ambassadors, who flattered themselves that they were the friends of the sovereigns of Austria and Russia, while they were only their dupes, gave some hints as to the determination of the allied powers, and to those hints the Government and the Parliament of England were content to acquiesce. A demonstration would have turned the scale of events; they were too languid even for a demonstration. They said, let us have anything but war,-in other words, let us humiliate England now, and endanger her future prosperity, rather than provoke a crisis, which might call for stronger hands and wiser heads. They bartered the fate of the nation, to satisfy their appetite for power and its accessories. They compromised the future greatness of England, to give a few more years of office to plausible mediocrity and gentlemanly listlessness. They have sown the wind; the harvest will come in due time.

In the last week of April, 1849, the inhabitants of Vienna had been delighted by the distant thunder of a cannonade, which announced the approach of the Hungarians, whom these oppressed people would fain have hailed as deliverers. Their hopes gained ground from the evident dismay of their tyrants, and, in spite of the iron rule of the military governor, their exultation vented itself in but half-suppressed shouts of joy, when it became known that hasty preparations were making to remove the Government offices to some place of safety, while the garrison was consigned to the barracks, or drawn up in the public squares, ready to march at a moment's notice. The days and even the hours were reckoned which might bring a troop of hussars to the gates of the capital. The 22,000 horsemen whom Görgey withdrew from the frontier, and whose services were wasted during the siege of Buda, might, at any moment, have raised a million of auxiliaries to the cause of Hungary. Very little credit is due to Prince Schwarzenberg for staking the fortunes of his imperial master on the cast of a single die. It was a gambler's trick, for its success, in the face of all the chances, was owing

to causes over which the minister had no control, unless, indeed, it is proved that he kept up a secret understanding with Görgey, and some other Austro-Magyar leaders. It has before been shown that it is just possible to vindicate the measures of the Austrian Cabinet on the plea of such an understanding; but it is also certain that such a secret-if secret there was-remained treasured up in the breasts of the chief conspirators in either camp, and the confidence it gave was confined to a few persons only. The Austrian officers, indeed, clung to the cause with a stubborn and despairing tenacity—but the soldiers were demoralized. Lond wailings were heard from the transports of young troops, as they marched upon Pressburg. They wept, and lamented the fate which drove them to Hungary to be slaughtered.

At this period of unequalled despondency, the nations of Austria were officially informed of the Czar's protection. The Vienna Gazette of the 1st May stated that the extension of the Hungarian insurrection, and the concentration of all the forces of the revolutionary party, made it the duty of all states to protect the Imperial Government against the dissolution of social order,' and that these considerations induced the Emperor to ask the armed assistance of the Russian Czar, which that potentate had generously and liberally promised. The ratification of the treaty, which took place at Warsaw on the 20th May, was preceded by its execution, for on the 4th and 5th of the month, 40,000 troops, with 12,000 horses, entered the Austrian dominions by way of Krakaw; on the 8th, 15,000 men passed the frontier at Tarnogrod; and on the same day 26,000, with 9800 horses, entered at Brody; and on the 9th and 11th, 17,000 men entered at Wolosezyo, and 9000 at Hussatin. All these troops were under the command of Field Marshal Prince Paskievitsh, with whom were the Generals Rüdiger and Tsheodajeff. They established themselves in Gallicia, where they remained about four weeks, thus showing that their precipitate entry into the Austrian provinces was

chiefly owing to the Czar's fear of an insurrection of the Gallician Poles. When that province was safely occupied, the movements of the auxiliary armies became slow, their demands upon the population exorbitant, and their treatment of the Austrian officers and local magistrates brutal. Part of the Russian army was conveyed through the Prussian States, with the express consent of the king of that country, and to the deep humiliation of the Prussians, who were fully alive to the disgrace and the future dangers of such a measure.

