The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Mészáros, Lázár

MÉSZÁROS, Lázár, a Hungarian general, born in Baja, county of Bács, Feb. 20, 1796, died at Eywood, Herefordshire, England, Nov. 16, 1858. He studied law at Pesth, but in 1813, on the outbreak of the new war against Napoleon, he entered the Hungarian army in the service of the emperor Francis. He was in Italy as colonel of a hussar regiment in the spring of 1848, when he received the first information of the important changes in Hungary, and was soon after offered the ministry of war in the cabinet of Batthyanyi, and started for Pesth. Elected a member of the diet, he defended the moderate measures of the ministry. He went to the seat of war in the south, but failed in his attempts to storm the Rascian ramparts of Szent-Tamás (September). When Austria avowed the purpose of subjugating Hungary, he took the revolutionary side. In December he was sent to the north to check the advance of Schlick; but after an indecisive encounter at Szikszó (Dec. 28), his motley army suffered a total rout before Kaschau (Jan. 4, 1849). When the difficulties with Gorgey compelled Kossuth to appoint a new commander-in-chief, the title was given to Mészáros and the real command to Dembinski, with whom Mészáros soon after shared in the defeats at Szöreg (Aug. 5) and Temesvár (Aug. 9), and a few days later was an exile in Turkey. Accompanying Kossuth to Widin, Shumla, and Kutaieh, he was allowed in May, 1851, to depart for England. He lived for some time in France, went to the island of Jersey after the coup d'état of Dec. 2, 1851, and in the summer of 1853 sailed to America, where he resided at Flushing, L. I., and was naturalized as an American citizen. At his death he was on his way to visit Switzerland.