CHAPTER IV.

WAR IN HUNGARY-QUESTION OF THE HUNGARIAN REFUGEES.

THE revolution at Vienna had been quickly followed by a rising in Hungary. The civil war raged for many months, and success had attended the Magyars, so far as operations in the field were concerned. In her dire strait Austria had called in the aid of Russia. The Emperor Nicholas quickly responded with 150,000 men, seeking to justify his act in the face of Europe by considerations of safety for his own possessions. This intervention decided the contest, and Hungary lay prostrate at the feet of the two great military empires. The sympathies of men like Lord Palmerston were with the Hungarians, because, if they were revolutionists, they were so in the same sense as the men to whose acts, at the close of the seventeenth century, it is owing that the present Royal Family of England, happily for the nation, are seated on the throne of these realms. Hungary had long had its separate Constitution, Parliament, and laws. The crowns of Austria and Hungary had devolved upon one head, because the same person had by different and separate titles become, in order of succession, Sovereign of each of the two countries. The Emperor of Austria became King of Hungary by virtue of his coronation at Pesth, on which occasion he took an oath to observe and maintain its Constitution. The Austrian Cabinet wished entirely to destroy that Constitution, and incorporate Hungary with the aggregate mass of the empire. Whether this was or was not a good arrangement for the parties, the

Imperial Government had no right to impose it by force without endeavouring to obtain the consent of the Hungarian Diet. This is, however, what they did, and the Hungarians were fully justified in resisting force by force. Supposing that at the time of the union of Scotland and England, the English Government, instead of proposing a Treaty of Union and obtaining the legal consent of the Scotch Parliament, had issued an Order in Council summarily terminating their separate existence and functions. The Scotch would have resisted. If then the King of England had sent his army over the Border to subdue the Scotch, and, finding the task too hard for him, had ended by calling in the French to help him, the parallel would have been complete.

In the earlier part of the year Lord Palmerston had vainly attempted to mediate between the contending parties in Hungary, so as to avert the Russian intervention, of which he here chronicles the result:

F. O.: August 22, 1849.

My dear Ponsonby,-We heard yesterday from Warsaw that which must be considered the conclusion of the war in Hungary. I must own I am glad that it is over, for though all our sympathies in this country are with the Hungarians, yet it was scarcely in the nature of things that they should be able, against such superior forces, to hold out long enough to compel the allies to treat with them on equal terms, and a prolongation of the war would therefore only have led to the same result after the slaughter of many more thousands of brave men on both sides, and after still greater devastation of the country, than has already taken place. Now is the time for the Austrian Government to redeem itself in the opinion of Europe: a just and generous use of the success which has been gained would re-establish Austria in public estimation, and would again place her in the front rank among the great Powers of Europe. If the Austrian Government listens to passion, resentment, and political prejudice, they will enlist against them every generous and just mind in the civilised world, and will lay the foundation for permanent weakness and decrepitude in the Austrian empire. I shall write to you officially in this sense in a day or

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two; but, in the meanwhile, shape your language to this effect. The thing evidently to be done is to re-establish the ancient Constitution of Hungary, with the improvements made in it last year, as to the abolition of feudal service, and exemption of privileged classes from public burthens, and to publish a real and complete amnesty. If Austria wishes for a legislative union with Hungary, it should be proposed in a legal way, like our unions with Scotland and Ireland, but I much fear that legislative assemblies are not in favour at present at Vienna; and yet such assemblies founded upon election by intelligence and property, and not by universal suffrage, are the only sure foundations of public order and permanent monarchy. It will be curious if the Emperor of Russia should take the Hungarians under his protection as against the Austrians, just as he protects the Danube Principalities against the Turks.

The fight between the master and the revolted subjects had not merely been a calm and strategical encounter: it had been a war of passion, bitter and ferocious. I quote the following letter to illustrate the warmth and strong sympathy of Lord Palmerston's character. He bounded like a boy at any cruelty or oppression. Many years later, during his second Premiership, at the time when the Federal General Butler outraged public opinion by proclaiming at New Orleans that ladies who showed discontent either by their dress or demeanour would be treated like women of the town, he sent to the American Minister an indignant letter of remonstrance so strong and outspoken that Mr. Adams refused to receive it, and ran off with it to the Foreign Office in the utmost consternation. The youthful impulse of indignation against a cowardly bully never died out with him. It survived even in his old age, the advent of which is too often accompanied by cynical indifference to the sufferings of others :

Panshanger: September 9, 1849.

