"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" - The Magyar Struggle

The Magyar Struggle

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 194, 13 January 1849]

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Cologne, in January. While in Italy the first counter-blow against the counter-revolution of last summer and autumn is already being struck <See "The Revolutionary Movement in Italy">, upon the Hungarian plains the last struggle of suppression against the movement that directly emerged from the February revolution is being completed. The new Italian movement is the prelude to the movement of 1849, the war against the Magyars the epilogue to the movement of 1848. It is probable that this epilogue will stretch into the new drama that is preparing itself in silence.

Heroic, like the first rapidly succeeding scenes of the revolutionary tragedy of '48, like the fall of Paris and Vienna, refreshingly heroic after the partly dull, partly petty intermediate scenes between June and October, so too is the epilogue. The last act of 1848 is passing over into the first of 1849 through terrorism.

For the first time in the revolutionary movement of 1848, for the first time since 1793, a nation surrounded by the superior might of counter-revolution dares to oppose revolutionary passion to cowardly counter-revolutionary fury, to oppose red terror to white terror. For the first time in a long while we find a truly revolutionary character, a man who dares to take up the gauntlet of the struggle of desperation in the name of his people, who is for his nation Danton and Carnot in one person — Louis Kossuth.

The superior might is formidable. All Austria, above all 16 million fanaticised Slavs, against 4 million Magyars.

The mass uprising, the national manufacture of arms, the assignats, summary justice for anyone who hinders the revolutionary movement, the revolution in permanence — in short, all the principal features of the glorious year 1793 we find again in the Hungary armed, organised and enthused by Kossuth. This revolutionary organisation, which as it were had to be ready within twenty-four hours under pain of destruction — it was lacking in Vienna, otherwise Windischgrätz would never have got in. We shall see whether he gets into Hungary, despite this revolutionary organisation.

Let us take a closer look at the struggle and the contending parties.

The Austrian monarchy arose from the attempt to unite Germany into a single monarchy in the same way as the French kings down to Louis XI accomplished this in France. The attempt foundered on the wretched local narrow-mindedness of the Germans as well as the Austrians and on the corresponding petty-huckster spirit of the House of Habsburg. Instead of all Germany, the Habsburgs obtained only those south German lands which lay in direct struggle with isolated Slav tribes, or in which a German feudal nobility and a German bourgeoisie jointly ruled subjugated Slav tribes. In both cases the Germans of each province needed support from outside. This support was afforded them by the association against the Slavs, and this association came into being through the union of the provinces in question under the Habsburg sceptre.

Thus German-Austria arose. One need only look up in the first available compendium how the Austrian monarchy came into being, how it separated again and again came into being, all in struggle against the Slavs, to see how correct this account is.

To German-Austria Hungary is contiguous. In Hungary the Magyars carried on the same struggle as the Germans in German-Austria. The German wedge driven forward among Slav barbarians in the Archduchy of Austria and Styria extended a hand to the Magyar wedge likewise driven forward among Slav barbarians on the Leitha. Just as in the south and north, in Bohemia, Moravia, Carinthia and Carniola the German nobility ruled Slav tribes, germanised them and thus drew them into the European movement, so in the south and north, in Croatia, Slavonia and the Carpathian lands the Magyar nobility likewise ruled Slav tribes. The interests of both were the same, the adversaries of both were natural allies. The alliance of the Magyars and the Austrian Germans was a necessity. Nothing was lacking but a great event, a powerful attack on both, to render this alliance indissoluble. This event came with the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Turks. The Turks threatened Hungary and, in the second instance, Vienna, and Hungary became indissolubly attached to the House of Habsburg for centuries.

But the common adversaries of both gradually grew weak. The Turkish Empire fell into impotence, and the Slavs lost the strength to rise against the Magyars and Germans. Indeed, a part of the German and Magyar nobility ruling in the Slav lands adopted Slav nationality, and thereby the Slav nations themselves became interested in preserving a monarchy that had to protect the nobility more and more against the developing German and Magyar bourgeoisie. The national antagonisms disappeared, and the House of Habsburg adopted a different policy. The same House of Habsburg that had hoisted itself onto the German imperial throne on the shoulders of the German petty bourgeoisie became, more decidedly than any other dynasty, the representative of the feudal nobility against the bourgeoisie.

In this sense Austria participated in the partition of Poland. The great Galician starosts and voivodes, the Potockis, Lubomirskis and Czartoryskis, betrayed Poland to Austria and became the most faithful pillars of the House of Habsburg, which in return guaranteed them their property against the attacks of the lower nobility and the bourgeoisie.

