Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/387

373 HISTORY.] HUNGARY 373 Bern in Transylvania, and a few thousands under Kazinczy in the -county of Maramaros. On the 19th of June the Russian corps under Liiders burst through the Red Tower Pass into Transylvania, and, having defeated the Hungarians, took the fortress of Nagy-Szeben, whilst in the following month Brasso in like manner surrendered to the Austrians. Jellachich was, however, defeated on the 14th July at Hegyes, and forced to retire from the Baeska. In the meantime Haynau s operations on the Danube met with general success, while the Russian main army advanced over Eperies and Kassa into the interior of the country. These disasters to the Hungarian cause were aggravated by the want of unanimity between the Hungarian commander-in-chief and the Government, which, being again obliged to leave Pest, transferred its seat to Szeged (July 11). After various sanguinary engagements with the invading forces in the vicinity of Komarom, Gorgei on the night of the 12th July left the fortress under the charge of Klapka. On the 15th and 17th Gorgei encountered the Russians at Vacz, and proceeded thence over Vad- kert, Losoncz, and Rimaszombat, where on the 21st the Russian offers of truce were refused. Gorgei, closely followed, finally crossed the Theiss on the 28th July near Tokay, whence he proceeded in the direction of Nagyvarad (Grosswardein) by routes to the east of Debreczen. There on the 2d August his first army corps under Nagy Sandor was defeated by the troops of Paskewitch. The Government had meanwhile removed to Arad, which fortress, having previously surrendered to the Hungarians, was made the last point of general concentration. In Transylvania the army of Bern had been overpowered on the 31st July at Segesvar (Schassburg) ; and in Hungary Proper Dembinski retreated first to Szeged and Szoreg, whence he was repulsed on the 5th August by Haynau, and afterwards to Temesvar. There on the 9th he suffered an overwhelm ing defeat. Upon the news of this catastrophe reaching Arad on the night of the 10th to llth, Gorgei, who had already arrived there on the 9th by forced marches from Nagyvarad, induced Kossuth and the few ministers who were with him to lay down their authority, and upon the llth received from them the supreme civil and military command. On the evening of the same day, after the departure of Kossuth for Lugos, the new dictator, believing further resistance hopeless, communicated with the Russian general Riidiger, offering to surrender at discretion. The sally of Klapka from Komarom, and his signal victory over the besieging Austrian army (August 3), were unknown at Arad. On August 13 Gorgei surrendered his army, consisting of some 24,000 men with 140 guns, to Riidiger at Szolliis near Vilagos ; on the 16th Kazinczy followed with his troops, and on the 17th Damjanics gave up the fortress of Arad, and on the 5th September a similar fate befell Peterwardein. A few thousand men followed Bern and Guyon to Turkey, whither Kossuth and the late ministers Szemere, Casimir Batthyanyi, and Me szaros, and the military leaders Demi tin ski, Vetter, Perczel, Kmetty, and Wysocki also escaped. On the 2d to 5th October Komarom capitulated on honourable terms, General Klapka having refused to surrender until an amnesty and free passports had been granted by the Austrians. On the 6th October Aulich, Damjanics, Dessewffy, Kiss, Knezich, Lahner, Lazar, Leiningen, Nagy- Sdndor, Pb ltenberg, Schweidel, Tiirok, and Vecsey met their end at Arad. On the same day Count Louis Batthyanyi, and subse quently Prince Woronieczki, Baron Jeszenak, Csanyi, Perenyi, and others suffered at Pest. By a decree of Haynau, to whom the Russians had delivered up the prisoners of war, all officers below the rank of a general, if not consigned to prison, were pressed as privates into the Austrian service. The Hungarian commander-in- chief Gorgei, however, was pardoned, and interned at Klagenfurt in Carinthia. Hungary now lay entirely prostrate, and was treated as a con quered country. The Russians retreated to the north and east, leaving the Austrians with their commander Haynau, who availed himself of the summary powers conferred on him by the state of siege to inflict the greatest cruelties on the vanquished people. Many of the Hungarian nobility were condemned to long terms of imprisonment ; the estates of the richer patriots were confiscated ; and numerous Austrian and Bohemian officials were thrust upon the exhausted country. A rigorous censorship of the press was at the same time enforced. At length, in July 1850, Haynau was removed from the chief authority. A milder regime was in augurated by the archduke Albrecht, who arrived at Pest on the 14th October 1851 as the new civil and military governor. But it was only after the visit of the emperor to Hungary (5th June to 14th August 1852) that the military courts were closed. The whole country, now reduced to a province of the Austrian empire, was placed under the direct control of the central Government at Vienna. On the 1st May 1853 the new organization was carried into effect, and the Austrian civil code made applicable to Hungary. On the 8th September the Hungarian insignia of royalty, which had disappeared from Arad at the time of Kossuth s flight, were discovered in the neighbourhood of Orsova ; they were conveyed on the 19th to Vienna, but were afterwards transferred to Buda. On the 17th April 1854 the state of siege was abolished, and on the 12th July 1856 an amnesty was proclaimed. On the 4th May of the following year the