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LA JOS KOSSUTH SENT WORD...
Papers delivered on the occasion of the
bicentenary of Kossuth’s birth

Edited by

Laszlo Peter, Martyn Rady, Peter Sherwood

Hungarian Cultural Centre London
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
University College London

LAJOS KOSSUTH SENT WORD ...
Papers delivered on the occasion of the
bicentenary of Kossuth’s birth

Edited by

lASZLO PETER, MARTYN RADY,
PETER SHERWOOD

Hungarian Cultural Centre, London
School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University College London

LA JOS KOSSUTH SENT WORD ...

Papers delivered on the occasion of the bicentenary of Kossuth’s birth

EDITED BY LASZLO PETER, MARTYN RADY,

PETER SHERWOOD

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or transmitted in any other form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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East European Studies.

Copies of this publication and others in the School’s refereed series of Occasional
Papers can be obtained from the Director’s Office, SSEES-UCL, Senate House,
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Front Cover: Lajos Kossuth, with a deputation of the Hungarian diet, enters
Vienna on 15th March 1848. Contemporary lithograph from the National
Museum, Budapest

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Preface

The Hungarian Cultural Centre in London and the Centre for the Study of
Central Europe, School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES),
University College London organized a conference ‘Lajos Kossuth Sent
Word to commemorate the bicentenary of his birth in March 2002
with both Hungarian and British participants. Academician Domokos
Kosary gave his support to the conference from the start; he was sched¬
uled to deliver the keynote speech but on medical advice could not travel
from the heart of Europe to its edge. Thanks to the generous financial
support of the Hungarian Cultural Centre and its Director-General, Mrs
Katalin Bogyay, and the encouragement of Professor George Kolankie-
wicz, Director of SSEES, the papers read at the conference and two
contributions commissioned after the conference can be published here.

The volume brings together the results of recent research on Kossuth’s
politics in the setting of the Habsburg Monarchy’s great nineteenth
century revolutions. The contributions, by many of the leading scholars
on the subject, offer a variety of (and in some respects even contradictory)
perspectives and assessments of such complex subjects as the 1848 revo¬
lutions. Our aim is to take the subject further by looking at it from new
perspectives that may offer fresh insights into the political personality of a
remarkable politician, rather than to try to achieve some common outlook
either on Kossuth or on the revolutions themselves. This accounts for the
catholicity of the volume.

The Editors.

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Contents

Preface v

Introduction 1

Laszlo Peter

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet 15

Aladar Urban

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator 41

Robert Hermann

Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs 71

Gabor Pajkossy

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution 81

Laszlo Peter

Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853 95

Andras Gergely

Lajos Kossuth, Domokos Kosary and Hungarian Foreign

Policy, 1848—49 105

Martyn Rady

Kossuth and Stun Two National Heroes 119

Robert Evans

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49 135

Alan Sked

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky: Serbia and the Great Danubian
Confederation Scam 183

Ian D. Armour

A Comment on Dr. Armour’s Paper, ‘Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky:

Serbia and the Great Danubian Confederation Scam’ 205

Robin Okey

Vll

viii Contents

Kossuth in Exile and Marx 211

Klara Kingston-Tiszai

Kossuth in Exile 219

George Gomori

Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda 221

Tibor Frank

Comments on Tibor Frank’s Paper ‘Marketing Hungary’ 251

Daniel Abondolo

Contributors 255

Select Index 257

Introduction

Lajos Kossuth sent word...

Laszlo Peter

The 1848 Revolutions in Europe were predictable and were indeed
predicted. When, however, in November 1847 Archduke Istvan, palatine
and locumtenens, opened the Hungarian diet in Pressburg nobody thought
that it was going to be for the last time. Yet the Hungarian revolution
turned out to be a good fit in the chain reaction of popular upheavals that
shook the continent in the spring of 1848. Indeed the Hungarian revolution
lasted longer than any of the others; it required the armies of two great
powers to suppress it and 1848 brought lasting changes to the country. It
removed much that was obsolete in order to create a Hungarian ‘civil
society’ (polgari tarsadalom) out of legally and culturally diverse social
groups, that is, a society based on laws applied to everybody equally in
place of a society based on a hierarchy of privileges. The Hungarian revo¬
lution became a focus for national aspirations to attain independence and it
made endemic the conflicts within the kingdom between the Hungarian and
their rival Slav and Romanian movements. It is no exaggeration to say that
1848 was the year, more than any other, in which the Hungarians made
history. 1848 became the emblem of national identity.

Lajos Kossuth was the protagonist of the revolution, the driving force
behind events in Hungary between June 1846 and August 1849. This was
recognized by contemporaries as well as by posterity both in Hungary and
abroad. No other man had a more profound influence on Hungarian
national mentalite and no other Hungarian has become even remotely as
well known abroad as Kossuth. ‘Not less than one hundred and ten books
have appeared in the English language, of which Kossuth is the subject;
several thousand English articles were written about him and one hundred
and fifty three English poems addressed to him’, wrote Istvan Gal over
half a century ago. 1 In Hungary literature on 1848 and Kossuth could fill a

1 Stephen Gal, Hungary and the Anglo-Saxon World , Budapest, 1944, p. 17.

Introduction

large library. In a single year, on the 150 th anniversary of the revolution,
in 1998, over 250 publications appeared 2 and in the course of 2002, the
bicentenary of Kossuth’s birth was celebrated by commemorative retro¬
spection at numerous conferences and by a spate of new publications.

Public interest does not, of course, necessarily either help under¬
standing or offer insight into a subject; indeed it invariably constrains the
historians’ outlook. Nevertheless, today we know so much more about the
Hungarian revolution than historians did before 1945 because in the inter¬
vening years research has benefited from the strong public interest in the
subject. Much has been uncovered by the publication of important
primary sources and monographs based on rigorous scholarship. Yet
notwithstanding the knowledge gathered on 1848 and indeed the wealth
of available primary sources, including the surviving papers of Kossuth
himself — a graphomane — several questions about the revolution and
the War of Independence remain unanswered. As for Kossuth’s political
personality, if he is no longer quite an enigma, there are aspects of his
career that remain relatively obscure. The charismatic Hungarian leader,
still remembered in folksongs as the country’s liberator, has inspired
many scholars to write hagiographies about him and others to denounce
him as a dangerous demagogue and rabid nationalist.

This introduction will briefly outline Kossuth’s long and eventful life
and explore the question of how a landless noble living in relative poverty
was able to rise with such spectacular speed to the heights of political
leadership in a society as strictly hierarchical as Hungary was before
1848. 3

Lajos Kossuth was bom in Monok, Hungary, on 19 September 1802
and died in Turin, Italy, on 20 March 1894. His life virtually encom¬
passed the whole nineteenth century. Belonging to an old but impover¬
ished noble family, as C.A. Macartney observed, he was ‘a member of
that dangerous class which possesses birth and brains but no means’. 4 His

2 According to Robert Hermann in BUKSZ, Budapest, 3, 2000, p. 264.

3 Most historians take for granted Kossuth’s dominant role in Hungarian nineteenth
century politics. They do not ask the question that the Szekel primor Janos Palffy,
an adherent and later opponent of Kossuth, asked: how a ‘poor noble could, on his
own, stir up such a magnificent and truly national revolution in this aristocratic-
monarchic nation’, Janos Palffy, Magyarorszagi es erdelyi urak , ed., Attila T.
Szabo, 2 vols, Kolozsvar, 1939 (hereafter Magyarorszagi) p. 81, quoted by Akos
Egyed, ‘Kossuth es a szekelyek 1848-ban Szazadok , 128, 1994, p. 835.

4 C. A. Macartney, Hungary, A Short History , Edinburgh, 1962, p. 138. The
summing up may reveal as much about Macartney’s attitudes as about the character
of Kossuth.

Laszlo Peter

family came originally from Kossuthfalva in County Turoc (now part of
Martin, Slovak Republic). They probably had a Slavonic background and
were ennobled in 1263. The claim that the Kossuths were Slovaks is a
misconception, apparently ineradicable from books in English. 5 They
were Hungarian nobles, living in multilingual upper Hungary, filling
minor county offices. Some members of the large family became Slovak
when Slovak nationality was formed in the nineteenth century. Kossuth’s
father had actually moved down from Turoc to Zemplen in the 1780s to
fill a county post as a solicitor. Kossuth’s mother was half-German. Her
only son, Lajos (later followed by four sisters, all bom in the Hungarian
village of Monok) was given a good education. Although a Lutheran, he
went to a Catholic grammar school in Satoraljaujhely, where he came top
of the class, then to a Lutheran college at Epeijes (Presov) before moving
to the Calvinist law school in Sarospatak. Combining three religions in
education was unusual in multi-denominational Hungary. 6 It set Kossuth
at an early age against confessional prejudice and fostered religious toler¬
ance.

Everyone around Kossuth, including all his teachers, recognized that
he possessed an abundance of talent (he was particularly good at
languages) which he combined with hard work. In the Law School,
however, Sandor Kovy, a renowned jurist, predicted that dominus
Kossuth would become an orszaghabonto (troublemaker for the
country). 7 At the early age of twenty-one, having passed the bar examina¬
tion, Kossuth became a practising lawyer in Pest. He attended the
1825-27 diet as an ablegatus absentium , a learner rather than a partici¬
pant in politics as yet. 8 After that Kossuth moved back to Zemplen where
he soon became a county judge. A handsome, intelligent and hardworking

5 See, for instance, A. J. P. Taylor’s classic howlers which he went on repeating in
his The Habsburg Monarchy 1815-1918, London, 1942 (hereafter Habsburg
Mon.), p. 57, unchanged in the second edition 1948 (and several reprints), p. 51. He
must have got it from the Hungarian emigre Oscar Jaszi’s work who wrote that
Kossuth was a ‘small nobleman of Slovak extraction, who, according to reliable
tradition, in his early childhood still read the Slovak prayer book in the church’
[where, in the Hungarian Monok?], The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy
(first published in Chicago 1929) repr. 1961, pp. 307-08 (NB. The sociologist
Jaszi’s book is brilliant but it bristles with errors, e.g. on p. 310 there are three).

6 Gyorgy Szabad points this out in his Kossuth politikai palyaja, Budapest, 1977,
(hereafter Kossuth) p. 11.

7 Domokos Kosary, Kossuth Lajos a reformkorban, Budapest, 1946 (hereafter
Kossuth), p. 47.

8 Widows of aristocrats sent proxies to the diet who sat in the Lower Chamber
without a vote.

Introduction

young man, he now had well paid jobs, moved in the leading circles of the
county, and threw himself into politics as an effective presenter of liberal
nationalist ideas. A rising star with many friends, he also acquired a repu¬
tation for being a firebrand and managed to antagonize local conserva¬
tives. They brought a corruption charge against him and Kossuth could
extricate himself from the situation only by moving in 1832 to Pressburg,
once more as an absentee deputy for the diet. 9

From now on and for the rest of his life Kossuth became a player in
national politics. The Opposition leaders in Pressburg understood the need
for publicity and had endless discussions on how to report the day-to-day
proceedings of the diet. Kossuth cut short the debate by doing the job
himself, sending out hand-written reports, the ‘ Gazette ’ of the diet. 10 He
became well known overnight as the leader of the jurati group, young people
with law degrees attached to deputies, who helped Kossuth to copy and
distribute the Gazette. He soon became an associate of Baron Miklos
Wesselenyi, leader of the Opposition in the diet’s Upper Chamber. After the
dissolution of the diet both men, together with other opposition politicians,
were charged by the authorities with sedition. Kossuth was arrested in May
1837 and Wesselenyi in January 1839. The diet, reconvened in the latter
year, demanded an amnesty for all the prisoners which the two moderate
leaders Count Istvan Szechenyi and Ferencz Deak eventually secured. In
May 1840 Kossuth emerged from prison a national hero.

An admirer of Szechenyi, who had launched the reform movement to
create a Hungarian civil society, Kossuth was deeply hurt when the Count,
whom he called the ‘greatest Hungarian’, rebuffed his offer that they should
work together for reform. In fact they soon became enemies and this led to
bitter public debate over reform policy right up to 1848. Their conflict has
been frequently described, particularly by non-Hungarian authors, as being
between a ‘liberal’ Szechenyi and a ‘nationalist’ Kossuth. This is, however, a
false contrast: both men were nationalist and liberal; what separated them
was that on national issues Kossuth was always, and on liberal issues some¬
times, more radical than his aristocrat opponent.

9 It was a close shave, as he himself recalled in old age. For the Zemplen years see
Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution. Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians,
1848-1949, New York, 1979 (hereafter Lawful Revolution ) pp. 17-24. For
comprehensive accounts of Kossuth’s early years see Kosary, Kossuth , on the
Zemplen years pp. 42-90 and Istvan Barta, A fatal Kossuth, Budapest, 1966
(hereafter A fatal) pp. 23-182; on the embezzlement charge, pp. 59f.

10 Orszaggyulesi and later Torvenyhatosagi Tudositasok, have all been published in
Kossuth Lajos osszes munkai, Budapest, 1948 (hereafter KLOM). There were 346
reports of the diet for less than 100 subscribers.

Laszlo Peter

The year 1841 was a turning point in Kossuth’s life. He married and
settled in Pest where he was allowed to edit the Pesti Hirlap , a new journal.
The leader articles of the 365 issues under Kossuth’s editorship championed
social reform, adopted a policy of magyarization and indirectly attacked the
governmental system. At the same time the paper was able to claim the
support of an ever-growing segment of the educated Hungarian public. 11
Szechenyi, watching with growing apprehension the popularity of the paper
and its editor, attacked Kossuth: he said Kossuth may not have been fully
aware of what he was doing but he was playing with fire; the paper was
flirting with revolution. But Szechenyi was too late; the journalist was
already popular and unstoppable. The long drawn out debate between them
isolated the Count rather than Kossuth. Deak and Eotvos, though, had reser¬
vations about Kossuth’s radicalism on national issues, but they kept away
from Szechenyi. Kossuth did not benefit from the encounter either; in 1844
he lost the editorship of the Pesti Hirlap. Yet he threw himself into public
life with renewed vigour, enrapturing his audience with his fiery oratory in
the County Hall in Pest. He also founded associations: the Vedegylet, the
Trade Defence League, launched in the autumn of 1844, headed by liberal
nationalist magnates. Kossuth, acting as its manager, organized ‘Buy
Hungarian’ campaigns to boycott Austrian goods. The Trade Association
was to foster national commerce, the Association for Industry to promote the
establishment of factories. Energetic and indefatigable, Kossuth had a hand
in many other initiatives, including the plan to build railways to the Adriatic.
The practical results of this economic nationalism were slight and the Trade
Association became a financial and moral disaster. 12 Kossuth withdrew from
most of the associations in 1846.

The outbreak of the peasant revolt in Galicia in February 1846 had a
profound effect on the life of the whole Monarchy 13 and at once polarized
Hungarian politics. The national liberals were forced to pull their act
together. They had a problem: their support came from the counties where
the majority of the nobility fully embraced nationalism, but was not yet
won over to wholesale reform of social institutions. This was why the
various factions of the Opposition were reluctant to form a party under a
programme. After Galicia Kossuth broke through the stalemate. At a
meeting in June 1846 the moderate and radical factions accepted
Kossuth’s proposal to adopt the emancipation of the serfs as a firm

11 With ten thousand copies the paper’s circulation was as large as all the other papers

put together.

12 See especially Kosary, Kossuth, pp. 301-25.

13 For a brief account see Macartney, Habsburg Mon. pp. 307-09.

Introduction

commitment. There was, however, no agreement at this time on whether
the abolition of the nobility’s tax privilege should also be included in the
programme. 14 From now on policy initiatives which the liberals eventu¬
ally adopted tended to come from Kossuth.

Meanwhile, however, the Conservatives raced ahead. The supporters of
the government, in two moves in November 1846 and March 1847, organ¬
ized the politicians of ‘judicious reform’ (fontolva haladok) into a party. This
finally forced the liberal-nationalist camp to bring together the factions of the
Opposition under a comprehensive programme in June 1847. The opposi¬
tional declaration was assembled by Deak from drafts prepared by Kossuth,
Batthyany and Eotvos, but the dominant influence was Kossuth’s. 15 His hold
on the ‘leading county’ of Pest became so firm that, with Batthyany’s finan¬
cial support, he was elected as the county’s first deputy for the diet called
together for November 1847. The deputy foispan Gabor Foldvary was
furious. In his report to the Chancellor about the election he predicted that
Kossuth would cause more trouble than the rest of the diet put together. 16

Much depended, of course, on the choice of the liberal leader in the
Lower Chamber. As in 1843, Deak stayed away from the diet, Szechenyi
was in government service, Wesselenyi had withdrawn and Batthyany, a
remote magnate, was leader in ‘the other place’. Eotvos was not even
elected but, in any case, he was not leadership material. Leadership of the
Opposition in the Lower Chamber, without any formality or even discus¬
sion, naturally fell into Kossuth’s lap. And as the liberal camp, for the
first time, was nearly as strong as the supporters of the government, a
confident Kossuth was on his feet every day, making over sixty speeches
at the diet between November 1847 and April 1848. 17 He overplayed his
hand and leading liberals soon started to plot against his overbearing lead¬
ership. 18 Kossuth was saved by Paris.

At the outbreak of revolution in Europe there was one man in the
Habsburg Monarchy who knew exactly what was to be done; Kossuth
grasped the opportunity with both hands. The door was now open for
carrying out wholesale social reform, including the introduction of

14 Kosary, Kossuth , pp. 337-38; Szabad, Kossuth , pp. 96-98.

15 Kosary, Kossuth , pp. 346-49; KLOM XI, pp. 23-26, 152-64.

16 On 19 October, ibid., p. 222.

17 Andras Molnar, ‘Kossuth cenzurazott orszaggyulesi beszede’, Szazadok 136
2002, p. 909.

18 Baron Zsigmond Kemeny, Forradalom utdn, Budapest, 1908 (hereafter
Forradalom ), pp. 104-23; Lajos Kovacs, Grof Szechenyi Istvdn kozeletenek hdrom
utolso eve 1846-1848, 2 vols, Budapest 1889 (hereafter Szechenyi) I, pp. 233-34,
II, pp. 23-39.

Laszlo Peter

general taxation and the emancipation of the serfs without immediate
compensation to the landlord. For the collapse of the Mettemich system
made it possible to compensate the nobility for its sacrifices by the estab¬
lishment of an independent and responsible government in which the
landed gentry rather than the aristocracy would be the dominant force. 19
Also, when on 3 March 1848 Kossuth read his Address draft in the
Circular Session of the lower chamber, demanding the introduction of
constitutional institutions in all parts of the Monarchy, the Hungarian
leader became for a while the toast of the liberal public in Vienna.

The Court had to give way: the reform package went through and in
the April Laws Hungary, in effect, received a new constitution with a
devolved government, headed by Batthyany, in which Kossuth became
minister of finance. He was now, as the ‘mouthpiece of the govern¬
ment’, the driving force in attaining full institutional separation (save for
the common person of the monarch) from the rest of the empire. 20 As
minister, Kossuth was dealing with matters well outside his remit 21 and
had a stronger power base in the new national assembly than all the rest
of the cabinet together. Kossuth took over when the Austrian govern¬
ment’s demand for the revision of the April Laws and the invasion by
Jelacic, the ban of Croatia, led in September to the disintegration of the
Batthyany government. As president of the committee of national
defence, elected by the national assembly, Kossuth became a parliamen¬
tary dictator. In his hands came together all the branches of the execu¬
tive power; he administered the counties largely through commissars
who replaced the county officials. Above all, he exercised political
control over the national army and influenced military strategy in the
war against the imperial army (although the generals frequently diso¬
beyed him). He reached the peak of his personal authority by forcing
through the national assembly the Independence Declaration that
deposed the Habsburg dynasty on 14 April 1849. As Governor-president
of Hungary, and as such politically unassailable, he appointed the
Szemere cabinet, yet instead of exercising presidential power, he
remained in charge as the head of the government. 22 After the Hungarian

19 See Gyorgy Spira’s analysis in his A magyar forradalom 1848-49-ben, Budapest
1959, pp. 51-54 and 65-68 and especially ‘Kossuth es az utokor’ in Jottanyit se a
negyvennyolcbol!, Budapest 1989, pp. 73-104 (78-88).

20 Laszlo Peter, ‘Old Hats and Closet Revisionists: Reflections on Domokos Kosary’s
Latest Work on the 1848 Hungarian Revolution’, The Slavonic and East European
Review’, 80, 2002, pp. 296-319 (305-09).

21 Gyorgy Spira, ‘Kossuth hagyatekabol’, Szazadok, 128, 1994, p. 889.

22 Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 274-76.

Introduction

army units suffered decisive defeats from the Austrian and Russian
armies Kossuth resigned on 11 August 1849, appointing General Gorgei
commander-in-chief and dictator (knowing that the general would
surrender). He then fled with close associates and many soldiers to the
Ottoman Empire. His party was interned by the Turkish authorities at
Vidin (Bulgaria) and later transferred to Kiitahia (Anatolia). Austria
demanded Kossuth’s extradition but Palmerston, helped by the French,
saved Kossuth and his entourage; the western powers strengthened the
backbone of the Sublime Porte by arranging a naval demonstration
against Austria and Russia. Eventually the US government sent the
frigate ‘Mississippi’ which took Kossuth’s party to Marseilles and then
to England in 1851.

For the rest of his life Kossuth remained an emigre and a world famous
one at that. Already in Vidin he resumed leadership of the nation, styling
himself once more Governor-president and denouncing General Gorgei as a
traitor (a most unfair slur on the character of Hungary’s greatest soldier of
modem times). 23 Kossuth’s aim was to rekindle the revolution in order to
liberate Hungary from Habsburg rule. He sent emissaries there to organize
resistance, used his oratorical brilliance at public meetings in England and
America to persuade governments to intervene on behalf of Hungary, raised
funds to further the cause of Hungarian independence and in 1861 even
printed money in London for the liberation. When France and Sardinia, and
later Pmssia, prepared for war on Austria, Kossuth organized Hungarian
legions for the invasion. That never happened: without Hungary the
Habsburg empire would not have been a great power and its survival was a
vital European interest. Kossuth’s Danubian confederation scheme for
Hungarians, South Slavs and Romanians, as a substitute for the Habsburg
Empire, was nowhere taken seriously. In Hungary it even had the opposite
effect, helping Deak to clinch a constitutional settlement with Emperor Franz
Joseph in 1867 through which Hungary acquired ‘home rule’ of sorts and
unparalleled influence in central Europe. Kossuth, however, in his
‘Cassandra letter’ to Deak denounced the settlement, as a sell-out, raising the
spectre of the ‘death of the nation’. 24 Through extensive correspondence

23 Domokos Kosary, A Gorgey-kerdes tortenete , 2 vols, Budapest 1994, cf. Laszlo
Peter, The “Gorgey Question” Revisited: Reflections on Academician Domokos
Kosary’s Work’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 76, 1998, pp. 85-100.

24 Do not take the nation to a position from which it could no longer be the master
of its fate’, wrote Kossuth, Deak Ferencz beszedei, ed. Mano Konyi, 6 vols,
Budapest, 1898, 5, pp. 7—8. Adherents of Kossuth, and frequently even others,
have read this letter as a prediction that the Habsburg Empire would fall — and
Hungary with it. I cannot find this ‘prophecy’ in the letter.

Laszlo Peter

from Turin, where he finally settled, Kossuth carried out rather effective
agitation against the Dualist system. 25 His reputation was enhanced by the
publication of his memoirs in the 1880s. 26 Franz Joseph repeatedly urged the
Hungarian government to check the spread of the ‘Kossuth cult’ in the
country, to no effect. 27 On his death in 1894 his body was taken back to
Budapest for public burial; this turned into a massive demonstration for the
political ideal the Great Exile had stood for throughout his life.

Even this briefest outline suggests that Kossuth’s career cannot be
measured in terms of success in the strict sense. From a practical
perspective his political path was, not to put too fine a point on it,
strewn with conspicuous failures. It may be argued that even at the
beginning of his career, in Zemplen, he failed as a budding politician
so conspicuously that he was forced to flee to Pressburg. There the
publication of the diet Gazette led to his arrest and three years’ impris¬
onment. Then came the Pesti Hirlap and, in spite of its astounding
success, he lost the editorship of the paper after only four years. The
‘Buy Hungarian’ movement was a flop, the Commercial Society a
disaster. Soon after he became leader of the Opposition he came close
to losing his position. He re-emerged as the dominant force within the
Batthyany government. By insisting (and repeatedly) on a one-sided,
too loose interpretation of the April Laws to wring further concessions
from the Court, Kossuth pushed for the unattainable aim of ‘personal
union’ and this led to an intractable conflict with Vienna. To accept the
imperial army’s challenge in October 1848, at a time that the revolu¬
tionary movement in the rest of Europe was on the wane, bordered on
recklessness. It is difficult to imagine Hungary sliding into military
conflict with the imperial army without the presence of Kossuth in the
saddle. The country was told that the war was about the defence of the
April Laws — rather than about the defence of all that Kossuth and
Batthyany had read into the April Laws. All in all, it could be argued
with a dash of hyperbole, that more than any other person Kossuth was
responsible for securing the April Laws in the spring of 1848 only to
gamble them away a few months later.

25 Gyula Szekfu, ‘Az oreg Kossuth 1867-1894’ in Emlekkonyv Kossuth Lajos
sziiletesenek 150. evfordulojara, 2 vols, Budapest, 1952, 2, pp. 341-433 (esp. 355f,
369f, 396f etc).

26 Kossuth Lajos iratai, 12 vols, Budapest, 1880-1906.

27 Ferenc Eckhart, ‘Ferencz Jozsef es a Kossuth-kultusz’, Magyar Szemle, 1,
Budapest, 1927, pp. 370-78.

Introduction

In April 1849, after the Spring Campaign, when Gorgei’s strategy had
paid off and the Austrian army was practically driven out of the country,
instead of exploring the by then undoubtedly faint chance of a compromise, 28
Kossuth forced through the national assembly the Independence Declaration,
an act based on hopelessly unrealistic calculations. The defeat of the Inde¬
pendence War was unavoidable in 1849, yet the emigre Kossuth sent in
agent after agent to organize new uprisings. His policy of cajoling western
governments to liberate Hungary was a non-starter because no power could
contemplate a Europe without the Habsburg Empire. Kossuth was dined and
wined in the United States by the great and the good but politically his visit
there was yet another flop. 29 We could go on and on listing the failures, all of
which could be properly substantiated, but even without that it is clear that
for Kossuth politics was not the art of the possible.

Yet the vantage point from which Kossuth appears as a failed politician
is flawed. It is not quite accurate and it is even disingenuous: the policy
failures occurred largely on the nationalist side of Kossuth’s programme.
On the social side he should be credited with enduring achievements. He
had the lion’s share of responsibility for putting together the reform
programme for the Opposition in 1847 and pushing through the diet in the
following year basic liberal reforms such as the liberation of the serfs, the
principle of general taxation, the dismantling of the system of privileges
and the introduction of representative and responsible government. The
liberal reforms were combined with the bogus programme of building a
centralized national state. But the critical point to be made is that the county
gentry could not have been won over to the liberal reforms without
Kossuth’s partly unrealistic, national radicalism. Later, the Danubian
confederation plan might have been a non-starter but it germinated the idea
that Hungarians could not secure their national aspirations without accom¬
modation with the other nations of the Danube region.

Hungary did not lack brilliant men engaged in politics in the 1840s.
They did not, however, have what Kossuth undoubtedly possessed to
secure political leadership. Szechenyi, Deak and Eotvos, all intellectually
Kossuth’s superiors, were more original, more profound thinkers and
revealed much better judgement. Yet they lacked some other qualities and
attitudes that elevation to leadership requires. Had Szechenyi been
endowed with at least some of these, the social transformation of 1848
would have been quite different from how it turned out. A free-wheeling

28 See Domokos Kosary’s argument, Magyarorszdg es a nemzetkdzi politika
1848-1849-ben , Budapest, 1999, pp. 66-70.

29 Deak, Lawful Revolution , pp. 342-45.

Laszlo Peter

intellectual who single-handedly fired public opinion for reform,
Szechenyi did not know how to use the public opinion he had stirred up.
Perhaps he was too big a man to bring it under his control; perhaps he
never tried, as he was primarily addressing his own class, the aristocracy
(in contrast to Wesselenyi). 30 Also, he lacked presentation skills: his
powers of oratory were meagre and he could, unwittingly, offend his
audience. Apart from close associates he was admired rather than liked
and accepted. 31 Eotvos, in contrast to Szechenyi, had presentation skills.
His speeches were masterful products of a first class brain, yet they were
too high powered for the not so well educated county deputy who unfairly
labelled him a ‘Centralist’ — an enemy of the county system. Eotvos
spoke for a tiny minority within the minority of liberal nationalists.

Leadership should have stayed with Deak. He had become a respected
leader of the reformers in the Lower Chamber by the end of the 1830s, by
which time his authority was recognized on all sides. His speeches had
clarity, were penetrating to the core, and expressed all that most people
would have loved to say, had they had the ability to do so. But in the
1840s he inexplicably withdrew from the rough-and-tumble of daily
affairs. He did not disengage from politics: he retained his authority,
carrying on an extensive correspondence and giving advice to others. He
remained active in his own county Zala and drafted legislation for the
Opposition, including the penal code. 32 But he refused to attend the
1843-^44 diet and because of poor health remained on his estate in Kehida
rather than attending the last diet in 1847. 33

30 Szechenyi was upset in 1833 by seeing Wesselenyi ‘going along’ with the
provincial nobles rather than ‘exert influence’ on them, Kosary, Kossuth, p. 262.

31 Apart from Szechenyi the aristocracy produced only two other politicians, Baron
Miklos Wesselenyi and Count Aurel Dessewffy in the 1830s. By 1848 the former was
in broken health, the latter dead. The rest of the aristocrat politicians of that vintage
were not leadership material. This was pointed out by Zsolt Trocsanyi, Wesselenyi
Miklos, Budapest, 1965, p. 65. Count Lajos Batthyany became leader of the
Opposition in the Upper Chamber in 1843; Eotvos too became prominent in the
1840s.

32 Istvan Deak writes that Deak was ‘lazy, pessimistic and depressive’, Lawful
Revolution, p. 34, (this is largely, though not entirely, unfair).

33 The country was flabbergasted when in 1843 Deak declined to accept the mandate
from Zala because of the breach of peace over his election and also refused to
accept the post from Pest, the leading county, which everybody urged him to
accept. In 1847 Deak was ill (an established fact), see Zoltan Ferenczi, Deak elete,
3 vol, Budapest 1904,1, pp. 366-90 and II, pp. 61-70.

Introduction

The power vacuum was promptly filled by Kossuth, 34 and his elevation
was entirely deserved. As Istvan Deak noted, Kossuth had ‘an unheard of
capacity for hard work’ and, while the other leaders were landlords who
took up politics, Kossuth was a professional politician through and
through. 35 Indeed, he was the very first one in Hungary. Also he had much
better social skills than others to be a leader. But these attitudes and skills
flourished on natural endowments. C. A. Macartney wrote that although

his thought was neither profound nor original, his facility in expressing it in
convincing terms was unique. He was one of the most persuasive men ever to
be bom. He was of notably handsome appearance, with brilliant blue eyes under
a magnificent forehead, a most winning manner and a beautifully modulated
voice. As a speaker he possessed an unfailing readiness and gift of impromptu
and an inexhaustible fluency which seldom failed to carry his audiences with
him, at any rate if they were large. He was no less gifted with his pen, having an
extraordinary gift of enlisting his readers’ sympathy for whatever cause he was
pleading, by emotional appeal rather than intellectual, but no the less strongly
for that. He was a superb player on the heartstrings of the Hungarian people,
because they were also his own. 36

Kossuth’s technical brilliance chimed with the time and place; for oratory
becomes a necessity in times of crisis and especially of war. Skilful

34 See Kosary, Kossuth , pp. 299f.

35 Deak, Kossuth, p. 30. A landless noble, Kossuth earning well as editor of Pesti
Hirlap bought a small property at Tinnye in County Pest which, however, he soon
had to sell: Kosary, Kossuth, pp. 288 and 324.

36 Macartney, Habsburg Mon., p. 249. Istvan Deak captured Kossuth’s oratorical
technique: ‘What struck most observers was the virility and elegance of the man. At
forty-six, his brown hair was now lightly flecked with white; his beard — full and
wavy and thereafter so much in vogue in Hungary — gave him dignity and enhanced
the handsomeness of his face. He was frail, and when he began to speak, he always
acted as though he were about to collapse. Then, as if overcoming with a superhuman
effort his weakness, his exhaustion, and his many illnesses (of which he complained
constantly), his voice rose gradually until it rolled into a rumbling storm. Kossuth was
not only a brilliant speaker — alternately majestic, dignified, fearsome, mellow,
flattering and humble, refined and direct in simplicity — but his voice carried farther
than that of anyone else, an indispensable attribute for someone constantly addressing
crowds.’ Kossuth could enrapture his audience not only in Hungarian and German but
also in English. Deak writes that in America Kossuth was ‘continually asked to make
speeches, and his listeners waxed delirious over the elegance of his manners, his
costume, his beard, his hat and his dignified, faultless, and thoroughly antique
English.’ Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 74 and 343. On the effect of Kossuth’s oratory
on Hungarian peasants see Alice Freifeld, Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal
Hungary, 1848—1914, Baltimore, 2000, esp. pp. 76—78. For contemporary descriptions
see Kosary, Kossuth, pp. 326-28; Palffy, Magyarorszdgi, pp. 78-118.

Laszlo Peter

oratory can change people’s lives; Kossuth’s changed the life of a whole
nation in 1848.

Yet it would be a myopic view to attribute Kossuth’s ascendance to
his voice, his oratory and pen. Equally important was that his phenom¬
enal stamina turned every failure to success. As Kosary points out,
irrespective of the outcome of Kossuth’s enterprises, each made
Hungarian nationalism stronger and more demanding. 37 In Zemplen
Kossuth had a small circle of friends and admirers. As editor of the
gazette he became the leader of some hundred jurati. The prison years
brought him publicity at the diet; the Pesti Hirlap attracted 10,000
subscribers. The Vedegylet might have been a flop but 50,000 people
patronized it. Kossuth maintained an extensive correspondence with
supporters in most parts of the country. In the 1840s he was in fact
building up the cadre system of a political party. 38 Kossuth instinctively
understood the benefits of what is today called networking — and no one
else in Hungary did.

Yet ultimately it is not even primarily the professional competence of
this modem charismatic politician that can satisfactorily explain his rapid
rise and lasting significance in Hungarian politics. Kossuth expressed
with verve and in pure, emotional form the deepest aspirations of a great
number of Hungarians for national liberty, however unrealistic that might
have been. Without Kossuth it would be difficult to imagine how
Hungary could have become simultaneously embroiled in conflict with
Vienna, the Slavs and the Romanians. This was a great disservice to the
cause that Kossuth, the architect of the policy, so faithfully served
throughout his life. Yet the Independence War also provided historical
memory of a struggle that reinforced the identity of Hungarians as a
community and the ideal of national liberty was predicated on a society
based on legal equality. Kossuth set a standard for Hungarian politics, the
social consequences of which outlasted even the Habsburg Monarchy.
That standard was in the nineteenth century more effective in liberating
the serfs and creating Hungarian-speaking middle classes than the alterna¬
tive schemes available. And it would be unimaginable on any other
Hungarian politician’s bicentenary to find ordinary people bursting, with
eyes dimmed with tears, into a song about him.

37 Kosary, Kossuth, p. 325.

38 Kosary’s descriptions shed light on this process, ibid., pp. 190-91, passim, 310-12.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

Aladar Urban

Lajos Kossuth, reached the zenith of his power in 1848-49. He became
minister of finance in the first Hungarian ministry, acted as spokesman
for the government and when the cabinet resigned in September 1848, he
was elected chairman of the National Defence Committee by the National
Assembly. He was now in charge of the government. Then, in April 1849,
he became Governor-president of Hungary after the House of Habsburg
had been deposed.

Kossuth’s proposed Address to the throne, delivered on 3 March,
which was prompted by the February revolution in Paris, was the opening
move in his rise to power in 1848. The draft Address gave shape to the
Opposition’s plans: general taxation (including the nobility) was to be
introduced together with the abolition of serfdom and combined with a
system of compensation to the landlord for the loss of his revenues. In
addition to social reform affecting the vast majority of the population, the
Address extended to political institutions. It demanded representation for
the towns, the creation of proper representative government, the national
reform of the army system, the ‘introduction of financial responsibility’
and, in order to secure all these, the creation of an ‘independent’ national
government. Kossuth also referred to the threatening financial crisis and
the general economic backwardness for which he blamed the system of
imperial bureaucratic government. Yet, he went on resourcefully, the
introduction of modem ‘popular constitutional institutions’ could provide
security against ‘possible adverse events’, could ‘bind together the
Monarchy’s various provinces’ and could offer ‘unfailing support to the
reigning house’. 1 The famous speech was made in the Circular Session
which approved the draft as did the Lower House unanimously (i.e. nem.
con.) the next day. The draft Address was then duly sent to the Upper
House which, however, could not be called together as its president,

1 Kossuth Lajos osszes munkdi , Budapest, 1948, (hereafter KLOM), XI, pp. 619-28.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

Archduke Istvan, the palatine, and his two deputies, the chief justice and
the lord chief treasurer, had been summoned to Vienna precisely in order
to block the proceedings. 2

The outbreak of the revolution in Vienna on 13 March put an end to
these delaying tactics. The palatine rushed back to Pressburg and on 14
March the Upper House passed the Address. On Kossuth’s proposal a
deputation appointed by both Houses submitted the Address to Ferdinand
on the following day. The deputation and, particularly Kossuth, were
received enthusiastically by the Viennese 3 and the court conceded the
demand to appoint Archduke Istvan as the king’s alter ego in his absence
from the country. The Staatskonferenz, however, opposed the demand
that Count Lajos Batthyany should be appointed forthwith as the presi¬
dent of a responsible government. The palatine, bypassing the Staatskon¬
ferenz, then turned to Ferdinand who gave his (verbal) consent to the
demand and Istvan on 17 March asked Batthyany to form a government. 4
Thus Kossuth had much reason to be satisfied. His initiative on 3 March,
together with the revolution in Vienna, lent a decisive impetus to the
reforms and he kept the promise he had made to the jurati, who had
bidden him farewell with a musical torch-light procession before his
departure to Vienna, that he would return from there with Batthyany as
prime minister. 5

Kossuth in the Government

It was taken for granted by both liberals and conservatives that Kossuth
would be in the cabinet. The young radicals in Pest compiled their own
ministerial list of ten, of whom five did indeed become ministers. On their

2 Mihaly Horvath: Huszonot ev Magyarorszag tortenctebol 1823-tol 1848-ig ,
Geneva, 1864, II, pp. 588—600; Arpad Karolyi: Az 1848-diki pozsonyi
torvenycikkek az udvar elott , Budapest, 1936, pp. 3-4.

3 The immediate publication of Kossuth’s Address in German gave a boost to the
demand for political reforms in Austria. See Horvath Huszonot ev, pp. 591-93,
R. John Rath, The Viennese Revolution of 1848 , Austin, 1957, p. 62. For the
English translation of Kossuth’s Address, see Correspondence Relative to the
Affairs of Hungary 1847-49. Presented to Both Houses of Parliament..., London,
1851, pp. 42-44.

4 For the Palatine s letter to Batthyany, see Grof Batthyany Lajos miniszterelnoki,
hadugyi es nemzetori iratai, (hereafter Batthyany iratai) ed., Aladar Urban,
Budapest, 1999, p. 132.

5 For the events of these days: Aladar Urban, Batthyany Lajos miniszterelndkle.se
(hereafter Batthyany), Budapest, 1986, pp. 13-36.

Aladar Urban

list Kossuth appeared as minister for industry and commerce. Kossuth’s
‘Buy Hungarian’ campaign and his Commercial Society — initiatives that
followed his loss of the Pesti Hirlap in 1844 — explains the choice.

Batthyany, however, was in no hurry to put his cabinet together. He
was awaiting the arrival in Pressburg of Ferencz Deak, whom he highly
respected and who had stayed away from the diet. No decision was made
on the formation of the government until 22 March. We have some infor¬
mation from the report to Ambassador Lord Ponsonby by LA. Blackwell,
the agent sent to the diet by the British ambassador in Vienna. According
to Blackwell, Batthyany offered the interior portfolio to Bertalan Szemere
and that of education to Eotvos, but neither was keen to serve in the same
cabinet as Kossuth. According to Blackwell, they explained that he
should once more be editing a newspaper. Blackwell’s comment was that,
if Kossuth wanted to be in the cabinet, Batthyany would have to accept
his conditions. * 6 Blackwell’s informant was probably Szemere and while it
is quite possible that he and Eotvos expressed their reservations to
Batthyany about Kossuth, it is quite improbable that they would have
brought it to Kossuth’s notice.

The leaders of the Opposition met on 22 March (Szechenyi was appar¬
ently not invited) to discuss the distribution of the ministerial posts but no
contemporary account of the meeting survives. On the following day, news
reached Pressburg that the radical youth in Pest had become restless because
of the delay in the formation of the government. Batthyany then, meeting
Szechenyi in the Lower House, offered him the Transport portfolio which
he accepted. 7 There and then Batthyany announced the list of his cabinet
with eight members. He repeated the announcement shortly afterwards in
the Upper House. (The Lower House had approved the night before the bill
on the creation of the responsible ministry 8 which envisaged eight minis¬
ters). Kossuth appeared on Batthyany’s list as minister of finance.

Kossuth was apparently not satisfied with the offer; his statement on the
afternoon of 23 March to the Circular Session reveals as much. Kossuth said
that when County Pest had elected him deputy he had promised not to accept
government office; thus he could not take up the post which had been
assigned to him before receiving ‘his senders’ permission’. 9 Mihaly Horvath,

6 J. A. Blackwell Magyarorszagi kiildetesei 1843-1851, ed. Eva Haraszti-Taylor,
Budapest, 1989, p. 174.

7 Szechenyi, instead of sitting with the magnates, had arranged to be elected to the
Lower House to enable him to fight Kossuth’s ‘inflammatory agitation’.

8 Became Law III of 1848 on 11 th April.

9 KLOM, XI, pp. 690-91.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

the historian, also minister in 1849, wrote that Kossuth wanted the interior
portfolio; however Kossuth denied this in his memoirs in 1881. 10 Yet it
appears that contemporaries’ accounts were not without foundation. When
the palatine submitted to the king the ministerial list * 11 for approval, he noted
that Kossuth could be offered only finance or the interior ‘because a less
important post would satisfy neither him nor the country.’ The future minis¬
ters and others advised the palatine that this should be finance, a post through
which Kossuth would not acquire personal influence. In the interior, by
contrast, his influence would be unrestricted, especially in the forthcoming
parliamentary elections. Kossuth also viewed his position in the same way
and, as the palatine noted, ‘he, together with Szemere, will use all his power
to replace the government, as he has explained to his friends in confi¬
dence.’ 12 The Court accepted the palatine’s arguments and on 7 April the
king approved the list (which was identical with the one Batthyany had
announced on 23 March). 13

Ferdinand sanctioned the April Laws and dissolved the last diet on 11
April. The ministers took the oath and the first cabinet meeting was held the
following day. 14 Kossuth started energetically to organize his ministry to
establish independent Hungarian government finance. Politicians assumed

10 AX/, 11, pp. 269-71.

11 The ministerial list: President: Count Lajos Batthyany, Internal: Bertalan Szemere,
Relations with Austria: Prince Pal Esterhazy, Finance: Lajos Kossuth, Defence:
Colonel Lazar Meszaros, Transport: Count Istvan Szechenyi, Culture and
Education: Baron Jozsef Eotvos, Agriculture and Industry: Gabor Klauzal, Justice:
Ferencz Deak. See Urban, Batthyany iratai, 1, p. 158.

12 ‘Alle seine Gefahrten, aber auch Judex Curiae und Tavemicus, halten dafur, das er bei
den Inneren Angelegenheiten weit mehr Einfluss austiben konnte, als es bei den
“Finanzen” der Fall ist. Auf diesem Posten hat er keinen Einfluss auf Personen; ohne
Controlle der anderen kann er nichts thun, und mit Wien kommt er in keinen
personlichen Verkehr. Dagegen hatte er bei den ‘Inneren Angelegenheiten’ alle
Wahlen, besonders die Landtagswahlen, im ganzen Lande, so zu sagen unumschrankt
zur Disposition ; konnte das Ministerium bis zum nachsten Landtag unhaltbar machen,
und das radicalste zusammenstellen, was bei den “Finanzen” rein unmoglich ist. Fur
die Richtigkeit deiser Ansicht spricht femers der Umstand, dass Kossuth selbst mit
aller Gewalt auf den Tausch des Ministeriums zwischen ihm und Szemere dringt, und
auch die dafur sprechenden Griinde seinen vertrauteren Freunden mitgetheilt haben
soli.’ The palatine to Ferdinand on 30 April, ibid., pp. 229-30.

13 Ibid., p. 261. The king appointed Esterhazy minister of ‘contacts with the other
parts of my joint empire’.

14 For the German translation of the minutes of the cabinet meeting on 12 April see
Die ungarischen Ministerratsprotokolle aus den Jahres 1848-1849 (hereafter
Ministerratsprotokolle ), ed., Erzsebet Fabian-Kiss, Budapest, 1998, pp. 16-18.
Kossuth drafted most of the ministerial orders that implemented the cabinet
decisions. See KLOM , XII, pp. 27—31; Urban, Batthyany iratai , pp. 309-10.

Aladar Urban

that the complexity of the subject would absorb all Kossuth’s energy and that
through finance Kossuth ‘would not come into direct contact with Vienna.’ 15
It is perplexing that politicians in Vienna did not see the implications of
Kossuth’s appointment. Preservation of the unity of imperial finance,
together with army unity, were the main concerns of the Staatskonferenz and
later the Austrian ministry. In striving to attain Hungarian financial inde¬
pendence Kossuth had to reckon with resistance from Vienna, although for a
while he tried to avoid conflict. When the Austrian minister restricted the
export of silver coins and asked his Hungarian colleague to cooperate,
Kossuth immediately complied. 16 The measures introduced served common
interests during the financial crisis which saw the virtual disappearance of
silver coinage. But conflicts soon developed. Kossuth took over a Treasury
which was nearly empty. He therefore almost immediately, on 24 April,
banned the delivery of Treasury revenues (excise, post office, salt) to
Vienna. 17 On 1 May an unsigned official notice appeared in the Pesti Hirlap
concerning negotiations between the ministry of finance and the Commercial
Bank in Pest about the issue of gilt-edged securities, intimating that the
incoming silver money from the selling of the treasury bonds could serve as
the basis for issuing ‘passive treasury bonds in lieu of silver money in their
nominal value.’ 18

On 23 May Kossuth announced that economic stringency made it
necessary to issue gilt-edged securities and appealed to all citizens to
subscribe. The announcement emphasized that the Austrian banknotes in
circulation remained fully convertible. 19 What was implied by this
announcement was that Kossuth hoped that the Austrian National Bank
would be prepared to convert its banknotes to silver money. In fact, from
March onwards conversion operated only by fits and starts. Not surpris¬
ingly, the Pesti Hirlap , the government’s official gazette, published as
early as 25 May, a government order banning the conversion of Austrian
banknotes to silver. 20 By this move, within six weeks of the formation of
the Batthyany ministry, the conflict between the two governments’ fiscal
policy became manifest.

15 Istvan Sinkovics, ‘Kossuth az onallo penziigyek megteremtoje’, in Kossuth
Emlekkonyv, ed., Zoltan I. Toth, (hereafter Kossuth ), Budapest, 1952,1, p. 113.

16 KLOM, XII, pp. 44-45; pp. 221-22; pp. 633-34.

17 Batthyany had already issued an order to this effect on 3 April. See Urban,
Batthyany iratai, p. 234; Kossuth’s order of April 24, KLOM, XII, p. 70.

18 KLOM, XII, pp. 98-99.

19 KLOM, XII, pp. 177-191.

20 KLOM, XII, p. 175.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

The announcement on 23 May on the issue of the gilt-edged bonds also
promised that one- and two-forint Hungarian banknotes would be in
circulation within six weeks (these small denomination notes had not
existed in the Monarchy before). In response, on 7 July, even before the
appearance of the Hungarian banknotes, the Austrian minister declared
that these banknotes were not legal tender in the Austrian Hereditary
Lands, their issue being in conflict with the monopoly of the Austrian
National Bank. For a while Kossuth did not respond to this move as his
banknotes, because of technical hitches, appeared only on 14 August. On
10 August, however, contravening the decision by the ministerial council
to exercise forbearance in the matter, Kossuth banned the acceptance of
the one- and two-forint banknotes issued in great haste in May by the
Austrian National Bank. He also severely restricted the export of silver
coin from Hungary to the Austrian lands. 21 A further sign of deteriorating
relations with Vienna was that the National Assembly, in the course of the
budget debate, approved after some discussion the issue of 61,000,000
forints in notes (that is, banknotes without bullion cover). 22

The issue of the paper money in Hungary and the breach of the
Austrian National Bank monopoly were only further stages in the
conflict between the two governments. In fact the conflict had begun
when the nominated members of the Hungarian cabinet, even before
they were confirmed in their appointment, rejected the Austrian
proposal that Hungary should bear a proportion of the state debt, or
rather a portion of the interest payments. This conflict was followed by
the banning of the export of precious metals to Austria, the separation of
the Hungarian camera (the treasury) and the mines from the imperial
camera, as well as other conflicts in commerce and at the customs
level. 23 It may appear from this list that the Austrian government was on
the defensive and merely tried to preserve as much of the old fiscal
system as it could, sometimes even by rejecting or misinterpreting the
law sanctioned by the king. In fact, however, Vienna did more than
resist. A telling example of this was the demand of the Austrian govern¬
ment to be reimbursed for the 100,000 forints it had transferred in June

21 On the whole process see Sinkovics, Kossuth , pp. 127-51; On Kossuth’s order on
silver coins, see KLOM, XII, pp. 702-03.

22 Kossuth, on the issuing of the paper money: KLOM , XII, pp. 792-99. The text of
the Assembly’s decision in Az 1848/49 evi nepkepviseleti orszaggyules (hereafter
Nepkepviseleti) ed. Janos Beer, Budapest, 1954, p. 201. On the issue of the
banknotes, see Sinkovics, Kossuth, pp. 152-73.

23 On the subordination of Hungarian finance to the imperial authorities, see Erzsebet
F. Kiss, Az 1848-1849-es magyar miniszteriumok, Budapest, 1987, pp. 261-68.

Aladar Urban

to the regiments and Militargrenze units under the command of Jelacic,
the ban of Croatia, who had rejected any contact with the Hungarian
government. 24 This amounted to a provocation as, obviously, the
commander of Croatia could not expect supplies from a government
which it refused to obey. The Austrian gesture proved an overt encour¬
agement to Jelacic, a consequence of which was his attack on Pest.

‘Kossuth Hirlapja’

It was a peculiar feature of the revolution that a member of the govern¬
ment ran his own newspaper which bore his name. Kossuth had a clear
plan: on 17 May he issued a public appeal for subscriptions. In the
announcement he insisted that ‘the vast majority of the nation are monar¬
chists’ and that the paper would cherish this sentiment. Kossuth also
promised that the paper ‘will be an organ of national independence’. But
the most significant, if rather prickly, message was that the attitude of the
paper would be shaped by the development of Austro-Hungarian relations
‘on the basis of sincere friendship, and, if they prefer, mutual rights, inde¬
pendence and interests’. 25

As the paper’s title revealed, Kossuth saw the paper as his personal
organ. Yet on June he wrote, in confidence, to Ferencz Pulszky, secretary
of state in the ministry a latere in Vienna: ‘My Hirlap is about to be
launched. It should assume importance in Hungarian politics.’ He asked
Pulszky to secure the special delivery of foreign newspapers to himself
(Batthyany received them a day before the postal service deliveries).
Kossuth also asked his friend to find two correspondents who would regu¬
larly send newsletters from Vienna, including material on the work of the
Hungarian ministry. 26 As it turned out, those two employees of the
ministry whom Kossuth had actually suggested in the letter became his
correspondents.

24 KLOM, XII, pp. 398-99; pp. 636-38.

25 KLOM , XII, pp. 150-53. The announcement was signed by Kossuth as the owner
of the paper on 17 May. On 14 June an advertisement in the Pesti Hirlap stated that
Kossuth Hirlapja would not be an official, government enterprise, but a ‘wholly
private enterprise’.

26 KLOM , XII, pp. 235-36. In the letter Kossuth also asked Pulszky to secure
information on the working of the Austrian ministry and to find correspondents
from France and Great Britain. Kossuth on the same day wrote to Denes Pazmandy
in Frankfurt asking him to invite Laszlo Szalay, the government envoy, to send
reports from there.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

Kossuth Hirlapja was launched on 1 July, four days before the opening
of the National Assembly. Kossuth produced three unsigned pieces for the
first issue. The ‘Introduction’ was about the tasks of the Assembly and the
position of the government. He announced that for the ministers,
including himself, ‘staying in office was not a question of personal
interest ... I am not fighting for my office.’ He might, he wrote, resign
even before losing the support of the majority. At any rate, ministers did
not want to entertain the public by playing musical chairs. He wanted to
use the first issue of his paper to list the shortcomings (fogyatkozasai) of
his office. His major admission was that he had declined to accept the
offer by the Austrian bank of a 12,500,000 forint interest-free loan in
banknotes, in return for the recognition of its banknote monopoly. This
was not widely known and Kossuth was, in fact, boasting with his confes¬
sion. 27 Another piece in the paper reviewed the Serbian insurrection in the
South. Using his ‘inside knowledge’ of government business, Kossuth
produced the text of the cease-fire concluded on 24 June. His comment
was restrained but it gave the impression that Kossuth was not altogether
pleased with the event. Indeed Peter Csemovics, the royal commissar who
signed the cease-fire from the Hungarian side, was soon replaced by the
government. The third article, suggesting that Kossuth’s paper would be
the best informed on politics, reported that the palatine had returned from
the court in Innsbruck on 29 June and that the king ‘would probably come
to Buda in July,’ and commissioned the palatine to open the National
Assembly. Even more important was the report of the cabinet meeting of
the same day at which measures concerning the ‘Illyrian rebellion’ were
discussed. As the capital was awash with rumours of Kossuth’s resigna¬
tion over the matter, he announced:

We have been authorized to inform the public that the report that Kossuth has
already resigned is not genuine, although his ill health will likely force him out
of office. 28

The articles informed the readers on government policy as well as on
Kossuth’s position in the cabinet and they reached a wider public than
Kossuth’s speeches in the National Assembly.

27 Ibid., pp. 347-50.

28 KLOM, XII, pp. 350-53. Szechenyi noted in his diary: ‘Gehe noch in Ministerrat
bei Batthyany. Aufregung: Kossuth lemondott. — Deak behauptet, er ist perfide’.
Grof Szechenyi Istvan doblingi irodalmi hagyateka, ed. Arpad Karolyi, Budapest,
1922, (hereafter Grof Szechenyi), I, p. 342.

Aladar Urban

In the 2 July issue, in an article on the ‘Illyrian rebellion’ (three weeks
before Radetzky’s victory at Custozza!), Kossuth predicted Radetzky’s
defeat, the loss of Lombardy and the beginning of the end of the Austrian
Monarchy. The dynasty ‘should, with open heart, throw themselves into
the arms of the Hungarians’ because Panslavism will not save it. 29 On 4
July the paper once again published three pieces by Kossuth. On the front
page the article ‘Our relations with Austria’ alluded to a political group in
Vienna which Kossuth characterized as ‘the men of reaction’ who
planned to ‘declare war in the name of the emperor of Austria on the king
of Hungary.’ But such a course would threaten the position of the impe¬
rial house because in both the north and the south two Slav states would
come into being and Vienna would be isolated. The only way out for the
dynasty was for Buda to become the seat of the Austrian House: ‘Our
King should accept this and his throne in Buda will be elevated to the
imperial seat of a great empire.’ 30 Another piece referred vaguely to a
note (which, however, the government had already received but had not
yet made public) 31 that the Austrian government ‘plans to send to the
Hungarian ministry’ a request that it should come to an agreement with
the Croats ‘at any price’, otherwise the Austrian government could not
stay neutral in the matter. But, Kossuth argued,

the Austrian emperor and the Hungarian king are the same person and by virtue
of this unity we are connected through the Pragmatic Sanction which in a word
means: common friend, common enemy.

The rider was, ‘if Austria renounces our alliance, when we really need
allies, we shall have to look elsewhere — and in all probability we shall
find some.’ 32 The third article informed its readers that members of the
National Assembly had met in the lodgings of Kossuth, who had been

29 KLOM, XII, pp. 355-57. Szechenyi noted in his diary: ‘Kossuth 2tes Blatt wie
perfide!’, Karolyi, Grof Szechenyi, I, p. 343. Szechenyi referred to Kossuth’s
journal as his second paper because another (radical) daily was also considered to
follow his line.

30 KLOM, XII, pp. 377-79.

31 The text of the note by the Austrian government (29 June) about the possible
ending of its neutrality in the Hungarian-Croatian conflict is given in Urban,
Batthyany iratai, I, pp. 817-19.

32 KLOM, XII, p. 381. This is an allusion to the planned alliance with Germany which
Laszlo Szalay, the Hungarian envoy at Frankfurt, was to accomplish. See Eszter
Waldapfel, A fuggetlen magyar kiilpolitika 1848-1849, Budapest, 1962, pp. 11—45;
Gabor Erdody, A magyar kormdnyzat europai latokore 1848-ban, Budapest, 1988,
pp. 42^18.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

asked by the Cabinet ‘to be in direct contact with the members.’ Kossuth
informed them that the government wanted to meet all the demands of
Croatia that ‘are not in conflict with the lawful historical connections’
between the two countries. But, in the event that Croatia persisted in
rebellion, the nation had to defend the rights of the Hungarian crown. The
ministry would request from the Assembly an increase of the regular
army strength to 200,000 men of whom 40,000 should be recruited imme¬
diately. With the Croats it would be, ‘Either the olive branch of brotherly
reconciliation or a fight to the death’. 33

The most important article of these days appeared on 5 July, the day on
which the National Assembly opened. Kossuth, exceptionally, signed his
long leader on the tasks of the Assembly. Its first duty, he explained, was
to grant money and provide soldiers for the country’s defence. Many
repeated his dictum:

If we are prepared, we shall not be attacked; if we are not, we shall be. The
peace of the weak depends on grace; the peace of the strong carries its own
security.

The lack of defending forces encouraged Croat defiance and the Serbian
insurrection, and it boosted Viennese attitudes that aimed to bring an end
to Hungarian independence in finance and the army. As the last diet had
not made provisions, the government had been obliged to resort to (volun¬
tary) recruitment. The nation’s representatives ought to recognize the
country’s position and act appropriately; it was not the government alone
which bore the responsibility. He was prepared for a fight in parliament
— not for his office but for the well-being of the country. He did not want
to wage war on anybody; he wanted an honest peace but not the peace of
servitude: ‘Thus I have to cry a hundred times to the nation: prepare for a
life and death struggle with all your might.’ He rounded off with a
warning to the moderate majority of the Assembly: ‘I am with you if this
be your policy; if not, I’ll be against you.’ 34

After this sharp and definitive piece, Kossuth informed his readers day
by day on aspects of government policy and his own attitudes, although
now more coolly. On 6 July he asked whether Hungary could counter the
growing influence of Russia in Wallachia. Yes, if the country had an
embassy at the Sublime Porte. 35 On 7 July, under the odd title ‘Compas¬
sion and Equality’ Kossuth described the hatred towards Hungary in the

33 KLOM, XII, pp. 353-55.

34 Ibid., pp. 360-64.

35 Ibid., pp. 392-95.

Aladar Urban

Viennese press which demanded payments for debts that Hungary had not
incurred and which threatened war: ‘The financial aristocracy in Vienna
wants to restore its power by arousing the hatred of the people.’ In these
troubled times Hungary needed liberty, order, money, soldiers but also
honesty and discipline: ‘The people will rely on the strong and are afraid
to join the weak’. 36 On 9 July, Kossuth wrote sympathetically about the
revolution in Wallachia. Alas, he explained, this sympathy was not recip¬
rocated by the Romanian side. Hungary hoped that peace could be
preserved and that the Romanians would not rise against us. But it was
also Hungary’s task to help them, through diplomacy, and to save them
from possible Russian intervention. 37

On 11 July ‘Our position on the Austrian ministry’ reported the fall of
the Pillersdorf ministry. What was previously only a threat, wrote
Kossuth, namely the end of Austrian neutrality in the Croat conflict, had
in fact now happened. ‘We know from reliable sources’ — wrote
Kossuth, thus disclaiming provenance of the article — ‘that our ministry
responded to this announcement as it was bound to do’. After reviewing
the Austrian note, Kossuth disclosed that the Pillersdorf cabinet had sent
100,000 forints to Jelacic and had demanded reimbursement from the
Hungarian government. But the minister of finance firmly rejected the
claim and would so report to parliament. While the note from the govern¬
ment of Austria was an attack on Hungarian independence, he hoped that
there would be no problems with the Austrian nation. 38 On 12 July
Kossuth explained why General Hrabovszky, Commander of Petervarad
(Petrovaradin), appointed royal commissar by the palatine to introduce
measures to check Jelacic, had been unsuccessful. 39 On 14 July his article
‘The Proclamation of the Slavs’ first meeting to the peoples of Europe’
concerned the Congress in Prague. In reviewing the Proclamation
Kossuth observed that ‘the incessant flirting with the Muscovite power’
would not help achieve liberty for the Slavs. 40 On 15 July, his article
‘Possibilities’ was a curious mixture of realistic calculation and wholly
abstract meanderings. We as a nation, Kossuth argued, do not represent a
threat either to the Austrian Germans or to the Slavs, yet neither could we
support them, because their hatred of us alienated us from them. Now that

36 Ibid., pp. 385-89.

37 Ibid., pp. 401-03.

38 Ibid., pp. 418-24. The text of the Hungarian note in: Ibid., pp. 374-76.

39 Ibid., pp. 395-97. Hrabovszky on 10 July asked to be relieved of his duties as
commissar.

40 Ibid., pp. 442-44. Kossuth indicated that his account was based on an article in the
Prager Zeitung.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

Archduke John had been elected Governor of Germany, the National
Assembly might move from Frankfurt to Vienna. Kossuth hoped that the
‘leading lights’ in Austria would not inspire Germany to embark on a
mission of conquest. Should this happen, however, and should they forget
that the rights of the Hungarian Holy Crown did not belong to Austria
and, thereby, to the German empire, ‘we would have to bear the weight of
a mighty Germany which has until now been our friend.’ This was only a
vague, unlikely possibility as the interest of the Germans was now the
consolidation of unity. But the ‘rampant ambition’ of the reactionary
forces in Austria might make unity illusory. The ministry in Austria might
have fallen but the danger had not yet abated. A Hungary which was
strong morally, materially, legally and in its defence would acquire allies;
the weak would only generate conquerors. 41

Kossuth’s articles in the paper must have created unease among his
colleagues. Jozsef Bajza, the responsible editor, announced in the issue of
15 July that although Lajos Kossuth was the owner of the paper he was
not its editor; he was responsible only for the articles he actually signed:
‘He will use the paper as his organ to address the public whenever he
thinks it necessary’ which was likely to happen even more frequently in
the future. ‘But’, Bajza wrote, ‘only articles that appear under his name
should be attributed to him’. Otherwise he, Bajza, was solely responsible
for the contents of the paper. 42

The article, which appeared on 18 July and which discussed the new
Wessenberg cabinet, was signed by Kossuth. He registered his lack of
confidence in the new cabinet. Archduke John, appointed the emperor’s
alter ego for the Austrian Hereditary Lands, would stay in Frankfurt; the
court was in Innsbruck and thus ‘Vienna is without a head.’ Therefore, he
went on, Ferdinand should come to Buda ‘from where Vienna can be
governed — and neither Vienna nor Buda could be governed from
anywhere else.’ The National Assembly would soon send a deputation to
the Court to invite the king to Buda. Then, unexpectedly, perhaps echoing
Bajza’s announcement, Kossuth strove to explain himself and took respon¬
sibility for his expressed views: ‘I was not bom a diplomat nor a minister
if that requires the concealment of attitudes; I say what I think’. Appar¬
ently, Kossuth went on, the new Austrian prime minister was surprised
that they in Pest were flabbergasted about the Austrian statement ‘ending

41 Ibid., pp. 448-50.

42 Kossuth Hirlapja, 1848, 15 July, p. 163. After this announcement Kossuth
regularly signed his articles ‘Sz. F. ’ when he did not wish them to appear under his
own name.

Aladar Urban

their neutrality’. But shouldn’t words be followed by deeds? Shouldn’t it
give pause that Vienna had sent cash to Jelacic, even though he had been
suspended from office by the monarch? The thrust of the message was,
thus, that the Hungarians were not to be intimidated by Jelacic who would
never be able to take back to Vienna from Pest control of the army and
finance. 43 In another (unsigned) piece Kossuth complained that the
government bonds were not doing well because they were unfamiliar,
although they were more advantageous to keep than banknotes since they
paid interest. 44

On 20 July, at the beginning of the debate over the ‘Reply to the Speech
on the Throne’, there appeared Kossuth’s unsigned article on ‘Our Foreign
Affairs’ which expressed decidedly personal views. ‘We should not deceive
ourselves’, he began. ‘We have foreign affairs but do not possess our own
minister of foreign affairs.’ Prince Paul Esterhazy, according to the law, dealt
with appointments, ennoblements, the granting of titles (reserved to the king)
and he exerted influence ( befoly ) over matters that were common between
Hungary and the other Lands 45 Our envoys abroad did not have diplomatic
status — a position that was ‘still to be achieved by the nation’. The law on
foreign affairs was ‘flawed, vague and badly drafted’ and Hungary would
soon have to work out policies towards its potential enemies and friends. The
present situation could not endure, argued Kossuth. A law should be passed
so that the envoys of the Hungarian foreign minister were attached to His
Majesty’s ambassadors and would ‘exercise influence in all the relations of
common interest’ between Hungary and the other Lands and ‘represent
responsibly the country’s independent ministry’. This was how, Kossuth
explained, Hungary should have an independent minister for foreign affairs
and a diplomatic corps 46 There is no evidence that the plan was ever brought

43 KLOM, XII, pp. 458-61.

44 Ibid., pp. 464-66.

45 Ibid., pp. 599-602. Paragraph 13 of Law III 1848 referred to the minister a latere,
influencing the matters ‘in all the relations of common interest’ with the other
Lands of the Monarchy. The palatine in his submission of the ministerial list to
Ferdinand used ‘Relations with Austria’ (see note 11 above) and the king in the
letter of appointment used ‘contacts with the other parts of my joint empire’ (see
note 13 above). Yet after the appointment Esterhazy was designated in Hungarian,
and also Austrian (!), government papers as minister of foreign affairs.

46 Ibid., XII, pp. 599-602. Kossuth stated in his report to his electorate on 16 April
that the April Laws did not contain all that the nation wanted but they ‘will provide
the basis for future developments’, KLOM , XI, p. 742. It is not quite clear what he
meant by the ‘future’ in April; nor is it clear whether or not he seriously thought in
July that the monarch’s acceptance of a revision of the April Laws could be
secured.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

to the council of ministers, although the surviving (incomplete) minutes
reveal that a decision was made on 26 June that Hungarian consuls should be
attached to the Monarchy’s ambassadors in the Balkans and that Esterhazy
should contact his opposite number in Vienna over the matter. 47 Even though
this initiative was followed up, the negotiations did not get very far. 48

Apart from a vivid account of the defence of Versec (Vrsac) against
Serb insurrectionists, 49 Kossuth’s articles did not appear in his paper for
some days. When news came through that on the instructions of the
Frankfurt parliament, the Austrian army would fly the black-gold and red
imperial colours, Kossuth re-emerged on 30 July with a substantial,
signed piece that partly repeated familiar points on Austro-Hungarian
relations and partly made new ones. Because Hungary was legally inde¬
pendent of Austria, he began, the Hungarian army ‘should have stood on
its national feet in the past, but even more so now, as the Austrian army is
replaced by the German imperial army’. 50 Turning to the thorny question
of whether military assistance should be given to the imperial army
fighting in Italy, (a question which came up in the Address debate),
Kossuth produced the cryptic claim that, as he had made clear in parlia¬
ment, he was prepared to support the declared policy of the government
but ‘beyond that I would not go under any circumstances’ (more of this
later). Kossuth then returned to the idea of establishing ‘separate
Hungarian ambassadors’ abroad by changing the law. Finally, in connec¬
tion with the deputation which was about to leave for Innsbruck to ‘recon¬
firm our loyalty to His Majesty and ask him to come to Buda’, he argued
that the monarch could not rule the country from Innsbruck: ‘Our lord and
king can be sovereign only in Buda’. And as Ferdinand was not expected
to visit the country to prorogue the summer session of parliament,
Kossuth unexpectedly floated an idea: ‘His Majesty should grant us a
junior king in the person of Franz Joseph’. 51 The suggestion was unreal¬
istic and it was not followed up. In making it, Kossuth was perhaps trying
to mitigate the criticism he levelled at the antagonistic policies of the
Austrian government. It was in response to these policies that the
National Assembly declared on 3 August:

47 Fabian-Kiss, Ministerratsprotokolle, pp. 57-58.

48 Urban, Batthyany iratai, pp. 982, 1128.

49 KLOM, XII, pp. 613-15.

50 Ibid., p. 641.

51 Ibid., pp. 640^44. The institution of junior rex was a short-lived experiment in the
13 th century.

Aladar Urban

If the Austrian government were to come into military conflict with Frankfurt,
the centre of German power over the question of unification, it could not count
on Hungary’s support against Frankfurt. 52

This was a last minute amendment to the main motion proposed by the
radical leader Pal Nyary after a long speech made by Kossuth. As the
passage clashed head on with the Pragmatic Sanction, the ministerial
council, disturbed by its implications, discussed on 6 August measures to
limit the damage. His colleagues and the palatine held Kossuth, and
particularly the influence of the Kossuth Hirlapja, responsible for the
blunder.

As on previous occasions, Kossuth offered his resignation which (as
on other previous occasions) was not accepted. Then Kossuth promised
to be ‘more discreet’ in the future. 53 This could have been understood as
a promise not to disclose information which the cabinet wanted to keep
from the public. Or it could have meant that on government policy he
would refrain from expressing his own views. In fact, in the ten articles
published up to the end of the month, he showed more restraint. The
policy line of the journal towards the Austrian government and Jelacic
did not change but there is no trace of the paper veering towards
Kossuth’s more radical views in order to exert influence on government
policy.

Kossuth in the National Assembly

Kossuth Hirlapja played an important role in the formation of public
opinion in July and August but Kossuth’s predominance is even more in
evidence in his role in the parliament convoked on 5 July.

The cabinet asked Kossuth on 8 July to act as rapporteur in respect of
its proposal on recruits and subsidies. 54 Three days later, an apparently
sick Kossuth climbed the rostrum and first in a faint voice, then with
accelerating velocity, unleashed a magnificent speech of three and a half

52 Denes Pap, A magyar nemzetgyules Pesten 1848-ban, 2 vols., Pest, 1866,1, p. 314;
Karolyi, Grof Szechenyi, I, pp. 365-66; KLI, VIII, pp. 83-84; Karolyi, Batthyany,
I, pp. 364-68; Beer, Nepkepviseleti, pp. 177-78, the Upper House decision on 14
August on the German alliance did not follow the other House’s declaration, see
ibid., p. 686.

53 Karolyi, Batthyany, I, pp. 367-68. Szechenyi’s diary referred to Kossuth’s promise
made at the Ministerial Council on 6 August: ‘Sein Zeitung hat er versprochen mit
Discretion zu Handhaben’. Karolyi, Szechenyi, I, p. 367.

54 Fabian-Kiss, Ministerratsprotokolle, p. 61.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

hours to demand appropriation of 42,000,000 forints for 200,000 recruits.
When he finished, the leader of the radicals, Pal Nyary broke the silence
of the spellbound audience with a cry: ‘We grant it!’ Thereupon the entire
chamber rose and applauded the orator. 55

The most sensitive subject in the Address debate (the first business of
every parliament in Hungary) was the question of ‘Italian aid’. In the
spring Piedmont, in order to assist the insurrection in Lombardy against
Austrian rule, had attacked Austria, which therefore waged a defensive
war and, by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanctions, casus foederis obtained for
Hungary. The government was put on the spot because public sympathy
for Italian liberty was strong. Kossuth forcefully argued in the cabinet on
5 July that the Speech from the Throne, to be delivered by the palatine,
should contain only the statement that ‘the war in Lombardy-Venetia
could not yet be concluded’. The cabinet, after heated arguments, set very
stiff conditions for assisting the Monarchy’s Italian army. 56

This was the background to the debate on the Address draft in the
House on 20 July. Kossuth was the dominant player in the issue of Italian
aid (which eventually sealed the fate of the April Laws). His formula
came in the Speech from the Throne: he set the conditions of Italian aid,
drew up himself the minutes of the Ministerial Council meeting, and
presented in the House the decision of the cabinet (also his own draft).
Before getting down to the issue of ‘Italian aid’ Kossuth reviewed recent
developments in the Croatian conflict. Then he warned the House: it
could either follow principles or take into account the political circum-

55 English translation in General Klapka, Memoirs of the War of Independence in
Hungary , London, 1850, II, pp. 246-73; and see Mihaly Horvath, Magyarorszag
fuggetlensegi harczanak tortenete 1848 es 1849-ben, ed., Miklos Puky, Geneva,
1865, I, pp. 311-316; Gyorgy Szabad, Kossuth irdnyadasa, Budapest, 2002,
pp. 136-40.

56 The decision on the Italian aid: ‘Indem das ungarische Ministerium aber fur den
Fall der sicheren Wiederherstellung der Ordnung und des Friedens im Lande und
der Garantie der selbstandigen materiellen und moralischen Unversehrtheit des
Landes den Schutz des Monarchen gegen auBere Angriffe im Sinne der
Pragamatischen Sanktion verspricht, wunscht es klar festzuhalten, dab es dagegen,
daB dieses Versprechen als seine Absicht erklart wird, an der Unterdriickung der
italienischen Nation in Lombardo-Venetian teilzunehmen, klar protestiert und in
dieser Angelegenheit nur dazu im obigen Falle Hilfe zu bieten bereit ist, daB mit
der lombardisch-venezianischen Nation der AbschluB eines Friedens und einer
Vereinbarung erreicht wird, die einerseits der Wiirde des Konigs und andererseits
den Rechten, der Freiheit und den angemessenen Wiinschen der italienischen
Nation entsprechen.’, Fabian-Kiss, Ministerratsprotokolle, p. 60; KLOM, XII,
pp. 382-84; Urban, Batthyany iratai, pp. 873-77.

Aladar Urban

stances. As he explained, ‘Politics is the science of exigencies’. If
Hungary disregarded everything else and only wanted to support the
Italian revolt then it would have to support the Croat revolt as well. This
was the conclusion that followed from the politics of principle. Personally
he had great sympathy for the Italian nation but this was his own ‘private
feeling’. As a minister he wanted to report the policy of the government.
Then he read out the government’s decision (his own draft). One of the
conditions of giving aid to the Austrian ministry was that it could be done
only after the Serbian revolt had been put down and the threat from
Croatia had ceased. Another condition was that Hungarian recruits could
not be used to suppress the Italian nation. After making more sympathetic
noises about the Italians, Kossuth diluted the cabinet decision even
further. It was not the sending of soldiers to Italy that was important but
rather the ‘moral pressure’ put on the Austrian government to make a
peace which ‘satisfies the wishes of the Italian nation and the dignity of
the throne’. The radicals in the House, knowing that Kossuth’s policy
differed from that of the rest of the cabinet, demanded a written statement
on government policy.

Kossuth accepted the request and the following day he read out the
formula with the following preface: T should report that what I said
yesterday was my personal view and what I am reading out today has
been agreed by the whole cabinet.’ 57 The text he submitted followed the
minutes of the ministerial council of 5 July. Yet in one respect a new
condition crept in: should it be impossible to establish peace ‘with free
constitutional institutions’, the territories ‘beyond a strategic line’ might
secede from the Monarchy. 58 After further adverse comments on the
government’s policy by the radicals, the House accepted on 22 July the
submitted text on ‘Italian aid’ (233 for, 36 against). Contemporaries all
believed that it was only because of Kossuth’s forceful interventions that
the cabinet set such stiff conditions for ‘Italian aid’. Minister president
Batthyany was indignant with Kossuth especially for presenting first the

57 Pap, Nemzetgyules, I, p. 180.

58 For July 20 KLOM, XII, pp. 588-99; for July 21 pp. 602-12; Pap, Nemzetgyules, I,
pp. 133-219; Karolyi, Batthyany , I, pp. 353-63. Istvan Deak writes: ‘Batthyany
was furious and again threatened to resign, a gesture which Kossuth did not
consider advantageous at that time. So on July 21 he recanted publicly, reverting to
the government’s original motion, which of course had been his very own. Over the
furious opposition of the radicals, and amidst great confusion — for in the torrent
of his words, no one quite knew what Kossuth really wanted — the House passed
the government’s initial motion, 233 to 36.’ Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution,
New York, 1979, p. 146.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

government policy line and then dissociating himself from it. That was
why the council of ministers, held on 20 July after the meeting of the
House, obliged Kossuth to come clean. 59 On the other hand, the cabinet
met Kossuth’s new condition that if no agreement was reached, the
Monarchy should be prepared to give up some Italian territories. The story
of the ‘Italian aid’ amply illustrates on Kossuth’s ability to use the
National Assembly, notwithstanding the government’s solid moderate
majority, to push through, with the help of the radicals, his own agenda. 60

Kossuth’s stamina was legendary. His ministerial papers reveal the
wide ranging measures he introduced in finance and defence. In addition,
he carried on with extensive journalism, a part of which we have seen. He
was also on his feet in parliament every day. He presented the budget; on
26 July he submitted a bill on the use of crown property for settlers; on 24
August the bill on the issuing of paper currency. Instead of listing his
contributions, a single example will show Kossuth’s tactical skills in
parliament.

