Austria page 2

M. Sidintzka, the Chief of Police, appropriately fled with Metternich, and a new Ministry was formed, which issued a most liberal programme of policy, abolishing with a stroke all the vexatious restrictions of the old system. The population now breathed, moved, and spoke freely. They felt that their bodies and souls were their own. Metternich had been chased from Austria - a price had been set upon his head. What a world of meaning was contained in these words! What a stupendous revolution they imported! The revolution, indeed, was now completely triumphant and universal. " A convulsion," says Alison, " which brought Austria to the brink of ruin, all but swept it from the book of nations, and reduced it to the humiliation of invoking the perilous intervention of a foreign power, had been completed by 2,000 students, headed by the most learned men in the state - a memorable proof of the difference between literary and philosophic ability, and the practical acquaintance with affairs and the dispositions of men which qualifies for the direction of mankind." A memorable proof, say we, of the vital connection between education and freedom, and of the power of public opinion to prostrate the power of the sword. All honour to the literary profession, which, in spite of the most diabolically perfect police system that ever existed, could generate in the minds and hearts of the oppressed a force of resistance sufficient to overthrow the consummate tyranny of Metternich. That there should be excesses immediately on the cessation of such a reign of terror, that there should be a violent recoil in the popular will so long pressed down, was only a natural result, and no great price to pay for the recovery of the precious inheritance of freedom and justice, if it could have been retained, if the constitution extorted could have stood its ground against reaction. The Emperor and his family, however, soon felt that Vienna was too hot for them, and notwithstanding unlimited concessions, Ferdinand began to fear that his throne might share the fate of Louis Philippe's. Therefore, he secretly quitted the capital with the imperial family, on the evening of the 17th of May, alleging the state of his health as a reason for his flight, by which his Ministers were taken quite by surprise. He proceeded to Innsbruck, in the Tyrol. He, too, felt that he could breathe freely when he got away from the roar of democratic voices. There he issued a proclamation, in which he said - " The events which took place at Vienna forced the painful conviction upon me that factious rioters, assisted by the Academical Legion and parts of the National Guard, misled by foreigners, and unmindful of their wonted allegiance, conspired against my liberty with a view of enthralling my provinces. The inhabitants of these provinces, and indeed all well-meaning citizens of my capital, must of necessity resent so daring an outrage with unlimited exasperation. No alternative was left to me beyond recurring to measures of violence, except to withdraw for the moment to one of my provinces. These, God be thanked, have all remained true to their monarch." He added, "I will not grant anything to the forcible exactions of unauthorised and armed individuals. My departure from Vienna was intended to impress this upon my painfully-excited people, and likewise to remind them of the paternal love with which I am ever ready to receive my sons, even though they be prodigal ones."