But the bourgeoisie of the towns acquired ever more wealth and influence, and agriculture, progressing with industry, gave the peasants an altered position as against the landed proprietors. The movement of the burghers and peasants against the nobility became ever more threatening. And since the movement of the peasants, who everywhere are the bearers of national and local narrow-mindedness, is necessarily local and national, the old national struggles simultaneously re-emerged with it.

In this situation Metternich performed his masterpiece. With the exception of the most powerful feudal barons, he deprived the rest of the nobility of all influence on the government of the state. He took away the strength of the bourgeoisie by winning over the most powerful financial barons — he had to do so, the finances compelled him. Thus, supported by the high feudal nobility and high finance, as well as by the bureaucracy and the army, he achieved the ideal of absolute monarchy more fully than any of his rivals. He kept the burghers and peasants of each nation in check through the nobility of that same nation and the peasants of every other nation, and the nobility of each nation through fear of the burghers and peasants of their own nation. The various class interests, national narrow-mindednesses and local prejudices, complicated as they were, held one another completely in check and allowed the old scoundrel Metternich the freest scope of movement. How far he got in this setting of peoples against one another is proved by the Galician scenes of slaughter, where Metternich suppressed, by means of the religiously and nationally fanaticised Ruthenian peasants, the very Polish movement that had been begun in the interest of the peasants and was democratic.

The year 1848 first caused the most terrible confusion in Austria, by setting free for a moment all these different tribes, which had hitherto been kept in bondage to one another by Metternich. Germans, Magyars, Czechs, Poles, Moravians, Slovaks, Croats, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Illyrians, Serbs fell into conflict with one another, while within each of these nations the individual classes also fought among themselves. But soon order emerged from this chaos. The combatants divided into two great camps; on the side of the revolution, the Germans, Poles and Magyars; on the side of counter-revolution, all the rest, all the Slavs with the exception of the Poles, the Rumanians and the Transylvanian Saxons.

Whence comes this division according to nations, what facts underlie it?

This division corresponds to the whole previous history of the tribes in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death of all these large and small nations.

The entire previous history of Austria proves it down to the present day, and the year 1848 has confirmed it. Among all the nations and nationlets of Austria, only three have been the bearers of progress, have actively intervened in history, and are still capable of life — the Germans, the Poles, the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary.

All the other large and small tribes and peoples are destined first of all to perish in the revolutionary world storm. Hence they are now counter-revolutionary.

As regards the Poles, we refer to our article on the Polish debate in Frankfurt <See Volume 5, pp. 319-363>. To tame their revolutionary spirit, Metternich already appealed to the Ruthenians, a tribe which is distinguished from the Poles by a somewhat different dialect and especially by the Greek religion, which had always belonged to Poland and first learned from Metternich that the Poles were its oppressors. As if in old Poland the Poles themselves had not been oppressed just as much as the Ruthenians, as if under Austrian rule Metternich had not been their common oppressor!

So much for Poles and Ruthenians, who, by history and geographical position, are indeed so far removed from Austria proper that we above all had to dispose of them in order to get to grips with the remaining welter of peoples.

Let us note beforehand, however, that it reveals great political insight and a genuinely revolutionary spirit on the part of the Poles that they now step forward in league with their old enemies, the Germans and Magyars, against the Panslavist counter-revolution. A Slav people that prefers freedom to Slavdom proves its viability by that alone, thereby already securing its future.

Now to Austria proper.

Austria, south of the Sudetes and Carpathians, the upper Elbe valley and the middle Danube region, forms a land inhabited in the early Middle Ages exclusively by Slavs. These Slavs belong, by language and customs, to the same stock as the Slavs of Turkey, the Serbs, Bosniaks, Bulgarians and Thracian and Macedonian Slavs, the stock of the so-called South Slavs, in contradistinction to the Poles and Russians. Apart from these related Slav tribes, the enormous territory from the Black Sea to the Bohemian Forest and the Tyrolean Alps was inhabited only in the south of the Balkan by isolated Greeks, and in the lower Danube region by scattered, Romance-speaking Wallachians.