Lazar Meszaros, the minister of defence presented his bill on the crea¬
tion of the Hungarian army on 21 July. After it went through various
committees, which came up with a large number of amendments, the
central committee of the House drafted an alternative bill which was
distributed on 31 July. The debate was, however, postponed by the
government, until 6 August, when the Austrian regiments were scheduled
to adopt the German imperial colours. It was thought that this would
change the position of the Austrian army and attitudes in Vienna which
would in turn affect attitudes in Pest. But the government did not want to
admit that this was the reason for postponement and dispatched the
minister of defence to inspect the camps in the south, set up to fight
the Serbian insurrectionists. The debate could commence only after the
minister’s return to Pest. 61 The minister’s bill used the regular army
system for expansion. The regiments stationed in Hungary were to be
complemented by new recruits. By contrast in the bill of the central
committee, of the planned 40,000 recruits only 12,000 would have been
recruited to complement the army regiments in esse. The rest (i.e. the

59 Horvath, Fiiggetlensegi hare, I, pp. 324-25; Karolyi, Batthyany, I, pp. 360-63.

60 Mihaly Horvath wrote: ‘It clearly emerged from tense debates over the Address
that, although his policies were intransigent, Kossuth because of his oratorical
powers was able to bend as he pleased the views of the majority of the House. For
this reason whenever he was at loggerheads with his colleagues in the cabinet he
could count on the support of the majority (in parliament). In this way his views
tended to prevail even in the cabinet,’ Horvath, Fiiggetlensegi hare, I, p. 326.

61 Urban, Batthyany, pp. 536-48.

Aladar Urban

majority) were to form new battalions ‘whose language of service and
command, flag, dress and insignia would be Hungarian.’ Even this
proposal, backed by the majority of the House, did not satisfy the radicals.
They hoped that Kossuth, instead of supporting the central committee’s
compromise, would follow up his own article of 30 July, and insist on the
creation of an entirely magyar labra allltott (Hungarian in character)
army. After all, Kossuth had published these views in his paper in the full
knowledge of the ministerial and the central committee’s bills.

After the debate began on the bill in the House on 16 August, it irri¬
tated the radicals that Kossuth did not speak for three days. When at last
he broke his silence on 19 August, he began with the principle that Law
III of 1848 restored Hungary’s independent government, and that army
organization should, therefore, reflect the country’s position. There were
two ways to achieve this. Either the regular army should be reorganized
magyar labra (i.e. a la hongroise) and then enlarged by new recruits; or a
new army, organized magyar labra, should be created which, not having
been instructed in the old ways, would not need to be transformed later.
There was no difference of principle, Kossuth went on, between the
minister’s and the House’s bill. The new army would not oppose the
dynasty and would not be organized with the purpose of seceding from
Austria. On the contrary — went on Kossuth, launching into loyalist rhet¬
oric — the army would be ‘the most secure mainstay of the House of
Austria ... The Hungarian nation wants independence and even in the
heart of the common monarch, a coordinate and not a subordinate posi¬
tion’ (thunderous acclaim in the House).

The outburst of rhetoric was, however, followed by a climbdown.
Instead of setting up new regiments for the new recruits, Kossuth in
essence supported the plan of the Central Committee and sought a
compromise with the ministerial draft of which, he said, he did not
approve (perhaps because, he admitted modestly, he did not know enough
about the subject). In other circumstances, he surmised, they might fight it
out, but not now, as the army was already facing the enemy. The circum¬
stances required a compromise which he was, reluctantly, prepared to
make, hoping that the minister would do the same. Kossuth, speaking for
the government, made parliament accept the Central Committee’s
compromise in army organization. His success was limited. On 22
August, at the end of the debate, the radicals demanded a roll call which
went 226 for and 117 against Kossuth’s proposal. 62

62 KLOM, XII, pp. 755-61.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

Why did Kossuth abandon his radical army plan, jeopardizing his
popularity? One of the reasons could be that the officers of the regular
army, facing the enemy in the south, might have felt that the introduction
of an army organized entirely magyar labra bypassed them and so under¬
mined their morale. This had to be avoided. Also, Kossuth probably
thought that Vienna would not let even the compromise bill become law,
and that this would induce the moderate majority to accept a more radical
plan. In addition, Kossuth could count on the probability of restoring his
popularity with the radicals (who had voted against the bill) as he had
received permission from the minister of defence on 17 August to set up
his own armed unit of volunteers. Organized at short notice and promoted
in Kossuth Hirlapja, for a while the group even bore Kossuth’s name. 63

Kossuth in the September Crisis

Neither the moderate articles in his journal published in August nor the
compromise on the army bill should be taken to suggest that Kossuth had
in any sense moderated his views either on Croat-Hungarian or on
Austro-Hungarian relations. It appears that Batthyany’s unsuccessful visit
to Vienna at the end of July and his fruitless meeting with Jelacic finally
convinced Kossuth that there was no chance of a peaceful outcome in the
two conflicts. He now began to withdraw his support for the government
which he thought was tame, wanting peace at any price. For the time
being it is only in confidential correspondence that we can see the change
in his position. Kossuth wrote to Laszlo Csany, royal commissar at the
river Drava, ‘The ministry will have to change ... Either I resign or it has
to become more energetic.’ Later, he wrote, ‘we have to shake off this
enervating weight pressing on us — and raise ourselves, with full
force.. .and not be despondent about the rightness of our cause’. 64

Charged with an insuperable task by the council of ministers,
Batthyany and Deak travelled to Vienna on 27 August to secure the royal
sanction to the bill on the army recruits and the issuing of paper money.
Neither the two ministers nor the rest of the cabinet expected success.
Still, they had no choice but to try. Kossuth wrote in confidence to Csany

63 Kossuth’s dispositions concerning the unit, KLOM, XII, pp. 733-35; Aladar Urban,
‘Kossuth szabadcsapata 1848. oszen 5 . Hadtortenelmi Kozlemenyek , 1988/4,
pp. 638-65 (German summary).

64 KLOM, XII, pp. 722-24. In the letter Kossuth also gave advice to Csanyi on
military tactics.

Aladar Urban

on 31 August: ‘It is possible that the Croats will, temporarily, even
occupy the capital.’ He made known to Csany that the cabinet had
decided to offer secession to the Croats.

I am willing to team up with the devil — although never with the ‘schwarz-
gelb’ reactionary forces — even if I am tom to pieces. But that will not be my
fate. I shall set the fatherland on its feet once the shilly-shallying ( diploma-
tizalo ) policy comes to an end.

And, in closing: ‘I am very ill, I lie in bed for hours, motionless. But the
danger is hardening my shattered nerves. I do not despair. Hold on just a
little longer. This nation will not perish’. 65

The political conflict came to a head on 31 August when the king sent
to Palatine Istvan the Denkschrift prepared by the Austrian government,
in which it questioned the monarch’s right to devolve the powers of inde¬
pendent finance and defence on Hungary without the consent of the
empire’s other provinces. Kossuth knew of the Denkschrift, which had
not yet been published, when he made a stand in the National Assembly
on 4 September. In a (by his standards) rather short speech an apparently
sick Kossuth pointed out that the Croats rebelled in the name of the
monarch, that royal orders to restrain Jelacic could not be enforced, and
that the government was, he believed, ‘obstructed by the circles
surrounding His Majesty.’ Unless this situation changed ‘the nation will
be obliged to provide temporarily such executive power ... as will derive
the source of its dispositions from the danger to the fatherland rather than
from the law’. This threat was coupled with a proposal: a deputation of a
hundred members should be sent to the king by parliament, asking him to
set a date for his visit to Buda in order to strengthen the monarchy by
giving him support ‘to retain his throne if he wished to retain it.’ 66 Parlia¬
ment agreed.

The deputation travelled to the Schonbrunn on 5 September. Court
protocol delayed the audience with Ferdinand. Only after the deputation
removed from the submission passages that were objected to, did the
audience take place, four days later. The royal reply was platitudinous. 67

65 KLOM, XII, pp. 853-55.

66 Ibid., pp. 881-86. In fact Kossuth put forward several proposals, see Beer,
Nepkepviseleti, pp. 213-15. For the Denkschrift see Sammlung der fur Ungarn
erlassenen Allerhochsten Manifeste und Proclamationen, dann der Kund-
machungen der Oberbefehlshaber der kaiserlichen Armee in Ungarn, Ofen, 1850,
Anhang, pp. 5-19.

67 For the texts of the submission and the royal reply see Beer, Nepkepviseleti,
pp. 216-18; for a summary of events see Urban, Batthyany, pp. 603-52.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

The deputation, accompanied by the equally unsuccessful Batthyany and
Deak, returned to Pest on 10 September. The Batthyany ministry resigned
on the following day. Parliament put Kossuth in charge of government.
Resolute as ever, he immediately and successfully proposed a decision on
the bills of the army recruits and the issuing of money that the monarch
had failed to approve. 68 Palatine Istvan did not accept parliament’s deci¬
sion to entrust Kossuth with the formation of the government and instead
charged Batthyany with this task on 12 September. Kossuth at once
accepted the decision and gave his support to Batthyany. 69 Then the news
arrived in Pest that the Croat regiments had begun to invade Hungary on
the previous day. While Kossuth was still insisting on formalities, the
court did its best to prolong the government crisis: the king failed to
approve the palatine’s nomination of Batthyany and requested to see first
the list of the proposed ministers. The manifest lack of confidence
induced Batthyany to reconsider his position in parliament on 16
September. The whole House, and especially the radicals, however,
insisted (as Vienna wanted only to prolong the uncertainty) that
Batthyany should make the sacrifice and stay, which he agreed to do. 70
Although he was not the first to suggest that Batthyany should stay on,
Kossuth went along with the House; and from about this time on the radi¬
cals regarded the former minister of finance as ‘one of them.’

Jelacic’s army attacked Hungary on 11 September without declaring
war; the intervention seemed to have been timed to coincide with the
government crisis in Pest. Brigadier-General Count Adam Teleki, the
commander of the Hungarian forces at the river Drava, got cold feet on
hearing the news of political turmoil in Pest. Csany, the royal commissar,
reported that Teleki was not prepared to confront the Croats fighting under
the imperial flag, as their commander had sworn the same oath as he had.
Batthyany then asked parliament to commission the palatine, who in earlier
times had also been captain-general of the Land, to take over the leadership
of the retreating army. The palatine obliged. On Kossuth’s initiative parlia¬
ment then appointed three members to form the entourage of his royal
highness. Towards the end of the late night sitting, on Kossuth’s proposal,
the House also resolved to elect a committee to review the defence meas¬
ures taken by the acting premier, who was without ministers, to avoid the
glare of publicity before the whole House. 71 President Denes Pazmandy

68 KLOM, XII, pp. 907-19; for parliament’s measures see pp. 922-24.

69 Ibid., pp. 931-32.

70 KLOM , XII, pp. 968-71, Urban, Batthyany iratai, pp. 1367-73.

71 KLOM, XII, pp. 956-62.

Aladar Urban

proposed that each member nominate six persons. On 21 September the
president announced the outcome: both Kossuth and Pal Nyary, the leading
radical, were elected to the committee of six. This committee met
Batthyany every evening between 22 and 27 September and formed the
nucleus of the Committee of National Defence. On 27 September
Batthyany left Pest for the army camp to meet Count Lamberg. 72

The critical event in what Hungarian historians refer to as the
‘September turning-point’, was the assassination of Lieutenant General
Count Ferencz Lamberg, who had, without ministerial countersignature,
been appointed royal commissar plenipotentiary and commander-in-chief
of all the armed forces in Hungary and the invading Croat army, and
charged with the restoration of peace. On 28 September the news spread
in Pest that Lamberg had secretly arrived in Buda and would have Pest
bombarded. The town was in turmoil because the invading Croat army
was only two days’ march away. Lamberg was already in the news
because parliament on the evening of 27 September had resolved that his
appointment was unlawful and had forbidden all civil and military author¬
ities from cooperating with him. The resolution, initiated by Kossuth, was
printed at night and reached the public in the morning. Lamberg arrived in
Buda without a military escort in a hackney-carriage in civilian clothes to
look for the minister, but Batthyany had already left for the army camp.
Lamberg was recognized by a mob on the pontoon bridge between Pest
and Buda and was viciously murdered. 73

Batthyany had actually left for the camp where he hoped to find
Lamberg in order to countersign his royal appointment. The radicals in
parliament rejected this course; they did not believe that Lamberg would
restrain the advancing Croats and restore order. 74 The leading radical,
Laszlo Madarasz, went down by train to the Great Plain on 24 September
to bring Kossuth back to Pest to lead the attack on Batthyany’s policy.

72 KLOM, XII, pp. 657-62; Aladar Urban, ‘A Honvedelmi Bizottmany
megvalasztasa, 1848. szeptember 16-21,’ Hadtortenelmi Kozlemenyek, 2001/2-3,
pp. 361-85 (English summary).

73 For the sitting on 27 September see KLOM , XIII, pp. 39^43. For the resolution of
the House see Beer, Nepkepviseleti, pp. 254-55. For the murder, Aladar Urban
‘Nepitelet Lamberg felett’, Szdzadok , 1996/5, pp. 1063-1115 (English summary).

74 Hungarian historians regard Lamberg’s appointment as an unconstitutional and
hostile move, see Gyorgy Spira ‘Polgari forradalom (1848-1849)’ in
Magyarorszag tortenete 1848-1890 , ed. Laszlo Katus, Budapest, 1979, pp.
257-58; ‘It was perhaps unconstitutional and counterrevolutionary^...] Why, then,
the appointment of a new supreme commander with authority over both the
Hungarian and Croatian armies, and with the specific task of enforcing immediate
armistice?’ Deak, Lawful Revolution, p. 171.

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

And, indeed, Kossuth initiated and acted as rapporteur for the House’s
resolution against Lamberg. Again, Kossuth proposed on 29 September
that in the absence of the acting prime minister the executive power
should, as a temporary measure, be exercised by the six-member
committee elected earlier to assist Batthyany, which was henceforth
called the Committee of National Defence. The task of the committee,
pending the return of Batthyany, was the organization of defence and the
maintenance of order. 75

On the same day Kossuth returned to the Great Plain to carry on with
recruitment while Batthyany, on hearing of Lamberg’s assassination,
went to Vienna to mitigate the damage at the court. As he was unsuc¬
cessful, he finally resigned on 2 October. The Committee of National
Defence functioned without Kossuth until 7 October. Meanwhile, the
king ordered the dissolution of parliament and appointed Jelacic royal
plenipotentiary and commander-in-chief of all the armed forces. Kossuth
arrived back in Pest on 7 September when the House discussed the royal
manifestos. At Kossuth’s behest, the National Assembly resolved that the
royal manifestos were unlawful, according to the April Laws, parliament
could not be dissolved unless the budget had been passed for the
following year — which it had not been). Next day, the House declared
that ‘as long as the country does not have a lawfully recognized govern¬
ment’ the executive power was to be exercised by the Committee of
National Defence whose chairman, Lajos Kossuth, was elected by general
acclamation. 76 With this move Kossuth reached the peak of his power in
1848. In the following year, after the success of the Spring Campaign and
the Declaration of Independence, he became Governor-president of
Hungary.

***

The question is frequently raised whether Kossuth was a loyal subject of
the Habsburg monarch, impelled to disobedience by the violation of the
April Laws or, alternatively, whether his aim was from the start secession
from the Monarchy in order to attain complete independence, and that this

75 For the resolution of parliament on 28 September see Beer, Nepkepviseleti\ for
Kossuth’s proposal on 29 September see KLOM, XIII, pp. 48-51; Gyorgy Spira, A
pestiek Petofi es Haynau kozott, Budapest, 1998, pp. 334-37; Aladar Urban,
‘Bizottmany a haza vedelmere, a rend es beke fenntartasara’, Szazadok, 136, 2002,
pp. 741-87.

76 For the resolution of the House on 8 October, see Beer, Nepkepviseleti, p. 273.
Kossuth’s speech: KLOM , XIII, pp. 121-26.

Aladar Urban

was disguised by declarations of loyalty. We should distinguish two
periods. From March 1848 Kossuth was working to secure Hungaiy’s
financial independence. In that he could count on the support of the rest of
the cabinet which was loyal to the Habsburg king. Every minister,
including even Szechenyi, agreed that the country could not take on the
obligation to pay annually a 10,000,000 forint share of the state debt. The
government was also united in rejecting Croat separatism, in demanding
an at least formally independent army (which Batthyany secured at the
beginning of May) and also in inviting Ferdinand (who had to flee
Vienna) to stay in Buda. The last aspiration tied in with the plan, which
looked feasible between May and July, that Austria would participate in
German unification. Should Austria become a part of a united Germany,
only Hungary and its associated Lands could ensure the dynasty’s inde¬
pendence. The prospect of German unification explains why the
Batthyany ministry sent envoys to the Frankfurt parliament in May and
took steps to enter into an alliance with Germany.

From the beginning of July Kossuth’s policies diverged radically from
those of the rest of the cabinet. Affected by the note sent on 29 July by the
Austrian ministry that it could not stay neutral in the Hungarian-Croatian
conflict, Kossuth’s anti-Viennese stance became quite apparent in his
journal, launched on 1 July, as well as in his speeches in the National
Assembly. In addition to being a spokesman for the government, Kossuth,
now and again, expounded what were very clearly his own views — as in
the Address debate, for instance. After the arrival of the Denkschrift in
Pest, Kossuth determined to resolve the crisis one way or another, and
carried the assembly with him in the proposal to send a deputation to
Ferdinand with the request that he declare his view on whether or not the
king wanted to retain his throne (on Hungarian terms). Kossuth expected
the Batthyany ministry to fall and, when this happened, he immediately
pushed through the assembly the two bills, as laws, (both vital for the
country’s defence) which Ferdinand had not sanctioned. With that move
Kossuth, enthusiastically supported by the National Assembly, broke
away from the legal order of constitutional monarchy. Following the
death of Lamberg, the Committee of National Defence on 28 September
and, at Kossuth’s initiative, provisionally took over executive power. On
his return from his recruitment drive, Kossuth took over as head of the
committee, now fully empowered as a government. By then it was
obvious that military conflict with Austria was on the cards.

Alone among his former cabinet colleagues, Kossuth was determined
to defend on the battlefield the country’s new constitutional order based
on the April Laws. The key to his radicalized attitudes can be found in his

Lajos Kossuth in the Batthyany Cabinet

speech in the House on 21 August. Why was he a member of the govern¬
ment — he asked — when under the pressure of circumstances its policy
could not be as ‘uniform and energetic’ as he would wish. He himself was
‘not afraid of moving forward.’ 77 This might have meant the hope, which
he expressed in his letter to Laszlo Csany on 14 August, that the ministry
would be ‘reorganized’. 78 Or he might have meant the formation of a new
cabinet in which he would serve. Or it could have meant what actually
happened: that he would be released from the ‘shackles of collective
ministerial responsibility.’ 79 But the rider in his speech on 21 August was
that ‘I shall always be in the front line’. 80 Kossuth’s frequently employed
rhetorical flourishes, especially that he was ‘not afraid of moving ahead’,
paved the way from March 1848 to the Declaration of Independence in
1849.

77 KLOM, XII, p. 772.

78 Ibid., XII, p. 723.

79 Announcement in Kossuth Hirlapja on 14 September, KLOM, XII, p 940

80 Ibid., p. 772.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator 1

Robert Hermann

Returning to the Hungarian capital from his recruitment drive on the
Great Hungarian Plain on 7 October 1848, Kossuth faced a situation that
had changed radically. The causes of the change had both a political and a
military dimension. On the political side there had been two significant
developments. First, on 2 October Prime Minister Count Lajos Batthyany
had finally handed in his resignation and had had it accepted by King
Ferdinand V. Second, the monarch, who had been informed of the death
on 28 September of Lieutenant-General Ferencz Lamberg (his appointee
three days earlier as commander-in-chief of the armed forces in Hungary),
exploited Batthyany’s resignation to dissolve the National Assembly and
to appoint the Ban of Croatia, Josip Jelacic, royal commissar plenipoten¬
tiary and commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces. 2 This
marked the launch of the campaign against the Hungarian revolution. On
4/5 October Field-Marshal Count Theodor Baillet de Latour, minister for
military affairs, bombarded the commanders-in-chief and the
commanders of Hungary’s fortresses, as well as those in command of
forces stationed in the neighbouring provinces of the empire, with orders
to take overt action against the Hungarian government. The appointment
of Jelacic in itself amounted to a provocation and showed that of the
various options mooted by Vienna, it was direct military intervention that
had won the day.

1 For a comprehensive account of Kossuth’s activities in 1848—49, see Istvan Deak,
The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848-1849, New
York, 1979 (hereafter Lawful Revolution). Revised and enlarged edition: Istvan
Deak, Die rechtmassige Revolution. Lajos Kossuth und die Ungarn 1848-1849,
Wien-Koln-Graz, 1989.

2 Correspondence Relative to the Affairs of Hungary 1847-49: presented to Both
Houses of National Assembly by Command of Her Majesty, 15 August 1850.
London, 1851, (hereafter Correspondence), pp. 86-87, George Klapka, Memoirs of
the War of Independence in Hungary, London, 1850. Vol. I. (hereafter Memoirs /-
II) pp. 241-45.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

The other dimension was the sphere of the military. On 29 September
1848, while Kossuth was on his second recruitment drive on the Great
Hungarian Plain, the Transdanubian Hungarian army had clashed with the
forces of Jelacic on the northern shores of Lake Velence, in the Pakozd-
Sukoro area, and had in a defensive action succeeded in containing them.
Jelacic was genuinely taken aback by the spirited resistance of the
Hungarians (after all, it was a case of imperial royal troops firing at impe¬
rial royal troops, with both sides avowedly loyal to the monarch) and
called a halt to the fighting, the two sides agreeing a three-day ceasefire.
Experiencing problems with the provisioning of his troops, Jelacic did not
see out the ceasefire and on 1 October took his men off in the direction of
Gyor. Cautiously, the Hungarian army pursued the Croatian forces, which
were numerically still superior.

Latour wanted troops sent from Vienna to reinforce Jelacic, but one
contingent refused to obey his commands on 6 October, the day a new
revolt broke out in Vienna and claimed Latour himself as a victim. In the
absence of any back-up, Jelacic promptly fled the country. The Transdan¬
ubian Hungarian army defeated one of Jelacic’s flank divisions in two
sweeps, at Tac, county Fejer, on 5 October and at Ozora, county Tolna,
taking 9,000 enemy soldiers prisoner. By mid-October the whole of
Transdanubia was again in Hungarian hands, as were the most important
fortresses of the western part of the country: Komarom, Lipotvar
(Leopoldov) and Eszek (Osijek). News of the royal decree of 3 October,
coinciding with the very moment of Jelacic’s escape, helped ensure that
the majority of imperial officers were willing to continue their support of
the Hungarians. The Viennese revolt could not have come at a better time:
it paralysed for several weeks the nerve centre of the planned military
counter-attack on the revolution. 3

3 For the military manoeuvres, see Aladar Urban, ‘The Hungarian Valmy and
Saratoga: the Battle of Pakozd, the Surrender of Ozora, and their Consequences
in the Fall of 1848’, in Bela K. Kiraly (ed.), East European Society and War in
the Era of Revolution, 1775-1856. War and Society in East Central Europe, Vol.
IV, New York, 1984 (hereafter Era of Revolution), pp. 548-55; Robert Hermann,
‘Military Events in Transdanubia and Northern Hungary: September-November
1848’, (hereafter Military Events in Transdanubia) in Gabor Bona (ed.), The
Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence, 1848-1849. A Military History.
War and Society in East Central Europe , Vol. XXXV, New York, 1999,
(hereafter, Military History), pp. 245-57. For the officers’ crisis of loyalty, see
Istvan Deak, ‘Where Loyalty and Where Rebellion’ in Kiraly, Era of Revolution,
pp. 406-07.

Robert Hermann

Returning to the capital on 7 October, Kossuth made a major speech on
the unlawful nature of the monarch’s manifesto, as a result of which the
Hungarian National Assembly proceeded to declare the manifesto
unlawful. The dissolution of parliament was indeed unlawful, since Law
IV of 1848 made it clear that dissolution was possible only after approval
of the previous year’s balance sheet and the following year’s budget; also,
Law III of 1848 specified that dissolution was conditional upon the coun¬
tersignature of one of the Budapest-based ministers. In fact, the appoint¬
ment of Baron Adam Recsey in the decree of 3 October had been
countersigned in Vienna — and by Recsey himself. 4

News of the Viennese revolt reached Budapest only on the night of 7/8
October. Upon hearing the news, Kossuth tried to ensure that the
Hungarian army pursuing Jelacic urgently give armed assistance to
Vienna, which was surrounded by the forces of Jelacic and the local
forces expelled from it. This was another issue that had to be settled in the
wake of Batthyany’s resignation, which had left the country without an
executive. After Batthyany’s departure the matter had been resolved by
the Orszagos Honvedelmi Bizottmany (OHB, Committee of National
Defence) which immediately took over the powers of the executive and it
seemed sensible for this body to continue to fulfil the role of a provisional
administration.

During the sitting of the House on 7 October Kossuth alluded only in
passing to the necessity of making provision for the exercise of executive
power. The main purpose of that sitting was to declare unlawful the
October 3 royal decree dissolving the National Assembly, since it was
this declaration that provided the legal basis for taking action on the
future of the executive. News of the Viennese revolt of 6 October made it
manifest that no forces would be available to enforce the October 3
decree, so on 8 October Kossuth proposed that the National Assembly
invest the OHB with the powers of the executive by appointing three
OHB members to exercise these powers, leaving the duties of the
remaining members to be defined by this triumvirate. The National
Assembly approved this proposal by acclamation and Kossuth was
elected president of the OHB, proposed by Istvan Zako, member for
county Bacs.

4 KLOM, XIII, pp. 107-19. Selections in German translation in Johann Janotyckh
von Adlerstein Chronologisches Tagebuch der magyarischen Revolution und zwar
bis zur ersten Wiederbesetzung Pesth-Ofens durch die k. k. Truppen , Wien, 1851,
Vol. Ill, pp. 269-72, (hereafter, Chronologisches Tagebuch III). The decree is
printed in Correspondence , pp. 213-16.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

The issue now was: who would form the triumvirate? The speaker,
Denes Pazmandy jr., proposed that the House should let Kossuth select
the membership of the OHB. Kossuth proposed that Pal Nyary should be
in the triumvirate, Nyary proposed Pazmandy, while Laszlo Madarasz
proposed the former minister of the interior Bertalan Szemere, despite
their well-known political differences.

Pazmandy declared that, as speaker, he would not deem it right to unite
both legislative and executive power in his own person (though it should
be said that during Kossuth’s absences he was one of the most active
members of the OHB), and suggested that Nyary and Baron Zsigmond
Perenyi should be members of the triumvirate. Nyary proposed that the
OHB retain its existing structure and that all that was necessary was to
elect Kossuth its president. Pazmandy reiterated his previous proposal,
which was less specific than Kossuth’s but increased the legal powers of
the office of OHB president to almost the same extent. It was now up to
Kossuth to allocate the various ministerial responsibilities among the
members of the OHB. He appreciated that Nyary, whose name had been
mentioned as a possible member, was not keen on the idea of a triumvi¬
rate and that the National Assembly might have difficulty choosing
between the names put forward. Kossuth therefore accepted the frame¬
work proposed by Pazmandy and was thus elected president of a govern¬
ment in which responsibilities were not allocated to individual ministers.
He was now leader of the country. 5

This possibility had first arisen on 11/12 September but at that time
there was no lawful way for Kossuth to become prime minister, since he
could not have counted on the approval of the palatine or, especially, of
the king. By 8 October it was no longer possible to operate within the
framework of the April Laws, for the monarch’s decree of 3 October had
made it clear that through the imposition of the military dictatorship of
Jelacic he intended either to return to the situation prior to spring 1848 or
to rule in some other, unconstitutional manner. There were thus three
options available to the Hungarian National Assembly:

1) accept the decree and dissolve itself,

2) opt for revolution, or

3) remain within the law by resisting unlawful acts and continuing to
regard the April Laws as the legal basis for its activities, while at

5 The minutes of the session are given in KLOM, XIII, pp. 121-26. Selections in
German translation in Adlerstein, Chronologisches Tagebuch, III, pp. 273-75.

Robert Hermann

the same time not insisting on the letter of the law but adapting it to
the needs of national self-defence.

Kossuth was temperamentally suited to taking the lead if either the
second or the third option were chosen, but his training in civil law as
well as his flexible political nous, which regarded laws as frameworks to
be exploited rather than texts set in stone, meant that his preference was
for the third option. But it remained to be seen whether a politician who
had been unable to be a team player either in opposition or as a member of
the Batthyany government, and who went his own way whenever he
could, would be able to appreciate that he was the head of a new provi¬
sional government — but not its master.

For by this time Kossuth had virtually no-one to challenge him. After 2
October 1848 there was no politician anywhere in Hungary who had any
hope of opposing him, whether in opting for a third solution or a solution
of any other kind. Szechenyi had completed his first month in the asylum
at Dobling, Jozsef Eotvos had left the country at the end of September,
and Batthyany had resigned from the National Assembly. Ferencz Deak
was troubled by so many doubts about Hungary’s hopes of successful
resistance that he would not have adopted a half-revolutionary, half-
lawful, self-defence policy even if his temperament had made this
possible. Gabor Klauzal had also withdrawn from public life. Of the
possible members of the OHB Bertalan Szemere could not muster enough
support either within or without the National Assembly to mount a chal¬
lenge to Kossuth. Laszlo Madarasz had the support of only a small group
of radicals in the National Assembly. The centre in the National
Assembly had not yet forgiven Pal Nyary for his role in the Batthyany
government. The others — Imre Sembery, Jozsef Patay, Janos Palffy,
Baron Zsigmond Perenyi, Baron Miklos Josika, and Denes Pazmandy sr.
— were fairly colourless figures in public life who would not have dreamt
of mounting a challenge to Kossuth. The former minister of defence,
Lazar Meszaros, was a newcomer to politics.

The new government insisted on the fiction of legality: for example, in
appointing officers and generals it expressed ‘the hope that His Majesty
will subsequently approve’ the disposition. This made it possible to fill
the many vacancies that had arisen through the reorganization of the army
and at the same time signalled the readiness of the Hungarians to reach a
compromise with officers unable to decide whether to act on their oath to
the monarch or on the one they had taken to the Hungarian constitution.

Hearing of a possible offer of French and British mediation, Kossuth
encamped on 18 October and at the end of his third recruitment drive

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

reached the camp at the Leitha with some 10,000 men, mainly militia
and honved battalions. The main Hungarian army halted at the Leitha
and was slow, for both military and political reasons, to come to the aid
of the imperial capital, now in turmoil. Twice it crossed the Leitha,
returning to its right bank both times. The imperial forces encamped
under the city walls were already superior in numbers even before the
arrival of general Windisch-Gratz’s main army, and Kossuth needed all
his powers of oratory to persuade the army command to cross the Leitha
for a third time. In advance of this he sent a peace delegation to Wind-
isch-Gratz. The latter rejected talks and on 30 October resoundingly
rebuffed the Hungarian attack at Schwechat. The only positive outcome
of the defeat was that Kossuth was at last able to appoint as commander
of the Upper Danube army Artur Gorgei, whom he had had in mind for
the post for some time. 6 Kossuth remained in camp for some ten days
after the defeat at Schwechat and, despite having placed Gorgei in
command, continued himself to deal personally with matters at the
highest level. That relations between them were good or at least cordial
at this time is shown by the letter Gorgei wrote to the OHB not long
after Kossuth’s departure, in which (though not mentioning Kossuth by
name) he clearly suggests that it would be desirable to grant Kossuth
dictatorial powers. 7

On his return to Pest Kossuth had daily to take decisions on dozens of
matters relating to the deployment and replacement of troops, for the mili¬
tary developments in other theatres of war were by no means favourable.
The Serbian uprising in September had not been stemmed, and Arad and
Temesvar (Timisoara), the two most significant fortress towns in the
Banat, were refusing to bow to the Hungarian authorities. Here, however,
the locally-stationed Hungarian forces soon proved a match: by the end of
the year the Serbian rebels were substantially contained and Arad, too,
was under siege, albeit not in a vice-like grip. Towards the end of
September Transylvania witnessed a Romanian uprising which initially
had the support of the two Romanian border guard divisions and later of
Baron Antal Puchner, the imperial commander-in-chief. By the end of
November the Hungarian troops had been forced back to the north-

6 For the manoeuvres, see Arthur Gorgei, My Life and Acts in Hungary in the Years
1848 and 1849, New York, 1852, pp. 56-78, (hereafter Gorgei, My Life and Acts);
Wolfgang Hausler, Das Gefecht bei Schwechat am 30 Oktober 1848,
Militarhistorische Schriftenreihe, Heft 34, Wien, 1977; Hermann Military Events
in Transdanubia, pp. 262-66.

7 Extracts from Gorgei’s letter in Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 88-89.

Robert Hermann

western borders of Transylvania. The situation changed in mid-December
when command of the north Transylvanian troops passed to the Polish
general Jozef Bern. Bern launched an attack and by Christmas his troops
were in Kolozsvar (Cluj), while the New Year saw the whole of northern
Transylvania in Hungarian hands.

Kossuth and the OHB continued to deploy the military organization
originally formulated by Batthyany. They dispatched commissars to the
local authorities to deal with recruitment and supplies, putting the
economy at the service of the military. The OHB operated as a collegiate
government: responsibilities were not permanently assigned to individ¬
uals. Though the OHB had been substantially enlarged since it was first
established, the majority of its members did not play an active role in it.
The most frequent signature on its documents is that of Kossuth, while
those of Pal Nyary, Bertalan Szemere, Miklos Josika, and Laszlo
Madarasz are also relatively common; but those of Imre Sembery, Zsig-
mond Perenyi, or Mihaly Esterhazy are much less frequently found. 8

Though the work of the OHB proceeded smoothly on the whole,
certain administrative problems surfaced particularly when Kossuth was
away. For example, reports from the southern territories and from Tran¬
sylvania had immediately to be acted upon and no-one could say
whether the instructions issued were likely to tally with the views of
Kossuth, then encamped by the Leitha. A reorganization of the OHB
was also indicated after Schwechat, when it became clear that in the
short term a peaceful solution — that is, the formation of a government
having the approval of the king — was unlikely to be secured. The most
obvious change needed was the allocation of the various portfolios
among members of the OHB and perhaps others who joined the govern¬
ment. A more technical matter was that some members of the OHB
were, because of the collegial nature of the government, regularly absent
from the National Assembly.

Talks on the transformation of the OHB into a government proper, by
the allocation of portfolios, began on 19 November. Kossuth was ill at
this time and therefore communicated with Szemere, the de facto no. 2, in
writing. On the very first day, Szemere pointed to the dearth of suitable

8 The OHB papers are in the Hungarian National Archives, H2. (Magyar Orszagos
Leveltar. Miniszterelnokseg, Orszagos Honvedelmi Bizottmany es
Kormanyzoelnokseg iratai.) Most of the printed materials relating to the
September-December 1848 period are printed in KLOM, XIII. Substantial
documentation in German may be found in Johann Janotyckh von Adlerstein,
Archiv des ungarischen Ministeriums des Inneren und des Landesvertheidigungs-
Ausschusses, Altenburg, 1851, Vol. Ill (hereafter Archiv).

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

candidates and noted the importance of ensuring that all recognized reli¬
gions be represented proportionately, and that aristocrats should be repre¬
sented as well as Transylvanians. In his view the most important issue to
be addressed was ‘whether negotations with the dynasty were in prospect,
or completely out of the question’. The issue, he continued, of the alloca¬
tion of the portfolios was a technical matter but one with far-reaching
political consequences. Though he put forward some names himself, he
made no suggestions as to who should have which portfolio. From
Kossuth’s brief reply it is clear that he wished to retain for himself over¬
sight of finance and army affairs, and indeed of ‘general policy’. He
planned to offer to Nyary the portfolio of army procurement, to Szemere
that of justice, to Madarasz internal affairs, to Perenyi trade, to Laszlo
Teleki foreign affairs and to government commissar Sebo Vukovics the
transport portfolio. For minister of cultural affairs he had two nominees,
Bishop Mihaly Horvath of Csanad and Foispan Karoly Szent-Ivanyi. He
thought four regional captains of the national guard deserving of govern¬
ment office: Count Kazmer Batthyany, a foispan and government
commissar, Foispan Gedeon Raday, Odon Beothy, also a foispan and
government commissar, and Count Gyorgy Karolyi.

To Szemere it seemed that since there was ‘never any difference of
opinion’ between Kossuth and Madarasz, Kossuth’s proposals amounted to a
de facto concentration of all power in his hands. Szemere therefore proposed
that the ministry of finance be offered to Pulszky, and the ministry of internal
affairs to Nyary rather than to Madarasz. He also drew attention to
Pazmandy. Kossuth replied that Nyary would not accept internal affairs, and
Pazmandy would not accept either post. In his revised proposal he wanted to
keep Lazar Meszaros at defence, Perenyi (rather than Teleki) at external
affairs, Beothy (rather than Vukovics) at transport, Pulszky at trade, and, at
cultural affairs, Domokos Teleki alongside Mihaly Horvath.

Szemere contacted Nyary about internal affairs, adding in his note to
Kossuth that if in the new government he ‘let someone else have (sc. that
post) ... I would be underwriting my own incompetence.’ (NB Szemere
had been the minister for internal affairs in the Batthyany government.)
He was prepared to do this for Nyary or Pazmandy, but not for Madarasz.
In other respects he agreed with Kossuth’s proposal and would have
allowed the police affairs portfolio to go to Madarasz, who could not,
however, be allowed to have either internal affairs or justice. Kossuth
insisted on Madarasz for internal affairs and, to divert attention from this,
proposed new names for the transport and defence portfolios. Szemere
responded by proposing new permutations involving (with the exception
of Gabor Lonyay) names that had already been put forward in Kossuth’s

Robert Hermann

various proposals. By 26 November Kossuth had a new proposal. In this
Madarasz figured only as being in charge of police and postal affairs. 9 A
fly in the ointment was Nyary, who refused all offers of a portfolio even
though Szemere begged him to ‘talk to Kossuth. Don’t let your antipathy
— worthy though it may be — get the better of you.’ 10

These discussions ended in a compromise. Kossuth did not form a
government: he allocated portfolios within the OHB, but those in
charge of the portfolios were not — with the exception of Meszaros —
called ‘minister’. Kossuth himself continued as president of the OHB
and in charge of financial affairs and of ‘the political direction of mili¬
tary affairs’. Nyary was in charge of internal affairs (civil administra¬
tion) and military supplies. Szemere was in charge of justice, Pulszky
of trade, Madarasz of police and postal affairs, while Meszaros
remained in overall charge of army affairs, though he kept resigning
from time to time. * 11 Kossuth offered transport to Beothy, who however
even two weeks later had not responded; nor did Beothy accept either
the religion and education portfolio, or the external affairs post. 12 The
reason there were no de facto ministries in the government was
probably that Nyary did not want to be a minister, while Kossuth
wanted a government in which all the ministerial posts were filled by
his appointees.

The new OHB regime lasted only until the end of the month, however.
From 13 December Szemere was national commissar plenipotentiary of
Upper Hungary and from 19 December Beothy held the same post in
Transylvania, while Pulszky left Hungary without notice. From the time
of the move to Debrecen, the ministries were, in practice, once more
headed by the secretaries of state. Only the posts of Kossuth and
Madarasz proved to be enduring. In this system of government, partly
because of the others’ passivity, leadership was exercised by Kossuth
alone, with only a limited amount of influence from others.

The enforced resignation on 2 December 1848 of Ferdinand V had
important implications for the legal basis of a war such as this, waged by
Hungary in self-defence. As it was Ferdinand who had sanctioned the
April Laws, it was the existence of his person on the throne that had
prevented open aggression against Hungary. On 2 December his place on

9 This exchange of correspondence is in KLOM, XIII, pp. 503-11. See also Deak,

Lawful Revolution , pp. 204-05.

10 KLOM, XIII, pp. 510-11.

11 Ibid., pp. 572-73.

12 Ibid., pp. 593-94.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

the throne was taken by Franz Joseph I. At Kossuth’s instigation, the
Hungarian National Assembly argued, with incontrovertible logic, that it
did not recognize the change of ruler: the Hungarian throne could be
occupied only by a ruler chosen by the Hungarian parliament and one,
moreover, who had taken an oath upon the laws of Hungary. 13

The imperial forces launched their attack in the first half of December.
Lieutenant-General Schlik invaded Upper Hungary and inflicted a
number of defeats on hastily-assembled Hungarian troops, and advanced
to the Tisza. In mid-December the main forces under Windisch-Gratz
swept away the Upper Danube forces of Artur Gorgei. On 30 December at
Kossuth’s request Major-General Mor Perczel’s troops fought a battle at
Mor and suffered a serious defeat. 14

Following this defeat, at its session on 31 December 1848 Kossuth
proposed, and the OHB accepted, that the National Assembly remove
to Debrecen. This session also saw the famous duel between Kossuth
and the former prime minister, Lajos Batthyany. The latter had
returned to Pest earlier in the month with the aim of trying to counter¬
balance the influence of Kossuth. He played no role in the proceedings,
however, until the sessions on 30/31 December, when he failed in his
efforts to keep the National Assembly in Budapest while allowing only
the OHB to move its base to Debrecen. He proposed that a peace
mission be sent to Windischgratz, but the prince’s reply ‘Unbedingte
Unterwerfung’ (unconditional surrender) hardly augured well, nor did
the fact that one member of the delegation, Batthyany, was detained
after the imperial royal forces entered the capital. Batthyany was thus
unable to follow the National Assembly to Debrecen. Though Ferencz
Deak was also a member of the mission, he was not detained, but he
would have been allowed to continue to Debrecen only on condition he
tried to persuade Kossuth and his circle to surrender. This Deak was
not prepared to do. 15

13 Adlerstein, Archiv , III, pp. 451-54.

14 For the military manoeuvres, see Gabor Bona, ‘Winter Campaign’, in Bona,
Military History , pp. 288-94.

15 Aladar Urban, ‘Batthyany Lajos a nepkepviseleti orszaggyulesen 1848.
decembereben’, Szazadok , 1991, pp. 217-24. Minutes of the session are in KLOM,
XIII, pp. 940-52. See also Daniel Iranyi-Charles-Louis Chassin, Histoire politique
de la revolution de Hongrie 1847—1849 , II, Paris, 1860 (hereafter Iranyi-Chassin
Revolution II), pp. 203-205; Bela K. Kiraly, Ferenc Deak , Boston, 1972,
pp. 136-37; Deak, Lawful Revolution pp. 213-14.

Robert Hermann

Even before the fall of the capital Kossuth had declared that ‘as long as
we have an army, we have a homeland’. 16 Though genuinely unhappy
about the loss of the capital, Kossuth did not despair over it. His main aim
was to raise as large an army as possible, and as soon as possible, beyond
the river Tisza and with a vigorous counter-attack restore the independ¬
ence of the country, won in April of the previous year. Nor did he harbour
any illusions about the peace mission to Windischgratz. When the delega¬
tion’s report was received he argued in the closed sitting of the National
Assembly on 12 January and the open session of 13 January that it
appeared to be the case that the other side intended to bring the war to an
end by totally subjugating Hungary, and this offered little scope for
further negotiation. Kossuth could imagine, as a possibility, that if the war
should end in victory, Hungary could even constitutionally move beyond
the achievements of April 1848. 17 This did not go unnoticed by the
nascent but as yet still leaderless opposition within the National
Assembly, the so-called ‘peace party’. However, in another debate, on 12
February 1849, Kossuth was still declaring that in his government’s view
no avenue should be left unexplored in the search for a peaceful conclu¬
sion to the war. 18

Following the attack and seizure of the capital, significant changes
were made in the OHB. From mid-December Szemere became national
commissar plenipotentiary of Upper Hungary. After the fall of the capital
Sembery made no further appearances in Debrecen, while the speaker,
Denes Pazmandy jr., who had played such an active role in the OHB in
October 1848, remained in Kecskemet and subsequently returned to Pest.
Nor did Denes Pazmandy sr. resume his seat in the upper house. Ferencz
Pulszky, who had been co-opted on to the OHB in November rather than
being elected by the National Assembly, went abroad for reasons that

16 Kossuth’s letters to Gorgei, 29 and 30 December 1848, in KLOM, XIII,
pp. 916-17, 923-24.

17 For the closed session of 12 January, see Pal Hunfalvy, Naplo 1848-1849 , ed.
Aladar Urban, Budapest, 1986 (hereafter, Naplo), pp. 149-52; Gusztav Beksics,
Kemeny Zsigmond. A forradalom s a kiegyezes, Budapest, 1883 (hereafter
Kemeny), pp. 68-70. For the open session of 13 January, see KLOM, XIV,
pp. 109-20. Extracts from the minutes of these sessions in Denes Pap, A parlament
Debrecenben 1849, Leipzig, 1870, Vol. I (hereafter Parlament I), pp. 11-34. See
also Iranyi-Chassin, Revolution II, pp. 242^44.

18 KLOM, XIV, pp. 405-409. Extracts from the minutes of the session in Pap,
Parlament I, pp. 118-133. See also Iranyi-Chassin, Revolution II, p. 238; Beksics,
Kemeny, pp. 82-83. See also Domokos Kosary, The Press during the Hungarian
Revolution of 1848-1849, East European Monographs No. CXCVIII, New York,
1986 (hereafter Hungarian Press), pp. 300-02.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

remain unclear. Janos Palffy resigned while still in Debrecen. During
Kossuth’s recruitment forays between February and April 1849, the day-
to-day work of the OHB remained largely in the hands of Pal Nyary and
Miklos Josika. Laszlo Madarasz was at the helm of the National Police
Office, which under his directorate burgeoned into a virtual ministry. In
addition, Count Mihaly Esterhazy was active in securing army equipment
and provisions. Kossuth’s role in the OHB was thus greater than ever
before.

Indeed, this was the reason for his relatively rare appearances in the
National Assembly. Here the left and the ‘peace party’ were about
evenly balanced, so in debate much depended on which side could
secure the support of the centre. The National Assembly proposed
severe penalties for officers who had acted in a cowardly way, for trai¬
tors, and for absenteeism by members, but these were rarely applied
with the full force of the law. In the open sessions between 13 January
and 14 April 1849, Kossuth spoke altogether only seven times. 19 He also
took no part in the debates on the assizes or on the accreditation of
absentee members. His speeches focused chiefly on the military
situation and the political consequences of the war. Though a convinced
National Assembly supporter, Kossuth realized that the fate of the
country would be decided on the battefield rather than in the National
Assembly, and therefore he almost certainly regarded the maintaining of
contact with his army generals in the field more important than
parliamentary speech-making.

Having taken Budapest, Windischgratz thought he had won the war.
The imperial royal forces continued their triumphal march. At the same
time, the Hungarians’ council of war, held before the evacuation of the
capital on 2 January 1849, decided to concentrate on the Hungarian forces
beyond the Tisza. The plan was to surrender the southern territories while
the Upper Tisza battalions as well as Perczel’s troops made a stand along
the Tisza. To ensure the success of this concentrated effort, Gorgei’s
Upper Danube forces had to create a diversion towards the north-west to
relieve besieged Lipotvar and then retreat in the direction of the Upper
Tisza via the mining towns. The plan was successful, not least because it
prevented Windischgratz from taking any action for several weeks after
taking the capital. On 21—22 January Colonel Gyorgy Klapka’s forces
along the River Bodrog stopped the Schlik Corps from the north, while on

19 On 9 and 13 January, 12 February, 1, 9, and 25 March, and 14 April. KLOM, XIV,

pp. 61-67, 109—18, 405—09, 559—62, 718—25, 873—87. He spoke in closed session

at least as frequently.

Robert Hermann

22-25 January Perczel defeated an imperial mounted division at Szolnok
and Cegled. At the beginning of February, Gorgei reached the Eperjes and
Kassa region (Presov and Kosice). Janos Damjanich, commander of a
battalion summoned from the Southern territories, sent a division of rein¬
forcements to Bern from Arad. With this support Bern was able to stop
Puchner’s forces at Piski. From there, with amazing speed, he reached
northern Transylvania and expelled the enemy forces that had retaken it.
Then, sweeping south, with a brilliant manoeuvre behind Puchner’s back,
he captured Nagyszeben (Sibiu) from the Russian troops that had been
supporting the imperial forces since early February. By the end of March
he had, with the exception of the fortress of Gyulafehervar (Alba Iulia)
and the Erzgebirge, cleared virtually the whole of Transylvania of
Austrian and Russian forces. In mid-February the Hungarian troops
summoned from the Southern territories also reached the Cibakhaza-
Szolnok region. 20

Time had now come for the counter-attack, but this was delayed.
Kossuth had at first wanted to make Bern commander-in-chief of the
united army, but Bern refused because of the situation in Transylvania.
On the other hand, Kossuth was disinclined to propose Gorgei because of
his retreat from Transdanubia and his 5 January statement in Vac, which
was intended to reassure his monarchist officers but which could have
been (and indeed was) misunderstood. 21

Thus the Polish general newly arrived from France, Henryk
Dembinski, could not have come at a better time. Kossuth put him in
command of the four Hungarian armies forming the main army.
Dembinski proved to be a disaster, however. From the outset his
actions defied common sense: he allowed Schlik’s already isolated
band to escape and fragmented the forces at his disposal. Thus, when at
the end of February Windischgratz finally awoke from his winter
torpor and, setting off for Debrecen, fought a battle at Kapolna on 26/
27 February, it was against only some 50 per cent of the main
Hungarian army, and this was roundly defeated. As he retreated
Dembinski gave further evidence of his unsuitability as military leader

20 For the military manoeuvres, see Gabor Bona ‘Winter Campaign’ in Bona, Military
History, pp. 294-315, 332-36.

21 Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 128-31; Klapka, Memoirs I, pp. 167-75. See also
Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 233-35; Bona, ‘Winter Campaign’, in Bona, Military
History, pp. 301-03.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

and his unhappy officers, with the active intervention of Bertalan
Szemere, removed him from office. 22

Seeing the mood of the officers, Kossuth approved the decision on 5
March. Szemere and subsequently Kossuth put Gorgei in temporary
charge but, once in Debrecen, Kossuth took the post away from Gorgei
and on $ March made Lieutenant-General Antal Vetter chief of the
Hungarian forces. 23 Kossuth spent the next several weeks in camp and
was thus fhere when the new leader launched an offensive in the
Nagykoros area. This ended in a withdrawal for reasons of faulty
reconnaissance.

After the battle of Kapolna, Windischgratz sent an over-optimistic
report to the imperial court, then residing in Olmiitz. This report misled
the court into thinking that the time had come for a showdown between
absolutism and constitutionality. On 4 March the ruler dismissed the
Reichstag, which was meeting in Kremsier (Kromeriz), and himself
promulgated a constitution for his peoples. This constitution abolished the
distinctions between territories and also split Hungary into several parts.
Though this constitution was never implemeted in Hungary (its introduc¬
tion was first postponed until the end of the war, while at the end of the
war it was postponed sine die), it led to similarly flawed responses from
the other side. 24

News of the events in Olmiitz reached Kossuth in the middle of March.
He felt it imperative to respond as quickly as possible to this assertion by
the imperial court that Hungary’s laws and constitution did not exist. Two
conditions needed to be fulfilled, however, before a riposte could be
made. First, the Hungarian main army needed to strike a blow against the

22 Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 173-230; Geroge Klapka, Der Nationalkrieg in
Ungarn und Siebenburgen in den Jahren 1848 und 1849, Leipzig, 1851, Vol. I
(hereafter Nationalkrieg I), pp. 228-76; Johann Pragay, The Hungarian
Revolution. Outlines of the Prominent Circumstances Attending the Hungarian
Struggle for Freedom Together with Brief Biographical Sketches of the Leading
Statesmen and Generals who Took Part in it, New York and London, 1850
(hereafter Hungarian Revolution), pp. 27-36; Bartholomaus Szemere, Graf
Ludwig Batthydny, Arthur Gorgei, Ludwig Kossuth. Politische Characterskizzen
aus dem ungarischen Freiheitskriege, Hamburg, 1853 (hereafter Characterskizzen,
I—III), Vol. I pp. 42-48; Deak, Lawful Revolution, 238—40, 252-54; Bona, ‘Winter
Campaign’, in Bona, Military History, pp. 315-22. For the imperial report on the
battle of Kapolna, see Correspondence, pp. 149-50.

23 KLOM, XIV, pp. 591-92, 601-03; Klapka, Nationalkrieg, I, pp. 287-92.

24 Correspondence, pp. 152-60. For other decrees concerning this constitution, see
ibid., pp. 160-62. See also Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 249-52; Csorba,
Revolution, pp. 15-16.

Robert Hermann

Austrian forces, otherwise no counterblast could have any impact on
foreign policy vis-a-vis Hungary’s future. The second precondition was
that the reponse had to be in the name of the National Assembly, that is, it
should come from parliament and with its authority.

Returning to Debrecen, Kossuth therefore contacted Daniel Iranyi, one
of the leaders of the left in the National Assembly. They agreed that at the
next session Iranyi would propose that ‘the president of the OHB should
be authorized to remove the National Assembly from Debrecen to another
location’. Kossuth hoped that the soon-to-be-launched counter-attack
would soon liberate the capital and that the counterblast of the Hungarian
National Assembly could then be issued from there. 25

At the same time Kossuth rebuffed offers from the other radical group,
Laszlo Madarasz and his colleagues. The Madarasz group asked the pres¬
ident of the OHB to accept three of their proposals to counter an upsurge
of activity by the peace party. These were: to bring Gorgei before a mili¬
tary tribunal, to suspend the sittings of the National Assembly until the
end of hostilities, and that Kossuth himself assume executive powers as
well as the right to form a government and to reconvene the National
Assembly. The political intent of the proposals was, unambiguously, to
stem the continuing losses of the Madarasz-led radicals by the only means
that seemed possible: giving Kossuth dictatorial powers. 26

In a lengthy speech to the National Assembly on 25 March Kossuth
pointed out to members that on his return from camp he wanted to find the
same National Assembly in Debrecen that he was now addressing. This
took some members aback, while others complained that the representa¬
tive of executive power had dared pass judgment on the legislature from
which his powers derived. When, however, Iranyi put forward their
agreed proposal, representative Zsigmond Ivanka, who was close to the
peace party, demanded a statement from Kossuth on the matter, where¬
upon Kossuth declared himself satisfied with the asssembly’s promise
‘not to allow the House to dwindle to a rump’. 27

Nor did Kossuth consider it important to back Laszlo Madarasz, who
represented his policies in the National Assembly. The peace party, led by
Gabor Kazinczy and Lajos Kovacs, regarded this as a considerable polit¬
ical coup. Skilfully exploiting Kossuth’s absences and his indifference on

25 Iranyi-Chassin, Revolution , II, p. 350

26 Jozsef Madarasz, Emlekirataim 1831-1881, Budapest, 1883, pp. 221-25. See also
Kosary, Hungarian Press, pp. 318-19.

27 KLOM, XIV, pp. 718-26. See also Hunfalvy, Naplo, pp. 231-38; Iranyi-Chassin,
Revolution, II, pp. 348-51; Beksics, Kemeny, pp. 114-19.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

his return, they used a press campaign and a National Assembly inquiry
into the ‘affair of the diamonds’ to bring down the leader of the radicals,
the widely-disliked Laszlo Madarasz. Madarasz had confiscated the assets
of Odon Zichy (who had been executed on Gorgei’s orders on 30
September 1848), some of which — including 19 gold buttons inlaid with
diamonds — were found to be missing when a part of these were melted
down on the orders of the OHB in March 1849. However, they all turned
up once an inventory was made. Since Madarasz had had charge of the
hoard, it was logical to assume that it was he who had removed and subse¬
quently replaced the diamonds. 28

At the end of March came news of the liberation of Transylvania.
The southern campaign of M6r Perczel also met with success, bringing
the Bacska and the Banat under Hungarian rule. The military ball was
now in the Hungarians’ court and when Gorgei replaced Vetter he
exploited this advantage. At the beginning of April the Hungarian army
lined up for an attack in the Eger-Gyongyos region. Though the forces
of Windischgratz were superior in numbers, the Hungarian plan of
campaign devised in Eger allowed for this, and in the first phase of the
campaign the Hungarians came out on top in every encounter. 29
Throughout this first phase of the campaign Kossuth remained with the
troops and sent stirring accounts of the triumphant progress of Gorgei’s
army to his regional commanders and to the OHB. At Godollo, on 7
April, following the victory at Isaszeg the previous day, he told Gorgei
and his generals what he planned to say in response to the Olmiitz
declaration. As he encountered little dissent he was able to return to
Debrecen secure in the knowledge that his officers were behind him on
this issue. 30

Back in Debrecen Kossuth convened a closed session of the National
Assembly for 13 April, where he proposed that Hungary declare itself
independent and remove the Habsburgs from the Hungarian throne.
Contemporary accounts of the outcome of the debate differ widely. It
seems Kossuth did not manage to convince every member of the

28 Robert Hermann, A rendorminiszter es a Zichy-gyemantok , Szekesfehervar, 1994.
See also Deak, Lawful Revolution , pp. 221-22, 258, 282; Kosary, Hungarian
Press , pp. 323-24, 329-30.

29 For the campaign, see Gorgei, My Life and Acts , pp. 247-73; Klapka
Nationalkrieg, I, pp. 303-327; Pragay, Hungarian Revolution , pp. 39^13; Gabor
Bona, ‘The Spring Campaign’, in Bona, Military History , pp. 336-350.

30 Gorgei, My Life and Acts , pp. 274-79. Klapka, Nationalkrieg , p. 327; Deak, Lawful
Revolution , p. 259.

Robert Hermann

desirability of taking these steps. 31 The next day, 14 April, at a session
that resembled more a public meeting than a session of the National
Assembly, Kossuth put forward his proposal that Hungary declare itself
independent and that the House of Habsburg-Lorraine be removed from
its throne. The meeting was held not in the oratory of the Calvinist
College but in the Great Church, which was packed to the rafters, and the
presence of the crowds discouraged those who might have been inclined
to oppose the proposal. Kossuth’s proposal was accepted by acclaim and
without being put to the vote. The meeting also made him Governor-pres¬
ident, that is, provisional head of state. The declaration of independence
which enshrined these decisions was largely the work of Kossuth himself,
and was accepted by the National Assembly on 19 April. 32

Kossuth’s aim was twofold. First, he wanted to disarm the peace party,
which was gaining ground in the National Assembly. Secondly, he was
counting on intervention by the Western powers on Hungary’s side, or at
least their recognition of Hungary’s independence. His plans were not
realized, however. The peace party was not especially powerful and
certainly could not have put up against him a candidate who could have
turned around the nation’s political stance and pushed it into some unprin¬
cipled agreement with the Habsburgs (something the peace party did not
want in any case). And the Western great powers regarded Austria as vital
to the European balance of power and had no intention of upsetting this
for the sake of Hungary.

It seemed that this somewhat precipitate step was justified by military
successes. In the second phase of the spring campaign, a further three
defeats were inflicted on the enemy and the fortress of Komarom, under
siege since January, was also relieved. Feldzeugmeister Welden, Win-
dischgratz’s successor, was obliged to evacuate the capital, leaving only
an outpost in Buda Castle. The crowning glory of the campaign was
Gorgei’s capture of Buda on 21 May 1849, after a siege lasting 17 days. 33

31 Hunfalvy, Naplo, pp. 243-50; Beksics, Kemeny, pp. 123-27; Janos Varga,
Kozepszinten a tortenelemben. Frideczky Lajos memoarja, Salgotaijan, 1988,
pp. 46^47.

32 KLOM, XIV, pp. 873-87, 894-912. Extracts from the declaration of independence
are reprinted in Correspondence, pp. 256-64. See also ibid. pp. 191-92; Klapka,
Memoirs, II, pp. 287-316. See also Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 260-64; Csorba,
Revolution, pp. 17-18.

33 For the military operations, see Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 279-348; Klapka,
Nationalkrieg, I, pp. 328-88; Pragay, Hungarian Revolution, pp. 46-61; Deak,
Lawful Revolution, pp. 265-74; Bona, Spring Campaign, pp. 350-62. One of the
imperial royal military dispatches is printed in Correspondence, pp. 186-87.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

In the weeks following the Declaration of Independence, Kossuth was
his usual bustling self On 19 April he published an order regulating some
of the issues that remained unclear following the liberation of the serfs,
establishing the general principle that in cases of doubt the onus was not
on the serf but on the ex-landlord to prove that any land in peasant hands
had been merely leased to the serf. 34 Presented on 22 April and approved
two days later, his proposal to increase the standing army by 50,000 was
intended to secure the defence of the newly independent state. 35 He
sought to restore the territorial integrity of the state by reincorporating the
Csajkas district part of the Miltary Border into county Bacs. This passed
into law on 8 May. 36

Following the proclamation of independence Kossuth set to work on
the formation of a new government. Initially, he considered a presidential
system on the American model, in which he would himself as Governor-
president exercise the powers of both prime minister and head of state. To
use a recent example: he wanted to be both Lajos Batthyany and the Pala¬
tine Istvan. Bertalan Szemere, to whom he had offered the post of
minister of internal affairs, was minded otherwise. He took the classic
view on the division of powers and wanted the posts of prime minister
and head of state to be separate and distinct, and insisted that Kossuth
name a prime minister as well. Szemere’s views had force and received
powerful support in the National Assembly. When he said he was
prepared to withdraw from the government, Kossuth agreed to a separate
post of ‘president of the ministerial council’, which Szemere felt able to
interpret as ‘prime minister’. 37 The government consisted of second-tier
representatives of the reform opposition, with two exceptions: finance
minister Ferencz Duschek and minister of defence Artur Gorgei (replaced
by Lajos Aulich on 14 July 1849). It is worth noting that four of the
ministers (prime minister and minister of internal affairs Szemere, trans¬
port and public works minister Laszlo Csany, justice minister Sebo Vuko-
vics, and foreign affairs minister Kazmer Batthyany) had previously been

34 KLOM , XV, pp. 43—46. See also Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 281-82.

35 KLOM, XV, pp. 80-81. See also Deak, Lawful Revolution, p. 281.

36 KLOM, XV, pp. 81-82.

37 For the formation of the government see the correspondence between Kossuth and
Szemere in KLOM, XV, pp. 15-17, 27, 65-68, 87, 116-17, 167, 174; Bertalan
Szemere, Politikai jellemrajzok Okmanytar, Ed. Robert Hermann, Istvan Pelyach,
Budapest, 1990 (hereafter Jellemrajzok ), pp. 468-69, 471-74. See also Deak,
Lawful Revolution, pp. 274-80; Tamas Katona (ed.), Vukovics Sebo
visszaemlekezesei 1849-re, Budapest, 1982 (hereafter Vukovics Sebo), pp. 67-69,
87-91; Correspondence, pp. 198-99.

Robert Hermann

national commissars. The portfolio of agriculture, industry and trade was
for the time being held by Kazmer Batthyany. The difference of views
between the Governor-president and the prime minister developed into a
source of constant debate and friction on matters of public law. For
Szemere, an improperly issued gubernatorial order was a just as substan¬
tial an issue to contest as Kossuth’s use of the palatine’s box at the
National Theatre. 38

On 2 May 1849, the National Assembly heard Kossuth’s statement that
by the power invested in him he announced the new government. The
document stated that a gubernatorial decree would be valid only with the
countersignature of a minister. Apart from the right to nominate to posts
in the upper echelons of the secular, spiritual and military hierarchy, the
power of the governor was limited to the definition of the policies
governing the state and the ‘establishment of administrative and regula¬
tory decrees’. In such matters, the ministers (the government) could not
act without the approval of the governor. The right to remove and appoint
ministers belonged to the governor. Declaration of war, suing for peace
and the making of alliances might be carried out only with the approval of
the National Assembly. The minister a latere that Law III of 1848
appointed to assist the king would be replaced by the minister for foreign
affairs. The approval of army appointments would however remain within
the remit of this ministry. The right to commute death sentences would
henceforth be exercised by a panel of four nominated by the Governor-
president. 39

In the spring of 1849 it seemed that in tandem with the military
successes there was an opportunity to make peace with the nationalities
within Hungary. The imposed constitution of Olmiitz of 4 March 1849
brought about a fundamental change in the attitudes of the nationalities. It
became clear that the leaders of the empire had no intention of satisfying
the nationalities’ demands for territory and self-government: on the
contrary, their avowed goal was centralization of the empire. The pros¬
pects of agreement were enhanced by the recall of the Serbian volunteers
between March and May 1849 and by the positive influence of the
Hungarian triumphs in the southern territories. In the course of the negoti¬
ations, however, the Serbian demand that the Vojvodina become autono¬
mous proved insuperable for the Hungarian side. And with the appearance
of Jelacic in the southern territories the supporters of a military resolution
once again gained the upper hand. In June 1849 Djordje Stratimirovic,

38 KLOM , XV, pp. 473-74, 480-83.

39 KLOM, XV, pp. 181-84

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

one of the leaders of the Serbian insurgents, said that in return for the rank
of general he would take his men over to the Hungarian side. Prime
Minister Szemere produced a detailed draft of the terms for this step, but
nothing came of the proposal. 40

The spring of 1849 also seemed to offer an opportunity to bring an end
to Hungarian-Romanian hostilities. Ethnic Romanians in the national
assembly concluded from the Hungarian successes that they had to make
peace with the Hungarians otherwise their movement would be crushed.
One of them, loan Drago$, contacted Avram Iancu, the guerrilla leader.
The negotiations were going well until the leader of some Hungarian
irregulars thoughtlessly attacked Abrudbanya (Abrud), where the talks
were being held. In the renewed fighting that ensued hundreds of lives
were lost. The campaign to put down the uprising failed, and the guer¬
rillas kept a significant proportion of the Hungarian forces in Transyl¬
vania pinned down on the very eve of the Russian intervention. 41

The Hungarians were thus unable to find allies within their country
prior to the next phase of the war. The army of Piedmont and the
Sardinian Kingdom, which was virtually an overseas ally of the Hungar¬
ians, broke the August 1848 ceasefire agreement with Austria and
launched an offensive, but was decisively defeated by the Austrian army
under Radetzky at Novara on 23 March. The Hungarians’ overseas agents
were able to establish only informal links with representatives of official
bodies and although they managed to win over a section of the press and
of those politicians not in power, this was not enough to reverse the pro-
Austrian stance of European states. Austria, by contrast, was able to
invoke the treaty of Munchengratz of 1833 to call upon the aid of the
Tsar’s armies, as well as securing the consent of the western great powers
to such an intervention. Talks paving the way for the Russian intervention
began at the end of March and a preliminary agreement had been reached
even before news of the Hungarian Declaration of Independence reached
Vienna. Tsar Nicholas I felt constrained to intervene with a military pres¬
ence mighty enough to crush the revolution on its own. He therefore
decided to despatch 200,000 soldiers, holding some 80,000 in reserve.

40 Szemere, Jellemrajzok, pp. 512-17.

41 Ambrus Miskolczy, ‘Roumanian-Hungarian Attempts at Reconciliation in the
Spring of 1849 in Transylvania’, in Annales Universitatis Scientiarum
Budapestiensis de Rolando Eotvos Nominatae. Sectio Historica , XXI, 1981;
Gyorgy Spira, ‘A tulpartrol iizeno loan Drago$’, in Spira, Jottanyit se a
negyvennyolcbol!, Budapest, 1989; Robert Hermann, Xz abrudbdnyai tragedia
1849. Hatvani Imre szabadcsapatvezer es a magyar-roman megbekeles
meghiusulasa, Budapest, 1999.

Robert Hermann

Since the Austrian army numbered 170,000, the Hungarian force of
170,000 had thus to face a total of 370,000 troops.

At the news of the Russian intervention Kossuth and the Szemere
government launched diplomatic protests but to little effect, and within
the country, too, tried to prepare the populace for the unexpected blow
with publicity that was more show than substance. 42 Even the formulation
of military strategy was affected by internal power games. The friendly
relations that Kossuth had cultivated with many of his generals had a
downside, in that the independent commanders Bern, Dembinski, and
Perczel received the government’s military orders more in the spirit of a
friendly request than as a command. Kossuth too began to play a complex
game. As the fact that Gorgei was both minister of defence and
commander-in-chief worried him considerably, he constantly — and
rightly — drew attention to the problems of his holding such a dual post.
At the same time, towards the end of June in Nagyvarad (Oradea), he
discussed with Bern the possibility of his taking over the post of
commander-in-chief, and not only kept this secret but actually denied it to
Gorgei’s face. 43 Relations between the commander-in-chief and the
governing president were, in any case, tense. Gorgei did not forgive
Kossuth for claiming that it was the wish of the army that independence
should have been declared on 14 April and thought — mistakenly — that
this was the step that had led to the Russian intervention.

Gorgei was certain that his only hope of success lay in inflicting a
defeat on the main Austrian army before the arrival of the bulk of the
slow-moving Russian troops. Reinforcements from the southern territo¬
ries did not, however, materialize because of the defeat suffered by Mor
Perczel at Katy (Kac) on 7 June. Thus the attempted counter-attack along
the River Vah proved abortive. At Gorgei’s suggestion on 26 June the
Hungarian government agreed that the main Hungarian forces should be
concentrated at Komarom. However, two days later one of Gorgei’s corps

42 Many of the documents relating to British and French diplomacy of the time are
reproduced in Eugene Horvath, Origins of the Crimean War. Documents Relative
to the Russian Intervention in Hungary and Transylvania 1848-1849 , Reprinted
from the South Eastern Affairs, Budapest, 1937, pp. 120-280. See also ‘Hungarian
Protest against Russian Intervention’ in Correspondence , pp. 344^46. Denes
Janossy, Great Britain and Kossuth , Budapest, 1937, pp. 19-30, 113-16; Thomas
Kabdebo, Diplomat in Exile: Francis Pulszky’s Political Activities in England,
1849-1860, East European Monographs, No. LVI, New York, 1979, pp. 15-30;
Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 291-300; Eva H. Haraszti, Kossuth as an English
Journalist, Budapest, 1990, 38-40.

43 Sebo Vukovics, pp. 121-22; KLOM, XV, 588-89.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

suffered a defeat at Gyor and this led the council of ministers to abandon,
on 29 June, the Komarom plan in favour of a concentration in the Tisza-
Maros triangle. The decision was of dubious constitutionality, having
been taken in the absence of the minister of defence and the commander-
in-chief. Gorgei wrote to Kossuth on 30 June that despite the defeat at
Gyor he still regarded the Komarom plan as the one to be preferred. This
was followed by the delegation bringing the latest decision of the govern¬
ment. Though disgruntled, Gorgei sent word that he would give way. The
two letters, however, reached Kossuth in reverse order and, not noticing
the reference numbers, he took the text of the letter written first (which he
read second) as a retraction of the later letter (which he read first).
Angered by what he thought was the recalcitrance of Gorgei, Kossuth
removed him from the post of commander-in-chief and replaced him with
Lieutenant-General Lazar Meszaros. 44

The decision was unfortunate, if only because a few days later, on 7
July, Kossuth offered the government and the newly-appointed
commander-in-chief a new plan for concentrating the armed forces. 45
Kossuth thought that the best solution would be to have himself as
commander-in-chief. As the government did not support this proposal, he
sought to fulfil his own aspirations for the top post by naming Perczel
once again as army commander. But as Perczel had begun to operate
independently, on 9 July he again offered the post of commander-in-chief
to Bern. 46

Gorgei’s main army defeated the forces of Feldzeugmeister Julius
Haynau at Komarom on 2 July, but he was forced to decamp for Szeged.
At Vac his progress was blocked by the main Russian army under Field-
Marshal Pashkevich, but Gorgei avoided them and reached the Tisza by a
circuitous northern route. Outflanking them, he reached every point
earlier than the Russians and pinned down with one-sixth of the
Hungarian troops one-third of the intervening forces: four times the
number of its own forces. On the other fronts the fortunes of the

44 Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 387-430, 446-47; Klapka, Memoirs, I, pp. 75-134;
Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 307-08; Laszlo Pusztaszeri, ‘General Gorgey’s
Military and Political Role. Civil-Military Relations during the Hungarian
Revolution’ (hereafter Gorgei s Role), in Kiraly, Era of Revolution, pp. 481-93; lan
W. Roberts, Nicholas I and the Russian Intervention in Hungary, London, 1991
(hereafter Russian Intervention), pp. 148-51; Robert Hermann ‘The Summer
Campaign’ (hereafter Summer Campaign), in Bona, Military History, pp. 385-90,
393-98.

45 KLOM, XV, pp. 683-86; Hermann, Summer Campaign, p. 402.

46 KLOM, XV, pp. 694-95.

Robert Hermann

Hungarians were mixed. In the southern territories the military situation
was stabilized by the end of June and in the second half of July the
Hungarian forces under Antal Vetter forced Jelacic back to the right bank
of the Danube. By the beginning of August, Bern in Transylvania had
prevented the Russian-Austrian forces from reaching the Great Plain.
Though he lost the majority of the battles he fought, Bern always found a
way of imposing his will on the enemy. 47

At the beginning of July, therefore, the capital was once more in
danger. The session of the National Assembly prorogued at the end of
May was thus able to hold only two closed and one public session in Pest:
then the members had once again to pack their bags. The ministries, too,
were able to function in Pest for only three weeks. On 11 July the capital
was occupied by Austrian and Russian troops.

Parallel to the progress of the fighting, though rather late and more in
principle than in practice, a solution was found to the conflict with the
nationalities. This solution was brought about by outside forces. The
leading politicians of the revolution in Wallachia, defeated in 1848, all
considered the Russian and Austrian great powers a danger to the move¬
ment for Romanian unity and therefore offered to mediate between the
Hungarians and the Romanians. It was their peace plan, developed
together with the Hungarian government, that formed part of the decision
accepted by the Hungarian National Assembly on 28 July 1849. Though
this still refused to grant territorial autonomy to the various nationalities,
it recognized their right to develop as free nations and, to this end, guaran¬
teed them extensive language rights in the community, in the church, and
in the legal sphere. The proposal was accepted by the National Assembly
in the absence of Kossuth, though its proposer Szemere naturally had
Kossuth’s agreement. The proposal was later made public, bearing both
their signatures. 48

From early July there were increasing signs of tension between
Kossuth and the Szemere government. In a memorandum to Kossuth
dated 21 July Szemere offered, in the light of the unsatisfactory structure

47 Klapka, Memoirs, I, pp. 135-51, 186-216; Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 309-10;
Pusztaszeri Gorgei’s Role, pp. 493-508; Hermann, Summer Campaign, pp.
399-412; Eligiusz Kozlowski, ‘The Embodiment of the East Central European
Revolutionary Warrior: General Jozef Bern, 1794-1850’, in Kiraly, Era of
Revolution, pp. 149-53.

48 Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 313-15; Andras Gergely, ‘The Hungarian
Nationalities Act of 1849’, in Ignac Romsics, Bela K. Kiraly (eds), Geopolitics in
the Danube Region. Hungarian Reconciliation Efforts 1848-1998, Atlantic Studies
on Society in Change, No. 97, Budapest, 1998, pp. 51-55.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

of the political system, the resignation of his government. In Szemere’s
view, the most striking contradiction of the system was the dual responsi¬
bility it entailed: substantive decisions could be taken by the Governor
only with the countersignature of the ministers, while the actions of the
ministers in matters of substance were valid only with the countersigna¬
ture of the Governor. ‘If you give us free rein, you are paralysed, if we
yield, we are deprived of asserting our will ...’ To complicate matters
further, Kossuth could not in effect be held responsible for the decisions
he took, yet no-one but he had an overview of the entire terrain. Thus, the
responsibility lay with the government, yet it could not de facto govern.
Even dictatorship would be an improvement on this state of affairs:

‘With leaders of whom half refuse to obey and are in their own sphere active
virtually without restraint, it is not possible to come to the rescue of the home¬
land. These pocket dictators need a proper dictator above them.’

This dictator could -— Szemere had continued — have been either
Kossuth or Gorgei. ‘You possess many more sterling qualities than
Gorgei, but the latter has some that you do not possess which are yet
essential: rigour, consistency, and indomitableness on a course once
embarked upon.’ Szemere considered that Kossuth would not be afraid of
exercising such power but would not like to be called a dictator. ‘Yet it is
the name that is needed — there is power in the name. It would be a crime
to exercise such power once the country has been saved, but equally
wrong not to exercise it in order to secure its salvation.’ If Kossuth did not
approve, Szemere asked that he take his own place, for he wished, so he
explained, by resigning, to promote the salvation of his country. 49

Szemere informed his fellow ministers of the contents of the memo¬
randum and gave it to Kossuth only at the ministerial council of 24 July.
In his reply the following day Kossuth asked Szemere not to press the
ideas in the memorandum: he was as ready to accept reponsibility for his
own actions as the members of the government were for theirs. He
rejected the notion that their actions were at cross purposes. Nor was he
prepared to be a dictator. ‘I am not one to let myself be constrained to do
anything,’ he insisted. ‘If I can be active in some other wise, I shall be
glad to be so.’ 50

Szemere replied to Kossuth’s letter the same day. As Kossuth had
meanwhile left to visit Gorgei, he wrote to them both. ‘Let the two of you

49 Szemere, Jellemrajzok, pp. 568-70. Extracts in German translation in Szemere,
Characterskizzen, III, pp. 153-59. See also Deak, Lawful Revolution , p. 317.