The Viennese repeatedly sent petitions and deputations imploring him in vain to return; and it was not till the 8th of August that he had consented to quit the safe asylum he had chosen. Personally he had nothing to apprehend. He was amiable and kind, and wanted both the ability and energy to make himself feared. It was not at Vienna alone, or in the Austrian province, that the imperial power was paralysed. Every limb of the vast empire quivered in the throes of revolution. Two days after the outbreak in Vienna, a great meeting, convoked anonymously, was held at Prague, the capital of Bohemia, which passed resolutions demanding a constitutional government; a perfect equality in the two races - German and Chech; the union of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, with a common Diet, to meet alternately at Prague and Brunn; that judicial proceedings should be public; that there should be a separate and responsible government at Prague, with security for personal liberty; a free press, and religious equality. A deputation was sent with these demands to Vienna. They were all granted; Bohemia was recognised as having a distinct nationality; the Prince Francis Joseph, afterwards Emperor of Austria, having been appointed Viceroy. In Bohemia the Chechs, or Sclavonians, were nearly double the number of the Germans, who, like the Protestants of Ireland before the passing of the Emancipation Act, had been the ruling party. But, though they had joined in the national movement, they found that they had been a party to a change which not only put an end to German ascendancy, but excluded the Germans from power altogether. It was a part of the new constitution that all persons holding office in the Government, or under it, should speak both languages. This the Chechs could do; but the Germans, despising the language of the subject race, could not speak the Sclavonic tongue. The Chechs therefore had, by the new law, monopoly of office. The natural consequence was a revival of the animosity of races. This was inflamed very much by the Sclavonic movement, the object of which was to unite the people of their blood, not only in Germany, but elsewhere, in a great confederation, in order to counteract the absorbing influence of the Germanic Confederation at Frankfort. Accordingly a general Sclave congress, consisting of 300 deputies, was held at Prague. It was opened on the 2nd of June, and sat till the 12th. It published a manifesto to Europe, setting forth the wrongs inflicted upon the Sclave populations throughout the whole of the east of Europe. In that manifesto Poles, Sclavonians, Croatians, Illyrians, Ruthenians, Sclovacs, and Servians, all cordially united. A provisional government had been established at Prague, on the pretence that the Government at Vienna was under the control of the mob. It consisted of eight of the most conspicuous members of the party now in the ascendant, with Count Leo Thun at their head. But the Ministry at Vienna refused to recognise this upstart Government; they declared that its constitution was illegal, and its acts void. The Austrian governor of Prague, at that time, was Prince Windischgrâtz; he had been warned of the probability of resistance to the supreme Government, and took his measures accordingly. On the 12th of June a public meeting of the Chechs was held to protest against the removal of artillery to points where it could be directed against the city. The people became violently excited, and a mob gathered round the residence of the Prince, raising seditious cries, and pouring upon him torrents of abuse. They refused to disperse, and insisted on being supplied with arms. Before any acts of violence were committed, the Princess Windischgrâtz appeared at the window, to look at the crowd in the street, when she was shot dead. According to some accounts, this deplorable catastrophe was the effect of accident; according to others, it was the deed of an assassin, concealed behind a high bow window. She belonged to a doomed race; she was the daughter of the Princess Schwartzenberg, who, to save her children, rushed into the flames and perished, at Paris, in 1809. Shortly after one of the sons of the Princess was mortally wounded on the stairs. Upon these catastrophes the Prince, without ordering the troops drawn up in the front of the building to fire, went down, and, calmly addressing the insurgents, said - "Gentlemen, if you wish to insult me because I am a nobleman, you may do so; go to the front of the palace, and you shall not be disturbed. I will even give you a guard to protect you from injury. But if you wish to insult me because I am Commandant of Prague, I give you fair warning that I will not permit it; I shall resist it with all the means in my power. My wife has just been killed; do not drive me into acts of rigour." It is stated that some persons in the mob then rushed forward, seized the Prince, and dragged him towards a lamp-post, intending to hang him on the spot; but he was fortunately rescued by the soldiers from the hands of the assassins.

The insurgents had prepared themselves for a desperate struggle. Barricades were erected in all parts of the town, behind which were stationed large masses of armed men. The Prince, unwilling to engage the troops in a series of bloody encounters in the streets, or to sacrifice the lives of the citizens, planted his artillery on the heights commanding the city, and announced that it would be bombarded if the rebels themselves did not level the barricades in twenty-four hours. They refused to surrender, and continued to fight with desperate energy. The artillery then began to play upon the city. The bombardment continued for forty-eight hours, at the end of which a considerable portion of it was destroyed, the strongest positions of the insurgents were battered down, and, on the 17th of June, all the barricades were abandoned, and the revolt was quelled. Crowds of armed men from the country were hastening with banners and military music to reinforce their brethren; but hearing the news that the Austrian arms were triumphant, they returned, despairing, to their homes. Secret societies had concerted a simultaneous movement in all Sclavonic countries. The Emperor of Russia being regarded as the head of the Sclavonic empire which was to arise out of the chaos of revolution, the Czar was daily addressed by the Sclavonic nationalists in an impious parody of the Lord's Prayer, which ran thus: - "Our Russian father, who art in the North, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in the North as it is with us. Permit us to eat our daily bread under your protection. Forgive us our hostilities against you, as we forgive the tortures to which you have delivered our brethren. Suffer us not to fall into the temptations which lead to Siberia; but speedily deliver us from Austria. Amen."

Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia, resolved to hold a Sclavonic Diet at Agram, on the 5th of June; but it was interdicted as illegal by the Austrian Government, and the Ban was summoned to Innsbruck to give an account of his conduct to the Emperor. He disobeyed the summons. The Diet was held, and one of its principal acts was to confer upon Jellachich the title of Ban, which he had held under the now repudiated authority of the Emperor. He was consequently denounced as a rebel, and divested of all his titles and offices. The Emperor proceeded to restore his authority by force of arms. Carlowitz was bombarded, and converted into a heap of ruins; and other cities surrendered, to escape a similar fate. It was not, however, from disloyalty to the imperial throne, but from hostility to the ascendancy of Hungary, that the Ban had taken up arms. He therefore went to Innsbruck early in July, and haying obtained an interview with the Emperor, he declared his loyalty as the Sovereign, and made known the grievances which his nation endured under the Hungarian Government. His demands seem to have been moderate enough. He required security and equality of rights with the Hungarians, both in the Hungarian Diet and in the administration. At Vienna he had an interview with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Batthyani, of which an interesting account has been given by Balleydier. Prince Esterhazy and M. Bach, the Minister of Justice, were present at the interview. It began in a solemn manner, and with measured expressions on both sides; but ere long the intensity of feeling broke through their courtly restraints, and the debate became animated and violent in the highest degree. "Between the Cabinets of Pesth and Vienna," said the Count Batthyani, " there is now an insurmountable barrier." "Which you have raised up yourselves," replied Bach. " Take care, Count; there is behind that barrier, on your side, an abyss, the name of which is Revolution." "And who has dug that abyss?" " You know better than we do. Ask Kossuth. Meanwhile, I will tell you what will fill it up. Oceans of blood, thousands of corpses; perhaps your own, Count." Before separating, Count Batthyani approached Jellachich, and taking him by the hand, said, "For the last time - Do you wish peace or war?" "We wish for peace," replied the Ban, " if the Magyars, better inspired than they now are, are willing to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to Austria what belongs to Austria; but if they persist in wishing to shiver to pieces the fundamental laws of the empire, then we are for war." "May God protect the right! " replied Batthyani; "the sabre must now decide between us. Adieu, Baron. I assign a rendezvous on the banks of the Drobe." "We shall meet before on those of the Danube," replied Jellachich; and he was as good as his word. With these words they separated, and both sides prepared for war.

On the 5th of July the Hungarian Diet was opened at Pesth by the Archduke Palatine Stephen. In his inaugural speech he referred to the disturbances in Croatia, and to the Sclavonian movement generally, stating that His Majesty wished for the restoration of peace and order. Malevolent individuals had fomented national and religious dissensions in Croatia, and had dared to refer to the Emperor's authority as sanctioning their proceedings. But His Majesty, he said, scorned such insinuations; the King and his royal family would at all times respect the laws and protect the liberties granted to his people. It was in this meeting of the Diet that the great Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, attracted the attention of Europe. The son of a small landed proprietor, a Magyar of the noble class, educated in a Protestant college, and brought up to the profession of the law, in which he won early distinction, he obtained a seat in the National Diet of Presburg, as representative of a magnate. He published reports of its proceedings, first in lithographed sheets, and then in manuscript circulars, which being forbidden by the I Government, he was prosecuted in 1839, and sentenced to four years' imprisonment " for having disobeyed the King's orders." About a year and a half after, he obtained the benefit of a political amnesty, and was liberated. Shortly after he became chief editor of a national journal, the Hirlop, published at Pesth. In this position he was enabled by his eloquent leaders to exert an immense influence in favour of the national cause, and he rose rapidly in public estimation and personal influence. In March, 1848, he was a member of a deputation sent to Vienna, to urge the claims of Hungary upon the Government, and received the appointment of Hungarian Minister of Finance, in which capacity he was enabled to effect important reforms, and to evince his high capacity, not only as an orator, but as a statesman. In a speech delivered before the Diet on the 11th of July, Kossuth thus described the situation of the country: - "Do not deceive yourselves, citizens," he said; "the Magyars stand alone in the world against the conspiracy of the sovereigns and nations which surround them. The Emperor of Russia besets us through the principalities; and everywhere, even in Servia, we detect his hand and gold. In the North, the armed bands of Sclaves are endeavouring to join the rebels of Croatia, and are preparing to march against us. In Vienna, the courtiers and statesmen are calculating the advent of the day when they shall be able again to rivet the chains of their old slaves, the Magyars, an undisciplined and rebellious race. Oh, my fellow-citizens! it is thus that tyrants have ever designated free men. You are alone, I repeat. Are you ready and willing to fight?" There were stormy debates on the Address, which lasted till the end of the month. At length, the Diet proclaimed their loyalty to their King, the Emperor of Austria. They expressed their indignation against the Croatian rebels. Referring to the war then raging in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, they expressed a wish to see that question solved in a manner at once satisfactory to the dignity of the throne, "and to justice and right on the other side." They added that, as soon as peace was restored in their own country, they would readily offer their hand to His Majesty, for the purpose of effecting a peaceable understanding, "which answered to the dignity of the throne on the one hand, and the constitutional liberty of the Italian nation on the other."