A chord whose plaintive tones brake forth erewhile | And say, 'Kind sire, I render here my life and love by Judah's sea;

Never to say, "Forgive me, father-shall thy child-M. Stanislaus Julien has addressed to the Acad

From Blackwood's Magazine.

AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.

Kossuth, minister of finance, and Szemere, minister of the interior, continued provisionally to perform the duties of their offices. Their measWHEN Jellachich, on the 9th September, 1848, ures were so energetic, that the Palatine called passed the Drave, the boundary of Croatia and of upon Count Louis Bathyanyi, the head of the Hungary Proper, the war between Austria and late ministry, to form another government. This Hungary may be said to have commenced. Up step was approved at Vienna and Bathyanyi to that time the hostilities directed against Hun- undertook the duty on the condition that Jellagary had been confined to the attacks of her chich should be ordered to retire, and, if he revolted Sclavonic subjects in some parts of refused, should be proclaimed a traitor. The Croatia, and in the counties on the Lower Dan- king required a list of the proposed ministry, ube. These revolts had been instigated, and the which was immediately presented; but a week attacks conducted, by officers in the Austrian or more elapsed, during which no answer was service, who were countenanced and aided by a received, and during which Jellachich continued party at the court, and who asserted that they to advance towards the capital of Hungary. The acted with the authority and in the interests Palatine, at the request of the diet, and after the of the imperial family. Still the emperor, on measure had been approved by the king, took the demand of the Hungarian ministry, had dis- command of the Hungarian troops opposed to avowed their proceedings. In May, he had the Ban, which were then retiring upon Buda. publicly degraded Jellachich from all his offices, Both parties, the invaders and the invaded, apas a rebel against the Hungarian government. peared at this time to be countenanced by the In July, he had formally announced to the diet, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; and through his representative the Archduke Palatine. the diet, while preparing for defence, seems not his determination to maintain the integrity of to have relinquished all hope of a peaceful arHungary, and the laws he had sanctioned in rangement. The Archduke Stephen, after joinApril, and repudiated as a calumny the assertioning the army, and hastily organizing it, opened of Jellachich and the other leaders of the revolt. communications with the Ban, and arranged a that the emperor, or any other member of the meeting in boats on the Lake Balaton: but Jelimperial family, countenanced their proceedings.lachich did not keep his appointment; and the It is true that Jellachich and another of these leaders had subsequently been received by the emperor-king, and by several members of the imperial family, in a manner hardly consistent with their position as rebels; yet it was possible that his majesty might still listen to other counsels-might still resolve to pursue a constitutional Count Louis Bathyanyi, whose conditions had course, and to preserve his own faith inviolate. not yet been either accepted or rejected, was thus Even so late as the 9th September-the day on left alone to carry on the whole government; and which Jellachich passed the Drave-he solemnly the diet, for the purposes both of aiding and renewed his promise to maintain the integrity of controlling the administration of the minister, Hungary and the laws of April. But upon the named a committee of their number, called the 4th September he had reinstated Jellachich in all" Committee of Defence," to assist in conducthis offices, civil and military, knowing that he ing the government.

Archduke Palatine, summoned to Vienna by the emperor, left the army, passed through Pesth on his way to Vienna, and on his arrival there, as we formerly stated, resigned the office of Palatine. Shortly afterwards he retired to his private residence on the Rhine.

was then at the head of an army on the frontiers Jellachich had now established himself at of Hungary, preparing to invade that kingdom, Stuhlweissenberg, four or five marches from and to force the Hungarians to renounce the Pesth; and the government at Vienna appears concessions made to them in April by their king. to have anticipated that Hungary, left without a It appeared that the Ban had been supplied with government, must fall into confusion. But she money and with arms from Vienna while he was preserved her loyal and constitutional attitude; still nominally in disgrace, and he was joined by and while she was prepared to repel force by Austrian regiments, which had marched from force, gave no pretext for employing it. Count Southern Hungary to put themselves under his L. Bathyanyi was at length informed that his orders. His advance, therefore, at the head of list of the new ministry was not approved; and an army composed of Austrian regiments and by an ordinance dated 25th September, General Croat forces, was truly an invasion of Hungary Count Francis Lamberg was appointed to the by Austria. command of all the troops in Hungary, with power to restore order and to close the diet The time had arrived which the Hungarians had been most desirous to avert, when they must