50 KLOM, XV, pp. 776-77.

Robert Hermann

seize power — if you will, let Gorgei be dictator in the military sphere
while you are one in the civil sphere,’ he wrote to Kossuth. The resigna¬
tion of the government, however, he considered vital: ‘I would say that
we should walk along the path if I did not think it better for the homeland
to say that you should walk on without us. But with Gorgei, not against
him.’ The letter to Gorgei was not as unequivocal. He informed the
general that he had handed in his resignation and then presented his views
on the necessity for a dictatorship. But then he continued: ‘I am unable to
decide whether power could be shared in such a way that you exercise it
in the military sphere and he in the civil,’ which at that point in time could
have meant: if Gorgei regarded Kossuth as dangerous or superfluous he
should seize the opportunity to detain him in camp. 51

Though he received the letter, Kossuth did not reply to it; at least, not
in writing. From Gorgei there was no response at all. The meeting
between the two was also deferred, because the Russian forces had
crossed the Tisza. So Kossuth and Gorgei were unable to discuss the
chances or means of implementing a dictatorship of the kind proposed by
Szemere. The loss of Szeged soon afterwards also removed from the
agenda any theoretical discussions on the nature of the government of the
country.

At the end of July the concentration of forces in the Tisza-Maros
triangle was achieved. When Lieutenant-General Lazar Meszaros
resigned as commander-in-chief, Kossuth and the ministerial council
decided, on 30 July, that the command of the forces around Szeged should
be given to the same Lieutenant-General Henryk Dembinski who had
earlier proved himself a failure as leader. Though he was the eminence
grise behind the Szeged concentration plan, he now considered the
trenches there undefendable. He did not take on the numerically smaller
forces of Haynau; he simply handed over Szeged and retreated towards
Temesvar (Timisoara), then in Austrian hands. In vain did the goverment
order him to Arad: Dembinski gave higher priority to the defence of the
road to the Turkish border. Kossuth meanwhile appointed Bern
commander-in-chief: Bern duly appeared at Temesvar on 9 August. He
took on Haynau but was obliged to withdraw when his forces ran short of
ammunition. Panic broke out during the retreat and only some 20,000 of
the 50,000-strong army managed to re-group at Lugos (Lugoj). 52

51 Szemere, Jellemrajzok, pp. 173-77. Extracts in German translation in Szemere,

Characterskizzen, II, pp. 87-97.

52 Deak, Lawful Revolution , pp. 318-20; Roberts, Russian Intervention , pp. 172-75;

Hermann, Summer Campaign, pp. 412-15.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

Gorgei, arriving at Arad on 9/10 August, was thus on his own. In the
course of his campaign he had made contact with the leadership of the
Russian main army. The Russians wanted to get this — in their view —
most dangerous of Hungarian generals to lay down his arms as soon as
possible. Gorgei hoped his discussions would help to drive a wedge
between the Russian and Austrian allies. Though Kossuth disapproved of
the general’s talking to the enemy’s military leadership without authoriza¬
tion from the government, he still considered that this was an opportunity
not to be missed. On 10 August the Hungarian council of ministers
decided to offer the Hungarian crown to a member of the Tsar’s family
and at the same time declared that if the Russians were not prepared to
discuss this nor to mediate between them and Franz Joseph, the
Hungarian army was ready to lay down its arms before the Russians. It
was after this meeting of the council of ministers that the last personal
encounter between Kossuth and Gorgei took place. They spoke of the
chances of continuing the fight, but both knew that that the battle of
Temesvar the previous day had already sealed their fate. 53

After news came of the defeat at Temesvar, the options narrowed
down to those summarized in the final paragraph of the ministerial decree
mentioned. The government first appointed Gorgei commander-in-chief,
then when he demanded that the government resign, Kossuth and the
majority of his ministers agreed to this. 54 None the less, the government
did not formally disband and among the ministers who did not resign
were the prime minister and minister for internal affairs Bertalan
Szemere, minister for foreign affairs Kazmer Batthyany, and finance
minister Ferencz Duschek, who at this time happened to be in Lugos.

With the defeat at Temesvar Kossuth thought that all was lost, and
after signing the order giving Gorgei dictatorial powers and the farewell
decree of the government, he shaved off his beard, re-styled his hair and
left Arad accompanied by his adjutant Lieutenant-Colonel Sandor
Asboth. On 11 August he met Major-General Emo Poeltenberg and Lieu¬
tenant-Colonel Lajos Beniczky, who were returning from the Russian
camp. He learnt from them that Gorgei had been mistaken in thinking that
he would have been able to achieve anything with the Russians if he had

53 Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 554-72; Deak, Lawful Revolution, p. 320;
Pusztaszeri, Gorgei s Role, pp. 508-511; Roberts, Russian Intervention,
pp. 177-79; Hermann, Summer Campaign, pp. 415-16.

54 KLOM, XV, pp. 839-46; Gorgei, My Life and Acts, pp. 572-86; Deak, Lawful
revolution, pp. 320-21; Pusztaszeri, Gorgei’s Role, p. 511; Szemere,
Charakterskizzen, pp. 114-19; Correspondence, p. 437.

Robert Hermann

remained commander-in-chief. For the essence of the response of Russian
cavalry general Theodor Rudiger was that the Russians had come to
Hungary not to talk but to fight and the only discussions they were
prepared to have would concern the timing of the Hungarians’ uncondi¬
tional surrender. They did, however, suggest that in the case of a
Hungarian capitulation they would be able to protect the lives at least of
those who surrendered. 55 The military council convoked by Gorgei
decided on surrender to the Russians soon afterwards. This took place at
Szolos (Seleu$) on 13 August.

In the company of Poeltenberg and his friend, there was to be found
Szemere and Kazmer Batthyany. Kossuth headed with them through
Radna for Lugos. In Radna he met finance minister Ferencz Duschek who
asked him what he was to do with the state treasury. Kossuth referred him
to Gorgei. By this time he had heard that the remnants of the southern
army were gathering at Lugos. Szemere and Batthyany planned to
continue the fight with the help of the army at Lugos and they were joined
by Kossuth, to whom they made clear that, despite his resignation, they
continued to regard themselves as ministers.

During these fateful days Kossuth’s mood continued to swing, with
optimism and pessimism alternating in his statements. In Lugos he found
an army more orderly than he had imagined. After the defeat at Temesvar,
Bern and his chief of staff, the English-born Richard Guyon, did all they
could to pull together from the shattered main army as substantial a force
as possible. But the various divisions were in differing shape. Kossuth
found Karoly Vecsey’s Fifth Army Corps in ‘good order’, but other
generals, for example Arisztid Dessewffy and Gyorgy Kmety, declared
that their troops would scatter to the winds at the the first sound of
cannon. 56 So Kossuth thought that all was lost. On 12 August, he wrote to
Gorgei from Lugos. He gave his reasons for resigning and declared that
he would regard it as treason if ‘every possible attempt were not made to
save the nation. I would regard it as treason if you were to enter into nego¬
tiations on behalf only of the army and not the nation.’ The purpose of the
letter was, however, not to resume power but to shift the burden of
responsibility. This is also suggested in the letter’s final sentence: ‘I owed

55 Lajos Steier, Beniczky Lajos banyavideki kormanybiztos es honvedezredes
visszaemlekezesei es jelentesei az 1848/49-iki szabadsagharcrol es tot
mozgalomrol, Budapest, 1924, pp. 345-54, 686-88. Rudiger’s letter is in Gorgei,
My Life and Acts, p. 587.

56 KLOM , XV, pp. 851-53; Correspondence, pp. 367-68; Klapka, Memoirs, II, p. 28.

Kossuth, Parliamentary Dictator

this statement to myself and to the nation, and I wish to have it recorded
in the official Gazette.’ 57

At Lugos Kossuth was joined by Colonel Wladyslaw Zamoyski and
the Polish and Italian legions, and under their protection Kossuth
continued to Orsova. On the way he learnt that the local guard at Orsova,
which was meant to protect the escape route, had on Bern’s orders left its
post and decamped northwards. Kossuth ordered these forces back. In
Teregova he received Bern’s letter trying to persuade him to resume the
reins of power. Kossuth however thought that he had no role to play in
what remained of the fight and in his reply made his resumption of power
dependent on conditions he knew could not be fulfilled: first, he wanted it
to be Gorgei’s army that called upon him to take over; second, Bern
would have to score some military successes; and third, the mint would
have to resume operation and start printing banknotes again. In his reply
he stressed that he was ‘just a simple citizen, nothing more’. 58 Having
written the letter, he continued towards the Danube crossing at Orsova. In
Serbia, on the other side of the river, Kossuth could have counted on
anything but a friendly reception. It is not surprising therefore that he and
his entourage did not cross the Danube but, after the news of the surrender
at Szolos on 17 August, crossed a bridge over a brook marking the Walla-
chian border and entered Ottoman territory. From here he was accompa¬
nied to the border crossing point at Tumu Severin, whence he continued
to Vidin, in Turkey. 59

Just over ten months after his appointment as president of the OHB
Kossuth had lost his position at the helm of power. This also meant the
end of an independent Hungary. However, soon after he heard of Gorgei’s
surrender of 13 August, Kossuth decided to resume power. He argued that
in bestowing the most powerful position in the land upon Gorgei his
intention had been to save the homeland and not to surrender it and, since
by his surrender Gorgei had become ‘the craven executioner of his home¬
land’, 60 the highest authority now reverted to himself, Kossuth.

Such legalistic sophistry did not, however, spring from the delusions
of grandeur common among leading emigre politicians. Kossuth was right

57 KLOM, XV, pp. 849-50. See also Deak, Lawful Revolution, pp. 321-22.

58 KLOM, XV, pp. 851-53. Extracts in Correspondence, pp. 367-68; Klapka,
Memoirs, II, pp. 27-30.

59 Roberts, Russian Intervention, pp. 192-93.

60 The quotation comes from a letter dated 12 September 1849 and addressed to
Hungarian diplomatic agents abroad. Tamas Katona (ed.) Lajos Kossuth, irdsok es
beszedek 1848-1849-bol, Budapest, 1987, 1994, p. 508. See also Deak, Lawful
Revolution, pp. 339^40.

Robert Hermann

in thinking that, if ever the moment came for the restoration of an inde¬
pendent Hungary, it was unlikely that any leader other than himself would
enjoy the confidence of the country as a whole. And he would be able to
exploit this confidence only if he were not just one of the many exiles but
acknowledged as their leader.

In the course of the decade that followed, Kossuth tried repeatedly to
extend his leadership over the entire emigre community, but these
attempts failed again and again. Kossuth thought that the liberation
struggle had been lost because he did not wield enough power to impose
his will on the army. The exiles who resisted his efforts considered, on the
contrary, that Kossuth had failed to use effectively such power as he
already had. 61

For Kossuth it was the Crimean War that brought the realization that
the independence of Hungary could not be achieved without the aid of the
great powers. He was sure that to achieve this he had to create unity, but
only in 1859 did he realize that this unity could be achieved by means
other than dictatorial. This recognition was reflected in the establishment
by Kossuth, Laszlo Teleki and Gyorgy Klapka of the Magyar Nemzeti
Igazgatosag (Hungarian National Directorate) in 1859. It is quite another
matter that the unification of the exile community was a necessary but not
a sufficient condition for the relaunch of the Hungarian struggle for inde¬
pendence. For the latter, the support of a European great power would
have been necessary. Such support was not forthcoming either in 1849 or
subsequently. This led Kossuth to regard all his activity between 1849
and 1867 as having been completely wasted. Yet even if it was not his
intention, as the result of his labours the exiles that he led helped Hungary
regain a measure of its sovereignty through the Ausgleich of 1867.

61 See the articles by Bertalan Szemere and Kazmer Batthyany in The Times, The
Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, and the Examiner, reprinted in Denes
Janossy, A Kossuth-emigracio Angliaban es Amerikdban 1851-1852, Vol. II/2,
Budapest, 1948, pp. 158-71, 290-94, 463-76.

Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs

Gabor Pajkossy

The emancipation of the serfs in Hungary was proclaimed by the laws of
April 1848. The laws declared that all urbarial services and obligations
should cease forthwith and that landlords be compensated by the state.
Patrimonial courts were abolished and the Catholic clergy renounced
tithes without compensation. While leaving many problems unresolved
and, indeed, creating new ones, the April Laws led without doubt to
fundamental changes.

Serfs in Hungary had been allowed in 1840 to redeem themselves by an
outright payment to their lords. Most peasants were, however, unable to
afford the costs involved, particularly as they themselves were expected to
negotiate the cost of redemption and pay it entirely themselves. As a result,
only one per cent of serfs became free peasants and less than two per cent
of arable lands and meadows cultivated by serfs were transformed into
peasant property. By contrast, the April Laws freed all serfs and cotters
(zsellerek) from feudal subordination. The laws related only to urbarial
lands and contained no provisions regarding demesne or ‘allodial’ lands.
Notwithstanding these limitations, the April Laws transferred to the peas¬
ants 74 per cent of the land which they had hitherto cultivated in exchange
for feudal services. This amounted to 55 per cent of all arable land and
meadows. Moreover, the compensation due to landlords was assumed by
the state. The provisions of the new legislation also applied to Croatia and
Slavonia. In Transylvania, the emancipation of the serfs was enacted, albeit
under somewhat different terms, in June 1848.

The emancipation of the serfs in the Habsburg Monarchy first took
place in Hungary, but 1848 saw it proclaimed in every other crownland
under Habsburg rule except for Lombardy and Venice (where in any case
no serfdom existed by this time). In Galicia, as in the lands of the
Hungarian crown, the state assumed the burden of compensating land¬
lords. In the rest of Cisleithania, however, the state underwrote only one
third of the cost of redemption. Unlike in Hungary, however, the law on
Grundentlastung passed by the Reichstag in September 1848 also allowed

Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs

peasants to redeem lands that they cultivated but which properly belonged
to the lord’s demesne. Five years later, the imperial Urbarial Patent of
March 1853 reconsidered the matter in respect of arrangements in
Hungary. In doing so it disregarded all measures taken by the Hungarian
legislation and the Hungarian government between September 1848 and
April 1849. The Patent upheld the provisions of the April Laws relating to
urbarial lands sensu stricto, and thus maintained their earlier transforma¬
tion into the private property of peasant proprietors. Regarding the
remaining urbarial lands and other lands cultivated by former serfs, it
declared that they had to be redeemed by the peasants themselves or
passed to the landlords. It should be noted that the Patent ordered the
mandatory division of pastures among landlords and peasants. In this
way, peasants acquired lands the quantity of which came close to or even
exceeded that of the lands they lost. Such were the intricacies of arrange¬
ments of tenure and landholding that it took a further 48 years to complete
the work of emancipation. Indeed, it was not until two years after
Kossuth’s death that the law (Article XXV of 1896) regulating the
redemption of certain types of demesne land cultivated by cotters was
finally passed. Nevertheless, the foundation of all this was laid by the
April Laws and the Urbarial Patent. 1

The emancipation of the serfs in Hungary and the person of Lajos
Kossuth are indissolubly linked. The inhabitants of the peasant towns on
the Great Hungarian Plain which Kossuth visited during his recruiting
drive in September 1848 attributed their freedom to Kossuth’s policy.
Nevertheless, Kossuth was celebrated as the ‘liberator’ of the ‘overbur¬
dened peasant folk’ well before March 1848. True, this epithet was coined
by noble reformers and not by the peasants themselves, but it was not
undeserved.

Kossuth entered national politics in 1832 and rose steadily; by 1847 he
was a leading figure in the Opposition party. After March 1848, he
enjoyed political influence which was unparalleled in Hungarian history.
From 1849 up the mid-1860s, as the outstanding Hungarian statesman in

1 Janos Varga, A jobbagyfelszabaditas kivivasa 1848-ban , Budapest, 1971 (hereafter,
Jobbagyfelszabaditas ), pp. 343-55. See also Janos Varga, Typen und Probleme des
bauerlichen Grundbesitzes in Ungarn, 1767-1849, Budapest, 1965, pp. 128-36.
Istvan Orosz, ‘A jobbagyfelszabaditas es vegrehajtasa, in Peter Gunst (ed.), A
magyar agrartarsadalom a jobbagysag felszabaditasdtol napjainkig , Budapest,
1998, pp, 55-136 (hereafter, Orosz, ‘Jobbagyfelszabaditas’); Helmut Rumpler,
Eine Chance fur Mitteleuropa. Burgerliche Emanzipation und Staatsverfall in der
Habsburgermonarchie , Vienna, 1997, p. 284. All figures derived from Varga and
Orosz are given in round numbers.

Gabor Pajkossy

exile, he continued to play an important role in politics, but, of course, his
plans could no longer be put into practice. The emancipation of the serfs
was one of the key elements of his political strategy from the very begin¬
ning of his career. He was the first (or among the first) to articulate
concepts such as mandatory redemption, general emancipation of the
serfs, and compensation of landlords by the state, which later became the
basic elements of the April Laws, and during March 1848 his political
skill and acumen were vital in achieving these goals. 2

According to supporters of the Old Regime, the emancipation of the
serfs went completely against the fundamental laws of Hungary.
According to the Tripartitum published by Stephen Werboczy in 1517
(Part 3, title 30), all land and all rights to property in land belonged to the
landlord ( totius terrae proprietas ad dominum terrestrem spectat et
pertinet). The Supreme Court of Hungary, in a judgment delivered in
1739, declared that non-nobles were incapable of acquiring landed estate.
Werboczy’s association of the right to land with noble status was
accepted not only by conservatives, but also by liberals like Count Istvan
Szechenyi and Baron Miklos Wesselenyi. The government, some promi¬
nent professors of law and Ferenc Deak, a leading liberal politician and
legal authority in his time, however, saw things differently. By reference
to the extensive legislation on relations between landlords and serfs,
including the Urbarium of Queen Maria Theresa, they were able to claim
that the power of landlords to dispose of urbarial holdings had long been
restricted and thus, by implication, that their rights of ownership were
circumscribed and incomplete. 3 Kossuth, however, held an altogether
contrary view. Throughout his career, he maintained that landlords were
not the real owners of urbarial plots; instead, what they owned was only
the feudal services and dues attached to the plots. 4 This radical interpreta¬
tion allowed Kossuth to develop new and far-reaching ideas relating to
the problem of peasant property.

The diet of 1832-36, also called the ‘First Reform Diet’, discussed
giving property rights to serfs and removing the exclusive right of the

2 Istvan Szabo, ‘Kossuth es a jobbagyfelszabaditas’, in Szabo, Jobbagyok —
parasztok. Ertekezesek a magyar parasztsag tortenetebol, Budapest, 1976,
pp. 253-332 (hereafter, Szabo, ‘Kossuth’). Szabo’s study was first published in
Szazadok, 86, 1952, pp. 509-92.

3 Istvan Orosz, ‘Az urberes fold tulajdonjogi helyzete Kossuth nezeteiben’, in (eds)
Istvan Orosz and Ferenc Poloskei, Nemzeti es polgari atalakulas a XIX. szazadban
Magyarorszagon. Tanulmanyok Szabad Gyorgy 70. sziiletesnapjdra , Budapest,
1994, pp. 215-24 (hereafter, Orosz, ‘Az urberes fold’).

4 Orosz, ‘Az urberes fold’, pp. 218-21.

74 Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs

nobility to the ownership of landed estate, but in April 1833 both motions
were rejected by the conservatives. The idea of voluntary redemption
emerged upon the failure of these proposals. Voluntary redemption was,
however, not a radical innovation, as some serf communities had by that
time already redeemed themselves. 5 Both conservatives and the govern¬
ment in Vienna considered the motion for voluntary redemption to be
anti-constitutional and revolutionary, and in December 1834 they engi¬
neered its failure. 6 From this time on, the issues of redemption and
compensation were to remain at the heart of all discussions on the eman¬
cipation of the serfs.

Both liberals and conservatives agreed that serfs, by means of redemp¬
tion, could become free peasants. Among these groups debate ranged
instead around whether redemption should be voluntary or mandatory
and, if mandatory, whether redemption should be paid partially or gradu¬
ally, and whether it should be implemented simultaneously across the
whole country. Count Szechenyi, a liberal reformer (who never, however,
belonged to the liberal opposition), based his reform programme on
different principles. In his famous book, Stadium , written in 1831-32 and
published in 1833, he proposed that serfs should be given rights to prop¬
erty. Szechenyi’s proposal was not contrary to the principle of redemption
which, for tactical reasons, Szechenyi alternately supported and opposed. 7
Kossuth again had other ideas. In a book written in 1833 and intended for
publication, he argued that landlords might by legislative fiat be obliged
to accede to the demands of their peasants and to permit their redemption,
quite irrespective of their own wishes as landlords. By bringing the state
into the equation, Kossuth challenged the prevailing concept which
regarded redemption as a private matter involving only the parties
concerned. Kossuth’s work was, however, only published 130 years later
and there is no evidence that it circulated in manuscript form. 8

Voluntary redemption, as enacted by Law IX of 1840, was considered
by defenders of the Old Regime as the maximum they could agree to. The

5 Istvan Barta, ‘Korai orokvaltsag-szerzodesek’, Agrartorteneti Szemle , 3, 1961,
pp. 94-115.

6 Kossuth, in his handwritten reports, minuted all proceedings of the diet. See Lajos
Kossuth, Orszaggyulesi Tudositasok, ed. Istvan Barta, 5 vols, Budapest, 1948-61
(Kossuth Lajos osszes munkai, hereafter KLOM, vols i-v).

7 Istvan Orosz, ‘Szechenyi Istvan a jobbagyrendszer megszunteteserdl’, in Orosz,
Szechenyi es kortarsai. Valogatott tanulmanyok a reformkorrol, Debrecen, 2000
(hereafter, Szechenyi es kortarsai ), pp. 79-88. First published in 1991.

8 KLOM , VI, pp. 368-87; see also Istvan Barta, A fatal Kossuth , Budapest, 1966,
pp. 200-36.

Gabor Pajkossy

law proved, however, a failure. Out of more than 10,000 serf communi¬
ties, fewer than 100 grasped the opportunity. The basic reason for failure
was the peasants’ own lack of funds. 9 Kossuth challenged the law even
though at this time many liberals still entertained false hopes with regard
to its potential effects. In February 1841, in one of the earliest numbers of
Pesti Hirlap , Kossuth called for ‘free land’ (szabad fold). Kossuth had
mainly the urbarial lands of the serfs in mind, to which end he urged a
general redemption of their burdens. His programme also implied,
however, abolition of the law of entail ( aviticitas ), which prevented land¬
lords from selling their land. In the following months, Pesti Hirlap
published a number of articles discussing the financial aspects of redemp¬
tion, but they all proved to be wholly unrealistic. Thus, in August 1841,
Kossuth proposed that serfs be individually given the right to purchase the
land which they farmed, which was an idea that he had first embraced
eight years earlier. At the same time, he suggested that serfs should be
allowed to redeem themselves by ceding a portion of their plots to their
lords. 10 After encountering sharp criticism, Kossuth dropped this idea
(although, curiously, he took it up again in the autumn of 1847). * 11 Eventu¬
ally, Kossuth came to the conclusion that the general redemption of the
serfs could not be carried through unless the landlords were compensated,
at least partially, by the state. He also saw, however, that the nobles’ tax
exemption made this proposal unworkable. During the course of 1841,
Kossuth did his best to spark a public debate on redemption and the eman¬
cipation of the serfs, but neither he nor anyone else could come up with a
comprehensive and viable alternative to Law IX of 1840. So great was his
disillusionment that, for a time, Kossuth stopped publishing editorials on
this topic altogether.

As editor of the newspaper with the largest readership, Kossuth was
able to influence the topics and tone of public debate, but he also had to
keep in mind that the majority of liberals were political moderates. He
himself had long been convinced that political transformation had to be
carried out under the guidance of the nobility. By the middle of 1843,

9 Istvan Orosz, ‘Az orokvaltsag elmelete es gyakorlata, in Orosz, Szechenyi es
kortarsai , pp. 151-62 (first published in 1976); Janos Varga, ‘Az engedoleges
orokvaltsag merlege’, Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Nyiregyhazensis.
Tortenettudomany , 10/B, 1985, pp. 21-28.

10 Pesti Hirlap, 1841, 13, and 69-71; Szabo, ‘Kossuth’, pp. 262-68.

11 Domokos Kosary, ‘Kossuth Lajos harca a feudalis es gyarmati elnyomas ellen’, in
Emlekkonyv Kossuth Lajos sziiletesenek 150. evfordulojara, ed. Z.L Toth, 2 vols,
Budapest, 1952, i, pp. 1-86 (p. 67); Szabo, ‘Kossuth’, p. 294; Pesti Hirlap, 1847,
947 (September 10, 1847).

Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs

however, he had come to the conclusion that ‘the nobility alone is unable
to regenerate our country’. He accordingly adopted a more radical tone,
addressing himself to non-noble and urban readers and articulating what
he called ‘the whole truth’. 12 This radical turn cost him his editorialship of
Pesti Hirlap.

In March 1846, following the peasant rising in Galicia, Kossuth once
again took up the subject of emancipation. Kossuth was alarmed both by
the bloodshed and by the news of the changing attitude of the imperial
government to social reform. If Vienna re-adopted its earlier policy
towards the peasantry and initiated a general redemption, Kossuth
concluded, the nobility and reformers would be fired on from all sides and
threatened by a jacquerie. Raising the alarm, he wrote, ‘We are on the
brink of disaster, even the best kind of partial redemption comes too late;
delaying the treatment will lead inevitably to death’. Five years earlier,
Kossuth had considered the nobility’s tax exemption to be the main
obstacle to a general redemption. Now, in 1846, he advocated general
taxation as the way of promoting what he termed ‘the dissolution of
urbarial relations’. Like other noble reformers, Kossuth had argued that
the nobility should pay county taxes, but he had opposed their payment of
military and other state taxes. His logic was simple, since, while the
former was under the control of the noble estates, the diet had no say in
the state budget. In a letter written to Baron Wesselenyi in May 1846,
Kossuth advocated a general redemption combined with full compensa¬
tion of landlords, to be paid by serfs and the state on an equal basis. At the
same time, he suggested that the nobility should pay its share of the mili¬
tary tax, and the revenues from this be used to compensate landlords.
Both this plan and a later modified version were, from the very first,
vaguely formulated and economically unworkable. Nevertheless, this was
a bold and radical idea which alarmed Wesselenyi and other members of
the opposition. 13 Three newspaper articles written by Kossuth on the
subject were banned by the censors. This obliged Kossuth to put forward
his views more circumspectly which, in turn, led to increased vagueness
on his part. Subsequently, Kossuth maintained that a general redemption
and general taxation should both be realized, but he gradually switched
from ‘compensation by the state’ to what he called ‘financial operation of
the state’ or ‘intervention by the state’ and ‘participation by the state’. As

12 Quotations from ‘A kerdesek legkenyesbike’ and ‘Kiabrandulas’, Pesti Hirlap,

1843, 266 and 306.

13 Zoltan Ferenczi, ‘Kossuth es Wesselenyi s az urber ugye’, Szdzadok, 36, 1902,

pp. 47-68, 139-62.

Gabor Pajkossy

Istvan Szabo noted, Kossuth evidently wanted to appeal to the nobility.
He realized, however, that he could not simultaneously advocate that the
serfs be freed and that the nobles meet through general taxation much of
the costs incurred by the state in paying out compensation. 14

The ‘conservative party’ founded in 1846 advocated ‘peaceful recon¬
ciliation of urbarial relations’ (that is, voluntary redemption). Liberals
demanded a mandatory and general redemption combined with ‘interven¬
tion by the state’, a phrase coined by Kossuth. Both the Opposition Mani¬
festo and the instructions for the deputies of Pest county were worked out
with Kossuth’s participation. These important documents are taken by
historians as the starting-point of the reforms undertaken in 1848. For
tactical reasons, however, the passages concerning the emancipation of
the serfs, one of the crucial points of the reform programme, were left
deliberately vague. 15

The Lower House, which convened in November 1847, adopted in
March 1848 the principle of mandatory redemption. The bill was drafted
by Moric Szentkiralyi, Kossuth’s fellow-deputy for Pest county. Kossuth
also drafted his own bill. Both proposed that negotiations on redemption
should begin if the majority of landed serfs in a village decided for it.
Both also proposed that the serfs should pay compensation, but neither
fixed any schedule for implementation. Both bills were drafted after the
revolution in Paris and Kossuth’s famous address on 3 March. The bill
drafted by Szentkiralyi was put on the agenda on 14 March, after news of
the revolution in Vienna and of Mettemich’s fall had reached Pressburg.
At this point, as Istvan Orosz has pointed out, ‘the leaders of the opposi¬
tion seemed to have given up the idea that the emancipation of the serfs
could be achieved by the diet’. 16

On 15 March, however, the Lower House unanimously passed a reso¬
lution which was entirely at odds with its position of the day before. For a
long time historians did not notice that the crucial moment of the emanci¬
pation of the serfs was, as Istvan Szabo put it, ‘wrapped in mystery’. 17
The motives behind this sudden about-turn were uncovered by Janos
Varga, whose book on the emancipation of the serfs in 1848 is amongst

14 Szabo, ‘Kossuth’, pp. 283-90; Grof Szechenyi Istvan iroi es hirlapi vitaja Kossuth
Lajossal , 2 vols, ed. Gyula Viszota, Budapest, 1927-30, ii, pp. 989-1010.

15 A nagybirtokos arisztokracia ellenforradalmi szerepe 1848-49-ben , ed. Erzsebet
Andies, 3 vols, Budapest, 1952-81, i, pp. 206-16,274-77; KLOM , XI, pp. 141-57,
168-96; Szabo, ‘Kossuth’, pp. 288-94.

16 KLOM, XI, pp. 641^44; Varga, Jobbagyfelszabaditas, pp. 60-64; Orosz,
‘Jobbagyfelszabaditas’, p. 76.

17 Szabo, ‘Kossuth’, p. 305.

78 Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs

the best on this subject. 18 Varga discovered that on the previous day news
had reached Pressburg that radical nobles in Bihar county in eastern
Hungary were organizing a peasant army which would march to Press¬
burg and force the diet to enact legislation emancipating the serfs. After
1849, Kossuth repeatedly claimed that the nobility had acted of its own
free will, and had voluntarily renounced its privileges, rights and exemp¬
tions. He attributed emancipation to economic and legal factors, and to
‘respect for truth and politics’. 19 The notion of a generous nobility was
maintained by late nineteenth century Hungarian liberal historians whose
outlook was deeply rooted in the political and cultural traditions of the
nobility. It remained intact until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian
empire. 20 In fact, it was fear of a jacquerie that motivated the diet’s
hurried decision to grant full emancipation. The news, which soon proved
to be a false alarm, prompted the diet to amend its resolution and on the
night of 14-15 March the deputies worked out completely new principles.
The new bill abolished urbarial relations and gave full compensation to
landowners to be paid for by the state.

We do not know who first proposed the motion which resulted in the
resolution, but, whoever it was, he must have had Kossuth’s support, for
Kossuth’s influence in those days was unquestionable. The news from
Vienna also served to shape events. As long as absolutism prevailed, the
Hungarian opposition had no hope of coming to power. Their policy of
putting constraints on government and making it ‘responsible’ was inim¬
ical to the interests of the court. But, as the opposition had a majority in
the Lower House, Mettemich’s fall made possible for the first time the
formation of a ministry under the liberal leader, Count Lajos Batthyany.
The demand for an independent Hungarian government whose authority
should include finance and military affairs was formulated in the hours
that followed news of Mettemich’s fall, and within three weeks it had
become reality. Throughout the Reform era and in the early months of
1848, all liberals (including Kossuth) agreed that the emancipation of the

18 Varga, Jobbagyfelszabaditas, pp. 69-76.

19 Kossuth, ‘Ertekezes MagyarorszagroP, in Kossuth, Irataim az emigracziobol , 3
vols, Budapest, 1880-82, ii, pp. 133-254 (pp. 143, 166, 168-69). ‘Ertekezes’ is an
edited Hungarian version of six lectures given by Kossuth in November 1858 in
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Plymouth. In sharp contrast to his works
before 1848, Kossuth simply refers to the serfs as the tenantry,

20 The thesis was first challenged by Ervin Szabo in his Tarsadalmi es partharcok a
48-49-es magyar forradalomban which was written in 1918 and published in
1921. See also Elemer Malyusz’s review of Szabo in Szazadok, 55-56, 1921-22,
p. 411.

Gabor Pajkossy 79

serfs and the compensation of landlords were issues that were intertwined.
Now, the prospect of a jacquerie or, what was considered even worse, a
peasant insurrection under skilful political leaders, pushed the deputies
into proclaiming immediate emancipation. The attendant formation of a
liberal government, however, helped to ease fears that landlords would
not get fair compensation for, when combined with general taxation, it
was now possible to conceive of this compensation being assumed by the
state. Although it meant that landlords would in effect have to pay
through taxation for the compensation which they received, this was
considered a lesser evil than a jacquerie.

Most historians agree that the significance of the April Laws cannot be
over-estimated. About nine million serfs, amounting to some 80 per cent
or more of the population, became free citizens, and were liberated from
forced labour and feudal subjection. On account, moreover, of Article V,
several hundred thousand former serfs were given the franchise. As a
consequence of the April Laws, the electorate swelled to about six per
cent of the population with most of these belonging to the former ranks of
the unprivileged. Several hundred thousand peasants were additionally
eligible to join the National Guard. 21 The diet, however, left several ques¬
tions unanswered, for it only took measures relating to urbarial land. This
meant that no decision was made concerning remanentia ( maradvany -
foldek , unregistered urbarial lands) which made up about 14 per cent of
all land cultivated by serfs, and a further 10 per cent of serf land (basically
clearings and vineyards) was declared to belong to the landlords, in
respect of which former serfs were obliged to continue paying rent of a
feudal nature. In the spring of 1848 serious conflicts arose between serfs,
landlords and the authorities over rights to forests and pastures. Vine-
growers, whose vineyards lay on manorial land, demanded that the tenth
tax which they had to pay to landlords also be abolished. Other peasants
protested that minor benefits (minora regalia beneficial the right to
operate a mill, run a butcher’s etc) continued to belong to landlords.
Members of the Lower House convened in July 1848 proposed several
motions on these issues. On 15 September, after the outbreak of armed
conflict between Hungary and Croatia, the House abolished the tenth
levied on vineyards. In order to increase support for the Hungarian cause
among both peasants and landlords, the government put forward two
further bills. One eventually signed by Kossuth as minister of finance

21 Varga, Jobbagyfelszabaditas, pp. 338-40; Orosz, ‘Jobbagyfelszabaditas’, p. 84;
Andor Csizmadia, A magyar valasztasi rendszer 1848-1849-ben. Az elso
nepkepviseleti valasztasok, Budapest, 1963, pp. 326-29.

Kossuth and the Emancipation of the Serfs

empowered the government to sell state lands to compensate landlords.
By selling this land in small parcels, Kossuth also pursued social goals
with the aim of strengthening the class of smallholders. The bill signed by
Deak as minister of justice on ‘necessary measures in consequence of
Article IX’ focused on problems which the April Laws had not addressed.
On account of military and political developments, however, both bills
were shelved. 22 Kossuth, elected to the chairmanship of the National
Committee of Defence, worked for what he called the defence of the
fatherland and of Hungarian liberty. To mobilize the peasantry he used
the argument in his manifestos that Vienna, having already broken the
April Laws with regard to the sy stem of parliamentary government, might
also restore forced labour services and tithes as well. 23 After being elected
Governor-president, however, he again focused on outstanding issues of
emancipation. On 19 April 1849, on the day the Declaration of Independ¬
ence was passed by parliament, he published a decree concerning lands
which were currently farmed by serfs but claimed by the former landlords
as allegedly belonging to the demesne. The decree considered the peas¬
ants as being in actual legal possession and, as a consequence, handed
over land to hundreds of thousands of peasants while offering landlords
compensation by the state. 24 As it turned out, however, the Hungarian
government did not have time to implement this decree.

In the Reform era, Kossuth played a leading and decisive role in the
political debates on the emancipation of the serfs. In 1848, he had the
main role in making this actually happen. Nevertheless, he was not satis¬
fied with the simple pronouncements of the April Laws, but sought
instead to make their spirit manifest. After 1849 he regarded Hungary’s
independence as the fundamental issue. Out of political considerations, he
worked out ideas on how to improve some articles of the April Laws
relating to social change. Planning a war of liberation, he promised state
lands to veterans, landless cotters and to peasants living in the Military
Frontier. On the whole, however, he considered the demands of the peas¬
ants as having been basically fulfilled by the April Laws, and made the
regaining of independence his primary objective.

22 Az 1848/49. evi nepkepviseleti orszaggyules, eds Janos Beer and Andor Csizmadia,
Budapest, 1954,. pp. 644-47, 621-32.

23 KLOM , XIII, p. 842.

24 KLOM , XV, pp. 46-49; Orosz, ‘Jobbagyfelszabaditas’, pp. 107-09.

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the

Constitution

Laszlo Peter

The proposition that the world changed in 1848 may be questioned else¬
where — but not in Hungary. Quite rightly so. The creation of the first
Hungarian responsible ministry, the passing of the April Laws, the
National Assembly and, above all, the War of Independence were the
formative events in the birth of modem Hungary. 1848 has become
emblematic of national identity. The revolution (always in the singular
rather than the plural) is credited with the creation of Hungarian civil
society out of social groups that were both legally and culturally diverse.
Furthermore, the revolution became a focus of national aspirations to
attain independence. The revolution also generated conflicts and civil war
within the kingdom between the Hungarian and the rival Slav and Roma¬
nian movements and these conflicts, too, became a legacy of 1848.

The Hungarian constitution, in the widest sense of the term, was
undoubtedly transformed in 1848. The change can be looked at from a
variety of perspectives. The ancient constitution offers one vantage point
and so does Marxist social theory or ‘modernization’. Yet what I dare call
the conversion of the constitution offers a more adequate perspective on
the subject than any alternative. Why do I believe that?

The ancient constitution consisted of the mutually recognized rights
and obligations of two actors: the crown and the nobility organized in the
counties, and the diet of the orszag. Their constitution went through
conflicts and accommodations by tractatus , agreements, in 1608, 1681,
1711, 1790 and 1848, leading to the Settlement of 1867. 1 A historical

1 There is more than a grain of truth in C. A. Macartney’s assessment of the 1867
Settlement: ‘there was nothing essentially new in the Dualist System. It simply
adapted to parliamentary conditions relationships which went back far in the
history of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was not in 1867 that Hungary first achieved
legal recognition of her independence of the Habsburgs’ other territories, except in
respect of defence and foreign affairs. This had been assured her by many solemn

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution

analysis based on the vocabulary of the customary constitution like privi¬
lege, gravamina , postulata, dietalis tractatus, reserved rights, funda¬
mental laws and so on, sheds much light on the process. But explanations
based largely on such terms would get bogged down in continuities
whereas it was the discontinuities that lent character to 1848.

Marxism provides a vantage point that places all the emphasis on discon¬
tinuities: the revolution replaced ‘feudalism’ with ‘capitalism’, abolishing
serfdom and introducing ‘bourgeois parliamentarism’ in place of ‘feudal
absolutism’. For me these are large claims. The vocabulary of Marxist meta¬
physics does not penetrate the subject of the constitution and it is not much
use even for understanding social change. How can it be, for instance, that in
the new 414-member House fewer than ten non-nobles faced the landed
gentry and the aristocrats who together made up a robust 74 per cent of the
membership? What is commonly regarded by historians as a polgari
forradalom, ‘bourgeois revolution’, created a one-class parliament domi¬
nated by the landed gentry, the bene possessionati. In 1861, the preponder¬
ance of the aristocracy and the landed gentry in the House rose to 77.3 per
cent with the nobility as a whole securing 80 per cent of the seats. In the
House that passed the 1867 Settlement the proportion of the land-owning
nobility rose to almost 79 per cent. That is to say their proportion in the
House from 1848 to 1867 actually rose. * 2 Where was the bourgeoisie?

Modernization theories (Marxist metaphysics in sheepish form) are
even less helpful in the understanding of social or constitutional change.
Ministerial responsibility, the concentration camp and the doctrine of
mutually assured destruction are all ‘modem’. What do they have in
common? And what on earth do the very different societies that are
lumped together as ‘traditional’ have in common beyond the trivial point
that we would not find Esso gas stations in any of them?

promises, including those made by Charles VI or III in connection with the
Pragmatic Sanction and Leopold II’s laws of 1790-91. It was also a fact that when
the Hungarian constitution had been annulled, as by Leopold I, or ignored, as by
Joseph II, Hungary had fought back and had recovered it. Her ‘April Laws’ of
1848, which formed the Hungarians’ point de depart in the later negotiations, had
been questionable in their treatment of the ‘common subjects’, but not in asserting
her complete internal independence nor, indeed, were they so questioned in Vienna
itself, when first enacted’. ‘The Compromise of 1867’, in Studies in Diplomatic
History , eds. R. Hatton and M. S. Anderson, 1970, London, p. 299.

2 See Emo Lakatos, A magyar politikai vezetoreteg 1848-1918, Budapest, 1942, pp.
29-34, 49-50, Laszlo Peter, ‘Die Verfassungsentwicklung in Ungam’, in Die
Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, eds. Helmut Rumpler and Peter Urbanitsch,
Vienna, 2000, VII. p. 344 (hereafter ‘Verfassungsentw.’).

Laszlo Peter

The term ‘conversion of the constitution’ covers a cluster of interre¬
lated theses and seems to me a more adequate analytical tool to unpack
and elaborate the constitutional transformation of 1848 and after than any
offered by other schemes because it penetrates the core of the subject.
After 1830 liberal nationalism became the driving force of Hungarian
politics. The reformers, Szechenyi, Wesselenyi, Kolcsey, Deak, Kossuth,
Eotvos wanted to create a Hungarian civil society through legislation.
Indeed, the liberal nationalists understood by ‘civil society’ ( polgari
tarsadalom ) a community based on statute laws which applied equally to
everybody rather than, as Marxists would have us believe, the capitalist
system. What I refer to as conversion here is the contemporary alkot-
manyos kifejles or kifejtes , Entwicklung, and for the liberal nationalists
primarily meant the replacement of the constitution, based on rights, by
another system based on statute laws. Or to put it less formally, the
system of privileges was to be replaced by a social order based on legal
equality. Also, some of the monarch’s reserved rights were to be shared
with the nation so that representative government could be introduced
without the nobility losing its ascendancy in Hungarian society. The
central aim of liberal nationalist nobles was, in close connection with the
creation of a Hungarian civil society, the establishment of an autonomous
Hungarian state within the Habsburg Monarchy. Looking at it from this
perspective, conversion meant the transition from the customary constitu¬
tion based on the bipolarity of the orszag and the crown to the all-
embracing legal system, called the State, created by statute law. Also,
conversion had a territorial aspect: the medieval precept of the inaliena¬
bility of the crown was converted into the integrity of the orszag (a point
to which I return below). Finally, the conversion affected the distribution
of social power: it inaugurated a shift within the country’s landowning
elite. Hitherto the aristocracy was in a dominant position; from 1848
onwards the gentry was in the saddle. 3 All in all, and with the benefit of
hindsight, the conversion from the system of rights to that of statute laws
was a change not fully carried through in nineteenth century Hungary.

The reformers, in general, were committed to the West European idea
of civil society, polgari tarsasag, in which every individual possessed the
same rights and duties. Civil society was a political order founded on a
unified legal system in which statute laws, which applied equally to the
nobles, the clergy, the bourgeois and the serfs, replaced the segmentary,

3 Laszlo Peter, ‘The Aristocracy, the Gentry and Their Parliamentary Tradition in
Nineteenth-Century Hungary’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 70,
January 1992, pp. 77-110.

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution

‘barbaric’, ‘feudal’ society based on serfdom, the hierarchy of privileges,
legal inequalities, local and provincial customary rights. Equality under
the law, personal security, freedom and the right to own property became
the new social ideal. The methods used to achieve this were the policies
of erdekegyesites , interest-amalgamation, and of jogkiterjesztes, the
extension of rights (the latter turned out to be a confused hybrid).

All this sounds like a liberal social reform package — which it was not.
The reform served an end: civil society was to be national. As elsewhere in
Central Europe and beyond, liberalism and nationalism, although philosoph¬
ically incompatible, appeared politically combined: both served the goal of
social integration. Through legislation the reformers planned to create a
single Hungarian community of citizens out of legally and culturally diverse
social groups. The orszag transformed and converted into the Hungarian
nation, demanded an autonomous position in the Empire. This programme of
nation building was successful before 1848. In early nineteenth century
Hungary, less than forty per cent of the population was Hungarian speaking.
However, the national-liberal program had a wide appeal in the German¬
speaking towns and particularly among smaller ethnic groups like the Jews,
Armenians, Zipser-Saxons, Bunjevici and others. But in spite of rapid volun¬
tary magyarization, the national-liberal program was also fraught with
conflict. It put Hungarian politics on a collision course with Vienna. Magyar¬
ization left unaffected the large blocks of Slavonic groups on the periphery
which had their own national movements. The diet, overriding strong Croat
objections, put through language laws which replaced Latin with Hungarian
as the official language of the counties, the dicasteria, the diet and the courts.
In 1836 Hungarian became the official language of statute law. From that
year, the laws also provided for the extension of the use of the Hungarian
language among the non-Hungarian population, enactments that were as
ineffective and unenforceable as they were capable of generating conflicts
with the non-Hungarian intelligentsia, which they undoubtedly did. But
national conflict was probably unavoidable in multilingual Hungary. What
makes the nineteenth century transformation of the country’s constitution so
peculiar is that an ever-growing proportion of a hidebound provincial gentry
was inclined to accept the abolition of serfdom and the nobility’s preroga¬
tives, including the tax privilege, the principle of equality before the law and
even the introduction of political franchise. The county gentry accepted the
social reforms to the extent that they were subordinated to the national
program whose implementation would meet their social aspirations. 4

4 Peter, ‘Verfassungsentw.’, pp. 262-65.

Laszlo Peter

The objective of the national movement was no less than the
building of a unitary Hungarian state, under gentry leadership, with
representative institutions covering the whole territory of the kingdom
and even beyond. Croatia-Slavonia, the Militdrgrenze , Transylvania
with the Partium and also Dalmatia and Galicia were to be merged with
Hungary proper, the orszag. The programme to absorb into Hungary
both Transylvania and Croatia — two separate regna for centuries —
was based on a claim to pre-existing state-right. From the king’s obli¬
gation, enshrined in the coronation diploma, to reconquer and reincor¬
porate all lost territories in the kingdom and its adjoined parts, a single
regnum , Hungary, derived the claim to ‘repossess’ the other regna.
Upon conversion, the inalienability of the crown, appeared as the
‘integrity’ of the orszag, and the merger of Transylvania with Hungary
as ‘reunion’. 5 The last objective appeared politically viable. Transyl¬
vania’s Romanians objected to Union, but they lacked political rights.
Two out of Transylvania’s ‘Three Nations’ (estates), the county
nobility and the Szekels, both Hungarian-speaking, were potential
supporters of Union. Only the third ‘nation’, the Saxon universitas,
opposed it.

By contrast, in Croatia only segments of the nobility, the magnates,
the yeomanry of Turopolje and, for a while, County Zagreb were
‘magyarones’. The bulk of the educated nobility and honoratiores
supported the Croat national (Illyrian) party under the spirited leader¬
ship of the radical Croat intellectual Ljudevit Gaj. The Sabor rejected
the Hungarian claims: Croatia, for eight hundred years a separate
regnum under the Hungrian crown, had never been a part of the orszag.
The Croat nationalists argued that the terms found in the decreta,
partes subiectae and adnexae, in fact meant socia regna. As Hungary
and Croatia were ‘associated Lands’, the Hungarian diet did not have
the right to legislate for Croatia except on the basis of mutual consent
and interest. Indeed, in the past, and even in 1790, the diet had not
enforced the majority principle. That was why the Croat Sabor (not the
three Croat counties directly) sent deputies to the diet without putting
Croatia’s separate position in jeopardy. By the 1840s, however, the
Hungarian county deputies at the diet were quite prepared to ‘majorize’

5 See the usage of ‘crown’ and orszag in Ferenc Eckhart, A szentkorona-eszme
tortenete , Budapest, 1941, pp. 268-96.

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution

minorities, particularly on language issues. 6 But the crucial question
underlying the language issue was the status of Croatia itself. 7

Lajos Kossuth came from a rather humble background in the landless
nobility; his father was a solicitor. He started as a brilliant journalist in the
1830s, before playing a major role in the conversion of the constitution.
He had a rapid rise in Hungarian politics. The journalist became leader of
the Opposition between 1841 and 1847. The key to his success was the
ability to be ahead of others on both fronts: social reform as well as
national aspirations. 8 A strong case could be made that the conversion of
the constitution carried out in 1848 was to a large extent based on
Kossuth’s policies.

Take serf-lord relations first. The Laws of 1840 introduced ‘optional
emancipation’, i.e. permissive arrangements through which the peasant
could redeem all servitudes against a one-off payment to the landlord.
Kossuth argued in his Pesti Hirlap that the Law should be implemented
whenever the peasant wanted it and could afford it. On taxation he argued
that the nobility should start paying tax in the form of the local rates, to
the cassa domestica acting as a bank to finance peasant emancipation. On
economic policy Kossuth sought to introduce a protective tariff system
against Austrian produce (Kossuth swallowed Friedrich List’s nationalist
political economy) in order to develop industry in Hungary. He argued
that the towns should have proper representation at the diet on the under¬
standing that they magyarize. As regards magyarization he distinguished
the ‘public sphere’ from the ‘private sphere’. Only the former should be
Hungarian but there was a rider: the definition of ‘public’ was too wide

6 Mihaly Horvath described the diet’s behaviour as ‘idiotic’ ( eszelytelen ), Huszondt
ev Magyarorszag tortenetebol 1823-1848, 3 vols., Budapest, 1868 (hereafter
Huszondt ev) II, pp. 396-98, 406-23, esp. 406 (the enforcement of the ‘resolution’
by one chamber of the diet was, as the Personalis pointed out, in conflict with
lawful custom).

7 The largely defensive Croat constitutional position was contractualist and, like the
Hungarian claims, based on historical rights: Coloman, king of Hungary, was
elected to the throne by the Croat nobles on the basis of pacta conventa in 1102 AD
(an obvious anachronism). The Croat territorial claim extended to Slavonia and
Dalmatia, with which it constituted the ‘Triune Kingdom’. On the Croat diet, see
Miijana Gross ‘Der kroatische Sabor (Landtag)’ in Die Habsburgermonarchie
1848-1918 , eds Helmut Rumpler and Peter Urbanitsch, Vienna, 2000, VII/2,
pp. 2283f; Gyula Miskolczy, A horvat kerdes tortenete es iromanyai, 2 vols.
1927-28, Budapest, I, pp. 44, 61, 67, etc. (with heavy Hungarian gloss).

8 On the rise of Kossuth in Hungarian politics see Domokos Kosary, Kossuth Lajos
a reformkorban, 1946, Budapest, esp. pp. 326f; Istvan Deak, The Lawful
Revolution, New York, 1973 (hereafter Lawful Revolution), pp. 52f.

Laszlo Peter

(e.g. it included the ‘new’ economy, railways, banking and so on). 9
Kossuth wanted to maintain the county system (against central govern¬
ment — even against responsible government) but the county had be
democratized even though gentry leadership in it was to be preserved.
Over the introduction of representative government Kossuth came into
conflict with Eotvos and the Centralists whom Kossuth initially opposed.
He subsequently changed his mind and the conflict was patched up in
1847. The independent and responsible ministry became a desirable aim
though not yet a specific programme in the oppositional declaration
drafted by Kossuth and Deak.

Kossuth’s rhetoric in setting up a Hungarian State constructed from the
three regna of the Hungarian crown was more sweeping than the rhetoric
of other politicians. From December 1847 onwards, Kossuth, by then as
leader of the Opposition in the diet, repeatedly questioned the very exist¬
ence of Croatia as a Land. 10 He insisted that under the Hungarian Holy
Crown a single nation existed: the Hungarian, and there had to be there¬
fore a single legislature. His speeches, made shortly before the revolution,
created an atmosphere which later made any cooperation between Croat
and Hungarian politicians improbable.

In the run-up to the revolution Kossuth was not at all radical on the
imperial connection. Instead of any shift to demanding ‘personal union’
with the rest of the Empire (which in the summer of 1848 was to become
his chief concern), it was ‘common interests’ and ‘common relations’
between Hungary and the other Lands of the Monarchy that became part
of his political rhetoric. This was because Kossuth, and indeed the other
Hungarian liberals, now assumed that constitutionalism would be (sooner
or later) introduced in all parts of the Monarchy and when that happened
tractatus with the monarch would have to be complemented by contacts
with the other Lands. The oppositional declaration had already alluded to
this point which then Kossuth made in his speech at the Circular Session

9 See Domokos Kosary, ‘A Pesti Hirlap nacionalizmusa 1841-1844’, Szazadok, 77,
1943, esp. p. 382.

10 Kossuth flatly denied that Croatia existed. He argued on 11 December 1847, and
also on 7 and 8 January 1848, that the three ‘Croat’ counties in fact constituted
Slavonia while Croatia was partly still under Turkish rule and partly governed as
Militargrenze, Kossuth Lajos osszes munkai, Budapest, 1951 (hereafter KLOM),
XI, pp. 382-83, 434-35, 438—40. In late March 1848, that is after Croatia had
refused to have any contact with the Batthyany government, Kossuth shifted his
position without any explanation and once more recognized Croat nationality and
a Croat constitution: speech on 28 March 1848, ibid, pp. 696-97. As Mihaly
Horvath observed, by then it was too late; Huszondt ev, III, pp. 301-03.

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution

on 22 November 1847 and in his draft Address. The Lower House now
declared that ‘the fullest expansion of the Hungarian constitution’ and
‘common status relationships’ could, if Law X of 1790 was respected,
coexist and the seemingly divergent interests could be settled ‘in the
management of the common imperial state connections’ on the basis of
parity. 11 We may note that these were the terms and concepts that
reemerged in the 1860s — facts ignored by historians who censure Deak
for abandoning Hungary’s rights in 1867. Notably, however, while
Kossuth in 1847 envisaged tractatus on the ‘common relations’ with the
Austrian liberals as well as the Court, Deak in the 1860s entered into trac¬
tatus solely with the monarch.

Even after the collapse of the July Monarchy in Paris in February, the
Kossuth-led diet remained moderate in demanding the expansion of the
constitution through the introduction of ‘national government’ but also
calling for a settlement ( kiegyenliteni ) of the common interests with the
other Lands as well as recognizing ‘our legal relations with the empire as
a whole’. 12 The Hungarian position became more radical after the
collapse of the Mettemich system. Now the liberal leaders wanted to
secure greater autonomy for Hungary than had been envisaged by
Kossuth and others even a few weeks earlier.

However, well before the collapse of the Mettemich system, Kossuth,
with an eye to the main chance, had on 3 March dragged the diet away
from the politics of small measures. His Address speech had a single
theme: the constitution’s kifejtes ( Entwicklung ), the establishment of
national government, a system where the executive power would be
responsible to a parliament elected by the nation. 13 The draft Address
clearly stated that ‘we regard the conversion of the dicasterial
(‘ collegialis') governmental system to a Hungarian responsible ministry
the essential requirement and guarantee of all the other reforms’. The
draft then asked the king to send to the diet members of the Gubemium
who enjoyed his confidence and who would be responsible (to the diet)
for the implementation of the reforms. The Lower House passed the
Address on the same day, the Upper House only on 14 March, the day
after Mettemich fell. By then the situation had changed. The Lower

11 KLOM, XI., pp. 316f and 327.

12 ‘az osszes birodalom iranti torvenyes viszonyaink’, KLOM, XI, p. 625n c.

13 KLOM, XI, pp. 619-28 esp. 626. Kossuth’s speech was not about ‘the tasks of the
diet’, as generally claimed; its sole subject was the transformation of the system of
government. Even the Address was largely about reform of the system of
government.

Laszlo Peter

House, under Kossuth’s spell, reported to the counties that it expected
‘the strengthening, the expansion and the transformation of the constitu¬
tion’. 14 Indeed, the first attempt to transform the monarch and the
orszag’s rights into a liberal legal order, the April Laws, or rather what
was read into them in Pest after their enactment, was a more sweeping
conversion of the constitution than subsequent attempts and, although it
failed conspicuously, it set a benchmark for Hungarian politics that
outlasted even the Monarchy. The events in Europe, Kossuth reported to
County Pest, ‘had shaken to its foundations the edifice of the ancient
constitution’, which had proven to be too constricting. ‘Only two pillars
remained standing intact and strong enough to bear a (new) capacious
structure, the king and the free legislature’ 15 (a dangerously unstable situ¬
ation, one would have thought). By free legislature Kossuth meant the
Lower House, which was about to become a House of Representatives,
rather than the diet as a whole. For the collapse of the Mettemich system
crushed the authority of the Upper House and deflated even that of the
counties. Neither institution ever recovered its former place in the consti¬
tution. On 14 March the Lower House declared that even before its recon¬
struction it could perform its duties only as ‘the representative of the
whole nation rather than that of a separate class’. 16 The claim of the
Lower House to act as a constituent assembly, a declaration of gentry
ascendancy over the aristocracy, was realized in the 31 laws of the 1848
decretum.

The April Laws broke the back of the old social order based on heredi¬
tary right and laid the foundation of the new Hungary. Orszag rights were
converted into the rights of the Hungarian nation, to which at least those
who were given the franchise could claim to belong. In the process the
rules of dietalis tractatus were repeatedly broken. The foundations,
improvised, incomplete, and in part temporary, also contained durable
rules, notwithstanding the speed with which the whole corpus was pushed
through. In the preamble of the April Laws the estates, defining the aims
of the decretum listed in the first place the intention to ‘unite the interests,
under the Law, of the whole Hungarian people’. 17 Yet the Law did not
declare the principle of legal equality. Nor was nobility annulled as a
legal status. All in all, legal equality, the principle that all individuals
possess the same rights and duties, and personal freedom inspired the

14 15 March, ibid., p. 659.

15 Morie Szentkiralyi and Lajos Kossuth’s report, 16 April 1848, KLOM, XI, p. 740.

16 Ibid., p. 659.

17 1836-1868. evi torvenycikkek (Markus edn.) Budapest, 1896, p. 217.

90 Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution

legislator in 1848; they were elements of the reform program rather than
rights established by statute law.

The emancipation of over nine million peasants in Hungary and in
Croatia from their servile condition was the most significant, albeit
incomplete, step towards civil society taken in 1848. 18 Law XI abolished
the patrimonial authority of the landlord over the serf. Laws IX and XIII
rendered void urbarial obligations and the tithe. The private landlord was
to be paid compensation out of public funds to be determined by the new
parliament; the tithe went without compensation.

Law III established ‘independent and responsible’ government. While
the authority of the Hungarian ministry may not have been properly
defined, the April Laws nevertheless created a coherent system of govern¬
ment in so far as this was politically feasible in the spring of 1848. The
chief reason why the April Laws did not last lay not the Law itself,
incomplete and in places ambiguous though it might have been, but in the
fact that the partners, after its enactment, embarked on policies governed
by irreconcilable aims. Kossuth and Prime Minister Batthyany read
‘personal union’ into the April Laws. The so-called ‘personal union’, as
understood by Kossuth, was a figleaf for the claim to a separate
Hungarian State. The Austrian response was the claim to the existence of
a Gesamtstaat, read into the Pragmatic Sanction, which then justified the
demand for the revision of the April Laws. 19 The new rival conceptions of
the State destroyed the constitutional settlement. No constitutional reform
should be expected to solve intractable political conflicts.

After Radetzky’s victory in Italy the Austrian Government and the
Court felt secure enough to embark on a policy of ‘restoring the supreme
government’ in the Monarchy and, as far as Hungary was concerned, they
were prepared to assert their constitutional claims by armed force. In the
crisis in September the Batthyany government disintegrated; Kossuth
became a parliamentary dictator. It was the rival conceptions of state that
destroyed the monarchic union of Lands on which the Habsburg dynasty

18 Over half of the serfs possessed urbarial land, but most of them had at least a
household plot. The Law lifted obligations only on urbarial land. Janos Varga, A
jobbdgyfelszabaditas kivivasa 1848-ban Budapest, 1971, pp. 167, 339-40. The
Transylvanian diet likewise abolished urbarial obligations and the state was to
compensate the landlord; Laws IV, V and VI 1848 of Transylvania.

19 The Denkschrift prepared by Staatsrat Pipitz for Ferdinand on 27 August read
‘Einheit in der obersten Staatsleitung’ into the Pragmatic Sanction, see Laszlo
Peter, ‘Old Hats and Closet Revisionists: Reflections on Domokos Kosary’s Latest
Work on the 1848 Hungarian Revolution.’ The Slavonic and East European
Review, 80, 2002, pp. 296-319, (309, n 48).

Laszlo Peter

had founded its empire. The intractable constitutional conflict turned into
war. After fighting began between the Imperial and the Hungarian revolu¬
tionary armies, Ferdinand abdicated on 2 December. His successor Franz
Joseph soon cleared away the constitutional rubble left over from 1848 as
well as the precepts of Hungary’s ancient constitution.

Franz Joseph’s Manifesto and the announcement of the Imperial Consti¬
tution by octroi 20 of 7 March 1849, rather than after tractatus of any sort,
opened a new chapter in Hungary’s relationship with the empire. The new
monarch, by alluding to his 2 December Manifesto, declared that the guar¬
antee of the future lay ‘in der Wiedergeburt eines einheitlichen Osterreich’
— a program based on the presumptive claim that the Habsburg Monarchy
constituted a single State. 21 In contrast to the Pillersdorf Constitution the new
constitution applied to all Kronlander of the Austrian empire, including Italy
and Hungary. Centralization was the cornerstone of the constitution. There
was to be common citizenship, a single legal system and central parliament
(in addition to a local diet for each crown Land). The constitution broke up
the kingdom of Hungary. It severed the connections between Croatia-
Slavonia, Transylvania and Hungary proper and it carved out the Serbian
Vojvodina as a separate territory. Each became, like Hungary, a separate
Kronland. Paragraph 71 emasculated the April Laws, without formally
rescinding them, and ended Hungary’s special position in the empire.

Die Verfassung des Konigreiches Ungam wird insoweit aufrecht erhalten, dass

die Bestimmungen, welche mit dieser Reichsverfassung nicht im Einklange

stehen, ausser Wirksamkeit treten. 22

Although this constitution was not fully implemented anywhere in the
empire before its cancellation in 1851 (and for Hungary it largely
remained a blueprint), its announcement affected the course of Hungarian
politics. It enabled Kossuth and the national radicals on 14 April 1849 to
put through the rump parliament at Debrecen, where it had moved
because of the advancing imperial army, a resolution that Hungary was an
independent European State. 23 This move was a direct response to the

20 ‘aus freier Bewegung und eigener kaiserlicher Macht’: Edmund Bematzik, Die
osterreichischen Verfassungsgesetze, Vienna, 1911, p. 148.

21 Ibid. The term ‘Gesammt-Monarchic’ had already appeared on 2 December when
the monarch hoped that his policy would lead to the ‘Verjiingung der Gesammt-
Monarchie’. The context in all these cases is prescriptive.

22 Paragraphs 1, 72-74, ibid., pp. 150, 159-60. Paragraph 75 restored the position of
the Grenze.

23 KLOM, XIV, pp. 873-87.

Lajos Kossuth and the Conversion of the Constitution

imperial announcement of 7 March. 24 Undoubtedly there were other
factors. Gorgei and the other generals’ brilliant spring campaign leading
to the recapture of the capital boosted morale. Also, Kossuth, quite unre¬
alistically, hoped that an ‘independent’ Hungary would attract foreign
support. Further, by forcing parliament to bum its boats, Kossuth success¬
fully wiped the floor with the ‘peace party’. 25 Based on the House’s reso¬
lution of 14 April, ‘The Hungarian Nation’s Declaration of Independence’
was enacted on 19 April. 26 It began with a general statement:

We, the National Assembly legally representing the Hungarian State, 27 in this
solemn declaration — whereby we restore Hungary to its inalienable natural
rights together with all the parts and territories belonging thereto, installing it
amongst the ranks of the autonomous, independent states of Europe and
declaring the perfidious House of Habsburg-Lorraine dethroned before God and
the world — recognize it as our moral duty to announce in public the reasons
for this our decision, so that it may be known throughout the civilized world ...

The declaration went into history, listed the nation’s grievances and the
violations of Hungary’s independence enshrined in Article X of 1790. It
gave a blow by blow account of the House’s ‘perfidious acts’ in 1848 (not
sparing even Palatine Istvan), ending with the announcements of 7 March
1849. The four enacting clauses at the end of the document declared
Hungary to be an independent European state whose territorial integrity
was inviolable; ‘deposed, debarred and banished’ the Habsburg House in
the name of the nation; declared peace with all neighbours; and left the
determination of the form of the State to the following parliament and
appointed ‘by unanimous acclamation’ Lajos Kossuth as Governor-presi¬
dent. 28

The constitutional import of the Independence Declaration went
beyond the deposition of the dynasty. For the first time the claim to state¬
hood, based on historic right, was unambiguously expressed in an author¬
itative document. Hungary, not just a Land, possessed all the attributes,
external as well as internal, of an independent European state. The new
term alladalom , soon to be shortened to allam in political discourse,

24 The Declaration itself refers to the Manifesto of 4 March, ibid., p. 908.

25 Zsigmond Kemeny and others doubted if the majority of the rump parliament
would have passed the resolution after any debate (which they did not have),
Gusztav Beksics, Kemeny Zsigmond, a forradalom s a kiegyezes, Budapest, 1883,
pp. 114-21.

26 KLOM, XIV, pp. 894-912.

27 ‘magyar alladalom’, the new term, occurs three times in the text.

28 ‘Kormanyzo elnok’: ibid., p. 911.

Laszlo Peter

expressed the claim to Hungary’s new constitutional status. 29 Kossuth
was closely identified with the new view, 30 and his influence on the
modem Hungarian national outlook has been more enduring than that of
any other politician.

The Gesamt-Monarchie and the magyar alladalom were political
programmes based on rival claims to statehood. Both trampled on centu¬
ries-old traditions although they were dressed up in historic guise. The
state in the eighteenth century meant the institutions based on monarchic
rights; the orszag- rights existed separately. Neither the court nor the
orszag claimed to possess a unitary, legally unrestricted, all-embracing
system of public law. Nonetheless, this was the claim that the court and
Hungary both clearly asserted during the revolutions. Neither had any
chance of being realized. 31 In relation to the Gesammt-Monarchie it took
a decade to find this out. The same truth about the magyar alladalom
became obvious by 1849 when Hungary’s leaders tried to attain the
impossible. All the facts were against them, yet facts hardly ever shape
history — ideas do. It is ideas not facts, that mould men’s behaviour.

Kossuth, a nagy szamuzott, the ‘great exile’ in Turin after 1867,
mourned the eclipse of the ‘Hungarian State’ which he, its last representa¬
tive, tried to ‘restore’ in 1848. Was he truly its last representative, rather
than its creator? Did the engineer of the constitutional conversion from
the orszag to the state really believe this? Leaders sometimes harbour
misconceptions about their own contribution.

29 On the etymology of ‘status’, ‘alladalom’ and ‘allam’, see Ferencz Schedel
[Toldy], Torvenytudomanyi muszotar, Pest, 1847, 2nd ed., p. 433; Lorand Benko
(chief ed.) A magyar nyelv torteneti-etimologiai szotara, Budapest, 1967,1, p. 137.

30 Notably, not the liberal Centralists, who mostly went to ground after the September
crisis, but the national radical Kossuth, who had earlier sneered at ‘State theories’
when they threatened county autonomy, became most closely identified with the
concept of the Hungarian State.

31 Zsigmond Kemeny clearly understood this in 1851. In his Meg egy szo a
forradalom utan he denounced the two state theories as pedantic, arrogant and
impractical: Baron Zsigmond Kemeny, Forradalom utan, Budapest, 1908, p. 397.

■

Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853

Andras Gergely

1. Before the Revolution

During the Reform era, Kossuth made few comments on the nationality
question in Hungary. Like many other liberal representatives of the
Hungarian nobility, Kossuth considered the question to be of only
secondary importance. Liberal opinion of the time, although it realized
that a problem existed, believed that by extending civil rights and by abol¬
ishing the privileges of the nobility, tensions between the national groups
would abate. It is generally recognized that the national question did not
receive much attention from Kossuth before 1848. As he himself later
wrote in his memoirs, the freedom of the press had stood at the centre of
his political efforts in the 1830s, and the abolition of serfdom in the
1840s. Neither of these priorities conflicted, however, with the interests of
the nationalities; on the contrary, they harmonized with them.

Kossuth’s views on the national question during the Reform era coin¬
cided with those of most liberals of the period and were predicated on the
need to create a nation of citizens based on equality of rights. The exten¬
sion of rights and the abolition of serfdom applied to every member of
society irrespective of nationality. According to Kossuth, a civil society
based on the principle of freedom would be created and this, in turn,
would serve to diminish national conflicts. In the ‘new’ Hungary, every
citizen would enjoy a fuller and freer life and this would make them more
loyal to their country than to their linguistic relatives living across the
border. As far as the national minorities were concerned, however, the
introduction in 1844 of Hungarian as the official language in place of
Latin hardly represented an improvement: instead of a ‘dead’ language
they were now expected to learn a living language but one which was still
not their own. Nevertheless, a multi-lingual administration and parliament
was inconceivable at this time, even in a multi-lingual country. (In

Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853

contemporary Belgium, also a multi-lingual country, the language of
public administration and of the law was French, while the Swiss consti¬
tution ceding the official use of three languages was enacted only in
1847.) In accordance with the Hungarians’ own history, cultural tradi¬
tions, social and demographic weight, the Hungarian language assumed
the status of primus inter pares with respect to the languages of the other
nationalities.

Contemporary Hungarians were also convinced that members of the
national minorities would, in gratitude for the freedoms granted them,
voluntarily and over time become Hungarians. And, if this was histori¬
cally inevitable, the process could be accelerated and enhanced by
schooling, the enforcement of bilingualism, and by specialist institutions
(ranging from kindergartens to university bursaries). By this measure, the
Hungarian language would be no longer primus inter pares but instead
primus et solus. 1

Not all politicians accepted, however, that the nationalities should be
forced to assimilate or to undergo ‘magyarization’. Szechenyi himself,
while accepting the inevitability of assimilation, repudiated its forceful
implementation and the imposition of a ‘dictatorship of language’ ( nyelvi
diktatura). Arguments for and against forcible assimilation were,
however, often rooted in considerations of foreign policy. Politicians
were afraid that the national minorities — and especially those of the
Orthodox confession — would fall prey to and become instruments of
pan-Slav agitation. They considered, moreover, that the demands made by
the minorities were the consequence of the machinations of ‘pan-Slav
agitators’, and that they were evidence of the political connection between
the minorities and St Petersburg. Those, however, with a more sophisti¬
cated understanding of international politics, like Szechenyi himself, did
not advocate rapid assimilation on account of its corrosive effect on rela¬
tions with the neighbouring powers. Over the succeeding decades consid¬
erations of foreign policy, as well as of the internal development of
Hungary, influenced nationality politics, and therefore the views of
Kossuth himself.

The defining element in all this was the principle of national unifica¬
tion based on the extension of rights or, in the words of the time, the
‘joining of interests’ ( erdekegyesltes ), which would yield a common but
also multi-lingual homeland. According to Kossuth’s statement of 1847,
‘We offer you [i.e. the nationalities] freedom of thought, jurisdiction,

1 Janos Varga, Helyet kereso Magyarorszdg. Politikai eszmek es koncepciok az 1840-

es evek elejen, Budapest, 1982.

Andrds Gergely

legislation, together with the right to own land. We offer you citizenship
under the law, the right to belong politically to a nationality, and indeed
all those rights that this land provides for its citizens. And we wish for
nothing more in return than mutual love and protection for this land,
which hereby ceremoniously receives you as its children, and for the
nationality [i.e. the Hungarian] which presents you with your coming of
age.’ 2 In accordance with this, Kossuth formulated an instruction to the
deputies of Pest county in 1847 that in respect of the nationalities every¬
thing should be done which was possible ‘legally and in an indirect
manner’, and ‘nothing that might irritate the minority-speaking nationali¬
ties or could be regarded as an infringement of their private lives’. 3

The nationality conflicts before 1848 (except for Croatia which had its
own special status) were related to three issues: the centralization of the
administration; the introduction of Hungarian as the official language;
and Hungarian-language education in schools. What were Kossuth’s atti¬
tudes in respect of these three issues?

• Kossuth believed profoundly in centralization (at least, until 1848/
49), and that Croatia, Transylvania and, of course, the southern Mili¬
tary Frontier should be governed from Buda. It should be noted,
however, that when as early as 1842 he saw the debate with Croatia
hardening, he recommended full sovereignty and had this voted for
by the Pest county assembly. 4

• The struggle to make Hungarian the official language was essentially
decided without Kossuth and he had little part in the official introduc¬
tion of Hungarian in 1844. Kossuth explained, ‘We want neither the
tyranny of a dead language nor a polyglot confusion of Babel in our
public life’. 5

• Kossuth was a restrained politician. During the course of 1847, when
the issue of the language of education came to the forefront of debate
in the diet, Kossuth spoke against the motion supported by the
majority which proposed all instruction should be in the Hungarian
language. Accordingly, the diet left it to the ‘appropriate authorities’

2 KLOM, XI, p. 128.

3 KLOM, XI, p. 188.

4 Gyorgy Szabad, ‘Hungary’s recognition of Croatia’s self-determination in 1848
and its immediate antecedents’, in (ed.) Bela Kiraly, East Central European
Society and War in the Era of Revolutions 1775-1856, New York, 1984,
pp. 591-609.

5 Gyorgy Szabad, Kossuth Lajos ismert es ismeretlen megnyilatkozasai tukreben,
Budapest, 1977 (hereafter, Kossuth Lajos), p. 80.

Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853

(i.e. the municipalities and churches) to decide on the matter, since in
many places neither teachers nor pupils spoke Hungarian. By this
measure, Hungarian was understood not as the language of education
but rather as a subject to be taught. 6

In summary, therefore, we may conclude that before 1848 Kossuth was
committed to ‘spontaneous’ assimilation. He supported policies which
enhanced and accelerated this process, but his political pragmatism, moral
principles and his conviction that assimilation was inevitable, dissuaded
him from advocating extreme solutions. There is no evidence in any of his
writings of prejudice or hostility towards the nationalities.

2. 1848-49

The spring of 1848 witnessed both the abolition of serfdom and the conver¬
sion of Hungarian society from a society of estates, resting on privilege, to
a society based on citizenship. Equal legal rights and the franchise were
granted without any discrimination in respect of nationality. It is important
to underline this, because in a number of publications it is quite wrongly
claimed that only Hungarian-speaking serfs were freed or that only
Hungarian-speaking citizens received the right to vote, and so on.

No special law was passed in 1848 regarding the nationalities. In all
the laws passed that year there were only two paragraphs that might have
been thought to relate to the nationalities and to have given grounds for
offence. One stated that deputies to the diet should have a knowledge of
Hungarian (but here, at Kossuth’s prompting, the text of the law was
adjusted to ‘insofar as he is capable of it, [the deputy’s] language in the
matter of law-making shall be Hungarian’. 7 Strictly speaking, this might
be considered an infringement of the right of equal treatment, but — espe¬
cially when viewed in the context of the Austrian Reichstag — it consti¬
tuted a practical remedy for a difficult situation. It is indicative of the
linguistic problems besetting the Reichstag that the only petition which
sought to place relations between the nationalities on an equal footing
came from the Slovaks and demanded that ‘every deputy is obliged to
know every language represented in the house’. 8 One could scarcely find

6 KLOM, XI, pp. 433, 438, 487.

7 ‘aki annak megfelelni kepes, hogy a torvenyhozas nyelve a magyar’: Law V of
1848, para. 3.

8 Gyorgy Spira, A nemzetisegi kerdes a negyvennyolcas forradalom
Magyarorszagan, Budapest, 1980 (hereafter, Spira, A nemzetisegi kerdes ), p. 163.

Andrds Gergely 99

40 people in the whole empire who spoke all six languages, let alone 400!
By contrast, in Hungary all politicians belonging to the nationalities
spoke Hungarian. In this respect, the insistence on the Hungarian
language as the vehicle of communication in the diet was not so much an
‘insult’ as a practical solution to a problem which was commonplace in
Central Europe at this time. The second enactment affecting the nationali¬
ties was the requirement that the government of the counties be conducted
in Hungarian. 9 The counties, however, had long been using Hungarian in
their administration and the act, therefore, simply confirmed the status
quo.

With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to understand why the
nationalities were not content with all that had been offered them. At the
time, however, Hungarian politicians were astonished by the intransi¬
gence of the nationalities and by their rejection of the ‘coming of age’
which they had been offered. After all, had not the nationalities been
granted rights in respect to freedom of speech, participation in elections,
and so on? The truth was that the nationalities existed on a far lower
cultural level than the Hungarians. In all of Transylvania there were, for
example, no more than 5,000 literate Romanians. Legally the nationalities
had the right to political participation, but in practice they were unable to
do so on account of their social, economic and historical disadvantages.
As a consequence, the nationalities repudiated the route of citizenship and
sought, instead, the realization of demands which led in a quite different
direction.

The two basic demands of the nationalities in 1848 were acknowledge¬
ment of their separate nationhood and the establishment of their own
autonomous provinces. The first of these desiderata proved to be incom¬
prehensible to the average Hungarian who believed that the concept of the
‘political nation’ transcended differences of language. How, moreover,
could the nationalities constitute a nation and subject of the right to self-
determination when the majority of Serbs and Romanians lived beyond
the existing borders? In respect of the second demand, the notion of
autonomous provinces was for Hungarian liberals an understandable but
none the less unacceptable demand. As Kossuth repeatedly stated, the
country was not simply multi-national but consisted of national groups
which were dispersed across its entire territory. Internal national bounda¬
ries could not, therfore, be established and, if they were, they would yield
only new minorities within their confines. Furthermore, the new national
units so created might act as a ‘Trojan Horse’ and admit tsarist intrigues

9 Law XVI of 1848, para. 2.

100

Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853

aimed at the expansion of Russian influence. Foreign policy concerns
blocked further consideration of the problem. The hopes of the spring of
1848 thus gave way to the exacerbation of the nationality conflict and led,
within the space of a few months, to civil war.