The Russian troops which took the field against the Hungarians were the most ill-favoured soldiery (not even excepting the Croats) that had been seen in Europe since the grand irruption of Asiatic tribes in 1813. They looked ill-fed, and were for the most part clumsily clothed and armed. The infantry wore helmets, heavy shoes, drawers of coarse linen, and greatcoats of rough cloth, which reached down to their ankles. They had very clumsy muskets, with flint locks. The artillery and part of the cavalry were more carefully armed and dressed, but, on the whole, the Russian army showed plainly that its leaders relied on its numbers rather than on its physical force or moral superiority. The soldiers marched on their dangerous expedition with a stupid indifference, which was only enlivened by the hope of plunder. They were so abandoned as to believe that those who fell in a foreign war would straightway return to life in their own country. The officers were more enlightened, but equally resigned. When spoken to on the subject of the difficulties and dangers of the campaign, they had but one answer. The Czar commanded us to conquer; his will must be done.' They felt, and ostentatiously showed, the greatest contempt for the monarch whom they came to aid, and believed that if Hungary were conquered, it would be for the Czar, and not for the Emperor of Austria.

6

While this fresh storm was gathering over the devoted heads of the Hungarian people, the Governor, Kossuth, sought to animate the confidence of his adherents, and shake

the resolution of his opponents by improving upon and extending the fait accompli of the declaration of independence. He issued his decrees in the name of the Responsible Government of the Independent Hungarian Empire and its provinces.' He had summoned the Parliament to meet at Pesth in July. After the capture of Buda, he resolved to precede that body and establish his government in the capital of the country. He entered Pesth on the 5th June with regal pomp, seated in a state carriage which formerly belonged to his enemies, the Habsburgs. Women, dressed in white, scattering flowers, preceded by bands of music, mounted guards, and a brilliant staff, surrounded him, as he drove through the dense masses of the populace, which had gone out to meet him on his way. He signalized the day of his entry into Pesth by an act of grace in the manner of monarchs, by abolishing corporal punishment in the army, and he addressed the people in an eloquent speech, assuring them of the sympathies of Europe and the active support of France. He must have been aware that no such support could be expected from the President of the French Republic. Mr. Kossuth's friends, however, protest that he did not delude the people with false hopes, that the support of France was promised by the Provisional Government in November, 1848, that it would have been granted if General Cavaignac had been elected to the Presidency, and that six months after the election of Louis Napoleon, Mr. Kossuth was profoundly ignorant of a fact which so nearly affected his hopes for himself and his country. By the action of the allied armies, the government of Mr. Kossuth was indeed cut off from the rest of the world with respect to the usual modes of communication. Messengers from Hungary were arrested, letters were intercepted on their road from or into that country. But the spies who served the government were bold, devoted, and crafty, and more than one communication from the Governor, or addressed to him, was smuggled through the very midst of the Austrian armies. One of Mr. Kossuth's most serviceable spies

Madame Von Beck-was frequently in the Austrian camp, where the change of government and the corresponding change of principles in France were well known. Besides, Mr. Kossuth corresponded with his foreign agents by way of Turkey.

It is therefore almost impossible to conceive that the Governor of Hungary was ignorant of the defeat of that friendly party in France which, six months ago, through M. Bastide, had assured him of its sympathies and promised its active support. Or was he shortsighted enough to believe that Louis Napoleon would adopt the policy of the party he had supplanted? The merest tyro in politics would blush to be thought guilty of so gross a folly. Hence it follows that in referring his people to the assistance of France, the Governor Kossuth made a deliberate and public statement which he must have known to be unfounded. He, the reformer, who had inveighed against the deceptions practised by kings and their ministers, made himself guilty of the crime he denounced in others the moment he attempted to play a sovereign's part. Louis Kossuth, the democrat, betrayed his want of respect for that people which so nobly upheld him, by suspecting them of a pusillanimity of which the lower classes of that heroic, though imprudent nation, had shown no signs whatever. His gratuitous untruth was an insult to the nation; it was also a grave political fault, for it raised hopes which the next few weeks must destroy, and it enlisted disappointment and distrust on the side of the enemy.

The installation of the government at Pesth was closely followed by a series of illiberal measures. The property of the Steam Navigation Company was confiscated. Daniel Novak, a journalist, was accused of having, in the Pesth Gazette, praised an Austrian Archduke, thereby encouraging the inhabitants of Pesth to assist the Austrians. He was arrested, tried, sentenced, and executed, if not by the Governor's order, at least with his consent. Another journalist, the editor of the Ungar newspaper was denounced in a special decree for vilifying the Austrians. The letters of private

persons were opened at the post offices. At Trentshin, for instance, they were opened by a man of the name of Marzibanyi, whom the Austrians afterwards fined 20007. for executing the Governor's orders in this respect. The opening of letters, however, is a breach of trust of which few governments can be said to be innocent, and the Austrians who punished Mr. Kossuth's agents for violating the secrets of private correspondence, opened all suspected letters throughout the war, and continue to do so to this day.