Into this compact Slav mass the Germans from the west and the Magyars from the east drove themselves wedge-like. The German element conquered the western part of Bohemia and advanced on both sides of the Danube as far as beyond the Leitha. The Archduchy of Austria, a part of Moravia, the greater part of Styria were germanised and thus separated the Czechs and Moravians from the Carinthians and Carniolans. Similarly, Transylvania and central Hungary down to the German frontier were completely cleared of Slavs and occupied by the Magyars, who here separated the Slovaks and some Ruthenian districts (in the north) from the Serbs, Croats and Slavonians and subjugated all these peoples. The Turks, finally, following the example of the Byzantines, subjugated the Slavs south of the Danube and Save, and the historical role of the South Slavs was played out for ever.

The last attempt of the South Slavs to intervene independently in history was the Hussite war, a Czech national peasant war under a religious banner against the German nobility and German imperial supremacy. The attempt failed, and the Czechs have since been continuously fettered to the leading-strings of the German Empire.

By contrast, their conquerors, the Germans and Magyars, assumed the historical initiative in the Danubian regions. Without the Germans and especially without the Magyars, the South Slavs would have become Turkish, as a part of them actually did — indeed, Mohammedan, like the Slavonic Bosniaks still are today. And this is a service for which the Austrian South Slavs pay not too dearly even with the exchange of their nationality for German or Magyar nationality.

The Turkish invasion of the 15th and 16th centuries was the second edition of the Arab invasion of the 8th century. The victory of Charles Martel was won again and again under the walls of Vienna and on the Hungarian plains. As then at Poitiers, as later at Wahlstatt at the time of the Mongol invasion, here, too, the whole of European development was threatened. And when it was a question of saving it, should it have depended on a couple of long-decayed, impotent nationalities, such as the Austrian Slavs, who, into the bargain, were themselves rescued at the same time?

As externally, so internally. The driving class, the bearer of the movement, the bourgeoisie, was everywhere German or Magyar. Only with difficulty have the Slavs, and the South Slavs only quite locally, been able to bring forth a national bourgeoisie. And with the bourgeoisie, industrial power and capital were in German or Magyar hands respectively; German culture developed; and the Slavs, too, came intellectually under the dominion of the Germans, even as far as Croatia. The same thing happened, only later and therefore to a lesser extent, in Hungary, where the Magyars, together with the Germans, assumed the intellectual and commercial direction. The Hungarian Germans, however, in spite of retaining the German language, have become genuine Magyars in disposition, character and custom. Only the newly introduced peasant colonists, the Jews and the Saxons in Transylvania, constitute an exception and insist on clinging to the retention of an absurd nationality in the midst of a foreign land.

And if the Magyars lagged somewhat behind the German Austrians in civilisation, they have in recent times brilliantly made up for this through their political activity. From 1830 to 1848, more political life existed in Hungary alone than in the whole of Germany, and the feudal forms of the old Hungarian constitution were better exploited in the democratic interest than the modern forms of the South German constitutions. And who here stood at the head of the movement? The Magyars. Who supported the Austrian reaction? The Croats and Slavonians.

In opposition to this Magyar movement and the reawakening political movement in Germany, the Austrian Slavs founded a special league: Panslavism.

Panslavism arose not in Russia or in Poland, but in Prague and in Agram. Panslavism is the alliance of all the small Slavonic nations and nationlets of Austria, and, in the second instance, of Turkey, for the struggle against the Austrian Germans, the Magyars, and, eventually, the Turks. The Turks come in only incidentally and, as a likewise utterly decayed nation, can be entirely left out of consideration. Panslavism, in its fundamental tendency, is directed against the revolutionary elements of Austria and is therefore, from the very outset, reactionary.

Panslavism immediately demonstrated this reactionary tendency by a double betrayal: by sacrificing the only Slavonic nation that has so far acted in a revolutionary manner, the Poles, to its petty national narrow-mindedness, and by selling itself and Poland to the Russian tsar.

The direct aim of Panslavism is the establishment of a Slavonic empire from the Erzgebirge and the Carpathians to the Black, Aegean and Adriatic Seas, under Russian dominion — an empire which, besides German, Italian, Magyar, Wallachian, Turkish, Greek and Albanian, would embrace about a dozen Slavonic languages and principal dialects. The whole thing held together not by the elements that have hitherto held Austria together and developed it, but by the abstract quality of Slavdom and the so-called Slavonic language, which is admittedly common to the majority of the inhabitants. But where does this Slavdom exist except in the heads of a few ideologists, and where the “Slavonic language” except in the imagination of Messrs. Palacký, Gaj and consorts and, approximately, in the Old Slavonic liturgy of the Russian Church, which no Slav any longer understands? In reality, all these peoples represent the most diverse stages of civilisation, from the modern industry and culture of Bohemia, developed to a fairly high degree (by Germans), down to the almost nomadic barbarism of the Croats and Bulgars; and in reality, therefore, all these nations have the most contradictory interests. In reality, the Slavonic language of these ten to twelve nations consists of as many dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible, which can even be reduced to different main stems (Czech, Illyrian, Serbian, Bulgarian) and which, owing to the complete neglect of all literature and the coarseness of most of the peoples, have become pure patois and which, with few exceptions, have always had a foreign, non-Slavonic written language above them. The Panslavist unity is thus either a pure fantasy or — the Russian knout.