Kossuth responded with a certain rigidity to the growing intensity of
the situation and he openly expressed his disappointment over the nation¬
alities’ opposition to the policies emanating from Pest. He frequently
asserted that their demands were fomented by pan-Slav agitators or the
Viennese camarilla. Kossuth rejected claims to provincial autonomy and,
responding to demands for equal political rights, pointed out that
members of the nationalities already had these rights qua citizens. He
agreed that the agitators should be arrested and, when open warfare broke
out, he was not averse to issuing threats or advocating resettlement and
the establishment of homogeneous national territories. In respect of
concessions, he first proposed an amnesty for all those who laid down
their arms. Later, he promised to consider, and indeed fulfilled, several
demands relating to schooling and religion.

The change in Kossuth’s views in respect of the nationalities and his
embrace of a more conciliatory strategy has been analysed in a number of
historical works, although no firm conclusions have yet been reached. 10
Everybody agrees, however, that Kossuth, who found himself in a victo¬
rious position in the spring of 1848, was forced by events to make conces¬
sions. This was largely the consequence of the invasion of Hungary by
Austrian forces and the Russian intervention in the summer of 1849
which brought about the prospect of final defeat.

No matter how correct Kossuth thought his position to be in respect of
general principles — namely, that the official language should be
Hungarian but that in his private life the citizen should be able to conduct
his affairs in whatever language he chose — he was still obliged to make
concrete decisions with regard to specific issues touching upon schooling,
municipalities, the armed forces, the courts, and so on. As head of the
apparatus of government, Kossuth had to confront the nitty-gritty of

10 I. Zoltan Toth, ‘Kossuth es a nemzetisegi kerdes 1848^9-ben’, in Emlekkonyv
Kossuth Lajos sziiletesenek 150. evfordulojara, vol 2, ed. I.Z. Toth, Budapest,
1952; I. Zoltan Toth, ‘The nationality problem in Hungary in 1848-1849’, Acta
Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae, 4, 1955, pp. 235-77; Ambrus
Miskolczy, ‘Roumanian-Hungarian attempts at reconciliation in the Spring of 1849
in Transylvania’, Acta Universitatis Budapestiensis. Sectio Historica, 21, 1981,
pp. 61-81; Istvan Deak, ‘Istvan Szechenyi, Miklos Wesselenyi, Lajos Kossuth and
the problem of Romanian nationalism’, Austrian History Yearbook, 12-13,
1976-77, pp. 69-77.

Andrds Gergely

101

relations with the nationalities. In this capacity, he gradually made
concessions and these were often controversial. In respect of the
Orthodox communities, he suggested that national assemblies be held in
their languages. Furthermore, he did not envision just individual schools
for members of the nationalities but the establishment of a whole structure
of minority-language education. Members of national minorities were
already eligible for posts in the civil service, but Kossuth went further and
converted this custom to a right, expressis verbis . He also put forward the
idea that parties in a dispute should be allowed to choose the language of
the proceedings in court. 11

In May 1849 Kossuth even abandoned his views on assimilation. He
argued that in the interests of civilization, a member of a minority-
language community should receive help from the state to foster his own
language. In other words, the state should not only tolerate but support
the development and use of minority languages. 12 In respect of ‘collec¬
tive’ minority rights, however, the real Rubicon was crossed by Kossuth
in July 1849. It is, in this respect, worth noting that in May 1848 Kossuth
had rejected the idea completely. He had asserted then that collective
rights were akin to having a lodging house in Pest where the residents
were on the basis of their nationality subject to different authorities — a
situation which he had described on this occasion as unthinkable. 13 For all
this, though, the Projet de Pacification , signed with the Romanian politi¬
cian Balcescu in July 1849, together with the subsequent Nationality Act,
introduced the notion of collective minority rights. These enactments
stated that the Hungarian language would only be used to the extent
required to maintain Hungarian state rule. The act not only affirmed that
the nationalities might use their own languages in schools, municipalities
and churches but extended this right to include the county administration.
Moreover, and most importantly, the act included a vital principle: that
the application of the law should seek to foster ‘the free development of
the nationality of all peoples dwelling within Hungary’. 14 In this way, the
law acknowledged the existence of collective rights, although, as it turned
out, only on paper — for Hungary was defeated before its implementation
was possible.

11 KLdM, XII, pp. 137, 370, 66.

12 KLOM, XII, p. 662.

13 KLdM, XII, p. 370.

14 For the texts of the Projet de Pacification and the Nationalities Act, see Spira, A
nemzetisegi kerde s, pp. 225-28.

102 Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853

How did this dramatic change come about and what was Kossuth’s
role in all this?

Kossuth was the child of his century and so a nationalist, but above all
he was a politician. As far as Kossuth was concerned, the nation was not
‘above everything’. Today we might say that he did not regard the nation¬
alities conflict as a ‘zero-sum’ game. Instead, he understood the nation¬
ality question essentially in terms of practical politics and it was this that
drove him on. The armed might of the nationalities (and especially of the
Serbs), which was also bolstered by outside help, together with the social
tensions which their insurrection aroused, not only made Kossuth feel
threatened but also propelled him intellectually towards the Projet and the
Nationality Act. In short, Kossuth reacted not as an ideologue but as a
politician. It is certainly possible that he was familiar with the relevant
section on nationalities included in the constitution of the German
National Assembly, as amended in March 1849: alien Volksstammen ist
die Unverletzbarkeit ihrer Nationalitat und Sprache gewahrleistet. 15 In
other words, complete cultural autonomy was guaranteed for all the non-
German nationalities of the new Germany. Nor should we exclude the
influence on Kossuth’s thinking of Bertalan Szemere and Laszlo Teleki.
Nevertheless, even admitting these influences, we must ask why Kossuth
should have been so susceptible to them. The truth is that he was impelled
by political considerations and that he was, therefore, prepared to trim and
to borrow in order to achieve the larger goal of Hungarian independence.

3. In Exile

Kossuth continued his labours after 1849, but he realized that a settlement
with the nationalities was the precondition of any successful struggle to
restore an independent Hungary.

In June 1850, Kossuth wrote to Laszlo Teleki who, as Kossuth’s polit¬
ical envoy in Paris, retained considerable influence. Kossuth sketched out
some basic laws that might, given better days, be presented to a constit¬
uent assembly in Hungary. The principles underpinning these laws had,
nevertheless, been adumbrated before his exile. In his proposal, Kossuth
brought together aspects of foreign and domestic policy. He argued that
the grant of rights to the nationalities represented a sine qua non both of a

15 Andras Gergely, ‘The Hungarian Nationalities Act of 1849’, in (eds) Ignac
Romsics and Bela K. Kiraly, Geopolitics in the Danube Region: Hungarian
Reconciliation Efforts 1848-1998, Budapest, 1998, pp. 41-58.

Andras Gergely 103

successful foreign policy and of a federation (later confederation) with the
neighbouring states. He saw that the Serbs and Romanians could only be
partners internationally if their rights as nationalities were guaranteed
within Hungary. After 1850, the cornerstone of Kossuth’s vision was a
federal state, later to be described as a ‘Danubian confederation’. We
should note, however, that Kossuth allowed within this scheme that
borders should be changed to permit the construction of nationally homo¬
geneous blocks within an essentially federalist framework. 16

Less than a year later, while in exile in the Turkish city of Kiitahya,
Kossuth came up with a new plan called ‘Proposal for the Future Political
Organization of Hungary with regard to the Solution of the Nationality
Question’. Much of its content was familiar from 1849, in particular the
use of minority-languages in schools, churches and the county administra¬
tion. Nevertheless, in one critical respect, Kossuth took matters a step
further. In 1848, Kossuth had accepted the collective identity and rights of
the nationalities, but at this point he had not yet considered the socio¬
political aspects of this scheme. Two years later, in 1851, he hit on a solu¬
tion which rested upon an analogy with religious identity. A church in a
multi-religious land exercises its influence throughout the country as a
whole and yet has no fixed territory of its own. In much the same fashion,
citizens belonging to a national minority might establish their own
national organizations, based on a voluntary principle, which would
coalesce institutionally on the level of the counties, regions and ultimately
as state-wide bodies. The national body would elect its own chairman,
have its own coat-of-arms, be responsible for its own statutes, and super¬
vise its own schools, but, like a church, would have no specific territory
of its own. Hence, ‘with the freedom of collegial self-government, those
moral and social interests which are collectively called a “nation’s” will
be promoted’. In Kossuth’s view, these organizations would have nothing
to do with the state, and the state nothing to do with them. 17 The national
communities would thus themselves replicate the civil society which
permitted their development rather than seek, as before, to acquire for
themselves the trappings of statehood. This idea, later known as the
‘personality principle’, would subsequently surface around the turn of the

16 Szabad, Kossuth Lajos, pp. 173-74; Gyorgy Spira, Kossuth es alkotmanyterve,
Debrecen, 1989.

17 ‘szoval tarsas onkormanyzati teljes szabadsaggal gondoskodandnak mindazon
erkolcsi s tarsas erdekek elomozditasarol, miknek oszveget “nemzetisegnek”
[nemzetnek] nevezziik. Ezen egyesuletnek nines semmi koze az allammal, s az
allamnak sines semmi koze ovele’: Szabad, Kossuth Lajos, p. 175.

104

Kossuth’s Nationality Policy, 1847-1853

century in the writings of the Austro-Marxists and, to a certain degree
also, in the 1993 Hungarian Law on Minorities. One should also note that
according to the terms of the 1851 constitutional proposal, the citizen was
entitled to speak in any of the languages of the country and the laws were
to be published in all its languages.

Issues touching upon the territorial integrity of the country — not least
the prospect of Croatia’s secession — were taboo subjects for Kossuth.
Already, however, in 1853 Kossuth agreed with a Romanian politician
that, should Hungary win its independence, a plebiscite would be held to
determine the status of Transylvania to establish whether it would form a
union with Hungary based on the decision of 1848, or recover its former
autonomy. 18 In the following years, Kossuth refined and adjusted his
ideas in line with the pace of international developments. In one of his
unpublished proposals, Kossuth even suggested that, beside the plebiscite
in Transylvania, a Serbian Vojvodina might be established in the southern
counties inhabited by Serbs. (At this time, in 1851, a Serbian Vojvodina
already existed by the grace of the Emperor of Austria, but the majority of
its population was not Serbian and the territory did not enjoy self-
government.)

It was Kossuth’s position all along that so-called historic Hungary be
preserved (although his proposal of 1862 for a ‘Danubian confederation’
can be seen as superseding this position, since he posited an independent
Croatia and Transylvania, bound to Hungary through a common ruler).
Kossuth tried to solve the nationality problem within the context of
historic Hungary and he did not consider partition or dissolution a viable
alternative. The ideas which he had held with regard to the nationalities in
the Reform era underwent a dramatic change between 1847 and 1853. He
remained, however, faithful to these for the next forty years and out of
them developed new plans that were based on the principles of democ¬
racy, federalism and self-government. Even today, two centuries after his
birth, he would have no need to be ashamed either of his ideas or of his
determination in putting them forward.

18 Spira, Kossuth es alkotmanyterve.

Lajos Kossuth, Domokos Kosary and Hungarian
Foreign Policy, 1848-49

Martyn Rady

Hungarian foreign policy is generally considered to have failed in
1848-49. Hungary did not receive international recognition as an inde¬
pendent state. Its overtures for diplomatic and military support were
rejected by the Great Powers, and its envoys were snubbed. Although
there was widespread public interest abroad in Hungary’s struggle and
fate, this concern was not translated into actual intervention on
Hungary’s behalf. While France gestured, Britain held firm to the
conviction that the Habsburg Empire constituted, ‘the most important
element in the balance of European power’, and that an independent
Hungary represented a threat to Europe’s ‘liberties’. 1 Unrecognized and
isolated, Hungary fought alone against the overwhelming might of
Austria and Russia. 2

There are two conventional explanations for the foreign-policy failure.
The first, exemplified by Aladar Mod’s Four Hundred Years’ Struggle
for Independent Hungary (1943, and many subsequent editions), depicts
Hungary as the permanent victim of international power-politics. By this
measure, an independent Hungary, because it variously threatened the
European order, the forces of reaction, or even the worth of Austrian
state-bonds, was bound not to receive international support. 3 The second
explanation points, by contrast, the finger of blame not at the Great
Powers but at Lajos Kossuth himself. Within a few years of the defeat of

1 M. E. Chamberlain, British Foreign Policy in the Age of Palmerston , London,
1980, p. 125.

2 Independent Hungary was recognized only by Piedmont-Sardinia, Venice,
Switzerland and the United States.

3 See thus also, Anonymous, ‘Rakosi Matyas es a magyar tortenettudomany’,
Szazadok, 86, 1952, pp. 1-23 (p. 10). The essay, which was also published as a
separatum under the collective authorship of the Magyar Tortenelmi Tarsulat,
was mainly composed by Erik Molnar. Molnar did a fine job in extracting all he
could from Rakosi’s ‘A 48-as orokseg’ (published in Epltjuk a nep orszagat,

105

106

Kossuth, Kosary and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1848-49

independent Hungary, the conviction arose that its government had been
tardy in promoting the Hungarian cause abroad and that this accounted for
the Great Powers’ subsequent lack of interest in the Hungarian cause. The
earliest explanation of this type was put forward in the joint-work of the
radical Hungarian deputy, Daniel Iranyi, and the French left-wing
journalist, Charles-Louis Chassin, Histoire politique de la revolution de
Hongrie (2 vols, Paris, 1859-60; see especially, vol 2, pp. 484-85). A few
years later, the former bishop of Csanad and minister of public education
in the Szemere government, Mihaly Horvath, laid the blame for the
failure of Hungarian foreign policy not on the ‘government’ but instead
on Kossuth. According to Bishop Horvath, Kossuth never understood the
merits of diplomacy and set too much store by military methods. As
Kossuth himself observed, ‘the best diplomacy is to smash the enemy’.
Kossuth failed, according to Horvath, to take advice and insisted that
France and Britain would soon intervene to halt Russia, even to the extent
of sending a fleet to Sevastopol. Bishop Horvath’s final verdict was
damning: Kossuth’s imagination in respect of the realities of international
politics, ‘mystified himself and others too’. * * * 4

Horvath’s criticism of Kossuth was generally accepted by historians.
Kossuth’s understanding of foreign relations was thus variously described
as ‘self-deluding’, and as ‘swaggering, unrealistic and inconsequential’. 5
In similar fashion, the most important English-language work published
on Kossuth describes the overtures he made to the European powers in the
summer of 1849, as a ‘monument to his declining realism and perspi¬
cacity... Undoubtedly Kossuth, a provincial who had never been in a
foreign country, knew little of European diplomacy; and what he knew
was marred by his national pride and optimism’. Although the author

Budapest, 1949, pp. 105-14). For the Hungarian War of Independence as being

internationally an ‘issue of the wallet’ ( zsebbe vago kerdes ), see Sandor Marki and

Gusztav Beksics, A modem Magyarorszag (1848-1896), (A magyar nemzet
tortenete, ed S. Szilagyi, 10), Budapest, 1898, p. 132.

4 Bishop Mihaly Horvath, Magyarorszag fuggetlensegi harczanak tortenete 1848 es
1849-ben, 3 vols, Geneva, 1865, iii, pp. 80-82. See also Szechenyi’s diary entry for
31 August, 1848: ‘Kossuth will Kanonir-Boote — er hallucinirt fort’: given in (ed)
F. Erzsebet Kiss, Az 1848-1849. evi minisztertanacsi jegyzokdnyvek, Budapest,
1989, p. 132.

5 Revai Nagylexikona, 12, Budapest, 1915, p. 77. The account given by the
anonymous contributor (Sandor Petho?) also criticizes the timing of the
Independence Declaration and Kossuth’s treatment of Gorgei. The second
quotation summarizes the outlook of ‘bourgeois historiography’ and is taken from
Eszter Waldapfel, A Juggetlen magyar kiilpolitika, Budapest, 1962, p. 337.

Martyn Rady

107

acknowledges that a ‘more cosmopolitan statesman might not have
achieved more’, his estimation of Kossuth puts him squarely in the
Horvath tradition. 6

The first determined attempt to rescue Kossuth’s reputation was made
by Eszter Waldapfel in the early 1960s. Waldapfel’s exhaustive
researches in Hungarian and foreign archives (most notably the Czarto-
ryski Museum in Cracow) revealed a far greater, and earlier, activity on
Kossuth’s part in respect of international relations than had previously
been presumed. Waldapfel discussed at length Hungary’s diplomatic
overtures to the Frankfurt parliament and the activities of Laszlo Teleki,
the Hungarian envoy, in Paris. Additionally, she drew attention to the
close links between foreign policy and the nationalities conflict within
Hungary itself and the interrelationship of the two. Waldapfel’s downfall
was, however, her attempt to demonstrate that Kossuth’s policy was
consistent in that Kossuth always sought to align the Hungarian struggle
with the most ‘progressive forces’ in Europe. 7 Given that these forces
were by the autumn of 1848 in full-scale retreat, Waldapfel’s account
only added weight to those who argued that Kossuth’s foreign policy was
both misguided and unrealistic.

It is easy to scoff, as historians often do, at Waldapfel’s work. Her
account is, however (and as Aladar Urban’s otherwise harsh review
acknowledged), based on a thorough and easy familiarity with the sources
and is supported by an extensive critical apparatus. 8 What is also striking
about Waldapfel’s contribution is that much of its periodization and many
of its emphases should be followed in what is now the leading work on
Hungarian foreign policy in 1848—49 .' 9 As we might expect, Domokos
Kosary’s Hungary and International Politics in 1848-49 is cleverer and
more nuanced. Kosary is, after all, the doyen of Hungarian historians who
has (among much else) spent a lifetime with the nineteenth century and
has behind him a string of works which are both seminal and provocative.
In a number of respects, Kosary broadly adheres to Waldapfel’s account,
but he makes some necessary and important modifications. Just as
Waldapfel sought to put Kossuth at the centre of the making of foreign
policy in the spring and summer of 1848 (here, Waldapfel was reacting

6 Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians , New
York, 1979, pp. 293, 300.

7 Waldapfel, A fuggetlen magyar kiilpolitika, pp. 337-38.

8 Szazadok, 99, 1965, pp. 1296-1301.

9 Domokos Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben,
Budapest, 1999. An English-language edition, translated by Tim Wilkinson, is
currently underway.

108

Kossuth, Kosary and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1848-49

against the earlier, ‘collective ministry’ approach favoured by Istvan
Hajnal), 10 so Kosary indicates Kossuth’s critical role in influencing policy
towards the German confederation and Piedmont-Sardinia. Kosary sees
the events of the summer of 1848 as accomplishing a shift in the pace of
Hungarian diplomacy, but here he modifies Waldapfel who, while recog¬
nizing the change of tempo, located its cause exclusively in the
‘September crisis’. Again, Kosary acknowledges the role of Teleki and
the importance of his links with Czartoryski but, whereas Waldapfel was
generally ambivalent in respect of Teleki’s achievements, Kosary indi¬
cates his undoubted successes in promoting the Hungarian cause abroad.
Nevertheless, the very fact that Kosary devotes so much space to Teleki
in France and to Pulszky’s activities in England is itself a comment on his
debt to Waldapfel’s own painstaking research. By contrast, in the most
important book on Hungarian foreign policy published between
Waldapfel and Kosary, the diplomacy of Teleki and Pulszky is accorded
only summary treatment. * 11 Similarly, Kosary follows Waldapfel (and
Hajnal) in establishing the close link between Hungarian foreign policy
and the nationalities conflict within Hungary.

Kosary comes closest to Waldapfel in the earliest chapters of his
account. Like Waldapfel (and other Marxist historians) he seeks to place
the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 in the context of the overthrow by the
bourgeoisie of the feudal and absolutist order — a development which
Kosary sees as chronologically spreading outwards from seventeenth-
century England, eventually reaching the European ‘periphery’ two
centuries later. 12 More satisfactorily, Kosary agrees with Waldapfel and
most other Hungarian historians in indicating the range of possibilities
which offered themselves in the spring and early summer of 1848 and
which mostly pointed to a successful outcome of the revolutionary
struggle. Not only was the court in Vienna, later removed to Innsbruck,
ready to make concessions but the entire future of the Monarchy, and of
Hungary’s place within it, was also uncertain. The strong possibility that
the German provinces of the Monarchy would enter a renewed German
confederation made it seem likely that Habsburg relations with Hungary
could be transformed. It might thus be that the Habsburg emperor
assumed responsibility as a constitutional ruler within the German Bund,
a situation which would oblige him to remodel his relations with Hungary

10 Istvan Hajnal, A Batthyany-kormany kiilpoiitikdja , Budapest, 1957, p. 28.

11 Geza Herczegh, Magyarorszag kiilpoiitikdja 1896-1919, Budapest, 1987.

12 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika , pp. 7-8; Eszter Waldapfel, A
forradalom es szabadsagharc levelestdra, i, Budapest, 1950, (Bevezetes), p. iii.

Martyn Rady

109

on an equal, constitutional footing. By going in with Germany, moreover,
the emperor would upset the Slavs within the Monarchy, as well as
Russia, and so be forced to rely increasingly on Hungarian support. Alter¬
natively, the monarch might choose to abandon Vienna altogether and to
reside permanently in Buda, which would free him from the influence of
the camarilla and permit increased Hungarian influence on imperial
policy. Whatever the outcome, therefore, Hungary looked destined to
become the linchpin in a new Habsburg and, thus, European order.
Inspired by this prospect, Batthyany began to envisage a Hungaro-centric
Habsburg Monarchy in which a remodelled ‘Big Hungary’ finally got its
hands on Dalmatia and Galicia. There followed several visits and appeals,
including Kossuth’s own, aimed at enticing Emperor Ferdinand from
Vienna and Innsbruck to Buda. 13

It is certainly possible to conceive of the history of Hungary’s relations
with the Habsburgs in terms of the contradiction both between the rights
variously claimed by the orszag and the Reich and, more specifically,
between the respective terms of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1723 and Law X
of 1790. The former stressed the ‘indivisible and inseparable’ nature of the
Monarchy and of Hungary’s permanent place within it; the second that
Hungary was ‘an independent kingdom’, subject to none other, having its
own consistentiam et constitutionem. ]4 After March 1848, however, it
seemed that it was the court itself which was in the process of abandoning
the Pragmatic Sanction and of forging a new relationship with Germany,
even to the extent of abandoning its commitments under the Pragmatic Sanc¬
tion. Palacky understood this immediately — hence his intemperate letter to

13 Herczegh, Magyarorszag kiilpolitikaja, pp. 242-48. Herczegh also introduces here
the canard of relations between Hungary and the ruler being reconstructed on the
basis of ‘personal union’. See Laszlo Peter, ‘Old Hats and Closet Revisionists:
Reflections on Domokos Kosary’s Latest Work on the 1848 Hungarian
Revolution’, The Slavonic and East European Review , 80, 2002, pp. 296-319
(pp. 305-07).

14 Antal Szecsen brilliantly summed up the constitutional background to 1848 in an
anonymous letter to The Times , 10 July, 1849: ‘...the reciprocal position of the two
countries [Austria and Hungary] was, especially subsequent to the Pragmatic
Sanction, that of an indissoluble union under the same reigning family, modified, as
regarded Hungary, by the formal recognition of its constitutional rights, and its
national and administrative independence ... The want of positive laws,
contradictory customs, the encroachments of the Government, as well as its
concessions, had confused and complicated [matters] to an extreme, and opened a
vast field to the most contradictory interpretations.’ The provisions of 1723 and
1790, however, became contradictory only when the vocabulary of the ‘state’ was
brought into the equation: see Peter, ‘Old Hats and Closet Revisionists’, pp. 305-06.

110 Kossuth, Kosary and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1848-49

Frankfurt in early April, of which historians usually recall only the first
line. 15 In much the same way, the Batthyany ministry stretched its interpreta¬
tion of the powers given it under the April Laws to pursue what may be
perceived as an ‘independent foreign policy’.

It is in this respect that Kosary departs most radically from
Waldapfel’s account. Waldapfel saw Hungary as pursuing an independent
policy only after the September crisis, although she allowed that the basis
for this policy had been laid in the preceding months and especially in the
course of Hungary’s diplomacy at Frankfurt. 16 Kosary, by contrast, sees
the Batthyany ministry as pursuing an independent line from the first.
How may these contradictory positions be explained? The problem is,
surely, that Waldapfel confuses an independent policy with one which
was aimed expressly against the court. In fact, it was perfectly possible,
and indeed logical, for Hungarian and imperial policy to converge in the
spring of 1848: after all, both had much to gain from pressing the Gross-
deutsch solution. To this extent cooperation rather than confrontation
marked their relations. The Austrian government was thus perfectly
willing to concede Prince Pal Esterhazy, the Hungarian minister a latere
in Vienna, the title of foreign minister, even to the extent of addressing
correspondence to Esterhazy an das konigliche ungarische Ministerium
des Aussern} 1 Likewise, the court was prepared to cede Hungary a flag of
marque to protect Hungarian vessels in the Adriatic from attack by the
Piedmontese fleet, even though the request, which originated with
Kossuth, flew in the face of the Pragmatic Sanction. 18 Moreover, through
the court’s investiture of the palatine with plenipotentiary powers, a
mechanism was provided by which diplomats, most notably Laszlo
Szalay, could receive some form of official accreditation abroad. 19

15 ‘Ich bin ein Bohme slawischen Stammen ... Sie nothwendiger Weise darauf
ausgesehen willen und werden, Osterreich als selbstandigen Kaiserstaat unheilbar
zu schwachen, ja ihn unmoglich zu machen, — einen Staat dessen Erhaltung,
Integritat und Kraftigung eine hohe und wichtige Angelegenheit nicht meines
Voikes allein, sondem ganz Europas, ja der Humanitat und Civilisation selbst ihn
und sein muss.’ Georg J. Morava, Franz Palacky. Eine friihe Vision von
Mitteleuropa , Vienna, 1990, p. 135.

16 This criticism of Waldapfel is also made in Urban’s review in Szazadok,
pp. 1297-8.

17 Hajnal, A Batthyany-kormany kiilpolitikaja , p. 22.

18 ibid., p. 88. This did not, however, stop the Hungarian frigate ‘HMS Implacabile’
being seized by the British government when it docked in London for repairs.

19 The imperial court continued, however, to consider Szalay as emissary of the
Hungarian diet to Frankfurt: see Maria Ormos and Istvan Majoros, Europa a
nemzetkdzi kiizdoteren. Felemelkedes es hany atlas, 1814-1945, Budapest, 1998, p. 99.

Martyn Rady

111

The ministry in Pest was, for its part, equally conciliatory. Indeed,
what is most striking is how firmly the Hungarian ministry stuck by the
principles of the Pragmatic Sanction. Certainly, the ministry’s interest in
sticking by the Pragmatic Sanction had much to do with its hope that the
court would assist it in the developing conflict with the Croats and
Serbs. 20 While stretching the powers conceded under the April laws, the
ministry did not, therefore, rush to embrace policies that flew in the face
of the principle of ‘indivisible and inseparable’. Thus, although sympa¬
thizing with the Italian struggle, Batthyany did not offer support and kept
generally aloof from making provocative statements. Hungarian troops
continued to join in the fight against Charles Albert and the Italian insur¬
gents. Only in July did Kossuth seek to attach conditions to continued
Hungarian support for the war. 21 Even as late as the next month, by which
time the court’s duplicity was clear, the Lower House’s acceptance of Pal
Nyary’s motion that Hungary would not support Austria in a war aimed
against German unity provoked much heart-searching within the govern¬
ment on account of its evident breach of the Pragmatic Sanction. 22

By this time, however, the stakes had changed. Although few appreci¬
ated it at the time, Radetzky’s victory over Charles Albert at Custozza on
25 July returned the initiative to the court. Troops could now be diverted
from the Italian front to prosecute a war in Hungary. Moreover, the Serb
revolt was already in full swing and there was increasing evidence that the
insurgents were being directed by Austrian officers. Increasingly confi¬
dent, the court during August calculatedly wrecked Szalay’s mission in
Frankfurt and impertinently demanded that Hungary now conform in its
military and diplomatic affairs to its own interpretation of the Pragmatic
Sanction (i.e. that ‘the existence of a Kingdom of Hungary separate from
the Austrian Empire must be described as politically impossible’), even to
the extent of renegotiating the April Laws. 23 Meanwhile, Jelacic, whose
complicity with the Serbs was by now evident, openly challenged the
authority of the ministry in Pest and was increasingly the recipient of
military shipments from Vienna. On 11 September, Jelacic crossed the
Drava, the Batthyany ministry collapsed, and with the approval of the diet

20 Kiss, Az 1848-1849. evi minisztertanacsi jegyzokdnyvek , pp. 21, 60-61, 65.

21 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, pp. 26-27.

22 ibid., p. 28; Deak Ferencz beszedei, vol 2, ed. Mano Konyi, Budapest, 1903,
pp. 288-89.

23 C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918 , 2 nd edition, London, 1971,
p. 394.

112 Kossuth, Kosary and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1848-49

Kossuth assumed power as president of the Committee of National
Defence.

The ‘September crisis’ did not, however (and pace Waldapfel),
suddenly galvanize Hungarian diplomacy. As Kosary suggests,
Hungarian diplomacy had long been active, but it had not hitherto thought
it necessary openly to oppose the court. Behind the scenes, however, the
ministry had forged unofficial links with Britain and, more circumspectly,
with France. There was even discussion of setting up consulates in Serbia
and the Romanian principalities. Nor, indeed, was the government in Pest
unaware that the propitious international circumstances of the spring
could all too easily be upset. During the spring and summer, Kossuth
repeatedly warned of the danger of Russian intervention and of a potential
collision between Russia and the ‘free nations’ of Europe. He saw, more¬
over, the possibility that, if the Grossdeutsch solution should fail, the
future of the Monarchy would rest on the Slavs, and Habsburg policy
become increasingly aligned with Russia. For this reason, he urged closer
links with Frankfurt. In a letter written to Denes Pazmandy, who was with
Szalay in Frankfurt, Kossuth encouraged the envoy to closer relations
with Germany, even to the extent of constructing a treaty of mutual assur¬
ance by which Germany would guarantee Hungary’s territorial integrity
in return for Hungary supporting the Bund against Czech secession. 24
Kossuth continued to urge, moreover, that the king move the court to
Buda or, as an alternative, that the young Franz Joseph be crowned in
Hungary as junior rex? 5

It was, however, not at Kossuth’s behest but on Batthyany’s own initia¬
tive that Count Laszlo Teleki was sent at the end of August to Paris as
Hungary’s special envoy. 26 Earlier correspondence with Paris had
suggested that Teleki would be formally recognized there as the representa¬
tive of the Hungarian government, but, as it turned out, no such recognition
was forthcoming. Teleki’s mission was not, however, a failure. As Kosary
argues, the French government was by no means unaware of Hungary’s
plight and certainly not unsympathetic. If France, however, could not help
the Poles and Romanians, on whose behalf it had long been diplomatically
active, it was unlikely to do much for Hungary. 27 As Lamartine had earlier

24 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzipolitika 1848-1849-ben , p. 17.

25 ibid., p. 27. The title of ‘junior king’ had been employed in Hungary during the
Middle Ages.

26 ibid., p. 32. Here Kosary corrects Waldapfel’s account which places too much
emphasis on Kossuth’s role in arranging the mission.

27 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben , p. 46-47.

Martyn Rady

113

put it, ‘We love Poland, we love Italy, we love all the oppressed nations,
but most of all we love France’. 28 As Kosary indicates, the real achieve¬
ment of Teleki lay his influence on French public opinion which at the start
of his mission had largely conceived of the Hungarians as a ‘catholicized,
Slavonic people’ who practised tyrannical rule against their own minori¬
ties. Teleki was both prolific and salonfahig , planting stories in the press,
cultivating ministers and journalists, both on the left and on the right, and
turning individual papers, most notably Victor Hugo’s Evenement , round
from their originally anti-Hungarian stance. Teleki’s La Hongrie awe
peuples civilises , published in December 1848 and subsequently translated
into German, English and Italian editions, proved vital in mobilizing both
French and international opinion.

Teleki was, however, not just a propagandist but also acted as a sort of
de facto Hungarian foreign minister abroad. 29 He opened up contacts with
Charles Albert and Venice with the aim of coordinating diplomacy and
military policy against the Habsburgs, and, importantly, also developed
close ties with the Polish emigration in Paris. Teleki’s mission was
warmly embraced by Prince Czartoryski who saw Hungary as a potential
cornerstone in the struggle against the Habsburgs and thus in the libera¬
tion of Poland. Czartoryski was convinced that a common Slav and
Hungarian front was within reach. To this end, he sent — vainly as it
turned out — his own emissary, Count Ludwik Bystrzonowski, to
Karlowitz (Karloca, Sremski Karlovci) to negotiate with Patriarch Rajacic
with a view to putting an end to Serb-Hungarian hostilities. 30 At the same
time, Teleki was fully aware that the nationalities conflict within Hungary
was not only ‘bad publicity’ for the Hungarian cause abroad, but also
hemmed in the range of diplomatic options available. Repeatedly, thus, he
called on Kossuth to strike a deal with the Serbs, Croats and Romanians
and, embracing one of Czartoryski’s own preferred solutions, to reconsti¬
tute Hungary along federal lines. As he wrote to Kossuth in the spring of
1849, he should at least address to the nationalities ‘a fine-sounding proc¬
lamation ... for God’s sake, give them whatever is possible ... If Austria
cannot be defeated and brought down in any other way, then let us recon¬
struct our Hungarian homeland on the basis of confederation ...’. 31

28 A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, Oxford and New
York, 1954, p. 10.

29 Pal Esterhazy resigned as minister a latere in September 1848 in protest at the
court’s demand that the April Laws be renegotiated; Count Kazmer Batthyany was
appointed foreign minister in May 1849.

30 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben , p. 137.

31 ibid., p. 56.

114 Kossuth, Kosary and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1848-49

Teleki did not ‘speak’ for the government. 32 Indeed, his advice with
respect to the nationalities was criticized by the recently-appointed
foreign minister, Kazmer Batthyany. 33 Despite this rebuff, Teleki
continued to promote the Hungarian cause. Following the defeat of the
French radicals in the early summer of 1849 and the decisive shift to the
right of the government of Louis Napoleon, Teleki turned to Great Britain
for support. The Hungarian cause already had a number of supporters in
Britain, including the Scot Joseph Andrew Blackwell, who had done
much in the preceding years to advertise Hungarian politics. 34 By
promoting the cause of independent Hungary, the impecunious Blackwell
hoped to land for himself the post of consul in Pressburg or Pest. From
February 1849, Ferenc Pulszky was also active as Teleki’s special repre¬
sentative in Britain. Despite his many personal failings (not least his
propensity for self-aggrandizement), Pulszky repeated many of Teleki’s
successes in Paris, winning over sections of the press (The Globe
published articles on Hungary on an almost daily basis), responding to
criticisms of Hungarian policy, and forging links with Richard Cobden
and several of the Chartist leaders. 35 Pulszky and Teleki well understood
that in Britain in particular appeals of a demagogic character were
unlikely to make their mark. Both stressed, therefore, the strict legality of
Hungary’s case. 36 In respect of the Independence Declaration of April
1849, its contents were considered by Teleki so potentially upsetting to
the Hungarian cause abroad that he first sought to suppress its publication
and then to release it in a highly doctored form. 37 (The Independence
Declaration is conventionally seen, even by Kosary, as a diplomatic
disaster and the product of a government which, on account of its isola¬
tion, was no longer alert to the realities of international affairs. 38 Since at
the time of its publication, Kossuth hoped to influence the international
conference scheduled to meet at Verona, and since participation at this
event depended upon independent statehood, the Declaration might also
be seen as both timely and expedient). Although Pulszky and Teleki were
received privately by Palmerston, their conversation did not lead to any
appreciable change in British policy. This rested, as it always had done,

32 ibid., p. 181.

33 Deak, The Lawful Revolution, pp. 296-97.

34 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, p. 225.

35 Ormos and Majoros, Europa a nemzetkdzi kiizdoteren, p. 101.

36 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, p. 258.

37 For the various versions of the Independence Declaration distributed by Teleki, see
Waldapfel, A fuggetlen magyar kiilpolitika, pp. 208-10.

38 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, pp. 67-71.

Martyn Rady

115

on the notion of the balance of power, defence of the settlement of 1815,
and the necessity of a strong Austria. The most that was to be gained from
Britain in 1849 was Palmerston’s advice to the Russian minister,
‘Finissez en vite!’ 39

As we have already indicated, Teleki considered the nationalities
conflict to be the Achilles heel of Hungarian independence. For Kosary,
however, the nationalities struggle was the inevitable consequence of the
rise of nationalism and was as such unavoidable. 40 Although Kosary indi¬
cates that at fleeting moments deals might have been struck between the
Hungarian government and the nationalities, he repudiates Waldapfel’s
contention that a united front against Austria was always on the cards. 41
From the very start, the demands put forward by the nationalities proved
unmeetable. It was probably with the Romanians that the Hungarian
government had the best chance of success, but it had no obvious reasons
to make concessions during 1848. By the next year, the gulf of distrust
proved impossible to bridge and, in the mean time, the court had success¬
fully brought the nationalities into its fold. Even the publication of the
octroyed constitution in March 1849, which dealt a death-blow to all the
nationalities’ hopes for territorial autonomy, did little to change the situa¬
tion. As late as June 1849, by which time peace-negotiations between
Hungarians and Romanians were relatively advanced, the leader of the
Romanians of the Banat, Eftimie Murgu, was able to observe. ‘I do not
believe that there is way of settling relations between the two nations [i.e.
Romanians and Hungarians] peacefully. It is impossible to get them to
agree on account of their vengeful blindness, national pride and embit¬
teredness’. 42 By the time a deal was struck, it was all too late. Negotia¬
tions on a confederation capable of accommodating both Romanians and
Hungarians were completed only in exile. 43

To what extent was an outcome other than total defeat possible?
Kosary makes several important points in this regard. First, Hungarian
policy remained active and, more importantly, realistic almost right up to
the end. Kossuth did not cease, therefore, trying to negotiate with Austria,
both in the form of the court and of the Reichstag, only to have his

39 ibid., p. 255; Herczegh, Magyarorszag kiilpolitikaja, p. 272.

40 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, p. 103.

41 ‘Was there not then the possibility of forging a united front against the oppressive
power of the Habsburgs? Yes, there was!’: Waldapfel, A fiiggetlen magyar
kiilpolitika, p. 101. See also Herczegh, Magyarorszag kiilpolitikaja , pp. 273-74;
Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, pp. 103, 181.

42 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, p. 207.

43 ibid., p. 219.

116

Kossuth, Kosary and Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1848-49

overtures famously rebuffed by Windischgratz. Moreover, and notwith¬
standing his endless denunciation of the Russian menace, Kossuth
continued to press Hungary’s case with St Petersburg. During the spring
of 1849, he sought to open links through the Russian military command
by which he might not only explain the legitimacy of his actions to Tsar
Nicholas but even hint that the crown of Hungary be offered to a scion of
the Romanov dynasty. In order to avoid antagonizing the tsar, Kossuth
additionally restrained Bern from invading Galicia and proclaiming a
revolt in Poland. As Kossuth put it in April 1849, ‘I will not risk the fate
of Hungary for the sake of the Poles’. 44 As against Geza Herczegh’s view
that Kossuth sought through the Independence Declaration to convert
Hungary’s struggle into a war of peoples — a view which comports with
the notion that Kossuth’s perception of the world was becoming increas¬
ingly clouded by the Debrecen dust — Kosary shows that Kossuth still
understood where real power lay. Kossuth did not, therefore, address his
declaration to the peoples of Europe but instead to their governments, and
he waited upon these to respond to his appeal and, as he foresaw, to learn
from Hungary’s fate the true nature of Russian ambitions. 45

Secondly, Kosary argues that there was room for manoeuvre, even in
the last phases of the war. In explaining the campaigns of 1849, Kosary
vindicates General Gorgey one more time. 46 As Kosary argues, had
Gorgei been permitted to remain in the west and to take on Haynau, and
had he won, then a peace on more advantageous terms might have been
secured. Instead, however, Dembinski urged that the Hungarian army
concentrate on Szeged, for no other reason than, so it would appear, to be
ready to flee into Turkey. Likewise, if negotiations between the Hungar¬
ians and the Russian generals had bom fruit, then different outcomes
might have arisen — not least the amnesty which Schwarzenberg was
drafting even at the moment Gorgei surrendered at Vilagos. In short,
Kosary repudiates the notion of the kenyszerpalya : the inescapable path
which would take Hungary to the ultimate catastrophe. In this respect, he
explicitly concurs with Hajnal that, in assessing the options thrown up at
the time of the revolution, it is wrong simply to work backwards from the
final result. 47

44 ibid., p. 61.

45 ibid., p. 60; Herczegh, Magyarorszag kiilpolitikaja, p. 266.

46 See thus Domokos Kosary, A Gorgey-kerdes tortenete , 2 vols, Budapest, 1994;
discussed by Laszlo Peter, ‘The “Gorgey Question” Revisited: Reflections on
Academician Domokos Kosary’s Work’, The Slavonic and East European Review ,
76, 1998, pp. 85-100.

47 Kosary, Magyarorszag es a nemzetkdzi politika 1848-1849-ben, p. 287.

Martyn Rady

117

Finally, in respect to the prevailing opinion that Hungarian foreign
policy ‘failed’ in 1848-49, Kosary makes the following observations.
Batthyany, Teleki and Kossuth did try to use the opportunities given them
and their failure was only partial. The propaganda of Teleki and the story
of the military struggle waged by Kossuth ensured that Hungary ‘carried a
greater international reputation and political weight after defeat than she
had before’. Moreover, ‘[The War of Independence] also had the conse¬
quence that when Austria, having been sobered up by military defeats in
the Italian and German wars, was compelled to reorganize her empire, she
chose in the end out of all sorts of possible outcomes to reach agreement
with the proven strength of Hungary’. 48

Ultimately, our view of Hungarian foreign policy in 1848-49 depends
upon our view of Hungarian history as a whole. If we subscribe to the
kenyszerpalya , then we may well, in Mod-ish fashion, see the Hungarian
Revolution and War of Independence as being destined from the first for
defeat; the forces of international power-politics, the legacy of 1815 and,
perhaps, even the value attached to Austrian state-bonds simply proved
too much. The same applies to those other turning-points in Hungarian
history: Mohacs, the Rakoczi revolt, 1944, 1956 and, even, 1989. If we
believe, however, that individuals can make a difference, then proper
attention should also be paid to the choices for which they were respon¬
sible and which shaped the subsequent pattern of events. We may in the
context of Hungary’s diplomacy in the revolutionary years fasten on the
accomplishments of Batthyany and Teleki. We should also, however,
recall Ferenc Deak’s observation on the Settlement of 1867, which
Kosary quotes: ‘History will link this transformation to the name of the
man who set it in motion and carried it through with tireless energy in ’48.
Despite the unfortunate events which ensued, this part of his achievement
has endured and will continue to do so’. 49

48 ibid., p. 293.

49 ibid., p. 292.

Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

Robert Evans

Every great man possesses, we may suppose, a distinctive set of qualities
and experiences. Let me begin by setting out the characteristic traits of the
national hero who is indelibly linked with the stirring events of 1848-49
in Hungary. At the risk of appearing over-schematic, I offer the following
ten bullet-points as a summary.

• He stood out for his handsome, bearded but clean-cut, romantic
features and his innate powers of leadership.

• He was bom into the higher echelons of his society, but enjoyed little
inherited wealth and felt from the first a burning commitment to the
welfare of his people as a whole.

• He was a member of the Lutheran minority and rather anticlerical,
though strikingly conciliatory towards lay Catholics who would join
in with his reform programme.

• He was a man of outstanding eloquence, in Magyar and in other
languages.

• He threw himself into politics from a young age, an involvement
which was viewed with misgivings by the establishment through his
association with a strongly national programme.

• He espoused liberal views, though at times he looked rather conserv¬
ative to others and he could be outflanked by radical opinion.

• His career breakthrough came in the 1840s with official permission
to edit a newspaper, which immediately became the focus of national
attention.

• He was first elected as a deputy at the last of the old-style Hungarian
diets, which sat for six months from November 1847.

• The next year he became civilian leader of the national uprising, with
a strong inclination to intervene also in military affairs.

• With the failure of the cause in 1849, he withdrew for good from the
domestic political scene and gave himself over to visionary plans for

119

120

Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

the future which made many of his former supporters rather uncom¬
fortable.

The reader will, I trust, recognize this as a portrayal of Lajos Kossuth,
on the occasion of his two hundredth anniversary. But I am actually
thinking equally of another Louis, his Slovak contemporary, Ludovit Stur,
bom thirteen years later. For the ‘identikit’ picture fits both of them. Stur
too had an alluring and commanding presence. He enjoyed certain advan¬
tages of birth, but felt himself a man of the people. He was a Protestant,
who co-operated with many representatives of the Slovak Catholic
majority. He was a powerful orator, not least in Magyar, the main
language of Hungary’s public life. Stur too immersed himself in politics,
albeit student and cultural politics, from his youth, and attracted disap¬
proval from superiors who favoured less aggressive forms of national
engagement. He was liberal in many of his aspirations, though with a
romantic fervour which could be retrogressive and without the democratic
priorities of some of his colleagues. He assumed a clear leadership role
within the national movement when he gained approval for a journal, the
Slovenske Narodne Noviny, which he ran for roughly the same length of
time that Kossuth edited the Pesti Hirlap. Then he made a belated entry
into parliamentary politics, simultaneously with Kossuth, at the historic
diet of 1847-48, where he represented an Upper Hungarian municipality.
Stur too played the most prominent part in mobilizing his people for the
civil war which began in the autumn of 1848. When the Slovak national
campaign, despite having espoused the winning Habsburg side against the
Magyars, failed to achieve its goals in 1849, he was forced into a kind of
internal exile, and reconsidered his priorities as fundamentally as did
Kossuth. He gave himself over to strange and impractical schemes which
were cut off by his untimely death in 1856.

Moreover, we shall find important overlaps in personal terms too
between Kossuth and Stur, just as the societies from which they emerged
and the movements which they headed were inextricably intertwined both
before and after the heady days of revolution. They are alike also, and by
the same token different from all the rest of the 1848-49 political leaders
in Hungary, in that Kossuth and Stur have remained broad-based popular
heroes among posterity, central figures in the shaping of national identity:
contrast the more limited and questionable status of, e.g. Batthyany or
Bern, Hurban or Hodza, Jelacic or Stratimirovic, Bamufiu or Jancu, and,
for that matter, those in the Austro-Bohemian realms too, with the
possible exception of Palacky. At the same time, however, we should note
contrasts and antitheses between the two, with the reputation of the one

Robert Evans

121

resting significantly on a repudiation of the other. That is my theme in
what follows: a tight focus for a brief exposition, which nevertheless
carries, I hope, some wider implications. As befits this collection, it is
conceived as a contribution to understanding Kossuth; but says more
about Stur, for the obvious reason of the latter’s unfamiliarity in the
Hungarian national consciousness — which itself results from the very
divergent ways in which the revolutionary events came to be remem¬
bered. 1

***

Stur’s career (detailed for convenience in an Appendix below) soon
placed him squarely at the centre of the developing nationality quarrels
in Upper Hungary. He was the son of a Lutheran schoolteacher very
consciously committed to the ‘Czechoslovak’ heritage, i.e. the use in
Slovak Protestant communities of a more-or-less Czech form of the
language and maintenance of its accompanying culture. For a time the
elder Stur even acted as mentor to the young Palacky, who then took
this tradition with him to Prague and lent it prominence in Bohemia. 2

Yet the Stur family also enjoyed status as proteges of the local land-
owner, Count Imre Zay, who sustained a paternalistic regime in his
little pocket borough of Zay-Ugroc (Uhrovec) with little regard to
ethnic allegiance. Eudovit studied at the Lutheran gymnasium in Press-
burg, and stayed on for years afterwards — punctuated by a spell at the
university of Halle — as amanuensis to his former Czechoslovak
teacher there, Juraj Palkovic, and chief organizer of Slavonic courses
and cultural activities at the school. He collected around him a group of
intense, ascetic, austere, evangelical youths, the Sturites (Sturovci), as
they soon came to be known, who committed themselves to a public
and. emotional advocacy of the Slav cause, especially in its local mani¬
festations. Thus they went on pilgrimage to the proto-Slav shrine of
nearby Devin (Deveny) castle, and decked this out in romantic
symbolism. They were also the first to use the neo-Slavonic term

1 References are restricted to those strictly relevant for the present comparison, and
largely come from the Slovak side, partly because the Kossuth presented here is too
familiar to require much annotation, but equally because Hungarian writing on him
has almost entirely ignored the Slovak dimension.

2 Jin Koralka, Frantisek Palacky, 1798-1876: zivotopis, Prague, 1999, p. 24 and
passim.

122

Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

Bratislava, or rather Bretislava, to describe the city which ordinary
Slovaks called (and would long continue to call) Presporok. 3

Such gestures were already in good measure a response to perceived
Magyar pressure on Stur’s own nationality. They generated further ethnic
friction in their turn, particularly at the student level, both in Pressburg
and beyond, and were accompanied by a regular war of pamphlets which
had set in at the beginning of the 1830s and to which Stur himself would
contribute a decade later. 4 These circumstances soon precipitated the first
clash between Stur and Kossuth. Its background lay in the campaign of
the younger Zay, Karoly, son of Imre, for a Protestant union in Hungary,
ostensibly modelled on recent developments in Prussia, but really
designed mainly to promote the interests of the Magyar liberal opposition,
which predominated in the larger and more influential Calvinist branch of
the church. The Slovak Lutherans replied with a petition to the emperor in
Vienna (Prestolny prosbopis ), which expostulated against this and raised
a range of other grievances about the advancing tide of ‘magyarization’,
as they perceived it. 5

Stur was in the thick of this confrontation, constantly urging on his
more faint-hearted brethren. Where Imre Zay had shown marked favour
to his family, not least to the evidently talented Ludovit, Karoly now told
him plainly that there was no place for Slav culture in Hungary, or for

3 Flora Kleinschnitzova, Andrej Sladkovic a jeho doba, Prague, 1928, pp. 30ff; T. J.
G Locher, Die nationale Differenzierung und Integrierung der Slowaken und
Tschechen in ihrem geschichtlichen Verlaufbis 1848, Haarlem, 1931, pp. 139ff. Jan
Francisci, Vlastny zivotopis. Crty z doby Moysesovskej, ed. F. Bokes, Bratislava,
1956, esp. 98ff.; Jozef Hurban, Ludovit Stur. Rozpomienky, ed. A. Mraz, Bratislava,
1959, esp. pp. 88-100; Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie,
1780-1848: k otazke formovania novodobeho slovenskeho burzoazneho naroda,
Bratislava, 1965, pp. 242ff; Ludwig von [Lajos] Gogolak, Beitrdge zur Geschichte
des slowakischen Volkes, 3 vols., Munich, 1963-72, ii. pp. 119ff. Convenient
summary in Peter Brock, The Slovak National Awakening: An Essay in the
Intellectual History of East Central Europe, Toronto, 1976, pp. 38ff. Stur’s circle
of friends appears also from his correspondence: Listy Eudovita Stura, ed. Jozef
Ambrus, 3 vols., Bratislava, 1954-60.

4 Most of the significant pamphlets are reprinted in Slovak translation in Jan V.
Ormis (ed.), O rec a narod: slovenske narodne obrany z rokov 1832-48, Bratislava,
1973. Stur’s contributions were, besides the ‘Stary a novy vek Slovaku’, 1841,
which circulated only in MS: Die Beschwerden und Klagen der Slaven in Ungarn
iiber die gesetzwidrigen Ubergriffe der Magyaren, Leipzig, 1843, and its sequel,
Das 19. Jahrhundert und der Magyarismus, Vienna, 1845, both in Ormis,
pp. 123-9 and 517-93, 146-52 and 699-721.

5 Very full account in Daniel Rapant, Slovensky prestolny prosbopis z roku 1842, 2
vols., L Sv. Mikulas, 1943, which prints the Petition at ii, pp. 337-52.

Robert Evans

123

those who advocated it. Kossuth, as a card-carrying Lutheran himself,
backed Zay to the hilt (even rewriting the minutes when local synods
seemed to him too limp), and fulminated about the lack, even the impossi¬
bility, of any Slovak ‘nation’: ‘Wherever we look in Hungary, nowhere
do we see the substance of any tot nationality. And all those qualities,
which constitute the requirements for a nationality, are possessed in our
homeland only by the magyar race.’ 6 Kossuth also stood close to the drive
led by his friend Pulszky for Stur’s dismissal from his post in Pressburg as
a ‘pan-Slav’ agitator, which was successful by the end of 1843. 7

By that time the basic issue was clear. All the Magyar reformist
leaders, with Kossuth as their most eloquent spokesman, saw nationality,
nemzetiseg, as an integral part of the modem state and public law which
they proposed to create; hence the impossibility of accommodating non-
Magyars (apart from the Croats, with their special constitutional position)
except in private and as individuals. 8 Slovaks — more than any others,
given their lack of institutional backbone — developed, because they had
to develop, an organic, cultural, communitarian ideology of nationality,
narodnost’, which the Magyars in their turn could neither understand nor
value. The latter accused Slovak patriots of being ‘pan-Slavs’ (which in
cultural terms had some truth) and found readiest proof of this in those
‘Czechoslovak’ links which were particularly important to the Lutheran
tradition. Ludovit Stur, now persecuted for his convictions as Kossuth had
been a few years earlier, seemed to personify that Slovak response.

In fact, however, Stur proceeded to play a shrewd gambit. He took up
the cause of a separate Slovak literary language, of which he indeed

6 ‘... barmerre tekintiink is Magyarorszagon, sehol nem latunk anyagot ily tot
nemzetisegre. Es mindama tulajdonokkal, miket a nemzetiseg kellekei koze
sorozank, hazankban csak egy, csak az egyetlen magyar faj bir’: Rapant,
Prosbopis, i. pp. 125ff., 156f., 185ff.; ii, nos 66, 86, 88, 94, 96, 98 (qu.), 100, 101.
Cf. ‘There was never a Slovak nation, even in a dream’: quoted in Josef Macurek,
Dejiny mad’aru a uherskeho statu, Prague, 1934, p. 236. For the quarrel with Zay,
see also Hurban, Ludovit Stur, pp. 198ff; Gogolak, Beitrage , ii, pp. 186ff.

7 Rapant, Prosbopis , i, pp. 33-42, 215-22; ii., nos 27, 50, 67, 138, 140, 142. Cf.
Hurban, Ludovit Stur , pp. 335ff.; Karol Golan, Sturovske pokolenie: vyber z diela,
Bratislava, 1964, pp. 121-53.

8 For Kossuth in this Hungarian context, see Mihaly Horvath, Huszonot ev
Magyarorszag tortenelmebol 1823-tol 1848-ig, 2 vols., Geneva, 1864, ii. pp. 9Iff.;
Domokos Kosary in Emlekkonyv Kossuth Lajos sziiletesenek 150. evfordulojara,
ed. Istvan Z. Toth, 2 vols., Budapest, 1952, i, pp. 37ff.; Gyorgy Szabad, Kossuth
politikai pdlydja, ismert es ismeretlen megnyilatkozasai tiikreben, Budapest, 1977,
pp. 68ff.; Janos Varga, Helyet kereso Magyarorszag: politikai eszmek es
koncepciok az 1840-es evek elejen, Budapest, 1982, pp. 54ff.

124

Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

became the prime creator. By means of it he propagated from 1845 a
moderate but demotic reform message to a wider national public, mainly
through the columns of his newspaper, the Slovenske Narodne Noviny. 9
In due course this organ carried the speeches which Stur made at the diet
on the eve of the revolution of 1848, as deputy for the town of Zvolen/
Zolyom. It is often supposed that he was the first nationally-conscious
Slovak ever elected to the Hungarian Orszaggyules. That is not quite
true: Stur’s mentor Palkovic had represented a similar constituency,
Krupina/Korpona, for years before him — earning his humble mention
in the young Kossuth’s diet journal. 10 Nor is it true that Stur, any more
than his circumspect predecessor, took a leading or radical part in this
assembly (housed in what is now the Bratislava University Library, with
its commemorative plaque). Yet he did manage to publicize further the
needs of the mass of the Slovak peasantry, and in the course of his advo¬
cacy experienced a second clash with Kossuth, which we shall consider
later.

In March-April 1848 Stur welcomed Hungary’s social and political
transformation, so far as it went — which for the bulk of the Slovak popu¬
lation was not very far. But he rejected categorically the national implica¬
tions of the new Magyar regime, embodying as it did the Kossuth-Zay-
Pulszky mentality already so familiar to him. He was active in the two
Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas/Liptoszentmiklos meetings at which a Slovak

programme was devised, and the resultant demands (‘Ziadosti sloven-
skeho naroda’) largely rested on Stur’s formulations. 11 These were
brusquely rejected by the Hungarian ministry, where Kossuth, with
Batthyany, by now called the tune. Stur was forced into an adventurous
flight from the country, in order to avoid arrest. This led him straight on to
his prominent role at the Slav Congress in Prague, of which he had in fact
been the chief begetter. Fired up to a more Austro-Slav militancy by these
events, Stur, with his revolutionary associates Jozef Hurban and Michal
Hodza, returned to Hungary in the winter months, under Habsburg aegis,
with a motley collection of Slovak and other Slav volunteers, to

9 The title in its original spelling was Slovenskje Ndrodhje Novini. See Maria
Vyvijalova, Slovenskje narodnje novini: boje o ich povolenie , Martin, 1972. The
crucial language text is Stur’s Narecja slovens kuo alebo potreba pisahja v tom to
nareci (again in the original spelling), first published at Pressburg in 1846.

10 Maria Vyvijalova, Juraj Palkovic, 1769-1850. Kapitoly k ideovemu formovaniu
osobnosti a posobeniu v narodnom hnuti, Bratislava, 1968, pp. 321-55; Kossuth
Lajos osszes munkai [KLOM ], Budapest, 1948- , iii, pp. 55, 622; ibid., iv, p. 52.

11 Daniel Rapant, Slovenske povstanie roku 1848-49: dejiny a dokumenty, 13 vols,
T.Sv. Martin/Bratislava, 1937-67, i-ii. The ‘Ziadosti’ are printed ibid, ii, no. 66.

Robert Evans

125

spearhead an ill-organized and scrappy counter-insurrection. 12 It was
mastered with ease by Kossuth’s government of national defence, whose
troops and officials henceforth for months gave at least as good as they
received from the Austrians, till forced into capitulation by the massive
disciplined ranks of the one Slavonic great power.

***

Clearly Kossuth won the first round of the fame stakes. Moreover, he did
so in some measure at the expense of Stur and his kind. Kossuth was able
to brand the Sturites as crypto-conservatives, pulling Habsburg chestnuts
out of the fire — or alternatively, and however incompatibly, as
dangerous ‘communists’ or anarchists, threatening the destruction of
every accepted value. All this confirmed Kossuth’s reputation both as a
radical liberal politician and as a great national leader, not just among his
own people. On the one hand he became an icon across the continent; on
the other he exerted a wider impact within east-central Europe. Even most
Slovak opinion, so far as it was engaged at all, proved Magyarone in
1848-49. That is evident from the very patchy response in Upper
Hungary to the overtures from Stur and his fellow rebels, who were repu¬
diated, for example, in little towns like Krupina and Zvolen which, as
modest citadels of Slovak culture, had previously entrusted Palkovic and
Stur with their dietal mandate. 13 Years later one of the most diehard and
anti-Magyar Slovak leaders, Hurban, actually admitted Kossuth’s allure,
writing of his ‘unprecedented and unheard-of attraction. Kossuth was a
phenomenon; every trait and feature in him was manly beauty.’ 14 (I have
not quite cited the whole of that verdict yet: the remainder will follow at
the end of this essay.)

Then came Vilagos and the Bach hussars. But precisely the success,
until they were quashed by military force majeure, of the civic and liberal
aspects of the 1848 programme, the ones most incarnated in Kossuth,
encouraged a reassertion of those policies when the Hungarian opposition
later regained its initiative in the Habsburg Monarchy. The 1867 settle¬
ment was widely seen as a vindication of his best ideas, even if Kossuth
condemned it in dudgeon from his exile. By contrast the Slovak

12 Described in exhaustive detail, and with rival interpretations, in Rapant, Slovenske

povstanie, and Lajos Steier, A tot nemzetisegi kerdes 1848-49-ben , 2 vols,

Budapest, 1937.

13 Steier, Nemzetisegi kerdes, esp. ii, nos 5-18.

14 Hurban, Ludovit Stur, p. 284; cf. pp. 538f.

126

Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

movement lost its impetus for a full half-century. Stur, soon disillusioned
with the post-war regime, retired into the shadows and wrote — in
German — a strange defence of Russian pan-Slavism which hardly
became known until much later, and certainly could not contribute further
to his progressive reputation, before his tragic early death in a hunting
accident. 15 Stur’s earlier political ideas indeed re-emerged in the Slovak
Memorandum of 1861, then in the cultural association called Matica
Slovenska. But so ,pari passu , did the ideas of Kossuth’s former ally Zay,
which were now taken up by another Magyarizing zealot in Upper
Hungary, Bela Griinwald, who was instrumental in dissolving the Matica
and reducing the Slovak cause to impotence and to an apparent total
marginality. Even Kossuth, who in emigration famously became a
convert to confederal notions and national reconciliation, never seriously
rethought his position vis-a-vis the Slovaks. 16

When Kossuth died in 1894, his popular reputation stood secure, even
if official attitudes remained more equivocal because of his entrenched
stance against the Austrian connection and — so far as this was still
remembered — his unwelcome option for co-operation with some of the
Magyars’ neighbours. From then on the cult set in, with a proliferation of
Kossuth streets (beginning with the one down which his hearse had
passed in Pest), statues, and the rest. Meanwhile Stur’s posthumous celeb¬
rity was just beginning to germinate, with the gradual Slovak reaction to
those aggravated Magyarization policies by the turn of the century. It
surely proved important for him — and an intriguing contrast with the
splendid isolation in which Kossuth has always been depicted — that Stur
found a Boswell in Hurban, whose biography of his friend, dripping in
pathos but a powerful and intimate portrait with excellent command of
detail, first appeared in the 1880s. 17 Stur’s prestige was enhanced, ironi¬
cally, when a younger generation of Slovaks returned to the pro-Czech

15 Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, critical edn. by Josef Jirasek,
Bratislava, 1931. There had already been certain hints of conservatism, in terms of
both German cultural influence and Holy Alliance proclivities, in Stur’s earlier
years, particularly in his pamphlet Das 19. Jahrhundert und der Magyarismus.

16 For Griinwald: Mihaly Lacko, Haldl Parizsban: Griinwald Bela tortenesz muvei es
betegsegei, Budapest, 1986; cf. in general Laszlo Szarka, Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes,
magyar nemzetisegi politika, 1867-1918, Bratislava, 1995. Endre Kovacs, A
Kossuth-emigracio es az europai szabadsagmozgalmak, Budapest, 1967.

17 Hurban, Ludovit Stur , first appeared in instalments in the periodical Slovenske
Pohl’ady. Stur, however, fared less well abroad. The first major study of him in a
world language appeared only in 1913 with Helene Tourtzer [Turcerova]’s Louis
Stur et Videe de I’independance slovaque, Cahors/Alen^on, 1913, and this work, a
Paris thesis, though a work of real quality, was little noticed.

Robert Evans

127

orientation from which he had, to a degree, distanced himself; but
combined this with the broader public appeal and the practical cultivation
of nationality through material betterment and associational activities
which had been hallmarks of the Sturites. Whereas the cult of Stur was at
first restricted to small groups of patriots, and above all Lutheran ones, it
spread as the Slovak peasantry came to be mobilized more effectively in
the early twentieth century. With the caesura of 1918 and the full-scale
quest for antecedents of the modem Slovak cause, he took his place as the
revered creator of a unified national movement in its first and formative
phase.

***

Stur’s fame was now helped by a curious episode involving Kossuth at
that diet which they had jointly attended. On 17 November 1847 Stur had
given his maiden speech, calling for municipal rights — as befitted a
representative of the towns — but also lamenting the hardships of the
common man. At this, it appears, Kossuth himself riposted: ‘... [it is] fate
that he who stands lower in society must be abased and bear burdens,
whereas he who rises in civic life gains rights and respect...’. His obser¬
vation, so it seems, was stored up by Stur, who delivered a spirited
rebuttal of it when he next spoke, at greater length, on 21 December. 18
The exchange looks a very odd one. Can Kossuth have made such unchar¬
acteristic remarks at all? The record in his complete works only hints at
such a passage, and with a more or less opposite meaning. 19 Yet neither is
there any suggestion that Stur, who definitely quoted Kossuth’s words
before the assembled deputies, had made them up — in which case he
would surely have been brought to account by the insulted party himself.
Not that the authorized versions of Stur’s are always beyond reproach —

18 Stur’s speech of 21 Dec. 1847, printed from Slovenske Narodne Noviny , in E. Stur,
Kde lezi nase bieda?, T. Sv. Martin, 1948, pp. 141-53. Cf. Jan Hucko, livot a dielo
Ludovita Stura, Martin, 1984, pp. 148-52.

19 Kossuth Lajos az utolso rendi orszaggyulesen, 1847-8 [= KLOM , xi], ed. Istvan
Barta, Budapest, 1951, no. 65, pp. 304f.: ‘... Valodi fatumnak tekintem, hogy
nalunk mindenki kivaltsagra torekszik ... Ha ki a koznep sorabol kiemelkedett,
azonnal felmentetik a kozterhektol, mint honoratior; senki sem akar nep lenni. Ez
bun, ez szerencsetlenseg a nemzetre nezve, s kik reformra vagyunk hivatva, tobbe
nem tiirhetunk illy anomaliakat; ki kell ezeket egyenliteni az ujabb kor
sziiksegeivel ...’ This was part of Kossuth’s basically hostile reply to (unspecified)
town representatives on that day. There is no other suggestion of a reply to Stur.
Kossuth made appeals for compulsory peasant emancipation on 3 Dec. 1847 and 6
Mar. 1848: ibid., pp. 369ff., 634fif.

128 Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

as in what they choose to retail from his comments on the Jewish
problem. 20

At all events the incident was seized on when Slovak history came to be
popularized. And what better scapegoat could be found than Kossuth,
branded as an arch-traitor anyway to the nationality of his forebears? The
diet clash became part of the whole rhetoric of the former underdogs,
alleged already by the Sturites, that Slovaks, as part of their great contribu¬
tion to Hungarian civilization, had always promoted enlightenment and
emancipation, whereas the benighted Magyars had brought and sustained
only feudalism. 21 Let us consider just two significant examples of the use of
this episode. The first is by Milan Hodza, a leading ‘young Slovak’
campaigner from the turn of the century onwards — who much later was to
serve as the last Czechoslovak premier before the onset of the Munich
crisis. Hodza, although a nephew of one of Stur’s closest associates, oper¬
ated in the spirit of T. G. Masaryk’s revived Czechoslovak ideals and was
therefore uneasy about the Sturites’ language reform. But he picked up in
his speeches on the Kossuth-Stur exchange, and employed it as a stick with
which to beat the effete and gentrified political life, as he saw it, of Dualist
Hungary. Hence, for instance, when R. W. Seton-Watson gave a lecture in
Vienna on the Hungarian question early in 1909, Hodza seized the opportu¬
nity in subsequent discussion to attack Kossuth, citing the slogan The
people are destined to suffer’[‘Fatum ludu je trpet”] as if it encapsulated
the essence of his philosophy. Besides probably nonplussing the guest
speaker, Hodza’s intervention elicited a reproof from the liberal Austrian
historian, Heinrich Friedjung, who was certainly no Magyarophile. 22

The second case is that of Vladimir (Vlado) dementis, another
seminal figure in modem Slovak identity-creation, dementis was a left-
wing patriot, active in the Second World War emigration, and subse¬
quently foreign minister, who then fell foul of Stalinism and became the
prime Slovak victim of the Slansky trial. From his schooldays at Skalica/
Szakolca in the last years of Austria-Hungary, he had been a foe to the

20 Golan, Sturovske pokolenie, p. 157, cites a diet speech of 21 January 1848,
defending the exclusion of Jews from the Upper Hungarian mining towns, which
seems to have disappeared from the record, e.g. from Stur, Kde lezl nase bieda?, or
his Reci a state , Bratislava, 1953, or his Dielo. Vol.I: Politicke state a prejavy ,
Bratislava, 1954.

21 Forceful and — within the Slovak tradition — persuasive presentations of these
claims by Stur himself (titles above, n.4) and above all in M. M. Hodza, Der
Slowak: Beitrage zur Beleuchtung der slawischen Frage in Ungarn, Prague, 1848,
a highly-charged product of the revolutionary year.

22 Milan Hodza, Clanky, reci, studie, 5 vols, Prague, 1930-33, iii, pp. 24-26, 158f.

Robert Evans

129

Magyar gentry. As a Czechoslovak publicist in London, dementis picked
up on the Kossuth-Stur episode in a lecture of 1943 which formed the
basis for an influential pamphlet on his people’s historical relationship
with the Magyars, both in Slovak and in English translation. 23 The
exchange lives on in modem texts for a wider audience, as in Hucko’s
standard illustrated life of Stur — and the most dilettante enquirer now
has immediate access to the whole of his diet speeches on a sophisticated
Ludovit Stur website. 24

The broader thesis about 1848 advanced by dementis, and already

adumbrated by Hodza, held that the Sturites were — as they themselves
had affirmed — the only true progressives, whereas the Magyars under
Kossuth were solely responsible for the failure of the revolution. Profes¬
sional historians had already begun to fight out this claim during the
1920s and 1930s, notably in the confrontation between Daniel Rapant and
Lajos Steier, a battle of giants, since both possessed an intimate knowl¬
edge of the period and impressive critical acumen. Rapant’s many-
volumed exoneration of the Sturites was backed up by the Czech expert in
the field, Josef Macurek, who accused Kossuth of seeking liberalism only
for the nobles and hesitating to extend civil and political rights to the rest
of the populace, especially if they were ignorant of Magyar, then of
becoming a radical chauvinist during 1848-49, and finally of making no
concessions to the Slovaks even in emigration. 25

The reverberations of the issues persisted after 1945. At this juncture
Hungarian-Slovak relations reached their nadir, with the attempt at forced
transfer of the respective minority populations. The Marxist historians
who now came to the fore were committed to some sort of rapprochement
under the new Soviet aegis. Yet they showed themselves better at
pointing in a vague way to common progressive traditions and jointly
condemning their ‘bourgeois’ predecessors than at severally overcoming
the latter’s prejudices in relation to 1848-49. 26 Each side continued to
assert its own revolutionary bona fides, and castigated the other for
remaining feudal, in the Magyar case, or for pacting with feudalists across
the border, in the Slovak. The Hungarian historian Endre Arato did most

23 Vladimir dementis, Medzi nami a mad’armi, London, 1943; trans., by R. Auty, as
The Czechoslovak-Magyar Relationship, London, 1943, pp. 33-51, esp. 43.

24 Hucko, jLivot ... Stura, pp. 148-56; http://www.stur.host.sk.

25 Rapant, esp. Slovenskepovstanie\ Steier, esp. Nemzetisegi kerdes ; Macurek, Dejiny
mad’aru a uherskeho statu, pp. 238f., 246ff., 251-53.

26 Endre Kovacs and Jan Novotny, Magyar-cseh tortenelmi kapcsolatok, Budapest,
1952, revised as Mad’ari a my: z dejin mad’arsko-ceskoslovenskych vztahu, Prague,
1959.

130

Kossuth and Stur: Two National Heroes

to achieve a synthesis. Bom in working-class Komamo/Komarom in 1921
and well familiar with both sides of the picture (his first article treated the
origins of the Slovak national movement), Arato was both a good
communist and a genuine supranationalist. His attempt to argue for an
inter-ethnic democratic solidarity in Hungary in 1848-49 bore too clearly
the marks of the ruling ideology of his day, but it did establish a healthy
critical distance from both Kossuth and Stur. 27

For all the bridge-building of Arato and his like, the legacy of 1848-49
in Upper Hungary has remained a troubling one for both parties. That is
evidence of the lasting significance of the revolution and its heroes for
Hungarian and Slovak national self-esteem. And meanwhile scholars such
as Arato found a happy ending for the Kossuth-Stur story. According to
one Czech contemporary, Kossuth took Stur aside after his fiery speech in
favour of the oppressed people, congratulated his critic, shook him by the
hand, and urged him to join the common cause of breaking the power of
the selfish ‘magnates’ and instituting social reform. The witness is a not
unproblematical one; but he knew Stur well, and there seems no reason to
doubt that at this point there may have been reconciliation, whatever the

animosities which had earlier driven Kossuth to victimize Stur in his

J V

Bratislava lair and which later drove Stur to take up arms against
Kossuth. 28

27 Arato, Egykoru demokratikus nezetek az 1848-9 evi magyarorszagi forradalomrol
es ellenforradalomrol, Budapest, 1971. See id., A nemzetisegi kerdes tortenete
Magyarorszagon, 1790-1848, 2 vols, Budapest, 1960, i, pp. 229-55, ii, pp.
113-62, for a balanced left-wing appraisal of the Slovak movement; Arato’s
discursive bibliographies here (i, pp. 297—401, ii, pp. 223-96, passim) are rich
sources for the whole historiography of the subject. Much the same material is
recycled in the op.posth. by Arato, A magyarorszagi nemzetisegek nemzeti
ideologiaja, Budapest, 1983, pp. 44-54, 71-84, 138ff. passim ; cf. ibid., pp.
286-92, for a tribute to him by Emil Niederhauser. Contrast the much more
jaundiced view of the Sturovci presented in his Beitrage by the emigre Lajos
Gogolak, likewise a Hungarian from Slovakia but of gentry origin.

28 Josef Vaclav Fric, Pameti, ed. K. Cvejn, 2 vols, Prague, 1957-60, i, p. 430.
Kossuth’s words are rendered as: ‘Nedejte se odstrasit, naopak, pomahejte mi v
mych zamerech zlomit odpor sobecke magnaterie a presvedcite se, ze mam rovnez
vrele srdce pro utrpeni sveho i vaseho lidu, jemuz jen ruku v ruce jdouce muzeme
ulevit.’ The passage (first published in the 1880s) is incorporated by Arato,
Nemzetisegi kerdes , ii, p. 146; Magyarorszagi nemzetisegek , p. 167; Hucko, Zivot
... Stura, p. 152; and most recently in the standard work Dejiny Slovenska. Vol. II:
1526-1848, ed. S. Cambel, Bratislava, 1987, pp. 753f.

Robert Evans

131

On a broader scale this vignette of our two parallel but incompatible
protagonists illustrates the vagaries of popular history and the distortions
introduced by national feeling into our record of the past. Besides the
need for a hero, there is also the need for a villain to confirm the status of
one’s own champion. The juxtaposition of Kossuth and Stur throws up
more particular lessons, given the close interplay of the Magyar with the
Slovak case — closer than with any other of Hungary’s nineteenth-
century national movements (and even allowing for the obvious disparity,
in that Magyar affairs were always central to Slovak patriots, while the
latter were usually peripheral to most Magyars). 29 At one level mutual
confusion has always operated. Thus Slovaks are inclined to spell their
bugbear’s name ‘Kosut’, whether out of ignorance or in order by this
gesture to identify him as an aberrant son of their nation; while Hungar¬
ians can rarely spell Eudovit Stur’s name correctly at all. 30 Misunder¬
standing, however, was compounded by a false sense of familiarity. Thus
Slovaks have been apt to view Kossuth as a recognizably indigenous
breed of conservative, and Hungarians have responded in kind in their
judgment of the Sturites.

Some real basis did exist for these preconceptions. Kossuth was
nothing if he was not a liberator; yet in the two matters which most
concerned the Slovak constituency he proved least liberal: over language
and over peasant emancipation (given that only 20 per cent of land in
Slovak areas was urbarial, and therefore redeemable in 1848). 31 Stur was
likewise a liberator; yet he really did lapse later in his life into authentic
reaction — even if that aspect, as opposed to his enforced flirtations with
a two-faced Vienna, is hardly ever noticed by Hungarian commentators.
And the context of Kossuth versus Stur serves also to indicate overlaps
between the two national affiliations which they represented, in the still
fluid situation before and during the revolution. Thus the two Zays, father
and son, illustrate the transition from territorial allegiance towards
Hungary to Magyar loyalty of an ethnic kind. Some of Stur’s colleagues
later became prominent Magyarones. And if Lajos was no apostate, since
he had never either spoken or felt himself Slovak, it is true that a cousin of

V V

his, Dord (Durko) Kossuth, collected over 600 signatures among the
gentry of Turiec/Turoc county to press the demand for Stur’s

29 A point well made by Arato, Magyarorszagi nemzetisegek, pp. 138ff.

30 They are not helped by the change in spelling of the forename from the earlier

‘Ludevit’.

31 Julius Mesaros, ‘K problemom zrusenia poddanstva na Slovensku. Urbarialny

patent z 2. marca 1853’, Historicky Casopis, i (1953), pp. 595-633.

