or even to the diet, for the necessary reforms. Society itself must take the initiative by breaking down the barriers of class exclusiveness and reviving a healthy public spirit. The effect of this teaching was manifest at the diet of 1832, when the Liberals in the Lower Chamber had a large majority, prominent among whom were Francis Deák and Ödön Beöthy. In the Upper House, however, the magnates united with the government to form a conservative party obstinately opposed to any project of reform, which frustrated all the efforts of the Liberals.
The alarm of the government at the power and popularity of the Liberal party induced it, soon after the accession of the new king, the emperor Ferdinand I. (1835–1848), to attempt to crush the reform movement by arresting and imprisoning the most active agitators among them, Louis Kossuth and Miklós Wesselényi. But the nation was no longer to be cowed. The diet of 1839 refused to proceed to business till the political prisoners had been released, and, while in the Lower Chamber the reforming majority was larger than ever, a Liberal party was now also formed in the Upper House under the brilliant leadership of Count Louis Batthyány and Baron Joseph Eötvös. Two progressive measures of the highest importance were passed by this diet, one making Magyar the official language of Hungary, the other freeing the peasants’ holdings from all feudal obligations.
The results of the diet of 1839 did not satisfy the advanced Liberals, while the opposition of the government and of the Upper House still further embittered the general discontent. The chief exponent of this temper was the Pesti Hirlap, Hungary’s first political newspaper, founded in Kossuth. 1841 by Kossuth, whose articles, advocating armed reprisals if necessary, inflamed the extremists but alienated Széchenyi, who openly attacked Kossuth’s opinions. The polemic on both sides was violent; but, as usual, the extreme views prevailed, and on the assembling of the diet of 1843 Kossuth was more popular than ever, while the influence of Széchenyi had sensibly declined. The tone of this diet was passionate, and the government was fiercely attacked for interfering with the elections. Fresh triumphs were won by the Liberals. Magyar was now declared to be the language of the schools and the law-courts as well as of the legislature; mixed marriages were legalized; and official positions were thrown open to non-nobles.
The interval between the diet of 1843 and that of 1847 saw
a complete disintegration and transformation of the various
political parties. Széchenyi openly joined the government,
while the moderate Liberals separated from the extremists and
formed a new party, the Centralists. Immediately before the
elections, however, Deák succeeded in reuniting all the Liberals
on the common platform of “The Ten Points”: (1) Responsible
ministries, (2) Popular representation, (3) The incorporation of
Transylvania, (4) Right of public meeting, (6) Absolute religious
liberty, (7) Universal equality before the law, (8) Universal
taxation, (9) The abolition of the Aviticum, an obsolete and
anomalous land-tenure, (10) The abolition of serfdom, with
compensation to the landlords. The ensuing elections resulted
in a complete victory of the Progressives. All efforts to bring
about an understanding between the government and the opposition
were fruitless. Kossuth demanded not merely the redress of
actual grievances, but a reform which would make grievances
impossible in the future. In the highest circles a dissolution of
the diet now seemed to be the sole remedy; but, before it
Revolution of 1848.
The March Laws.
could be carried out, tidings of the February revolution
in Paris reached Pressburg[1] (March 1), and on the 3rd
of March Kossuth’s motion for the appointment of an
independent, responsible ministry was accepted by the
Lower House. The moderates, alarmed not so much
by the motion itself as by its tone, again tried to intervene;
but on the 13th of March the Vienna revolution broke out,
and the king, yielding to pressure or panic, appointed Count
Louis Batthyány premier of the first Hungarian responsible
ministry, which included Kossuth, Széchenyi and Deák. The
Ten Points, or the March Laws as they were now called, were
then adopted by the legislature and received the royal assent
(April 10). Hungary had, to all intents and purposes, become an
independent state bound to Austria only by the fact that the
palatine chanced to be an Austrian archduke.
In the assertion of their national aspirations, confused as these were with the new democratic ideals, the Magyars had had the support of the German democrats who temporarily held the reins of power in Vienna. On the other hand, they were threatened by an ominous stirring of the The non-Magyar races. subject races in Hungary itself. Croats, Vlachs, Serbs and Slovaks resented Magyar domination—a domination which had been carefully secured under the revolutionary constitution by a very narrow franchise, and out of the general chaos each race hoped to create for itself a separate national existence. The separatist movement was strongest in the south, where the Rumans were in touch with their kinsmen in Walachia and Moldavia, the Serbs with their brethren in Servia, and the Croats intent on reasserting the independence of the “Tri-une Kingdom.”
The attitude of the distracted imperial government towards these movements was at first openly suspicious and hostile. The emperor and his ministers hoped that, having conceded the demands of the Magyars, they would receive the help of the Hungarian government in Jellachich. crushing the revolution elsewhere, a hope that seemed to be justified by the readiness with which Batthyány consented to send a contingent to the assistance of the imperialists in Italy. That the encouragement of the Slav aspirations was soon deliberately adopted as a weapon against the Hungarian government was due, partly to the speedy predominance at Pest of Kossuth and the extreme party of which he was the mouthpiece, but mainly to the calculated policy of Baron Jellachich, who on the 14th of April was appointed ban of Croatia. Jellachich, who as a soldier was devoted to the interests of the imperial house, realized that the best way to break the revolutionary power of the Magyars and Germans would be to encourage the Slav national ideas, which were equally hostile to both; to set up against the Dualism in favour at Pest and Vienna the federal system advocated by the Slavs, and so to restore the traditional Habsburg principle of Divide et impera. This policy he pursued with masterly skill. His first acts on taking up his office were to repudiate the authority of the Hungarian diet, to replace the Magyar officials with ardent “Illyrians,” and to proclaim martial law. Under pressure from the palatine of Batthyány an imperial edict was issued, on the 7th day of May, ordering the ban to desist from his separatist plans and take his orders from Pest. He not only refused to obey, but on the 5th of June convoked to Agram the Croatian national diet, of which the first act was to declare the independence of the Tri-une Kingdom. Once more, at the instance of Batthyány, the emperor intervened; and on the 10th an imperial edict stripped Jellachich of all his offices.
Meanwhile, however, Jellachich had himself started for Innsbruck, where he succeeded in persuading the emperor of the loyalty of his intentions, and whence, though not as yet formally reinstated, he was allowed to return to Croatia with practically unfettered discretion. The Hungarian government, in fact, had played into his hands. At a time when everything depended on the army, they had destroyed the main tie which bound the Austrian court to their interests by tampering with the relation of the Hungarian army to the crown. In May a national guard had been created, the disaffected troops being bribed by increased pay to desert their colours and join this; and on the 1st of June the garrison of Pest had taken an oath to the constitution. All hope of crushing revolutionary Vienna with Magyar aid was thus at an end, and Jellachich, who on the 20th issued a proclamation to the Croat regiments in Italy to remain with their colours and fight for the common fatherland, was free to carry out his policy of identifying the cause of the southern Slavs with that of the imperial army. The alliance was cemented in July by a military demonstration, of which Jellachich was the hero, at Vienna; as the result of which the government mustered up courage to declare publicly that the basis of the Austrian state was “the recognition of the equal rights of all nationalities.”
- ↑ Up to 1848 the Hungarian diet was usually held at Pressburg.
