and thus, with the sense of something greedy or ravenous, to food given to a hawk and to the contents of a hawk’s crop or stomach. It is from this sense that the expression of a person’s “gorge rising at” anything in the sense of loathing or disgust is derived. “Gorge,” from analogy with “throat,” is used with the meaning of a narrow opening as of a ravine or valley between hills; in fortification, of the neck of an outwork or bastion; and in architecture, of the narrow part of a Roman Doric column, between the echinus and the astragal. From “gorge” also comes a diminutive “gorget,” a portion of a woman’s costume in the middle ages, being a close form of wimple covering the neck and upper part of the breast, and also that part of the body armour covering the neck and collarbone (see Gorget). The word “gorgeous,” of splendid or magnificent appearance, comes from the O. Fr. gorgias, with the same meaning, and has very doubtfully been connected with gorge, a ruffle or neck-covering, of a supposed elaborate kind.
GÖRGEI, ARTHUR (1818– ), Hungarian soldier, was
born at Toporcz, in Upper Hungary, on the 30th of January
1818. He came of a Saxon noble family who were converts to
Protestantism. In 1837 he entered the Bodyguard of Hungarian
Nobles at Vienna, where he combined military service with a
course of study at the university. In 1845, on the death of his
father, he retired from the army and devoted himself to the
study of chemistry at Prague, after which he retired to the
family estates in Hungary. On the outbreak of the revolutionary
war of 1848, Görgei offered his sword to the Hungarian government.
Entering the Honvéd army with the rank of captain, he
was employed in the purchase of arms, and soon became major
and commandant of the national guards north of the Theiss.
Whilst he was engaged in preventing the Croatian army from
crossing the Danube, at the island of Csepel, below Pest, the
wealthy Hungarian magnate Count Eugene Zichy fell into his
hands, and Görgei caused him to be arraigned before a court-martial
on a charge of treason and immediately hanged. After
various successes over the Croatian forces, of which the most
remarkable was that at Ozora, where 10,000 prisoners fell into
his hands, Görgei was appointed commander of the army of the
Upper Danube, but, on the advance of Prince Windischgrätz
across the Leitha, he resolved to fall back, and in spite of the
remonstrances of Kossuth he held to his resolution and retreated
upon Waitzen. Here, irritated by what he considered undue
interference with his plans, he issued (January 5th, 1849) a proclamation
throwing the blame for the recent want of success
upon the government, thus virtually revolting against their
authority. Görgei retired to the Hungarian Erzgebirge and
conducted operations on his own initiative. Meanwhile the
supreme command had been conferred upon the Pole Dembinski,
but the latter fought without success the battle of Kapolna,
at which action Görgei’s corps arrived too late to take an effective
part, and some time after this the command was again conferred
upon Görgei. The campaign in the spring of 1849 was brilliantly
conducted by him, and in a series of engagements, he defeated
Windischgrätz. In April he won the victories of Gödöllö Izaszeg
and Nagy Sarló, relieved Komorn, and again won a battle at
Acs or Waitzen. Had he followed up his successes by taking
the offensive against the Austrian frontier, he might perhaps
have dictated terms in the Austrian capital itself. As it was,
he contented himself with reducing Ofen, the Hungarian capital,
in which he desired to re-establish the diet, and after effecting
this capture he remained inactive for some weeks. Meanwhile,
at a diet held at Debreczin, Kossuth had formally proposed the
dethronement of the Habsburg dynasty and Hungary had been
proclaimed a republic. Görgei had refused the field-marshal’s
bâton offered him by Kossuth and was by no means in sympathy
with the new régime. However, he accepted the portfolio of minister of war, while retaining the command of the troops in the field. The Russians had now intervened in the struggle and
made common cause with the Austrians; the allies were advancing
into Hungary on all sides, and Görgei was defeated by
Haynau at Pered (20th–21st of June). Kossuth, perceiving
the impossibility of continuing the struggle and being unwilling
himself to make terms, resigned his position as dictator, and was
succeeded by Görgei, who meanwhile had been fighting hard
against the various columns of the enemy. Görgei, convinced
that he could not break through the enemy’s lines, surrendered,
with his army of 20,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, to the Russian general Rüdiger at Vilagos. Görgei was not court-marshaled,
as were his generals, but kept in confinement at
Klagenfurt, where he lived, chiefly employed in chemical work,
until 1867, when he was pardoned and returned to Hungary.