132

Kossuth and four: Two National Heroes

newspaper. 32 I leave the last word on this complex love-hate relationship
to Jozef Hurban, whose appreciation, already cited, of Kossuth’s ‘unprec¬
edented and unheard-of attraction’, depended on the ‘Slovak nature
emanating from his whole person.’ 33

Appendix: Star’s Career

1815: 29 Oct. bom at Uhrovec/Zay-Ugroc, near Trencin/Trencsen, son of a
schoolteacher

1827: study in Gy or

1829: study at Bratislava/Pozsony Lutheran gymnasium

1835: Slavonic teacher there and secretary of Spolocnost’ ceskoslovenska (Czecho¬
slovak Society)

1836: 24 Apr. patriots visit Devin/Deveny

1837: Spolocnost’ ceskoslovenska banned; founds Ustav reci a literatury cesko-
slovenskej (Institute for Czechoslovak Language and Literature)

1838: study at Halle

1840: returns to Bratislava gymnasium as acting professor of Slavonic languages
and history

1841- 43: edits literary journals and writes polemics, esp. St ary a novy vek
Slovaku, Beschwerden und Klagen der Slaven in Ungarn, Das 19. Jahrhundert
und der Magyarismus

1842- 44: co-initiator of Slovak petition to emperor (Prestolny prosbopis)

1843- 46: plans for language reform based on a new variety of (mainly central)
Slovak, expounded in a text, Narecie slovenske alebo potreba pisania v tomto
nareci, and a grammar, Nauka reci slovenskej

1843: accused of‘betrayal of homeland’ and dismissed from Bratislava gymna¬
sium

1845: Aug-1848 edits Slovenske narodne noviny, first Slovak newspaper

1847: Oct. diet deputy for Zvolen/Zolyom

1848: Apr.-May in Vienna and Prague: conceives and orchestrates plans for
Slav Congress; foundation of patriotic society Slovanska lipa (Slavonic
Linden)

May: co-author of Slovak political programme, Ziadosti slovenskeho naroda,
proclaimed at Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas/Liptoszentmiklos; flight to Prague

32 Magyarones: Many examples in Gogolak, Beitrage, passim; cf. Steier, Nemzetisegi
kerdes , i. pp. 17ff., and id., Beniczky Lajos ... visszaemlekezesei es jelentesei ,
Budapest, 1927. fiord Kossuth: Vyvljalova, Slovenskje narodhje novini, pp. 83f.,
86, 103f., 120, 172f., 247f.

33 ‘... priroda slovenska ziariaca z celej osobnosti kossuthovej mala nebyvalu,
neslychanu prit’azlivost’. Kossuth byl fenomenalny zjav, kazda ciarka a crta na
nom bola muzska krasa’: Hurban, Ludovit four, p. 284; emphasis mine.

Robert Evans

133

June: Slav Congress in Prague; flight to Zagreb

Sept: founds Slovak National Council (Slovenska narodna rada) in Vienna
Sept.-July 1849: joint leader of three armed incursions into Upper Hungary
1849: petitions to Vienna in Slovak cause

Nov. volunteers dissolved; returns to Uhrovec, then Modra/Modor (near Bratis¬
lava) under police surveillance

1851- 3: deaths of brother, father, mother, beloved

1852- 3: writes (in Czech) on Slav folklore, O narodmch pisnich a povestech
piemen slovanskych

1854: writes T)as Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunff (first published in
Russia, 1867)

1855: Dec. injured in hunting accident at Modra
1856: 12 Jan. dies at Modra

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848—49

Alan Sked

1848 was the year in which Heaven seemed to come to earth. It brought
about the ‘springtime of the peoples’, the overthrow of Prince Mettemich
and his system, the restoration of the republic in France, and opened up new
vistas of domestic reform and international reorganization and cooperation.

Europe appeared to have become a tabula rasa in terms of interna¬
tional relations and all sorts of schemes were debated about its imminent
transformation. Prince Czartoryski believed that Poland, for example,
could be restored through the co-operation of France and Prussia (to be
absorbed in a new German Union) in alliance with a new confederation of
Hungary, the Danubian Principalities, and the South Slav states, backed
by a united Italy. 1 In Germany there were hopes that the unification of
Germany (including Bohemia) would enable the Germans to dominate
Europe, 2 while the Hungarians believed that the Habsburgs, shorn of their
German and Italian provinces, would come to Buda and make their
Monarchy essentially a Hungarian one. 3 In the meantime, the more reac¬
tionary elements in the Habsburg army and court worked towards the
restoration of the old regime in alliance with Russia, 4 while others hoped
that the Monarchy might transform itself into a federation of free peoples

1 His views, of course, developed as events changed. See inter alia M. Kukiel,
Czartoryski and European Unity, 1770-1861, Princeton, 1955.

2 See especially the work of Gunther Wollstein, including Das ’Grossdeutschand ’.
Nazionale Ziele in der biirgerlichen Revolution 1848/49. Diisseldorf, 1977. See
also Hans Feske, ‘Imperialistische Tendenzen in Deutschland vor 1866.
Auswanderungen, iiberseeische Bestrebungen, Weltmachttraume’ in Historisches
Jahrbuch, 97/98, 1978, pp. 336-83.

3 See Istvan Hajnal, A Batthyany-kormany kiilpolitikaja, Budapest, 1957.

4 For a discussion of the role of the so-called ‘court camarilla’, see Alan Sked, The
Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918, second, expanded edition,
London and New York, 2001, pp. 121-36. Also E. Andies, A Habsburgok es
Romanovok szovetsege, Budapest, 1961; E. Andies, Das Biindnis Habsburg-
Romanow, Budapest, 1963; and Ian W. Roberts, Nicolas I and the Russian
Intervention in Hungary, London, 1991.

135

136

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

with equal rights in which the Slavs would have a majority. 5 For many
months, anything seemed possible.

In this atmosphere many remarkable careers were forged. One thinks
particularly of that of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in France. However, within
the Habsburg Monarchy, one imperial hero, Field Marshal Radetzky was to
emerge from the debacle of 1848-49, along with two national ones, namely
Kossuth and Jelacic. I have attempted to explain the role and significance of
Radetzky elsewhere 6 and would now like to further my revision of the role of
Jelacic, 7 by comparing his career in 1848 with that of Kossuth. Both, as has
been said, emerged as national heroes, although both at the time were deadly
enemies and seen to be such. One, Kossuth, became the darling of the inter¬
national liberal world (especially after visits in 1851 and 1852 to England
and the United States, where his powerful oratory in fluent, magnificent
English, learned in prison in Buda, endeared him to all progressive and
freedom-loving citizens), whereas Jelacic, the man who had helped suppress
the Viennese and Hungarian revolutions as a general in the Habsburg army,
was seen as a leading ‘reactionary’, the darling of the aristocratic world that
celebrated the success of the counter-revolution. 8 And yet... If one looks at
both men dispassionately and objectively, both turn out to be glorious,

5 See Andreas Moritsch (ed.), Der Austroslavismus. Ein verfriihtes Konzept zur
politischen Neugestaltung Mitteleuropas. Vienna, Cologne and Wiemar, 1996.

6 See Alan Sked, The Survival of the Habsburg Empire. Radetzky, the Imperial Army
and the Class War, 1848, London and New York, 1979.

7 See Alan Sked, ‘Jelacic in the Summer of 1848’, Siidost-Forschungen, 57, 1998,
pp. 129-64.

8 Hungarian historians cannot shake off this view. Gy. Spira for example refers to him
as ‘the savagely reactionary Josip Jelacic ... bound to the Hungarian crown in feudal
allegiance ...’ See Gy. Spira, A Hungarian Count in the Revolution of1848, Budapest,
1974, p. 66. More recently Erzsebet Fabian-Kiss has written: ‘Jelacic was an obedient
tool of the court; he exploited the Croat nationalist movement ...’ See E. Fabian-Kiss
(ed.) Die Ungarischen Ministerratsprotokolle aus den Jahren 1848-1849, Budapest,
1998, p. 93, ft. 13. (Henceforth referred to as ‘ Hungarian cabinet minutes.')
Astonishingly, Hungarian historians continue to make such charges, despite the ban’s
abolition of feudalism and his dismissal for disobedience; despite the fact, too, that
Jelacic could tell his troops in September 1848: ‘Since my appointment as ban I have
received twenty-one letters from the Kaiser which it grieved me not to be able to obey.
His Majesty has approved my work at last; but, if he sends me twenty-one more
commands to turn my course, I cannot do it. I must work for His Majesty even against
his will.’ (Quoted in Sked, Jelacic in the Summer of 1848, p. 129.) Indeed, Pulszky
argues in his memoirs that the court put Lamberg in charge of Hungary at the end of
September 1848 precisely because if Jelacic had conquered Buda, he would have
become a political problem for it: ‘... he had got used to disregarding royal orders. ’
Franz Pulszky, Meine Zeit, Mein Leben, 4 vols, Pressburg and Leipzig, 1881, vol. 2,
Wahrend der Revolution, pp. 204-05. (Henceforth ‘ Pulszky Memoirs'.)

Alan Shed

137

charismatic failures, frustrated national leaders who were defeated by
Habsburg intrigue and duplicity. They had much more in common even than
that. If the Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungaiy, could warn his brother,
the Archduke Ludwig, on 1 December 1842 that the Illyrian eader, Gaj, was
‘the Croatian Kossuth', 9 he would have been nearer the truth had he made
that remark about Jelacic. Yet his letter succeeded in reaching the heart of the
matter: 10

A career of 47 [!] years in public life, particularly in a country, which is ruled
constitutionally and in which all matters are discussed publicly, gives me the
right to assume that I have enough experience in such things to know that in
troubled times most people pursue the same aims in the same way with the
same means. From this I draw the conclusion that the Illyrian Tendency,
Illyrism, is closely related to Ultra-Magyarism, that Gaj can justifiably be called
the Croatian Kossuth , that they are travelling the same route, aiming to promote
their cause by the same means ... and I would not be surprised if, in the middle
of the confusion arising in Croatia, that at the next diet, Kossuth and Gaj did not
attach themselves to another tendency, namely promoting ultra-liberalism. This
is my view, in this, to my mind, very important matter ...

The Archduke was absolutely right about one thing. Illyrism and Ultra-
Magyarism by 1848 would be led by two liberals. He was wrong,
however, in thinking that these leaders would be allies.

For the sake of clarity, let us list the qualities shared by both men,
before discussing them in detail. * 11 Both were highly talented, multi¬
lingual, charismatic national leaders of about the same age. 12 Both were
idealists. Both were liberals. Both were monarchists. Both were willing,
however, to ignore and defy the court when necessary; both were accused
of extremism by their political enemies as a result. Both had to build up
armies for their national defence, since each expected to be attacked by
the other. Both were, therefore, desperate for money. Both were to a
certain extent prisoners of their local national public opinion, which
adored them, but which both had to defy or mollify over the issue of
sending troops to Italy to reinforce Field Marshal Radetzky’s army there.
Both faced the problem of emancipating the serfs and both had to formu¬
late a ‘nationality’ policy. One had to bring about (or rather, restore) the

9 For key documents on the Croat Question with a long historical introduction see

Gyula Miskolczy (ed.) A horvat kerdes tortenete es iromanyai a rendi dllam

kordban , 2 vols, Budapest, 1927-28. For the above quote see vol. 2., p. 22.

Archduke Joseph to Archduke Ludwig, Buda, 1 December 1842.

10 Ibid.

11 Evidence for the assertions in this paragraph will be adduced below.

12 Jelacic was bom on 16 October 1801; Kossuth on 19 September 1802.

138

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

union of Transylvania and Hungary, while the other had to bring about (or
rather, restore) the union of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia. In some
respects, they adopted the same nationality policy. Both had military
rivals to deal with, although both would have preferred to settle their
problems by peaceful means rather than through war. Both had been
appointed (and reappointed) to office in extraordinary circumstances.
Both, as a result, felt it necessary to be careful not to be seen to break the
law at key periods, although both — significantly — were willing as a last
resort to gamble on military success. Both probably saved the Habsburg
dynasty at least once, although both were double-crossed by the
Habsburgs at least twice. In the end the dynasty succeeded in defeating
the ideals of both men. Kossuth died a frustrated exile; Jelacic, ignored
under the Bach system, died frustrated at home in 1859, ten years after the
success of the counter-revolution. In so many ways, therefore, Kossuth
and Jelacic led parallel lives, despite being deadly enemies.

Parallel Processes

In his chapter in this book 13 and in his magisterial account of the role of
Hungary in the nineteenth century Habsburg Monarchy in the relevant
volume of the prestigious series devoted to the Monarchy by the Austrian
Academy of Sciences, 14 Laszlo Peter has rightly emphasized what he
refers to as the conversion of the Hungarian constitution in 1848 from one
based on the ancient dualism between crown and country ( orszag ) to one
based on constitutional principles of representative and accountable
government, a civil society and equality of rights. Eventually the old
concept of a Hungarian kingdom in which the diet and the county assem¬
blies battled on behalf of the nobles and their historic rights against the
king and compromised through agreements reached at the diets and
through statements of principle incorporated in coronation oaths and royal
inaugural diplomas, gave way to the idea of a Hungarian state in which all
citizens were equal before the laws made in the National Assembly by the
nation’s elected representatives. In Peter’s words: ‘The first attempt to
transform the rights of monarch and orszag into a liberal system of laws,

13 See Chapter IV, above.

14 Laszlo Peter, ‘Die Verfassungsentwicklung in Ungam’ in Helmut Rumpler and
Peter Urbanitsch (eds) Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1848-1918, Band VII/I,
Verfassungsrechte, Verfassungswirklichkeit, Zentrale Rapresentativkorperschaften,
Vienna, 2000, pp. 239-540.

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139

namely, the April Laws, represented an essentially more far-reaching
conversion of the constitution than all following attempts’ 15 — indeed, a
standard for all future Hungarian politics to the end of the Monarchy and
beyond. This is not to say that he is unaware of the overwhelming domi¬
nance of the Hungarian nobility both in 1848 and after 1867 — he fully
records the lack of non-noble deputies (fewer than ten) in 1848 16 and
knows that the nobles’ stranglehold became even tighter after the
Compromise of 1867 — but he insists — I think correctly — that in 1848,
there was radical change. The nobles surrendered their privileges over
their serfs, for example, in the most important advance taken towards a
civil society in Hungary till then; the government became independent
and responsible, with ministers made liable to impeachment; the franchise
was extended to about a quarter of the adult male population or about six
per cent of the population as a whole; all laws had to be made and coun¬
tersigned by Hungarian ministers; and all the functions of the previous
royal institutions and offices (the dicasteria ) were now to be taken over
by the responsible government. All these changes were incorporated in
the April Laws 17 of 1848 and as a result, the very discourse of Hungarian
politics changed. 1848 brought in new concepts such as ‘constitution’,
‘responsible government’, ‘civil society’ and ‘legal sovereignty’. 18 By 19
April 1849, the Hungarian Declaration of Independence was employing
the word ‘state’ three times, meaning a sovereign entity governed by a
responsible ministry accountable to a legislature elected by the people. It
also claimed for it the same ‘natural rights’ as all the other states of
Europe and the civilized world. In the eighteenth century, on the other
hand, the ‘state’ had simply meant a number of royal institutions with
historic rights — in fact, the crown — and was seen to be separate from
the orszag, which had its own rights. 19

15 Peter, op. cit., p. 277.

16 ‘The contrast with the social composition of the Reichstag in Vienna in 1848 is
astonishing:’ Peter, op. cit, p. 280, ft. 177. On pp. 240-41 he also explains that after
1867 Hungarian political life became merely a continuation of the old system
whereby the nobles — now as a parliamentary oligarchy — continued the ancient
struggle between the orszag and crown. The point is that there are continuities and
discontinuities in Hungarian constitutional history in the nineteenth century, with
1848 representing the greatest discontinuity.

17 For an English version of these, see Appendices 16 and 27 of Vol. II of William H.
Stiles, Austria in 1848-49 , 2 vols, New York, 1852. Stiles was the US charge
d’affaires in Vienna during the revolutions.

18 Peter, op. cit , p. 240.

19 Peter, op. cit , pp. 292-94.

140

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

It is in his discussion of these April Laws, however, that Peter becomes
curiously defensive. He writes: ‘The process of drawing up the April Laws
undoubtedly demonstrates too hasty a procedure. Yet ... the criticism, that
they had their role in the conflict, also partly fails ... the April Laws — so far
as this was possible in 1848 — created a coherent system of government.’ To
be frank, Peter is extremely protective about the Hungarian record in 1848
— ‘ 1848 remains holy ground; the attitude taken towards the April Laws by
academics has been correspondingly respectful’ 20 — leading him to state
opinions like the following: 21 ‘It also cannot be forgotten that the Batthyany
government maintained political stability in Pest for almost half a year. How
many other governments that came to power through the revolutionary
movement in the spring of 1848 could endure for so long elsewhere?’

Peter attributes the endurance of the government to the political expe¬
rience and cooperation of Hungarian cabinet members, who overcame
their political differences, 22 although a truer explanation might focus on
the Habsburg desire to keep Hungarian affairs on the backbumer until the
Italian war was won. In any case, he fails to realize that the answer to his
rhetorical question is simply ‘Croatia’.

Peter’s account of Croatia’s place in events in 1848 is less than
generous. He quotes the alispan of Bihar county’s (Janos Beothy’s) state¬
ment of 14 July 1784 referring to Hungary, Croatia-Slavonia and Transyl¬
vania, that ‘these three countries possess the same freedoms under a
single crown’ as well as Croatia’s 1791 version of Hungary’s Law X of
1790, claiming independence (‘ propriam habuerint consistentiam ’) but
adds: ‘In fact, it (Croatia) had (centuries before) united with Hungary on
condition that this status must be maintained. ( erhalten bleiben musse.y 22,

20 Peter, op. cit., p. 277. Those who attended the Kossuth conference will remember
that I had to gently chide him for ‘greater Magyar chauvinism’.

21 Peter, op. cit., p. 286.

22 Ibid, footnote 197.

23 Peter, op. cit., p. 261. Hungary’s famous Law X of 1790 on which all was staked
in 1848 read: ‘... Hungary remains with her neighbouring territories, however,
with regard to her entire lawful form of government, including her dicasteria , a
free and independent kingdom, subject to no other kingdom or people, but
possessing her own status and own constitution and shall therefore be ruled and
governed by her lawfully crowned hereditary king ... in agreement with her own
laws and traditional rights and not according to the norms of other lands.’ The
Croat diet or Sabor in 1791 made the same claim for Croatia and the
Transylvanian diet did the same for Transylvania. (See Peter, op. cit, pp. 260-61.)
He is even less generous about the Serbs of the Vojvodina, whose claims to
autonomy he dismisses on the grounds (p. 285, ft. 194) that ‘scarcely a third of the
population spoke Serbian [sic].’ On the other hand, he admits (p. 263) that fewer

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141

Peter admits, however, that the Hungarian diet sought to ‘majoritize’ the
Croat ‘minority’ in the 1840s over the language issue and ‘the central
question over the language issue was the position of Croatia as such. In
December 1847 the then opposition leader, Kossuth, called the existence
of Croatia into question.’ 24

Certainly the April Laws of 1848 were designed to apply to Croatia-
Slavonia as part of a single, liberal state. Deputies were to be elected to the
new Hungarian parliament even from the Croatian Military Frontier. Since
the granting of civil rights to all Croatians under the April Laws was meant
to make them equal citizens with Hungarians, there was no need for them to
have a separate government or parliament. Transylvania, likewise, would be
incorporated into the new, liberal, united Hungary. The issue of Croatia (or
Transylvania) being a separate country was ignored. 25 The new press law
(article 18) made ‘agitation’ against ‘the inviolable unity of the state in the
territory of the holy Hungarian crown’ (‘tokeletes alladalmi egyseg ’) a
punishable offence. 26 Jelacic’s reply to such claims was simply a blank
refusal to have anything to do with the April Laws or the new government
that had been created by them. 27 Indeed, as early as 1 April 1848 — even
before the April Laws had been agreed by the monarch — Vienna was

than 40% of the population of Hungary spoke Hungarian! The Croat historian,
Niksa Stancic, in his article, ‘Das Jahr 1848 in Kroatien: unvollendete Revolution
und nationale Integration’, Siidost-Forschungen, 58, (1998), pp. 103-28, p. 124,
states that the Serbs were a majority in the Vojvodina.

24 Peter, op. cit., p. 265.

25 Technically a ‘provincial assembly’ would have been granted to a reduced Civil
Croatia, shorn of Rijeka, Osijek, the Military Border, and the three Slavonian counties.
It would have been controlled however by a pro-Magyar majority — the 1845 court
decree banning personal votes for the Turopolje nobles was overturned — and a pro-
Magyar Ban was expected to be appointed. See Stancic, op. cit., p. 115.

26 Peter, op. cit., p. 284.

27 ‘[The April Laws] had completely abolished traditional Croatian autonomy. Thus
Jelacic regarded the constitutional link with Hungary as de facto at an end.’ See
Miijana Gross, ‘Die Landtage der Ungarische Krone. A. Der kroatische Sabor
(Landtag)’, in Rumpler and Urbanitsch (eds), op. cit., VI1/2, pp. 2283-2316, p. 2286.
Jelacic decared the union with Hungary dissolved by proclamation on 19 April 1848,
a decision that was confirmed by the Sabor on 5 June. See Iskra Iveljic, ‘Stiefkinder
Osterreichs’: Die Kroaten und der Austroslavismus’, in Moritsch (ed.), op. cit., pp.
125-37, p. 126. All officials were told to have nothing to do with the Hungarian
government or its supporters on pain of court martial. (See Hungarian cabinet
minutes, 1 May 1848.) It is slightly unclear whether the Hungarians recognized Jelacic
as Ban at first. Certainly their cabinet minutes refer to him as such but at their first
cabinet meeting it was reported that ‘so long as his authority and official duties were
not recognized’, the Ban would not consent to meet the Palatine. The main concern of

142

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

receiving reports of ‘an uncommon reaction in Croatia among Illyrians,
Croats and Slavonians against the Hungarian nation ...’ 28 The commanding
general of the Slavonian General Command, as early as 7 May, wrote to the
War Minister of ‘the mling bitterness among the Slav people here against the
Hungarians ... and their loud and openly repeated intention under no circum¬
stances to be subordinated to the royal Hungarian ministry,’ 29 while Jelacic
was equally blunt in his reports. On one occasion he wrote: ‘The Land of
Croatia and the whole Military Border will never submit to the Hungarian
Ministry under any conditions’; 30 and on another: 31 ‘It is an undeniable fact
that these border regiments will not recognize the Hungarian ministry under
any circumstances and that I — even if I wanted to — could not subordinate
myself to this ministry.’ Clearly, therefore, Croats wanted to make their own
laws.

Peter seems to be oblivious of the fact that Croatian and other histo¬
rians 32 have recorded the ‘conversion’ of the Croat constitution in

the cabinet at this point seems to have been to ensure that the Croat Sabor was not
convened. (See Hungarian cabinet minutes, 12 April 1848.) Curiously, though,
when the cabinet agreed to request the Ban ‘in an appropriate manner’ to meet
with it in Pest, it wrote to him in Latin, no longer the official language of Croatia.
(Hungarian cabinet minutes, 19 April 1848.) On the other hand, it agreed on 20
April that the language of education in Croatia should be Croat, since ‘at the
Zagreb Academy one professor had already begun to teach in Croat.’ (Hungarian
cabinet minutes, 20 April 1848.) Then on 1 May it was decided by the cabinet that
‘correspondence with the Croatian authorities will be in Latin, that laws will be
sent in Hungarian and Latin with an enclosed Croat translation, and that
correspondence with the so-called Slavonian counties will be conducted in
Hungarian.’ (Hungarian cabinet minutes, 1 May 1848).

28 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 54. Report from the Gradiskaner regiment to the
War Minister.

29 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 2277, FML Hrabrovszky to War Minister Latour,
7 May 1848.

30 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 4526, Jelacic to Latour, 21 August, 1848.

31 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 4123, Jelacic to Latour, 8 August, 1848.

32 See for example, the works of Gross, Iveljic and Stancic above; also Wolfgang
Kessler, Kultur und Gesellschaft in Kroatien und Slavonien in der ersten Halfte des
19. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1981; Wolf-Dieter Behschnitt, Nationalismus bei Serben
und Kroaten, 1830-1914. Analyse und Typologie der nationalen Ideologie, Munich,
1980; Elinor Murray Despalatovic, ‘Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement’, East
European Monographs, XII, New York and London, 1975; and Wayne S. Vucinich,
‘Croatian Illyrism: Its Background and Genesis’, in Stanley B. Winters and Joseph
Held (eds.), Intellectual and Social Developments in the Habsburg Empire from
Maria Theresa to World War I. Essays Dedicated to Robert A. Kann. East European
Monographs XI, New York and London, 1975, pp. 55-113.

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143

1848, just as he has recorded the ‘conversion’ of the Hungarian one.
There were indeed more obstacles to this process in Croatia — a
unicameral diet, greater aristocratic interest in the Hungarian Upper
House, the subordination of the Croatian royal council to the
Hungarian Palatine’s council in 1779, the surrender to the Hungarian
diet of the Croatian diet’s right to approve taxation — yet, due largely
to the reaction against Hungarian attempts to impose Magyar on the
country as its official language, the Croats, arguing that historically
theirs was not a conquered kingdom but one that had reached a mutual
agreement with the Hungarian crown, succeeded in resisting the impo¬
sition of Magyar until in 1847 the diet voted unanimously to replace
Latin by Croatian as the official tongue. In the course of this political
struggle, the nobles also agreed that the country needed to be modern¬
ized and became willing to abolish feudal dues, albeit not in the way
the Hungarian reformers were demanding. This resistance on the part
of the Croats was supported by the court in Vienna, which in 1845
issued a decree banning the Turopolje peasant nobles, who were pro-
Magyar, from exercising a personal vote in the Sabor. Then 33 ‘... the
group that supported social change on the basis of a moderate liberal
programme achieved the upper hand in both the Croat national move¬
ment and the diet of 1848, something which had not happened during
the pre-March period.’ A national assembly met on 25 March at Zagreb
and drew up a petition of 30 points which represented ‘the demands of
the nation’ and which included: freedom of the press, conscience,
speech and learning; freedom to associate, assemble and petition; the
representation of the people on the basis of equality without reference
to rank in the forthcoming elections to the diet; equality of all before
the law; freedom from feudal services etc. etc., And all these demands
were met in 1848 either spontaneously, or through the acts of the ban
or the diet.

Jelacic summoned the diet which met on 5 June. The counties, the free
cities, the border regiments, some market towns, the cathedral chapters
and consistories (Catholic and Orthodox) elected deputies directly,
whereas in the countryside they were elected indirectly through electors
chosen by the oldest male members of households. The franchise was
restricted by property, tax, and educational qualifications, so that the vote
— which was cast publicly — was restricted to about 2.5 per cent of the
population. Former dignitaries ( Virilisten ) continued to attend at the
personal invitation of the ban, although most of Croatia’s high aristocrats,

33 Stancic, op.cit., p. 107.

144

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

who were pro-Magyar, had fled to Hungary. 34 In any case, the diet which
now termed itself a parliament or Reichstag ( derzavni sabor ) remained a
unicameral assembly.

What took place in Croatia in 1848 was undoubtedly ‘the conversion
of the constitution’. In the words of Iveljic: 35 ‘It has to be stressed that in
1848 the old feudal concept of Croatian constitutional law slowly disinte¬
grated and took on a new meaning: the struggle to be a modem, national
state of its own.’ Croatian Liberals, in keeping with their desire to re¬
order the Monarchy, formulated a modernization programme for all
aspects of society and the task of implementing this was given to the
Ban's Council, a provisional Croat ministry, not approved by the ruler,
that was active between May 1848 and June 1850 — much longer, there¬
fore, than Batthyany’s government. Its structure — departments of home
affairs, culture and education, war, finance, the economy, justice etc —
also demonstrated the division of autonomous and common affairs. 36 Its
programme included the establishment of the principle of equality of all
citizens (abolition of tax privileges for the nobility and clergy); the crea¬
tion of a modem administrative apparatus (the abolition of the traditional
autonomy of the counties); the modernization of education; the establish¬
ment of a modem Croatian Landwehr ; the stimulation of the economy
through the building of commercial roads, the regulation of waterways,
the abolition of custom barriers, and the creation of a new tax system. It
proved difficult to implement it in full, given splits in the ban’s council,
opposition from Budapest and Vienna, the war in Italy and then with
Hungary, and resistance from the old order, yet much was achieved. 37
Feudal dues were certainly abolished with the state undertaking to
compensate landlords, while in some respects the Croatian diet went
further than the Hungarian one. 38 Croatian peasants were given the tradi¬
tional jura regalia minora , namely the rights to hunt, shoot, fish and
butcher meat and to run taverns in the summer; they were also given the
right to own or use mills of any kind. Disputes about vineyards and
common pastures, however, remained. 39

As in Hungary a new vocabulary emerged from all this political activity
and change. Liberals talked of ‘freedom’, ‘equality’, ‘the nation’, ‘reforms’,

34 On this topic the classic article is Vladimir Koscak, ‘Madzaronska emigracija
1848’, Historijski Zbornik, 3, (1950), pp. 39-124.

35 Op. cit., p. 128.

36 Ibid.

37 Iveljic, op. cit., pp. 128-29.

38 Stancic, op. cit., p. 110.

39 Ibid.

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145

‘self-consciousness’, ‘a new era’, ‘the spirit of the people’ and condemned
the ‘chains’ of‘privilege’ and the ‘lethargic sleep’ of‘absolutism’. The ‘final
act’ of the old diet proclaimed to the world — before Hungary’s Declaration
of Independence — that Croatia had historic and natural rights to unity and
independence. 40 In 1848, therefore, parallel processes of constitutional
conversion produced two leaders whose careers would be extremely similar.

Similar Types?

Kossuth 41 and Jelacic 42 were bom less than a year apart 43 into noble but
not wealthy families. Both were highly intelligent, artistically inclined,
and musical; Kossuth played the flute, Jelacic the piano. Kossuth wrote
plays, one of which was performed in Pest — and attempted to write
history — while Jelacic published poetry. Both were to develop an
interest in politics. Kossuth would be imprisoned for publishing the
records of the Hungarian county assemblies, while Jelacic was kept under
observation by the secret police for his contacts with the Illyrian move¬
ment, including the formation of an officers’ branch within Count Drask¬
ovic’s ‘Croatian-Slavonian Economic League’. The result was that the
commanding general in Croatia was ordered by the Court War Council ‘to
put an end immediately to the political agitation of lieutenant-colonel
Jelacic’. 44 Both had a reputation as handsome young men for enjoying life
— partying, gambling, drinking — and both were said to enjoy the atten¬
tions of the opposite sex. However, while this may not have been true of
Kossuth — according to one most distinguished historian, 45 ‘he had little

40 Stancic, op. cit., p. 120.

41 For Kossuth’s personal background see, Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution. Louis
Kossuth and the Hungarians, New York, 1979, pp. 9-24.

42 For Jelacic, see M. Hartley, The Man Who Saved Austria. Baron Jellacic, London,
1912; Ernest Bauer, Josef Graf Jellachich de Buzim, Banus von Croatien, Schicksal
und Legende des kroatischen Helden von 1848, Vienna and Munich, 1975; and
Walter Gorlitz, Jelacic, Symbol fur Kroatien, Die Biographie, Vienna and Munich,
1992.

43 See footnote 11 above.

44 Bauer, op. cit., pp. 40-41.

45 Deak, op. cit., p. 24. He writes: ‘Nor does it seem that Kossuth ever spent time on
women. The rumor linking him with the beautiful countess in Zemplen was
probably only a rumor. Kossuth was later to marry a penniless, hard-working and
passionately dedicated woman. No one knew anything concrete about Kossuth’s
intimate life in 1832 or later. The only reasonable explanation for this is that
Kossuth had little intimate life. He was wrapped up in politics.’

146

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

intimate life’, being ‘wrapped up in politics’ instead — Jelacic remained
an object of attraction to the ladies right up to, and especially during,
1848. The description of him in the memoirs of the Serb military leader,
Stratimirovic demonstrates this: 46 ‘Once he had restored law and order in
Vienna along with Prince Alfred Windischgraetz, he was enveloped by
the ladies of the court aristocracy in the fullest sense of the word ...
Although already 48 years old, Jelacic was still a handsome man, so that a
few of the many countesses got it into their heads to take him to the altar.
A most obliging character, Jelacic could not resist the wave of sympathy
and married the eighteen-year-old Countess Sophie Stockau.’ Others,
however, argue that before 1848, Jelacic was too interested in his regi¬
ment to have anything to do with women, and was therefore like just like
Kossuth — ‘wrapped up’ in his professional affairs. 47 In one other
respect, however, they were certainly very alike. Both were brilliant
linguists. Kossuth learned Greek, Latin (in which he could make
speeches) and French at school. At home he was bilingual in Hungarian
and German (his mother was of German stock) and also spoke Slovak. In
jail he famously taught himself to speak ‘perfect’ English. Jelacic, for his
part, was also excellent at languages. His regimental commander, the very
difficult Colonel Kempen, later Franz Joseph’s Police Minister, reported
of him in 1847: 48 ‘Colonel Joseph Baron Jellachich speaks and writes
good German, Croat, French and Hungarian, relatively good Italian and
Latin.’ Everyone else thought his Italian was fluent. Both men therefore
were extremely alike in age and character. Sadly, however, in one way the
ban was different from Kossuth. The latter enjoyed robust health and
lived into his nineties. Jelacic, on the other hand, suffered all his life from
a chronic disease of the respiratory system, which was variously
described as ‘spasm of the stomach’, ‘epilepsy’, ‘a nervous condition’ or
‘phthisis’, the symptoms of which included inability to sleep, nervous
exhaustion, and severe hiccups. It especially affected his throat and lungs

46 General Georg von Stratimirovic, Was Ich Erlebte. Erinnerungen von ihm selbst
aufgezeichnet u. hrsg. von seiner Tochter Ljuba von Stratimirovic, Vienna and
Leipzig, 1911, p. 62. Hartley, op. cit., p. 33, writes on the other hand: ‘Like most
men whose physical energy is tremendous and who love the open air and then work
they have to do, Jellacic found little time for the boudoir side of life. He did not
shun women; indeed, he liked their society and was never at a loss for words in
their company. But simply, where was the time for love affairs while the regiment
filled his heart and head? He could make compliments and turn a verse to a pretty
girl with the best, but no passion stirred him during these early years ...’

47 See the quote from Hartley in footnote 46

48 Bauer, op. cit., pp. 44^15.

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147

and took him out of active military service for two years during the mid-
1820s when it was thought he would die; 49 later on he developed a brain
disease that killed him at the age of only fifty-eight.

Both men were clearly ambitious and charismatic. Kossuth’s ambition
of course drove a political career that was sustained by his superb oratory
and he may well have been the greatest political speaker of the nineteenth
century. 50 In Hungary the Batthyany government employed him in its
defence in Parliament at its most critical moments (especially over the
Italian war), while in England and the USA political audiences were
amazed at the power of his rhetoric and his flawless English. 51 According
to one English devotee of the political platform: 52 ‘Neither Bright nor
Gladstone had then attained like ascendancy on the platform ... ’ Another
writer who was present at a speech delivered by Kossuth in Birmingham
wrote: 53 ‘... we have listened also to most of the great orators of the last
thirty years; and nothing which we ever heard or read — the most fervent
from Dr. Chalmers, the most elaborate from Lord Brougham, the most
neat and finished from Lord Lyndurst, the most pointed and poetical from
Canning, the most rounded and impressive from the late Lord Grey, the
most terse from Cobden, the most sparkling from W.(s/c)J. Fox — ever
approached so effectually impressive as the oratory of Kossuth.’ An
American described his charisma before an audience as encompassing a
‘highly prepossessing’ personal appearance, twinkling blue eyes, great
dignity and an apparent insight into the future. He continued: 54

He uses no rhetorical flourishes to arrest attention — he never appeals to the

prejudices of classes in society. He offers no golden Utopia to the suffering

poor, and makes no assaults on the rich. He is simple grave and deliberate ...

49 Hartley, op. cit., p. 34, quotes a fellow officer: ‘We who saw him lying there, calm
and cheerful, with death by suffication before him at any moment, knew that he
was no ordinary man.’ This stoicism in the face of a probably early death, added to
his legend in the Military Border.

50 Edward Crankshaw’s description of him as an ‘unprincipled demagogue’ hardly
does him justice. See E. Crankshaw, The Fall of the House of Habsburg, London,
1964, p. 31.

51 See Tibor Frank’s chapter in this book.

52 G J. Holyoake, 60 Years of an Agitator’s Life , London, 1893, vol. 2, p. 258. For a
good survey of Kossuth’s speeches and writings in Britain see, E. H. Haraszti,
Kossuth, Hungarian Patriot in Britain, Budapest and London, 1994.

53 P. C. Headley, The Life of Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, Including Notices
of the Men and Scenes of the Hungarian Revolution to which is added an Appendix
containing His Principal Speeches etc with an Introduction by Horace Greeley,
New York, 1852, pp. 306-07.

54 Headley, op.cit., pp. 301-02.

148 Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

He stands calmly, and with the sublime dignity of true greatness, and utters

truth.

Perhaps his secret was to tell his listeners what they wanted to hear of the
triumph of tyranny and the misdeeds of Austria and Russia. Certainly, he
knew how to play his audiences and in Edinburgh, on one occasion, 55 he
quoted Robert the Bruce to the Scots, on another, Rabbie Bums. 56 In one of
his brilliant, moving speeches in America, he recollected the debate in the
Hungarian parliament when he had called for the recruitment of 200,000
men to defend Hungarian independence and told his audience how his
request had been granted with cries of ‘liberty or death’, a response which
had reduced him to silence: 57 ‘A burning tear fell from my eyes, a sigh of
adoration to the Almighty Lord fluttered on my lips; and bowing low before
the majesty of my people, as I bow before you gentlemen, I left the tribunal,
silently, speechless, mute.’ At this very point Kossuth paused for a few
moments, mute once again, before continuing as follows: ‘Pardon me my
emotion — the shadows of our martyrs passed before my eyes; I heard the
millions of my native land once more shouting ‘liberty or death.’ If it was no
accident that many regarded him as the greatest orator in Britain, others also
held him to be the greatest orator in the United States. Indeed, in a speech to
the State Legislature of Ohio, in Columbus on 6 February 1852, he declared:
‘The spirit of our age is democracy — All for the people, and all by the
people. Nothing about the people, without the people — that is democracy.’
Since Abraham Lincoln was one of Kossuth’s greatest American supporters
at this time, it has been argued, with some plausibility, that Kossuth in fact
had invented the famous definition of, and plea for, democracy in the Gettys¬
burg Address — ‘that government of the people, by the people, for the
people shall not perish from the earth.’ 58

Jelacic’s charisma, on the other hand, revolved much less around his
speaking ability, although Stratimirovic recorded 59 that ‘he was an

55 ‘As Robert the Bruce once said, ‘In man’s most high necessity oft succour dawns
from Heaven.” Kossuth’s lecture to the working classes of Edinburgh, The Times ,
2 December, 1856.

56 ‘The rank is but the guinea’s stamp/The man’s the gowd for a’ that.’ Kossuth on the
Characteristics of European Nations, The Times , 22 November, 1858.

57 Headley, op. cit., pp. 305-06.

58 See Gy. Szabad, ‘Kossuth on the Political System of the United States of America’,
in Etudes Historiques, I, Budapest, 1975, pp. 502-28, pp. 513-14. Szabad also
argues that Kossuth’s ideas may have been responsible for Seward’s famous
description of the US Civil War as an ‘irrepressible conflict’, although he admits
that this is ‘a very moot question’. See pp. 523-24.

59 Stratimirovic, op. cit., p. 62.

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149

outstanding speaker at all ministerial conferences to which he was invited
and well represented the interests of Croatia and partly also our Serbian
ones.’ His speeches and proclamations in 1848 certainly displayed great
eloquence and without doubt inspired the Croats, while his speech in front
of the imperial family at Innsbruck on 19 June 1848 60 — ‘preached with
the fervour of an apostle and the imagination of a poet’ — reduced not
merely the Archduchess Sophie and the Empress, but even grown men to
tears by its eloquence. From its beginning — ‘Sire, I ask your Majesty’s
pardon, but I wish to save the Empire — to its peroration — ‘These
gentlemen may live if they wish, when the Empire has fallen, but I — I
cannot’, it was sheer triumph. So the ban, too, was capable of using the
power of words to advance his cause.

However, it was a mixture of that, his personality and military skills
that won Jelacic his following and reputation. Kempen in his 1847 report
had added after his assessment of Jelacic’s linguistic abilities: 61 ‘He is
activated by a sense of honour and combines in himself nobility and
goodness. His quick wit makes him rather charming, yet his bearing is
noble, his manner perfect. His life-style is simple and modest; he displays
cheerfulness in conversation with people and is more indulgent than strict
with his subordinates.’ It was apparently ‘the highest commendation that
anyone had ever received’ from Kempen. 62 The opinion of his divisional
commander, Field-Marshal Dehlen, was equally high: 63 ‘It is a case of an
excellent colonel, who displays a truly paternal feeling for the welfare of
the population entrusted to him.’ Yet one of his officers, Georges de
Pimodan, recorded: 64 ‘It is on the battlefield that one should see him,
when he flings himself at the head of his battalions, and his voice is heard
above the cannon thunder and cheers his men on.’

The Jelacics had once been rich but according to family legend had
lost their wealth ransoming a relative from the Turks. 65 Thereafter, the

60 Hartley, op. cit., pp. 178-80.

61 See footnote 47.

62 Hartley, op. cit., p. 89.

63 Bauer, op. cit., p. 45. General Auersperg, commander of all forces in Croatia,
thought Jelacic deserved a higher rank and greater responsibilities. Ironically, he
was given Auersperg’s own job once he had been created ban!

64 Hartley, op. cit., pp. 180-81.

65 While researching the Haus, Hof, und Staatsarchiv in Vienna to discover whether
the Habsburgs had given any personal financial aid to Jelacic during 1848, the only
transaction 1 came across in either the ‘secret cabinet fund’ or the ‘Habsburg-
Lorraine family fund’ was one entry in the latter relating to the fact that 1,700
gulden had been given to his father to equip him as a lieutenant. His mother,
apparently, had been responsible for this request. The family needed the money.

150

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

family’s reputation had been sustained by its record of military service to
the Empire. The ban’s grandfather, for example, received a large gold war
medal for personal bravery from the hands of Maria Theresa herself. His
father enjoyed an even more illustrious career as a general of the Napo¬
leonic era, winning the knight’s cross of the Maria Theresa Order, and in
the process becoming a baron — a title bestowed on him by Francis I. He
thereby also became a magnate of the kingdom of Hungary, allowing his
son, as a result, to be eligible to be ban. All three of his sons entered the
imperial army; all three ended up as Lieutenant Field-Marshals — or brig¬
adier-generals. 66

The second baron — the ban — was praised for his military talents
wherever he went. Radetzky said of him: 67 ‘I expect the best of him, for
never yet have I had a more excellent officer.’ Others said much the same
and, according to one friend, Baron Neustadter, 68 Jelacic, as a result,
began to harbour the ambition to become ban. Since his family’s name
was well known and the record of its loyalty and service to the dynasty
unsurpassed in the Military Border, this was not perhaps surprising. In
any case, he himself became the subject of legend after 1845 when in an
action in reprisal against a Turkish raid from Bosnia, he attacked the
Bosnian town of Pozvizd. His success was taken as proof among the
borderers that Jelacic would one day liberate Bosnia-Herzegovina from
the Turks and would indeed become ban. One song sung in his honour
ran: 69

A marvel, O my people see —

The Turk is gone, his power is past!

And Jellachich, our Jellachich,

Has shown the strength of Croat might
When in accord and deep affection,

Brothers join to guard the right.

By 1848, therefore, Jelacic was the unanimous choice of the Croat general
assembly in Zagreb to be ban. Kossuth, in Hungary, meantime, was unan¬
imously recognised as the tribune of the people there: 70 ‘... the nation
greeted him as its Messiah ... ’

66 For this background see the biographies of Jelacic listed in footnote 41.

67 Hartley, op.cit ., p. 68.

68 Gorlitz, op. cit., pp. 60-61.

69 Hartley, op. cit., p. 96.

70 Pulszky, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 7.

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151

Similar Politics

It may seem heretical to point this out, but Kossuth and Jelacic were both
liberals, both royalists and both wanted to reshape the structure of the
Habsburg Monarchy — with or without the consent of the Emperor.

The most evident proof of Jelacic’s liberalism is simply the fact that he
could preside over the ‘conversion’ of the Croat constitution. However,
the diaries of both Kempen 71 and Count Egger 72 confirm it. Kempen, who
had been Jelacic’s regimental colonel before 1848 was an out-and-out
reactionary who was suspicious, if not jealous, of the ban after his
appointment to that office and who as police minister attempted to deny
him any political influence. Egger, on the other hand, was a close
personal friend of the ban and the Archduke John. He had an almost
father-son relationship with Juro Jelacic, one of the ban’s two younger
brothers, who had married the daughter of Countess Hermine Christal-
nigg, a close friend. Egger was a progressive who, unlike Kempen, was a
great admirer of the ban’s liberalism. On 7 September 1848 he wrote: 73
‘That Pepi’s (i.e. Jelacic’s — it was the pet name for the ban among his
family and friends) outlook ( Gesinnung ) is liberal we know, indeed, many
people know, but his name is taken by a certain party as a codeword for
the military' leader of the counter-revolution ...’. Egger also knew,
however, that it was not merely the Magyar charges of reaction that were
being employed against Jelacic. On 16 May he had written: 74 ‘The Slavs
of course want to unite together, but are not the Russians also Slavs? This
unfortunate circumstance allows the enemies of Illyrism the excuse to use
the worst calumnies and complaints.’ On 23 September he was
protesting: 75 ‘Were there not [among the Germans — author] a fear of
Czechs and Russia in the background, the newspapers would not be so
silent about the way the ban has been used and to a certain extent sacri¬
ficed.’ But it never ever struck Egger that the ban was other than a loyal
liberal who was faithful to the Monarchy.

71 Josef Karl Mayr, (ed.), Das Tagebuch des Polizeiministers Kempen von 1848 bis
1859, Vienna and Leipzig, 1931. Henceforth referred to as ‘Kempen’s diary’.

72 Ferdinand Hauptmann (ed.), Gedanken iiber Staat und Revolution. Das Tagebuch
des Grafen Ferdinand Egger aus dem Jahre 1848 , Zur Kunde Siidosteuropas II/6,
Graz, 1976. It reads like a diary, but in fact is really Egger’s almost daily
correspondence with Juro Jelacic. Henceforth referred to as ‘Egger’s diary’.

73 Egger’s diary, 7 September, 1848.

74 Egger’s diary, 16 May, 1848.

75 Egger’s diary, 23 September, 1848

152

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

Kempen had the same view but from a different perspective. On 9
January 1850 he recorded in his diary a question addressed to him by the
new war minister: 76 ‘Count Gyulai wanted to know from me how it had
actually come about that Jelacic had been demanded by the nation as ban
in the days of March 1848.’ He answered: 77 ‘To my knowledge only one
party demanded him, the ultraliberal one, without any mandate from the
nation.’ On 19 March 1848 Kempen had already been recording his fears
for the future: 78 ‘I ... see everything that is holy threatened — throne,
altar, property — and hope that the sinfulness of humanity will be rescued
by God’s help and protection.’ Yet on the very same day Jelacic had
appeared to be ‘in the highest spirits.’ 79 Kempen was quite thunderstruck
at his appointment as ban when the news arrived on 28 March: 80 ‘I foresee
frightful things — anarchy, civil war, perhaps the fall of the entire impe¬
rial house. The selection of a ban without reference to the palatine seems
to be a coup d’etat in favour of the Slavs ... God preserve us!’ The ban’s
subsequent style — open, democratic, liberal — inevitably infuriated
Kempen. On 20 May he recorded: 81 ‘He handles almost everything
publicly, which cannot be totally approved. Letters from Vienna he reads
out aloud. He receives and converses with members of delegations who
have returned from Vienna.’ On 9 August he was thunderstruck again.
When he protested at being kept in Croatia instead of being transferred to
Italy, Jelacic told him he was needed in Croatia and that he would be kept
there. 82 He then explained that as ban ‘in practice he [Jelacic] could do
what he liked.’ 83 After the success of the counter-revolution, Kempen
clashed with the ban once more over the issue of allowing the military
police to enter Croatia. On 9 May 1850, Jelacic had told him that 84 ‘he
would never tolerate this and would rather return his decorations.’ The
ban’s liberalism was still extant and on 3 October 1851 Kempen was still

76 Kempen’s diary, 9 January 1850.

77 Ibid. Cf. the Marxist Gy. Spira, who — see footnote 8 — regards Jelacic as a feudal
reactionary: ‘Nevertheless it remains a fact that the Croat liberals sanctioned the
petition of March 25 and, in it, the point which pressed for Jellacic’s appointment.’
Spira, The Nationality Issue in the Hungary of 1848-49, Budapest, 1992, p. 34.

78 Kempen’s diary, 19 March, 1848.

79 Ibid.

80 Kempen’s diary, 28 March, 1848.

81 Kempen’s diary, 20 May 1848. Cf. Ferdinand Hauptmann, Jelacic’s Kriegzug nach
Ungarn 1848, 2 vols, Graz, 1975 (Zur Kunde Siidosteuropas, II/5), vol. 1, p. 7:
‘Jelacic by nature was used to speaking openly and not concealing his thoughts.’

82 Kempen’s diary, 9 August 1848.

83 Ibid.

84 Kempen’s diary, 9 May, 1850.

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153

complaining: 85 ‘On a visit to minister Bach we came to discuss the impos¬
sible — allowing Croatia and Slavonia to be governed by the ban. He said
to ease the task would be difficult; Jelacic was still ban. But I answered
that he must be taught to obey.’ Both Kempen and Egger, knew the ban
extremely well and agreed on all his qualities — he was a cheerful, open,
honest, straightforward, politically liberal and politically disobedient
Slav.

About the ban’s loyalty to the Monarchy, however, there was never
any doubt. He told his colleagues: 86 ‘My aim is to uphold a united, strong
Austria, to establish the emperor on his throne, and that we should live in
equal freedom.’ In a confidential memorandum which he wrote after
becoming ban, he declared: 87 ‘The die is cast! I follow the straight road
and play the open game; if I come to an end thereby, I fall as a soldier, a
patriot and a true servant of my master the emperor.’ Kossuth’s position,
on the other hand, was less straightforward. He was the man who ejected
the Habsburgs from the throne of Hungary and who in the USA in 1852
seemed to declare himself a republican. But was he really? Certainly
when he was in exile he stated that 88 ‘our native Hungary can find peace
only in a republican form of government, but in a republican structure
similar to that of the United States.’ In a slightly fuller form, he said: 89

Hungary wills and wishes to be a free and independent republic founded on the
rule of law, securing social order, securing person and property and the moral
development as well as the material welfare of the people — in a word, a
republic like that of the United States, founded on institutions inherited from
England itself.

Yet these statements were made just before Kossuth’s visit to the USA.
When he had arrived in England, on the other hand, he had praised British
institutions, telling the crowd at Southampton of ‘what I take to be a most
glorious sight to see — your gracious Queen representing on the throne
the principle of liberty’. 90 Apparently he saw in free ‘municipal institu¬
tions’ (local government in England, federalism in the USA) the key to
political freedom 91 — an echo, no doubt of his defence of the county
assemblies in Hungary in the 1840s. Consistent with this belief in

85 Kempen’s diary, 3 October 1851.

86 Hartley, op. cit ., p. 224.

87 Hartley, op. cit., p. 137.

88 Szabad, op. cit., p. 521.

89 Ibid. ft. 103.

90 Headley, op. cit., p. 240.

91 Headley, op. cit., p. 237.

154

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

decentralized government, he denounced the republican form of govern¬
ment in France. 92

When in Hungary, of course, he had been a consistent monarchist. In
his famous speech of 3 March 1848, demanding a constitution for all parts
of the Empire, he had referred to ‘our beloved dynasty’, saying that all the
peoples of the Monarchy would offer their blood and lives for it (if not for
the politicians of Vienna); indeed, he had lavished praise on the young
Franz Joseph as the dynasty’s hope for the future. 93 And one of his radical
opponents wrote: 94

I know that Kossuth even in February 1848 was occupied with plans ( Berat-
hunger ) which prove decisively, that he at that time still wished for no revolu¬
tion, or at least did not believe in one. I always found him to be in favour of
monarchy, indeed of the dynasty.

Even the Declaration of Independence that dethroned the Habsburgs did
not create a republic. In fact, it describes their dethronement as ‘an act of
the last necessity’ not something undertaken ‘out of revolutionary excite¬
ment.’ 95 Again, in Istvan Deak’s words, in the months following the
Declaration, ‘both Kossuth and prime minister Szemere attempted repeat¬
edly to offer the crown to a foreign prince.’ 96 Previously, Kossuth and
Batthyany had begged the king to come to Buda from Innsbruck, where
he had fled — the most fervent wish of all loyal Hungarians, as the Decla¬
ration of Independence admitted. 97

92 Szabad, op. cit., p. 517.

93 Hans Schlitter, Aus Osterreichs Vormdrz , vol. 3, Ungarn , Zurich, Leipzig and
Vienna, 1920, p. 68.

94 P. Somssich, Das Legitime Recht Ungarns und seines Konigs, Vienna, 1850, p. 18.

95 The Declaration is translated and included as Appendix 31 by Stiles, op. cit., vol
2, pp. 409-19. For the quotations above, see p. 409.

96 Deak, op. cit., p. 262.

97 See footnote 73. Cf. Peter, op. cit., p. 289: ‘The Batthyany government would have
liked to have seen the king come to Buda (instead of Innsbruck) and Kossuth above
all clamoured vehemently for this from May. He and the radicals also played with
the thought of offering the Hungarian crown to the Archduke Stephen.’ Indeed, the
Hungarian cabinet on 20 May, after the King’s flight to Innsbruck on 15 May,
‘expressed its conviction that the dangers facing the country could be best avoided,
if the king would take residence in this his homeland for at least a period of time
and that the policy of the Monarchy as a whole were conducted according to more
energetic principles.’ {Hungarian cabinet minutes, 20 May 1848.) The palatine
promised to talk to the king about this and extracted a promise from him to come
to Pest to open the parliament. This did not happen, since the king was too ill to
travel and parliament had to be opened by the palatine. {Hungarian cabinet

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155

It was in one of his very first speeches in England, however, that
Kossuth outlined the real nature of his politics. 98 He said: ‘You see then,
that we in Hungary were not planning revolution. Hungary was not the
soul of secret conspiracy ... No just man can charge ... that I was plan¬
ning a revolution. No one will say I was a Red Republican.’ The most
dramatic part of his speech however was the passage that follows:
‘Myself, an humble, unpretending son of modest Hungary, was in the
condition that I had the existence of the house of Hapsburg and all its
crowns here in my hand. (M. Kossuth here stretched out his arm with
clenched fist across the table. Tremendous cheering.) I told them “Be just
to my fatherland, and I will give you peace and tranquillity in Vienna.”
They promised to be just, and I gave them peace and tranquillity in
Vienna in 24 hours; and before the Eternal God who will make respon¬
sible to Him my soul, before history, the independent judge of men and
events, I have a right to say the House of Hapsburg has to thank its exist¬
ence to me.’ Thus in March 1848, Kossuth saved the Habsburgs.

The truth about March 1848 will be investigated presently. Here, one
final point remains to be made, namely that Kossuth was certainly no
socialist. Szabad, in a discussion of his views as expressed in the USA,
commented in a footnote 99 on the ‘characteristically liberal stance of
Kossuth, who became the leader of the Hungarian fight against feudalism,
but repeatedly dissociated himself from all socialist aims.’ This is
certainly true. For example, in Manchester in 1851 Kossuth explained: 100
‘... the only sense which I can see in Socialism is inconsistent with social
order and the security of property ... believing that ... I may be able
somewhat to influence the course of the next European revolution, I think
it right plainly to declare beforehand my allegiance to the great principle
of security for personal property...’. Both Kossuth and Jelacic, therefore,
may be taken to have been liberal monarchists. Their politics were based

minutes, 20 June 1848.) The Hungarian cabinet minutes of 20 May recorded a
report in the newspaper Marczius 15-ke that the cabinet was to make the palatine
provisional king. To ensure that this false report did not spread, this issue of the
paper was banned. According to the memoirs of Wirkner, the Austrian government’s
main agent in Pressburg in 1848, Archduke Louis, the head of the Staatskonferenz
had told him on 14 March 1848, that in case of necessity, the court would take refuge
in Hungary. See C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, The Political Evolution of the
Hungarian Nation, 2 vols, London 1908, vol. 2, p. 11, ft. 4.

98 The Times, Kossuth at Winchester, 27 October, 1851.

99 Szabad, op. cit., p. 521, ft. 101.

100 E. O. S., Hungary and Its Revolutions from the Earliest Period to the Nineteenth
Century with a Memoir of Louis Kossuth, London, 1854, pp. 516-17.

156

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

on the same sort of principles and the manner in which they oversaw the
conversion of their respective constitutions was remarkably consistent.

They both wished, moreover, to reshape the Habsburg Monarchy as a
whole, but here they differed in the manner in which they wanted to
‘convert’ the imperial constitution. Kossuth wanted to reduce the link
between Hungary and Cisleithania to a mere personal union with the
emperor of Austria: 101 ‘Hungary should be governed independently and
be free from all foreign interference.’ For Kossuth constitutional matters
were the main priority. He wanted the link with (a preferably constitu¬
tional) Austria made as weak as possible leaving Hungary to enjoy the
fullest independence compatible with a personal union with the Austrian
emperor as king of Hungary. 102 It was this belief that made him an
uncomfortable leader even for Hungarian Liberals: 103 ‘... they knew not
whether he would lead them — indeed, he himself did not know his final
destination; he only knew that he would lead his fatherland in the interests
of its independence to the borders of the possible, although these borders,
he felt, would depend on circumstances and their exploitation.’ By
October 1848, therefore, he was willing to invade Austria.

Jelacic took a different stance. As Iveljic has written, 104

Croat policy in 1848 rested on the principles of Austroslavism, that is the
conviction that the existence of the Monarchy was in the interests of Croatia —
albeit on the condition that the Monarchy should be transformed into a federa¬
tion of individual territories with secured historical rights on the basis of
language and ethnicity.

From this point of view the alliance between Hungarian and German
liberals was nothing more than a plot against all Slavs. The October revo¬
lution in Vienna especially was seen as unlawful and was considered the
work of the ‘pseudo-liberal Magyar-German party.’ 105 The reasoning
behind all this was outlined in a pamphlet published in Vienna in 1848 by
the Croat Imbro Tkalac 106 which condemned the ‘racial despotism’ of the

101 See F. Riedl, A History of Hungarian Literature, London, 1906, pp. 159-62. He is
quoting from one of Kossuth’s speeches in England.

102 Cf. Horst Haselsteiner, ‘ Ungarische Nationalkonzepte, die Slaven unter
“Austroslavismus , in Moritsch (ed.), op. cit., pp. 86-101, pp. 98-99.

103 Pulszky, Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 9-10.

104 Iveljic, op. cit., p. 127.

105 Ibid.

106 Croaten, Serben und Magyaren, ihre Verhaltnisse zu einander und zu
Deutschland, Vienna, 1848, published under the pseudonym E. I. Ignajtijewitsch.
See Iveljic, op. cit., p. 127 and 127, ft. 8.

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157

Magyars who, under the mask of liberalism, wanted to place the other
peoples of Hungary under a ‘Magyar yoke’; their liberalism towards the
Serbs, for example, had been demonstrated ‘by fire and sword’. Croat
liberals, therefore saw Jelacic as ‘a liberal statesman of the new school’,
‘the darling of the people’. 107 Like them 108 ‘the ban was also a proponent
of Austroslavism. On Jelacic’s invitation two Czech delegates came to the
Croatian diet and Josef Miloslav Hurban made a speech on the difficult
position of the Slovaks.’ After the suppression of the Slav Congress in
Prague in June, Zagreb became the centre of Austroslavism.

The thirty national demands of the Croats, however, had made no
mention of re-shaping the Monarchy. Yet Article XI of the Croatian diet
at the beginning of June 1848 with its ‘Manifesto of the Croatian-Slavo-
nian Nation’ plus the pamphlet of the ‘Croatian-Slavonian deputies’ —
who had been refused permission to enter the Austrian Reichstag — enti¬
tled ‘The Croats and Slavonians to the Peoples of Austria’ brought the
case for federalizing the Monarchy into the open; it was adopted by all
shades of opinion in the diet. 109 The plan was to allow for a common
(federal) government to oversee common matters such as war, finance
and trade. Otherwise local parliaments should be in charge. The
Monarchy was to be divided into national units based on historic and
natural rights and the equality of all nationalities. The South Slav peoples
were to be united in a Triune Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia with
links to both a Serb Vojvodina and the Slovenes. Naturally, the link with
the German Confederation was to be broken.

Jelacic supported all this: 110 ‘[His] negotiations with the (Hungarian
government broke down over the demand for the aforementioned
common ministries and over autonomy for the Vojvodina. War was the
result.’ His desire had been, and still remained ‘to effect an even closer
federation with a constitutional empire on the basis of full equality of
rights for all nationalities.’ * * 111

107 Iveljic, op. cit., p. 127.

108 Iveljic, op. cit., p. 128.

109 Gross, op. cit., p. 2287.

110 Ibid.

111 Ferdinand Hauptmann, Das Programm des Banus Jelacic zum Umbau Osterreichs
im Jahre 1848, Bericht uber den vierten osterreichischen Historikertag in
Klagenfurt, 1956, p. 65.

158

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

Royal Appointments and Coups d Etat

Kempen’s description of Jelacic’s nomination as ban as a ‘coup d’etat in
favour of the Slavs’ 112 because it was made without reference to the pala¬
tine of Hungary, has something in it — but not much. Certainly, it had
come about in order to counterbalance the enthusiasm of the Hungarians,
yet it had come about quite legally. The Archduke Ludwig had made up
his mind in favour of Jelacic in principle as early as 16 March, having
been lobbied both by Baron Josika, the head of the Transylvanian Court
Chancery 113 and Baron Kulmer, a Croat deputy to the Hungarian Upper
House, a fervent Illyrian and a close friend of Jelacic (he was in fact five
years younger than the future ban, but addressed him with the familiar
du). UA Josika, according to the memoirs of his deputy, believed that 115
‘we require a suitable and determined leader of their (i.e. the Croats’) own
race, who is capable of exploiting their devotion, their military organiza¬
tion, and their injured racial feelings, in the interests of the Throne.’
However, it was the determined intervention of the Archduke John, who,
having been lobbied by Gaj, ensured that a final decision was taken and
that the Staatskonferenz approved the nomination on a motion from
Kolowrat on 21 March, before the Hungarians — who were proving much
more difficult than foreseen — could prevent this. 116 In any case, the pala¬
tine himself approved it reluctantly and his later — retrospective —
complaint, that Batthyany had not been consulted, ‘came too late and was
deliberately ignored’. 117

112 See footnote 77.

113 Who apparently had been prompted by Wirkner — see footnote 94.

114 See for example his letter of 30 March 1848 quoted by Hauptmann, Erzherzog
Johann ais Vermittler zwischen Kroatien und Ungarn im Sommer 1848, Zur
Kunde Siidosteuropas, II/I, Graz, 1972, p. 12, which congratulates Jelacic on his
appointment as ban. The same letter, by the way, significantly adds to the evidence
of the force of the Archduke John’s intervention by stating ‘your nomination went
through in three days, despite the fact that earlier on nobody in the highest circles
had thought of you.’

115 Quoted from the memoirs of L. Szogyeny-Marich by Knatchbull-Hugessen, op.
cit., vol. 2., p. 56.

116 The best account of the nomination is Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann als
Vermittler etc., pp. 8-12. The archduke arrived in Vienna on 19 March, Gaj was
received at court on 20 March, instructions went from the king to the Court War
Council the same day to promote Jelacic to ban, the Staatskonferenz approved the
decision formally on 21 March, the palatine approved it on 22 March and the king
signed the appointment on 23 March.

117 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., p. 12.

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159

Count Egger received news of the appointment on 23 March and
recorded: 118 ‘And how he [the Archduke John] spoke of Pepi [i.e. Jelacic]

— he said that he knew no braver, more excellent man, who combined so
much heart and spirit. A deputation from Agram (Zagreb) was in Graz to
see him. Gaj, at its head, it seems demanded Pepi. When the Archduke
came here [Vienna], he proposed it to the Konferenz immediately and
everyone was unanimous.’ The next day Egger noted: 119 ‘I can hardly tell
you with what profound conviction and enthusiasm the Archduke spoke
of him.’

Kolowrat, for his part, made his own motives quite clear. Afraid lest
the Hungarians should ‘entice the Croat-Slavonian lands by agreeing to
recognize their local rights, language etc.’ he feared that ‘the Austrian,
unfortunately heterogeneous state, would face a compact mass that might
be ready to attack the dynasty.’ 120 In fact, Kolowrat was wrong to suspect
that the Hungarians would be able to succeed in any such manoeuvre, but
the nomination was without doubt legal, as was the appointment,
confirmed on 23 March in a rescript signed by the king (who obviously
took precedence over the palatine) and an official of the Hungarian Court
Chancery (Szogyeny-Marich, the deputy chancellor).

In any case, the new Hungarian ministry was not approved until 7
April and the April Laws not until 11 April. Batthyany, it is true, had been
nominated premier by the palatine on 17 March, but the Staatskonferenz
at the time viewed this as illegal. 121 The relevant protocol of 18 March 122

— the day after his nomination by the palatine — declares ‘that the pala¬
tine has exceeded the authority given to him with the nomination of
Batthyany ; 123 but on account of diverse factors, 124 it none the less recom¬
mends the confirmation of the nomination of Batthyany as provisional 125
prime minister, and that the palatine, in accordance with the powers at his

118 Egger’s diary, 23 March, 1848.

119 Egger’s diary, 24 March, 1848.

120 Quoted in Zoltan I. Toth, ‘The Nationality Problem in Hungary in 1848-49’, Acta
Historica , 1954, pp. 235-37, 243.

121 Peter, op. cit ., p. 278.

122 The key documents concerning the establishment of the responsible Hungarian
ministry in 1848 can be found in Arpad Karolyi, (ed.), Nemetujvari grof Batthyany
Lajos elso magyar miniszterelnok fobenjaro pore, Budapest, 1932, 2, pp. 603-09.
For the quote above see, p. 608, Staatskonferenzprotokol, 18 March, Vienna.

123 Author’s emphasis

124 The most important of which was almost certainly fear of revolution, if the
nomination were reversed. News of it had been made public and it was being
celebrated in Vienna. Cf. Kossuth’s boast above; for more, see below.

125 Author’s emphasis

160

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

disposal, but under certain conditions and without infringing the highest
authority, should entrust Batthyany with the maintenance of order and
tranquillity.’ On the same day, the king informed the palatine by letter 126
that this was to be the case and that the new — provisional — premier
should strive to maintain order and tranquillity by working ‘alongside’
both the Hungarian Chancery in Vienna and the Statthalterei (the pala¬
tine’s council in Buda) whose ‘authority remains completely unaffected \
(ungeschmalert aufrecht erhalten werden miisse) ni The old order — as
yet — had by no means accepted its passing. It still had every right there¬
fore to appoint Jelacic as ban, a right which the Batthyany government
apparently accepted. The real coup , meanwhile, was being executed by
the Hungarians.

The news of the revolution in Paris caused Kossuth to make his great
speech of 3 March 1848 demanding responsible government not merely
for Hungary but for the Empire as a whole. This demand was incorpo¬
rated into an address to the throne, which was passed unanimously by
both houses of the Hungarian parliament and a delegation of parliamen¬
tarians, including Kossuth, Batthyany, and Szechenyi, was chosen to take
the address from Pressburg to Vienna to present it to the king. By this
time Szechenyi, Hungary’s greatest conservative statesman, who had
previously been Kossuth’s opponent and rival, had come round to his
support. The reaction of the palatine to the revolution in Vienna had
demonstrated such weakness on the part of this Habsburg that Szechenyi
believed that a separate, responsible Hungarian ministry could now be
extracted from the dynasty. The choice was between ‘reform’ and
‘anarchy’ and the Hungarian nobles should lead the cause of reform. 128
On the voyage to Vienna, the problem was discussed how best to get the
emperor to agree to make concessions and Szechenyi, famously, came up
with the bright idea of transferring his powers to the palatine. As he noted
in his diary, he composed a ‘quite simple’ draft reply to the address on
behalf of the king: 129 ‘Stephen is my alter ego.' After the arrival of the
delegation in Vienna, Szechenyi agreed with Kossuth and Batthyany that
the reply should also agree to the formation of a responsible ministry and

126 Karolyi (ed.), Nemetujvari grof Batthyany Lajos, p. 609, king to palatine,
handwritten letter, 18 March, Vienna.

127 Author’s emphasis.

128 For Szechenyi’s role during the revolution, see Gy. Spira, op. cit. For the above
see, p. 43 and p. 45. On 15 March Szechenyi had written in his diary: ‘I must
support Louis Batthyany and Kossuth! — All feelings of hatred and antipathy —
and even ambition, must be silenced.’ Spira, op. cit., p. 18.

129 Spira, op. cit., p. 22; Peter, op. cit., p .278, ft. 167.

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that it should designate Batthyany as premier. The revolutionary and pro-
Magyar atmosphere of the imperial capital had clearly emboldened their
spirits. Moreover, the palatine, whose weakness in face of the revolution
on 14 March, had first encouraged Szechenyi to make common cause
with Kossuth, now agreed to stake his honour and office on securing the
king’s acceptance of the draft reply. 130 To ensure his success, he sent a
letter to the king designed to secure his compliance by frightening him out
of his wits. According to the letter, 131 it was ‘essential’ for him to agree if
‘anarchy’ or a ‘republic’ were to be ‘avoided’. Hungary was on the verge
of revolution and the authorities lacked the means to prevent this. The
choice remained one between ‘a favourable decision and the loss of the
province’. He added: ‘That the decision is a difficult one — the conse¬
quences not easy to avoid — I understand, but it is the only means — to
overcome the dangers with which otherwise we will now inevitably be
confronted. ’ He then stated, that if there were no favourable decision, he
personally could not return to Pressburg. But he ended by ensuring the
king — and ‘expressing this quite clearly’ — that if he did agree, then
‘the state’s link ( Staatenverband) with Austria and its monarch would in
no way be endangered.’ The deputy head of the Hungarian Chancery,
Szogyeny-Marich, meanwhile, had drawn up a document 132 composed in
much the same spirit, justifying the Hungarian claims. This too stressed
the dangers of the moment, since otherwise it admitted that the changes
demanded by the diet were ‘unnecessary’: ‘the present disturbances in
Hungary will be seen as merely trifling ( gering ) compared with what will
probably ensue if the means are not adopted in time to counter this agita¬
tion.’ The result was that when the king met the delegation from the
Hungarian diet the following afternoon (17 March), a ‘painful scene’
occurred, to use Szechenyi’s description of it, during which the feeble¬
minded Ferdinand broke down and ‘with his pleading hands placed
together’ begged the palatine ‘in childish simple-mindedness’ in the
Viennese dialect T pitt’ di, nimm mir meinem Thron nit!’ (‘I beg you,
please don’t take my throne away.’) 133

The previous evening Kossuth had understood something of the fears
of the dynasty when, in an interview with the Archduke Franz Karl, the

130 Spira, op. cit., p. 26.

131 Karolyi, op. cit., pp. 206-07 Document 2, Palatine to King, Vienna, 16 March, 1848.

132 Arpad Karolyi, Az 1848 — dikipozsonyi torvenycikkek az udvar elott (hereafter Az
1848 tvcikkek ), Budapest, 1936, pp. 203-05, Document 1, Report of the Dietal
Committee of the Hungarian Chancery on the diet’s Address. 16 March, 1848.

133 Spira, op. cit., p. 98.

162

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

king’s brother and father of Franz Joseph, he had been told the king
wished to satisfy the Hungarians but did not wish to be seen to act under
duress. Kossuth replied: 134 ‘If your Imperial Highness will give me your
word of honour that you will do what equity and justice oblige you to do
for my country, I will bring tranquillity to Vienna for the House of
Austria.’ The Archduke thereupon gave Kossuth his word, saying that the
Habsburgs would be ‘forever grateful’ to him. Kossuth’s boast in his
Winchester speech of 1851, therefore, was not a hollow one. Everyone
seemed to believe, that if Kossuth had called for a revolution in Vienna at
this time, the Habsburgs could have been overthrown.

That was not to say, however, that there would be no rearguard action
over the diet’s proposals. Windischgraetz told Szechenyi, for example,
that agreeing to the Hungarian proposals would ‘entail the complete
upsetting of the constitution and the Monarchy.’ 135 Moreover, the Staats-
konferenz only agreed to them conditionally under the threat of the pala¬
tine’s resignation and the fear of revolution. Its advice to the monarch was
to play for time. 136 By all means he could assent to full powers for the
palatine and the establishment of a responsible ‘administration’
(‘ministry’ was only to be used if it were made ‘dependent on the existing
laws of the country’) but since it had yet to be established to what extent
such an administration would be responsible for matters such as defence
and finance, the decisions taken should have an ‘introductory, prepara¬
tory, not definitive character’ and a ‘final decision’ should be left for a
‘more suitable, later point in time.’ The palatine should also be told to
work within the constraints of the Pragmatic Sanction and confer with
Vienna over appointments. The king accepted this advice and on 17
March the palatine 137 was ‘invested, as my viceroy with full powers
within the meaning of the law to govern in my absence the kingdom of
Hungary, and the parts thereto annexed, in the path of the law and the
constitution, maintaining the unity of the crown and the connexion with
the empire in its integrity.’ [He continued:] ‘I am disposed to accede to
the desire of my faithful Estates and Orders for the appointment in
accordance with the laws of the country of an independent and respon¬
sible ministry, and give you at the same time authority to propose for

134 L. Kossuth, Meine Schriften aus der Emigration, 3 vols, Pressburg-Leipzig, 1881,
vol. 2, p. 207.

135 Spira, op. cit., p. 27.

136 Karolyi, Az 1848 t\>cikkek, pp. 211-14 Document 5, The advisory report of the
Staatskonferenz on the Palatine’s request to the King to establish an independent
Hungarian ministry, Vienna, 16-18 March.

137 Printed in Knatchbull-Hugessen, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 16-17.

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163

appointment 138 suitable persons from among those whom you have
mentioned to me, also to take steps in order that suitable legislative
proposals may be made by the Estates and Orders with a view to defining
in an expedient manner the sphere of influence of such individuals,
having regard to the close connexion, rightly to be considered of such
importance, existing by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, between the
kingdom of Hungary and my hereditary dominions, which are equally
entitled to my paternal care. Such proposals, together with the other
suggested laws referred to in the Address, should be laid before me by the
Estates and Orders without delay.’

Having secured Kossuth’s agreement to keep the peace in Vienna, the
Habsburgs regained their nerve and were determined to limit the conces¬
sions to the Hungarians. It would take too long to detail the political battle
over the April Laws, but two or three points should be made. The Staat-
skonferenz on 26 March 139 did warn the king, despite a favourable review
of the laws by the Hungarian Chancery’s own Committee on the diet, 140
that they amounted to ‘a new constitution for Hungary’ and to accept
them would ‘amount to an abdication by Your Majesty’. It added, that if
circumstances did not permit their complete retraction, the task then
became one of ‘saving for the crown what it is still possible to save.’ The
main concerns of the Staatskonferenz were the powers of the palatine, and
those of the new ministries of defence and finance. The result was that a
new royal rescript was sent to the palatine, dated 28 March, which stated
that the Hungarian Chancery be preserved with supervisory powers over
the government; that the plenipotentiary powers of the palatine were
restricted to the present occupier of that office only (it is impossible to tell
which member of the Staatskonferenz proposed this, but certainly the
question was raised of a rebellious palatine in command of Hungary’s
armed forces being unable to be brought to account by the king); 141 that
all revenues should be paid into the central treasury first; that the diet
should be restricted to discussing matters of direct taxation; that questions
concerning trade and the customs tariff should be negotiated with Vienna;
that the king should continue to appoint officers and deploy troops even

138 i.e. not to appoint by himself — hence the view by taken by the Staatskonferenz
over his appointment of Batthyany, that he had overstepped his authority. See pp.
39-40.

139 Karolyi, Az 1848 tvcikkek, pp. 231-37, Document 12B, Memorandum of
Staatskonferenz, 26 March, 1848.

140 Ibid., pp. 226-31, Document 12A, Memorandum of the Committee of the
Hungarian State Chancery, 25 March, 1848.

141 Ibid., op. cit., pp. 71-72.

164

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

when absent from Hungary (His Majesty ‘clings to the principle of inti¬
mate connexion which derives from the Pragmatic Sanction and to his
rights with respect to the employment of the armed forces in accordance
with the law and to the nomination of officers.’); 142 and that the Hungar¬
ians should pay part of the state debt. The clear implication was that
Hungary did not require separate ministries of war and finance and that
the palatine might not be trusted. Implied, too, was the view that the new
ministry was merely a more accountable version of the old palatine’s
council.

When the palatine read the new rescript to the diet on 29 March, there
was uproar. Revolution again seemed to be on the cards and once again,
the palatine staked his office on gaining a truly independent ministry for
Hungary. Once again (on 24 March) he wrote an intimidating letter to the
king: 143 ‘Your Majesty, The state of Hungary is at this moment so critical
that the most violent outbreak is expected daily.’ And once more, he
advised compromise and reconciliation — ‘With the arrival of a more
favourable time, much can be arranged otherwise ...’ The result was a
climb-down by the Staatskonferenz, although the king maintained his
claims on the army through the Pragmatic Sanction: 144

While I recognize the fact that the organization of home defence and the votes
for military requirements belong to the sphere of action of the legislature ... the
question of the employment of the Hungarian army beyond the limits of the
kingdom, as well as that of the appointment to military offices, can depend only
on my royal decision, and that the counter-signature in such matters must be
entrusted to the minister in attendance on my person.

