The Habsburg Empire (1790-1918)

by C A Macartney

  The Roumanians were frankly hostile. A first big meeting was held at Balázsfalva on 24 April to protest against the Union, and another, attended by forty thousand participants and presided over by the two Bishops, on 15 May. This congress protested against the Diet’s voting on the Union before the Roumanians were properly represented on it, swore loyalty to Ferdinand qua Grand Prince of Transylvania and asked for recognition as a ‘nation’. The Roumanians present at the Diet’s meeting voted for the Union, on which Bishop Leményi actually called down a blessing; but the Roumanians, too, sent a deputation to Innsbruck to try to prevent the ratification of the decision.

  But the primitive Roumanian shepherds, the hardly more civilized (and completely disunited) Slovak peasants, the handful of cautious Saxon burghers, were too weak in themselves to threaten the Hungarian State, and because they were weak, the Crown did not at this stage think it worth while antagonizing the Hungarian Government for their sakes. The Croats and the Hungarian Serbs were a different proposition. Both were organized communities, the former politically, the latter, at least ecclesiastically. Both could almost be called nations in arms, for nearly half of each people were domiciled in the Military Frontier, and although the first-line formations were out of the country, even the reservists were trained soldiers, and armed. They were also in any case, through the organization of the Frontier, closely connected with the centralist regime, accustomed to obey the orders of the Hofkriegsrat, and they were the traditional instruments to which the Viennese centralists had become accustomed to look when seeking a counter-poise to excessive Hungarian demands. In the spring of 1848 the Court had especial reason to wish to preserve their good will, because, as has been said, they formed a very important component of Radetzky’s army in Italy.

  Thus from the very first days of the revolution, the Court and the two Southern Slav peoples of Hungary were potential, and up to a point, actual, although surreptitious, allies. As relations between Hungary and the Court deteriorated, so that alliance became more intimate and more open until September found the Croats invading Hungary in the name of its King, with the Serbs fighting at their side. Conversely, the encouragement given by the Court to the Southern Slavs was a main factor in the breach between Hungary and the Court. The story was not, however, a straightforward one. In the spring Hungary was still technically loyal to the Dynasty, and the great majority of its Government, quite sincerely so; and even if the Court had been quite indifferent to its pledged word, it could not have afforded to throw away this asset and to provoke a hostility not less dangerous than that of Piedmont itself. Moreover, Radetzky’s army did not consist only of Frontier units; it contained a number, almost exactly as large, of Hungarian regiments. Finally, the support received by the Serbs from the Principality of Serbia was not altogether without its disquieting features even in the eyes of Hungary’s worst enemies at the Court. For many weeks, therefore, the Court wavered between law and interest, or between one legal case or one argument of expediency and another; it was not until July that the die was irrevocably cast.

  It should be said that it is a misrepresentation of history to depict even the Croat movement, still less the Serb, as purely the result of Viennese intrigue. There were times, during these weeks, when the Court stood officially on the side of Hungary; but it usually did so half-heartedly, although not without duplicity.

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  The Croats had raised their voices almost as early as the Magyars, and an alliance between them and Vienna had been adumbrated before the Magyars had fairly extracted from Ferdinand his initial consent to a responsible Hungarian Ministry. It happened that the office of Ban of Croatia was vacant, and as early as 14 March, Baron Josika, then still Transylvanian Chancellor, had advised the Archduke Ludwig to appoint an ‘energetic and reliable man’ to that office.148 On 16 March mass assemblages had gathered in Zagreb and other Croat towns with the usual purpose of framing national demands, without, indeed, reaching any very definite result. But among the innumerable voices raised, one was particularly resonant: that of a certain Josip Jellačić, Colonel of one of the Frontier regiments, who a few years previously had been an enthusiastic Magyarone, but had since fallen under the influence of Gaj and turned fanatical Illyrian. No politician and (as it afterwards transpired) a very poor soldier, Jellačić was now completely Croat nationalist and anti-Magyar, and the burthen of his utterances was that Croatia must emancipate herself from Magyar tyranny and cleave in undying loyalty to the Crown.