The Austrians are really the greatest brutes that ever called themselves by the undeserved name of civilised men. Their atrocities in Galicia, in Italy, in Hungary, in Transylvania are only to be equalled by the proceedings of the negro race in

Africa and Haiti. Their late exploit of flogging forty odd people, including two women at Milan, some of the victims being gentlemen, is really too blackguard and disgusting a proceeding. As to working upon their feelings of generosity and gentlemanlikeness that is out of the question, because such feelings exist not in a set of officials who have been trained up in the school of Metternich, and the men in whose minds such inborn feelings have not been crushed by court and office power have been studiously excluded from public affairs, and can only blush in private for the disgrace which such things throw upon their country. But I do hope that you will not fail constantly to bear in mind the country and the Government which you represent, and that you will maintain the dignity and honour of England by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust which such proceedings excite in the public mind in this country; and that you will not allow the Austrians to imagine that the public opinion of England is to be gathered from articles put into the Times' by Austrian agents in London, nor from the purchased support of the Chronicle,' nor from the servile language of Tory lords and ladies in London, nor from the courtly notions of royal dukes and duchesses. I have no great opinion of Schwarzenberg's statesmanlike qualities unless he is very much altered from what he was when I knew him; but, at least, he has lived in England, and must know something of English feelings and ideas, and he must be capable of understanding the kind of injury which all these barbarities must do to the character of Austria in public opinion here; and I think that, in spite of his great reliance upon and fondness for Russia, he must see that the good opinion of England is of some value to Austria; if for nothing else, at least to act as a check upon the illwill towards Austria, which he supposes, or affects to suppose, is the great actuating motive of the revolutionary firebrand who now presides at the Foreign Office in Downing Street.

You might surely find an opportunity of drawing Schwarzenberg's attention to these matters, which may be made intelligible to him, and which a British ambassador has a right to submit to his consideration. There is another view of the matter which Schwarzenberg, with his personal hatred of the Italians, would not choose to comprehend, but which, nevertheless, is well deserving of attention, and that is the obvious tendency of these barbarous proceedings to perpetuate in the minds of the Italians indelible hatred of Austria; and as the

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Austrian Government cannot hope to govern Italy always by the sword, such inextinguishable hatred is not an evil altogether to be despised.

The rulers of Austria (I call them not statesmen or stateswomen) have now brought their country to this remarkable condition, that the Emperor holds his various territories at the goodwill and pleasure of three external Powers. He holds Italy just as long as and no longer than France chooses to let him have it. The first quarrel between Austria and France will drive the Austrians out of Lombardy and Venice. He holds Hungary and Galicia just as long as and no longer than Russia chooses to let him have them. The first quarrel with Russia will detach those countries from the Austrian crown. He holds his German provinces by a tenure dependent, in a great degree, upon feelings and opinions which it will be very difficult for him and his Ministers either to combine with or to stand out against.

The remedy against these various dangers which are rapidly undermining the Austrian empire would be generous conciliation; but instead of that, the Austrian Government know no method of administration but what consists in flogging, imprisoning, and shooting. The Austrians know no argument but force.'

As soon as Hungary was subdued, a joint demand was made upon the Porte by Russia and Austria to deliver up the fugitives who had sought safety at Widdin, within the Turkish frontier. Prince Radzivil and Baron de Titoff for Russia, and Count Stürmer for Austria, urged at Constantinople the surrender of these refugees, among whom were Kossuth and Zamoyski. The Sultan, however, firmly resisted this attempt to induce him to violate the laws of humanity by giving up to the vengeance of the conquerors those who had fled to his territory for refuge. As no threats could shake the resolution of the Ottoman Government, the ambassadors notified to the Porte the suspension of all diplomatic intercourse between their own Courts and that of the Sultan. Lord Palmerston determined to support the Sultan.

Carlton Gardens: September 29, 1849. My dear Normanby,-I received yesterday afternoon, at Brocket, by a letter from Drouyn de Lhuys, the telegraphic

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