At that time the air of Hungary was rank with suspicions. Every man distrusted his neighbour. Every one sought to discover a plot or to make one. During the Âustrian occupation of Pesth and its environs, a system of terrorism oppressed those who were suspected of sympathizing with the national cause. Now the tables were turned, but with little advantage to the public liberties. The Austrian party, or those who were supposed to belong to it, were prosecuted and mulcted in heavy fines; properties were confiscated, and several execu tions are mentioned in the newspapers of the time. The populace too pronounced its own verdicts and enforced them. Persons who were suspected of espionage had their ears cut off. Other outrages have been reported, but they are still unauthenticated. There is, however, a decree of General Schweidler, who commanded at Pesth, denouncing the arbitrary ill-treatment of alleged spies, and demanding that such persons should be given up to the

courts-martial.

To keep the balance even, it is but just to state that such practices were not confined to the Hungarians. The violence of the belligerent par ties was great, and after General Haynau assumed the command of the Imperial army, the fullest licence was given to that wanton brutality which characterizes the Austrian soldiery. In July two clergymen from Dotis were shot at General Haynau's head-quarters at Nagy Igmand. In June the protestant pastor, Razga, had been shot by the General's orders. Nothing is known of the crime of these wretched men.

A Hungarian agent, who was arrested

near Oedenburg, had his tongue cut out by the express order of an Austrian officer. The tongue was nailed to the church-door of the place. The village of Bö Sakarny was deliberately burned by General Haynau, because some of its inhabitants were accused of having assisted the national troops in the battle of Csorna.

By far less objectionable is the severity shown by the Austrian government in the case of the Palatine hussars, whose adventures excited much attention and sympathy at the time, and whose devotion to the cause of their country ought to be recorded whenever mention is made of the war in Hungary. Three escadrons of the Hungarian regiment, Palatine,' were stationed in Bohemia, where the Austrian authorities kept a close watch upon them to prevent their escape. But in spite of these precautions some of the men deserted when the news of the war in their own country reached them in their distant cantonments. It was therefore resolved to send them to the Austrian army in Italy. They marched in the first days of June, and the officers in command avoided the highroads and large towns, to prevent the hussars from learning the late victories of their countrymen and the present perilous condition of Hungary. But on their arrival in Styria, vague rumours of what had happened came to their ears; their silence and their anxious looks warned the officer of the desperate resolution which each hussar concealed in his own breast. Messengers were despatched for a detachment of Austrian infantry to escort them. But a few hours before the arrival of this escort, a troop of them mounting, as if by an instinct common to all, turned aside from the road to Italy, and with their sabres drawn and their carbines ready for instant firing, they rode away towards Hungary. On the third day of their flight they crossed the frontier, on the fourth they reached the outposts of their countrymen. The two other escadrons which followed the example of the first troop, but which took another road, came to the Styrian city of Bruck, where a detachment of Austrian VOL. XLV. NO. CCLXIX.

soldiers stopped their progress. In the skirmish which ensued, twelve of these brave men were killed, fiftyfour were severely wounded, and seventy-two were captured. They all rushed on the bayonets of the infantry, and some cut their way through the midst of the enemy, and after many adventures succeeded in gaining the Hungarian frontier. Of the captives ten were doomed to death, but thanks to a clemency which is very creditable to

the governor of Styria, only three were executed. The rest were chained and taken to Italy to fight the battles of Austria under General Radetsky.

By this time, the three armies which contended for the possession of Hungary were up in battle array. Regular troops of Austria and Russia to the number of 175,000 were prepared to gain the country from the Governor Kossuth; who had a regular army of 150,000, all of them young and energetic troops, trained to the fatigues of the campaign and the dangers of battle, fully armed and equipped, and supported in their several localities by large masses of local militia. Never before had the Hungarian armies presented so imposing a front to their enemies. Never before was it so clear that Hungary must prevail if the patriotism of the leaders equalled the heroic devotion of her people. If again victorious in the struggle, they were likely to be supported by the sympathies of the European nations, which were even being awakened in favour of their chivalry, rather than of their cause. And there was no reason why a man who six months before created an army under the hoofs and swords of a triumphant enemy, should not again conquer, now that the forces were equally balanced.