  The Föispán of Zagreb County, Baron Kulmer, who was also an Illyrian in politics, went up to Vienna to report. On 20 March, Kolowrat submitted to the Staatskonferenz a memorandum embodying Josika’s advice, and on Kulmer’s suggestion, proposed Jellačić for Ban.149 On the 23rd, before Batthyány had time to protest, a Rescript, signed by Ferdinand and counter-signed by an official in the Hungarian Court Chancellery, appeared appointing Jellačić Ban and nominating him Privy Councillor and Major-General and Colonel in Chief of the Croat Regiments.

  Kulmer hurried with the news to Zagreb, where, on the 25th, a mass meeting, without waiting for confirmation or for the legal forms to be observed, acclaimed Jellačić Ban. It also resolved to petition the Crown for the unification of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia in a single polity, with its own responsible Ministry and Diet. A deputation bearing these demands arrived in Vienna on the 29th.

  The petitioners, it is true, got little satisfaction: even if the Court had been willing at that stage to affront the Hungarians, it was not prepared to part with Dalmatia. The deputation was told only that its legal grievances would be remedied. But Jellačić, who arrived in Vienna in the first week of April, was benignly treated. Although he declared that he would not take the oath as Ban (which he would have had to swear to the King of Hungary), he was, on 8 April, again promoted, this time to Field-Marshal-Lieutenant, and made General Commandant of the Croat Frontier Districts. He returned happily to Zagreb, where he announced that he regarded the Palatine as ‘his peer, not his superior’, forbade Croat officials to communicate with BudaPest, and assumed dictatorial powers, not only over Croatia but also over Slavonia and Fiume.

  By now the Hungarians had finished drafting the April Laws, which were obviously incompatible with the Croats’ wishes (although, as the dating shows, it was not the Laws that produced Croat counter-demands, but if anything, the reverse). The Hungarian Government was anxious to reach a modus with the Croats; an invitation was sent to Jellačić to come to Buda-Pest for consultations, in the hope of finding a basis of agreement. The Government offered the concession that the Croats might use their own language in communication with the central authorities. Jellačić replied on 19 April by announcing the ‘rupture of relations’ between Croatia and Hungary. On the 27th he announced that a number of offences would be punishable by Court Martial: these included the offence of ascribing the liberation of the peasants in Croatia to the Hungarian laws. On this, the Palatine went to Vienna and extracted from Ferdinand three Rescripts. One of these, dated 6 May, was addressed to Jellačić, told him that Ferdinand ‘would never allow the legal bond between the Lands of the Hungarian Crown to be loosened by arbitrary orders or unilateral decisions’ and ordered him to obey orders received by him from the Palatine or the Hungarian Ministry. The second, of the same date, authorized the Palatine, if he thought it necessary, to send a Royal Commissioner to Croatia to repress any dangerous separatism. The third, dated 7 May, informed all the three officers commanding in the Military Frontier that they would in future be receiving their orders through the Hungarian Ministry of War.

  None of these documents had any perceptible effect. The Palatine wrote to Jellačić ordering him to retract his pronouncements of the 19th and the 27th. Jellačić returned the letters unopened. Meanwhile, he had convoked a ‘Ban’s Conference’ for the 9th, and this, on the 11th, produced a long Address to the Crown complaining of the ‘inordinate excesses of the Magyars’, denying the legality of the Hungarian position and asking for an independent
Ministry for the ‘Triune Kingdom’. The Palatine now ordered General Hrabowski, commanding the Pétervárad Frontier District and the senior of the three Frontier Commanders, to go to Croatia, annul all illegal measures taken by Jellačić and institute proceedings against him. These orders increased the confusion. Both Hrabowski and his colleague, Piret, had appealed both to the Crown and to both the Austrian and Hungarian Ministries of Defence to postpone placing the Frontier districts under Hungarian command, saying that the Serbs would revolt against it; Hrabowski had even refrained from publishing the order. Correspondence between the two Generals and Latour produced a situation which reached the very limit of obscurity: Latour perforce confirmed the Rescript of 7 May, but told both Generals to inform him immediately of all orders received by them from Buda-Pest. Then, on 3 June, he extracted from Ferdinand a Rescript to the effect that orders from the Hungarian Ministry of Defence must be obeyed, but that this did not mean that the administration of the Frontier was taken out of the hands of ‘the Minister of War of the Gesammtmonarchie, nor that the Supreme Command of the Army was to be impeded. As we shall see, even this sibylline instruction was to be over-ruled within a few days. Meanwhile, Hrabowski made no motions to obey the Palatine’s order. A crowd burnt the Palatine in effigy in Zagreb. Jellačić called on ‘the inhabitants of the Triune Kingdom’ to enrol in a National Guard, and convoked the Zagreb Diet for 5 June.

