The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany: With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three YearsMaurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
History
The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany: With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years
Maurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
Europe -- History -- 1848-1849; Revolutions -- Europe
The fiery youth of Pesth supplied an element to the Magyar revolution
very different from that which generally found expression in the Diet
at Presburg; and this element had been so necessary to Kossuth's
purposes that it was impossible to disregard its influence. Three days
before the Serb meeting a great gathering had been held in a café at
Pesth, which had been followed on the 15th by a march of the Hungarian
students, headed by the poet Petöfy, to the Town Council, to demand
the concession of twelve points. Some of these points were being
secured on that very day by the deputation which had gone to Vienna;
others were already conceded in principle by the Diet at Presburg; one
of them, the proposal for the union of Transylvania with Hungary, was
to be the seed of future mischief, but was, at present, acceptable to
all parties of the Magyars. It was not so much, then, by political
theories that the youth of Pesth were distinguished from the quieter
spirits of Presburg; it was rather the fiery manner in which they made
their demands, and the dogmatic intolerance with which they insisted
on particular formulas.
Moreover, the Presburg policy, if one may so call it, was weakened in
its effect by that attempt to reconcile hopeless opposites which is
the great difficulty of all moderate parties. Count Louis Batthyanyi,
when he was appointed as the first responsible Minister of Hungary,
thought himself bound to form his Ministry, so far as possible, by a
combination of the different representatives of the rival parties; and
he not only hoped to find a basis for common action between the
growing Conservatism of Szechenyi and the growing Radicalism of
Kossuth, but he even gave a place in his Ministry to Count Esterhazy,
who sympathized to some extent with the Camarilla at Vienna. Baron
Eötvös, who had been the champion of centralization when Kossuth was
arguing for County Government, was also a member of this Ministry;
while Meszaros, the War Minister, might be supposed to combine
opposite principles in his own person; for, while he had contributed
to Kossuth's paper, the "Pesti Hirlap," his last public action had
been to serve under Radetzky in his attempt to suppress the liberties
of Milan. Batthyanyi, indeed, hoped that, by introducing Deak into the
Ministry, he should secure an influence which should reconcile these
various incongruous elements; but such a task was beyond even Deak's
powers. By his honourable abstention from the Diet of 1843, he had
deprived himself of his former influence; and, though he accepted the
place offered him by Batthyanyi, and honestly tried to work with his
different colleagues, yet, as the movement became more and more
revolutionary, he fell further into the background.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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