxon and
Roumanian, Serb, Croat, and Italian; and I feel nothing but pain at
any word of criticism I have uttered in these pages that may jar on
the susceptibilities of any of those races.
It will be noticed, of course, that I have omitted from this history
any account of the French Revolution. My reasons for this have been
given at the beginning of the seventh chapter. But I may add to what I
have said there that I had long felt the disproportionate importance
which many people attached to the French Revolution of 1848, in regard
to its immediate influence on Europe. From Palermo, not from Paris,
came the first revolutionary outburst. From Presburg, not from Paris,
came the word that shook Metternich from power, and secured a European
character to the Revolution. Under these circumstances, I conceived
the idea of telling the story of the European Revolution, without
touching on the French part of it, except in the most incidental
manner; so that the students of this period may be able fairly to
estimate the other influences which produced these great results,
unblinded by the splendour which anything done in Paris seems always
to have for the student of revolution.
One other peculiarity in my book also needs some explanation. I have,
as far as possible, avoided references to authorities in notes. Such
references only worry the general reader, while the student will, I
think, be more helped by the list of authorities which I append to
this preface.
It now only remains for me to thank those friends who have helped me
in my work.--For the German part of the Revolution, I have received
much help from the kind loan of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" by the
late Dr. Karl Marx. For the special Baden part of it I received help
not only from Dr. Oswald but also from Dr. Karl Blind, who lent me
pamphlets not otherwise accessible. For the Bohemian part of the
narrative I owe much to the kind help of Dr. Gabler, Mr. Naprstek,
Count Leo Thun the younger, and Dr. Rieger. For hints about the
Viennese struggle I owe thanks to Dr. von Frankl, the well-known poet
of the revolution, and also to Dr. Friedjung. For some general hints
on the Slavonic question I am much indebted to Baron Helfert; and my
obligation to Dr. Herbst I have acknowledged in a note. For general
Hungarian information I owe thanks to Mr. Pulszky, to Miss Toulmin
Smith, to General Klapka, to my kind friend Professor Felmeri of
Klausenburg, to Dr. Lindner, Mr. Kovacs, Mr. Kovary, Mr. Boros, of the
same town, and to Mr. Szabò, now Librarian of Klausenburg University,
formerly a distinguished officer in General Bem's army; also to
Mr. Fekete, Mr. Sandor, and Professor Koncz of Maros Vasarhely;
and last but not least to Mr. Paget, the author of "Hungary and
Transylvania." For special hints about the Saxon question I am indebted,
amongst others, to Dr. Teutsch, to Professor Senz, and to the late
"Obergespan" of Hermannstadt, Herr von Brennerberg, whose loss to the
district I can well understand, since the acquaintance of a week
enabled me to appreciate the singular justice of his mind, as well as
his uniform kindness; while for information from the Roumanian point
of view I owe thanks to Mr. Barritzu. For information on Serb
questions I am indebted principally to Mr. Polit, and Mr. Hadjiç of
Neusatz, and Mr. Boscoviç of Belgrade, for whose acquaintance I have
to thank the late Servian Minister in England, Mr. Mijatoviç. The
same introducer I have to thank for the kindness shown me by Mr.
Matkovicu of Agram. In the last mentioned town I also received useful
information and help from Mr. Subek, and from the Librarian of the
South Slavonic Academy.
For help in Italian work I have to thank my old friend Madame Venturi,
Signor Ernesto Nathan, Signor Cardinali, Signor Berti, Professor
Villari, Signor Guastalla, Professor Aurelio Saffi (the Ex-Triumvir of
Rome), Signor Galli, Dr. Sacchi, the Syndic of Goito, the Librarian of
the Biblioteca di Brera at Milan, and my friend Signor Pizzi.--For
help of various kinds I have to thank Miss Wedgwood, Miss Irby, Dr.
Brandl and Mr. Garnett of the British Museum.
I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Mr. Diösy in allowing a
copy to be taken of his picture of Kossuth, for insertion in my book.
This favour, with other help, I owe to my friend Mr. B. Gunszt.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED xi
CHIEF RACES OF AUSTRIAN EMPIRE xvii
TABLE OF DATES xix
CHAPTER I. THE TRIUMPH OF DESPOTISM 1
" II. FIRST EFFORTS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM 19
" III. FAITH AND LAW AGAINST DESPOTISM 52
" IV. LANGUAGE AND LEARNING AGAINST DESPOTISM 88
" V. DESPOTISM RETIRING BEFORE CONSTITUTIONALISM 117
" VI. FIRST MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM 168
" VII. THE DOWNFALL OF DESPOTISM 216
" VIII. THE STRUGGLE OF THE RACES 275
" IX. THE REVOLUTION BREAKS INTO SEPARATE PARTS 334
" X. LAST EFFORTS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM 401
" XI. THE DEATH STRUGGLE OF FREEDOM 431
INDEX 497
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
GIUSEPPE MAZZINI _Frontispiece._
KOSSUTH LAJOS _to face page_ 84
ROBERT BLUM " 224
IL VASCELLO, ROME " 483
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.
GENERAL HISTORY.
Metternich's Memoirs.
Menzel's Geschichte der letzten vierzig Jahre.
GERMANY.
GENERAL GERMAN HISTORY.
Arndt, Life of.
Blum, Life of.
Görres, Life of.
Marx, Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
Perthes, Life of.
Stein, Life of, by Professor Seeley.
Stenographischer Bericht des deutschen Vor Parlaments zu Frankfort.
---- des Fünfziger Ausschüsses.
---- der deutschen Constituirenden Versammlung.
Zimmermann Deutsche Revolution.
PRUSSIA.
Humboldt Brief-Wechsel mit einem Jungen Freunde.
---- Letters to Varnhagen von Ense.
Schmalz Berichtigung einer Stelle in der Bredow-Venturinischen
Chronik für das Jahr 1808.
BADEN.
Goegg (Amand) Rückblick auf die Badische Revolution (from La Ligue
des Peuples).
La Liberté de Penser (a journal containing pamphlets, &c., on the
Baden Revolution).
Morel Der März-Aufstand und Die Badische Revolution.
Struve (Gustav) Geschichte der Volks Erhebungen in Baden.
" (Amalie) Erinnerungen, &c.
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.
Adressen an eine hohe deutsche Versammlung, &c., von Kiel.
Bunsen. Memoir on Constitutional Rights of the Duchies.
Droysen. The Policy of Denmark towards the Duchies.
SWITZERLAND.
Der Untergang des Sonderbundes.
AUSTRIA.
GENERAL HISTORY.
Helfert. Geschichte Oesterreichs.
Springer. Geschichte Oesterreichs seit der Wiener Frieden, 1809.
Pillersdorf. Rückblick auf die politische Bewegung in Oesterreich.
VIENNA.
Dunder. Denkschrift über die Wiener October Revolution.
Grüner. Geschichte der October Revolution.
Reschauer. Das Jahr 1848.
Reichstag's Gallerie, &c.
Verhandlungen des Oesterreichischen Landtages 1848.
Violand. Die Sociale Geschichte der Revolution in Oesterreich.
Wiener Boten.
BOHEMIA.
Müller. Die merkwürdigsten Tage Prags in der Pfingst-Woche des
Jahres 1848.
Pameti (Pamphlets and proclamations, &c., in the Archives of
Prague).
Schöpf. Volks Bewegung in Prag.
Ständische Verhältnisse des Konigreichs Böhmen.
Stiles. Austria in 1848-9.
Tomain. Das Böhmische Staatsrecht.
GALICIA.
Ausschlüsse über die jungsten Ereignisse in Polen.
Krasinski. Panslavismus und Germanismus.
Krolikowski. Mémoire sur l'Etat de Cracovie, 1840.
Zaleski. Die Pölnische Frage.
HUNGARY.
GENERAL HISTORY.
Beschwerden and Klagen der Slaven in Ungarn, 1843.
Böhmisch-Slavische Helden in der Panslavismus.
Deak, Life of.
Görgei. My Life and Acts in Hungary.
Irby (Miss). Across the Carpathians.
Klapka. Memoirs of the War of Independence in Hungary.
Kossuth, Memoir of in a History of Hungary by E. O. S.
Kovari (Laslò) Okmanytar az 1848-9. (This book, though written in
Hungarian, contains some important documents in German, of
which alone I have been able to make use.)
Mailath (Count Johann) Geschichte von Oesterreich.
" Der Ungarische Reichstag in 1830.
Paget. Hungary and Transylvania.
Pulszky. Meine Zeit mein Leben.
" (Madame). Memoirs of a Hungarian Lady.
Smith (Toulmin). Parallels between Constitution and Constitutional
History of England and Hungary.
Szechenyi (Vortrag über) Ludwig Fezstory.
Zur Geschichte des Ungarischen Freiheits-Kampfes Autentische
Berichte.
CROATIA AND SLAVONIA.
Aktenstücke zur Geschichte des Croatisch Slavonischen Landtages, by
Pejakoviç.
Agramer Zeitung, 1843-8.
Deutsche Viertels-Jahr-Schrift (article called Mittheilungen aus
Serbien).
Le Duc. La Croatie et la Confedération Italienne.
Serbes de Hongrie, &c.
Verhandlungen des Agramer Landtags in October, 1845.
Other pamphlets on the Croatian question.
TRANSYLVANIA.
Bem. Feldzug in Siebenbürgen, by Czetz.
Bonar. Transylvania, its Products and People.
Deutsche Worte, a magazine.
Friedenfels, Joseph Bedeus von Scharberg.
Klausenburg, Collection of documents in Library of.
Lauriani. Die Romänen der Oesterreichischer Monarchie.
Maros Vasarhely, Collection of Baron Apor at.
Roth. Der Sprach-Kampf in Siebenbürgen.
Scharberg. Die Verfassung Siebenbürgens.
Unterhaltungen aus der Gegenwart.
Vereinigung Siebenbürgens mit Ungarn vom Standpunkte der Sachsischen
Nation beleuchtet.
Zieglauer. Die Reform-Bewegung in Siebenbürgen.
ITALY
GENERAL HISTORY.
Alfieri. Opere. Autobiography.
Bianchi (Nicomede), Storia della politica Austriaca rispetto ai
Sovrani ed ai Governi Italiani dell'anno 1791, al Maggio
del 1857.
Coppi. Annali d'Italia.
D'Amato. Panteon dei Martiri della libertà Italiana.
Farini. Lo Stato Romano (really including much of other parts).
Foscolo (Ugo) Scritte politici inediti. Jacopo Ortis.
---- Lettera a Conte Verri.
---- Lettera a Conte di Ficquelmont.
---- (Vita di). Pecchio.
Gallenga. Italy in 1848.
Gioberti Vincenzo (biography by V. G. in I Contemporanei Italiani).
Del Primato Morale e Civile degli Italiani.
Gualterio. Gli Ultimi Rivolgimenti Italiani.
---- Delle Negative date dal Conte Solaro della Margherita.
La Concordia (paper published at Genoa).
La Farina. Storia dell Italia dopo il Settembre del 1847.
Manzoni (Alessandro). Cenni Sulla vita Sua.
Miscellanee politiche Genovesi (pamphlets, songs, &c., published at
Genoa, and bearing on the revolution).
Mazzini, Life and Writings of (translated by E. A. V.).
Panizzi, Lettere ad, di uomini illustri, &c.
Ranalli. Istorie Italiane dal 1846 al 1853.
LOMBARDY AND VENETIA.
Andryane. Mémoires d'un prisonnier d'Etat.
Anfossi (Francesco). Memorie sulla campagna di Lombardia del 1848.
Biblioteca di Brera (Milan), Collections of Caricatures, Pamphlets,
and Proclamations in.
Cantù (Cesare). Editions and Lives of Monti and Parini.
Casati. Nuove rivelazioni su i fatti di Milano nel 1847-8.
Cattaneo. Dell'Insurrezione di Milano.
" Archivio Triennale.
Dandolo. Italian Volunteers and Lombard Rifle Brigade.
Gazzetta di Milano, 1848.
Manin, Documents et pièces autentiques laissées par.
Quadro politico di Milano (collection of pamphlets, &c.).
Vedovi (Timoleone). I martiri di san Georgio e di Belfiore.
NAPLES AND SICILY.
Colletta. History of Naples (translated).
Ruggiero Settimo. Per Gabriele Colonna.
PIEDMONT.
Balbo (Cesare) autobiography.
" Speranze d'ltalia.
Brofferio. Storia di Piemonte.
" I miei Tempi.
Solaro della Margherita, Vita di per Biginelli.
" Memorandum Storico-Politico.
" Avvedimenti Politici.
ROMAN STATES.
Artaud. Vie de Pie 7.
" Vie de Pie 8.
Balleydier. Storia della Revoluzione di Roma.
Beghelli. La Republica Romana del 1849.
Brasini. L'8 Agosto 1848, Bologna.
" La Resistenza di Bologna nelle otto Giornate di Maggio,
1849.
D'Azeglio (Massimo) Degli ultimi casi di Romagna.
" Correspondance Politique.
Monitorio Romano, 1848 and 1849.
Orsini. Memoirs.
Pasolini (Memoir of), by his son, translated.
Protocollo della Republica Romana.
Republica Italiana del 1849 (anonymous clerical).
Rossi (Pellegrino). Vita di per Raggi (including other notices of
him).
Torre (Federico). Memorie Storiche sull'intervento Francese
(unfinished).
TUSCANY.
Guerrazzi (Domenico) Apologia della Vita Politica. (His novels
should also be read to estimate his influence.)
CHIEF RACES OF AUSTRIAN EMPIRE.
HUNGARY.
_Magyars_, ruling race; found in most parts of the Kingdom, but
most largely in the Northern parts. Semi-Turkish race (non-Aryan).
Various creeds; Calvinism the most distinctive (_i.e._, the one
that has most connected itself with the race-struggles). Chief
town, Buda-Pesth.
_Croats_, chiefly found in Croatia, but sometimes in Slavonia and
Dalmatia. Creed, Roman Catholic; Slavonic race; chief town, Agram.
_Saxons_, found in S.E. of Transylvania. Creed, mainly Lutheran;
race, German; chief town, Hermannstadt.
_Serbs_, found chiefly in Slavonia, but also in Banat, Bacska, and
in smaller numbers in other parts of Hungary. Creed, Greek Church;
race, Slavonic; chief towns, Neusatz and Carlowitz.
_Slovaks_, found in North Hungary. Creed, Lutheran; race, Slavonic.
_Szekler_, found in N.E. of Transylvania. Creeds, various; race,
same as Magyars; chief town, Maros Vasarhely.
_Roumanian_, or _Wallack_, in all parts of Transylvania, and a few
in the Banat. Creed, Greek Church; race, mixed Dacian and Italian;
chief town, Blasendorf.
_Italians_, found in Dalmatia and Istria.
WESTERN AUSTRIA.
_Germans_, found everywhere, but chiefly in Archduchy. Creed,
mainly Roman Catholic; chief town, Vienna.
_Slovenes_, found in Krain, Carinthia, and Styria. Race, Slavonic.
_Czechs_, in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Creed, chiefly Roman
Catholic; race, Slavonic; chief town, Prague.
GALICIA.
_Poles_, found in all parts. Creed, Roman Catholic; race, Slavonic;
chief town, Lemberg.
_Ruthenians._ Creed, Greek Church; race, Slavonic.
TABLE OF DATES.
1846. April 25. Charles Albert defies Austria about the
salt-tax.
June 15. Election of Pius IX.
July 8. King of Denmark asserts his right to absorb
Schleswig-Holstein.
" 16. Pius IX's. amnesty.
1847. Jan. 3. Landtag summoned to Berlin.
July 5. Pope grants Civic Guard to Rome.
" 14. Clerical conspiracy suppressed in Rome.
" 16. Austrian occupation of Ferrara.
" 20. Swiss Diet resolves to dissolve Sonderbund.
Sept. 1. Unsuccessful rising in Messina.
" 12. Meeting of South German Liberals at Offenburg.
" 29. Metternich formally expresses his approval of
the Sonderbund.
Nov. 4. Motion carried at Pesth for taxation of nobles.
" 24. Troops of the Swiss Diet occupy Luzern.
Dec. 9. Nazari makes his motion for reform in Milan.
" 16. Agreement for Austrian troops to evacuate
Ferrara.
" 27. Ciceruacchio asks the Pope to join the Italian
League.
1848. Jan. 2 and 3. Smoking riots at Milan.
" 12. Sicilian rising begins.
" 19. Arrest of Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.
" 29. Neapolitan Constitution granted.
Feb. 4. Leopold of Tuscany promises Constitution.
" 12. Pope appoints first lay Ministers.
" 22. Martial law proclaimed in Lombardy.
" 27. Meeting at Mannheim to demand German Parliament.
Mar. 2. Second Chamber of Baden demands repeal of
Carlsbad Decrees. Downfall of Ministry in
Bavaria.
" 3. Kossuth's speech at Presburg.
" 11. First meeting at the Wenzelsbad in Prague.
" 13. Rising in Vienna. Workmen's petition in Berlin.
Granting of Liberal Ministry by King of
Saxony.
" 15. Abdication of Metternich.
" 16. Students' rising in Pesth. Rising in Berlin.
Granting of Constitution by Pope.
" 17. Serb meeting at Pesth.
" 18 to 22. Five days of Milan.
" 22. Rising in Venice.
" 23. Manin chosen President of Venetian Republic.
Jellaciç made Ban of Croatia. Charles Albert
declares war on Austria.
" 25. Prussian Assembly opens.
" 26. King of Naples deposed by Sicilians.
" 31. Meeting of Vor-Parlament at Frankfort.
April 2. Bundestag repeals Carlsbad Decrees.
" 4. Bundestag authorises Prussia to act for Germany
in Schleswig-Holstein.
" 8. First battle of Goito.
" 11. Palacky refuses to join the Committee of Fifty
at Frankfort.
" 16. First Baden insurrection.
" 29. Papal allocution against the Italian war.
May 1. Slavs summoned to meet in Prague.
" 3. Mamiani Ministry formed.
" 13. Meeting of Serbs at Carlowitz. Provisional
Government at Milan declare for fusion.
" 15. Coup d'état in Naples. Second rising in Vienna.
Meeting of Roumanians at Blasendorf.
" 18. First meeting of Constituent Assembly at
Frankfort. Flight of Emperor of Austria to
Innspruck.
" 28. Battle of Curtatone.
" 29. Unsuccessful riot in Milan. Completion of vote
of fusion.
" 30. Slavonic Congress in Prague. Abolition of
Transylvanian Parliament. Surrender of
Peschierato Charles Albert.
June 2. First encounter between Magyars and Roumanians.
" 3. Separate Provisional Government formed in
Bohemia.
" 11. Hrabowsky's attack on Carlowitz. Fall of
Vicenza.
" 12 to 18. Rising in Prague.
" 19. Ferdinand declares Jellaciç a traitor.
" 29. Jellaciç made Dictator by Croatians. Archduke
John chosen Administrator of the German
Empire.
July 4. Venice accepts the fusion with Piedmont.
" 22. Kossuth supports vote for sending troops against
Italians.
Aug. 5. Capitulation of Milan.
" 8. Expulsion of Austrians from Bologna.
" 11. Restoration of Manin's dictatorship in Venice.
" 26. Truce of Malmö signed.
" 31. Abolition of feudal dues in Vienna.
Sept. 5. Frankfort Assembly condemns the Truce of Malmö.
" 9. Jellaciç crosses the Drave.
" 11. Meeting of Roumanians to protest against
Hungarian conscription.
" 16. Frankfort Assembly rescinds its vote about the
Truce of Malmö.
" 18. Émeute in Frankfort.
" 21. The "Struve Putsch."
" 25. Official appointment of Lamberg at Buda-Pesth.
" 28. Murder of Lamberg.
Oct. 3. Jellaciç declared Dictator of Hungary.
" 6. Murder of Latour.
" 7. Croat army surrenders to the Hungarians.
Ferdinand flies to Innspruck.
" 8. Kossuth threatens death to those who won't hang
out the Hungarian flag.
" 10. Auersperg and Jellaciç join forces.
" 11. Bohemian deputies meet in Prague.
" 18. Puchner's appeal to the Transylvanians.
" 21. Hungarian troops cross the Austrian frontier.
" 22. First meeting of Kremsier Parliament.
" 30. Battle of Schwechat.
Nov. 1. Windischgrätz enters Vienna.
" 9. Blum shot.
" 15. Murder of Rossi. Prussian Assembly votes that no
more taxes be paid.
" 24. Flight of Pope.
" 28. Prussian Assembly decide to leave Berlin.
Cavaignac announces intended expedition
to Rome.
Dec. 2. Abdication of Ferdinand.
" 5. Final dissolution of Prussian Parliament.
" 13. Address from Forli asking for Constituent
Assembly.
" 18. Frankfort Parliament abolishes feudal dues.
" 31. Hungarian Committee of Defence retreats to
Debreczin.
1849. Jan. 11. Frankfort Parliament votes for exclusion of
Austria from Germany.
" 22. Görgei sends Waizen Declaration to
Windischgrätz.
Feb. 1. Saxons apply for help to Russians.
" 6. Re-occupation of Ferrara by Austrian troops.
" 8. Flight of Grand Duke from Tuscany.
" 9. Proclamation of Roman Republic.
" 19. Görgei superseded by Dembinski.
" 21. Announcement that the Austrians have crossed
the Po.
" 26. Opening of Prussian Parliament.
Mar. 7. Dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament.
" 11. Capture of Hermannstadt by Bem.
" 12. Charles Albert declares war on Austria.
" 20. Formal announcement of new Austrian
Constitution.
" 23. Battle of Novara. Abdication of Charles Albert.
" 28. Frankfort Parliament decides to offer Crown of
Germany to King of Prussia.
" 29. Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini made Triumvirs.
April 1. Capture of Brescia by Haynan.
" 3. King of Prussia refuses the Crown of Germany.
" 14. Declaration of Hungarian Independence.
" 17. Final meeting of Sicilian Parliament.
" 24. French arrive before Civita Vecchia.
" 25. Re-occupation of Pesth by the Hungarians.
" 27. Dissolution of Prussian Parliament.
May 14. Beginning of third Baden insurrection. King of
Prussia recalls Prussian members from
Frankfort Parliament.
" 15. Neapolitans capture Palermo.
" 20. Bologna captured by Austrians.
" 26. Proposals of Lesseps accepted by Triumvirs.
" 30. Frankfort Parliament resolves to adjourn to
Stuttgart.
" 31. Oudinot rejects Lesseps' Convention.
June 4. Russian proclamation of intended invasion of
Hungary.
" 13. Ledru Rollin's insurrection in Paris.
" 17. First Russian victory in Transylvania.
" 18. Final dissolution of German Parliament.
" 19. Austrians capture Ancona.
" 30. Roman Assembly decides to yield. Prussians
surround Rastatt, which is centre of Baden
movement.
July 3. French enter Rome.
" 15. Papal Government restored.
" 28. Death of Charles Albert. Hungarian Diet
dissolves itself.
Aug. 5. Capture of Hermannstadt by Russians.
11. Görgei made Dictator. Kossuth flies from
Hungary.
" 13. Görgei surrenders at Vilagos.
" 28. Austrians enter Venice.
Sept. 26. Klapka surrenders Komorn.
CHAPTER I.
THE TRIUMPH OF DESPOTISM. 1815-1819.
Condition of Europe in 1815.--Metternich's position.--Character of
Alexander of Russia.--Metternich's attitude towards
religion.--Madame de Krüdener.--The Holy Alliance.--Aspirations of
the Germans.--Stein _v._ Metternich.--Schmalz's pamphlet.--The
Rhine Province.--Arndt and Görres.--The Small States of
Germany.--Würtemberg.--Weimar.--The Jena demonstration.--The
Burschenschaft.--The Wartburg demonstration.--The Murder of
Kotzebue.--The Carlsbad decrees.--The Final Act of
Vienna.--Metternich's triumph.
In the year 1814 Napoleon Buonaparte ceased to reign over Europe, and,
after a very short interregnum, Clement Metternich reigned in his
stead. Ever since the fall of Stadion, and the collapse of Austria in
1809, this statesman had exercised the chief influence in Austrian
affairs; and, by his skilful diplomacy, the Emperor had been enabled
to play a part in Europe which, though neither honourable nor
dignified, was eminently calculated to enable that Prince to take a
leading position in politics, when the other Powers were exhausted by
war, and uncertain of what was to follow. But Francis of Austria,
though in agreement with Metternich, was really his hand rather than
his head; and thus the crafty Minister easily assumed the real
headship of Europe, while professing to be the humble servant of the
Emperor of Austria.
The system of the new ruler resembled that of Napoleon in its contempt
for the rights of men and of nations; but it was to be varnished over
with an appearance of legality, a seeming respect for the rights of
kings, and a determination to preserve peace and avoid dramatic
sensations, which made it welcome to Europe, after eighteen years of
almost incessant wars or rumours of wars. As he looked round upon the
countries that had fallen under his rule, the contemplation of the
existing state of Europe seemed to promise the new monarch a fairly
successful reign. France had been satisfied by the preservation of
Alsace and Lorraine, and by the sense that, from having been the focus
of revolution, she had now become the corner-stone of legitimacy.
England had at first seemed to give pledges to the cause of liberty by
her promise of independence to Genoa, and her guarantee of the
Sicilian Constitution; but with the help of Castlereagh, whom
Metternich described as "that upright and enlightened statesman," the
Austrian Government had succeeded in persuading the English to consent
to look on quietly while Genoa was absorbed in the Kingdom of
Sardinia, and while the Anglo-Sicilian Constitution was destroyed by
Ferdinand of Naples; and the English zeal for independence had been
happily diverted from the support of constitutions and civic liberties
to the championship of the most contemptible of Napoleon's puppets,
the King of Saxony.
The King of Prussia, who in 1813 had seemed in danger of becoming the
champion of popular rights and German freedom, was now, with his usual
feebleness, swaying towards the side of despotism; and any irritation
which he may have felt at the opposition to his claim upon Saxony,
had been removed by the concession of the Rhine Province.
Among the smaller sovereigns of Europe, the King of Sardinia and the
Pope alone showed any signs of rebellion against the new ruler of
Europe. The former had objected to the continued occupation of
Alessandria by Austrian forces; while the representatives of the Pope
had even entered a protest against that vague and dangerous clause in
the Treaty of Vienna which gave Austria a right to occupy Ferrara.
But, on the other hand, the King of Sardinia had shown more zeal than
any other ruler of Italy in restoring the old feudal and absolutist
régime which the French had overthrown. And though Cardinal Consalvi,
the chief adviser of the Pope, was following for the present a
semi-Liberal policy, he might as yet be considered as only having
established a workable Government in Rome. And a Pope who had been
kidnapped by Napoleon was hardly likely to offer much opposition to
the man who, in his own opinion, was the overthrower of Napoleon.
Yet there were two difficulties which seemed likely to hinder the
prosperity of Metternich's reign. These were the character of
Alexander I. of Russia, and the aspirations of the German nation.
Alexander, indeed, if occasionally irritating Metternich, evidently
afforded him considerable amusement, and the sort of pleasure which
every man finds in a suitable subject for the exercise of his
peculiar talents. For Alexander was eminently a man to be managed.
Enthusiastic, dreamy, and vain; now bent on schemes of conquest, now
on the development of some ideal of liberty, now filled with some
confused religious mysticism; at one time eager to divide the world
with Napoleon, then anxious to restore Poland to its independence; now
listening to the appeals of Metternich to his fears, at another time
to the nobler and more liberal suggestions of Stein and Pozzo di
Borgo;[1] only consistent in the one desire to play an impressive and
melodramatic part in European affairs.
But, amusing as Alexander was to Metternich, there were circumstances
connected with the condition of Europe which might make his weak love
of display as dangerous to Metternich's policy as a more determined
opponent could be. There were still scattered over Europe traces of
the old aspirations after liberty which had been first kindled by the
French Revolution, and again awakened by the rising against Napoleon.
Setting aside, for the moment, the leaders of German thought, there
were men who had hoped that even Napoleon might give liberty to
Poland; there were Spanish popular leaders who had risen for the
independence of their country; Lombards who had sat in the Assembly of
the Cis-Alpine Republic; Carbonari in Naples, who had fought under
Murat, and who had at one time received some little encouragement,
even from their present King. If the Czar of Russia should put himself
at the head of such a combination as this, the consequences to Europe
might indeed be serious.
But the stars in their courses fought for Metternich; and a force,
which he had considered almost as dangerous as the character of
Alexander, proved the means of securing the Czar to the side of
despotism.
Nothing is more characteristic of Metternich and his system than his
attitude towards any kind of religious feeling. It might have been
supposed that the anti-religious spirit which had shown itself in the
fiercest period of the French Revolution, and, to a large extent, also
in the career of Napoleon, would have induced the restorers of the old
system to appeal both to clerical feeling and religious sentiment, as
the most hopeful bulwark of legitimate despotism. Metternich was far
wiser. He knew, in spite of the accidental circumstances which had
connected Atheism with the fiercer forms of Jacobinism, that, from the
time of Moses to the time of George Washington, religious feeling had
constantly been a tremendous force on the side of liberty; and
although he might try to believe that to himself alone was due the
fall of Napoleon, yet he could not but be aware that there were many
who still fancied that the popular risings in Spain and Germany had
contributed to that end, and that in both these cases the element of
religious feeling had helped to strengthen the popular enthusiasm. He
felt, too, that however much the clergy might at times have been made
the tools of despotism, they did represent a spiritual force which
might become dangerous to those who relied on the power of armies, the
traditions of earthly kings, or the tricks of diplomatists. Much,
therefore, as he may have disliked the levelling and liberating part
of the policy of Joseph II., Metternich shared the hostility of that
Prince to the power of the clergy.
Nor was it purely from calculations of policy that Metternich was
disposed to check religious enthusiasm. Like so many of the nobles of
his time, he had come under the influence of the French philosophers
of the eighteenth century; his hard and cynical spirit had easily
caught the impress of their teaching; and he found it no difficult
matter to flavour Voltairianism with a slight tincture of respectable
orthodox Toryism.
The method by which he achieved this end should be given in his own
words: "I read every day one or two chapters of the Bible. I discover
new beauties daily, and prostrate myself before this admirable book;
while at the age of twenty I found it difficult not to think the
family of Lot unworthy to be saved, Noah unworthy to have lived, Saul
a great criminal, and David a terrible man. At twenty I tried to
understand the Apocalypse; now I am sure that I never shall understand
it. At the age of twenty a deep and long-continued search in the Holy
Books made me an Atheist after the fashion of Alembert and Lalande; or
a Christian after that of Chateaubriand. Now I believe and do not
criticize. Accustomed to occupy myself with great moral questions,
what have I not accomplished or allowed to be wrought out, before
arriving at the point where the Pope and my Curé begged me to accept
from them the most portable edition of the Bible? Is it bold in me to
take for certain that among a thousand individuals chosen from the men
of which the people are composed, there will be found, owing to their
intellectual faculties, their education, or their age, very few who
have arrived at the point where I find myself?"
This statement of his attitude of mind is taken from a letter written
to remonstrate with the Russian Ambassador on the patronage afforded
by the Emperor Alexander to the Bible Societies. But how much more
would such an attitude of mind lead him to look with repugnance on the
religious excitement which was displaying itself even in the Arch
Duchy of Austria!
And, to say the truth, men of far deeper religious feeling than
Metternich might well be dissatisfied with the influence of the person
who was the chief mover in this excitement.
The Baroness de Krüdener, formerly one of the gayest of Parisian
ladies of fashion, and at least suspected of not having been too
scrupulous in her conduct, had gone through the process which Carlyle
so forcibly describes in his sketch of Ignatius Loyola. She had
changed the excitements of the world for the excitements of religion,
and was now preaching and prophesying a millennium of good things to
come in another world, to those who would abandon some of the more
commonplace amusements of the present. The disturbance which she was
producing in men's minds specially alarmed Metternich; and, under what
influence it may be difficult to prove, she was induced to retire to
Russia, and there came in contact with the excitable Czar.
Under her influence Alexander drew up a manifesto, from which it
appeared that, while all men were brothers, kings were the fathers of
their peoples; Russia, Austria, and Prussia were different branches of
one Christian people, who recognized no ruler save the Highest; and
they were to combine to enforce Christian principles on the peoples of
Europe. When the draft of this proclamation was first placed before
Metternich it was so alien from his modes of thought that he could
only treat it with scorn; and Frederick William of Prussia was the
only ruler who regarded it with even modified approval. But with all
his scorn Metternich had the wit to see that the pietism of Alexander
of Russia had now been turned into a direction which might be made use
of for the enforcement of Metternich's own system of government; and
thus, after having induced Alexander, much against his will, to modify
and alter the original draft, Metternich laid the foundation of the
Holy Alliance.
But there still remained the troublesome question of the aspirations
of the German nation; and these seemed likely at first to centre in a
man of far higher type and far more steady resolution than Alexander.
This was Baron von Stein, who, driven from office by Napoleon, had
been in exile the point of attraction to all those who laboured for
the liberty of Germany. He had declared, at an early period, in favour
of a German Parliament. But Metternich had ingeniously succeeded in
pitting against him the local feeling of the smaller German States;
and instead of the real Parliament which Stein desired, there arose
that curious device for hindering national development called the
German Bund.
This was composed of thirty-nine members, the representatives
of all the different German Governments. Its object was said to
be to preserve the outward and inward safety of Germany, and the
independence and inviolability of her separate States. If any change
were to be made in fundamental laws, it could only be done by a
unanimous vote. Some form of Constitution was to be introduced in each
State of the Bund; arrangements were to be made with regard to the
freedom of the press, and the Bund was also to take into consideration
the question of trade and intercourse between the different States.
All the members of the Bundestag were to protect Germany, and each
individual State, against every attack. The vagueness and looseness of
these provisions enabled Metternich so to manage the Bundestag as to
defeat the objects of Stein and his friends, and gradually to use this
weakly-constituted Assembly as an effective engine of despotism.
But in fact Stein was ill fitted to represent the popular feeling in
any efficient manner. His position is one that is not altogether easy
to explain. He believed, to some extent, in the People, especially the
_German_ People. That is to say, he believed in the power of that
people to _feel_ justly and honourably; and, as long as that feeling
was expressed in the form of a cry to their rulers to guide and lead
justly, he was as anxious as anyone that that cry should be heard. He
liked, too, the sense of the compact embodiment of this feeling in
some institution representing the unity of the nation. But, with the
ideas connected with popular representation in the English sense, he
had little sympathy. That the People or their representatives should
_reason_ or act, independently of their sovereigns, was a political
conception which was utterly abhorrent to him.
In short, Stein's antagonism to Metternich was as intense as that of
the most advanced democrat; but it was not so much the opposition of a
champion of freedom to a champion of despotism, as the opposition of
an honest man to a rogue. Metternich wrote in his Memoirs, when he was
taking office for the first time in 1809, "From the day when peace
is signed we must confine our system to tacking and turning and
flattering. Thus alone may we possibly preserve our existence till the
day of general deliverance." This policy had been consistently
followed. The abandonment of Andrew Hofer after the Tyrolese rising of
1809, the adulterous marriage of Maria Louisa, the alliance with
Napoleon, the discouragement of all popular effort to throw off the
French yoke, the timely desertion of Napoleon's cause, just soon
enough to give importance to the alliance of Austria with Prussia and
Russia and England, just late enough to prevent any danger of defeat
and misfortune; these acts marked the character of Metternich's policy
and excited the loathing of Stein.
As he had been repelled from Metternich by arts like these, so Stein
had been drawn to Arndt, Schleiermacher, and Steffens by a common love
of honesty and by a common power of self-sacrifice; but he looked upon
them none the less as, to a large extent, dreamers and theorists; and
this want of sympathy with them grew, as the popular movement took a
more independent form, until at last the champion of Parliamentary
Government, the liberator of the Prussian peasant, the leader of the
German people in the struggle against Napoleon, drifted entirely out
of political life from want of sympathy with all parties.
But it was not to Stein alone that the Germans of 1813 had looked for
help and encouragement in their struggle against Napoleon. The People
had found other noble leaders at that period, and it remembered them.
The King of Prussia remembered them too, to his shame. He was
perfectly aware that he had played a very sorry part in the beginning
of the struggle, and that, instead of leading his people, he had been
forced by them most unwillingly into the position of a champion of
liberty. It was not, therefore, merely from a fear of the political
effects of the Constitutional movement, but from a more personal
feeling, that Frederick William III. was eager to forget the events of
1813.
But if the King wished to put aside uncomfortable facts, his
flatterers were disposed to go much further, and to deny them. A man
named Schmalz, who had been accused, rightly or wrongly, of having
acted in 1808 with Scharnhorst in promoting the Tugendbund,[2] and of
writing in a democratic sense about popular assemblies, now wrote a
pamphlet to vindicate himself against these charges.
Starting from this personal standpoint, he went on to maintain that
all which was useful in the movement of 1813 came directly from the
King; that enterprises like that by which Schill endeavoured to rouse
the Prussians to a really popular struggle against the French were an
entire mistake; that the political unions did nothing to stir up the
people; that the alliance between Prussia and France in 1812 had saved
Europe; and that it was not till the King gave the word in February,
1813, that the German people had shown any wish to throw off the yoke
of Napoleon.
This pamphlet at once called forth a storm of indignation. Niebuhr and
Schleiermacher both wrote answers to it, and the remaining popularity
of the King received a heavy blow when it was found that he was
checking the opposition, and had even singled out Schmalz for special
honour. The great centre of discontent was in the newly-acquired Rhine
province. The King of Prussia, indeed, had hoped that by founding a
University at Bonn, by appointing Arndt Professor of History, and
Görres, the former editor of the "Rhenish Mercury," Director of Public
Instruction, he might have secured the popular feeling in the province
to his side.
But Arndt and Görres were not men to be silenced by favour, any
more than by fear. Görres remonstrated with the King for giving a
decoration to Schmalz, and organized petitions for enforcing the
clause in the Treaty of Vienna which enabled the Bund to summon the
Stände of the different provinces. Arndt renewed his demand for the
abolition of serfdom in his own province of Rügen, advocated peasant
proprietorship, and, above all, Parliamentary Government for Germany.
The feeling of discontent, which these pamphlets helped to keep alive,
was further strengthened in the Rhine Province by a growing feeling
that Frederick William was trying to crush out local traditions and
local independence by the help of Prussian officials.
So bitter was the anti-Prussian feeling produced by this conduct, that
a temporary liking was excited for the Emperor of Austria, as an
opponent of the Prussianizing of Germany; and Metternich, travelling
in 1817 through this province, remarked that it is "no doubt the part
of Europe where the Emperor is most loved, _more even than in our own
country_."
But it was but a passing satisfaction that the ruler of Europe could
derive from this accidental result of German discontent. He had
already begun to perceive that his opposition to the unity of Germany,
and his consequent attempt to pose as the champion of the separate
States, had not tended to secure the despotic system which his soul
loved.
Stein had opposed the admission of the smaller German States to the
Vienna Congress, no doubt holding that the unity of Germany would be
better accomplished in this manner, and very likely distrusting
Bavaria and Würtemberg, as former allies of Napoleon. Metternich, by
the help of Talleyrand, had defeated this attempt at exclusion, and
had secured the admission of Bavaria and Würtemberg to the Congress.
But he now found that these very States were thorns in his side.
They resented the attempts of Metternich to dictate to them in their
internal affairs; and, though the King of Bavaria might confine
himself to vague phrases about liberty, the King of Würtemberg
actually went the length of granting a Constitution. Had this King
lived much longer, Metternich might have been able to revive against
him the remembrance of his former alliance with Napoleon. But when,
after his death in 1816, the new King of Würtemberg, a genuine German
patriot, continued, in defiance of his nobles, to uphold his father's
Constitution, this hope was taken away, and the South German States
remained to the last, with more or less consistency, a hindrance to
the completeness of Metternich's system.
But the summary of Metternich's difficulties in Germany is not yet
complete. The ruler of another small principality, the Duke of Weimar,
had taken advantage, like the King of Würtemberg, of the permission to
grant a Constitution to his people; and had been more prominent than
even the King of Würtemberg in encouraging freedom of discussion in
his dominions. This love of freedom, in Weimar as in most countries of
Europe, connected itself with University life, and thus found its
centre in the celebrated University of Jena; and on June 18th, 1816,
the students of the University met to celebrate the anniversary of the
Battle of Leipzig. There, to the great alarm of the authorities, they
publicly burnt the pamphlet of Schmalz, and another written by the
play-writer Kotzebue, who was believed to have turned away Alexander
of Russia from the cause of liberty, and now to be acting as his tool
and spy.
The head of the Rhine police, conscious, no doubt, of the ferment in
his own province, remonstrated with the Duke of Weimar on permitting
such disturbances.
This opposition increased the movement which it was designed to check.
Jahn, who had founded the gymnastic schools which had speedily become
places of military exercise for patriotic Germans during the war, now
came forward to organize a Burschenschaft, a society which was to
include all the patriotic students of Germany. Metternich and his
friends had become thoroughly alarmed at the progress of the opposition,
but again events seemed to work for him; and the enthusiasm of the
students, ill-regulated, and ill-guided, was soon to give an excuse for
the blow which would secure the victory for a time to the champions of
absolutism.
The desire for liberty seems always to connect itself with love of
symbolism; and the movement for reform, naturally led to the revival
of sympathy with earlier reformers. Actuated by these feelings, the
students of Leipzig and other German Universities gathered at the
Wartburg, in 1817, to revive the memory of Luther's testimony for
liberty of thought; and they seized the opportunity for protesting
against the tyranny of their own time.
Apparently the enthusiasm for the Emperor of Austria had not extended
to Saxony; for an Austrian corporal's staff was one of the first
objects cast into the bonfire, which was lighted by the students;
while the dislike to Prussia was symbolized by the burning of a pair
of Prussian military stays, and the hatred of the tyranny which
prevailed in the smaller States, found vent in the burning of a
Hessian pig-tail. The demonstration excited much disapproval among the
stricter followers of Metternich; but Stein and others protested
against any attempt to hinder the students in their meeting.
In the following year the Burschenschaft, which Jahn desired to form,
began to take shape, and to increase the alarm of the lovers of peace
at all costs. Metternich rose to the occasion; and boasted that he had
become a moral power in Europe, which would leave a void when it
disappeared. In March, 1819, the event took place which at last gave
this "moral power" a success that seemed for the moment likely to be
lasting.
Ludwig Sand, a young man who had studied first at Erlangen and
afterwards at Jena, went, on March 23rd, 1819, to the house of
Kotzebue at Mannheim, and stabbed him to the heart.
It was said, truly or falsely, that a paper was found with Sand,
declaring that he acted with the authority of the University of ----.
It was said also that Sand had played a prominent part in the Wartburg
celebration. With the logic usual with panic-mongers, Metternich was
easily able to deduce from these facts the conclusion that the
Universities must, if left to themselves, become schools of sedition
and murder.
The Duke of Weimar, with more courage, perhaps, than tact, had
anticipated the designs of Metternich by a proclamation in favour of
freedom of thought and teaching at the Universities, as the best
security for attaining truth.
This proclamation strengthened still further the hands of Metternich.
Abandoning the position which he had assumed at the Congress of
Vienna, of champion of the smaller States of Germany, he appealed to
the King of Prussia for help to coerce the Duke of Weimar, and the
German Universities.
Frederick William, in spite of his support of Schmalz, was still
troubled by some scruples of conscience. In May, 1815, he had made a
public promise of a Constitution to Prussia; Stein and Humboldt were
eager that he should fulfil this promise, and even the less scrupulous
Hardenberg held that it ought to be fulfilled sooner or later.
But Metternich urged upon the King that he had allowed dangerous
principles to grow in Prussia; that his kingdom was the centre of
conspiracy against the peace and order of Germany, and that, if he
once conceded representative government, the other Powers would be
obliged to leave him to his fate.
The King, already alarmed by the course which events were taking, was
easily persuaded by Metternich to abandon a proposal which seemed to
have nothing in its favour except the duty of keeping his word. Arndt
was deprived of his professorship, and tried by commission on the
charge of taking part in a Republican conspiracy; Jahn was arrested,
and Görres fled from the country, to reappear at a later time in
Bavaria as a champion of Ultramontanism against the hateful influence
of Prussia.
Then Metternich proceeded to his master stroke. He called a conference
at Carlsbad to crush the revolutionary spirit of the Universities. A
commission of five members was appointed, under whose superintendence
an official was to be placed over every University, to direct the
minds and studies of students to sound political conclusions. Each
Government of Germany was to pledge itself to remove any teacher
pronounced dangerous by this commission; and if any Government
resisted, the commission would compel it. No Government was ever to
accept a teacher so expelled from any other University. No newspaper
of less than twenty pages was to appear without leave of a Board,
appointed for the purpose, and every state of Germany was to be
answerable to the Bund for the contents of its newspapers. The editor
of a suppressed paper was to be, _ipso facto_, prohibited from
starting another paper for five years in any state of the Bund; and a
central Board was to be founded for inquiry into demagogic plots.
These decrees seem a sufficiently crushing engine of despotism; but
there still remained a slight obstacle to be removed from Metternich's
path. The 13th Article of the Treaty of Vienna had suggested the
granting of Constitutions by different rulers of Germany; and, vaguely
as it had been drawn, both Metternich and Francis felt this clause an
obstacle in their path.
As soon, therefore, as the Carlsbad Decrees had been passed,
Metternich summoned anew the different States of Germany, to
discuss the improvement of this clause. The representatives of
Bavaria and Würtemberg protested against this interference with the
independence of the separate States; and, although the representative of
Prussia steadily supported Metternich, it was necessary to make some
concession in form to the opponents of his policy.
It was, therefore, decided that the Princes of Germany should not be
hindered in the exercise of their power, nor in their duty as members
of the Bund, by any Constitutions. By this easy device Metternich was
able to assume, without resistance, the Imperial tone, which suited
his position. The entry in his memoirs naturally marks this supreme
moment of triumph. "I told my five-and-twenty friends," he says, "what
we want, and what we do not want; on this avowal there was a general
declaration of approval, and each one asserted he had never wanted
more or less, nor indeed anything different."
Thus was Metternich recognized as the undisputed ruler of Germany,
and, for the moment, of Europe.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Corsican of noble birth who left his country after it fell under
the rule of France, and whose influence was used with Alexander to
encourage him in a Liberal policy.
[2] A popular and patriotic society, for training the Germans in
resistance to the French yoke.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST EFFORTS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM, 1820-1832.
Effect of Napoleonic Wars on Italian Feeling.--Austrian promises
and performances in Lombardy.--Vincenzo Monti.--Ugo
Foscolo.--Alessandro Manzoni.--Federigo Confalonieri.--Position of
Sardinia.--Relations of Sardinia with Austria.--Reaction under
Victor Emmanuel.--Ferdinand I. of Naples.--The Carbonari.--The
Spanish rising.--The Spanish Constitution.--The Neapolitan
rising.--Guglielmo Pepe.--The Conference at Troppau.--Palermo and
the Constitution of 1812.--Divisions in the Liberal
Camp.--Ferdinand's attitude.--The movement in Piedmont.--Santa
Rosa.--Charles Albert.--"Voleva e non voleva."--The Students'
rising.--The rising in Piedmont, and causes of its
failure.--Reaction in Italy.--The first martyr.--The Greek
rising.--Alexander of Russia.--George Canning.--Breaking of the
Holy Alliance.--The Movements of 1830-31.--The Frankfort
Decrees.--Metternich's second triumph.
Of all the countries of Europe, none had been more affected than
Italy, both for good and evil, by the Napoleonic wars; and in no part
of Italy were the traces of these wars so evident as in Lombardy.
Though settled liberty had been unknown there since the cities of the
Lombard League had fallen under their petty tyrants; though any sense,
even of national independence, must have ceased since the sixteenth
century; yet the real misery of the position of a conquered country,
the sense of an absolutely alien rule, seems hardly to have been fully
realised by the Lombards, until the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, had
substituted the Austrian rule for that of the Spaniards. The Spanish
tyranny, however cruel, had been softened to the Italians by the sense
of community of race and similarity of language; and the readiness of
the conquerors to inter-marry with the conquered had given hopes of an
ultimate amalgamation between the races. But under the German rule
there were no such modifications of the evils of conquest. The new
rulers held aloof from the Italians; and the latter were reminded at
every moment that they were not merely slaves, but slaves to an alien
and unsympathetic master.
When, then, an Italian, at the head of a French army, offered the
Lombards deliverance from German rule; when he organized them into a
separate legion, and showed special trust in them throughout his wars;
when he established the Government of the Cis-Alpine Republic, and
held out before their astonished eyes the vision of an united Italy,
it was natural that such appeals should awaken hopes of a newer life,
and a prouder position in the councils of Europe.
It was true that their confidence had received terrible shocks. The
horrible treachery of the Treaty of Campo Formio, the manipulation of
the Constitution of the Cis-Alpine Republic, the gradual changes which
tended to absorb it into the French Empire; these had been tolerably
clear signs to the Lombards of what they might ultimately expect from
their so-called liberator.
Yet amid all these acts of violence and treachery, Napoleon had still
kept before them the idea of a separate kingdom of Italy, if not in
the present, then in the not distant future. If Napoleon failed them,
Eugène Beauharnais might realise the ideal with which his step-father
had mocked them; if Eugène Beauharnais proved false, King Joachim of
Naples might lead them to freedom.
And then, most wonderful of all! came the announcement that the
Austrian might become, in his turn, the liberator. In 1809, Archduke
John had promised to the Italians, in the name of the Emperor Francis,
"a Constitution founded on the nature of things, and a frontier
inaccessible to any foreign rule. Europe well knows," continued the
Archduke, "that the word of this Prince is sacred, and that it is as
unchangeable as it is pure. It is Heaven that speaks by his mouth."
General Nugent, the leader of the Austrian forces, followed up this
proclamation, at a later time, by equally strong promises of Italian
independence, and as late as April 26, 1814, Lord William Bentinck,
the founder of the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, had added his
guarantee for the liberty, prosperity, and independence of Italy.
The Italians, therefore, had some hopes of justice from the Powers of
Europe. These were shaken by the Congress of Vienna; and the Lombards
received a new shock when they found how unreal were even the seeming
concessions made by that Congress. A central Congregation of Lombardy,
which had no power of initiating reforms, and hardly leave to utter
complaints, was the sole embodiment of the principle of Italian
independence; and the "frontier guaranteed against the foreigner" was
unable to exclude, not only Austrian soldiers from the garrisons of
Lombardy, but even Austrian judges from her tribunals, and Austrian
professors from her universities; secret tribunals tried Lombards,
who were arrested for they knew not what cause; taxes out of all
proportion to the size of Lombardy drained the country for the benefit
of other parts of the empire; and police dogged the footsteps of the
most distinguished citizens.
Nor could Lombardy be even certain of her own sons. The wisest
Lombards might well have been confused by the rapid changes of
government which had taken place in the short space of eighteen years.
They had seen Austrian tyranny give place to a Cis-Alpine Republic;
they had passed from republican rule by somewhat confused stages under
the despotism of Napoleon, a despotism which had in its turn to give
way to the freer rule of Eugène Beauharnais; and lastly they had seen
Beauharnais overthrown, and Austrian rule restored in a more crushing
form than before.
Not merely their political judgment, but their sense of right and
wrong had been unsettled by such changes. When men of high genius,
like the poet Vincenzo Monti, could begin his literary career by a
fierce poem against France, continue it by songs in praise of the
French conquerors as promoters of liberty, then write eulogies on
Napoleon's empire, and finally join in the inauguration of a library,
which was to be the means of reconciling the Italians to their
Austrian conquerors, it can scarcely be wondered at if men of lower
intellect found themselves equally ready to worship each new ruler as
he rose into power, and to trample on the memory of fallen heroes.
A man of nobler type than Monti expressed, perhaps still more clearly,
the sense of despair which seemed likely to become the keynote of
Italian feeling. Ugo Foscolo was, from his very birth, an embodiment
of the confused state of Italy at that period. He was born in 1778, in
the Isle of Zante, then a colony of the Venetian Republic, and in a
condition of the utmost lawlessness. He was sent from thence to study
at Padua, and thus grew up to manhood during the period of those
continual changes in Lombardy which marked the period of the struggle
against France. At one time he thought of becoming a priest, but soon
devoted himself to literature.
The sole models for the Italian dramatists, at that period, were the
writings of Vittorio Alfieri, whose feelings and literary taste had
led him to adhere, as closely as he could, to the old classical
traditions. At the age of nineteen Foscolo chose, as his first subject
for a drama, the horrible story of Thyestes; but though this work was
received with great applause, his literary career was, for a time, cut
short by the Treaty of Campo Formio.
His political convictions seem already to have been strongly
developed, for he was forced to leave Venice to escape the persecution
of the new Government. Yet the creation of the Cis-Alpine Republic
revived his hopes, and he hastened to Milan to take a share in the new
life. There he became acquainted with the two leading poets of the
day, Vincenzo Monti and Giuseppe Parini. From the former he gained
several hints in style; from the latter he learnt the nobler lesson of
hatred of corruption and servility. But the growing tyranny of
Napoleon, the sense of the fickleness of his own countrymen, and the
loathing of the rule of the Austrians, produced in Foscolo a bitter
tone of cynicism and despair.
It was while in this state of mind that he fell in with Goethe's
romance of Werther; and on this he modelled the strange rhapsodical
story of Jacopo Ortis, in which the hero, disappointed in love and
politics, takes refuge, like Werther, in suicide. But while the German
romance was merely the expression of a passing feeling, which the
author took pleasure in throwing into an artistic form, the Italian
story was the deliberate expression of Foscolo's most permanent state
of mind, and was accepted as the embodiment of the feelings of many
other Lombard youths.
Foscolo, after fighting for the independence of Italy against the
Austrian invasion of 1815, withdrew in disgust to England; but some of
those who would gladly have welcomed him as a fellow-worker still
remained in Lombardy, and tried to form a nucleus of free Italian
thought.
Of these, the most remarkable was Alessandro Manzoni, best known to
foreigners as the author of "I Promessi Sposi." Manzoni's influence
was more widely felt in Italy at a later period; but the presence of
such a man among the Lombard patriots of 1816-20 is too remarkable a
fact to pass without notice. He, like so many other young nobles, had
gone through a phase of eighteenth-century scepticism. But in 1808 he
had been attracted by a beautiful Protestant lady, who, after her
marriage to Manzoni, drifted into Roman Catholicism, and eventually
led her husband to accept the same faith. Many of his old comrades
denounced his conversion, and some even attributed it to evil motives.
But they soon discovered that his new faith, far from weakening his
Italian feeling, had strengthened, while in some sense, it softened
it. The hard classicism of which Alfieri had set the fashion, and
which Foscolo could not shake off, was repugnant to Manzoni, who
desired to become the sacred poet of Italy, and who was recognized by
Goethe as being "Christian without fanaticism, Roman Catholic without
hypocrisy."
Manzoni disliked Eugène Beauharnais for wishing to derive his title to
the kingdom of Italy from Alexander of Russia; but he sympathized with
the attempt of Murat, and was ready to act with those Lombards who
wished to rouse Italian feeling in literature and politics.
But though men like Foscolo and Manzoni had a wider and deeper
influence in all parts of Italy, the person who most attracted the
hopes of the Lombards and the fear and hatred of Metternich, at this
period, was a man whose name is now little remembered outside his own
country. This was Count Federigo Confalonieri. He, like so many of the
better men of his country, had become equally disgusted with French
and Austrian rulers; and, when a proposal was made by the Italian
Senate in 1814 to secure from the allies an independent kingdom
of Italy, to be governed by Eugène Beauharnais, Confalonieri headed
a protest against the proposal. The Austrian spies seized the
opportunity to stir up a riot against the Senate; and in this
disturbance Prina, one of the ministers, was seized by the mob and
murdered, in spite of Confalonieri's indignant protest.
The Senate fled; and the new Provisional Government of Lombardy sent
Confalonieri to Paris, to plead for an independent kingdom of
Lombardy. His appeal, however, was in vain; and, when the Austrians
recovered their rule, Confalonieri was banished from Milan. He soon,
however, returned, and devoted himself to developing in all ways the
resources of his country. He had studied in London and Paris the
principle of mutual instruction; and he founded schools for that
purpose in Lombardy. He succeeded in getting the first steamboat
built in Milan, introduced gas light, and encouraged all kinds of
improvements, both artistic and industrial.
But his great work was the gathering round him, for literary and
political purposes, of the great writers of Lombardy; and he founded a
journal called "Il Conciliatore," to which contributions were sent by
the poet Silvio Pellico, by the historians Sismondi and Botta, by
Manzoni and Foscolo, and, amongst others, by a certain Lombard exile,
who was afterwards to earn a short and sad celebrity in Italian
history, Pellegrino Rossi. Thus, as a great noble encouraging the
material growth of his country, as the centre of a literary movement,
and above all as a known champion of freedom, Confalonieri riveted the
attention of all who knew him.
But, however zealous this small knot of Lombards might be for the
progress and freedom of their country, none of them supposed that
Lombardy could throw off the yoke of Austria without assistance from
other Powers. The question therefore was, to whom they should look for
help.
Their nearest neighbour, the King of Sardinia, had some special
grounds for grievance against the Emperor of Austria, besides the
tradition of dislike which he had inherited from Victor Amadeus. That
unfortunate king had had reason to regret the prominent part which he
had taken in defying the French Republic in 1796. For he found that
Francis of Austria was eager on every occasion to take advantage of
the weakness of his ally. When Savoy was hard pressed by the French,
the Austrians had demanded that, in return for any help that they
might give to the King of Sardinia, he should surrender to them part
of the territory in Lombardy which had been secured to him by recent
treaties. Victor Amadeus endeavoured to resist this proposal as
long as he could; but he was induced by the pressure of English
diplomatists to consent that, if in the war any lands were taken from
Austria, he would compensate the Austrians by part of the territory
which they demanded.
Victor Emmanuel found in 1815 that alliance with Austria cost him as
dear as it had cost his predecessor in 1796. For, even in the last
desperate struggle against Napoleon, the Austrians demanded that the
treaty of alliance between Austria and Sardinia should contain a
clause for the destruction of the fortifications of Alessandria; and
in the Congress of Vienna they tried to take from Victor Emmanuel the
district of Novara. By the help of Alexander of Russia these intrigues
were defeated; but the Austrians, in revenge, made all the delay that
they could devise in evacuating Piedmont; and, when they finally left
it in 1816, they destroyed the fortress outside Alessandria. Under
these circumstances it was natural enough that the King of Sardinia
should bear a bitter grudge against the House of Austria.
But, on the other hand, there was great reason to doubt whether Victor
Emmanuel could be persuaded to take the lead in any war that savoured
of revolution. For, hostile as he was to the claims of Austria, the
newly-restored king resented yet more strongly the changes which had
been introduced during the French occupation. On his restoration in
1814, he abolished by one sweeping Act all laws passed since 1800 in
Piedmont; primogeniture, aristocratic privileges, ecclesiastical
tribunals, tortures, secret inquisitions, were all restored. Even at
the universities learned men were deposed, as likely to be friendly to
the French, and were replaced by men who had no claim but their social
rank. A system of espionage was introduced, at least as inquisitorial
and degrading as that of Metternich, and it was soon found that to
maintain that system it was necessary to sacrifice national dignity,
and to have recourse to the great master in the art of tyranny. Thus
it came about that Austrian officers were chosen to control the police
in Turin.
In two important respects the government of Victor Emmanuel was even
worse than that of Austria. Clerical injustice and oppression were as
distasteful to Francis and Metternich as they had been to Joseph and
Leopold; while in Piedmont, on the contrary, friars and monks were
allowed a licence which speedily became a new source of evil. The
other point of difference was that, tyrannical and unjust as the
Austrian tribunals were in cases where political questions were
involved, they were perfectly pure in cases between man and man
unconnected with politics; whereas in Piedmont judicial decisions were
sold to the highest bidder.
Under these circumstances, the eyes of the champions of Italian
liberty naturally turned to that kingdom from which the last effort
had been made for the unity of Italy.
Naples had contributed a very large proportion of those who had died
for the cause of liberty in the earlier struggles, and even before
that time had produced at least one man who had left his mark on
sciences which tended to promote good government. Gaetano Filangieri
had been one of the most distinguished writers on law and political
economy, and had gained great influence at one period over Ferdinand
I. of Naples. Ferdinand himself, though intensely weak, and capable of
cruelty under certain circumstances, was not a man of habitually cruel
character, nor even of so despotic a temperament as Victor Emmanuel of
Sardinia.
But, like most of the sovereigns of Italy, he found himself compelled
to rely more and more on Austria for the re-establishment of his
power. He appointed Nugent, the Austrian general, as the head of his
army, and a central council interfered with the liberties which had
grown up in Naples. His refusal to carry out the promises of liberty
which he had made in his time of difficulty naturally irritated his
people against him, while the recollections of Murat stirred in them
the desire for new efforts for freedom.
But the great ally which Naples supplied at this time to the cause
of liberty was the Society of the Carbonari. Connected by vague
traditions with some societies of the past, Carbonarism had received
its first distinct political shape in the year 1811, when Murat was
reigning in Naples. In 1814, when Murat had shown signs of a despotic
spirit, it transferred its allegiance to King Ferdinand, then reigning
only in Sicily. When Ferdinand had been restored to the throne of
Naples, he found Carbonarism a dangerous element in his kingdom, and
he began to prosecute the members of the Society. This had not,
however, deprived the Carbonari of their monarchical sympathies; they
merely transferred them from Ferdinand to his son Francis, who, having
assisted at the establishment of the Constitution of 1812 in Sicily,
was supposed to be committed to the cause of liberty.
A vague talk about equality, and a more definite demand for the
independence of Italy, constituted the programme of the Carbonari. But
the Society was surrounded by various symbols of an impressive
character, and its rules were enforced by a secret and vigorous
discipline. It was evident that, in some way, it was suited to the
wants of the time; for it spread rapidly from Naples to other parts of
Italy, and took root both in Lombardy and Piedmont. In Lombardy it
speedily attracted the attention of the Austrian police, and in 1818
several arrests were made; but such attempts merely strengthened the
growth of the movement, and Carbonarism soon appeared in Spain.
In the latter country the betrayal of the Constitutional cause had
been, perhaps, baser than in any other part of Europe.
With the exception of Frederick William of Prussia, no sovereign had
owed more to the zeal of his people in the struggle against Napoleon
than Ferdinand of Spain. In 1812, before he had been restored to his
throne, he had been forced to grant a Constitution to his people,
which, on recovering full power, he had abolished; and anyone who
ventured to speak of liberty had been exiled or imprisoned. Among
those who had been forced to fly from the country was Rafael del
Riego, who had been one of the earliest to rise on behalf of Ferdinand
against Napoleon. He had succeeded, by the help of the Carbonari, in
establishing relations with many of the discontented soldiers in the
Spanish army; and in January, 1820, he suddenly appeared at Cadiz and
proclaimed the Constitution of 1812.
His success was rapid, and Ferdinand was compelled once more to swear
to maintain the Constitution.
This, the first Constitution proclaimed since the downfall of
Napoleon, was remarkable for its democratic character. Parliament was
to have the power of making laws in conjunction with the king, and if
they passed a law three times, the king was to lose the right of
vetoing it. Ministers were to be responsible to Parliament. Freedom of
the press was to be secured, and a Council of State was to advise the
king on questions of peace or war and the making of treaties. At the
same time, the nation was to prohibit the practice of any but the
Roman Catholic religion.
The news rapidly spread to Naples; for not only was there continual
communication between the Carbonari of Spain and those of Naples, but
even official duty would make speedy communication necessary, since
Ferdinand of Naples was the next heir to the Spanish throne, and it
was therefore held that this Constitution would be binding on him.
The Carbonari were ready for the emergency; and while some of
them, in the city of Naples, were demanding concessions, the more
revolutionary districts of Calabria and Salerno had already risen in
open insurrection. Ferdinand was able to arrest some of the leaders in
the city; but he soon found that the insurrectionary spirit had spread
even among the generals of his army. Officer after officer declared for
the Constitution; and even those who were not ready to take that step
were suspected by, and suspicious of, their fellows. Guglielmo Pepe,
known as a supporter of the previous movement of Murat, and at one time
sentenced to death for his opposition to the Bourbon rule, was marked
out by the Carbonari as their leader. He at first hesitated to join
them, and was even chosen by Nugent to lead the king's forces against
the insurgents; but Ferdinand distrusted him, and opposed his
appointment, and Pepe was finally driven to accept the leadership of the
revolution. On July 5th he gathered round him a great body of the
officers and soldiers, and led them to Naples; and Ferdinand, finding
that he had no one to rely upon, yielded to the insurgents and consented
to the appointment of a provisional Junta (composed to a great extent of
the previous supporters of Murat), and swore to accept the Spanish
Constitution.
Metternich was greatly startled at the completeness of this popular
victory. He had been convinced that, with a people like the Neapolitans,
blood would flow in streams; and he was alarmed to find that the leading
Carbonari were men of high character. He at once assumed that Alexander
of Russia was at the bottom of the conspiracy; and he set himself to
convert him once more to the side of order. But that fickle Prince seems
never to have seriously resumed the championship of liberalism in
Europe, after the death of Kotzebue; and though he may have wished
occasionally to play with the Carbonari, and may have been flattered by
their appealing to him, he was much more anxious to put in force those
principles which Mme de Krüdener had taught him, which forbade kings to
keep faith with those subjects to whom they had granted liberties. He
therefore readily consented to come to Troppau, to consider the best
means of checking the Neapolitan insurrection.
In the meantime, suspicions had arisen between the Carbonari and the
old followers of Murat, and the want of organization in their forces
seemed to doom the insurrection to failure.
But a still more fatal cause of division was the attitude of Sicily.
The news of the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution had, at
first, been welcomed there; but the nobles of Palermo cherished the
recollection of that short time of independence when Ferdinand, driven
out of Naples, had ruled Sicily as a separate kingdom; the Sicilian
Constitution of 1812, which was welcome to the nobles of Palermo, as
more aristocratic in its character than the Spanish Constitution,
was acceptable to all the Palermitans as the symbol of Sicilian
independence. The cry, therefore, of "the Constitution of 1812"
was raised in Palermo, in opposition to the cry of "the Spanish
Constitution."
A Neapolitan intriguer, named Naselli, did his best to fan the flame
of this division; riots arose; and the news spread to Naples that the
Sicilians were enemies of Naples, and were opposing the Spanish
Constitution. The Palermitans, on their part, appealed to the King by
the memory of the old fidelity which the Sicilians had shown him when
he was in exile. The King, and some others, might have responded to
this appeal; and General Florestano Pepe, who was sent to suppress the
rising, ended by conceding to the Sicilians the right of deciding by
popular vote between the two Constitutions. But the Neapolitan pride
was excited; a cry arose that the King was surrendering an important
part of the kingdom, and thereby violating the Constitution.
In the meantime, however, it had become clear that the preference of
the Palermitans for the Constitution of 1812 was not shared by the
whole body of the Sicilian people. Messina, followed by other towns,
rose on behalf of the Spanish Constitution; and, while the Neapolitans
were preparing new forces to suppress the rising in Palermo, the
Palermitans were sending their troops against Messina.
During this state of confusion the news arrived that the
representatives of the Powers at the Congress of Laybach had urged
pacific means of intervention, but at the same time had advised the
Neapolitans to modify their Constitution.
Under these circumstances, considerable alarm was caused by the news
that the King intended to go to Laybach. Ferdinand, to check this
alarm, declared to the Parliament that, whatever happened, he would
defend the fundamental principles of the Constitution, freedom of the
press, equality before the law, sole right of representatives to vote
taxes, independence of judicial power, and responsible ministry.
This speech, instead of calming the fears of the people, raised new
alarms; for it seemed as though the King were meditating already
_some_ changes in the Government; and the people declared that they
could only allow him to depart if he went to defend the Spanish
Constitution. But Ferdinand earnestly assured them that he had meant
nothing against the Constitution, and that, if he could not defend the
rights of the people and the crown by his words at Laybach, he would
return to defend them by his sword.
The Duke of Ascoli, an old friend and confidant of the King, asked him
privately for more specific directions; and Ferdinand urged him to
try to maintain peace; but, if it should be necessary, to prepare for
war. With such promises, Ferdinand left Naples for Laybach in January,
1821.
In the meantime, the work of the Carbonari had been spreading in
Piedmont; and other sects of a similar character, and with more
definite objects, had sprung up by their side. Unlike the Neapolitans,
the Piedmontese Liberals had no French political traditions, either to
encourage or to hamper them. Although the House of Savoy was French
in its origin, both rulers and people had been forward in their
resistance to the aggressions of the French Republic. Their ideas of
liberty were derived, not from France, but from their own poet,
Vittorio Alfieri; and these ideas had been strengthened by the love of
independence which they had developed in the struggle against France,
and which was now wholly directed against Austria.
The risings in Spain and Naples had attracted the sympathies of the
Piedmontese; and it was even rumoured that Victor Emmanuel I. himself
had said that if his people demanded a Constitution he would grant it.
His minister, Prospero Balbo, who had previously served under
Napoleon, was supposed to have Liberal leanings.
But while all these circumstances tended to connect the desire
for liberty in the minds of the Piedmontese with the support of
monarchical principles, and while the absence of any interest in
political affairs on the part of the peasantry, or the artizans,
prevented any strong democratic organization, it was yet necessary, if
the movement was to be successful, that there should be some leader
who was not afraid of revolutionary measures. Such a man was Santorre
di Santa Rosa, an officer who had fought in the royal guard against
the French, and who was now a major of infantry in Turin. His
sympathies were not only monarchical, but in some respects even
aristocratic; and when the Spanish Constitution was first proclaimed,
he was inclined to prefer some other Constitution like that of Sicily,
or even the charter which had been granted in France. But, with keen
insight, he quickly perceived that the Spanish Constitution had become
a watchword which was thoroughly understood by the people, and that
any new cry would only cause division.
Nor were the designs of Santa Rosa limited to his own State. He knew
that no struggle for Piedmontese liberty could be successful which did
not aim at throwing off the yoke of Austria; and that that could
only be done by combining with the other States, which were groaning
under the same oppression. The patriots of Lombardy were willing
enough to act with the Piedmontese, for Confalonieri was already in
communication with the Neapolitans and other Italian Liberals, and was
ready to provide arms for the rising.
But there was still needed a figure-head who must be placed in front
of the movement, if it was to retain any appearance of monarchical
Constitutionalism.
Whatever casual remarks Victor Emmanuel may have let fall, it soon
became evident that _he_ was disposed to resist the Constitutional
movement, and he even began to increase the guards about his palace.
Charles Felix, his brother, the next heir to the throne, was known to
be a yet sterner champion of despotism than the King himself; and it
was under these circumstances that the eyes of the Liberals of
Piedmont were for the first time turned to the head of the younger
branch of the House of Savoy, Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano.
He had been brought up as a simple citizen in a public school, and had
specially attracted attention by the favour which he had shown to
Alberto Nota, whom he had made his secretary. Nota was a writer who
had set himself to restore the national comic theatre in Piedmont, who
had excited the suspicion of the courtiers of Victor Emmanuel by his
Liberal principles, and who had at last been banished from Turin.
But, though the favour shown by Charles Albert to Nota was the fact in
the Prince's life which had most impressed the Piedmontese, other
influences had already been brought to bear on him; for he had also
studied at Paris under an Abbé, who had impressed on him a loathing
for the French Revolution. He was only twenty-three, and was still
hesitating between the lessons of these rival teachers.
But before Santa Rosa and his friends could carry out their schemes,
the first sign of protest against tyranny in Turin was given from a
different quarter. Although the desire for liberty had not yet
penetrated to the poorer classes of Italy, and though the leadership
of these movements naturally fell into the hands of men of noble
birth, like Confalonieri and Santa Rosa, yet there was another class
in the State which was already full of the new ideas, and which was
eventually to play an important part as a link between the more
intelligent members of the aristocracy and the still silent classes
of the community. The University students of Germany, Austria, and
Italy, from the time of the gathering at Jena in 1816 down to the fall
of Venice in August, 1849, were to hold a position in the great
movements of the time which affected considerably the character of
those movements, both for good and evil.
The share of the Turin students in the Piedmontese rising of 1821 was
touched with a certain character of boyish frolic. On January 11th,
some of the University students appeared at the theatre at Turin in
red caps. The police at once arrested them. But their companions rose
on their behalf and demanded that they should be tried by the
tribunals of the University. In this demand they hoped that the
professors would support them; but the rector of the college was
opposed to the movement, and the professors were unwilling to
interfere. Thereupon the students took matters into their own hands,
took away the keys of the University from the door-keeper, placed
guards at all the entrances, defended the two principal gates with
forms and tables, tore up the pavements, and barred the windows. Then
they despatched two delegates to Count Balbo, to entreat him to set
free their comrades, or to hand them over to the authorities of the
University.
The representatives of the provincial colleges flocked to the
assistance of the Turin students; and the sight of the soldiers, who
were called out to suppress their rising, only roused them to more
determined resistance.
The delegates returned speedily, followed by Count Balbo himself, who
promised to defend the cause of the students before Victor Emmanuel,
if they would in the meantime remain quiet. The students, therefore,
consented to wait for further news; but the soldiers remained encamped
outside the University. Suddenly the attention of the soldiers was
attracted by some boys coming out of school; and, irritated presumably
at some boyish mischief, they attacked the children with bayonets. The
students, indignant at the sight, threw stones at the soldiers, who
thereupon charged the barricades of the University, and a general
massacre followed.
The news of this massacre caused the most furious indignation in
Turin, and tended to swell the growing revolutionary feeling. Charles
Albert paid a special visit to the hospitals to console those who had
been wounded by the soldiers.
But in the meantime the proceedings at the Congress of Laybach were
alarming the lovers of liberty. The King of Naples, by all sorts of
pretences, had tried to lull to sleep the vigilance of the Junta at
home; but it soon became known that the Powers had resolved to
suppress the Neapolitan Constitution, and in February, 1822, their
forces were on the march to Naples. The Piedmontese Liberals were
eager to protest against this violation of national independence; and
their fears were further roused by a rumour that Austria was renewing
her demands for the surrender of the Piedmontese fortresses. These
rumours were specially rife in Alessandria, which had known the
degradation of an Austrian occupation; and Victor Emmanuel in vain
tried to convince the Alessandrians of the unreasonableness of this
panic.
On March 6th, Santa Rosa and his friends went to Charles Albert and
asked him to put himself at the head of the movement; and it was now
that Santa Rosa discovered the character of the man with whom he had
to deal, and left on record that saying which summed up the whole life
of that unhappy Prince--"Voleva e non voleva" (He would and would
not). On March 6th, says one writer, "I do not know if Charles Albert
_con_sented, but he certainly _as_sented" to the proposals of Santa
Rosa.
The rising was fixed for the 8th, but on the 7th Charles Albert had
changed his mind and wished to delay the movement. Again Santa Rosa
and his friends urged him to act with them, but without telling him on
which day the insurrection was to break out.
There was, indeed, no time to be lost; for suspicions had already
arisen of the designs of the Liberals, and arrests were being made.
On March 10th, therefore, Count Palma seized on the citadel of
Alessandria and proclaimed the Spanish Constitution. Almost at the
same time Captain Ferrero occupied the little town of San Salvario and
unfurled the Italian flag in the church. Students and soldiers readily
joined the insurgents, and both King and Ministers in Turin were
seized with panic. Orders came from the Powers at Laybach that Victor
Emmanuel should march to Alessandria, and Balbo called on all loyal
soldiers to return to Asti.
But Santa Rosa was as firm in his purposes as the Royalists were
undecided. The Spanish Constitution was proclaimed in the fortress of
Turin, and the soldiers, who were sent to attack the people, fled
after a few shots; Charles Albert represented to the King the wishes
of the people; and on the night of March 14th, Victor Emmanuel
abdicated in favour of his brother Charles Felix, appointing Charles
Albert Regent in Turin. On the following day Charles Albert, in his
capacity of Regent, swore to accept the Spanish Constitution.
But it was soon apparent that one vigorous man could not make a
revolution successful, when he had to depend on a nobility many of
whom were servile admirers of Austria, and on a Regent who "would and
would not." Men were appointed to posts in the new administration who
had no claim to their office except their rank. The leaders in
Alessandria suspected the leaders in Turin; while the hopes of
persuading Charles Albert to declare war on Austria grew fainter and
fainter.
In the meantime, the new King, Charles Felix, was residing in Modena,
under the protection of the Grand Duke. Francis IV. of Modena had
shown himself the most distinctly tyrannical of all the princes of
Italy; while his extravagance and indifference to the welfare of his
people had startled even Metternich. His relationship to the House of
Savoy had led him to sympathise at first with Victor Emmanuel in
his irritation at the arrogance of Austria; but that very same
relationship now led him to hope that he might succeed to the throne
instead of Charles Albert, if the latter offended the ruling Powers.
He therefore readily supported Charles Felix in his protest against
the proceedings of the new Regent.
Charles Felix, on his side, was a man of more rugged and narrow spirit
than Victor Emmanuel, and had none of the sense of national dignity
which occasionally interfered with the despotic inclinations of his
brother. When, therefore, he issued from Modena a denunciation of the
new Government, he did not scruple to add that, if order were not soon
restored, his august allies would come to his rescue. In the same
letter he ordered Charles Albert to go to Novara and place himself
under the orders of Della Torre. "I shall see by this," said Charles
Felix, "if you are still a Prince of the House of Savoy, or if you
have ceased to be so." Charles Albert concealed this letter from his
Ministers; and, after a few days of hesitation, fled secretly to
Novara.
The feeble officials of Turin would have at once deserted the cause;
but, in defiance of their opinion, Santa Rosa published a proclamation
declaring that the King was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, and
that _he_, as Minister of Charles Albert, called on them to stand by
the Constitution and declare war on Austria. One or two of the
generals fled to Della Torre, at Novara; but at the same time the
Genoese rose on behalf of the Spanish Constitution. Della Torre
sent orders to Santa Rosa, in the name of the King, to resign his
authority. Santa Rosa refused to recognize the King while he remained
in a foreign country, and despatched a force against Novara.
But, in the meantime, the news came that General Pepe had in vain tried
to rally his forces in defence of the Neapolitan Constitution; that his
bands had been dispersed at the first attack of the Austrians; and that
the Austrians, having crushed out the freedom of Naples, were marching
northwards. The Russian Ambassador thereupon entreated the Junta to
modify the Spanish Constitution. Some of the Ministers were inclined to
consent; but Santa Rosa knew that to lose the Spanish Constitution was
to lose the watchword of the Revolution; and no doubt he felt the
indignity of yielding to a foreign ambassador. He therefore refused this
proposal, and once more despatched forces against Della Torre, who was
now preparing to march on Turin.
Colonel Regis, the leader of the Constitutional forces, succeeded in
reaching Novara before Della Torre had begun his advance. The armies
met outside the town; but in the middle of the battle the news arrived
that the Austrians had crossed the Ticino and were marching into the
country. Regis and Ferrero fought gallantly; but the double forces
against them were too strong; and though they once or twice repelled
the Austrian attack, the want of discipline of the Piedmontese
soldiers, combined with the superior force of the enemy, led to a
crushing defeat. Santa Rosa, finding it impossible to defend Turin,
retreated first to Alessandria and then to Genoa; but the men on whom
he relied had lost courage and hope; and he and such of his friends as
were fortunate enough to reach Genoa were soon obliged to leave it
again and to fly from Italy, most of them to fight in foreign
countries for the liberty which they had lost at home.
The reaction set in with the greatest fury. In Piedmont the system of
espionage was resumed with double force. The University was closed.
Under the influence of favouritism, and in the absence of any free
expression of public opinion, corruption of tribunals revived, and the
Jesuits, who had lost power during the Liberal interregnum, speedily
recovered it. In Naples, the Austrians, after recommending mildness
to Ferdinand, yielded to his demands for the right to punish; and the
sense of his dishonourable position seems to have called out in him a
savagery which he had not previously shown; while the presence of the
Austrian troops irritated the country into a state of intermittent
insurrection.
Lord William Bentinck attempted a protest in the English House of
Commons against a second destruction of Sicilian independence; but
Castlereagh defeated the motion, and Sicily fell back under Neapolitan
rule.
Metternich specially devoted himself to restoring order in Lombardy. He
established an Aulic Council at Vienna to superintend the affairs in
that province, so as to crush out still further any local independence.
At the same time a special committee was formed at Milan to enquire into
the conspiracy. Several leading conspirators were arrested. One tried to
save his friends by confessing his own fault; but the confession was
used as a new clue by the police. Confalonieri was urged to save himself
by flight; but he answered, "I will not retire in face of the storm
which I wish to confront. Let what God will become of me!" He was soon
after arrested; and, after being kept in doubt of his fate for nearly
two years, he was condemned to death. His case excited sympathy even in
Vienna, where the Empress interceded for his life; and at last, after
long entreaty, his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life in the
fortress of Spielberg. There Metternich in vain tried to extort from him
the betrayal of his fellow-conspirators. But the crafty statesman
little knew the result of this treatment. One of those who suffered
imprisonment about the same time describes the effect of Confalonieri's
influence by contrasting him with the head of the Austrian police in
Lombardy. "Confalonieri and Salvotti seemed to represent, in the eyes of
the Milanese, the angel of Liberty and the demon of Slavery, striving
not more for the success of their respective causes than for the triumph
of their individual personalities. About Confalonieri gathered the
prayers of honest people, of men of feeling hearts, who saw in him an
unfortunate persecuted being whom adversity clothed with all the lustre
of devotion and courage."
This passage strikingly exhibits that noble, but illogical, popular
instinct which so often confuses the hero and martyr with the mere
victim of unjust oppression. Confalonieri had undoubtedly organized an
insurrection, and his arrest and imprisonment might fairly be
justified by the ordinary rights of self-defence which exist in every
Government. Yet the instinct of horror and pity for this imprisonment
had a truth deeper than logic. Under the system of government then
prevailing, the prison or the scaffold was the natural place for such
men; but the pity of it was that a system of government should prevail
which logically necessitated the imprisonment of Confalonieri and the
triumph of Metternich. And it was a sign of the deep folly of the
latter that he called the attention of the public to this fact, and
provided the cause of Italian unity with its first prominent martyr.
The stories of Confalonieri's imprisonment spread from mouth to mouth,
and were preserved as tender memorials. It was told, for instance,
how, when his wife had visited him, he had tried to preserve the
cushion on which her tears had fallen, and how the guards had
insisted on taking it from him; how his friends had devised a plan for
his escape, and he had refused to avail himself of it because his
fellow-prisoners would not be able to escape with him; and lastly, of
the continual pressure which had been brought to bear upon him to
reveal the secrets of his fellow-conspirators, and his steady refusal
to purchase health and liberty by their betrayal.
The defeat which despotism had sustained by the imprisonment, and
still more by the persecutions, of Confalonieri would hereafter be
plain. At present Metternich might think that he had conquered in
Lombardy; but elsewhere he could not feel sure of victory, for there
came to him at this time two unmistakeable warnings that he was no
longer to be allowed to reign undisturbed in Europe.
Even at that very Congress of Laybach which succeeded in crushing out
the independence of Naples, the question of Greece, which could
not be so easily disposed of, came before the Powers, and puzzled
considerably the mind of Metternich. The pietistic maunderings of
Alexander might be made use of in defence of the rights of Roman
Catholic kings, but he could not be persuaded that the principles of
the Christian religion justified him in supporting the tyranny of the
Turks over Christian populations. He had indeed abandoned the
Wallachian leader, Alexander Ypsilanti, when he discovered that the
rising in Wallachia was simultaneous with the risings in Naples and
Piedmont; but the Greeks could not so easily be persuaded that their
patron, the Czar of Russia, had deserted their cause.
The Hetairiai of Wallachia and Greece had done the same work which the
Carbonari had accomplished in Spain and Italy; and on April 4, 1821,
the Greeks suddenly rose at Patras and massacred the whole Turkish
population. In three months the southern part of Greece was free; and
by January, 1822, a Provisional Government had been formed, with
Alexander Mavrocordatos at its head.
