Posterity, calmly reviewing a death struggle like this, is amazed that any people could be roused to make that last stand. Plainly enough, the Magyars had three soldiers against them to every one of theirs; ammunition and victuals were failing them; their treasury was empty; their armies could expect no reinforcements: to what end, therefore, protract a hopeless war? Reasoning thus, we miss the secret, not only of the revolutionists of 1848-49, but of all who have ever been kindled by patriotism to defend a cause they held dearer than life. The Magyars would never have gone thus far,--never have felt during that May-month the fleeting exhilaration of victory,--had they not been fired by a passion which not disaster but death alone could quench. The Russian invasion being assured, the Magyar government held a council of war, at which it was proposed to consolidate the various armies, and to defeat first the Austrians coming from the west and then the Russians coming from the north and east,--a sensible plan, frustrated, however, by delays, some of which were unavoidable. The Austrian army, strengthened by reinforcements from Italy, and commanded by Marshal Haynau, who came red-handed from Brescia, advanced into Hungary, and defeated Görgei on the river Waag (June 20-21). The Magyar government and Diet departed for the second time, in melancholy procession, from their capital. By the middle of July one hundred and fifty thousand Russians--eighty thousand of whom were led by the wolfish Paskevitch--had penetrated into the heart of the country. Inevitably, the Magyar forces would be driven in and caught between the victorious enemies: nevertheless, they would not yet submit. Internal discord alone tarnished the record of the last days of the Hungarian Republic. On July 1, Kossuth removed Görgei for insubordination, but Görgei’s officers and men protested so loudly that Kossuth thought it discreet to reinstate him. Three weeks later, a fraction of the Diet, assembled at Szegedin, declared the equality of all the races in Hungary, emancipated the Jews, and then, warned by the rumble of hostile cannon, it dissolved forever.