From the Banat

Hungary. February 4, 1849
Hungary.
No. 213, February 4, 1849.
Second Supplement
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

* From the Banat. Scarcely have the Serbs, Austrians, German Banatians, Croats, Gypsies and Turkish Serbians succeeded in pushing back the Magyars a little, when the most violent quarrels break out within the newly fabricated Banat-Serbian nation. Stratimirowich has come forward on his own account as a candidate for the dignity of Voivode, and thereby drawn upon himself such enmity from the Patriarch Rajachich that the latter has given orders to arrest and hand over the most popular Serbian leader wherever he may be found.

The Turkish Serbians have so far provided the Banat Serbs with 20,000 auxiliary troops. How many Russians are among them is hard to say. As late as 19 January, 700 Serbians and 400 armed Gypsies crossed the Danube at Boljewcze and Pancsowa to bring aid to the Banatians. That is how the Austrian monarchy as a whole keeps itself alive!15

The power of the Hungarian insurrection is by no means destroyed; on the contrary, it is still very considerable at the present moment, for volunteers are continually streaming to the Magyar bands from all parts of the country. The Magyar cause still has four strong army corps in the field, namely in Upper Hungary under Görgey, on the Theiss under Kossuth, in the Banat against the Serbs, and in Transylvania under Bem, which may well go on fighting for a few months yet, since they take care to avoid any major blow. The struggle has already lasted six full weeks, and yet the number of the Magyar combatants has increased rather than decreased.

If they succeed, as they intend, in prolonging the war until the opening of the war in Upper Italy, the cause is by no means lost. Even in the Oedenburg County, immediately on the border of Austria, the liveliest sympathies for Kossuth are found among the rural population; indeed, quite recently, in a village, after a black-and-yellow sermon, the peasants shouted “Long live the dictator!”, whereupon a detachment of troops appeared, arrested the seven most respected persons of the place and carried them off, so that to this hour no one knows what has become of them.