These sacrifices on the part of the country had become a matter of
urgent necessity. The Serb and Wallach insurrection assumed every
day larger proportions, while the Croats, under the leadership of
Jellachich, entered Hungarian territory with the fixed determination of
depriving the nation of her constitutional liberties. But the Hungarian
government was already able to send an army against the Croatians,
who were marching on Buda-Pesth, plundering and laying waste every
thing before them. They were surrounded by the Hungarian forces, and
a portion of their army, nine thousand men strong, were compelled to
lay down their arms, while Jellachich, with his remaining forces,
precipitately fled from the country. The young Hungarian army had thus
proved itself equal to the task of repulsing the attack of the Croats,
but the recent events were nevertheless fraught with the gravest
consequences. The news of the Croatian invasion filled the Hungarians
with deep anxiety, and the extraordinary excitement caused by it cast
a permanent cloud over the soul of that noble and great man, Count
Széchenyi. The mind of the great patriot who had initiated the national
movement gave way under the strain of the frightful rumors coming from
the Croatian frontier. He had been ailing for some time back, and his
nervousness constantly increased under the pressure of the great events
following each other in rapid succession, so that when the news came
that the enemy had invaded the country he thought that Hungary was
lost. His despair darkened his mind and he sought death in the waves
of the Danube. His family removed him to a private asylum near Vienna,
where he recovered his mental faculties, and even wrote several books.
But he was never entirely cured of his hallucination, and, exasperated
by the vexations he was subjected to by the Viennese government, even
in the asylum, the great patriot put an end to his own life on the
8th of April, 1860, by a shot from a pistol. Jellachich’s incursion
had other important political consequences. The attack on Hungary had
been made by Jellachich in the name of the Viennese government, and
the intimate connection between the domestic disorders and the court
of Vienna became more and more apparent. This state of things rendered
inevitable a struggle between Hungary and the unconstitutional action
of the court. The Austrian forces were arming against Hungary on
every side. Vienna, too, rose in rebellion against the court, and now
the Hungarians hastened to assist the revolutionists in the Austrian
capital. Unfortunately the young national army was not ripe yet for so
great a military enterprise, and Prince Windischgrätz, having crushed
the revolution in Vienna, invaded Hungary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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