The Hungarianarmies surrounded the country in a large circular sweep. General Dembinski, who remained faithful in spite of the Governor's ingratitude, commanded a corps of 12,000 men in Northern Hungary. His lines were drawn from Eperies to Neustadl, on the river Waag. His right wing leant on the Carpathian mountains, his centre occupied the cities of Leutschau, Käsmark, and Bartfeld; and his left wing swept the valley of the 22

Waag. His corps was intended to stem the tide of the Russian invasion, which, centred in Gallicia, prepared to throw the bulk of its forces upon the Jablunka defiles, and the other passes of the Tatra mountains. The territory which Dembinski was expected to protect was too extensive, and the numbers of the enemy were by far too large for the number of his troops. The foreigners in the Hungarian army, Bem, Dembinski, and Guyon, were always placed on the post of danger, and expected to perform impossibilities with the smallest possible number of troops, lest their achievements should surpass those of the native generals. Although these foreign generals suffered, it is true, by such arrangements, they suffered less than the country in whose cause they were engaged. In the present instance, the most vulnerable part of the country was least protected; for if Dembinski could not hold all the passes, and if the Russians forced their way through any one of them, there was nothing to prevent their march into the plains of the Theiss, the strongholds of Magyarism.

The central army of the Hungarians, commanded by generals Gorgey and Klapka, and under them by Guyon, with the impregnable fortress of Komorn in its rear, numbered 70,000 men, in three corps, occupied the country from the river Waag to the Borough of Vasarhely, and corresponded, by means of Guerilla bands on the lake Balaton, with the army in the south under Perezel's command. The Austrian army which these troops were intended to repulse numbered 84,000 men. but strong reinforcements of Austrian and Russian troops increased its numbers at length to nearly 100.000 men, whose head quarters were at Pressburg.

Perezel's corps, the Southern army of the Hungarians, consisted of 27.000 regular troops, and 35,000 irregulars, occupying the Bacska, the Banat, and part of Syrmia. Their central depôts were in the fortress of Peterwardein. Part of this corps was engaged in the siege of the fortresses of Arad and Temesvar. Opposed to them was the Austrian Southern army under the Ban Jellachich, whose troops were concentrated at Karlovitz, and who

was at much pains to maintain his position in that narrow slip of land which lies between the Danube and the Drave. In the course of the campaign, Perczel's corps occupied the cities of Weisskirchen, Orsova, and Karansebes, and established a communication with General Bem and the army in Transylvania. This province, however, was gradually abandoned, and the bulk of its forces drafted off to the Banat, to join Perczel's army.

To raise the last remaining strength of the country, and to secure victory at all risks, the Governor Kossuth made another appeal to the nation by proclaiming a crusade against the Russians and the Austrian emperor. The clergy were to harangue the people. All able-bodied men were ordered to provide themselves with weapons of some sort. The tocsin was to be sounded at the approach of the Russians; they were to be harassed by frequent attacks of the peasantry, and alarmed by an incessant ringing of bells. All provisions were to be destroyed, all villages were to be burned on the line of march of the Imperialist armies.

The Governor issued this manifesto in the last days of June. The offensive operations of the Imperialist armies had commenced on the 9th of that month by an advance upon Izgard on the banks of the Waag. The combat lasted above twelve hours, and led to no result. Three days later, an Austrian bri gade, under General Wyss, advanced to Czorna, where they were attacked and routed by some detachments of General Klapka's corps. The Hun garian troops which fought this battle were commanded by Colonel Kmetty. The Austrian commander was killed in the battle. Similar, though less decisive, engagements followed on the 17th of the month in the island of Shütt, and near the villages of Kiraly Rew and Pered, until, on the 20th of June, the first great battle of the campaign was fought at Pered. General Görgey, with 30,000 men, and eighty guns, proceeded to attack the advanced guard of the Austrian centre. Klapka remonstrated against this plan, but Görgey protested vehemently that the attack on the Austrian positions along the Waag was absolutely indispensable,' and that that day's com