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fixed upon the right thing to better the condition of the poor , and to produce permanent means to almost any extent of honest subsistence . "
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KLAPKA ' S HUNGARIAN WAR . Memoirs of the War of Independence in Hungary . By General Klapka . late Secretary-at-War to the Hungarian Commonwealth , and Commandant of the Fortress of Komorn . Translated from the Original Manuscript by Otto Wenckstern . 2 vols . Gilpin , Bishopsgate Without . Genebai . Kxapka ' s Memoirs , already for some time before the world , still remain the best and most authentic account of the Hungarian struggle . They consist , indeed , rather of rough notes and jottings by a soldier than of a clear and connected narrative , such as would render any other account of the same transactions unnecessary ; but whosoever , having a general idea of the struggle in his head , and a general recollection of the order in which events followed each other as they were announced in the contemporary newspapers , shall go to General Klapka ' s book for a key to the causes of the final and fatal result , will find his curiosity satisfied .
The first blunder in the conduct of the struggle was , General Klapka thinks , the neglect of the opportunity of marching upon Vienna immediately after the raising of the siege of Komorn ( 26 th of April , 1849 ) . Had Gorgey then carried the war into the vicinity of the Austrian capital , there were almost certain chances of his success ; and even at the time there were not wanting men who regarded his neglect to do so as a proof of treachery . In this opinion General Klapka does not acquiesce . He thinks , however , that the failure of the movement in
its subsequent course was , in a great measure , owing to Gorgey . "What was wanted all along , in General Klapka ' s opinion , was a military dictator , who should unite in his own hands all the powers of the nation , supersede for the time being all the ordinary machinery of diets and councils , and compel the ten or twelve generals among whom the Hungarian forces were divided to act in strict military concert . Had Kossuth been a soldier , then , assuredly , Kossuth , whose heaTt was Hungarian to the core , should have had the dictatorship . But as this could not be , Gorgey , Klapka thinks , was the proper man . In the iollowing passages General Klapka sums up his views of the character of this extraordinary individual and of his behaviour during the war ;—
" Gorgey was a soldier throughout . A Spartan education , an innate and carefully fostered stoicism , which at times ran into cynicism , and a manner of thought positive , and foreign to all ideal creations of the mind , impressed his character with that striking roughness which was at war with all forms , and which caused him to look with deep aversion on the ' pomp , pride , and circumstance ' of commonplace revolutions , and the unruly proceedings of an excited crowd . These sentiments , and his attachment to a legitimate power , remained in him unshaken , even amidst the overpowering storm of a Revolution . So long as the Hungarian Government of 1848
moved on a so-called ' legal pivot , '—so long as their actions had the King ' s name and authority , they found in Gorgey one of their stanchest adherents , . and one who was firmly resolved—as indeed he proved it by the execution of the Count Eugen Zichy , —to support them , with all the energy of his iron will against the Austrians , whom he hated as the hereditary enemies of his country . But when , after the resignation of the Batthyany Cabinet , he received the commands of the Government , not from the constitutional Hungarian "War-office—but from a Committee of whom the major part were civilians , who had no knowledge of military things , he appears to have become impregnated with the conviction , that the fate of
the country could only be decided by a soldier . After the fatal battle at Shwechat ( in autumn , 1848 ) he was appointed to the command of the army on the Upper Danube . And when this appointment opened an unlimited field to his ambition—when he looked around , and found no military character that could vie with his , the thought was but natural , that fate had destined him to play that lofty part . The contradictory dispositions which the Committee of Defence sent him in the course of his retreat , in December , 1848 , and the undecided , nervous , and planless conduct of that , board , prevailed at length against his patience , and incited him to a determined opposition . * * * *
" When the siege of Buda drew to its close , the rumour of a Russian intervention became daily more distinct ; in the commencement of June there could be no doubt as to the intentions of the Czar . Gorgey , impelled by his fatal practical manner of viewing men and things , considered the forces of our enemies , and compared them with the means of defence which were actually at our disposal . But what he counted on either side were the bayonets , guns , and stores . Ilia calculations led him to the
mournful conviction of the certainty of the enemy ' s Ruccens , and of our own ruin . Gorgey ' s calculations were those of a soldier , not of a politician—nor , indeed , of a Hungarian . All the moral advantages which in this war were on our side , appeared to him as mere illusions , nnd not worthy of notice , lie misunderstood our national character , and cared little or nothing for the sense , for the original strength of the people , lie counted his battalions . * * * * " Had Gorgey , in these days of danger ( if . indeed , he