The Hungarian forces collected to resist this invasion were still without a commander-in-chief or a staff—without sufficient arms or ammunition, and for the most part without military discipline either surrender their constitutional rights or resist or organization. We have already mentioned their king. that, on the restoration of the Ban to his offices The murder of Count Lamberg, by a frantic and command, the Hungarian ministry resigned; mob, threw the diet into a state of consternation. but Mazaros, minister of the war department, The regiment on which it most relied was the

regiment of Lamberg, and the Ban was at the atrocious murder of Latour, the minister of war, gates of Buda. The diet passed resolutions by the insurgents of Vienna, but we have not yet been able to trace any foundation for such a charge. The Hungarians were formidable enemies, and to them every atrocity was attributed.

expressing its profound grief at the unhappy fate of the count, and ordered criminal proceedings to be immediately instituted against his murderers. The patriotism of the soldiers was The Emperor of Austria was now at war with not shaken by the horrible event that had oc- Hungary, and his enemies, therefore, became her curred; and they displayed their wonted gallantry allies. The revolutionary party at Vienna for a on the 29th, when the Ban was repulsed. Im-time regained the ascendency, and signalized it by mediately after the murder of General Lamberg, the crime to which we have referred. After WinCount Louis Bathyanyi resigned. There was now neither palatine nor minister in the kingdom, and the enemy was about to attack the capital. In this emergency the Committee of Defence, at the head of which was Louis Kossuth, took upon itself the direction of affairs; and since that time it has governed Hungary.

After the defeat of Jellachich, while he was on the frontiers of Austria, followed by the Hungarian army, the king named Count Adam Ricsay prime minister, and by a new ordinance, countersigned Ricsay, the diet was dissolved, its decrees annulled, and Jellachich appointed commander-in-chief of all the troops in Hungary. The civil authorities were suspended, and the country declared in a state of siege. At the same time Jellachich was named royal commissioner, and invested with executive power over the whole kingdom.

dischgratz and Jellachich had invested the city, the Viennese applied to the Hungarians for aid; but their levies and national guards had returned in great numbers to their homes, and their army was not in a condition to make any impression upon that of the emperor. It advanced, and was repulsed. The Austrian government, by allying itself with rebellion and anarchy to subvert the established constitution of Hungary, had driven the Hungarians, in self-defence, into an alliance with the revolutionary party in Vienna against the government.

The error into which it had been led ought now to have been manifest to the Austrian cabinet; and it was not yet too late to remedy the evil. By returning to the course of legality and good faith, the imperial government might have disarmed and regained Hungary. If there was in that country, as there no doubt was, a party which was disposed to From the moment of Jellachich's nomination to sympathize with the republicans, and even with the office of Ban of Croatia, without the consent of the worst of the anarchists in Austria, they were the responsible Hungarian ministry, his concert without power or influence, and their evil designs with a party hostile to Hungary at the imperial would at once have been frustrated, their opinions court had not been doubtful; and that party had repudiated, and the loyalty of the nation confirmed; now prevailed upon the emperor-king to adopt their but the court had unfortunately placed itself in a views. The influence of the Ban was not shaken position that left it but the choice of abandoning by his defeat. The court had previously identified and breaking faith with the rebels to Hungary, itself with his proceedings, and he had faithfully, whose eminent services at Vienna it was bound to though not hitherto successfully, espoused its acknowledge, or of persevering in the breach of cause. He had declared against the laws of faith with Hungary, which his advisers had forced April and the separate ministry in Hungary, upon the emperor-king. That the Hungarians had which those laws had established, and in favor been ready to support the cause of monarchy and of a central government at Vienna for the whole order, so long as faith had been kept with them, dominions of the emperor, which he proposed to was put beyond all question by the vote of the force the Hungarians to accept. He was no diet, which, on the motion of the responsible Hunlonger a Croat chief, asserting the national garian ministry formed in April, had placed forty pretensions of his countrymen, but an Austrian thousand Hungarian troops at the disposal of the general, assailing the constitution and the inde- emperor, for service in Italy, "to preserve the pendence of Hungary. From the position at honor of the Austrian arms," then endangered by Raab, on the road to Vienna, to which he had the first reverses of Marshal Radetski. The Wesretreated after his reverse, he applied for rein-semberg ministry appears to have contemplated forcements to enable him again to advance towards restoring the King of Hungary and his subjects to Pesth. It was the refusal of these reinforcements their legal and constitutional relations, for it issued to march that led to the second revolution at a circular declaring that the king intended to fulfil Vienna, which has been attributed to Hungarian the engagements he had entered into in April. agency. It is probable that the Hungarians would But the power of the minister was subordinate to employ all the influence they could command to that of a party at the court, whose views were prevent or impede the march of troops to attack opposed to his own; and the acts of the governthem; but it is remarkable that the prosecutions ment were not such as to restore confidence in its of persons engaged in that revolution do not sincerity, at all times a difficult task for a governappear to have elicited anything that would ment that has justly forfeited the confidence of a justify us in attributing the revolt of the Vien- whole nation. Hungary did not dare to suspend nese to the Hungarians. Attempts have also her preparations for resistance; and the second been made to implicate the Hungarians in the revolution at Vienna, by occupying the troops des