And which nations are to step to the head of this great Slav empire? Precisely those that for a thousand years have been burst apart, split up, and had their supply of viable and developing elements forced upon them by other, non-Slavonic peoples; those that were saved from perishing in Turkish barbarism by the victorious arms of non-Slavonic peoples; small tribes, everywhere separated from one another, impotent, robbed of their national strength, numbering from a few thousand to not quite two million! They have become so weak that, for example, the tribe that was the most vigorous and most terrible in the Middle Ages, the Bulgars, are now known in Turkey only for their meekness and faint-heartedness, and take their pride in calling themselves dobre chrisztian, good Christians! Where is there one single among these tribes, not even excepting the Czechs and Serbs, that possesses a national historical tradition living in the people and reaching beyond the pettiest local struggles?

The time for Panslavism was in the 8th and 9th centuries, when the South Slavs still held the whole of Hungary and Austria and threatened Byzantium. If they could not then withstand the German and Magyar invasion, if they could not win independence and form a durable empire, even when their two enemies, the Magyars and Germans, were tearing each other to pieces, how do they propose to do so now, after a thousand years of subjugation and denationalisation?

There is no country in Europe that does not possess in some corner or other one or several ruins of peoples, remnants of an earlier population, pushed back and subjugated by the nation which later became the bearer of historical development. These remnants of a nation pitilessly crushed by the march of history, as Hegel says, this ethnic trash, invariably become, and remain until their complete extermination or denationalisation, the fanatical bearers of counter-revolution, just as their whole existence is in itself already a protest against a great historical revolution.

Thus in Scotland the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745.

Thus in France the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800.

Thus in Spain the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.

Thus in Austria the Panslavist South Slavs, who are nothing but the ethnic trash of a highly confused thousand-year development. That this likewise highly confused ethnic trash sees its salvation only in the reversal of the whole European movement, which for it should go not from West to East, but from East to West, that for it the liberating weapon, the bond of unity, is the Russian knout — this is the most natural thing in the world.

The South Slavs had thus already clearly expressed their reactionary character before 1848. The year 1848 has laid it bare for all to see.

When the February storm broke loose, who made the Austrian revolution? Vienna or Prague? Budapest or Agram? The Germans and Magyars, or the Slavs?

It is true: Among the more educated South Slavs there existed a small democratic party which, while refusing to abandon its nationality, nevertheless wished to place it at the disposal of freedom. This illusion, which succeeded in awakening sympathies among the West European democrats as well — sympathies that were fully justified as long as the Slavonic democrats fought alongside the common enemy — this illusion was shattered by the bombardment of Prague. From that event onwards, all the South Slavonic tribes, following the precedent of the Croats, placed themselves at the disposal of the Austrian reaction. Those leaders of the South Slavonic movement who still continue to fable about the equality of nations, about a democratic Austria, etc., are either blockheaded enthusiasts, like, for example, many newspaper scribblers, or scoundrels, like Jellachich. Their democratic professions mean no more than the democratic professions of the official Austrian counter-revolution. Enough: in practice, the restoration of South Slavonic nationality begins with the most brutal raging against the Austrian and Magyar revolution, with a first great act of service rendered to the Russian tsar.

The Austrian camarilla found support, apart from the high aristocracy, the bureaucracy and the soldiery, only in the Slavs. The Slavs decided the fall of Italy, the Slavs stormed Vienna, it is the Slavs who are now falling upon the Magyars from all sides. At their head, as spokesmen, the Czechs under Palacký; as swordsmen, the Croats under Jellachich.

That is the thanks for the fact that in June the German democratic press everywhere sympathised with the Czech democrats when they were mowed down by grape-shot by Windischgrätz — the same Windischgrätz who is now their hero.

Let us sum up:

In Austria, apart from Poland and Italy, the Germans and the Magyars assumed the historical initiative in the year 1848, as they have done for a thousand years. They represent the revolution.

