Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/184

176 position, geographically as well as in politics.

An Ugrian, Turanian race, tracing its descent from an eastern nomadic tribe, that rushed into Europe like a whirlwind, the Magyars have since early ages displayed a capacity for self-government fully equal to that of nations boasting of an Anglo-Saxon descent. In the midst of apparently disheartening difficulties, they succeeded in imprinting a common political stamp upon a country made up of the most variegated elements. Strong-handed conquerors at first, they gradually, of late, set to work to change mere aristocratic privilege into an equality of civic ﬁghts. If the German element of Hungary represented general culture, the Magyars were the political mainstay of the realm. Without them, the country fell back into chaos — ready victim of absolutistic statecraft.

All Magyars know by what dangers they are surrounded. Deak, as a Magyar, could not deceive himself on that point; and what had occurred in Galicia must have served him as a warning example. Perhaps his extreme moderation, in his dealings with the Austrian government, arose from the consciousness of these ever-lurking dangers. The camarilla in the Hofburg, did, however, take no account of such moderation. It fretted and chafed under the defeat which it had suffered at the hands of the people of Vienna, Pesth, and Milan. Its whole energy was given to the thought as to how the tables could be first turned upon the Magyars by means of the Slavs. If the Magyars were once got down, then, forsooth, the turn of the German Austrians was to come.

To effect such a reaction, a base game of treachery was enacted, almost unparalleled in history. Jellacic, the governor of Croatia, who made the first armed attack upon the new order of things in Hungary, was in secret league with the court of Vienna. Deposed, degraded, styled a "rebel" by imperial letter, he had all the while the clandestine support of the emperor Ferdinand, or rather of the intriguing clique which made use of that half-witted monarch as a puppet. Field ofﬁcers, artillery, ammunition were sent through Ferdinand's minister of war, Latour, to the banus of Croatia, whilst official decrees apparently deprived him of all his civil and military functions. Thus, an insurrection of Croats, Serbs, and Valachs was cunningly fanned against the Hungarian cause. When the day for avowing the real object came, the emperor-king, by an order dated September 4, 1848, revoked the decree against the "rebel;" expressed his high approval of the conduct of his "faithful Jellacic;" suspended the constitution; proclaimed martial law; and appointed the "rebel" as his plenipotentiary for the kingdom of Hungary; investing him with unlimited authority to act in the name of his Majesty within the said kingdom.

"The king was a traitor." By the more far-seeing, this had long been suspected. With good reason, Kossuth, anticipating coming events, had kept up relations with the popular leaders at Vienna. German Austrians and Magyars had a common foe: the Slav reaction, championed by Croats, Serbs, and Czechs. Between the capitals of Hungary and Austria there was, therefore, a sympathetic chord. On the treachery of the ruling house becoming manifest, action without delay was urgently needed. Almost on the spur of the moment, higher resolutions had to be formed than suited the steady-going, but somewhat lawyer-like, character of the leader of the moderate constitutionalists. Deak, discouraged and disconcerted, hastened to Vienna, making a last hopeless attempt. From the lips of Archduke Franz Karl he learnt that all was lost—that Hungary had only to choose between submission or revolution.

Thereupon Deak withdrew from the ministry. Henceforth, though Bathyany stood at the head of the new cabinet, the chief part naturally fell to Lewis Kossuth, the idol of the masses, the popular orator and bold writer, the gifted leader of the advanced party, who — with an almost Oriental style of eloquence, very dissimilar from that of Deak - combined an active fervour and an ambition deeply impatient of the continuance of royal and imperial rule. In Parliament, Deak still stayed for a short time after his resignation as a minister. But his political occupation was gone. His last public act, during the tragic events of war which now became the order of the day, was his appearance before Prince Windischgrätz, the imperial commander, as a member of a deputation from the Hungarian Diet. Counts Anthony and George Majlath, Count Lewis Bathyany, and Archbishop Lonowiez were with him — truly no republicans of very deep dye!