Religious feeling, classical sentiment, and the loathing of the
barbarous rule of the Turks combined to rouse in Europe an amount of
sympathy which Metternich could not afford to disregard. He admitted
the right of Alexander of Russia to sympathise with the Greeks, both
on the ground of Christian sentiment and on the pretext of rights
granted by previous treaties with Turkey; and he even intervened
diplomatically to secure concessions from the Porte to its Christian
subjects.
But, though he felt the danger of the precedent which even this amount
of concession to the revolutionary spirit would cause, Metternich yet
believed that, by timely compromise and judicious diplomacy, he could
bring back Alexander to sounder principles. The influence of Capo
d'Istria was indeed an antagonistic power in the Court of St.
Petersburg; but, on the other hand, Tatischeff, the rival minister at
the Russian Court, seems to have been a mere tool of Metternich, and
could be used effectively for the interests of Austria.
So successfully did this diplomacy work, in Metternich's opinion, that
on May 31, 1822, he writes exultingly in his memoirs, that he has
"broken the work of Peter the Great, strengthened the Porte against
Russia, and substituted Austrian and English influence for Russian in
Eastern Europe." So he wrote in May; in August of the same year "that
upright and enlightened statesman," Lord Londonderry, committed
suicide. Then George Canning became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and
hastened to cut the knot which linked the interests of Austria with
those of England.
The change in England's policy soon became evident. No doubt the feeling
of dislike to Metternich had been gradually growing in that country. Its
representatives had held aloof even from the Congress of Laybach; and
when, in 1822, the Powers met again at Verona to encourage the French
Cabinet in their attempt to restore Ferdinand of Spain, England entered
a decided protest against the proceedings of the Congress. Nor did the
protest remain a barren one. The invasion of Spain by the French was
followed by the recognition of the independence of the Spanish colonies
by England; and when the absolutist movement threatened to spread to
Portugal, Canning despatched troops to protect the freedom and
independence of that country.
It is amusing to note the growth of Metternich's consciousness of the
importance of the opponent who had now arisen. "A fine century," he
writes at first, "for these kinds of men; for fools who pass for
intellectual, but are empty; for moral weaklings, who are always ready
to threaten with their fists from a distance when the opportunity is
good."
But in the following year he writes: "Canning's nature is a very
remarkable one. In spite of all his lack of discernment, the genius
which he undoubtedly has, and which I have never questioned, is never
clouded. He is certainly a very awkward opponent; but I have had
opponents more dangerous, and it is not he who chiefly compels me to
think of him." And in 1824 he sums up this difficulty, satisfactorily
to himself, in these words: "What vexes me with the English is that
they are all slightly mad. This is an evil which must be patiently
endured, without noticing too much the ludicrous side of it."
This outburst of insanity on the part of England naturally drove
Metternich back into the arms of Russia; and this change became more
congenial to him when, in 1825, the fickle Alexander died and was
succeeded by the stern despot Nicholas.
It seemed, too, as if the Greek rising might end about that time in
the success of the Turks. Ibrahim, the Pasha of Egypt, had come to the
rescue of the Sultan, and was carrying all before him. Marco Botzaris,
the chief general of the Greeks, had been killed in battle; and in
1826 the garrison of Messolonghi blew up their fortress and themselves
to avoid surrendering to the Egyptian forces.
But Metternich soon found that, whatever objection Nicholas might have
to revolution elsewhere, he felt as much bound to protect the Greeks
as had Alexander before him; and in August, 1827, Nicholas consented
to Canning's proposal that England, France, and Russia should send a
fleet to the Bay of Navarino to enforce an armistice between the
Greeks and the Turks. Then followed the celebrated battle which
Wellington afterwards described as "that untoward event." This
convinced even Metternich that the results of the Greek insurrection
would have to be recognized by the Powers, and perhaps even secured by
force. The Russian war of 1828 followed, and Metternich had to admit
that the European alliance of 1814-15 was practically broken.
But though the effect of the Greek insurrection in weakening the
chances of Metternich's system was certainly important, it soon began to
be doubtful whether the change would be permanent. England, indeed, in
spite of the death of Canning and the short rule of Wellington,
was evidently hopelessly lost to the cause of despotism. But the
revolutionary movements of 1830-31 seemed to leave far less trace of
freedom in Europe than the previous risings of 1820-22. The July
monarchy of Louis Philippe was soon forced to become Conservative; and
the Belgian revolution seemed to have little connection with the other
movements of Europe. The Polish rising and its sudden collapse only
secured Nicholas to the side of despotism. The treachery of Francis of
Modena to Ciro Menotti destroyed for a time the tendency to believe in
revolutionary princes. The rising in Bologna, by compelling the
intervention of the Austrians, strengthened their hold over the Papacy,
and even enabled Metternich cheaply to pose as the adviser of reforms
which, out of respect for the independence of the Papacy, he would not
enforce.
But his greatest triumph of all was in Germany. There Constitutions had
been proclaimed in Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony; and Metternich
resolved to follow up the Carlsbad Decrees by a still more crushing
enactment. So it was decided at the Federal Diet of 1832 that a German
prince was _bound_, "as a member of the Confederation, to reject
petitions tending to the increase of the power of the Estates at the
expense of the power of the Sovereign," and further, "that the internal
legislation of the States belonging to the German Confederation
should in no case be such as to do prejudice to the objects of the
Confederation."
Thus Metternich had again triumphed; but it was for the last time. Two
forces of very different kinds were already in motion, to undo the
work of his life. Two men were about to cross his path, very different
from each other in moral calibre, in width of sympathy, and in the
means at their disposal, but alike in that power of reaching the heart
of a People, for want of which the leaders of the previous Liberal
movements had failed in their objects. These men were Giuseppe Mazzini
and Louis Kossuth.
CHAPTER III.
FAITH AND LAW AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1825-1840.
Tuscany under Fossombroni.--"Il Mondo va da se."--The
Antologia.--Romanticism v. Classicism.--Domenico
Guerrazzi.--Giuseppe Mazzini.--His early career.--His experiences
as a Carbonaro.--His plans in the fortress of Savona.--His first
banishment.--Louis Philippe and the Italian
Revolutionists.--Collapse of the rising of 1831.--Accession of
Charles Albert.--Italian belief in him.--Mazzini's letter.--Charles
Albert's position.--Mazzini's second banishment.--His
influence.--La Giovine Italia.--Its enemies and friends.--Charles
Albert's cruelties.--The expedition to Savoy.--Menz and Metternich
v. Mazzini.--The special position of Hungary.--The County
Government.--The Germanization of the nobles.--The Diet of
1825.--Szechenyi.--The Magyar language.--Material
reforms.--Metternich and Szechenyi.--Wesselenyi.--The Transylvanian
Diet.--Poland and Hungary.--Serfdom in Hungary.--The
Urbarium.--Francis Deak.--Wesselenyi at Presburg.--Louis
Kossuth.--His character.--His first work.--Arrest of Kossuth and
Wesselenyi.--The protest.--Metternich's defeat.
While Piedmont and Naples had been vibrating between revolution and
despotism; while the government of the popes had been steadily growing
more tyrannical and unjust; and while the rulers of Parma, Lucca, and
Modena had remained (with whatever occasional appearance to the
contrary) the mere tools of Austria, the government of Tuscany had
retained a peculiar character of its own.
The vigorous programme of reform, introduced by Leopold I. when the
government first passed into the hands of the House of Austria, had
not been further developed by his successors. But a tradition of
easy-going liberality had been kept alive both under Ferdinand III.
and Leopold II. Fossombroni, the chief minister of Tuscany, took for
his motto "Il mondo va da se" (the world goes of itself); and thus a
certain liberty of thought and expression continued to prevail in
Tuscany that was hardly to be found in other parts of Italy.
This might have excited the alarm of the Austrian Government, and of
the other princes of Italy; for conspirators condemned by them took
refuge in Tuscany. But two circumstances protected this freedom. The
fact that the ruler of Tuscany was a member of the House of Austria
seemed to exclude him from the chance of ever becoming the leader of a
purely Italian movement; and Metternich was, perhaps, not sorry to be
able to show the opponents of Austria that an Austrian prince could be
the most popular ruler in Italy. Secondly, Fossombroni, while so
easy-going in internal matters, maintained a dignified independence in
foreign affairs; and Ferdinand and Leopold had enough of the spirit of
the founder of the dynasty to second the efforts of their Minister.
Thus, when the Austrian officials sent to Ferdinand a list of the
Carbonari in Tuscany, with the request that he would punish them, he
simply burnt the list; and when, on the death of Ferdinand in 1824,
the Austrian Minister demanded that Leopold's accession should not be
publicly notified until the terms of the notice had been approved by
Austria, Fossombroni at once announced Leopold's accession as the only
answer to this insolent demand. Lastly, in 1831, when the Austrians
were trampling out the liberties of Bologna, Fossombroni prevented
them from extending their aggressions in Italy by an invasion of
Tuscany.
Here, then, it was natural that the thought of Italy, whether taking a
literary or political form, should find its freest expression. The
Conciliatore of Manzoni and Confalonieri had been suppressed in
Lombardy, but its work was revived by the Florentine journal called
the "Antologia." Manzoni's influence gained much ground here among the
literary men, who connected the struggle between the old classicism of
Alfieri, and the freer and more original writing to which the name of
Romanticism was given, with the struggle for a freer life in Italy
against the traditions of the past.
The writer who attracted the most attention, and whose name became
most widely known among the Romantic School, was Domenico Guerrazzi.
It is, perhaps, a little difficult for an Englishman to understand the
attraction of this author's novels; but an Italian writer thus
explains it: "The singularity of his forms and the burning character
of his style, the very contradiction of principles that are perceived
in his writings, gave to Guerrazzi the appearance of something
extraordinary, which struck upon imaginations already excited by
misfortunes and grief." Moreover, perhaps, Guerrazzi, more definitely
than most of these writers, connected the literary movement with the
political; and even in Tuscany he became an object of some alarm from
his desire for Italian freedom.
He naturally gathered round him a knot of young men of more decided
type than the ordinary contributors to the "Antologia;" and it was to
him, therefore, that the proposal was addressed to revive in Leghorn a
Genoese journal which had been just suppressed by the Sardinian
Government. The proposal was probably made to Guerrazzi in the first
instance by a young and enthusiastic Livornese named Carlo Bini; but
the chief promoter of the enterprise was a young Genoese of between
twenty and thirty years of age.
This youth was chiefly known as having recently sent to the
"Antologia" at Florence an article on Dante which had been rejected by
them, but which was subsequently inserted in another paper. Among his
contemporaries at the University the new comer had already excited an
enthusiasm which was not yet understood by the outer world. Such was
the first appearance in public life of Giuseppe Mazzini.
Under the influence of a very earnest and remarkable mother, he had
early been interested in the cause of Italian liberty, and he dated
his first impression of the importance of this cause from an interview
with one of the exiles who was about to leave Italy on account of his
share in the struggle of 1821.
Mazzini had been intended by his father for the profession of the law;
but he had already shown a decided preference for literature and
politics; and while still at the University he had been influenced by
the gloomy romance of Jacopo Ortis. But, though that strange book had
deepened his feeling for the miseries of his country, the scepticism
and despair which were its keynote could not long hold him in slavery.
On him, as on all the greatest minds of Italy, Dante soon gained a
powerful hold; and while he profoundly admired the "Divina Commedia,"
he learned from the "De Monarchiâ" that mystic enthusiasm for Rome
and that belief in the theological basis for political principles
which was to colour so deeply his later career.
The journal which, with Guerrazzi's help, Mazzini started at Leghorn
was called the "Indicatore Livornese." It soon became so alarming even
to the mild Tuscan Government that after some warnings it was
suppressed.
Shut out for the moment from the literary expression of his faith,
Mazzini turned to more directly political action. He felt that it was
his duty to make use of whatever existing machinery he could find for
carrying on the struggle for Italian freedom; and he therefore joined
the Carbonari. The very formula of the oath which was administered to
him, on entering this Society, seemed to suggest the inadequacy of
this body for stirring up the faith of a people. For, instead of
speaking of work to be done for the freedom or unity of Italy, the
words of the oath merely exacted implicit obedience to the Order.
Mazzini's spirit revolted alike against this slavery, and against the
solemn buffooneries with which the rulers of the Order tried to
impress those who joined it with the sense of its importance.[3] His
irritation at the uselessness and tyranny of the Carbonari brought on
him the stern rebuke of some of their leaders.
The July Insurrection of 1830, in France, woke new hopes in Mazzini, as
in other Italians; but before he could join in any active movement, he
was arrested at Genoa, and, without trial, was soon after imprisoned in
the fortress of Savona. The explanation given to Mazzini's father, by
the Governor of Genoa, of the reasons for this arrest affords a striking
picture of the despotism of the time. The Governor said that Giuseppe
was a young man of talent, very fond of solitary walks by night, and
habitually silent as to the subject of his meditations; and that the
government was not fond of young men of talent the subject of whose
musings was unknown to it. The real cause of the arrest was Mazzini's
connection with the Carbonari, which had been betrayed by a pretended
member of the Society, who, however, declined to support his charge in
public.
It was during this imprisonment that Mazzini came to the conclusion
that the Society of the Carbonari had failed to accomplish the purpose
for which it was founded, and that some new organization was required
in its place. While he was considering the objects which such an
organization should set before itself, there arose before his mind the
idea of Italian unity. The failure of the local efforts of 1821 and
1831 had been due to the want of common action between the different
Italian States; and the mystic enthusiasm for Rome supplied a poetical
argument in favour of the practical conclusion which he drew from
these failures. While too the treachery of Charles Albert and of
Francis of Modena had left on Mazzini a deep-rooted distrust of kings,
and inclined him to believe that a republic was necessary to solve the
difficulties of his country, he was willing, as will presently appear,
to accept any leader or form of government which should bring about
the unity of Italy. Anarchy he loathed with all his heart. He
thoroughly disliked the French doctrine of the Rights of Man; and he
desired to assert authority when legitimately established.
But the great distinction between Mazzini and the other political
leaders of his time was, that his aim was not merely to establish a
form of government, but to imbue the people with a faith. The unity of
Italy was not with him a mere political arrangement, but the working
out of God's government over the world, a development of a nobler and
better life.
This affected his attitude to the question both of the relation of
classes to each other, and of the relation of Italy to the rest of
Europe. Though he appealed to the working men of Italy with an effect
that no previous politician had produced, he never appealed to them on
the ground of purely selfish interests; for he felt that the special
motives for improving their condition should always be subordinated to
the general welfare of the nation. And it is a striking proof of the
extent to which this side of his teaching has taken hold of his
followers, that, in the demonstration to his memory at Genoa in the
year 1882, among the banners borne in the procession, and inscribed
with quotations from his works, was one on which were written the
words "Fight not against the bourgeoisie, but against egotism,
wherever it grows, under the blouse of the workman, as under the coat
of the capitalist."
Italy too was to help in the regeneration of Europe, but not after the
manner of the French Republic, by merely establishing a foreign
tyranny, calling itself Republican, in the place of native kings.
Patriotism, with Mazzini, was not the hard, narrow thing which it
became in the minds of too many of the leaders of the revolution. The
Peoples were to help each other in developing their own national life
after their own fashion, and to respect each other's national claims
as they claimed respect for their own.[4]
After long delay Mazzini was acquitted of the charge laid to him, no
evidence being brought forward against him. Thereupon the Governor of
Genoa appealed to Charles Felix to set aside the decision of the
judges, and to condemn Mazzini. The King consented; and Mazzini was
ordered to choose between banishment from Italy and confining himself
to a place of residence in one of the small towns in the centre of
Piedmont. He believed that the former alternative would offer him
freer scope for action; and he sailed for France.
The hopes of the Italian exiles had been roused, first by the July
Revolution in France, and secondly by the risings at Modena and
Bologna. General Regis, who had played such an important part in the
Piedmontese insurrection of 1821, was organizing with other exiles an
expedition, composed of Italians and French, to go to help the
insurgents who were still holding out in Bologna.
But the hopes of the insurgents were doomed to disappointment. Louis
Philippe, after playing with them for some time, came to the same
sagacious conclusion about Revolution that he afterwards announced
with regard to war, viz., that to talk about assisting a Revolution,
and to assist a Revolution, were two different things.[5] Just as the
expedition was on its march, orders were issued to abandon it, and a
body of cavalry were sent to enforce the command. Some abandoned the
attempt; but Mazzini and a few friends escaped to Corsica, which was
still Italian in feeling, though French in government; and there they
hoped to organize an expedition to help the Bolognese.
The Bolognese, however, though gallant enough in their own struggles,
were unwilling to commit themselves to a wider programme than the
defence of their own State. So they refused to send to Corsica the
money which was necessary for the expeditionary force. The Austrians
soon after entered the Papal territory; and when they had crushed out
the insurrection they were in many cases welcomed by the inhabitants
as a protection against the cruelties of the Papal troops.
Two other points in the insurrection alone need notice. One was, that
at the surrender of Ancona Terenzio Mamiani, already known as a
philosophic writer, refused to sign the conditions of capitulation,
and was consequently forced to go into exile. The other was that,
while the representatives of the Pope showed themselves, as a rule,
utterly reckless in violating the conditions under which the surrender
of the towns was made, one honourably distinguished himself by keeping
his word. This was the Governor of Imola, Giovanni Mastai Ferretti,
afterwards Pius IX.
The movement, however, in spite of its scattered and disconnected
character, had excited attention in Piedmont, and several leading
Piedmontese Liberals had determined to press Charles Felix to grant a
Constitution. Of these Liberals, the most remarkable were Angelo
Brofferio, the future historian of Piedmont; Augusto Anfossi,
hereafter to play so brilliant a part in the rescue of Milan from
Austria; and Giacomo Durando, whose book on Italian nationality was
afterwards to hold an honourable place among the writings which
stirred up Italian feeling. The conspiracy was, however, discovered;
the leaders of the movement were arrested; and, while the prisoners
were still awaiting their trial, Charles Felix died, and Charles
Albert succeeded to the throne.
During the time between the failure of the insurrection of 1821 and
his accession to the throne, Charles Albert's only important public
act had been his service in the French Army, which was suppressing the
liberties of Spain. Yet, in spite of this act of hostility to the
Liberal cause, and in spite of the recollections of his previous
desertion in 1821, the Liberals still had hopes that he would become
their champion.
This is a fact which requires more explanation than can be found in
the mere desire on the part of the reformers of Italy to choose some
King to lead them against Austria. After the treachery of Francis of
Modena, no Liberal expected _him_ to return to the cause which he had
deserted; and, when Francis of Naples had succeeded Ferdinand I., none
of the passing hopes, which had pointed him out in earlier life as a
possible constitutional champion, could save him from the hatred which
his tyranny deserved.
Nor must we be misled by the subsequent history of Italy into the
theory that there was anything special in the traditions of the
kingdom of Sardinia which should lead Liberals to fix their hopes on a
ruler of that country. Victor Amadeus of Sardinia had been the
foremost of the allies of Austria in the war against the French
Republic; and though there were continual causes of irritation between
the aggressive House of Austria and the rulers of the little monarchy,
these were not of a kind to have attracted the sympathy of any large
body of Liberals outside Piedmont. The only movement for the unity of
Italy, previous to the movement of 1821, had come from Naples; unless,
indeed, Eugène Beauharnais had intended Lombardy to be the centre of a
similar attempt.
When we take all these points into consideration we must come to the
conclusion that there was something in the personal character of
Charles Albert which riveted the attention of Italian Liberals almost
in spite of themselves; nor could any appearances to the contrary
induce them to doubt that he had at heart a desire for the liberty
and unity of Italy such as no previous Italian Prince had entertained.
It was, perhaps, the greatest proof of this strange fascination that
Mazzini, Republican as he was, yet thought it well to yield to the
strong feeling of the Liberals of Italy, and to give Charles Albert
one more chance of playing the part of a leader.
Mazzini, therefore, addressed to the new King a letter in which he
called his attention to the enthusiasm with which his accession was
greeted. "There is not a heart in Italy whose pulse did not quicken at
the news of your accession. There is not an eye in Europe that is not
turned to watch your first steps in the career now open to you." He
told him that the Italians were ready to believe that his desertion of
their cause was the mere result of circumstances; and that, being at
last free to act according to his own tendencies, the new King would
carry out the promises that he had first made as a Prince. He warned
him that a system of terror would only provoke reprisals; and that a
system of partial concessions would not only fail to satisfy the
wishes of the people, but would have an arbitrary and capricious
character which would increase the existing irritation. "The people
are no longer to be quieted by a few concessions. They seek the
recognition of those rights of humanity which have been withheld from
them for ages. They demand laws and liberty, independence and union.
Divided, dismembered, and oppressed, they have neither name nor
country. They have heard themselves stigmatised by the foreigner as
the Helot Nation. They have seen free men visit their country, and
declare it the land of the dead. They have drained the cup of slavery
to the dregs; but they have sworn never to fill it again." Mazzini
then calls on Charles Albert to put himself more definitely at the
head of a movement for Italian Independence, and to become the King of
a united Italy. The letter concludes with these words: "Sire, I have
spoken to you the truth. The men of freedom await your answer in your
deeds. Whatever that answer be, rest assured that posterity will
either hail your name as the greatest of men, or the last of Italian
tyrants. Take your choice."
Before we consider Charles Albert's answer, we must call to mind, once
more, his position. He came to the throne in the very crisis of a
conspiracy against his predecessor, and had hardly been able to
realize what had been the intention of the conspirators towards
himself. The Duke of Modena, who had plotted to remove him from the
succession (a proposal discussed at some length in the Congress of
Laybach), had just recovered his own Dukedom by Austrian help, and was
no doubt watching with eager eyes any false step which his rival might
make. Charles Albert, with all his liberal sympathies, was proud of
being a prince of the House of Savoy; and he was surrounded by the
courtiers of Charles Felix, who must have persuaded him that the
dignity and independence of that House could only be maintained by
opposition to the movement for reform.
There was, too, another influence which must never be forgotten in
estimating the difficulties of Charles Albert. He was a strong Roman
Catholic, at a time when the connection between reverence for the Pope
and reverence for the Church was, perhaps, closer than it had been at
most previous periods of the history of the Papacy. The commonplace
tyrannies of Leo XII. and Pius VIII. had not wholly dispelled the halo
which the heroic attitude of Pius VII.'s early days had shed round the
Papacy; and it seems highly probable that the most puzzling act of
Charles Albert's life, his share in the French invasion of Spain, had
been due, to a large extent, to that strong religious sentiment which
gathered in so peculiar a manner round the kings of Spain. A man
influenced by such sentiments could not fail to remark that the most
vigorous and determined of the insurgents of 1831 had directed their
attacks against the Papacy; and it might well seem to him that a
letter which called on him to oppose the Austrian restorers of the
papal power was the utterance of an enemy to the religion of the
country.
But the fact was, as Mazzini afterwards confessed, that any king who
was to undertake the work which he had suggested to Charles Albert
must possess at once "genius, Napoleonic energy, and the highest
virtue. Genius, in order to conceive the idea of the enterprize and
the conditions of victory; energy, not to front its dangers--for to a
man of genius they would be few and brief--but to dare to break at
once with every tie of family or alliance, and the habits and
necessities of any existence distinct and removed from that of the
people, and to extricate himself both from the web of diplomacy and
the counsels of wicked or cowardly advisers; virtue enough voluntarily
to renounce a portion at least of his actual power; for it is only by
redeeming them from slavery that a people may be roused to battle and
to sacrifice."
If such were the qualities required by any prince who undertook this
office, what must have been needed from one who had to contend with a
Power which had ten years before helped to crush out the aspirations
of his people, and which was just then triumphantly ruling in the
centre of Italy? A man of genius might have undertaken the task;
Charles Albert was only a man who "would and would not." But, if
Charles Albert refused to listen to Mazzini's appeal, he had no
alternative but to protest against it; and he did so by banishing
Mazzini, under pain of imprisonment if he should return to Italy.
Nevertheless, the letter had produced its effect on the nation. The
demand for the unity of Italy had been openly and definitely made, and
put forward as a boon to be struggled for by Italians, and not to be
conferred by a foreign conqueror. The attention of the youth of Italy
was at once attracted to the writer of the letter, and none the less
that he was an exile. The personal fascination which he exercised even
over casual observers may be gathered from the following letter,
which seems to refer to this period. It was written by one of his
fellow-exiles, describing his first sight of Mazzini in the rifle
ground at Marseilles.
"I went into the ground, and, looking round, saw a young man leaning
on his rifle, watching the shooters, and waiting for his turn. He was
about 5ft. 8in. high, and slightly made; he was dressed in black Genoa
velvet, with a large Republican hat; his long curling black hair,
which fell upon his shoulders, the extreme freshness of his clear
olive complexion, the chiselled delicacy of his regular and beautiful
features, aided by his very youthful look, and sweetness and openness
of expression, would have made his appearance almost too feminine, if
it had not been for his noble forehead, the power of firmness and
decision that was mingled with their gaiety and sweetness in the
bright flashes of his dark eyes, and in the varying expression of his
mouth, together with his small and beautiful moustache and beard.
Altogether, he was at that time the most beautiful _being_, male or
female, that I had ever seen, and I have not since seen his equal. I
had read what he had published; I had heard of what he had done and
suffered, and the moment I saw him I _knew_ it could be no other than
Joseph Mazzini."
It was under such auspices that the Society of Young Italy was
founded. The general drift of the principles of that Society has
already been sufficiently indicated in the account of Mazzini's
meditations in the fortress of Savona. It was to make Italy free,
united, Republican, recognizing duty to God and man as the basis of
national life, rather than the mere assertion of rights. But the great
point which distinguished it from all the other societies which had
preceded it was that, instead of trusting to the mysterious effect of
symbols, and the power of a few leaders to induce the main body of
Italians blindly to accept their orders, it openly proclaimed its
creed before the world, and even in the articles of association set
forth the full arguments on which it grounded the defence of the
special objects which it advocated. And the principles were further to
be preached in a journal which was to be called, like the Society,
"Giovine Italia."
But while he put forward a definitely Republican programme, Mazzini
never fell into the French mistake of thinking that a knot of men,
monopolizing power to themselves, can, by merely calling themselves
Republicans, make the government of a nation a Republic. While he
fully hoped, by education, to induce the Italians to accept a
Republican Government, he was quite prepared to admit the possibility
of failure in that attempt, and to accept the consequence as a
consistent democrat. This is distinctly stated in the first plan of
Young Italy.
"By inculcating before the hour of action by what steps the Italians
must achieve their aim, by raising its flag in the sight of Italy, and
calling upon all those who believe it to be the flag of national
regeneration to organize themselves beneath its folds--the association
does not seek to substitute that flag for the banner of the future
nation."
"When once the nation herself shall be free, and able to exercise that
right of sovereignty which is hers alone, she will raise her own
banner, and make known her revered and unchallenged will as to the
principle and the fundamental law of her existence."
Plentiful as was the scorn and misrepresentation showered upon Mazzini
and his doctrines, the two years from 1831 to 1833 brought a vast number
of supporters to the Society of Young Italy; and the revolutionary
movement in other countries gained organization and definiteness of
purpose from this model. In the meantime, the Government of Louis
Philippe was becoming more and more definitely committed to the cause of
reaction; and every kind of slander was being circulated by Frenchmen
against the Society of Young Italy. The theory that this Society
undertook to exterminate all who disobeyed its orders was supported, by
attributing to its action any casual violence which might take place in
the streets of Paris; and though Mazzini prosecuted one of these
slanderers for defamation a few years later, and compelled him to make a
complete retractation in the law courts, the slander was too convenient
to be allowed easily to drop.
On the other hand, men of the older type of revolutionist, who had
drawn their ideas from the first French Republic, and had afterwards
hoped to find their realization in the methods of the Carbonari,
objected to Mazzini as "too soft and German" in his ideas.
But nevertheless some who were afterwards known in other ways came
forward to contribute to the Journal of Young Italy. Amongst them may
be mentioned the historian Sismondi and a future opponent of Mazzini,
the Abate Vincenzo Gioberti. By 1833 the Society had established
centres in Lombardy, Genoa, Tuscany, and the Papal States, and it was
resolved to attempt an invasion of Savoy.
For, in spite of the promises which Charles Albert had held out of
reforms in the government, the prosecutions for the conspiracy of 1831
were being carried on with renewed rigour, and the prisons of some of
the chief towns of Piedmont were filled with men in many cases
arrested on the barest suspicion, and who were threatened with death
if they would not reveal the secrets of their fellow-conspirators.
Such cruelties were used to extort confessions that Jacopo Ruffini, a
young friend of Mazzini's, committed suicide in prison for fear he
should be compelled to betray his friends.
The news of these acts quickened the eagerness of the Italians for the
invasion of Savoy, and they desired to co-operate with men of other
countries. Among these, there were few from whom they expected so much
sympathy as the Poles. Unable to organize successful insurrections in
their own country, the Poles were scattered over Europe, a revolutionary
element in every land in which they were to be found. They, like the
Italians, had at first expected sympathy from the July monarchy in
France. They, too, had been bitterly disappointed. But this had not
prevented them from maintaining a centre at Paris; and many of those who
had fought in vain in 1830 for the liberty of Poland came back to Paris
to learn there what further was to be done.
Amongst these came a man named Ramorino, a Savoyard by birth, who had
acted as a general in the Polish struggle of 1830. The part which he
had played in that insurrection was only known very indistinctly to
most of the Italians who were organizing the new expedition; but the
mere fact that he had been a leader in a war for liberty was enough to
make them desire his help. Mazzini had gathered from the Polish exiles
the opinion generally held of Ramorino by those who knew the facts of
the insurrection of 1830. He found that the reputation which Ramorino
had held at that period was very low, both for trustworthiness and
military ability; and he opposed his election as leader of the
expedition to Savoy. The only result of the opposition was a charge
against Mazzini of personal ambition.
The expedition had already been weakened by the opposition of one of
those fanatical revolutionists who had before denounced Mazzini as too
soft and German in his ideas. This man, who bore the honoured name of
Buonarotti, had complained of the members of the expedition for
admitting men of noble rank and some wealth to the position of
leadership in it, and he had succeeded in detaching from the movement an
important section of its supporters. Mazzini, therefore, saw that,
under these circumstances, to lose the friends of Ramorino would ruin
the chances of the expedition; and, feeling that any further opposition
would only excite division, he consented to act with Ramorino.
The new leader soon showed his true character by hindering the
expedition as long as possible; but in February, 1834, he yielded to
the pressure of Mazzini and began the march. Unfortunately, Mazzini
was seized with a fever on the route, and Ramorino, finding this
obstacle to his treachery removed, ordered the columns to be dissolved
and rode away.
Plenty of scorn was heaped upon the failure of this first expedition
of Young Italy. But Metternich, at any rate, judged more truly. In
April, 1833, he had written to the chief of his spies in Lombardy to
warn him against the growth of a new revolutionary party, and
particularly against the advocate Mazzini, one of the most dangerous
men of the faction; and he told him to procure copies of the journal
called "La Giovine Italia," and two copies also of Mazzini's pamphlet
about guerilla warfare. Menz, the spy in question, while believing
that the journal of Young Italy was losing ground, yet considered that
it was the most dangerous of the newspapers which circulated in
Lombardy.
This request of Metternich's was, indeed, made a few months before the
actual invasion of Savoy, and Menz, no doubt, began to think that
after that failure the power of Mazzini would decline; but it is
tolerably clear that Metternich did not share that delusion, and kept
his eye steadily on the new leader. Nor did even Menz believe that
mere repression would now suffice to win the sympathies of the
Lombards to Austria, and he proposed to divert the intellectual zeal
of disaffected Lombards into a direction favourable to the State by
offering prizes for the solution of questions in different branches of
human knowledge. From the winners of these prizes, he thought, might
be chosen professors, inspectors, and directors of studies, and
encouragement might be given to compositions of poems and paintings,
of which "the subject, and even the colour," was to be dictated by
Government.[6]
He further proposed that, with this object, an Academy of Poetry
should be founded in Lombardy, under the absolute direction of the
Austrian Government, who are to see that the nation should take part
in an intellectual movement "with a correct view, and that these
productions of the imagination, bearing the impress of a tendency
profitable to the well-being of society, would, in their turn, act in
a very favourable manner on the public spirit."
Further, as "the Circus was in the time of the Romans the secret means
of the State for rendering the people submissive to the Government,"
... so "the Austrian Government should give a very generous subsidy to
the theatre of La Scala (at Milan); but it would be also desirable
that it should make some sacrifice for the provincial theatres." A few
modifications of the Austrian code, some reduction on customs duties,
and lessening of the restrictions on passports, are also suggested in
the Report. Such were the means by which the trusted servant of
Metternich hoped to counteract the influence of Mazzini and Young
Italy.
But in the meantime another form of opposition to the power of
Metternich was growing up in a country very different from Italy, both
in its circumstances and the character of its people.
While, in all other countries of Europe, Metternich looked upon every
approach to self-government with suspicion, and tried to crush it out
either by force or diplomacy, both he and Francis recognized that in
Hungary there were reasons for maintaining and even encouraging
Constitutional feeling.
For here the Constitutional rights did not rest upon any revolutionary
basis; at any rate, not upon any revolution of modern times. They were
not connected with the sort of national aspirations which made the
movements in Italy and Germany so alarming to Metternich. There was,
as yet, no desire here to redistribute the country according to
popular aspirations; all rights rested on clearly defined laws handed
down from a distant past, and in many cases these rights had been the
subject of a peaceable contract between the previous rulers of the
country and the House of Austria. So much was this felt by Francis
that he even appealed on one occasion to the Hungarian Diet for
sympathy against the revolutionary methods of Liberal leaders of other
countries.
But, indeed, had the liberty of the Hungarians depended, like that of
other nations, on the assertion of the power of a central parliament,
they might have been crushed as the other peoples had been; for from
1813 to 1825 no Diet met in Hungary. But the full force of Hungarian
liberty dwelt in the organization of those county assemblies which
the Magyars had probably derived from the conquered Slavs. The
Government could not enforce its laws except through the county
officers, all of whom, with one exception, were elected by the
landholders of the district. That one Government official was bound to
call together once a year a meeting of the nobles and clergy of the
county. _There_ the wants and grievances of the district were
discussed, and orders were sent to the representatives of the county
in the Diet at Presburg to introduce bills to remedy those grievances.
These county assemblies could raise taxes and levy soldiers; and they
not only possessed, but exercised the right to refuse to obey the
orders of the King himself if, after discussion, such orders proved
illegal.
In the county elections all freeholders of Hungary had votes; and in
the smaller village elections the suffrage was still wider. The
electors in the villages chose, not only legislators, but judges of
their village concerns. The non-freeholding peasantry were, indeed,
often oppressed; the towns were in a backward state as regards
self-government; but yet this system of county organization secured a
wider diffusion of general interest in political affairs than
prevailed in any other country of Europe.
At the same time, there were elements in Hungary which might give
Metternich some hopes that he could drain out the forces of Hungarian
liberty. The Magyar nobles were drawn more and more to Vienna; and a
process of Germanization was going on of so effective a kind that many
of the nobles had almost forgotten their own language. Thus, though the
Magyar aristocracy had more often acted as champions of independence
than the nobles of any other country in Europe, they were gradually
being drifted away from the main body of the people, and were becoming
absorbed in the ranks of Austrian officialism. But when the Spanish
Revolution of 1820 began to stir men's minds, the discussions in the
Hungarian county assemblies took a wider range, and representations were
made to Francis which he could not long resist. He did not at first,
indeed, realize the full force of the opposition, and in 1822 he tried
to levy new taxes on the Hungarians without summoning the Diet. But this
attempt failed, and in 1825 the Diet at Presburg was once more called
together.
It seemed, indeed, to some of those who afterwards played a prominent
part in the struggles of 1848 as if little was gained by this Diet;
and as if it was even less satisfactory than its predecessor of 1791.
But a movement was inaugurated on this occasion which, though it may
have contained in it the seeds of future misunderstanding, and even of
civil war, was yet in its beginning as noble in its intention as it
was necessary to the welfare of Hungary; and, had it been pursued in
the spirit of its first leader, might have produced in time all the
blessings which have since been secured to Hungary, without any of
those terrible divisions and bitternesses that hinder those blessings
from producing their full effect.
The leader of this new movement was Count Stephen Szechenyi, a
member of one of the great families of Hungary. His father had held
office at the Court of Vienna, but had grieved over the process of
denationalization which was going on among the nobles of Hungary.
Count Stephen was early trained to sympathize with the desire for the
restoration of Hungarian life. He saw that the withdrawal of the great
nobles from Hungary to Vienna led to the mismanagement of their
estates, the growth of an evil class of money-lenders, and the
separation between the aristocracy and the rest of the nation.
The abandonment of the Magyar language was, in his eyes, the great
source of all evil; and the Diet of 1825 afforded him the first
opportunity of protesting against it. While the Hungarian nobles
talked German in private, they used Latin in the management of public
affairs; and Szechenyi, as a protest against this practice, spoke in
the Magyar language in bringing forward a question in the House of
Magnates.
But, before the Diet had risen, he gave a much more solid proof of his
zeal for his native tongue. On November 3rd, 1825, he offered, in the
House of Magnates, to give a whole year's income, 60,000 gulden, to
found a Society for promoting the Study of the Magyar Language. His
example was followed, with more or less zeal, by other nobles; and in
1827 a Hungarian Academy was established by Royal Decree.
The movement which Szechenyi had stirred up was in danger of being
brought to ridicule by some of its supporters, for Count Dessewfy
actually proposed that a law should be passed forbidding the marriage
of any Hungarian maiden who did not know her native tongue; but this
was resisted as too strong a measure.
But though Szechenyi opposed these wilder schemes of his supporters,
he was none the less ready to use all possible attractions for
carrying out his chief object, the drawing Hungarian nobles back to
their country. As one of these means, he established a horse-race at
Pesth, and founded a union for training horses. He promoted, too, the
material advantages of Hungary by introducing steamships on the
Danube.
The work to which he devoted most attention was the erection of a
suspension bridge, to connect Pesth with Buda. Szechenyi's enthusiasm
in this matter seemed to many ludicrously disproportionate to the
result to be obtained; but the fact was that he intended this work to
give the opportunity for the first blow at that great injustice, the
exemption of the Hungarian nobles from taxation. If he could induce
the Magnates to consent that the burden of so important a national
undertaking should fall in part upon them, they might be willing
hereafter to accept a more just distribution of the whole burdens of
the State.
While, however, Szechenyi was labouring to promote Hungarian national
life, and was willing to sacrifice personal comfort, and any unjust
privileges of his order, for the sake of that object, he remained
essentially the Conservative Magyar Magnate. He not only shrank from
any movement for Constitutional reform, but even hoped to accomplish
his ends with the sympathy of the Austrian Government.
It was not indeed that he was deficient in courage, or in the tendency
to speak his mind plainly in private conversation. He said boldly that
"the promises of the King are not kept, that the law is always
explained in favour of the King to the disadvantage of the people;
and, to speak plainly, affairs just now have the appearance as if the
Constitution were being overturned." And in the same conversation he
further nettled Metternich by suggesting to that statesman that his
high position might prevent him from seeing some things.
Yet it was not merely offended vanity that irritated the ruler of
Europe against Szechenyi. Metternich seems always to have had a
preference for the thorough-going men among his opponents. He might
hate and desire to crush them; but what pleased him was that he
understood the logic of their position and, as he supposed, their
motives. The moderate and Constitutional Liberals were always a puzzle
to him. But when a man like Szechenyi actually thought that he could
work with him, while undermining the centralization which was the
essence of his schemes, and appealing to that positive form of
patriotism which it was the object of Metternich to crush out, so
inconsistent a position drove the Prince beyond the bounds of ordinary
courtesy.
Taking advantage of his own high position and Szechenyi's youth, he
told him that he was a man lost through vanity and ambition, asked him
if he could really confess to his friends the kindly feeling to the
Austrian Government which he had expressed to Metternich; and, on
Szechenyi making some admission of the difficulties of such a course,
"Then," said Metternich, "you must be a traitor either to me or to
your friends, that is to yourself."
But if Szechenyi's position was unintelligible to Metternich, he found
it far easier to understand another nobleman who came forward a little
later and played a different, but hardly less important, part. This was
Nicolaus Wesselenyi, the descendant of a family of nobles who had
constantly held their own against both king and People. The father of
Nicolaus had been a fiery, overbearing man, who had indulged in private
feuds, and who had fought scornfully for the special privileges of the
nobles. His son had all the fire of his family, and the same love of
opposition, but directed by the circumstances of the time into healthier
channels.
It was not, however, at Presburg that the Wesselenyis had hitherto
played their principal part, but at the Diet which met at Klausenburg,
in Transylvania. The circumstances and organization of that peculiar
province will be more naturally considered in connection with the
movements which arose a few years later. For the present, the
important point to remember in connection with Wesselenyi's position
is, that the Austrian Government tolerated an unusual amount of
freedom in the Transylvanian Diet, in the hopes thereby of weakening
that larger Hungarian feeling which gathered round the central Diet at
Presburg. When both the Hungarian and the Transylvanian Diets were
called together in 1830, and a demand was made by the Emperor for new
recruits for the army, the House of Magnates in Transylvania showed,
under Wesselenyi's leading, a bolder and firmer opposition than the
House of Magnates at Presburg. In the central Diet, indeed, the chief
opposition to the Emperor came from the Lower House, and the nobles
were disposed to yield to the demands of Francis. But Wesselenyi, with
his splendid bearing and magnificent voice, stirred up a far more
dangerous opposition in Transylvania; and the Government at Vienna
began to mark him out as their most dangerous opponent.
But in the meantime new questions were coming to the front in Hungary,
and new leaders were being called forth by them. The Polish insurrection
of 1830 had roused more sympathy in Hungary than probably in any other
country of Europe; and a connection between the two nations was then
established which had a not unimportant influence on the subsequent
history of Hungary.
The wiser men among the Hungarian leaders saw the great defect which
marred all struggles for liberty in Poland. Whatever aspirations may
have been entertained by the Polish patriots of 1791, certain it is
that, when Poland fell before the intrigues of Russia and Prussia, the
new Constitution had not had time to bring about any better feeling
between noble and peasant; and the Polish peasantry looked with
distrust and suspicion on movements for freedom inaugurated by their
oppressors.
The Hungarian reformers saw that, if they were to make the liberties
of Hungary a reality, they must extend them to the serf as well as to
the noble. In spite of the air of freedom of discussion which the
County Assemblies of Hungary spread around them, there were, at this
time, out of the thirteen millions of Hungarians, about eleven million
serfs. These were not allowed to purchase an acre of the soil which
they cultivated; they paid all the tithes to the clergy and most of
the taxes to the State, besides various payments in kind to their
landlords; their labour might be enforced by the stick; while for
redress of their grievances they were obliged, in the first instance,
to apply to the Court over which their landlord presided.
The reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II., while modifying the evils
of the position of the serf, had taught him to look to the Court of
Vienna, rather than to the Diet of Presburg, for help in his troubles.
The Edict of Maria Theresa, called the Urbarium, had granted the
peasant the right of leaving the land when he pleased, or of remaining
if he liked, while he complied with certain conditions; and by this
act he was allowed to bequeath the use of his land to his descendants.
Further, a right of appeal had been granted from his landlord's
decision to the official court at Buda, known as the Statthalterei. By
the same law the labour to be performed by the peasantry had been
fixed, instead of being left to the will of the lord, as heretofore.
The reforms of Joseph II. had, like most of his attempts, been too
vigorous to be lasting; but he had done enough to strengthen in the
minds of the oppressed peasantry of Hungary the desire to look to the
Emperor as their liberator. Thus the satisfaction of the claims of
humanity had tended to weaken Constitutional freedom.
The bitter feeling between noble and peasant was illustrated most
painfully in the year 1831, when an outbreak of cholera in Hungary was
attributed by the peasantry to the poisoning of the wells by the
nobles. Agrarian risings had followed, and more than fifty peasants
had been hung without trial.
Such was the state of feeling when the Diet of 1832 met at Presburg.
Had the leader of the movement for agrarian reform been a mere
champion of Constitutionalism, the work of drawing together the
peasant and noble might have been more difficult. But fortunately the
work fell into the hands of a man who, though not deficient in powers
of oratory, was far less a popular leader than a thoughtful and humane
student of affairs. This was Francis Deak, then thirty years of age,
trained, like so many leaders of the time, for the bar, and already
known as a speaker in the County Assembly of Zala. He was not a man of
the delicate, cultured type of Szechenyi; nor did he possess the
commanding figure and lion voice of Wesselenyi. He was broad and
sturdy in figure, his face was round and humorous, and his eye
twinkled with fun. Yet he was not without a deep shade of melancholy.
He was a man who inspired in all who came near him a sense of entire
trust in his honesty and steadiness of purpose; and this feeling,
though unlike the enthusiasm which is roused alike by the highest
genius and by merely popular gifts, was yet exactly the form of
confidence needed to enable Deak to do the special work which lay
before him.
The question of the reform of the Urbarium he at once made his own.
Besides the miseries of the peasantry above mentioned, they were
continually exposed to all kinds of petty tyrannies. Their horses were
liable to be seized by tourists through the country, and soldiers were
billeted upon them. Deak demanded the extension to the peasant of the
right of buying land, and better security for person and property.
But it soon became evident that, whatever exceptions there might be to
the rule, the Magnates of Hungary were not prepared to surrender their
privileges. The point which the reformers specially insisted on in the
new Urbarium was a clause enabling the peasant to free himself from
his feudal dues by a legal arrangement with the landlord. Thirteen
times the Lower House of the Diet passed the clause; thirteen times
the House of Magnates rejected it; and when at last that House
consented to pass it, the Emperor vetoed it.
The reformers were now clearly justified in calling on the people to
recognize them as their champions against both nobles and sovereign.
But in order to prevent this recognition the Government had forbidden
any publication of the debates.
Wesselenyi had met this difficulty in the Transylvanian Diet by
introducing a private press of his own, with the help of which he
circulated a report of the proceedings. This so alarmed the Government
that they dissolved the Transylvanian Diet and established an absolute
ruler in that province. Wesselenyi then transferred his eloquence to
the House of Magnates in Presburg, where he thundered against the
Government for opposing the liberties of the peasantry, denouncing
them in the following words: "The Government sucks out the marrow of
nine million of men (_i.e._, the peasantry); it will not allow us
nobles to better their condition by legislative means; but, retaining
them in their present state, it only waits its own time to exasperate
them against us. Then it will come forward to rescue us. But woe to
us! From freemen we shall be degraded to the state of slaves."
But the work which Wesselenyi had half done for Transylvania was to be
carried out for Hungary more thoroughly by a man who had been
gradually rising into note. This was Louis Kossuth, of whom it may be
said that, more than any other man in Europe, he was the author of the
Revolution of 1848. He was a few years older than Francis Deak, and,
like him, was trained as a lawyer. He had been appointed, in the
exercise of his profession, arbitrator between several wealthy
proprietors and their dependants. In this position he gained the
confidence of many of the peasantry, and he was also able to give them
help in the time of the cholera.
He possessed a quick and keen sensibility, which was the source of
many of his faults and of his virtues. A curious illustration of this
quality is shown in his renunciation of field sports, in consequence
of reading a passage in a Persian poet on the duty of humanity to all
living things. No doubt it was to this sensibility that he owed a
large part of that matchless eloquence which was to be so powerful an
engine in the revolutionary war. It was connected, too, with the keen
statesmanlike instinct which enabled him to see so often the right
moment for particular lines of action; and which, had it been united
with a wider sympathy, stronger nerves, and a more scrupulous
conscience, might have made his career as useful as it was brilliant.
[Illustration: KOSSUTH LAJOS.]
This instinct it was which enabled him to see at this crisis that
nothing could be effected for Hungary until the work done in the Diet
was better known to the main body of the people. The private press
which he now started may have been suggested to him by Wesselenyi's
attempt in Transylvania; but its work was carried out with an
ingenuity and resourcefulness which were altogether Kossuth's own. The
Government became so alarmed at this press that they wished to
purchase it from him, but, wherever print was hindered, he circulated
written correspondence. Nor did he confine his reporting to the
debates in the Diet of Presburg, for he circulated also reports of the
county meetings.
The Count Palatine, the chief ruler of Hungary, tried to hinder this
work; but the county officials refused to sanction this prohibition,
and thus deprived it of legal force.
The Government was now thoroughly roused; and in May, 1837, Kossuth
was indicted for treason, arrested, and kept for two years in prison
without any trial.
But great as was the indignation excited by this arrest, it was as
nothing compared to the storm which was aroused by the prosecution and
imprisonment of Wesselenyi. The Government had marked him out during
the Transylvanian debates as an enemy who was to be struck on the
first opportunity. The printing of the Transylvanian reports would
have been followed very speedily by a prosecution, had he not escaped
into North Hungary; but his speech against the Government in the
Presburg Diet gave a new opportunity for attack.
The enthusiasm which his prominent position, impressive manner, and
high rank had caused had been strengthened in Transylvania by the
extreme personal kindness which he had shown towards his peasantry;
and one of them walked all the way from Wesselenyi's Transylvanian
estate to Vienna to petition, on his own behalf and that of one
hundred fellow-peasants, that their landlord might be restored to
them.
Had Francis been still on the throne, it is possible that Metternich
would have offered further resistance to the popular demands. But
Francis had died in 1835, the year before the closing of the Diet. His
successor, Ferdinand, though, chiefly from physical causes, too weak
to hold his own against Metternich, was a kindly, easy-tempered man,
not without a sense that even kings ought to obey the law.
But whether Metternich or Ferdinand were to blame in the matter, the
concessions of the King were made in a hesitating and grudging manner
which took away their grace, and made the defeat more vividly apparent
both to victors and spectators.
A more popular Chancellor of Hungary, Anton Mailath, was appointed;
another member of the same family was made chief justice; and about the
same time the Transylvanian Diet was restored. Hoping that he had now
conciliated popular feeling, Metternich, in 1839, called together the
Diet of Presburg and demanded four million florins and thirty-eight
thousand recruits.
But the members of the Assembly had been instructed by their
constituents to oppose any demands of the Government until Wesselenyi,
Kossuth, and the members of a club who had been arrested at the same
time, were liberated. And while Deak still led the opposition in the
Lower House, Count Louis Batthyanyi came forward as the champion of
freedom in the House of Magnates. Finally, the Emperor consented, not
only to grant an amnesty to Wesselenyi, Kossuth, and others, but to
pass that clause about the peasants' dues which he had vetoed in 1836.
The Diet then voted the money, and was dissolved.
Thus, while in Italy a new faith was springing up which was to supply a
force to the struggles for liberty that they had previously lacked,
in Hungary the different, but hardly less effective, power of old
traditions of Constitutional freedom was checking Metternich in his full
career of tyranny, and forcing him to confess a defeat inflicted, not
by foreign diplomatists, but by that very people who had rallied round
Maria Theresa in her hour of danger, and who had sternly rejected the
advances of Napoleon when he had invited them to separate their cause
from that of the House of Austria.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] "He congratulated me on the fact that circumstances had spared me
the tremendous ordeals usually undergone; and seeing me smile at this,
he asked me severely what I should have done if I had been required,
as others had been, to fire off a pistol in my own ear, which had been
previously loaded before my eyes. I replied that I should have
refused, telling the initiators that either there was some valve in
the interior of the pistol into which the bullet fell--in which case
the affair was a farce unworthy of both of us--or the bullet had
really remained in the stock: and in that case it struck me as
somewhat absurd to call upon a man to fight for his country, and make
it his first duty to blow out the few brains God had vouchsafed to
him."--_Life and Writings of Mazzini, Vol. I._
[4] As an instance of his way of carrying out this idea may be mentioned
his feeling to Savoy. He felt that in race, language, and possibly in
sympathy, Savoy might naturally gravitate towards France, while its
geographical position and the modes of life of its inhabitants might
naturally connect it with Switzerland. He therefore desired that by the
deliberate vote of an elected Assembly, not by a fictitious Napoleonic
plebiscite, Savoy should decide the question of its connection with
Italy, France, or Switzerland. Mazzini expressed a hope that it would
decide in favour of Switzerland.
[5] "Mais M. Bulwer parler de faire la guerre, et faire la guerre sont
choses bien différentes."
[6] Document 158 to Gualterio Gli Ultimi Rivolgimenti Italiani.
CHAPTER IV.
LANGUAGE AND LEARNING AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1840-1846.
Contrast between position of German language in North Germany and
in Austrian Empire.--Condition of Germany between 1819 and
1840.--Literary movements.--Protest of the Professors of Göttingen
against abolition of Hanoverian Constitution.--Effect of the
protest on other parts of Germany.--Position and character of
Frederick William III.--His struggle with the Archbishop of
Cologne.--Accession of Frederick William IV.--His character and
policy.--Ronge's movement of Church Reform.--Robert Blum's share in
it.--Language movement in Hungary.--Position and history of
Croatia.--Louis Gaj and the "Illyrian" movement.--"The Slavonic
ocean and the Magyar island."--Kossuth's treatment of the Slavonic
movement.--Count Zay's circular.--The "taxation of the
nobles."--Szechenyi's position.--Deak's resignation.--The Croats at
Presburg.--Kossuth's inconsistency.--Ferdinand's intervention in
the struggle.--The struggle of races absorbs all other
questions.--History of Transylvania.--The "three nations."--The
position of the Roumanians.--Effect of Joseph II.'s policy in
Transylvania.--The "Libellus Wallachorum."--Andreas
Schaguna.--Stephan Ludwig Roth.--General summary of the effect of
the revival of national feelings.
'Twas from no Augustan age,
No Lorenzo's patronage,
That the German singers rose;
By no outward glories crowned,
By no prince's praise renowned,
German art's first blossom blows.
From her country's greatest son,
From the mighty Frederick's throne,
Scorned, the Muse must turn away.
"_We_ have given thy worth to thee;"
"Let our heart-beats prouder be;"
Can each German boldly say.
So to loftier heights arose,
So in waves more swelling flows
German poet's minstrelsy.
He in ripeness all his own,
From his heart's deep centre grown,
Scorns the rule of pedantry.
So sang Schiller; and, while in Germany the Muse was ascending to the
heights in which Schiller gloried to see her, the opposite process had
been producing opposite results under the rule of another German
sovereign. Frederick II. of Prussia preferred bad French to the best
utterances of his own country; and so the German Muse was free to
develope in her own way. Joseph II. of Austria felt his heart warmed
with the greatness of German traditions; he looked round on dominions
inhabited by men of different races and languages, and, perceiving
that these differences led to continual misunderstandings, and
hindered any great work of common reform, resolved to extend the
blessings of German language and literature to all the races of his
dominions. To them, he thought, a change would prove a bond of union;
while neither Bohemian, Hungarian, nor Croat could claim for their
native tongues, however dear to them, such glorious associations and
traditions as were already connected with the language which was to
take their place.
The consequence of this nobly intended effort has been that German is,
to this day, a badge of tyranny to the majority of the people of the
western half of the Austrian Empire; and if it has almost ceased to be
so in the eastern half, that is simply because its supremacy has been
replaced by the no less crushing tyranny of another language which was
offered to the various populations of the Hungarian kingdom by its
rulers, as a symbol of national freedom and unity.
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 Constitution
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, passed at Vienna,
establishing courts of arbitration, elected by members of the Bund, to
decide questions at issue between sovereigns and parliaments. If the
Assemblies, 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
Assembly.
Yet Germany was not dead. Apart from the continual assertions 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 class was given in 1837, when the King of Hanover
suppressed the Constitution which his predecessor had established.
On November 17th, 1837, seven professors of Göttingen 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 Königsberg 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 Constitution 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 assuming such a leadership. And the memories of 1813 gathered, if
not round the King of Prussia, at least round his kingdom. The
institution 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 Göttingen, 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 Constitutional 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 Constitutionalism 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 superstition. 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 circumstances 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 substituting 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 homogeneous country, the movement might have passed 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
passed 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 godmother 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 documents, 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 substitute 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 substituted. 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 Assembly
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 nobles of
Hungary from taxation. These "nobles" 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 nobles 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 "nobles," 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 masse_, instead of returning representatives like other citizens.
In this Diet of 1843, Count Jozipoviç, leader of this band of
"nobles," asserted 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 Assembly, however, at first attempted to place their
claims in a moderate manner before the Magyars; and instructed
Haulik, Bishop of Agram, to assure 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 Jozipoviç 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 assumed the justice of the cause of
Jozipoviç; and, while he was eagerly opposing the privileges of the
nobles 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 passed 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 "nobles" 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 assemblies, 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 Pass, 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 passed 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 petition, which was called the "Libellus
Wallachorum," and was presented to the Diet of 1791. It was in this
document 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 petition 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 petition 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 Würtemberg; 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
Würtemberg, 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 CONSTITUTIONALISM, 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 massacre 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 attitude.--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 passing 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 circumstances 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 nobleman
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 passing 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 circumstances 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 passing 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.
Cesare Balbo was the son of that Count Prospero Balbo who was
supposed, in the reign of Victor Emmanuel I., to have supplied a
Liberal element to the Government. There had been, however, little in
Count Prospero's career to inspire any reasonable confidence in him.
He served under Victor Amadeus till the fall of Piedmont before the
French; but after the establishment of Napoleon's power he had
returned to Piedmont and become head of the University of Turin. After
the restoration of the House of Savoy he had taken office again under
Victor Emmanuel, and had played the somewhat doubtful part, described
above, in the movement of 1821. Cesare had been presented by his
father, when a boy, to Napoleon; and though Count Prospero had
considered it a dangerous step, the young man had accepted office in
Napoleon's Council of State in Turin, and subsequently had served
under the same ruler in Tuscany. Although shocked at the kidnapping of
Pius VII., he did not abandon the service of Napoleon until the fall
of the French Empire in 1814. Yet, after the restoration of the House
of Savoy, he entered the army of the King of Sardinia, and fought,
first against Napoleon, and then against Murat. In 1821 he managed to
remain on friendly terms with Santa Rosa, while he was at the same
time advising Charles Albert to break with the Revolutionists, and was
also trying to hinder the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution at
Alessandria. Such was the man who now tried to tell Italy of her
hopes.
While appealing to Gioberti as his master, and declaring his preference
for a moderate party, Balbo dwelt on the want of national independence
as the chief source of the evils of Italy, and particularly on the
control exercised by the Austrians over the Pope. He urged his
countrymen to put aside the old ideas of Dante, and not to go back
further than 1814 for their conception of Italian Unity. He then
proceeded to examine the different schemes for attaining this unity,
and, rejecting alike the schemes of Monarchists and Federalists, as
well as the plan for a closer unity put forward by the Republicans of
the Giovine Italia, he pointed out as the only real hope for Italy the
possibility of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the consequent chance
that Italy might be freed in the scramble which would follow.
It is well to dismiss this book of Balbo's first, because its only
worth is that it shows what scraps of comfort were caught at eagerly
by Italians at this period; but, as a matter of fact, its publication
was slightly later than that of the "Primato" of Vincenzo Gioberti, to
which Balbo alludes in the preface to his book.
Gioberti has already been mentioned as having been a contributor to
the journal of the Giovine Italia. Previously to that time, he had
chiefly been known as a writer on ecclesiastical or theological
subjects. Before the age of twenty, he had written a philosophical
treatise on Man, God, and Natural Religion; and early in life he had
also written on the "Wickedness of the Popes," and had tried to
prove that that wickedness was due to their temporal power. At the
University of Turin, the Professor to whom he looked up with the
greatest reverence was driven from his post by the Jesuits, and this
event awakened in Gioberti his bitter hostility to that Order.
Gioberti's connection with the Giovine Italia brought him under the
suspicion of the Piedmontese Government; and he was banished from the
country shortly before Mazzini's expedition to Savoy.
In that expedition, however, Gioberti had refused to join; and he
remained at Paris, where many of the Italian exiles were gathered.
Among these, two of the most prominent were Pellegrino Rossi and
Terenzio Mamiani. Both of these writers may have confirmed him in his
dislike of the Jesuits; though they may also have exercised some
influence in alienating him from the Republicans. He returned, indeed,
at this period to those philosophical writings for which he was much
better fitted than for the active life of politics; and, in 1842,
he was offered a Chair of Philosophy at Pisa. But Solaro della
Margherita, the Minister of Charles Albert, succeeded in persuading
the Grand Duke of Tuscany to withdraw this appointment. Such had been
Gioberti's career up to the time when he brought out the book which,
by a curious combination of circumstances, was to make his name
famous.
This book, "Il Primato Morale e Civile degli Italiani," professes to
show why, and how, the Italians should take the lead in the affairs of
Europe. The writer begins with a glorification of Italy, though, at
the same time, he complains that she has too often neglected her
mission; and he maintains, in this connection, the necessity of
combining philosophy with political discussion. Very early in
the argument he goes back to Romulus; but, not content with the
comparative antiquity of that allusion, he thinks it necessary to
deduce the origin of civilization from Noah. He then considers the
relation between the Papacy and the Empire after the time of Charles
the Great, and the attitude of various Italian writers and patriots
towards the Papacy. He incidentally notices the fascination of Abelard
for Arnold of Brescia as one of the causes of that reformer's
hostility to the Papacy, and as a warning to Italians not to yield to
the influence of French ideas. It is to the Guelphs that Gioberti
looks for the embodiment of the political wisdom of the Italians
of the Middle Ages. Without the Papacy, there could be no real
political unity for Italy, since through its influence alone could
there be produced a union of morality, religion, and civilization. He
deprecates all revolution, all encouragement of invasion, all
imitations of foreign ideas. Unity, in the complete sense in which it
was known in England and France, was, says Gioberti, an impossibility,
because of differences in Government and dialect between the different
States of Italy. He expresses a belief that Alfieri would have
repented of his attacks on Popes and Kings if he had lived to see the
dignified resistance of Pius VII. to Napoleon. The Pope would be
obliged to act by peaceful means; and while forming an Italian Navy,
and developing Italian colonies, he should carry on his work through a
Federal Union, of which he would be the President. But, as the Pope
must act by pacific means, there would be need of a military leader
also for Italy; and he must be found in Piedmont. Literature had been
slower in growth in Piedmont than in other parts of Italy; but in
proportion to its backwardness in this respect was its superiority in
military matters. Further, the House of Savoy had been softened by
religion, and had never produced a tyrant. But moderate reforms were
necessary in order to make the leadership palatable; especially a
modification of the censorship of the Press, and greater encouragement
to science and literature. In urging that Italy must take the lead of
Europe, not merely in matters of civilization, but in thought, he
dwells emphatically on the connection between philosophy and politics.
But, above all, Italy should hold this position because she has never
fallen into the errors of Protestantism. Passing from the independent
States of Italy, he dwells on the necessity of a union between
Lombardy and Piedmont; and then, after discussing what qualities the
different parts of Italy will contribute to the general character of
the whole, and dwelling on the possible union among the literary men
of Italy, he concludes by insisting that religion can be the only
uniting force; and therefore that the Head of the Christian World must
be the Head of the Italian League.
This curious book attracted considerable attention; but although many
expressed admiration for the author, few committed themselves
definitely to its doctrines. The idea of a Pope as a liberator and
uniter of Italy clashed with all the experiences which Italy had had of
the Government of Gregory XVI., and Gioberti was forced to modify his
words, and to deny that he looked to the Pope then on the throne to
carry out his programme. This explanation led him into a controversy
with the Jesuits, which must considerably have increased his
popularity.
A third writer, who attracted some attention, though far less than
Balbo and Gioberti, was Giacomo Durando, already mentioned as one of
the conspirators of 1831. He demanded a league between Peoples and
Princes, but utterly denied that any initiative of Italian independence
could come from the Pope. His idea was a Kingdom of Italy divided into
three parts--Northern, and presumably Central, Italy to be under the
House of Savoy; the city of Rome and some islands to be left to the
Pope; and Southern Italy to the King of Naples. He did not, however,
desire that the League should make war upon Austria, but that it
should wait, and be ready to resist attacks from that Power.
But while these writers were trying to formulate, in a literary
manner, the programme of the Constitutional Liberals, the more fiery
members of that party were anxious to show that they too could do
something in the way of a political movement of a more determined
kind; and it was in the Papal States, again, as the centre of the
worst government of Italy, that this new programme of insurrection was
put forward. A man named Pietro Renzi undertook to formulate the
demands of this section of the party. The petition drawn up by Renzi
went back to the time of Pius VII., to show that hopes of reform had
once been held out, even in the Papal States. It dwelt on the fact
that, from the time of the insurrections of 1821 to the death of Pius
VIII. in 1831, there had been a steady growth of tyranny; that in 1831
the Papal Government would have fallen but for the intervention of
Austria; that, when Gregory XVI. had been restored to his power,
demands had been made for reform in the Papal Government which had
been steadily opposed; that the Pope and Cardinal Albani were now
encouraging robbers and murderers on the ground of the support which
such men gave to the faith. "For eight or ten years past," Renzi
declared, "it had not been the Pope or Rome or the Cardinals who had
been governing the people of the Legations; but a sanguinary faction
of the brutalized populace has been wearing the dress, and performing
the functions of government." Many young men had been driven from the
universities, or shut out from liberal professions, by the influence
of the Jesuits; and the clergy had usurped the control of all
education. The leaders of the new party, therefore, demanded twelve
concessions.--1. A general amnesty for all political offences from
1821 to that time. 2. Publicity of Debate; trial by jury, and
abolition of confiscations and capital punishment for political
offences. 3. That laymen should not be subjected either to the
Inquisition nor any other ecclesiastical tribunal. 4. That political
offences should be tried by the ordinary tribunals. 5. That municipal
councils should be freely elected subject to the approval of the
Sovereign; that these municipal councils should elect the provincial
councils, and the provincial councils the Supreme Council of State. 6.
That the Supreme Council should reside in Rome, superintending the
public funds, and should have a deliberative power in some matters, a
consultative in others. 7. That all offices, civil, military, and
judicial, should be held by laymen. 8. That public instruction, other
than religious, should be taken away from the clergy. 9. That the
censorship of the Press should be only employed in the case of
offences against God, the Catholic Religion, and the Sovereign, and
the private life of citizens. 10. That foreign troops should be
dismissed. 11. That the Civic Guard should be instituted, and
entrusted with the maintenance of the laws and of public order. 12.
That the Government should enter on all those social reforms which are
required by the spirit of the age, and of which all the _civil_
governments of Europe have given an example.
Renzi resolved to enforce this programme by a sudden attack on Rimini,
in which he was completely successful; but an ally of his, who had
raised a revolt simultaneously in the lower Romagna, was compelled to
retire before the Swiss troops of the Pope; and Renzi, apparently
panic struck, retreated into Tuscany. Unfortunately, a reaction was
then taking place there. Fossombroni had died in 1844, Corsini, the
Minister who was most in sympathy with Fossombroni's policy, resigned
in 1845; and the chief of the Jesuit party took his place. The Grand
Duke Leopold himself was at first disposed to be friendly to Renzi;
but, as the best protection to him, he advised his escape to France.
Renzi soon returned, and Metternich, alarmed at the intensity of
Italian feeling, denounced the Duke for protecting rebels, and, under
the influence of Austrians, Jesuits, and of the Pope, Leopold
consented to surrender Renzi to Gregory XVI.
The attention of the country was still further directed to this
attempt by a pamphlet which came out immediately after, and which was
written by a young Piedmontese nobleman, Count Massimo Tapparelli
D'Azeglio. In this pamphlet D'Azeglio complained that the Rimini
movement had been much misrepresented; but that the action of the
insurgents had no doubt been a blunder, because the movement had been
purely local, and they had not considered how to use the forces of the
whole of Italy. He then proceeded to denounce the corruptions of the
Papal Government, and the cruelties which had followed the suppression
of this rising; particularly the gross injustice of imprisoning a
lawyer because he had defended some of the prisoners. After a
denunciation in detail of the evils of the Papal Government, he goes
on to repudiate the use of secret societies, as having failed in their
purpose; calls on the Italians to unite in peaceable protest against
abuses, rather than in insurrection; and points to the Tugendbund of
Germany as a model for Italian combinations. The pamphlet had little
that was new in it, but attention was fixed upon the author, by the
fact that he was immediately banished from Tuscany by the Grand Duke,
and was, shortly after, welcomed in Piedmont.
Metternich's protest against this welcome might have been more decided
had he not been hampered by the events which were occurring in
Galicia. Ever since the insurrection of 1830, there had been a steady
feeling of sympathy towards the Poles, not merely as an oppressed
nation, but as _the_ nation whose restoration was the chief duty and
necessity of the champions of liberty. Kossuth declared, at a somewhat
later time, that there was a close connection between the liberties of
Hungary and those of Poland. Mazzini had been eager to co-operate,
where it was possible, with the exiled Poles. Robert Blum had shown a
special enthusiasm for their cause, and was ready to help in a rising
in Posen. Every Slavonic race looked on the wrongs of the Poles as the
typical instance of the oppression of the Slavs by the Great Powers of
Europe; while, at the same time, they honoured them as the most famous
fighters in the cause of Slavonic freedom. But it was in France that
the greatest enthusiasm was felt for the Poles, and the most complete
organization of the exiles existed. There a special military school
was founded for them in 1843; and in 1846, after a preparation of
three years, the democratic section among the Poles resolved to strike
a decisive blow against Austria.
The city of Cracow, on the borders of Galicia, was the one part of
Poland which still maintained a nominal freedom. The political
independence of Cracow had been secured by the Treaty of Vienna. The
Austrian Government even then wished to absorb it into their own
dominions; but, under pressure from Russia, Francis consented that
Cracow should be a free town, governed by its own elected Chamber of
Representatives, and surrounded by a district which was not to be
occupied by Austrian troops; and it was also to exercise complete
control over its army and police. The usual Austrian interpretation of
liberty, however, was soon to be applied to the Republic of Cracow.
Although free trade between Cracow and Warsaw had been secured by a
regular treaty, the protecting Powers, as they were called (Austria,
Russia, and Prussia), began soon to insist on prohibitive duties being
introduced on the frontiers of Cracow. Its University, dating from the
fourteenth century, had been secured in its properties and liberties
by the Treaty of Vienna; but, unfortunately, a large portion of the
lands from which the University drew its income lay within the
dominions of the three protecting Powers, each of whom refused, under
various pretexts, to give up its share of the land. As to the
liberties of the University, the Austrian Government, in 1817, had
declared that it would inflict a fine of 100 ducats on any parent who
sent his sons to the University of Cracow; in 1822, the Russian
Government followed this example by a decree forbidding Polish youths
to study in any foreign country, under which title they specially
included Cracow. In the meantime, the organizing Commission, which
had been appointed by the Powers, was gradually destroying the
Constitution which had been established by the Treaty of Vienna. The
right to modify laws sent from the Senate was first taken from the
Chamber of Representatives; while, as to the control of the finances,
which had been specially mentioned in the Treaty, the House of
Representatives was informed that the accounts were only to be shown
to the Chamber in order to convince them that the Senate had spent the
money, and that the Treasury was empty; though the Commission
graciously allowed the Chamber to examine and make observations on the
accounts, and assured them that these observations should be sent to
the Senate. The self-government of the University was, in a similar
manner, gradually taken from it; and, under the excuse of a riot in
1820, the great Powers, six years later, sent a Russian colonel to act
as supreme ruler of the University. The insurrection of 1830 in Warsaw
had, of course, given excuse for further interference with the
liberties of Cracow; and, in 1831, Russian soldiers, for a time,
occupied the city. It is hardly necessary to add that the liberty of
the Press, which had been specially guaranteed by the Treaty of
Vienna, had been gradually crushed out; and a new Commission,
appointed by the three Powers in 1833, revised the Constitution of
Cracow, thereby setting aside the claims of England and France to have
their opinions considered in any revision of the Treaty. Torture was
revived for the purpose of extorting revelations of crimes which had
never been committed. The judges had, indeed, retained, for a time,
the independence secured them by the Treaty; but in March, 1837, the
Conference, as it was called, of the three Powers abolished the
offices of Mayors of the Commune and Judges of First Instance, and
transferred their duties to officers of police. In December of the
same year, the protecting Powers decided that the question of the
amount to be expended on the police and militia should not be
submitted to the Chamber. Then the Chamber, at last, attempted an
appeal to the two Powers whose opinions had been wholly ignored by the
other signatories to the Treaty of Vienna; but the appeal was,
apparently, in vain, and there seemed no remedy left but insurrection.
The centralizing principles of the Austrian Government, on this as on
later occasions, paralyzing their power of action in emergencies,
Cracow was seized and occupied by the democratic leader Tyssowski. The
Government Boards in Galicia were little able to make head against the
movement; and, if Tyssowski had known how to appeal to the popular
sympathies, he might have been completely successful. Unfortunately,
however, the leaders of the insurrection had not yet been able to
establish that sympathy with the peasantry of Galicia which alone
would have enabled them to carry out a really popular insurrection;
and, instead of trying to enlist the sympathies and interest of the
peasants on behalf of the movement, Tyssowski's only idea was to
terrorize them into obedience. He issued a proclamation, announcing
that the whole Empire, during the time of revolution, is one and
common property in the hands of the revolutionary Government. Every
priest who opposed the rising was to be deprived of his office; anyone
who refused to subscribe to the national cause was to be seized and
brought before a Governor chosen by the insurgents; every inhabitant,
on pain of death, was to go to the place appointed him, as soon as he
knew of the outbreak of the insurrection. The peasantry, alarmed at
hearing that many of them had been condemned to death for their
unreadiness to assist the revolution, appealed to the officials to
defend them; nor could they be conciliated by hearing that the
insurgents were about to abolish all feudal dues and titles of rank,
and to secure a certain amount of land to every peasant. These offers
from unknown people could not induce the peasants to make friends
with those who were threatening them with death. From more than
seventy districts representatives came from the peasants to the
official authorities at Tarnow to ask for military help against the
revolutionary leaders; and they were advised to defend themselves and
to arrest the agitators. On February 18th, 1846, the insurrection
broke out, and one of the first actions of the conspirators was to
fire on the peasants who had refused to join them. Then the peasants,
stirred to desperation, rose; and a general massacre of the nobles
began. The dark and underground methods of the Austrian Government,
and the centralizing principle which had drained out the strength of
the different local governments, had brought a double Nemesis on its
founders. For while on the one hand the powerlessness of the local
boards caused the early successes of the insurgents, on the other hand
the world at large thought that the massacre of the nobles of Galicia
must have been organized from Vienna, as a part of the regular
Austrian policy.[7] This belief was likely to be further strengthened
by the events which followed. While Mieroslawski and some of the
leaders of the insurrection surrendered to the Prussian troops, which
had been despatched to prevent a rising in Silesia and Posen,
Metternich struck the final blow at the independence of Cracow. The
account given above shows that there was little independence left to
be destroyed in that unfortunate city; but somehow the actual
destruction of liberties never excites so general a horror, especially
in the diplomatic world, as the final removal of the _forms_ of
liberty. And Lord Palmerston, who does not seem to have responded to
the previous appeal from the Assembly of Cracow, now addressed
indignant remonstrances to Metternich, and uttered the remarkable
words, "If the treaties of 1815 are null on the Vistula, they may be
null on the Rhine and the Po."
Thus the occupation of Cracow seemed to many to be an abandonment by
Metternich of the semi-legal position which till then he had, in the
eyes of diplomatists, maintained; while his supposed complicity in
the massacre in Galicia roused against him the feelings of those
humanitarians who do not understand the wickedness of choking out the
moral and intellectual life of a nation, but who shrink with horror
from any physical cruelty. It is, therefore, no unnatural inference
that the delay which Metternich showed in making any stern protest
against Charles Albert's new position in Italy may have been due to
the paralysis caused by the storm of indignation roused against
Austria by the Galician massacres and the annexation of Cracow. Charles
Albert profited by this weakness. He had been shifting as usual in his
policy, encouraged on the one side in moderate reforms by the Liberal
minister, Villamarina, and dragged, on the other side, into extreme
clericalism by Solaro della Margherita. But, just about the time when
D'Azeglio arrived in Piedmont, events were occurring which riveted on
Charles Albert the hopes of many who had not hitherto believed in the
sincerity of his desire for reform; and the same circumstances gave him
that position of champion of Italian independence which, in the eyes of
perhaps a majority of Italians, he continued to maintain till the fall
of Milan in 1848. The chief cause of this change of feeling is to be
found in the following circumstance.
In the year 1751 a treaty had been made between Austria and Piedmont
by which the former granted to the latter the right of sending through
Lombardy the salt which they were selling to the Republic of Venice.
In consideration of this boon the King of Sardinia renounced his trade
with the Swiss cantons; and the treaty was renewed in 1815, after
Venice had passed under the Austrian rule. In 1846 Ticino, desiring to
open a trade in salt with Marseilles, asked the Piedmontese Government
to allow them to transmit their salt through Piedmont, and Charles
Albert consented.
The Austrian Government had for some time past looked with suspicion
on Charles Albert. Metternich had never forgotten his passing outburst
of Liberalism in 1821; and the continual search of the Italian
Liberals for some leader in the War of Independence was naturally
drawing people's eyes to Piedmont. Few, and comparatively unimportant,
as were the reforms that he introduced, they were enough to increase
the suspicions of Metternich; and, reformer or not, the King of
Sardinia was necessarily an enemy to the House of Austria. Moreover,
Charles Albert had recently given a tolerably clear hint of his
own feelings; for he had struck a medal representing a lion (the
well-known badge of the House of Savoy) trampling on an eagle; and on
the reverse side of the medal appeared, "_J'attends mon astre_."
The concession to the Canton Ticino lighted the spark which had been
smouldering in the breasts of the Austrian rulers. For of all the
States of Europe, this little canton had become specially obnoxious to
Austria in the last few years; and not long before this Metternich and
Charles Albert had worked together to stamp out its freedom, and
deprive it of the right of sheltering those Italian exiles who were
dear to the Italian-Swiss from similarity in race and language.
Metternich had failed in that effort, and the Liberals had risen in
the canton and overthrown the Conservative Government and Austrian
influence together. Any sign, therefore, of friendliness shown by
Charles Albert to the Ticinese was a special cause of alarm to the
Austrians. They declared at once that the treaty of 1751 had been
violated; in April, 1846, they increased the custom duties on the wine
sent from Piedmont to Lombardy; and in order to mark the hostility of
the Act more plainly the same decree declared that there would be no
change with regard to the wines coming from several of the other
Italian States.
Solaro della Margherita, though his Conservatism naturally inclined
him to sympathize with the Austrian Government, was a man who valued
the independence and dignity of Piedmont; and he therefore consented
to Charles Albert's proposal at once to lower the duties between
Piedmont and France, in order to facilitate the commerce between those
countries. The meaning of this act could not be misunderstood; and the
Austrian ambassador, alarmed at the sudden defiance, made a proposal
to recall the duty on Piedmontese wines, on condition that Charles
Albert would consent to withdraw his concession to Ticino. Solaro
della Margherita, in his anxiety for a friendly understanding with
Austria, did not perceive that such a concession would give up the
whole principle at stake, since it would admit the right of Austria to
forbid Charles Albert to make what terms he pleased with the canton;
so Solaro actually urged the King to agree to the proposal. But
Charles Albert stood firm, and, greatly to Margherita's horror,
D'Azeglio succeeded in persuading the people to get up a demonstration
in Turin, at which cries were heard of "Long live the King of Italy!"
Charles Albert, however, though showing some signs of his usual
irresolution, did not draw back from his policy of hostility to
Austria; and he set himself to promote a railway which should connect
Lombardy and Venetia more closely with Piedmont. The Austrians made
some difficulty with regard to this railway, and it was on this
occasion apparently that the point was carried against the rulers of
Lombardy, to a great extent, by the energies of a Venetian lawyer,
Daniele Manin, a name afterwards memorable in the records of Venice.
In the meantime D'Azeglio had been working hard to convince the rest
of Italy that Charles Albert was preparing to put himself at the head
of an Italian movement and to attack Lombardy. In Tuscany Professor
Montanelli had already formed a Society for promoting the unity of
Italy. Demonstrations were being made against the Jesuits, and
petitions for changes in taxation and education were drawn up.
But it was in the Papal States that D'Azeglio most hoped to gain
ground; and in Forli he came in contact with Aurelio Saffi, who, with
D'Azeglio's encouragement, prepared an address from the people of
Forli to one of the clerical rulers, calling attention to the growth
of Italian feeling and the desire for action against the foreigner.
The authorities became alarmed and Saffi's arrest and imprisonment
were determined on, when the death of Gregory XVI. suddenly changed
the whole position of affairs; and Charles Albert's newly-won fame was
for a time dimmed by that of another hero of the popular imagination;
while Gioberti's teaching, hitherto admired only in a small circle,
and laughed at by many, was suddenly accepted as the utterance of an
inspired prophet, and as embodying the conception of a profound
statesman.
The state of Roman government at the death of Gregory XVI. was as
follows:--The management of affairs was entirely in the hands of
cardinals, or of laymen appointed by the Pope. The nobles and the rich
were indeed conciliated to some extent by appointments which seemed a
concession to lay feeling. The provincial councils, nominated by the
Pope, laid taxes partly on property and partly on articles of
consumption. The study of political economy was prohibited in
the schools; and the study of law and medicine was but little
provided for. The press was under a triple censorship, that of the
Inquisition, of the Bishop, and of the Governor of the province. The
police, though vigorous in repressing political conspirators, were
utterly unable to check highway robbery. In the tribunals which were
administered by the clergy, the grossest corruptions prevailed. As a
natural result of all this, the ablest and best men of the States were
to be found, not in Rome, but some in France, some in Tuscany,
and some in Piedmont. The government of Rome and its immediate
neighbourhood was corrupt; and the government of the Legations in some
cases became so cruel as to excite shame even in the Pope himself. And
Monsignore Savelli, one of the worst of these tyrants, had been guilty
of such a combination of corruption and cruelty that Gregory had been
compelled to remove him from office.
Such was the state of affairs when Gregory XVI. died. Tremendous
expectation was roused in the different provinces of the Papal
States; an insurrection broke out in Ancona; and a colonel, who had
distinguished himself for cruelty in that town, was killed. The
cardinals at once despatched Savelli to suppress the rising. In the
meantime the Conclave met, and the ambassadors of the different
Powers began to intrigue for their respective candidates. Cardinal
Lambruschini was one of the most powerful members of the sacred
college; but he was hated for his injustice and partisan distribution
of offices; and no sooner had the Conclave opened than attacks were
made on him by Cardinal Micara, on this very ground. Lambruschini had
been appointed by the influence of the Austrian Court, and might have
been supposed to be their candidate. But whether it were that even the
Austrians desired certain concessions to the policy of reform, which
they had themselves supported after the rising of 1831, or whether it
were that their influence was weakened by the events which had recently
occurred in Galicia, they do not seem to have used very great pressure
on behalf of Lambruschini.
On the other hand, there had recently arrived in Rome, as French
ambassador, that same Pellegrino Rossi who had formerly been driven
into exile by the success of the Austrians in 1815, who had contributed
to the Conciliatore of Confalonieri, and who had played so important
and influential a part among the Italian exiles in Paris. Rossi
declared in favour of reform in the church, and demanded the election
of someone who both wished and knew how to reform prudently and
efficiently. The person naturally marked out as the candidate of the
Liberals was Cardinal Gizzi, who had been known for milder government
than that of any of the other Cardinals, and who had been singled out
for exceptional praise by Massimo D'Azeglio. But where a bitter
conflict of interests arises between the leading candidates, it is only
natural that some unknown man should slip in; and, as the reformers
were probably more in earnest and more united than the majority of the
opponents of reform, other Liberal candidates were withdrawn; Giovanni
Mastai Ferretti was elected Pope on June 16th, 1846, and, out of
respect for Pius VII., took the name of Pius IX.
