The enthusiasm, we might call it the recklessness, with which the Magyars rallied to repel invasion, became a people who counted John Hunyádi and Francis Rakóczy among their national heroes. Thanks to their patriotic fervor, the Hungarian cause, which seemed about to collapse at the beginning of January, seemed about to prevail at the end of March. Bern had worsted the Wallachs and Austrians in Transylvania; Görgei had redeemed Northern Hungary; Klapka and Damjanics had brought Windischgrätz to bay in the midlands. Well had it been for Hungary if these astonishing successes had prevented internal discord, for twofold dissensions now threatened to sap the growing strength. From one side, the generals chafed at being subordinate to the civilian Committee of Defense; on the other, a large body of soldiers and of civilians were angry at the evident drift of Kossuth and his friends towards a republic. Görgei, the most conspicuous of the generals, led this opposition. He declared in a manifesto that the army would fight to maintain against every foreign enemy the Constitution granted by Ferdinand, but that they would favor no attempt to convert the constitutional monarchy into a republic. The Committee of Defense, most eager in their patriotism, could not refrain from meddling; they suffered from the delusion common to such committees, and believed that they knew better than the trained men of war how war should be waged. They felt, too, political responsibilities which made them all the more active; and they had, as was natural, their favorites among the officers. Had the government been strong, it would have cashiered Görgei; being weak, and solicitous of conciliating so important a man, it tolerated him. But when a government and its generals distrust each other,--as we learned in our civil war,--conciliation can satisfy neither. If Görgei lost a battle, his enemies charged him with lukewarmness or disobedience; he retorted by blaming the committee for failing to support him or for breaking in upon his plans. We need not sift the recriminations in detail: it suffices for us to know that, from January on, Görgei and Kossuth, and their respective partisans, worked thus at odds. Nevertheless, among the masses these quarrels had but slight effect. The average Magyar was simply bent on avenging his long score of oppression against Austria. He realized that his own existence depended on that of Hungary, and to him Kossuth’s eloquence was like a trumpet-call of duty. That in performing his duty the Magyar might lawfully wreak vengeance on his oppressors, made duty doubly attractive. In the early spring, Austria closed the way to compromise by proclaiming a new charter for the whole Empire. This charter declared that all the provinces of the Empire were to be reduced to a common equality, deprived of local rights, and governed by a central administration at Vienna.