The surrender, and particularly the fact that his life was spared
while his generals and many of his officers and men were hanged
or shot, led, perhaps naturally, to his being accused of treason
by public opinion of his countrymen. After his release he
played no further part in public life. Even in 1885 an attempt
which was made by a large number of his old comrades to rehabilitate
him was not favourably received in Hungary. After
some years’ work as a railway engineer he retired to Visegrád,
where he lived thenceforward in retreat. (See also Hungary: History.)
General Görgei wrote a justification of his operations (Mein Leben und Wirken in Ungarn 1848–1859, Leipzig, 1852), an anonymous paper under the title Was verdanken wir der Revolution? (1875), and a reply to Kossuth’s charges (signed “Joh. Demár”) in Budapesti Szemle, 1881, 25-26. Amongst those who wrote in his favour were Captain Stephan Görgei (1848 és 1849 böl, Budapest, 1885), and Colonel Aschermann (Ein offenes Wort in der Sache des Honvéd-Generals Arthur Görgei, Klausenburg, 1867).
See also A. G. Horn, Görgei, Oberkommandant d. ung. Armee (Leipzig, 1850); Kinety, Görgei’s Life and Work in Hungary (London, 1853); Szinyei, in Magyár Irók (iii. 1378), Hentaller, Görgei as a Statesman (Hungarian); Elemár, Görgei in 1848–1849 (Hungarian, Budapest, 1886).
GORGES, SIR FERDINANDO (c. 1566–1647), English colonial pioneer in America and the founder of Maine, was born in
Somersetshire, England, probably in 1566. From youth both
a soldier and a sailor, he was a prisoner in Spain at the age of
twenty-one, having been captured by a ship of the Spanish
Armada. In 1589 he was in command of a small body of troops
fighting for Henry IV. of France, and after distinguishing himself
at the siege of Rouen was knighted there in 1591. In 1596
he was commissioned captain and keeper of the castle and fort
at Plymouth and captain of St Nicholas Isle; in 1597 he accompanied
Essex on the expedition to the Azores; in 1599 assisted
him in the attempt to suppress the Tyrone rebellion in Ireland,
and in 1600 was implicated in Essex’s own attempt at rebellion
in London. In 1603, on the accession of James I., he was
suspended from his post at Plymouth, but was restored in the
same year and continued to serve as “governor of the forts
and island of Plymouth” until 1629, when, his garrison having
been without pay for three and a half years, his fort a ruin,
and all his applications for aid having been ignored, he resigned.
About 1605 he began to be greatly interested in the New World;
in 1606 he became a member of the Plymouth Company, and he
laboured zealously for the founding of the Popham colony at
the mouth of the Sagadahoc (now the Kennebec) river in 1607.
For several years following the failure of that enterprise in 1608
he continued to fit out ships for fishing, trading and exploring,
with colonization as the chief end in view. He was largely
instrumental in procuring the new charter of 1620 for the
Plymouth Company, and was at all times of its existence perhaps
the most influential member of that body. He was the recipient,
either solely or jointly, of several grants of territory from it,
for one of which he received in 1639 the royal charter of Maine
(see Maine). In 1635 he sought to be appointed governor-general
of all New England, but the English Civil War—in which he
espoused the royal cause—prevented him from ever actually
holding that office. A short time before his death at Long
Ashton in 1647 he wrote his Briefe Narration of the Originall
Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations into the Parts of
America. He was an advocate, especially late in life, of the
feudal type of colony.