He was then fifty-four years old and had been originally intended for
the Papal guard; but, being liable to epileptic fits, he had been
refused admission. He had thereupon become a priest, and had, as
already mentioned, distinguished himself in 1831 by the honesty with
which he had carried out the terms of the surrender of Imola. He was
so little known, however, to the general public that a rumour arose,
after his election, that it was really Cardinal Gizzi who had been
chosen. Nor were his future opponents startled at the choice. Princess
Metternich wrote of him in her diary that he was a man of exemplary
piety, "_toute fois sans être exalté_." Nor was it till a month later
that Pio Nono took the step which was the foundation of his future
popularity. It was then that he issued a general amnesty in favour of
all those who had been condemned for political offences. The amnesty,
indeed, was carefully guarded; for only those were admitted to it who
would sign a declaration confessing their previous offences, and
promising future improvement. Mamiani and others refused to sign this
declaration, and it would have been obvious to anyone who had thought
over the question that this was a demand which could not be accepted
by any men of spirit and consistency. But men's minds had been excited
by previous events; and the teaching of Gioberti led, not only the
Romans, but Italians in all parts of the peninsula, to place a meaning
upon this amnesty which was certainly not intended by the Pope
himself. This belief in the reforming intentions of the Pope was
further increased by the bitter hostility that he excited in that
extreme party which had thriven under Gregory XVI., and which was
urged on by Lambruschini, who, in his disappointed ambition, began to
throw discredit on the election of his rival and to plot against his
authority.
The appointment of Cardinal Gizzi as Secretary of State roused the
hopes of the Liberals still further, and commissions were appointed to
examine into the question of reforms. Yet Gizzi, who was the only
cardinal with the most remote claims to the confidence of the
Liberals, does not seem to have desired anything more than some slight
administrative reforms. And it may be doubted whether the enthusiasm
for Pius IX. would long have been sustained, had it not been fostered
and directed by a man of a very different type from any of the
philosophical writers on the politics of Italy.
This was Angelo Brunetti, better known by his nick-name of
Ciceruacchio. He was a man of poor birth, and simple habits, who by
hard work had made a certain amount of money, while, by personal
beauty, a peculiar kind of eloquence, and a thorough honesty of
character, he had gained a special influence among the poorer classes
in Rome. A kind of imaginative enthusiasm had evidently possessed his
whole mind; and this was kindled to the highest degree by the idea of a
reforming Pope. It was to Ciceruacchio, then, rather than to any
utterance of the Pope himself, that the popular conception of Pius IX.
was due. A kindly priest, wishing to do more justice than his
predecessors, was reflected in Ciceruacchio's mirror as the liberator
and reformer of Italy. The myth quickly grew. Demonstrations in honour
of the Pope were organized by Ciceruacchio; and, as each new difficulty
or hindrance arose in the path of progress, he was ready to assure his
countrymen that these hindrances were all due to the wicked cardinals,
and that Pius IX. was eager to remove them. And so, while the other
princes of Italy were being asked to concede various limitations on
their power, in Rome was heard continually the cry of "Viva Pio Nono
Solo."
Thus it came about that this quiet and unpretending priest found
himself magnified in the popular imagination into a leader of heroic
proportions, half saint, half crusader. It was impossible for him to
resist altogether the fervour of popular enthusiasm, and it soon
spread far beyond the limits of the Roman State. In December, 1846, a
Congress, nominally intended for scientific discussion, met at Genoa.
These congresses had already begun to give opportunity for the
expression of political opinion, and two circumstances tended to
increase the importance of this particular meeting. One was, that 1846
was the centenary of the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa, at the
close of their temporary occupation during the Austrian War of
Succession. The other was the presence in this Congress of Charles
Lucien Buonaparte, Prince of Canino. He had already gained some
reputation as a student of physical science, but his interest in
politics was even greater than his zeal for learning; and he now came
to the Congress to invite the men of science to carry on their
discussions in the Papal States. From this he naturally passed to the
praise of Pius IX. and of Charles Albert, and to the denunciation of
Austria and Metternich.
Such an oration, especially when delivered on a non-political
occasion, naturally excited the alarm of the Austrian Government; and
that alarm was still further increased by the reappearance in Lombardy
of the old feeling of irritation against Austrian rule. An attempt on
the part of the Austrian Government to seize upon the funds of the
Benevolent Societies of Lombardy, in order to appropriate them for
their own purposes, had caused such a storm of indignation in the
provincial Lombard Councils, that the Government had been compelled to
withdraw the proposal. And as if this awakening of life had not been
sufficiently significant, it was followed in December, 1846, by a
still more alarming sign of popular feeling.
Count Confalonieri had been released from the prison at Spielberg by
Ferdinand on his accession to the throne in 1835, but had been
deprived of his civil rights, and sent to America. The news now
reached Milan that, hearing of the new hopes aroused by the accession
of Pius IX., Confalonieri had set sail for Italy, but had died on the
way. Instantly a demonstration was organized in his honour, and Count
Gabrio Casati, Podestà of Milan, took part in the funeral procession.
Bolza, one of the group of Austrian officials who ruled Milan, took
note of all who attended the ceremony; and when it was followed by a
proposal to form a committee for erecting a statue to Confalonieri,
Bolza threatened to prohibit the committee altogether. He was not,
however, able to hinder the growing popular feeling in Milan, and
early in the following year, 1847, the bitterness was increased by a
famine. Grain riots followed; and the Governor of Milan, as the only
method for relieving the distress, prohibited the export of grain to
foreign parts, except to the German provinces of Austria. Again that
terrible canton of the Ticino protested against this infringement of a
commercial treaty, made between herself and Austria; and again the
Austrian Government was compelled to yield, and to re-open the grain
trade with the Ticinese. Hymns to Pio Nono were answered with cheers
in the Milanese theatre; while the Viceroy and his family were
received, in the same theatre, in dead silence.
In the meantime, Pio Nono's reforms, if not important, were numerous.
On March 12th, 1847, came out a modification of the censorship of the
press, of which the most important point was that the censorship was
to be administered in future by four laymen and one ecclesiastic. On
April 14th, a Council of State was formed, to be chosen by the Pope
from delegates elected by the provinces; and this Council was to be
allowed to propound opinions on certain questions of State. Finally,
on July 5th, the Pope granted a civic guard to Rome, and promised one
to the provinces.
Metternich had now become thoroughly alarmed, and, whether he
sanctioned or not the attempt which was now made in Rome, there seems
to be little doubt that the friends of Lambruschini did actually
organize a conspiracy against the Pope. The anniversary of the amnesty
of 1846 was the occasion of the discovery of this conspiracy. A
popular demonstration had been prepared in honour of the day; but when
the organizers of this demonstration appeared, their first act was to
call out the civic guard to arrest the conspirators. Ciceruacchio
paraded the streets, attended by a great number of people. Several of
the conspirators were seized and imprisoned, others fled, and none
attempted any resistance.
How far Metternich had sympathized with this conspiracy can never be
known; but its failure seemed to decide him to strike the blow which
he had been meditating. It has already been mentioned that the
Austrians had succeeded in introducing into the Treaty of Vienna a
clause, permitting them to occupy some part of Ferrara. Pius VII. had
protested against this, as an injury to the Holy See. Cardinal
Consalvi had expressed this protest in the following words:--"This
clause," he said, "is an unprovoked aggression, deprived of all that
could make a war legitimate under the rights of nations; an aggression
against a weak and innocent State, which had solemnly proclaimed its
neutrality in the war that agitates other States; an act outside every
human right; and a treaty that is the consequence of an aggression of
such a kind is essentially null and void."
Such a protest, and the fact that it was disregarded, emphasized the
important truth that treaty rights, as understood in Europe, are
simply the rights of the strong to divide the territories of the weak.
Pius IX. had committed no act of aggression against Austria; and
nothing new had arisen to justify the enforcement of a clause which
had been allowed to remain in abeyance so long. When the Powers of
Europe had desired to compel Gregory XVI. to reform his dominions
after the insurrection of 1831, Metternich had shrunk, with holy
horror, from the idea of putting pressure on an independent Prince;
but now that Pius IX. had introduced reforms far short of those
recommended by the Powers in 1833, Metternich seized the opportunity
to despatch Austrian forces to Ferrara.
A cry of indignation arose from all parts of Italy. The Milanese
seized the opportunity of the appointment of an Italian Archbishop of
Milan to organize an Italian demonstration. A league was formed for
commercial purposes between Rome, Sardinia, and Tuscany; and it was
supposed that Pius IX. and Charles Albert would declare war upon
Austria. Neither of those Princes, however, were ready for the
emergency. Pius IX. hardly knew yet what attitude he should take up
towards the Italian movement. Charles Albert was as usual hesitating
between different policies. But fortunately, besides the moral
objections to the occupation of Ferrara, it appeared that there were
diplomatic doubts about the interpretation of the clause which excused
it. And, while the mere cowardice and injustice of an insult to a weak
State might have passed unavenged, the wrong interpretation of the
word "_place_" in the clause of a treaty could not be permitted
without a protest.
Lord Palmerston, however, had shown on more than one occasion his
loathing of the policy of Metternich; and he was doubtless glad enough
of this diplomatic excuse for forwarding the cause of Constitutional
Liberty. Lord Minto was despatched to Italy to encourage the various
princes to stand firm in the cause of reform; and in December, 1847,
the Austrian troops consented to withdraw from Ferrara, after having
succeeded, by their occupation of it, in consolidating against them an
amount of Italian feeling such as they had hardly aroused till then.
The first and most startling expression of this feeling, and of the
consequent determination of the Italians to break loose from Austrian
influence, came from a prince whom Metternich had probably hardly
recognized as an opponent. Leopold of Tuscany, however much disposed
to avoid collision with his kinsman, the Emperor of Austria, could not
altogether free himself from the rush of reforming zeal which was
spreading through Italy. That triumph of Austrian and Papal policy in
Tuscany, which had been signalized by the surrender of Renzi and the
expulsion of Massimo d'Azeglio, had lasted a comparatively short
period, and even during that period the reaction had not been
complete. The influence of the Jesuits had increased in Tuscany after
the fall of Corsini, and that influence has always excited an
hostility which no other form of tyranny has produced; and the
University of Pisa, under the influence of Cosimo Ridolfi, was
specially zealous in protesting against their influence. As Ridolfi
gained ground in Leopold's Council, Metternich had become alarmed, and
tried to counteract his influence and to drive him from office.
Leopold, however, refused to yield to this pressure, and, as the
reforming movement spread, he advanced further and further in his
sympathies with Italian freedom. Freedom of the press was granted;
many new journals were started; and when the civic guard was conceded,
great demonstrations were held in Florence, and an attempt was made to
revive the memories of Francesco Ferruccio and other heroes of the
past. Professor Montanelli, already known as a writer, now took a
prominent part in the political movement, organized a deputation to
Pius IX. to entreat him to grant liberty of the press, to expel the
Jesuits, and to declare war upon Austria. Domenico Guerrazzi, who had
assisted at the foundation of Young Italy, seconded the efforts of
Montanelli, and Leopold became, almost against his will, marked out as
a reforming sovereign.
The movement now spread beyond Tuscany and affected the dominions of
the Duke of Lucca. This Duke was one of those eccentric princes who
combined despotism and a reliance on Austria with a certain love of
playing at Liberalism with foreign exiles. This game was not carried
on with any of those ambitious objects which had led Francis of Modena
to play with rebellion in 1831; but it rather arose from a love of
clever literary lions, coupled with those tendencies to eccentricity
which might be natural to a prince with no great responsibilities and
a certain amount of cleverness. When, however, the Liberal movement
spread to Lucca, he dropped his dilettantism and proposed to suppress
Liberalism by force. Finding that the people rose against him, he
consented to yield all which Leopold of Tuscany had granted; but his
subjects were unwilling to trust a prince who was the ruler of so
small a State under the influence of Austria, and who had only yielded
to reform under sudden pressure; so they continued to make further
demands. The Duke, weary of the struggle, and very likely desirous to
avoid bloodshed, took advantage of a clause in the Treaty of Vienna
which constituted the Grand Duke of Tuscany his heir, and resigned his
dominions forthwith to Leopold. At the same time, he desired to exempt
from this surrender the two towns of Pontremoli and Bagnone and to
hand them over to the Duke of Modena. Leopold accepted the territory
of Lucca; but, by the same clause which had constituted him the heir
to the Duke of Lucca, he was bound, on acquiring the territory, to
surrender to the Duke of Modena the district of Fivizzano. Now, of all
the princes of Italy, none had been more utterly subservient to
Austria than the Duke of Modena, and the people of Fivizzano therefore
resented the proposal to annex them to Modena. The Duke of Modena
thereupon called on the Austrian Marshal Radetzky to help him to
enforce his demands; and, while Leopold of Tuscany was preparing to
fix a day for the surrender of Fivizzano, the Duke of Modena marched
his troops into the town and massacred the unarmed inhabitants.
Both the Pope and the Grand Duke protested against this cruelty; and
Leopold, wishing to keep Fivizzano in consequence of the people's
preference for his rule, offered to make Charles Albert and the Pope
arbiters between him and the Duke of Modena. In the meantime the
citizens of Pontremoli and Bagnone sprang to arms in order to resist
the entrance of the Duke of Modena. The Austrians had by this time
sent forces to assist the Duke; but though they were able to secure
the submission of Fivizzano, the Duke of Modena was forced to
surrender Pontremoli and Bagnone. Less than a fortnight after this
treaty the Duchess of Parma died, and the Duke of Lucca succeeded to
her territory. Here he immediately found himself confronted by a new
insurrection; but, unwilling to trouble himself further, he fled to
Milan, leaving the Austrian troops to occupy Parma. This occupation
and the despatch of forces to Modena tended to strengthen the
bitterness which had already been roused by the occupation of Ferrara,
so that, when the Austrians consented to the evacuation of that town,
they merely incurred the shame of a diplomatic defeat without
lessening the causes of Italian bitterness against them.
But the evacuation of Ferrara was not the only diplomatic defeat
which the year 1847 brought to Metternich. The blow which was to be
recognized by all Europe as one of the most fatal which the cause of
despotism had yet sustained was to come from a little State which
seemed to stand outside the ordinary politics of Europe.
The territory of the Swiss Confederation had been increased by the
Treaty of 1815; but this had by no means led to such a complete
strengthening of Switzerland as the most patriotic Swiss would have
desired. The aristocratic party had been restored in several of the
cantons, and the customs duties on the frontiers of the separate
cantons had been renewed. But what specially alarmed the Liberals of
Switzerland was a clause, which the Papal Nuncio had introduced into
the Treaty of Vienna, giving the monasteries of Switzerland an
independent position. It must be remembered that the early struggles of
the Swiss cantons against the House of Austria had been connected with
the throwing off of the influence of the monks, who had been patronized
by the Hapsburgs; and in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the combination of the Roman Catholic cantons had tended to
strengthen the influence of foreign Powers in Switzerland, and in some
cases had even endangered the unity of the Confederation. The extreme
Roman Catholic party in Switzerland were, therefore, naturally inclined
to oppose reform, and to weaken the Confederation. And after the July
Monarchy of France had begun to show its Conservative tendencies, the
Liberals of Switzerland began to fear that their reforms might be
checked by outside influence. As early as the year 1831, Metternich,
already alarmed at the Polish and Belgian risings, as well as at the
movements in Italy and Germany, remarked that there was still another
question to which the Cabinets must devote their attention, "the moral
anarchy which reigns in Switzerland." And the expedition of Mazzini in
1833-4 increased the alarm of the Austrian Government. In the
steady-going canton of Bern there was always an element of moderate
Conservatism, which led the Government to shrink from sympathy with the
insurrectionary plans of other parts of Europe; and they even called
upon the other cantons to assist them in suppressing the revolutionary
movement. But the sturdier Liberals of Zurich protested against this
circular, and led the way in internal democratic changes, in which they
were followed by several other cantons. Utterances like those of
Metternich tended to draw the reformers together; and in March, 1832,
while Metternich was no doubt meditating the Frankfort Decrees, which
he carried out a few months later, the seven Liberal cantons formed a
league in which they bound themselves to stand by each other in case of
an attack on their freedom.
The cantons which entered into this concordat were Bern, Zurich,
Luzern, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Aargau, and Thurgau. This league
was considered by its opponents to be a violation of the Swiss
Confederation, though the champions of it would probably have pleaded
its purely defensive character. But the Roman Catholic party felt
themselves justified in retaliation; and they formed, in November,
1832, an opposition league called the Sarnerbund. This Bund steadily
set itself to oppose reform; but the men of Schwytz, who were at that
time its leading spirits, did not confine themselves to argument, but
invaded Luzern in 1833. Thereupon the Diet interfered, occupied
Schwytz, and dissolved the Sarnerbund. The reforming party now began
to spread their ideas, and the new University of Zurich, which was
founded at this time, became a fresh centre of intellectual life. The
fugitives from other countries gathered more and more to Switzerland,
and the excitement roused in that country by Mazzini's expedition to
Savoy led to the foundation of a society called Young Europe.
The great object to which the reforming party in Switzerland now
devoted its attention was the breaking down of the authority of the
clergy, and the placing education and marriage under the State instead
of under the Church. Their scheme was embodied in fourteen articles
which excited the indignation of the Roman Catholic cantons; on the
appeal of the Roman Catholics to Gregory XVI., he declared these
articles heretical; and a little later Louis Philippe intervened to
prevent the canton of Bern from enforcing them in the Roman Catholic
district of the Jura.
The struggle had now risen to great bitterness; and, at this period,
the bitterness was much intensified by the domestic character of the
quarrel. The Radical party and the Roman Catholic party struggled
fiercely against each other in several of the cantons; and there were
changes in the government, backwards and forwards, which temporarily
affected the contest. The two changes, however, which were of a
permanent character, and which had a vital effect on the destinies of
Switzerland, were that which took place in 1838 in Bern and that in
Luzern in 1841. Bern, though reckoned, on the whole, among the
Liberal cantons, in consequence of its undoubted Protestantism, was
yet under the control of a timid and moderate party. This may have
arisen from the fact of its important position in the Confederation;
for though Bern divided at this time with Luzern and Zurich the honour
of being the meeting-place of the Diet, yet it seems to have assumed,
even at this period, a certain superior and initiative tone.
Whether it was due to the sense of responsibility inspired by this
position, or to some other cause, certain it is that the tone adopted
by the Government of Bern in matters of foreign policy by no means
satisfied the sterner Radicals of Switzerland. The proposal of Bern for
an anti-revolutionary proclamation in 1830 had been defeated by the
protest of Zurich; but when in 1838 Bern considered, not unfavourably,
the demand for the expulsion of a refugee, the Radicals became furious.
This was one among many instances of that curious irony of history by
which great principles have to be asserted in defence of persons who
are in themselves unworthy of protection; for the exile, whose
surrender was now demanded by Louis Philippe, was Louis Napoleon
Buonaparte, who had recently made his attempt on Strasburg. But the
Radicals of Bern rightly felt that the principle of asylum was more
important than the character of any particular refugee; and when Louis
Napoleon left Switzerland to avoid being surrendered, the reforming
party rose in indignation, and Bern became the centre of determined
Radicalism from that time. The change in Luzern seems to have been due
to an extension of the suffrage which threw the power more distinctly
into the hands of the Roman Catholics, who were a majority in the
canton; and thus Luzern became the centre of the Roman Catholic
movement.
But before that change had taken place, new elements of bitterness had
been introduced into the discussion. Neuhaus, the new leader of the
Bern Government, had been chosen president of the Confederation; and he
had used the troops of the Confederation to help the Aargau Protestants
in suppressing the monasteries in that canton. The majority of the
Swiss Diet had, however, been unwilling to support Neuhaus in this
action, and had even condemned the suppression of the Aargau
monasteries. The Aargau Protestants, however, had refused to yield,
except as to the restoration of two very small monasteries. The feeling
on both sides had now risen to its highest point, and on September
13th, 1843, the six cantons of Luzern, Uri, Schwytz, Unterwalden, Zug,
and Freyburg formed the alliance known as the Sonderbund. They appealed
to the old treaties on which the Confederation was founded, and
maintained that even the terms of the Confederation fixed by the Treaty
of Vienna had not been observed in the matter of the protection of the
rights of the Roman Catholics.
The compromise to which the Diet had assented in the Aargau question,
and their non-interference on behalf of some monasteries at Thurgau,
excited a special protest from the Sonderbund, and they demanded that
the Diet should set these things to rights. So far the Sonderbund
could scarcely be logically condemned by those who had joined the
Protestant Concordat of Seven in 1832. But the Roman Catholic cantons
went on to say that, if their demands were rejected, they would
consider that the principles of the Confederation were so completely
violated that they would secede from it.
The formation of the Sonderbund excited their opponents; and it was
declared that France, Austria, and the Pope were intriguing against
Switzerland. The Jesuits, as usual, were supposed to be the centre of
the intrigues; and the cry was raised that they ought to be expelled
from the Confederation. Hitherto they had chiefly settled in Schwytz
and Freyburg; but it was believed that if a cry rose against them they
would become less safe in those cantons; and Luzern, as one of the
three chief towns of the Confederation, was supposed to be a safer
resting-place; therefore, on September 12th, 1844, the Assembly of
Luzern passed a resolution inviting the Jesuits to settle in Luzern.
Strange to say, Bern and Zurich had somewhat changed places during
this period; for while the indignation against the former Government
of Bern, caused by their abandonment of the right of asylum, had
produced a strong and permanent Radical feeling in that canton, the
bitter hostility to Christianity shown by some of the leading Radicals
of Zurich had, on the other hand, scandalized the more moderate
Liberals, and produced a Government less keenly Radical than that
which now ruled in Bern. At this crisis, unfortunately, the Government
of Bern took a step which could scarcely have tended to the order and
unity of Switzerland. They appointed a committee to attack the
Jesuits, and organized volunteer regiments, which they despatched
against Luzern. And the want of confidence in the central power, which
had been proclaimed by the Sonderbund, seemed to be almost justified
by the action of the Diet at their next meeting; for that body, while
condemning the Bernese volunteers, refused to take any steps to hinder
their march. The attack of the volunteers was, however, successfully
repelled by Luzern; and the Sonderbund soon after proceeded to form a
council of war for its own protection.
In the meantime, Metternich had become more and more alarmed at the
progress of affairs in Switzerland. The defeat of the efforts of
Austria and Sardinia to defend the Conservative cause in the Ticino,
and the subsequent alliance between the Ticinese and Charles Albert,
had strengthened the fears which had been previously aroused in the
Austrian Government by the shelter given by the Swiss to the European
Revolutionists. Even in 1845 Metternich had despatched troops to the
frontier of Switzerland; he looked upon the struggle of the Catholic
cantons as a means for carrying out his policy of weakening the union
of Switzerland; and, through the help of Solaro della Margherita, he
succeeded in rousing Charles Albert's sympathies for the cause of the
Sonderbund. But to others he frankly said that he was not fighting in
the least for the Jesuits--"They do not make us hot or cold;" and
instead of resting his appeal to the Diet on so doubtful a ground, he
earnestly entreated Louis Philippe to prevent the violent substitution
of a unitary and propagandist government "for the cantonal government
of Switzerland."
To say the truth, it was for the stability of Austrian government in
Italy that Metternich was now alarmed; and Mentz had warned him that a
strong and united government in Switzerland would be dangerous to
Austria in Lombardy. When, then, the election of a Radical government
by the canton of St. Gallen made the character of the coming Swiss Diet
tolerably certain, Metternich thought that the time had come for
decided action; and he desired that before the meeting of the Diet,
Austria, France, Russia, and Prussia should declare that they would not
suffer cantonal authority to be violated. England, however, Metternich
well knew would be opposed to him. Ever since the recognition of Greek
independence in 1830 Metternich had become aware that a statesman had
arisen in England who, though inferior to Canning in width of sympathy
and capacity for sudden and ready action, yet was Canning's equal in
strength of will, and in the thorough grasp of the two convictions that
Constitutionalism was better than Despotism, and that Metternich was a
dangerous politician who should always be opposed.
Palmerston, indeed, had not accomplished any such brilliant stroke of
foreign policy as the breaking up of the Holy Alliance, or the defeat
of Absolutism in Portugal, and had only played a late and subordinate
part in the Greek question. But he had helped to save Belgium from the
clutches both of France and Holland. He had uttered as decided a
protest as was, perhaps, possible to him, against the Frankfort
Decrees. And he had recently intimated plainly his opinion about the
annexation of Cracow. The occupation of Ferrara had not at that time
taken place; but Palmerston's utterance about the Treaty of Vienna on
the Po had sufficiently indicated to Metternich the line which English
feeling was taking with regard to Italian policy. But, though
certain of the hostility of Palmerston, Metternich fully hoped to
counterbalance that danger by securing France to his side. With
Guizot he had long been on terms of cordial friendship; and each had
sympathized with the other in various points of their political
career. But, unfortunately for Metternich, in the Italian question
Guizot had not seemed entirely sympathetic with Austria; for the
Lombard exile, Pellegrino Rossi, who was now French ambassador at
Rome, was the special friend and _protegé_ of Guizot; and as it was
primarily for the sake of Austrian rule in Italy that Metternich cared
about the Swiss question, he might find that here, too, French opinion
did not coincide with Austrian.
It soon appeared that Louis Philippe shrank from an alliance with
Austria. He declared that any declaration by the four Powers, instead
of hindering any outburst in Switzerland might hasten it; and Guizot
was directed to propose that, instead of a common action by the four
Powers, Austria should undertake alone the defence of the Sonderbund,
France merely occupying some position in the territory of the
Confederation. Metternich, however, remembered that during the
intervention in the Papal States, in 1831-2, a French general had
seized on Ancona, and had attempted a demonstration there, at first of
a Republican character, and throughout entirely anti-Austrian. And he
feared that, if he consented to Guizot's proposal, the French Radicals
might turn the occupation of Swiss territory to their advantage.
While France and Austria were thus wasting their time in wrangling,
the Swiss Diet met. Ochsenbein, an even more energetic man than
Neuhaus, had been chosen President of the Confederation; and on the
20th July, 1847, the Diet had declared that the Sonderbund was
incompatible with the Treaty of Confederation. This was speedily
followed by the dismissal from the service of the Confederation of all
those who held office in the cantons of the Sonderbund; and finally,
in September, the Diet decreed that the Assemblies of Luzern, Schwytz,
Freyburg, and Valais should be invited to expel the Jesuits from their
territory. The Sonderbund probably felt that a direct military
resistance to the whole forces of the Diet would be hopeless, and
therefore they resolved to make a separate attack on some of the
smaller cantons. With this view they prepared to march their troops
from Luzern against Aargau, which they considered one of the centres
of Protestant tyranny; and about the same time the canton of Uri
resolved to invade the Ticino. In both these cases the Sonderbund
hoped to rouse a popular insurrection on their side, but in this they
were singularly mistaken.
Previously to 1815 Uri had exercised a special authority over Ticino,
and had used it to thrust in German officials in place of Italian. The
Treaty of Vienna had secured Ticino from these tyrannies; but the
Ticinese remembered them, and resented this new invasion. The troops of
Uri were indeed able to gain one or two successes; but the people of
Ticino rose against them, and, after a short, sharp struggle, succeeded
in driving them out of the canton. The expedition to Aargau proved
equally unsuccessful, and, in the meantime, the Federal Diet was
organizing its forces under the command of General Dufour, a Genevese.
They resolved that Freyburg, as the nearest of the Sonderbund cantons
to Bern, and as geographically separated off from its allies, should
be the first object of attack; and on November 7, Rilliet, the
commander of the first division of the Federal forces, issued the
following order of the day to his troops:--
"You are the first Federal troops who have entered the Freyburg
territory. Your bearing at this moment will give the tone to the whole
division. Consider that you are entering on a Federal territory, that
you are marching against members of the Federation, who for centuries
have been your friends, and will be so again. Consider that they are
rather misled than guilty. Consider that they are neighbours, and that
you ought to be fighting under the same flag. Therefore be moderate;
refute the slanders of those who are driving them on. Listen not to
false rumours, nor to foolish provocations to violence. Listen only to
your leaders, and leave to your opponents the responsibility of having
fired the first shot against the Federal flag. Soldiers! I rely on you
as on myself; and do you trust in God, who marches before the flag of
good, right, and honour."
To the Freyburger Rilliet appealed to receive the Federal troops as
brothers and friends, and as obeying the God whom Protestants and
Catholics alike worship. "Lay down your arms," he said, "not before
us, but before our flag, which is yours also."
These appeals were not without result. At one of the first towns at
which the Federal troops arrived in the canton of Freyburg, the
townsfolk threw off the authority of the Cantonal Boards, raised the
Federal flag, and admitted the Federal troops. Two slight skirmishes
took place after this between the Federal forces and those of the
canton; but the former were easily victorious. On November 12 the
Federal troops appeared before the town of Freyburg; and on the 14th
it was surrendered to them. Large numbers of the citizens received
them with cries of "Long live the Confederates! Down with the
Sonderbund! Down with the Jesuits!"
The leaders of the Sonderbund at Luzern were startled at this sudden
collapse, and resolved to apply for foreign help; and it was on
November 15, 1847, that the descendants of Reding and Winkelried
appealed to the descendants of Leopold of Hapsburg for help against
their fellow-confederates.
Metternich would gladly have intervened; and he hastened to assure the
Sonderbund that the Emperor of Austria considered their cause a just
one. Still, however, he desired the co-operation of France; but Guizot
hesitated, and when Palmerston announced that any demonstration in
favour of the Sonderbund would be met by a counter-demonstration by
England on the side of the Federal Diet, the French Government
distinctly refused to have any share in intervention.
In the meantime the Sonderbund was rapidly breaking down. The
Protestant party had gained the upper hand in the little canton of
Zug, and persuaded the Government to surrender to the Diet even before
the Federal troops had appeared in the canton. The occupation of Zug
was speedily followed by a march to Luzern. On November 23 the Federal
troops encountered the forces of Luzern and drove them back after a
sharp fight. On the following day the War Council of the Sonderbund
fled from Luzern and the Federal troops entered it. After this defeat
there was no further serious resistance; by November 29 the last
canton of the Sonderbund had surrendered to the Diet, and on December
7 the Diet passed a formal resolution refusing to admit any mediation
from the Great Powers. So ended the Sonderbund war; and whatever
harshness the Diet and the Protestant cantons may have shown in the
earlier part of the struggle towards their Catholic neighbours,
they had at least consistently upheld the principle of national
independence, and by their vigour and determination they had saved the
unity of Switzerland and defeated Metternich.
Nor were these the only defeats which the ruler of Europe sustained in
the year 1847. In Germany, too, there were signs that the old system
was giving way. Metternich, indeed, had hoped that the King of Prussia
had been about to abandon the policy which he had followed from 1840
to 1843; for in 1846 a meeting had taken place between Metternich and
the King in which Frederick William had shown signs of alarm at the
popular movement. But this change of feeling had been only temporary,
for an event had occurred soon after which had given a new impulse
to German national feeling, and re-awakened thereby the popular
sympathies of the King of Prussia.
On July 8, 1846, the King of Denmark, Christian VIII., issued a
proclamation in which he declared that he should consider the provinces
of his Crown as forming one sole and same State. This was felt
to be undoubtedly aimed at the independence of Schleswig-Holstein.
That Duchy had, since the middle of the fifteenth century, been
recognized as a separate province, of which the King of Denmark was duke
(till that time Schleswig had been a fief of Denmark and Holstein of
Germany). In the seventeenth century a practically absolute Government
had been established in Denmark; but in 1830 the liberties of that
country had been restored, and soon after a cry had arisen from some of
the Radical party at Copenhagen in favour of the conquest of Schleswig.
But the object of the popular party and that of the King were entirely
unlike; the Democratic party desiring to assert what they considered a
national principle by the separation of Schleswig from Holstein and its
absorption in Denmark; the King wishing to absorb Schleswig-Holstein
whole into the Danish dominions, without consideration for anything but
selfish aggrandizement. As a compromise between his own aims and those
of the people of Copenhagen, Christian, in 1831, conceded separate
assemblies to Holstein and Schleswig; but he had followed this up by
steadily trying to Danize the Duchies. Danish officers were introduced
into their army and navy, even into their private ships; Danish teachers
were appointed in the University of Kiel; the liberty of the Press was
continually interfered with, and arms were removed from the forts of
Schleswig-Holstein to Copenhagen. Thus it became evident that the
proclamation of July, 1846, was merely another step towards the complete
denationalization of the Duchies.
Metternich was in a difficult position. On the one hand he was bound
by the Treaty of Vienna to assert the rights of Austria to protect
Holstein as a member of the German Confederation; on the other hand he
knew that by so doing he was strengthening that German national
feeling which he so much dreaded. "In the University of Heidelberg,"
wrote Metternich, "in the municipal councils of German towns, in the
gatherings of professors and of choral societies, the cry is being
raised for the Fatherland." The professors of Heidelberg had sent a
special address to the Holsteiners, and it was clear on every side
that German sentiment was rising to boiling point. Under these
circumstances Metternich tried to steer between the dangers of
encouraging popular feeling and that of neglecting to assert the legal
influence of Austria. Finally, he persuaded the Federal Diet, on
September 17, 1846, to pass two resolutions--First, that, apart from
his letter of July 8, the King of Denmark should respect all the
rights which he had promised to respect in a private letter of August
22; but, secondly, that, "while the Confederation pays just honour to
the patriotic sentiments shown on this occasion by the Confederated
German States, it regrets the passionate accusations and irritations
which were produced by this circumstance."
So for the moment Metternich hoped to stave off the natural results of
this outburst of popular feeling. But he could not prevent the effect
which that outburst would produce on the more impressionable character
of the King of Prussia. One of those who had had much opportunity of
observing that king remarked that whoever was a favourite with him for
the time and managed to indulge his fancies had the game in his own
hands; and the Ministers who then enjoyed the confidence of Frederick
William were eager to encourage him in complying with the popular
feeling. So, in spite of Metternich's warnings, the King of Prussia,
in January, 1847, had summoned to Berlin the representatives of all
the Provincial Estates to discuss affairs. "The King," said Princess
Metternich, "has promulgated this Constitution without force and
without virtue, which is nothing to-day, but which to-morrow may
change into thunder and destroy the Kingdom."
But the concessions which the King of Prussia was making only embodied
a feeling which was stirring in various parts of Germany. A terrible
famine in Silesia was quickening the desire of the poorer classes for
some change in their condition; the booksellers and literary men were
uttering various demands for freedom of the Press; and when a meeting
of the Baden Liberals at Offenburg tried to formulate these demands,
the organizers of the meeting were threatened with a prosecution which
never took place.
Such, then, was Metternich's position towards the close of 1847;
discredited as a champion of legality by the annexation of Cracow,
looked on with suspicion by many orthodox Catholics in consequence of
his attempt on Ferrara, his power as a ruler and his reputation as a
diplomatist alike weakened by the result of the Sonderbund war. The
result of these various failures was seen in the attitude both of
kings and peoples. The King of Prussia was breaking loose from
Metternich's control; France was suspicious and England hostile;
Charles Albert was assuming more and more an attitude of defiance to
Austria; the Pope was drifting gradually into the position of a
champion of Italian Liberty; German national feeling, which Metternich
had hoped to stamp out in 1834, was bubbling up into new life under
the triple influence of the Schleswig-Holstein question, the King of
Prussia's reforms, and the growing Liberalism of Saxony and Baden;
while Hungary, which had seemed hopelessly divided, was gradually
solidifying into opposition to Austrian rule. Such were the chief
points in the spectacle which presented itself to Metternich as he
looked upon Europe. Yet he was far indeed from thinking of yielding in
the struggle, or of abandoning in the slightest degree his faith in
his great system. He was still prepared to crush Switzerland and
Charles Albert, to lead back the Pope and the King of Prussia into
wiser courses, to quench the spirit of German enthusiasm, to wear out
Hungarian opposition, to recover the friendship of France, and to defy
the enmity of England. Such results seemed still possible when, in an
Italian island to which Metternich had not recently given much
attention, there first broke out that revolutionary fire which, under
judicious guidance, was to spread over Europe and overthrow the system
of Metternich.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] I feel that some explanation is needed for the rejection of what
was once one of the most deeply-rooted traditions among all Liberals
who interested themselves in the politics of this period. I must,
therefore, state that my chief authority for my account of the
paralysis of the Austrian Government in the Galician insurrection, and
their consequent innocence of any organized massacre, is Dr. Herbst,
the well-known leader of the German Liberals in the Austrian Reichstag,
who was in Galicia at the time of the insurrection.
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM. SEPTEMBER, 1847-MARCH, 1848.
State of Naples and Sicily under Ferdinand II.--The birds and the
King.--The conspiracy.--The September rising and its
results.--Christmas in Naples.--The 12th of January in
Palermo.--The insurrection spreads to Naples.--The first
Constitution of 1848.--The effect in Rome--in Tuscany--in
Genoa.--The editors of Turin.--"Voleva e non voleva."--The
government of Milan.--The Milanese view of their rulers.--Count
Gabrio Casati--Ficquelmont.--The "Panem et Circenses"
policy.--Giambattista Nazari--His speech in the Congregation.--Its
effect.--Rainieri and Spaur on Nazari.--The grievances of different
parts of Lombardy.--Condition of Venetia.--Charles Bonaparte in
Venice.--Daniele Manin.--Niccolo Tommaseo.--Manin's
programme.--Moncenigo's treachery.--Manin's imprisonment.--The
tobacco massacres at Milan.--Their effect.--Metternich's programme
of Italian reform.--"Viva il sangue Palermitano!"--The
"Administrators" in Hungary.--The programme of Kossuth and
Deak.--The Constitutional victories in Hungary.--State of
Vienna.--The division of classes.--The ruling trio.--Effect of
Ferdinand's accession in Vienna.--The
"Lese-Verein."--Hye-Andrian.--Kuranda and Schuselka.--The German
movement in Vienna considered morally.--The Archduke John's
toast.--The relations between rich and poor.--The anti-Jesuit
feeling.--The illegal soup-kitchen.--The "Professional"
opposition.--Die Sibyllinische Bücher.--"The Austrian has no
fatherland."--The censorship.--Metternich's policy in
Switzerland--in Lombardy.
The failure of the struggles for liberty in Naples and Sicily in 1821
had not prevented continual abortive insurrections from breaking out
after that period; and, while these attempts produced no immediate
results except the strengthening of tyranny, they were yet gradually
teaching Sicilians and Neapolitans the two great lessons of confidence
in each other and distrust of the Bourbons. Francis had succeeded to
Ferdinand I., and Ferdinand II. again to Francis; and, unless there
were some slight variety in the forms of cruelty and tyranny, the
change of kings may be said to have brought no change to the peoples
whom they governed. Corruption and espionage prevailed both in Naples
and Sicily. The only perceptible distinction between those two
countries was that the clergy exercised rather more tyranny in Naples,
while in Sicily robbery and brigandage were more rife. The Bourbons,
like the Hapsburgs, sought to keep alive the disunion between the
different races of their subjects, thus hoping to increase their own
power; and so Sicilian Ministers were brought to govern Naples, and
Neapolitan commissioners sent to Sicily. The desire for reform
awakened by the accession of Pius IX. was a bond between all the
different countries of Italy, and the King of Naples recognized this
by suppressing all newspapers in his dominions that praised Pius IX.
But Ferdinand was not to be left altogether without warning before the
blow against his power was actually struck. In June, 1847, he paid a
visit to Sicily to inspect the military defences of the island. In
visiting Messina he found several statues of himself, but the ears of
all of them had been stopped up. The King was alarmed; for, whether he
understood or not this significant practical joke, he saw at least
that some insult was intended. Perhaps he was able to accept the
explanation of his courtiers that "the birds had chosen the ears of
the royal statues to build their nests in." At Palermo he received
another hint as to the nature of the birds who had paid this homage to
royalty, for there he was met by a petition for freedom of the Press.
He angrily rejected this request, and refused to make any inquiry into
the growing misery of the Sicilians. More soldiers and stronger forts,
he considered, were the only needs of the country.
Yet at this very time an insurrection was preparing of a far more
dangerous character than the spasmodic outbursts in Messina and
Calabria which had disturbed the repose, but scarcely endangered the
throne, of Ferdinand's predecessors. The Sicilians and Neapolitans had
now learned to act together, and planned a simultaneous rising in
Calabria and Sicily. The revolutionists were to march upon the nearest
fortified places, and eventually to seize Naples, where they were to
proclaim the Unity of Italy. According as circumstances guided them,
they were either to compel the King to accept the Constitution, to
depose him in favour of his son, to choose a new dynasty, or, if
necessary, to proclaim a Republic; but in any case they were to assert
the unity and independence of Italy.
Some hint of an approaching outbreak seems to have reached the ears of
the King or his Ministers; for in August two artillery officers and
some other citizens were arrested in Palermo. "But," says La Farina,
the Sicilian historian, "nothing could be discovered, since the
Sicilians knew better than any nation how to stand firm in preserving
silence in all tortures: an ancient virtue not yet destroyed by modern
corruption."
The miserable local jealousies which had hindered the former struggles
for liberty had for a time disappeared; but there was still in this
conspiracy, as in every other, the natural division between the
impetuous and the prudent, between the party of speedy action and the
party of delay. And while the fiery spirits of Messina and Calabria
were eager for an immediate rising, the citizens of the two capitals,
Palermo and Naples, were in favour of slower action. At Messina,
therefore, the first outbreak took place. On September 1 some officers
met at an inn in that town to celebrate the promotion of one of their
generals by a dinner. The conspirators seized this opportunity for an
outbreak, and surrounded the inn as if from mere curiosity; but when
sufficient numbers had gathered they suddenly unfurled the tricolour
flag and raised the cries of "Viva Italia!" "Viva Pio Nono!" "Viva la
Costituzione!" The officers at last became alarmed, and, rushing out,
summoned the soldiers and ordered them to fire. They hesitated to obey,
and listened to the appeal of the conspirators, who urged their common
cause and the duty of Neapolitans and Sicilians to stand together
against their common oppressor. Discipline, however, proved stronger
than patriotism; the soldiers fired, and several Sicilians fell,
amongst them Giovanni Grillo, the youth who had played the part of the
birds in stopping the ears of the King's statues.
The insurgents retreated; but a shoemaker named Sciva, who was at work
near the scene of action, left his shop and rushed forward to rally
them; and a priest named Kriny also fought gallantly in their ranks.
The movement, however, had been too hastily organized; the insurgents
were either forced to fly or were arrested on the spot, and Sciva,
the shoemaker, was condemned to death. The authorities, indeed, hoped
to persuade him to save his life by betraying his friends; but he
refused, even on the scaffold, to accept a pardon on such terms, and
died bravely. Kriny, as a priest, had his sentence commuted from death
to imprisonment. Grillo died of his wounds.
Desperate efforts were made by the Government to obtain information as
to the details of this conspiracy. Three hundred ducats were offered
to anyone who would kill the chief conspirators; a thousand to anyone
who would arrest them. But, though the leaders of the insurrection
were hidden in the houses of very poor men, no one could be found to
betray them, even for the sake of so large a reward. Even where the
Government had made sure of their prey, it sometimes slipped through
their hands. One of the insurgents was brought wounded to a house, and
his hiding-place was discovered and surrounded by soldiers; but, by a
false alarm, the guards were frightened away and the wounded man
conveyed elsewhere. The owner of the second place of refuge was
arrested, but the fugitive was again enabled to escape. His wound
brought on fever, and he remained hidden for fifteen days without
food, sucking the end of a sheet for nourishment; he was then so
exhausted that his friends thought him dead and carried him to a
church; but he revived, and was at last shipped to Marseilles, where
he recovered.
A people so vigorous and determined were obviously not far from
freedom. The heroism of the Sicilians had strengthened the courage of
the Neapolitans; and on Christmas Day the latter rose to the cry of
"Evviva Palermo!" This demonstration, however, was only the forerunner
of the Revolution; for it was still from Sicily that the first
successful action was to come. So little did the Sicilians care to
conceal their intentions that a pamphlet was circulated fixing January
12 as the day for the actual rising. The police, thinking that they
would be able easily to suppress the movement, began to make arrests;
but their efforts were in vain.
La Farina, who afterwards became a member of the Sicilian Assembly,
gives the following account of the rising:--
"On the night that preceded the 12th January, 1848, the streets of
Palermo were silent and deserted; but in the houses the citizens were
wakeful, agitated by fears and hopes. At the dawning of the new day the
soldiers were in arms in fortified places and in their own quarters;
some battalions of infantry and gensdarmes occupied the public places
of the prefecture of police and of the royal palace, where the General
De Majo, the Lieutenant of the King, General Vial, Commandant of the
Piazza, and other royal officers, were assembled in council. The
cannons of Castellamare were drawn out for a festival, for it was the
birthday of Ferdinand II., and the roads were extraordinarily full of
people; all were waiting for the conspirators to appear, for the sign
to be given, for the first cry to break out, when Buscerni, a bold and
ready youth, weary of delay, raised on high a musket that he had held
concealed, and cried resolutely, 'To arms! To arms!' Then Pasquale
Miloro came out armed into the street of the Centorinari; the abbot
Ragona and the priest Venuti exhorted the people to rise in the name
of God. There ran up to them, in arms, the advocate Tacona, Giuseppe
Oddo, Prince Grammonte, Baron Bivona, Lo Cascio, Pasquale Bruno,
Francesco Ciaccio, Giancinto Carini, Amodei, Enea, and a few others.
Giuseppe La Masa bound to a stick a white pocket-handkerchief, a red
one, and a green ribbon, and waved the three Italian colours. Santa
Astorina went about distributing tricolour ribbons and cockades."
"At the sight of the arms, and of the small number of those who bore
them, the crowd grew thin and dispersed; the shops were closed, and
the few eager men remained alone. A few of the unarmed remained with
them to divide the honour and perils of the attack; and among these,
distinguished by the loftiness of their mind and remarkable probity,
were Vincenzo Errante and the Baron Casimiro Pisani. They were not
disheartened; they stood firm and bold in their resolve; the bells of
the Church of Orsola sounded an alarm, those of the Convent of the
Gangia answered them; the Revolution had become irrevocable. Small
bands were forming themselves here and there. They had neither rules,
orders, nor plans; they did not barricade the streets; they did not
make trenches, as is usual in other cities; they did not make head in
any one position; troops of children preceded them, dancing and
singing; they drew near to the troops, watched their motions and acts,
and returned to warn the insurgents even while the blood was dropping
from the blows that they had received. One band of the insurgents put
to flight a military patrol in the street of the Albergava; others had
the same fortune in the Raffadale street, at the church of San
Gaetano, near the gate of St. Antonino, in the street of Calderari,
and in other places. Thus passed the whole day; two of the insurgents,
among whom was L'Amodei, were dead, and ten soldiers; the wounded were
more numerous. The insurgents withdrew within the Piazza of Fiera
Vecchia, which since the morning had been the centre of the movements
and the seat of a committee formed of the first insurgents. There were
not more than fifty who had firearms; a company of infantry would have
been sufficient to disperse them; but the soldiers remained immovable
in the positions which they had taken up, because, remembering the
year '20, they had determined not to advance into the populous
quarters of the city. To this it is necessary to add that all the
houses were lighted for the festival, and that the balconies of the
windows were crowded with men, women, and children, who all clapped
their hands and gave loud Vivas to Italy, the Sicilian Constitution,
and Pio Nono; a spontaneous, unexpected, and universal agreement of
the people which made the rulers lose their heads and the soldiers
their hearts. In the night the insurgents were recruited from the
country districts and the neighbouring communes. The first to arrive
were sixty countrymen from Villabate; then others from Misilmeri and
from other places. By the next day Fiera Vecchia contained about 300
men armed with guns, and as many more armed with scythes, billhooks,
knives, spits, and those iron tools which the popular fury changes
into arms. The fortress of Castellamare bombarded the city; the
artillery of the royal palace was dragged along the Cassero; but the
insurgents attacked, stormed, and destroyed the police commissariats
and made themselves masters of the military hospital of San Francesco
Saverio; the soldiers who remained prisoners were embraced as
brothers, and provided with every accommodation which they needed."
Brilliant as these successes sound, the victory was not yet complete;
and to diplomatists, at any rate, the result seemed still uncertain.
The Consuls of Austria, France, and Sardinia tried to persuade the
insurgents even now to yield, on condition of obtaining a pardon. An
attack made by La Masa on the Royalist forces was repelled, and
several of the revolutionary committees fled from Palermo. But many of
the leaders stood firm, and Mariano Stabile declared that Sicily
should recover her ancient liberties, and that Ferdinand and not the
people was the rebel. At the same moment the bells sounded, and the
Royalist artillery was brought to bear upon the city. For three hours
the struggle lasted; but at the end of that time the Royalists were
driven back. The Neapolitan soldiers, grown savage by their defeats,
began to sack private houses and commit various acts of cruelty; and
when the foreign Consuls went again to the Governor's palace to ask
for mercy to the insurgents, they were fired upon.
In the meantime new insurgents were pouring in from the country
districts, and the revolution was developing a government. Mariano
Stabile was made secretary of the Governing Committee, and Ruggiero
Settimo, an old man of seventy who had held office under the original
Constitution of 1812, and who had helped to proclaim the Spanish
Constitution in Sicily in 1820, was chosen President. Nor was the
movement any longer confined to Sicily. The Neapolitans had risen in
Salerno. The King, in a panic, had dismissed Del Caretto, the head of
the police, from office; and General Ruberti, the Commandant of the
fortress of St. Elmo, had told the King that he would not fire upon
the people. A demonstration in favour of the Constitution of 1820 had
taken place; and when the rain threatened to disperse the people, the
umbrellas which were opened displayed the Italian colours.
Alarmed at the risings in Naples and Sicily, and uncertain on whom he
could depend, Ferdinand, on January 29th, conceded a Constitution to
Naples. At the same time he entreated Lord Minto to intervene between him
and the Sicilians. Neither Neapolitans nor Sicilians, however, were
entirely satisfied. In the Kingdom of Naples the Constitutionalists met
with much opposition from the supporters of the old system, and some
skirmishes followed between these two parties. In Sicily the Liberals
demanded that the granting of a Constitution should be followed by an
adhesion to an Italian Confederation. They therefore answered Lord
Minto's appeal by a renewed attack on the fortress of Castellamare,
which they succeeded in capturing after four hours' fighting, and thus
destroyed the last hold of Ferdinand over Palermo, and left in his hands
no important Sicilian position except the citadel of Messina. The hopes
thus raised were soon increased by the appointment of two men who had
recently suffered imprisonment for their liberal opinions. These were a
lawyer named Bozzelli, who became Prime Minister, and the new head of
the police, Carlo Poerio, who belonged to a family which had given many
champions and sufferers to the cause of Liberty, and who had himself
been imprisoned in the previous year. When, then, the Constitution was
actually promulgated on February 12, the hopes of the Neapolitans had
risen to their highest pitch. The Constitution itself was but a poor
affair, far less encouraging to popular hopes than its Spanish
predecessor of 1820. It was founded, indeed, on the French Constitution
of 1830, and the Parliament was therefore composed of two Houses, the
upper one nominated by the King. A nominal freedom of the Press was
secured, but carefully limited, especially in matters treating of
religion. And there seems to have been hardly any security for
Ministerial responsibility. But the granting of a Constitution against
his will by a Bourbon King was, whatever its deficiencies, a fact which
naturally supplied a spark to the combustible material to be found in
all parts of Italy.
The news of the movement in Sicily had already kindled new hopes in
Rome. There matters had been proceeding more slowly than in the first
months of Pius IX.'s rule. Even Ciceruacchio had begun to think that a
more definite programme might be accepted by the Pope; and on December
27, 1847, he drew up a list of the reforms which he thought especially
needed in Rome. In these, while professing continued zeal for Pio
Nono, he put forward requests of a kind not likely to be conceded;
such as the removal of the Jesuits, the abolition of monopolies, and
the emancipation of the Jews; while other demands were so vague that
the Pope might easily have seemed to concede them without much
trouble. For instance, Ciceruacchio required that the Pope should
show confidence in the people, that individual liberty should be
guaranteed, and that restraint should be put on excessive exercise of
power.
The Pope, though not disposed to accept the exact programme of
Ciceruacchio, was influenced by this address, and on December 31, 1847,
he issued a decree promising separate and independent responsibility to
each of the Ministers. When, then, the news arrived of the Sicilian
insurrection, the enthusiasm in Rome rose to the greatest height; and
when the Pope next appeared in public, people scattered flowers in his
way, and Ciceruacchio displayed a banner bearing the words, "Santo
Padre fidatevi nel Popolo" (Holy Father, have confidence in the
people). Still, it was rumoured that the wicked cardinals were holding
back the good Pope, and that they were opposing the armaments voted by
the Council of State.
During the excitement caused by this fear the news arrived that the
Sicilians had been successful, and that Ferdinand had granted a
Constitution to Naples. Again the Romans rose, and this time with the
cry of, "Away with the men of bad faith! Long live the secular
ministry! Give us arms!" A Minister appeared on the balcony, promising
the people a secular ministry and increase of the army. This was
actually conceded a few days later, and Ciceruacchio once more called
upon the people to have confidence in the reforming Pope. The news of
the Sicilian and Neapolitan movements steadily spread northwards, and
in Tuscany they chimed in with the new belief that Leopold was a
reforming sovereign.
But matters took here a rather different complexion from that which
they had assumed in Rome. The zeal of the Tuscans had been kindled by
their struggle with the Duke of Modena, and the free life of Tuscany
had attracted many democratic Italians; while, on the other hand,
though Leopold might have wiped out the memory of the surrender of
Renzi, he could not cease to be a Hapsburg, and could never attract to
himself the same imaginative enthusiasm which was kindled by the dream
of a reforming Pope. At any rate, the first spark of a revolutionary
movement had been kindled by Guerrazzi in Leghorn, before the success
of the Sicilians had been known; and though Ridolfi had suppressed the
movement and imprisoned Guerrazzi, the bitterness caused by it still
remained. And even when the news of the Neapolitan Constitution
reached Florence, the Tuscan reformers hastened to congratulate, not
the Neapolitan Ambassador, but a representative of the revolutionary
Sicilians who happened to be in Florence. But Leopold was ready to
yield with a much better grace than Ferdinand; and when, on February
17, the Constitution appeared it was found, in the matter of religious
liberty, to be considerably in advance of the Neapolitan Constitution.
In the Kingdom of Sardinia the city of Genoa supplied the same kind of
element which the Tuscans found in Leghorn. The questionable manner in
which that city had been annexed to Piedmont had left, no doubt, a
continual soreness and readiness for revolution among the Genoese;
while, on the other hand, its important geographical position and
great commercial reputation had led Charles Albert to push forward its
development as much as possible. It soon came to the front during the
movement for reform, and its citizens tried to urge on Charles Albert
whenever he hesitated. As he drifted gradually in the direction of
bolder action, the Genoese were ready to encourage festivals in his
honour, and on the occasion of a demonstration in November, at Genoa,
a citizen had called out to him, "Charles Albert, cross the Ticino and
we will follow thee." When, then, the news arrived of the Sicilian
rising, the Genoese sent to Turin a petition for the expulsion of the
Jesuits and the concession of a national guard. In the meantime the
editors of leading newspapers in Turin were meeting to decide on the
policy which they should support, and Count Cavour, who had hitherto
been disinclined to Liberal movements, proposed that they should
demand a Constitution. D'Azeglio, Durando, and others, supported the
proposal, and Cavour was despatched to present it to the King.
While Charles Albert was still hesitating, the news of the Neapolitan
Constitution arrived. The people of Turin at once made a demonstration
in honour of the event, and Pietro di Santa Rosa[8] proposed in the
Municipal Council that that body should support the petition for the
Constitution. The Municipal Council, though previously a reactionary
body, accepted the proposal by a large majority. But Charles Albert
still hesitated. On February 7th, he held a meeting of his Council, in
which he at first refused to discuss the question whilst the crowd was
gathering outside. On their dispersal, he began to consider the
proposals, and the discussion lasted for eight hours. When the sitting
of the Council was concluded, the representatives of the Municipality
arrived, but were received very coldly by Charles Albert. While
things were still in this state, a message arrived from the Governor
of Genoa that, unless the Constitution was proclaimed, it would be
necessary for the King to place Genoa in a state of siege. At last he
consented to grant what was called a Statuto, of which the terms
seemed at first very indefinite, while the delays in carrying it into
execution irritated the more decided reformers. But the faith of
Charles Albert's admirers was as robust as that of the admirers of
Pius IX. Banquets were held in his honour, and those who took part in
these exulting demonstrations had at least the excuse for their joy
that the promise of the Statuto had roused the irritation of the
Austrians; and Radetzky even threatened to occupy Alessandria. But
Radetzky and the Austrians had enough to think of nearer home.
The Government of Milan was at this time in a very peculiar condition,
seeing that there were not less than seven people who were, in
different ways, responsible for the maintenance of order in the town
or its neighbourhood. Of these, the nominal head was probably
Rainieri, the Viceroy; but he seems to have been a man of less vigour
than some of those who acted under him; and though willing enough
to do acts of violence, yet not able altogether to control his
subordinates. The second, probably, in nominal importance was Spaur,
the Governor of Milan: a Tyrolese nobleman, credited, even by his
opponents, with some remains of honourable feeling, but crushed in
spirit by his habit of constant deference to the Court, and to
Metternich. Next came Torresani, the head of the police, a man who
must have been in some respects pleasanter to deal with than the
other rulers; for, though not disinclined to cruelty and tyranny, he
managed to cover them with a certain Italian wit and courtesy which
must have been rather a relief, as a contrast to the tone of some of
his colleagues. Thus, for instance, on one occasion the Town Council
remonstrated with him for the action of the police in a riot, and
urged that he should take measures for preserving order among his
subordinates; Torresani chose to interpret the idea of order in his
own fashion, and the next day issued a stern public notice against
disorderly meetings, while at the same time he sent a polite note to
the Council, pointing out that, by this proclamation, he had met their
wishes for the preservation of order.
But if Torresani could soften by witticisms the necessary savageries
of his position, any deficiencies in roughness on his part were amply
atoned for by his subordinate Bolza, who was looked upon as the
completest embodiment of the spirit of cruelty in the Government. On
the other hand, the craft and treachery of the system were best
represented by a Bohemian named Pachta. He was one of those men whose
complete loss of reputation in private affairs fits them to become
useful engines of despotism. He had been known previously as having
swindled a lady out of some jewels which she had entrusted to him; and
he had plunged so heavily into debt, that nothing but his favoured
position protected him from arrest. He held some nominal office in the
Council at Milan; but his real duty was to act as a spy upon his
colleagues. Indeed, it may be said that that description might, with
more or less force, apply to all the rulers of Milan, and to many
others of the Government officials. A spy was set by the Home
Government upon Torresani, and another to watch that spy. Rainieri was
entrusted with one set of police, Spaur with another, Pachta with
another. But while all these men divided the civil administration of
Milan, there stood at their back the one man who did enjoy more of the
permanent confidence of the Government than anyone else in Lombardy.
This was the celebrated Field-Marshal Radetzky.
It is somewhat strange that this man, who has been considered, by many
of those interested in these movements, as one of the most complete
embodiments of Austrian cruelty, was yet looked upon by the Milanese
at this time mainly as a theatrical buffoon. In the caricatures which
are preserved at Milan, Rainieri generally appears as a hypocrite,
sometimes cunning, sometimes maudlin; Bolza as a ferocious ruffian;
while in Pachta and Torresani the appearance of cruelty is modified by
a slightly idiotic expression. But Radetzky is invariably the
theatrical blusterer, who might have supplied Shakespeare with a model
for Ancient Pistol. Such was the Government with which Lombardy was
blessed under the Metternich system.
On the other hand, the only official embodiment of popular feeling
during the longest period of this rule had been the Town Council of
Milan. The Central Congregation which had embodied the Austrian idea
of a Lombard Constitution had been deprived of all freedom of
utterance; but the Town Council was no doubt considered a more
harmless body, and therefore had been allowed a certain amount of
freedom. Since 1838 this Council had been presided over by Count
Gabrio Casati, who has probably received more praise and more blame
than he deserved. He seems to have been a man by no means deficient
either in courage or patriotism; and had he continued to exercise his
office during a period when passive resistance and formal protests
were still useful weapons, he might have left a reputation somewhat
like that of Speaker Lenthall or Lord Mayor Beckford in our own
History. As it is, he was called on by circumstances to play a part in
the struggle against Austria for which he was unfitted; and, while he
has received undue praise from those who have accepted him as the
embodiment of Milanese heroism, he has, on the other hand, been
somewhat too fiercely condemned by those who noted his actual
shortcomings, and could not make allowance for the difficulty of his
position. During the first years of his office he did his best to bring
before Metternich and his colleagues the evils which prevailed in the
Government of Lombardy; and when the growth of the Italian movements
led to the demonstrations in favour of the Italian Archbishop of Milan,
and the solemn funeral to Confalonieri, Casati showed his sympathy with
the popular feeling, and protested against the various acts of cruelty
which were perpetrated in the suppression of these movements. Indeed,
so prominent a part did Casati play in these matters that Sedlnitzky,
the head of the Viennese police, wrote to Spaur to tell him to keep his
eye on Casati, and to see that on the next occasion a Podestà of better
principles was elected.
In October, 1847, Metternich added a new element to the confusion of
the Milanese Government by sending a new agent to share the authority
of the other rulers of Lombardy. This new emissary was Count
Ficquelmont, whose work was of a much more definite character than his
official position. This work was, in fact, the carrying out of that
part of Menz's programme which had been modelled on the Circus shows of
the Emperors of Rome. This was to be effected by the introduction of
Fanny Ellsler and other people of a similar character to the
pleasure-loving population of Milan. But the mission only succeeded in
eliciting new signs of discontent. Ficquelmont and his protegées appear
in the collection of Milanese caricatures; and a popular agreement to
abstain from theatre-going was so rigorously carried out that, on one
evening, only nine tickets were sold for the principal theatre in
Milan.
But, before this remarkable abstention had come into force, a new
character had been given to the Lombard resistance to Austrian rule.
The Central Congregation of Lombardy had suddenly awakened to life;
and the grievances under which the country suffered had been placed
before their rulers at Vienna with a clearness previously unknown. The
author of this sudden change affords one of those curious instances of
men who do a great and important work for their country, and then pass
suddenly into obscurity before their reputation has spread beyond
narrow limits. Giambattista Nazari was a lawyer of Treviglio. All that
seems to be known of him previously to his election to the Central
Congregation was that he was a man of moderate fortune, with a large
family; but both those facts may be taken as adding something to the
courage of his public action. Treviglio is a town in the district of
Bergamo; the people of that district, presumably with Austrian
sanction, had accepted Nazari as their representative, and on December
8 or 9, 1847, he came forward in the Central Congregation to give, for
the first time since 1815, free and peaceable expression to the wants
of the people of Lombardy.
"Illustrious Congregation," he said, "it does not require much
shrewdness to discern that for some time past there have been in this
province manifest signs of discontent shown by all classes of
citizens, as the rulers themselves ought to have known every time that
they have tried to deaden its effects. And from whence does the
agitation which has thus been produced arise--an agitation which
increases the more they try to restrain it? From whence comes this
universal disquiet? From whence this suspicion between governors and
governed? The latter have, perhaps, just reasons to complain; and if
they have, who ought to present those reasons to the Prince? For my
part, I do not see that anyone can be better interpreters of the
desires of our country than we; since, even in our private condition,
we are sharers of the good and evil which are the fruits of good and
evil institutions; and since, moreover, we have the precious office of
discovering the needs of the populations and of presenting them at the
Imperial Throne. In order, then, that that agreement between ruler and
people which alone can secure the quiet of the State may be restored,
I am resolved to propose that you should choose as many men as there
are provinces in Lombardy, and give them a commission to examine
specially into the present conditions of the country; and when they
have discovered the causes of discontent, to refer them to the whole
Congregation in order to give fitting opportunity for petitions. This
I say and advise, from a desire for the public good, from affection
for my Prince, and from a sentiment of duty. For as citizen I love my
country, as subject I desire that the Emperor should be adored and
blessed by all, and as deputy I should think that I had failed to keep
my oaths if I did not say what was imposed on me by the duty of not
being silent."
On December 11 this protest of Nazari's was presented in due form to
the rulers of Milan, and produced from them the sternest rebukes. The
awkward point of the protest was that, both in form and substance, it
was undoubtedly legal, and could not therefore be wholly disregarded.
Accordingly, Rainieri told Spaur that it was desirable that a
commission should be appointed; but that, instead of being composed of
representatives chosen from the Lombard provinces, it should be
limited to those few people who were noted for their zeal and
attachment to the Austrian Government. Further, such commissioners
were not to assume that discontent existed, nor even to make mention
of such discontent in their discussions. At the same time, Nazari was
to be told that he had acted irregularly in bringing forward his
motion, and Torresani was to be directed to keep a special watch on
this dangerous agitator.
Spaur thereupon addressed the Congregation, telling them that the
Viceroy had consented to Nazari's proposal, provided that the
Congregation limited itself strictly to the powers entrusted to it by
the Constitution; and, further, that the Government was occupying
itself with the wishes of the Lombard provinces, and that the Viceroy
had left to Spaur's decision the appointment of the members of the
Commission. Spaur concluded with a rebuke to Nazari for the want of
confidence that he had shown in him, as President of the Congregation,
in not communicating to him his intended motion. Nazari answered that
he had wished to take upon himself the sole responsibility of his act;
and that, as to the proposed previous application to Spaur, he would
rather be wanting in confidence than respect; for that if he had told
Spaur of his intention, and Spaur had tried to persuade him to be
silent, he would have been compelled to be rude enough to disobey him.
In the meantime the motion had created the greatest enthusiasm, and
many Milanese hastened to pay their respects to Nazari; four thousand
visiting cards were left on him, and petitions flocked in from various
places in support of his movement. In the Provincial Congregation of
Milan, indeed, the supporters of Nazari encountered the same kind of
official obstruction which their leader had met with in the Central
Congregation of Lombardy, for the President refused to join his
colleagues in signing the petition. Thereupon the members of that body
threatened to resign; and the Viceroy, who had just declared Nazari's
protest irregular, urged the President to yield. But the movement had
spread far into the provinces. Many of the provincial towns had their
own causes of grievance against the centralizers of Vienna. Pavia had
been deprived of its arsenal; Brescia had been compelled to close its
armourers' shops, Bergamo its ironmongeries; Cremona had lost one
trade, Salo another; Como and other towns had lost their linen trade.
Everywhere there had been signs of the sucking out of the strength of
the country by the Central Government at Vienna. Nazari's protest,
therefore, naturally attracted sympathy far beyond Milanese circles;
and amongst other petitions came one from the old Lombard capital of
Pavia asking that it might be specially represented on the Commission
proposed by Nazari, and suggesting special reforms needed in Lombardy
and Venetia.
But by far the most remarkable of the Lombard petitions produced by
Nazari's protest was one which was apparently signed by the Lombards
irrespective of their provincial divisions. In this the petitioners
call upon the Central Congregation to keep alive the courage which had
been shown by Nazari's protest. They remind the deputies of the
promises previously made by the Austrian Government, and the breach of
them. They declare that "The Lombards were formerly distracted by
discordant hopes, but are now almost miraculously unanimous in their
desires;" and they call on the deputies "to speak out the whole truth,
to proclaim that they have faith in God, and that they leave to others
the infamy of lying."... They call upon them "To declare the abuses of
the Tribunals which are concealed by secret bribery; the arrogance of
the police, the puerile corrections of the censorship; but above all to
proclaim the great truth of nationality, to demand a federal union, and
to remind Austria of her proclamation of April 16, 1815, in which she
promised to conform the institutions of Lombardy to the character of
the Italians. Ten million Italians are now united by an agreement
between princes and people, defended by a flourishing army, and
sanctioned by the authority of the Pope." The petitioners then proceed
to call attention to the success of Hungary in its Constitutional
struggle; and they point out that, while Austria had held out hopes of
a special representation for Lombardy and Venetia, she had, in fact,
drawn the power more and more to Vienna, while the Press had been
subjected to the most petty persecutions. "An invisible network of
information, conjectures, suspicions, has surrounded all the citizens.
The Government is arbitrary both by ignorance and violence. It is only
the representatives of the people who can explain _that_; and they must
show that all these evils spring from the first great falsehood of a
people that has not the life of a people, of a kingdom that has not the
life of a kingdom. Lombardy is governed by foreign laws and foreign
persons. It is taxed for the benefit of Austrian industries, while a
barrier of customs duties separates it from Italy."
It is worth noting that now, for the first time, the leaders of
Italian political movements began to consider the special grievances
of the poor. As Mazzini had roused the working men to care for the
liberty and unity of their country, so a common suffering had
gradually taught the wealthier leaders to care for the troubles of
their poorer neighbours; and these petitions enumerate a number of
taxes which specially weighed on the poor. The tax on salt was the
material burden most generally felt; while the lottery, with its
deliberate encouragement of the spirit of gambling, increased the
moral loathing of the Lombards for the Austrian rule. But the crushing
out of national feeling and intellectual life were still the two main
complaints of these petitioners; and, besides the more general proofs
of these mentioned above, the petitioners dwelt with great emphasis
on the conscription which carried off the youth of the country for
eight years. And they finally demand that the representatives of the
people should ask for "A complete and irrevocable separation in every
branch of the administration; that they should be governed by a
person, not by a foreign people;" and that "their own nationality,
history, language, and brotherhood with other Italians should not be
considered as crime and rebellion." They finally close with the words,
"To-day you can still speak of peace. The future is in the hands of
the God of Justice."
The petition of Nazari had, as already mentioned, produced effects in
the Lombard provinces; but it had also called out sympathy, though a
little more slowly, in the neighbouring province of Venetia. There the
hand of Austria seemed to have weighed more heavily than even in
Milan. Perhaps the absence of old traditions of internal freedom,
and the terrible corruption which had hastened the fall of its
independence, may have had something to do with the silence of Venice.
Perhaps, too, the sense of the singular baseness of the crime, by
which they had become possessed of the Venetian district, may have
goaded the Austrians into greater tyranny than even that which they
exercised in their other dominions. But, whatever was the cause, there
seems to be no doubt, as one of the historians of the time puts it,
that Venice was then reckoned "the least sturdy city in the kingdom,
and the one least disposed to movement." But even Venice could not be
shut out from the influence of the Italian spirit, and the first sign
of awakening life was called out, curiously enough, by a Buonaparte.
The Prince of Canino, who had already succeeded in turning Scientific
Congresses at Genoa and Milan into opportunities for political
demonstrations, had come, in September, 1847, to Venice to preside in
the Geological Section of the Congress. There he had introduced a
discourse on Pius IX., which was received with loud applause; and when
the Austrian police compelled him to leave the State, people followed
him on his road with cheers of sympathy. But the spark which Charles
Buonaparte had lighted required other hands to keep it alive; and it
appeared that there was no one in the Venetian Congregation bold
enough to take up the part which had been played at Milan by Nazari.
Under these circumstances, Daniele Manin, the lawyer, who had already
opposed the Austrian Government about the Lombardo-Venetian railway,
came forward to take upon himself the office from which the official
members of the Congregation had shrunk. He presented a petition
calling on the members of the Venetian Congregation to imitate the
example of Nazari, ending his appeal with the words, "It is unjust and
injurious to suppose that the Government has granted to this kingdom a
sham national representation."
This address of Manin's was sent to the Congregation on December 21st.
On the same day Niccolo Tommaseo addressed a letter to Baron von
Kübeck, one of the Viennese ministry, asking for permission to print a
discourse which he had just delivered at Venice on the Austrian press
law. In this discourse he had shown that the Austrian law was in
theory more liberal than the Piedmontese law, but that it was not
carried out, a fact which he illustrated by the signatures to a
petition which was then being circulated in favour of the proper
enforcement of the Austrian law. "If this petition be granted," said
Tommaseo, "the country will find peace, and Austria an honourable
security." He ended with a remarkable warning--"If the movements of
the brothers Bandiera alarmed the Austrian Government, how much more
will there be danger now that the altar is no longer on the side of
the throne?"
Tommaseo had already been marked out by the Government as a dangerous
person. He had been the first to introduce Mazzini to the public by
securing the publication of his article on Dante which had been
refused by the "Antologia," and he had joined with Mazzini in the
revolutionary struggle of 1833. It was therefore as a pardoned man
that he had been allowed to return to Venice; and the authorities were
doubly indignant that he should venture to come forward again. But
Manin's attempt to stir up the Venetian Congregation attracted the
hostility of the Government more than Tommaseo's petition. He had
already protested against a new form of official cruelty--the shutting
up of a political prisoner in a lunatic asylum; and Palffy had
threatened to let the prisoner out and shut up Manin instead. But
it seemed for a time as if his attempt to stir up the Venetian
Congregation would fail, for he could get no member to present his
petition for him. Nothing daunted, however, he printed it, and sent it
himself to the Congregation. This act soon attracted attention, and
several provincial governments sent in similar petitions.
Still the Venetian Congregation would not stir; so, on January 8,
Manin sent in a second petition, in which he no longer confined
himself to vague appeals, but set forth the necessary programme of
reform. He demanded that the laws should be published and obeyed, that
no obedience should be required to unpublished laws, and that the
territories of Lombardy and Venetia should form a separate kingdom,
not a province, "still less a mere outlying village of Vienna. We
ought to be governed," he said, "according to our character and
customs; to have a true national representation, and a moderately free
press which could control and enlighten the chiefs of the Government
and the representatives of the nation."... "The germs planted by the
laws of 1815 had not developed, and only a madman or an archæologist
would refer to them as a guide." He then proceeded to demand that the
Viceroy of Lombardo-Venetia should be completely independent of all
but the Emperor; that the finances and the army should also be
separated from the government at Vienna; that the communal governments
should be more independent than at present, and that trials should be
by jury, and should be oral and public; that the power of the police
should be limited, and that a moderate law should be substituted for
the existing censorship of the Press; that a civic guard should be
granted; that citizens should be made equal before the law; that
Jewish disabilities and feudal tenures should be abolished, and that
there should be a general revision of the laws.
Manin's petition alarmed the timid spirits of the Congregation; and one
of them named Moncenigo sent it to Governor Palffy. Manin had already
protested against the appointment of this Moncenigo on the sham
Commission of Enquiry which the Viceroy had granted; and no doubt
personal irritation combined with political cowardice to prompt
Moncenigo's breach of confidence. But, whatever its motives, this
act of servility produced a protest from another lawyer, who,
while denouncing Moncenigo's act as unworthy of the dignity of a
commissioner, alluded to the period of Napoleon's rule as one of
greater freedom than had ever been allowed by Austria. The police had
in the meantime been preparing a report for the criminal tribunal; and
on January 19, 1848, Manin was suddenly seized and carried off to
prison on the charge of disturbing the public peace.
In the meantime the Milanese movement had been assuming a more serious
character. Demonstrations at the theatre, or abstentions from it,
songs and other public expressions of opinion, were continually
alarming the authorities. That separation, too, between the altar and
the throne, to which Tommaseo had called attention, was even more
marked in Milan than in Venice; and Radetzky a little later ordered
his soldiers not to attend the sermons or the confessional of the
Milanese clergy, "since they are our enemies." But this ferocious
commander was resolved at all hazards to drive the Milanese to
extremities; and he soon found an opportunity for carrying out his
plans. One of the most universal forms of protest against the
Government in Lombardy was the determined abstention from tobacco on
the ground that it was a Government monopoly. This protest began on
January 1, 1848, and it seemed at first as if it would be allowed
to pass without remark. But Radetzky, in spite of the advice of
Torresani, ordered his soldiers to appear in public, smoking. This
order was carried out on January 2, 1848. In some parts of the town
this demonstration provoked nothing but a few hisses from the crowd;
but in one part, where the police and soldiers had collected in large
numbers and many citizens had gathered to watch the smokers, the
soldiers suddenly turned upon the crowd with their bayonets and
charged them. Casati remonstrated with Torresani, but could get no
redress, and was even himself assaulted by the police when he appealed
to them.
This, however, was merely the preliminary of Radetzky's proceedings.
The following afternoon a much larger force of soldiers appeared in
Milan, and every one of them was smoking. The crowd gathered as
before, and was, as usual, largely composed of boys. Suddenly two of
the sergeants gave a signal, and the soldiers, drawing their swords,
rushed upon the crowd, wounding many boys seriously and killing an old
man of seventy-four. The crowd fled at the attack; but the soldiers
followed them, breaking into the shops in which they took refuge,
destroying what they found there, and killing or wounding those whom
they came across. In one place they broke into an inn, gave the
hostess several severe wounds in the head, besides beating violently a
little girl of four years old.
Throughout the city these scenes of barbarity continued during the
greater part of the day, and naturally aroused the most tremendous
indignation. Similar smoking demonstrations took place in Brescia,
Cremona, and Mantua; but in these places they seem to have passed off
without a riot. In Pavia and Padua, on the other hand, the smokers
came into collision with the students, who fought with their bare
fists against the soldiers' swords. In Milan the indignation was not
confined to the opponents of Austria. Monsignore Oppizzoni, who was on
the whole a supporter of the Government, headed a deputation to the
Viceroy in which he used these words:--"Your Highness, I am old, and
have seen many things. I saw the profanation of the Jacobins and the
cruelty of the Russians; but I never saw nor heard of before such
atrocious acts as have happened in the days just past."
Companies of ladies met at the Casa Borromeo to collect funds for the
wounded. In all the principal cities of Lombardy funeral rites were
performed for those who had died in the riots; and the people refused
to walk in the Corso Francesco, which had been the scene of the
principal massacre, and went instead to another street, which they
renamed the Corso Pio Nono. Even some of those who had served the
Austrian Government raised a protest against these atrocities. Count
Guicciardini, for such a protest, was deprived of his office; while
the Councillor, Angelo Decio, declared that he would resign if the
Government would not put a restraint on the undisciplined soldiers.
The Viceroy, taken aback at this sudden outburst of indignation,
promised reforms and dismissed some of the troops from Milan.
But the saner members of the Austrian Government had completely lost
hold of affairs, and Radetzky had become the sole ruler of Milan. He
harangued his troops in one of those bombastic addresses whose
absurdity seemed to take even a deeper root in men's minds than the
atrocity of his acts. "Let us not," he said, "be forced to open the
wings of the Austrian eagle which have never yet been clipped." This
calm ignoring of Austerlitz and Marengo specially tickled the fancy
of the Milanese; more particularly as Radetzky was credited, whether
justly or unjustly, with having played a somewhat ignominious part in
the latter battle. A few utterly inadequate and trivial reforms were
won from Metternich by the spectacle of the Sicilian revolution, the
growing popularity of the Pope, and the Neapolitan Constitution. On
January 18 it was proposed that the Viceroy should transfer himself
from Milan to Verona; that he should be surrounded by persons better
informed than his subordinates were; that the Government of Milan
should be made more strong; and that some of the members of the
Central Congregation of Milan should be summoned to Vienna. How
absurdly unlike these concessions were to the real wishes and needs of
the Lombard people it is scarcely necessary to point out; but, had the
concessions been far more important, they would have been utterly
worthless while they were accompanied by the closing of the clubs, the
arrest of suspected persons, and, above all, while Radetzky still
ruled Milan.
It was to a population excited by this state of things that there came
the news of the Neapolitan Constitution. The Milanese at once flocked
to the Cathedral to return thanks, and on the walls of Milan were
written up the words, "Viva il sangue Palermitano! Seguiamo l'esempio
di Sicilia! Il pomo e maturo." And near these inscriptions was drawn
the picture of a house in ruins, and over it, "Casa d'Austria." New
riots followed, and the Universities of Pavia and Padua were closed by
authority. But it was felt that the electric current had now spread
right through Italy from Palermo to Milan; and, on the very day before
the University of Pavia was closed, a secret circular was issued by the
friends of Italy at Milan urging that further demonstrations should be
abandoned for the present on the ground that "the cause of Italy is now
secure."
And though Metternich was still disposed to dispute that view, though
he still held to the opinion which he had uttered in August, 1847,
that "Italy was a mere geographical expression," he yet felt the shock
of the Sicilian insurrection, and was willing to secure friends in
other parts of the Austrian dominions by more important concessions
than those which he had made to Lombardy and Venetia. _The_ most
important, or at least the most obvious, of these popular victories
had been gained in Hungary. There, indeed, Metternich had ingeniously
contrived to defeat his own purpose, to weaken that division which had
been gradually growing between the different sections of his opponents
in Hungary, and to throw into the hands of Kossuth far more power than
he had previously possessed. At the close of the Diet which had met in
1843 these elements of division were more various and more prominent
than at any other period of the struggle. Besides the quarrel between
Magyar and Slav, there had grown up a difference of opinion between
the Magyar champions of reform. For while Kossuth was advocating the
strengthening of the county governments as the great hope for
Hungarian liberty, Baron Eötvös was urging the necessity for making
the central parliament stronger at the expense of the local bodies.
But Metternich, as if determined to consolidate the various elements
of opposition against him, shortly after the dissolution of the Diet,
took a step which, while it seemed to justify Kossuth's belief in the
importance of county governments, silenced at the same time all those
who were opposed to Kossuth, whether on grounds of race or party, and
roused the dislike to Metternich's system to a height not previously
known in Hungary. Mailath, the popular Chancellor of Hungary, was
removed, and his successor, Apponyi, was directed to supersede the
Hungarian County Assemblies by administrators appointed by himself.
No step could possibly have been taken more likely to defeat
Metternich's own objects; for if there was one institution round which
all the peoples of Hungary rallied, it was their County Governments.
Kossuth felt the strength of his position, and tried to remove the
causes of division. For the moment he seemed even disposed to abandon
his extreme anti-Slavonic policy, and opposed a proposal for compelling
the use of the Hungarian language in elementary schools. The opposition
to the Administrator system in the counties seemed to Kossuth an
opportunity for bringing forward the whole body of reforms which he had
long desired. The movement for relieving the peasants of their burdens
had naturally widened the circle of those who took interest in
political affairs; and a famine which was quickening the political
feeling of the Silesian peasants and of the artizans of Berlin had also
spread to Hungary, and was making the ordinary grievances of the
peasant doubly grievous to him. Along with the demands for the relief
of the peasantry from their burdens, Kossuth and his friends now put
forward proposals for Constitutional reforms. Deak, though no longer a
member of the Assembly, gave his assistance in putting their plans
into shape, and for the first time there was formed, in 1847, a
complete programme of the Hungarian Liberals. Their demands were:
Publicity of parliamentary debates; a parliamentary journal in which
speeches were to be published in full; triennial elections and regular
yearly meetings of the Diet; improvement of the government of the towns
and enlargement of their right of election to the Diet; universal
taxation of all classes; the abolition of forced labour of the peasant,
and of other restrictions on his mode of life.
But while it was of importance that the reformers should thus be able
to put into shape their programme of reform, it was round the
"Administrator" question that the real fight gathered, and Metternich
was urged to make at least some concessions on this point. When, then,
the Diet met in 1847, Kossuth found himself supported by many who
might have shrunk back from parts of his policy before. Count
Batthyanyi had formerly acted with Szechenyi; but he now arrived at
the conclusion that the opposition of that nobleman to Kossuth was
unwise, and he drifted more and more into the position of the Leader
of Opposition in the House of Magnates. Eötvös, too, however much he
may have retained his belief in the importance of a centralizing line
of policy, yet could not refuse to stand by his countrymen in defence
of County Government against the Administrators of Metternich.
Batthyanyi and Eötvös were thus willing to suspend their special
grounds of opposition to Kossuth; but it was still impossible for them
to carry with them the House of Magnates; and Kossuth's great
influence in the country was increased by the fact that the centre of
reform was rather to be found in the class of professional men to
which he belonged than in the nobles who had been previously looked to
as the leaders of the country. The Diet of 1847, therefore, saw a
repetition of the struggle of the two Houses which had formed so
prominent a part of the parliamentary history of 1839. In the Lower
House Kossuth carried a measure for enforcing municipal taxes on
nobles, and it was thrown out by the House of Magnates, who called
upon the Lower House to limit themselves to votes of thanks or to
express their grievances in general terms.