tined to attack her, gave her time to improve her means of defence.

Had there been at Vienna a government capable of inspiring confidence in its sincerity-a government possessing power or influence enough to carry out conciliatory measures, to fulfil the engagements it might contract-the differences between Austria and Hungary might still have been amicably adjusted, by restoring the constitutional government established in April. All the bloodshed and misery that has ensued, and all the evils that may yet follow from the war, would thus have been averted. But irresponsible advisers had more influence at the court than the ostensible cabinet, and were blindly bent on returning to the irretrievable past. They founded their hopes upon the devotion of that noble army which had reëstablished order in Austria, and which, if employed only to maintain order and the just rights of the monarchy, would have encountered no opposition that it could not overcome. Hungary, cordially reunited to Austria under the same sovereign, would again have become, what the Emperor Francis declared it to be, "the chief bulwark of the monarchy;" and the empire would have resumed its position as the guardian of peace and order in Eastern Europe, and a powerful support to the cause of constitutional monarchy and rational liberty everywhere. Unhappily for the Austrian empire, for Europe, and for the good cause," evil counsels prevailed, and Hungary was again invaded. Many of the leading magnates adhered to the court, at which they had spent their lives, and which was in fact their home. But there was hardly a great family of which some wealthy and influential members did not declare for their native country. A great majority of the resident aristocracy-the numerous class of resident country gentlemen, almost without exception-the body of inferior nobles or freeholders-the peasant-proprietors and the laboring population, espoused the cause of Hungary. The Protestant clergy in the Majjar country, to a man, and the Roman Catholic clergy of Hungary in a body, urged their flocks to be patient and orderly, to obey the government charged with the defence of the country, and to be faithful and valiant in defending it.

The

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

The abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand, and the accession to the imperial throne of his youthful successor, presented another opportunity, of which the Austrian government might have gracefully availed itself, to terminate the differences with Hungary. The young emperor was fettered by no engagements, involved in none of the intrigues that entangled his unwary predecessor, and entailed so great evils upon the country. He was free to take a constitutional course in The attacks of Jellachich, and of that portion Hungary, to confirm the concessions which had of the Croats and Serbes which had declared been voluntarily made, and which could not now against Hungary, had failed to bring about the be recalled-to restore to the imperial government submission of the diet, and had produced an alli-a character for good faith; and thus to have won ance, dangerous to the court, between its enemies in the Hereditary States and the Hungarians, with whom it was now at war. The national assembly or congress that met at Vienna was tainted with republican notions, and divided into factions, influenced for the most part by feelings of race. German unity, Sclave ascendency, and Polish regeneration, were the ultimate objects of many of those who talked of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The discussion of the constitution revealed the discord in their opinions, and they seemed to agree in nothing but the determination to overturn the ancient system of the empire.