emperor visited Hungary, and on the 9th of the same month granted the restoration of their confiscated estates to late political offenders. In August he commenced a second progress through his Hungarian dominions, and availed himself of the oppor tunity to express his sentiments of consideration for the people. Indeed, from this time (1857) both the emperor and the Govern ment of Vienna seemed desirous of making the Hungarians forget the troubles of 1848 and 1849 by concessions to the national will, whilst the encouragement given to improvements in the means of com munication, and to the new projects for the regulation of the Theiss, as also the schemes for the colonization of sparsely populated dis tricts, are well worthy of notice. During the year the railways from Szeged to Temesvar and from Szolnok to Debreczen were opened. By an imperial decree issued at the end of 1858 agri cultural colonists, if of one nationality and creed, were allowed to settle in various parts of Hungary, with special exemptions from taxation. By a ministerial order of the 8th August 1859 the language used in the higher schools was for the future to be re gulated according to circumstances of nationality, the predomi nance of German being thereby abolished. On the 21st of the same month the absolutist minister Bach was dismissed, in consequence of the ill-success of the Italian war, which was attributed to his ill- advised policy against the various nationalities of the realm. The so-called &quot;Protestant patent&quot; of September 1st, which ostensibly granted the communes the free administration of their own educa tional and religious matters, was, however, the cause of much dissatisfaction, and more than 2,800,000 Protestants petitioned for its withdrawal. In April 1860 the archduke Albrecht was at his own desire removed from the civil and military governorship of Hungary, and the master of the ordnance, Benedek, a native Magyar, was appointed in his stead. The Hungarian members in the Reichsrath, specially summoned for the purpose of finding a definite form of settlement for the whole empire, now put forward claims for the autonomy of their country, and by an imperial diploma of the 20th October their M ishes were partly met. Beuedek was removed from the general governorship of the kingdom, whilst the Hungarian court chancellery was restored, and Baron Vay nominated chan cellor. At the same time the curia rcgin (supreme court of judi cature) and the county assemblies were reinstituted, and the Magyar recognized as the official language. Furthermore, the emperor on the 27th December granted the reannexation of the Temesvar Banat to Hungary Proper. In the following February it was decreed that their former constitutions should be restored to Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia and Slavonia, and on the 6th of April the diet met at Buda, afterwards removing to Pest. But as the address sent to Vienna in June demanded the fullest autonomy for Hungary, and the Hungarians refused to yield their claims, in spite of the emperor s declared inability to accede, the diet was dissolved by imperial decree on the 22d August. Mean while a new Hungarian court chancellor had been appointed in the person of Count Forgach. Stringent measures were taken by the Government of Vienna to counteract the organized passive resist ance of the counties, and in many places the payment of the taxes was enforced by military aid. On the 27th October the holding of all public county meetings was forbidden, and administrators or coadjutors were in many counties thrust upon the lord-lieutenants, who were forced to submit to the authority of the newly-appointed Government superintendent Count Palffy de Erdckl. On the 18th November 1862 a general amnesty was granted to those who were implicated by their hostility to the late Government measures. In the summer of 1863 Hungary suffered from a severe famine, but the Reichsrath voted 20 million florins to alleviate the dis tress. On the 22d April 1864 Count Forgach was replaced by Count Arminius Zichy, who, on account of his unpopularity, was on the 26th June 1865 removed for Count George Majlath, a Conservative. In a visit to Budapest on the 6th to 9th June 1865, the emperor declared his willingness to do justice to the con stitutional demands of the Hungarians, as far as was consistent with the integrity of the empire. On the 18th July Count Palffy de Erdb d was replaced by Baron Sennyey, one of the leaders of the old Conservative party. On the 14th December the diet was opened by the emperor in person, who assented to the principle of self-government for Hungary, and agreed to recognize the Pragmatic Sanction as the basis of a settlement of the questions involved. The diet, however, demanded also an acknowledgment of the con tinuity of the constitutioiKil rights of 1848. After the outbreak of the war between Austria and Prussia the diet was prorogued (26th June 1866). Upon its reopening on the 19th November an imperial rescript was read in which the emperor acquiesced in the Hungarian demands for constitutional self-government, and promised to ap point a responsible ministry. The result of the &quot;compromise&quot; effected by Baron Beust between the Austrian Government and the connnittee, headed by Deak, empowered by the Hungarian diet, was the dualistic system of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, as finally sanctioned on the 18th February 1867. This arrangement secured to Hungary the restoration of the constitutional, legal, and. administrative autonomy of 1848, while the supreme command