The South Slavs, for a thousand years taken in tow by Germans and Magyars, rose up in 1848 only to establish their national independence in order at the same time thereby to suppress the German-Magyar revolution. They represent the counter-revolution. Two likewise long-decrepit nations, utterly devoid of all historical power of action, attached themselves to them: the Saxons and Romanians of Transylvania.

The House of Habsburg, which founded its power through the union of the Germans and Magyars in the struggle against the South Slavs, now ekes out the last moments of its existence through the union of the South Slavs in the struggle against the Germans and Magyars.

That is the political side of the question. Now to the military side.

The territory inhabited exclusively by Magyars does not yet constitute a third part of the whole of Hungary and Transylvania. From Pressburg, north of the Danube and the Theiss, up to the ridge of the Carpathians, there live several million Slovaks and a few Ruthenians. In the south, between the Save, Danube and Drave, live Croats and Slavonians; farther east, along the Danube, a Serb colony of over half a million. These two Slav strips are connected by the Wallachians and the Saxons of Transylvania.

The Magyars are, therefore, surrounded on three sides by natural enemies. The Slovaks, who hold the mountain passes, would, in their terrain, so excellently suited to guerrilla warfare, be dangerous opponents, if they were less indifferent in temper.

As it is, however, the Magyars have merely to withstand, from the north, the attacks of the armies that have broken in from Galicia and Moravia. In the east, on the other hand, the Roumanians and Saxons rose up en masse and joined the Austrian army corps stationed there. Their position is an excellent one, partly on account of the mountainous nature of the country, partly because they hold most of the towns and fortresses.

In the south, finally, the Serbs of the Banat, supported by German colonists, by Wallachians, and likewise by an Austrian corps, are covered by the immense morass of Alibunar and almost unassailable.

The Croats are covered by the Drave and Danube, and since a strong Austrian army with all its resources stands at their disposal, they advanced into Magyar territory even before October and now hold their defensive line on the lower Drave with ease.

And from the fourth side, finally, from Austria, Windischgrätz and Jellachich are now advancing in closed columns. The Magyars are encircled on all sides, encircled by an enormous superior force.

The struggle is reminiscent of the struggle against France in 1793. Only with this difference, that the thinly populated and only half-civilised Magyar land has by no means the resources at its disposal that were available to the French Republic at that time.

The weapons and munitions manufactured in Hungary must necessarily be of very poor quality; the manufacture, especially of artillery, cannot possibly proceed rapidly. The country is far smaller than France, and every inch of lost terrain is therefore a far greater loss. The Magyars have nothing left but their revolutionary enthusiasm, their bravery, and the energetic, rapid organisation which Kossuth was able to give them.

But for all that, Austria has not yet won.

“If we do not beat the Imperial forces on the Leitha, we shall beat them on the Rabnitz; if not on the Rabnitz, we shall beat them at Pesth; if not at Pesth, we shall beat them on the Theiss, but beat them we shall in any case.”

So said Kossuth, and he is doing his utmost to keep his word.

Even with the fall of Budapest, the Magyars still have the great lowland Hungarian heath, a terrain that is as if made for cavalry guerrilla warfare and which offers numerous almost impregnable points among the marshes, where the Magyars can establish themselves. And the Magyars, almost all of whom are mounted, possess every quality for waging this war. If the imperial army ventures into this desolate region, where it must draw all its provisions from Galicia or Austria, because it finds nothing, absolutely nothing, it is impossible to see how it is to hold its ground. In closed corps it achieves nothing, and if it breaks up into flying columns, it is lost. Its unwieldiness would irretrievably deliver it into the hands of the swift Magyar cavalry hordes, even without the possibility of pursuit where it should be victorious; and every dispersed imperial soldier would find a mortal enemy in every peasant, every herdsman. The war in these steppes resembles the Algerian war, and the clumsy Austrian army would need years to bring it to an end. And the Magyars are saved, if they only hold out for a few months.

The cause of the Magyars is nowhere near as bad as the paid black-and-yellow enthusiasm would have one believe. They are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they fall gloriously as the last heroes of the Revolution of 1848, and only for a short time. Then, for a moment, the Slav counter-revolution with all its barbarity will flood the Austrian monarchy, and the camarilla will see what it has in its allies. But at the very first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis-Napoleon is endeavouring to conjure up with all his might, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and will wreak bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war that will then break out will shatter this Slav Sonderbund and annihilate all these little bull-headed nations, right down to their very names.

The next world war will not only cause reactionary classes and dynasties to disappear from the face of the earth, but also entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.