the hearts of the Hungarians. Supported by their loyal attachment to their king, he might have peacefully worked out the reforms in the government of his empire which the times and the circumstances demanded or justified. But Count Stadion, the real head of the new ministry, though possessed of many eminent qualities as a statesman, was deeply imbued with the old longing after unity in the system of government: he hoped to effect, by means of a constitution devised and framed for that purpose, the amalgamation of the different parts of the empire, which abler men had failed to accomplish under an absolute monarchy,

in circumstances more favorable to success. The on the Danube, of which the capture or surrender

has so often been announced, have been raised; and the question is no longer whether Debreczin is to be occupied by the emperor's forces, but whether Vienna is safe from the Hungarians. Opposed to the admirable army of Austria, these results could not have been obtained unless the great body of the nation had been cordially united, nor even then, unless by a people of great energy, courage, and intelligence.

opposition that was inevitable in Hungary he proposed to overcome by force of arms; and, at a moment when a desire for separate nationality was the predominant feeling in the minds of all the different races in the empire, he had the hardihood to imagine that he could frame a constitution capable of overcoming this desire, and of fusing them all into one. It was considered an advantage that the emperor, unfettered by personal engagements to Hungary, was free to prosecute its sub- Had the government of Austria known how to jugation, to subvert its constitution, and to force win the hearts of the Hungarians for their sovthe Hungarians to accept in its place the consti-ereign-had they but preserved the good faith and tution of Count Stadion, with seats in the assembly the sanctity of the monarchy in Hungary, how seat Vienna for their representatives, under one cen-cure and imposing might the position of the emtral government for the united empire. This may have been a desirable result to obtain ;-it might, if attainable, have been ultimately conducive to the strength of the empire and the welfare of all classes; but it was not to claim the hereditary succession to a throne secured and guarded by statutes -it was rather to undertake the conquest of a kingdom.

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

peror have now been, in the midst of all the troubles in Germany! Hungary desired no revolution; she had peacefully obtained, by constitutional means, all she desired. Her revolution had been effected centuries ago; and, with indigenous institutions, to which her people were warmly attached, she would have maintained, as she did maintain, her internal tranquillity and her constitutional monarchy, whatever storms might rage around her.

The resources that Hungary has put forth in this contest have surprised Europe, because Europe had not taken the trouble to calculate the strength and the resources of Hungary. With a compact territory, equal in extent to Great Britain and Ireland, or to Prussia, and the most defensible frontier of any kingdom on the continent of Europe; with a population nearly equal to that of England, and not much inferior to that of Prussia ;* with a climate equal to that of France, and soil of greater natural fertility than any of these ; with a representative government long established, and free indigenous institutions, which the people venerate; with a brave, energetic, and patriotic population, predisposed to military pursuits, jealous of their national independence, and of their personal liberty-ambitious of military renown, proud of their traditionary prowess, and impressed with an idea of their own superiority to the surrounding populations-Hungary, as all who know the country and the people were aware, would be found a formidable antagonist by any power that might attack her. But, paradoxical and incredible as it may appear, we believe it is not the less true, The Austrian armies employed in Hungary that, little as Hungary was known in most of the have probably exceeded one hundred and fifty countries of Europe, there was hardly a capital. thousand regular troops, aided by irregular bands in that quarter of the globe, where more erroneous of Croats and Serbes, and latterly by a Russian notions regarding it prevailed than in Vienna. In corps of ten thousand men. They established other places there was ignorance; in the capital themselves both in Transylvania and in Hungary, of Austria there was the most absurd misappreand were in possession of the whole of the fertile hension. Though generally a calm, sensible man, country from the frontiers of Austria to the Theis, possessing a considerable amount of general inforwhich flows through the centre of the kingdom.mation, an Austrian, even after he has travelled, From Transylvania, both the Austrian and the Russian forces have been driven into Wallachia. From the line of the Theis the imperial army has been forced across the Danube, on which they were unable to maintain their positions. The sieges of Komorn and Peter wardein, the two great fortresses

war.

*The extent of Hungary, including Transylvania, is Ireland is 122,000, and that of Prussia about 116,000. above 125,000 square miles; that of Great Britain and The population of Hungary, according to the best authorities, is nearly fourteen millions; that of England (in 1841) was nearly fifteen millions; and that of Prussia about sixteen millions.