Nor would the question of the state debt go away. On 5 April 1848 the
new Austrian ministry complained that the Hungarians had so far
remained silent on the question of their share of the state debt, a silence
that was 145 ‘very serious and most dangerous for the credit of the
Monarchy.’ The emperor as king, therefore, should instruct the diet and
the palatine that one-quarter of the debt — 200,000,000 gulden — was to
be paid by Hungary. A letter to this effect composed by Ficquelmont and
approved by the Archduke Franz Karl was then sent to the palatine,
having been signed by the king. It asked for the quarter of the debt and an

142 Knatchbull-Hugessen, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 21.

143 Printed as Appendix 22, Stiles, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 396-97.

144 Knatchbull-Hugessen, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 22.

145 Karolyi, Az 1848 tvcikkek, pp. 290-91, Document 23a, Protocol of the Austrian
Council of Ministers, 5 April, 1848.

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165

annual payment in future of 10,000,000 Gulden. However, the request
was once again framed with reference to the Pragmatic Sanction: 146

Since nothing will be changed by these decrees or is intended to be changed in
the fundamental relations between my kingdom of Hungary and my other states
as established by the Pragmatic Sanction ... I urgently request you to make
known to the Hungarian diet in the appropriate manner, the need to make a
declaration on their part to uphold the pubic credit of my Monarchy, whereby
all concern about the sharing of the Hungarian Lands in the common state debt
will be comfortably removed.

Quite clearly, therefore, the Habsburgs in March to April 1848 made
concessions to the Hungarians only under duress. Their main body for
formulating policy, the Staatskonferenz, believed that the Hungarians
were demanding a new constitution which reduced the king to a cipher
both by transferring his effective powers to the palatine, in whom the
ruling family had lost trust, 147 and by allowing affairs previously held to
be the immediate concern of Vienna — finance, defence, trade — to be
devolved to Hungary. In future, no Staatskonferenz would be able to
guide the fortunes of the Monarchy as a whole or supervise those of
Hungary through the Hungarian Chancery. In short, under the threat of
force, the Habsurgs had submitted to a coup d’etat . Not everything had
been lost, however. An attempt had been made to claw back the conces¬
sions and when that failed, the Pragmatic Sanction was used to keep the
imperial claim alive. In any case, paragraph six of Article III of the April
Laws, seemed to limit the executive competence of the new Hungarian
Ministry. It ran: 148

Whatever has been or ought to have been up to the present time, under the juris¬
diction of the Hungarian Chancery or the Council of Lieutenancy, the Aulic
Chamber (including the mines), and all affairs civil, military, and ecclesiastic,

146 Karolyi, ibid, pp. 292-93, Document 23b, king’s letter to the palatine, Vienna, 7
April, 1848.

147 The Archduke Ludwig told the palatine: ‘You will be to blame if we lose
Hungary.’ For this quotation and a discussion of the views of other members of
the imperial family, see Karolyi, Az 1848 tvcikkek, pp. 25-26.

148 Stiles, op. cit., vol. 2, Appendix 27, Article III of the Hungarian diet of 1847-8,
pp. 399-402, p. 400. Peter, op. cit., p. 287, seems to agree: ‘The dicasteria had
never administered imperial affairs, neither foreign policy nor finances, and with
regard to the army they had been limited to quartering, provisioning and raising
recruits in Hungary. The paragraph, therefore, had no implications for the imperial
authorities.’ BUT, ‘Hungarian politicians never accepted the “strict” interpretation
of paragraph 6 of Law III of 1848 as viewed by the Staatskonferenz.’ (Ibid)

166

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

as well as everything that concerns the finances and defence of the country,
shall for the future be regulated and directed by the Hungarian ministry ...

And Kossuth himself said: 149

The king must not believe that his might is in any way impaired by the changes
in the system or the concessions which he has made. ... Let His Majesty come
as soon as possible into the midst of his faithful Magyars and convince himself
that our fidelity is no empty word ...

Vienna could comfort itself — if only briefly — therefore, that there
might be no radical change regarding financial, military and commercial
matters. The king’s throne might not be taken away from him after all.

Royal Dismissals and Coups d’Etat

Such complacency was not to last. On the issue of the debt, for example,
the palatine replied that only the future Hungarian parliament could give a
decision. 150 Meanwhile, all leading Hungarian politicians rejected the
demand, Szechenyi predicting that the Austrians would be bankrupt
within a few months and that ‘we shall probably see our worthy king

149 Quoted in Edsel Walter Stroup, Hungary in early 1848: The Constitutional
Struggle against Absolutism in Contemporary Eyes, Buffalo and Atlanta, 1977,
p. 182. (Author’s emphasis). Kossuth’s statement raises the question whether the
Hungarians had been honest in their dealings with the Court. In the view of
Domokos Kosary, the grand old man of contemporary Hungarian historiography,
both sides were dishonest, or rather, planned to impose their own interpretation of
the April Laws as soon as circumstances permitted. See Kosary, Mag)>arorszag es
a nemzetkozi politika 1848-1849-ben , Budapest, 1999, p. 11. Peter, in a
provocative review article, challenges this: ‘... no evidence has come to light so
far that the two sides agreed to a settlement in April which they had no intention
of keeping.’ See Laszlo Peter, ‘Old Hats and Closet Revisionists: Reflections on
Domokos Kosary’s Latest Work on the 1848 Hungarian Revolution’, in The
Slavonic and East European Review , vol. 80, 2002, pp. 296-319, (p. 314). As will
be seen, however, the Hungarian cabinet stretched its interpretation of the April
Laws to the very limit from day one. Peter’s assertion that ‘the April settlement
turned out to be a flop afterwards because the antagonistic policies pursued by
both sides, mesmerised by the colliding conceptions of State, undermined the
political will to cooperate, which, however, was also present on both sides’ (Peter,
Old Hats etc., p. 314) does not quite fit the facts. Rather than a slow breakdown
of cooperation taking place, it would seem that from the very start the Hungarian
government demonstrated precious little effort to co-operate. See below.

150 Spira, op. cit., p. 98.

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167

quietly installed in the royal palace at Buda.’ 151 Kossuth, as finance
minister, had in any case on 4 April — the day before the Austrian
cabinet’s complaint —judicially seized 400,000 florins which were due
to be transferred from Buda to Vienna. 152 It was clear, therefore, that he
had no intention of transferring any funds to the Austrian government and
certainly none to Jelacic. In his speech to the Hungarian parliament on 11
July 1848, he said: 153 ‘...I have of course suspended the remittance of
money to the commander-general at Agram (Zagreb). I should not be
worthy to breathe the free air of heaven — nay, the nation ought to spit
me in the face — had I given money to our enemy. But the gentlemen of
Vienna hold a different opinion; they considered my refusal as a
disgusting desire to undermine the Monarchy.’ In fact, he had been
‘undermining the Monarchy’ from the very start, as his actions on 4 April
demonstrated. Again, one of the decisions taken at the very first
Hungarian cabinet meeting — on a motion by Kossuth — was to instruct
ships leaving Adriatic ports to fly Hungarian not Austrian flags and to
have the Hungarian flag recognized in all foreign ports. 154 By the time of
the second Hungarian cabinet meeting, the minutes were referring to
Esterhazy, minister at court, as Hungarian foreign minister 155 and, by the
third cabinet meeting, the Hungarian government had already ‘informed
all general commands in Hungary and its united parts, under the afore¬
mentioned (April) Laws, to take orders exclusively from this ministry and
that any disobedience will be treated as insubordination and against the
law.’ 156 The same general commands were also immediately to provide
Budapest with a list of all weapons depots and military stores in their
areas. Astonishingly, the cabinet also instructed ‘the foreign minister’ to
make clear to Vienna that, ‘despite its best will, public opinion would be
incensed if the return of the army [not just the Hungarian regiments —
author] from Italy were delayed much longer, and that he should press for
compromise in Italy.’ 157 On 24 April, Esterhazy was again told to remind
the king that Hungarian regiments could only be kept outside Hungary
with the permission of the Hungarian government — a view the king

151 Ibid.

152 Die Protokolle des osterreichischen Ministerrates, 1848-1867, Abteilung I. Die
Ministerien des Revolutions]ahres 1848yicnm., 1996, Cabinet meeting of 4 April
1848. Henceforth referred to as ‘ Austrian cabinet minutes'.

153 Printed in Stiles, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 384-94 as Appendix, 19. See p. 391.

154 Hungarian cabinet minutes, 12 April 1848.

155 Hungarian cabinet minutes, 15 April 1848.

156 Hungarian cabinet minutes, 16 April 1848.

157 Ibid.

168

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

rejected given his own interpretation of paragraph 6, Law III of the April
Laws. 158 Then on 21 May, Batthyany demanded that all troops in
Hungary take an oath to the Hungarian constitution immediately. This
eventually happened on 1 June, but at the time, the cabinet recorded its
fear of ‘scandal’, should non-Hungarian troops refuse to take the oath. 159
On 30 May the order from Vienna to call up the fourth battalions of
border regiments was ‘cancelled forthwith’ as ‘dangerous under present
circumstances.’ The Hungarian ‘foreign minister’ was told to express to
the king the ‘astonishment’ of the Hungarian cabinet that ‘Vienna war
ministry still will not cease interfering in Hungarian military affairs.’ 160 It
would seem to this author at least that the Hungarian government ignored
the Pragmatic Sanction from the very start. Whether it had been deliber¬
ately dishonest about this in the negotiations over the April Laws can be
left to individual readers to decide.

Both Jelacic and Kossuth presented considerable problems for the
Austrian cabinet. The former would not — could not — recognize the
Hungarian ministry. He refused to go to Buda to meet the palatine,
telling the Archduke Franz Karl that if he did so, he would not be
allowed to return to Croatia, ‘so decisive is the spirit in this country
against the Hungarian ministry.’ 161 After the palatine demanded that the
king should countermand all his orders, the ban sent a new letter to the
archduke on 13 May 162 saying he was ‘sick to death’ of Hungarian
behaviour. Employing his usual blunt style, he complained that he had
become ‘the object of persecution and deadly hatred of the Magyars’,
who were trying to force him to resign. However, although he would
‘gladly resign, if my resignation were possible’, ‘the nation will not
have this.’ Fate, through him, had linked the future of ‘this gallant
nation’ and the ‘welfare of the imperial house.’ If he resigned, the future
of both would be at risk. He would sacrifice his life for the emperor, ‘but

158 See n. 145 above. Also Hungarian cabinet minutes , 24 April 1848. Kiss on p. 110
of the latter, in an explanation of footnote 5, quotes a letter from the palatine to the
king of 24 April in which he reports ‘that the spirit which animates the Hungarian
ministry (or at least the greatest part of it) can in no way be called good. The few
sessions which His Imperial Highness has attended give sufficient proof of this.’
The king’s reply confirmed the ‘narrow’ interpretation of paragraph 6 of Law III.

(p. 111).

159 Hungarian cabinet minutes , 21 May 1848. (Kiss on p. 118, footnote 1, says that
the Italian troops had indicated they would refuse to take the oath.)

160 Hungarian cabinet minutes, 30 May 1848.

161 See Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., pp. 15-16.

162 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., pp. 16-17.

Alan Sked

169

to act against my holy conviction, against every right to exist given by
God and Nature to every people, to every human being, that I cannot.’ If
the emperor would not protect his Croats, then the 30,000 of them
fighting in Italy would return home to do so. His mood was equally clear
in a letter to his brother Juro of 1 May: 163 ‘My position, my work —
brother — which stands totally at risk, is world historical. I can invite
the blessing or curse of Posterity. My head, quoad materiala , is at risk 164
— so things stand at present. That I will not abandon my innermost
conviction, however, — whatever my end will be — that I will stand
purely by my conscience — of that you may be certain.’ Yet the dynasty
kept making concessions to the Hungarians, allowing them to take
charge of the Military Frontier, instructing the general commands there
to take orders from Buda, 165 and allowing the Hungarians to magyarize
the regiments inside Hungary 166 either by transferring Hungarian and
non-Hungarian officers or by granting requests that more and more
Hungarian regiments should return to Hungary.

163 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., p. 19.

164 Austrian cabinet minutes, 9 May 1848. The Austrian war minister, Count Latour
reported a confidential letter from the Ban in which he wrote that 30 Magyars had
sworn to draw lots to choose which of them should kill him.

165 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv , MK (1848) 882, Esterhazy to Zanini, 24 April, MK (1848)
907, Batthyany to Lederer, 25 April, MK(1848) 908, Lederer to War Ministry, 29
April, MK (1848) Palatine to Zanini, 26 April, Batthyany to general commands in
Hungary, 28 April, Zanini to Emperor, 2 May, MK (1848) 939, Zanini to Emperor,
27 May 1848.

166 E.g. Austrian cabinet minutes, 19 April 1848 and 10 May 1848 — discussions of
Hungarian requests to send more Hungarian troops to Hungary. On the latter
occasion, Latour protested that the Hungarians already had 32,000 troops there,
but agreed to send more since the Hungarians were threatening to refuse to call up
60-80,000 more recruits that the Empire needed. The magyarization process
continued throughout the summer. The Austrian cabinet minutes for 16 August
approve the transfer of Austrian-German officers in Hungarian regiments to
Austrian-German ones as well as a circular to all Hungarian officers in non-
Hungarian regiments asking if they wish to transfer. The Austrian cabinet minutes
for 22 August note the transfer of 500 Italian troops by Hungary from Szegedin to
Vienna. On the other hand, according to the Austrian cabinet minutes for 26
August the Palatine informed Latour that the Hungarian opposition had failed in a
parliamentary debate of 21 August to secure the ‘magyarization of all regiments’
by filling the third battalions of all line regiments with Hungarians. The
Hungarians tackled the subject of returning Hungarian regiments to Hungary from
the very first cabinet meeting and by 20 April had ordered Esterhazy to ensure that
‘all Hungarian military quartered in Galicia and Moravia should return home
immediately.’ See Hungarian cabinet minutes , 12 and 20 April 1848.

170

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

The Austrian cabinet regularly discussed its problems concerning
Hungary. 167 On 11 April it complained of ‘the latest attempts by Hungary to
take over the Military Frontier’; on 12 April it received news of calls to bring
back all Hungarian troops from Italy and Galicia; on 14 April it agreed to
leak the king’s letter to the palatine over Hungary’s share of the national debt
to the press (‘Officially the outcome of this step is not known to the
cabinet’); on 19 April it hoped for ‘more prudent behaviour from the
Hungarians in their excessive demands to control military affairs’; on 30
April it refused to allow military borderers to elect deputies to the Hungarian
parliament; on 4 May it complained of Hungarians taking over stores, guns,
stud-farms, munitions, not to mention the Military Border; although on 24
May it simply refused to advise Hrabovszky, the commander in Slavonia, as
to whether he should publicize the Hungarian take-over there.

On 10 May the Austrian interior minister, Baron Pillersdorf suggested
that the cabinet contact the Hungarian ministry to settle outstanding differ¬
ences. 168 Both countries were constitutional states and ‘should mutually
support each other to maintain Austria as a great power. ’ Thus they should
work together on matters such as the imperial civil list, foreign policy and
foreign trade, finance, defence, trade and tariffs between Austria and
Hungary, perhaps negotiating a treaty to cover arrangements to settle these
matters. On 24 May, as a result, the cabinet welcomed a suggestion by the
Hungarian government to establish a commission — headed by Pulszky on
their side — to deal with just such common problems. 169 Indeed, war
minister Latour indicated he had already reached preliminary agreement
with his opposite number in Hungary on military affairs. Yet nothing came
of these developments. Regular payments meanwhile had to be made to
Jelacic to pay his troops, 170 although when the vice-ban of Croatia, von
Lentulay, asked Vienna to help cover Croatia’s civil deficit, the cabinet
declared itself incompetent to act on the grounds that financial affairs in
Hungary were now covered by the April Laws. 171

It was the hurried union of Transylvania and Hungary — the Transyl¬
vanian diet was summoned on 29 May and voted unanimously for union
with Hungary on 30 May, increasing the Hungarian population by two

167 Austrian cabinet minutes for 11, 12, 14, 19 and 30 April and for 4 and 24 May
respectively.

168 Austrian cabinet minutes , 10 May 1848.

169 Austrian cabinet minutes, 24 May 1848.

170 Austrian cabinet minutes, 15 May 1848, also Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848)
236 and 334, Krauss to Latour, 8 April 1848, MK (1848) 806 and 1062, Krauss to
Zanini, 8 April 1848, MK (1848) 3421 and 3547, Jelacic to Latour, 8 July 1848.

171 Austrian cabinet minutes, 25 June 1848.

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171

million — that forced the Austrian cabinet to review its position: 172 ‘The
cabinet has already deeply felt the disadvantageous results of those deci¬
sions which gave Hungary its own responsible ministry’ — insufficient
concern for the monarchy as a whole, problems over the army and the
Military Frontier, financial ruin, debt problems and the growing influence
of the Hungarian war ministry. Austria now demanded therefore that the
Union between Transylvania and Hungary should respect the following
conditions: all imperial funds there should remain under imperial control;
Hungary should pay its appropriate share of the national debt; the general
command of the Transylvanian Military Frontier should remain under the
control of Vienna; Transylvania should remain faithful to its obligation to
raise recruits for the imperial army; that it should contribute to the
expenses of the Austrian diplomatic corps; and that it should pay for the
pensions of those staff of the Transylvanian chancery and court treasury
in Vienna who had previously been employed on Transylvanian affairs.
This reaction clearly demonstrated Austria’s frustration with Hungary,
although it was clear that the Austrian government had no means at its
disposal to enforce its demands. Needless to say, its ‘wishlist’ was simply
ignored by the Hungarians. The Austrian cabinet was attempting to shut
the stable door long after the Hungarian horse had bolted.

In any case, the Hungarians had by now decided to settle the main
outstanding difference between Budapest and Vienna by forcing the king
to get rid of Jelacic. 173 By 21 May the Hungarian government had decided
to ask the king to suspend the ban from office. In Innsbruck on 28-29
May the palatine secured the agreement of Franz Karl to the suspension
and to preventing the Croatian Sabor from assembling on 5 June.
However, Jelacic was given twenty-four hours to appear at Innsbruck to
defend himself. Batthyany was to be there to hear him. But the ban
refused to come and insisted on summoning the Sabor. He rebuked the
king with the words: 174 ‘Can Your Majesty approve that a loyal, honour¬
able people such as the Croats and Slavonians should be the only one at
present to be deprived of their right to exist?’ The result was the imperial
manifesto of 10 June, written by Kossuth 175 in a propagandistic style that
set out the Hungarian case, which suspended the ban, made the sabor
illegal and appointed Field-Marshall Hrabovszky as royal commissar with

172 Austrian cabinet minutes, 5 June 1848

173 See Hungarian cabinet minutes of 10 and 20 May concerning Hrabovszky’s
commission to take command of the Military Frontier.

174 Quoted by Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., p. 20.

175 Deak, op. cit., p. 137.

172

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

the task of investigating what had been happening in Croatia and indicting
Jelacic ‘and his accomplices’. 176 In the words of Istvan Deak: 177
‘Although unenforceable and legally invalid (the suddenly recalcitrant
Esterhazy had refused his countersignature) Jelacic’s dismissal was a
major victory for Hungary, one of the greatest in a long series of diplo¬
matic triumphs that had begun in March.’

Yet, fate intervened on the part of the ban. For on 10 June, the
Hungarian government also asked the Archduke John to mediate between
Croatia and Hungary, without realizing that this gave him the perfect
excuse to keep the ban in office. The Hungarians, on the other hand,
published the manifesto dismissing Jelacic on 18 June. Meanwhile, totally
unaware of any of this, the ban turned up belatedly at Innsbruck on 16
June at the head of a delegation from the Croat Sabor. There the Arch¬
duke John — who, apparently, was also unaware of the 10 June manifesto

— arranged for him to address the court and diplomatic corps with great
success. Neither Franz Karl nor the king mentioned the manifesto.

In fact, the hope was now that the Archduke John might save the day
through mediation, for on 19 June he was appointed by the king as official
mediator between the two sides, with instructions to reach a ‘mutual
understanding’. 178 Equally significantly, on 16 June the Archduke had
been appointed the Emperor’s plenipotentiary in Vienna. 179

The court in fact had a lot of sympathy for Jelacic, despite its need to
conciliate the Hungarians. Through an intermediary — Louis Bedekovic

— Franz Karl had on 9 May had informed him of his ‘sympathies’ for the
Croats and had advised him to remain at his post. However, he had made
clear that ‘that is it’. 180 In short, nothing could be expected of him
publicly. The imperial family, as a result, felt very guilty when the ban, on
20 June, read a copy of the manifesto dismissing him on his way home.
‘God and posterity will judge,’ was his reaction. He then saw the
Archduke John, who swore he knew nothing about the manifesto. 181 The
Empress Mother, Caroline Augusta, expressed her outrage to Count

176 The manifesto is published as Appendix 18, in Stiles, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 381-84.

177 Deak, op. cit., p. 137.

178 See Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., pp. 20-32 for the best account of events
at Innsbruck.

179 Austrian cabinet minutes , 19 June 1848.

180 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann, etc., p. 18.

181 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann, etc., p. 31: ‘Only the Archduke John appears to
have known nothing.’ Juro Jelacic’s mother-in-law reported that he formally swore
that he knew nothing and promised to reverse the manifesto. (Which he later
refused to do — Author.) See Egger’s diary’, 25 June 1848.

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173

Egger — ‘My God! My God! What will he think of us? Tell me, does he
consider us false?’ — and defended the Archduchess Sophie in partic¬
ular 182 — but in the end it did not matter. Archduke John invited Jelacic to
talks with Batthyany in Vienna, addressing him in the official invitation
as ‘My ban of Croatia’. 183 However, despite repeated requests, he would
not officially withdraw the manifesto itself. 184 This was partly on account
of his need to mollify the Hungarians, who believed that their offer of
mediation made on 10 June had been deliberately misinterpreted. 185 (They
wanted the manifesto implemented before the mediation was undertaken.)
The Archduke John, for his part, told them that ‘if"he (the ban) were to be
removed, there would be no peace to be reckoned with in Croatia.’ He
was also ‘convinced that, should a peaceful compromise be reached,
Jelacic would honestly and successfully see it through.’ 186 But the arch¬
duke was also worried lest a Slav preponderance in the Monarchy should
endanger ‘the German interest.’ 187

182 Egger s diary , 11 September 1848. Egger’s own reaction had been to denounce the
Habsburgs as ‘this faint-hearted, faithless tribe,’ adding ‘Not for the first time
have they sacrificed their most faithful servant and supporter.’ See Egger’s diaiy ,
22 June 1848.

183 Bauer, op. cit p. 138.

184 The request came in letters of 1,4, 6 and 9 July. See Hauptmann, Erzherzog
Johann etc., p. 79 fh. 56. Cf Austrian cabinet minutes for 11 July 1848, which
record a report from Jelacic asking for the manifesto to be revoked.

185 Still, the Hungarian cabinet on 18 June wished the Archduke success in calming
things down in Croatia and in restoring order there. It also promised that the
Hungarian parliament which was soon to meet would consider measures to
reconcile differences between Hungarians and Croats. Hungarian cabinet
minutes , 18 June 1848. Its true position, however, was recorded on 21 June: ‘The
Hungarian ministry did not wish the Archduke John to reach a compromise with
the Croats by means of even-handed negotiations’ (but to go to the Military
Border as someone with great influence there and refute the lie that the April laws
had been conceded under duress). ‘Such negotiations with the Ban of Croatia, as
they — apparently — consist at the demand of the Archduke John, were not the
intention of the Hungarian ministry; such negotiations should not even have been
in his power.’ Hungarian cabinet minutes, 21 June 1848.

186 Vienna, Haus, Hof, und Staatsarchiv, Kabinettsarchiv, Geheimakten,
Schwarzenberg Nachlass, Karton 13, Fasc. VIII, State Counsellor Eduard
Zsedenyi to Batthyany and Kossuth, Vienna, 19 July 1848.

187 The term was used by the Archduke’s chief adviser on the issue, Court Counsellor
Kleyle, who also noted: ‘it does not seem desirable to bring the kingdoms of
Croatia and Slavonia into a close constitutional relationship with the Austrian
hereditary lands’ — they should get the widest possible autonomy within some
form of Hungary. Austroslavism was to be ruled out as a governing principle for
the empire. Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johnann etc., p. 44.

174

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

Ln the end, the manifesto meant nothing, although the Croats reacted to it
with fury, voting at a special assembly of the Sabor in reaction to it to with¬
draw all troops from Italy, to dethrone the Habsburgs, to ally with Sardinia
against them, and called on all Slavs to defend their right of nationality. 188
The ban, for his part, had already from Innsbruck sent a proclamation to
Italy telling the Croat troops to stay there and now continued to defend the
dynasty. 189 In Hauptmann’s view, 190 had he acted in a manner similar to the
Sabor’s, ‘catastrophe for the whole state would not have been avoided. Yet
he sought on the contrary once again to work for Austria, for the Monarchy,
even against the will of the emperor, since he intended to prevent everything
from descending into the chaos of civil and racial war. Even though the
wearer of the crown had dismissed him under, to him, inexplicable circum¬
stances, he felt himself bound even more to it as the symbol of a suprana¬
tional empire.’ So now Jelacic had saved the dynasty'.

All hopes for peace were now invested in the talks arranged in Vienna
by the Archduke John for 29 July. Before they took place both sides
furnished the Archduke with a statement of their positions. These are
summarized at some length in the Austrian cabinet minutes. 191 In the end
the Archduke did not attend the talks, leaving on 30 July for Frankfurt
where he had been elected Reichsvet'weser. However, ‘a comparison of
the Hungarian and Croat conditions shows that they were in principle
almost mutually exclusive.’ 192 Batthyany would not consider transferring
the portfolios of war, defence and trade to Vienna or grant autonomy for

188 Austrian cabinet minutes, 25 June 1848. Kulmer was invited to speak on the
situation in Croatia. Latour reported on the ‘eccentric’ resolutions of the Sabor.

189 See Sked, ‘Jelacic in the Summer of 1848’, pp. 141-43.

190 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., p. 30.

191 Austrian cabinet minutes, 8 July 1848. The Hungarian government, however,
drew Batthyany’s attention to the fact that it expected ‘the Austrian government to
make the unfriendly policy it appears to be pursuing towards us, not merely fully
friendly, but to cooperate successfully with the imperial authority as well as all
members of the dynasty to restore loyal obedience to our laws with regard to order
and peace in the territory of the Hungarian crown as soon as possible; and to
restore, too, the legal independence and freedom of our fatherland in all respects,
including the free pursuit of financial and military affairs, free from all foreign
intervention, as matters which should be clearly, openly and honestly
acknowledged and protected. This, all the more so, as the Hungarian ministry, in
agreement with the whole nation, has decided, at any price, not to depart even by
a hair’s breadth from the independence, laws and freedoms of the Hungarian
nation sanctioned by the king; it will respond to friendship with a similar
friendship but to hostility with appropriate retaliation.’ Hungarian cabinet
minutes, 5 July 1848.

192 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., p. 43.

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175

the Serb Vojvodina. There could be no compromise in other words
between a federally reorganized monarchy — the Austroslavist
programme of the Croats — and one in which Hungary existed as an inde¬
pendent state, the aim of Kossuth, Batthyany and the whole Hungarian
government. The Austrian cabinet, which had invested great hopes in the
work of the Archduke John, was genuinely disappointed. 193 It wanted a
peaceful resolution of the differences between Hungary and Croatia, lest
the empire’s Slavs be drawn into a wider conflict that would totally desta¬
bilize the Monarchy. 194

Kossuth’s ‘dismissal’ came with the resignation of the Hungarian
government after the Austrian government demanded a renegotiation of
the terms of Hungary’s independence at the end of August, a development
soon followed by Jelacic’s official restoration to office on 4 September
and his invasion of Hungary a week later. It would be tedious to go
through all the evidence, but the work of Hajnal 195 on foreign policy and
Urban 196 on defence policy make it crystal clear that the Hungarian
government almost from the start had decided to ignore the Pragmatic
Sanction and turn Hungary into a separate, independent kingdom, linked
to Austria only by the monarchical personal union. 197 No money was
given to Austria for common affairs or as part of the national debt;

193 Austrian cabinet minutes, 25 June 1848. The cabinet endorsed Jelacic’s plea that
the Archduke John should put his mediation mandate into practice. Indeed, ‘it was
unanimously agreed by the cabinet, that it would bear a heavy responsibility if,
during an affair of such importance for the welfare of the entire Monarchy, it did
not use all appropriate means at its disposal to do everything to prevent a civil war
breaking out, in which Austrian troops would face each other in two hostile
camps, a civil war, which at the present moment, when national sympathies and
antipathies have reached a peak, could easily provide a torch for all branches of
the Slavs.’ It is notable that once again, the Austrians were as worried by the Slavs
as they were by the Hungarians. In this context it should be noticed that, according
to the Austrian cabinet minutes of 23 September — well after the ban’s invasion
of Hungary — the Austrian cabinet agreed to a request by Pulszky from the
Hungarians that the authorities in Moravia should be alerted to stop the passage of
armed Slav volunteers making their way to fight in Hungary.

194 See footnotes 175 and 181 above.

195 Istvan Hajnal, A Batthyany-kormany kiilpolitikaja, Budapest, 1957. But see also
Kosary, op. cit.

196 Aladar Urban, A nemzetorseg es honvedseg szervezese 1848 nyaran , Budapest,
1973.

197 In the words of Peter, op. cit., p. 289: ‘... after the inauguration of the April Laws
on the side not merely of the Hungarian radicals but of the ministry itself, the wish
became evident that relations between Austria and Hungary should so far as
possible be restricted to the person of the monarch.’

176

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

Hungarian emissaries attempted to set up embassies in foreign countries;
a separate defence force was established; and Hungary failed to give posi¬
tive support to Austria in Italy. In all of this Kossuth played the major
role, although he was perfectly aware of the obligations imposed on
Hungary by the Pragmatic Sanction. 198 In fact, he tried to evade
answering questions on the subject, telling parliament on 20 July 1848 in
reply to an enquiry on the nature of the obligations it imposed on the
country, ‘nobody in Hungary would be pleased with the answer.’ 199 In the
end Kossuth manoeuvred the government on Italy, for example, into
accepting a policy of only agreeing to send reinforcements to Italy if the
Italians refused to accept an honourable peace — meaning the Austrian
surrender of Lombardy. 200 (Jelacic of course sent reinforcements and pro-
Habsburg proclamations). 201 The cornerstone of Hungarian policy was
that the Habsburgs would lose both their German and Italian territories
and would be forced to retreat to Buda. (Indeed, the Frankfurt Parliament
was to lay down that Austria could only be part of Germany if it estab¬
lished a personal union with its non-German territories.) Meanwhile as
finance minister he made sure that no money left Hungary for Austria, no
contribution was made to the national debt, duties were imposed on
Austrian imports, and Hungary eventually printed its own banknotes (‘the
Kossuth notes’). 202 And, of course, no money was sent to Croatia under

198 Blackwell Papers , National Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Copies of, and
Extracts from Despatches addressed to Viscount Ponsonby, Her Majesty’s
Ambassador at the Court of Vienna by J.A. Blackwell during his Third (official)
Mission to Hungary, 1847—48, Despatch number 15, Pressburg, 3 (5?) April 1848.
He recorded a conversation with Esterhazy who told him that ‘Kossuth admitted
that Hungary was bound by the Pragmatic Sanction to defend the United Monarchy
against a foreign enemy.’ However, the whole government agreed that under then
prevailing circumstances such a proposition was ‘entirely out of the question.’

199 Peter, op. cit., p. 287, fn. 205.

200 On Kossuth and Italy see Hajnal, op. cit., chapter 7. On 5 July the Hungarian
government laid down its position on Italy. It acknowledged its obligation under
the Pragmatic Sanction to defend the king if he were attacked, but ‘it clearly
protests at participating in the suppression of the Italian nation in Lombardy-
Venetia and is only ready to provide aid in this matter, on the conclusion of a
peace and an agreement with the Lombardo-Venetian nation, which on the one
hand, corresponds with the dignity of the King and, on the other, the rights,
freedom and appropriate wishes of the Italian nation.’ Hungarian cabinet minutes ,
23 July 1848.

201 See footnote 177.

202 On Kossuth as finance minister, see Istvan Sinkovics, ‘Kossuth, az onallo
penziigyek megteremtoje’, in Emlekkonyv Kossuth Lajos sziiletesenek 150.
evfordulojara, 2 vols, Budapest, 1952, vol. 1, pp. 87-173.

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177

the ban. The Austrian finance minister complained: 203 ‘The Hungarians
have not paid a farthing into the central treasury since April, although
they should have transferred more than three million florins. They even
dispute the right of the treasury to demand arrears from previous years,
which also amount to several millions.’ Despite numerous attempts by
Vienna to solve the common financial problem, the Hungarians stalled
continuously so that nothing had been settled before September 1848. 204

Given the growing crisis in Croatia and the end of the Italian war, the
Austrian government’s patience ran out and eventually it got the king to
agree to send the palatine a memorandum drawn up by state counsellor
von Pipitz which outlined Austrian grievances and called on Hungary to
negotiate a new relationship with Vienna based on the Pragmatic Sanc¬
tion. 205 The Hungarian government was also sent a copy on 31 August
and was asked to formulate its reply within two weeks. On 18 September
the palatine was asked to remind the Hungarians that they had failed to
reply. However, on 31 August the Hungarian government had again told
Vienna that it would send no money to Jeiacic. 206 On 11 September, the
day the ban invaded, the government resigned. It had still not proved
willing to negotiate on the basis of the Pragmatic Sanction.

The Pipitz memorandum was extremely well written and praised the
past common efforts of Austria and Hungary. It stated that the powers
granted to the palatine and the policies of the Hungarian government
since April 1848, which it listed in detail, contradicted the Pragmatic
Sanction, which was the Monarchy’s ‘fundamental law’ or constitution. It
ended by stating that the Austrian and Hungarian governments together
should work to restore the unity of the highest leadership of the state. The
relevant Austrian cabinet minutes 207 envisaged that this could be done
either by the Hungarians sending under-secretaries of state to join the
ministries of war, finance and trade in Vienna, or by Prince Esterhazy, as

203 Austrian cabinet minutes , 3 July 1848.

204 For the relevant correspondence, see the documents published in Rudolf Sieghart,
Zolltrennung und Zolleinheit, Vienna, 1915, pp. 298-315.

205 See Austrian cabinet minutes , 27 and 29 August, 17 and 18 September. For full
text of the Pipitz memorandum see either Sammlung der fur JJngarn erlassenen
Allerhochsten Manifeste und Proklamationen, dann der Kundmachungen der
Oberbefehlshaber der kaiserlichen Armee in Ungarn, Buda, 1850, Anhang 1848,
II, pp. 5-19 or Adelstein’s Archiv des ungarischen Ministeriums und
Landesverteidigungsausschusses, 3 vols, Altenburg, 1851, vol. 2, Document, 651,
pp. 317-329.

206 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 4823.

207 Austrian cabinet minutes, 27 August 1848.

178

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

Hungarian minister at court, joining the Austrian cabinet on all occasions
when Hungarian interests had to be represented, or by a continuous corre¬
spondence with him. It also envisaged, in terms of a legislative body, the
establishment of a Reichsrat to which ministers of both countries might be
responsible. There was certainly no plan to abolish the Hungarian govern¬
ment. The Austrian cabinet desperately wanted peace, compromise and
imperial administrative unity — not the destruction of Hungarian home-
rule.

Gambling on Illegality

That war was the outcome was not the responsibility of the Austrian cabinet
but of Jelacic and Kossuth. Neither, in fact, desired an armed struggle, but
both gambled that they could risk one in order to win peace on their terms. In
the case of the former, the evidence suggests that only after the breakdown of
the talks in Vienna on 29 July did he decide that war would have to be
resorted to. Batthyany, after all, had told him that ‘the sword will decide
between you and us’. 208 Yet he still needed money and right up till
September had to be subsidized by Vienna just to pay his troops. 209 More¬
over, he would have to build up an army from scratch using whatever men
remained — officers were almost non-existent — on the Military Frontier
who had some military training. (The result was an undisciplined rabble of
50,000, with pikes and muskets.) 210 Latour might arrange for the ban’s
regular troops plus widows and orphans to be paid, but otherwise offered
only moral support. A personal letter of 23 June ran: 211 ‘It is time to take the
offensive — if you want to save yourself and your fatherland. If you lack
sufficient force, everything is lost.’ Yet Latour, officially, as War Minister,
had informed him: 212 ‘I ... must subordinate my administrative authority to
that of the Hungarian war ministry.’ When Kempen visited Latour in Vienna
on 18 August, he found that people at the war ministry (including Latour)
‘believe that they have done enough by offering him sympathy ... Thus I
saw no consolation from this side, far less help.’ 213 Yet Kempen and Jelacic

208 Hartley, op. cit., p. 198.

209 Austrian cabinet minutes, 11 July, 1 September, (481,000 fl. to cover deficits for
June, July and August, and extra 170,000 requested for September, but only
100,000 sent to him immediately).

210 Sked, ‘Jelacic in the Summer of 1848’, pp. 154-55.

211 Hauptmann, Erzherzog Johann etc., p. 55, ft. 73.

212 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 4123, 14 August.

213 Kempen s diary, 18 August.

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179

were led to believe from reports from within Hungary, that if he invaded that
country, the regular troops there would come over to him peacefully. 214 The
Hungarian government certainly feared the same after its commissar in
Southern Hungary, Csany, resigned. He had reported that the local
commander there, Major-General Ottinger, had ordered his troops not to
resist Jelacic and his Croats should they invade. 215 Hence the ban’s expecta¬
tion of being met peacefully when he crossed the Drava on 11 September
was by no means simply a delusion. Yet, when military regulars asked to see
his orders once he had crossed the Drava, he, of course, had none to show
them — since neither the court nor the Austrian ministry had furnished him
with any. Both also expected him to be welcomed by the army inside
Hungary, although, politically, they double-crossed him by appointing an
Hungarian, Count Lamberg, to take charge of Hungary politically and mili¬
tarily. Only after Lamberg’s murder was Jelacic put in charge.

At frrst everything seemed fine. Hrabovsky, now commander in Buda¬
pest, wrote to Latour on 25 September that he expected to receive Jelacic
‘peacefully’ there, 216 although on 29 September the ban was forced to
fight the Hungarians at Pakozd, where he was halted. Thereafter, he could
expect no Hungarian troops to come over to him. Yet it was only on 3
October that the king appointed him commander-in-chief in Hungary,
leading the ban to exclaim: 217 ‘Everything too late, everything as always.
Two weeks ago, all Hungarian troops would have joined us in a moment,
now they are our most bitter enemies.’ He saved the Habsburgs once

214 Kempen’s diary, 21 August, for example, reports the inability of the Hungarians to
force the removal of all officers stationed on the Drava who refuse to fight the
Croats.

215 Hungarian cabinet minutes, 12 August 1848. Csany was told to remain at his post
and Ottinger was replaced. On 14 August it was decided to prepare a law
‘ordering home all Hungarian troops not stationed in Italy but in the other
Austrian provinces’ and ‘allowing all Austrian soldiers in the country to leave, if
they hesitate to fight against our enemies and the insurgents.’ All regiments
returning to Hungary were to face a commissariat which would administer oaths
to all officers asking them whether they were willing to fight all enemies of
Hungary. If they were unwilling then they would have to resign their
commissions. The same oath was to be administered to all officers camped on the
Drava. If they refused they were to be immediately replaced. The ban was to be
asked in the meanwhile to state his intentions regarding the troops he was
concentrating around Warasdin (Varazdin). See Hungarian cabinet minutes, 14
August 1848. Clearly, therefore, there was general confusion as to whether
Hungarian troops (particularly officers) would resist Jelacic or not.

216 Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, MK (1848) 5541.

217 Ferdinand Hauptmann, Jelacic’s Kriegzug nach Ungarn 1848, 2 vols, Graz, 1975
(Zur Kunde Siidosteuropas, 11/5) vol.l, p. 105.

180

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

again by defeating the Hungarians outside Vienna at Schwechat, but the
Habsburgs once again double-crossed him by subordinating his army to
that of Prince Windischgraetz; subsequently they deprived him of all
political influence.

If Jelacic’s gamble on illegally entering Hungary, to link up peacefully
with the supposedly loyal regular troops there, had failed, Kossuth now
gambled in a similar fashion by illegally entering Austria with the
Hungarian army in the hope of linking up with a now revolutionary
Vienna and being able to force peace on the court. His idea was to avoid a
major war by winning a single battle at Vienna and dictating a political
settlement. This was a more radical plan than the ban’s had been, but it
was the invasion of Hungary by the latter and his march to Vienna which
had forced Kossuth to consider such a strategy at all. Unfortunately, just
like the ban, he was forced to rely on imaginary allies.

That this was likely to be the case was known to him. Pulszky had been
to Vienna to consult with the leaders of the revolution there. His mission
had been to secure a request for Hungarian intervention. However, none
was forthcoming. The Viennese wanted Hungarian support but would not
ask for it in case they were regarded as rebels. Pulszky became angry: 218

we did not intend to cross the Leitha without being asked to by our neighbours;
they did not dare call on us, in case they were held to be rebels. They considered
themselves loyal subjects, though they had killed a minister and thrown out the
military.

The commander of the Viennese National Guard, Messenhauser, took the
same position: 219 ‘he was no rebel, but a loyal subject; he also did not
want to identify the fate of Vienna with Hungary’s rebellion.’ He would
not even issue a publication denouncing the Croats as enemies. Yet
Pulszky wrote a confidential letter to Kossuth saying that ‘success is still
certain’, 220 and that the Hungarians should march on Vienna before the
arrival of Windischgraetz’s troops and dictate peace to the court. Once
back in Pressburg he adopted the same position: 221 ‘It is our moral and
political duty to help those who are in danger on our account and to show
that we are ready to help our friends.’ Meanwhile the Hungarian army
commander pointed out that his troops were inexperienced, that Windis¬
chgraetz had superior forces, that the National Guard from Komarom was

218 Pulszky, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 230.

219 Pulszky, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 233.

220 Pulszky, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 234.

221 Pulszky, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 247.

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181

a hindrance, and that many officers were refusing to fight imperial troops
on imperial soil. 222 Indeed, he himself had received instructions from
Windischgraetz to send all non-Hungarian officers to the imperial camp
immediately, if they were not to be treated as rebels. 223 Astonishingly,
Kossuth took the gamble on invasion. He and some colleagues composed
a memorandum for Windischgraetz explaining they were only attacking
Jelacic on ‘neutral ground’, 224 while the Hungarian army was won over by
some eloquent speeches and an assurance from Gorgei that, should they
lose, their retreat was secure. Kossuth, as a result, invaded Austria with no
firmer assurance of the support he required than Jelacic had had when he
had invaded Hungary.

Despite everything he had heard from Pulszky, in a letter from Pest on
15 October he demanded of the Viennese ‘a well-armed force of
20-30,000 men in our camp, with which jointly to attack the enemy.’ 225
On 22 October, FML Moga, the Hungarian military commander, wrote to
him, concerned that no reinforcements would arrive from Vienna, and
advised against an attack. 226 A battle was fought at Schwechat in any case
and that battle was lost to Jelacic. Kossuth explained: 227 ‘Luck has not
favoured us but one must not despair for the fatherland on that account.’
He blamed defeat on the ‘silence of Vienna’ — no help arrived after all —
but still believed that inside Hungary the army was invincible. In the end,
of course, this proved an illusion and Kossuth, too, ended up a glorious,
romantic failure.

I should have liked to discuss several other themes — nationality
policy in particular — but I think enough evidence has already been
produced to prove that Kossuth and Jelacic were ‘mirror images’ of each
other. Both were beloved national leaders and heroes, both were

222 Ibid.

223 Pulszky, Memoirs , vol. 2, p. 246.

224 Windischgraetz refused to read it saying, notoriously, that he did not ‘negotiate
with rebels’. Pulszky, Memoirs , vol. 2, p. 248.

225 For a considerable correspondence surrounding Kossuth’s invasion of Austria, see
Friedrich Walter, Magyarische Rebellenbriefe 1848. Aemtliche und Privat-
Correspondenzen der magyarischen Rebellenregierung, ihrer Fiihrer und
Anhanger, Munich 1964. For this quotation, see Document 65, Kossuth’s
instructions for his emissaries to Vienna, pp. 101-02, p. 102.

226 Walter, Magyarische Rebellenbriefe , Document 84, Moga to Kossuth,
Headquarters, Pamdorf, 22 October 1848, pp. 124-26.

221 Walter, Magyarische Rebellenbriefe , Document 90, Kossuth to the Committee of
National Defence, Pressburg, 30 October 1848, p. 130. Cf. Friedrich Walter, ‘Die
Ursachen des Scheitems der madjarischen Waffenhilfe fur die Wiener Oktober-
Revolutionare 1848’, Siidost-Forschungen , 22, 1963, pp. 377—400.

182

Mirror Images: Kossuth and Jelacic in 1848-49

charismatic, both were willing to risk all for their cause, both were liberal
monarchists who ‘converted’ their national constitutions, both were
appointed to their posts under peculiar circumstances, both were willing
to gamble on force for success, both were betrayed by the Habsburgs,
both ended up as failures. Today, both are deservedly honoured by the
countries they served, long after the Habsburg Monarchy has disappeared.

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky: Serbia and the Great
Danubian Confederation Scam

Ian D. Armour

Between 1849 and the conclusion of the Ausgleich in 1867, the concept
of a Danubian confederation was much discussed, at least in Hungarian
emigre circles. Around this indisputable fact has grown up a persistent
myth that such schemes, precisely because they offered a genuine
compromise to the non-Magyar peoples of historic Hungary, and their co¬
nationals in surroundings states, represented a viable alternative to
Dualism. Tragically, according to this interpretation, Danubian confeder¬
ation was never given a chance, in part because its advocates were in exile
and powerless, in part because the non-Magyar nationalities showed no
interest in it; but it was nevertheless the last, best hope for inter-ethnic
harmony in the area. According to Oscar Jaszi, writing in the 1920s, the
Hungarian emigration under Lajos Kossuth ‘acknowledged completely
the errors of the past’, and their idea of Danubian confederation was ‘an
ingenious anticipation of an historical necessity.’ 1 Domokos Kosary, in a
work first published in English in 1969, was of the opinion that ‘Kossuth
anticipated his time by urging the settlement of minority problems not
exclusively on the territorial basis [...] but on the basis of autonomous
communities [...] within historical units.’ 2 According to Kosary, ‘The
greatest obstacle was in the circumstance that the mentality of these
peoples [the non-Magyars] was not ready for such collaboration, even if
Austria’s grip could have been broken.’ 3 If only, these interpretations
suggest, there had been a more generous response to Kossuth’s noble if

1 Oscar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, Chicago & London, 1929,
pp. 312, 313.

2 History of the Hungarian Nation , Part I: 830-1919 AD, based on the works and
former publications of Dr Dominic G. Kosary, Astor Park, FI., 1969, p. 155
(hereafter History of the Hungarian Nation).

3 Ibid.

183

184

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

belated conversion to such ideas, the subsequent history of the Danubian
basin might have been different.

The title of the present paper is a deliberately provocative one, because
I believe the story of these successive schemes shows their essential
impracticability. This is particularly the case when we look at how Danu¬
bian confederation was meant to apply to the autonomous Principality of
Serbia, and at the reaction of the Serbian government to the idea. The fact
is that we simply cannot know whether Danubian confederation would
have worked, because it never got off the drawing-board; but the imprac¬
ticability was obvious to observers at the time, and nowhere more so than
in Belgrade. Moreover, research into related areas of enquiry in this
period suggests strongly that we are dealing with a rather sad fantasy. In
other words, Kossuth and his associates in exile ought to have known that
their fantastical proposals would meet only with scepticism and derision;
indeed, the sheer impracticality of the scheme suggests that its originators
may not themselves have taken it seriously, and that they deployed it
primarily as a device for winning support in specific circumstances. The
following paper will first give a necessarily brief resume of the Danubian
confederation proposals themselves. It will then describe the Principality
of Serbia and what its government’s priorities were. Finally it will assess
what the dealings between Serbia and the Hungarian emigration
amounted to, and why in the end the results of these contacts were bound
to be so exiguous.

I: Danubian Confederation Schemes

Dimitrije Dordevic, writing over thirty years ago about the proliferation of
schemes for federation or confederation after 1848 (not all of them
concocted by Hungarians), pointed out that there were two basic problems
being addressed. The first problem was the conflict of nationalities within
the Habsburg Monarchy. Most schemes for solving this problem involved
some sort of restructuring of the Monarchy internally; only in the case of
Italian, and to some extent Hungarian and Polish nationalism, was seces¬
sion or break-up seen as the answer. The second problem was the position
of the Balkan Christian nationalities within the Ottoman Empire. This
aspect of the ‘Eastern Question’, at least in the eyes of Balkan nationalists,
posited the destruction of Ottoman rule. 4 The Danubian confederation

4 Dimitrije Dordevic, ‘Projects for the Federation of South-East Europe in the 1860s
and 1870s’, Balcanica, 1, 1970, pp. 119-45 (pp. 119-20). (Hereafter ‘Projects’.)

Ian D. Armour

185

scheme evolved by Lajos Kossuth and other Hungarian emigres, by
contrast, was unusually ambitious, in that it proposed a solution combining
both these problems, and doing away with both the Habsburg Monarchy
and the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

The thinking of Kossuth and his associates in exile on this matter went
through several stages. Even before the defeat of the revolutionary
government, in the spring of 1849, Count Laszlo Teleki, Kossuth’s repre¬
sentative in Paris, urged Kossuth to consider granting effective self-deter¬
mination, within Hungary, not only to the Croats, but to Serbs and
Romanians as well. Beyond this federally reconstituted Hungary, more¬
over, Teleki held out the visionary prospect of a situation in which other
non-Magyar peoples would ‘with joy accept Hungary as the centre and
queen of a future Danubian confederation, whose power would break the
monster of absolutism forever and which would extend from the Baltic to
the Black Sea.’ 5 The Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia,
Serbia, Bulgaria, and possibly even Bohemia and Moravia could conceiv¬
ably join this Hungarocentric superstate. All it required, Teleki urged
Kossuth, was ‘a little self-sacrifice’. 6

Teleki’s ideas are of interest, not just because they represent the most
advanced opinion of any Hungarian leader at this point, but also because
Teleki was clearly influenced by a variety of contacts: by Italian
Mazzinian nationalists; by the Polish emigration under Prince Jerzy Adam
Czartoryski; and by Romanian revolutionaries such as Alexandru Golescu
and Nicolae Balcescu. Giuseppe Mazzini himself had argued in 1832 that
Hungary’s mission was to act as the centre of a ‘liberal federation’ of all
those peoples for whom the Danube was the vital artery of communica¬
tion; and in 1848 Teleki had been one of the most vehement opponents of
sending Hungarian troops to help suppress the revolts against Habsburg
rule in the Italian Peninsula. 7 In Paris, Teleki established good relations

5 Teleki to Kossuth, 14 May 1849, in Teleki Laszlo valogatott munkai, 2 vols., ed.
Gabor G. Kemeny, Budapest, 1961, ii, p. 28.

6 Ibid. The genesis of Teleki’s initiative is discussed in numerous sources, among
which the most detailed are Lajos Pasztor, La Confederazione danubiana nel
pensiero degli Italiani ed Ungheresi nel Risorgimento, Rome, 1949, pp. 11-16
(hereafter La Confederazione ); Gyula Merei, ‘Foderationsplane in Sudosteuropa
und die Habsburger Monarchie in den Jahren 1849-1914’, Nouvelles Etudes
Historiques, 2, 1965, pp. 5^45 (pp. 6-12) (hereafter ‘Foderationsplane’); Zoltan
Horvath, Teleki Laszlo 1810-1861, 2 vols., Budapest, 1964, i, pp. 247-54
(hereafter Teleki Laszlo).

7 Pasztor, La Confederazione, pp. 3-4, quoting Mazzini’s Dell’Ungheria (1832); see
also Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians
1848-1849, New York, 1979, p. 294 (hereafter The Lawful Revolution).

186

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

with Golescu, the emissary of the Wallachian government, and was conse¬
quently familiar with the plan drafted in May 1848 by Balcescu, for a
Swiss-style confederation of the Romanian Principalities, Hungary and
Transylvania. 8

The most significant of the influences on Teleki, however, was Czarto-
ryski’s Polish circle based at the Hotel Lambert in Paris. Czartoryski had
a long history of promoting the cooperation of the peoples along the
Danube, and he saw the revolutions of 1848 as the chance to reorder the
whole of Eastern Europe as a ‘democratic alliance of equal and inde¬
pendent states’, the principal function of which would be to fend off both
Russian and Austrian domination. 9

On the subject of Hungary, the Polish emigration had its doubts. The
simmering race war in southern Hungary throughout 1848-49 was hardly
the best advertisement for cooperation, and Czartoryski was inclined to
see Kossuth’s government in particular as an oppressor of national minor¬
ities not unlike the Russian and Habsburg empires. Teleki, however, over¬
came these reservations, and the result was an agreement reached on 19
May 1849 between Teleki, the Poles and others, by which Teleki held out
the recognition of complete equality of nationalities, and autonomy for
Croatia, the Vojvodina and the Romanian-inhabited portions of Transyl¬
vania; the rights of Germans, Slovaks and other minorities within these
territories were to be safeguarded by the granting of some form of self-
government, at least at municipal level. 10

Teleki had earlier made it clear to Kossuth, in a despatch of 7 March,
his belief that Hungary, with its back to the wall and facing Russian inter¬
vention on the side of a newly absolutist Habsburg Monarchy, could not
afford to alienate its national minorities. ‘For God’s sake, give them a fine
proclamation, give them whatever they want. And if Austria can’t be
made to collapse, Hungary must in any case be reconstituted as a confed¬
eration.’ * 11 The problem was that neither Teleki’s preliminary negotiations
with the Poles and others, nor the agreement of 19 May, had the authori¬
zation of the Hungarian government, and the agreement was immediately
repudiated by Kossuth. The Hungarian foreign minister, Kazmer

8 Pasztor, La Confederazione , pp. 6-7; Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, pp. 6-7.

9 Ibid., pp. 6-9; the description is Merei’s, p. 6. See also Piotr S. Wandycz, The
Lands of Partitioned Poland 1795-1918, Seattle & London, 1974, pp. 120-22.

10 French text of the agreement of 19 May 1849 in Horvath, Teleki Laszlo, ii,
pp. 177-80; see also the preliminary memorandum of Frigyes Szarvady (Teleki’s
secretary) for Czartoryski, 9 Mar. 1849, ibid., pp. 172-74.

11 Endre Kovacs, Magyar-delszlav megbekelesi torekvesek 1848/49-ben, Budapest,
1958, p. 89.

Ian D. Armour

187

Batthyany, issued a circular on 10 June to all Hungary’s representatives
abroad, explicitly repudiating Teleki’s agreement and with it the very idea
of a confederation. The non-Magyar nationalities would be assured full
civil liberties, and the free use of their language within Hungary, but
Hungary’s territorial integrity and its unitary constitution could not be
infringed, nor could the dominant position of the Magyars within the state
be abandoned. 12

With hindsight, it is hard not to agree with the judgment of Ferenc
Pulszky, Teleki’s fellow representative abroad, who considered the whole
episode a waste of time. 13 Even one of Teleki’s biographers concluded
that Danubian confederation was ‘unrealistic’. 14 It seems clear that neither
the Hungarian government nor the nationalities were ever likely to agree
to such a scheme, given the bad feeling that already existed between
them. Yet the fact is that the Kossuth government’s peremptory refusal
even to consider a federated Hungary makes Kossuth’s subsequent
conversion (if that is the mot juste ) to the idea all the more suspect.
Teleki’s proposal, however high-minded, was indeed impractical, and the
arguments against it after 1849 were no less obvious than before.

Certainly it was only in exile that Kossuth’s own thinking started to
move seriously in the direction of confederation, albeit in a rather zig-zag
fashion. As early as October 1849, stranded at Vidin in Ottoman Bulgaria,
Kossuth began to envisage, in the words of the Polish emigre Count
Wladislaw Zamoyski, ‘the creation of a vast confederation of states
comprising Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Serbia and the Romanian lands, a
sort of 'Banda orientale \’ 15 Kossuth still regarded as ‘indispensable [...]
the historic and political unity’ of Hungary, but within this framework he
envisaged complete civil and political equality for all nationalities, as
well as the free exercise of language in local administration, although the
‘language of politics and diplomacy’ would still have to be Magyar. 16

12 Horvath, Teleki Laszlo, ii, pp. 283-84; also Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, pp. 11-12;
Deak, The Lawful Revolution, pp. 296-97.

13 Ferenc Pulszky, Eletem es korom, 2 vols., Budapest, 1958 [1880], ii, p. 495-96.

14 Horvath, Teleki Laszlo, i, p. 252.

15 Memorandum by Count Wladislaw Zamoyski, 10 Nov. 1849, citing talks with
Kossuth on 29 Oct., in Istvan Hajnal (ed.), A Kossuth-emigracid Torokorszagban,
Budapest, 1927, no. 48, p. 530 (hereafter A Kossuth-emigracid). See also the
discussion of this in Laszlo Katus, A magyar politikai vezetoreteg a delszlav
kerdesrol 1849 es 1867 kozott’, in Istvan Fried (ed.), Szerbek es magyarok a Duna
menten, II: Tanulmanyok a szerb-magyar kapcsolatok korebol 1848-1867,
Budapest, 1987, pp. 147-84 (note 6, p. 173); see also p. 149; (hereafter A magyar
politikai vezetoreteg’). Katus misquotes the document slightly.

16 Zamoyski memorandum, 10 Nov. 1849, in Hajnal, A Kossuth-emigracid, p. 531.

188

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

Zamoyski, as he reported to Czartoryski, found much that was vague and
confusing in this. Kossuth claimed that each of the nations named ‘would
have its complete independence, minus the external link of federation
needed for common defence.’ This, Kossuth continued, ‘would put Serbia
at the level of Croatia and both at the level of Poland.’ But, Zamoyski
wondered, what was meant here by Serbia — the Vojvodina within
Hungary, or the Principality of Serbia and vassal-state of the Sultan?
Zamoyski was inclined to think the former, since Kossuth seemed
opposed to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. 17 The Hungarian
made it obvious that he regarded Hungarians, Poles and Italians as natural
allies in the current situation; but he acknowledged that there was not
much chance of effecting change short of a major international upheaval,
in particular a war directed against Russia. 18

At an early stage, too, Kossuth tried to establish links with the govern¬
ment of Serbia. He even wrote personally to the Serbian minister of the
interior, Ilija Garasanin, early in 1850, expressing his conviction that ‘the
future of our country and the various Slav nationalities will only be
assured, if they unite on the basis of a strong confederation’. 19 The letter
by implication invited Garasanin to set forth his own ideas on Serbo-
Hungarian cooperation. 20 By June 1850, however, in a letter to Teleki,
Kossuth was referring to the ‘North-East Confederal Free States’, made
up of Poland, Bohemia, Croatia, Romania and Hungary, whose federal
capital and executive would be based somewhere in Hungary. 21 The
exclusion of the Ottoman Empire’s South Slavs, at this stage, and indeed
the proposal of a defensive alliance between the new confederation and
the Ottomans, undoubtedly reflected the fact that, until September 1851,
Kossuth was effectively interned in Turkey. 22

The opportunities seemingly offered by the Crimean War gave a
further impetus to Hungarian ideas about confederation. In 1855
Kossuth’s associate, General Gy orgy Klapka, published in French,
German and English a more elaborate plan, in which the emphasis was
now much more firmly on Hungary and south-eastern Europe, and which

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., p. 533.

19 Kossuth & Kazmer Batthyany to Garasanin, 18 Jan. 1850, ibid., no. 104, p. 664;
see also Katus, ‘A magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, p. 149, and note 8; Merei,
Foderationsplane’, p. 17.

20 Hajnal, A Kossuth-emigracio , p. 533.

21 Kossuth to Teleki, 15 June 1850, in Horvath, Teleki Laszlo, ii, no. 67; Katus, A
magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, p. 149.

22 Dordevic, ‘Projects’, pp. 126-27; Deak, The Lawful Revolution , pp. 340-42.

Ian D. Armour

189

excluded the Poles and Czechs from the equation, in part because the
Hungarian emigration now fully supported the restoration of an inde¬
pendent Poland. 23 The Klapka plan saw three core ‘states’ in this Danu-
bian confederation: historic Hungary, plus a South Slav state based on
Serbia, and a Romanian state based on the two Romanian Principalities.
The eventual adhesion of Bosnia and Montenegro was also envisaged.
Although Klapka referred to ‘a strong federative state’, his description
made it clear that the separate interests, history and traditions of the
peoples inhabiting the three constituent units ‘do not reasonably permit
thinking of a fusion into a single, centralized state.’ 24 There was thus no
question of federalizing the Hungarian state, still less of transferring terri¬
tory to the others, although Klapka was prepared at least to consider an
autonomous status for Croatia and Transylvania, within Hungary. Each
state would be fully independent and autonomous within its own territory,
with only foreign affairs, defence and external trade and customs in the
hands of a federal superstructure. 25

The fundamentally flawed premise underlying the Klapka plan was
revealed by the end of the Crimean War: even this major international
conflict had not sufficiently disrupted the state system to permit so wide-
ranging a scheme to be realized. Nothing daunted, the Hungarian emigra¬
tion continued to seek to exploit international crises, and of course in
1859 they were encouraged, by Napoleon III and the Piedmontese
government, to form the Hungarian Legion and to hold themselves in
readiness for an attack on the Habsburg Monarchy. 26 Nothing came of
this; but in the course of 1859 the Hungarians once again made specific
proposals to both the Serbian and Romanian governments, to which we
shall return.

In 1862 the final and most complex of the Hungarian plans for Danu-
bian confederation was launched. What came to be known as the ‘Kossuth
plan’ was in fact originally draftee by Klapka, with the collaboration of

23 Georges Klapka, La Guerre d ’Orient en 1853 et 1854, jusqu’a la fin de juillet
1855..., Geneva, London & Paris, 1855, pp. 177-79 (hereafter La Guerre
d’Orient ). See also Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, pp. 19-21; Dordevic, ‘Projects’, pp.
125-26.

24 Klapka, La Guerre d’Orient , pp. 177—78.

25 Ibid., p. 178; Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, p. 20.

26 Pasztor, La Confederazione, pp. 33-36; Angelo Tamborra, ‘La politica serba del
Regno di Sardegna 1856-1861’, Rassegna storica del Risorgimento, 38, 1951, 1-2,
pp. 43-72 (p. 53); Kosary, History of the Hungarian Nation, pp. 155-56; Ljiljana
Aleksic-Pejkovic, Politika Italije prema Srbiji do 1870. godine, Belgrade, 1979,
pp. 65-67 (hereafter Politika Italije ).

190

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

Ferencz Pulszky and the Italian Mazzinian nationalist, Marc Antonio
Canini. Kossuth, however, although he objected to the plan’s publication
in May 1862, never seriously dissented from its details, as the work of
Lajos Lukacs clearly demonstrates. 27

The 1862 plan represented a considerable advance on Klapka’s
thinking in 1855. While Magyars, South Slavs and Romanians were still
seen as the core peoples, there were now seven states: Hungary, Croatia,
Transylvania, Slavonia, Dalmatia, plus Serbia and Romania. As before
the option was held open of other ‘states’ such as Bosnia and Montenegro
joining later. The formation of a Serbian or Romanian nation-state was
thus, as before, implicitly excluded; but on the other hand Kossuth and his
associates had clearly renounced the territorial integrity of the historic
Hungarian state as well. The confederation would have a common foreign
policy, defence and customs, transport and communications system,
currency and even weights and measures. There was to be a common
executive council, and a bicameral federal parliament. The capital, or to
be more precise the organs of central government, would alternate every
two years between Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade and Bucharest; and the
official language at federal level would be French. Below the federal
level, each state would have full internal autonomy: in short, its own
government, laws and representative system. In particular, issues of
nationality were to be regulated by the laws of individual states. Any
powers not specifically reserved to the federal authority were considered
automatically to be the preserve of the states. 28

We shall shortly consider what reception this complicated, but in many
respects imaginative and high-minded, proposal met with in Serbia. It is
worth reminding ourselves, however, that the Hungarian emigration’s
plans were being evolved against a background which included not only
international crises, but a continuing debate within Hungary itself about
relations with the non-Magyar nationalities on the one hand, and the
Habsburg Monarchy on the other. In this context, which was constantly
changing after the 1859 war, it is equally important to stress that the

27 The French original of the plan is published in I Documenti diplomatici italiani, 1st
series: 1861-1870, 7 vols, Rome, 1952-83, i, no. 253, pp. 293-95; Italian text
published in Pasztor, La Confederazione, pp. 97-99. See also Lajos Lukacs,
Magyar politikai emigracio 1849-1867, Budapest, 1984, pp. 202-15 (hereafter
Magyar politikai emigracio ); for the critical edition of the texts see Gabor
Pajkossy, ‘Az 1862. evi Duna-konfoderacios tervezet dokumentumai’, Szdzadok,
136, 2002, pp. 937-57; see also Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, pp. 25-30; Bordevic,
‘Projects’, pp. 129-30.

28 Lukacs, Magyar politikai emigracio , pp. 204-06.

Ian D. Armour

191

governments of all the autonomous Balkan principalities, including Serbia,
maintained links not only with their co-nationals in Hungary, but with the
domestic Hungarian leadership as well. 29 As the 1860s wore on, it became
increasingly evident to these Balkan observers that the real centre of
Hungarian politics lay in Hungary, rather than with Kossuth in Turin.

II: Serbia

Serbia in the 1850s and ’60s posed more of a theoretical threat to peace in
the Balkans than a real one. The Principality was small, and would have
fitted into the Habsburg Monarchy a score of times. Its population still
numbered only a million, the vast majority of whom made their living off
the land, in a country with no modem infrastructure. 30 Even in the 1860s
Serbia’s official military capacity was a sham, rather like the frog that
inflates itself to twice its size to impress its enemies. The Prince of Serbia,
though autonomous, was still a vassal of the Sultan and obliged to pay a
yearly tribute on pain of condign punishment. Ottoman garrisons occu¬
pied the main fortified towns of Serbia down to 1867.

Yet both the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, and many of the
Hungarian leadership at home and abroad, feared what Serbia might yet
become. A greater Serbia would be a power to reckon with, especially
since it could only aggrandize at the expense of its neighbours to south
and north. Even if its expansion were prevented, Serbia’s strategic impor¬
tance could only grow, and from the 1830s all the major powers main¬
tained consulates at Belgrade, which became one of the diplomatic
listening-posts of Europe. Both the intended regulation of the Danube as
an international waterway, and the pressure to complete a rail link
between central Europe and Constantinople, made the powers all the more
anxious to secure some form of influence in Serbia.

29 Katus, ‘A magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, pp. 153-54. The contacts between the
Serbian government and the Hungarian opposition to the neo-absolutist regime in
the 1860s are abundantly documented in, inter alia , Vojislav J. Vuckovic (ed.),
Politika akcija Srbije u juznoslovenskim pokrajinama Habsburske Monarhije
1859-1874, Belgrade, 1965 (hereafter Politicka akcija Srbije ); see especially nos.
25 (pp. 38-39), 27-29 (pp. 40-41), 30-38 (pp. 44-52).

30 F. Kanitz, Serbien. Historisch-ethnographische Reisestudien aus den Jahren
1859-1868, Leipzig, 1868, still one of the most valuable contemporary sources,
gives a figure for 1866 of 1,192,086, p. 552. For a comprehensive account of
Serbia in this period, see Michael Boro Petrovich, A History of Modern Serbia
1804-1918, 2 vols., New York, 1976, i, ch. iv , passim. (Hereafter .4 History of
Modem Serbia).

192

Kossuth 5 Pie in the Sky

Serbian governments had their own nationalist agenda, but as it
happened it was focused on the Ottoman Empire, not the Habsburg
Monarchy, or rather southern Hungary. The classic statement of Serbian
nationalist priorities was Ilija Garasanin’s Nacertanije or ‘outline’ of
1844. 31 Garasanin is important in our story not just because he was a
prominent minister in the 1840s and 1850s, and Serbian minister presi¬
dent from 1861 to 1867, but because he articulated a more coherent and
aggressive nationalism, which was directed chiefly against Ottoman rule,
but was also strongly anti-Austrian. The Nacertanije was directly influ¬
enced by other Slav nationalists, in particular Czartoryski, who had
singled out the Serbs as the only Balkan people who, because of the very
existence of Serbia, might unite the Peninsula against Russian domina¬
tion. One way or another, Czartoryski felt, Serbia must take over as the
principal power in the region; ideally this should involve other South
Slavs, including the Catholic Croats. 32 Garasanin, however, was less
interested than Czartoryski in grandiose visions of ‘Yugoslav’ unity, and
concentrated more on the practical options open to Serbia. 33 This entailed
recognizing that the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in Europe was
unlikely to be achieved peacefully, and that the only rational strategy for
Serbia was a policy aiming at withdrawal of Ottoman garrisons, arma¬
ment, alliance with other Balkan states, and staged uprisings of Balkan
Christians under Ottoman rule. In addition Garasanin, like Cavour in
Piedmont, realized that Serbia had to enlist the influence of a great power
in this enterprise, and that this power was likely to be Russia, even though
Garasanin had no desire to see Serbia permanently under Russian influ¬
ence. 34 With the Habsburg Monarchy, by contrast, there could be no such

31 Serbo-Croat text in Jozsef Thim, A magyarorszagi 1848-49-iki szerb jolkeles
tortenete, 3 vols., Budapest 1930-40, iii, no. 1, pp. 1-14 (hereafter A
magyarorszagi 1848-49-iki szerb jolkeles tortenete ); English translation in Paul N.
Hehn, ‘The Origins of Modem Pan-Serbism — The 1844 Nacertanije of Ilija
Garasanin: An Analysis and Translation’, East European Quarterly, 9, 1975, 2, pp.
153-71 (pp. 158-69) (hereafter ‘The Origins of Modem Pan-Serbism’). See also
Petrovich, A History of Modem Serbia, p. 233; and Charles Jelavich, ‘GaraSanins
Nacertanije und das groOserbische Programm’, Siidost-forschungen, 27, 1968,
pp. 131-47 (hereafter ‘Garasanins Nacertanije’).

32 David MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin: Balkan Bismarck, New York, 1985, pp. 46-47,
47-54 (hereafter Ilija Garasanin)-, Vaso Cubrilovic, Istorija politicke misli u Srbiji
XlXveka, Belgrade, 1982 [1958]), pp. 130-31, 131-34.

33 This insight is the important contribution of Jelavich, ‘Garasanins Nacertanije’,
pp. 143—47.

34 MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin, p. 55; Petrovich, A History of Modern Serbia,
pp. 231-33.

Ian D. Armour

193

accommodation. Because of the Monarchy’s fears that a South Slav state
would be built out of Habsburg territory, ‘Austria [...] must in all circum¬
stances be the eternal enemy of the Serbian state.’ 35

As is well known, there was no love lost between Serbia and the
Hungarians in the 1840s, because of the position of the Serb minority in
southern Hungary. In May 1848 the Vojvodina Serbs appealed directly to
Belgrade for help; in response Garasanin wrote that ‘We regard the cause
of our brethren [...] as our own.’ 36 Serbia acted as a conduit for arms to
the Hungarian Serbs, and between five and eight thousand volunteers
crossed over to fight against the Hungarians in 1848—49. 37 At the same
time, as a vassal-state of the Sultan, Serbia was obliged to keep a low
profile; and it is clear from other comments by Garasanin that the Serbian
government regarded the entire Hungarian war as a digression from
Serbia’s normal policy of pursuing the end of Ottoman rule. 38 Involve¬
ment in the fighting in Hungary was seen as an unavoidable distraction;
certainly there is no evidence that Garasanin considered the disintegration
of the Habsburg Monarchy as imminent. And when, in May 1849, the
Hungarian government despatched Count Gyula Andrassy to Belgrade in
an attempt to improve relations, Garasanin was polite but non-committal.
Despite Andrassy’s claim that the Serbian minister was ‘sincerely in
favour of an alliance with Hungary’, despite Garasanin’s assurance that
‘he had always wanted the union of the two nations’, Andrassy came
away empty-handed. 39 There was certainly no attempt by either party, at
this stage, to discuss the even more wide-ranging ideas about confedera¬
tion floated by Teleki in Paris.

In Hungary itself, the situation was transformed by the defeat of the
Hungarians and the imposition of neo-absolutist rule on all nationalities of
the Monarchy. Overnight, the Serbs of southern Hungary' were converted
from the bitter foes of the Hungarians to their companions in misfortune, a

35 Garasanin’s Nacertanije, in Thim, A magyarorszagi 1848-49-iki szerb folkeles
tortenete, p. 2; cf. the translation by Hehn, ‘The Origins of Modem Pan-Serbism’,
p. 159.

36 Garasanin to Dorde Stratimirovic, 17/29 May 1848, in Grgur Jaksic (ed.), Prepiska
Ilije Garasanina, i (only volume published). 1839-1849, Belgrade, 1950, p. 157
(hereafter Prepiska Ilije Garasanina ); MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin, p. 97.

37 Ibid., pp. 99-100, 101; Petrovich, A History of Modern Serbia , p. 245.

38 See, for example, GaraSanin to Knicanin, 9/21 Jan. 1849, in Jaksic, Prepiska Ilije
Garasanina, no. 268, p. 355; wrongly cited by MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin, p. 105,
as no. 269, p. 335.

39 Andrassy to Kazmer Batthyany, 11 June 1849, in Thim, A magyarorszagi 1848-49-
iki szerb folkeles tortenete , iii, no. 822, pp. 788, 789. A Hungarian translation of
the French original is in Horvath, Teleki Laszlo, ii, no. 55, pp. 184-87.

194

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

situation which created at least the possibility of political cooperation. 40
The Serbian government, for its part, maintained links with both sides,
while continuing to concentrate on affairs within the Ottoman Empire.

Ill: The Hungarian Emigration and Serbia

The links between Serbia and the Hungarian emigration, on the other
hand, were altogether more episodic. Although Belgrade, in view of its
position within the Ottoman Empire, refused asylum to Hungarian refu¬
gees fleeing Habsburg territory in 1849, a more positive note had been
sounded when the Serbian government facilitated the escape of Kossuth’s
wife, who was able to join him at Vidin. 41 Kossuth personally had a high
opinion of Garasanin, not least because of the latter’s record of hostility to
the Habsburg Monarchy. 42 As we have seen, the emigration’s hopes of
solving the Hungarian question increasingly posited cooperation with
other nationalities, and their attitude towards Serbia was inevitably condi¬
tioned by the Principality’s potential as a springboard for launching either
an invasion of Hungary or as a base for fomenting revolution. The only
problem was that both the Habsburg and the Ottoman governments were
perfectly aware of this, and consequently monitored events in Belgrade
closely.

Certainly the Serbian government displayed an understandable caution
in its dealings with Kossuth. When, at the start of 1850, Kossuth sent his
first ideas about Danubian confederation to Garasanin, via the Italian
Giuseppe Carrosini, there was no clear response. 43 Garasanin appears to
have promised Carrosini ‘to work out a detailed outline’ for future coop¬
eration; but given the complete powerlessness of the Hungarian emigres
at this point, it is not surprising that nothing came of this. 44

40 C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918, London, 1969, pp. 446-47,
449; Vasilije Krestic, ‘A magyarorszagi szerbek politikai torekvesei es a magyarok
(1849-1867)’, in Istvan Fried (ed.), Szerbek es magyarok a Duna menten, II:
Tanulmanyok a szerb-magyar kapcsolatok korebol 1848-1867, Budapest, 1987,
pp. 129-46 (pp. 129-30, 131).

41 Kossuth to Garasanin, 18 Jan. 1850, in Hajnal, A Kossuth-emigracio, no. 102,
pp. 659-61; Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, p. 16.

42 Katus, A magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, p. 152.

43 Kossuth & Kazmer Batthyany to Garasanin, 18 Jan. 1850, in Hajnal, A Kossuth-
emigracio, no. 104, pp. 663-64 (cited above, note 19); see also Kossuth’s
instructions to Carrosini, 19 Jan. 1850, ibid., no. Ill, pp. 671-77.

44 Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, p. 17; Hajnal, A Kossuth-emigracio, introduction, p. 372.

Ian D. Armour

195

What is interesting about Kossuth’s proposals of 1850, the first in
which he embraced the idea of confederation, was how contradictory and
hedged about with conditions they were. While acknowledging his
conversion to the principle that Hungary’s free existence could only be
assured if it remodelled itself as a federation, Kossuth insisted that
Hungary must remain a unitary state, one with which Serbia could unite if
it so wished. Within Hungary, however, all Serbs would be merely
assured of ‘political and national freedoms and rights’; there was no ques¬
tion of autonomy. On the other hand, Kossuth was ready to contemplate
the independence of Croatia-Slavonia, as long as Hungary retained
Fiume. A union of Serbia with Croatia and/or Slavonia was sanctioned,
but in no circumstances could this be extended to include the Banat or the
Bacska. To cap it all, Kossuth stressed that for him ‘the interests of the
Sublime Porte are sacred’ — which was a reasonable enough profession
for someone interned on Ottoman soil, but was hardly like to commend
itself to the government of Serbia. 45

There was even less heard from the Serbian side in 1855, when
Klapka’s plan was published, nor, given the circumstances, is it hard to
see why. Russia’s defensive war in the Crimea effectively eliminated it
from the picture, and although the Ottomans were also preoccupied with
the War, other great power involvement in the Balkans was constant.
From mid-1854 the Habsburg Monarchy was occupying Moldavia and
Wallachia, and the threat of an occupation of Serbia was a real one. 46
Prince Alexander Karadordevic, never the strongest of personalities, was
utterly dominated by the Austrian consul, while Garasanin, excluded from
government in this period, could only fume, in July 1856, that ‘Serbia can
never count on anyone’s help, and that which she cannot create for
herself, she can never expect from another.’ 47 Nor is there much evidence
that the Hungarian emigration was in a position to take advantage of the
Crimean War.

The Italian War of 1859, however, provided an ‘object lesson’ in the
perils for Serbia when, for a change, the Hungarian emigration was full of
hopes that a grand re-ordering was about to commence. The cooperation
of the Romanian and Serbian governments was actively sought, not just
by the Hungarians but, briefly, by Napoleon III and the Piedmontese

45 Kossuth’s instructions to Carrosini, 19 Jan. 1850, ibid., pp. 672, 673, 676-77; see

also Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, p. 16.