felt it within him so to do ) , freely and boldly seized the extremest measures ; had he grasped the dictatorial power , for the purpose of gaining an honourable peace for his mangled country ; his nation and history would be compelled to honour him as a patriot and a man of great deeds . His true friends , and even Kossuth , if his confidence had been but responded to , would have thrown the whole weight of their influence into his scale , 'i'hey would have silenced that weak and timid portion which was always prosing about military despotism and such like scarecrows . Fresh from victory , swaying the powers of the nation at his will , his might have been a proud position indeed : and proudly might he have offered the his heroic
hand of reconciliation in the name of people . If not accepted , that hand might have been raised to wage the war of annihilation and a twofold vengeance , and an iron perseverance would have crowned that war with success . Gorgey ought to have risen to the height of Cromwell , to save the liberty , honour , and independence of Hungary , and with them the honour of his own name . But fate had not made him for such high things . Instead of acting openly , he was close and mysterious to his friends , and vindictive and inexplicable m his dealings with the Government . All his endeavours seemed to tend by petty jealousies to increase his popularity with the Upper Army , and to weaken the authority of the Government . It was his boast to display an iron
character , but he wanted the courage to aim at supreme power—he wanted the boldness to grasp it . It was only when the battle of Raab had been fought—when overpowering hostile forces were concentrated in the heart of the country that he dropped his mask ; but it was not to stand forth and take the lead of the nation ; it was not to lead us to victory or death . No ! it was for the purpose of a divorce of his own lot , and that of his troops , from the fate of his country ; it was for the purpose of a disgraceful surrender of his victorious arms . "
These passages are virtually a sketch of the whole Hungarian war . They present to us , first , the picture of a country enthusiastic but distracted between a multiplicity of leaders and authorities , conspicuous among whom were Kossuth , a magnanimous and heroic soul , anxious but for one thing—the salvation of Hungary ; and Gorgey , an able , hard-headed soldier , without chivalry or principle , anxious also but for one thing—the aggrandizement of Arthur Gorgey : then the picture of these two men working
on each in his own way—Kossuth devising , exciting , imploring ; Gorgey chafing , quarrelling , and indulging in all kinds of vagaries that could show his contempt for the other generals : nexjt the picture of Gorgey made supreme at last , and put in the place he had desired , by the disinterested abdication of Kossuth : and , lastly , the picture of a country disgracefully surrendered because this supreme man , being a man of mere selfishness and calculation , thought that the odds , once tolerable enough , had just become too great in a military point of view .
General Klapka ' s name is illustrious , not only for his general services throughout the war , but also for his brave defence of the fortress of Komorn against the Austrians after Gorgey ' s surrender had brought the war otherwise to a close . Not the least interesting part of his book is his modest and manly account of this transaction . The following extract will show what stern things even a young and humane
commander like General Klapka may be compelled to do during a state of siege . The news of Gorgey ' s surrender , brought as it was into Komorn by Gorgey's disbanded soldiers and others , produced very naturally a spirit of insubordination among the troops of the garrison , and a desire to give over fighting and enjoy by desertion the benefits of the general peace . As General Klapka had resolved to hold out , this state of affairs compelled him
" To proclaim the statarium , and to invest the commanders of divisions with the power to pronounce and execute sentences of death . Shortly afterwards two deserters from the forty-eighth battalion were recaptured , tried , and shot . But the example was too isolated to act as a warning . The number of deserters increased . On the 12 th of September a body of forty-eight men absconded from the quarters of the sixty-first battalion ; they were for the major part Sclavonian and Wallachian recruits , whom I enlisted in June . Many others were preparing to follow their example . I saw that the time had come to act with the greatest severity . My hussars ,
whom I despatched in pursuit , recaptured thirty of the deserters . They were at once handed over to a statarium . While the trial was being proceeded with in the open air I was suddenly and most unexpectedly threatened by another danger . A mutiny had broken out in the camp of the Bocskay hussars . The troopers of this gallant regiment ( for the most part fine young men from Hajeduk cities ) had volunteered to serve for one year , and in the course of that time they were always foremost in martial courage and zeal . But , having been informed
that the divisions of their regiment which stood at Teme 8 hvar had already returned to their homes , they insisted on receiving their discharge , protesting that their term of service expired within the next ten days . I addressed and persuaded them to 6 tay , after discharging a few of the men , who , as fathers ot families , proved that their presence at home was urgently required . The rest returned to the camp . One cscadrou of this regiment whs soon afterwards ordered to the outposts . But , yielding to the promptings of two of their comrades ,