  The thread of the Croat question now began to run together with that of the Serb.

  Like practically all the nationalities of the Monarchy, the Hungarian Serbs had held innumerable meetings in the first days of freedom, and these had also conformed to rule in speaking with various voices, although most of the programmes produced had been pronouncedly nationalist. Then, on 27 March, the Serbian Church Council at Ujvidék drew up a 16-Point programme which, while ‘willingly conceding the supremacy of the Magyar language and nationality in the political and domestic structure of the Hungarian State’, asked for legal recognition of their own ‘nationality’, guarantees for the free use of the Serbian language in all their internal and religious concerns, and the right to hold an annual national congress at which all Serbs, including those of the Military Frontier, should be represented.

  A deputation took the programme to Pozsony, where they arrived on 8 April. They came into head-on collision with the Hungarians’ insistence on the political unity of the Hungarian State. They were assured that they would receive all the political, social and religious liberties enjoyed by all citizens of Hungary, but that there could be no talk of their getting corporate organization on a ‘national’ basis. After an auspicious beginning, tempers became frayed, especially in a private interview between the Serbs and Kossuth. One of the Serbs, a young ex-officer of hussars named Stratimirovics, asked for the recognition of the Serbs’ ‘Leopoldinian Privileges’, and said that if the Serbs did not get satisfaction in Pozsony, they would find it elsewhere. ‘In that case,’ said Kossuth, ‘we shall cross swords.’ ‘A Serb was never frightened of that,’ answered Stratimirovics. He could afford to say this, for besides the forces which they could muster themselves, the Serbs were already in touch with the Principality of Serbia, which was not only egging them on but also winking at and itself secretly organizing the dispatch of armed volunteers to them – this with the full knowledge and approval of Colonel Mayerhofer, the Austrian Consul in Belgrade, who assured his Government that it could without danger accept help offered from this quarter.

  The next important move was a meeting of the Serbian Church Council at Karlóca, on 14 April. This went much further: it demanded the establishment of a Serbian Voivody under its own Voivode, and comprising Syrmia, the Bánát, Bácka and Baranya. This was to form an autonomous unit within the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. The Hungarian Government sent down a commissioner to South Hungary, who offered the Serbs a Congress at the end of May to discuss the organization of their religious institutions. But meanwhile the extremists were gaining ground. There were by now several thousand Serb guerillas in Hungary, and small outbreaks of unrest were almost continuous. Even the Frontier troops were obviously unreliable. Now the Serb Archbishop, Rajačić, took charge and convoked a grand ‘National Congress’, to meet at Karlóca on 13 May. This was attended by several thousand Serbs from Inner Hungary and the Frontier, and by numerous visitors from Serbia. It registered its decisions on 15 May in the form often points. The first recorded the election of Rajačić as Patriarch, and of Stephen Suplyikać, Colonel of a Frontier regiment then serving in Italy, as Voivode. The second announced the constitution of the ‘Nation of Hungarian Serbs’ as a free and independent ‘Nation’, under the House of Habsburg and within the framework of the Hungarian Crown. The third proclaimed the establishment of a Voivody, consisting of Syrmia and the Bánát, with the adjacent Frontier Districts. The fourth declared the Voivody to be in political alliance with the Triune Kingdom. The fifth established a Committee to draft a Constitution, with a permanent executive Committee (Glavai Odbor) to act as provisional ‘Government’. As Suplyikać, like Mészáros, was on active service in Italy, the Presidency of the Odbor, with the duty of organizing an army, was entrusted (in spite of his youth) to Stratimirovics, the hero of the verbal duel with Kossuth.