46 MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin , pp. 151-54.

47 Garasanin to Marinovic, 3/15 July 1856, in Jaksic, Prepiska Ilije Garasanina,

pp. 307-08; MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin , p. 156.

196

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

government. Both Cavour and Napoleon III, before the outbreak of hostil¬
ities on 26 April, were conscious of the advantages of fomenting a
Hungarian revolt in Austria’s backyard, and Cavour at least seems to have
regarded the break-up of the entire Habsburg Monarchy as the inevitable
consequence of such an uprising. ‘If it works,’ he wrote to Prince Napo¬
leon, the Emperor’s cousin, in January 1859, ‘Austria is finished:
deprived of Italy and her Hungarian and Slav provinces, she will be left
completely helpless.’ 48 General Klapka was recruited to lead a Hungarian
legion which would invade Hungary at the given moment. For this,
however, the cooperation of both Serbia and the recently united Principal¬
ities of Moldavia and Wallachia was essential. The Piedmontese govern¬
ment accordingly appointed its first consuls to Belgrade and Bucharest,
appointments suggested by Kossuth; Klapka paid a flying visit to
Belgrade in April and, for a few months anything seemed possible. 49 The
consul for Belgrade, Francesco Astengo, arrived at his post in March
1859; on the 23rd he was received by Prince Milos and, encouraged by
the latter’s obvious hostility to Austria, immediately broached the project
for a Hungarian uprising. Would the Serbian government assist Klapka
and his troops? 50

The Serbian government, headed by the recently restored Prince Milos
Obrenovic and his son Michael, was in a terrible dilemma. Without any
guarantees of support against the probable enmity of Austria and Turkey,
Serbia was being asked to incite both Hungarians and Hungarian Serbs to
revolt. Astengo even expressed the hope that, if Britain should join on the
side of Austria, Serbia would stir up Turkey’s Christian population to
revolt as well. Milos and Michael, the next day, replied that Serbia would
not itself take part in an intervention on Austrian soil because of a lack of
arms; nevertheless, they agreed in principle to facilitate the supply of
arms and supplies to the insurgent forces in Hungary. 51 On 27 March,
Milos sent Michael on a tour of the European capitals to discover how far
Serbia’s involvement would be tolerated, if at all.

The answers justified Milos’s and Michael’s trepidation. In Vienna the
Russian ambassador, Balabin, advised Serbia to wait and see. The present

48 Cavour to Prince Napoleon, 7 Jan. 1859, in Frederic Masson, ‘L’ltalie liberee
(1857-1862): Lettres et depeches du roi Victor Emmanuel II et du comte de
Cavour au prince Napoleon’, Revue des deux mondes, 13, 1923, p. 45; Grgur Jaksic
& Vojislav J. Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije za vlade Kneza Mihaila (prvi
balkanski savez), Belgrade, 1963, p. 20 (hereafter Spoljna politika Srbije ).

49 Hermann Wendel, Bismarck und Serbien im Jahre 1866, Berlin, 1927, p. 27.

50 Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije, p. 21.

51 Ibid., pp. 22-23.

Ian D. Armour

197

crisis, if it came to war between Austria, France and Sardinia, might also
lead to a general war involving Turkey, and in that case Serbian involve¬
ment would be feasible, and would even, Balabin promised, secure the
Principality possession of Bosnia-Hercegovina. For the present, however,
‘we must above all preserve what we have.’ 52

In Paris, Michael found that Napoleon III was willing to promise no
more than diplomatic support for various Serbian grievances against the
Porte. The arrangements between the Piedmontese government, Prince
Napoleon and the Hungarian emigration, though undertaken with the
Emperor’s consent, had not been known even to the French foreign
minister, Walewski. Now, as Walewski pointedly informed his consul in
Belgrade, the French government would have nothing to do with a
Hungarian uprising. 53 It had to take into account the possibility that a
Franco-Piedmontese attack on Austria, which threatened the status quo in
the Near East, was likely to bring Britain into the struggle in defence of
the Ottoman Empire. 54 Michael left a memorandum for Napoleon III in
which he offered Serbia’s cooperation against Turkey and Austria but,
sensibly, only in return for a formal alliance; this was not taken up by the
French government. 55 Prince Michael advised his father in April 1859 to
keep the peace ‘at all costs’. 56

In London, the British Conservative government’s disapproval of any
departure by Serbia from strict neutrality was plain to see. Prince Michael
also met Kossuth in London in May; but the encounter only confirmed the
inadvisability of getting involved. Kossuth was under the impression that
Napoleon III was actively promoting a Hungarian rebellion; in any case
the Serbian government, he claimed, should be willing to help Hungary,
since an independent Hungary was in Serbia’s own interests. This confu¬
sion on the part of the Hungarian emigration, again, appears to have been
due more to the wishful thinking of Prince Napoleon, who happened to be
an uncle of King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia-Piedmont, than to prac¬
tical considerations. 57

52 Kosta Cukic to Miloje Lesjanin, 20 Mar./l Apr. 1859, in Vuckovic, Politicka akcija
Srbije, no. 3, p. 9; Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije, pp. 22-24.

53 Walewski to des Essards, 21 Apr. 1859, in Vuckovic, Politicka akcija Srbije , no. 8,
pp. 17-18; Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije , pp. 24-25; Aleksic-Pejkovic,
Politika Italije , pp. 69-71.

54 Jaksic & VuCkovic, Spoljna politika Srbije , p. 26.

55 Prince Michael Obrenovic to Napoleon III, 16/28 Apr. 1859, in Vuckovic,
Politicka akcija Srbije , no. 11, p. 21

56 Prince Michael to Prince Milos, 17/29 Apr. 1859, ibid., no. 12, p. 23.

57 Jak§ic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije , pp. 32-34.

198

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

In the course of their meeting, Prince Michael and Kossuth also
discussed the idea of Danubian confederation, but the surviving accounts
also bespeak confusion. According to Kossuth’s own memoirs, written
only two decades after, Prince Michael was personally in favour of Serbo-
Hungarian cooperation and Danubian confederation; it was also, according
to Kossuth, an understood thing that the sole reward Serbia might expect
for helping a Hungarian uprising would be the establishment of an inde¬
pendent Hungary. 58 By contrast Milan Pirocanac, one of Michael’s secre¬
taries in 1859, but writing in 1895, did not dispute Michael’s willingness to
find common ground with Hungary; but that did not mean that Serbia
could afford to act in this case, without some guarantee of survival. 59

Back in Serbia, with the outbreak of the war on 26 April, the Ottoman
government started reinforcing its garrisons in Belgrade and the other
Serbian fortress towns as well as in neighbouring Bosnia and Bulgaria.
This was a clear response to the rumours of Serbian involvement, which
had been fuelled by Klapka’s flying visit to Belgrade around 20 April,
and by the increasingly eccentric behaviour of old Prince Milos, whose
open Austrophobia was becoming an embarrassment. 60 Austria, too,
despite its preoccupation with the fighting in Italy, was keeping a
watchful eye on its southern border. The Austrian ambassador to Constan¬
tinople, Baron Anton von Prokesch-Osten, suggested closing the frontier
to Serbian trade, as an extremely effective means of checking Serbian
provocation. The new foreign minister Count Rechberg, however, was
content to rely on the Ottoman government’s troop movements, and the
restraining influence of Prince Michael on his father. 61 Michael reached
Belgrade on 9 June, and his arguments in favour of strict non-involve¬
ment were reinforced by Walewski’s total repudiation, to the Ottoman
government, of any desire to use Klapka to raise a revolt in the Habsburg
Monarchy. The wisdom of staying out was amply demonstrated in August
when, at the news of the French armistice with Austria at Villafranca, the
Piedmontese government abruptly called the whole project off. ‘The
secret goal of your mission,’ Astengo was informed, ‘is terminated.’ 62

58 Lajos Kossuth, lrataim az emigracziobol , vol. i: Az 1859-ki olasz haboru korszaka,

2nd ed., Budapest, 1880, pp. 394, 398.

59 Milan Pirocanac, Knez Mihailo i zajednicka radnja balkanskih naroda, Belgrade,

1895, pp. 19-21; MacKenzie, Ilija Garasanin , p. 242.

60 Dr Pacek to Prince Michael, 12/24 Apr. 1859, in Vuckovic, Politicka akcija Srbije,

no. 10, pp. 19-21; Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije , pp. 25, 35

61 Prokesch-Osten to Rechberg, 3 June 1859, in Vuckovic, Politicka akcija Srbije, no.

16, p. 28.

62 Tamborra, ‘La politica serba del Regno di Sardegna 1856-1861’, p. 56.

Ian D. Armour

199

The events of 1859 are worth dwelling on in such detail because they
illustrate the problems Serbia faced. From the point of view of the Serbian
government, the perils of any close dealings with the Hungarian emigra¬
tion were all too obvious, so obvious as to make projects for Danubian
confederation all the more improbable. By the time the final version of
the Danubian confederation scheme became public, in May 1862, the
Serbian government under Prince Michael, with Garasanin back in office
as minister president, was forging ahead with its plans for Balkan alli¬
ances and uprisings. Nevertheless the interchanges between Belgrade and
the Hungarian emigration, scant though the records are, are of interest. In
the summer of 1862, Kossuth made use of his Italian confidant, Marc
Antonio Canini, who was being sent to Bucharest and Belgrade by the
Italian government, to elicit the responses of the two main ‘associate’
peoples to the confederation plan. Once again there were hopes, encour¬
aged by the Italian government, of exploiting the crisis in the Ottoman
Empire caused by the uprising in Crete, while simultaneously engineering
a confrontation with the Habsburg Monarchy. Serbia’s contribution
would be to raise an insurrection among the Serbian Border Guards in
Hungary. 63

Behind the Canini mission there was a tortuous secret history of disa¬
greement among the Hungarian emigration as to the way forward. The
‘Kossuth plan’ itself, as we have seen, was the outcome of a hurried adop¬
tion of the ideas of Klapka, with some of which Kossuth had long been in
disagreement. Kossuth nevertheless lent the prestige of his name to the
plan when it was published in May 1862. 64 The problem now was to
convince the Hungarians’ proposed partners in the project of its feasibility.

Canini was undoubtedly not the aptest choice as envoy in this
campaign to win hearts and minds. A former secretary of Mazzini in the
revolutionary year of 1848-49, Canini had since made a living as a jour¬
nalist, residing for a decade in Bucharest before returning to Italy in
1859, after which he joined Garibaldi’s movement. He had a long¬
standing association with both the Polish and Hungarian emigre commu¬
nities, and played a significant role in drafting and then publishing the
1862 plan. Officially, Canini’s mission to the Balkans was to set up an
Italian-Romanian cultural society for research into the Roman origins of
the Romanians. Unofficially, he was charged by King Victor Emmanuel
II, the Italian minister president Ratazzi, and Garibaldi with sounding the

63 On the general background, see Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije , ch. iv

and v passim; Aleksic-Pejkovic, Politika Italije, pp. 107-10.

64 Lukacs, Magyar politikai emigracio, pp. 204-13.

200

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

governments of Greece, the Romanian Principalities and Serbia on the
possibilities of a coordinated attack on the Habsburg Monarchy and
revolt in the Ottoman provinces. Canini, however, was a classic loose
cannon. In the words of a Yugoslav historian, he was ‘a boastful, vain,
garrulous person, completely irresponsible’; and he rapidly made himself
so obnoxious wherever he went that his mission soon degenerated into
farce. 65

Before Canini even arrived in the Balkans the Italian government had
been forced by the great powers to change course, and had hastily disa¬
vowed any intention of meddling in the Ottoman Empire. In the Roma¬
nian Principalities Canini aroused suspicions wherever he went, and he
was eventually arrested by the Ottoman authorities and all his papers and
funds confiscated. He arrived nearly penniless at Belgrade on 25 July,
preceded by a hail of indignant diplomatic reports, and shortly after the
international crisis touched off by the Ottoman bombardment of Belgrade
in June. 66

In the Romanian Principalities, Canini’s mission as exponent of Danu-
bian confederation was the culmination of a series of contacts with the
government of Alexandru Cuza since 1859, when the latter was elected
prince of both Wallachia and Moldavia. Among the Hungarian emigres
both Klapka and, until his death in 1861, Teleki, were warmer advocates
of the Romanian connection than Kossuth who, together with most of the
emigration, took especial exception to Klapka’s and Teleki’s willingness
to contemplate a plebiscite over the fate of Transylvania. 67 Cuza, for his
part, was inclined to cooperation with the Hungarians, but had to reckon
with serious opposition to this among Romanian politicians like Dumitru
Bratianu. 68 In the end, it was the opponents of cooperation who gained the
upper hand, and by 1862 Cuza’s government, hoping for great power
sanction for a formal union of Wallachia and Moldavia, was frankly unen-
thusiastic about Danubian confederation. 69

In Belgrade, the response to the Kossuth plan was if anything even
more embarrassing. Canini had some difficulty even achieving an audi¬
ence with Garasanin, and he was not permitted to see Prince Michael at

65 Aleksic-Pejkovic, Politiha Italije, pp. 106-07, and note 56.

66 Ibid., pp. 107, 108; Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politiha Srbije, pp. 107-22.

67 Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, pp. 23-24.

68 Ibid., p. 24.

69 Lukacs, Magyarpolitikai emigracio , p. 220; Merei, ‘Foderationsplane’, p. 25. See
also Strambio (Bucharest) to Durando, 29 July 1862, reporting on Canini’s
disastrous sojourn in Wallachia, in I Documenti diplomatici italiani , 1st series, ii,
no. 610, pp. 601-04.

Ian D. Armour

201

all. Letters which he attempted to have delivered to the prince were inter¬
cepted, one being bought by the Italian consul to prevent it falling into the
hands of his Austrian colleague. 70 Nevertheless Canini managed to meet
with Garasanin a total of four times, enough to make clear that the
Serbian government had no intention of responding to Kossuth’s initia¬
tive.

Although in his memoirs, written in 1868, Canini claimed that
Garasanin ‘showed himself well disposed to an understanding with the
Hungarians’, and informed him that the confederation scheme was
received in the Belgrade casino with applause, the reality was otherwise. 71
A rather pathetic letter from Canini to Garasanin, on 29 August, regretted
that their interview was cut short, and pleaded for a meeting with the
Prince, even ‘at night, in secret.’ 72 Kossuth, Canini claimed, disposed of a
secret army of 120,000 men; even in Bohemia there was an underground
military corps, awaiting the word to rise up. In one of those protestations
which amounted to a confession of the opposite, Canini insisted that there
was no disagreement between Kossuth and Klapka. ‘They are also,’ he
continued, ‘in agreement on the big political questions, such as for
example Danubian Confederation, which is proven by the two
programmes which contain the same basics.’ 73 In the Habsburg army,
there were ‘secret committees’ of Serb, Croat and Hungarian officers, on
whom the Hungarians and the Serbian government could call. The Italian
government still supported the whole project, but had to pretend other¬
wise officially in order not to alienate Russia. At the end of this wildly
inaccurate plaidoyer , Canini raised an implied threat: if the Serbian
government did not hasten to take advantage of this opportunity, Austrian
machinations could mean that Serbs would find themselves once again
confronting Hungarians as enemies. ‘The natural friends of Serbia,’
Canini concluded, ‘are the Italians and Hungarians.’ 74

Garasanin’s considered response was to ignore the advances of the
Hungarians, for reasons which he explained to his representative in Paris,
Miloje Lesjanin, early in October 1862. In Garasanin’s opinion the Serb

70 Canini to Prince Michael, 17 Aug. 1862, enclosed in Scovasso to Durando, 7 Sept.
1862, in I Documenti diplomatici italiani , 1st series, iii, no. 130, pp. 96-8; Aleksic-
Pejkovic, Politika Italije, pp. 108-09, and note 60.

71 Katus, ‘A magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, pp. 150-51, and note 16 (p. 174), citing
M. A. Canini, Vingt ans d’exil , Paris 1868, pp. 174-75.

72 Canini to Garasanin, 29 Aug. 1962, in Vuckovic, Politicka akcija Srbije , no. 53,
pp. 88-89.

73 Ibid., p. 89.

74 Ibid., pp. 89, 90.

202

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

population of southern Hungary and the Border were unlikely to rise in
support of the Hungarians. Despite the recent improvement in Serbo-
Hungarian relations within Hungary (something which had nothing to do
with the emigration), there was still not much common ground. The two
sides would ‘have to agree on things that up to now have never been
agreed on.’ 75 In the circumstances, it was clear that the Serbian govern¬
ment expected no more from the emigration than it did from the Deakists,
which was not saying much. As for the whole idea of Danubian confeder¬
ation, Garasanin thought that the Hungarian emigration ‘made this public
too soon. It is necessary to reach an agreement in secret and not via the
papers.’ 76 But crucially, Garasanin concluded, ‘There cannot be a confed¬
eration as long as there is an Austria and a Turkey [...] one must proceed
in an orderly fashion to eliminate these two and replace them with a
different form of government for their peoples.’ 77 In other words, Serbia
was obliged to cope with existing realities, which were intractable enough
from Belgrade’s point of view. Danubian confederation could wait.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is worth noting that the final version of the confederation
scheme provoked disagreement even within the emigration. The fact was
that the whole idea of confederation, especially if it involved a diminution
of Hungary’s historic territory, was anathema to most Hungarians, in and
out of Hungary. One of Kossuth’s associates in London, Sebo Vukovics,
advised him on 7 July 1862 that ‘I think we should simply drop it, without
a word more.’ 78 Kossuth in his reply appeared already to be backing away
from the scheme, assuring Vukovics that he agreed that national liberation
should be the priority. Vukovics returned to the charge in August, urging
an explicit repudiation of the plan, and suggesting a face-saving formula:
‘the cleverer ones are saying: we know that this is not Kossuth’s wish, but
[...] a manoeuvre dictated by circumstances.’ 79 More significant is the
effect news of the plan had on public opinion in Hungary, where

75 Garasanin to Lesjanin, early Oct. 1862, ibid., no. 54, p. 92.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid. See also Jaksic & Vuckovic, Spoljna politika Srbije , pp. 125-26; Aleksic-
Pejkovic, Politika Italije , pp. 108-10.

78 Sebo Vukovics to Kossuth, 7 July 1862, quoted in Lukacs, Magyar politikai
emigracio, p. 220.

79 Vukovics to Kossuth, 23 Aug. 1862, quoted ibid., p. 221.

Ian D. Armour

203

according to Lukacs the details spread ‘with the speed of lightning’, and
significantly with the apparent encouragement of the otherwise strict
Austrian censorship. 80 Members of the ‘Resolution Party’ in Budapest,
and who maintained discreet contact with the emigration, let Kossuth
know in no uncertain terms that they entirely rejected confederation
plans. 81 One of the Resolutionists, Frigyes Podmaniczky, confided
gloomily to his diary, on 11 June, his conviction that ‘If I have to go to the
Reichsrat, better go to Vienna among Germans, than to Belgrade among
Serbs [racok\T sl Support for Kossuth within Hungary, in so far as this can
even be estimated, appears to have diminished, and the thought of this
alternative, after 1862, may have inclined Ferencz Deak to seek accom¬
modation with Vienna. 83

Even more intangible is the legacy which the Danubian confederation
scheme left in the minds of the younger generation of Hungarian politi¬
cians. As late as 1868 the young diplomat Benjamin Kallay, at the outset
of his posting to Belgrade as Austro-Hungarian consul, could refer to
confederation as ‘the only possibility for us and for the Christian nations
of Turkey.’ 84 Kallay was twenty-eight at this point; and nothing in his
subsequent career as diplomat, historian and k.u.k. minister suggests that
he seriously pursued confederation. On the contrary, it can only be
assumed that his conception of confederation involved an unequivocal
Hungarian, or in the end Austro-Hungarian hegemony. 85

The Danubian confederation idea was impracticable, however gener¬
ously conceived, and the history of the various attempts made to interest
the Serbian government in it demonstrate this. There were simply too
many obstacles internationally, certainly too many for Belgrade, posi¬
tioned as it was on the edge of two tectonic plates. But the scheme was

80 Ibid., p. 214; Katus, ‘A magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, p. 151.

81 Ibid., citing Deak Ferencz beszedei , 2nd ed., ed. Mano Konyi, 6 vols., Budapest,
1903, v, pp. 46-47.

82 Ibid., p. 47; quoted in Katus, ‘A magyar politikai vezetoreteg’, p. 152.

83 George Barany, ‘Hungary: The Uncompromising Compromise’, Austrian History
Yearbook, iii, 1967, pt. 1, pp. 234-59 (pp. 244-45); Macartney, The Habsburg
Empire 1790-1918, p. 538.

84 Dnevnik Benjamina Kalaja 1868-1875, ed. Andrija Radenic, Belgrade & Novi
Sad, 1976, entry for 12 May 1868, p. 18; see also entry for 26 June 1868, ibid.,
p. 44.

85 On Kallay, see Ian D. Armour, Austro-Hungarian Policy towards Serbia
1867-1871, with Special Reference to Benjamin Kallay, University of London
PhD, 1994, pp. 36-37; Robin Okey, ‘A Trio of Hungarian Balkanists: Beni Kallay,
Istvan Burian and Lajos Thalloczy in the Age of High Nationalism’, The Slavonic
and East European Review, 80, 2002, pp. 234-66 (pp. 237-41).

204

Kossuth’s Pie in the Sky

also impracticable in terms of delivery, even had the diplomatic condi¬
tions been more favourable. For the reaction of Kossuth’s fellow exiles, to
say nothing of the political leadership in Hungary, suggests that the orig¬
inal proposals might well have been watered down in the long run. It is
true that pyramid salesmen often believe their own sales pitch, but that
does not mean one has to believe them. The proof of the pie in the sky is
in the eating.

A Comment on Dr. Armour’s Paper, ‘Kossuth’s Pie
in the Sky: Serbia and the Great Danubian
Confederation Scam’

Robin Okey

Dr Armour has given a lucid and very largely persuasive account of the
Kossuth’s Danubian confederation plans in the mid-nineteenth century as
they concerned the Serbs. The purpose of these comments is not really to
challenge his pessimistic assessment of a famous episode. They touch on
two aspects of the matter, one tangential, the other more central to his
theme. The first is the nature and constraints of emigre politics; the
second probes the implications of Dr Armour’s confessedly provocative
term ‘scam’ to ask whether something be rescued of the view of the
confederal plans as a significant point in Kossuth’s career.

It could be argued that the manoeuverings over Danubian confedera¬
tion, which Dr Armour describes, belong more to the theme of emigre
politics than of meaningful Hungaro-Serb relations. The very fact of exile
constrains emigres to turn to other countries in their political combinations
in ways that would not arise if they remained at home. Times of interna¬
tional tension offer apparent opportunities for these combinations to
succeed, but the long history of the Polish cause in the nineteenth century
shows the frustration regularly involved, matched in the twentieth century
by the calculations of Ukrainian emigres or Kurds. Federal or confederal
schemes seem to be popular in emigre politics because they offer scenarios
for cooperation which avoid hard questions about the ultimate disposition
of power. The Polish-Czech confederal schemes of the Second World
War, which glided over the issue of Teschen (Tesin, Cieszyn), and vaguer
talk of Balkan federation, where Macedonia posed the same ambiguities as
Transylvania, are cases in point. Of course, emigre politics has not always
been unproductive, as the role of the Slav exiles in the First World War
showed. Even this role’s importance has been questioned, however, and it
did not entail seeking amity, like Kossuth, between historically suspicious
neighbours, but invoking third party support against them. Where the Slav

205

206

A Comment on Dr. Armour’s Paper

emigres did try for a historical reconciliation, as the Yugoslav Committee
tried with Italy, they hardly succeeded.

Thus emigration is rarely a good starting point for a realistic politics. Dr
Armour stresses that the Serbian government was more interested in the
Hungarian politicians in Hungary than in Kossuth’s exiled cohorts. Politi¬
cians on the ground are more likely to mean what they say and are in a
better position to deliver. The Hungarians who successfully international¬
ized their cause in 1790-91 had the advantage of a home base. This factor
of location has often been relevant in modem Central European history.
Notoriously, Tomas Masaryk disavowed the 1918 Pittsburg Declaration
offering autonomy for Slovaks in a Czechoslovak state on the grounds that
he had concluded it as a mere private citizen; Sikorski refused to discuss
Poland’s frontiers in visiting Moscow in December 1941 because only the
Homeland could decide such matters; Benes was swayed in negotiations
with his fellow exile, the Sudeten German socialist Jaksch, by the
mounting hatred of Germans back home. The exiled Sikorski and Benes
were heads of widely recognized governments and their responsibilities
made them cognizant of the limitations on their freedom of action; in
Masaryk’s case, closer to Kossuth’s, a man renowned for his uprightness
was simply disingenuous. All three cases show the pitfalls of trying to
negotiate the region’s ethnic minefield from afar.

My second comment concerns Dr Armour’s judgement on the Danu-
bian confederation scheme as ‘essentially futile and impracticable’. The
sharpness of ‘scam’, with its implication of bad faith, is later softened by
phrases like ‘well-meant but unrealizable’ and the characterisation of the
1862 proposal as ‘in many respects imaginative and high-minded’. The
remarks above about the inconsequentiality of much emigre politics would
imply support for the harsher verdict. After all, Hungaro-Serb relations
had a bad track record. The Serb settlement of southern Hungary from the
fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries had been a significant factor in
reducing Magyars proper to a minority in their historic territories, while
Hungarian Serbs traditionally saw Magyar feudalism as an unmixed evil
and looked more hopefully to the central Habsburg administration, as in
1848; on that occasion Kossuth had notoriously said of them that he would
not negotiate with rebels. In this context a strong prima facie case can be
made that Kossuth’s later relations with Serbs were dictated by conven¬
ience rather than the conquering of traditional distance. Calling Serbs ‘a
band of robbers’ would no doubt echo disagreeably in Serbian ears, wrote
one of his agents in 1859, but the fact itself was historically true. 1

1 L. Kossuth, Memories of My Exile , London, 1880, p. 344.

Robin Okey

207

Moreover, Dr Armour’s stimulating doctoral thesis on the role of Beni
Kallay as Austro-Hungarian General Consul in Belgrade from 1868 to
1874 tellingly illustrates the limits of contemporary Hungaro-Serb under¬
standing. 2 The Serb-speaking and in all eyes Serbophile Kallay, later
Austro-Hungarian Joint Finance Minister, rested his Serbophilia on the
premise that the Serbian government could be weaned off links to the
Hungarian Serbs, the Russians and the Croats through promises of
Habsburg support for its acquisition of Bosnia. The premise was dubious
and the promises undeliverable and in the long run insincere; when the
‘Bosnian scheme’ misfired, Kallay began to obstruct Serbian aspirations
at every point. Even when confiding his ideal of a Danubian confedera¬
tion to his diary he notes how he and his leading confidant in the Serbian
government were each hiding their hegemonic goals from the other. 3 Dr
Armour’s view of the Danubian confederal schemes reflects awareness of
this syndrome of the age of nationalism, in which even the apparent advo¬
cates of inter-ethnic cooperation saw their neighbours as raw material for
their own sacred national egoism. Hence the view in his present contribu¬
tion that the Hungarian exiles were asking Serbs to join their anti-
Austrian movement without anything in return.

This may just be putting it slightly strongly. As Dr Armour suggests
Hungarian attitudes were not uniform: a spectrum rather than a single
syndrome. While the conservative Kecskemethy argued in the 1850s that
Magyars had more to gain from Austria than from the nationalities and
exiled figures like Pulszky, Teleki and Szemere were prepared to modify
the unitary nature of the Hungarian state, Kossuth was closer to the latter
but believed, as he told Klapka in 1861, that the price for non-Magyar
support might be too high. 4 This implies he was prepared to give some¬
thing, and far from dissociating himself with radical Danubian confederal
plans which were in origin Klapka’s he seems to have sought to lay claim
to priority on the issue. 5 True, he did not offer the Serbs the collective
territorial autonomy they demanded in southern Hungary, but then they
were not a majority in the coveted area. He was willing for Serbs to have
two language-drawn counties immediately after the 1848—49 revolution
and the 1862 proposals allowed for universal suffrage and any language

2 I. D. Armour, Austro-Hungarian Policy towards Serbia 1867-71, with special
reference to Benjamin Kallay, University of London Ph.D., 1994.

3 A. Radenic ed., Dnevnik Benjamina Kalaja 1868-75, Belgrade, 1976, p. 44.

4 L. Katus, ‘A magyar politikai vezetoreteg a delszlav kerdesrol 1849-1867 kozott’
in I. Fried (ed.), Szerbek es magyarok a Duna menten. II. Tanulmdnyok a szerb-
magyar kapcsolatok korebol 1848-1867, Budapest, 1987, p. 148.

5 L. Lukacs, Magyar politikai emigracio 1849-1867, Budapest, 1984, p. 216.

208

A Comment on Dr. Armour’s Paper

to be spoke in the central parliament, concessions never approached in
practice till historic Hungary’s collapse in 1918. Hungarian Serb seces¬
sion was not a serious Serbian goal in the 1860s and the fact that Kossuth
supported Hungarian state integrity could have surprised no-one. Though
Dr Armour rightly notes Garasanin’s preoccupation with the Ottoman
empire, the Hungarian Serbs remained, too, a very important part of
Serbdom at this time. Only in the 1860s did Novi Sad (Ujvidek) definitely
lose out to Belgrade as the leading Serbian cultural centre. Finally, from
the standpoint of contemporary liberalism at its most enlightened in the
area, as represented by Eotvos, the fact that Serbs were trying to build a
political autonomy out of old-style religious privileges (the Leopoldine
concessions to the Orthodox church of 1690) was a further reason for not
yielding all that was asked. 6

These are possible grounds for Katus’s suggestion that the Serb and
Romanian autonomy demands of 1867 were not so far from the proposals
of Kossuth and the centralistic liberals. 7 Of course, these politicians were
not representative of mainstream Hungarian opinion. Yet the implication
at the end of Dr Armour’s paper that it was Kossuth who was living in
cloud-cuckoo land may be taken up in a conference on Kossuth’s anniver¬
sary. After all, Kossuth’s conviction that the reactionary Habsburg
Monarchy had had its day — on which he based his strategy of alliance
with the new nations on its borders — proved to be correct. From a longer
perspective of Hungarian history, 1918 is a more significant date than
1867. The decision of those opting for Dualism to lock Hungary into the
fortunes of the anachronistic empire was open to many of Kossuth’s criti¬
cisms. It may be objected that there is too much hindsight in this view, but
there is a place for the visionary in politics, and at least the negative side
of Kossuth’s vision cannot be denied reality. In 1918 historic Hungary
was broken on the wheel of the aspirations of its ‘nationalities’. The posi¬
tive side of the vision, that a settlement could be reached with Hungary’s
neighours which preserved the essence of historic Hungary, is more ques¬
tionable, but Kossuth may surely be allowed his place among those
historical figures who saw wider than their contemporaries and did
envisage a radical shift in the existing order. The man whose bold combi¬
nations were being formulated in part conjunction with Mazzini and
Garibaldi’s dream of a Europe of the Peoples, who pushed the emancipa¬
tion of the serfs well beyond original intentions in 1848-49 and who
lectured on advanced economic ideas in exile co-exists with the gentry

6 Ibid., p. 167.

7 Ibid., p. 171.

Robin Okey

209

leader to which A. J. P. Taylor somewhat crudely reduced him. 8 None of
the aspects of his remarkable career can be discounted. Like another
famous Hungarian icon, the Rubik cube, Kossuth is infuriatingly difficult
to pin down.

8 For Kossuth’s interest in contemporary economic ideas, see R.A. Horvath,
‘Kossuth’s Views on Economics in his Lectures on National Economics at London
University’, Journal of European Economic History, 2, 1973, pp. 339-54. For
Taylor, A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918, 2 nd ed., London, 1948,
pp. 51-2.

■

Kossuth in Exile and Marx

Klara Kingston-Tiszai

The focus of this essay is on Kossuth’s adversaries in exile and, in partic¬
ular, of Karl Marx. Marx went to great lengths to exploit every opportu¬
nity to disqualify Kossuth as a valid representative of Hungary and of
European liberty, and he did so by misrepresenting facts and by belittling
Kossuth at every turn. And Marx found plenty of willing accomplices,
including a number of Hungarian emigres.

The European order which emerged from the treaties of Vienna of
1814-15 served only the interests of the ‘northern courts’ of Vienna,
Berlin and St Petersburg. The three northern powers did not abandon their
policies of social and political coercion even in the aftermath of the
February Revolution in France in 1848. Indeed, Austria pressed on and
imposed anew its administrative system on the north Italian states and,
through the ‘Bach’ system, sought a new measure of hegemony over its
Central European possessions. The outcome was a seething discontent
which spilled over into periodic violence and confrontation. In Britain, by
contrast, social order was guaranteed by constitutional monarchy. Even
movements of social protest, such as Chartism, failed to upset the social
order. 1

Such was the environment in which the emigre Kossuth sought to
promote the cause of Hungarian liberty. He knew that he largely owed his
release from internment in Turkey to public opinion in Britain and he
recognized that, if he was to achieve any results there, he needed to rally
to his side the wealthier and more influential sections of British society.

Kossuth was often criticized by fellow exiles, and also by Marx, for
‘usurping’ the title of governor and thus for appointing himself sole repre¬
sentative of the Hungarian cause. Undoubtedly, there were many other
outstanding leaders of the Hungarian revolution who could have fulfilled
this role just as well, but at the time these men were largely unknown

1 Klara Kingston. ‘Gunboat Liberalism? Palmerston, Europe and 1848’, History

Today , 47, 1997, 2, pp. 37-43 (pp. 38-9).

211

212

Kossuth in Exile and Marx

outside Hungary. There was only one name that resonated through the
columns of the international press and in the corridors of international
diplomacy, and that was Kossuth’s. It was up to him, therefore, and no
one else to rally support for the liberty of his country, by hook or by
crook, even to the extent, as he himself put it, of ‘allying himself with the
devil’.

It was precisely this Machiavellian approach which Marx criticized. At
the time, however, Marx was himself unknown internationally. He was an
emigre journalist who wrote for the most part articles of a sensationalist
and ‘tabloid’ character. Although some of Marx’s criticisms of Kossuth
were doubtless valid, they were also coloured by his own desire for
acclaim. Moreover, by his choice of target — and Kossuth was, after all,
one of the most celebrated and controversial figures of his age — Marx
sought to add to his own lustre and reputation. Marx’s comments and crit¬
icisms of Kossuth should thus be judged very much in this ‘subjective’
light.

Throughout his life in exile and, in particular, during his first ten years
in exile, Kossuth endeavoured to rally support for Hungary’s independ¬
ence. He failed, but this failure should not colour our estimate of the man.
At this time, the ‘balance of power’ and the rights of great nations and
empires determined international outcomes, and small nations, however
great their spokesmen, had no influence in determining the European
order.

Historiography still tends to couple Marx with Engels. Although
Engels was often critical of Kossuth’s actions, his criticisms were milder
and less sustained by animus than Marx’s own. Indeed, from the very
start, Engels viewed the struggles of the various European countries differ¬
ently from Marx. As a war correspondent for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung ,
Engels keenly followed the war of independence in Hungary. He consid¬
ered Kossuth to be a national hero: Kossuth was ‘a Danton and Carnot in
one person’, 2 who fought not only against Austrian despotism but, as
Engels saw it at the time, also for the liberty of all oppressed peoples. He
blamed the Slavs for the failure of the revolution and, in respect to the
Croats, faulted Kossuth for making ‘all possible concessions to them ...
This submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is
the only thing with which the Magyars can be reproached’. 3

2 Friedrich Engels, ‘A magyar hare’ (13 January 1849), in Marx-Engels muvei
(hereafter MEM), 47 vols, Budapest, 1962 etc, 6, pp. 157-67 (p. 157)

3 Engels, ‘A demokratikus panszlavizmus’, Neue Rheinische Zeitung (15 February
1849), translated in MEM , 6, pp. 268-76 (p. 269).

Klara Kingston-Tiszai

213

With the fall of Hungary as the last bastion of freedom on continental
Europe, disillusionment with revolution as the means of liberty overcame
both Engels and Marx. Nevertheless, in the case of Marx, disillusionment
also turned into a bitter contempt for revolutionaries in general and for
Kossuth in particular. At first, Marx’s contempt for Kossuth was made
manifest mainly in his private correspondence with Engels and other
friends. This did not, however, satisfy Marx’s perverted lust for long. He
jealously watched Kossuth’s every move and resolved to discredit him at
the bar of public opinion. To this end, he gathered over a ten-year period
information on Kossuth and on Hungarian and other exiles with a view to
a final ‘showdown’. This culminated in Marx’s pamphlet, Herr Vogt
( 1860 ).

Marx and Engels frequently accused Kossuth of applying ‘double
standards’ in his dealings. According to Engels, however, the revolution
does not recognize the ‘legality of proceedings’. 4 Accordingly, one can
argue in Kossuth’s favour that his own disregard for consistency and prin¬
ciple in the interests of national freedom comported with Engels’s own
view. We should additionally note that Marx and Engels interpreted
Kossuth’s actions, and based their accusation of ‘double-dealing’, either
in a highly partisan manner or else on the basis of false information.

Thus, at the time of Kossuth’s arrival in England, Engels exploded:
‘Kossuth, who might have known from the Blue Books that Hungary had
been betrayed by the noble viscount [Lord Palmerston], called him “the
dear friend of his bosom” when landing at Southampton’. 5 As it was,
however, far from calling Palmerston his ‘bosom friend’, Kossuth had not
even mentioned his name. He had thanked the people of Southampton for
his reception and shaken hands with the city’s mayor, referring to him as
‘my best and trusted friend’. 6 Engels’s claim was also refuted by Richard
Cobden, leader of the ‘Peace Party’, who in writing to his friend and close
companion, John Bright, stated, ‘Kossuth himself avoids saying anything
in praise of Palmerston’. 7

4 Engels, ‘Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany’ ( New York Daily
Tribune, 9 April 1852), in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Works (hereafter
MEW), 45 vols, London, New York and Moscow, 1978 etc, 11, pp. 3-91 (p. 62)

5 Marx, ‘Lord Palmerston’, The People’s Paper, 22 October — 24 December, given
in MEW, 12, pp. 341-7 (390-1). See also, Marx, ‘Herr Vogt — Patrons and
Accomplices’ (hereafter, ‘Patrons and Accomplices’), in MEW, 17, pp. 214-329.

6 Authentic Life of His Excellency Louis Kossuth Governor of Hungary, (reprinted from
The Illustrated London News), London, 1851, p. 35. (Hereafter, Authentic Life).

7 John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden, 2 vols, London, 1881, 2, p. 101 (Cobden
to Bright, 29 October 1851).

214

Kossuth in Exile and Marx

It seems also to have been incomprehensible to Engels that, while
praising republicanism and the French socialists in Marseille, Kossuth
could yet pay his respects to Queen Victoria at Southampton. This
apparent contradiction prompted Engels to comment, ‘Kossuth is like the
Apostle Paul, all things to all men’. 8 It might, though, be argued that
Kossuth’s statement on this occasion, ‘It is ... a glorious sight to behold a
queen on the throne representing the principle of liberty’, was not only an
expression of gratitude but also an oblique attack on Franz Joseph, who
could hardly be described as either a constitutional monarch or a repre¬
sentative of the principle of liberty. 9

Marx and Engels were not the only voices of ill-will towards Kossuth.
Among others was The Times. It is worth noting a striking similarity
between Engels’s outburst, as given above, and The Times. Certainly, at
first sight, The Times seems rather complimentary: ‘No foreigner ever
made better speeches in this country; perhaps no man ever succeeded so
entirely in addressing another country in its own language; but Kossuth
has not only mastered our language, he has mastered the feelings of each
class, and the peculiarities, the prejudices, and the history of each town;
he has been all things to all men with the zeal and even the power of an
apostle’. 10 One can only speculate as to how Engels’s own words and
allusion, given previously in a private letter to Marx, could have found
their way into The Times.

Cobden regarded this and other numerous attacks on Kossuth in The
Times as a great affront. He wrote to Bright: ‘Are we to let him be slaugh¬
tered here by The Times , and stand silently by whilst worse than Turks are
assassinating him morally?’ * 11 With respect to the machinations of The
Times , even Lord Palmerston expressed views to the ambassador in
Vienna, instructing him ‘not to allow the Austrians to imagine that public
opinion in England is to be gathered from articles put to The Times by
Austrian agents in London’. 12

The beady eye of Marx, who had been in frequent contact with the
English Chartists, did not fail to note Kossuth’s reluctance to attend meet¬
ings of working men. Under pressure from his fellow exiles, Kossuth did

8 Engels to Marx, 27 October 1851, given in MEM, 27, p. 345; Marx, ‘Patrons and
Accomplices’, p. 216.

9 Authentic Life, p. 35.

10 The Times, 22 November 1851.

11 Morley, Life of Richard Cobden, 2, p. 103 (Cobden to Bright, 6 November 1851).

12 Evelyn Ashley, The Life of Henry Temple, Viscount Palmerston 1846-1865,
Second edition, 2 vols, London, 1876, 1, p. 139 (Palmerston to Ponsonby,
9 September 1849).

Klara Kingston-Tiszai

215

in fact go to a few such meetings but he, nevertheless, always delivered
carefully prepared speeches. On two occasions, he departed from his
usual position and disavowed socialism. As he put it, socialism ‘is incon¬
sistent with social order and the security of property ... Believing then,
that — not from any merit, but from the state of my country — I may be
able somewhat to influence the course of the next European revolution, I
think right plainly to declare beforehand my allegiance to the great prin¬
ciple of security for personal property ’. 13

This statement was as fuel to the fire for the Chartist leaders, especially
for the poet-cum-joumalist, Ernest Jones. Marx, who evidently shied
away from attacking Kossuth himself, seized the opportunity to incite
Jones to assail Kossuth publicly, and Jones rose to the invitation. Jones’s
outbursts are worth citing since they also mirror Marx’s own outlook. It is
uncertain just how much information Marx passed on to Jones but it is
suggested in the letter Marx wrote to Engels, ‘E. Jones — using my letter
— mercilessly attacked Kossuth ’. 14

Jones’s claims were, however, so ridiculous and extravagant as not to
be taken seriously. He wrote, ‘M. Kossuth tells us, “he will influence the
great European revolutions, giving them an anti-social direction”. Of
course he phrases his declaration of war against SOCIAL RIGHT, under
the guise and cover of “security to property” ... I tell him they are not to
be cut down to the intellectual and social standrard of an obscure semi-
barbarous people, like the Magyars, still standing in the half-civilization
of the sixteenth century, who actually presume to dictate the great enlight¬
enment of Italy, Germany and France, and to gain a false-won cheer from
the gullibility of England ’. 15

One may speculate as to the motives behind this attack. It is possible
that Marx and Jones considered it unacceptable that Kossuth should ever
succeed in winning the workers to the side of ‘the inevitable European
revolution’ and that he should become the leading spokesman of Euro¬
pean liberty. Marx could not conceive other than that he and his closest
followers had an exclusive right to preach authoritatively on revolution,
freedom, democracy and ‘a new world order’. In this respect, it is not
surprising that Marx’s antagonism extended beyond Kossuth to embrace a
variety of other revolutionary democrats.

13 F. W. Newman, Select Speeches of Kossuth, London, 1853, pp. 5-6.

14 Marx to Engels, 1 December 1851, given in MEM, 27, p. 353.

15 Ernest Jones, ‘Kossuth and Hungary, “What is Kossuth?” Notes to The People, 2,
1851, no 26, pp. 501-889 (p. 606).

216

Kossuth in Exile and Marx

When Kossuth departed for the United States, Marx did not miss the
opportunity to express his profound contempt for the revolutionary demo¬
crats, including the German Gottfried Kinkel, the French Alexandre Ledru-
Rollin as well as Giuseppe Mazzini. As he quipped, ‘these gentlemen had
gone to sleep after deciding to suspend world history until Kossuth’s
return’. 16 Commenting on Kossuth’s departure for America, Marx wrote to
Engels, ‘You do know that Kossuth left on the 20 th , but you don’t know yet
that he was accompanied by Lola Montez and the cavalier Gohringer’. 17

Lola Montez, a dancer and former mistress of the Bavarian King
Ludwig I, was indeed on board the same ship, but not as a member of
Kossuth’s entourage. After numerous attempts she succeeded in
approaching Kossuth with the following words, ‘Commander, in your
next war with Austria give me a hussar regiment!’ Instead of Kossuth, his
trusted friend, Ferenc Pulszky, replied, ‘Of course, Mademoiselle. I am
sure nothing less would satisfy you’. 18 For his part, Gohringer, a former
German revolutionary and innkeeper in London, was an admirer of
Kossuth. Leaders of the various revolutionary committees frequented his
inn where they laid their plans for a rising led by Mazzini and Kossuth. 19
Apparently Marx owed Gohringer money for meals that he had not paid
for. Marx, ever the materialist, expressed his dismay that his debt, once
discharged, might be used to finance the next revolution. 20

Nor did The Times miss the opportunity to comment sarcastically on
Kossuth’s departure: ‘M. Kossuth is a person of no inconsiderable ability,
as his addresses testify; but after serving the purposes of his political
Bamums, he will be ultimately carried off to America along with Kate
and Ellen Bateman, the woolly horse, and other public notorieties’. 21

The intense political rivalry, which engulfed the whole of America
during the campaign for the 1852 presidential election, put Kossuth in a
difficult situation. Almost all parties sought to exploit his immense popu¬
larity, and the Young America movement adopted his tenet of ‘interven¬
tion for non-intervention’ in their agitation for the abolition of slavery. As
Kossuth had originally meant it, ‘intervention for non-intervention’ was
an appeal to America to stop Russia from interfering in Hungary’s affairs
in the event of an armed conflict breaking out again between Hungary and

16 Marx to Engels, 9 December 1851, given in MEM, 27, p. 359.

17 Marx to Engels, 24 November 1851, given in ibid., p. 348.

18 Ferenc Pulszky, Eletem es korom, 2 vols, Budapest, 1884, 2, p. 71.

19 D. Janossy, A Kossuth-emigracio Angliaban es Amerikaban 1851-1852 , 2 vols,
Budapest, 1944, 2, part 2, p. 945.

20 Marx to Engels, 13 October 1851, given in MEM, 17, p. 335.

21 The Times, 29 October 1851.

Klara Kingston-Tiszai

217

Austria. Whereas the abolitionists in the North hoped that Kossuth would,
as a representative of liberty, denounce slavery, the anti-abolitionists in
the South expected him to argue for non-intervention in their affairs by
the federal government. 22 Kossuth, however, sided with neither party.

Marx, who watched Kossuth’s progress in America like a hawk,
misrepresented him in print while, typically, refusing to identify his
sources: ‘Kossuth’s performance in the United States, where he spoke
against slavery in the North and for slavery in the South, left behind
nothing but a great sense of disappointment and 300 dead speeches’. 23
With regard to the issue of slavery, however, Kossuth made his position
absolutely clear at a gathering in New Orleans: ‘What have I to do with
abolitionism or anti-abolitionism? Nothing in the world. That is not my
matter; I am no citizen of the United States, I have neither the right nor
the will to interfere with your domestic concerns; I claim for my nation
the right to regulate its own institutions; I therefore must respect, and
indeed I do respect, the same right in others’. 24

All the while, Marx was busy collecting incriminating evidence
against Kossuth. Evidently, he had already come across some. To his
friend Adolph Cluss, Marx briefly alluded to ‘the putsch plans of
Mazzini, Kossuth etc’, 25 and to Engels he wrote, ‘I expect they intend to
commence it in Sicily’. 26 In both cases, Marx was referring to the insur¬
rection planned for Milan which eventually broke out in February 1853.
Marx had, however, no knowledge of plans for a parallel rising in
Hungary, scheduled for the end of 1852. This second plan was known to
the Austrian secret service, which duly frustrated the attempt. The
Austrians had, however, no knowledge of one of Kossuth’s secret agents
in Italy, a certain General Vetter. 27 Marx, nevertheless, named Vetter in
one of his articles, thus betraying his secret mission. 28

Following this revelation, Marx more or less ignored Kossuth until
1858. In that year he launched a vicious campaign aimed at proving
Kossuth’s collusion with Russia, which has gone down in history as the

22 Pulszky, Eletem es korom, 2, pp. 77-8; D. S. Spencer Louis Kossuth and Young
America 1848-1852, London, 1977, p. 103 (hereafter, Spencer, Louis Kossuth).

23 Marx, ‘Patrons and Accomplices’, given in MEW, 17, p. 217.

24 Spencer, Louis Kossuth, p. 149.

25 Marx to Cluss, 10 May 1852, given in MEM, 28, p. 492.

26 Marx to Engels, 6 May 1852, given in ibid., 28, p. 62.

27 Janossy, Kossuth emigracio, p. 917.

28 Marx, ‘Movements of Mazzini and Kossuth — League with Louis Napoleon —
Palmerston’, New York Tribune, 28 September 1852, given in MEW, 11, pp. 354-7
(p. 354).

218

Kossuth in Exile and Marx

‘Circassian affair’. 29 In this incident, Kossuth’s agent in Turkey, Janos
Bangya or Mehemet Bey, was accused by Marx of having betrayed the
cause of the Circassians to the Russians. Bangya was, as it turned out,
also a high-ranking officer in the British army and had been only
following British instructions. 30 Marx’s attempt to discredit Kossuth was
thus in turn discredited.

Then something came to Marx’s rescue: the 1859 war in Lombardy. On
this occasion, Kossuth and the majority of Hungarian emigres really did
‘ally themselves with the devil’, albeit in the unlikely shape of Louis Napo¬
leon. The alliance prompted Marx to launch the most vicious attack on
Kossuth and the Hungarian exiles. His contempt was most keenly
expressed in the following: ‘Voltaire, we know, kept four monkeys in
Femey [... and] needed these monkeys to draw off his bile, satisfy his
hatred and calm his fear of the weapons of polemics, just as much as Louis
Napoleon needs the monkeys of the revolution in Italy. And Kossuth,
Klapka, Vogt and Garibaldi too are fed, given golden collars, kept under
lock and key, cajoled or kicked, depending on whether hatred of the revolu¬
tion or fear of it predominates in the mood of their master’. 31

Kossuth’s role in the war for Lombardy is well documented and has been
extensively analysed. It turned out to be his own and the emigres’ last effort
aimed at achieving the liberation of Hungary with foreign help. And Marx’s
long battle with Kossuth also came virtually to an end with Villafranca. In
his pamphlet, Herr Vogt , published in 1860, Marx merely reiterated his
worn-out objections to the revolutionary activities of Kossuth and the exiles.

Marx, of course, never understood Kossuth nor the extent of support
which the Hungarian leader could always enlist, even in exile. Kossuth
rested his appeal, and derived his support, from a concept of the nation
which was inimical to Marx’s own understanding of the dynamics of revo¬
lution and of ‘progress’. Kossuth’s message had the capacity of mobilizing
the masses, which was something for which Marx could never forgive him.
As a consequence, Marx could counter Kossuth only by relying upon the
techniques of misrepresentation and of ‘tabloid-journalism’. The bank¬
ruptcy of Marx’s outlook never stood more starkly revealed than in his
criticisms of, and campaign against, Lajos Kossuth.

29 Marx, ‘A Traitor in Circassia’, The Free Press, no 34, April Fool’s Day, 1857,
given in MEW ' 15, pp. 236-7; New York Daily Tribune, 23 September 1858, given
in MEW, 16, pp. 21-7 (p. 21).

30 London, Public Records Office, FO 78, R1328, 19 June 1856 (Turkey. Records of
Correspondence, Mehemet Bey).

31 Marx, ‘Spree and Mincio’, Das Volk, 25 June 1859, given MEW, 16, pp. 380-1.

Kossuth in Exile

George Gomori

When Lajos Kossuth arrived in Southampton in 1851, two letters awaited
him. One was from Lord Palmerston and included a private invitation to
the Foreign Secretary’s estate; the second was from Mazzini, telling him
not to accept Palmerston’s invitation. Kossuth put both letters in his
pocket and proceeded to make a speech to the citizens of Southampton.
This episode tells us much about Kossuth. He was his own master and he
adapted himself to the demands of the situation rather than to what was
expected of him by other politicians. His answer to Palmerston was, inci¬
dentally, the correct one: he would meet the English statesman only if
invited officially as Governor of Hungary. As this was not the case in
1851, the meeting between the two men took place only later, after
Kossuth’s return from America.

There is much truth in Engels’s observation that Kossuth was Tike the
Apostle Paul, all things to all men’. Kossuth was a consummate politician
who could address royalists and republicans in an equally convincing
manner. One thing is certain: he was and remained a liberal all his life.
Radicals belonging to other nationalities were often disappointed by his
conduct, especially after 1859 when he showed himself ready to meet
Napoleon III in order to give Hungarian support to the French in the war
agains> Austria. (There were at this time 4,000 Hungarians in Italy, most
of them prisoners of war, ready to join the Hungarian Legion and march
back to Hungary. They all hailed and followed Kossuth, but following
Villafranca the unit was disbanded). After 1859, neither Mazzini nor
Ledru-Rollin would have anything to do with Kossuth; on the other hand,
however, he continued to be admired by Cavour and Garibaldi.

As for the Hungarian emigration, the attacks on Kossuth in British and
American newspapers by Kazmer Batthyany and Bertalan Szemere in
1851-52 created much division and rancour. One of the best-informed
emigres, Laszlo Teleki (who was critical of Kossuth in several respects)
realized that whoever attacked Kossuth publicly also harmed the cause of
independent Hungary. It was not, however, Teleki but another emigre,

219

220

Kossuth in Exile

Janos Czetz who in a letter from Paris went so far as to claim that
‘Kazmer and Berci [i.e. Szemere] are trying by every means to make a
Polish club of the Hungarian emigration’. Czetz alluded here to the
squabbles between Polish conservatives and democrats who often refused
to sit down at the same table when representing Poland on international
committees. As for Klapka, he might have had an axe to grind against
Kossuth, yet he was also ready to cooperate with Kossuth in 1859 when
Hungarian interests required cooperation of this sort. 1 The same was true
of Laszlo Teleki who often wrote that Kossuth loathed listening to criti¬
cism and only got along with flatterers. In most of his letters to Klapka,
Teleki refers to Kossuth by the nickname of Rengeteg, which could mean
either ‘enormous’ or ‘a vast forest’. He wrote on one occasion, ‘Rengeteg
rengetegebb, mint valaha’ (literally, ‘The enormous one is more enor¬
mous than ever’). In other words, Teleki recognized that, personal sympa¬
thies and aversions notwithstanding, Kossuth was a politician on a ‘large
scale’ and that, for better or worse, he was the most important representa¬
tive of Hungary abroad. This changed after 1861, and even more so after
the Compromise of 1867, but until then whoever attacked Lajos Kossuth
in public did, arguably, a disservice to Hungary.

Finally, a point about Kossuth and Jelacic. While Jelacic was and
remained a provincial Croatian hero, Kossuth grew in emigration from a
national figure into an international hero, acclaimed on both sides of the
Atlantic. From a spokesman of the Hungarian cause, he was transformed
into one of the great liberal heroes of the age. Neither he nor Jelacic saw
their hopes realized in their own lifetime, but Kossuth left behind a more
lasting legacy.

1 When Kossuth was in Vidin, he rather foolishly assigned the post of commander of
Komarom to an adventurer called Henningsen, but Klapka acted more quickly by
agreeing with the Austrians to negotiate the terms of the castle’s surrender.

Marketing Hungary:

Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Tibor Frank

During his years in exile after 1849, Lajos Kossuth made, almost single-
handed, a formidable contribution to the cause of Hungary: he put the idea of
his native country as a prospective political entity on the map of Europe.
Pioneering methods of modem public relations and political marketing, he
built up Hungary as a political construct, a product to be ‘sold’ by his unflag¬
ging, unstoppable propaganda, a public relations effort to win the goodwill
of the English-speaking peoples whose political support seemed to him
essential in pursuing the struggle for Hungarian freedom and independence.

Kossuth used his reading of English, particularly Shakespeare, to
construct a myth in the course of the nineteenth century and this became
something of a literary topos itself, virtually Shakespearean in nature. It
presented Kossuth as a hero who chose freedom in his solitary confine¬
ment by reading, studying, and translating the works of Shakespeare, the
bard of the freedom-loving English (and American) people. Thus, through
a process of ‘sliding transitions’, Shakespeare became a metaphor, identi¬
fied with freedom itself, and found his place both in Kossuth lore and in
the realm of international political symbolism. 1

Hungarian interest in England and the English language increased greatly
in the late eighteenth century. In his diary for 1787, Count Ferenc

1 Recent publications have already suggested that Kossuth’s much-quoted account of
the origins of his English is a myth, see Agnes Deak, ‘Ket ismeretlen Kossuth
dokumentum’, Holmi, 1994, p. 834; Gabor Pajkossy, cserebe nyertem egesz
kesobbi eletemet:’ Kossuth es fogsaga’”, in Istvan Orosz and Ferenc Poloskei, eds,
Nemzeti es tarsadalmi atalakulas a XIX. szazadban Magyarorszagon.
Tanulmanyok Szabad Gyorgy 70. sziiletesnapjara , Budapest, 1994, pp. 164-65.

221

222 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Szechenyi noted that the influence of British culture had become espe¬
cially noticeable on the continent after the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The
impact was powerful and widespread, he added: ‘Man fing an sich nach
England zu kleiden, lemte seine Muttersprache, und ass seine Nationals-
peise’. 2 During the Napoleonic Wars, the influence of English life, atti¬
tudes, ideas and customs became even more marked, particularly in
countries allied to Britain against France, such as the Habsburg Empire of
which Hungary was part. Vienna became a focal point of interest in
Britain, and it was often there that travelling Hungarian noblemen such as
Gergely Berzeviczy learned to appreciate the qualities of the English
constitution, government, industry and commerce. ‘England ist sicher das
interessanteste Land der Welt, sowohl was die Nation, die Verfassung
und Regierung, die Industrie und den Handel betrifft.’ 3

At the end of the 18th century, members of the Hungarian nobility
began to study English, using grammars and dictionaries available in
German or Latin. 4 Count Gyorgy Festetics considered a knowledge of
English so important that he included it in his study plan for his son
(1799). 5 Count Laszlo Teleki [III] gave similar advice to the tutor of his
three sons, arguing that knowledge of English was greatly needed, not
necessarily to speak it, but to understand the growing number of impor¬
tant books in that language. 6 One of his sons, Count Jozsef, was to
become the first president of the Hungarian Academy. These instructions
were also consulted by Baroness Ilona Cserei-Wesselenyi for the educa¬
tion of her son Miklos, an aristocratic mentor of and model for Kossuth. 7
The study of English went so far, in aristocratic circles at least, that Count
Aurel Dessewffy considered it simply a matter of fashion which,
however, ‘did not go beyond some conversation in English with the horse

2 Ferenc Szirbik, Az angol nyelv terjeszkedese Magyarorszagon 1914-ig, Debreceni
angol dolgozatok, IV, Kecskemet, 1941, p. 11.

3 Aladar Berzeviczy, Aus den Lehr- und Wanderjahren eines ungarischen
Edelmannes im vorigen Jahrhunderte, Leipzig, 1897, pp. 60-61. Quoted by
Szirbik, op. cit., p. 11; cf. Eva H. Balazs, Berzeviczy Gergely, a reformpolitikus
(1763-1795), Budapest, 1967, pp. 124-6.

4 Emo Solymos, ‘Angol nyelvtanulas Magyarorszagon’, Studies in English
Philology, Vol. II, Budapest, 1937, pp. 126-7.

5 Vince Lakatos, ‘Festetics Gyorgy grof planuma fia neveleserol’ Magyar Kozep-
iskola, 1910, pp. 227-30, esp. p. 228.

6 Count Laszlo Teleki, A nevelesrol , c.1780, Library of the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences, Budapest, MSS Collection: RUI 4r, 133/III, p. 47 [p. 24]. Cf. Sandor
Imre, “Grof Teleki Laszlo Tanacsadasa a nevelesrol — Adalek a M. T. Akademia
elso elnokenek eletehez”, Protestans Szemle, 34, 1925, pp. 603-8.

7 Sandor Imre, op. cit., p. 606.

Tibor Frank

223

trainer and the stable-boy, and at best the reading of perhaps one or two
fashionable novels’. 8

It is to this generation of anglophile Hungarian aristocrats and
noblemen that the remarkable reformers of the 1820s and 1830s looked as
ideals and models to follow. 9 English literature in translation flourished,
with some of the very best literary talents striving to make English litera¬
ture available to Hungarians. 10

Encouraged by eminent authors and such influential journals as
Erdelyi Muzeum and Felsomagyarorszagi Minerva , the study of English
became the fashionable intellectual adventure of the new generation. For
some English visitors it amounted almost to Anglomania. A number of
language instructors appeared on the scene. * 11 The poet Mihaly Voros-
marty began to read Shakespeare in 1820, and collected his works. In
1822 he declared he had chosen ‘Shakespeare’s world as his home, so that
[...] we can shut out the clamour of the world outside’. 12

Members of the intellectual elite in Hungary commonly read Shakespeare
as early as the end of the eighteenth century. The Hungarian authors who
served as guards at this time in the court of Maria Theresa, such as Gyorgy
Bessenyei, studied Shakespeare alongside the works of Young and Milton.
Jozsef Karman wondered ‘whether Pannonia could be turned into England?
Is there among us a Newton, a Locke, a Shakespeare, a Milton [...] Begone,
you daring dream that deceives me with your delusive images’. 13 Though

8 Count Aurel Dessewffy, Osszes muvei, ed. Jozsef Ferenczy, Budapest, 1887,
p.328. Quoted by Gyula Komis, A magyar muvelodes eszmenyei 1777-1848 ,
Budapest, 1927, Vol. II, p. 446.

9 H. Balazs, op. cit., pp. 124-25.

10 Sandor Fest, Angol irodalmi hatasok hazankban Szechenyi Istvan fellepeseig,
Budapest, 1917, pp. 51-52.

11 Solymos, op. cit., p. 128. cf. Sandor Fest, ‘Adalekok az angol nyelv terfoglalasahoz
hazankban 1848 elott’, Egyetemes Philologiai Kozlony, 45, 1921, pp. 128-29;
Komis, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 443-47, 334-35. For English teachers in pre-1848
Hungary such as J. S. Zerffi and Imre Szabad, see Tibor Frank, From Habsburg
Agent to Victorian Scholar: G.G. Zerffi 1820-1892, New York, 2000, pp. 17-19;
Tibor Frank, Ethnicity, Propaganda, Myth-Making, Budapest, 1999, pp. 373-74.

12 Mihaly Vorosmarty, ‘Tesler baratomhoz’:

Shakespeare’ vilagat valasztjuk lakul,

Hogy, mig zajaval eltelik sziviink,

Ne halljuk itt a ‘kiilvilag’ zajat,

Melly edes almainkat elveri.

In: Vorosmarty Mihaly kisebb koltemenyei, Vorosmarty Mihaly, Osszes Muvei,
Vol. I, Budapest, 1960, p. 214.

13 Jozsef Karman, A nemzet csinosodasa, quoted by Sandor Mailer and Kalman
Ruttkay (eds.) Magyar Shakespeare-tiikor, Budapest, 1984, p. 65.

224 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

most English literature came to be known in Hungary through translations,
particularly German and French, editions of the original works also turned
up in the libraries of Hungarian aristocrats and well-informed members of
the gentry. 14

The most obvious case is Count Istvan Szechenyi, an aristocratic
reformer and the great rival of Kossuth, who took a very special interest
in England, read Macbeth and King Lear in Hungarian translation, and
mentioned the poet in several of his works such as Vilag [Light] and his
Kulfoldi uti rajzai [Foreign Travels]. Szechenyi frequented the theatre and
was particularly interested in productions of Shakespeare’s plays, such as
Julius Caesar in 1842 and Romeo and Juliet in 1847. 15 His diary contains
references to Hamlet , Romeo and Juliet , Macbeth , and other plays by
Shakespeare. 16 His library included a book on The Beauties of Shake¬
speare. 11 None the less, the authors he most frequently read were his own
great contemporaries, notably Goethe, Schiller, Byron and Scott. 18

The typical Hungarian aristocratic library included some English liter¬
ature in addition to Shakespeare, though the bulk of these collections
consisted of books in German, French and Latin. 19 Nevertheless, the
library of the Karolyi family, nurtured particularly by Count Gyorgy
Karolyi (1802-1877), included the complete works of Shakespeare in
various editions from the early nineteenth century (1826, 1829, 1838,
1844), as well as some Hungarian translations (Mihaly Vorosmarty,
18 5 6). 20 The remains of the English collection of another branch of the
Karolyi family, headed by Count Sandor Karolyi (an uncle and mentor of
Hungary’s post-World War I President Count Mihaly Karolyi), include
The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare in seven volumes (Leipzig,
1843—44). 21 Some of the Karolyi collection, confiscated after Mihaly

14 For a general survey of Hungarian reading habits before 1848, see Geza Fiilop, A
magyar olvasokozonseg a felvilagosodas idejen es a reformkorban, Budapest,
1978, pp. 77-137.

15 Istvan Szechenyi, Naplo, Budapest, 1978, pp. 972, 1153.

16 Szechenyi, op. cit ., pp. 59-60, 72, 1315.

17 Laszlo Bartfai Szabo, Grof Szechenyi Istvan konyvtara, Budapest, 1923, p. 83.

18 Grof Szechenyi Istvan kulfoldi uti rajzai es foljegyzesei, ed. Antal Zichy, Budapest,
1890, pp. 282,285,286,291.

19 Szirbik, op. cit., p. 8.

20 ‘A nemzeti muvelodesi alapitvany tulajdonat kepezo Grof Karolyi-konyvtar
aukcioja’, Arveresi Kozlony , 18, Budapest, 1937, p. 68.

21 Currently in the Library of the School of English and American Studies, Eotvos
Lorand University, Budapest. Cf. Tibor Frank, ‘Bibliotheque du Comte Etienne
Karolyi’ in Gabor Ittzes and Andras Kisery eds., Mives semmisegek , Piliscsaba,
2002, pp. 349-56.

Tibor Frank

225

Karolyi’s trial in the 1920s, was auctioned off in 1932; these included the
complete works of Shakespeare in English (1820), as well as several
works in French translation (Alfred de Vigny, 1830). 22

The Zichy family library, founded by Bishop Count Domokos Zichy,
who also bought a number of smaller collections from outstanding literary
collectors, included the works of Shakespeare in German translation
(1826). 23 One of the most remarkable members of the nineteenth century
Hungarian aristocracy, Baron Jozsef Eotvos, read Shakespeare from the
1830s, and called him ‘the greatest poet in the world.’ 24 Most probably,
however, like so many of his contemporaries, Eotvos read Shakespeare in
German: A copy of Othello in German survived in his library for some
time. 25

The interest in foreign literature was so remarkable that Hungarian
aristocrats were often chided for their cosmopolitan, non-national intel¬
lectual outlook. More often than not, a critic noted in 1848, aristocratic
libraries in Hungary boasted ‘almost exclusively French and English
novels and historical works, and if a book by [Baron Miklos] Josika,
[Baron Jozsef] Eotvos and [Count Istvan] Szechenyi happens to wander
in between them this is simply because those authors belong to their own
class’. 26

While Hungarian aristocrats may have boasted only a fine copy of
Shakespeare in their libraries, authors such as Mihaly Vorosmarty, Jozsef
Bajza, Ferenc Toldy and Gabor Dobrentei were directly influenced by
Shakespeare. The history of the impact of Shakespeare on Hungarian
literature in the nineteenth century filled two large volumes as early as

22 ‘A M. Kir. Postatakarekpenztar arveresi csamokanak 1932. novemberi kiilon
aukcioja’, Arveresi Kozlony, 13, Budapest, 1932, pp. 63, 68. Book collector Gyula
Grexa identified this collection as formerly the property of Count Mihaly Karolyi.
I am indebted to antiquarian bookseller Mr. Emo Lorincz for this piece of
information, 1982.

23 ‘A bodakajtor-felsdszentivani Grof Zichy kastely konyvtara’, in ‘A M. Kir.
Postatakarekpenztar arveresi csamokanak 1938. evi kiilon aukcioja’, Arveresi
Kozlony, 19, Budapest, 1938, p. 219.

24 Jozsef Eotvos, Gondolatok, Budapest, 1903, quoted by Miklos Benyei, Eotvos
Jozsef olvasmdnyai, Budapest, 1972, p. 29.

25 Miklos Benyei, ‘Eotvos Jozsef konyvtara Doctoral Dissertation, Eotvos Lorand
University, Budapest, 1967, p. 94. Cf. Gabor Gango, ed., Eotvos Jozsef konyvtara,
Budapest, 1995, pp. 282-83.

26 Otto Csatari [pseudonym of Laszlo Telegdi Kovach], “Irodalmunk 1847. evi
termekei”, Pesti Divatlap, 1848, pp. 539-40; published in Mate Kovacs, ed. Konyv
es konyvtar a magyar tarsadalom eleteben az allamalapitastol 1849-ig, Budapest,
1963, p. 525.

226

Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

1909. 27 The great national poet Ferenc Kolcsey had his own copy of
Shakespeare and remarked that ‘it is only from the bosom of genius that
life pours forth with warmth: ordinary folk are cold and stunted forever’. 28
The fin-de-siecle Hungarian critic and literary historian Frigyes Riedl
went as far as to suggest that Shakespeare served as the great mentor of
Hungarian poets in the early nineteenth century. 29 Indeed, Shakespeare
had a tremendous impact on Vorosmarty’s poetry and drama, as well as
on Bajza’s aesthetics. 30

Both traditions, the aristocratic as well as the literary, were to have a
far-reaching impact on the class and the generation that nurtured
Hungary’s greatest nineteenth century statesman, Lajos Kossuth.

The Hungarian aristocracy, cosmopolitan through family connections and
travel, left a formidable imprint on the cultural behaviour, taste and sensi¬
bility of the educated members of the lesser gentry. Losing their ancient
estates, this social class formed a layer intermediate between the landed
nobility and the peasantry, creating what came closest to a middle class in
an essentially feudal social structure. 31 The aristocracy’s way of life and
thinking conditioned their lifestyle and mindset. Their ablest members
came to form Hungary’s missing professional elite, the outlook of which
was largely shaped by an increasingly significant Hungarian literary tradi¬
tion. 32 Lajos Kossuth was to play a special role at the interstices of several
of these traditions.

Kossuth was a typical representative of the lesser nobility, which
became a powerful political force in Hungary’s ‘Vormarz’ age of reform
(1825-1848). Though no longer possessing their lands, the Kossuth

27 Jozsef Bayer, Shakespeare dramai hazankban, Vols. 1-2, Budapest, 1909; cf. Peter
Davidhazi, ‘Isten mdsodsziildttje ’. A magyar Shakespeare-kultusz termeszetrajza,
Budapest, 1989, pp. 200-201, and also 77-195, 323.

28 Kolcsey to Pal Szemere, August 2, 1834, given in Mailer and Ruttkay, op. cit. p. 86.

29 Frigyes Riedi, Shakespeare es a magyar irodalom, Budapest, 1917, pp. 8, 14, 36;
cf. Laszlo Jakabfi, Az angol irodalom es a Vorosmarty-Bajza-Toldy triasz,
Budapest, 1941, pp. 52-3.

30 See Jakabfi, op. cit., pp. 18-35, 37-9, 40-41, 52-7, 74.

31 Domokos Kosary, Kossuth Lajos a reformkorban , Budapest, 1946, pp. 30-41;
Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians,
1848-1849, New York, 1979, pp. 3-9.

32 Fiilop, op.cit., pp. 183-95.

Tibor Frank

227

family maintained a certain intellectual standard and put special effort
into the education of young Lajos. 33 For role models the Kossuths had
several exemplars. The social class to which they belonged included a
number of eminent intellectuals such as Kossuth’s future personal physi¬
cian, Pal Almasi Balogh, who had a library of almost 50,000 volumes. 34
Ivan Nagy (1824-1898), an outstanding historian, considered it important
to collect not only Shakespeare, but also Milton, Byron, Dickens and
Thackeray. 35 A major representative of the same class, Hungary’s exiled
1849 Prime Minister Bertalan Szemere, possessed the complete works of
Shakespeare in his sizeable library in Paris. 36

The son of a lawyer and a lawyer himself, Kossuth was exceptionally
well-read in German, French, and English as a young man. German was
probably his first foreign language and he preferred to read books by
French and English authors also in German. 37

The lawyer became one of the leaders of ‘Young Hungary’, finding his
way into the Hungarian parliament where he became the editor of a
unique, handwritten parliamentary gazette, Orszdggyulesi TudosUasok.
Between 1832 and 1836, he published some 346 issues of what could be
called a Hungarian Hansard. In an era without a political press, Kossuth’s
venture became the sole advocate of Hungary’s budding national move¬
ment, the rallying point for the forces of political opposition to the system
of Mettemich and the Habsburgs. After 1836, he continued his paper as
Torvenyhatosagi Tudositasok, of which 23 numbers had appeared by the
time the government finally decided to close it down. 38 Kossuth was

33 Kosary, Kossuth Lajos a refofmkorban, pp. 18-9, 42-8, 58-60; Istvan Barta, A
fiatal Kossuth , Budapest, 1966, pp. 11-22; Gyorgy Szabad, Kossuth politikai
palyaja , Budapest, 1977, pp. 10-13.

34 Fulop, op. cit., p. 183.

35 Anna Kovacs, ‘Nagy Ivan konyvtara mint egy nemzedek muveltsegenek tiikore’, A
Nograd Megyei Muzeumok Evkonyve, VI, 1980, p. 130; Geza Fiilop, op. cit., pp.
206-207; Geza Fulop, ‘A videki kisbirtokos nemesseg konyvkulturaja a 18-19.
szazad fordulojan (A Skublics csalad zalaszentbalazsi konyvtara)’, Magyar
Konyvszemle, 90, 1974, p. 255.

36 Leltara az 1865ik evi marcz 21en Parisban elhunyt neh. Szemere Bertalanne
Jurkovits Leopoldine Asszonysag hagyatekahoz tartozo osszesjavaknak, Szemere
hagyatek, Fovarosi Leveltar, Budapest. Visszaallitott (Pesti) Varosi Torvenyszek
iratai, Hagyateki iratok (Szemere B.), 470/I-II/1866, IV. 1343/1-2, 65/a-66.

37 Kosary, Kossuth Lajos a reformkorban, p. 58; Kossuth Lajos iratai 1837. Majus —
1840. december, Kossuth Lajos osszes munkai, Vol. 7, ed. Gabor Pajkossy,
Budapest, 1989, p. 16.

38 Kosary, Kossuth Lajos a reformkorban , pp. 96, 131; Barta, pp. 183-99; Szabad,
pp. 26-37.

228

Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

captured in the Buda hills, charged with high treason and jailed for over
three years. In 1839 he was sentenced to four years altogether and freed
only in 1840 under the terms of an amnesty. 39

It was in the prison located in the ‘Jozsef military barracks on the
Castle Hill of Buda that Kossuth continued his studies in a variety of
disciplines and languages. He was hungry for books: his correspondence
with family and friends clearly demonstrates his voracious, almost insa¬
tiable appetite for reading. 40 The English language and the works of
Shakespeare were to some extent already known to the prisoner.
Kossuth’s later claim that he actually learned English in prison by trying
to read Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Macbeth seems to be an exagger¬
ation, even though in Britain and the United States after 1851 this was his
standard response to questions about the origins of his ability to speak
English. 41 In a letter to his mother dated May 10, 1837, early in his first
prison year, Kossuth asked for ‘my copy of Shakespeare, Walker’s
English Dictionary, together with the other little ragged dictionary, and
the grammars of Fin and Arnold, as well as Searl’s little book on correct
English pronunciation ,..’ 42 He recalled these books even fifteen years
later when addressing an American audience in 1852. 43 His references
suggest a measure of familiarity with those books; his friend Laszlo
Paloczy called him ‘Times Redactor’ already in a letter dated 1835,

39 For a recent, systematic treatment of Kossuth’s term in prison, see Pajkossy, op.cit.
(see above, note 1) pp. 157-74.

40 See esp. Kossuth to his mother, Buda, December 24, 1837, Orszagos Leveltar
[hereafter OL] R 90, I. 50, p. 23, Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 317; cf. pp. 75, 98-99,
102, 144-145, 147, 185, 210, 322, 413-14, 489, 509, 563; Kosary, ‘Kossuth
fogsaga’, Part I, Magyarsagtudomany, 2, 1943, pp. 242-44; Kosary, Kossuth Lajos
a reformkorban, pp. 173-75, 382; Szabad, op. cit., pp. 40-41; Aurel Pompery,
Kossuth Lajos 1837/39-iki hutlensegi perenek tortenete , Budapest, 1913,
pp. 149-50.

41 P. C. Headley, The Life of Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, Auburn, 1852,
pp. 48—49. Cf. Szabad, pp. 13, 41, op. cit.; ‘Eloquence of Kossuth’, The Eclectic
Magazine (originally from The Athenaeum), February 1852 (New York, 1851),
p. 217. Cf. Pajkossy, op. cit., pp. 158-60.

42 Kossuth to his mother, Buda, May 10, 1837, in Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 75; see
Kosary, ‘Kossuth fogsaga’, Part I, p. 223.

I identified ‘Walker’ as A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and ‘Arnold’ as
Grammatica Anglicana oder Englische Grammatik Leipzig, 1782; Vienna, 1793
for Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 75, note 4. This grammar was popular in Hungary (also
found in the library of the author Sandor Kisfaludy); cf. Solymos, ‘Angol
nyelvtanulas Magyarorszagon’, p. 126. Kossuth did indeed receive the books, with
the exception of Searl: cf. Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 98, note 1.