But neither the land question nor the question of parliamentary
liberty were felt by the Hungarian leaders to be as important at this
crisis as the rescue of the counties from the tyranny of Metternich's
Administrators; and it was the struggle on this point which was
brought to a crisis by the news of the Sicilian Revolution and of the
growing discontents in Milan. Again Metternich was disposed to make
concessions, and again his concessions were so framed as to be utterly
inadequate to the occasion. He declared that the Administrators should
only be appointed under exceptional circumstances; and that the
present Administrators should be withdrawn when the exceptional
circumstances in the counties were removed. This proposal was
unwelcome to all parties; and so much force did the discontent of the
country gain that on February 29 a motion in favour of reform in the
representation was carried in the House of Magnates. When this
resolution had passed the House of Representatives Szechenyi entered
in his diary the words, "Tout est perdu."
In the meantime the Hungarian movement had been keeping alive hopes
which in late years had begun to show themselves in Vienna. In that
centre of the Metternich system it was not wonderful that political
death had been more complete and unmistakeable than in any other part
of Europe. While in other parts of Europe the press was interfered
with, here Count Sedlnitzky, the head of the police, had it completely
under his control. In other parts of the Empire national feeling was
discouraged. Here, for even reminding the Austrians of the popular
efforts against Napoleon, Hormayr was driven from the Archduchy of
Austria. In other parts of the Empire local affairs might sometimes be
interfered with, but were often passed over as unimportant; in Vienna
officials were thrust into the place of the elected Town Council. Nor
was there any assembly at all fitted to be the mouthpiece of Austrian
discontent in communications between the people and the Government.
The only assembly which met at Vienna, except the Town Council, was
that of the Estates of Lower Austria. This assembly represented mainly
the aristocracy, even the richer burghers not possessing more than a
nominal voice in their councils. Therefore, even if this body had
possessed as much freedom as was allowed to the Hungarian Diet, they
could not have rallied the people round them, because they did not
understand their wants and had no sympathy with them. Indeed, the
barrier between rich and poor, noble and serf, seems to have been more
marked, or at any rate more painfully felt, in the province of Lower
Austria than in any part of the Empire, except, perhaps, Bohemia. For
in Vienna there was rapidly growing up all the miseries of a city
proletariate. The protectionist tariff made dear the articles of
food, while the absolute suppression of public discussion, and the
obstacles thrown in the way of any voluntary organization, prevented
even the benevolent men among the wealthier classes from understanding
anything of the wants of the poor.
So far were the Government from interfering to correct this evil that,
when, in 1816, the citizens of Salzburg petitioned for a reduction of
taxes, on the ground that people were dying of hunger in the streets,
Francis rebuked the citizens for the arrogance of this appeal, and
marked Salzburg out for special disfavour in consequence. But the
crushing out of genuine education was so complete that the poorer
classes in Vienna were for a long time unable to see how their misery
was increased by the arrangements of the Government. They saw that no
leader in the well-to-do classes seemed to concern himself in their
affairs. For while healthy political and intellectual life was
repressed in Vienna, that town was not, after all, an unpleasant abode
for those who gave themselves up to mere self-indulgence. Menz's
precedent of the Roman circus was followed here also; and Vienna
became known as the "Capua der Geister." Thus, deprived alike of
sympathy and power of self-help, the poor could only show their
bitterness in occasional bread-riots, the reports of which were
carefully excluded from the papers of the Government. One result of
this utter depression was that the Viennese eagerly caught at any
signs of moderation, or the most superficial tendency to Liberalism,
in any of their rulers; and, being at the centre of affairs, they were
naturally able to get hints of differences among the official people
which were unknown to the citizens of other towns. Thus they knew
that the Government, which to outsiders seemed wholly concentrated
in Metternich, was, at least nominally, divided between three
persons--Metternich, the Archduke Louis, and a Bohemian nobleman named
Kolowrat. The third of this trio was credited with the desire for
a certain amount of liberty; and it was supposed to be by his
encouragement that the National Bohemian Museum was founded in Prague
and became a centre of Slavonic culture. Kolowrat's Liberal sympathies
would not have counted for much in any other place or time. But the
fact that he was an opponent of Metternich was enough to gain him some
sympathy from the Viennese; and when, after the death of Francis,
Metternich tried to get rid of Kolowrat, he only increased the general
sympathy for one who was thus marked as his opponent.
The death of Francis, an event hardly felt in the rest of Europe, was
of considerable importance to Vienna; not so much from any actual
changes which it produced as from the new hope which it aroused. A
dull flame of a sort of loyalty to the House of Hapsburg still
lingered in the breasts of the Viennese; and the sole consolation
which reconciled them to their abject condition was the belief that
they were at least carrying out the wishes of the Head of that House.
Such a consideration, if, from one point of view, it may be described
as a consolation, yet increased the sense of despair of any redress of
grievances. But the accession of the Emperor Ferdinand changed this
feeling. He at least was credited with the desire for a milder policy;
while the fact that he had suffered for years from epileptic fits made
it easier to believe that he was not responsible for the failure to
carry out his own plans; and thus a heavier burden of hatred was
thrown upon Metternich. It was not, indeed, confined to his political
opponents. The Archduchess Sophia, the wife of the Heir Apparent, had
reasons of her own for disliking him; and his own arrogance, backed by
the arrogance of his wife, roused against him the opposition of that
aristocratic part of the community which was inclined to favour his
general policy. On the other hand, the admission of the Archduke
Francis Charles, the heir to the throne, to the Council of the
Emperor, tended to increase the belief in the Liberal tendencies of
Ferdinand. But the concession in 1842 of the permission to establish a
Reading and Debating Society was considered by the Viennese the
greatest triumph of Liberal principles.
The formation of this Society was sanctioned by Ferdinand, while
Metternich was temporarily absent on a journey for his health.
Ferdinand was induced to consent to it, by his respect for his former
tutor Sommaruga, who had taken a part in its formation. This Society
speedily became a centre of all kinds of discussion; and Sedlnitzky,
the head of the police, soon began to suspect and hamper it, and
thereby to point out to the rising reformers their natural leaders.
Professor Hye, a man, as it afterwards appeared, of no very great
strength of purpose, praised this Society as a power in the State
which had been gained by the spirit of Association. A police spy at
once hastened to the Court; the Council was called together; and a
proposal was made to deprive Hye of his professorship. Archduke Louis
had the good sense to oppose this proposal; but the fact that it had
been made speedily got wind, and attracted a certain amount of
sympathy to Hye. Newspapers and pamphlets, too, somehow gained ground
under the new _régime_; and three writers especially acquired an
influence in stirring up public feeling not unlike that which had been
exercised by Balbo, Gioberti, and others in Italy.
A writer named Andrian took up the question of reform from the
aristocratic side, stirred up the Landtag in Bohemia to assert the
Constitutional rights of which they had never been entirely deprived,
and also influenced the Estates of Lower Austria to strengthen their
body by admitting a more complete representation of the citizens.
Schuselka, on the other hand, called upon the Emperor to turn from the
nobles as untrustworthy, and rely for his help on the citizens. But the
man who seems to have drawn most support and attention to his opinions
was Ignatz Kuranda. He did not venture to propound his ideas in
Austria, but started a paper in Leipzig called the _Grenz Boten_. To
this all Austrians who desired reform, whether from the aristocratic or
democratic point of view, hastened to contribute. And the Government
soon became so much alarmed at these writings that they demanded that
both Kuranda and Schuselka should be expelled from all the States of
Germany. It was a sign, perhaps, that Metternich's power was beginning,
even at that time, to wane, that he was unable to obtain this
concession; and then the paid writers of the Government set themselves
to answer the reformers. This attempt, of course, only produced new
writers on the side of Kuranda; and so the movement gathered additional
force.
But however excellent the awakening of intellectual freedom might be,
no steady movement of reform could be inaugurated at this period which
did not sooner or later gather round the national principle. Neither
Vienna nor the Archduchy had any traditions of national life; while
the Austrian Empire, which, in its separate form, was not half a
century old, was the very negation of the national principle. While,
therefore, the Viennese looked for lessons in Constitutional freedom
to the neighbouring State of Hungary, their only hope of sharing in a
national life seemed to rest on their chance of absorption in Germany.
Hence arose a movement in many ways hopeless and illogical, and the
cause of much injustice to other races; but which, nevertheless,
supplied a strength and vigour to the reformers of Vienna which they
would otherwise have lacked. They have been denounced for wishing to
sacrifice the position of their city as the capital of a great Empire
by consenting to its absorption in another nation, in which it would
play, at best, only a secondary part. Yet the desire to take a share
in the common struggles, common traditions, and common hopes of men of
the same language and race is surely a nobler aspiration than the
ambition to be the centre of a large number of jarring races, held
together by military force or diplomatic intrigue. Circumstances and
History had made the desire of the Viennese impossible of execution;
but this desire had none the less an element of nobility in it, which
should not be disregarded. The first to give prominent utterance to
the new aspiration was the Archduke John, who, at a banquet in
Cologne, proposed a toast which he afterwards to some extent tried to
explain away, but which was long remembered by the Germans. "No
Prussia! No Austria! One great united Germany, firm as its hills!" At
that period, the most satisfactory bond between Austria and Germany
would have been found in the Zollverein which had been established by
Prussia. A German named List came to Vienna in 1844 for the purpose of
encouraging this union; and a banquet was held in the Hoher Markt at
Vienna at which List gave the toast of "German Unity," which was
welcomed with loud cheers, while the health of Metternich, proposed by
the American Consul, was received in dead silence.
In the meantime, the discussions on public affairs were growing more
and more keen; and, as the news arrived of the various rebuffs to
Metternich mentioned in the last chapter, the reformers gained heart.
Yet it still seemed doubtful whether they could enlist the sympathy of
the poorer classes on the side of Constitutional liberty. The Estates
of Lower Austria, however willing to make certain concessions to
popular feeling, showed none of that care for the improvement of the
condition of the poor which had been prominent in the Hungarian Diet,
and also in the Lombard petition. The horrible contrast between wealth
and poverty, during the distress of 1846 and 1847, is illustrated by
the following facts:--In the year 1846 a widow in Vienna killed one of
her children and set it before the others for food. About the same
time, a Viennese banker gave a dinner at which strawberries were
produced costing in our money about a pound a-piece!
This awful contrast would naturally prevent the poor from feeling any
keen sympathy for reform movements inaugurated by the wealthier
classes; yet, in this very year 1846, some of the poorest citizens of
Vienna began, for the first time, to show a strong desire for the
removal of Metternich from office. The ground of this new outburst
of feeling was the belief that Metternich's championship of the
Sonderbund arose from his strong sympathy with the Jesuits. It is
difficult to discern the exact ground of the bitter feeling of the
poor of Vienna against this Order. The Emperor Francis had disliked
and discouraged the Jesuits as much as their bitterest opponents could
wish; nor had Ferdinand been able to secure them any prominent
position in the State; while Metternich's real feeling towards them
was, as before remarked, by no means so friendly as the Liberals
supposed. The citizens of Vienna could therefore hardly believe that
these men were the pampered favourites of fortune; and the only
explanation of the universal hatred towards them must be that their
air of mystery and power made them natural objects of suspicion to men
who had been driven desperate by poverty, and who were not able to
discover the causes of their misery. Whatever the reason may be, there
is little doubt that Metternich's supposed sympathy with the Jesuits
on this occasion roused bitterness against him in the hearts of many
whose poverty had hitherto made them callous about questions of
government.
But a more reasonable bond between the poorer classes and the
reforming leaders was soon to be established. The discussions of the
Viennese Reading and Debating Club had been concerned during these
terrible years with the condition of the poor; and, on April 10, 1847,
the leaders of the Club held a meeting to prepare for the organization
of a soup-kitchen. They soon formed a Committee, under the leadership
of the future Minister Bach, and issued an appeal for help. For
issuing this appeal without the previous sanction of the censorship
the Committee received a stern rebuke from Sedlnitzky; and though,
after some discussion, the police allowed the appeal to appear, the
officials complained continually of the independent action of this
Committee, and tried to hamper it in every way.
It was not merely, however, as the centre of efforts for the relief of
the poor that the Debating Club and those who supported it attracted
the sympathy of the reformers. Both there and in the University there
were ever-growing signs of political life. Professor Hye had fiercely
denounced the annexation of Cracow, and had encouraged his pupils to
debate the subject of the freedom of the Press; and Professor Kudler
had promoted the study of political economy. The books of both these
professors were prohibited by the Government, and, in consequence,
were widely read. More prominent still, as champions of University
Reform, were the leaders of the medical profession. The Court
physicians had succeeded, for a time, in bringing the Medical Faculty
under the complete supervision of the Government; but in 1844 the
students undertook to draw up new rules which should emancipate their
course of study from this subservient position; and, after three
years' struggle, in September, 1847, they won the day, and established
a government for their Faculty which was independent of Metternich.
This new institution attracted the sympathies of the freest spirits
of Vienna, and the growth of clubs was favoured by the leading medical
professors.
It was obvious that the great movements which were stirring in Italy
would affect the feeling of the Viennese; but the result was perhaps
less in Vienna than in other parts of Europe, because of the dislike
felt for the Germans by the Italians. And, in spite of the growing
desire for a German national life, the Viennese could not throw off
the coarse Imperialism which naturally connected itself with the
position of their city; nor could they get rid entirely of the old
theory of Joseph II., that enlightenment and culture must necessarily
come to all races from the Germans. But the desire to reconcile the
love of liberty with the instinct of domination showed itself
curiously enough in a pamphlet which appeared in 1848 called "Die
Sibyllinische Bücher," by Karl Möring, an officer in the army. Möring,
like Schuselka, called on the Emperor to become a citizen king, and to
break down all monopolies and oligarchical distinctions. But, while
this writer wished to let the Italians go as being unnaturally
connected with the Empire, he desired to compensate the Emperor for
this loss by the annexation of the Balkan provinces; and he uttered
the warning that, unless freedom were granted, the Austrian Empire
would break up, and Magyars and Czechs on the East and West would
found separate kingdoms. "The Empire," says Möring, "can reckon
thirty-eight million subjects, but not one political citizen; not one
man who, on moral and political grounds, can be proved to be an
Austrian.... The Austrian has no Fatherland."
This pamphlet produced a great effect, for it appealed at once to the
two great rival aspirations of the Austrian Liberals; and perhaps it
attracted all the more attention from the fact that the writer was a
captain in the army. Metternich, however, steadily refused to believe
in the extent of the discontent, and rebuked Sedlnitzky for the
warnings that he brought. It was evident that Metternich was determined
to fight to the last, and, if possible, to ignore to the last the
dangers that were surrounding him. Kolowrat, after a fierce struggle,
succeeded in securing a new College of Censorship, which he thought
would be more favourable to literature; but no sooner was it
established than Sedlnitzky succeeded in turning it into a new engine
of oppression, and so heavy a one that the booksellers feared that
their trade would be entirely crushed out.
And, while Metternich and his followers were prepared to deal in this
manner with the people of Vienna, he at least was equally determined
to crush those other opponents whom he considered the most troublesome
at the moment. On January 12, 1848, the Austrian Government had,
in concert with France and the German Confederation, threatened
Switzerland with a commercial blockade, to be followed by armed
intervention, if the Swiss attempted to make any change in their
Constitution without the consent of the three Great Powers; and
Metternich was preparing for a conference to devise means for carrying
out this threat. With his Lombard subjects he was prepared to deal
still more summarily; and, on February 22, the following Edict was
issued for that province. In case of riot, sentence of death was to be
given in fifteen days by a Commission, without appeal to the Emperor.
Everyone who wore certain distinctive badges, sung or recited certain
songs, wore or exhibited certain colours, applauded or hissed certain
passages in a drama or concert, joined in a crowd at a given place of
meeting, whether for the purpose of raising subscriptions or of
dissuading from acting with certain persons, might be imprisoned,
banished, or fined to the extent of 10,000 lire. Such were the
measures by which Metternich was hoping to crush out the growing
freedom of Europe, when the shock of the French Revolution once more
disturbed his calculations.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] I do not know what relation he was to the more celebrated Santa
Rosa of 1821.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DOWNFALL OF DESPOTISM. MARCH, 1848.
Character of the French Revolution of 1848.--Its unlikeness to the
revolutions in the rest of Europe.--Position of South German
States.--Würtemberg.--Bavaria.--Baden.--Struve and Hecker.--The
Offenburg Meeting.--Bassermann's Motion.--The procession to
Carlsruhe.--The risings in Würtemberg--in Bavaria--in the small
States--in Saxony.--Effect of French and German risings in
Vienna.--Kossuth's speech of March 3.--Its importance.--Its effect
on Vienna.--Dr. Löhner's Motion.--The "Eleven Points."--Effect of
the reform movement on the rulers of Austria.--The Meeting at
Heidelberg.--Heinrich von Gagern.--Division between Students and
Professors in Vienna.--The deputation of March 12.--The meeting of
March 13.--The "first free word."--The "Estates."--The
insurrection.--The workmen's movement.--Pollet.--The fall of
Metternich.--Intrigues of Windischgrätz and the Camarilla.--Kossuth
in Vienna.--Austria "on the path of progress."--The insurrection in
Berlin.--Its character and success.--Bohemia in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.--Policy of Ferdinand II. and III.--of Maria
Theresa--of Joseph II.--The language question.--The March movement
in Prague.--Gabler.--Peter Faster.--The language revives.--The
first meeting at the Wenzel's-bad.--The two petitions.--The mission
to Vienna.--Contrast of Metternich's treatment of Lombardy with
that of other parts of the Empire.--The secret proclamations.--The
final concessions.--Augusto Anfossi.--His programme.--The rising of
the 18th of March.--The appeal to O'Donnell.--The "Five
Days."--Flight of Radetzky.--Difference of Venetian movement from
the other movements.--Manin's imprisonment and its effects.--His
release.--The Civic Guard.--Death of Marinovich.--Magyars and
Croats.--Venice free.--Palffy's treachery.--General summary of the
March risings.
The reign of Louis Philippe had indirectly produced stirrings of
thought in France which were at a later period to have their influence
on Europe; and which, indeed, may be said to be affecting us at this
moment. But the time for this influence had not yet arrived; and the
immediate result of that reign had been in some measure to confirm
France in the secondary position in European affairs to which the fall
of Napoleon had naturally brought her. The foreign aggression, which
had been favoured by the Ministers of Charles X., had given place to
intrigues like those relating to the Spanish marriages; the despotic
policy which had forced on the revolution of July, 1830, had made way
for manipulation and corruption; and aristocratic pretensions for the
arrogance of bourgeois wealth. Attempts at reform were defeated rather
by fraud than by force; and, though the immediate cause of the
revolution was an act of violence, it was to the cry "A bas les
corrompus" that the revolutionists rushed into the parliament of Louis
Philippe. The questions, therefore, with which France had to deal,
vitally important as they were, were not those which were agitating
Europe at that period. And, if the subjects in which France was
interested were not yet ripe for handling by the other nations of
Europe, still less could the watchwords of the European revolution be
inscribed on the banner of France. The principle of nationality, the
development, that is, of a freer life by the voluntary union of men of
the same race and language, was not one which could interest the
French. The first movement for distinctly national independence in
Europe had been the rising of Spain against the French in 1808; the
second, the rising of Germany in 1813; and, though there might be in
France sentimental sympathies with Greeks and Poles, these were due
rather to special classical feeling in the one case, and traditions of
common wars in the other, than to any real sympathy with national
independence. France, at the end of the previous century, had offered
to secure to Europe the Rights of Man, and had presented them instead
with the tyranny of Napoleon; the rights of nations had been asserted
against her, and the national movement would be continued irrespective
of her.
It may sound a paradox, but is none the less true, that this absence
of French initiative in the European revolution of 1848 is most
strikingly illustrated in those countries which seemed most directly
to catch the revolutionary spark from France, viz., Würtemberg,
Bavaria, and Baden. The States of South Germany had, ever since 1815,
been a continual thorn in the side of Metternich. A desire for
independence of Austria had combined with an antagonism to Prussia to
keep alive in those States a spirit with which Metternich found it
very hard to deal. Würtemberg had been the first to hamper his
progress towards despotic rule; while the size of Bavaria and its
importance in the German Confederation had enabled its rulers to
maintain a tone of independence which Metternich could not rebuke with
the same freedom which he used towards the princes of less important
States. But it was in the smallest and apparently weakest of the three
States of Southern Germany that the movement was being matured which
was eventually to be so dangerous to the power both of Austria and
France. The Grand Duchy of Baden had had, since 1815, a very peculiar
history of its own. The Grand Duke had been one of those who had
granted a Constitution to his people not long after the Congress of
Vienna. A reaction had, however, soon set in; no doubt, to some
extent, under the influence of Metternich. But it was not till 1825
that the opposition of the people of Baden seemed to be crushed and a
servile Parliament secured. Again a Grand Duke of Liberal opinions
came to the throne in 1830; but he, in his turn, was forced to bend to
Metternich's power, and to submit to the Frankfort Decrees in 1832;
and in 1839 Metternich succeeded in getting a Minister appointed who
was entirely under his control. But these public submissions on the
part of the official leaders made it easier for a few private citizens
to keep alive the spirit of opposition in Baden.
In 1845 Gustav Struve had come forward, not merely to demand reform in
Baden, but also to prophesy the fall of Metternich. For this offence
he was imprisoned; but he continued to keep alive an element of
opposition in Mannheim, where he founded gymnastic unions, and edited
a journal in which he denounced the Baden Ministry. But, though Struve
seems to have been one of the first to give expression to the
aspirations of the Baden people, the man whom they specially delighted
to honour was a leader in the Chamber of Deputies named Hecker, a
lawyer of Mannheim, who had gained much popular sympathy by pleading
gratuitously in the law courts. He was elected to the Chamber of
Deputies in 1847; and he soon began to distinguish himself by his
championship of German movements, and, more particularly, by his
sympathy with the reform movement in the German Catholic Church and
with the German aspirations of the people of Schleswig-Holstein. By an
accidental circumstance, he and another Baden representative named
Izstein attracted a large amount of attention to themselves; for,
happening to stop at Berlin in the course of a journey, they were
suddenly, and without any apparent reason, ordered to leave the town.
This was believed to be the first occasion on which a representative
of the people had been treated in this contemptuous manner; and thus
the names of Hecker and Izstein became more widely known in Germany
than those of the other leaders of the Baden movement.
The struggle in Switzerland naturally had its effect in Baden; and the
Grand Duke began once more to assert those Constitutional principles
which he had held when first he came to the throne. He did not,
however, keep pace with the desires of the reformers; and so, on
September 12, 1847, the Baden Liberals had met at Offenburg, and
demanded freedom of the Press, trial by jury, and other reforms,
amongst which should be mentioned, as a sign of Struve's opinions, the
settlement of the differences between labour and capital. It was for
their action at this meeting that the reformers had been threatened
with the prosecution which never took place.
But, in the meantime, the rush of German feeling was adding a new
element to the reform movement in Baden. Amand Goegg had been trying
to revive the demand for a German National Assembly. The religious
reforms of Ronge, which had excited so much interest in Saxony, also
attracted sympathy in Baden. Struve's gymnastic unions kept alive
the traditions of Jahn; and song, as usual, came to the help of
patriotism. These causes so hastened the movement for German unity
that, on February 12, 1848, Bassermann moved, in the Baden Chamber,
that the Grand Duke should be petitioned to take steps for promoting
common legislation for Germany. This motion, coming from a man who was
never reckoned an advanced Liberal, naturally hastened the awakening
of German feeling; and on February 27 the Baden Liberals met at
Mannheim, and decided to summon a meeting at Carlsruhe, at which they
intended to put forward the demand for a really representative German
Parliament. Thus it was on ground already prepared that there now fell
the news of the French Revolution; and when, on March 1, the leaders
of the procession from Mannheim entered Carlsruhe, wearing the black,
red, and gold of United Germany, the Ministry were ready to make
concessions; and, on March 2, the Second Chamber of Baden demanded the
repeal of the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, of the Frankfort Decrees of
1832, and of the Vienna Decrees of 1834; and they further required
that the Government should take means to secure representation of the
German people in the Bundestag.
While Baden was striking the keynote of German unity, the other small
States of Germany were preparing to take it up. In Würtemberg the
Ministers had grown, in latter days, somewhat tyrannical; and, when
the citizens gathered in Stuttgart to demand freedom of the Press and
a German Parliament, the President of the Council advised the King to
summon troops to his aid. But the King was more Liberal than his
Ministers; he consented to call to office a Liberal Ministry; and the
Chamber which was now formed speedily decreed the abolition of feudal
dues. In Bavaria the power exercised by Lola Montez over the King had
long been distasteful to the sterner reformers. She had attempted,
indeed, to pay court to the Liberals; but she had given such offence
to some of the students of Munich as to provoke a riot which led to
the closing of the University. The nobles and Jesuits would now have
gladly sacrificed the King's favourite to the people; but the Baden
rising had fired the Bavarian Liberals with a desire for much greater
reforms. Their hatred of the Jesuits quickened their zeal; for that
body was supposed to divide with Lola Montez the conscience of the
King. Animated by these various causes of indignation, the Bavarian
Liberals were ready enough for action; and on the news of the Baden
movement they broke into the arsenal at Munich, provided themselves
with arms, and demanded a German Parliament. The King consented to
summon, at any rate, a Bavarian Parliament for the present; but,
unable to fall in readily with the popular movement, and resenting the
opposition to his favourite, he abdicated a few weeks later in favour
of his son. The spark, once lighted in the South, spread among the
smaller States of Germany. In Hesse Cassel the Elector tried to offer
some opposition; but the citizens of Hanau marched upon Cassel and
compelled the Elector to yield. In Hesse Darmstadt the Grand Duke
yielded more readily, under the influence of his Minister, Heinrich
von Gagern. In Nassau the movement received additional interest from
the seizure by the victorious people of the Johannisberg, which
belonged to Metternich.
But the most interesting of the struggles was that in Saxony. Robert
Blum was present at a ball in Leipzig when the news arrived of the
French Revolution. He at once hastened to consult his friends; and
they agreed to act through the Town Council of Leipzig, and sketched
out the demands which they desired should be laid before the King.
These were: "A reorganization of the Constitution of the German Bund
in the spirit and in accordance with the needs of the times, for which
the way is to be prepared by the unfettering of the Press, and the
summoning of representatives of all German peoples to the Assembly of
the Bund." The Town Council adopted this address on March 1, and sent
a deputation with it to Dresden; and, on the 3rd, the people gathered
to meet the deputation on their return. The following is the account
given by the son of Robert Blum:--
"By anonymous placards on the wall, the population of Leipzig was
summoned, on the evening of March 3, to meet at the railway-station
the deputation returning from Dresden. Since the space was too narrow
in this place, the innumerable mass marched to the market-place,
which, as well as the neighbouring streets, they completely filled. In
perfect silence the thousands awaited here the arrival of the
deputation, which, at last, towards nine o'clock, arrived, and was
greeted with unceasing applause. Town Councillor Seeburg spoke first
of the deep emotion of the King; after him spoke Biedermann. But the
crowd uproariously demanded Robert Blum. At last Blum appeared on the
balcony of the Town Council House. His voice alone controlled the
whole market-place, and was even heard in the neighbouring streets.
He, too, sought, by trying to quiet them, to turn them away from the
subject of the address and of the King's answer. But the people broke
in uproariously even into his speech with the demand, 'The answer! The
answer!' It could no longer be concealed that the petitions of the
town had received harsh rejection. Then came a loud and passionate
murmur. The masses had firmly hoped that the deputation would bring
with them from Dresden the news of the dismissal of the hated
Ministers. But Blum continued his speech, and they renewed their
attention to him. 'In Constitutional countries,' said he, 'it is not
the King, but the Ministers who are responsible. They, too, bear the
responsibility of the rejection of the Leipzig proposals. The people
must press for their removal.' He added that he would bring forward in
the next meeting of the Town Representatives the proposal that the
King should dismiss the Ministry, 'which does not possess the
confidence of the people.' Amidst tremendous shouts of exultation and
applause, the appeased assembly dispersed."
[Illustration: ROBERT BLUM.]
Blum was as successful with his colleagues as with the crowd; and
the Town Council now demanded from the King the dismissal of his
Ministers, the meeting of the Assembly, and freedom of the Press. The
King tried to resist the last of these three proposals, pleading his
duty to the Bund. But even the Bundestag had felt the spirit of the
times; and, on March 1, had passed a resolution giving leave to every
Government to abolish the censorship of the Press. The King seemed
to yield, and promised to fulfil all that was wished; but the
reactionary party in Dresden had become alarmed at the action of the
men of Leipzig; and so, on March 11, when the men of Leipzig supposed
that all was granted, General von Carlowitz entered their city at the
head of a strong force, and demanded that the Town Council should
abstain from exciting speeches; that the Elocution Union should give
up all political discussion; that the processions of people should
cease; and, above all, that the march from Leipzig to Dresden, which
was believed to be then intended, should be given up. These demands
were met by Blum with an indignant protest. "Five men," said he, "who
manage the army cannot understand that, though their bullets may kill
men, they cannot make a single hole in the idea that rules the world."
The Town Councillors of Leipzig were equally firm. Carlowitz abandoned
his attempt as hopeless; and on March 13 the King summoned a Liberal
Ministry, who abolished the censorship of the Press, granted publicity
of legal proceedings, trial by jury, and a wider basis for the Saxon
parliament, and promised to assist in the reform of the Bund.
In the meantime the success of the French Revolution had awakened new
hopes in Vienna. Soon after the arrival of the news, a placard
appeared on one of the city gates bearing the words, "In a month
Prince Metternich will be overthrown! Long live Constitutional
Austria!" Metternich himself was greatly alarmed, and began to listen
to proposals for extending the power of the Lower Austrian Estates.
Yet he still hoped by talking over and discussing these matters to
delay the executions of reforms till a more favourable turn in
affairs should render them either harmless or unnecessary.
But great as was the alarm caused by the South German risings, and
great as were the hopes which they kindled in the Viennese, the word
which was to give definiteness and importance to the impulses which
were stirring in Vienna could not come from Bavaria or Saxony. Much as
they might wish to connect themselves with a German movement, the
Viennese could not get rid of the fact that they were, for the
present, bound up with a different political system. Nor was it wholly
clear that the German movement was as yet completely successful. The
King of Prussia seemed to be meditating a reactionary policy, and had
even threatened to despatch troops to put down the Saxon Liberals; and
the King of Hanover also was disposed to resist the movement for a
German parliament. It was from a country more closely bound up with
the Viennese Government, and yet enjoying traditions of more deeply
rooted liberty, that the utterance was to come which was eventually to
rouse the Viennese to action.
The readiness of the nobles to accept the purely verbal concession
offered by Metternich in the matter of the "Administrators" had shown
Kossuth that there could be no further peace. But he still knew how
and when to strike the blow; and it was not by armed insurrection so
much as by the declaration of a policy that he shook the rule of
Metternich. On March 3 a Conservative member of the Presburg Assembly
brought forward a motion for inquiry into the Austrian bank-notes.
Kossuth answered that the confusion in the affairs of Austrian
commerce produced an evil effect on Hungarian finances; and he showed
the need of an independent finance ministry for Hungary. Then he went
on to point out that this same confusion extended to other parts of
the monarchy. "The actual cause of the breaking up of peace in the
monarchy, and of all the evils which may possibly follow from it, lies
in the system of Government." He admitted that it was hard for
those who had been brought up under this system to consent to its
destruction. "But," he went on, "the People lasts for ever, and we
wish also that the Country of the People should last for ever. For
ever too should last the splendour of that Dynasty whom we reckon as
our rulers. In a few days the men of the past will descend into their
graves; but for that scion of the House of Hapsburg who excites such
great hopes, for the Archduke Francis Joseph, who at his first coming
forward earned the love of the nation,--for him there waits the
inheritance of a splendid throne which derives its strength from
freedom. Towards a Dynasty which bases itself on the freedoms of its
Peoples enthusiasm will always be roused; for it is only the freeman
who can be faithful from his heart; for a bureaucracy there can be no
enthusiasm." He then urged that the future of the Dynasty depended on
the hearty union between the nations which lived under it. "This
union," he said, "can only be brought about by respecting the
nationalities, and by that bond of Constitutionalism which can produce
a kindred feeling. The bureau and the bayonet are miserable bonds." He
then went on to apologize for not examining the difficulties between
Hungary and Croatia. The solution of the difficulties of the Empire
would, he held, solve the Croatian question too. If it did not, he
promised to consider that question with sympathy, and examine it in
all its details. He concluded by proposing an address to the Emperor
which should point out that it was the want of Constitutional life in
the whole Empire which hindered the progress of Hungary; and that,
while an independent Government and a separate responsible Ministry
were absolutely essential to Hungary, it was also necessary that the
Emperor should surround his throne, in all matters of Government, with
such Constitutional arrangements as were indispensably demanded by the
needs of the time.
This utterance has been called the Baptismal speech of the Revolution.
Coming as it did directly after the news of the French Revolution, it
gave a definiteness to the growing demands for freedom; but it did more
than this. Metternich had cherished a growing hope that the demand for
Constitutional Government in Vienna might be gradually used to crush
out the independent position of Hungary, by absorbing the Hungarians in
a common Austrian parliament; and he had looked upon the Croatian
question as a means for still further weakening the power of the
Hungarian Diet. Kossuth's speech struck a blow at these hopes by
declaring that freedom for any part of the Empire could only be
obtained by working for the freedom of the whole; he swept aside for
the moment those national and provincial jealousies which were the
great strength of the Austrian despotism, and appealed to all the
Liberals of the Empire to unite against the system which was oppressing
them all. Had Kossuth remained true to the faith which he proclaimed
in this speech, it is within the limits of probability that the whole
Revolution of 1848-9 might have had a different result.
The Hungarian Chancellor, Mailath, was so alarmed at Kossuth's speech
that he hindered the setting out of the deputation which was to have
presented the address to the Emperor. But he could not prevent the
speech from producing its effect. Although Presburg was only six
hours' journey from Vienna, the route had been made so difficult that
the news of anything done in the Hungarian Diet had hitherto reached
Vienna in a very roundabout manner, and had sometimes been a week on
its way. The news of this speech, however, arrived on the very next
day; and Kossuth's friend Pulszky immediately translated it into
German, and circulated it among the Viennese. A rumour of its contents
had spread before the actual speech. It was said that Kossuth had
declared war against the system of Government, and that he had said
State bankruptcy was inevitable. But, as the news became more
definite, the minds of the Viennese fixed upon two points: the
denunciation of the men of the past, and the demand for a Constitution
for Austria. So alarmed did the Government become at the effect of
this speech, that they undertook to answer it in an official paper.
The writer of this answer called attention to the terrible scenes
which he said were being enacted in Paris, which proved, according to
him, that the only safety for the governed was in rallying round the
Government. This utterance naturally excited only contempt and
disgust; and the ever-arriving news of new Constitutions granted in
Germany swelled the enthusiasm which had been roused by Kossuth's
speech.
The movement still centred in the professors of the University. On
March 1 Dr. Löhner had proposed, at one of the meetings of the Reading
and Debating Society, that negotiations should be opened with the
Estates; and that they should be urged to declare their Assembly
permanent, the country in danger, and Metternich a public enemy. This
proposal marked a definite step in Constitutional progress. The Estates
of Lower Austria, which met in Vienna, had, indeed, from time to time,
expressed their opinions on certain public grievances; but these
opinions had been generally disregarded by Francis and Metternich; and,
though the latter had of late talked of enlarging the powers of the
Estates, he had evidently intended such words partly as mere talk, in
order to delay any efficient action, and partly as a bid against the
concessions which had been made by the King of Prussia. That the
leaders of a popular movement should suggest an appeal to the Estates
of Lower Austria was, therefore, an unexpected sign of a desire to find
any legal centre for action, however weak in power, and however
aristocratic in composition, that centre might be.
Dr. Löhner's proposal, however, does not seem to have been generally
adopted; and, instead of the suggested appeal to the Estates, a
programme of eleven points was circulated by the Debating Society.
When we consider that the Revolution broke out in less than a
fortnight after this petition, we cannot but be struck with the
extreme moderation of the demands now made. Most of the eleven points
were concerned with proposals for the removal either of forms of
corruption, or of restraints on personal liberty, and they were
chiefly directed against those interferences with the life and
teaching of the Universities which were causing so much bitterness in
Vienna. Such demands for Constitutional reforms as were contained in
this programme were certainly not of an alarming character. The
petitioners asked that the right of election to the Assembly of
Estates should be extended to citizens and peasants; that the
deliberative powers of the Estates should be enlarged; and that the
whole Empire should be represented in an Assembly, for which, however,
the petitioners only asked a consultative power. Perhaps the three
demands in this petition which would have excited the widest sympathy
were those in favour of the universal arming of the people, the
universal right of petition, and the abolition of the censorship. The
expression of desire for reform now became much more general, and even
some members of the Estates prepared an appeal to their colleagues
against the bureaucratic system. But the character and tone of the
utterances of these new reformers somewhat weakened the effect which
had been produced by the bolder complaints of the earlier leaders of
the movement; for, while the students of the University and some of
their professors still showed a desire for bold and independent
action, the merchants caught eagerly at the sympathy of the Archduke
Francis Charles, while the booksellers addressed to the Emperor a
petition in which servility passes into blasphemy.
These signs of weakness were no doubt observed by the Government; and
it was not wonderful that, under these circumstances, Metternich and
Kolowrat should have been able to persuade themselves that they could
still play with the Viennese, and put them off with promises which
need never be performed. Archduke Louis alone seems to have foreseen
the coming storm, but was unable to persuade his colleagues to make
military preparations to meet it. In the meantime the movement among
the students was assuming more decided proportions; and their demands
related as usual to the great questions of freedom of speech, freedom
of the Press, and freedom of teaching; and to these were now added the
demand for popular representation, the justifications for which they
drew from Kossuth's speech of March 3.
But, while Hungary supplied the model of Constitutional Government,
the hope for a wider national life connected itself more and more with
the idea of a united Germany. Two days after the delivery of Kossuth's
speech an impulse had been given to this latter feeling by the meeting
at Heidelberg of the leading supporters of German unity; and they had
elected a committee of seven to prepare the way for a Constituent
Assembly at Frankfort. Of these seven, two came from Baden, one from
Würtemberg, one from Hesse Darmstadt, one from Prussia, one from
Bavaria, and one from Frankfort. Thus it will be seen that South
Germany still kept the lead in the movement for German unity; and the
President of the Committee was that Izstein, of Baden, who had been
chiefly known to Germany by his ill-timed expulsion from Berlin. But,
though this distribution of power augured ill for the relations
between the leaders of the German movement and the King of Prussia,
yet the meeting at Heidelberg was not prepared to adopt the complete
programme of the Baden leaders, nor to commit itself definitely to
that Republican movement which would probably have repelled the North
German Liberals.
The chief leader of the more moderate party in the meeting was
Heinrich von Gagern, the representative of Hesse Darmstadt. Gagern was
the son of a former Minister of the Grand Duke of Nassau, who had left
that State to take service in Austria, and who had acted with the
Archduke John in planning a popular rising in the Tyrol in 1813.
Heinrich had been trained at a military school in Munich. He had
steadily opposed the policy of Metternich, had done his best to
induce the Universities to co-operate in a common German movement,
and had tried to secure internal liberties for Hesse Darmstadt,
while he had urged his countrymen to look for the model of a free
Constitution rather to England and Hungary than to France. During the
Constitutional movement of 1848 he had become Prime Minister of Hesse
Darmstadt; and he seems to have had considerable power of winning
popular confidence. Although he was not able to commit the meeting to
a definitely monarchical policy, he had influence enough to counteract
the attempts of Struve and Hecker to carry a proposal for the
proclamation of a Republic; and his influence steadily increased
during the later phases of the movement.
It was obvious that, in the then state of Viennese feeling, a movement
in favour of German unity, at once so determined and so moderate in
its character, would give new impulse to the hopes for freedom already
excited by Kossuth's speech; and the action of the reformers now
became more vigorous because the students rather than the professors
were guiding the movement. Some of the latter, and particularly
Professor Hye, were beginning to be alarmed, and were attempting to
hold their pupils in check. This roused the distrust and suspicion of
the students; and it was with great difficulty that Professors Hye and
Endlicher could prevail on the younger leaders of the movement to
abstain from action until the professors had laid before the Emperor
the desire of the University for the removal of Metternich. This
deputation waited on the Emperor on March 12; but it proved of little
avail; and when the professors returned with the answer that the
Emperor would consider the matter, the students received them with
loud laughter and resolved to take the matter into their own hands.
The next day was to be the opening of the Assembly of the Estates of
Lower Austria; and the students of Vienna resolved to march in
procession from the University to the Landhaus.
In the great hall of the University, now hidden away in an obscure
part of Vienna, but still retaining traces of the paintings which then
decorated it, the students gathered in large numbers on the 13th of
March. Various rumours of a discouraging kind had been circulated;
this and that leading citizen was mentioned as having been arrested;
nay, it was even said that members of the Estates had themselves been
seized, and that the sitting of the Assembly would not be allowed
to take place. To these rumours were added the warnings of the
professors. Füster, who had recently preached on the duty of devotion
to the cause of the country, now endeavoured, by praises of the
Emperor, to check the desire of the students for immediate action; but
he was scraped down. Hye then appealed to them to wait a few days, in
hopes of a further answer from the Emperor. They answered with a
shout that they would not wait an hour; and then they raised the cry
of "Landhaus!" Breaking loose from all further restraint, they set out
on their march, and, as they went, numbers gathered round them. The
people of Vienna had already been appealed to, by a placard on St.
Stephen's Church, to free the good Emperor Ferdinand from his enemies;
and the placard further declared that he who wished for the rise of
Austria must wish for the fall of the present Ministers of State. The
appeal produced its effect; and the crowd grew denser as the students
marched into the narrow Herren Gasse. They passed under the archway
which led into the courtyard of the Landhaus; there, in front of the
very building where the Assembly was sitting, they came to a dead
halt; and, with the strange hesitation which sometimes comes over
crowds, no man seemed to know what was next to be done. Suddenly, in
the pause which followed, the words "Meine Herren" were heard from a
corner of the crowd. It was evident that someone was trying to address
them; and the students nearest to the speaker hoisted him on to their
shoulders. Then the crowd saw a quiet-looking man, with a round,
strong head, short-cropped hair, and a thick beard. Each man eagerly
asked his neighbour who this could be; and, as the speech proceeded,
the news went round that this was Dr. Fischhof, a man who had been
very little known beyond medical circles, and hitherto looked upon as
quite outside political movements. Such was the speaker who now
uttered what is still remembered as the "first free word" in Vienna.
He began by dwelling on the importance of the day and on the need of
"encouraging the men who sit there," pointing to the Landhaus, "by our
appeal to them, of strengthening them by our adherence, and leading
them to the desired end by our co-operation in action. He," exclaimed
Fischhof, "who has no courage on such a day as this is only fit for
the nursery." He then proceeded to dwell at some length on the need
for freedom of the Press and trial by jury. Then, catching, as it
were, the note of Kossuth's speech of the 3rd of March, he went on
to speak of the greatness which Austria might attain by combining
together "the idealist Germans, the steady, industrious, and
persevering Slavs, the knightly and enthusiastic Magyars, the clever
and sharp-sighted Italians." Finally, he called upon them to demand
freedom of the Press, freedom of religion, freedom of teaching and
learning, a responsible Ministry, representation of the people, arming
of the people, and connection with Germany.[9]
In the meantime the Estates were sitting within. They had gathered in
unusually large numbers, being persuaded by their president that they
were bound to resist the stream of opinion. Representatives as they
were of the privileged classes, they had little sympathy with the
movement which was going on in Vienna. Nor does it appear that
there was anyone among them who was disposed to play the part of a
Confalonieri or Szechenyi, much less of a Mirabeau or a Lafayette. Many
of them had heard rumours of the coming deputation; but Montecuccoli,
their president, refused to begin the proceedings before the regular
hour. While they were still debating this point they heard the rush of
the crowd outside; then the sudden silence, and then Fischhof's voice.
Several members were seized with a panic and desired to adjourn. Again
Montecuccoli refused to yield, and one of their few Liberal members
urged them to take courage from the fact of this deputation, and to
make stronger demands on the Government.
But before the Assembly could decide how to act the crowd outside had
taken sterner measures. The speakers who immediately followed Fischhof
had made little impression; then another doctor, named Goldmark,
sprang up and urged the people to break into the Landhaus. So, before
the leaders of the Estates had decided what action to take, the doors
were suddenly burst open, and Fischhof entered at the head of the
crowd. He announced that he had come to encourage the Estates in their
deliberations, and to ask them to sanction the demands embodied in the
petition of the people. Montecuccoli assured the deputation that the
Emperor had already promised to summon the provincial Assemblies to
Vienna, and that, for their part, the Estates of Lower Austria were in
favour of progress. "But," he added, "they must have room and
opportunity to deliberate." Fischhof assented to this suggestion, and
persuaded his followers to withdraw to the courtyard. But those who
had remained behind had been seized with a fear of treachery, and a
cry arose that Fischhof had been arrested. Thereupon Fischhof showed
himself, with Montecuccoli, on the balcony; and the president promised
that the Estates would send a deputation of their own to the Emperor
to express to him the wishes of the people. He therefore invited the
crowd to choose twelve men, to be present at the deliberations of the
Estates during the drawing up of the petition. While the election of
these twelve was still going on, a Hungarian student appeared with the
German translation of Kossuth's speech. The Hungarian's voice being
too weak to make itself heard, he handed the speech to a Tyrolese
student, who read it to the crowd. The allusion to the need of a
Constitution was received with loud applause, and so also was the
expression of the hopes for good from the Archduke Francis Joseph.
But, however much the reading of the speech had encouraged the hopes
of the crowd, it had also given time for the Estates to decide on a
course, without waiting for the twelve representatives of the people;
and, before the crowd had heard the end of Kossuth's speech, the
reading was interrupted by a message from the Estates announcing the
contents of their proposed petition. The petition had shrunk to the
meagre demand that a report on the condition of the State bank should
be laid before the Estates; and that a committee should be chosen from
provincial Assemblies to consider timely reforms, and to take a share
in legislation. The feeble character of the proposed compromise roused
a storm of scorn and rage; and a Moravian student tore the message of
the Estates into pieces. The conclusion of Kossuth's speech roused the
people to still further excitement; and, with cries for a free
Constitution, for union with Germany, and against alliance with
Russia, the crowd once more broke into the Assembly. One of the
leading students then demanded of Montecuccoli whether this was
the whole of the petition they intended to send to the Emperor?
Montecuccoli answered that the Estates had been so disturbed in
their deliberations that they had not been able to come to a final
decision. But he declared that they desired to lay before the Emperor
all the wishes of the people. Again the leaders of the crowd repeated,
in slightly altered form, the demands originally formulated by
Fischhof. At last, after considerable discussion, Montecuccoli was
preparing to start for the Castle at the head of the Estates when a
regiment of soldiers arrived. They were, however, unable to make their
way through the crowd, and were even pressed back out of the Herren
Gasse.
The desire now arose for better protection for the people; and a
deputation tried to persuade the Burgomaster of Vienna to call out the
City Guard. Czapka, the Burgomaster, was, however, a mere tool
of the Government; and he declared that the Archduke Albert, as
Commander-in-Chief of the army, had alone the power of calling out the
Guard. The Archduke Albert was, perhaps next to Louis, the most
unpopular of the Royal House; he indignantly refused to listen to any
demands of the people, and, hastening to the spot, rallied the
soldiers and led them to the open space at the corner of the Herren
Gasse, which is known as the Freyung. The inner circle of Vienna was
at this time surrounded with walls, outside of which were the large
suburbs in which the workmen chiefly lived. The students seem already
to have gained some sympathy with the workmen; and, for the previous
two years, the discontent caused by the sufferings of the poorer
classes had been taking a more directly political turn. Several of the
workmen had pressed in with the students, in the morning, into the
inner town; and some big men, with rough darned coats and dirty caps
over their eyes, were seen clenching their fists for the fight. The
news quickly spread to the suburbs that the soldiers were about to
attack the people. Seizing long poles and any iron tools which came to
hand, the workmen rushed forward to the gates of the inner town. In
one district they found the town gates closed against them, and cannon
placed on the bastion near; but in others the authorities were
unprepared; and the workmen burst into the inner town, tearing down
stones and plaster to throw at the soldiers.
In the meantime the representatives of the Estates had reached the
Castle, and were trying to persuade the authorities to yield to the
demands of the people. Metternich persisted in believing that the
whole affair was got up by foreign influence, and particularly by
Italians and Swiss; and he desired that the soldiers should gather in
the Castle, and that Prince Windischgrätz should be appointed
commandant of the city. Alfred Windischgrätz was a Bohemian nobleman
who had previously been chiefly known for his strong aristocratic
feeling, which he was said to have embodied in the expression "Human
beings begin at Barons." But he had been marked out by Metternich
as a man of vigour and decision who might be trusted to act in an
emergency. Latour, who had been the previous commandant of the Castle
in Vienna, showed signs of hesitation at this crisis; and this
gave Metternich the excuse for dismissing Latour and appointing
Windischgrätz in his place. To this arrangement all the ruling Council
consented; but, when Archduke Louis and Metternich proposed to make
Windischgrätz military dictator of the city, and to allow him to bring
out cannon for firing on the people, great opposition arose. The
Archduke John was perhaps one of the few Councillors who really
sympathized with Liberal ideas; but several of the Archdukes, and
particularly Francis Charles, heartily desired the fall of Metternich;
and Kolowrat shared their wish. This combined opposition of sincere
reformers and jealous courtiers hindered Metternich's policy; and it
was decided that the City Guard should first be called out, and that
the dictatorship of Windischgrätz should be kept in the background as
a last resource.
In the meantime the struggle in the streets was raging fiercely.
Archduke Albert had found, to his cost, that the insurrection was not,
as he had supposed, the work of a few discontented men. The students
fought gallantly; but a still fiercer element was contributed to the
insurrection by the workmen who had come in from the suburbs. One
workman was wounded in his head, his arm, and his foot; but he
continued to encourage his friends, and cried out that he cared
nothing for life; either he would die that day, or else "the high
gentlemen should be overthrown." Another, who had had no food since
the morning, entreated for a little refreshment, that he might be able
to fight the better; and he quickly returned to the struggle. In those
suburbs from which the workmen had not been able to break into the
inner town, the insurrection threatened to assume the form of an
attack on the employers. Machines were destroyed, and the houses of
those employers who had lowered wages were set on fire. It was this
aspect of the insurrection which encouraged the nobles to believe
that, by calling out the Guard, they would induce the richer citizens
to take arms against the workmen; and this policy was carried still
further when, on the application of the Rector of the University, the
students also were allowed the privilege of bearing arms. But the ruse
entirely failed; the people recognized the City Guard as their
friends, and refused to attack them; and the rumour soon spread that
the police had fired on the City Guard. It was now evident that the
citizen soldiers were on the side of the people; and the richer
citizens sent a deputation to entreat that Metternich should be
dismissed.
But the Archduke Maximilian was resolved that, as the first expedient
proposed by the Council had failed, he would now apply some of those
more violent remedies which had been postponed at first. He therefore
ordered that the cannon should be brought down from the castle to the
Michaelerplatz. From this point the cannon would have commanded, on the
one side the Herren Gasse, where the crowd had gathered in the morning,
and in front the Kohlmarkt, which led to the wide street of Am
Graben. Had the cannon been fired then and there, the course of the
insurrection must, in one way or other, have been changed. That change
might have been, as Maximilian hoped, the complete collapse of the
insurrection; or, as Latour held, the cannon might have swept away the
last vestige of loyalty to the Emperor, and the Republic might have
been instantly proclaimed. But, in any case, the result must have been
most disastrous to the cause both of order and liberty; for the
passions which had already been roused, especially among the workmen,
could hardly have failed to produce one of those savage struggles
which may overthrow one tyranny, but which generally end in the
establishment of another. Fortunately, however, the Archduke Maximilian
seems to have had no official authority in this matter; and, when he
gave the order to fire, the master gunner, a Bohemian named Pollet,
declared that he would not obey the order, unless it was given by the
commander of the forces or the commander of the town. The Archduke then
appealed to the subordinates to fire, in spite of this opposition; but
Pollet placed himself in front of the cannon, and exclaimed, "The
cannon are under my command; until there comes an order from my
commander, and until necessity obliges it, let no one fire on friendly,
unarmed citizens. Only over my body shall you fire." The Archduke
retired in despair.
In the meantime the deputation of citizens had reached the castle. At
first the officials were disposed to treat them angrily, and even
tried to detain them by force; but the news of the concession of arms
to the students, the urgent pressure of Archduke John, and the
continued accounts of the growing fury of the people, finally decided
Metternich to yield; and, advancing into the room where the civic
deputation was assembled, he declared that, as they had said his
resignation would bring peace to Austria, he now resigned his office,
and wished good luck to the new Government. Many of the royal family,
and of the other members of the Council, flattered themselves that
they had got rid of a formidable enemy, without making any definite
concession to the people. Windischgrätz alone protested against the
abandonment of Metternich by the rulers of Austria. Metternich had
hoped to retire quietly to his own villa; but it had been already
burned in the insurrection; and he soon found that it was safer to
fly from Vienna and eventually to take refuge in England. He had,
however, one consolation in all his misfortunes. In the memoir written
four years later he expressed his certainty that he at least had done
no wrong, and that "if he had to begin his career again, he would have
followed again the course which he took before, and would not have
deviated from it for an instant."
When, at half-past eight in the evening of March 13, men went through
the streets of Vienna, crying out "Metternich is fallen!" it seemed as
if the march of the students and the petition of Fischhof had produced
in one day all the results desired. But neither the suspicions of the
people, nor the violent intentions of the Princes, were at an end. The
Archdukes still talked of making Windischgrätz dictator of Vienna. The
workmen still raged in the suburbs; and the students refused to leave
the University, for fear an attack should be made upon it. But, in
spite of the violence of the workmen, the leaders of the richer
citizens were more and more determined to make common cause with the
reformers. Indeed, both they and the students hoped to check the
violence of the riots, while they prevented any reactionary movement.
The Emperor also was on the side of concession. He refused to let the
people be fired on, and announced, on the 14th, the liberties of the
Press. But unfortunately he was seized with one of his epileptic fits;
and the intriguers, who were already consolidating themselves into
the secret Council known as the Camarilla, published the news of
Windischgrätz's dictatorship, and resolved to place Vienna under a
state of siege while the Emperor was incapable of giving directions.
The news of Windischgrätz's accession to power so alarmed the people
that they at once decided to march upon the castle; but one of the
leading citizens, named Arthaber, persuaded them to abandon their
intention, and, instead, to send him and another friend to ask for a
Constitution from the Emperor. A struggle was evidently going on
between Ferdinand and his courtiers. Whenever he was strong and able
to hold his own, he was ready to make concessions. Whenever he was
either ill, or still suffering from the mental effects of his illness,
the Government fell into the hands of Windischgrätz and the Archdukes,
and violent measures were proposed.
Thus, though Arthaber and his friends were received courteously, and
assured of the Constitutional intentions of the Emperor, yet at eleven
o'clock on the same night there appeared a public notice declaring
Vienna in a state of siege. But even Windischgrätz seems to have been
somewhat frightened by the undaunted attitude of the people; and when
he found that his notice was torn down from the walls, and that a new
insurrection was about to break out, he sent for Professor Hye and
entreated him to preserve order. In the meantime the Emperor had, to
some extent, recovered his senses; and he speedily issued a promise to
summon the Estates of the German and Slavonic provinces and the
Congregations of Lombardo-Venetia. But the people had had enough of
sham Constitutions; and the Emperor's proclamation was torn down. This
act, however, did not imply any personal hostility to Ferdinand; for
the belief that the Austrian Ministers were thwarting the good
intentions of their master was as deeply rooted, at this time, in the
minds of the Viennese as was a similar belief with regard to Pius IX.
and his Cardinals in the minds of the Romans; and when the Emperor
drove out in public on the 15th of March, he was received with loud
cheers.
But, as Ferdinand listened to these cheers, he must have noticed that,
louder than the "Es lebe der Kaiser" of his German subjects and the
"Slawa" of the Bohemians, rose the sound of the Hungarian "Eljen." For
mingling in the crowd with the ordinary inhabitants of Vienna were the
Hungarian deputation who had at last been permitted by the Count
Palatine to leave Presburg, and who had arrived in Vienna to demand
both the freedoms which had been granted to the Germans and also a
separate responsible Ministry for Hungary. They arrived in the full
glory of recent successes in the Presburg Diet; for, strengthened by
the news of the Viennese rising, Kossuth had carried in one day many
of the reforms for which his party had so long been contending. The
last remnants of the dependent condition of the peasantry had been
swept away; taxation had been made universal; and freedom of the Press
and universal military service had been promised. Szechenyi alone had
ventured to raise a note of warning, and it had fallen unheeded. In
Vienna Kossuth was welcomed almost as cordially as in Presburg; for
the German movement in Vienna had tended to produce in its supporters
a willingness to lose the eastern half of the Empire in order to
obtain the union of the western half with Germany. So the notes of
Arndt's Deutsches Vaterland were mingled with the cry of "Batthyanyi
Lajos, Minister Präsident!" Before such a combination as this,
Ferdinand had no desire, Windischgrätz no power, to maintain an
obstinate resistance; and, on March 16, Sedlnitzky, the hated head of
the police, was dismissed from office. On the 18th a responsible
Ministry was appointed; and on the 22nd Windischgrätz himself
announced that national affairs would now be guided on the path of
progress.
In the meantime that German movement from which the Viennese derived
so much of their impulse had been gaining a new accession of force in
the North of Germany. In Berlin the order of the Viennese movements
had been to some extent reversed. There the artizans, instead of
taking their tone from the students, had given the first impulse to
reform. The King, indeed, had begun his concessions by granting
freedom of the Press on the 7th of March; but it seemed very unlikely
that this concession would be accompanied by any securities which
would make it a reality. The King even refused to fulfil his promise
of summoning the Assembly; and it was in consequence of this refusal
that the artizans presented to the Town Council of Berlin a petition
for the redress of their special grievances. The same kind of misery
which prevailed in Vienna had shown itself, though in less degree, in
Berlin; and committees had been formed for the relief of the poor. The
Town Council refused to present the petition of the workmen; and, in
order to take the movement out of their hands, presented a petition
of their own in favour of freedom of the Press, trial by jury,
representation of the German people in the Bundestag, and the
summoning of all the provincial Assemblies of the Kingdom. This
petition was rejected by the King; and thereupon, on March 13, the
people gathered in large numbers in the streets. General Pfuel fired
on them; but, instead of yielding, they threw up barricades, and a
fierce struggle ensued.
On the 14th the cry for complete freedom of the Press became louder and
more prominent; and the insurgents were encouraged by the first news of
the Vienna rising. The other parts of the Kingdom now joined in the
movement. On the 14th came deputations from the Rhine Province, who
demanded in a threatening manner the extension of popular liberties. On
the 16th came the more important news that Posen and Silesia were in
revolt. Mieroslawsky, who had been one of the leaders of the Polish
movement of 1846, had gained much popularity in Berlin; and he seemed
fully disposed to combine the movement for the independence of Posen
with that for the freedom of Prussia, much in the same way as Kossuth
had combined the cause of Hungarian liberty with the demand for an
Austrian Constitution. In Silesia, no doubt, the terrible famine of the
previous year, and the remains of feudal oppression, had sharpened the
desire for liberty; and closely following on the news of these two
revolts came clearer accounts of the Viennese rising and the happy
tidings of the fall of Metternich.
The King of Prussia promised, on the arrival of this news, to summon
the Assembly for April 2; and two days later he appeared on the
balcony of his palace and declared his desire to change Germany from
an Alliance of States into a Federal State. But the suspicions of the
people had now been thoroughly aroused; and on March 18, the very day
on which the King made this declaration, fresh deputations came to
demand liberties from him; and when he appealed to them to go home his
request was not complied with. The threatening attitude of the
soldiers, and the recollection of their violence on the preceding
days, had convinced the people that until part at least of the
military force was removed they could have no security for liberty.
The events of the day justified their belief; for, while someone was
reading aloud to the people the account of the concessions recently
made by the King, the soldiers suddenly fired upon them, and the crowd
fled in every direction. They fled, however, soon to rally again;
barricades were once more thrown up; the Poles of Posen flocked in to
help their friends, and the black, red, and gold flag of Germany was
displayed. Women joined the fight at the barricades; and, on the 19th,
some of the riflemen whom the King had brought from Neufchatel refused
to fire upon the people. Then the King suddenly yielded, dismissed his
Ministers, and promised to withdraw the troops and allow the arming of
the people. The victory of the popular cause seemed now complete; but
the bitterness which still remained in the hearts of the citizens was
shown by a public funeral procession through Berlin in honour of those
who had fallen in the struggle. The King stood bare-headed on the
balcony as the procession passed the palace; and on March 21 he came
forward in public, waving the black, red, and gold flag of Germany.
But while the movements for German freedom and unity were
strengthening the cause of the Viennese and destroying the hopes of
Metternich, two other movements for freedom, which might have helped
to produce a newer and freer life in Europe, were preparing the way,
against the wishes of their leaders, for that collision of interests
between the different races of Europe which was to be the chief cause
of the failure of the Revolution of 1848. Of these movements the one
least known and understood in England is that which took place in
Bohemia. In order to understand it we must recall some of the events
of earlier Bohemian history.
Bohemia, like Hungary, had, in the sixteenth century, freely elected
Ferdinand I. of Austria as her King. Nor had the Bohemians, at that
time, the slightest desire for closer union with any of those other
Kingdoms which happened to be under the rule of the same Prince; nay,
they would have avoided such union, even in matters where common
action seemed the natural result of common interests. Ferdinand I.,
indeed, and some of his successors, did undoubtedly desire a closer
bond between the different territories subject to the House of
Austria; but, during the sixteenth century, their efforts in this
direction were, in the main, defeated. The continual wars against the
Turks, indeed, did necessitate common military action; and, to that
extent, they paved the way for a closer union; but, in spite of this
ground for fellow feeling, no public recognition of any common bond
between Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary could be obtained at that period
from the Estates of Bohemia.
The seventeenth century, however, had produced a great change in the
relations between Bohemia and the House of Austria. The ill-fated and
ill-organized struggle for liberty and Protestantism, which was
crushed out in 1620 at the Battle of the White Hill, was followed by a
change in the objects aimed at by the House of Austria in their
government of Bohemia. Considering his military successes, it
must be admitted that Ferdinand II. was even generous in his action
towards Bohemia, so far as the forms of Constitutional Government
were concerned. For in 1623 he restored its old Constitution,
re-established its independent law-courts, and declared that he had
"no intention of destroying or diminishing the rights of our faithful
subjects of this Kingdom."
But, alongside of the restoration of Constitutional forms, there went
on an organized system of oppression by which Ferdinand II. was
endeavouring to crush out the Protestant faith and the Bohemian
language. While, on the one hand, the old Bohemian nobles were
banished or executed, the German Dominicans and members of other Roman
Catholic orders were at the same time destroying all the Bohemian
literature on which they could lay their hands; and some Bohemians
tried to save these relics of the past by carrying them to Stockholm,
where, it is said, the remains of their early literature can still be
found. Without any direct change in the law, German officials were
gradually introduced into the chief offices of State in Bohemia; and
German became the language of ordinary business relations. Thus, by a
natural process, the Bohemian language underwent the same change of
position which the English language experienced in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; that is, it ceased to be a literary language,
and became merely a popular dialect of peasants and workmen.
But Ferdinand II. soon found that he could not carry out completely
his purpose of Romanizing and Germanizing Bohemia without departing
from that Constitutional line which he had attempted to follow in
1623. He could not trust a Bohemian Assembly to carry out his plans;
and in 1627 he issued an ordinance which remained in force till 1848.
By this edict the King claimed the right to add to, alter, or improve
the Government of the country at his own pleasure. Yet even this he
claimed to do in virtue of a previously existing royal right; the
judges took advantage of this admission to interpret the new ordinance
in the light of Ferdinand's previous promises to respect the Bohemian
Constitution; and this interpretation was justified by the fact that
Ferdinand, in the very same year in which he issued the ordinance,
reiterated the Constitutional promises which he had made in 1623. The
explanation of this apparent contradiction is that Ferdinand II. cared
more for the unity of the Roman Catholic Church than for centralizing
the Government of the Austrian dominions; and the same might be said
of his successor, Ferdinand III. Nevertheless, from motives of
convenience, both these Princes resided very little in Prague and much
in Vienna; and thus those court officials who give the tone in these
matters to the Government gradually gathered together, rather in the
Archduchy of Austria than in the Kingdom of Bohemia; while the process
of centralization was still further encouraged by that denationalizing
movement which dated from the Battle of the White Hill.
With the growth of an alien aristocracy there naturally grew up that
union of class bitterness with race bitterness which intensifies both;
and the difference of faith between the conquerors and conquered added
another element of division. An attempt of the peasants to shake off
the yoke of their conquerors led to the destruction of privileges which
they had hitherto possessed; and thus the Estates of Bohemia became
even more aristocratic than those of the neighbouring countries. Under
such circumstances the gradual absorption of the Government of Bohemia
in that of the other lands of the House of Austria seemed the natural
consequence of the Austrian policy in the seventeenth century; and
Maria Theresa propounded a plan for a Central Assembly in which
Bohemia, Hungary, and Galicia were to share a common representation
with the Archduchy of Austria. These schemes, like all measures for
moderate unification in the Austrian dominions, received a fatal shock
from the impetuous policy of Joseph II. The claim to Germanize Bohemia
by force awoke in that country, as it had done in Hungary, a desire for
new national life and a zeal for the old national literature. The
opposition to Joseph did not, indeed, take so fierce a form in Bohemia
as it assumed in Hungary and the Netherlands; but it was strong enough
to induce Joseph's successor, Leopold II., to restore the old
Constitution of Bohemia.
In Bohemia, as in Hungary, the spirit of national independence had now
embodied itself in the desire to preserve and revive the national
language; and in 1809 a new impulse was given to this desire by the
discovery of a parchment which had been wrapped round the pillars of a
hall, and which was found to contain some old Bohemian poems. These
poems were believed to belong to the thirteenth or fourteenth century;
and the Bohemians held them to be superior to anything which had been
produced by the Germans at that period. As a matter of course, German
scholars at once came forward to try to disprove the authenticity of
these poems; and the fight raged hotly. The expulsion of the Bohemian
language from its literary position seemed to many to have deprived
this struggle of any living interest. But writers were arising who
were determined to show that that language could still be made a
vehicle of literary expression; and they even hoped to make it the
centre of a Slavonic movement. For the Bohemian language had a kind of
offshoot in the North of Hungary among the race of the Slovaks; and the
interest which the poet Kollar and the philologer Szaffarik were
stirring up in the Slovak dialect was adding new force to the Bohemian
movement. The historian Palacky increased the effect which was produced
by these writers; and, what is more remarkable, men whose names showed
an evidently German origin became fascinated by this new movement.
Count Leo Thun entered into a controversy with Pulszky about the worth
of the Slavonic languages; and one may still see in Prague the statue
of Joseph Jungmann, who was one of the first founders of unions for
reviving the national language. A struggle of the Bohemian Estates in
1837 to maintain their control over taxation was sufficient, though
unsuccessful, to increase considerably the interest felt by their
nation in their political life. And thus it came to pass that, when, in
March, 1848, the news of the French Revolution came to Prague, it found
the Bohemians ready for the emergency.
A young man named Gabler, who had been in Paris in 1846, was requested
by some friends who were gathered in a café to read the account of the
French rising and explain its details. On the following day more
people came to the café to hear the news; discussion began, and
suggestions were made as to the best way of adapting the French
movement to the needs of Bohemia. German was still the language of
intercourse between educated people in Prague; and the discussions
were at first carried on in that language. But among those who came to
the meetings was a publican named Peter Faster; and, while the
discussion on various questions of reform was going on, Faster broke
out suddenly into a speech in Bohemian. Instantly, the whole assembly
joined in the national cry of "Slawa." Other speeches followed in the
same language; the fashion quickly spread; and soon all adherents of
the new movement began speaking the national language. A committee was
now formed for the preparation of a petition; and a unanimous summons
was circulated, calling on the Bohemians to meet at the Wenzel's-bad
on March 11.
This bath-house stands in a garden at some little distance from the
main streets of Prague, and it was overlooked by barracks. One picquet
of cavalry was seen in the streets, the rest remained in the barracks.
Slowly the streets near the bath-house filled; at about half-past
seven the doors opened; and half an hour later appeared Peter Faster,
a lawyer named Trojan, and others. They announced that they had called
the meeting for the purpose of proposing a petition to the Emperor.
The petition[10] was adopted with little trouble, and a committee of
twenty-five was appointed to present it. The petition was as follows:
"A great event in the West of Europe is shedding its light, like a
threatening meteor, over to us. It has scarcely begun; but this great
movement which we guessed afar off is carrying away Germany's allied
States with it. There is much excitement near the frontiers of
Austria; but Your Majesty and the allied Princes have controlled the
movement, while you have magnanimously placed yourselves at the head
of it, to warn it from a dangerous abyss and from bad ways. The time
has become new and different; it has brought the people nearer the
Princes, and lays on the people the duty of rallying round their
Princes, offering confidence and entreating for confidence in the days
of danger.
"Prague's faithful people, touched by the universal movement, ruled by
the impulse to go before the monarchy in loyalty and truth, lays at
the feet of Your Majesty its most heartfelt thanks for being allowed
to speak from their full heart to their beloved King and Master. May
their words find echo and just appreciation. Our confidence in God and
our conscience leads us to hope that it will.
"New and unwonted is the benevolence of this high permission; if we
are less choice in our words and expressions, if we seem immodest in
the extent of our petitions, our King's fatherly consideration will
graciously put a right construction on our acts. Two different
national elements inhabit this happy Kingdom, this pearl in your
Majesty's illustrious imperial crown. One of them, the original one,
which has the nearest right to its land and King, has hitherto
been hindered in its progress towards culture and equal rights by
institutions, which, without being hostile or denationalizing, yet
naturally involve a partial wiping out of original national feeling as
the condition of obtaining recognition as citizens.
"The free development of both nations, the German and Bohemian,
which are united by fate, and both of which inhabit Bohemia, and a
similar striving after the objects of a higher culture, will, by
strengthening, reconciling, and uniting them in brotherhood, lay the
foundation of the welfare of both nations.
"Bohemia has not yet reached that high position which it ought to have
attained, in order to meet forcibly the serious events which are
developing themselves; and this failure arises from the superiority
which has hitherto been granted to the German element in legal and
administrative arrangements. It is not mere toleration, it is the
equalizing of the two nationalities by legal guarantees which can and
will bind both nations to the throne.
"But the guarantees for this excellent and sacred result, so much to
be desired by every patriot, whether German or Bohemian, do not
consist in the cultivation of language only. It consists in the
essential alterations of the institutions, which have hitherto
existed, in the removal of the barriers which hinder intercourse
between Prince and People, and at the same time in universal,
benevolently guarded, popular instruction by school and writing."
After more to the same effect, and after dwelling at some length on
the need of publicity in national affairs, the petitioners formulate
their demands in eleven points. The first and second of these
are concerned with the equalization of the races and with the
Constitutional development hinted at in the previous petition; but
they also include a proposal for the restoration of the union between
Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, to be effected by an annual meeting in
common of the Estates of the three provinces. The third is concerned
with communal freedom and the condition of the peasantry. The fourth,
fifth, sixth, and seventh relate to those ordinary securities for
civil and religious freedom which were being demanded at this time by
all the nations of Europe. The eighth clause of the petition demands
"the appointment to offices of men who know completely and equally
both the languages of the country." The ninth is concerned with
the popularization of the military service. The tenth with the
redistribution of taxation, especially the abolition of taxes
on articles of consumption; while the eleventh deals with the
equalization of education between German and Bohemian, and the freedom
of teaching at the universities.
The gathering at this first meeting was rather small; but the news of
the movement rapidly spread. On the 12th a meeting of the Town
Councillors was held in the Rath Haus; and, on the 15th, the students
met to draw up a petition of their own. They had soon caught the
excitement of the time; and had been stirred up by a German-Bohemian
named Uffo Horn to take separate action. Guided and restrained by
Gabler, they consented to help in preserving order, and embodied their
petition in eight clauses. In these they not only demanded the
ordinary liberties of teaching for which other universities were
contending, but also pleaded for the right to full instruction both in
Bohemian and German; for the power to visit foreign universities; for
the development of physical education, and for the right to form
unions among the students, after the fashion of those recently
sanctioned by a statute of the Munich University. It is worth noting
that they also demanded that the test of fitness for State service
should be made severer.
The news of the rising in Vienna came to encourage and strengthen the
Bohemian movement; and on March 18 the students of Prague sent a
letter of exulting congratulation to the students of Vienna on their
services to the cause of freedom. But the Bohemian movement was not
yet to be turned out of that quiet course which distinguished it among
the Revolutions of the period; and on Sunday, March 19, the deputation
that was to bear the wishes of the Bohemians to the Emperor met in the
streets of Prague to hear a silent mass before starting for Vienna.
Prague, like Vienna, has been so much altered in recent years that it
is difficult to realize the exact scene of this event. At the top of
the long avenue which now ornaments the Wenzelsplatz there was, in
1848, a large gate called the Rossthor; and this was closed on March
19 so that no traffic should disturb the service. Within the gates
stood a statue of St. Wenzel; and round this the deputation gathered,
wearing scarves of the Bohemian colours, white and red, edged with the
Austrian black and yellow, to show their zeal for the unity of the
Empire. Outside the group formed by the members of the deputation
stood the newly-formed students' legion and some others of the
National Guard. The Archbishop took the leading part in the mass; but,
after it was over, the Bishop of Prague gave out a Bohemian hymn,
which was heartily joined in by the people. To impress the citizens
still further with the solemnity of the occasion, Faster and Trojan
had issued an address, declaring that the deputation left their
families and property under the protection of the citizens of Prague;
and, on the other hand, a committee chosen by the citizens appealed to
the deputation to impress upon the Emperor the danger of delays and
unfulfilled promises, and expressed a desire for a closer union
between the Peoples of the Austrian Empire.
When the ceremonies were over, the deputation started, led by Faster
and Trojan. Faster took charge of the petition from the citizens of
Prague; Trojan carried the petitions from the provincial towns of
Bohemia; while a chosen band of the students were to present the
University petition. The people who were gathered at the station
joined in Bohemian songs; and the ladies showered flowers and ribbons
as the train moved off. After the departure of the deputation, the
citizens' committee set themselves to check any violent movement among
the workmen, by making special arrangement for providing work for the
resident workmen in Prague. Soon came the news that the deputation had
been warmly welcomed in Vienna. A great part of the National Guard had
turned out to greet them; the Emperor had addressed them in Bohemian;
and Count Kolowrat had said that, though he was seventy-one years old,
and had served the State for fifty years, yet his last days were the
happiest, because he could now advise according to his heart.
In striking contrast to this, the most peaceable of all the March
risings, was the movement which was going on at the same time in
Lombardy. It seemed, indeed, as if the Austrian Government were
determined to drive the Lombards into violent action. In Vienna
Metternich was at least talking about extending the power of
the Estates; in Hungary Kossuth was able to speak freely in the
Presburg Diet; in Bohemia the Government seemed to drop into the
hands of the people almost without an effort; but in Lombardy the
savage proclamation of February had been followed on March 2 by an
announcement from Spaur that the people must abandon all hope of any
reform in the organic institutions of Lombardy which could imply a
relaxation of the union with other parts of the Monarchy; and so
rigorously were the repressive laws carried out that on March 11 there
were 700 political prisoners in Milan.
Yet, in spite of this tremendous rigour, there were still signs of the
irrepressible aspirations of the Lombards. On March 10, a feast was
held in Brescia in honour of the proclamation of the French Republic;
and the Italian soldiers quartered in that town showed sympathy
with this demonstration. Even during the actual rising at Vienna,
Metternich still showed his determination to hold down Lombardy by
force; he suddenly recalled Spaur and Ficquelmont from Milan, and sent
Count O'Donnell, a man of fiercer type, to take the place of Spaur.
Even Metternich's idea of Lombard reform was not changed by the rising
in Vienna; for on March 16 there appeared in Milan a proclamation
which must either have been prepared by Metternich just before his
fall, or adopted by the Camarilla directly after it; and in this the
Lombards were offered exactly the same programme of reform which had
been proposed to them in January.
But in the meantime the people were not idle. The Italians in Vienna
managed to keep up a secret correspondence with their countrymen in
Lombardy, and to warn them that new troops might be sent against them;
while the Milanese managed to circulate secret proclamations which
stirred the hopes of their fellow Lombards. On the 16th or 17th of
March one of these proclamations appeared, containing a final protest
against all the tyrannies exercised by Austria in Lombardy since 1815,
down to the massacres of 1848. The composers of the proclamation
concluded by finally declaring their resolution "to feel as Italians,
to think as Italians, to will once for all to be Italians; to resolve
to break once and for all the infamous treaty that has sold our
liberties without our consent; to exercise our rights as men, our
revenge as Italians." Thus, by some mysterious freemasonry, the
champions of liberty in Milan had gradually been drawn together and
prepared for action; and when on the 17th of March the news arrived
that the Viennese insurrection had succeeded, that liberty of the Press
had been granted, and that the Congregations of Lombardy as well as the
estates of the other parts of the Empire were to be called together,
the news gave the signal for insurrection. The Congregations which, up
to the time of Nazari's speech, had been so silent and helpless, and
whose uselessness had been further proved by the failure of that very
protest, could not be accepted as the representatives of national life;
and the suggestion of freedom of the Press while Radetzky remained in
Milan could only supply a subject for a caricature.
The leading spirit in the Milanese movement, so far as it is possible
to single out any individual, was Augusto Anfossi. He had been born
in Nice and educated by the Jesuits. That education, in this as in so
many other cases, had produced the most violent reaction; and
Anfossi's first claim to distinction was a bitter attack on his former
teachers. In consequence of this, he had been compelled to fly to
France; and he had served for a time in the French Army; but his hopes
had been raised by the accession of Charles Albert; and he had
returned to Piedmont to experience the disappointment shared by the
other Liberals of that period. The punishments which followed the
risings of 1831 had driven him again into exile; and he had then
joined in the rising of the Egyptians against the Turks. But the
movements of 1848 once more called his attention to Piedmont; and he
now hastened to Milan and drew up a proclamation which was adopted and
issued by the leaders of the insurrection. How little these leaders
could have foreseen the actual result of the struggle may be gathered
from the contents of the proclamation; for, eloquent and enthusiastic
as are its opening words, its demands fall far short of the claim for
that complete independence which the Lombards were for a time to
achieve; while so little did the Milanese recognize the determined
savagery of their opponents that the seventh demand made in this
proclamation was that "neutral relations should be established with
the Austrian troops, while we guarantee to them respect and the
means of subsistence." But the only really important point in the
proclamation was its final summons to the people to meet at three p.m.
the next day in the Corsia dei Servi; and this appeal roused not
merely the hopes, but the impatience of the people.
Three hours before the time appointed, while Casati and the Municipal
Council were deliberating in the Broletto, or town-hall, they heard
loud shouts in the streets of "Death to the Germans!" and "Long live
Italy!" Then a crowd bearing sticks covered with the Italian colours
entered the Broletto, and required that Casati and the leading
Councillors should come with them at once to O'Donnell, to demand the
establishment of a Civic Guard, and the placing of the police under
the municipal authorities. Cesare Correnti, one of the Council, urged
the leaders of the movement to trust to the municipality; but Enrico
Cernuschi, one of the organizers of the movement, refused to yield to
this suggestion; and a man named Beretta seized Casati by the arm to
lead him to the Governor. O'Donnell was startled at this sudden
demonstration: and Casati, on his part, was equally astonished at the
position into which he had been forced. He shook hands with O'Donnell
and encouraged him to look on him as a friend; and it was, perhaps, in
reliance on this help that O'Donnell ventured at first to refuse the
proposals to subject the police to the Municipal Council and to
surrender their arms to the Civic Guard. Cernuschi, however, insisted
that O'Donnell should not only yield these points, but that he should
sign his name to his concessions. O'Donnell, in terror, consented; and
then Casati desired to send a messenger to Torresani, the head of the
police, to secure his approval of the concessions. But the movement
had gone far beyond Casati's control; and, while his messenger was
hastening to put the matter before Torresani in proper diplomatic
form, Cernuschi and his friends had rushed to an armourer's shop to
avail themselves of their new privilege.
But, as they still wished to place the Municipal Council, as far as
possible, at the head of their movement, they carried their arms to the
Broletto, where they demanded to be enrolled in the new Civic Guard. In
the meantime, Torresani had refused to act without Radetzky's
authority, and Radetzky was furious at the news of O'Donnell's
concessions. Hearing that one of his officers, who was ill in bed, had
offered to give his sanction to these concessions, the savage General
threatened to have him dragged from his bed and shot, if he did not at
once recall the order; and troops were despatched to the Broletto to
suppress the movement. Casati, indeed, had fled from the scene of
action, and taken refuge in a private house; but the people, who had
brought the arms to the Broletto, closed the gates against Radetzky's
force; and, though they had only fifty guns with them, they prepared to
defy the Austrian cannon, backed by more than 2,000 soldiers. The
proposal to capitulate was rejected with scorn; and, from seven to nine
p.m., this little band, many of them boys, defended the Municipal
Council Hall. But it was impossible to conquer against such odds; and
at last the Austrian soldiers broke in, attacked all whom they found
there, whether armed or unarmed; hurled down into the streets some boys
whom they found on the roofs, hung one little child, and marched off
the rest of their prisoners to the castle, to be tortured by Radetzky.
But, as they were actually on their way to the castle, the victorious
soldiers met some of their comrades who were flying before the
citizens. Augusto Anfossi had been, in the meantime, reducing into
order the gallant, but undisciplined defenders of their country; and,
before the morning of the 19th, stones and wood had been put together
and fastened with iron; and thus secure barricades had risen in many
of the streets. Amongst other interesting materials for the barricades
may be mentioned O'Donnell's carriage, which had been seized for this
purpose. Radetzky, startled at the vigour of the opposition, wrote to
Ficquelmont that "the nature of this people is changed as if by magic;
fanaticism has infected every age, every class, and both sexes." In
his alarm he offered to grant the demand which had been made in the
morning, that the police should be placed under the command of the
Municipal Council. Casati would, even then, have accepted this as a
settlement of the struggle; but he was now quite powerless. For, while
he was signing decrees, and appointing as head of the police a man who
was still prisoner to the Austrians, the bells throughout Milan were
ringing for a storm.
At no stage of the struggle were there greater efforts of heroism than
on this 19th of March. At the bridge of San Damiano two men held at
bay a whole corps of Austrians; not far from the Porta Romana another
champion carried off some youthful scholars, one after another, on his
shoulders, in the face of a body of Croats. Guns were often wanting,
but the insurgents used swords and sticks instead. The Tyrolese fired
from the tower of the cathedral upon the people, and the cannons from
the Piazza Mercante played upon them; but three cannoneers were
killed, and at last the cannon were captured by the Milanese. The 19th
of March was a Sunday; and, as the congregation came out from mass in
the church of San Simpliciano, they were attacked by the Austrians and
driven back into the church. Food was brought them from neighbouring
houses; and they retained their position till four o'clock in the
afternoon, when they succeeded in making their escape. Nor were there
wanting touches of the Milanese humour to relieve the terrors of the
fight; boys sometimes exhibiting a cat, sometimes a broomstick with a
cap on it, as a mark for the Austrians to fire at. But the fiercest
fight raged at the Porta Nuova, on the south side of the town, where
Augusto Anfossi commanded in person. There a band of Austrian
grenadiers brought their cannon to bear on the defenders of the city;
and Anfossi had a long and fierce struggle before he could drive them
back. At last, however, he made his way to the gate; and, lifting on
high the Italian flag, he kissed it, and planted it on the arch of the
gateway.