they refused to obey . Throwing down their arms , amidst threats and imprecations , they insisted on an immediate discharge . Colonel Kaszap , a man of great energy , whom they loved and revered , tried vainly to bring them back to their duty , and to warn them of the consequences of their conduct . They clamoured , refused to listen to his reasoning , and demanded to see me at once , and in a body . They were admitted . Again I endeavoured , by kind words , to convince them of their error : they were obstinate , and insisted on their demand . It was then that , with a bleeding heart , I committed the wretched victims of their obstinacy (
seventyfive in number ) to trial by statarium . ^ They were sentenced to death , and the deserters with them . I commuted the sentence to decimation of the Bocskay hussars , and confirmed it in the case of eight of the most guilty among the deserters . The execution of the sentence took place on the 14 th of September , in the midst of six battalions and of one escadron of the Bocskay hussars . Twenty-four men of each battalion of the garrison were ordered to attend punishment ; and when the sun set the seven hussars and eight honveds had ceased to live
This fearful execution awed all minds ; for the brave , though misguided men , died with firmness and sincere repentance . Many of the spectators wept , and again pledged their oaths that they would devote their blood and their lives to the cause of their country . As for the rest of the mutineers , they understood at length the true nature of their crime . They implored me , for pity ' s sake , to lead them into the midst of the fight , and to give them an opportunity of atoning for the guilt which oppressed them . From that day we had no desertions and mutinies to contend with . "
An honourable surrender , the conditions of which were , however , ill-kept by the Austrians , at length ensured for the brave defenders of Komorn terms which would hardly have been granted but for their obstinacy iu maintaining their post , and permitted General Klapka and his subordinate officers to seek new homes in exile . Besides the mere narrative of the war , General Klapka ' volumes contain many of the documents that it is most necessary to have before one in judging of the struggle and its leaders , as well as interesting incidental sketches of the most remarkable men
among the Hungarian patriots . There are also portraits of Kossuth and General Klapka , and an excellent map of the Austrian empire ; and altogether , as we have already said , the book is the best existing memoir of a series of events among the greatest that have occurred in the present generation .
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . The Templar . A Play in Five Acts . By Angiolo H . Slous . Chapman and Hall . It is not often that we fairly manage to read through an unacted plav published by ingenious gentlemen on their first " marriage with the muse ; " but we have not only read The Templar through , we have read it with interest . Mr . Slous ( surely a nom de guerre t ) has a fine eye for situation , and there is movement and progress in his story which indicate dramatic faculty ; but the writing is slack and conventional , when not careless , and the collisions—striking as they are—want elaboration and climax , the interest they excite falling away—as if the writer suffered the subject to slip through his fingers . Reduced to three acts by compression it would make an admirable libretto for a grand opera . If the work of a
young writer , it gives great promise . Notes and Queries : a Medium of Inter-Communication for Lite * vary Men , Artists , Atitirjuarians , Genealogists , # c . Volume I . G . Bell . The Opinions of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel , expressed in Parliament and in Public . Second edition , with a Biographical Memoir . Arthur Hall . Three Counes and a Dessert : comprising Three Sets of Tales , West Country . Irish , and Legal , and a Melange . With 1 ' ifty Illustrations by George Cruikshank . Fourth edition . ( Bonn a Illustrated Library . ) II . G . Bonn . Junius : includins Letters bit the same Writer under other
signatures . To which are added his Confidential Correspondence with Mr . Wilkes , and Private Letters to II . S . Woodfall . A new and enlarged edition , with new evidence as to the Authorship , and Extracts from an Analysis by Sir Harris Nicolas . By John Wade . Volume II . ( Bonn ' s Standard Library . ) H . G . Bohn . An Essay on the New Analytic of Logical Forms ; being , that which gained the Prize proposed by Sir W . Hamilton % n the year 18 « 6 , / or the best exposition ofthe new doctrine propounded in his lectures ; with an Historical Appendix . By Thomas Spencer Bayne * , translator of the Port ltoyal Logic , koinburgh : Sutherland and Knox .
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RACHEL AND RACINE . What a treat it was on Monday night to hear the lovely verses of Antlromaque , after having submitted to the prose of Adriennc Lccouvreur . We were transported to a new world . Instead of the lax , wavering , colourless , conventional prose , the bourgeois eloquence of that epicier in art , named Eugene Scribe , wo heard the well-known accents of a noble artist . Let no one imagine wo are inse nsible to Scribe ' s merits : —his stngc tact , liveliness , neatness of construction , and smartness of dialogue on occasions ; a hundred successes have established his claims ! Ikit , after all is said , Scribe remains an epicior — essentially a bourgeois , and not for a moment to be classed beside the great -writers ;
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Leader (1850-1860), July 20, 1850, page 402, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1847/page/18/
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