43 Headley, op.cit., p. 49.

Tibor Frank

229

clearly an indication of his special relationship with the British paper and
the English language. 44 In a letter to his mother late in 1837 he also
referred to his evaporating knowledge of French, explaining that ‘I have
been reading more in English for the last three years’. 45 His comment led
the historian Denes Janossy to believe that Kossuth ‘began his English
studies during the diet [of 1832-1836]’. 46 In a speech in Birmingham in
1852, Kossuth also made it clear that ‘... it is not only from today, but
from my early youth, [that] I have been spiritually connected with
Britannia’. 47 Though this was doubtless intended to please his audience, it
was essentially true and expressed his genuine sentiments.

The long list of English and American authors that Kossuth actually
read during his prison years suggests that it would be misleading to iden¬
tify Shakespeare as the sole source of his formidable knowledge of
English. During his long years in prison, Kossuth was an avid reader of a
number of books that surely helped shape his great oratorical powers. He
knew of, and most probably read, a number of seventeenth- and eight¬
eenth-century English works, among them Milton, Hudibras by Samuel
Butler, Pope’s The Dunciad, Addison’s tragedy Cato , The Vicar of Wake¬
field by Goldsmith, novels by Marryat and Bulwer-Lytton, the histories of
Gibbon, Hume, and John Lingard, as well as the poems of Byron. Of
American authors he knew The Alhambra and A Tour on the Prairies by
Washington Irving and The Prairie, The Spy, and Lionel Lincoln by
James Fenimore Cooper. 48 Like so many of his contemporaries, Kossuth
loved the Romantics of all nations, such as Georges Sand and Beranger,
and also enjoyed Goethe and Schiller. 49

Though Kossuth, as already stated, read some of his English and
American authors in German translation, 50 we have reason to believe that
his intimate knowledge of a variety of classical English authors, as well as

44 Szabad, op. cit., p. 41; cf. Kosary, Kossuth Lajos a refoi mkorban, p. 50.

45 Kossuth to his mother, December 24, 1837, OL, R 90,1. 50, p. 23, in Kossuth Lajos
iratai, p. 317.

46 Kossuth to his mother, December 24, 1837, OL, R 90,1. 50, p. 23, in Kossuth Lajos
iratai , p. 317; Denes A. Janossy, ‘Great Britain and Kossuth’, Archivum Europae
Centro-Orientalis, Vol. Ill, fasc. 1-3, Budapest, 1937, p. 4. Cf. Davidhazi, p. 107.

47 Headley, op. cit., p. 376.

48 Kossuth Lajos iratai, pp. 144-45, 147, 317, 609; Gr. Szechenyi Ist\’dn iroi es
hirlapi vitaja Kossuth Lajossal, Vol. I., ed. Gyula Viszota, Budapest, 1927, Vol. VI,
(1841-43), pp. 685-89.

49 Kossuth Lajos iratai, pp. 144, 147, 317, 321; Gr. Szechenyi Istvan iroi es hirlapi
vitaja Kossuth Lajossal, pp. 685-89.

50 Kossuth to his mother, December 24, 1837, OL R 90,1. 50, p. 23, in Kossuth Lajos
iratai, p. 317.

230 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

his remarkable familiarity with the language of both English and Amer¬
ican Romantics, strongly contributed to the vocabulary, the grammar and
style of his English in the 1850s and early 1860s.

Yet, during his exile of over four decades, Kossuth himself remem¬
bered and identified Shakespeare as the single source of his English, as
his only ‘teacher’, and attributed his success solely to the bard. Late in his
career Kossuth claimed that it was his careful reading and translating of
the first few lines of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that gave him his introduc¬
tion to the English language. 51 Elsewhere he seems to have suggested The
Tempest as his chief source, though he may have been simply
misquoted. 52 As always, he was a meticulous student: ‘1 have a certain
rule never to go on in reading anything without perfectly understanding
what I read; so I went on, and by and by became somewhat familiar with
your language’, was how Kossuth in 1852 remembered his reading of The
Tempest on which he ‘worked for a fortnight to get through the first
page’. 53 Much later, in 1878, he recalled the first 16 lines of Macbeth
which he spent several months with in order to study the language. 54

As far as Macbeth is concerned, Kossuth’s intimate knowledge of the
tragedy is fully documented by his outstanding translation of the first five
scenes, not published until 1934. 55 The author of one of the very first
‘modem’ translations of Shakespeare in nineteenth-century Hungary,
Kossuth proved to be a pioneer for a generation of Shakespeare transla¬
tors. Though Ferenc Kazinczy translated Hamlet (via German) in 1790
and Gabor Dobrentei preceded Kossuth with his own translation of
Macbeth in 1830, 56 most of the classic translations came well after
Kossuth: Julius Caesar (1839) and King Lear (begun in 1847) by Mihaly
Vorosmarty; Coriolanus (1848) by Sandor Petofi; A Midsummer Night’s
Dream (begun in 1858) by Janos Arany. 57 Kossuth actually abandoned his

51 Pal Kiraly, ‘Latogatas Kossuthnal’, Vasarnapi Ujsag, 1878, No. 37, pp. 589-90.
Cf. Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 606, note 3.

52 Headley, p. 49.

53 Ibid.

54 Kiraly, pp. 589-90.

55 Geza H. Kiss, ‘Kossuth Lajos Macbeth forditasa’, Budapesti Szemle, 234, 1934,
pp. 75-90. The translation was recently published in full by Gabor Pajkossy in
Kossuth Lajos iratai , pp. 593-606. cf. Kosary, ‘Kossuth fogsaga’. Part I, p. 242.

56 Mailer and Ruttkay, eds., pp. 58-63, 77-84; Miklos Szenczi, Tibor Szobotka, Anna
Katona, Az angol irodalom tortenete, Budapest, 1972, p. 139; Kossuth Lajos iratai ,
p. 593.

57 Bayer; Kalman Ruttkay, ‘Klasszikus Shakespeare-forditasaink’, in: Laszlo Kery,
Laszlo Orszagh, Miklos Szenczi, eds., Shakespeare-tanulmanyok, Budapest, 1965,
pp. 26-55; Davidhazi, pp. 104-10.

Tibor Frank

231

version of Macbeth upon learning of Gabor Dobrentei’s 1830 transla¬
tion. 58

Incomplete as it was, Kossuth’s Macbeth was a forerunner of these
classics that came to define Shakespeare for Hungarians for almost a
century. 59 Though obviously dated and laden with antiquated elements of
vocabulary and style, Kossuth’s Macbeth is powerful and impassioned. It
is no exaggeration to suggest that his extensive and rich Hungarian vocab¬
ulary helped him match the flavour of the original. Spirited at times,
awkward at others, Kossuth’s text is still understandable, even enjoyable
today. Kossuth was not a poet, and he never seriously considered himself
one. 60 Yet his Macbeth had a number of genuinely poetic lines, particu¬
larly where the Witches chant spells. He was able to create characters that
fully served Shakespeare’s intentions and helped express the intensely
dramatic qualities of the tragedy. Kossuth seems to have understood
Shakespeare’s imagery and often cleaved closely to the original, with a
rare ability to translate abstract ideas into images. 61

In his private correspondence, as well as in his Hungarian journalism,
Kossuth made a series of references to Macbeth and often quoted from
Shakespeare in his own translation. 62 Other plays by Shakespeare mentioned
in Kossuth’s letters from the prison years include A Midsummer Night’s
Dream and The Tempest. 63 He found the farewell scene in Romeo and Juliet
“divinely beautiful” and a perfect example of the ‘ poesie descriptive ’ which
he thought, however, was ‘a unique tour de force even for Shakespeare’. 64
Nonetheless, he was not uncritical of the English poet, whose histories, and
particularly their historical scenes, he dismissed as the ‘least successful’. 65

58 Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 593, note 1.

59 For the history of Macbeth in nineteenth-century Hungary, see Bayer, Vol. I,
pp. 234-72.

60 For an ironic reference to his ability to write poetry, see Kossuth to his mother,
Buda, February 24, 1839, in Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 609.

61 Cf. Hippolyte Taine, Histoire de la litterature anglaise, Paris, 1863, Vol. II,
pp. 93-102; Antal Szerb, A vilagirodalom tortenete , Budapest, 1941, Vol. I, p. 346.

62 Kossuth to his mother, Buda, May 5, 1838; Kossuth’s article for Jelenkor, No. 64,
1840, which was identified by Pajkossy partly on the basis of a reference to
Macbeth', several of his articles for Pesti Hirlap, 1841-42, in Kossuth Lajos iratai,
pp. 403, 606 (note 3), 647.

63 Kossuth to Pal Almasi Balogh, Buda, March 15, 1840; Kossuth to Komelia
Vachott, Parad, July 21, 1840, in Kossuth Lajos iratai, pp. 620, 643.

64 Kossuth to his father and mother, Buda, May 20, 1838, OL: R 90,1. 50; in Kossuth
Lajos iratai, p. 412.

65 Kossuth to his mother, Buda, September 27, 1838, OL: R 90, I. 49, p. 106; in
Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 493.

232

Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Though it seems little short of a miracle, by the time an amnesty set
him free in 1840, Kossuth was equipped with some command of English.
He had studied a number of British and American authors, and acquired a
feel for the structure and rhythm of the English sentence. It was not
Shakespeare’s poetry and music alone that he found spell-binding: Shake¬
speare had obviously taught him much about interpersonal relations,
about power, influence and politics. Bom and bred in early nineteenth-
century Hungary, his intellectual horizons were extended by his literary
pursuits. Also, given his deep interest in drama and the theatre, 66 he was
obviously greatly affected by the theatrical in Shakespeare and several
other dramatists, and it is very likely that his reading contributed to the
much-debated histrionics of his later public appearances. Based exclu¬
sively on his reading of classical English and American authors, and
chiefly on his intimate knowledge of Shakespearean tragedies, Kossuth’s
English was now able to support his political role in the English-speaking
world. Kossuth, with his popularity riding high after the martyrdom of the
prison years, 67 was ready to put the language of Shakespeare to political
use.

Ill

Evidence of his knowledge was slow in coming. He had never been to
Britain or the United States before being forced to choose exile after the
defeat of the Hungarian revolution and War of Independence in 1849. He
was 49 when he first arrived in England and had never had an opportunity
to speak to large audiences in a language other than his native one. Not
even during his longish stay in Turkey did he have ‘much opportunity to
study English’. 68 Speaking at a legislative banquet in Faneuil Hall in
Boston on April 30, 1852, he remembered the state of his English before
his arrival at Southampton:

66 Kossuth to his mother, Buda, February 11, 1838, in Kossuth Lajos iratai,
pp. 321-25.

67 Kosary, ‘Kossuth fogsaga’, Part II, p. 430.

68 Kossuth’s Address at Faneuil Hall, Boston, April 30, 1852. Published in Kossuth in
New England: A Full Account of the Hungarian Governor’s Visit to Massachusetts,
with His Speeches, and the Addresses That Were Made to Him, Boston, 1852,
p. 106. Cf. Denes Janossy (ed.) A Kossuth-emigracio Angliaban es Amerikaban,
Vol. I, Budapest, 1940, p. 371.

Tibor Frank

233

Just to show how little I knew of English, my friend and representative in
London, Mr. Pulszky [...], can bear testimony that, a few weeks before I came
to Southampton, I sent him a dispatch, written in English, a part of which it was
necessary to publish; and he, not considering himself authorized to alter it, was
somewhat embarrassed, because it was written in such a bad manner. 69

In a speech at Winchester in 1852 he spoke of the ‘double difficulty to
address you connectedly in English’. 70 And yet he soon overcame his
difficulties and realized ‘what an instrument in the hand of Providence
became my little knowledge of the English language which I was obliged
to learn, because forbidden to meddle with politics’. 71 It was in the United
States that he came to appreciate the ultimate meaning and significance of
his prison years, increasingly seeing them as having been a time for
contemplation and preparation. 72

Upon arriving in England and, somewhat later, in the United States,
Kossuth was called upon to address large audiences on innumerable occa¬
sions. 73 He saw his role as an advocate of Hungary’s freedom and inde¬
pendence and soon became one of the most influential orators of the
period. In just six months in 1851-1852 he gave over 600 public speeches
in the United States alone. His public and his critics were amazed at his
sonorous oratory and cadences, his original and complex imagery, the
force of his reasoning, the power of his intellect, the full display of his
unparalleled talent on what then amounted to a world stage. 74 A contem¬
porary went so far as to describe his ‘power unequalled by any departed
or living orator’. 75 Not even ‘the idioms of foreign languages’ that he
used, which Harriet Beecher Stowe complained about, seemed to trouble
his enthusiastic audiences. 76

69 Kossuth’s Address at Faneuil Hall, Boston, April 30, 1852, in Kossuth in New
England, p. 106.

70 Headley, p. 330.

71 Headley, p. 49.

72 Gabor Pajkossy, ‘Eloszo’, Kossuth Lajos iratai, p. 17; Pajkossy, ‘... cserebe
nyertem ...’ p. 160.

73 Denes Janossy, ed., A Kossuth-emigracio Angliaban es Amerikaban, Vol. I-II/1-2,
Budapest, 1940, 1944, 1948; Janossy, Great Britain and Kossuth; John H. Komlos,
Louis Kossuth in America 1851-52, Buffalo, 1973; Joseph Szeplaki, ed., Louis
Kossuth ‘The Nation’s Guest’, Ligonier, PA, 1976; Gyorgy Szabad, ‘Kossuth and
the Political System of the United States of America,’ Studia Historica Academiae
Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 106, Budapest, 1975, pp. 5-31.

74 Janossy, Great Britain and Kossuth, pp. 85-86, 96-97, 99, 101.

75 Headley, p. 302.

76 Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, London, 1854,

p. 182.

234 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Once in exile, Kossuth continued to read and collect the best of English
and American literature. He built up a very sizeable library of some
2,500-3,000 volumes where, in addition to several editions of Shakespeare,
English literature was copiously represented through some 250 volumes.
Dominated by the English Romantics, the collection included poets such as
Wordsworth, Byron, Bums and W.S. Landor, and novelists such as Walter
Scott, the Bronte sisters, Thackeray, Bulwer-Lytton, and Disraeli. Amer¬
ican authors of belles-lettres in Kossuth’s rich exile library included Wash¬
ington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Fenimore Cooper and
Longfellow. 77 Yet, notwithstanding his varied reading matter, the general
impression Kossuth always gave was that he spoke essentially the language
of Shakespeare. Kossuth himself identified English, even American
English, as ‘Shakespeare’s language’ when he exclaimed in Boston in
April 1852: ‘Spirit of American eloquence, frown not at my boldness, that I
dare abuse Shakespeare’s language in Faneuil Hall! It is a strange fate, not
my choice.’ 78 He capitalized on this theme, and was remembered for it even
after he died by contemporaries such as George S. Boutwell, governor of
Massachusetts in 1851-52. 79 He often spoke about the origins of his
English, particularly in England, and memories of his prison experiences
were given wide circulation.

Speaking at Faneuil Hall, Kossuth recalled the story of his imprison¬
ment and implied that the origins of his English should be traced back to
his prison years. This, in fact, may be considered the birth of what devel¬
oped into a personal myth structuring the ties between his personal
martyrdom and his English, the language of Shakespeare and freedom,
liberty and the English-speaking nations, his mission and the free world
of Great Britain and the United States, and, in the following lines, his
knowledge of the English language as a service to his country. 80

I was sent to prison, and was for one year deprived of all intellectual food; until,
at last, when permitted to select books, I was ordered to have nothing about
politics. Well, indeed, not conscious of what I did, but remembering the treas¬
ures hidden in the English language — treasures of knowledge and of science
—, I told them to give me an English Dictionary and Shakespeare. These could
have nothing to do with politics. Look what came out of that fact! — not that

77 Lajos Kossuth, Konyv Lajstrom Vol. I, Turin, Majus [8,] 1864, pp. 8-16; National
Szechenyi Library, Budapest, MSS Collection: Oct. Hung. 1064/1.

78 Kossuth in New England , p. 87.

79 George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, New York,
1902, Vol. I, p. 208.

80 Legislative Banquet in Honor of Kossuth, Faneuil Hall, Boston, April 30, 1852,
Kossuth in New England , pp. 106-07.

Tibor Frank

235

with my bad English I could contribute anything to knowledge, intellect or
righteous sentiment; but, if I did not know what little English I speak, I would
not have been received as I have been in England or America, ... 81

Kossuth’s case comes very close to what social psychologists describe as
the ‘mythological transformation of autobiography’ in an attempt to make
it fit existing patterns of life strategies. 82

During his American tour, Kossuth reinforced this message a number
of times. ‘What little English I know, I learned from your Shakespeare’,
he declared to his audience in Salem’s Lyceum Hall in late April 1852. 83
In June he quoted Hamlet in the Broadway Tabernacle in New York.
Even at the turn of the century, many Americans remembered Kossuth’s
connection with Shakespeare. William Roscoe Thayer noted in his
memoirs published in 1899, ‘He was sentenced to a further confinement
of four years, during which his great solace was the study of Shake¬
speare’. 84 ‘His English’, Parke Godwin recalled in 1895, shortly after
Kossuth’s death,

was not so much our modem every-day English as the English of the Elisa-
bethan age. He had learned it, you know, while he was in prison, from Shake¬
speare and the Bible, and it had in it at times the sinewy strength, the rounded
fullness, the majestic roll of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor. Indeed, it was curious
to listen to idioms that were like the idioms which the master poet of mankind
has put in the mouth of Brutus when he pleaded for the liberties of Rome, or in
the mouth of the banished Lea.r when he discoursed with the elements and made
oak-cleaving thunderbolts the vehicles and companions of his passion. 85

Yet to others, his speeches gave the impression of ‘a scholar who had
mastered the English language by the aid of books. His idiomatic expres¬
sions were few’. 86 Nonetheless, his career was generally remembered by
contemporary American statesmen as ‘a meteoric display in political
oratory, such as the world does not often witness’. 87

81 Ibid.

82 Agnes Hankiss, ‘“En-ontologiak” (Az elettortenet mitologikus athangolasa)’, in
Tibor Frank and Mihaly Hoppal, eds, Hiedelemrendszer es tarsadalmi tudat,
Budapest, 1980, Vol. II, pp. 30-38.

83 Kossuth in New England, p. 187.

84 William Roscoe Thayer, Throne-Makers , Boston & New York, 1899, repr. 1927,
p. 89. Kossuth K. 2751/22, Istvan Huzianyi Collection, National Szechenyi
Library, Budapest.

85 Parke Godwin, Commemorative Addresses, New York, 1895, pp. 132-33.

86 Boutwell, Reminiscences, p. 213.

87 Ibid., p. 214.

236 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Kossuth’s reception in England was sometimes controversial and the
mere mention of Shakespeare always offered a convenient rallying point.
Kossuth knew how to choose the words of Shakespeare when praising
Britain’s power in a Birmingham address of 1852:

Full well I know that Britannia, with the mighty trident in her powerful hands,
is fully entitled — even more entitled than of yore — to proclaim with your
great Shakspeare —

This England never did, nor ever shall,

Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror.

I know this very well,

he added. 88

As a popular biography of the Hungarian governor suggested in 1852,
‘... with the companionship of Shakspeare, he mastered the mysterious
harp of the human heart, whose chords he has touched so well’. 89 ‘In
England’, the biographer later continued, ‘men who have heard the
eloquence of parliament for half a century, and could listen motionless to
advocates whose fame is wide as the empire, while making juries weep,
have felt their pulses leap to the sound of his voice. They describe his
eloquence as “Shakespearean”, “Miltonian”, and “most thrilling’”. 90 The
reviewer for The Athenaeum also gave the full story of the prison years
and Shakespeare and explained with great enthusiasm:

Out of the great dramatist he learned our speech, our modes of thinking, our
national sentiments. Certain it is, that this extraordinary mastery over our
tongue has proved power to the Exile and to his cause. It was a sad blunder of
the Austrian police to give him Shakespeare for a prison companion! 91

To express the sentiments of ‘Englishmen of all parties’, the journalist
and author Douglas William Jerrold proposed a subscription for ‘a testi¬
monial taking the form of a fine copy of Shakespeare, inclosed in a shrine
...\ 92 Harriet Beecher Stowe recalled how this idea actually emerged:
‘There are those here in England who delight to get up slanders against

88 Headley, op. cit., pp. 392-93. Quoted from Shakespeare’s King John, Act V, Scene
7. Correctly: ‘never shall’ and ‘proud foot’.

89 Headley, op. cit., p. 50.

90 Ibid., p. 302.

91 ‘Eloquence of Kossuth’, p. 217.

92 Ibid, On the history of the 1851 subscription initiated in the Daily News by

Douglas Jerrold see E. H. Haraszti, Kossuth: Hungarian Patriot in Britain.
London-Budapest, 1994, pp. 29-31. For a recent, excellent treatment of the
Shakespeare presentation, see Agnes Deak, pp. 832-48. (See note 1 above).

Tibor Frank

237

Kossuth, and not long ago some most unfounded charges were thrown out
against him in some public prints. By way of counterpoise an enthusiastic
public meeting was held, in which he was represented with a splendid set
of Shakespeare.’ 93 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine was quick to report
the background of the ‘penny subscription [that was] commenced to
represent Kossuth with a copy of Shakespeare’s works, in a suitable
casket’. The Magazine quoted Douglas Jerrold as saying:

It is written in the brief history made known to us of Kossuth, that in an
Austrian prison he was taught English by the words of the teacher Shakespeare.

An Englishman’s blood glows with the thought that, from the quiver of the
immortal Saxon, Kossuth has furnished himself with those arrowy words that
kindle as they fly — words that are weapons, as Austria will know. There are
hundreds of thousands of Englishmen who would rejoice thus to endeavour to
manifest their gratitude to Kossuth for the glorious words he has uttered among
us, words that have been as pulses to the nation. 94

Kossuth was excited about the presentation. In a hitherto unpublished
letter, dated May 3, 1853, now in the Folger Shakespeare Library in
Washington, he turned to his political friend Charles Gilpin, M.P.,
revealing the political character of his interest in Shakespeare.

It is Tuesday already; and I have yet no communication about the ‘Shakespeare
presentation meeting[‘], at which you desired my presence from Friday next. —
Will it be indeed or not? What hour of the day? What is its particular character?

A large open meeting or a private one of a committee? Is it indeed to have a
political character or not? Am I expected to be present and to speak? What will
be the address which I am expected to answer? — about all this I know nothing
yet, 95

The presentation took place in London’s Tavern Hall on May 6, 1853. In
a major speech, carefully written for the occasion, Kossuth gave the
fullest and most spirited version of his encounter with Shakespeare.

And there I sat musing over it [= Shakespeare]. For months it was a sealed book
to me, as the hieroglyphs were long to Champol[l]ion, and as L[a]yard[’]s

93 Stowe, op.cit., p. 182.

94 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine , Vol. IV, 1852, p. 277. Copied by Istvan Gal,
courtesy of Gal’s family.

95 Kossuth to Charles Gilpin, Esq., 21 Alpha Road, Regents Park, May 3, 1853. The
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. I am greatly indebted to Peter
Davidhazi for drawing my attention to, and allowing me to use, this document
which he found in Washington, D.C. There is no record of Gilpin’s answer in the
Hungarian National Archives where most of his correspondence with Kossuth is
preserved.

238 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Assyrian monuments still are. But at last the light spread over me and I drank in
full cups with never quenched thirst, from that limpid source of delightful
instruction, and of instructive delight. Thus I leamt the little English I know. 96

By then his story was complete, burnished to glowing and openly serving
political ends. As he added to his audience of Londoners, he acquired
from the poet not only his English language skills, but also his knowledge
of politics:

But I leamt something more besides, I learned politics. What? politics from
Shakespeare? Yes, Gentlemen. What else are politics than philosophy to the
social condition of men? And what is philosophy but the knowledge of nature
and the human heart? And who ever penetrated deeper into the recesses of these
Mysteries than Shakespeare did? He furnished me the materials, contemplative
meditation wrought out the rest. 97

What was originally a personal myth now came to be the basis of a topos:
Shakespeare’s name became identified with Kossuth’s long preparation
for his role as an exiled spokesman for his country. In his 1853 speech in
the Tavern Hall he went as far as to identify Shakespeare unambiguously
as ‘that mute but eloquent teacher of mine’ and referred to his English as
‘your language (which) I leamt from him’. 98

The handsome seven-volume edition, complete with a biography of
Shakespeare, and personalized for Kossuth with his family coat of arms
embossed on the magnificent binding of all eight volumes, was presented
in an ingenious wooden replica of Shakespeare’s birthplace. As the small
plaque on the gift proudly and characteristically stated, it was ‘purchased
with 9,215 Pennies, Subscribed by Englishmen & Women, as a tribute to
Louis Kossuth who achieved his noble mastery of the English language to
be exercised in the noblest cause from the page of Shakespeare’. 99
Kossuth cherished the splendid gift of London workers, though for a time
it was relegated to a storage facility together with many of his less often
used books. In the late 1870s, however, his Hungarian visitors were
deeply impressed to see in his study in Italy the gift, ‘which Kossuth

96 Kossuth’s speech was found by Agnes Deak and recently published in Hungarian
translation, pp. 832—48 (see note 1, above). I am indebted to Ms. Deak for
generously allowing me to quote from Kossuth’s original version which she found
in the British Library in London.

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid.

99 Silver-plated bronze plaque on the model of Shakespeare’s birthplace, kept in the
Kossuth Museum of Cegled, Hungary, in what is now furnished as Kossuth’s Turin

room.

Tibor Frank

239

received on the occasion of learning the English language, according to
his own statement, in his captivity, from Shakespeare’. 100 He always kept
a two-volume U.S. edition of Shakespeare, a Boston gift from 1852, in his
house as part of the select few books often in demand. 101 All these
editions are listed in Kossuth’s own handwritten catalogue of his personal
library, dating from 1864, and have miraculously survived until today.
The books are kept in the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest, 102
while the special box containing the 1853 gift is preserved in the Kossuth
Museum in Cegled, Hungary.

Following the well-publicized book presentation, 103 the symbolism of
‘Kossuth’s Shakespeare’ also found its way into contemporary English
poetry. Alfred B. Richards put the very question that Kossuth liked to put
himself:

And then thy riper age,

From Shakespeare’s hallowed page,

Drew inspiration of our English tongue,

Did no prophetic thought
Tell thee of wonders wrought,

Far from thy home, a stranger race among? 104

Kossuth’s critics, however, may have thought that he was not always
sincere. By 1854, with Kossuth’s celebrity slowly fading away, George
Gilfillan argued in Hogg’s Instructor that Kossuth’s ability to suit his
quotations to the taste of his actual audience ‘is connected more with
mechanical readiness and the talents of an improvisatore, than with

100 A czegledi szazas kiilddttseg Kossuth Lajosnal Budapest, 1877, both quoted by
Agnes Deak, pp. 833, 847; (notes 3-4).

101 Kossuth, Konyv Lajstrom Vol. I-II, Turin, Majus [8,] 1864, pp. 8-16; National
Szechenyi Library: MSS Coll.: Oct. Hung. 1064/I-II, Vol. I, p. 8, Vol. II, p. 3.

102 The 1853 London gift edition of The Pictorial Edition of the Works of
Shakespeare , ed. Charles Knight, Vols. I-VII complete with Charles Knight,
William Shakespeare: A Biography , (London: Charles Knight and Co.), Kossuth
Konyvtar 2723. The 1852 U.S. gift edition, originally kept at Kossuth’s home, was
The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, in Two Volumes, Boston, 1852,
today in National Szechenyi Library: Kossuth Konyvtar 1675.

103 Agnes Deak, pp. 832, 847, (note 2).

104 Alfred B. Richards, ‘Welcome and Farewell to Kossuth’, from Minstrelsy of War,
London, 1854, Testveriseg, Vol. XIX, May 1941, p. 12, Istvan Gal Collection,
Budapest, courtesy of Gal’s family. Walter Savage Landor also greeted him with
an ‘Ode to Kossuth’ where there is an unconnected reference to Shakespeare: The
Examiner, December 15, 1849, p. 789; published by Istvan Gal, ‘W. S. Landor,
Kossuth es a szabadsagharc angol koltoje’, Filologiai Kozlony, 14, 1968, Nos.
1-2, pp. 34-35.

240 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

genius, and shows him rather as the Lope de Vega than as the Shake¬
speare of orators’. 105 Yet, by the end of the nineteenth century, Shakespeare
and prisoner Kossuth became a running theme, a commonplace of history.
As time went by, the memory of the prison term and the significance of
Shakespeare became more marked for both his English and American
friends who remembered Kossuth at the end of the nineteenth century. The
story made his way into A History of Our Own Times (1879) by Justin
McCarthy, M.P., one of the most widely, and indeed, internationally known
books on the history of Victorian Britain, soon to be translated into several
languages including German and Hungarian. 106 McCarthy discussed
Kossuth’s reception in England in great detail in his chapter on the foreign
policy of Lord Palmerston. There was much in Kossuth himself as well as in
his cause to attract the enthusiasm of popular assemblage’, McCarthy
remembered.

He had a strikingly handsome face and a stately presence. He was picturesque
and perhaps even theatric in his dress and his bearing. He looked like a picture;
all his attitudes and gestures seemed as if they were meant to be reproduced by
a painter. He was undoubtedly one of the most eloquent men who ever
addressed an English popular audience. In one of his imprisonments Kossuth
had studied the English language chiefly from the pages of Shakespeare. He had
mastered our tongue as few foreigners have ever been able to do; but what he
had mastered was not the common colloquial English of the streets and the
drawing-rooms. The English he spoke was the noblest in style from which a
student could supply his eloquence: Kossuth spoke the English of Shake¬
speare. 107

Increasingly, the personal myth gained public currency and made its
way into journalism and popular literature. Kossuth’s studies of Shake¬
speare became synonymous with England and the United States, his
English with the language of Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s language in
turn with the voice of freedom and democracy. Something like a
literary topos was created, Shakespeare becoming a metaphor for
freedom.

105 George Gilfillan, “Louis Kossuth”, Hogg’s Instructor, III, July-December 1854,
p. 359.

106 Justin McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times from the Accession of Queen
Victoria to the General Election of 1880, Leipzig, 1879; McCarthy, Anglia
tortenete korunkban , Budapest, 1885, Vols. I-III; McCarthy, Geschichte Englands,
von der Thronbesteigung Viktorias bis zum Berliner Kongress 1837-1878,
Leipzig, 1881.

107 McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times, Vol. II, pp. 109-10.

Tibor Frank

241

Kossuth himself went on to quote Shakespeare in his Hungarian polit¬
ical correspondence throughout his long political career. 108

Quite until the turn of the century, Kossuth’s name remained, both in
Britain and the United States, synonymous with freedom-loving Hungary.
On his death he was mourned even by Conservative British papers as an
eloquent champion of the ideals of 1848-49. 109 In the early 1900s, several
important British journalists and prospective policy-makers, such as The
Times correspondent Henry Wickham Steed and historians R. W. Seton-
Watson and H. W. V. Temperley, first came to Hungary with the noble
image of Kossuth’s nation in mind. While in Budapest, they were often
assisted and influenced by Kossuth’s son, by the family of his friend
Ferenc Pulszky, or by his aged supporter General Istvan Tiirr. 110

Much later, barely a day before the Nazi takeover in Hungary, the
Budapest daily Esti Ujsag published a long article on ‘The Triumphant
Entry of Lajos Kossuth into New York, December 6, 1851’, and pointed
out that Kossuth “owed his immense success preeminently to Shake¬
speare as he used the archaic and classical expressions of the world-
famous dramatist which impressed the masses tremendously. Kossuth
himself admitted that ‘I learnt English from Shakespeare’.” * * 111 At that
historic juncture, the article was intended as a powerful evocation of
Hungary’s lost freedom and independence. During the Cold War,
Hungarian-Americans sought to portray Kossuth as a champion of
Western liberty, and again his English, and its source, Shakespeare,
played a part in constructing a politically actualized image of the hero. 112

108 Quotation from The Tempest in a letter to the Independence Party of Debrecen,
Collegno al Baraccone at Turin, June 15, 1875; quotations from Hamlet in a letter
to Ignacz Helfy on the Occasion of Ferenc Deak’s Death, 1876, and in Irataim ,
Vol. Ill; quotation from Julius Caesar in a letter to Emo Simonyi, Collegno al
Baraccone, December 12, 1876: Kossuth Lajos, Valogatott munkai, Budapest,
n.d., pp. 227, 240, 260, 355.

109 Sidney J. Low, ‘Kossuth and the Hungarian War of Liberation’, The National
Review, Vol 23, May 1894, pp. 350-63; The Saturday Review, March 24, 1894,
pp. 301-02; The Times, March 21, 1894, pp. 9, 11. Cf Geza Jeszenszky, Az
elveszettpresztizs. Magyarorszag megitelesenek megvdltozasa Nagy-Britanniaban
(1894-1918) Budapest, 1986, pp. 115, 329.

110 Geza Jeszenszky, op.cit., esp. pp. 10, 48, 51, 64, 65, 72, 89, 92, 93.

111 E. R. Ivandy, ‘Kossuth Lajos diadalmas bevonulasa New Yorkba 1851. december
6-an’, Esti Ujsag, March 18, 1944. Newspaper clipping in the Istvan Gal
Collection, Budapest, courtesy of Gal’s family.

112 Endre Sebestyen, Kossuth: A Magyar Apostle of World Democracy, Pittsburgh,
1950, p. 136.

242

Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

Kossuth proved to be a genuinely skilful forerunner of modem political
marketing. Indeed, his activities in exile can be almost completely
described and explained in terms of modem public relations, market
communication and negotiating corporate (i.e. national) identity. It seems
likely that upon entering the English-speaking world he became very
much influenced by British and American political ideas, methods, and
tools and reacted sensitively to the then new tactics and strategies of
national and international political communication.

Marketing in the modem sense of the world arose as a consequence of
the industrial revolution first in Britain and then in the United States.
Kossuth realized that image building, for both commercial and political
purposes, was a politically useful idea. He immediately understood that
first he was supposed to craft an image of his own country, create faith in
the brand name of ‘independent Hungary,’ and embark upon a strategic
advertising campaign for the freedom of his nation. He quickly recog¬
nized that his personal input was much needed to influence the ‘political
market’ and started a major public relations operation to build up the
‘corporate identity’ of his country. His British and, particularly, his Amer¬
ican tour became an outstanding example of what economists would clas¬
sify today as marketing communication.

Kossuth was particularly successful in this venture as he identified
himself with one, and only one, major cause: Hungary’s freedom and
independence. He spoke of a number of issues such as freedom, democ¬
racy, self-government, republicanism, release from tyranny, free
commerce with the U.S., recognition of the Hungarian declaration of
independence, but all of them ultimately revolved around the central
pivot of Hungary’s destiny. He identified himself with Hungary, spoke
of ‘my bleeding nation,’ referring to himself almost as if he were
Hungary itself. He repeated a number of themes in the best tradition of
classical oratory, and used highly colourful language full of metaphors
and images. His success was the result of the style and content of his
oratory. He invariably spoke highly of George Washington and William
Shakespeare, and always found time to single out the individual merits
and achievements of the particular places where he happened to address
his audience.

Almost immediately upon his arrival, the Hungarian guest delivered a
series of speeches. He had begun to study the English language seriously
as an adult, during the years he spent in prison between 1837 and 1840. ‘I

Tibor Frank

243

told them to give me an English Dictionary and Shakespeare.’ 113 Reading
Shakespeare, together with the English Romantics, left an indelible mark
on Kossuth’s English, his vocabulary, his grammatical structures and on
his phraseology.

As he began to speak English only in exile, at the age of 49, the cele¬
brated public speaker was often lost for words in private conversation. In
the light of this, it is quite remarkable how, even on his arrival in England,
but especially during his trip to the United States, he became known and
respected as one of the great orators in English of the time.

‘I heard him speak for about three quarters of an hour at the legislative
banquet of last week,’ George Stillman Hillard wrote to his friend Francis
Lieber on May 8, 1852. 114 Himself a master of rhetoric and an excellent
orator, whose occasional addresses ‘were famous in their day,’ 115 Hillard
was a competent judge of Kossuth’s abilities as a public speaker.

That I hold to have been an oratorical achievement of a very high order. He
spoke, in all, about two hours, without notes and standing out at full length upon
a table. His voice is firm, his manner pleasing and persuasive, and his counte¬
nance full of animated expression. His management of his person, his legs espe¬
cially, was admirable. I can perfectly understand that in his own language he
must be a popular orator of the first class. I have no doubt, from what I hear,
that he does exert a very fascinating power over all who approach him. He is a
man of an Eastern, luxuriant, imaginative & feminine cast and he wins men and
especially women, through the sympathies. His charm of his manner is a
winning & sort of caressing persuasiveness. This is perfectly consistent with a
dash of the theatrical and melodramatic which I think belongs to him. When I
first saw him, he was on horseback, and he did not ride remarkably well, and he
wore a shewy velvet coat, and altogether he looked to me like a troubadour
more than a hero and that he ought to have had a harp by his side, instead of a
sword. 116

For his most important speeches Kossuth prepared a draft, sometimes
with the help of a native English speaker or a Hungarian who spoke the
language well. Nevertheless, about two-thirds of the estimated 600
speeches of varying length that he delivered in England and the United
States by the summer of 1852 were off the cuff and the majority of these,

113 Kossuth in New England, pp. 106-07.

114 George Stillman Hillard to Francis Lieber, Boston, May 8, 1852. Francis Lieber
papers, LI 1981, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

115 George H. Genzmer on George Stillman Hillard, in: Dictionary of American
Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich., 2002.
(http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/bioRC).

116 George Stillman Hillard to Francis Lieber, May 8, 1852, Francis Lieber Papers, LI
1981, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

244 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

as well as most of the letters he wrote in English, were considered master¬
pieces of nineteenth-century English prose. In the next fifty years, books
such as The Golden Age of American Oratory (Boston, 1857) and several
others quoted long passages from these texts. Fifty-two of his best
speeches were published right away under the title Select Speeches of
Kossuth (New York, 1854).

Of course not everybody was enthusiastic about the kind of oratory
that Kossuth presented. Francis Lieber’s critical comments were shared
by several of his American contemporaries:

Do you remember what I say in my Character of the Gentleman, on exaggera¬
tion? It is both unmanly and ungentlemanly to spout and speak with the
eloquence of a fire engine. See what a list of “down-trodden” words we could
collect in America. Splendid, meaning now anything not much below par.
Magnificent, so common you can hardly use it except you have proved on ten
previous pages that you are not word-drunken. Great means almost distin¬
guished, but not quite. Admirable has become so paltry, that it means 9 letters
and no more. Greatest man of the age, means at times Webster, at others Scot
[Sir Walter Scott], or Kossuth or Wellington, or Bamam [P .T. Bamum], or
Jenny Lind, or Lola [Montez] — man, intellect or woman. Kossuth is the
greatest orator of the age, if not of any age — my own eyes have seen this in
print. Oh, it is beastly. Cows can roar too, and the articulated roar is the most
brutal of the two. 117

Kossuth’s assertive politics and blazing oratory divided Americans. As
demonstrated by the correspondence of Francis Lieber with his friends
George Stillman Hillard and Charles Sumner, now in the Huntington
Library in San Marino, California, the East Coast elite respected
Kossuth’s fight for the freedom and independence of Hungary, but ques¬
tioned the reality and rationality of his claim that the United States should
get involved in what appeared to be an internal conflict within the
Habsburg Empire.

Bom in Germany, Francis Lieber (1798-1872) became famous in the
U.S. as a liberal political philosopher and lawyer with his ‘laws of war,’ a
systematic, institutionalized code of behaviour to regulate the conditions
of warfare. In a Christmas 1851 letter to George Stillman Hillard, Lieber
glorified Kossuth:

I have a very high opinion of Kossuth, and even that against which I should
write should not be laid to his charge; for if he is presuming, even impertinent if
you choose, he has but his one great thought in his mind, one great sentiment in
his soul — up with Hungary and down with Austria — God speed him; and the

117 Francis Lieber to George Stillman Hillard, Columbia, S.C., January 8, 1852,
Francis Lieber Papers, LI 2161, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

Tibor Frank

245

way that the Americans have given in so far shows that he is not wrong in his
presumption. But that Americans should fall in with a Hungarian, when he tells
us we are totally wrong, and that Washington did not mean what we always
have held him to have meant, and that Americans should, apparently at least,
take the key from a strong democratic Gallican element in N. York, that is
shameful. 118

Much as he respected the Hungarian leader and his cause, Lieber was
disturbed by the role Kossuth expected the United States to play in the
European conflict. For him Kossuth was too much of a visionary. ‘But,
then,’ he told Hillard,

I should enter upon the true mission of the U. States — the path laid out for
them and the means of their influence. I should then ask what are we asked to
do? Tell the Czar “Dont do that”, as the Chinese, you recollect, let down a large
pactboard, from the walls of Hong Kong, on which was written “you must not
come in here”, for the benefit of the redcoats, who approached with powder and
bayonet? Shall we send money? How much? And who shall send it, the
Government, or the people voluntarily? Shall we send troops? In less than 6
weeks the Hungarians would mortally hate the Americans, and the Americans
hate the Hungarians. It is always so, and must be so. If the foreigner carries the
victory, he is hated, because he carries the victory, and because he becomes
insolent; if he is not essential to the victory, he is hated as a cumbersome fellow,
who wants land, money and often the women. 119

Throughout Lieber remained sceptical about the international role
America was being called upon to fulfil and the moral feasibility of its
possible intervention.

And is Hungary the only downtrodden country? Does Italy not wail and cry for
help? Have the German princes not proved truthless truckles? I can very well
imagine a case when the U.S. with other powers would say to Russia: Hands
off, you disturb the peace of the world and trample on peoples like an elephant
on a rice-field. If you dont stop we poach you at sea. But to help a nation to rise
in revolution, by our government — it is absolutely preposterous. I would write
— I would — I would — but — I shall not. 120

The Massachusetts lawyer and author George Stillman Hillard
(1808-1879) agreed with what Lieber said of Kossuth, but was ill-
informed and consequently doubtful about the political abilities of the
Hungarians. ‘Now on these questions of Hungary, Kossuth, Austria and
Russia, we agree to a hair,’ he responded to Lieber.

118 Francis Lieber to George Stillman Hillard, Christmas 1851, Francis Lieber Papers,
LI 2160, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

119 Ibid.

120 Ibid.

246 Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

I abhor Russia and Austria and regard them as great rocks in the stream of
progress & humanity, too big and heavy to be borne away, and always a
retarding and perverting influence. And I admit the eloquence of Kossuth, his
patriotism and his devotion to a great idea: but none the less do I deem his
projects wild & Quixotic and that his influence upon the public mind has been
the reverse of salutary. I dont know much about Hungary but I dont believe in
their fitness for Constitutional & independent government. The simple fact that
a nation of 13,000,000 was thrown down and muzzled by Russia in a single
campaign, seems to prove that there are elements of weakness among them
which would make it impossible for foreign intervention to do any good.
Compare their feeble struggles with the persevering pluck of the Circassians &
with the constancy of the Dutch in the 16th & 17th centuries. 121

Lieber repeatedly criticized some of his fellow-Americans for misleading
the Hungarian politician and thought Kossuth had been ill-advised.
‘Kossuth, for whom I have a high regard,’ he wrote to the influential
abolitionist statesman and longtime (1852-1874) Massachusetts Senator
Charles Sumner (1811-1874),

(though by no means as extravagant a one as many pretend to have for him, and,
as I fear, he may have for himself) has ended here where he must infallibly have
ended — , and whither some very reckless men have led him, little dreaming or
caring what deep injury they were inflicting upon that cause which they, in
many cases hypocritically, pretend to serve. Kossuth has distinctly forgotten
since he came to this country, that to make a great idea pass into a great event, it
requires two things — the wide impulse of masses and the clearest possible
definiteness in the conception of measures and husbanding of means in the
leaders — the Richelieu or Cromwell part of great events as I will call the latter.
Nothing so weakening in the sphere of action as cloudiness, or if you will
pardon a very low term, highfelutanism [highfalutinism]. I can say all this
because my correspondents can testify that from the first I have said that the
course pursued by Kossuth must necessarily lead to Congress and that the
distinct question what? and the higher the path led all the time, in words decla¬
ration and indictment aspirations, the greater must be the distance from the ulti¬
mate point of that line to the point of factal (may I make the word?) reality. 122

Lieber emphatically told Sumner: ‘I have never felt such itching to write a
thorough political pamphlet as when Kossuth was coursing on. I should
have done it had I lived in a populous place. But I love him.’ 123

Lieber never questioned the validity and nobility of Kossuth’s cause
though he noticed that he ‘travels fast and makes long bounds ...’ He

121 George Stillman Hillard to Francis Lieber, Boston, January 13, 1852. Francis
Lieber to Charles Sumner, Francis Lieber Papers, LI 1975, Huntington Library,
San Marino, CA.

122 Francis Lieber to Charles Sumner, Columbia, S.C., January 10, 1852, Francis
Lieber Papers, LI 3475, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

123 Ibid.

Tibor Frank

247

could not withstand his urge to write a tract on ‘Kossuth and his Mission
in the United States’ (most probably in 1852) where he declared,

... we have a very high opinion of Louis Kossuth, and most deeply detest the
Austrian government — more intensely, probably, than most persons in this
country, because we know Austria and thoroughly know it. If the distinguished
Hungarian has allowed himself to be carried to the very utmost limit of political
propriety, on some occasions since he has been among us — if he has stated that
which rises to arrogance, we readily pass it over, at least so far as he is
concerned, whatever we may think of those men who have done everything in
their power to mislead him, partly through their own want of reflexion, partly
for selfish purposes without any abiding belief in their own assertions. 124

Lieber continued to be captivated by Kossuth’s cause:

Kossuth has but one idea, and that idea is a great and noble one — the delivery
of his country from an odious, faithless, cruel and coarse government. If in the
all-absorbing desire of realizing this great idea, he, occasionally travels fast and
makes long bounds, who would quarrel with him? Certainly no generous mind.

If every one-sidedness or extravagance in the fiery words of a burning heart
were to be a noose, without the benefit of clergy, few fervent speakers would
remain un-hanged before they come to the intended end of their discourses. 125

A close friend of both Lieber and Sumner, George Stillman Hillard felt
tom.

In regard to Kossuth I am, as often happens in our intense little community,
between two fires. I disprove of his course in America, especially his sort of
appeal from the government to the country, and therefore cannot swell the train
of his admirers; and on the other hand, there is much in his European career
which commands my sympathy and applause, and I do not like to join in any
wholesale denunciations of him. The vehement abuse which some people lavish
upon him seems to me to flow from a timid conversation, founded on a selfish
love of property — a feeling for which I have no great respect. Have you
thought or read about Hungary and his course there? If you have, I pray you tell
me what you think about him. 126

When Kossuth left the United States he felt keenly the division of public
opinion in the country he tried to win over in vain. His prophetic idea that
the United States should play a major role in European politics proved to
be premature: he was a hundred years ahead of his time. It was far too
early to suggest

124 Francis Lieber, ‘Kossuth and his Mission in the United States,’ probably 1852,
Francis Lieber Papers, LI 478, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

125 Ibid.

126 George Stillman Hillard to Francis Lieber, Boston, May 8, 1852, Francis Lieber
Papers, LI 1981, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

248

Marketing Hungary: Kossuth and the Politics of Propaganda

that the policy of Europe will have a visible effect upon the character, power,
and destiny of the American republic. That policy as indicated by Russia and
Austria, is the work of centralization, consolidation and absolutism. American
policy is the antagonist of this. 127

Stating that ‘Russia and the United States are as unlike as any two nations
which ever existed,’ Kossuth went as far as to prophecy that war between
the two ‘will be inevitable’. 128

Lajos Kossuth never accepted the notion that he was a ‘visionary’ and
considered himself a ‘practical man’ and an achiever. To the end of his
journey he spoke with pride and self-confidence of his own leading role in
the Hungarian revolution and war of independence and declared in his last
Boston speech on May 14, 1852 at Faneuil Hall:

Some here take me for a visionary. Curious, indeed, if that man who, a poor son
of the people, took the lead in abolishing feudal injustices a thousand years old,
created a currency of millions in a moneyless nation, and suddenly organized
armies out of untrained masses of civilians; directed a revolution so as to fix the
attention of the whole world upon Hungary, beat the old, well-provided power
of Austria, and crushed its future by his very fall, and forsaken, abandoned, in
his very exile is feared by Czars and Emperors, and trusted by foreign nations as
well as his own — if that man be a visionary, then for so much pride I may be
excused that I would like to look face to face into the eyes of a practical man on
earth. 129

Through the press, his fame spread all over the country, reaching even the
Pacific coast, which he never visited. Thanks to regular and surprisingly
detailed reports published in The Los Angeles Star, The Daily Union of
Sacramento, The San Diego Herald, The Oregon Spectator of Oregon
City, The Weekly Oregonian of Portland and The Deseret News of Salt
Lake City, readers in the West could follow Kossuth’s reception in the
eastern states. The press coverage on the western coast was exceedingly
favourable towards the Hungarians’ plight, with opinions split only on the
issue of whether the United States be content to give moral and financial

127 Kossuth’s speech at Faneuil Hall, Boston, April 29, 1852, Select Speeches of
Kossuth, pp. 320-21.

128 Ibid.

129 Select Speeches of Kossuth, p. 368.

support or whether it should also issue a political guarantee for non-inter¬
vention in Hungary’s domestic affairs.

On July 14, 1852 Kossuth left the United States for good. Bitterly
disappointed, he took stock of the scant results his journey had produced:

The novelty has long since subsided, and emotion has died away. The spell is
broken which distance and misfortune cast around my name. The freshness of
my very ideas is worn out. Incessant toils spread a languor upon me, unpleasant
to look upon. The skill of intrigues, aspersing me with calumny; wilful misrep¬
resentations, pouring cold water upon generous sympathy. 130

Although he never again visited North America, Lajos Kossuth has not
been forgotten in the United States. He has a statue in New York City and
in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Portrayal on a United States postage
stamp secured his place as a ‘champion of liberty.’ On his bicentenary he
has been remembered in the U.S., mostly by Hungarian-Americans who
have celebrated him throughout the country, from New York to New
Orleans. As of 2001, New York Governor George Pataki, himself of
Hungarian descent, declared December 5 ‘Lajos Kossuth Day’ in the
State of New York. Hungarians, in and out of Hungary, continue to think
of him as their hero who was once worshipped by America. Even though
his American journey produced no lasting political or financial results,
Lajos Kossuth single-handedly did more to articulate the Hungarian cause
to America and to secure international recognition for Hungary than
anyone before or since, or could possibly do in the future. He was the man
who put Hungary on the political map of Europe. 131

130 Select Speeches of Kossuth, pp. 373-74.

131 In this paper I have made use of two of my previous articles: ‘“Give Me
Shakespeare:” Lajos Kossuth’s English as an Instrument of International Politics,’
in: Holger Klein and Peter Davidhazi, eds., Shakespeare and Hungary,
Shakespeare Yearbookyol 7, NY., 1996, pp. 47-73 and “‘...to fix the attention
of the whole world upon Hungary ...,” Lajos Kossuth in the United States,
1851-52,’ The Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 166, Summer 2002, pp. 85-98.

Comments on Tibor Frank’s Paper, ‘Marketing

Hungary’

Daniel Abondolo

To the student of Hungary, whatever her or his discipline, Lajos Kossuth
must seem a quintessential^ paradoxical figure. Tibor Frank’s paper has
stimulated my thinking along lines which persuade me to suggest a small
thesis: In whatever disciplinary terms we frame the Kossuth paradox, the
chief contrast may be boiled down to one which we may express meta¬
phorically as inside v. outside. I can outline this thesis most clearly and
compactly in the form of questions. The questions have a philological
bias, but practitioners from other disciplines will want to translate them, I
hope, into terms articulated by their own training and practice.

‘Shakespeare became a metaphor ...’ [221]. For metaphor, here, can
we not usefully substitute metonymy, taken in the broadest, Jakobsonian,
sense, i.e., embracing, inter alia, synecdoche? If by ‘sliding transitions’
[221] Grenzverschiebungstropen are meant, then Shakespeare can stand
for England in the same and opposite way as Egypt may stand for Cleo¬
patra. By contrast, it is through metaphor properly so called that England
may stand for freedom : metaphor is the Sprungtrope par excellence.

Kossuth’s oratorical talents are the stuff of legend. And oratory is a
forensic activity, more visibly societal than what at first glance appears to be
the private practice of the poet. But oratory has a linguistic, and therefore a
poetic, dimension, and one which is more profound and multi-layered than is
usually appreciated. In attempting to assess contemporary judgements of
Kossuth’s oratorical competence and performance, ought we not to try to
distinguish content from form or, to put it in rhetorical terms, argument from
ornatusl We read that ‘[Kossuth’s] intimate knowledge of a variety of clas¬
sical English authors, as well as his remarkable familiarity with the language
of both English and American Romantics, strongly contributed to the vocab¬
ulary, the grammar and style of his English in the 1850s and early 1860s’
[229-230] but we are given no examples, i.e., specific confrontations of
matter drawn from Shakespearean (or other English literary) texts with the

251

252

Comments on Tibor Frank’s Paper, ‘Marketing Hungary ’

matter of Kossuth’s (transcribed) speeches. This is to leave to one side any
consideration of the other streams of the multimedia experience of
witnessing a public speech: for a textbook example of the distracting power
of these, see G. S. Hillard’s account [243] of a Kossuth performance, in
which numerous aspects of the percept are characterized — Kossuth’s
stance, dress, appearance and endurance are all cited — but the language
itself, i.e. Kossuth’s English, is not once described or even mentioned. G. S.
Hillard may have been a master of rhetoric and an excellent orator, but ought
we to confuse the kind of speaking which he did ‘in his own language’ — to
quote him out of context — with Kossuth’s foreign-language endeavours?

There is no doubt — in fact it is a commonplace, and badly needs
new elucidation, elaboration, and documentation — that much of the
work of Shakespeare exercised an important influence on the develop¬
ment of Hungarian literary language. Such influence is hinted at in cata¬
logues of the private libraries of noblemen, to be sure, but might be
more sharply and convincingly delineated in texts, both Hungarian and
English. What is the philological status of such texts?

Returning to the linguistic layers of oratory: ought we not to attempt to
distinguish Kossuth’s English from that of, say, Disraeli? By English here
is meant every aspect of the language as made perceivable in speech,
from the lowest-level phonetic detail (including voice quality) of a partic¬
ular utterance, on a particular occasion, by a particular individual, to the
most abstract features of a culture: ‘Surely it is part of the meaning of an
American to sound like one’ (J. R. Firth, cited by John Laver, The
phonetic description of voice quality , Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, No. 31, 1980, p. 5.). We have
wax recordings of Kossuth speaking Hungarian; are there recordings of
his English? Have they been assessed by phoneticians? Without such
documentation, Kossuth’s performance is anecdotal, on at least the
phonetic level.

Returning to the question of metonymy, we must surely savour
Kossuth’s irony in writing (or saying? — it is not clear which: another
metonymic confusion) that ‘an English Dictionary and Shakespeare ...
could have nothing to do with politics’ [234]. In a fascinating passage
uncovered by Agnes Deak and quoted by Tibor Frank [238], Kossuth
slides metonymically from politics, through philosophy, to psychology: in
this utterance he is clearly aware that part of the evocative power of
Shakespeare , for a nineteenth-century English-speaking audience, must
be sought by invoking politics; compare here his contrasting of the
‘visionary’ and the ‘practical man’ in his last speech in Boston, Massa¬
chusetts, 14 May 1852 (Francis W. Newman, Select Speeches of Kossuth.

Daniel Abondolo

253

Condensed and Abridged, with Kossuth’s Express Sanction , New York:
C. S. Francis & Co./Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co., 1854, p. 368). Is
there an element of mountebankery here? Only in the sense that Kossuth
sought to conceal his own visionary qualities by distracting his audience
with talk of praxis: we should recall that the visionary is a seer, and that
the leading trope and topos of Hungarian literary self-definition, in the
period of national classicism and beyond, was that of the poet as prophet
(vates ). Would it not be in the interests of Kossuth’s rhetorical, i.e. public,
external aims and aspirations to play down his poetic, i.e. personal,
internal gifts and inspirations? When he calls Shakespeare ‘that mute but
eloquent teacher of mine’ [238], he not only employs that most paradoxic
of tropes, oxymoron: he also alludes to the fact (or myth, or both) that he
learned to speak English not by speaking and listening, but by reading,
not through the ears but with the eyes. (The question of phonetics arises
here once again. Walker’s dictionary [228, footnote 42] did mark the
stress of English words, but that is far from enough indication of their
sound to a non-English speaker incarcerated in Buda.)

Finally, there is the idea of Shakespeare as ‘rallying point’ [236]. Do
we not see here, if not a reality, then at least a Hungarian projection, on to
the English-speaking world, of its own desire that its greatest writers be
recognized abroad? Views of Hungary from the inside can be understood
only with the help of Hungarians’ views of their perception from the
outside : and these views have been, for over two centuries, unremittingly
negative only in the case of Hungary’s writers. The reason universally
cited for this undeservedly low esteem is language, and specifically the
uniqueness, remoteness, and alienness, — the idiosyncratic qualitas and
quidditas — of the Hungarian language. For how else explain the world¬
wide recognition of achievements by Hungarian speakers in the fields of
music, painting, sculpture, photography, and the cinema, not to mention
mathematics, physiology, chemistry and physics, all fields in which
linguistic qualitas and quidditas are far less important? Does not Kossuth
offer, for Hungarian and English speakers alike, a tempting exception to
this commonplace? The myth that he achieved such wide recognition
outside, i.e. extra Hungariam , through his use of language is thus
somehow, and unfortunately, more engaging than the philologist’s still
unanswered question: Just what was his English like?

Contributors

Daniel Abondolo
Ian Armour

Robert Evans
Tibor Frank
Andras Gergely
George Gomori
Robert Hermann
Klara Kingston-Tiszai
Robin Okey
Gabor Pajkossy
Laszlo Peter
Martyn Rady
Alan Sked
Aladar Urban

SSEES, University College London

School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Staffordshire University

University of Oxford

ELTE, Budapest

University of Cambridge

Institute of Military History, Budapest

Laszlo Teleki Institute, Budapest

Department of History, University of Warwick

ELTE, Budapest

SSEES, University College London
SSEES, University College London
London School of Economics
ELTE, Budapest

255

Select Index

Americans, 235, 241, 244-6, 249
ancient constitution, 81, 89, 91
Andrassy, Gyula, 193
April Laws, 7, 9, 18, 30, 38-9, 44, 49,
71-3, 79-82, 89-91, 110-1,
139-41, 159, 163f, 170
Arato, Endre, 129-30
Armour, Ian, 205-8
Asboth, Sandor, 66
assimilation of non-Hungarians, 96,
98, 101

Astengo, Francesco, 196, 198
Aulich, Lajos, 58

Austria, Austrian Monarchy, 8, 23-8,
33,39,57, 60, 104-5, 11 If, 128,
148,153,156-7, 161-2, 170-1,
174-7, 18Of, 193, 196-8, 202,
207,211,216-9,237, 244-8;
emperor, 23, 156; government, 7,
20, 23,27-31,35,90, 110, 167,
171, 175f, 247; National Bank,
19-20

Austroslavism, 156-7, 173 n

Bach System, 138, 211
Baillet de Latour, Count Theodor, 41
Bajza, Jozsef, 26, 225-6
Balcescu, Nicolae, 101, 185-6
Balogh, Pal Almasi, 227, 231 n
Bangya, Janos, 218
Bamupi, Simion, 120
Batthyany government, 7, 9, 45, 48,
87, 90, 140, 147, 154n, 160

Batthyany, Count Kazmer, 48, 58,
66-7, 113-4, 193-4/1,219
Batthyany, Count Lajos, 6-11, 16-19,
21-23 n, 28-39, 41f, 50, 58, 78,
87n, 90, 109-12, 117, 120, 124,
140, 144, 147, 154, 158-61, 168,
17 If, 178, 187, 193—4/2
Bedekovic, Louis, 172
Beecher Stowe, Harriet, 233-6
Bern, Jozef, 47, 53, 61-8, 116, 120
bene possessionati, 82
Benes, E., 206

Beniczky, Lajos, 66, 67 n, 132 n
Beothy, Janos, 140
Beothy, Odon, 48-9
Blackwell, J.A., 17, 114, \16n
Bohemia, 121, 135, 185, 188, 201
Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, 114, 136,
217/1,218

Bosnia-Hercegovina, 150, 189, 190,
197-8, 207

Boutwell, George S., 234
Bratianu, Dumitru, 200
Bright, John, 147, 213^1
Bulgaria, 8, 185, 187, 198
Bystrzonowski, Ludwik, 113

Carrini, Marc Antonio, 190, 199-201
Caroline Augusta, 172
Carrosini, Giuseppe, 194, 195 n
Cavour, Camillo Benso di, 192, 196,
219

Charles Albert, 111, 113

257

258

Select Index

dementis, Vladimir (Vlado), 128-9
Chassin, Charles-Louis, 50 n, 106
Cluss, Adolph, 217
Cobden, Richard, 114, 147, 213-4
Committee of National Defence
(OHB), 7, 15, 37-9, 43-52, 55-6,
68, 112

Conservatives, 4, 6, 16, 73-4, 125, 220
Constitution, 7, 45, 54, 59, 81-4,
87-91,96, 102, 115, 138-^10, 142f,
151f, 162f, 177, 182, 187, 222
Constitution (March 1849), 59, 115
Conversion of the constitution, 81-9,
101, 139, 144, 156, 182
Court, 7, 9, 16f, 26, 35-8, 54f, 71f, 84,
88f, 100-1, 108-12, 115, 135, 137,
143-6, 158-9, 166f, 178-80, 211,
223

Crimean War, 69, 188-9, 195
Croatia, 7, 21,24, 31,41,71, 79, 85-7,
90-1, 97, 104, 137-45, 149, 152f,
168f, 175-7, 186-90, 195; Croatian
Sabor, 85, 142f, 171-4; National
Movement, 143

Croats, 23-4, 35-7, 11 If, 123, 142-3,
149, 157-8, 169f, 179-80, 185,
192,207,212

Csany, Laszlo, 34-6, 40, 58, 179
Csemovics, Peter, 22
Cuza, Alexandra, 200
Czartoryski, Prince Adam, 107-8,113,
135,185-8, 192

Czech, Czechoslovak, 112, 12If,
130-3, 157,205-6
Czetz, Janos, 220

Dalmatia, 85, 86/7, 109, 138, 157, 198
Damjanich, Janos, 53
Danubian confederation, 8, 10, 103-4,
108, 113f, 135, 183-90, 193-207
Deak, Agnes, 221/7, 236/7, 238-9/7,

252

Deak, Ferencz, 4-6, 10-11, 17f, 34f,
45, 50, 80, 83, 87-8, 203

Deak, Istvan, 4/7, 11/7, 12, 31/7, 37/7,
42/7, 154, 172

Declaration of Independence, 7, 10,
38f, 40, 57-60, 80, 92, 106/7, 114,
116, 139, 145, 154, 242
Dembinksi, Henryk, 53, 61,65, 116
Dessewffy, Arisztid, 67
Dessewffy, Count Aurel, 11/7, 222,
223/7

Disraeli, Benjamin, 234, 252
Dordevic, Dimitrije 184
Drago§, loan, 60
Draskovic, Count 145
Duschek, Ferencz, 58, 66-7

Egger, Count Ferdinand, 151, 153,
159, 173

emancipation of serfs, 5, 7, 10, 58,
71-80, 90, 127/7, 131,208
Engels, Friedrich, 212-9
England, 8, 108, 136, 147, 153f,
213-5, 221-4, 232-6, 240, 243,
251

English language, 1, 106,221,228-30,
233-5, 238-40, 242
Eotvos, Baron Jozsef, 5-6, 10-11,17,
45,83,87, 208, 225
Esterhazy, Mihaly, 47, 52
Esterhazy, Prince Pal, 18/7, 27-8, 110,
167, 169/7, 172, 176/7, 177

Ferdinand, Emperor, 16f, 23, 26f, 35,
39,41,90/7,91, 104, 108-9, 122,
132, 151, 153, 156, 160f, 172f,
196-7

Ficquelmont, Count Carl Ludwig,

164

Foldvary, Gabor, 6
France, 8, 21/7, 53, 105-8, 112-3,
135-6, 154, 197,211,215,222
Francis I, 150

Frankfurt parliament, 28, 39, 107, 176

Frank, Tibor, 251-2

Franz, Archduke Karl, 161,164, 168

Select Index

259

Franz Joseph, Emperor, 8, 9, 28, 50,
66,91, 112, 114, 137, 146, 154,
162,214

Friedjung, Heinrich, 128

Gaj, Ljudevit, 85, 137, 142/2, 158-9
Galicia, 5, 71, 76, 85, 109, 116, 169 n,
170

Gal, Istvan, 1, 237f
Garasanin, Ilija, 188, 192-5, 199-202,
208

Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 199, 208, 218-9
German confederation, 108, 157
German unification, 39
Gesamt-Monarchie, 93; Gesamtstaat
90

Gilpin, Charles, 237
Gladstone, William, 147
Godwin, Parke, 235
Golescu, Alexandru, 185-6
Gorgei, Artur, 8, 10, 46, 50-8, 61-8,
92, 106/2, 116, 181
Griinwald, Bela, 126
Guy on, Richard, 67

Habsburg Empire, 8, 10, 105, 186,
222, 244

Habsburg Monarchy, 6, 13, 71, 83, 91,
109, 125, 136f, 151, 156, 184-6,
189-200, 208; Habsburgs, 56-57,
109, 113, 135, 138, 153-5, 162-5,
173f, 227

Hajnal, Istvan, 108,116, 175
Haynau, Julius, 62, 65, 116
Herczegh, Geza, 109/2, 116
Hillard, George Stillman, 243-7, 252
Hodza, Michal, 120,124, 128-9
Holyoake, G. J., 147/2
Horvath, Mihaly, 17
Hungarian official language, 84, 95,
97; ‘civil society’, 1, 4, 81, 83;
constitution, 45, 81, 82/2, 88, 138,
168

Hungarian National Directorate, 69

Hungarian State, 83f, 90-3, 101, 138,
189-90, 207-8
Hrabovszky, Janos, 25
Hugo, Victor, 113
Hurban, Jozef M., 120, 124-6, 132,
157

Iancu, Avram, 60, 120
Illyrism, 137, 151
Imperial Constitution, 91, 156
independence of Hungary, 1, 8, 24-5,
57, 68-9, 80, 92, K)2f, 115, 140,
148, 175, 197-8,212,241-4
Independence War, 2, 10, 13, 81,
106/2, 117, 212, 232, 248
independent and responsible
government, 7, 90, 139
independent state, 58, 105, 175, 186
Iranyi, Daniel, 55, 106
Istvan, Archduke Palatine, 1, 16f, 22f,
35-6, 58, 92
Italian aid, 30-2
Italian War of, 1859 195
Italy, 2, 28, 31, 90-1, 113, 135f, 144,
152, 167-70, 174f, 179/2, 196-9,
206,215-9,238,245
Ivanka, Zsigmond, 55
Iveljic, Iskra, 141/2, 144, 156

Janossy, Denes, 229
Jaszi, Oscar, 3 n, 183
Jelacic, Baron Josip, 7, 21,25f, 34-44,
59, 63, 111, 120, 136-8, 141-59,
167-82, 220

Jerrold, Douglas William, 236-7
John, Archduke, 26, 151, 158f, 172-5
Jones, Ernest, 215

Josika, Baron Miklos, 45, 47, 52, 158,
225

Kallay, Benjamin, 203, 207
Karadordevic, Alexander, 195
Katus, Laszlo, 187/2, 208
Kazinczy, Ferenc, 230

260

Select Index

Kazinczy, Gabor, 55
Kecskemethy, Aurel, 207
Kempen, Baron von F.M.L., 146, 149,
151-3, 158, 178, 179/1
kenyszerpalya, 116-7
Klapka, Gyorgy, 52, 69, 188-90,
195—201, 207, 218f
Klauzal, Gabor, 18/?, 45
Kmety, Gyorgy, 67
Kosary, Domokos, An, 11-12 n, 13, 86 n,
90 n, 107-8, 110, 112-7, 116/1, 183
Kossuth, Dord’ (Durko), 131
Kossuth, Lajos early life, 2-4, 226-7;
editor, 4-5, 21-9, 227-8;
nationality policy, 86, 95-104;
emancipation of serfs, 71-80; in the
National Assembly, 29-40; and
constitutional reform, 81-93 and
see conversion; cabinet minister,
15f; financial measures, 18-21; in
‘September Crisis’, 34-8; his
oratorical skills, 5, 8, 11-13, 32,
46, 57, 87, 136, 147-8,229, 233f,
235, 242-4, 251-2; parliamentary
dictator, 41-66; on foreign policy,
105-17; Governor-president, 7-8,
15, 38, 56-66, 80, 92; compared to
Stur, 119-33; parallels with Jelacic,
137-82; in exile, 102-3, 115, 153,
184f, 21 If, 219-20; in Turkey, 68,

188, 211,218, 232; in England,
147, 153, 155, 213, 232-3, 235f; in
the United States, 147; on Danubian
confederation, 183-209; and Marx,
211-8; and Shakespeare, 221,
228-41; his English, 242f; ‘Kossuth
Hirlapja’, 21 f
Kovacs, Lajos, 55
Kovy, Sandor, 3
Kulmer, Franz, 158, 174/2

Lamartine, 112

Lamberg, Count Ferencz, 37—41,

136/7, 179

Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre, 219

Lesjanin, Miloje, 201

Lieber, Francis, 243-7

Lincoln, Abraham, 148

List, Friedrich, 86

Lombardy, 23, 30, 71, 218

Lonyay, Gabor, 48

Ludwig, Archduke, 137, 158 165/7

Ludwig I, 216

Lukacs, Lajos, 190, 203

Macartney, C.A., 2, 12, 81/7
Macedonia, 205
Macurek, Josef, 129
Madarasz, Laszlo, 37, 44—9, 52, 55-6
magyar alladalom, 92/7, 93
magyarization, Ultra-Magyarism, 5,
84, 86, 96, 126, 137, 169/7
Marx, Karl, 211-8
Marxism, 82, 90
mandatory redemption, 73, 77
Maria Theresa, 73, 150, 223
Masaryk, Tomas G., 128, 206
Matica Slovenska, 126
Mazzini, Giuseppe, 185, 199, 208,
216-9

McCarthy, Justin, 240
Messenhauser, Wenzel Casar, 180
Meszaros, Lazar, 18, 32, 45, 48-9, 62,
65

Mettemich, Prince Clemens, 77-8, 88,
135,227

Mettemich system, 7, 88-9
Military Frontier, 21, 58, 80, 85, 87n
97, 141f, 147, 150, 169-73, 178
Mod, Aladar, 105, 117
Modernization theories, 82
Moga, Janos, 181
Moldavia, 185, 195-6, 200
Montenegro, 189-90
Montez, Lola, 216, 244
Murgu, Eftimie, 115

Napoleon III, 189, 195-7,219

Select Index

261

Napoleon, Louis see Bonaparte, Louis
Napoleon

Napoleon, Prince, 196-7
National Assembly, 7, 10, 15, 20,
22-8, 32f, 38-47, 50-2, 55-60, 63,
81,92, 102, 138, 143
National Guard, 48, 79, 180
nationalities, 59, 63, 95-104, 107-8,

113- 5, 157, 183-190, 193-4,
207-8,219

Neue Rheinische Zeitung , 212
Newman, Francis W., 252
Nicholas I, 60

Nyary, Pal, 29-30, 37,44-5, 47-9, 52,
111

Obrenovic, Michael, 196
Obrenovic, Milos, 196, 198
Opposition Manifesto, 77
Orosz,. Istvan, 77
Ottinger, Franz, 179
Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Turks, 8, 68,
116, 184-5, 188, 191-4, 196-200,
202-3,208,211,218, 232

Palacky, Frantisek, 109, 120-1
Palffy, Janos, 2 n, 45, 52
Palkovic, Juraj, 121, 124-5
Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 8,

114- 5, 213—4, 219, 240
Paloczy, Laszlo, 228
Panslavism, 96, 100, 123, 126
Paskevich, Ivan, 62

Pazmandy jr., Denes, 2In, 36, 44, 51,
112

Pazmandy sr.. Denes, 45, 48
peace party in Debrecen, 51-2, 55, 57,
92,213

Perczel, Mor, 50-3, 56, 61-2
Perenyi, Baron Zsigmond, 44-5, 47-8
‘personal union’, 9, 87, 90, 109n, 156,
175-6

Pesti Hirlap 5, 9, 12n, 13, 17, 19, 2 In,
75-6, 86, 120, 23In

Peter, Laszlo, 138f, 165-6n, 175n
Pillersdorf, Baron Franz, 25, 91, 170
Pimodan, Georges de, 149
Pipitz, von, his memorandum, 177
Pirocanac, Milan, 198
Podmaniczky, Frigyes, 203
Poeltenberg, Emo, 66-7
Poland, 113, 116, 135, 187-9, 206, 220
polgari forradalom, 82
Polish emigration, 113, 185-6
Ponsonby, Lord (John), 17
Pragmatic Sanction, 23, 29-30, 82n,
90, 109-11, 162-5, 168, 175-7
Principality of Serbia, 184, 188
Proclamation of the Slavs, 25
Prokesch-Osten, Anton von, 198
Projet de Pacification, 101
Prussia, 8, 122, 135
Puchner, Baron Antal, 46, 53
Pulszky, Ferencz, 21,48-9, 51, 108,
114, 123-4, 136 n, 170, 175/2,
180-1, 187, 190, 207,216, 233,

241

Queen Victoria, 214

Raday, Gedeon, 48
Radetzky, Joseph, 23, 60, 90, 111,
136-7, 150
Rajacic, Josef, 113
Rapant, Daniel, 122 n, 125 n, 129
Recsey, Baron Adam, 43
Reichstag, 54, 71, 98, 115, 139/2, 144,
157

Richards, Alfred B., 239
Riedl, Frigyes, 226

Romanian(s), 8, 13, 25, 46, 60, 63, 85,
99, 103, 112-5, 185, 190, 199
Rudiger, Theodor, 67
Russia, 8, 24-5, 53, 62-7, 100, 105-6,
109, 112, 115, 143, 148, 151, 188,
192, 195, 201, 216-7, 245-6, 248
Russian intervention, 60-1, 100, 112,
186

262

Select Index

Sardinia, 8, 60, 105/2, 108, 174, 197
Saxon universitas , 85
Schlik, Franz, 50, 52-3
Schwarzenberg, Felix, 116
Serbs, Serbia(n), 31-2, 46, 59-60, 91,
99, 102-4, 11 If, 140n, 149, 157,
184-5, 188-99, 201-8
Seton-Watson, R.W., 128, 241
Settlement of 1867, 81, 117
Shakespeare, William, 221,223-32,
234-43,249n,251-53
Sikorski, 206

Slav congress in Prague, 124, 133, 157
Slavonians, 142, 157, 171
Slavs, 8, 13,25, 109, 112, 121f, 136,
151-2, 156f, 158, 174-5, 188f, 212
Slovak literary language, 123
Slovak Memorandum of 1861, 126
Slovak(s), 3, 98, 120-33, 146, 157,
186,206

Slovenske Narodne Noviny, 120, 124,
132

South Slavs, 8, 188, 190, 192
Staatskonferenz, 16, 19, 155, 158-9,
162-5; the State, 83, 90, 92-3, 101,
103, 109 n, 139, 141, 161, 177
Steed, Henry Wickham, 241
Steier, Lajos, 129
Stockau, Sophie, 146
Stratimirovic, Djordje, 120, 146, 148
Stur, Cudovit, 120-32
Sublime Porte, 8, 24, 195
Sumner, Charles, 244, 246-7
Szabad, Gyorgey, 3, 155
Szabo, Istvan, 77
Szalay, Laszlo, 110-12
Szechenyi, Count Ferenc, 222
Szechenyi, Count Istvan, 4-6, 10-11,
17-18, 39,45, 73-4, 83, 96, 160-2,
166,224-5
Szekels, 85

Szemere, Bertalan, 7, 17, 18, 44-51,
54, 58-67, 102, 106, 154, 207,
219-20, 227

Szemere government, 7, 61,63, 106
Szent-Ivanyi, Karoly, 48
Szentkiralyi, Moric, 77
Szogyeny-Marich, Laszlo, 159

Taylor, A.J.P., 3 n, 209
Teleki, Count Adam, 36
Teleki, Count Laszlo, 48, 69, 102,
107-8, 112-7, 185-8, 193,200,
207,219-22
Temperley, H.W.V., 241
The Times , 69n, 109n, 214, 216, 241
Tkalac, Imbro, 156

Transylvania, 46-8, 53, 56, 60, 63, 71,
85, 90f, 97f, 104, 138f, 170-1,
186-90, 200, 205
Treaty of Miinchengratz, 60, 112
Triune Kingdom, 8 6n, 157
Tiirr, Istvan, 241

Unitary Hungarian State, 85
United States, 136, 148, 153, 216-7,
228, 232-4, 240-5, 247-9
Urban, Aladar, 107, 175
Urbarial Patent of March, 1853 72
USA, 8, 147, 153, 155

Varga, Janos, 77-8
Vecsey, Karoly, 67
Vetter, Antal, 54, 56, 63, 217
Victor Emmanuel II, 197, 199
Vojvodina, 59, 91, 104, 140f, 157,
186f, 193

Vorosmarty, Mihaly, 223-6, 230
Vukovics, Sebo, 48, 58, 202

Waldapfel, Eszter, 107-12, 115
Walewski, 197-8
Walker’s dictionary, 228, 253
Wallachia, 24-5, 63, 68, 185-6,

195-6, 200

Washington, George, 242, 245
Welden, Ludwig, 57
Werboczy, Stephen 73

Select Index

263

Wesselenyi, Baron Miklos, 4, 6, 11,
73, 76, 83

Wessenberg cabinet, 26
Windischgraetz, Prince Alfred, 146,
162, 180, 187

Zako, Istvan, 43
Zamoyski, Wladyslaw, 68,
187-8

Zay, Imre, 121-6, 131
Zay, Karoly, 122, 131

'IJ

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