On the 20th the Austrians began to show signs of giving way. The
Tyrolese fled down the giddy staircases of the Cathedral tower and
escaped through secret passages; and the family of Torresani fell into
the hands of the insurgents. But the Milanese, though they had seen
their children spitted on the bayonets of the soldiers, their women
insulted, and the prisoners tortured by Radetzky, were ready to take
charge of the family of one of their worst tyrants, and to protect
them from violence. Even the brutal Bolza, when he became a prisoner
in their hands, was carefully guarded from ill-treatment; and he is
said to have been so much impressed by this unexpected magnanimity
that he died penitent. Again offers of compromise were made by the
Austrians, and a truce of fifteen days was proposed till the officers
could hear from Vienna. Again Casati hesitated; but again his
hesitation had no effect on the struggle.
On the 21st the Genio Militare, one of the chief barracks of the city,
was attacked by the insurgents. The struggle was continued for some
time with great fierceness on either side; but at last a cripple,
named Pasquale Sottocorni, came halting up on his crutch and set fire
to the gate; then the defenders, unable to hold out any longer,
surrendered to the people. This day was also memorable for the capture
of Radetzky's palace, and in it of the wonderful sword with which he
had threatened to exterminate the Milanese.
In the meantime the other towns of Lombardy had been hastening to send
help to their capital. At Como, immediately on the arrival of the news
of the Viennese success, bands had collected with lighted torches,
crying, "Long live Italy! Long live independence!" The guards were
redoubled, but refused to act. The people surrounded the Town Council
House, demanding a Civic Guard, which was quickly granted; in a short
time Como was free, and the soldiers of Como were on their march to
Milan. It was on March 18 that the news of the Milanese rising reached
Bergamo; and the people at once rose, crying, "Long live Milan!" and
"Death to the Germans!" The Archduke Sigismund, who was in the town,
was compelled by the people to hold back his troops, while a Capuchin
monk led the citizens to Milan. In Brescia the rising seems to have
been almost simultaneous with that of Milan. The first attack was made
on the Jesuits; but religious hostility was quickly merged in a desire
for national independence, and the cry soon rose for a civic guard.
Prince Schwarzenberg, who was in command of the terrible fortress
which frowns upon Brescia, hoped easily to overawe the city. But the
people gathered in the Piazza Vecchia, and after a fierce struggle,
drove back the soldiers. Schwarzenberg was compelled to yield to the
demands of the people; the municipal authorities in vain endeavoured
to hinder the movement; and in a short time many of the Brescians had
united with the country folk of the neighbouring district and were
marching to Milan. At Cremona about 4,000 soldiers had laid down their
arms before the citizens had attacked them.
In the meantime Augusto Anfossi had been dangerously wounded, and was
obliged to abandon the defence; but his place was taken by Luciano
Manara, a youth of twenty-four, who led the attack on the Porta Tosa,
on the east side of Milan. Arms had now been freely distributed
among the insurgents, and a professor of mathematics from Pavia
superintended the fortifications and assisted Manara in the attack.
For five hours the assault continued, Manara rushing forward at the
head of his forces and effecting wonders with his own hand. Recruits
from the country districts co-operated from outside the city with the
Milanese insurgents within. At last the gate was set on fire, the
position was captured, and the name of Porta Tosa was soon afterwards
changed to that of Porta Vittoria. The Austrian soldiers had now
become heartily tired of the struggle. Radetzky had arranged his
troops in so careless a manner that he was unable to supply them
properly with food, and sixty Croats surrendered from hunger. Radetzky
was now convinced of the uselessness of continuing the struggle; and,
though he had just before been threatening to bombard the city, he now
decided to abandon it. So, on the evening of the 22nd of March, the
glorious Five Days of Milan were brought to an end by the retreat of
the Austrians from the city.
This rising had for the time being freed the greater part of Lombardy;
but there was yet another Italian city under the Austrian rule, which
was achieving its own independence in a somewhat different way. The
risings in Vienna, Berlin, Prague, and Milan, though they produced
many acts of heroism, and some of wise forethought, did not call to
the front any man of first-rate political capacity, nor could they be
said to centre in any one commanding figure. In Venice, on the other
hand, the movement centred from first to last in one man. The
imprisonment of Daniel Manin had been the point of interest to
Venetians, the typical instance of their grievances; and more than one
circumstance tended to strengthen this feeling. Manin's sister had
died from the shock of hearing of her brother's arrest; and his wife
had organized a petition for his release which had been signed by the
Podestà of Venice and ninety-nine other persons of well-known
character. His own legal ability had enabled Manin to dwell more
forcibly on the points of illegality in his arrest. But when he and
his friends urged his claim to be either tried or set free, the
authorities pleaded that they could not release him until they heard
from Vienna. This answer must have tended still more to mark him out
as a victim of that centralizing force which was endeavouring to crush
out Italian feeling; while the fact of his descent from the last Doge
of Venice added a touch of historic sentiment to the other points of
interest in his case. Manin's arrest had been quickly followed by that
of Tommaseo, and in any talk among the patriots of Venice the
discussion of these arrests was sure to arise.
In Venice, too, the same kinds of demonstrations of popular feeling
took place during January and February which had shown themselves in
Milan. Whenever German music was performed in public all the Italians
left the place. Men went about in black gloves; women refused to
appear in gala costume at public ceremonies; and even those who went
to the theatre attended there not so much for the sake of the
performance as to applaud passages about a betrayed country, or to get
up cheers for the Neapolitan Constitution.
Such was the state of feeling when, on March 16, a boat arrived from
Trieste, bringing news from Vienna. The chief informant brought
with him the fragments of a portrait of Metternich which had been
torn to pieces as a symbol of his fall. Then the Venetians rose and
demanded the release of Manin and Tommaseo. The Governor referred the
petitioners to the criminal court; but the crowd resolved to take
matters into their own hands, and broke into the prison to rescue the
two leaders. Manin, however, refused to leave the prison until the
president of the tribunal had signed the order for his release. The
president readily complied with this request; and Manin and Tommaseo
were carried home on the shoulders of the people. The Venetians then
proceeded to attack the fortress; the Croat soldiers rushed out to
repel them, and succeeded in driving them back. But the next day there
was a new gathering in the streets. Palffy, the Military Governor of
Venice, appealed to Manin to preserve order; but Manin replied that he
could only do so if a civic guard were granted, and if the soldiers
were recalled to their barracks. The head of the police remonstrated
against the proposal for the Civic Guard, and asked that it should, at
any rate, be placed under his authority. Thereupon Manin seized his gun
and said that if the police interfered with the Civic Guard he would
himself head a revolt. Palffy was a Hungarian, and so was Zichy, the
Civil Governor of Venice; and neither of them were disposed to push
matters to extremities. Although, therefore, Palffy was at first
inclined to make difficulties, and to appeal to the Governor of
Lombardy for orders, he yielded at last, and the municipal authorities
began to organize the Civic Guard.
But the fears of the Venetians were not yet over. Marinovich, the
Governor of the Castle, was a hard man, who had irritated the workmen
of the arsenal against him; and the authorities had persuaded him to
resign his command and to leave Venice. But, on March 22, while Manin
and his friends were deliberating on the next step to be taken, a
messenger came to announce to them that Marinovich had suddenly
returned to the arsenal, and had there been attacked and killed by the
workmen. Thereupon Manin at once decided that the Civic Guard should
be sent to seize the arsenal. The Admiral Martini tried to offer
opposition; but Manin succeeded in entering with some of the guard,
and then rang the workmen's bell and demanded arms for the workmen of
the arsenal. It was well for the Venetians at this time that there was
so great a hostility between Magyars and Croats. On a previous day,
the Croats had desired to fire on the unarmed crowd; but a Hungarian
officer, named Winckler, had thrown himself in their way, and had
declared that they should fire first at him. When the news came of
Marinovich's death, Zichy proposed that the Croats should act with
the Civic Guard; but the Croat soldiers refused, desiring instead to
bombard the town. This latter proposition, however, was defeated, not
only by the Hungarian officers, but by many of the soldiers; for the
garrison contained many Italians, who seized this opportunity for
joining the cause of their countrymen. During the confusion that arose
from this division of opinion, the head of the Civic Guard went to
Palffy to demand that the defence of the town should be placed in the
hands of the citizens. Palffy hesitated; but, in the meantime, Manin
was proclaiming the Venetian Republic in the Piazza of San Marco.
Palffy consented to resign his authority to Zichy, and by 6.30 p.m.
Zichy had signed the evacuation of Venice by the Austrian troops.
Palffy now desired to leave Venice as soon as possible. The chief of
the Civic Guard tried to prevent his escape; but Manin trusted to
Palffy's honour, and allowed him and some of his followers to depart
in a steamer which was to stop at Pola with despatches, ordering the
recall of the Venetian fleet which was stationed there. But no sooner
was Palffy safely out of Venice than he compelled the captain to
change his course, to sail to Trieste, and to surrender to the
Austrian authorities. Of course, Manin had made a mistake in trusting
so implicitly to the honour of an enemy. Perhaps we should thank God
that there are people who are capable of those mistakes. Manin,
at least, does not seem to have changed his line of conduct in
consequence; for when, a few days later, a steamer full of Austrian
private citizens came near Venice, and the Venetians wished to go out
to attack them, Manin prevented them from doing so, saying, "Let us
leave such conduct to Metternich."
Thus, then, in this wonderful month of March, 1848, the whole system
of Metternich had crumbled to the ground. The German national feeling,
which he had hoped to crush out, was steadily ripening and embodying
itself in a definite shape. The feeling for that "Geographical
Expression" Italy had proved strong enough to drive Radetzky from
Milan and Palffy from Venice. The rivalry between the Bohemians and
Germans of the Austrian Empire seemed, for the moment, to have been
merged in a common desire for liberty; and the Hungarian opposition,
which Metternich had hoped to manipulate, had shaken him from power
and from office, and had secured liberty to Vienna and practical
independence to Hungary. Of the terrible divisions and rivalries which
were to undermine the new fabric of liberty, the story will have to be
told in the succeeding chapters. But the vigour, heroism, and
self-sacrifice which had been brought to light in this early part of
the movement will always make the March Risings of 1848 memorable in
the history of Europe.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The word "Anschluss" seems hardly to imply so complete a union as
was afterwards aimed at by the German party in Vienna.
[10] This petition must be given at length in order that students of
the Revolution may realize the peculiar character of the Bohemian
movement, since this is the only one of the March risings in which the
claim of an oppressed people to live in peaceable equality beside
their former oppressors was, for the time, successfully established.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE STRUGGLE OF THE RACES--APRIL TO JUNE, 1848.
Apparent unanimity between races of Austrian Empire in the March
risings.--Unreality of this appearance.--Local aspirations.--The
Serbs of Buda-Pesth.--The Magyar politics in Pesth.--The first
Hungarian Ministry.--Szemere's Press Law and its failure.--The
answer of the Ministry to the Serb petition.--Position and History
of the Serbs in Hungary.--Treatment by Magyars and Austrian
Kings.--Growth of Serb literature.--The deputations from Neusatz
and Carlowitz.--Velika-Kikinda.--Position and character of
Rajaciç.--Of Stratimiroviç.--The summoning of the Serb
Assembly.--Croatian movement revived.--The Croats and the "twelve
points."--Joseph Jellaciç.--Pillersdorf and the Bohemian
deputation.--The meeting at the Sophien-Insel.--The second
petition.--The Germans of Bohemia and Moravia.--Opening of the
Vor-Parlament at Frankfort.--Blum's influence.--Struve's proposals
and their effect.--The Slavonic question at Frankfort.--The Polish
phase of it.--The Bohemian question evaded by the
Vor-Parlament.--The Committee of Fifty and Palacky.--The discussion
between the National Committees in Prague.--Schilling's
insults.--The appeal to the Austrian Government and its
failure.--The summons of the Slavonic Congress.--The difficulties
in Vienna.--The April Constitution.--The Galician movement.--The
rising of May 15 and the flight of the Emperor.--Effect of the May
movement on Bohemian feeling--on Hungarian feeling.--The Serb
meeting of May 13.--The Roumanian meeting of May 15.--The Saxon
opposition to the Union.--The alliance between the Magyars and the
Szekler.--The fall of Transylvanian independence.--The first
collision with the Roumanians.--Their position, and character of
their rising.--Alliance between Croats and Serbs.--The attack on
Carlowitz of June 11.--The Slavonic Congress at Prague.--The
difficulties in Prague.--Windischgrätz and the Town Council.--The
quarrel between the students of Prague and the students of
Vienna.--The Slavonic petition.--The rising of June 12.--The fall
of Prague and its consequences.
Few points were more remarkable in the March Risings of 1848 than the
apparent reconciliation between those champions of freedom who had
been separated from each other by antagonism of race. Gaj and his
friends had hastened to Vienna to join in the general congratulations
to that city on its newly won freedom. The Slavonic students of Prague
had been equally sympathetic; and members of the different races of
Hungary had expressed their satisfaction in the successes of Kossuth.
But this sudden union was necessarily short-lived; for it sprang from
a hope which could not be realized; the hope, namely, that the Germans
and Magyars would join in extending to each of the Slavonic races of
the Empire those separate national freedoms which those two great
ruling races had secured for themselves. Thus proposals soon began to
be made for the formation of a district which was to be called
Slovenia, after the Slovenes who inhabited the province of Krain, and
other south-western provinces of the Austrian Empire. At the same
time, the Slovaks of North Hungary desired to be formed into a
separate province, in which they could freely use the Slovak language
and profess the Lutheran creed, undisturbed by Magyar language or
Magyar Calvinism. Lastly, on March 15, Ivan Kukuljeviç, who, next to
Gaj, was the most distinguished of the Croatian patriots, carried, in
the Agram Assembly, an address to the Emperor, asking him to summon
the old parliament of the three kingdoms of Croatia, Slavonia, and
Dalmatia. But, though all these demands contained within them the
seeds of future quarrels, the first actual outbreak was not to come
either from Slovenes, Slovaks, or Croats. The first token of the "rift
within the lute," which, if it could not "make the music" of Liberty
"mute," would at least weaken its sound and introduce discord into its
harmony, showed itself in connexion with a branch of the Slavonic race
to which little allusion has yet been made.
Those who have visited Buda-Pesth will remember how, when they had left
the modern magnificence of Pesth and crossed the suspension-bridge which
joins it with Buda, they have come to a pause at the foot of the steep
rock which confronts them. Then, if, instead of ascending to the
fortress of Buda, they turned southwards along the shores of the Danube,
in a short time they would have found themselves in a district in
complete contrast with the rest of the capital, where an air of poverty,
hardly found elsewhere in the town, is combined with an originality and
picturesqueness of decoration which is neither German nor Magyar. Little
cottages, coloured yellow, blue, or white, are built up against the rock
in all kinds of irregular ways; in some places the rooms are below the
street, and the gay appearance is increased by signs outside the shops,
showing what articles can be procured there. The bright handkerchiefs on
the heads of the women, and the gay colours worn by both sexes, give a
somewhat Eastern aspect to the streets and market-place. Such is the
Raitzenstadt, the quarter of the Serbs, long looked down upon by their
Magyar countrymen. There, on March 17, the representatives of about a
hundred districts of the neighbourhood gathered to prepare a petition
for leave to use their national language in national affairs. This
roused the fierce opposition of the Magyar youth of Pesth; and the
Committee of Safety which had just been formed found itself unable to
protect the Serbs from violence. If, indeed, the spirit of Kossuth's
speech of March 3 had been still triumphant, compromises might have been
found which would have hindered the claims of the Serbs from provoking
actual war. But the sudden outburst of statesmanlike feeling which
produced that speech was not of long duration; and, even if Kossuth had
desired to conciliate the subject-races of Hungary, there were those at
his back who would never have consented to such tolerance.
The fiery youth of Pesth supplied an element to the Magyar revolution
very different from that which generally found expression in the Diet
at Presburg; and this element had been so necessary to Kossuth's
purposes that it was impossible to disregard its influence. Three days
before the Serb meeting a great gathering had been held in a café at
Pesth, which had been followed on the 15th by a march of the Hungarian
students, headed by the poet Petöfy, to the Town Council, to demand
the concession of twelve points. Some of these points were being
secured on that very day by the deputation which had gone to Vienna;
others were already conceded in principle by the Diet at Presburg; one
of them, the proposal for the union of Transylvania with Hungary, was
to be the seed of future mischief, but was, at present, acceptable to
all parties of the Magyars. It was not so much, then, by political
theories that the youth of Pesth were distinguished from the quieter
spirits of Presburg; it was rather the fiery manner in which they made
their demands, and the dogmatic intolerance with which they insisted
on particular formulas.
Moreover, the Presburg policy, if one may so call it, was weakened in
its effect by that attempt to reconcile hopeless opposites which is
the great difficulty of all moderate parties. Count Louis Batthyanyi,
when he was appointed as the first responsible Minister of Hungary,
thought himself bound to form his Ministry, so far as possible, by a
combination of the different representatives of the rival parties; and
he not only hoped to find a basis for common action between the
growing Conservatism of Szechenyi and the growing Radicalism of
Kossuth, but he even gave a place in his Ministry to Count Esterhazy,
who sympathized to some extent with the Camarilla at Vienna. Baron
Eötvös, who had been the champion of centralization when Kossuth was
arguing for County Government, was also a member of this Ministry;
while Meszaros, the War Minister, might be supposed to combine
opposite principles in his own person; for, while he had contributed
to Kossuth's paper, the "Pesti Hirlap," his last public action had
been to serve under Radetzky in his attempt to suppress the liberties
of Milan. Batthyanyi, indeed, hoped that, by introducing Deak into the
Ministry, he should secure an influence which should reconcile these
various incongruous elements; but such a task was beyond even Deak's
powers. By his honourable abstention from the Diet of 1843, he had
deprived himself of his former influence; and, though he accepted the
place offered him by Batthyanyi, and honestly tried to work with his
different colleagues, yet, as the movement became more and more
revolutionary, he fell further into the background.
The weakness of this Coalition Ministry was first brought into
prominence by Bartholomaus Szemere, a cold, hard man, who had had
little previous influence on politics. He was appointed to draw up the
new regulations with regard to freedom of the Press; and produced a
law which was of so reactionary a character that the students of the
Pesth University burnt it publicly in front of the Town Hall, and sent
a deputation to the Diet to entreat them to repeal the law and to
change the seat of government to Pesth. Batthyanyi consented to the
repeal of the law; but rejected, for a time, the other proposal of the
students; and the Ministry remained at Presburg, weakened by the sense
that the strongest element of Magyar feeling was centred in Kossuth
and the Pesth party, and that this feeling would eventually overpower
the more moderate patriots. Under these circumstances it was natural
that the weak Ministry at Presburg should sacrifice to their fiery
opponents the claims of those races with which neither party had any
deep sympathy; and when, on March 24, the Serb petition came before
the Ministry, they answered that the Hungarians would not endure that
any nationality except the Hungarian should exist in Hungary.
But the Serbs of the Raitzenstadt were but the feeble representatives
of a much more powerful body, which was scattered over various parts
of Hungary and found its chief centre in the province of Slavonia. It
was during the sixteenth century that the great immigration of the
Serbs into Hungary had taken place. All the important history of this
race had been connected with their struggle against the Turks; and it
was as fugitives from Turkish tyranny that they took refuge in
Hungary. They arrived just about the time when Hungary had accepted
the rule of the House of Austria, and, finding that Ferdinand I. was
more zealous than his Magyar subjects in resistance to the Turks, and
that some of the Magyars were even willing to call in the Turks to
their assistance, the Serbs naturally became the champions of the
House of Austria against the Magyars. As a reward for this loyalty,
the Austrian rulers granted various privileges to their new subjects;
and, in 1690, Leopold I. gave special invitation to the Serbs to come
over from the Turkish provinces and to settle in the district assigned
to them. To those who lived in that district was granted the right of
choosing the Patriarch of their own Church, their own Voyvode, or
military leader, and their own magistrates; while those living
actually on the frontier were placed under a special military
government which was administered from Vienna, and were rewarded for
their military services by freedom from taxation. The Magyars, indeed,
did not abandon the hope of drawing the Serbs to their side; and when,
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, Rakoczi[11] attempted to
set up an independent principality in Transylvania, he appealed to the
Serbs to assist him in his attempt. But their gratitude to the House
of Austria, strengthened in this instance by a dislike to the
Calvinism of Rakoczi, kept them firm in their championship of the
Austrian cause.
The House of Austria, on the other hand, showed as little gratitude to
the Serbs in the early part of the eighteenth century as they did to
the Magyars in the nineteenth; and Joseph I. and Charles VI. steadily
violated the promises which had been made by Leopold. The concession
of religious liberty was found to be not inconsistent with a vigorous
Jesuit propaganda for the crushing out of the Greek faith. A small
émeute in a Serb town gave excuse for further interferences with
liberty; and, as the Magyars gained in strength, Charles VI. resorted
to the mean device of submitting to the Diet of Presburg the list of
privileges which he had granted to the Serbs, and asking if the Diet
would be pleased to approve them; and, on receiving the refusal which
he had expected, he declared that he could not uphold these privileges
against the wish of the Hungarian Diet. The Serbs in Hungary were, in
many cases, reduced to the position of serfs; the districts of the
Banat and Batschka, which had formed part of the Serb settlement, were
given up to Hungary in 1741 by Maria Theresa; the Voyvodeschaft was
abolished, and so, at a later period, was the Patriarchate also. Maria
Theresa, indeed, would have desired to redress some of the grievances
of the Serbs; but the need which she felt for the help of the Magyars,
first in the War of Succession, and afterwards in the Seven Years'
War, compelled her to disregard the interests of the subject-races
when they clashed with those of her more powerful allies. In spite,
therefore, of several insurrections and continual meetings of
Congresses, the Serbs failed to recover their former privileges; and a
few concessions which were made to them by Leopold II. were speedily
withdrawn by Francis.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century a new hope came to
the Serbs in the growing development of their national literature. A
school was founded at Carlowitz by the Patriarch of the Serbs;
printing-presses were set up, and writers were gradually produced by
this education, one of whom, named Obradoviç, composed the first essay
in the Serb dialect: while Karadziç, another writer, gathered up the
old songs, proverbs, and stories of the country and tried to reduce
the dialect into grammatical forms. The movement of Szaffarik and
Kollar in North Hungary gave new hopes to the Serbs and other Slavs in
the development of their literature; and it was whilst this feeling
was growing that Gaj put forward his plan for the Illyrian language.
Gaj's movement was, to some extent, an apple of discord among the Serb
national party; for, while some of them were eager to join in any
union of the Slavs, many of the more powerful of the clergy objected
altogether to the abandonment of the old Cyrillic alphabet which had
been introduced by the Bishops Cyril and Methodius, who converted the
Slavs to Christianity. And while, as was mentioned in a former
chapter, Gaj was suspected by the Roman Catholics of wishing to swamp
them in a union with the members of the Greek Church, the Greek
clergy among the Serbs, on the other hand, feared a movement which
seemed likely to have its centre in the Roman Catholic province of
Croatia. Thus there had grown up two centres of the Serb movement in
two towns situated within a few miles of each other. Neusatz, or Novi
Sad, the most important town of Slavonia, was the centre of the
literary and trading part of the Serb community; and Carlowitz, or
Karlovci, was the head-quarters of the Metropolitan, and the centre of
the clerical section of the Serb national party.
It was from Neusatz, then, that, on April 8, 1848, a deputation arrived
at Presburg and declared that, while they were in sympathy with the
March movement, and had no desire to separate from Hungary, they yet
wished for protection for their national language and customs. They
therefore demanded the re-establishment of the Patriarchal dignity and
of the office of Voyvode; requesting, further, that the power of the
latter officer should be extended over the territories which the Serbs
had reconquered from the Turks. Kossuth answered that the Magyars would
do their best to respect national feeling, and to give the Serbs a
share in the freedom which the Magyars had won; but that only the
Magyar language could bind the different nationalities together.
Batthyanyi echoed the words of Kossuth in an even stronger form.
"Then," the Serbs answered, "we must look for recognition elsewhere
than at Presburg." "In that case," answered Kossuth, "the sword must
decide." "The Serbs," retorted one of the deputation, "were never
afraid of that." And so the glove was thrown down. A few days later
came a deputation from Carlowitz with the same object; for the clergy,
however little sympathy they might feel with Gaj's movement, feared,
as heartily as the citizens of Neusatz could do, the interference
of the Magyars with Serb independence. The Magyars seem to have
learned already the tyrannical arts of Metternich; for they met the
petition of the clergy with the threat that they would extend to the
Roumanians the liberties granted to the Serbs; and they were, no doubt,
proportionately disappointed when the deputation answered that they
were perfectly ready to share their rights with the Roumanians.
The quarrel thus begun soon led to an actual outbreak. In the town
of Velika-Kikinda, in the Banat, there had arisen one of those
disturbances which are the natural marks of a revolutionary period.
The peasantry, excited by the changes in their position, had begun to
expect still further advantages. A worthless adventurer had become a
candidate for one of the village judgeships, and had promised that, if
elected, he would recover for the peasantry, without compensation to
the present possessors, all the lands that their lords had taken from
them. He was elected, but was, of course, unable to carry out his
promises; and the disappointed peasantry rose in indignation and made
a riot. The soldiers were called out to suppress the movement, but
were repelled and disarmed; the magistrates' houses were broken open,
and two of them were killed. Thereupon the Magyars sent down a
Commissioner to inquire into the riot; the people were ready to
surrender the murderers to justice; but the Commissioners seized the
opportunity to declare that all the Serb villages in the neighbourhood
were concerned in a communistic rising; and, in consequence, they
placed them under martial law.
The Serbs now despaired of getting any justice from the Magyars, and
determined to appeal from them to the Emperor. They desired, however,
still to act legally; and they therefore resolved that the petition to
the Emperor should be drawn up by an Assembly which had been convoked
in a legal manner. The only official leader to whom they could appeal
was their Metropolitan, Rajaciç. He was an old man, and unwilling to
bestir himself in politics. He hesitated, therefore, to comply
with the request of his countrymen; but a man of more determined
spirit was ready to take the lead among the Serbs. This was George
Stratimiroviç, one of those erratic characters who add picturesqueness
to a revolutionary movement. He came from a Serb family which had
settled in Albania; but he had been brought up in Vienna in a military
school, and had entered the Austrian Army, which he had been compelled
to leave on account of an elopement. Since that time he had started a
popular journal, and had joined in the Serb deputation to the Hungarian
Diet. His fiery and determined character had attracted the more
vigorous politicians among the Serbs; and, though only twenty-six years
of age, he was chosen President of the National Serb Committee
which was now being formed. The impulse given to the movement by
Stratimiroviç was further quickened by the alarm which was roused among
the Serbs by the appointment of a new Governor to the fortress of
Peterwardein, which overlooked Neusatz. This decided the National
Committee to act at once; and, gathering together the Serbs from those
other provinces of Hungary which had once been under their rule, they
organized in Neusatz a deputation which was to rouse Rajaciç to a sense
of his duty. Along the road to Carlowitz they marched with banners and
flags, singing the old national airs, and telling of the exploits of
Voyvodes and Patriarchs who had saved their country in former times.
Rajaciç was greatly impressed by this deputation; and, after notifying
his decision to the Count Palatine, as the legal ruler of Hungary, he
summoned the Assembly to meet on the 13th of May.
In the meantime, the attitude of the Croatians was alarming the
Hungarian Diet. As mentioned above, they had determined from the first
to claim a separate Assembly for Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, and
also a separate national guard. Kossuth and some of his friends seemed
more disposed, at this time, to make concessions to the Croats than to
the Serbs. But the bitter struggles of 1843 to 1846 had destroyed the
hope of smoothing over the breach with soft words; and, even while
Kossuth was promising to sanction the use of the Croatian language in
Croatian affairs and to protect their nationality, he was at the same
time denouncing their separatist tendencies as shown in their desire
for a separate Assembly. The Croatians, on their part, resented
fiercely the visit of certain youths from Pesth, who came to demand
their acceptance of the "twelve points." The growing sympathy between
the different subject-races of Hungary had led the Croats to protest
against the proposal to absorb Transylvania in Hungary. The question
of the abolition of the forced labour of the peasants, and of the
introduction of peasant proprietorship, was complicated in Croatia by
the existence of village communities which managed the land on the old
tribal system; and therefore the Croats maintained that it was
impossible to pass the same land laws for Hungary and for Croatia.
The question of religious equality was connected in the minds of
the Croats with the fear of an invasion by Magyar Protestants to
denationalize Croatia. But the great cause of the Croatian dislike to
the "twelve points" lay not so much in their objection to any
particular reform as in their resentment at the arrogant attempt to
thrust upon them whole-sale formulas concocted at Buda-Pesth. On the
other hand, the Magyars considered that they had a special grievance,
both against the Croats and against the Emperor, in the sanction which
Ferdinand had given on March 23, without waiting for Magyar approval,
to the election of Joseph Jellaciç as Ban of Croatia. Jellaciç was
colonel in one of the regiments stationed on that military frontier
which was specially under the control of Vienna; and he was chiefly
known for his share in a not very successful campaign in Bosnia; while
rumour connected his appointment with the favour of the Archduchess
Sophia. This appointment, therefore, was doubly distasteful to the
Hungarian Diet, as being at once an exercise of court influence and an
assertion of the independence of Croatia against the power of the
Magyars.
But while these various causes were working together to undo the
harmony which had been established in the beginning of March, another
race struggle was coming to a head, in a different part of the
Austrian Empire, which was to have as vital an effect on the history
of that Empire as any produced by the struggle between the Magyars and
the subject-races of Hungary. We left the Bohemian deputation enjoying
their welcome from Ferdinand and Kolowrat in Vienna, and sending
happy messages to their fellow citizens in Prague; and on March 24
Pillersdorf, who was now the most important Minister at Vienna,
announced the concession by the Emperor of most of the demands of the
people of Prague. There were, however, three exceptions on very vital
points. The Emperor declared that the equalization of nationalities
was already secured by a previous ordinance, and therefore needed no
new legislation; that the special law court for Bohemia, which the
petitioners wished to see established in Prague, must be left to the
consideration of the Minister of Justice; and that the proposal to
reunite Moravia and Silesia to Bohemia must be decided by the local
Assemblies of the respective provinces.
Some of the quieter citizens of Prague were willing to accept this
answer; but the more determined patriots called upon their friends to
attend a meeting on the Sophien-Insel, a green island which lies just
below the Franzensbrücke in Prague, and which is used by the citizens
as a great place for holiday gatherings. Here the more vigorous
spirits of Prague uttered their complaints against the Emperor's
answer. They pointed out that the local Estates, to which Ferdinand
wished to refer some of the questions submitted to him, were mediæval
bodies, having no real representative character; and that only an
assembly freely elected by the whole people would be competent to
decide on these questions; that, as to the ordinance to which the
Emperor referred for securing equality between Bohemians and Germans,
that ordinance had ceased for two hundred years to have any effect;
and that a law passed in a formal manner was therefore necessary as a
guarantee for the desired equality; while with regard to the question
of the union between Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the claim for
that union rested on the historical, national, and geographical
connections between those lands. The petitioners, accompanied by the
national guard, then marched to the house of the Governor of Bohemia,
and induced him to sign their new petition. On April 8 Ferdinand
answered this petition in a letter, promising complete equality
between the German and Bohemian languages in all questions of State
Administration and public instruction. He further promised that a
Bohemian Assembly should be shortly elected on the broadest basis of
electoral qualifications, and should have the power of deciding on all
the internal affairs of Bohemia. Responsible central boards were to be
set up; and the new Assembly was to consider the question of the
establishment of independent district law courts, and the abolition of
the old privileged tribunals; while the question of the union between
Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia was to be decided by a general Assembly,
in which all three provinces would be represented. Public offices and
legal boards in Bohemia were to be filled exclusively by men who knew
both the German and Bohemian languages; and the Minister of Public
Instruction was to make provision for the thorough education of
Bohemian and German teachers.
There seemed to be nothing in these concessions which was likely to
irritate either the German or the Bohemian party; but the work of
Germanizing Bohemia, so ruthlessly inaugurated by Ferdinand II. after
the Battle of the White Hill in 1620, could not be entirely undone by
the March insurrection of 1848. Several towns in Bohemia had been
completely Germanized, and they looked with the greatest suspicion on
the movement for restoring the Bohemian language to its natural place
as an educational and literary power; while they regarded, with hardly
less suspicion, any attempt to weaken the hold of Vienna on Prague, or
to restore in any degree a Bohemian national life. The towns of Saatz
and Reichenberg, particularly, seem to have retained the German impress
most thoroughly, and were extremely jealous of the claim of Prague to
take the lead in a Bohemian movement. In Moravia the German party were
able to appeal to some feeling of provincial independence against the
absorption of that province in Bohemia; while the Germans who had been
born in Bohemia, but who had subsequently settled in Vienna, naturally
caught the infection of that intense German feeling which connected
itself with the March movement in Lower Austria. It must not be
supposed, however, that this division of feeling ran strictly parallel
with the lines of hereditary descent. Men of undoubtedly German name
and German origin had accepted heartily the language and traditions of
the conquered people; while names that were as certainly Slavonic were
found among the leaders of the German party. Another element of
confusion of the party lines arose from the change which had come over
the religious feelings of the two races respectively. In Prague at any
rate, especially among the aristocracy, the championship of that cause
of Bohemian independence which had been dear to the followers of John
Huss, and to the subjects of the Winter King, was often connected in
1848 with strong Roman Catholic sympathies. This irregularity in the
division of parties might have been expected to soften the bitterness
of the growing antagonisms; and, if the discussion of the question at
issue had been confined to the Germans and Bohemians of the Austrian
Empire, there seems some reason to hope that, under freer institutions,
the bitterness of local and national divisions might have been
weakened, and a satisfactory solution of the claims of the different
races might have been arrived at.
But a new element of discord was now to be introduced into the
struggle; and the great movement for the unity and freedom of Germany
became for a time a source of tyranny, and a new and more fatal cause
of division between the races of the Western half of the Austrian
Empire. This collision is the more to be regretted because, until its
occurrence, the leaders of the German movement had exhibited the same
dignity and moderation of temper which had been shown in the early
phases of the Bohemian movement. On March 31, the very day of the
meeting in the Sophien-Insel, the representatives of the German nation
arrived in Frankfort, to open that Preparatory Parliament which was to
be the first step towards German unity. One who saw this opening scene
has thus described it:--"Under a wavy sea of German flags, through a
crowd of green trees of freedom, covered with flowers and crowns,
walked the members of the Preparatory Parliament. They were surrounded
and accompanied by thousands of excited women, as they went from the
Imperial Hall of the Roman Emperors to their work in that Church of
St. Paul, which from thenceforth for nearly a year would contain the
best men of Germany, the holiest hopes of the nation."
Nor were their early efforts unworthy of the nation whom they
represented; for it seemed likely that the wisest men would be able to
get their due influence in the Assembly. And this was the more
remarkable, because the ease with which they had accomplished the
first steps of their work seems to have led many of the Assembly to
fear that there was some deeper plot in the background; and both in
the city and among the members of the Assembly a rumour spread that
troops were on the march to put down their meeting. A panic seized the
Deputies, and bitter reproaches were interchanged. Violence seemed
likely to follow, when Robert Blum came forward to reconcile the
opposing factions. "Gentlemen," said he, "from whence shall we get
freedom, if we do not maintain it in our dealings with each other, in
our most intimate circle?" He went on then to point out, that the
immediate causes of quarrel were mere matters of form and not of
principle; and that it was the duty of the Assembly to maintain the
reputation of the German people for calm decision. For any tumults
that were made in that Parliament would be settled out of doors not by
shouts, but by fists, and perhaps by other weapons. "We will first,"
he continued, "reverence the law which we ourselves have made, to
which we voluntarily submit. If we do that, gentlemen, then not only
will the hearts of our people beat in response to us, but other
nations too will stretch out their arms in brotherly love to the
hitherto scorned and despised Germans, and will greet in the first
representative body, which has come here, the full-grown true men,
who are as capable of obtaining freedom as they have shown themselves
worthy of it." The influence of his clear voice, powerful figure, and
determined manner added to the natural effect of his eloquence in
bringing the Assembly to a wiser state of mind.[12] Another sign of
the power which these men showed, of responding to appeals which were
addressed to their higher instincts, was given in answer to one of
the Baden representatives, who called on them to accept as their
fundamental maxim that "Where the Lord does not build with us, there
we build in vain." At these words all the Assembly rose to their feet.
The same triumph of gentle and moderating influences was shown in
their reception of a programme presented to them by Struve on
behalf of the Committee of Seven. This programme contained fifteen
propositions, in which the desire for liberty and national life which
animated all sections of the Assembly was combined with Republican
aspirations, so strong among the Baden leaders, and with those
Socialistic proposals which were as yet entirely in the background of
German politics. Thus, for instance, the list begins with a proposal
for the amalgamation of the army with the Civic Guard, in order to
give a really national character to the army; while another clause
proposes equality of faiths, freedom of association, and the right of
communities to choose their own clergy and their own burgomasters. On
the other hand, the 12th clause aims at the settlement of the
misunderstandings between labour and capital by a special Ministry of
Labour, which should check usury, protect workmen, and secure them a
share in the profits of their work; while the 15th clause proposes the
abolition of hereditary monarchies, and the introduction into Germany
of a Federal Republic on the model of the United States of America.
This medley of various ideas which Hecker and Struve desired to force
upon the Assembly was finally referred to a Committee, which in the
end would sift out what was practicable and embody it in a law. Even
in the burning question of the relations between the Frankfort
Parliament and their antiquated rival the Bundestag, Blum's influence
was used in moderating the violence of the disputes between those who
wished to drive the older institution to extremities and those who
wished to make for it a golden bridge by which it could pass naturally
into greater harmony with modern ideas.
So far, then, the German national movement had, on the whole, been
guided wisely and moderately; but when the discussions began about the
basis of the election of the future Assembly there quickly appeared
that German national arrogance which was destined to inflame to so
intolerable an extent the antagonism of feeling between the rival
races in Bohemia. It was, indeed, unavoidable that the German movement
in Austria should be met by some expression of friendliness and some
attempt at common action on the part of the Frankfort Parliament; but
the desire to welcome all Germans into the bosom of the newly-united
Germany became at once complicated with the question of the best
way of dealing with those districts where Slavs and Germans were
so closely mixed together. This question, indeed, would in all
probability have been summarily answered by the German Parliament in
favour of absolute German supremacy and of the absorption of Bohemia
in Germany; but the Slavonic question in the South could not be
considered apart from that other phase of it, which was concerned with
the mutual relation between Poles and Germans in the Polish districts
of the Kingdom of Prussia. Even the most extreme champions of German
supremacy were influenced in their decision of this _North_ Slavonic
question by their desire to restore an independent Poland as a bulwark
against Russian oppression; and they could not deny that the claims of
the Poles to the possession of Posen, at any rate, were as justifiable
morally and historically as their claims to that part of their country
which had been absorbed by Russia. They were desirous, therefore, of
making concessions to Slavonic feeling in Posen; and this desire was
increased by the connection which Mieroslawsky had established between
the struggle for Polish freedom in Posen and that for German freedom
in other parts of Prussia. Under these circumstances they could not
wholly disregard in Bohemia the feeling which they humoured in Posen;
and thus it came to pass that the Preparatory Parliament, unwilling
either to abandon German supremacy or to violate directly the
principle of unity and autonomy of race, came to the conclusion so
common to men under similar difficulties, to throw the burden of the
decision on others. They therefore passed a vague resolution which
might be differently interpreted by different readers, while they left
the practical decision of the question to the Committee of Fifty
which was to govern Germany from the dissolution of the Preparatory
Parliament on April 4 till the meeting of the Constituent Assembly on
May 8.
It was this Committee, therefore, which undertook the decision of the
relations to be established between Bohemia and the new free Germany.
The new body proved bolder than the Preparatory Parliament; for it
took a step which, though it may have been intended in a conciliatory
spirit, yet involved the distinct assertion of the claim to treat
Bohemia as part of Germany. They invited the Bohemian historian
Palacky to join with them in their deliberations, and thus to sanction
the proposal that Bohemia should send representatives to the German
Parliament. Palacky answered by a courteous but firm refusal of the
proposal, based partly on the grounds of previous history, partly on
the needs of Bohemia, and partly on the necessity of an independent
Austrian Empire to the safety and freedom of Europe. He pointed out
that the supposed union between Bohemia and Germany had been merely an
alliance of princes, never of peoples, and that even the Bohemian
Estates had never recognized it. He urged that Bohemia had the same
right to independence which was claimed by Germany; but that both
would suffer if extraneous elements were introduced into Germany. He
urged that an independent Austria was necessary as a barrier against
Russia, but that Germany could be united only by a Republican
Government; and, therefore, Austria, which must necessarily remain an
Empire, could not consent to a close union with Germany without
breaking to pieces.
In spite, however, of this rebuff, the German leaders at Frankfort
were so eager to secure their purpose in this matter that they sent
down messengers to Prague to confer with the Bohemian National
Committee. A long discussion ensued, turning partly on the independence
of the Austrian State, partly on the nationality of Bohemia. The
Bohemians urged that the Germans were endeavouring to force upon
them traditions which they had rejected for themselves; that the
Frankfort Parliament had repudiated the old Bund on account of its
unrepresentative character; and yet they demanded that Bohemia should
recognise a union which rested on the arrangements which had been
destroyed, a union about which the Bohemians had never been consulted
as a nation. The Germans, on their side, attempted to advance certain
arguments of expediency in favour of a closer union between Bohemia and
Germany. But a certain Dr. Schilling, who does not seem to have been
one of the original messengers from Frankfort, declared, with brutal
frankness, the real grounds of the German proposal. If Austria did not
become German, he said, the Germans of Austria would not remain
Austrian. The five million Germans in Austria would not stay to be
oppressed by the twelve million Slavs. The freedom and culture of
Bohemia was, he declared, entirely German. The idea of freedom could
not be found among the Slavs; and it was therefore necessary, in the
general interests of freedom, that Bohemia should be absorbed in
Germany.
Palacky bitterly thanked Schilling for the frankness of his speech;
and expressed his regret at hearing that the Germans would not stay
where they could not rule, and where they were obliged to be on an
equality with others; while another of the Bohemians exclaimed that
the Bohemians had shown their love of liberty by their resistance to
the attempts to Germanize them. But Schilling seemed entirely unable
to appreciate the feelings of his opponents; and, with a naïve
contempt for logic, he declared that, _because_ Nationality was just
now the leading idea of the Peoples, _therefore_ all the Slavs who
belonged to the German Bund must be absorbed in Germany! Kuranda, the
former champion of Viennese liberty, tried to soften the effect of
Schilling's insults. He abandoned any claim based on the old German
Bund, and declared that the Assembly at Frankfort was not so much a
German Parliament as a Congress of Peoples, a beginning of the union
of humanity. But this ingenious change of front could not destroy the
effect of Schilling's words; and perhaps the Bohemians could not
understand why a Congress of the Peoples should find its centre at
Frankfort any more than at Prague.
But though the Bohemians had failed to convince the German Committee
that Bohemia had as much right as Germany to a separate existence,
they still hoped that the Austrian Government would protect them from
an attack which seemed directed both against their national rights and
against the integrity of the Austrian Empire. So they despatched to
the Minister of the Interior a protest against the proposal to hold
elections for the Frankfort Parliament in Bohemia. Such elections,
they declared, would lead to a breach of the peace of the country, to
Communistic and Republican agitations, and to attempts to break up the
Austrian Empire. The Bohemian Assembly, they urged, would disavow the
legal right of such representatives when they were elected; and thus
any really satisfactory alliance between Austria and Germany would be
hindered by this attempt. The Ministers in Vienna were, no doubt,
troubled in their mind about this question of the relations between
Germans and Bohemians. On the one hand, they desired to conciliate a
people whose national interests led them to seek protection in a union
with the rest of the Austrian Empire. But, on the other hand, they
felt it difficult to disregard the intense German feeling which was
growing in Vienna, and which was shared by important towns in Bohemia.
Therefore, after, no doubt, considerable deliberation, the Ministry
resolved to announce to the Bohemians that they might either vote for
the representatives in the Frankfort Parliament or abstain from
voting, as seemed best to them. This seems, of all conclusions, the
most unreasonable which could have been arrived at. The union with
Germany might or might not be defensible; but it was obviously a step
which must be taken by the whole nation or by none. Of all possible
political arrangements, none could be more intolerable than the
permission to certain citizens of a country to retain their civil
rights and residence in that country, and at the same time to be free
to claim, _according to their own fancy_, the special protection
secured by citizenship in another State.
The National Committee of Prague, finding that the Government at
Vienna were unable or unwilling to protect them, resolved on stronger
measures of self protection; and on May 1 they issued an appeal to all
the Slavs of Austria to meet on the 31st of the same month in Prague,
to protest against the desire of the Frankfort Parliament to absorb
Austria in Germany. This appeal was signed by Count Joseph Matthias
Thun, whose relative, Count Leo Thun, had taken an active part in
forming the National Committee; by Count Deym, who had headed the
first deputation to Vienna; by Palacky and his son-in-law Dr. Rieger;
by the philologer Szaffarik, and by less well known men. But at the
same time the Bohemian leaders were most anxious to try to maintain
the connection with Austria and to observe a strictly deferential
attitude towards the Emperor. They therefore appealed again to the
Emperor and his Ministers to withdraw the indirect sanction which they
had given to the proposed Bohemian elections to the Frankfort
Parliament. They pointed out that Austria had never belonged, in
regard to most of her provinces, to the German Bund; and that the
question of whether or no Bohemia should join herself to Germany was
clearly one of those internal questions with reference to which she
had been promised the right of decision. They further urged that the
Emperor had acted on a different line with regard to the union between
Moravia and Bohemia; and although the claim for this latter union
rested on old treaties and laws, he had decided that it should only be
restored by a vote of the respective provincial Assemblies, and the
Bohemians had been perfectly willing to accept a compromise on the
subject. How much more reasonable then was it that the Bohemians
should claim the right of deciding on the question of an entirely new
relation between their country and Germany? Again they warned him of
the violence which might be the consequence of such elections; and
they entreated him to consider also that any attempt on the part of
the Frankfort Parliament to make a Constitution for all the lands of
the Bund, would be a violation of the independence of the Emperor of
Austria and of all his subjects. This last argument might, at an
earlier stage, have produced an effect on some at least of the
Ministers to whom it was addressed; for they had already announced
that Austria could not be bound by the decisions of the Frankfort
Parliament. But affairs in Vienna were at this time hastening towards
a change, which was materially to affect the relations of that city
with the other parts of the Empire.
The Ministry, which had been formed after the fall of Metternich, was
little likely to satisfy the hopes of the reformers. Kolowrat and
Kübeck, who had been supposed to be rather less illiberal than
Metternich, but who had worked with him in most of his schemes,
were prominent in this Ministry; and another member of it was
that Ficquelmont who had hoped to pacify Milan by help of dancers
and actresses. Only one member of the Ministry, the Freiherr von
Pillersdorf, had any real reputation for Liberalism; and even he had
been a colleague of Metternich, and had done little in that position to
counteract Metternich's policy. Finding it impossible, therefore, to
put any confidence in the official rulers of their country, the
Viennese naturally turned their attention to the formation of some
Government in which they could trust. On March 20 a special legion had
been formed composed of the students of the University; and a Committee
was soon after chosen from those professors and students who had played
a leading part in the Revolution. This Committee, which was at once the
outcome and the guide of the Students' Legion, became the centre of
popular confidence and admiration. Thus then there arose, in the very
first days of the Revolution, a marked division of interest and feeling
between the real and nominal rulers of Vienna. Some such antagonism is
perhaps the scarcely avoidable result of a revolution achieved by
violence, especially when the change of persons and forms produced by
that revolution is so incomplete as it was in Vienna. Those who, by
mere official position, are allowed to retain the leadership of
followers with whom they have no sympathy, are constantly expecting
that reforms which were begun in violence must be necessarily continued
by the same method; while the actual revolutionary leaders can hardly
believe in their own success, and are constantly suspecting that those
who have apparently accepted the new state of things, are really
plotting a reaction.
In Vienna these mutual suspicions had probably stronger justification
than they have in most cases of this kind. The courtiers, who had
plotted against Metternich, had as little desire for free government
as the Jacobins who overthrew Robespierre; and Windischgrätz was
gradually gathering round him a secret council, who were eventually to
establish a system as despotic as that of Metternich. On the other
hand, it cannot be denied that the gallant lads who had marched in
procession to the Landhaus on March 13, and who had defied the guns of
Archduke Albert, were unwisely disposed to prefer violent methods of
enforcing their opinions. Thus, when, on March 31, a law regulating
the freedom of the Press was issued, as distasteful to the Viennese as
Szemere's had been to the Hungarians, the Viennese students at once
proposed to follow the example of the students of Pesth, and burn the
law publicly. Hye persuaded them to abandon this attempt; and he,
with Fischhof, Kuranda, Schuselka and other trusted leaders, went on a
deputation to Pillersdorf, to entreat him to withdraw the law.
Pillersdorf assured them that this law was only a provisional one, and
that amendments would soon be introduced into it; but, a few days
later, Count Taaffe, another member of the Ministry, publicly
contradicted Pillersdorf's statement, and spoke of the Press law as
being a permanent one, though he promised that it should be mildly
administered. Perhaps the students may be excused if they felt no
great respect for such a Ministry. Nor were their feelings conciliated
by what they considered a growing tendency on the part of the Ministry
to make concessions of local liberties to the provinces.
After the first enthusiasm for Kossuth had a little subsided, the
Viennese began to reflect that the concession of a separate ministry
to Hungary might be a dangerous source of weakness to the central
Government; while the growing demands of the Bohemians seemed likely
to injure both the position of Vienna, and the cause of German unity.
But the Viennese were in many cases aiming at the two incompatible
objects of maintaining the position of Vienna as the capital of the
Austrian Empire, and gaining for it a new position as the second
or third town of United Germany. But a more reasonable cause of
discontent arose from the fact that, while parliaments were conceded
to Hungary and Bohemia, the Constitution which had been promised in
March to the Austrian Empire was as yet unrealized.
Dr. Schütte, a Westphalian by birth, organized a demonstration in
favour of a mass petition. Schütte was arrested by the police, and
banished from Vienna as a foreign agitator; and, while this irritated
the students still further, the Ministry on their side were alarmed at
finding that they had failed to secure the one advantage which they
had hoped to reap from the power of the students. The men who had
succeeded in retaining office after the March Rising, had trusted that
the intellectual youths, who had fought for freedom of the Press and
freedom of teaching, would have discouraged the coarse socialistic
agitations of the workmen, and have separated themselves altogether
from their movements. But, though the extremer forms of Socialism
found little favour among the leaders of the University, the sympathy
between the students and the workmen grew ever closer. If the workmen
complained of an employer, the students went to him and warned him to
behave better; if any poor man needed money, the students organized
the collection; if the cause of a workman was suffering by the undue
length of a trial, the students called upon the judges to do their
duty; if the workmen wished to state some special grievance in the
form of a petition, the students composed the petition for them, or
found a lawyer who would do it gratuitously. Reductions of the hours
of labour and higher wages frequently resulted from these efforts.
This combination naturally alarmed the authorities, and they showed
their fears both by coercion and concession. On the one hand they
arrested Schütte and other agitators; on the other hand they consented
on April 25 to issue the long promised Constitution. The Constitution,
however, at once disappointed the petitioners. The proposed Parliament
was to consist of two Chambers; the Upper Chamber to be composed of
Princes of the royal House, of nominees of the Emperor, and of 150
landlords chosen by the landlords; and the assent of both Chambers and
of the Emperor was to be necessary before the passing of a law. This
Constitution was objected to both by the students and the workmen; the
former condemning it on the ground of its aristocratic character, the
latter becoming discontented when they found that the issue of this
document did not free them from the payment of rent.
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 passed a resolution in favour of the
reconstitution 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 attitude 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
Constitution, 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 Constitution. 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 noblemen 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
assembly 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 assertion 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 attitude 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 attitude 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 attitude taken up by the latter in the questions
at issue between Hungary and Croatia. Although the appointment of
Jellaciç, 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 Jellaciç had adopted since his appointment,
seemed to alarm the Emperor as much as it did Batthyanyi or Kossuth.
Immediately after his appointment, Jellaciç 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
Assembly of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia to meet at Agram in June.
This independent attitude had brought rebukes upon Jellaciç 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 circumstances 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 Jellaciç, the Serbs were
gathering for their Conference of May 13 in Carlowitz, and resolving
to send deputies to the Croatian Assembly, and to the Emperor himself,
and also to choose representatives for the Prague Congress. Crnojeviç,
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 Rajaciç to prevent it. Rajaciç would have
hesitated about further action, but Stratimiroviç and his more fiery
friends answered the threat by burning Crnojeviç'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 Assembly of the newly-roused Serb people. Rajaciç
appeared, accompanied by some of the clergy, and presented to the
Assembly 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
Rajaciç and to choose as their Voyvode a man named Suplikaç, 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 Assembly together
when circumstances required it. Hrabowsky, the commander of the
fortress of Peterwardein, had been uncertain what attitude he should
assume 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 circumstances, 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 Stratimiroviç 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 noble 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
emancipation 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 Assembly 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 petition; 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 petition, 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 petition 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 institutions
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 Assembly 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 Assembly, 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 passing 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
circumstances 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 Assembly 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 Jellaciç both supported proposals at Agram for uniting the Serbs
and Croats under one rule. Rajaciç, who happened to be passing 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 Constitutional 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. Crnojeviç, 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 Titel.
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. Stratimiroviç 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 principality 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 Assembly, 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 Constitution 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
bloody 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 God 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 Assembly, 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 Assembly, he concluded with these words:
"Gentlemen, in virtue of the office entrusted to me by you, I announce
and declare that this Slavonic Assembly 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 God." Other speeches followed from
representatives of the different Slavonic races; and petitions 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
Windischgrätz 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
Windischgrätz in a more orderly manner. In order to give dignity to
the proceedings, the Burgomaster consented to accompany the students
on the proposed deputation. Windischgrätz, 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 asserting 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
noblemen, 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 attitude 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
petition 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
Assembly; 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 Jellaciç, and of the municipal independence of the Assembly
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 mass. 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 mass 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 Windischgrätz. As they passed
under the Pulverthurm into the narrow and busy Zeltnergasse, which
leads to the Grosser Ring, some soldiers, as ill luck would have it,
came out of the neighbouring barrack. The house of Windischgrätz was
in the street, and the crowd were hooting against him. Under these
circumstances 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 depôt 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 Carlsbrücke. 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 Windischgrätz to
entreat him to give up the students who had been taken prisoners, on
condition of the barricades being removed. But Windischgrätz demanded
that Count Leo Thun should first be set free. While the discussion was
going on, the fight was still raging in the Zeltner Gasse; and
Princess Windischgrätz coming to the windows was struck by a shot
which mortally wounded her. Windischgrätz hastened to the room where
his wife was dying, while the soldiers guarded the house against
further attacks. With all his hardness, Windischgrätz 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, Windischgrätz
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 assistance
of Palacky, Szaffarik and others organized a new deputation to
Windischgrätz. Windischgrätz 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 Constitution, both of Bohemia
and of Austria; that the gates of Prague should be defended by the
citizens and students alone; and lastly that Windischgrätz should be
declared the enemy of all the Peoples of Austria, and tried by a
Bohemian tribunal. As Windischgrätz 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 Windischgrätz
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 Windischgrätz should be restored to
his command, as the conditions of his resignation had not been
fulfilled; and the first act of Windischgrätz, on reassuming 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 Windischgrätz
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 Carlsbrücke against the
soldiers of Windischgrätz, the fire, which had been lighted by the
bomb-shells, 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
Windischgrätz 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 Assembly, 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 Windischgrätz was still enforcing martial law, a band of
Vienna students arrived in Prague, to congratulate Windischgrätz 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.
Attitude of the other races to the Italian struggle.--Inconsistency
of Kossuth.--Attitude 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 attitude towards Venetia.--The Pope's
difficulty.--The Encyclical of April 29.--Its effect.--The Mamiani
Ministry.--Effect of the Pope's attitude 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 émeute
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
Assembly and the King.--The truce of Malmö.--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.--Jellaciç.--The conference at Vienna.--"We
meet on the Danube."--Stratimiroviç and Rajaciç.--Colonel
Mayerhoffer.--The Magyar deputation.--The mission and death of
Lamberg.--Latour and Pulszky.--Murder of Latour.--Jellaciç 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 Jellaciç, 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 circumstances changed the attitude 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
circumstances 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
assist 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, assured 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 Ambassador 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 assistance 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 Passalacqua to Milan,
announcing that he himself would not arrive there until he had won a
victory over the Austrians.
But, however ungraciously Charles Albert had done his part, he had
succeeded in quickening the enthusiasm of the Italians for a war
against Austria. Leopold of Tuscany had announced, two days before,
that the hour of the resurrection of Italy had struck, and that his
troops should march to the frontier of Tuscany; and, on April 5, he
frankly declared the purpose of this march, and ordered his troops to
help their Lombard brothers. Riots broke out both in Naples and Rome,
and the Austrian arms were torn down. Guglielmo Pepe hastened back to
Naples, after twenty seven years of exile, and demanded the immediate
departure of the troops for Lombardy. Ferdinand yielded to the popular
cry, and consented to make Pepe general of the expedition. Pius IX. was
less easy to move. He had become thoroughly scared at the progress of
events; and though he had consented to grant a Constitution, much
like that of other Princes, he could not reconcile in his mind the
contradictions between his position as Head of the Catholic Church and
as a Constitutional Italian Prince. The former position seemed to
require of him a claim to absolute authority in home affairs, and a
perfectly impartial attitude towards the various members of the
Catholic Church, whatever might be their differences of race or
government. The latter position seemed, on the contrary, to demand that
he should adapt himself to the freer life which was growing up in the
different Italian States, and that he should become the champion of
Italian unity and liberty against the Emperor of Austria. His own
inclinations and sympathies would have led him to sacrifice the new
office to the old one. He was, as already explained, much more a priest
than a prince, much more a Conservative than a Reformer. His priestly
training combined with his weak health to make new ideas distasteful to
him; and his sense of his duties as Head of the Catholic Church worked
in with that very kindliness of disposition which had betrayed him into
the position of a reformer, to make him oppose a fierce and dangerous
war. Under these circumstances, he looked with alarm on the new impulse
which Charles Albert had given to the anti-Austrian feeling throughout
Italy.
But he was, for the moment, in the hands of stronger men, who were
determined on driving him forward. Massimo d'Azeglio was in Rome
seconding the efforts of Ciceruacchio for the war; and Giovanni
Durando (a brother of the Giacomo Durando who had written on Italian
Nationality) was appointed general of the forces which were to march
to Lombardy. Even now the Pope refused to recognize the object of
their expedition; and as the troops filed past him, on March 24, he
blessed them, but only as the defenders of the Roman territories
against assailants; and when a young man cried from the ranks, "Holy
Father, we are going to fight for Italy and for you," he answered,
"Not for me; I wish for peace, not war." Durando, however, issued a
proclamation to his troops in which he declared that, since Pius IX.'s
approval of the war, "Radetzky must be considered as fighting against
the Cross of Christ." Pius IX. angrily repudiated this speech in the
Government Gazette, declaring that he would soon utter his own
opinions, and that he did not require to express them through the
mouth of a subordinate. But nobody took any notice of this protest,
and the troops marched to Lombardy.
In the meantime Charles Albert was beginning the war in an unfortunate
manner. Eager to distinguish himself by an engagement with Radetzky,
he was resolved to march after him to Lodi instead of seizing on the
important fortress of Mantua. Mantua had attempted to shake off the
Austrian yoke at the time when other cities of Lombardy were rising;
but a desire to act through the Municipal Council led the citizens to
hesitate in their movement. The want of communication with other towns
prevented them from being aware of the position of the Austrian
troops; and, on the evening of March 22, Benedek, one of the Austrian
generals, was able to crush out the incipient rising. But the news of
the Piedmontese advance once more stirred the Mantuans to action; on
the 29th they rose again, threw up barricades, organized a Civic
Guard, and eagerly hoped that Charles Albert would come to support
them. When Radetzky found that Charles Albert did not seize on this
important fortress, he availed himself of the blunder to march at once
to Mantua; and, on March 31, that city fell again into the hands of
the Austrians. This victory at once alarmed the Piedmontese, who,
under the command of General Bava, set out, on April 8, to Goito, a
village a few miles from Mantua. The Austrians occupied the little
bridge across the Mincio at the entrance to the village, and the
Tyrolese sharpshooters sheltered themselves behind an inn which stands
near the bridge on the Mantuan side. The Piedmontese, mistaking the
stone ornaments on the inn for sentinels, fired at them; shots were
returned by the Austrians, and a fierce encounter followed, during
which several of the troops from the Italian Tyrol deserted the
Austrian ranks and joined the Piedmontese. The Austrians, finding
themselves beaten, attempted to blow up the bridge; but had only
succeeded in destroying one arch before they were driven back. By this
victory the Piedmontese obtained the command of the whole line of the
Mincio from Mantua to Peschiera, and cut off all communication between
the two wings of the Austrian army, one of which was in Mantua and one
in Verona.
The battle of Goito roused the greatest enthusiasm for Charles Albert;
and it unfortunately strengthened the Provisional Government of Milan
in their determination to rely rather on him than on their own people.
How much popular force they might at this time have gained was shown
by an event which took place on the very day after the battle of
Goito. On that day, April 9, Mazzini arrived in Milan. About eight
o'clock in the evening he appeared on the balcony of the Albergo della
Venezia, which stands directly opposite the place occupied by the
Provisional Government. He addressed a few words to the people, waving
the tricolour banner. He spoke in terms of warm approval of the
Provisional Government, and praised them for rejecting a truce which
Radetzky had proposed, and for endeavouring to secure a complete
representation of the Lombard provinces in the Assembly which met at
Milan; and when Casati appeared he greeted him warmly. But Mazzini
soon found that, neither in the camp of Charles Albert, nor in Milan,
were the leaders disposed to welcome the help of the Republican
forces. When Mazzini applied to the Provisional Government to grant
employment to those who had already had experience in revolutionary
wars, he was told that no one knew where they were; and when he
answered this objection by producing the men, their services were
refused. The Swiss, who flocked in from the Canton Ticino, were in the
same way repelled; and even a more illustrious volunteer than any of
these found cold reception in Charles Albert's camp; for it was at
this period of the war that Garibaldi arrived in Lombardy in the full
splendour of the reputation he had won as a champion of liberty in
Monte Video. But, when he offered his services to Charles Albert, he
was told that he might go to Turin, to see _if_ and _how_ he could be
employed.
One of the great points of difference between the policy of the
Republicans and that of Charles Albert was that the former desired to
press forward to the Alps and excite an insurrection against Austria
amongst the population of the Southern Tyrol. That population, in
spite of its Italian blood and language, had been loyal to Francis of
Austria in the time of Andrew Hofer; but the ungrateful policy of the
Austrian Emperor had gradually alienated the sympathies of the Italian
Tyrolese; and, while even in Frankfort the representatives of the
Southern Tyrol were asking for local self-government in their own
country, the population were ready to rise on behalf of Garibaldi and
Manara. But the dislike of many of the Piedmontese officers to the
war, and the hesitation of Charles Albert between war, diplomacy, and
complete abandonment of the cause, led the official leaders of the
Lombard movement to repel any proposal for so extending the area of
the war as to drive the Austrians to extremities, and to make them
unwilling to accept a diplomatic settlement of the contest.
Many of those who were repelled by Casati and Charles Albert went to
find a more generous welcome at Venice. The extremely democratic
character of the Venetian insurrection had impressed all observers;
and it was specially noted that an artizan, named Toffoli, had been
admitted into the Provisional Government of Venice. But, hearty as
Manin was in his desire to enlist the sympathies of all classes, he
could not help being a Venetian, and not a Milanese. However narrow
and aristocratic Casati and his friends might be in their personal
feelings, they were the official representatives of a city whose
glories were connected with the memories of a time when it was the
head of a league of free cities;[14] while Venice, even in its long
struggle against the Turks or in its resistance to the papacy in the
seventeenth century, could never be taken as the champion of free
civic government. Manin and Casati seem alike to have been influenced
by these traditions; and while the future Council of Lombardy had been
fully constituted by April 13th, it was not till the 14th of that
month that the Provisional Government of Venice consented to allow the
towns of Venetia to choose representatives, who should take a real
share in the government of the province. The consequences of this
hesitation were most unfortunate. Treviso, Padua, Rovigo, Vicenza, and
Udine had formed Provisional Governments even before they knew that
Venice was free; and they would then readily have joined the Venetian
Republic; but observing some hesitation on the part of Venice to
answer to their appeal, Vicenza offered herself to Charles Albert.
This decision excited some indignation in Venice; for Manin had hoped
that the old towns of Venetia would be willing, under whatever form of
government, to act with the chief city; and whatever errors Manin may
have committed in the delay, he was more zealous than either the
Milanese or Piedmontese Governments for the protection of the Venetian
towns from the Austrian forces.
Nor, indeed, was it wholly the result of the above-named hesitation
that Manin was not able to secure that co-operation which he desired
between Venice and the other Venetian cities. There seems to have been
a tendency in the civic governments, and still more in those officers
who came to help the Lombards and Venetians, to look rather for
orders to Casati and Charles Albert than to the rulers of Venice; and
this tendency was still further increased by the anomalous position of
the officers of the Papal troops. Durando, the chief of these
officers, was vividly conscious that he had come to Lombardy in an
independent manner, and in spite of the discouragement of the Pope;
and, though he was willing to fight for Venice, he wished to do so in
his own manner, and refused to listen to Manin's directions about the
plan of operations. He felt no doubt that it was safer to take orders
from an established sovereign, like Charles Albert, than from the head
of an un-"recognised" revolutionary Government; and while he wished to
march to the aid of Padua, he desired to do so as an officer of
Charles Albert. But the same motives which led Charles Albert to
abandon the Southern Tyrol were making him hesitate, at any rate,
about extending his campaign to Venetia. So he forbad Durando to enter
Venetia, and sent him instead to protect the Duchies of Modena and
Parma.
While these conflicting interests were weakening the efforts of the
defenders of Lombardy and Venetia, another apple of discord was thrown
into the camp by an Encyclical from the Pope. As already mentioned,
Pius had discouraged the march to Lombardy, and had promised to state
his own opinions instead of accepting those of Durando. His Ministers,
feeling the uncertainty of the position in which the Papal troops were
placed, urged him to come to a more definite decision on this point.
At no time was such strong pressure brought to bear from opposite
sides on the feeble mind of Pius IX. On the one hand, disturbances
were breaking out in the provinces; and the indignation at the Pope's
hesitation was stirred to greater bitterness by the want both of food
and of work which was being felt in Rome. On the other hand, two
powerful influences were being exerted to induce Pius to abandon the
Italian cause. In Germany great bitterness had arisen against the
Italian war; and the German Catholics were threatening to break loose
from the Papal authority. At the same time, Ferdinand of Naples, who
had never heartily sympathised with the struggle for Italian freedom,
was trying to inspire the Pope with jealousy of the designs of Charles
Albert. To say the truth, Ferdinand was not without excuse in this
matter; for, while he was being driven to declare war on Austria, the
Sicilian Assembly were deposing him from the throne of Sicily, and
discussing a proposal to offer their island to a son of Charles
Albert. Therefore the Neapolitan Ambassador was directed to use his
influence with Pius IX. for the promotion of a league between Rome,
Naples, and Tuscany, which was to counteract the power of Piedmont.
Thus, then, those rival instincts, of the Head of the Church and the
Italian Prince, were both appealed to, to secure the opposition of the
Pope to the war; and however much he may have been terrified by the
disturbances in the provinces, those disturbances did not tend to
increase his sympathy with the popular movement. Such was his state of
feeling, when on April 28th, his Ministers, headed by Cardinal
Antonelli, entreated him to give his open sanction to the war. The
result of this petition was directly contrary to the desire expressed
by the signers of it; for, on April 29th there appeared a Papal
Encyclical absolutely repudiating the Italian war.
In this document, the Pope complained of the desire of the agitators
to draw away from him the sympathy of the Catholics of Germany; and he
proceeded to justify and explain the course that he had hitherto
followed. He alluded to the demand for reform which had been made in
the time of Pius VII., and to the encouragement which that demand had
received from the programme presented to Gregory XVI. by the Great
Powers. That programme had included a Central Council, improvement in
the Municipal Councils, and above all the admission of the laity to
all offices, whether administrative or judicial. Gregory had not been
able to carry out these ideas completely; and therefore Pius had been
compelled to develope them further. In this he had been guided, not by
the advice of others, but by charitable feeling towards his subjects.
But his concessions had not produced the result which he had hoped;
and he had been compelled to warn the people against riots. These
warnings had been in vain; and he had been forced to send troops to
guard his frontier, and to "protect the integrity and security of the
Papal State." He protested against the suspicion that he sympathised
with those "who wished the Roman Pontiff to preside over some new kind
of Republic to be constituted out of all the Peoples of Italy." He
exhorted the Italians to abandon all such theories, and to obey the
Princes of whose benevolence they had had experience; and he, for his
part, did not desire any further extension of his temporal power, but
would use all his efforts for the restoration of peace.
The greatest indignation was aroused by this Encyclical; but it was
still possible for the Pope to find protection in that superstition
which Ciceruacchio had so industriously encouraged. The cry was again
raised that the Cardinals were misleading the Pope, and special
charges of treason were made against Antonelli. Some of the more
zealous patriots even talked of carrying off the Pope to Milan, that
he might see for himself the real condition of the war. At the same
time appeals were made to the humanity of Pius; it was pointed out to
him that, if he disowned his soldiers, they would be liable to be
treated as brigands; and instances were quoted of the cruelty of
Austrian soldiers to those whom they had captured. Partly moved by
humanity, and partly by fear, the Pope at last yielded; and on May 3
he summoned to office Terenzio Mamiani, so lately under suspicion as a
half-amnestied rebel; and Mamiani speedily avowed his zeal for the
war, declaring it a holy cause.
But, in spite of this change of front, the Encyclical produced a
dangerous effect on the Lombard war; and its first result was to
strengthen the power of Charles Albert, by compelling Durando to place
himself more definitely than before under his orders, and by leading
the Italians in general to look to the King of Sardinia as their only
trustworthy leader. Fortunately, this accession of strength came to
Charles Albert at a moment when he was rousing himself from that
state of hesitation which had followed the victory at Goito. That
hesitation, however, had given time for Radetzky to fortify Mantua
more strongly; while Nugent, at the head of another Austrian force,
had marched into Venetia. The Venetians, ill-supported, were little
able to stand against the invader; and the important town of Udine
fell into the hands of the Austrians. This startled both Charles
Albert and Casati; and, while the Provisional Government of Lombardy
turned to Mazzini for advice, Charles Albert at last consented to
allow Durando to advance into Venetia. Durando sent his subordinate
officer Ferrari before him; and on May 8, Ferrari encountered the
Austrians at Cornuta, and drove them back. He then continued the
struggle in hopes of new reinforcements from Durando; but, when
Durando had not arrived at four o'clock in the afternoon, the soldiers
were compelled to retreat. Then they were seized by a sudden panic,
and they cried out that either Ferrari or Durando had betrayed
them. The consciousness of the illegal position in which the Papal
Encyclical had placed them, still further increased the panic of the
soldiers; Ferrari was forced to retreat to Mestre, and Durando to
Vicenza. In Vicenza, indeed, the latter defended himself gallantly
enough; and the people seconded his efforts. Women, old men, and
children, rushed to put out the lighted balls which the enemy threw
into the city; and, after a struggle of about twelve hours, the
Austrian forces were compelled to retreat.
But by this time Charles Albert had again repented of his invasion of
Venetia; and, refusing to come to the help of Durando, he turned his
attention to the fortress of Peschiera. The zeal of the Milanese
Government had been even more short-lived than that of Charles Albert.
Mazzini had proposed the formation of a Council of War, to be composed
of three men, and to be accompanied by a levée en masse of what were
called "the five classes." The Government consented to summon only the
first three classes, alleging as their excuse, the distrust which they
felt for many of the peasantry. Mazzini also proposed to issue an
appeal for volunteers, and to place his own name first on the list.
The Government consented; but, before the appeal had been prepared,
they had changed their mind and withdrawn their approval from the
proposal. The Council of War was changed into a Committee of Defence
for Venetia, then into a Committee of aid for Venetia, and finally
disappeared altogether. Charles Albert's secretary announced that the
King did not choose to have an army of enemies in his rear, and
inscriptions on the walls of Milan threatened Mazzini with death. The
leaders of the volunteers, who had been pressing forward to the Alps,
were discouraged; and General Allemandi, their commander, was so ill
supported that he resigned his office.
The war seemed to be rapidly changing its character; and the desires
of Charles Albert appeared to be more exclusively concentrated on the
aggrandisement of his own Kingdom. When he had first entered Lombardy,
both he and the Milanese leaders had announced that the form of
Government would be left undecided till the victory was won; but they
now changed their tone, and prepared for a union between Piedmont and
Lombardy. On May 12, the Milanese Government issued a decree that the
population of Lombardy should decide by a plebiscite the question
whether Lombardy should be immediately incorporated with Piedmont
under the rule of Charles Albert. The Republicans, held in check to a
great extent by Mazzini, had hitherto refrained from giving prominence
to their political opinions. But Mazzini now felt it necessary to
protest against this proposal; and all the more strongly because
Charles Albert's secretary had hoped, by the offer of the premiership
in the future Kingdom of North Italy, to induce him to assist in
promoting the fusion between Lombardy and Piedmont. He therefore now
issued a protest against the taking of any political vote of this kind
while the war was going on; both because it was absurd and unnatural in
itself; because it was a violation of the promises of the Government;
and because it gave a pretext for foreign intervention, by changing the
war of liberation into one of conquest. The champions of Charles Albert
were infuriated at this opposition; Mazzini's protest was publicly
burnt in Genoa; and the Provisional Government of Lombardy resolved to
go on with the Plebiscite. This decision tended undoubtedly to bring
great confusion into Lombardy. It weakened the sympathies of those
Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians who had been well disposed towards
the Italian struggle for independence; while it gave an excuse for the
opposition of that larger body of politicians, who had hesitated
between Liberal principles and national prejudice, and who were now
eager to declare that the war had ceased to be a struggle for Italian
liberty, and was merely designed for the aggrandisement of Charles
Albert.
But, however much Charles Albert's interests might suffer from his
changeable policy, he always was helped out of his difficulties by the
contrast between his questionable acts, and the unquestionable badness
of some other prince. As the Papal Encyclical had come at the right
moment to redeem the credit which he had lost by his slackness after
the Battle of Goito, so the treachery of the King of Naples served, at
this crisis, to throw, by force of contrast, a more favourable light
on the ambitious proposals for the fusion of Lombardy with Piedmont.
Ferdinand of Naples had reluctantly consented to join in the Italian
war. The hearty dislike of Liberty, which he shared with the majority
of the Bourbon family, combined with his special jealousy of Charles
Albert to increase his desire to abandon this expedition. He feared
that a Kingdom of North Italy would be the natural result of the war,
even if the popular enthusiasm did not carry Charles Albert into
schemes of greater aggrandizement; and he had a not unreasonable
grievance against the King of Sardinia in the recent choice by the
Sicilians of the Duke of Genoa as their King. The priests in Naples,
unlike those in Lombardy and Venetia, were intriguing on behalf of
Austria, and had circulated the rumour that St. Januarius was a friend
to the Austrian Emperor. In spite of these intrigues, a Liberal
majority had been returned to the Neapolitan Parliament; and the King,
therefore, resolved to put still further limits on the power of that
Parliament, by demanding of the members an oath which would have
admitted Ferdinand's right to suppress the Sicilian movement, would
have enforced the complete acceptance of the Roman Catholic faith,
and would have prohibited any attempt to enlarge or reform the
Constitution.
This oath the deputies refused; but in spite of the advice of his
Ministers, the King resolved to insist upon it. Tumults arose in the
city, and barricades were thrown up; but the deputies, while thanking
the people for their zeal, urged them to remain quiet, and to pull
down the barricades. Some of those who had taken part in the rising
withdrew from the streets in consequence of this appeal; but others
demanded that the royal troops, drawn up in the piazza of the palace,
and near the church of San Francesco, should be withdrawn at the same
time. The deputies went to wait upon the King; but whilst they were in
conversation with him, they heard the first shots fired by the
soldiers upon the crowd. Ferdinand then scornfully told the deputation
to go home and consider themselves; "for the Day of Judgment is not
far from you." He had one great advantage on his side. That degraded
class, the Lazzaroni of Naples, had always been fanatical supporters
of the King and St. Januarius; and it is even said, that, while the
troops were firing on the people, Ferdinand was exclaiming to the
Lazzaroni, "Go forward!" "Naples is yours!" While massacre and outrage
were raging in the streets, the deputies sent a message to the French
admiral, whose fleet was anchored in the Bay of Naples, to entreat him
to intervene in the name of France. But he answered that he had been
ordered not to interfere in the affairs of another people.
The deputies then passed a resolution, declaring that they would not
suspend their sittings, unless compelled by brute force. An officer
soon after came to disperse them; and, after a written protest, they
yielded to this violence. Every liberty was shortly after crushed out;
and, though, for about a month longer, a kind of spasmodic struggle
went on and though, after a time, the Sicilians consented to send some
help to the insurgents, the movements were too ill-organized to have
any permanent strength; and the Government were able to suppress them
by repeated massacres.
Ferdinand's _coup d'état_ had taken place on May 15. In the meantime,
the Neapolitan forces under Pepe had been slowly advancing through
the Papal territory collecting volunteers as they went. The slowness
of their march had been due in part to the suspicious attitude of the
Pope, who feared that the King of Naples might seize on those
territories, which had always been a bone of contention between Naples
and Rome. Pepe therefore had not yet left the Papal territory, when he
received orders to abandon the war, and to return to Naples. At the
same time he was told that, if he did not wish to return, he might
resign his command to General Statella. Pepe was resolved to advance;
but it seemed doubtful how far his authority would outweigh that of
the King, and of the subordinate officers who were on the King's side.
The Bolognese, who had risen in March to drive out those Austrian
troops which had lingered in Ferrara, and to expel the Duke from
Modena, now rose to insist that Pepe should lead on his forces to
Lombardy. Statella was compelled to fly from the city; and those
soldiers who returned to Naples were followed by the curses of the
Romagnoli. Several of the officers were willing to act with Pepe; and
he passed the Po with two battalions of volunteers, one company of the
regular forces, and some Lombards and Bolognese. But many of these
deserted him even after he had crossed the Po; and by the time he
reached Venice, there remained with him only one battalion of
riflemen, whose officer had served under him in 1815. But, however
poorly attended, Pepe was heartily welcomed by Manin, and was soon
after made Commander-in-Chief of all the land forces of Venice. These
were composed not only of Venetians and Neapolitans, but also of
Lombards, Romans, and even Swiss. The Neapolitan admiral, too, at
first refused to obey the orders of the King, and continued for a time
to defend Venice on his own authority.
In the meantime, while the resources of the Lombard towns were being
drained to support the designs of Charles Albert, he was devoting his
energies to the siege of Peschiera. Radetzky, seeing that the weakest
part of the Italian army was stationed near Mantua, resolved to march
from Verona, which was the headquarters of the Austrians, attack the
right wing of the Italian army near Mantua, drive it across the
Mincio, and so march to the relief of Peschiera. At a comparatively
short distance from Mantua he reached the small collection of
scattered houses which formed the village of Curtatone. A band of
6,000 Tuscans, chiefly composed of University students, and commanded
by their professors, were marching along the road which lies between
Curtatone and Montanara, on their way to join the Piedmontese army at
Goito. There were, at that time, open fields on both sides of the road
stretching along in an unbroken plain; and no defences had been made;
for when Radetzky, at the head of 20,000 men, came upon the Tuscan
band, the latter were far from expecting any attack. General de
Laugier, who was in command of the Tuscans, resolved to resist; and
for six hours this gallant little troop held its own against the
overwhelming forces of the Austrians. But superiority in numbers and
training at last prevailed; and, fighting inch by inch, the Tuscans
were driven back to Montanara, and were either killed or captured. The
same "fanaticism" which Radetzky had observed in Milan, seemed to show
itself here also; and as his officers marched the young prisoners
before him after the battle, he exclaimed in scorn, "Did you take six
hours to beat a handful of boys?"
But the "handful of boys" had done their work; for, when Radetzky once
more marched across the bridge at Goito, with his prisoners, he found
Charles Albert at the head of his forces ready to receive him. The
fight was fierce; the King and his eldest son, Victor Emmanuel, were
both wounded; but at the close of the day, a new battalion dashed
forward and compelled the Austrians to retreat. The day before this
battle, while the Tuscans were still fighting between Curtatone and
Montanara, the fortress of Peschiera had surrendered to Charles
Albert; and while he was still exulting over his triumph, there had
come to him the news that the Lombard plebiscite had been decided in
favour of the fusion with Piedmont.
But it was not without much bitterness that it had been so decided.
Mazzini's protest against the proposal of the fusion had been
temperate and reasonable; but it had been sufficient to attract the
attention of the enemies of Italy; and, while Gioberti had come to
Milan to arouse sympathy with the movement for the fusion, a Jew named
Urbino (who was unknown to the Republican leaders in Milan) was taking
advantage of the differences of opinion to stir up riots against the
Provisional Government. On May 28 (the day before the actual closing
of the poll) an anonymous placard appeared, calling on the National
Guard and the people to meet in the Piazza San Fedele, in front of the
office of the Provisional Government. A deputation of the National
Guard was about to demand the deposition of its captain; and the
crowd which gathered in the Piazza San Fedele mixed itself up
with the deputation. One of the agitators named Romani, demanded the
convocation of a Constituent Assembly and denounced the proposed vote
of fusion. Many even in the crowd opposed Romani; and the President,
by promises of further security for personal freedom, was able to
disperse them. The next day, however, they gathered again, with cries
against the Piedmontese, and broke into the civic palace. The students
heard of the disturbance, and rushed to the rescue of the Provisional
Government. Casati had at first been panic struck; but he now gathered
courage, and tried to address the people. Urbino attempted to drown
his voice by shouting that the Government had resigned; and he
exhibited a list of a new Government, composed of some of the leading
Republicans in Milan. Casati snatched the list from his hand, and tore
it in pieces. Many voices in the crowd denounced Urbino, and the
rioters were speedily arrested or dispersed.
The unreality of this demonstration, as an exhibition of any popular
feeling, was clear from every circumstance connected with it. The
innocence of the Republican leaders might be gathered from a stern
protest against the proceedings issued by Mazzini directly after; and
the real source of the agitation might not unfairly be inferred from
the cries of "Viva Radetzky," which broke out from some of the less
cautious agitators. But the Provisional Government either was, or
seemed to be, alarmed about the possible consequences of the riot
of May 29; and Cernuschi, who had been the first to propose the
deputation to O'Donnell which had preceded the struggle of the Five
Days, and who had fought gallantly during that struggle, was arrested
at midnight on the very night of the riot, and sent to prison. He was
soon after set free, from want of any evidence against him; but the
bitterness which his arrest had caused against the Provisional
Government did not so soon come to an end.