  A delegation of Serbs took these resolutions to Zagreb, where they arrived on 29 May. This move penetrated Hrabowski’s composure, and he met Jellačić, but let himself be reassured when the Croat protested that he was a loyal subject of the Monarch. But it was under these threats that the Hungarians began the series of moves to which the Court in its turn afterwards appealed as evidence of their disloyalty; although the whole story from this point on is really one of hens and eggs, the situation growing steadily worse with each succession.

  Many local authorities, especially in South Hungary, had already been recruiting National Guards, which were little more than detachments of special constabulary. But on 16 May Batthyány, who was still provisionally in charge of defence (Mészáros not having yet returned from Italy) appealed for ten thousand volunteers for a new force known as the Hónvédség (Home Defence) for defence against the Serbs. To keep it within the letter of the law, this force was placed under the Minister Presidency and ranked, technically, as a civilian body, but pay and rank in it were equated with those of the army, and officers and other ranks were invited to transfer into it. Vienna regarded it, with reason, as the nucleus of a national army. The response to the appeal was not, indeed, very encouraging in Hungary itself.150

  Kossuth, who had already been negotiating with the Commercial Bank of Pest for a loan, undertook to finance the arming of this force, and issued, first governmental bonds, then small currency notes, turning the bank, to all intents and purposes, into a bank of issue.

  The Government, however, still hoped to keep the law on its side. It had instructed Esterházy to follow the Court to Innsbruck. At the end of May the Palatine, accompanied by Széchenyi and Eötvös, went there, bearing requests to Ferdinand to sanction the convocation of the Diet for 2 July, and himself to come to Buda to open it – he would be safe among his loyal subjects. Ferdinand was asked also to order Jellačić to cancel the convocation of the Zagreb Diet, which he was not entitled to order.

  The mission was almost completely successful. Ferdinand’s family refused to let him leave Innsbruck, but the Palatine was authorized to open the Diet for him, and a letter was sent to Jellačić ordering him to cancel the Zagreb Diet and to come immediately to Innsbruck to explain his conduct. Then when, a few days later, Batthyány arrived, bearing the Transylvanian Diet’s resolution in favour of the Union, for ratification, Ferdinand ratified the Union (this was on 10 June) and the Roumanians and Saxons, who arrived the next day, were told that they were too late.

  Batthyány also promised the Court that if Hungary felt secure from attack by the Croats and Serbs, the Diet would vote forty thousand men, and supplies, for the campaign in Italy. In return he got Ferdinand’s signature to three documents. One,
dated 8 June, told Mészáros (who had now reached Hungary) that in future all orders to all troops in Hungary, including the Frontier, would be issued through him, the Palatine being empowered to sign for the King. The two other documents were dated the 10th. One announced the suspension of Jellačić from all his offices, civil and military; the other instructed the Military Frontier commanders to take their orders from Hrabowski. These two documents were, however, to be used only if Jellačić, when he arrived, failed to justify his conduct, and Esterházy did not put his counter-signature to them.

  Meanwhile, Jellačić had been taking his time. He had disregarded altogether the order to cancel the Diet, allowed that body to meet, and had himself ceremonially (although illegally) installed. The Diet then approved the Serbs’ programme (with a reservation in respect of Syrmia), accepted their proffered alliance, and proceeded, under Jellačić’s benign guidance, to work out its own programme for a great Illyrian Province, comprising all the Southern Slav areas of the Monarchy and enjoying extensive Home Rule; although it wisely placated the Court by allowing the control of defence and finance to remain with the central government. This having been completed, a joint deputation of Croats and Serbs set out for Innsbruck on the 12th. Jellačić went with them. Travelling slowly, they reached Innsbruck only on the 18th, by which time Batthyány, unable to wait the Ban’s pleasure any longer, had gone back to Hungary.