Hungary. 22 February 1849
Hungary.
No. 228, 22 February 1849

* The Jews, as is well known, are everywhere the cheated cheats, but especially in Austria. They exploited the revolution and are now being punished for it by Windischgrätz. Whoever, incidentally, knows what a power the Jews are in Austria will be able to judge what an enemy Windischgrätz has brought upon his own head by his following proclamation:

Pesth, 13 February. (Amtliche Wiener Zeitung, Abendblatt) Proclamation. By my proclamations of 13 November and 13 December of last year, as well as that of 7 January of the current year, I have informed all the inhabitants of Hungary of the task incumbent upon me, namely the restoration of peace, order and legality. I have also seen with satisfaction the effect which, in consequence of these proclamations, has everywhere manifested itself. Only a few localities, deluded by infamous agitators, still attempt to disturb the calm and order so urgently needed, by disseminating Kossuth manifestos, orders, and decrees. Inhabitants of Hungary! You have seen how greatly leniency has been exercised by me – on the assumption that the majority are perhaps more misled and seduced than real rebels; yet whoever now still attempts to make common cause with the Debreczin subversion party, to accept orders from it, to disseminate them, or to maintain any kind of connection whatsoever, or to stir up the communities, can no longer expect any indulgence; such a one must meet with the punishment of the high traitor.

I am dispatching troops in various directions, whose commanders shall be invested with the *jus gladii*; anyone in whose possession a Kossuth manifesto, or any written matter, letter, newspaper, etc., originating from his party is found, shall without leniency, just as

Hungary. 22 February 1849

anyone who conceals weapons or incites the people to disobedience, be subject to treatment by court-martial. – Any postmaster or post official who accepts such written matter, letters, manifestos coming from the Debreczin region, or indeed forwards them, shall fall to the rope. – Finally, I wish to warn the Jews of Ofen and Pesth, but especially those of Altofen, to abstain from any understanding, by whatever name, with the high traitor Kossuth, the so-called honvédelmi bizottmány, and the Rebel Reichstag, for I have gained the certainty that it is precisely the Israelites who, for the most part, allow themselves to be used as spies and purveyors for the rebels, just as they also make it their task to spread false and bad news of alleged victories of the rebels, in order thereby to arouse fear and distrust; therefore, for every Israelite who is tried by military law or by court-martial on account of the offences indicated above, that Jewish community to which he belongs shall pay a fine of 20,000 gulden in Convention coin. Headquarters Ofen, 11 February 1849.
Alfred Prince zu Windischgrätz, *manu propria*, Imperial-Royal Field Marshal.

After this proclamation, things are obviously going very badly for the “citizen and communist” Windischgrätz.

To return, moreover, to the Jews, Windischgrätz’s attempt to wrench money from them has already received a “commencement of execution”, as the Code Napoléon puts it. The Constitutionelle Blatt aus Böhmen, for instance, reports the following:
The Jews are supposed to pay 1,200,000 florins as a once-and-for-all redemption sum for the abolished tolerance tax, the payment to be spread over five years, but they have deposited the instalments due neither in the past year nor in the current one. The outstanding amount has now been called in. – The printer Eisenfels was arrested yesterday.
That the Jews must still pay for their emancipation is priceless. In Prussian parlance this is called: “redemption of feudal dues”.

Otherwise there is nothing to report from Hungary except that in Pesth on 8 February the forwarding agent Franz Förster was shot by court-martial for participation in the insurrection, on account of the attempted seizure of the steamship *Hermine* at Gran.

Concerning the ever more comical complications among the Slavs, the Leipziger Zeitung reports the following (the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, of course, has long known this):
Vienna, 14 February. From several provinces of the monarchy we hear of stubborn refusal to provide the required recruits. In the Prachin district of Bohemia, the peasants are refusing, under the pretext that the Reichstag has not approved the recently decreed recruiting on such a massive scale. A rather striking ferment is manifesting itself more in the countryside

than in the capital, Prague. Should the government, as is asserted, shortly come forward with the compensation proposal with regard to the abolished urbarial dues, a new, more alarming one would be likely to join the countless and unending upheavals of our state life. In the South Slav regions, confusion is growing; but manifestly an extremely dangerous storm is also brewing, the goal and end of which is not yet to be discerned. General Theodorovich has had Karlowitz, the seat of the Serbian National Committee, placed under a state of siege. The chaos in Serbian affairs is further intensified by the specifically Austrian efforts of Consul Mayerhofer. With scarcely suppressed fury the South Slavs cry: Treachery! They maintain that all the measures most recently taken by the government in Hungary are aimed at restoring Ultra-Magyarism, to the extent that it wraps itself in the cloak of the old aristocracy. In Agram, the agitation has reached a very alarming degree. – Jellachich is stationed in Szolnok. The following is a reliable fact: He has protested against the separation and division of his corps. He had to do so in order not to stake his extraordinary popularity in the Slav world. The convening of the Diet is being energetically pressed for in Croatia. With that, the dictatorship which fell to Jellachich last summer comes to its end.