This quarrel between the two sections of the national party in
Milan tended to strengthen the power of Charles Albert. Casati had
originally felt little sympathy for the Piedmontese aristocracy; but
his growing distrust of Milanese feeling strengthened the effect
produced by the victory at Goito, and the capture of Peschiera, and
induced him to rest his hopes for the success of the struggle against
Austria solely on Charles Albert, and the Sardinian army. And while
the divisions in Milan strengthened Charles Albert's power in
Lombardy, the weakness of the cities of Venetia, though due to a large
extent to the previous vacillation of Charles Albert, was yet
compelling them more and more to appeal to him as the recognised
leader of the most important Italian force in the North of Italy. This
tendency had been resisted by Daniel Manin, who was strongly opposed
to the fusion of Venetia with Piedmont; and when he found that Charles
Albert was unwilling to help the Venetians on any other terms, he had
been disposed to turn for help rather to France than to Piedmont. But
the prestige of Charles Albert's victories in Lombardy were attracting
Vicenza and Padua to the scheme of fusion; and nothing but the proof
that Venice could save Vicenza could counteract this tendency. Manin
and Tommaseo felt so much the importance of this point, that they even
left Venice for a few days to go to the help of Vicenza; and the
coldness of Charles Albert towards the defence might, if Vicenza had
held out, have worked in favour of Manin's views. But Radetzky also
saw the importance of this siege, and resolved to lead the attack in
person. He appeared before the city on June 9, and on the following
day succeeded, after a fierce struggle, in occupying the heights which
surrounded it. The defence speedily became hopeless; and, though
Durando was afterwards blamed for the surrender, and even suspected of
treason, there seems little reason to suppose that the town could have
obtained better terms than those which were now granted it, if it had
attempted a longer resistance. The garrison was allowed to go out with
arms and baggage; the lives and property of the inhabitants were to be
safe; and a full amnesty was to be granted for the past; the garrison
only binding themselves not to bear arms for three months. The fall of
Vicenza seemed to mark the crisis of the struggle in Venetia. Padua,
Treviso, and Palmanuova rapidly fell into the hands of the Austrians;
and the citizens of Venice now began to believe that, so far from
being able to defend the freedom of their countrymen, they could only
hope to secure their own freedom by surrendering themselves to Charles
Albert.
It was while this feeling was at its height, that the Venetian Assembly
met on the 3rd of July. Manin recapitulated the circumstances of the
war. He had failed to obtain even recognition for his Government from
the French Republic. He admitted the growth of the feeling in favour of
the fusion; and he advised his Republican friends to suppress for a
time the assertion of their special political creed, and to accept the
fusion as their only hope of safety. Tommaseo, indeed, protested
against the proposal; but Manin's influence, assisted by the growing
sense of weakness, prevailed; and on July 4, the representatives of
Venetia by 127 votes against six declared their province united to
Piedmont. Manin, however, resigned his office, as being unable to act
as Minister under a Monarchical Government.
But while Charles Albert seemed to be gaining partizans in Lombardy
and Venetia by the growing necessities of those provinces, he was
exciting against him the opposition of those who might at one time
have been favourable to the Italian cause. On June 16, the Sardinian
and Venetian fleets had attacked Trieste. As a military incident in
the Italian war, this attack was probably of little importance; but
its effect on the relations between the German and Italian movements
for freedom and unity was of far greater importance than could be
estimated by merely military results. For, in Germany more than in
almost any other country of Europe, the movement for national freedom
and unity was necessitating an amount of self-assertion on the part of
the body which represented those ideas, which unavoidably brought it
into collision with many whom it ought to have hailed as allies. Both
the necessity and desire for this German self-assertion had been
evident from the first opening of the Frankfort Constituent Assembly on
the 18th of May. Even a small but picturesque incident which took place
on the first day of its meeting indicated the strength of the exclusive
and defiant German feeling. An old man of seventy-nine had attempted,
during the first stormy sitting, to address the Parliament, but his
voice had been drowned in the general hubbub. On the following day,
the member for Cologne called the attention of the Parliament to the
fact that the deputy so unceremoniously treated was the poet Arndt; and
thereupon the whole Assembly rose, and expressed to him their thanks
for his song on the German Fatherland.
This desire to assert its position as the representative of German
feeling had been quickened in the Parliament by two signs of resistance
to its authority. The fiery Republicans of Baden had returned in
indignation to their State, when they found that the Preparatory
Parliament would neither establish a Republic, nor declare itself
permanent; and, provoked by the arrest of one of their members, they
had rushed into open insurrection, which only the influence of Robert
Blum had prevented from spreading to the Rhine Province. And, while
they were preparing to suppress the Republican opposition, the
Frankfort Parliament were startled to hear that an Assembly had met in
Berlin, which claimed, like them, to be a National Constituent
Assembly; and this rivalry was made the more alarming by the assistance
which Prussian soldiers were at that time giving to the Grand Duke of
Hesse-Darmstadt in suppressing a popular movement in Mainz. The
Frankfort Parliament indignantly resolved that, "This Assembly of the
Empire has alone the power, as the one legal organ of the will of the
German people, to settle the Constitution of Germany, and to decide
about the future position of the Princes in the State." And they
further resolved that every Prince who would not submit to their
decisions "should be deprived, with his family, of the princely rank,
and should descend into the class of citizens, and that his crown and
family property should become the property of the State." While they
thus boldly claimed to rule the internal affairs of Germany, they were
equally zealous in asserting her rights against those who desired to
infringe them. They had resented the resistance of the Bohemians to the
proposed absorption of Bohemia in Germany; and, while they were
disposed to make some concessions to the Poles of Posen, they made them
in a somewhat grudging spirit, and were eager to retain in Germany all
of that province which they could prove, to their own satisfaction, to
be Germanized.
It was obvious that, while such was their state of mind, the Frankfort
Parliament would watch with jealous eyes the movement for Italian
liberty. They could not, indeed, deny that the Italians had some claim
to freedom; or that the authority exercised by Austria in Lombardy
was, both in its origin and character, exactly of the kind most
opposed to the ideas embodied in the Frankfort Parliament. But the
extreme desire to claim Austria as a part of united Germany naturally
led the Frankfort Parliament to look at least with tolerance on the
special prejudices of the Viennese. While they were thus divided in
their minds between principle and prejudice, the news of the attack on
Trieste came like a God-send to those who were looking for an excuse
to sacrifice their Liberal principles to the desire for German
aggrandizement. The Parliament, therefore, resolved unanimously that
any attack on the German haven of Trieste was a declaration of war
against Germany. A resolution of this kind naturally prepared the way
for more decided hostility to the Italian cause; and another decision
at which they soon after arrived gave new force to the anti-Italian
feeling. Even if some Viennese Democrats might desire, or at all
events approve, the separation of Lombardy and Venetia from the
Empire, there could be no doubt that this feeling was not shared by
the members of the House of Hapsburg. When, therefore, on June 29,
Archduke John was chosen Administrator of the German Empire, the
Frankfort Parliament almost unavoidably identified itself with the
domineering policy of the Austrian Germans. While, then, they claimed
security for German freedom, the Parliament triumphed savagely over
the fall of the liberties of Bohemia, refused even provincial
independence to the Southern Tyrol, and demanded that Northern Italy
should be retained in the Austrian Empire.
How far the support of the German Parliament gave any encouragement to
Radetzky it may be difficult to say; but it is certain that, during
the month of July, his efforts to recover his ground in Italy became
more daring in character. No longer confining himself to Lombardy and
Venetia, he now marched his troops into Modena, and attempted to
restore the Austrian authority in that Duchy. Charles Albert was
roused in his turn by this new invasion. His chief general, Bava,
rallied his forces, and drove the Austrians first across the Po and
then across the Mincio. Charles Albert's whole feeling seems to have
been suddenly changed by these successes; abandoning the hesitating
policy which he had pursued in the beginning of the war, he now became
desperate even to rashness; and, rejecting the advice of General Bava,
he tried to push forward to Mantua. Radetzky, during Charles Albert's
delays and hesitations, had had time to reinforce his strength, to
revive the discipline and vigour of the army, which had been utterly
broken during the retreat from Milan, and to choose the best positions
for defence and attack. Therefore, on July 24, he was more than ready
for Charles Albert's rash attack; and at the battle of Somma Campagna
he speedily routed the Piedmontese, and drove them back across the
Mincio. But Charles Albert's zeal for action was not yet exhausted,
and he marched against Valleggio, in the hope of cutting off Radetzky
from Verona. In this march the King seems again to have acted contrary
to the advice of his generals; and part of the march was conducted in
such tremendously hot weather, and with such bad arrangements for the
provision of food, that many of the soldiers died on the road from
heat and hunger. A victory gained by General Bava, near Custozza,
strengthened the delusions of Charles Albert; but Radetzky soon
recovered his ground; the hasty march and the want of food weakened
the forces at Custozza, and the Piedmontese were shortly after
defeated on the very ground on which they had just been victorious.
Charles Albert's assumption of military authority and his defiance of
his generals, led to continual confusions and misunderstandings. The
result of one of these confusions was that General Sonnaz suddenly
left an important fortified position, under orders for which both
Charles Albert and General Bava denied their responsibility. On
discovering his mistake he hastened back to his position, to find that
it had been in the meantime occupied by the Austrians; and when he
then attempted to recover it he received one of the most severe
defeats of the campaign.
In the meantime the Provisional Government of Lombardy were exciting
the greatest irritation by their want of vigour in the conduct of the
war, and by the discouragement which they gave to the volunteers. As
an extreme instance of this latter fault, may be mentioned their
treatment of Francesco Anfossi. He was a brother of Augusta, the
leader of the Five Days' Rising, and had served with distinction at
Brescia; yet, on his arrival at Milan, he was suddenly arrested
without any reason being given. When the news of Charles Albert's
defeat arrived in Milan, the Provisional Government once more became
alarmed, and again called Mazzini to their help. He had had much
difficulty in preventing some of his more fiery followers from
imitating the example of Urbino, and organizing an insurrection
against the Provisional Government. Therefore Casati and his friends
knew that they could depend upon his help whenever they should ask for
it. His former proposal for a Council of War was now accepted, and he
was asked to name the citizens of which it should be composed. Of the
three whom he named, there was only one who had been a steady
Republican; while one of them had laboured to promote that fusion of
Venetia with Piedmont to which Mazzini had been opposed. The duties of
this Committee were to fortify the town, and to provision the army.
They proclaimed a _levée en masse_, and prepared to fortify the lines
of the Adda. They also made special requisitions for corn and rice,
and arranged for the bringing in of considerable provisions from the
country; though some of these were lost by the refusal of the
Piedmontese officers to provide guards for the protection of the
convoy. They then despatched Garibaldi to raise volunteers; and in
three days he had under arms 3,000 men, and was marching to Brescia.
In the midst of these arrangements, the Committee suddenly heard that
the Austrians had crossed the Adda, and that Charles Albert was
retreating before them. They sent messengers to the Piedmontese camp
to learn the intentions of the King; and were dismayed at receiving
the answer that he intended to come himself to defend Milan. They then
sent messengers to recall Zucchi and Garibaldi from the line of the
Adda to the actual defence of Milan. But the management of the defence
was now taken out of their hands; and on August 2 the Committee were
obliged to resign their authority to the Piedmontese General Olivieri.
Olivieri, while urging the Committee of Defence to remain in office,
refused their proposal to summon the people to the barricades. But
when Charles Albert was attacked by the Austrians under the walls of
Milan, the barricades were thrown up in spite of Olivieri. It was,
however, then too late to save the Piedmontese from defeat, and, on
August 4, the King sent for the Municipal Council, to tell them that
he had resolved to come to terms with Radetzky. Restelli, one of the
Committee of Defence, denied the failure of food and money which
Charles Albert had pleaded as one of his grounds of surrender; and
when the Town Council assented to the proposal, Maestri, another of
the Committee, denied their claim to speak on behalf of the citizens.
The news that the King was intending to desert them, roused the
Milanese to fury; and on August 5 Charles Albert promised in writing
to stay to defend the city; and General Olivieri even promised to go
to Radetzky to obtain good terms. But he did not go; and Charles
Albert, after a secret agreement with Radetzky to put the Porta Romana
into his hands, fled secretly from Milan on August 6. Many of the
Piedmontese officers were so indignant at this desertion, that they
offered to remain in the city and share in its defence; and the cry
was raised of "Long live Piedmont!" and "Shame to Charles Albert!" But
resistance was in vain; and on August 7 Radetzky entered Milan.
Garibaldi, who was already on his march to Milan, attempted, with the
help of General Medici, to carry on the struggle on the banks of the
Lago Maggiore; and Mazzini joined this little band, encouraged them to
persevere in their defence, and attempted, though in vain, to form a
connection with the defenders of Venice. But the struggle was
hopeless. The Lombard cities rapidly fell into the hands of Radetzky;
and on August 11, Venice, left alone in her defence, disowned her
connection with Charles Albert, and recalled Manin to power.
After this defeat thousands of Lombards left their country; and
the following extracts from a litany composed at this period
express, better than any mere description, their feelings about this
catastrophe:--"All Italy is our country; and we are not exiles, because
we remain on Italian soil. Yet we are pilgrims, because a vow binds us
to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, that is to say to Lombardy when
it is freed. For the heart of our country is the house of our fathers,
the place where we were born, where we have learned to pray, and where
love was revealed to us, where we have left our dead at rest, our
mothers, our sons, and our brothers in tears. Kyrie Eleison," &c....
They then call on Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints to deliver
Lombardy from the Austrians, and invoke them to their aid, by the
memory of the special sufferers in the cause of Liberty, among whom
they particularly specify the Brothers Bandiera, and the defenders of
Milan and Pavia; and they end with a prayer that they may not die until
they have saluted Italy "one, redeemed, free, and independent."
Radetzky, however, had another enemy to punish besides the Lombards
and the Piedmontese. The action of the Pope, however uncertain, and
one may even say unwilling, had given a force to the anti-Austrian
movement which no other Prince could have given; and, as long as the
Liberals ruled in the Papal States, Radetzky considered his work
unfinished. About three weeks, therefore, before the surrender of
Milan, a body of 6,500 Austrians had crossed the Po, and had once more
entered Ferrara. The Bolognese, always the most politically energetic
of any of the subjects of the Pope, desired at once to march to
Ferrara; but the Pro-Legate, who ruled in Bologna, tried to check the
popular movement; and refused to take any more energetic step than the
issue of proclamations. He even appealed to the Bolognese to remember
the fate of Vicenza as a warning against useless defences. But the
people would not listen to him; and a declaration of the Pope that he
would defend the frontiers of his State, increased their desire for
action. Encouraged by the peaceable action of the Pro-Legate, and by
no means alarmed at his proclamations, General Welden entered the
Porta Maggiore of Bologna at the head of his forces on the 7th of
August. Near that gate a path leads up to a raised piece of ground
called the Montagnola, which is covered with grass and trees. To this
the Austrian forces made their way; but, in spite of the warnings of
the Pro-Legate, Welden's demand for hostages was flatly refused. The
people rang their bells, and rushed to the barricades; an old cannon
was brought out and carried up to the Montagnola, and by six o'clock
in the evening of the 8th of August, barricades had been thrown up
near every gate of the city. The Austrians were driven out; and
Monsignore Opizzoni, who was in a country house outside the town, was
rescued by the citizens, and brought into Bologna.
The dreamy, old-world city at once became full of new life; neighbours
flocked in from the surrounding districts; and soldiers who had left
the city, in the belief that it was indefensible, now returned to its
help. The Pro-Legate issued an encouraging address to the citizens;
and Welden complained that the rulers of Bologna were unable to
control the excited spirits of the city. The Ambassadors of England,
France, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, and even Naples, who were resident
at Florence, protested against the renewal of the Austrian attack;
the enthusiasm for the Bolognese spread to Venice, where a large
subscription was raised for the families of those who had fallen on
August 8; and finally on August 15 a meeting took place between Welden
and the representatives of the Pope, which resulted in an order to the
Austrian forces to recross the Po.
In the meantime, whatever help the Austrian generals might have
received from the approval of the Frankfort Parliament, that assistance
must have lost its value, as the position of the Parliament became
weaker and weaker. One great difficulty, as already mentioned, was the
growing rivalry of Berlin; and this became the more dangerous to German
liberty, as the supporters of the original struggle for freedom
continued to lose their influence in the Prussian Court. Camphausen,
the new Prime Minister, repudiated the March Revolution as decidedly as
Schmaltz had repudiated the popular element in the struggles of 1813.
Prince William of Prussia, the brother of the King, who was considered
the leader of the reactionary party, had returned to Berlin; and,
though he now professed to accept the Constitution, he was believed to
mean mischief. The actual liberties, indeed, of the citizens of Berlin
had not yet been attacked; but a warning of their future fate was given
by the treatment inflicted on Posen. Mieroslawski, the leader of the
Polish movement in Posen, had been received with enthusiasm in Berlin
during the March rising; and the King had then given permission to the
different provinces of Prussia to decide whether or not they should be
absorbed in the new Germany. The Posen Assembly had decided by
twenty-six votes to seventeen against the proposed absorption; and as a
means of carrying out this decision, they had removed certain Prussian
officials from office in their province. The King of Prussia had at
first seemed to approve this change, and had despatched General von
Willisen to secure the Poles in their national rights. But when the
German party in Posen offered resistance to this policy, the King
yielded to them, withdrew General von Willisen, and sent in his stead
General von Pfuel, who placed Posen in a state of siege, and punished
all who had taken part in the Polish movement.
But, however alarming these signs might be to the more Liberal members
of the Frankfort Parliament, the attitude of the majority of that
Parliament towards the Poles had not been so generous as to justify
them in passing severe condemnation on the Prussian Ministry. It was
in another part of Europe, and in a very different struggle, that the
power of the Frankfort Parliament over the King of Prussia was to be
finally tested. The March rising in Denmark had, unfortunately, like
the risings in Pesth and Frankfort, been accompanied with a desire to
strengthen their own country at the expense of its neighbours; and an
Assembly in Copenhagen had, on March 11, denounced the claims of
Schleswig to a separate Constitution as eagerly as the Liberals of
Pesth had demanded the suppression of the Transylvanian Diet, and the
Liberals of Frankfort the absorption of Bohemia in Germany. The
Schleswig-Holstein Estates, however, thought that the time had come
for a more definite demand for independence: and, on March 18, they
put forward five proposals which they embodied in a petition to the
King. These were to the effect that the members of the Estates of both
Duchies should be united in one Assembly for the purpose of discussing
an Assembly for Schleswig-Holstein; that measures should be taken
to enable Schleswig to enter the German Confederation; that in
consideration of dangers both from within and without, measures should
be taken for a general arming of the people; that liberty of the Press
and freedom of public meeting should be granted; and that the Prime
Minister of Denmark should be dismissed. The arrival of the bearers of
this petition in Copenhagen caused great indignation among the Danes;
and, on March 20, a meeting was held to pass five counter-resolutions
in favour of the claims of Denmark over Schleswig; and the temper of
the meeting was sufficiently shown by the fact that, while the four
resolutions which asserted the power of Denmark were easily carried, a
resolution proposing a Provincial Assembly for Schleswig was rejected by
an enormous majority. War was declared on the Duchies of Schleswig and
Holstein; and, in order to prevent those Duchies from having due notice
of the war, the members of the deputation were detained in Copenhagen
until the expedition had actually sailed. On March 27 the Danish forces
appeared before Hadersleben; and thereupon the Schleswig-Holstein
Estates declared that the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein was no longer free,
and formed a Provisional Government.
The meeting of the Preparatory Parliament at Frankfort had naturally
increased the hopes of the people of Schleswig-Holstein; and they
elected seven representatives to take part in the deliberations of
that Parliament. But the Schleswig-Holstein question seemed doomed to
bring into prominence all the difficulties which hindered the
establishment of the freedom and unity of Germany. The old Bundestag
had, even before the meeting of the Frankfort Parliament, declared its
sympathy with the Estates of Schleswig-Holstein; and, though it
expressed its approval of the election of the Schleswig-Holstein
representatives to the Frankfort Parliament, it claimed, as against
that body, the sole right of directing the Federal forces of Germany.
The King of Prussia was, no doubt, glad enough to pit the older body
against the representatives of the newer Germany; and it was avowedly
under the authority of the Bundestag that, in the month of April, he
marched his forces into Schleswig-Holstein. But it soon became clear
that neither the representatives of the old League of Princes, nor the
Assembly which embodied the aspirations for German freedom and unity,
would be able to control the King of Prussia. Early in June he showed
an inclination to come to an understanding with the King of Denmark
and to evacuate North Schleswig. The leaders of the Frankfort
Parliament felt that, in order to control this dangerous rival to
their authority, they must create some central Power which should be
able entirely to supersede the Bundestag; and it was, to a large
extent, under the influence of this feeling, that the Archduke John
was chosen Administrator of the Empire.
But, however much strength the Frankfort Parliament might gain in
Germany by this election, it was hardly to be expected that the choice
of an Austrian Prince would lead to more friendly relations between
Frankfort and Berlin; and, in July, it began to be rumoured that a
truce of a more permanent kind was about to be made between the King
of Prussia and the King of Denmark, while the King of Hanover seemed
disposed to second the former in his defiance of the Constituent
Assembly at Frankfort. At last, in September, the crisis of the
struggle came. It then became clearly known that a truce of seven
months had been agreed to at Malmö between Prussia and Denmark. During
that period both the Duchies were to be governed in the name of the
King of Denmark as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein; and the man who was
chosen to act in the King's name was Count Moltke, who had been
previously protested against by the people of Schleswig-Holstein on
account of his tyrannical acts. He was to exercise all power except
that of legislation, which, indeed, was to cease altogether during the
truce; and he was to be assisted by four Notables, two of them to be
nominated by the King of Denmark and two by the King of Prussia.
The Frankfort Parliament felt that this truce would sacrifice the
whole object of the war; and, on the motion of Dahlmann, they
resolved, on September 5, by 238 votes against 221, to stop the
execution of the truce. The Ministry, who had been appointed by
Archduke John, thereupon resigned, and Dahlmann was empowered by the
Archduke to form a new Ministry. At the same time the Estates of
Schleswig-Holstein met, and denied that any one had the power to
dissolve them against their will, or to pass laws or lay on taxes
without their consent. A public meeting of the Schleswig-Holstein
citizens declared that they would not submit to the new Government;
every one of the four Notables refused to act with Moltke; and, when
he applied to the Provisional Government for protection, they sent him
a passport to enable him to leave the country. But the Frankfort
Parliament very soon began to shudder at its own audacity; and, when
Robert Blum urged upon it the desirability of speedily putting in
force its decree about Schleswig-Holstein, the Parliament decided that
there was no urgency for this motion; and some of the more timid
members began to plead the danger of a quarrel with Prussia. Arndt,
who had voted for the condemnation of the truce, now changed sides,
and urged that the Parliament should accept it, in order to convince
the Danes "that they are a brother People;" while even those who still
condemned the action of Prussia began to propose all sorts of
compromises. At last, on September 16, the Assembly rescinded its
former vote, declaring, by 257 against 236, that it was unadvisable to
hinder the execution of the truce.
The leaders of the German Left had felt that concession to the King of
Prussia in this dispute implied the sacrifice of the whole object of
the Parliament's existence; and Robert Blum had declared, shortly
before the final vote, that it must now be decided whether Prussia was
to be absorbed in Germany or Germany to become Prussian. But the
decision of the Frankfort Parliament so roused the fierce Democratic
feeling in the city that the movement of resistance to Prussia passed
out of the control of Robert Blum, and fell under the leadership of
far fiercer and more intolerant spirits. Several thousand Democrats
belonging to the Frankfort clubs held a meeting, on September 18, at
which they called upon the members of the Left to leave the Frankfort
Parliament and form a separate Assembly. Zitz, a representative of
Mainz, and nineteen other members, accepted this proposal; and, in the
meantime, the Frankfort mob, headed by a man who bore the ominous name
of Metternich, threw up barricades in the streets, and prepared for a
regular insurrection. The Ministry, in great alarm, sent for troops;
and Bavarian, Prussian, and Austrian generals alike responded to the
appeal. Robert Blum and Simon, the member for Breslau, in vain tried
to make peace; entreating the Ministry to withdraw the troops, and the
insurgents to pull down the barricades. But the Ministry would not
listen to any advice, and the insurgents threatened Blum and Simon
with death. Auerswald and Lichnowsky, two members of the Right, were
killed in the riot. Many fled from the city; and it is said that, when
Archduke John wished, at last, to make a truce, no member of the
Ministry could be found to countersign the order for the withdrawal of
the troops. The struggle went on fiercely during the 19th; but there
was no organization capable of offering permanent resistance to the
soldiers; and, by ten o'clock at night, all the barricades had been
swept away; and the Ministry soon after declared Frankfort in a state
of siege.
These events gave a shock to the hopes for combining German freedom
with German unity which they never after recovered; and the alternative
which Blum had propounded, whether Prussia should be absorbed in
Germany or Germany in Prussia, was, from that day, to be exchanged for
the question whether Austria or Prussia should absorb Germany. There
were some, however, who did not at once give up their hope for a
solution more favourable to freedom than either of those alternatives.
In several parts of Germany Republican feeling seemed to have been
growing for some time past, and the fiercest and most daring of the
Republican leaders were still to be found in Baden. The rising which
had followed the dissolution of the Preparatory Parliament had, indeed,
discredited Hecker and his friends with many of the more moderate
Democrats; and this feeling, by alienating the party of Hecker from
Robert Blum, had deprived that able and temperate statesman of the
power which he might have gained as the head of a united Democratic
party. That rising had also, unfortunately, brought about a collision
between Baden and Bavaria, and, at least, a feeling of suspicion
between Baden and Würtemberg. But, though the Democratic party, as a
whole, had been weakened by the Baden rising, and though even the
special South German movement, which had seemed, in March, to have
gained so strong an influence, had been disunited, yet, on the other
hand, a certain form of popular enthusiasm had undoubtedly been roused
by Hecker, of a kind which the wiser Democrats had failed to excite;
and the attempt of the members of the Right in the Frankfort Parliament
to annul Hecker's election, on account of his insurrection, had marked
him out as a martyr for liberty.
But when the Baden Republicans gathered for action after the Frankfort
riots, it was, for some unknown reason, to Struve, rather than to
Hecker, that they offered the leadership of the movement. Struve seems
to have had fewer gifts for the work of a leader of insurrection than
his colleague had possessed. He had been, as was proved by his
programme in the Preparatory Parliament, interested rather in the
redress of material grievances than in the assertion of Constitutional
Liberties; and, though he now proclaimed the Republic from the Town
Council House in Lörrach, he rested his appeal to the people mainly on
the ground of the burdens still pressing on the cultivators of the
land; and he did not allude to the Schleswig-Holstein question, nor
did he allege any Constitutional reason for proclaiming the Republic.
Blum had seen that Republicanism was not popular in Germany; and,
though he looked forward to a Republic as the ultimate goal of his
political aspirations, he felt, during the sitting of the Frankfort
Parliament, as Mazzini had felt during the war in Lombardy, that any
violent attempt to enforce Republican opinions would be dangerous to
liberty. Indeed, it was clear that the only possibility for even a
temporary success in an insurrection at that time would have lain in
an appeal to the national feeling about the Schleswig-Holstein war.
The movement, therefore, failed, and failed ignominiously. The Federal
troops were sent against the insurgents; at the first collision the
latter were easily defeated; and the insurrection was only remembered
as the Struve-Putsch.
Since, then, the Frankfort Parliament no more embodied the hopes of the
Liberals; since Republican risings seemed hopeless; and since it was
hardly to be expected from human nature that those who had desired to
establish German unity at Frankfort should consent at once to rally
round that Prussian Parliament which had helped to defeat their
efforts; the eyes of all who would not give up the cause for lost
turned instinctively to Vienna. There, ever since July 10, a Parliament
had been sitting, which seemed to enjoy securer freedom than could be
found in other parts of Germany. This security was partly due to the
influence of the same prince who had so much increased the dignity of
the Frankfort Parliament; for the Archduke John was the one member
of the Royal House who had a genuine respect for liberty. He had
consented, not only to open the Viennese Assembly, but, a little later,
to get Pillersdorf dismissed from office, on the ground of his having
lost the confidence of the people; and, in August, Ferdinand himself
was induced to return to Vienna, and thus to give a still further
sense of security to the supporters of parliamentary government. Nor
was this Parliament without more solid results; for it abolished in
Austria that system of feudalism which had already been swept away in
Hungary.
But, in spite of this apparent success, the seeds of division and
bitterness were too deeply sown to allow of lasting liberty in Vienna.
The workmen's movements, so often leading to riot, had been one cause
of weakness; but the most lasting and fatal cause was that terrible
race hatred, which, more than anything else, ruined the Austrian
movement for freedom in 1848. The opposition of the Bohemians to the
May rising in Vienna had intensified against them the indignation
which had already been roused by their attitude towards the Frankfort
Parliament; and the June insurrection in Prague had been exaggerated
by German panic-mongers into an anti-German "St. Bartholomew." When
Dr. Rieger, Palacky's son-in-law, pleaded for delay in the election of
the President of the Assembly, on the ground that the Bohemian members
had not had time to arrive, he was hooted in the streets, and only
saved from actual violence by the intervention of Dr. Goldmark; and,
when Rieger protested against the illegal arrest and secret trial of
one of the Bohemian leaders in Prague, Bach, who had now become the
most popular of the Ministers with the German party, evaded the
appeal. Indeed the utterances of the German party in Vienna were
marked by a combination of a somewhat arrogant assertion of popular
authority, as represented by the Assembly, with contempt for the
aspirations of other countries. This combination of feeling was
perhaps best illustrated by the meeting of July 29, when a majority of
the Assembly, in calling upon the Emperor to return to Vienna,
indignantly rejected the word "bitten" (entreat) from the address, and
substituted the word "fordern" (demand). On the day of this important
assertion of popular rights, the news of Radetzky's victories in Italy
was received with loud applause in the Chamber, and a solemn Te Deum
was shortly afterwards decreed in honour of these victories.[15]
But, offensive as this contrast between the more vulgar side of
democratic feeling, and the indifference to the liberties of Italy and
Bohemia must seem to the student of this period, there was one
direction in which the more generous instincts of the Viennese
Democrats were shown; although, even in this matter, the generosity of
principle was to be sadly clouded by the savagery of act. The
political question which called out this better feeling was the
relation of Vienna to Hungary. It will be remembered that the
enthusiasm for Hungary, which had been awakened by Kossuth's speech of
the 3rd of March, had been considerably damped by the attitude which
the Magyar leaders had taken up towards the May rising in Vienna; and
the more democratic tone of Jellaciç on that occasion had led the
Viennese, for a time, to turn for sympathy to Agram rather than to
Buda-Pesth. But no concessions to monarchical feeling which Kossuth
might be disposed to make, could reconcile the most influential of
Ferdinand's advisers to the independent position which the Magyar
Ministers had obtained. The courtiers, indeed, who helped to form the
Camarilla, might shrink at first from any sympathy with the daring and
independent attitude of the Serbs and Croats. But the party in Vienna
which was opposed to Hungarian liberty had been swelled, since March,
by the accession of men who were not theoretic opponents of rebellion,
but who simply desired that the new free Government should be as
thoroughly centred in Vienna as the old system of Metternich had been.
The most important representative of this phase of opinion was the War
Minister Latour. Ever since he had taken office, in the latter part of
April, he had been trying to make use of the discontented races in
Hungary to weaken the power of the Magyars and to strengthen the
authority in Vienna. Although he could not at once bring round his
colleagues in the Ministry to these intrigues, nor persuade the
courtiers to sympathize with the national leaders at Agram and
Carlowitz, yet there were points in the position of affairs of which
Latour was able to make skilful use for the accomplishment of his
ends. Of these circumstances one of the most striking was the
character of the Emperor. Ferdinand had shown himself, ever since his
accession, most desirous of doing justice between the rival races of
his Empire. The great difficulty of balancing the claims of German and
Bohemian, Magyar, Croat, and Serb, might well have perplexed a
stronger brain and weakened a steadier will than that of Ferdinand the
Good-natured (der Gütige); and when the painful disease, with which he
was always afflicted, is taken into account, it will seem more
wonderful that he ever maintained a steady political purpose for
however short a period, than that he was constantly hesitating and
changing his course, as new aspects of the question pressed themselves
on his attention.
This confusion and its natural results are well illustrated by a story
which, though obviously incapable of proof, yet, none the less, may be
supposed to embody the popular feeling about this weak but well-meaning
monarch. The story is, that during one of his conferences with a Serb
deputation, Ferdinand had listened with tears to the descriptions of
the cruelties inflicted by the Magyars; but that, just when he seemed
about to give them a favourable answer, he happened to glance at a note
from Metternich which was lying beside him on the table, and, taking it
up, he read these words: "Die Serben sind und bleiben Rebellen" (the
Serbs are and remain rebels). This sentence checked Ferdinand's
sympathy, and he at once dismissed the deputation with vague words.
Upon this desire to do justice to both sides, and this weakness under
the pressure of a stronger will, Latour found it easy to act. A
Conference at Vienna between representatives of the rival races was
obviously an expedient, which it was easy to recommend to Ferdinand,
while it gave admirable opportunities for secret intrigues. Moreover,
whatever objections might be entertained by the courtiers to other
leaders of the Slavonic races, there was one, at least, who stood on a
somewhat different footing. Jellaciç was a personal favourite of the
Archduchess Sophia, the wife of Archduke Francis Charles, the next
heir to the throne. He had been a colonel in the Austrian army, and
his appointment had been looked on at Buda-Pesth as quite as much an
assertion of Imperial authority, as of Croatian independence. On the
other hand, the fact that he had been entrusted by the Croatian
Assembly, on June 29, with almost dictatorial powers, only ten days
after he had been declared a traitor by the Emperor, made him a
trustworthy representative of the independent nationalists of Croatia;
and while, therefore, Latour saw in him a fit tool for his purpose,
Ferdinand naturally hoped that a meeting between Jellaciç and
Batthyanyi in Vienna might lead to a satisfactory settlement of the
quarrels between Hungary and Croatia.
In this hope the Emperor was encouraged by Archduke John, who
offered himself as a mediator between the contending parties. But,
unfortunately, the double responsibility which Archduke John had taken
upon himself interfered with the execution of his good intentions; for
while he was urging compromises on Magyars and Croats, the burden of
his duties as Administrator of the German Empire compelled him to
hasten away to Frankfort. And thus Batthyanyi and Jellaciç were left
face to face in a city where there were few who desired to reconcile
them, and where the most influential people desired to aggravate their
divisions. It must be said, however, in justice to Jellaciç, that some
of the points on which he insisted in the controversy have been
somewhat misunderstood in respect of their spirit and intention. It
has been urged, for instance, that in demanding the centralization at
Vienna of financial and military administration, he was contending
solely for the interests of the Court, and not at all for Croatian
independence. This, however, is scarcely just; for Jellaciç had good
reason to believe that Slavonic liberty needed protection from the
Magyar Ministers of Finance and War, since, in July, Kossuth, as
Minister of Finance, had refused supplies for the Croatian army; and
even the Serbs, who were still in partially hostile relations with the
Court, had discussed the question of placing themselves under the
Ministry at Vienna, as a protection against the Magyars. There were,
however, other proposals made by Jellaciç, which could scarcely be
covered by this explanation, such as the demand that Hungary should
take over a share of the Viennese debt, and that more troops should be
sent to Italy; and it was natural, therefore, that Batthyanyi should
construe the proposal about the War and Finance Ministry, rather as a
blow at the liberties of the Magyars, than as an assertion of Croatian
independence. It was obvious that for purposes of conciliation the
Conference was a hopeless failure; and Batthyanyi, after in vain
urging Jellaciç to abandon these proposals, rose in indignation
exclaiming, "Then we meet on the Drave."[16] "No," said Jellaciç, "on
the Danube." And so they parted with the consciousness that war was no
longer avoidable.
But though the Conference had failed, so far as regarded its apparent
purpose, it had served to complete the change in the policy of the
Court, and in the position of Jellaciç. From this time forward he
ceased to be the complete champion of Croatian liberty, and became the
soldier of the Emperor; and from this time forward, therefore, the
German Democrats of Vienna resumed their old faith in Kossuth, and
considered his enemies as their enemies. The policy of Latour had been
accepted at Court, and Ferdinand was whirled away in the vortex of
aristocratic opinion, and official intrigue. On August 4 Ferdinand
officially declared his confidence in Jellaciç; about September 1, the
Viennese Ministry announced to the Hungarians that the March laws
which had secured a responsible Ministry to Hungary were null and
void, as having been passed without the sanction of Ministers at
Vienna; and Ferdinand endorsed this opinion.
In the meantime, even the Serb movement which the Viennese courtiers
had looked upon with special suspicion, was passing into hands more
favourable to the authority of the Emperor. In the latter part of
July, Stratimiroviç had gained great successes in the Banat; and his
alliance with Knicsanin, the Servian General, had led him to hope that
he might be able to throw off the authority both of Vienna and of
Buda-Pesth. But the Patriarch Rajaciç, who had entered with such
hesitation into the insurrection, saw his only possibility of safety
in placing the movement under the authority of the Emperor. He
therefore set himself against the influence of Stratimiroviç; and on
his return from Agram to Carlowitz, he was able to use his authority
as Patriarch, backed by the influence of Jellaciç, to recover the
reins of government, and to limit the authority of Stratimiroviç to
military affairs. At the time of the return of Rajaciç, the war
had begun to languish; but in the middle of August the Magyars
renewed their attacks, and besieged the Serb town of Szent-Tomas.
Stratimiroviç marched to the defence, and gained such successes that
some of the Magyars raised the cry of treason against their Generals.
General Kiss was therefore sent down to take the place of those who
had forfeited the public confidence. At first the result of the war
was doubtful; for victories were alternately gained by the Serbs and
the Magyars; but at last Kiss, by a dexterous movement, succeeded in
preventing Stratimiroviç from joining his forces with those of
Knicsanin, and thus turned the whole tide of the war against the
Serbs. This change of affairs naturally favoured the designs of
Rajaciç; Stratimiroviç, finding that much of the popular feeling was
turning against him, resigned his authority, and Colonel Mayerhoffer,
an Austrian officer, was sent down to take his place. Some of the
soldiers of Stratimiroviç were, indeed, indignant at this change; and
Rajaciç was obliged to make some advances to reconciliation; but
Suplikaç, the Voyvode, backed Rajaciç in his general plans; and by the
help of their joint influence, Latour was able to turn the Serb cause
into a new prop for the rule of the Emperor.
It is pathetic to see how, in spite of irresistible evidence,
Ferdinand still clung to the hope that he might succeed in reconciling
the leaders of the different races in his Empire, and yet more strange
to see how he still believed that Latour would co-operate with him for
this object. He now chose as his mediator, a Hungarian named Lamberg,
to whom he gave a commission to settle matters between the contending
parties, and to restore order in Hungary. Lamberg was known to
Batthyanyi, and seems, to some extent, to have enjoyed his confidence;
for Batthyanyi declared that he would himself have counter-signed
Lamberg's commission, if Latour would only have submitted it to him in
time. But Latour, whose object was very different from that of his
good-natured master, despatched Lamberg to Buda-Pesth without that
sanction which could alone secure him legal authority in the eyes of
the Hungarian Ministers.
Some days before the arrival of Lamberg in Pesth, a striking proof had
been given of the growing sympathy between the German Democrats of
Vienna and the Magyars, and also of that fierce race-hatred between
Germans and Bohemians which had been stirred up by the circumstances of
the June rising in Prague. The Magyars had despatched a deputation to
the Viennese Parliament, in the hopes of reviving the old alliance
between Buda-Pesth and Vienna. The more generous side of the Democratic
spirit had been reawakened in the Germans of Vienna by many of the
recent events. Even those who had sympathized with the reconquest of
Lombardy had been alarmed at the kind of government which the Austrian
generals were trying to introduce into that province; and one of the
members of the Assembly asked what should they think if the army which
was now in Italy were to stand before the gates of Vienna? This feeling
of alarm at the growth of a military power independent of Parliament
had naturally been increased by the suspicions of Latour's intrigues
with the Serbs and the Croats. When, then, on September 19, the Magyar
deputation, among whom were Eötvös and Wesselenyi, asked for an
audience from the Assembly, that they might explain their position, the
leading German Democrats urged their admission, but the Bohemian
leaders protested against it, denouncing the Magyars both for
separating from Austria and for oppressing the Slavs. Schuselka
attempted to mediate between the two parties, maintaining that though
the Magyars had done many indefensible things, yet, as a matter of
justice, the Parliament ought to hear their petition; but the
Ministerialists, combined with the Bohemians, were too strong for
opposition; and, by a majority of eighty, it was decided not to admit
the deputation.
This refusal of the Viennese Parliament brought to an end the last hope
of a peaceable settlement of the Hungarian difficulties. On September
27, Lamberg entered Buda-Pesth, to which the Hungarian Diet had now
been transferred. It must be remembered that the Magyars had just been
irritated at Ferdinand's denunciations of the March laws of Hungary,
and alarmed at his expression of confidence in Jellaciç, who had just
crossed the Drave and invaded Hungary. When, then, Lamberg arrived in
Pesth, with a commission unsigned by any Hungarian Minister, his
arrival was naturally looked upon as a further indication of an attempt
of the Austrian Ministry to crush out the liberties of Hungary. A
slight thing was sufficient to cause these suspicions to swell into a
panic; and the news that Lamberg had at once crossed the Danube, to
visit the fortress of Buda, seemed, to the excited Magyars, a
sufficient proof of his dangerous intentions. The cry was raised that
the fortress was going to be seized and military law established. The
fiery students of Pesth hastened out into the streets; and as Lamberg
returned across the suspension bridge into Pesth, he was attacked and
murdered. Batthyanyi, terrified at this act, resigned his premiership
and fled to Vienna; and the Diet of Hungary passed a resolution
condemning the murder. Ferdinand was now more easily urged to violent
action. On October 3 he declared the Hungarian Diet dissolved,
proclaimed Jellaciç Dictator of Hungary, and appointed Recsey Prime
Minister in place of Batthyanyi. Jellaciç, however, did not find it
easy to assert the authority which was now given him. He had hoped
that, in the confusion which followed the death of Lamberg, he would be
able to carry Pesth by storm; but he was driven back, and before the
end of October the Croats had been expelled from Hungary.
In the meantime the suspicions of the Viennese had been increasing, and
on the 29th of September Dr. Löhner, one of the original leaders of the
March movement, publicly denounced Latour for his intrigues with
Jellaciç. These intrigues had now been placed beyond a doubt by certain
letters which had fallen into the hands of the Hungarian Ministry.
Pulszky, who was at this time in Vienna, took the opportunity to
publish these letters in the form of a placard, while he complained to
Latour of the permission given to Jellaciç to raise recruits in Vienna,
and threatened, if these proceedings continued, to excite a revolution
in which the Viennese Ministers would be hung from lamp-posts. There
were, indeed, revolutionary elements enough in Vienna at this time. The
friendship between the workmen and the students had led to the
formation of a special workman's Sub-Committee under the Committee of
Safety. This body actually undertook to find employment for all who
were out of work, and even to pay them wages while they were out of
work. This offer naturally caused a rush of workmen to Vienna, from all
parts of the Empire. The attempt to sift and regulate the claims for
employment led to new bitterness; and demands for impossibly high wages
provoked rebuffs, which were answered by threats of violence. The
Ministry tried to induce the workmen to leave the city, by urging them
to join the army in Italy; but the students defeated this attempt by
reminding the workmen that the war in Italy was a war against liberty.
The suspicions of the Ministers were now excited, not only against the
workmen, but against the students; and, after a riot in the latter part
of August, the Committee of Safety had been dissolved, and the
lecture-rooms of the University closed. But this repression, far from
weakening the bitterness in Vienna, only drew closer the links between
the poorer students and the workmen; for, while the richer students
left the city, the poorer ones, finding it difficult to support
themselves after the closing of the lecture-rooms, were subscribed for
by the workmen. Thus then the suspicions roused by the intrigues of
Latour were strengthened considerably by the general condition of
Vienna at this period.
Latour, however, was resolved not to yield. The defeats which Jellaciç
was experiencing in Hungary only made it the more necessary that those
who sympathized with him should send him help; and on the 5th of
October the news spread through Vienna that an Austrian regiment was
about to march to Hungary to the assistance of Jellaciç. The students
went to the head-quarters of one of the grenadier regiments, and urged
them not to join in the march. An officer, who arrested one of the
students, was attacked and wounded; and when one of the grenadiers,
who had been wounded in a quarrel, was sent to his barrack, his
comrades seemed to consider it as a kind of arrest, and demanded his
surrender. The National Guard joined in this demand; and thus a state
of confusion arose which made it easy for the students and the workmen
to hinder the march of the regiments which were starting for Hungary.
An Italian battalion refused to proceed further, and the march was
hindered for that day. But General Auersperg, who commanded the forces
in Vienna, was resolved to continue the attempt; and so, on the
following day, the soldiers were despatched to the station which lies
beyond the Tabor bridge. But, when they arrived on the bridge, they
found that the students and the National Guard were before them, and
that the barriers had been closed against them. Auersperg was alarmed
at this resistance, and recalled the troops; but collisions had by
this time taken place between the soldiers and the people in other
parts of the town; and a fierce fight was raging in the Stephansplatz,
and even in the church itself.
Then suddenly there rose the cry "Latour is sending us the murderers
of the 13th of March;" and a rush was made towards the office of the
Ministry of War. Fears had already been entertained by several members
of the Assembly, that a personal attack would be made on Latour;
and Borrosch, one of the German Bohemian members, Smolka, the
Vice-President of the Assembly, Dr. Goldmark, and others, hastened to
protect Latour from the vengeance of the crowd. Borrosch, with the
same humane ingenuity which Lafayette had shown on a similar occasion,
promised that Latour should have a formal trial, if the crowd would
spare him. The crowd cheered Borrosch and his friends; and many of
them promised that they would protect Latour's life. Borrosch rode
off, supposing Latour to be safe; but Dr. Fischhof, feeling that
matters were not yet secure, persuaded several members of the National
Guard to act as special protectors to Latour; and as the best means of
effecting this object, some thirty or forty of them undertook to
arrest him. But the excitement of the crowd had been roused anew, and
they burst into the War Office. Smolka then entreated Latour to
resign. The Minister consented; but the passions of the crowd would
not be appeased. The unfortunate man attempted to hide from their
pursuit: but they dragged him from his hiding-place, and thrust aside
his defenders. Fischhof warded off the first blow that was aimed at
him. A student, named Rauch, attempted also to protect him; but all
was in vain; and he was dragged down the staircase and into the square
in front of the War Office. With his white hair floating about him, he
was lifted on to the lamp-post which then stood in the square. He
struggled against his enemies, and compelled them to drop him once;
but again he was lifted on to the post, and this time the hanging was
completed, the crowd tearing his clothes from his body and dipping
their handkerchiefs in his blood. This outburst of savagery, instead
of satisfying the fury of the people, had quickened their thirst for
blood; and their desire for vengeance was now turned against the
Bohemian Deputies. Strobach, who had been chosen President of the
Assembly, had objected to hold a sitting at all on that day, declaring
that executive rather than legislative functions were needed just
then. For this refusal some of the members wished to prosecute him;
and armed men appeared in the gallery of the Assembly threatening
violence to the Bohemian deputies. Those deputies, finding that they
could no longer deliberate freely, soon after fled from the city, and
issued from Prague a protest against the Reign of Terror, which they
declared to be dominating Vienna. In the meantime Ferdinand, having
consented, on the day of Latour's death, to the formation of a
Democratic Ministry, fled, on the next day, from Vienna to Schönbrunn,
and shortly afterwards to Innspruck; and he soon notified his feelings
to the Viennese by a proclamation in which he too denounced the reign
of violence in Vienna.
Hardly had the Viennese recovered from the surprise caused by the
flight of their Emperor, than they heard that Jellaciç, having
abandoned his hope of conquering Hungary, was marching against Vienna.
General Auersperg, who had withdrawn his troops to the Belvedere after
the collision between the soldiers and the people, was still assumed
by the Viennese to be in some degree favourable to their cause; and
they entreated him to repel the attack of Jellaciç, and to call for
help from the Hungarians. Auersperg, however, rejected this proposal,
withdrew his troops secretly from the city, and, on October 11, openly
joined Jellaciç.
The Assembly were now anxious to appeal to the Frankfort Parliament
for help, and entreated them to send representatives to Vienna. Robert
Blum, who had grown weary of the state of affairs in Frankfort, and
who believed that the only remaining hope for Germany was in Vienna,
consented, in company with four others, to accept this embassy. The
Parliament in Vienna still imagined that they could keep within legal
forms; but this desire irritated those fiery politicians who felt that
the struggle was now on a revolutionary footing; and they therefore
desired to overthrow the Assembly, and to establish a more determined
body in its place. But Blum, who had been accustomed to hold in check
the violent members of his own party in Frankfort, supposed that, in
Vienna also, he was bound to resist revolutionary methods; and, though
he was ready to encourage the Viennese in the defence of their city,
he objected to the proposal for the violent dissolution of the
Assembly, on the ground that such a proceeding would give an excuse to
the tyrants for a dissolution of the Frankfort Parliament.
A man of much more importance in such a siege than Robert Blum could
be, arrived about the same time in Vienna. This was Joseph Bem, a
Galician of about fifty-three years of age, who had served in
Napoleon's expedition to Russia, and had greatly distinguished himself
as colonel of the Polish artillery at the battle of Ostrolenka. He had
also commanded the Polish artillery in the insurrection of 1830, and
had attempted to organize a Polish legion, for the help of the
Portuguese, during their struggle against the Absolutist party. He had
been wounded in one of these wars, was obliged to use a staff in
walking, and was small and delicate in his appearance. He had gained
both friends and enemies in Poland, and was known for his strong
democratic sympathies. Although he was not appointed to the official
headship of the National Guard, he soon became the centre and life of
the defence. But he found that the men with whom he had to act did not
understand the position in which they were placed; for, when he
attempted to urge the National Guard to march out against the army of
Jellaciç, they twice refused to follow him, on the ground that they
were only intended for the defence of the city.
And, if the rulers of Vienna were feeble in their attitude towards
their enemies, they were not less feeble in their treatment of the
one people, from whom they might have expected help in this emergency.
The advance of Jellaciç against Vienna had naturally increased the
sympathy of the Magyars for the Viennese, and Pulszky urged the latter
to summon the Hungarian army to their rescue. This formal invitation
was the more necessary because the Hungarian officers were in many
cases confused in their minds as to their strict legal duty in
this war. Archduke Stephen, the Count Palatine of Hungary, after
professedly assuming the command of the army, had suddenly fled from
the country, and thus weakened the legal position, both of his
subordinate officers, and of the Hungarian Diet, of which he was the
nominal head. Ferdinand had repeated his former dissolution of the
Diet in a proclamation of the 20th October; Prince Windischgrätz,
professing to act in the name of the Emperor, issued a declaration
from Prague forbidding the Hungarian officers to fight against
Jellaciç; and soon after, followed up this proclamation by marching
against Vienna. General Moga, the Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian
forces, hesitated to resist the Imperial orders; but, whilst the
generals were debating among themselves, Kossuth arrived in the
Hungarian camp to urge them to advance. After some delay his influence
prevailed; and on October 28 began the march of the Hungarian army for
the relief of Vienna.
In the meantime, all those in Vienna, who really cared to save it,
were trying to rouse their fellow-townsmen to action. Robert Blum made
an address to the students in favour of making "no half-revolution,
but a complete change of the system;" and on the 25th October, three
days before the Hungarians had begun their march, Bem had succeeded
in persuading the National Guard to make their sortie. But confusion
followed this attempt; some of the Guard fled; others were mistaken in
the darkness for enemies, and fired on by their comrades. Bem's horse
was killed under him, and he was compelled to retreat. Windischgrätz,
who had now been appointed to the complete command of the besieging
force, demanded the surrender of "the Polish emissary Bem, who in a
quite uncalled-for manner, had mixed himself up in the affairs of
Vienna." This recognition of the independence of the Polish provinces
of the Austrian Empire was not accepted by the Viennese; nor did they
consent to surrender any of the other people who were demanded by
Windischgrätz. Bem roused the soldiers again to the defence, and drove
them to their work with abuse. The Students' Legion distinguished
itself by its courage; and some of the workmen seconded them bravely.
But Messenhauser, the official leader of the National Guard, declared
that the struggle was hopeless, and urged the people to yield.
Many were now disposed to abandon the defence; when suddenly, on
October 30, there arose a cry that the Hungarians were approaching.
Messengers went up the high tower of St. Stephen's Church, and looked
out towards the plain of Schwechat, where the Hungarians and Austrians
had at last joined battle. The Viennese had been advised by their
Hungarian friends to tear up the railway lines; but they neglected
this precaution; and thus Windischgrätz had been able to send more
troops to Schwechat. But the great weakness of the Hungarians was due
to the hesitation of General Moga, and to the want of confidence felt
in him by his subordinate officers. Troops were ordered to advance,
and then suddenly to halt, without any apparent reason; several of the
new recruits ran away; and at last a general panic seized the army,
and they fled before the Austrians, continuing to retreat, even after
the enemy had ceased to pursue them.
The rumours of Hungarian help had encouraged some of the Viennese to
oppose the surrender of their city; and this opposition was continued
even after the defeat of the Hungarians had been officially announced.
This division of opinion between the leaders and a great part of the
people, led to riots in various parts of the town. Under these
circumstances, Windischgrätz refused to accept the peaceable surrender
offered by the leaders, and, instead, bombarded the town, and then
entered it, while it was still on fire. Bem managed to escape; and so
did three of the representatives of the Frankfort Parliament; but Blum
and Fröbel were arrested. The latter was discovered to have written a
pamphlet, which implied a desire to maintain the unity of the Austrian
Empire; and, on this ground, he was set free. But Blum was proved to
have acted as a captain of one of the corps of the National Guard,
during the defence; his speech to the students, about the complete
change of system, was supposed to imply a desire for a Republican
movement; and so on the 8th November he was condemned to death, and on
the 9th he was shot.
Great indignation was excited in Germany by this execution; and the
unpopularity which the Frankfort Parliament had incurred by their
assent to the truce of Malmö, was increased by their having refused to
interfere to protect Blum from arrest. Yet it seems as if the
remarks, made above in the case of Confalonieri, may be applied again
to Blum. That Blum should die, and Windischgrätz triumph, was no doubt
sad; but Blum's execution was rather the result of a system of
Government, than a specially illegal or tyrannical act. Blum had
staked his life on the issue of the struggle, by coming to Vienna
during the siege. If there were any alternative to his death, it was
the one proposed by Socrates to his judges; and in the case of Blum,
as in that of Socrates, the actual result was the best for his honour.
But, as for the capture of Vienna itself, it is difficult to
over-estimate its importance in the history of the Revolution. As the
fall of Milan had broken the connection of the Italian struggle with
the European Revolution, so the fall of Vienna destroyed the link which
bound all the other parts of the Revolution together. Race hatred, and
a narrow perception of their own interests, might hinder the Viennese
from understanding their true position; but the March rising in Vienna
had given to the various Revolutions a European importance, which they
would scarcely have attained without it; and the attention of each of
the struggling races in turn had been riveted on the city which
Metternich had made the centre of the European system. In a still more
evident manner was the link broken between Germany and the rest of
Europe, and apparently between the most vigorous champions of liberty
in the different parts of Germany.
This last aspect of the fall of Vienna has been embodied, by a poet
named Schauffer, in verses, which appeared a year after the event, and
which contain also a worthy tribute to those fiery youths whose
determination and enthusiasm were to so large an extent the cause of
all that was best in the Vienna insurrections; though their national
prejudices, and their want of self-control, contributed largely to the
ruin of the movement which they had inaugurated.[17]
THE VIENNA LEGION.
Their hearts beat high and hopeful,
In the bright October days;
Not March's glorious breezes
Could bolder daring raise.
No more with idle drum beats,
But with cannons' thundering tone,
Marched forth to guard the ramparts,
Vienna's Legion.
Once more they come to guard it,--
The freedom won by fight;
Once more 'tis force must conquer,
When blood is shed for right.
A steely forest threatens,
Ere yet the day be won;
But the Fatherland, they'll save it,
Vienna's Legion.
And, as the Spartans hurled them
On the Persian's mighty horde,
They burst on the barbarian,
To smite with German sword.
Their lives into the balance
In careless scorn they've thrown;
And victory crowns their daring,
Vienna's Legion.
Thus did they struggle boldly,
For many a day and night;
Thus were they crushed, o'er wearied
By the tyrant's conquering might;
Grey warriors wept in anguish
O'er many a gallant son;
E'en in defeat 'twas victor,
Vienna's Legion.
Their deeds will well be honoured
In the victor's glorious lay;
Our youth lay dead in battle,
But they would not yield the day.
Let others crouch and tremble!
No pardon will they own;
They dare not live in bondage,--
Vienna's Legion.
In the days of bright October
They shouted in their pride;
Their blows fell thick and boldly,
They struck their strokes--and died.
The gallant lads have fallen;
In blood the Legion lie;
But in the grave that hides them
Is buried--Germany.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] To avoid needless controversy, I may add that I am perfectly
aware of the tyranny exercised by Milan over Lodi and other small
towns; but the fact remains that the real force of the Lombard League,
in its struggle against Barbarossa, lay in the _equal_ union of the
greater towns of Lombardy.
[15] It must be admitted that a protest was made by some of the
members against Radetzky's restoration of the Duke of Modena; but then
the Duke of Modena was not subject to the Viennese Parliament, and
Radetzky, in restoring him, had acted without their authority.
[16] The boundary river between Croatia and Hungary.
[17] It is also worth noting that the first production of the freed
Press of Vienna in March, 1848, was a poem by L. A. von Frankl, in
praise of the services of the students to the cause of liberty; but,
though this poem gained some celebrity at the time, it does not as
easily lend itself to translation as the one translated above.
CHAPTER X.
THE LAST EFFORTS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM. JUNE, 1848-MARCH, 1849.
Difference of the Prussian movement from the other March
movements.--The Silesian question.--The Rhine Province.--The Berlin
workmen.--The grievances of the other Prussian Liberals.--Hansemann
and his concessions.--The proposal of a Workmen's Parliament.--The
"German" movement in Prussia.--The fall of Hansemann.--The reaction
in Berlin.--The deputation to Potsdam.--"Das Unglück der
Könige."--"Brandenburg in the Chamber, or the Chamber in
Brandenburg."--The struggle between the Parliament and the
King.--The refusal to pay taxes.--The final dissolution.--Value of
the resistance of the Prussian Liberals.--The offer of the Crown of
Germany to Frederick William.--Consequences of his
refusal.--Abdication of Ferdinand of Austria.--The Parliament at
Kremsier.--Its character.--Its dissolution.--Difficulties of Pius
IX. and of his Ministers.--Rossi as Prime Minister.--The
contradictions in his position.--His opposition to Italian
ideas.--His murder.--The rising in Rome.--The democratic
Ministry.--The flight to Gaeta.--Mamiani's theories.--The Forli
petition.--The summons to the Roman Assembly.--Leopold of Tuscany
and Guerrazzi.--Flight of the Grand Duke.--Guerrazzi and
Mazzini.--Difficulties of Gioberti.--His schemes for restoring the
Pope and the Grand Duke.--Their failure.--Radetzky's breaches of
faith in Lombardy.--The appeal of the Lombards.--The declaration of
war by Charles Albert.--Attitude of the Roman Assembly.--Mazzini's
appeal and its effect.--The blunders of Charles Albert and his
officers.--Tito Speri at Brescia.--"Defeat more glorious than
victory."--The "Tiger of Brescia."--Novara.--Abdication of Charles
Albert.--End of the "Constitutional" efforts for freedom.
While the Frankfort Parliament had been discussing personal liberties,
Constitutional arrangements, and the relation of the different races
to each other; while in Italy, Hungary, and Bohemia the questions of
national independence and race equality had thrown every other into
the background; while in Vienna the republican aspirations of the
students, the contest between German and Bohemian, and the discontent
of the workmen, had all merged into one common element of confusion,
so as at last to make government impossible; in Prussia the condition
of the workmen had assumed a position of such paramount importance,
during the period from April to August, as to obscure even the most
pressing Constitutional questions. The workmen's petition had been the
first step in the March movement in Berlin; and the miseries of the
Silesian famine had quickened the desire for the improvement of the
condition of the poor. This Silesian question, indeed, may perhaps be
reckoned as the chief cause of the difference between the Prussian
movement, and those which were taking place in the other countries of
Europe. In that unfortunate province, the aristocracy seem to have
tried to combine the maintenance of their old feudal power with such
advantages as they could gain from modern commercial ideas. Thus the
millers, who carried on the chief industry of Silesia, still paid
enormous dues to the landlords for the use of their mills, while, at
the same time, the landlords would start mills of their own in
competition with the millers, who were paying dues to them; and, as
the landlord was free from those imposts, he was often able to ruin
those who were at once his rivals and dependents. Other dues of a
peculiar kind were paid for protection supposed to be given by
the landlord; others, again, were exacted under the pretext of
supplying education to the children; while at the same time excessive
preservation of game was hindering the natural development of
agriculture. At the same time on the Western side of Prussia, in the
Rhine Province, the French influence was colouring the feelings of the
population; and the socialistic June risings in Paris excited the
sympathies of the citizens of Cologne.
All these causes, combined with those new hopes for a change of
condition which had been roused by the Revolution, tended to excite
the workmen of Berlin to action of a more definitely socialistic kind
than was possible even in Vienna; and on May 21 the workmen's union of
Berlin called upon all the unions of workmen throughout the Kingdom to
send representatives to the capital. This naturally tended to fix the
attention of the Prussian politicians on the questions specially
affecting the working classes; and Hansemann, a moderate Conservative,
promised to bring forward measures for curing the distresses of the
workmen. In Berlin, as elsewhere, the suffering classes found that
these things were more easily promised than fulfilled; and the
disappointment of their hopes produced a continual tendency to riot
and disorder.
But the discontent roused by these causes was considerably
strengthened by other grievances of a different kind. The aristocratic
character of the Prussian Constitution which was proclaimed in April,
had excited indignation in members of the Prussian Liberal party, who
had little sympathy with socialistic agitations. The return of the
Prince of Prussia to Berlin was reckoned as a sign of still further
reactionary intentions on the part of the Government; while a more
justifiable ground of complaint than either of these was found in the
cruelties with which General Pfuel was stamping out in Posen a
movement originally sanctioned by the Prussian King and Parliament. He
had stirred up riots and encouraged the Germans to insult the Poles,
some of whom were branded and had their heads shaved; their priests had
been murdered, and images desecrated. These cruelties and insults
provoked not only anger, but fear; for some of the Prussian Liberals
believed that the troops then used against the Poles might end in
trampling out the liberties of Berlin. If we add to these causes of
discontent that tyrannical conduct of the Prussian soldiers in Mainz,
which had so provoked the Frankfort Liberals; the apparent defiance to
the French Republic, by the massing of troops in the Rhine Province,
combined with the neglect to guard the North-eastern frontier of
Prussia against the Russian troops which were fast gathering there; and
last, but not least, the sluggishness and hesitation shown in the
Schleswig-Holstein war, we shall see how naturally the bitter
disappointment of the workmen chimed in with the feelings of suspicion
felt by other classes of Liberals. The Berlin students, indeed,
endeavoured to prevent the workmen from continually betaking themselves
to violence; but they were unable to accomplish much in this direction.
The workmen had despaired of peaceable remedies; and on June 8 they
broke into the Assembly, attacked the Ministers, and were with
difficulty restored to order.
This state of things naturally produced a general feeling of suspicion
and bitterness among all classes; and while, on the one side, a
movement began in Berlin, and some of the other Prussian towns, in
favour of a more Conservative Ministry, and the extreme champions of
reaction even talked of removing the Parliament to Potsdam, the
miseries of Silesia and Posen so roused the feelings of the Prussian
Democrats that every step in the Conservative direction, however
apparently innocent, gave cause for new outbreaks. Thus when new gates
were put up to bar the entrance to the royal castle at Berlin, they
were seized and carried off by the crowd; and when a deputation of
thirty starving workmen, bearing the German flag, with the red flag by
its side, were repulsed by the Ministers, there arose a cry for the
general arming of the people; and when this was refused, the workmen
stormed the armoury and carried off about 3,000 weapons.
The Ministry now became alarmed for the peace of Berlin; and, in spite
of a decision of the Assembly to the contrary, they sent for three new
battalions of militia, and prosecuted the men who had taken part in
the attack on the armoury. The time, however, had not yet come for a
complete reaction; and it was therefore unavoidable that concessions
should be made to so strong a popular movement. So on June 23
Camphausen fell; Hansemann, who had promised relief to the workmen,
formed a Ministry; and on the same day a scheme was brought forward in
the Prussian Parliament, for abolishing the feudal dues. Hansemann
further promised to develope municipal government; and he repudiated
the attacks which Camphausen had made on the March movement. Then
proposals were brought forward, with the approval of the Minister of
Trade, for a Commission of Enquiry into the condition of the Silesian
workmen. But the workmen were determined, to a great extent, to keep
matters in their own hands; and the proposal for a conference of their
unions had now grown into a demand for a Workmen's Parliament which
was to meet in August, and to carry out a great many points of the
modern socialistic programme; such as the guarantee of work for all;
the care by the State for those who were helpless or out of work; the
regulation of hours of labour; and the support by the State of
workmen's associations. And if the programme of Hansemann did not
prevent workmen from insisting on their extremer demands, neither did
it suppress the riotous methods by which they asserted their claims.
Many members of the Assembly were still alarmed by hearing of attacks
on machinery in Breslau, and by seeing demonstrations of workmen in
Berlin; and the provision of special work on the railways produced
just as much, and just as little satisfaction, as such temporary
expedients usually do.
In the meantime the growing collision between the power of Prussia and
the power of the Assembly at Frankfort was exciting new divisions in
Berlin. During the months of June and July the democratic feeling in
Prussia had been strongly in favour of Frankfort as against Berlin;
while, on the other hand, the military party desired more and more to
assert the independence of the King of Prussia against any central
Parliament, and more particularly against one which had given its
highest post to an Austrian prince. The workmen's movement thus, by a
natural process, began to be coloured by the desire of the more
cultivated Liberals for a united Germany; and the special demands of
the workmen began to fall into the background as the larger questions
of the freedom and unity of the whole country came more prominently to
the front. The fears of the Ministry were naturally increased by this
alliance; and early in August several members of the Prussian Left
were suddenly arrested; and amongst them Rodbertus, one of the more
moderate members who had helped to place Hansemann in power. The new
quarrel threatened to be as bitter as the old one; collisions took
place in various parts of the kingdom between the Prussian soldiers
and the champions of German unity; and when the members of the Left
began to demand the dismissal from the army of reactionary officers,
and to make demonstrations against the Ministry, the Ministers met
them by passing a law for the suppression of public meetings, while
the fiercer reactionists circulated a petition in favour of making the
Prince of Prussia the Commander-in-Chief of the forces.
The truce of Malmö brought the crisis to a head; and the members
of the Left resolved that if the Ministry would not remove the
reactionary officers, the Liberal members would leave the Assembly.
Thus the Schleswig-Holstein crisis consolidated completely the
different elements of opposition; and on September 16 a vote of want
of confidence in the Hansemann Ministry was carried in the Assembly.
The greatest enthusiasm was roused by this vote; the members who voted
for it were carried on the shoulders of the people, and it seemed, for
a moment, as if a constitutional solution had been found for the
difficulties of Prussia. But the riots at Frankfort, and the triumph
which they secured to the reactionary party in Parliament, gave new
courage to the King of Prussia in resisting the opposition; and he
entrusted the formation of a Ministry to General Brandenburg, a man of
more fiercely despotic principles than any who had recently held
office. New prosecutions were begun; and, for the first time since
the March insurrection, a newspaper was seized and confiscated.
The Liberals, however, were not disposed to yield; and, as if to
strengthen their alliance with the champions of provincial and class
liberties, they carried by a small majority a motion in favour of
securing special rights to the province of Posen, and adopted
unanimously a report for finding work for the spinners and weavers in
certain parts of the kingdom; while demonstrations were made in favour
of sending help to Vienna in its struggle against Windischgrätz.
The fall of Vienna, however, enabled the King of Prussia to take
another step towards absolutism, and General Brandenburg was appointed
Minister in spite of the opposition of the Liberals. The King himself
had withdrawn to Potsdam: and the Assembly resolved almost unanimously
to send a deputation to the King, to entreat him to dismiss this
Ministry. The deputation had to wait for a long time in a dark
gallery, the King refusing at first to receive them otherwise than
through the Ministers; but a Ministerial despatch arrived, calling
attention to this deputation; and thus the King's scruple was removed,
and he consented to hear them. When the address was completed he took
it up, folded it, and prepared to withdraw; but Johann Jacoby
exclaimed, "We are not come here merely to present the address, but
to explain to Your Majesty the true condition of the country. Will you
not grant us a gracious hearing?" The King refused, upon which Jacoby
uttered the memorable words: "It is the misfortune of Kings that they
will not hear the truth." Then Frederick William withdrew in great
anger, and refused to have any further communication with the
deputies. On November 6 he announced that, if the Assembly did not
accept the Ministry, they would be dissolved by force; and two days
later he declared unconditionally that he should remove the Assembly
by force to the town of Brandenburg; or, as he epigrammatically put
it, the choice was between "Brandenburg in the Chamber, or the Chamber
in Brandenburg."
Von Unruh, the President of the Chamber, read this announcement to his
colleagues, but declared that he would not carry it out without the
sanction of the Assembly; and, when General Brandenburg tried to speak,
in order to command the closing of the Assembly, the President
informed him that he was out of order, and, if he desired to make an
explanation, he must ask leave to speak. Brandenburg then declared that
the further sitting of the Parliament was illegal; and, accompanied by
seventy members, he left the House. The Assembly then, by 250 votes
against 30, decided to continue their sitting. They further resolved
that "the Assembly finds at present no reason for changing their place
of deliberation; that it cannot grant to the Crown the right to remove,
to adjourn, or to dissolve the Assembly against its will; that the
Assembly does not consider those officials who have advised the Crown
to take this step capable of presiding over the Government of this
country; and that those officials have become guilty of grave
violations of their duty to the Assembly, the country, and the Crown."
They further resolved that, although they were obliged to adjourn, the
President and Secretaries should remain all night at their post, as
a sign of the permanence of the Assembly. On November 9 General
Brandenburg answered this defiance by a letter, in which he declared
that these resolutions were illegal, and that he held Von Unruh and
others responsible for the consequences. In the meantime Brandenburg
had appealed to the Civic Guard to prevent the Members from attending
the meetings; but the commandant of the Civic Guard denied the right of
the Ministers to send him this order, and further protested against the
proposal to remove the Assembly to the town of Brandenburg. The Town
Council tried to reconcile the Parliament to the King; but Von Unruh,
while declaring his desire to avoid bloodshed, denied that the Assembly
could yield on any point, and the Members issued an appeal to the
country in which they denounced the illegal conduct of the King and his
Ministers, but urged the people to maintain a strictly legal position
in the defence of their liberties. The address concluded with these
words: "The calm and determined attitude of a People that is ripe for
freedom will, with God's help, secure the victory of freedom."
The situation had become terribly dangerous; for General Wrangel, soon
after his return from Schleswig-Holstein, marched his troops into the
market place, in front of the building in which the Parliament was
sitting, and on November 11, Von Unruh and the other Members, coming
to hold their meetings, found the doors locked, and the soldiers
guarding the place. They then adjourned to the Hotel de Russie, where
they declared Brandenburg guilty of High Treason, and called on the
people to refuse to pay taxes. Deputations came in from Magdeburg,
Breslau and Frankfort, declaring their sympathy with the Assembly; and
the Civic Guard refused to give up their arms to Wrangel. Wrangel now
declared all public meetings prohibited, announced that the Civic
Guard was dissolved; and declared Berlin in a state of siege. But the
addresses of sympathy came in more freely than ever; and it was
rumoured that Silesia was actually in a state of insurrection. Even
several citizens of Brandenburg itself sent an address to the
Assembly, declaring that they would resist the transfer of the
Parliament to their town. The opposition between the bourgeoisie and
the workmen, which had been caused by the riots of June, July
and August, had now entirely disappeared in a common zeal for
Constitutional freedom; and the Town Council permitted the Assembly to
meet in their Hall. But even there Wrangel would not leave them in
peace, and soon after they were driven from this refuge also. Even the
ex-Minister Hansemann became an object of denunciation to the Court
party; and on November 15 the Assembly put into a formal vote the
proposal which they had already hinted at, that no further taxes
should be paid. This vote was carried just after they had been driven
from the Town Council House to another meeting place. The next day
soldiers were called out, who threatened the Civic Guard with
violence, but finally marched off without firing; and some soldiers
and officers were dismissed for not consenting to act against the
people. Taxes were beginning to be refused in various parts of
Prussia; several arrests were made in Cologne; and Düsseldorf was
declared in a state of siege. The soldiers were forbidden to read the
National Zeitung; while on the other hand printers and publishers
offered to print the decrees of the Assembly without any compensation
for loss of time. Attempts to enforce the payment of taxes led to
riots in Bonn and Breslau; and in Coblenz the people attacked officers
for speaking evil of the National Assembly. The Government tried, in
some cases, to cut off the payment of deputies; but the people
insisted on making the payment, in spite of this prohibition; and even
a Government official in Düsseldorf declared his belief that if the
Brandenburg Ministry lasted three or four days more, none of the
official boards would consent to act. One of the Roman Catholic
bishops of Silesia appealed to his flock not to refuse taxes, as
otherwise they would be damned for "refusing to give to Cæsar the
things that were Cæsar's." To this appeal several Roman Catholics of
Silesia retorted by an address in which they expressed their fear for
the spiritual condition of the clergy, since they had never paid taxes
at all.
On November 27, the Government resolved on a new act of violence.
While the deputies were met at the Hotel Mylius, Major von Blumenthal
entered at the head of a band of soldiers, and ordered the deputies to
leave the Hall.[18] Jacoby asked him what he wanted. The Major
answered, "I come in the name of the law." Jacoby: "Of what law?"
Major: "In the name of the highest law." Jacoby: "Of what law do you
speak?" Major: "I speak in the name of the Constitutional law."
Jacoby: "There is no law that forbids us to meet in an hotel in
the day-time." Elsner: "Even Wrangel's proclamations contain no
prohibition of this kind; we are no club."[19] Major: "That does not
concern me. I act under the authority of my board." Jacoby: "What is
your name?" Major: "I am the Major Count Blumenthal." Jacoby: "Who has
given you this authority?" Major: "The board set over me." Several
voices: "Name the board." Major (after a pause): "Gentlemen, do not
embarrass me." Jacoby: "Well, then, I declare to you that you are not
acting in the name of law, but of force; and it is a sad thing that
the soldiers are misemployed for such acts of violence." The Major
then ordered them once more to leave the Hall, and seized on the
parliamentary papers. Jacoby denounced this seizure as robbery, and
attempted to make a copy of the documents. The Major snatched the
papers from Jacoby's hands; upon which the latter exclaimed, "Go on
with your robberies, and scorn all laws; some day you will be brought
to account for this." Then the deputies, still refusing to leave the
Hall, were driven out by the soldiers.
In the meantime, the members of the Right had been meeting at
Brandenburg; and at last von Unruh and many of his friends joined them
there; but demanded, at the same time, that the Assembly should accept
all the resolutions passed in Berlin between the 4th and the 15th
of November. But, on December 5, the King finally dissolved the
Parliament, announcing that it should meet on February 26 in Berlin,
and that he would then issue a new Constitution. The Liberal members
all flocked to Brandenburg to protest against this dissolution; and
the King found it necessary to suppress meetings even in Brandenburg,
as dangerous to his authority.
It was impossible in the then state of Germany that any organized
insurrection could produce a satisfactory result. On the one hand the
Republican leaders had weakened their cause by spasmodic and useless
appeals to insurrection, at times when Constitutional action would
have been perfectly possible; while in Prussia itself, the differences
between the workmen and the bourgeoisie made the permanent coherence
of a Constitutional party almost impossible. On the other hand, the
Parliament at Frankfort, abandoned by many members of the Left, had
been growing ever more and more timid, and had not only passed a
resolution condemning the resistance of the Prussian Parliament, but
had even sent Bassermann, one of the Frankfort Ministers, to Berlin,
to persuade the Parliament to yield. Under these circumstances,
the passive resistance of Von Unruh and his friends was, in all
probability, the wisest and most dignified course which was open to
the champions of liberty; and when the Assembly actually met again in
February, the leaders of the Left were received with enthusiasm by the
people, as men who had deserved well of their country. If the King of
Prussia had heartily accepted the new condition of affairs, he might
even now have done something to secure a better future for Germany
than any that it has since achieved; for the Frankfort Parliament had
come to the conclusion that the only hope for the unity of Germany
lay in its acceptance of the King of Prussia as its head. They had
repudiated the connection of Germany with Austria; Archduke John had
resigned his post as Administrator of the Empire; and on March 28,
1849, they finally resolved to offer the crown of Germany to the King
of Prussia. But the flavour of freedom and independence which still
lingered, even in these later months, about the Frankfort Parliament,
made this offer distasteful to a King whose liberalism, always
superficial, had now quite evaporated. The Frankfort Parliament had
been the result of a popular movement; and it had elaborated a free
Constitution, which it desired to treat as a necessary part of the
proposed monarchy. Under these circumstances, therefore, Frederick
William IV. refused to accept the crown of Germany, unless it were
offered to him by the Princes of Germany; and by this refusal he put
an end to the hope that the German question might be settled in a
peaceable and Constitutional manner.
In the meantime, experience was showing that it was almost as
difficult in Austria as in Prussia to reduce parliamentary government
to a mere tool of despotism. The members of the Bohemian party in the
Viennese Parliament had withdrawn from its sittings after the murder
of Latour; and had attempted to find a free place for deliberation in
Olmütz. About the same time Ferdinand, grown weary of the struggles of
parties and races, unsatisfied as to the contending claims of Kossuth
and Jellaciç, and unable to reconcile himself to the proceedings
either of Windischgrätz, or of the Viennese Democrats, listened to the
advice which the clique around him were pressing upon him, and
consented to resign his throne, not to his brother and lawful heir,
but to his nephew, Francis Joseph, who, being a mere boy at the time,
would fall easily under the power of the Camarilla, who were governing
Austria. The advisers of Francis Joseph, however, still thought that
they could keep up an appearance of parliamentary government; and
they, therefore, summoned a parliament to meet at Kremsier in Moravia
early in December.
It soon became apparent, however, that the men who met in the Kremsier
Parliament were by no means less zealous for freedom, hardly even less
democratic than those who met at Vienna. Those Bohemian members, who
had objected to the rule of terror in the Viennese Assembly, had
appealed, even from Olmütz, to the Emperor not to deal too harshly
with Vienna; and they now showed themselves as zealous for freedom as
any German could be. Men, too, like Borrosch, Löhner, Schuselka and
Fischhof, who had not acted with the Bohemians at Vienna, were ready
to take part in the Kremsier Parliament. On the motion of Schuselka,
that Parliament, early in January 1849, abolished all privileges of
rank; the right of summary arrest was also taken away, and trial by
jury secured; while the freest criticisms were passed on the action of
the Austrian Government in Vienna, Hungary and Italy; and Rieger
specially denounced the desire of the Ministry to crush out all
feeling for the special nationalities. The Parliament began to attract
the attention of many who were at first disposed to speak of it with
scorn; and even those courtiers who had hoped to use it as a weapon
against the Magyars, became alarmed at its evident democratic
leanings. Acting under their advice, Francis Joseph, on March 7,
announced that this Parliament, from which he had hoped so much, had
driven off still further "the restoration of peace and law, and of
public confidence," and had raised the hopes of "the not wholly
conquered party of disorder." He therefore dissolved the Parliament,
and announced, as the King of Prussia had done, that he would settle
the Constitution without their help. The Bohemian leaders united with
the Germans to protest against this final act of violence; and so
ended for about ten years all hopes of Constitutional Government in
Austria.
In the meantime affairs in Italy had been also hastening in the
direction of a more violent solution of difficulties than had been
wished for in the early days of the movement. In spite of his apparent
abandonment of the policy embodied in the encyclical of April 9, in
spite even of his acceptance of Mamiani as Minister, Pius was still
hesitating between two different policies. He was disposed to rely
continually on Cardinals who were out of sympathy with his Ministers;
and he was particularly anxious to assert that, in introducing a
Parliament, he had not surrendered his absolute authority as Pope.
This conflict of feelings in Pius IX. led to a curious exhibition at
the opening of the Roman Parliament of June 4, 1848. On this occasion
the Pope entrusted Cardinal Altieri with a discourse which had not had
the approval of Mamiani. Mamiani, on the other hand, as Prime
Minister, read to the Chamber a discourse in which he declared that
the Pope abandoned to the wisdom of the deputies the care of providing
for temporal affairs, and spoke of entrusting the papal volunteers in
Lombardy to the leadership of Charles Albert. In spite of the action
of Altieri, Mamiani declared that his speech had been approved by the
Pope; but the Papal Nuncio in Vienna repudiated the language of the
Papal Prime Minister. This continual jar between the Pope and his
Ministers naturally excited distrust in the Assembly; and when the
Austrians crossed the Po and occupied Ferrara, the cry for war rose,
not only in the Assembly, but also in popular meetings out of doors;
and the feebleness of the papal protest against this second occupation
of Ferrara, increased the distrust of the Pope which was now growing
in Rome. At last, in August, Mamiani, finding his position impossible,
resigned; and, for a time, an old man named Fabbri was accepted as
Minister by the Pope, as a kind of stop-gap. But he, too, speedily
found the position impossible, and resigned his post.
It was under these circumstances that Pius IX. called to his counsels
the man whom he had previously desired to employ, the former ambassador
of Guizot, Pellegrino Rossi. Rossi was known for his previous services
to the cause of liberty, in the early part of the century; for
his careful study of Roman law, and for his attempt to devise a
Constitution for Switzerland. He was a personal friend of Pius IX., and
had desired even a wider Constitution than that which the Pope had
granted. He was further known to have gained respect from some of the
Italian exiles in Paris. On all these grounds he naturally seemed to
Pius a fit person to be trusted with his confidence. But though a man
of sterling honesty, he was the worst possible Papal Minister at this
juncture. His friends expected him to be welcomed as a former sufferer
in the cause of Italian liberty. He was, on the contrary, hated as a
friend of Guizot, and as the former representative of Louis Philippe.
Sterbini, one of the fiercest democrats in Rome, declared that,
if Guizot's friend appeared in the Assembly, he would be stoned.
And, while he was hated by the Jesuits for his desire for secular
Government, and for his Protestant wife, an outcry was at once raised
against his Ministry by the Liberals, when it was found that it
contained two Cardinals. While, too, in his own way, he wished for the
freedom and independence of Italy, his way was exactly opposite to that
which was then desired by the people.
Professor Montanelli, who had been taken prisoner by the Austrians at
Curtatone, but who had since been allowed to return to Tuscany, was
propounding there his scheme for a Constituent Assembly, which was to
embrace all Italy. And this proposal, welcomed eagerly in Tuscany, and
accepted by the Grand Duke, was being advocated in Rome, especially by
Charles Buonaparte, the Prince of Canino. On this plan Rossi threw
cold water, desiring to substitute for it a League of Princes, to be
begun by a Congress of Ambassadors at Rome. This idea, unwelcome and
unpopular in itself, was made more unpopular still by Rossi's eager
advances to Ferdinand of Naples, to whom he actually consented to
surrender fugitives who had escaped from his tyranny. While, too, he
made this alarming concession to the Prince, who was most deservedly
hated throughout Italy, he allowed General Zucchi, whom he had sent to
Bologna, to refuse Garibaldi entrance into that city on his return
from Lombardy; and when Gavazzi, one of the most popular preachers of
the Italian war, protested against this act, Rossi ordered him to be
arrested. And as if the Clericals, the Republicans, and those who
placed Italian unity above any special political creed, were not
enemies enough for one man, Rossi proceeded, by special signs of
suspicion towards Charles Albert, to irritate against him the powerful
party of the Albertisti, who looked to the King of Sardinia as the
necessary leader of a movement for Italian liberty.
All this was done in the most open and scornful manner. Rossi
ridiculed the proposed Constituent Assembly as a Council of Drunkards,
and scornfully told Sterbini that every one knows "that there are
praises which injure and blame which honours." Rumours were spread of
his intention to bombard Rome; and the students mobbed him in the
streets. On one occasion when they were following him, he crossed a
bridge; and as he passed he handed to the toll-man a much larger sum
than was his due, saying, with a wave of his hand towards the
students, "Take for them too." Rumours came to him of plots against
his life, but he refused to pay any attention to them. At last, on
November 15, as he was going down to Parliament, a priest came to him,
and told him that he would die if he went. He answered, "The cause of
the Pope is the cause of God. God will help me." As he passed through
the square, the crowd hooted at him. He warded them off with his
stick, and ascended the stair. Suddenly an umbrella struck him; he
turned his head, so that his neck became exposed; and, in the same
instant, a dagger pierced him, and he fell mortally wounded. So died
Pellegrino Rossi, a man who undoubtedly deserved a better fate; but
who was thrust upon a position and a time which required a man of
genius and humanity; while he had nothing to give but cut-and-dried
maxims, enforced with a courage which was too nearly allied to
insolence.
That the guilt of Rossi's death should be laid to the account of
different parties by different people, with equal confidence, was
natural enough, considering the variety of enemies which his policy
and character had stirred up against him; but it is a strange fact
that actual eye-witnesses dispute as to whether it was received with
joy or indignation by the people of Rome. It is tolerably evident,
however, that all feelings about the actual event were quickly merged
in the panic about its consequences. A general demand was made for a
popular Ministry; and Galletti, who had been Minister of Police under
Fabbri, went to the Pope to ask leave to form a Ministry. The Pope
refused, and the people who had followed Galletti soon came to blows
with the Swiss Guard. The Guard were driven back, and the crowd
succeeded in getting cannon into their hands; but Federico Torre
thrust himself in front of the cannon, exclaiming, "Shame to point
cannon at the men who gave us the amnesty." Pius had hoped that some
of the inhabitants of the Trastevere would have risen on his behalf;
but, finding no support from them, he yielded to the demand for a
Liberal Ministry, and appointed as his Prime Minister Rosmini, a
champion of Charles Albert, and suspected of heresy by the Cardinals.
Mamiani, who was at the time absent from Rome, was made Minister of
Foreign Affairs, and Sterbini Minister of Commerce and Public Works.
On the refusal of Rosmini, the Premiership was given to Muzzarelli.
But these appointments, like Ferdinand's acceptance of a Democratic
Ministry under similar circumstances, did not express the real
feeling of the Pope. He was completely panic-struck by the events
which had taken place; and, urged by Cardinals and Ambassadors, he
fled secretly from Rome on the night of the 24th of November disguised
as a footman, and took refuge at Gaeta, under the protection of the
King of Naples.
Mamiani had reluctantly accepted the office of Foreign Minister; but
he still believed that it was desirable to uphold the authority of the
Pope, because, as he expressed it, "the only choice for Rome lay
between Pius IX. and Cola di Rienzi." Nor was he shaken in his
determination, even when a letter came from the Pope at Gaeta,
denouncing the acts of the people, repudiating his Ministers, and
appointing as Commissioners of State men of the most violently
reactionary character.
But, in the meantime, a strong force of public opinion was growing in
the Roman provinces, in favour of the election of a Constituent
Assembly; and at last Aurelio Saffi, who had been so prominent as a
champion of reform in the time of Gregory XVI., succeeded in gathering
together, at Forli, representatives of different local Societies, and
preparing an Address to the Ministry, which set forth in a concise
form those feelings which were floating in the provinces at that time.
This address expressed great regret at the flight of the Pope, whose
name the petitioners declared they had been wont to reverence as "the
symbol of a magnanimous idea." They went on to say, however, that, as
Pius IX. had thrown himself into the arms of the worst enemies of
Italy, it had become necessary to take steps to prevent civil war
and anarchy. As Constitutional Monarchy had been cut short by
the departure of the Pope, and as it was impossible to accept
Commissioners whom the Pope had appointed since his flight to Gaeta,
it was necessary for the Council of Deputies to nominate a Provisional
Government which should issue writs for the election of an Assembly by
universal suffrage, and should settle definitely the political
arrangements of the State, "saving only the rights of the nation
united in an Italian Constituent Assembly, such as has been proclaimed
by the Tuscan Parliament." This Address produced a great effect in
Rome; and Armellini urged his colleagues to accept the proposals of
the petitioners. Mamiani, seeing that the Constitutional compromise
which he desired had become impossible, refused to remain a Minister
of State. A Provisional Government of eight members was then formed,
in which Sterbini, Galletti, and Armellini took part; and the new
Government on December 29 issued an Address to the Roman people,
calling upon them to elect an Assembly for the Roman State, which was
to meet in Rome on February 5.
In the meantime, the flight of the Pope had startled the other Princes
of Italy. Leopold of Tuscany had seemed more ready than most of his
brother Princes to accept Constitutional Government, and even to look
forward to arrangements for the unity of Italy. Guerrazzi, from what
motives it may be difficult to guess, had discouraged Montanelli's
plan of an Italian Constituent Assembly, and had warned the Grand Duke
that his own position would be destroyed by such an institution. But,
when the Pope fled from Rome, Guerrazzi had conceived the idea that
Leopold might be chosen President of the new Assembly, and that the
combination of Tuscany with the Roman States might prove a check on
the ambition of Charles Albert. Leopold, however, seems to have been
actuated by very different motives from those to which Guerrazzi
appealed. So far from being strongly moved by personal ambition, or by
a sense of official dignity, he was particularly inclined to accept
the lead of other Princes. He had imitated Ferdinand of Naples in
proclaiming Constitutional Government; he had followed Charles Albert
in proclaiming war on Austria; and he had accepted first the Italian
League, and afterwards the plan of an Italian Constituent Assembly,
without a sign, as far as is apparent, of any other motive than the
desire to promote the unity of Italy. But this very willingness to act
with other Princes made Leopold averse from the idea of standing alone
in his policy. It was therefore that flight of the Pope which seemed
to Guerrazzi to open a new chance for Tuscany, which awoke in Leopold
scruples and hesitations; and when Pius issued from Gaeta his
denunciation of the proposals of the Roman Council, Leopold lost
heart, and secretly fled from Florence to Siena, leaving a written
statement to the effect that the Pope's opposition to the Italian
Constituent Assembly compelled him to revoke the decree by which he
had just sanctioned that Assembly.
On February 8 the news of the Grand Duke's flight was received in
Florence, and it was immediately followed by a rising, in which the
insurgents demanded the appointment of a Provisional Government
composed of Guerrazzi, Montanelli, and a man named Mazzoni. Just about
the same time Mazzini arrived in Leghorn. Guerrazzi, who still wished
to act in the name of the Grand Duke, tried to forbid Mazzini's
entrance; but the Livornese went out to meet him with banners bearing
his motto, "Dio e il Popolo." He exhorted them to preserve order, and
then went to Florence to urge the Tuscan Ministry to join their
country to the Roman State. But Guerrazzi succeeded in preventing the
acceptance of this proposal, and Mazzini went on to Rome.
Gioberti, on his part, had been much exercised in his mind by the new
aspect of affairs. His great desire that the Pope should unite Italy
seemed utterly frustrated by the flight of Pius from Rome, and still
more by his placing himself under foreign protection. For, though it
was to the King of Naples that the Pope first appealed, Gaeta soon
became the gathering place of the ambassadors of the extreme Roman
Catholic Powers; and, when Gioberti sent messengers to Gaeta, they
found the Pope surrounded by men who had no sympathy with the ideas of
the Primato. When the Piedmontese envoys offered him a refuge at Nice,
and promised that their King would join with other Italian Princes in
restoring him to Rome, the Pope answered that he had appealed to the
European Powers, and must await their decision; and he further
reproached Charles Albert with the sanction which he had given to the
idea of an Italian Constituent Assembly, accusing him of intriguing
with those who were opposed to the rights of the Church. Though
discouraged by this rebuff, Gioberti hoped to find a new mission in
the restoration of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had now followed the
Pope to Gaeta. But in this plan he found himself opposed at once by
Guerrazzi, and by the Austrians; while his own colleagues were so
indignant at the proposal, that he was compelled to leave the Ministry
which he had only just joined.
In the meantime, the Austrian conquerors of Lombardy had been
supplying justifications for a new Italian war. The capitulation of
Vicenza had been violated almost as soon as it had been made, by the
infliction of new vexations on those to whom a free pardon had been
granted; and the more important capitulation of Milan had been
followed by similar breaches of faith. Special burdens had been laid
on those who had taken an active part in the struggle against Austria;
while some of the regulations of General Welden in Pavia had been so
cruel as to excite a protest even from the Viennese Assembly. He had
ordered that anyone who went about with arms was to be shot within
twenty-four hours, and that his patrols should fire on any group of
men more than three in number who were found in the streets at night.
The Council of Lombardy had, therefore, appealed to Charles Albert to
secure them justice, because Radetzky had acted "in defiance of his
own word, in defiance of the orders of his Sovereign, in defiance of
the military conventions, in defiance of the mediation of England and
France." The stronger Liberals of Piedmont soon began to cry out for
war; but, for a long time, Charles Albert and his Ministers hoped to
stave off action, and to secure a settlement of these differences by
diplomacy. But the rebuffs which Gioberti had received gradually
convinced them that no further help was to be found in appeals to
foreign Powers; and, urged on by a strong popular feeling, Charles
Albert for the last time declared war upon Austria.
It might be reasonably doubted how far such a war would excite the
sympathies of the Romans. The Piedmontese Ministry had recently
attempted to suppress the liberties of Rome; and although that
Ministry had fallen, Charles Albert was himself known to be strongly
Monarchical in his feelings about the government of Rome. The Roman
Assembly, which met on February 5, had, on the 9th, declared the Pope
deposed, and had proclaimed the Republic; a step which they might
naturally expect to widen the breach between them and the Piedmontese.
Some were even disposed to think that Charles Albert had given another
sign of hostility in ignoring the former league with Rome, and
declaring an Italian war without any consultation with, or notice to
the Roman Ministry. But any doubts or hesitations as to the right
attitude of Rome towards Piedmont at this crisis were put an end to by
Mazzini. He had been chosen by Leghorn as their representative in the
Roman Assembly, and had taken his seat on March 6, the whole Assembly
rising to greet him. When, then, the news came that Charles Albert had
declared war once more on Austria, Mazzini appealed to the Romans to
join in the struggle. "There must," he said, "be only two kinds of
Italians in Italy: the friends and the enemies of Austria. Republican
Rome will make war by the side of Monarchical Piedmont." Mazzini
never considered that ready or eloquent speech was a power that he
possessed; and, what is more to the point, some of those who loved and
admired him held the same opinion; but the intensity of his conviction
seemed to take the place of readily-turned phrases or imagery; and, as
he went on to speak of the sacrifices that the war demanded of all
Romans, there fell upon the table beside him, in showers, the jewels
which the ladies in the gallery had plucked off, as their offerings
for the good of their country. The Assembly voted war, almost
unanimously, and twelve battalions of the National Guard were
despatched to Lombardy.
The war was little worthy of their enthusiasm. The Piedmontese
officers were so little trusted by Charles Albert that he chose a Pole
named Chrzanowski as his Commander-in-Chief, while the second in
command was that Ramorino who had betrayed Mazzini in the Expedition
of 1833-4. The three or four days of the war were mere scenes of
mutual distrust, mismanagement, and, possibly, treachery; and it is
pleasant to turn for a moment from the Piedmontese battles to the one
part of the struggle which redeemed this episode from utter contempt.
On March 23, Brescia, from which a portion of the Austrian forces had,
for a time, then withdrawn, sprang to arms, drove out the remaining
troops, and raised the Italian flag. Tito Speri, a Mantuan, organized
the poorer citizens, and led them against the forces of Nugent, which
were advancing on the city. After a sharp struggle, the Brescians were
driven back with some loss; but, two days later, Speri made another
sortie, and, though attacked by the cavalry, succeeded in driving them
back, and in occupying the hills which overlook Brescia. He now
attempted to treat with the Austrians; but Nugent answered that he
would enter Brescia, either by force or by love; to which Speri
replied, "Perhaps by force, but never by love!" Rumours came of
Charles Albert's defeat, but the Brescians refused to believe it; and
Nugent was forced to retreat from Brescia, after having, apparently,
concluded an armistice with the citizens. But, on March 30 or 31,
Haynau appeared before the city; and, in answer to the appeal of the
Brescians to the terms of the armistice, he declared that, if they
did not yield in two hours, he would reduce the city to ashes. But the
Brescians were resolved, as their own inscription tells us, to teach
"that defeat may be more glorious and fruitful than victory;" and
they, therefore, refused to yield. On April 1, Haynau bombarded the
city; and, after a fierce struggle at Porta Torlunga, in which General
Nugent was mortally wounded, Haynau forced his way into the city, and
put men, women, and children to the sword--the cruelties of his
proceedings gaining for him, among the Italians, the title of "the
Tiger of Brescia."
But, before Brescia had fallen, Charles Albert, betrayed by his
officers, distrusted by his soldiers, and out of heart, had been
defeated at Novara; and, in response to a demand which he had made to
Radetzky for a truce, he had been asked terms which he considered too
dishonourable to accept. His officers, however, told him that his army
was in too disorganised a state to be depended on, and he then
answered in these words: "For eighteen years I have always used every
possible power for the advantage of my people. It is painful to me to
find my hopes deceived; not so much for my sake, as for my country's.
I have not been able to find on the field of battle the death that I
so ardently desired. Perhaps my person is the only obstacle to the
obtaining of just terms from the enemy. The continuation of the war
having become impossible, I abdicate the Crown in favour of my son,
Victor Emmanuel, in the hope that a new King may be able to obtain
more honourable terms, and to secure for the country an advantageous
peace." So ended the chequered career of Charles Albert, a man of
many attractive qualities and noble aspirations, but who, by a fatal
weakness of will made more evident by a painfully difficult situation,
had been constantly dragged into acts of cruelty and treachery from
which a man of stronger purpose would have been saved. With his fall
ended the Constitutional struggles of this period; and, during the
remaining months of the Revolution, the Peoples of Rome, Venice,
Sicily, and Hungary had to depend, in their struggles for liberty, on
the force of popular feeling, and on the guidance of those leaders
whom they had themselves placed at the head of affairs.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] The following dialogue is taken from the "Neue Rheinische
Zeitung."
[19] This alludes to the dissolution of several clubs by Wrangel's
orders.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DEATH STRUGGLE OF FREEDOM.--OCTOBER 1848-AUGUST 1849.
Division of Feeling among the Magyar Leaders.--Arthur
Görgei.--Ground of his quarrels with Kossuth.--Bem.--The
Volunteers.--The Plan of Defence.--The Flight to Debreczin--The
Proclamation at Waitzen.--Effect of Hungarian Conscription Law in
Transylvania. Puchner and the Roumanians.--Puchner finally adopts
their Cause.--Avraham Jancu.--The Saxons and Roumanians.--Bem in
Transylvania.--His Character and Work.--The Appeal to General
Lüders.--The Russians in Transylvania.--The Capture of
Hermannstadt.--Bem and Csanyi.--The Reign of Terror.--The Death of
Roth.--Görgei and Dembinski.--Effect of Francis Joseph's coup
d'état.--Why it did not produce greater results.--The Race
Feuds.--The Constitutional Difficulty.--The Declaration of
Independence.--Kossuth's Power and its Causes.--The Struggle in
Rome.--The Triumvirate and their Difficulties.--Order and
Liberty.--The Danger from France.--A Pacific Candidate.--The
Collapse of the Tuscan Movement.--The Final Struggle and Fall of
Sicily.--The French Expedition.--The Landing at Civita
Vecchia.--Oudinot and Manara.--The Occupation of Civita
Vecchia.--The March to Rome.--Guerra! Guerra!--The Repulse of the
French.--The Debates in France.--The Defence of Bologna.--Lesseps
in Rome.--Lesseps and Oudinot.--French Treachery.--Garibaldi and
Roselli.--Further Treachery.--The Fight by the Vascello.--Ledru
Rollin's Insurrection.--The Final Struggle for German Liberty and
its Failure.--The Final Struggle in Rome.--Mazzini's
Proposals.--Decision of the Assembly.--Garibaldi's last
Effort.--"Cardinal" Oudinot in Rome.--The Struggle in
Venice.--Manin and Kossuth.--Kossuth's Blunder.--Görgei's
Policy.--The Russian Invasion of Transylvania.--The Struggle at the
Temos Pass.--Bem and Kossuth.--Kossuth's Resignation.--The
Surrender at Vilagos.--The Cholera in Venice.--The Final
Surrender.--Manin's Stone.--General Estimate of the Struggle and
its Results.
The battle of Schwechat had brought into prominence the great
difficulties with which the Hungarian Government had now to contend.
The flight of the Count Palatine, and the resignation of Batthyanyi,
had thrown the government into the hands of the Committee of Defence,
over which Kossuth's power was nearly supreme. But, however much this
concentration of authority in the hands of the most popular leader may
have given strength to the civil part of the Executive, yet the
revolutionary character which it gave to the movement called out
scruples in many military men, who had hitherto been willing to work
with tolerable heartiness for the Hungarian cause. The flight of
Archduke Stephen deprived the Government of that Constitutional
sanction which would have been derived from the presence of an
official directly representing the Emperor; while at the same time,
Ferdinand's approval of Jellaciç and the dissolution of the Hungarian
Diet, placed the Emperor and the Magyars in that condition of direct
opposition to each other, which most of the Magyar statesmen had
desired to avoid. This change of position considerably affected the
feelings of the officers, especially of those who had previously
served in the Austrian Army, and in whom the military preference for
Monarchical Government was strongly developed. This feeling had shown
itself even during the struggle against Jellaciç's invasion; and it
was this which had led those Magyar officers, who were friendly to the
Viennese cause, to ask for a direct summons from the Viennese
Parliament before they would cross the frontier. Finally, it was this
feeling which had led to those orders and counter orders, and to that
general uncertainty of plan which had ruined the Hungarian cause at
the Battle of Schwechat. Kossuth, and all who wished to carry on the
war vigorously, felt that a change of generals was necessary, if the
freedom of Hungary was not to be destroyed by the internal divisions
of the country. General Moga had therefore to be removed; and
the question was, who was to take his place? It was under these
circumstances that Kossuth called to the front a man whose character
and actions have ever since been the favourite debating ground of the
students of the Hungarian war.[20]
Arthur Görgei had been a lieutenant in the Austrian Army, and, by his
own account, had lived away from Hungary until April, 1848, and was
"nearly ignorant of his country's customs, and above all, wholly
deficient in even a superficial and general acquaintance with civil
administration." He had, however, been made a captain in the newly
raised regiments of Honveds or Home troops of Hungary, in the summer
of 1848. He very soon began to complain of the men who had been
placed over his head; and specially at being superseded on one
occasion by Moritz Perczel. To Perczel he soon began to show the same
insubordinate demeanour which remained ever his characteristic
attitude towards his superior officers; and he was only saved by the
intercession of friends from being shot for disobeying orders. He had,
however, gained credit with some of the fiercer patriots among the
Magyars, by his summary execution of Count Eugene Zichy, who had been
suspected of treason; and this act, though condemned by the more
temperate champions of the cause, was considered to have committed
Görgei so strongly to an anti-Austrian policy, that there could be no
fear of his lack of zeal in the coming struggle. When then General
Moga had shown that, either from military incapacity, or from want of
sympathy with the cause, he was not to be trusted with the command of
the army, Kossuth turned to Görgei, and offered him the post of which
Moga had been deprived. Görgei accepted it; and then there almost
immediately began that long series of differences and difficulties
which was to ruin the cause of Hungarian liberty.
The quarrel between Kossuth and Görgei will always be judged
differently by military and non-military critics; for, setting aside
those unfortunate peculiarities of character which marked both these
leaders, the struggle was one between the ideas of a statesman and the
ideas of a soldier. Kossuth had already had experience of the
difficulties which arose from putting confidence in officers who are
out of sympathy with the cause for which they are fighting; and he was
therefore specially alive to any sign of this want of sympathy in the
successor of General Moga. Görgei, on the other hand, had that
belief, so common in men of his profession, that all political
questions were mainly to be judged from the military point of view;
and that his admitted ignorance in matters of civil administration did
not disqualify him from laying down the law on the most important
affairs of Government. Although he shared Kossuth's distrust for
General Moga, he sympathised with Moga's preference for Monarchical
Government; and although he had fought bravely against the forces of
Windischgrätz at the battle of Schwechat, he had previously declared
that he did not see the solidarity between the cause of Hungary and
that of Vienna; and he held that the oath which the officers had taken
to the March Constitution implied their duty to preserve that
Constitution in the exact form in which it had been originally
granted.
But if Görgei went beyond his province in his interference with
affairs of civil government, Kossuth no doubt, in turn, hampered
Görgei in matters in which he was bound to trust him, so long as he
retained him in his command. But in periods of revolution there always
arise a large number of questions which, in ordinary times, would be
decided on purely military grounds, but which, in that abnormal
state of affairs, become necessarily complicated with political
considerations. It is this peculiarity of circumstances, for which
both statesmen and soldiers find it so hard to make allowance, and
which makes it so difficult to judge justly in such a controversy as
that which we are considering.
The first point of difference between Kossuth and Görgei related to
exactly one of those matters in which military and political feeling
seem most necessarily and reasonably to come into collision. This was
the choice of Bem as a general in the Hungarian army. Bem had
succeeded in escaping secretly from Vienna and coming to Hungary. He
had, indeed, offered his services to the Hungarians at an earlier
period, but Pulszky had persuaded him that he could best serve the
cause of Hungary in Vienna; and now that that city had fallen, he
hastened back to Kossuth. Kossuth and Bem seem always to have
recognized in each other that common faith in the people, and power of
calling out popular enthusiasm, which, in different ways, was the
great strength of both of them. Bem's conduct in the defence of Vienna
had given sufficient pledge of his zeal against the power of Austria,
a zeal which had produced such effect on the imagination of his
enemies that it was said by the Vienna wits that Francis Joseph
ordered the bells of Vienna to be muffled because they would ring out
"Bem, Bem!" But Görgei disliked Bem for the very reason for which
Kossuth approved of him. He considered him a knight errant who
followed revolutionary methods of warfare which were quite unknown to
correct military tacticians; and he soon found that his own estimates
of the different officers under him were quite opposed to those formed
by Bem. Kossuth therefore wisely decided that Görgei and Bem could
not work together, and he despatched Bem to take the command in
Transylvania.
On the next question at issue the balance of opinion will probably be
in favour of Görgei. The volunteers who had been raised by the
national Government were naturally objects of special favour to them;
but they had in some cases shown themselves disorderly; and this
disorder was, no doubt, considerably increased by the return to their
country of Hungarian soldiers who had been stationed in Galicia and
other parts of the Empire. These soldiers had, in many cases, thrown
off the authority of their officers, and asserted their national
rights at the expense of military discipline. Görgei tried to make
special arrangements for so redistributing these recruits as to
utilize their services while preventing the growth of any such
feelings of insubordination as might be likely to spring from their
previous mutiny. In these methods of re-organization the Committee of
Defence saw a tendency to discourage patriotic feeling; and Görgei
found himself opposed in matters where he justly felt that he should
have been allowed some freedom of action.
But an even more important question of controversy was the general
plan of the campaign. Kossuth and the Committee of Defence were
extremely anxious to defend the Western frontier of Hungary, partly in
order to weaken the fears produced by the battle of Schwechat; partly,
as Görgei believed, to make it easier to draw the line between Hungary
and Austria, and so break off political connection between them.
Görgei, on the other hand, held that, since Hungary was now threatened
on north, south, and west, and, since Windischgrätz's army was better
disciplined than the Hungarian soldiers, a defence of the frontier was
impossible, and that it would be better to retreat to Raab and defend
the principal passes across the White Mountains, while removing the
seat of Government beyond the Theiss. In this plan he was at first
over-ruled. But his ideas received apparent justification in the
defeats which he suffered from Windischgrätz; and, on December 19 he
was actually compelled to retreat to Raab.
Then followed an episode which has brought much discredit on Kossuth.
He issued a sensational address, declaring that the Committee of
Defence would be buried under the ruins of Buda rather than desert the
capital. Görgei ridiculed the idea of the defensibility of Buda-Pesth;
but the Committee of Defence insisted; and Görgei was preparing for
battle, when, early in January, 1849, the news suddenly arrived in his
camp that the Committee of Defence had left Pesth without waiting for
the siege, and had retired to Debreczin. But, if Kossuth had been to
blame in these earlier matters of controversy, Görgei now took a step
which certainly seems to justify all Kossuth's subsequent suspicions.
Görgei was, at this time, stationed at Waitzen, a little north of
Pesth; and he there issued a declaration to the army condemning the
policy of the Committee of Defence, and calling upon the officers to
declare that the army was fighting for the maintenance of the
Constitution of Hungary as sanctioned by King Ferdinand V.;[21]
that it will oppose all those who may attempt to overthrow the
Constitutional Monarchy by untimely Republican intrigues; and that it
will only obey orders received from the responsible Minister of War,
appointed by the King.
A few weeks later Görgei was again defeated by Windischgrätz, who,
after the battle, offered him an amnesty, and free life out of Austria.
In answer to this offer, Görgei sent a copy of the proclamation drawn
up at Waitzen, declaring that this was the ultimatum, both of his army
and of himself. By this act it is evident that he called the attention
of the General against whom he was nominally fighting to the internal
party divisions of Hungary. However brilliant Görgei's military
abilities might be, and however unfairly he had been interfered with by
the Committee of Defence, it cannot be wondered at that, after this act
of treachery, they looked upon him with distrust. In the following
month Görgei was deprived of his command and superseded by the Polish
General Dembinski.
In the meantime a struggle of far greater moral importance, though
possibly of less value to military science, was being carried on in
Transylvania. The Roumanian movement had been undergoing the same
change, which had already passed over the national movements of the
Serbs and Croats. As early as June, 1848, the Croatian Assembly had
expressed their sympathy with the struggle of the Roumanians; and even
from the Italians some utterances of sympathy had been heard, in
favour of their kinsmen in Transylvania. The rejection of their
petition by the Emperor, and the consequent persecution by the Magyars
had led the Roumanians to rely upon themselves; and had induced some
of their leaders to look for help rather to the new State which was
trying to struggle into existence in Wallachia and Moldavia, than to
the Austrian Government. In September, however, a new element was
introduced into the struggle by the passing of a Conscription law by
the Hungarian Diet. While the Roumanians resented this, as an attempt
to make them serve under the military leadership of their persecutors,
they also saw that an attempt to enforce a law, passed without the
sanction of the Emperor, was a direct defiance of his authority; and
at a meeting in the town of Orlat, they protested against this
conscription, and declared their preference for the Austrian army, as
against the Hungarian. They now openly announced their separation from
Hungary, and demanded to be formed into an independent nation.
The Hungarians met this demand by authorizing their Commissioner
Berczenczei to summon the Szekler to a public meeting, nominally to
plan the defence of their country, but really as a counterblast to the
demands of the Roumanians.
But the Roumanians felt that it was necessary to strengthen themselves
by an appeal to a recognized authority; and they saw that the
desultory and barbarous warfare, which they had hitherto carried on,
would never suffice to win them the rights which they had now resolved
to claim; they therefore made advances to Field-Marshal Puchner, the
General of the Austrian forces in Transylvania. Latour had for some
time past been trying to stir up Puchner to action; but Puchner had
hesitated to listen either to the Austrian Minister, or to the
Roumanian leaders. He seems to have been a man of much higher type
than most of the Austrian generals who were engaged in the struggles
of this period; and he shrank alike from the underhand intrigues of
Latour, and from the dreadful cruelties of Roumanian warfare. The
latter feeling would have had special force with him at this period;
because the most urgent appeals for his help came from Urban, a former
officer in the Austrian army, who had been the most notorious for his
brutalities of all the leaders of the Roumanians. But, while Puchner
was unwilling to commit himself definitely to the Roumanian cause,
he opposed himself to the reckless persecution which the Magyar
Commissioner Vay had carried on against all who had helped in
organizing the petition of the Roumanians; and Puchner had even gone
to Karlsburg, and successfully petitioned for the release of some of
the Roumanian prisoners. He had hoped, however, to combine this
merciful and moderate policy with the recognition of Vay's authority,
and even with a kind of co-operation with him. But the fiercely
revolutionary character, which the Hungarian Diet began to assume
after the death of Latour, compelled Puchner into more decided
opposition to their proceedings.
On the 8th of October, Kossuth issued an order to the towns of
Hungary, in which he told them that anyone who did not hang out the
Hungarian flag, and express in writing his devotion to the Hungarian
cause, and his willingness to obey the committee appointed by the
Government, should be shot as a traitor; and this savage proclamation
was followed the next day by a command from Commissioner Vay, to the
tax collectors of Transylvania, that they should no longer send the
taxes to the central office at Hermannstadt, but to the office in
Klausenburg, which had hitherto been considered subordinate. As
Hermannstadt was at once the military head-quarters of the Austrian
army and the chief town of the Saxon settlement in Transylvania, this
was a direct attack both on the Imperial power, and on the influence
of the Saxons. A few days later the Szekler, in the meeting which had
recently been summoned, denounced Puchner for his attempt to hinder
that meeting, and formally repudiated his authority.
Puchner now felt that the time had come for action; and, on the
18th of October, he issued from Hermannstadt an appeal to all the
inhabitants of Transylvania, and especially to the official boards. In
this he declared that, since the Count Palatine and his Ministers had
resigned their offices, there had been no legal Government in Hungary.
The Government of Kossuth, which wrongfully claimed to act for the
Emperor, was substituting terror for equality, and had falsely spread
the rumour that the Government desired to use the Roumanians to
oppress the Magyar and Szekler. In order, then, to put an end to
anarchy, and to protect the country from terrorism, he, Puchner, had
resolved to take advantage of the Imperial Manifesto of October 3,
which had placed Hungary under military Government; and he called upon
all boards to act with him in restoring order, and upon the volunteers
and national guards to place themselves under his command.
Nor were the Roumanians content with this official appeal; for their
own national committee issued about the same time, on their own
responsibility, an address to the Szeklers and Magyars. In this
address they declared that they, like the Szeklers and Magyars, had
sympathized with the March movement in Hungary; but that a faction had
now usurped the Government of the country, and was aiming, at once, at
depriving the King of his crown, and the Hungarian Peoples of their
nationality. They hoped that the better part of the Magyars and
Szeklers would unite against this faction; but, if they would not,
then the Roumanians must declare war on them. They promised, however,
to carry on the war in a humane manner, and to spare women, old men,
and prisoners. At the same time, they issued an appeal to their
countrymen, urging them to abstain from cruelties in warfare, as such
practices were unworthy of a free people. The Saxons had, at first,
been somewhat unwilling to act with the Roumanians; but the new
movement seemed to give an opening for better co-operation. Joint
committees of the two races were formed, and Puchner undertook to
organize the soldiers of both races.
Of the Roumanian leaders who now came to the front, the most remarkable
was Avraham Jancu.[22] He had been originally trained as a lawyer;
but, after the meeting in September, he went off to organize the
National Guard in his own mountains; and, when Puchner had issued his
proclamation, Jancu received orders to give his assistance in disarming
the Magyars. This process had been begun by the Roumanians, without
waiting for orders; and it had, in consequence, been accompanied with
many acts of cruelty. Jancu therefore sent down three tribunes with
forces to protect the Magyar families from violence; and he also
persuaded one or two of the towns to surrender to him, that he might
then protect them from ill-treatment. Jancu also won several victories,
and became so formidable to his opponents that he gained the name of
the "Mountain King." But the humane exertions of Jancu and other
tribunes, seconded with all his influence by Puchner, were not
sufficient to keep in check the wildness of some of the Roumanian
leaders. The cruelties which both the Magyars and Szeklers had
committed in the struggle; the summary execution at Klausenburg of
three leaders of the Roumanians, before the actual rising had taken
place, and the reputed crucifixion of another at Maros Vasarhely,
roused the fury of the Roumanians to its highest pitch.
The fiercest hatred of the Roumanians was directed against the
Szeklers who had been their most determined enemies; and General
Gedeon marched against Maros Vasarhely. Its specially isolated
position, and the bad roads in its neighbourhood made it an easy prey
for a General who had some skill in guerilla warfare. The city fell
into the hands of Gedeon, who revenged the wrongs of the Roumanians by
inflicting every species of brutality on the Szekler inhabitants.
Horrified as Puchner was at these cruelties, he did not wholly
understand the character of the men with whom he was working; for, in
one of the orders which he issued, he gave a distinct sanction to the
practice of burning villages. He seems, indeed, to have intended this
form of violence merely to be used as an extreme measure in case of
retreat; but the Roumanians did not so understand it; and when, on one
occasion, Puchner was sternly rebuking some of the Roumanian leaders
for not better preventing the cruelties of their followers, one of
them retorted by appealing to this order.
Besides the difficulties arising from these cruelties, Puchner had
to contend against the continual rivalry between the Saxons and
Roumanians. The former were contemptuous towards their allies; and,
according to the Roumanian theory, were disposed to take unfair
advantage of the Roumanians in the election of the members of the
Committee of Management. Nevertheless, the help of the Saxons probably
enabled Puchner to secure a more orderly Government than he could
have achieved without it; and, amongst others from whom he received
this kind of help, was the Saxon clergyman, Stephan Ludwig Roth, who
had already been known for his efforts to secure German emigrants to
Transylvania. He was appointed by Puchner to govern the district of
Mediasch, in the valley of Kokelburg, where he distinguished himself
by his humanity to the Magyar families who came under his protection,
and showed his large-hearted sympathy by adopting a Magyar child who
had been deserted by its parents. Moreover, Bishop Schaguna, who,
it will be remembered, had discouraged the first risings of the
Roumanians, now joined in with Puchner's plans, and exerted himself to
restrain the violence of his countrymen.
But while Puchner, aided by men like Schaguna, Jancu and Roth, was
endeavouring to check the cruelties which his new followers were too
ready to inflict, there was needed on the other hand an equally strong
influence to restrain the savagery of the Magyar and Szekler. This was
the more necessary, because, whatever injustice these races had
committed towards the weaker races of Hungary, in the state in which
things then stood, the Magyar cause had become identified with the
cause of European freedom. Only in the success of the armies which
Kossuth was trying to organize, did there seem even the least remaining
chance for the overthrow of that Government which was crushing out the
life of Vienna, which had trampled on the freedom of Lombardy, and
which threatened to be the complete inheritor of the old system of
Metternich. But if the Magyar armies in North Hungary were to achieve
either the military or moral success which such a cause required, it
was necessary that, in Transylvania also, the same race should deserve
and obtain a similar success. For that purpose, they would need a man
who would be the equal of Puchner both in generalship and humanity. For
under Puchner's leadership, the Saxons and Roumanians were gaining in
military prowess, even more than in self-restraint, and Klausenburg had
fallen into the hands of the Imperial forces.
Such was the state of things, when, on December 15, it was announced
that Bem had been appointed by Kossuth Commander-in-Chief of the
Transylvanian Army. He at once assembled the officers of the Army
which he was to command, and informed them that he required from them
unconditional obedience. Those who did not obey, he said, would be
shot. Those who did obey he would know how to reward. With these few
stern words, he dismissed them. This address was evidently one which
might either be delivered by a mere overweening tyrant, or by a man of
real genius and strong will, who understood the work that was before
him. A few months served to show in which class Bem was to be
reckoned. Ignoring the Commissioner, who had been sent down, he armed
and reclad his troops; punished disorder with a stern hand, but showed
such personal sympathy with his followers, that he became known as
"Father Bem;" while his enemies soon learned to distinguish him from
the other leaders by his generosity and humanity to the conquered. He
seems to have been one of those born leaders of men, who understand
when to be stern, and when to be indulgent. On one occasion an officer
doubted if he could hold a position. Bem told him that he must either
hold it, or be shot; and it was held. On another occasion his troops,
seized by the panic natural to undisciplined levies, fled before the
enemy, leaving Bem in great danger. He announced afterwards that he
might have had to shoot or flog many of them; but he would not do the
first, because he thought they might still serve their country; nor
the second, because he would not treat them as beasts; and, therefore,
he must forgive them. With regard to his military capacity, although
the conventional military critics were disposed to discredit it, yet
it could not be denied that he taught an undisciplined mob to stand
fire before a regular army, to obey discipline, and even to develope a
courage and capacity which won special applause and honours for the
Szekler nation; that he succeeded in about three months in completely
turning the fortunes of the war in Transylvania; and at a later period
in holding his own for another two months against the powerful armies
of two nations. His personal daring was more like that of a knight
errant than of a modern general. On one occasion, after a battle in
which he had been worsted, he saw some Austrians carrying off one of
his cannon. He darted forward alone, exclaiming, "That is my cannon";
and so cowed his enemies, that they surrendered it at once. On another
occasion he sent an aide-de-camp to call up the rear-guard of his
Army, and found that they had all disappeared, and that he was
continuing the struggle with hardly any followers.
As if to mark the cause for which Bem was fighting as more distinctly
than ever the cause of liberty, Puchner began, in January, 1849, those
negotiations with the Russians which were finally to stamp the
Austrian invasion of Transylvania with the anti-national character
which other circumstances of the struggle might have made doubtful. In
this matter, as in his original adoption of the Roumanian cause,
Puchner seems not so much to have taken the lead as to have been
driven into his position by unavoidable circumstances. Schaguna, whose
prominence among the Roumanians had specially marked him out as an
object of hostility to the Magyar Government, fled from Hermannstadt
on the first news of Bem's arrival in Transylvania, and is believed to
have made the first appeal for Russian help. The Roumanians, whose
kinsmen of the Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia) were in some
alarm about the intentions of Russia, do not seem to have sympathized
warmly with this action of their bishop; but the Saxons were less
scrupulous; and the towns of Kronstadt and Hermannstadt sent a formal
address to General Lüders, the Russian Commander in Bucharest, asking
him to come to their assistance. Lüders answered that the Czar
sympathized with the brave defenders of the Austrian throne, and
wished to respond to their appeal; but that he was unable to do so
without a direct request from the Austrian Commander-in-Chief. Under
these circumstances, Puchner felt himself bound to yield to the wishes
of the Saxons; some of the Roumanian leaders joined in the appeal; and
so, on February 1, formal application was made for Russian help. The
Russians do not seem to have come in great numbers, nor with that
formal announcement of war which accompanied their later invasion, in
June. Bem, at any rate, did not lose courage. Although he had recently
been repulsed by Puchner, he rallied his forces; and, on March 11, he
defeated the Russians before Hermannstadt, and followed up his victory
by the capture of the town. This signal victory secured, for a time,
the reconquest of Transylvania by the Magyars; and, if Bem had
remained in that province, it is possible that he would not only have
retained the territory under Magyar rule, but that he might have made
that rule acceptable to the Saxons, and, in time, even to the
Roumanians.
But behind Bem stood the dark figure of one who had already brought
disgrace and injury on the Magyar cause, and who was still further to
degrade it on this occasion. This was Ladislaus Csanyi, the intriguer
who had introduced into the election of Zala County those elements
of bribery and intimidation which had compelled Deak to refuse
election. Csanyi now desired to put Hermannstadt to the sword; but Bem
interfered, and the Saxons still honour his memory as that of the man
who saved their countrymen from massacre and their chief city from
destruction. Determined to counteract, so far as he could, the brutal
policy of Csanyi, Bem issued a general amnesty to those who had opposed
the Magyar Government; but, unfortunately, that Government believed
that they needed Bem's military talents more than his civil wisdom; and
they despatched him into the Banat, to clear that province also of the
enemies of Magyar rule. So, while Bem was succeeding in battle in the
Banat, Csanyi was undoing his work in Transylvania. With the approval,
apparently, of Kossuth, Csanyi repudiated Bem's amnesty altogether, and
established tribunals in Transylvania for the summary execution of his
enemies and the confiscation of their goods.
There was one victim of this reign of terror whose character and
sufferings stand out in a manner which throws a halo over the Saxon
cause. Stephan Ludwig Roth had, as above mentioned, distinguished
himself by his humanity in the administration of the government of
Mediasch under Puchner's rule; and the Magyar officials of the town of
Elizabethstadt had sent him an address of thanks for his protection of
their town from plunder. But he was hated by the strong partizans of
Magyar rule, as the most illustrious embodiment of the feeling in
favour of Saxon independence; and his attempts to promote the
immigration of Germans into Transylvania had been remembered against
him by those who wished to crush out, in Hungary, all national feeling
except that of the Magyars. Bem had been so well aware of the hatred
which Roth had excited, that he had thought it necessary to give him,
in addition to the general amnesty, a special guarantee for his
safety. In reliance on this security, Roth had retired to his parish
of Meschen, and was living without any apparent fear, when he was
suddenly arrested there by the soldiers of Csanyi, and brought, after
some delay, to Klausenburg. There he was kept in prison, and, though
at first leniently treated, he was, after a time, prevented from
holding any communications with his friends. In the meantime, the
tribunal which was to decide his fate was not allowed to come to a
free decision. The Magyar mob of Klausenburg gathered round the court
and demanded his death; and even those of the judges who were
convinced of his innocence were terrified into voting for his
condemnation. His friends appealed for mercy to Csanyi, but he
indignantly rejected all petitions, declaring that Roth had deserved
ten deaths.
After his condemnation Roth sent the following letter to his
children:--
"Dear Children,--I have just been condemned to death, and in three
hours more the sentence will be put into execution. If anything
gives me pain, it is the thought of you, who are without a mother,
and who now are losing your father. But there are good men who will
advise and help you for your father's sake. The Hungarian foundling
whom I adopted, I entreat you to continue to take care of; only if
its parents should wish for it, they have a nearer claim. Except
for this, I have nothing more in this world. The children of my
church at Meschen, and my Nimisch people I think of in love. May
God make these communities become rich in the fruits of godliness,
like fruit-trees whose loaded boughs hang down to the ground! In my
writing-table are the prospectuses of the school and church
newspaper which is to be published. The body of the nation is
broken to pieces. I do not believe in any binding together of its
limbs any more. So much the more do I desire the keeping alive of
the spirit which once lived in these forms. For that purpose I
entreat my brother clergy whom I leave behind to take care to carry
on this newspaper, in order to keep alive the character, pure
manners, and honesty of will of our people. But, if it is decreed
in the Counsels of History that it must perish, may it perish in a
manner that shall not bring shame on its ancestors! Time flies. I
know not if my sick body can honourably support my willing spirit.
All whom I have insulted I heartily entreat for pardon. For my
part, I leave the world without hate, and pray God to forgive my
enemies. So let the end come in God's name!
"Klausenburg, 11th May, 1849.
"I must add that neither in life nor death have I been an enemy of
the Hungarian nation. May they believe this, on the word of a dying
man, in the moment when all hypocrisy falls away!"
He was shortly after led out to execution. When his sentence was read
out to him, in which he was accused of having taken the sword instead
of the Bible, and of having led on the Saxon and Wallack hordes, he
cried out indignantly, "It is not true. I never carried a sword." He
refused to have his hands bound; and, with his face to the soldiers,
he fell, after the third shot. The captain in command of the soldiers
was so much impressed by the spectacle, that he exclaimed, "Soldiers,
learn from this man how to die for one's people."
But long before Csanyi's reign of terror had reached this climax, the
aspect of affairs in other parts of Hungary had gone through important
changes. The removal of Görgei and the appointment of Dembinski had
caused great irritation among the friends of the former. This
irritation might be somewhat excused by the fact that nearly a month
had elapsed between the time when Görgei had sent his proclamation to
Windischgrätz and his deposition from command; and the deposition even
received an appearance of injustice and hardship from its announcement
at the moment when Görgei had just obtained a victory. But the
opposition to this change of command would have been almost as
certain if the removal had taken place earlier, and under different
circumstances. It was looked upon as a blow struck by the politicians
of Buda-Pesth at the politicians of the army; and the appointment of a
foreigner added an element of national prejudice to the outburst of
professional irritation. Moreover, Dembinski seems to have been exactly
the kind of officer whom Görgei most disliked. His reputation rested on
certain brilliant feats of guerilla warfare in the Polish insurrection
of 1830; and of course Görgei and his friends may have been right in
thinking that such a man was ill fitted to carry on the more regular
warfare which was needed for the defeat of Windischgrätz. But, whatever
excuse they may have had for opposition to the appointment, they
clearly put themselves in the wrong by their evident determination not
to allow Dembinski a fair chance. Görgei, indeed, at first affected to
discourage the protests against Dembinski's appointment; but the
language in which he did so was so evidently defiant in intention as to
call forth a censure from his personal friend, the War Minister
Meszaros; nor was it long before Görgei threw off even this slender
mask, and openly defied Dembinski's authority.
Görgei's faction among the officers was so strong, and the dislike to
Dembinski so general, that the commanders of divisions at last agreed
to demand the deposition of their chief. Kossuth came down to the camp
to inquire into the circumstances; and he found the feeling against
Dembinski so violent that he consented to his removal. Görgei seems to
have used this opportunity for once more discussing the political
situation with Kossuth; and, strange to say, he made to him the very
proposal which Batthyanyi had rejected when it was put forward by
Jellaciç; namely, that the War and Finance Ministries should be
removed to Vienna. If this proposal had been unsatisfactory when
Vienna was free, and Ferdinand on the throne, it could have sounded
little short of treason to the cause of Hungary, when Vienna was
under the absolute rule of Windischgrätz; and it is not wonderful,
therefore, that, though Kossuth was willing to remove Dembinski, he
preferred appointing General Vetter as Commander-in-Chief to trusting
Görgei with the leadership.
It was at this crisis that the event occurred which was mentioned in
the last chapter, and which hastened on the final phase of the
movement. Encouraged, as Görgei believed, by the victories of
Windischgrätz, Francis Joseph and his advisers suddenly dismissed the
Parliament at Kremsier, and proclaimed a Constitution "octroyè" for
the occasion. Hungarians of all parties condemned this act as a
violation of their old laws and customs, and an assertion of the
arbitrary will of the sovereign. For, indeed, the discontent now
aroused was far from being confined to the Magyars; and it would have
been strange had it been otherwise. The dissolution of the Kremsier
Parliament was, even irrespective of all that followed it, the most
barefaced act of despotism that had been committed since the March
risings of the previous year. Even Ferdinand of Naples could plead
that barricades had been thrown up in the streets before his _coup
d'état_ of May 15. The unfortunate June insurrection at Prague had
given a plausible excuse for preventing the meeting of the Bohemian
Parliament; the murder of Lamberg had, no doubt, seemed to Ferdinand
of Austria to supply at least a palliation for his dissolution of the
Hungarian Diet; the murder of Latour and the persecution of the
Bohemian deputies supplied Windischgrätz with sufficient argument for
depriving Vienna of its liberties; and even the violent dispersal of
the deputies of Berlin could be defended by the King of Prussia by
reference to the previous riots of August. But not a single excuse of
this kind could, with the least show of plausibility, be urged in
defence of the dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament. Indeed, Francis
Joseph betrayed the weakness of his case by pleading in his defence
the nature of the subjects that had been discussed in the Parliament;
and he could not even pretend that it had either exceeded its powers
or exercised them in a disorderly manner.
Nor was the Constitution, which was offered as a sequel to this
dissolution, any more acceptable than the dissolution itself; and a
general protest went up from nearly every race in the Empire. However
much the Viennese might, under other circumstances, have liked a
Constitution which was centralised at Vienna, they none of them would
welcome it when it was combined with the rule of Windischgrätz. The
Bohemian leaders felt themselves doubly offended; first by the
dissolution of a Parliament to which they had specially trusted
for justice; and secondly by the refusal of any real provincial
independence to Bohemia. The Croats indignantly denounced the
restoration of the military rule on the frontier, and the consequent
separation from Croatia of the Slavs who inhabited the frontier
district. The Serbs, ever since January, had been complaining of the
advance of military rule in the Serb districts, and the gradual
diminution of the power of the Voyvode; and they now felt that all
their local institutions were still further endangered by the
centralisation of the new Constitution. Some of the bitterest protests
came from the Roumanians. They had been treated from the first with
the greatest contempt by most of the Imperialist officers; and
directly after the capture of Hermannstadt by Bem, they found
themselves suddenly deserted by the Austrian forces, which were
withdrawn into Wallachia. While they were still smarting under this
treachery, the news of the new Constitution reached them; and they
found that they were as far off as ever from obtaining that separate
national organization for which they had so long been pleading; while
a part of the Banat, which they considered specially Roumanian, was to
be placed, by the new arrangement, under the Serbs.
In this state of general discontent, it might have seemed that Kossuth
would have had a fair chance of rallying round him all the races of the
Empire, in a common desire for local independence, and a common
hostility to the rule of Francis Joseph. But the divisions and mutual
suspicions between the various races of the Empire had gone too deep to
allow of this change. As for co-operation between the Bohemians and
Germans, even if such a combination had been possible after the various
causes of bitterness mentioned in the preceding chapters, little good
could be effected by it at this crisis, when both Prague and Vienna
were at the mercy of the conqueror. The important question, therefore,
was the attitude to be taken up towards the new Constitution, by the
various races in the Kingdom of Hungary; and here it must be owned that
it was not wholly the fault of Kossuth, that he did not succeed in
combining them in this emergency.
Many both of the Croats and Serbs expressed plainly their discontent
with the treatment which they had received from the House of Austria,
but both Croats and Serbs were paralysed by the leaders whom they had
accepted. The Banal Council[23] of Croatia protested against the
publication of the new Constitution; but Jellaciç declared that he
was bound to see that it was published, and that the Council were
only to carry out his orders. In a similar manner, many of the
leading Serbs remonstrated with Rajaciç on his acceptance of the
vague promises, which were the substitute in the new Constitution, for
those ancient liberties which the Serbs claimed as their due. But
Rajaciç maintained his authority over his countrymen, and accepted a
place of completer subordination to the Austrian General than that
which he had hitherto held. On the other hand, Kossuth seems to have
neglected the opportunity offered by the general feeling of discontent,
which prevailed at this time among the Serbs and Croats; and it was not
till months later, when driven to desperation, that he proposed to make
those concessions, which had by that time lost all grace. Towards the
Roumanians, indeed, Kossuth seemed disposed to make concessions, by
which he hoped to draw them away from the Saxons; and he chose a
negotiator, whom he thought well fitted for this purpose. But Jancu
distrusted Kossuth's emissary, and perhaps also Kossuth himself; and so
the negotiation broke down.
And if Kossuth failed to draw round him, at this crisis, the different
races who were discontented with the new Constitution, it was a much
stranger fact that he was unable to maintain the union between the
different parties in the Magyar nation itself. This was all the
stranger, because just at this time both the personal and political
grounds for difference between Kossuth and Görgei seemed to be
suddenly removed. Deep as had been Görgei's irritation at the
appointment of Vetter, it had naturally been brought to a close by the
sudden illness which removed Vetter from the command, and which was
followed on March 31 by the appointment of Görgei as provisional
Commander-in-Chief; while, as to political opinions, Görgei and
Kossuth were both agreed in denouncing the circumstances under which
Francis Joseph had been thrust on to the throne of Hungary, and the
character and origin of the Constitution which he had just issued.
Under these circumstances, it seemed as if there could be no further
ground for division between the military party who followed Görgei,
and the larger body of Magyars, who accepted Kossuth as their leader.
But it soon appeared that this was not the case.
Kossuth and his friends naturally argued that as the only member of
the House of Hapsburg who claimed the throne of Hungary was admittedly
in an illegal position, the only logical course was to depose the
House of Hapsburg from the throne of Hungary; and that as the only
Constitution by which the rulers of Austria would consent to link
themselves to Hungary was admittedly an illegal Constitution, the only
logical course was to separate Hungary from Austria. Görgei and his
friends, on the other hand, shrank with horror from the idea of
fighting without the authority of a King. They had sworn to obey
Ferdinand, and to accept the Constitution of March 1848; they
therefore insisted on ignoring the abdication of Ferdinand, and the
abolition of that Constitution, and continued to fight, in the name of
a King who did not wish to reign, and on behalf of a Constitution
which had ceased to exist. Kossuth and his friends, however, were
resolved to assert their principles; and on April 14 they issued the
celebrated "Declaration of Independence."
The strongly legal and historical character which had marked the whole
Hungarian movement since the time of the meeting of the Diet in 1825,
still shows itself even in this semi-revolutionary document. The
Declaration goes back to the first connection of the House of Hapsburg
with the throne of Hungary, and declares that no House had ever had so
good a chance of governing successfully, and had so misused it. After
mentioning some of the tyrannies of the earlier Kings of this House,
the Declaration dwells on the fact that while Hungary had often had to
fight for its freedom, it had always been so moderate in its demands
that it had laid down its arms as soon as the King gave a new oath to
preserve its freedom; but these oaths had never been kept, and for
three hundred years this policy had never been changed. The people,
after each promise, had forgotten the wounds of past years, in
exaggerated magnanimity; but now the time had come to break the union.
The House of Hapsburg had united itself with the enemies of the
people, and with robbers and agitators, in order to oppress the
people. It had attacked those of its subjects who would not combine
against the Constitution which it had sworn to protect, or against the
independent life of the nation. It had attacked with violence the
integrity of the country, though it had sworn to preserve it. It had
used a foreign Power to murder its own subjects and suppress their
lawful freedom. Any one of these crimes was sufficient reason for
depriving the Dynasty of its throne. The Declaration then goes on to
consider the excuses which the Dynasty offered for its conduct. As for
the independence secured by Hungary in March, 1848, that was only the
confirmation of an old tradition; for the Pragmatic Sanction showed
that neither Hungary nor any of the provinces connected with it had
ever been absorbed in Austria. Joseph II. alone had ignored this fact,
and his name, therefore, never appeared in the list of the kings of
Hungary. As for the laws which the Diet had passed in March, Ferdinand
had sanctioned them; but he now wished to suppress them. Yet the
Hungarians had taken no advantage of the disturbances in different
parts of the Austrian Empire to secure greater independence for
themselves, but had remained content with what had been granted in
March. They had supported the monarchy; but Ferdinand had tried to
break his oath as soon as it was made. The Government at Vienna had
at first tried to act through the Count Palatine; but, as this
combination had weakened their power, they had gradually withdrawn
more and more power from him. They had tried to impose customs duties
which would have cut off Hungary from the rest of the world; and when
this method failed they tried to stir up the different nationalities
against the Hungarian Ministry. The proclamation proceeds to say that
dates and documents prove that the Archduke Louis, the Archduke
Francis Charles, and the Archduchess Sophia had stirred up the
movements in Croatia and Slavonia. They attribute Ferdinand's first
denunciation of Jellaciç as a traitor to the difficulties caused by
the war in Italy; but they accuse him of having played a double
part, both in Croatia and Slavonia, and of having helped the Croats
and Serbs with money and ammunition at the very time when he was
denouncing them as rebels. They charge the Serbs with having committed
great cruelties in their rising. They denounce, as illegal, the
scattering of Hungarian troops in different provinces of the Austrian
Empire, and they declare that it was in consequence of this arrangement
that they were unable to save Fiume from Jellaciç. They complain of the
order given to the soldiers and commanders of fortresses not to obey
the Hungarian Ministry, and to take orders only from Vienna. They
complain that the Emperor had made a general of the Slavonic priest who
had headed the rising of the Slovaks in North Hungary. They complain of
their desertion by the Archduke Stephen, after his promises of support,
and of the intrigues of Latour with Jellaciç and with other generals
against the liberties of Hungary. Lastly, they complain of the
abdication of Ferdinand in favour of Francis Joseph. Yet even Francis
Joseph they would have accepted had he claimed his rights in a legal
manner; but he had threatened to conquer Hungary by force, and had, for
the conquest of Transylvania, called in those Russians who had crushed
out the liberties of Roumania. They further stated that, although at
first the Hungarians had been driven back, they had now recovered their
ground in Transylvania, cleared North Hungary of foes, suppressed the
Serb rising, and defeated the Austrians in five battles. Under these
circumstances they now declared Hungary independent of the House of
Hapsburg, and appointed Kossuth as their President.
Kossuth's supremacy in Hungary had been an important fact for a
considerable time past, and had been due, not only to his personal
qualities, but to the gradual retirement from public life of most of
the leading statesmen who had played a part in the earlier phases of
the struggle against the ruling powers in Vienna. Batthyanyi had
abandoned all direct initiative in Hungarian politics ever since his
resignation of the Premiership, and had only attempted to mediate
between the contending armies, a mediation which had been scornfully
rejected by Windischgrätz. Deak had, from the first, announced that he
was unfit for revolutionary propaganda; and, after devoting himself,
in the early days of the March Ministry, to the compilation of a code
of laws and the administrative work of his office, he had gradually
assumed the same position of mediator which Batthyanyi had desired,
and with equal want of success. Wesselenyi was now old and blind; and,
though he had consented to go with Eötvös on that deputation to the
Vienna Assembly which had been repulsed by the Bohemian Deputies,
neither he nor Eötvös now took any regular part in public affairs.
Szechenyi, horrified at the results which, as he considered, had
flowed from his early encouragement of Magyar feeling, lost his
reason, and was at this time under restraint. Thus, of the statesmen
who had been prominent in Hungary during the struggle against
Metternich, Kossuth was the only one who could still be said to be
before the public.
Kossuth's unrivalled eloquence, and his keen sympathy, both with the
intensity and the narrowness of Magyar feeling, had given him a force
which none of the other leaders of the movement had ever possessed;
and his discovery of the military genius of Bem had secured him an
influence in Transylvania which considerably increased the strength of
his position. On the other hand, his intolerant attitude towards the
subject races of Hungary had marked him out in a special manner as the
object of their hatred; while his contempt for ordinary military
arrangements, his growing distrust of Görgei, and last, but perhaps
not least, the belief among many military men that he was deficient in
physical courage, tended to strengthen against him a formidable party
in the army which was eventually to prove too strong for him. But, if
the divided state of Hungarian feeling threw formidable difficulties
in the way of Kossuth, he could find compensations in the condition of
the forces opposed to him. Windischgrätz does not seem to have been
reckoned, by military critics, a considerable general. Stratimiroviç,
whatever military qualities he may have possessed, was continually
held in check by the cautious policy of Rajaciç. Puchner, who had
succeeded in giving such force to the Roumanian rising, was becoming
an object of suspicion to the more conventional Austrian generals, and
was shortly to be removed from Transylvania; while a cause of
weakness, which was perhaps still more important, was to be found
in the withdrawal from the country of a large body of Austrian
and Croatian soldiers, who were being despatched against the new
Government of the Roman States.
For in Italy, too, the champions of liberty were preparing for their
final struggle, though under rather different auspices from those
under which it was being fought out in Hungary. On the very day when
the Declaration of Independence was published in Hungary, Mazzini,
Saffi, and Armellini, who had been elected Triumvirs of the Roman
Republic, after the failure of Charles Albert's final war, appeared in
the Assembly for the first time in their new capacity. They had no
light task before them. Apart from the enemies who were threatening
the Republic from outside, there were dangers arising from the
feelings of the different parties within the Roman State. The
deposition of the Pope had undoubtedly given a shock to the feelings
of many strong Liberals, of a much keener, and if one may say so, more
intelligible kind, than the deposition of the House of Hapsburg could
possibly give to any Hungarian leader. Even Castellani, the Ambassador
of the Venetian Republic, hesitated to identify the cause of his city
with that of the opponents of the Pope; while the feeling among the
priests of the Roman States had been shown by a formidable conspiracy
in Imola and Ascoli. General Zucchi, who had taken part in this
conspiracy, had even attempted to force his way into the Neapolitan
territory, in order to put himself under the authority of the Pope.
Garibaldi had defeated this attempt, and Zucchi had been sent as a
prisoner to Rome; but the conspiracy was not forgotten; and, when the
Triumvirs came into power, they found that these outbursts of priestly
opposition were provoking savage reprisals on the part of the
Republicans.
While Saffi had been only Minister of the Interior, and Mazzini only a
private member of the Assembly, they had both warned the Government of
the probability of this danger; and they now found that a Society had
been formed at Ancona which threatened death to the enemies of
Liberalism. The Triumvirs first sent down two officers, who tried to
organize the local leaders into a committee for preserving public
order; but, though their emissaries were satisfied with their own
action, the Triumvirs were less easily contented. Felice Orsini was
sent down with full powers to put down the insurrection; and, if
necessary, to declare Ancona in a state of siege. He at once arrested
twenty men, called out the National Guard, put down opposition by
force, and carried off his prisoners to Rome, where they were shut up
in the Castle of St. Angelo. From Ancona Orsini went on to Ascoli,
where he condemned three of the most dangerous persons to be shot, and
sequestrated the goods of a cardinal, who had stirred up the clerical
insurrection. But the Austrian forces were now advancing into the
Roman territory; and Orsini was compelled to retire to Rome.
Even in the capital the Triumvirs had to use strong measures to check
the fierce feeling against the priests. This feeling had just been
roused to an unusual height by special discoveries of priestly
cruelty. In sweeping away the various irregular tribunals, which had
grown up under the papal tyranny, the Triumvirs had to deal with the
question of the Inquisition. They appropriated the former offices of
that celebrated institution, as dwellings for the poor; but, in making
the buildings available for this purpose, they threw open the secret
dungeons, and discovered prisoners who were slowly dying of their
imprisonment. One bishop, who had remained there since the time of
Leo XII., had absolutely lost the power of walking. The horrible
instruments of torture, which were found in the same place, excited
still further the indignation of the people; and that feeling found
yet a new cause for its expression, when a book was discovered in the
library of the Inquisition, containing the secrets of the principal
families of Italy, which had been obtained through the revelations of
confessors. Several of the fiercer spirits in Rome at once made an
attack on the pulpits and confessionals, and burnt some of them in
the Piazza del Popolo. These tumults were sternly checked by the
Triumvirs; and they succeeded in protecting from the popular vengeance
the convent in which the chief Inquisitor lived. But while they
protected the persons and private property of the priests, they
appropriated the greater part of the ecclesiastical lands to the
support of the poor, arranging that every family of three persons
should have as much land as could be managed by a pair of oxen. At the
same time the jurisdiction of the clergy over the universities and
schools was taken away.
While the attention of the Government was thus devoted to the
restoration of internal order, and the carrying out of necessary
reforms, they did not neglect the vigorous measures which were needed
for the resistance to foreign enemies. The forces which had been
rather carelessly scattered in the outlying provinces of the Roman
State, were concentrated by the Triumvirs near Bologna. That gallant
little city had been in a state of alarm ever since the early part of
February, when the Austrian forces had again attacked Ferrara; and the
difficulties of communication between these two cities had increased
the alarm of the Bolognese, though it had also strengthened their
eagerness for resistance. But even before this Austrian invasion, the
Roman Republicans had been alarmed at the threats issued by another
Power. Three days after the flight of the Pope, General Cavaignac
announced in the French Assembly that he had sent three frigates to
Civita Vecchia to secure the safety of His Holiness. This expedition
had excited much opposition in France; and, during the subsequent
contest for the Presidency, the following letter was addressed by one
of the candidates to the editor of a French newspaper:--
"MR. EDITOR,
"Knowing that my agreement to the vote for the Expedition to Civita
Vecchia has been remarked upon, I think myself bound to declare
that, whatever may have been decided about the arrangements
suitable for guaranteeing the liberty and authority of the chief
Pontiff, nevertheless I cannot approve by my vote a military
demonstration that appears dangerous both to the sacred interests
that they pretend to protect, and that has a tendency to compromise
European peace.
"Yours respectfully,
"LOUIS NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.
"December 2, 1848."
As this pacific candidate had been shortly after elected President of
the French Republic, there seemed little fear that an expedition
"tending to compromise European peace," would again be entered upon by
France; and the Mountain of the French Assembly had lately sent
greetings to the Roman Republic.
Since then the immediate danger to Rome seemed to come rather from the
North than from the West, the Triumvirs watched with much anxiety the
hesitating attitude of Guerrazzi and the Tuscan Government. So eager
had the leaders of the Roman Assembly been for a union between
Tuscany and the Roman States that they had even offered to Montanelli
and Guerrazzi places in the first Triumvirate, which had been formed
before Mazzini and Saffi had been called to power. Guerrazzi, however,
had refused to accept this offer; and, while declaring his desire for
union with Rome, he professed his inability to find a means for
effecting that union. Indeed, Guerrazzi held an almost impossible
position. Though unable to make up his mind to accept a Republican
Government, he was yet determined to resist any interference, either
by Piedmontese or Austrians, in favour of the former Government of
Tuscany. And while he still seemed to cherish Italian ideas, he felt
that the defeat of Charles Albert had taken away the hopes for any
satisfactory continuance of the War of Independence. Under these
circumstances the champions of the restoration of the Grand Duke
naturally gained ground in Tuscany. Guerrazzi, distrusted alike by
Republicans and Royalists, was unable either to resist this movement,
or to guide it according to his own theories; and on April 12 the
Municipality of Florence took the matter out of the hands both of
Guerrazzi and the Assembly, and decreed the recall of the Grand Duke.
This catastrophe, though a subject of regret, could scarcely have
caused much surprise to the leaders of the Roman Republic. A feeling
of far deeper pain must have been roused by the final failure of the
earliest of all the struggles for liberty of this period. The _coup
d'état_ at Naples of May 15, 1848, though it had shattered the hopes
of the Neapolitans, had only intensified the zeal of the Sicilians in
their struggle against Ferdinand. As they had just deposed him from
the throne, and proclaimed the Duke of Genoa as their King, they
thought themselves safe against the restoration of Neapolitan rule;
and the Ambassadors of France and England tried to persuade the King
of Naples not to send an expedition to Sicily. He refused, however, to
listen to these remonstrances; the expedition sailed; and, by his
bombardment of Palermo, Ferdinand won for himself throughout Sicily the
title of Il Re Bombardatore, which was quickly shortened into Bomba.
Ruggiero Settimo, who had taken part in the struggles of 1812 and 1821,
was placed at the head of the Sicilian Government, and Garibaldi was
invited to come to defend the island. Garibaldi, however, did not
arrive; and the chief defence of the island was entrusted to the Polish
General Mieroslawski, who, having failed to save Posen from the hands
of the Prussians, had become a kind of knight errant of liberty in
other parts of Europe. He brought, however, but little good to the
causes which he defended. He quarrelled with the Italian General
Antonini, and was so often defeated, that the Sicilians began to fear
treachery, and at last compelled him to resign his command. The
struggle had, in fact, now become hopeless; and on April 17, 1849, the
Sicilian Parliament decided to meet no longer. Then Ruggiero Settimo
called his friends together, and declared that he was ready to undergo
all his troubles again, if they decided to continue the contest. But
they believed that the case was now desperate, and voted for peace.
Then Settimo consulted the National Guard, but also in vain; and
finding that any further efforts were useless, he resigned his
Presidency, and left the island. The separateness of the Sicilian
movement lessened, no doubt, in some degree the importance of this
defeat; but the gallantry of their struggle had excited much sympathy
in Rome; and their fall set free the Neapolitan forces for action
against the Roman Republic.
This addition to the dangers which were harassing the Republic would
not perhaps have been so formidable had not a new and more important
enemy begun to show signs of hostility at the same period. The
election of Louis Napoleon as President of the French Republic had
been hailed with some satisfaction both in Venice and Rome; and, after
the Roman Republic had been established, two envoys were sent to
Paris, who reminded the President of the share he had taken in one of
the insurrections against Gregory XVI. Louis Napoleon replied that the
time of Gregory XVI. had gone by in Rome, and that his youth was also
gone by. Both remarks were undoubtedly true, nor were they in
themselves very alarming; but Ledru Rollin, one of the few Frenchmen
who really sympathized with Italy, warned Mazzini that danger was
coming; and the nature of the danger soon became apparent. On April 16
Odillon Barrot moved in the French Assembly a proposal for a vote of
twelve hundred thousand francs for an expedition to Italy; an
expedition, he said, which was not to restore the Pope; but to protect
liberty and humanity. On April 20 General Oudinot took the command of
the expedition, and told his followers that his object was to maintain
the old legitimate French influence, and to protect the destinies of
Italy from the predominance of the stranger, and of a party who were
really in a minority. So kindly was the tone of the French Ministry
towards the Romans, that Colonel Frapolli, one of the envoys of the
Roman Republic, obtained the leave of the French President to organize
a French Legion, which was to fight for the defence of Rome, and to be
commanded by Pierre Buonaparte. But Pierre Buonaparte suddenly resigned
his command; the prefect was ordered to hinder the embarkation of the
Legion; and a large supply of muskets, which had been bought by the
Roman Republic, were confiscated by the French Government. In the
meantime Oudinot had set sail, and on April 24 he appeared before
Civita Vecchia.
About the time when the French troops were landing, there arrived at
the same place a very different force. The leader of this force was
Luciano Manara, who had fought so gallantly in the "Five Days" of
Milan, and who had afterwards been so hampered by Casati and Charles
Albert in his attempt to rescue the Southern Tyrol from Austrian rule.
He, like others, had been disappointed by the failure of Charles
Albert's final war; but he had refused to join in the Genoese
insurrection, which followed the defeat at Novara, and had preferred
to set out with 8,000 men to help the Roman Republic. The difficulties
thrown in the way of their march were, however, so great that only 600
remained with Manara by the time that he reached Civita Vecchia.
Oudinot, with extraordinary impudence, disputed the right of the
Lombards to interfere on behalf of Rome; and he even tried to persuade
them that the cause of Rome was so distinct from that of Lombardy,
that the Lombards could consistently join their forces with the French
against Rome. Manara indignantly repelled the suggestion; and then
Oudinot in vain attempted to exact a promise that the Lombard forces
should not act against him until the 4th of May. Manara, having
refused this further demand, Oudinot was forced to allow the Lombards
to pass; and Manara marched to Rome to tell the Romans how the French
Republic was preparing to defend the cause of "liberty and humanity."
In spite of this plain evidence of his intentions, Oudinot still
attempted to play his double part; and, since his utterance about the
government of a party in a minority had alarmed the inhabitants of
Civita Vecchia, he authorised the Secretary of the Legation to declare
the sympathy of the French for the Romans, and to assure the citizens
of Civita Vecchia that the French Army had only come to defend them
against the Austrians. Mannucci, the Governor of Civita Vecchia, had
wished to oppose the first landing of the French; but he was overborne
by the Chamber of Commerce and the Municipal Council, who were
convinced that the French could not really intend to destroy the
freedom which they so much professed to cherish. No sooner, however,
had Oudinot effected a landing, than he announced that he would not
protect the Anarchical Government of Rome, which had never been
officially recognised. The Municipality became alarmed; and Oudinot
again altered his tone, and declared that the French would respect the
vote of the majority of the population, and did not desire to impose
any special form of Government upon them. In spite of the warnings
given by Oudinot's previous proclamation, the Municipal Council
consented to admit him into the town; and, no sooner was he there,
than he disarmed the battalion which was to have defended the town;
and still further showed his zeal for the interests of "Liberty and
humanity," by suppressing a printing office in Civita Vecchia,
because it had recently printed an address in which the Papacy was
condemned.
In the meantime the news had spread to Rome; and the Assembly were
debating how they should receive Oudinot. So deep was the conviction
of the reality of the French zeal for freedom, that Armellini actually
suggested that Oudinot should be received as a friend. But, while the
Assembly were debating, Mazzini entered the hall, and announced that
Colonel le Blanc had confessed that the expedition was sent to restore
the Papacy. Thereupon the Assembly voted that the Triumvirs should
have power to resist force with force. But another difficulty arose;
the officers of the National Guard declared that they did not believe
their soldiers would fight. Thereupon Mazzini ordered that the
battalions of the Guards should defile next morning in front of the
Quirinal, where the Assembly were meeting; and, as the Guards passed,
he put to them the question whether they were for peace or war. A loud
shout of "Guerra, guerra!" answered his appeal; and the defence was at
once resolved on.
In every district the heads of the people and the representatives of
the Assembly were to organize the defence of every inch of the
country. Barricades were thrown up; arms were to be given to all the
people; while the municipality undertook to provide them with corn,
meat, and other eatables. At the same time all foreigners, and
particularly all Frenchmen living in Rome, were to be placed under the
protection of the nation. Anyone who injured them was to be punished
as having violated the honour of Rome. With regard to the actual
soldiers to be used in the first defence of the city, they were
arranged as follows:--the 1st brigade, commanded by Garibaldi,
guarded the line outside the walls, which extends from the Porta
Portese to the Porta San Pancrazio. The 2nd brigade, commanded by
Colonel Masi, was drawn up before the Porta Cavalleggieri, the
Vatican, and the Porta Angelica. The 3rd, under Colonel Savini, stood
in reserve in the Piazza Navona. Colonel Galletti commanded the 4th,
which was stationed in the Piazza Cesarini; while a reserve force
under General Galletti, in which Manara and his Lombard volunteers
were included, was held back for the present, to come up when needed.
The whole of the forces were supervised by General Avezzana, who had
organized the insurrection in Genoa after the defeat at Novara, and who
now acted apparently both as Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief.
On April 29 Avezzana took his staff up to Monte Mario, from which point
he could see the French army advancing from Civita Vecchia. As they
marched along the road, the French saw everywhere a singular inscription
painted upon the walls and posts. It ran as follows:--"Article
5 of the preamble of the French Constitution. The French Republic
respects foreign nationalities as it intends to make its own respected.
It does not undertake any war of conquest. It will never use its own
forces against the liberty of any people." Whether as a kind of answer
to this challenge, or in contempt of it, Oudinot announced to his troops
that they came to liberate Rome from the factious party which had
expelled the Pope, and which had answered his words of conciliation with
ill-considered provocations.
It was at 11.30 a.m. on April 30 that the French and Roman armies first
came into collision. Garibaldi advanced from Porta San Pancrazio to
meet the French, who were entering the grounds of the Villa Pamfili,
and who, hearing the bells of the city ring for the attack, supposed
that an insurrection had broken out in favour of the Pope, and that
they would have an easy victory. Garibaldi, however, repelled them,
after a sharp fight, and made 300 prisoners. But the main attack of the
French was in the meantime directed against the Porta Angelica. There
one of the French captains had hoped to lead a column into Rome by a
secret way near the Vatican. But a fire was poured on the advancing
column from the Papal gardens, while the troops from Monte Mario
attacked them in the rear. The battle lasted for four hours. The French
captain Picarde managed at first to drive back the University
battalion; but as he advanced, Colonel Arcioni at the head of a
regiment of the Lombard exiles attacked him on one flank, and Galletti
at the head of the National Guard on the other; finally Garibaldi,
having disposed of his original opponents at the Villa Pamfili, charged
the French force, and compelled them to lay down their arms.
Several acts of special valour marked this battle. One officer, named
Montaldi, having been surrounded by the French, was beaten to his
knees, and fought on with only a piece of his sword left. He had
fought under Garibaldi at Monte Video, and was a Genoese by birth. Ugo
Bassi[24] distinguished himself by riding about the field urging the
Romans to battle. His horse was killed under him, and, as he was
embracing it with tears, the French came up and took him prisoner.
Garibaldi himself was wounded; but would not allow it to be known
until the battle was over, when he sent privately for the doctor.
On the following day the battle was renewed; the people flocking to
the defence of the walls, and the French sharp-shooters being finally
driven out from the Pamfili gardens. Garibaldi would now have been
able to cut off the French retreat and destroy their army; but the
Triumvirs, though they had no faith in Oudinot's promises, believed
that, if the French were generously treated, the Republican feeling
would awake again in France and overthrow the Government, or defeat
their plans; but that, if they were driven to extremities, the French
vanity would hinder even the most consistent Republicans from opposing
the war. On these grounds, they allowed the French to retreat, granted
them a short truce, and set free the prisoners who had been captured.
But the hope of any change of feeling in the French was soon found to
be utterly vain. A debate, indeed, had been begun in the French
Assembly soon after the sailing of the expedition, and a Committee had
been appointed to enquire into the object of the expedition; but Jules
Favre, the chairman of that Committee, reported that the Government
had no intention of making France a party to the overthrow of the
Roman Republic; and that it only interfered in order that, under the
French flag, humanity might be respected; and that a limit might be
placed on the pretensions of Austria. In spite, therefore, of the
opposition of Ledru Rollin, the money for the expedition had been
voted by 325 against 283. But even Jules Favre could not be entirely
blinded by such phrases as these, when considered in the light of
Oudinot's actions; and on May 8 the National Assembly invited the
Government to take, without delay, the necessary measures for
preventing the expedition to Italy from being diverted from the scope
assigned to it; and they therefore decided to send Ferdinand Lesseps
to negotiate with the Triumvirs for terms of peace.
In the meantime, the Roman Republic realized that it had to guard
itself against two other enemies. On May 2, a Neapolitan army was
found to be on its way to Rome. On the 4th, Garibaldi marched to
Palestrina, and, with the help of Manara and his Lombard battalion,
utterly defeated the Neapolitan forces. Just at the same time, the
Bolognese became aware that the threatened attack of the Austrians was
about to become a reality. Ferrara was occupied on May 7; but, even
with the Austrian troops present in the city, the Municipal Council of
Ferrara voted, by thirty-seven to three, in favour of the Roman
Republic. Such a protest was undoubtedly of use in proving the
earnestness of the Roman provinces on behalf of the new Government.
But something more was expected, from a city so heroic in its
traditions as Bologna. On May 6 it had been announced by the President
of the Municipality that medals were about to be distributed in memory
of August 8, 1848. On May 8 it was announced that the Austrians were
advancing upon Bologna. In that city, as in Rome, the internal defence
was organized in special districts under special leaders, while the
National Guard and the University battalion were to fight side by side
with the regular troops. By nine o'clock in the morning of the 8th the
Austrians were at the gates of Bologna, and before eleven o'clock
fierce struggles had taken place at the Porta Galliera, the Porta San
Felice, and the Porta Saragozza. The people indignantly refused every
proposal for capitulation, and at about four o'clock the Austrians
began to bombard the city. Before the end of the day, the President
had resigned his office, believing that resistance was useless; but
the Municipality having in vain endeavoured to obtain the terms which
they had hoped for, the assault was renewed, and the Austrians
discharged rockets into the city from the bell-tower of the Franciscan
convent. A special Commission was appointed to carry on the struggle,
and the band of one of the regiments, standing under the tree of
Liberty in the Piazza San Petronio, encouraged the combatants with
music and songs. The struggle, however, was a desperate one, and, on
May 10, it was again necessary to send a deputation to ask for a truce.
But the combat was soon renewed, and the Bolognese troops were so eager
in the attack that the general had to warn them against firing off
their pieces needlessly. The pastry cooks were ordered to suspend the
making of mere confectionary, in order that there might be more bread
for the defenders of the city, and reinforcements were expected from
the country districts of the Romagna. General Wimpffen, who was leading
the Austrian troops, denounced the defence as "the stupid work of a
blind faction;" but the Provisional Government answered that the
proclamation signed by Marshal Wimpffen, and forwarded by him to the
magistrates, having come without any accompanying evidence, could not
be received by them. Weary of acting merely on the defensive, the
Bolognese made a sortie from the Porta Maggiore, repelled an attack of
the Austrians, and succeeded in joining a body of the Romagnoli, who
were coming to the relief of the city. But the chances of uniting with
the outside world became less and less; for the Austrian troops drew
ever more closely round the city, and, on the 15th, the bombardment was
renewed. Then a number of the citizens requested leave to go to Rome,
to find out how things were going on there, in order that they might
know what was still required of them at headquarters. But this proposal
seems to have been a mere utterance of despair; for, on the 16th, it
became necessary to abandon the defence and arrange for terms of
surrender.
While the Bolognese were engaged in this desperate struggle, Ferdinand
Lesseps had arrived in Rome, and was rapidly becoming converted to the
belief that the Republican Government was the free choice of the
people, and that it was better able to maintain order than the Papacy
had been; while a conversation with Mamiani had shown him that even
the so-called Moderate Liberals were unwilling to act against the
Republic. But, though Lesseps was honest enough to confess these
facts, his vanity, both personal and national, prevented him from
making the natural inference that neither he nor Oudinot were needed
in Rome. He, therefore, proposed that the Roman States should request
the paternal protection of the French Republic; that the Roman
populations should pronounce freely on their form of government; that
Rome should receive the French as their friends; and that Roman and
French troops should act together in defence of the city. The Assembly
rejected these proposals, on the ground that Rome had no need of
protection, and that the name of the Roman Republic was not mentioned
in the negotiation; and they further complained that, on May 19, while
the truce was still in force, the French soldiers had crossed the
Tiber. Then the Triumvirs proposed, in their turn, that the Roman
Republic should acknowledge the help offered by the French nation
against foreign intervention; that the Constitution which had been
adopted by the General Assembly should be sanctioned by a popular
vote; that Rome should welcome the French soldiers as brothers; but
that they should stay outside the city till the Roman Republic called
for them. These proposals were accepted, with some modifications, by
Lesseps, within the time of the truce; and he left Rome, well
satisfied with Mazzini, still better with himself.
Great, however, was the indignation of this unfortunate diplomatist,
when, on reaching the camp of Oudinot, he found that the general,
without waiting for the expiration of the truce, had suddenly occupied
Monte Mario! Lesseps was divided between his feelings as a man of
honour and his unwillingness to oppose his countrymen. He threatened at
first that if the order for assault were not withdrawn, he would
himself go back to Rome and give the alarm; but when, on his return to
the city, the Triumvirs questioned him about the breach of the truce,
he assured them that Monte Mario had only been occupied in order to
prevent its falling into the hands of the French reinforcements,
which were on their way to Rome. The fact was that, from first to
last, Lesseps had been the dupe of the unscrupulous men who were
ruling France. While he had been entrusted with apparently peaceful
negotiations, secret instructions had been sent to Oudinot to the
following effect:--"Tell the Romans that we do not wish to join with
the Neapolitans against them. Continue your negotiations in the sense
of your declaration. We are sending you reinforcements. Wait for them.
Manage to enter Rome by agreement with the inhabitants; and if you
should be compelled to assault it, do it in the manner that shall
be most likely to secure success." Oudinot fully understood his
instructions. On May 31 he scornfully rejected the convention which had
been accepted by Lesseps; and on the same day Lesseps received his
recall to Paris, and Oudinot received orders to take Rome by force.
In the meantime an unfortunate occurrence had called attention to
another danger which was threatening the Roman Republic. General
Roselli had now been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Roman army;
but he found it very difficult to control Garibaldi. After the defeat
of the Neapolitan forces, Garibaldi had desired to push on to Velletri.
Roselli forbad him to do so; but Garibaldi disobeyed the orders of his
chief, and marched forward. Part of the troops who followed him had not
learned to stand fire, and fled at the first attack. Garibaldi was in
such danger that he was obliged to send to Roselli for fresh troops.
With the help of these reinforcements, Garibaldi drove back the
Neapolitans; but he then disobeyed Roselli's orders for the second
time, marched forward to Velletri, and entered it on May 20. Fierce
recriminations followed between the friends of Garibaldi and those of
Roselli; Garibaldi and his friends maintaining that, but for Roselli's
delay, the victory would have been more complete; the supporters of
Roselli declaring that, if it had not been for Garibaldi's rashness,
Ferdinand himself, and a great part of his army, would have fallen into
the hands of the Romans. Roselli further demanded that Garibaldi should
be summoned before a Court-Martial for his disobedience to orders. But
the Triumvirs felt that there would be a certain incongruity in such a
trial, which could only lead to mischief, and they persuaded Roselli to
abandon his proposal. Garibaldi's influence, indeed, was strong, not
only among his soldiers, but also among the members of the Assembly;
and Sterbini, who seems generally to have suspected all existing
Governments, demanded that Garibaldi should be made Dictator, and that
Roselli's command should be taken from him. This proposal, however, the
Assembly rejected, and, on June 3, declared itself in permanence.
On that very day Oudinot gave another proof of his peculiar ideas of
French honour. The day before, he had promised to defer the attack
until June 4. The grounds of the Villa Pamfili lie at a short distance
from the Porta San Pancrazio, and were then more thickly wooded than
they are now. On the night of June 2 they were occupied by three
companies of Bolognese. These soldiers, trusting to the honour of
Oudinot, were sleeping peacefully, when suddenly two French divisions
entered the wood. They surrounded and captured 200 of the soldiers;
but the remaining 200 retreated fighting, before a body of 8,000
French. Garibaldi hastened up with reinforcements, and the fight
lasted from 2 a.m. till 6 p.m. on June 3. Four times were the houses
in the grounds of the Villa Pamfili lost and won. The walls shook with
the thunder of the French and Roman artillery; and the houses were
filled with the dead and wounded of both armies. But the treachery of
Oudinot had been successful in securing him so good a position, that
the houses at last remained in the hands of the French, although they
were so ruined that they afforded them very little protection.
[Illustration: IL VASCELLO, ROME (_taken since the siege_).]
This struggle seemed only to rouse the energies of the Romans to new
efforts. Between the Villa Pamfili and the Porta San Pancrazio, stood
an old house which, from its shape, was known as the Vascello or
little ship; and it was by the walls of this house that, for nearly a
month from this time, General Medici and Garibaldi held their own
against the numbers, the training, and the treachery of the French.
Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the Romans in the defence of
their city. The walls were crowded with people during the fight;
youths, not able yet to bear arms, rushed into the crash of battle.
And girls went, while the cannon was still firing, to search for the
dead, to encourage the combatants, and to heal the wounded. But
treachery steadily gained ground upon valour. Enrico Dandolo, a young
captain in Manara's regiment, was about to attack a company of
Frenchmen, when the French captain cried out, "We are friends!"
Dandolo ordered the attack to be suspended, and advanced to the
Frenchman, holding out his hand. The French at once fired, and Dandolo
and more than a third of his company fell dead. Oudinot, however,
over-estimated the credulity of the Romans; for on June 12 he demanded
to be admitted into Rome, on the ground that his intentions had been
misunderstood, and that he wished to secure Roman liberty. When,
however, he was reminded of his violation of Lesseps's agreement, he
showed his zeal for Roman liberty by proceeding to bombard the city.
But there were still some Frenchmen who held different views from
Oudinot's on the subject of their country's honour. On the very day when
the bombardment of Rome began, Ledru Rollin and his friends, having in
vain tried to secure a condemnation of the Roman expedition from the
French Assembly, took up arms for a final effort to vindicate the honour
of France against its faithless rulers. But the revolutionary force of
France had been wasted in the Socialist insurrection of the previous
year; and, after a gallant struggle, the champions of French honour and
liberty were suppressed by General Changarnier. The failure of this
effort must, no doubt, have been terribly disappointing to those Romans
who had hoped to the last that France would vindicate herself against
those who were dishonouring her. And, as if to bring home to the Romans
how isolated their position was becoming as defenders of liberty, there
came to them, shortly after, the news of the final downfall of German
liberty.
Ever since April 24, when the King of Prussia refused the crown of
Germany, he had been following a steady course of opposition to the
Liberal movements in favour of German unity; and on May 24 he had
recalled the Prussian Deputies from the Frankfort Assembly. This had
encouraged the other Princes of Germany to dissolve their local
parliaments and recall their subjects from the Frankfort Parliament;
while the strengthening of the troops near Frankfort seemed to limit
the freedom of debate among the few deputies who remained. At last, on
June 6, the few remaining representatives of German unity decided to
transfer their place of meeting from Frankfort to Stuttgart. The Baden
Republicans had in the meantime taken the stronger course of appealing
for the last time to insurrection; but both the constitutional and the
revolutionary attempt to save the liberties of Germany proved
hopeless. On June 18 the remnant of the German Parliament was
dispersed by the Würtemberg soldiers; the Baden rising failed, to a
great extent from the quarrels between the Polish general Mieroslawski
and the Baden general Sigel; and the Prussian soldiers trampled out
the last remains of German liberty.
In the meantime the Austrians were capturing city after city in the
Roman provinces; and the French were pressing nearer to the city. But
the enthusiasm of the Romans did not slacken. As Garibaldi went
through the hospitals to visit the wounded, several of the sufferers
sprang from their beds to embrace his knees, with cries of "Papa,
papa"; and the women exerted themselves gallantly to relieve the
sufferings of the wounded. The French did not even now seem absolutely
certain of victory; for when a sortie, planned by Garibaldi on June
22, had ended in a fiasco, a certain M. Corcelles attempted to reopen
diplomatic negotiations. But Mazzini, warned by his experience of
Lesseps, sternly repelled all proposals for negotiation; and the
struggle was renewed. The state of the Roman Republic was, however,
really desperate. On June 24 came the news that, after twenty-five
days' struggle, Ancona had fallen into the hands of the Austrians, who
had almost immediately violated the understanding on which it had been
surrendered.
In the meantime the French slowly advanced in the struggle by the
Vascello, Medici continually driving them back. Many of the houses
were battered down, but the inhabitants were provided by the Triumvirs
with fresh lodgings in the deserted houses of the Cardinals. When the
French knocked down part of the walls, the citizens picked up the
stones to repair them. At last, however, on June 29, Oudinot resolved
to make a final effort, and directed his forces against Garibaldi's
house, which was known as the Villa Spada. Twice the invaders attacked
this house, and twice they were repelled. Then they succeeded in
capturing a barricade which had been raised in front of the house; but
again the Romans recaptured it. Garibaldi fought in the midst of his
followers, singing a war-song; and more than a hundred of his soldiers
fell round him. Seven times the barricade was taken and retaken; the
gallant Manara was killed; and at last, after twelve hours' fighting,
it was discovered that the Porta San Pancrazio was no longer tenable.
On June 30 the Roman Assembly met, and Mazzini propounded to them three
alternatives. Either they should continue the defence, which now seemed
impossible; or they should yield altogether; or, thirdly, they should
cut their way out into the provinces, and continue the struggle there.
Mazzini strongly urged the third course. While the debate was still
proceeding, Garibaldi in his red shirt, covered with mud, sprang into
the Assembly. He declared that further defence was impossible,
unless they were prepared to abandon the Trastevere, and break down
the bridges. Under these circumstances, he supported Mazzini's
recommendation, that they should cut their way out into the provinces,
and carry on the struggle there. Cernuschi, however, proposed the
following resolution:--"The Roman Constituent Assembly abandons a
defence which has become impossible, and remains at its post."
This motion was carried; the Triumvirs resigned their post to the
Municipality, and a new Triumvirate was elected to carry out the terms
of peace.
Then Garibaldi called round him his followers in the Piazza San
Pietro, and addressed them as follows:--"I have nothing to give you
but hunger, sufferings, and battles; the bare earth for your bed, and
the burning sun for your refreshment. Yet let him who does not yet
disbelieve in the fortune of Italy follow me." He then marched out
from the Porta San Giovanni, followed by 4,000 men. They made their
way to the northern part of the Roman States; but after much suffering
and privation, they were forced to abandon the struggle. Ugo Bassi and
others fell into the hands of the Austrians, and were shot. Garibaldi
and a small remnant of his followers succeeded in escaping from the
country.
In the meantime the Roman Municipal Council attempted to make
terms with Oudinot; but finding it impossible to secure honourable
conditions, they declared that they yielded only to force. On July 3
the French troops entered Rome; and while they marched through the city
they found all the shops closed, and heard from every side the cries of
"Death to Cardinal Oudinot! Death to the soldiers of the Pope! Death to
the Croats of France!" On the same day the Roman Assembly proclaimed
from the Capitol the Constitution of the Republic. On the next day a
regiment of French infantry dissolved the Assembly by force; and soon
after a Commission of three Cardinals was appointed to govern Rome.
The hopes of Italy now centred in Venice, where, ever since the
abandonment of Milan by Charles Albert in the previous August, the
Republican Government had struggled alone against Austria. So fierce
had been the feeling caused by Charles Albert's treatment of Venice,
that it had required all Manin's influence to hinder a violent attack
on the Sardinian Commissioner. The Sardinian Admiral, indeed,
attempted at first to disregard the orders of Charles Albert, and to
continue the defence of Venice, but he was compelled after a time to
withdraw. Manin, however, was anxious to secure foreign allies for
Venice; and, shortly after his abandonment by Charles Albert, he
appealed to France for help. The French Government answered by those
vague and cheap promises which meant nothing; while the English Consul
at Venice tried to form an Austrian party in the city; and Lord
Palmerston worried Manin with all sorts of useless proposals for
diplomatic compromises. But if Manin found little help from foreign
Governments, he received much encouragement from those Italians who had
not yet despaired of their country. In September, 1848, 1,200 soldiers
who had served under Durando arrived in Venice; and on October 3 a
vessel brought 6,000 guns from Genoa. The Austrian blockade, indeed,
pressed ever closer, and on October 10 it had become so close that food
could not be brought into the town. But so little did Manin lose heart
that on October 11 he declared to the Assembly that Venice was
in a better state for defence than when the Dictatorship had been
established in August; and the Assembly in turn voted that Manin and
the two colleagues who had been appointed to assist him should be
entrusted with all political negotiations, saving the ratification by
the Assembly of the final treaty. So great was the mutual confidence
between Manin and the poorer classes of Venice, that in January, 1849,
two Gondoliers were chosen to assist him in the Government.
The proclamation of the Republic in Rome had excited both the
sympathies and the fears of Manin; for while he saw in it a step
towards an Italian Republic, in which Venice might take a part, he
also saw that it might hasten an Austrian intervention in the Roman
States. The failure of Charles Albert's final effort in April, 1849,
so alarmed the Venetians that Manin began to speculate on the
desirability of accepting an Austrian Prince as Constitutional
Sovereign of Lombardo-Venetia. But the Hungarian Declaration of
Independence once more revived his hopes, and from that time his one
aim in foreign policy was to secure and strengthen an alliance between
Venice and Hungary. Yet the month of May, in which this alliance was
concluded, seemed one of the most desperate periods in the fortunes of
Venice. The fortress of Malghera, which lies on an island in the
lagunes, about two hours' gondola journey west of Venice, was the
scene of one of the fiercest struggles between the Austrians and
Venetians. General Haynau had effected a landing on this island, and
attempted to seize the fortress; but the Venetians on their side let
loose the waters to swamp the Austrian trenches, sent boats under the
fire of the Austrians to bring food to the defenders, and made
expeditions to carry off oxen, even from the country already occupied
by the Austrians. So desperate was the resistance that Radetzky
treated Haynau's attempt as a failure, and sent General Thurn to take
his place. But, partly by breaking a truce, partly by force of
superior numbers, the Austrians succeeded in carrying the day; and on
May 26, when the fortress had been reduced to ruins, the Venetians
were compelled to abandon Malghera, and to retreat to some islands
nearer the city. In the following month Manin again tried to enter
into negotiations with Radetzky; but a letter from Kossuth encouraged
him to stand firm; and he made such demands for independence that the
Austrians scornfully rejected them.
In spite, however, of the encouragement which he had sent to Manin,
Kossuth's own position was one of increasing danger. The Declaration
of Independence of April 14 had been followed by the resignation of
several Hungarian officers; and Görgei, though unwillingly retaining
his command, became more and more antagonistic in his attitude towards
Kossuth. This mutual distrust was one of the main causes of a step not
very creditable to either party, and which is reckoned by military
critics one of the most unfortunate in the war. On April 26, Görgei
and General Klapka had, by a desperate march, rescued the fortress of
Komorn from the Austrians; and Klapka and others believed that, if
Görgei had followed up this success by marching to Raab, he might have
been able to reopen communications with Vienna. Kossuth, however, was
anxious that Buda-Pesth should not be allowed to remain in the hands
of the Austrians, and he therefore desired Görgei to turn his forces
to the deliverance of the capital. Görgei, in common with all the
military leaders, believed this proposal to be a mistake; but he has
frankly recorded his reasons for readily obeying Kossuth's orders. If
he had followed up his advantages and marched into Austria, a
Republic, he believed, would have been proclaimed in Hungary; and a
compromise with the Austrian Government would have become impossible;
whereas, by occupying Buda-Pesth, he thought that he should gain a
vantage ground which would enable him to persuade both parties to
accept the modified Constitution for Hungary which he desired. Hence
it came to pass that the greater part of May was taken up by the siege
of the fortress of Buda, while Görgei was intriguing with Kossuth's
opponents in the Diet, and the Austrians were gaining ground in
Hungary. And while he was with difficulty holding his own against
Görgei's intrigues, Kossuth was alarmed by the news that a more
formidable enemy had once more appeared on the scene.
On May 1 the Emperor of Austria had formally appealed to the Russians
to assist him against his Hungarian subjects; and in June the Russian
forces began to gather near the passes of the Carpathians. On the 17,
Colonel Szabò encountered the Russians near the Temos Pass. When he
first advanced to meet them, he believed that he had only to do with
some skirmishing troops, such as those with whom he had previously
dealt. But more and more soldiers pressed in to the attack, and Szabò
was compelled to retreat. Two days later Colonel Kiss, at the head of
a band of Szeklers, came up to resist the invaders; and, while those
who were on the hills above hurled down stones and wood on the
Russians, the soldiers below, though only 400 in number, resisted so
gallantly that the Russians at first fled before them. At last,
however, Kiss was laid senseless by a shot, and his soldiers were
seized with a panic and fled in disorder.
Bem, who had returned to Transylvania about the end of May, now
attempted to rally the Szekler by inspiriting appeals to the memories
of their former struggles. On June 25 he recaptured the Saxon town of
Bistritz, and then encountered in the open field a combined corps of
Russians and Austrians. For seven hours he held out against them; but
new reinforcements came up, and he was compelled to retreat. The
enormous numbers of the Russians seem to have impressed Bem's
followers, and to have increased their original panic. The country was
overrun by the enemy; Hermannstadt was captured and recaptured, and
when, on August 5, it at last fell into the hands of the Russians, Bem
narrowly escaped with his life. Even then he wished to continue the
struggle; but on August 7 he was summoned to North Hungary by Kossuth,
to advise him in his difficulties with Görgei.
After an attempt to supersede Görgei by Meszaros, Kossuth had been
compelled to allow the former to resume the command; but he had by no
means recovered confidence in him, and he felt ready to clutch at any
proposal which would extricate himself and his country from their
difficulties. Amongst other suggestions he proposed to offer to Jancu
and the Roumanian leaders independent commands in the Hungarian Army,
and to concede to them most of the points about which they had been
fighting. He had even opened negotiations with Jancu for this
purpose; but Bem steadily opposed the scheme, and the negotiations
came to nothing. But Kossuth's great hope was to supersede Görgei by
Bem. This proposal, however, was opposed, not only by Görgei himself,
but also by Csanyi, who seems throughout to have sympathised with
Görgei, as against Kossuth. Bem, therefore, returned to the war.
Kossuth, left unsupported, became more and more alarmed. Csanyi and
Görgei pressed for his resignation; and, while he was doubting, he
received the news that Bem had been dangerously wounded in battle. The
report, indeed, was exaggerated; and Bem wrote a letter to assure
Kossuth of the slightness of his wound, and to encourage him to stand
firm. But this letter never arrived, and the next news which Bem
received was that Kossuth had abdicated, and Görgei been declared
Dictator of Hungary. Bem wrote a letter of remonstrance to Kossuth,
and, at the same time, marched towards Lugos, in the Banat, to meet
the Russians. Dembinski, who was now in Bem's army, disobeyed his
orders, and Bem was defeated. On that very day, August 13, Görgei
surrendered at Vilagos with all his forces to the Russian general.
This surrender is now believed to have been necessary on military
grounds. The advances made by the Austrians during the siege of Buda,
and the Russian conquest of Transylvania had placed Hungary at the
mercy of the conqueror. Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that the
quarrel between Görgei and Kossuth, and the factions which the former
had stirred up in the army, had tended considerably to bring about
this result; while, with regard to the terms of surrender, General
Görgei has never been able to explain how it was that, while the
amnesty was so scrupulously observed towards himself both by the
Austrians and Russians, the generals, whose only fault was that they
had served under him, were ruthlessly put to death by Haynau. Anyhow,
whatever may have been the excuses for the act, the surrender of
Vilagos produced a startling close to the Hungarian War. Bem, indeed,
hastened back to Transylvania, and attempted to rouse his former
followers; and General Klapka held out for a month longer at Komorn.
But Bem's efforts were of no avail; Klapka's defence only served to
secure rather better terms; and both these generals, as well as
Kossuth, were forced to take refuge in Turkey.
The news of the surrender of Vilagos did not reach Venice till August
20. There Manin had had much difficulty in still retaining the
control which had been necessary for the guidance of affairs; and on
August 6 a minority of 28 in the Assembly had protested against his
reappointment as Dictator. The cholera had now been added to the other
horrors of the siege; provisions were growing scarce; and thus the
news of Görgei's surrender came as the last straw to break down the
hopes of the defenders of Venice. On the 22nd, therefore, the
Government agreed to yield. Manin succeeded in preventing the riots
which seemed likely to break out on the news of the capitulation; and
on August 30 the final surrender of Venice to the Austrians brought to
a close the long struggle for liberty which had begun with the
Sicilian rising of 1848.
On December 20, 1849, there appeared the following statement in a
Swiss paper: "In front of Manin's door was a stone on which his name
was engraved. The Austrians broke it to pieces; but the smallest
fragments of it have been collected by the Venetians as sacred
relics."
So ended the revolutionary period of 1848 and 1849. Those Revolutions
had displayed, in a way unknown before, the strength and the weakness
of the national principle. The enthusiasm for liberty, and the power
of generous self-sacrifice, which was kindled by the feeling for a
common language and common traditions, had been shown in each of the
Revolutions; and they had struck a blow at the merely diplomatic and
military settlements of States which produced a lasting effect. But,
on the other hand, with the love for men of the same race and language
there awoke in all these nations, with terrible force, the hatred and
scorn for men of other races and languages; and thus, while the
leaders of the movement taught tyrants their danger, they supplied
them at the same time with a defence against that danger,--with
another justification of the old maxim of tyrants, "Divide et impera."
And so the work of the Revolutionists did not fail; but yet it could
not achieve all the noble ends for which it was intended.
The time which followed the defeat of the Revolutionists was to show
both their failure and their success. The dreary period of reaction
from 1849 to 1859 could not have been expected by any sane man to be of
long duration. But the time of reawakening was not like the time of the
first dawn of hope. The work which had been ennobled by the thought of
Mazzini, by the sword of Garibaldi, by the statesmanship of Manin,
and the eloquent enthusiasm of Ciceruacchio, was to be carried to
completion by the intrigues of Cavour, and the interested speculation
of Louis Napoleon. In the place of the wisdom of Robert Blum, and the
wild popular energy of Hecker, was to arise the stern hard policy of
"blood and iron"; and, as Germany had failed to absorb Prussia, Prussia
was finally to absorb Germany. The blunders and prejudices of the
leaders of the Vienna Revolution were to be reproduced by Schmerling,
without their self-sacrifice or generosity. But at the same time
Francis Deak, the wise statesman, who had stood aside in dislike of the
fiercer and more unscrupulous policy of other Magyar leaders, was to
re-establish gradually for his country the freedom which she had lost
for a time during the Revolutionary struggle. The race struggles of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire were to be renewed in a milder form, and the
solution of their difficulties postponed to a distant future; while the
yet more dangerous problems of Socialism, which had forced themselves
in so untimely a manner on the citizens of Vienna and Berlin, were
gradually to assume ever greater prominence in the affairs of Europe.
Thus it will be seen that the Revolutions of 1848 to '49 were but the
climax of movements of which we have not yet seen the end; but, for
good and for evil, they left a mark on Europe, which is never likely to
be entirely effaced.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] I must admit that my estimate of Görgei is, in many respects,
lower than that of men whose opportunities of observing the facts, and
whose general candour of judgment entitles their opinion to great
respect. I can only plead that the severest judgments which I have
passed upon him are founded upon his own memoirs; that is, partly upon
the facts narrated in them, and partly upon the tone in which they are
written.
[21] This was the title of the Emperor Ferdinand in his capacity of
King of Hungary.
[22] It will observed that the Roumanians used, wherever possible, the
old Roman titles, in order to assert their connection with ancient
Rome.
[23] The Council which advised the Ban.
[24] A Bolognese priest, who followed Garibaldi partly in the character
of a chaplain and partly as aide-de-camp. See "The Disciples," by Mrs.
E. H. King.
INDEX.
A.
Aargau, 152, 155, 160.
Agram, Bishop of in Gaj's time, 99;
Assembly at, 144-5;
May Meeting at, 318-19;
contrasted with Prague, 333.
Albrecht (Professor), 92. _See_ also Arch Dukes.
Alessandria, occupation of, 3;
in 1821, 39-40, 43;
threatened by Radetzky, 182.
Alexander I. of Russia, character of, 3-4;
relations with Mme de Krüdener, 7;
plan of Holy Alliance, 8;
supports Sardinia, 27;
attitude in 1820, 32;
treatment of Greece, 46-7;
death, 49.
Alfieri, Vittorio, influence of, 23;
Manzoni's feeling to, 25, 54;
influence in Piedmont, 35.
Allemandi, 350.
Alliance, Holy. _See_ Holy Alliance.
Altieri, Cardinal, 417.
Ancona, in 1831, 61, 118;
treatment of by French, 159;
by Triumvirs, 464-5;
fall of, 485.
Andrian, 208.
Anfossi, Augusto, conspiracy against Charles Felix, 61;
early career, 263;
in Milan, 263, 265, 267, 269;
death, 337.
---- Francesco, 365.
Antologia, of Florence, 54-5.
Antonelli, Cardinal, supports Italian war, 346;
suspected of treachery, 348.
Antonini, General, 469.
Apponyi, Chancellor of Hungary, 201.
Arch Duchess Sophia, opposed to Metternich, 207;
favours Jellaciç, 288;
denounced by Hungarians, 460.
Arch Duke Albert, in March insurrection, 239, 241.
---- Francis Charles, in Imperial Council, 207;
appealed to by merchants, 231;
attitude to Metternich, 241;
denounced by Hungarians, 460.
---- John, promises to Italy, 21;
his toast at Cologne, 209-10;
his liberalism, 241;
pressure on Metternich, 243;
made administrator, 363, 373;
forms new ministry, 374;
opens Viennese Parliament, 378;
intervenes in Croatian question, 383.
---- Louis, helps to govern Vienna, 206;
opposes removal of Hye, 207;
warns Metternich, 232;
his proposal about Windischgrätz, 240;
denounced by Hungarians, 460.
---- Maximilian, in March rising, 242-3.
---- Sigismund, 268.
---- Stephen, deserts Hungary, 395, 432;
denounced by Hungarians, 461.
Arcioni, at defence of Rome, 475.
Armellini, in provisional government, 423;
Triumvir, 464; feelings to French, 473.
Arndt, relations with Stein, 10;
professor, 12;
in 1816, 12;
restored by Frederick William IV., 94;
thanked at Frankfort, 361; vote on truce of Malmö, 374-5.
Arthaber, 245.
Ascoli, Duke of, 34-5.
---- conspiracy in, 464-5.
Auersperg, General, in October rising, 391, 393.
Auerswald, death of, 376.
Austria, Arch Duchy of, relations with Bohemia and Hungary, 250-3.
---- Emperors of. _See_ Francis, Ferdinand, Francis Joseph.
---- Empire of, special evils of in Italy, 20-22;
German language in, 89-90;
policy of, 132-3;
in Switzerland, 151, 159;
political character of, 209;
Möring's view of, _see_ Möring;
Kossuth's view of, 227-8;
attitude of Bohemians towards, 298-300;
of Viennese towards, 304;
proposed federation of, 333;
Radetzky's position in, 335.
---- Estates of. _See_ Estates.
---- House of, policy towards Serbs, 281-2;
feeling to Italy, 363;
deposed in Hungary, 458-61.
Avezzana, 474.
B.
Bach, his soup kitchen, 212;
his treatment of Rieger, 379.
Baden, from 1815-47, 219-20;
movement in in 1847-8, 220-1;
programme of leaders of, 232-3;
insurrections in, 361, 377-8, 485. _See_ also Struve, Hecker, and
Republicans, South German.
Balbo, Prospero, supposed liberalism of, 35;
in 1821, 38-9;
inconsistencies, 120-1.
---- Cesare, early career, 121;
Speranze d'Italia, 121-2.
Banat, 449, 456.
Bandiera Brothers, 118-20, 368.
Bassermann, 221.
Bassi, Ugo, 475, 487.
Batthyanyi, Louis, in 1839, 86;
in 1857, 202;
Prime Minister, 246;
his difficulties, 279-80;
his appeal to Szeklers, 316;
his interview with Jellaciç, 383-4;
feeling about Lamberg, 386;
his resignation, 388;
attempted mediation, 462
Battles, of White Hill, 250-1;
of Goito first, 341;
second, 356;
of Cornuta, 349;
of Curtatone, 355;
of Somma Campagna, 364;
of Custozza, 364;
of Schwechat, 396-7, 432;
of Novara, 429.
Bava, General, 341, 363-4.
Bavaria, treatment of by Metternich, 13;
protest against concluding act of Vienna, 18;
resistance of to Metternich, 218;
revolution of 1848 in, 222;
quarrel of with Baden, 377.
Beauharnais, 21, 25.
Bem, early career, 394;
defence of Vienna, 396;
relations with Kossuth and Görgei, 436;
first campaign in Transylvania, 446-7;
contrasted with Csanyi, 449-50;
final struggle of, 492-3;
flies to Turkey, 494.
Bentinck, Lord William, 21, 44.
Berczenczei, 440.
Bergamo, 197, 268.
Berlin, March rising in, 247-9;
discontents in, 402-3;
riots in, 405-6;
struggle of Assembly in, 409-14.
Bern, 152, 154, 156.
Bible, Metternich's view of, 6.
Bini, Carlo, 55.
Blasendorf, 312-14.
Blum, Robert, first appearance, 92;
sympathy with Ronge, 95;
victory of, 96;
sympathy with Poland, 192;
in March rising, 223-5;
influence in Preparatory Parliament, 293, 295;
hinders May rising, 361;
view of Truce of Malmö, 374-5;
action in Frankfort riot, 375-6;
difference with Hecker, 376-7;
his republicanism, 377-8;
in Vienna, 393-7;
his death and its effects, 397-8.
Blumenthal, Major von, 412-13.
Bohemia, division of classes in, 204;
national feeling in, 206;
history of in 17th and 18th centuries, 250-3;
revival of language in, 253-4;
March rising in, 254-60;
race difficulties in, 289-92;
relations of to Frankfort Parliament, 295-302;
effect on of May rising, 308, 310;
peculiarity of its position, 333;
feeling towards Italy, 335;
triumphed over by Frankfort Parliament, 363;
Deputies of in Viennese Parliament, 387, 392;
Deputies at Olmütz, 415-16;
at Kremsier, 416;
treatment of in Constitution of 1849, 455. _See_ also Slavs,
Prague, Rieger.
Bologna, in 1830, 60;
attitude to Corsica, 60;
sympathy with Lombards, 354;
in August, 1848, 368-9;
struggle of in 1849, 466, 477-9.
Bolza, 144, 183, 267.
Bonn, 412.
Borrosch, tries to save Latour, 391;
at Kremsier, 416.
Bozzelli, 177.
Brandenburg, General, 408, 409-10.
---- City, 409, 413-14.
Brescia, 189, 261;
March rising in, 268-9;
Anfossi's service at, 365;
Garibaldi's march to, 356;
rising in 1849, 428-9.
Breslau, 406, 412.
Brunetti. _See_ Ciceruacchio.
Buda-Pesth, March movement in, 278-9;
contrasted with Presburg, 279-80;
death of Lamberg in, 388;
question of its defence, 438;
besieged by Görgei, 491.
Bund, constitution of in 1815, 8;
effect on of Carlsbad Decrees, 17;
strengthened in 1834, 90;
proposed reform of, 223.
Bundestag, duty of, 9;
decrees of in 1830, 50;
in Schleswig-Holstein question, 165;
action of in March, 1848, 224;
relations of with Frankfort Parliament, 295, 372-3.
Buonaparte, Charles Lucien, at Genoa, 143;
in Venice, 192-3;
advocates Italian Assembly, 419.
---- Napoleon I., 1, 2, 20-1.
---- Louis Napoleon, expulsion of from Switzerland, 154;
letter on Cavaignac's expedition, 467;
elected President, 467, 470;
answer to Roman deputation, 470.
Buonaparte, Pierre, 471.
Buonarotti, 70-1.
Burschenschaft, 14-15.
C.
Camarilla, 244, 381.
Camphausen, his policy, 370;
his fall, 405.
Campo Formio, Treaty of, 20, 23.
Canino, Prince of. _See_ Buonaparte, Charles Lucien.
Canning, George, his foreign policy, 48;
Metternich's opinion of him, 48;
treatment of Greece, 49;
his death, 50.
Capo d'Istria, 47.
Carbonari, 4;
rise and work of, 29-30;
in 1820, 31-2, 33;
Mazzini's relations with, 56-8.
Carlowitz, importance of to Serbs, 283, 284;
May meeting at, 311-12;
June attack on, 319-20;
contrasted with Prague, 333.
---- General von, 225.
Carlsbad Decrees, 17, 221.
Carlsruhe, 221.
Carpathians, 108, 109.
Casati, honours Confalonieri, 144;
character and position, 185;
behaviour in smoking riots, 197;
in March rising, 264-6, 267;
in Lombard war, 336;
policy of, 337;
Mazzini's relations with, 342, 349, 365;
action in May rising, 357;
feeling to Charles Albert, 358.
Castellani, 464.
Castlereagh, in 1815, 2;
in 1821, 44;
suicide, 48.
Cavaignac, 467.
Cavour, 181.
Cernuschi, conduct in March rising, 264;
arrested in May, 357-8;
his proposal in Rome, 487.
Charles Albert, early career, 37;
visits hospitals, 39;
action in 1821, 40, 41, 42;
accession, 61;
feelings of Italians to, 62-3;
Mazzini's letter to, 63-4;
position in Italy, 64-6;
conduct in 1846, 136-7, 147;
sympathies with Sonderbund, 157;
attitude in February 1848, 180-2;
action about Lombard rising, 337-8;
mistakes and victories, 340-1;
Pope's suspicions of, 346;
treatment of Venetia, 348-50, 359;
action about fusion, 350-1;
causes of influence, 351-2;
later victories and defeats, 355-6;
betrayal of Milan, 356-7;
Rossi's suspicions of, 420;
Guerrazzi's feeling to, 423-4;
rebuked by Pope, 425;
last war with Austria, 426, 428, 429;
Roman feeling towards, 427;
abdication, 429-30.
Charles Felix, his politics, 36-7;
accession, 41;
appeal to Charles Albert, 42;
system of government, 43;
treatment of Mazzini, 59;
conspiracy against, 61.
---- VI. of Germany, treatment of Serbs, 282.
Christian VIII. of Denmark, policy of in 1846, 163-4;
in 1848, 371-2.
Chrzanowski, 428.
Ciceruacchio, his myth of Pius IX., 142-3;
his suppression of clerical conspiracy, 145;
his demands for reform, 178;
desires Lombard war, 339.
Civita Vecchia, 467, 471, 472-3.
Coblenz, resistance to King of Prussia, 412.
Cologne, Archbishop of, quarrel of with Frederick William III., 93;
released, 94.
---- socialism in, 403.
Como, 189;
March rising in, 268.
Concordat of Seven, 152, 155.
Confalonieri, Federigo, position and work, 25-6;
in 1821, 36;
imprisoned, 44-6;
effect of death, 144.
Congress of Laybach, 34, 39, 40, 46.
---- of Verona, 48.
---- of Vienna, 2, 3.
Consalvi, Cardinal, policy, 3;
protest about Ferrara, 146.
Constitution, promise of in Bundes-act, 8;
granted by King of Würtemberg, 13;
promised by King of Prussia, 16;
crushed in 1819, 17-18.
---- for Austria, proposed by Kossuth, 227-8;
of April 1848, 305-6;
of May, 308;
of March 1849, 455-8.
---- of Bohemia, old, 251-4.
---- of Germany, devised at Frankfort, 415.
---- of Hungary, 73-5.
---- of Naples in 1848, 178, 199.
---- of Piedmont, 182.
---- of Prussia in April 1848, 403-4.
---- of Sicily, destruction of, 2;
in 1820, 33.
---- Spanish, 31;
in Naples, 32, 34;
in Sicily, 33;
in Piedmont, 36, 41, 43.
---- of Tuscany, 180.
Corcelles, 485.
Cornuta, 349.
Correnti, 264.
Corsica, 60.
Corsini, 128.
Cosenza, 119-20.
County Assemblies of Hungary, 74.
Cracow, 129-32, 134-5.
Cremona, 189;
March rising in, 269.
Crnojeviç, 311.
Croatia, early traditions of, 97-8;
language movement in, 98-100;
internal struggles, 104-5;
treatment of by Magyars, 106-7;
sympathy of with Saxons, 116;
Kossuth's view of in March 1848, 227-8;
soldiers of in Milan, 269;
in Venice, 271-3;
demands of in March 1848, 276-7;
opposition of to "Twelve Points," 287-8;
relations of with Ferdinand, 310;
with Serbs, 318-19;
demands of in Slav Congress, 327;
feeling in about Italy, 335-6;
sympathy of with Roumanians, 439;
attitude of to Constitution of 1849, 455;
influence of Jellaciç in, 457.
Csanyi, 449, 450-1.
Curtatone, Battle of, 355-6.
D.
Dahlmann, in 1837, 92;
in 1840, 94;
opposes truce of Malmö, 374;
subsequent action in Parliament, 374, 376.
Dalmatia, 97-8.
Dandolo, Enrico, 483.
Dante, influence of on Mazzini, 55-6.
Darmstadt. _See_ Hesse.
Dawkins, Consul, 488.
D'Azeglio, Massimo, "I Casi di Romagna," 128-9;
championship of Charles Albert, 137-8;
praise of Gizzi, 140;
demands Constitution, 181;
puts pressure on Pope, 339.
Deak, in 1832, 81-2;
rebuke to Gaj, 100;
resignation in 1843, 103;
helps in reforms, 201-2;
position in first Ministry, 279-80;
rebuke to Saxons, 315;
attempted mediation, 462;
final triumph, 496.
Debreczin, 438.
De Laugier, 355.
Del Caretto, 177.
Della Torre, in 1821, 42-3.
Dembinski, made commander, 439;
quarrel with Görgei, 452-3;
dismissal, 454.
Denmark, relations of with Schleswig-Holstein, 164, 371-2;
war with Germany, 373-5.
Dessewfy, in 1825, 76.
Deym, Count, 301, 323.
Dresden, 223-5.
Durando, Giacomo, conspiracy of, 61;
book on Italy, 125-6;
demands Constitution, 181.
---- Giovanni, made Papal general, 339-40;
denounces Radetzky, 340;
relations with Charles Albert and Manin, 345;
at Cornuta, 349;
defence of Vicenza, 349;
surrenders Vicenza, 359.
Düsseldorf, resistance to King of Prussia, 412.
E.
Endlicher, Professor, 234.
England, policy of in 1815, 2;
"madness of," 49;
relations of with Cracow, 131-2;
Gagern's feeling to, 233;
action in Sicily, 469.
Eötvös, controversy with Kossuth, 200;
in first Ministry, 279;
in deputation to Vienna, 387;
retirement, 462.
Estates of Bohemia, 208, 253.
---- of Lower Austria, 204, 210;
promises of Metternich to, 225;
action in March rising, 234-9.
---- of Schleswig-Holstein, 371.
Esterhazy in Hungarian Ministry, 279.
Ewald, protest in 1837, 92.
F.
Fabbri, 418.
Faster, 255, 260, 320, 331.
Favre, Jules, 476.
Ferdinand of Austria, accession, 85-6;
attitude to Croats, 106;
contrasted with Kossuth, 107;
feeling of Vienna towards, 206-8, 235, 245-6;
March deputation to, 234;
struggle with Ministers, 244-5;
concessions to Viennese, 246-7;
to Bohemia, 290;
appeal of Bohemians to, 301-2;
attitude in May, 308;
treatment of Jellaciç, 310;
of Roumanians, 318;
Palacky's gratitude to, 322;
supposed friendship with St Januarius, 352;
return to Vienna, 378;
attitude towards rival races, 381-5;
treatment of Hungarians, 385, 386-7, 388;
second flight, 393;
abdication, 415-16;
denounced by Hungarians, 460-1.
---- I. of Germany, Bohemian policy, 250;
opposition to Turks, 281.
---- II. of Germany, Bohemian policy, 251-2.
---- III. of Germany, Bohemian policy, 251-2.
---- I. of Naples, destroys Sicilian Constitution, 2;
influence of Filangieri on, 29;
attitude in 1816, 29;
in 1820, 82;
goes to Laybach, 34-5;
treachery of, 39;
tyranny, 44.
Ferdinand II. of Naples, government of Sicily, 169-70;
his birthday, 173;
concessions, 177-8;
joins Lombard war, 338;
jealousy of Charles Albert, 346;
May coup d'état, 352-3;
re-conquers Sicily, 468-70.
---- of Spain, tyranny, 30;
in 1820, 31.
---- of Tuscany, 53.
Ferrara, Austrian claim to, 3;
first Austrian occupation, 146-50;
expulsion of Austrians from, 354;
second occupation, 368;
third attack on, 466;
capture of, 477;
vote of, 477.
Ferrari, 349.
Ferrero, action in 1821, 40.
Ficquelmont, 186, 261, 302.
Filangieri, 29.
Fischhof, on March 13th, 235-9;
appeals about Press Law, 304;
tries to save Latour, 391-2;
at Kremsier, 416.
Fiume, 461.
Florence, 180, 424-5, 468.
Forli, 138, 422.
Foscolo, Ugo, early career, 23;
writes "Jacopo Ortis," 24;
"Il Conciliatore," 26.
Fossombroni, his policy, 53-4;
effect of his death, 128.
France in 1815, 2;
Mazzini in, 68-9;
sympathy with Poland, 129;
relations with Poland, 129;
with Cracow, 131;
in 1848, 215-18, 221, 225, 256;
treatment of Roman Republic, 469;
ambassador in Sicily, 469.
Francis, Emperor of Austria, relations with Metternich, 1;
popularity in Rhine Province, 12;
treatment of Hungary, 73, 75;
death, 85;
relations with Gaj, 99;
concessions to Cracow, 130;
rebuke of Salzburgers, 206;
effect of death, 206;
dislike of Jesuits, 211;
treatment of Estates of Lower Austria, 240;
treatment of Serbs, 283.
Francis IV. of Modena, character and policy, 41;
treachery, 50, 58;
attitude to Charles Albert, 64.
---- V. of Modena, 149-50.
---- of Naples, supposed liberalism, 30;
tyranny of, 62.
---- Joseph, Kossuth's hopes from, 227;
accession, 416;
summons Kremsier Parliament, 416;
dissolves it, 417;
issues new Constitution, 455;
hostility to Hungary, 461;
appeals to Russians, 491.
Frankfort, Decrees at in 1832, 50, 221.
---- Preparatory Parliament at, 292-7.
---- Committee of Fifty at, 297.
---- riots at, 375-6.
---- Constituent Assembly at, proposed, 232;
early action of, 360-3;
causes of loss of power, 397;
failure in Schleswig-Holstein question, 370-5;
attitude of towards Prussian Parliament, 414;
offers Crown of Germany to Frederick William, 415;
fall of, 484-5.
Frankl, note to 399.
Frederick II. of Prussia, attitude to German literature, 89.
---- William III. of Prussia, in 1815, 2-3;
feeling to Holy Alliance, 7-8;
relations with Schmaltz, 10-11;
scruples, 16;
quarrel with Archbishop of Cologne, 93;
character and death, 93-4.
---- William IV. of Prussia, character, 94;
relations with Metternich, 163;
summons to Estates, 165-6;
conduct in March rising, 226, 246-9;
treatment of Posen, 370;
declares war on Denmark, 373;
makes truce, 373-4;
appoints Brandenburg, 408;
interview with Jacoby, 408-9;
dissolves parliament, 413-14;
recalls deputies from Frankfort, 484;
suppresses Baden rising, 485;
_see_ also Prussia, Frankfort, Jacoby.
Freyburg, Canton, 160-1.
---- Town, 162.
Fröbel, 397.
Füster, 234.
G.
Gabler, 254-5, 258.
Gaeta, 422, 425.
Gagern, Heinrich von, influence in Darmstadt, 222;
at Heidelberg, 283.
Gaj, his Illyrian movement, 98-9;
his answer to Deak, 100;
defeat of his work, 100;
in March movement in Vienna, 276;
suspected by Greek clergy, 283-4;
his attitude to Serbs, 319;
his feelings to Italy, 335.
Galicia, insurrection of, 1846, 132-4, 140;
Maria Theresa's treatment of, 253;
April rising in, 306-7;
demands in Slav Congress, 326;
wish for separation, 327.
Galletti, General, 474.
---- Minister, 421.
Garibaldi, repulsed by Charles Albert, 342;
in Lombardy, 366-7;
excluded from Bologna, 419;
defeats Zucchi, 464;
invited to Sicily, 469;
defeats Oudinot, 475-6;
defeats Neapolitans, 477;
quarrel with Roselli, 481-2;
struggle by the Vascello, 482-6;
popularity, 485;
advice to Assembly, 486;
final effort, 487.
Gavazzi, 419.
Gedeon, General, 444.
Genoa, treatment of, by England, 2;
in 1821, 42-3;
in 1847-8, 180-2;
sends volunteers to Lombardy, 337;
final insurrection in, 474.
Germany, aspirations of, 3;
religious feeling in, 5;
relations of with Bund, 8-9;
Stein's feeling towards, 8-10;
discontent in, 12-16;
condition of from 1819 to 1840, 90-1;
literary and religious movement in, 91-6;
question of unity of, 12, 210, 221-3, 226, 232, 236, 238, 248-9,
292-4, 407, 415;
relations of to Vienna, 209;
to Bohemia, 295-302;
feeling in to Italy, 335, 346;
relations of with Prussia, 376, 378;
effect on, of fall of Vienna, 398, 400;
fall of liberties of, 484-5.
Germany, South, 218-22, 232.
Gervinus, in 1837, 92.
Gioberti, writes for "Young Italy," 69;
early career, 122-3;
"Il Primato," 123-5;
quarrel with Jesuits, 122, 125;
affected by Pius IX.'s election, 138;
plans for restoring Pope, 425.
Giskra, 307-8.
Gizzi, Cardinal, 140-2.
Goegg, 220.
Goethe, influence on Foscolo, 24;
opinion of Manzoni, 25.
Goito. _See_ Battles.
Goldmark, on March 13th, 237;
tries to reconcile Germans and Bohemians, 325;
saves Rieger from violence, 379;
tries to save Latour, 391.
Görgei, early career, 433-4;
made commander, 434;
quarrels with Kossuth, 434-9;
feelings to Bem, 436;
removed from command, 439;
quarrel with Dembinski, 452-4;
political creed, 435, 458-9;
captures Komorn, 490;
besieges Pesth, 491;
made Dictator, 493;
his surrender, 493-4.
Görres, 12, 17.
Greece, rising in, 46-7, 49.
Greek Church, 99, 112, 283-4, 313.
Gregory XVI., treatment of Gaj, 99;
unpopularity of, 125;
Renzi's charges against, 126;
state of government at death of, 138-9;
Metternich's attitude to, 146;
denounces Swiss reformers, 153;
reforms proposed to him, 347;
Louis Napoleon's insurrection against, 470.
Grillo, Giovanni, 171-2.
Grimm brothers, in 1837, 92.
Guerrazzi, literary leadership, 54;
liberalism of, 148;
imprisoned, 180;
plans for Leopold, 423-4;
in provisional government, 423-4;
opposes Mazzini, 424-5;
opposes Gioberti, 425;
failure of his government, 467-8.
Guizot, relations with Metternich, 150;
policy in Switzerland, 162.
H.
Hanover, constitution granted, 90;
abolished, 91;
protest of professors in, 91-2.
---- King of, resists March movement, 226;
opposes Frankfort Assembly, 373.
Hansemann, 403, 405, 407, 411.
Hapsburg. _See_ Austria, house of.
Haulik, Bishop, 105.
Haynau, 428-9, 489-90.
Hecker, causes of popularity, 219-20;
attitude of at Heidelberg, 233;
effect of insurrection, 376-7.
Heidelberg, March meeting at, 232.
Herbst, Dr., note to 134.
Hermannstadt, importance in Transylvania, 441;
treatment by Bem, 449;
fall of, 492.
Hesse Cassel, March rising in, 222.
---- Darmstadt, March rising in, 222;
position of Gagern in, 233.
---- Duke of, his action in Mainz, 361.
Hofer, Andrew, 10.
Holy Alliance, end of, 50. _See_ also Alexander, Krüdener (Mme de),
Frederick William III., Metternich.
Honveds, 433.
Hormayr, 204.
Horn, Uffo, 258.
Hoyos, 307.
Hrabowsky, 312, 320.
Hungary, difference from other countries, 73-5;
division of races in, 96, 276, 288;
relations of with Croatia, 97, 276-7, 287-8;
growth of national feeling, 106-7;
"nobles" 102-3;
compared with Lombardy, 191;
feelings of, for county government, 201-3;
relations of, with Vienna, 209, 226-30;
Gagern's admiration of, 233;
responsible ministry in, 246-7;
relations of with Bohemia, 250, 253;
treatment of by Ferdinand, 384-7;
invasion of by Jellaciç, 388-9;
position of after Schwechat, 432-3;
division of parties in, 433-9;
later struggles in, 433-63;
relations of with Venice, 489-90;
final effort of, 490-2;
fall of, 493-4.
Hungary, Diet of, in 1825, 75-6;
in 1832, 81;
in 1840, 100;
in 1843, 102;
in 1849, 439, 441.
Hye, share in debating Society, 207;
denounces annexation of Cracow, 212;
hesitations in March, 234-5;
appealed to by Windischgrätz, 245;
attitude about press law, 303-4.
---- House of Magnates of, their concession to Croats, 105.
I.
Illyrian Movement, 99, 283.
Imola, conspiracy in, 464. _See_ also Pius IX.
Innspruck, 306, 310, 393.
Inquisition, 465-6.
Istria, influence of Venice in, 97.
Italy, conquerors' promises to, 20-1;
condition of, in 1820-30, 52-3;
question of unity of, 56-8, 170, 190, 419, 423;
contrasted with Hungary, 117-18;
position of Charles Albert in, 62-4;
relations of with Switzerland, 157, 159;
feelings of other races to, 335-6;
separateness of struggle in, 336;
feeling of Frankfort parliament to, 362-3;
of Viennese to, 387, 389-90;
feelings in towards Roumanians, 439;
final struggles in, 463-88.
---- Young. _See_ Mazzini.
J.
Jacoby defies King of Prussia, 409;
interview with Blumenthal, 412-13.
Jahn, 14-15, 16, 94.
Jancu, career in Transylvania, 443;
suspicions of Kossuth, 457;
Kossuth's negotiations with, 492.
Jellaciç, elected Ban, 288;
in April and May, 310;
advances to Serbs, 318-19;
feelings to Italy, 335;
feelings of Viennese to, 380;
position in June, 383;
interview with Batthyanyi, 383-4;
change of position, 384;
invades Hungary, 388;
Dictator, 388;
his defeats, 390;
marches against Vienna, 393;
publishes Constitution of 1849, 457.
Jesuits, attacks on in Saxony, 95;
Gioberti's quarrel with, 122, 125;
influence at Rome, 126;
in Tuscany, 128, 148;
in Switzerland, 156, 157;
expulsion of from Rome demanded, 178;
from Turin, 181;
hatred of in Vienna, 211;
in Bavaria, 222;
Anfossi's hostility to, 263;
attacks on in Brescia, 268;
propaganda of against Greek Church, 282;
hatred of Rossi, 419.
John, Arch Duke. _See_ Arch Duke.
Joseph I. of Germany, his treatment of Serbs, 282.
---- II. of Germany, his policy, 5;
his agrarian reforms, 81;
Germanising attempts of, 89-90;
reforms in Transylvania, 110-11;
policy in Bohemia, 253;
denounced by Hungarians, 460.
Jozipoviç, 104-5.
Jungmann, 254.
K.
Kikinda. _See_ Velika Kikinda.
Kiss, victory over Serbs, 385-6;
struggle with Russians, 491-2.
Klapka, captures Komorn, 490;
his defence of it, 494.
Klausenburg, 316, 441, 444, 446.
Knicsanin, 320, 385.
Kollar, 254, 283.
Kolowrat, relations with Metternich, 206, 241;
founds College of Censorship, 214;
mistakes in March, 231-2;
attitude to Bohemians, 260;
in March Ministry, 302.
Komorn, 490, 494.
Kossuth, 51;
character and early career, 83-4;
imprisoned, 85;
released, 86;
starts "Pesti Hirlap," 100;
attacks Slavs, 101-2;
championship of Jozipoviç, 105;
contrasted with Ferdinand, 107;
sympathy with Poland, 129;
dispute with Eötvös, 200-1;
growth of power, 201-3;
programme of reform, 201-2;
speech of March 3rd, 226-9;
its effects, 229, 232, 236, 238;
his welcome in Vienna, 246;
position of in March Ministry, 279-80;
attitude of to Serbs, 284;
to Croats, 287-8;
to Ferdinand in May, 309;
suspected by Bohemians, 332;
inconsistencies about Italy, 336;
feelings of Viennese towards, 380, 384;
treatment of Croatian army, 384;
urges advance of Hungarians, 395-6;
position after Schwechat, 432;
appoints Görgei, 433;
quarrels with Görgei, 433-9;
relations with Bem, 436;
order in October, 441;
relations with Csanyi, 449;
appoints Vetter, 454;
issues Declaration of Independence, 458-62;
causes of power, 462;
relations with Manin, 489-90;
final struggles, 490-2;
fall, 493.
Kotzebue, 14, 15.
Kremsier, Parliament at, 416-17, 454-5.
Kriny, 171-2.
Krüdener, Mme de, 7.
Kübeck in March ministry, 302.
Kudler, 212.
Kukuljeviç, 276-7.
Kuranda, edits "Grenz Boten," 208;
argues with Bohemians, 299;
appeals against Press Law, 304.
L.
La Farina, 170, 172, 176.
Lago Maggiore, 367.
La Masa, 174, 176.
Lamberg, 386, 388.
Lambruschini, 138, 141, 145.
Latour, Governor at Vienna, 240, 242.
---- War Minister, his intrigues, 381-3, 386, 440;
sends Lamberg to Pesth, 386;
his plot discovered, 389;
sends troops to Hungary, 390-1;
his death, 381-2.
Laybach. _See_ Congress of.
Lazzaroni, 353.
Le Blanc, Colonel, 473.
Leghorn, literary movement in, 54-6;
revolution in, 180;
Mazzini in, 424.
Legion, of Vienna students, 302, 396, 399-400.
---- of Prague, 321.
Leipzig, sympathy of, with Dahlmann, 92;
riot at in 1845, 95-6;
March rising in, 223-5.
_See_ also University.
Lemberg, contrasted with Prague, 333.
Lemenyi, 314.
Leo XII., 65.
Leopold I., Emperor of Germany, treatment of Illyrians, 99;
of Transylvania, 110;
of Serbs, 281.
---- II., Emperor of Germany, Bohemian policy, 253;
concessions to Serbs, 283.
---- I., Grand Duke of Tuscany, contrasted with his successors, 53.
---- II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, policy, 53;
treatment of Renzi, 128;
banishes D'Azeglio, 129;
becomes a reformer, 148;
relations with Lucca and Modena, 149-50;
grants Constitution, 179-80;
declares war on Austria, 338;
motives of action, 423-4;
flight, 424;
recalled, 468.
Lesseps, 479-81.
Libelt, 321.
Löhner, his proposal in March, 240;
denounces Latour, 389;
at Kremsier, 416.
Lola Montez, 222.
Lombardy, effect on of Napoleon's wars, 19;
weakness of Central Congregation, 21;
condition in 1815, 22;
Carbonarism in, 30;
state in 1821, 44-6;
Menz's plans for, 72-3;
in 1846, 143-4;
government of, 184-6;
grievances of, 189-192;
February edict in, 214-15;
March risings in, 260-9;
war in, 336-68;
Austrian treachery in, 426;
Charles Albert's last war in, 428-9.
_See_ also Nazari.
Louis, Arch Duke. _See_ Arch Duke.
---- Napoleon. _See_ Buonaparte.
---- Philippe, his conservatism, 50;
attitude in 1833, 60;
policy in Switzerland, 153, 154, 159. _See_ also Guizot.
Lucca, political position, 52;
relations of with Tuscany, 149, 150.
Lüders, General, 448.
Luzern, 152, 153-4, 156, 160, 162.
Lychnowsky, his death, 376.
M.
Maestri, 366.
Magyars, their relations with other races, 96-7;
Metternich's hostility to them, 99;
their hostility to Croats, 99-102, 107;
1st settlement in Hungary, 108;
position in Transylvania, 108, 114;
relations with Roumanians, 110, 112, 442-3;
opposition to Roth, 115-16;
relations with Slovaks, 276;
with Slavs, 278, 281-2, 284-6, 310-20;
attitude in May, 309;
quarrel with Bohemians, 332, 387-8;
attitude towards Italy, 335-6;
relations with Vienna, 387-9, 395, 397.
Mailath, Anton, 86, 201, 229.
Mainz, treatment of by Prussians, 361, 404.
Malghera, 489-90.
Malmö, truce of, 373-5;
its effect in Berlin, 407.
Mamiani, Terenzio, his banishment, 61;
influence at Paris, 123;
refuses amnesty, 141;
made Minister, 348;
policy and fall, 417-18;
made Foreign Minister, 421-2;
attitude after Pope's fall, 423;
interview with Lesseps, 479.
Manara, in rising in Milan, 269;
difficulties in Lombard war, 337;
march to Civita Vecchia, 471;
controversy with Oudinot, 471-2;
at defence of Rome, 474-7;
death, 486.
Manin, promotes railway with Piedmont, 137;
his petitions, 193-5;
imprisonment, 196;
its effect, 270;
his release, 271;
in March rising, 271-4;
influenced by Venetian traditions, 343-4;
relations with Durando, 345;
welcomes Pepe, 354-5;
resists fusion, 358;
tries to help Vicenza, 358-9;
resignation, 359-60;
recall, 367;
final struggle, 488-90;
surrender, 494;
his stone, 494-5.
Mannheim, 221.
Mantua, in March rising, 340;
captured by Radetzky, 341;
fortification of, 348;
movements of Radetzky about, 355.
Manzoni, career and aims, 24-5;
growth of influence, 54.
Margherita, Solaro della, opposed to Gioberti, 123;
politics, 137;
sympathy with Sonderbund, 157.
Maria Theresa, agrarian reforms of, 81;
treatment of Transylvania, 110, 115;
of Bohemia, 253;
of Serbs, 282-3.
Marinovich, 272.
Maros Vasarhely, 108, 444.
Maximilian. _See_ Arch Duke.
Mayerhoffer, 386.
Mazzini, 51;
early career, 55-6;
attitude to Carbonari, 56-7;
political creed, 57-9;
first banishment, 59;
first insurrection, 60;
letter to Charles Albert, 63-4;
personal influence, 66-7;
contrasted with other revolutionists, 67-8;
founds Young Italy, 68-9;
invasion of Savoy, 69-71;
impression on Metternich, 71;
relation with Brothers Bandiera, 118-20;
sympathy with Poland, 129;
effect of on working classes, 191;
relations with Tommaseo, 194;
appeal for Charles Albert, 337-8;
visit to Milan, 342;
appealed to by Lombard Government, 349;
advice rejected, 349-50;
protest against fusion, 350-1;
opposes May insurrection, 356-7;
plan for defence of Milan, 365-6;
last struggle in Lombardy, 367;
in Leghorn, 424-5;
attitude to Charles Albert, 427;
work as Triumvir, 464;
warned by Ledru Rollin, 470;
urges resistance to French, 473;
feeling of Lesseps to, 480;
repels Corcelles, 485;
his final advice to Assembly, 486.
Mazzoni, 424.
Medici, last effort in Lombardy, 367;
defends Vascello, 483-6.
Menotti, Ciro, 50.
Mensdorff, 331.
Menz, 71-3, 157.
Meesenhauser, 396.
Messina, in 1820, 34;
Ferdinand's visit to, 169;
September rising in, 171.
Meszaros, in Batthyanyi's Ministry, 279;
rebukes Görgei, 453;
supersedes Görgei, 492.
Metternich, Prince, rise to power, 1;
system of government, 2;
feeling to Alexander, 3-4;
to religion, 5-7;
opposition to Stein, 8-10;
to S. German States, 13;
a "moral power," 15;
triumph in 1819, 16-18;
surprise at movement of 1820, 32;
treatment of Lombardy in 1821, 44;
of Confalonieri, 44-6;
attitude to Greece, 46-7;
opinion of Canning, 48;
change towards England, 48-9;
triumph in 1832, 50-1;
policy towards Tuscany, 53;
opinion of Mazzini, 71;
feelings to Hungary, 73;
quarrel with Szechenyi, 78;
defeat in 1839, 86-7;
attitude to Gaj, 99;
denounces Grand Duke of Tuscany, 128;
treatment of Cracow, 134;
feeling to Charles Albert, 135-6;
treatment of Canton Ticino, 136;
occupation of Ferrara, 146;
attitude towards Switzerland, 151-2, 157, 162, 167, 214;
feeling about Jesuits, 157;
relations with Guizot, 159;
relations with Frederick William IV., 163, 165;
attitude to Schleswig-Holstein, 163-5;
position at end of 1847, 167;
concessions to Lombardy, 199;
opinion of Italy, 200;
attack on Hungarian County Government, 201-3;
how affected by Ferdinand's accession, 207;
attack on Grenz Boten, 208;
causes of unpopularity, 211;
oppression of Lombardy, 214;
attitude to S. Germany, 218-19;
alarm at French Revolution, 225;
hopes to crush Hungary, 228;
vague promises of, 231-2;
resistance to March rising, 240-1;
demands for removal of, 225, 230, 234-5;
his fall, 243-4;
opinion of Serbs, 382.
Metternich, Princess, her opinion of Pius IX., 141;
of Frederick William IV., 166.
---- Germain, 375.
Mieroslawski, in March rising, 248;
enthusiasm for in Berlin, 370;
in Sicily, 469;
in Baden, 485.
Mihacsfalva, 317.
Milan, grain riots in 1847, 144;
demonstration at, 146-7;
government of in February 1848, 182-6;
Provincial Congregation, 189;
smoking riots, 196-8;
Metternich's concessions to, 199;
effect of Sicilian revolution in, 199-200;
March rising, 262-9;
government of, in Lombard war, 336-7;
Mazzini's visit to, 342, 349-50;
contrasted with Venice, 343-4;
May rising in, 356-7;
fall of, 365-7.
Military frontier, 281, 319, 455.
Minto, Lord, 147, 177.
Modena, political position, 52;
Austrian occupation, 150;
insurrection in, 337;
defended by Durando, 345;
Radetzky's policy in, note to 380. _See_ also Francis IV. and V.
Moga, General, hesitations, 396;
defeat, 396-7;
deposition, 433.
Moltke, 374.
Moncenigo, 195-6.
Montanara, 365.
Montanelli, promotes unity in Italy, 138;
brings pressure on Pius IX., 148;
his scheme of constituent Assembly, 419;
joins provisional Government, 424;
offered place in Triumvirate, 468.
Montecuccoli, 236-9.
Monti, Vincenzo, 22, 23.
Moravia, relations of with Bohemia, 258, 289, 290, 291;
demands of in Slav Congress, 326.
Moro, Domenico, 119.
Möring, 213.
Murat, 21, 29, 32.
N.
Naples, Carbonari in, 4, 29, 30;
struggles for freedom in, 28-9;
tyranny in, 169;
relations of with Sicily, 169-71, 469;
insurrection of in 1848, 177;
riots in, 338;
coup d'état in, 351-3;
struggle of with Rome, 477.
---- Kings of. _See_ Ferdinand, Francis.
Napoleon. _See_ Buonaparte.
Nassau, revolution of '48, 222-3.
Nazari, 186-90.
Neuhaus, 155.
Neusatz, 284-5.
Nicholas of Russia, 49.
Nopcsa, 314.
Nota, Alberto, 37.
Novara. _See_ Battles.
Nugent, General, his promises to Italy, 21;
his appointment in Naples, 29;
his choice of Pepe, 32;
his invasion of Venetia, 348;
attack on Brescia, 428;
death, 429.
O.
Ochsenbein, 159.
O'Donnell, 261, 264;
his carriage, 266.
Offenburg (meeting at), 166, 220.
Olivieri, 356.
Olmütz, 415, 416.
Opizzoni, opinion of smoking riots, 198;
saved by Bolognese, 369.
Orsini, preserves order, 464-5.
Oudinot, expedition to Civita Vecchia, 470, 472-3;
interview with Manara, 471-2;
defeated by Garibaldi, 475;
his treachery, 480, 481, 482-3;
capture of Rome, 487.
P.
Pachta, 183-4.
Padua, 197;
relations of with Venice, 344;
Durando's wish to assist, 345;
desire of for fusion, 358;
fall of, 359.
Palacky, revives Bohemian language, 254;
refusal to Committee of Fifty, 297;
speech in Prague Committee, 298-9;
summons Slav Congress, 301;
speech in Congress, 321-3;
feast of reconciliation, 325;
action in June rising, 330;
accused of plot, 332.
Palermo, in 1820, 33-4;
in 1847, 170-1;
in January, 1848, _see_ Sicily;
bombardment of, 469.
Palffy, 194, 271, 273.
Palma, Count, 40.
Palmanuova, fall of, 359.
Palmerston, protest about Cracow, 134;
policy in Italy, 147;
opposition to Metternich, 158;
policy in Switzerland, 162;
treatment of Manin, 488.
Papacy, Metternich's respect for independence of, 50;
its effect on Charles Albert, 65;
Gioberti's view of, 123-4.
Pareto, 338.
Parini, Giuseppe, 23.
Paris, contrasted with Palermo and Presburg, Preface, 2;
treatment of Young Italy in, 68;
Polish centre in, 70;
revolution in, _see_ France;
Mazzini's address from, 337;
Rossi's influence in, 418.
Parma, political position of, 52;
occupied by Austrians, 150;
throws off Austrian yoke, 347;
defended by Durando, 345.
Passalacqua, 338.
Pavia, 189, 197, 427.
Peasantry, of Poland, 80.
---- of Hungary, 80-3.
Pepe, Guglielmo, chosen leader in 1820, 31-2;
defeated in 1821, 42;
heads Lombard expedition, 338;
recalled by Ferdinand, 334;
welcomed by Manin, 354.
---- Florestano, 33.
Perczel, his quarrel with Görgei, 434.
Perthes, 91.
Peschiera, 349, 355, 358.
Pesth. _See_ Buda-Pesth.
Petöfy, 278.
Pfuel, General von, 247, 370, 404.
Piedmont, Gioberti's view of its position, 124-5;
relations of with Ticino, 135-6;
share of in Lombard war, _see_ Charles Albert;
league of princes against, 346;
fusion of with Lombardy, 350-1, 356;
fusion of with Venetia, 359-60;
relations of with Rome, 427.
Pillersdorf, concessions to Bohemians, 289;
in March Ministry, 302-4;
advice in May, 308;
his fall, 378.
Pisa. _See_ University.
Pius VII., his protest against Treaty of Vienna, 3;
effect on Papacy of early career, 65, 124, 126.
Pius VIII., 65.
Pius IX., election, 140;
amnesty, 141;
popular belief in, 142-3;
reforms, 145;
conspiracy against him, 145;
uncertainties, 147; effect of his reforms, 169;
concessions at end of 1847, 179;
hesitations, 335;
dragged into Lombard war, 338;
confusion of his position, 339;
Encyclical of April 29th, 346-7;
accepts Mamiani, 348;
suspicions of King of Naples, 354;
Radetzky's alarm at his reforms, 358;
attitude in June 1848, 417-18;
appoints Rossi, 418;
accepts democratic Ministry, 421;
flight to Gaeta, 422;
denounces Charles Albert, 425.
Poerio, Carlo, 177.
Poland, insurrection of 1830, 50;
relations of exiles with Italy, 69-71;
weakness of, 80;
feelings of Liberals to, 129;
proposals about in Frankfort Parliament, 306;
its share in Slav Congress, 321, 323, 327.
Pollet, 243.
Portugal, 48.
Posen, Blum's feeling to, 129;
March movement in, 248-9;
relations of with Prussia, 296, 370;
with Frankfort Parliament, 362;
cruelties of Pfuel in, 404, 405;
concessions to, 408.
Pozzo di Borgo, 4.
Pragmatic Sanction, 97.
Prague, in the 17th century, 252;
March movement in, 254-60;
race difficulties in, 289-90;
meeting of Congress at, 320-8;
June rising in, 328-33;
effect of fall, 332-3.
Presburg, influence of contrasted with Paris, preface 2;
policy of contrasted with Buda-Pesth, 278-9.
Press, Austrian law on, 193-4;
demands for freedom of, 195, 212, 220, 221, 224, 236, 305, 371;
concessions of in Vienna, 244, 303-4;
in Hungary, 246, 280;
in Berlin, 247;
censorship of, 214, 224, 225, 231.
Prussia, position in Europe, 7;
hatred of in Rhine Province, 12;
position of in Germany in 1837, 93;
policy of to Cracow, 130;
rivalry of with Frankfort, 361, 375;
relations of with Posen, 370;
action of in Danish war, 371-5;
change of relations with Germany, 376, 496;
constitutional struggles in, 402-14.
---- King of. _See_ Frederick William III. and IV.
Prussia, Prince William of, 370, 404, 407.
Puchner, relations of with Roumans, 440-1;
campaign in Transylvania, 442-6;
negotiates with Russians, 447-8;
deposed, 463.
Pulazky, 229, 254, 389, 395, 436.
R.
Raab, 437, 490.
Radetzky, appealed to by Duke of Modena, 150;
threatens Charles Albert, 182;
Milanese opinion of, 184;
hostility of to Lombard clergy, 196;
organizes smoking massacres, 197-8;
proclamation by, 198-9;
in March rising, 265-6, 269;
accepted as champion of Empire, 335;
retreat from Milan, 337;
denounced by Durando, 340;
recaptures Mantua, 341;
fortifies it, 348;
at Curtatone, 355;
at Goito, 356;
share in May conspiracy, 357;
captures Vicenza, 359;
defeats Charles Albert, 363-4;
reconquers Lombardy, 367;
invades Roman States, 368;
policy of in Modena, note to 380;
treachery of in Lombardy, 426;
final struggle against Venice, 490.
Ragusa, 98.
Rainieri, 182, 184, 188, 198.
Rajaciç, timidity, 286;
summons Serb Assembly, 287;
conduct in Serb Assembly, 311;
elected Patriarch, 312;
attitude to Croats, 319;
struggle with Stratimiroviç, 385-6;
checks opposition to Austria, 457.
Rakoczi, 281-2. See note also.
Ramorino, 70-1, 428.
Recsey, 388-9.
Regis, Colonel, in 1821, 43;
in 1831, 60.
Renzi, Pietro, his insurrection, 125-8.
Republicans, Italian, in Lombard war, 342;
attitude of in Milan, 356-8, 365;
government of Rome by, 464-6;
defence of Rome by, 473-87.
Republicans, South German, 232-3, 361, 376-8, 485.
Reichenberg, rivalry with Prague, 291.
Restelli, 366.
Rhine Province, Prussian tyranny in, 12;
in March rising, 248;
Socialism in, 403;
relations of with France, 404.
Ridolfi, 148.
Rieger, summons Slav Congress, 301;
accused of plot, 332;
treatment of in Vienna Parliament, 379;
at Kremsier, 416.
Riego, Raphael, his insurrection, 30-1.
Rilliet, General, 161.
Rimini, insurrection of, 127-8.
Rodbertus, 407.
Rollin, Ledru, warns Mazzini, 470;
opposes expedition to Rome, 476;
his insurrection, 484.
Romagna, insurrection in, 128.
Roman States, movement in for Constituent Assembly, 422-3;
government of by Triumvirate, 464-7;
reconquest of by Austrians, 485.
_See_ also Pius VII., Gregory XVI., Saffi, Ciceruacchio.
Rome, opening of Parliament in, 417;
rising in after Rossi's death, 421;
Mazzini in, 427;
Triumvirate in, 464-7;
relations of with Tuscany, 467-8;
French expedition against, 470-3;
siege of, 473-7, 481-4;
fall of, 486-8.
_See_ also Pius IX., Mazzini, Ciceruacchio.
Ronge, 94-5, 221.
Roselli, 481-2.
Rossi, influence at Paris, 122;
share in election of Pius IX., 140;
relations of with Guizot, 159;
appointed Minister, 418;
policy, 419;
death, 420-1.
Roth, Stephen, his pamphlet, 113-14;
emigration scheme, 115-16;
government in Transylvania, 445;
death, 450-2.
Roumanians, conquered by Szekler, 108;
position in Transylvania, 110;
effect on of Joseph II.'s reforms, 110-11;
Libellus Wallachorum, 111-12;
treatment of by Schaguna, 113;
defence of by Roth, 114;
May meeting, 312-15;
growing sympathy with Saxons, 316;
insurrection of, 317-18;
struggles of in September and October, 439-46, 448;
feelings of to Constitution of 1849, 456;
Kossuth's concessions to, 457.
Rovigo, relations of with Venice, 344.
Ruffini, Jacopo, his suicide, 69.
Ruggiero, Settimo, 176, 469-70.
Russia, position of in Europe, 7, 10;
policy of to Cracow, 130;
hatred of in Vienna, 238;
feeling of German Liberals to, 296;
of Palacky to, 297;
fear of in Berlin, 404;
invades Transylvania, 448;
defeat of by Bem, 449;
conquers Transylvania, 491-2.
---- Czar of. _See_ Alexander, Nicholas.
Ruthenians, demands of in Slav Congress, 323.
S.
St. Gallen, 152, 158.
Saaz, rivalry with Prague, 291.
Saffi, Aurelio, action in time of Gregory XVI., 138;
appeal for a Constituent Assembly, 432;
made Triumvir, 464;
helps in preserving order, 464-5.
Salmen, 315.
Salvotti, 46.
Sand, Ludwig, 15.
Santa Rosa, Santorre di, his policy in 1821, 36;
relations with Charles Albert, 40;
policy, 42-3;
final defeat, 43.
---- Pietro di, 181.
Sardinia, King of. _See_ Victor Amadeus, Victor Emmanuel, Charles
Felix, Charles Albert.
Sardinia, position of. _See_ Piedmont.
Sarner Bund, 152-3.
Savelli, 139.
Savoy, invasion of in 1834, 69-71;
House of, _see_ Victor Amadeus, &c.
Saxons, position of in Transylvania, 108-10, 441;
relations of to Roumanians, 110, 112, 444-5;
treatment of by Magyars, 114-15;
protest against absorption, 315-16;
vote on that subject, 317;
relations of with Puchner, 445;
application of to Russia, 448;
treatment of by Csanyi, 449-52.
Saxony, King of, in 1815, 2.
---- Prussian claim to, 3;
position of in 1837, 92;
reform movement in, 95-6;
revolution of 1848 in, 223-5.
Schaguna, his work for Roumanians, 113;
share in May meeting, 314-15;
attempt to check Roumans, 318;
relations with Puchner, 445;
appeal to Russia, 448.
Scharnhorst, 11.
Schauffer, 398.
Schill, 11.
Schiller, on German literature, 89.
Schilling, insults Bohemians, 298-9.
Schleswig-Holstein, question of in 1846, 163-5;
in 1848, 371-5;
effect of in Prussia, 404-7.
Schmalz, his pamphlet, 11;
his honours, 12.
Schmerling, 317, 496.
Schuselka, his pamphlet, 208;
demand for his expulsion, 208;
appeal against Press law, 304;
tries to reconcile Germans and Bohemians, 325;
speech to Magyar deputation, 387-8.
Schütte, organizes April demonstration, 304-5.
Schwarzenberg, 268-9.
Schwytz, 152-3.
Sciva, 171-2.
Sedlnitzky, 185, 204, 207, 212, 214;
his fall, 247.
Serbs, effect of their entry into Hungary, 97-8;
in Buda-Pesth, 277;
demands of in March 1848, 278, 280, 284;
treatment of in March and April 1848, 284-5;
movement for independence, 286-7;
May meeting of, 311-12;
May insurrection, 319, 320;
demands of in Slav Congress, 323;
Metternich's opinion of, 382;
changed character of movement, 85-6;
feeling of to Constitution of 1849, 455-6;
influence of Rajaciç over, 457.
Sicily, constitution destroyed, 2;
attitude of in 1820, 33-4;
reconquest of, 44;
effect of insurrection, 167;
Neapolitan government of, 168-70;
insurrection in January 1848, 171-7;
offers throne to Duke of Genoa, 346-52;
fall of, 468-70.
Sigel, 485.
Silesia, Prussian, effect of famine in, 166;
March rising in, 248;
general condition of, 402-3;
Roman Catholics in, 412.
---- Austrian, relations of with Bohemia, 258, 289, 290.
Silvio Pellico, 26.
Simon of Breslau, action in Frankfort riots, 375-6.
Sismondi, 26, 69.
Sladkowsky, 323, 328.
Slavonia, relations of with Croatia, 97-8;
centre of Serb movement, 280-4.
Slavs, their position in Hungary, 101;
attempts to Magyarise, 101-2;
in March 1848, 276;
relations of with Germany, 296;
Congress of, 300-1, 320-8.
---- Southern, connection between, 98-9.
Slovaks, relations of with Bohemia, 254;
demands of in March 1848, 276;
in Slav Congress, 326;
relations of with Ferdinand, 461.
Slovenes, demands of in March 1848, 276;
in Slav Congress, 327.
Smolka, tries to save Latour, 391.
Socialism, at Frankfort, 294-5;
at Vienna, 305, 389;
at Berlin, 403;
later rise of, 496.
Solothurn, 152.
Sommaruga, 207.
Sonderbund, 155, 159, 160;
war of, 160-3.
Sophia, Arch Duchess. _See_ Arch Duchess.
Spain, popular feeling in, 4, 5;
rule of in Lombardy, 20;
rising in 1820, 30-1;
French invasion of in 1822, 48.
Spaur, 182, 188-9, 261.
Speri, Tito, 428.
Stabile, Mariano, 176.
Stände. _See_ Estates.
Statella, General, 354.
Stein, influence on Czar, 4;
opposition to Metternich, 8-10;
loss of power, 10;
attitude towards Wartburg demonstration, 15;
zeal for constitution, 16.
Stephen. _See_ Arch Dukes.
Sterbini, denounces Rossi, 419;
Rossi's feeling to, 420;
appointed Minister, 421;
in provisional government, 423;
opposition to Roselli, 482.
Stratimiroviç, character and position, 286;
burns Crnojeviç's letter, 311;
finds allies for Serbs, 312, 319;
overthrow by Rajaciç, 385-6;
counteracted by Rajaciç, 482.
Strobach, 323, 392.
Struve, early efforts of, 219-21;
at Heidelberg, 233;
his fifteen proposals, 294-5;
heads September rising, 377-8.
Stuttgart, 485. _See_ also Würtemberg.
Suplikaç, 312, 386.
Switzerland, struggles in, 151-63;
attacks of Austria on, 214;
effect of on Baden, 220.
Swornost, 308-9, 321, 323, 328.
Szabò, 491.
Szaffarik, work for Slovaks, 254;
effect on Serbs, 283;
summons Slav Congress, 301;
in Slav Congress, 321;
action in June rising, 330.
Szechenyi, in 1825, 75-6;
political position, 77;
quarrel with Metternich, 78;
effect of his movement in Croatia, 98;
championship of Slavs, 102-3;
relations with Batthyanyi, 202;
opposition to Kossuth, 203, 246, 279;
madness, 462.
Szegedin, 316.
Szeklers, position in Transylvania, 108-9;
attitude to Roumanians, 110;
appealed to by Magyars, 316;
collision of with Roumans, 317-18, 440;
opposition to Puchner, 441;
appealed to by Roumans, 442;
cruelties, 444;
Bem's relations with, 447;
resistance of to Russians, 491-2.
Szemere, his Press law, 280.
Szent-Tomas, 385.
T.
Taaffe, opposition to Pillersdorf, 304.
Tatischeff, 47.
Teleki, Governor of Transylvania, 315.
Thun, Count Leo, controversy with Pulszky, 254;
joins National Committee, 301;
threatens Swornost, 323;
appeals to Windischgrätz, 324;
imprisoned, 329-30.
---- Count Matthias, summons Slavonic Congress, 301.
Thurgau, 152, 155.
Thurn, General, 490.
Ticino, Canton, relations with Piedmont, 135-7, 342;
for free trade, 144;
attacked by Uri, 160.
Tommaseo, his petitions, 193-4;
early career, 194;
arrest and release, 270-1;
tries to help Vicenza, 358;
opposes fusion, 359-60.
Torres, 337.
Torresani, 182-3, 188, 197, 244, 265, 267.
Transylvania, position of its Diet, 79;
Diet dissolved in 1832, 83;
Diet restored in 1839, 86;
geographical position of, 107-8;
ethnology of, 108-9;
Roth's view of, 114;
effect on Hungary, 281-2;
position of Roumanians in, 313;
loss of independence, 316-17;
later struggles in, 439-52;
conquest of by Russians, 491-2.
Treviso, 344, 359.
Trieste, Italian attack on, 360.
Trojan, 255, 260.
Tugend Bund, 11, 129.
Turansky, 327, 332.
Turin, in February 1848, 181-2.
_See_ Santa Rosa, University.
Turkey, hostility of House of Austria to, 281;
flight of Hungarian leaders to, 494.
Tuscany, special position of, 52-4;
Guerrazzi's hopes for, 423-4;
rising in 1849, 424-5;
failure of movement in, 467-8.
Tyrol, Italian, 341, 343, 345, 363.
---- German, 266, 267.
_See_ Innspruck.
Tyssowsky, 132.
U.
Udine, relations of with Venice, 344;
fall of, 348.
Universities, their effect on revolutionary movement, 38.
---- of Germany, 14-16.
University, of Berlin, 404.
---- of Göttingen, in 1837, 92.
---- of Heidelberg, 164-5.
---- of Leipzig, Slavonic feeling in, 98.
---- of Munich, 222, 259.
---- of Padua, closing of, 199.
---- of Pavia, closing of, 199.
---- of Pisa, 148, 355.
---- of Prague, 258-9, 308-9, 321, 324, 328, 330.
---- of Turin, in 1821, 38-9;
in 1848, 337.
University, of Vienna, 212, 230, 233-5, 302-4, 305, 307.
---- of Zurich, 153.
Unruh, von, struggle with Brandenburg, 409-10;
attitude at Brandenburg, 413;
effect of his action, 413.
Urban, 440.
Urbarium, 81.
Urbino, 356-7.
Uri, 160.
Utrecht, Peace of, its effect in Lombardy, 20.
V.
Varga, Catherine, 113.
Vay, 441.
Velika Kikinda, effect of riot at, 285-6.
Venetia, compared with Lombardy, 192;
relations with Venice, 344-5;
struggle in, 348-9, 359;
fusion of with Piedmont, 359-60.
Venice, influence in Dalmatia and Istria, 97;
trade of with Piedmont, 135;
character of before revolution, 192;
movements in, 193-6;
March rising in, 270-4, 343;
contrasted with Milan, 343-4;
relations with other cities, 343-5;
Pepe welcomed at, 354-5;
vote of fusion at, 359-60;
recalls Manin, 367;
sympathy of with Bologna, 369;
feeling in towards Pius IX., 464;
towards Louis Napoleon, 470;
final struggle of, 488-90;
surrender of, 494.
_See_ also Buonaparte (Charles Lucien), Manin.
Verona, transference of Viceroy to, 199;
Radetzky's relations with, 341, 355, 364.
_See_ also Congress.
Vetter, 454.
Vicenza, relations of with Venice, 344;
defence of, 349;
fall of, 359;
Austrian treachery in, 426.
Victor Amadeus, King of Sardinia, his relations with Austria, 26-7.
Victor Emmanuel I., King of Sardinia, protest in 1815, 3;
his relations with Austria, 27;
his despotism, 27-8;
attitude in 1820, 35-6;
abdication, 41.
Victor Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, afterwards King of Italy, wounded at
Goito, 356;
accession to throne of Piedmont, 429.
Vienna, effect of on Lombardy, 189-90;
Metternich's government of, 204-8;
effect on of Ferdinand's accession, 206-8;
double position of, 209;
movements in, 210-14, 225-6;
March rising in, 229-47;
its effect in Bohemia, 259;
in Milan, 262;
in Venice, 271;
relations of with Prague, 325-6;
July Parliament in, 378-80;
relations of with Hungary, 380, 384, 387;
with Bohemia, 379, 392;
with Italy, 379-80, 387;
October rising in, 390-7;
fall of, 397-9;
effect of fall on Prussia, 408.
---- Concluding Act of, 17-18.
---- Decrees of 1834, 90, 221.
---- Treaty of, 3, 8, 17, 130, 146, 149, 151, 155, 160, 164. _See_
also Congress.
Vilagos, 493-4.
Villamarina, 135.
W.
Waizen, declaration of, 438-9.
Wallachia, rising in in 1821, 46-7.
Wallacks. _See_ Roumanians.
Warsaw, trade with Cracow, 130;
insurrection in, 131.
Wartburg, Feast of, 14-15.
Weimar, Duke of, his policy, 13-16.
Welden, General, besieges Bologna, 368-9;
cruelty of in Pavia, 426.
Wellington, his opinion of Navarino, 49;
small effect of his rule, 50.
Wesselenyi, position and influence, 79;
speech at Presburg, 83;
imprisonment and its results, 85-6;
appeal to Szeklers, 316;
joins deputation to Vienna, 387;
retirement from politics, 462.
Willisen, General von, 370.
Wimpffen, General, 478.
Windischgrätz, made commandant of Vienna, 240;
proposed Dictatorship of, 240-1, 244-5;
protest against deposition of Metternich, 243;
announcement on March 22nd, 247;
irritation of Bohemians with, 323-4, 328;
attitude in June rising in Prague, 329-32;
besieges Vienna, 395-7;
defeats Görgei, 437-8;
his offer to Görgei, 438;
rejects mediation in Hungary, 462;
military opinion of his generalship, 463.
Workmen's movements, in Vienna, 239-40, 305, 389-90;
in Berlin, 247, 402, 403, 405-6, 408;
in Prague, 323, 328;
in Silesia, 402, 405, 406.
Wrangel, 410-11.
Würtemberg, first two Kings of, 13;
protest of against Concluding Act, 18;
Roth's relations with, 115;
resistance of to Metternich, 218;
March rising in, 221-2;
quarrel with Baden, 377. _See_ also Stuttgart.
Y.
Ypsilanti, 40.
Z.
Zay, his circular, 101-2.
Zichy, Governor of Venice, 272, 273.
---- Hungarian Count, his execution, 434.
Zitz, action of in Frankfort riots, 375.
Zollverein, 93, 210.
Zucchi, recalled to Milan, 366;
treatment of Garibaldi, 419;
defeated by Garibaldi, 464.
Zug, Canton, 162.
Zurich, 152, 154, 156. _See_ also University.
CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Many old spellings have been preserved; in particular, the spelling
of many Slavic names with a ç has been left unchanged. Obvious
misspellings and punctuation errors have been corrected, and dashes
representing ranges have been regularised as endashes (-) rather
than emdashes (--).
Additionally:
"Raizenstadt" and "Raitzenstadt";
"Voyvodschaft" and "Voyvodeschaft";
"Windischgräts" and "Windischgrätz";
"Buda Pesth" and "Buda-Pesth";
"Krudener" and "Krüdener";
"Pressburg" and "Presburg";
"Gaëta" and "Gaeta";
and "Crnojevic" and "Crnojeviç" have in each case been regularised to
the latter form. Instances of a.m. and p.m. in small capitals on page
482 have been regularised to lower case ("from 2 a.m. till 6 p.m.").
All references to Madame de Krüdener have been regularised as "Mme";
this was the form used in the main text, except that in this plain text
version the superscript typography of "me" has been removed. The index
entry for de Krüdener on page 505 has been moved to fit the alphabetical
order.
Both "Daniele Manin" and "Daniel Manin" were used in the text and have
not been changed.
A duplicated word on page 319 ("disputed the right of of the Serbs to
stay in Hungary") has been removed.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany - With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years" ***
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