* At last official Austrian reports from Transylvania
No. 219, 11 February 1849.
Second Edition
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
have arrived. They confirm Bem’s rapid advance to just outside Hermannstadt,
which was heavily threatened by him, and report a battle
that took place on 21 January between Hermannstadt and Mediasch (Medgyes),
in which the Magyars are said to have been defeated. They were, it is said, pursued as far as Stolzenburg, and a part of them had already taken the road to
Thorda (Thorenburg, in the direction of Klausenburg). 5 cannons and
4 ammunition wagons are said to have fallen into the hands of the
Austrians under Puchner. The resistance of the Magyars is described as very stubborn. Whether this “victory” is really so “brilliant”, we shall
await further reports. The Austrians put their own losses at 60–70 dead
and 98 wounded.

The credibility of the Austrian reports in general can be gauged from the
Transylvanian documents published on this occasion in the Wiener
Zeitung.
Bem’s army is referred to in an address to the Hermannstadt civic guard,
dated 19 January, as “the Hungarian troops, pushed back by the victorious army
in Hungary, having to flee into Transylvania”. Puchner too boasts in his order
of the day of enormous victories in Hungary, which for us, of course, have
long since been reduced to their true worth by later news.
The Romanians are said to have led 25,000 men of the Landsturm to Hermannstadt.
By contrast, little reliance can be placed on the Szeklers and Hungarians in
Transylvania; Puchner in his order of the day and the Transylvanian
papers agree that among them the k. k. black-and-yellow spirit
finds no footing whatsoever, and that wherever Bem appears they
join the movement.

In Hungary itself the peasant uprisings in the rear of the Imperial troops
are beginning to assume a serious character. Gran on the Danube,
above Pesth, occupied and subjugated by the Imperial troops on 15 January,
was abandoned by them again on the 26th. They withdrew to Ofen
because Windischgrätz urgently needed them after the battle at Szolnok.
Immediately the k. k. flags and eagles were torn down, Madarász’s insurrection
placards were posted, and “Eljen Kossuth” was shouted. The
peasants from the left bank of the Danube, who had not yet surrendered their arms,
came into the town, fired at the chief district judge Koller, dragged
the jurate Bíró off to Komorn, deposed the county jurisdiction and
appointed the chief notary Palkovicz as president. The Imperial troops
sent orders to erect the pontoon bridge; Simunich intended to
cross the Danube here in order to march immediately to Pesth on Wrbna’s
orders. However, when at the same time a letter arrived from the Committee of National Defence
in Debreczin ordering the organisation of the Landsturm, the cutting off and/or destruction
of the enemy’s supplies, etc., it was decided not to erect the bridge
and to comply with the orders from Debreczin. The county moved
to Bátorkesz, where it is protected from Komorn. Moreover, troops are said
to have been sent from Ofen to Gran. This news is from the official Wiener
Zeitung.

Incidentally, a certain negative confirmation of the Magyar victory reports
is already provided by the fact that the Austrians have no fresh news at all from the
Theiss. On the other hand, the Magyar correspondence of the Breslauer
Zeitung again reports a series of interesting and entirely plausible
facts. The k. k. Colonel Montecuccoli is said to have been taken prisoner by the Magyars
at Gyöngyös. Kövesd (5 miles this side of Miskolcz) and Keresztúr (north of Tokaj)
were in the hands of the Magyars. The Imperial troops sallying out from
Temesvár are said to have been almost wiped out by the Hungarians hurrying up from
Szegedin. It then adds: “It causes great ill-feeling
in Ofen that the amiable poet and Catholic priest Czuczor
was taken away in heavy irons to 6 years of fortress arrest because of an enthusiastic war song
he had composed. In general, it is observed
that since the last defeats of the Austrian arms
military rule here has been enforced much more strictly. Arrests
for the most modest expressions are the order of the day. All
strangers arriving from Debreczin and the surrounding area are immediately taken to the
police, severely interrogated, and dismissed with a prohibition to relate anything whatsoever.
Curiosity, however, breaks through all
barriers, and people here are fairly well informed. It is believed that the

Hungary. 11 February 1849 (Second Edition)
Hungarian army of the Theiss will renew its attack on the Imperial troops
at Szolnok within the next few days. – From Debreczin one learns that the
Hungarian General Moritz Perczel has been appointed commander in Transylvania. Bem will lead the Banat army in Hungary.
The Hungarian regular forces are stated to be 160,000, and
if one considers that this force is now commanded by two world-renowned
generals, Dembinski and Bem, that besides naturally fortified Transylvania and the great Theiss region the most important
and most numerous fortresses are also in the hands of the Hungarians,
it appears more than ridiculous that in Vienna wanted posters are being fabricated
against Kossuth. One would have to count on an all-too-blind public to
deceive it with such tricks.”

Meanwhile, among the small nationalities liberated from the so-called
Magyar yoke, new quarrels are breaking out daily, partly among themselves,
partly with the Austrian government. The Constitutionelles Blatt
from Bohemia says: “A deputation of Romanians was expected to arrive in Olmütz
to complain of the encroachments of the Serbs from the Banat.
– In Istria, where language and customs are predominantly
Italian, people are resisting very strongly against the plan to incorporate this province
into Croatia, and protests have been made
and published concerning this.”

In the Voivodina, the Karlowitz government has declared for Stratimirovich
and annulled the arrest warrant issued against him by the Patriarch Rajachich.
The Patriarch wants nothing to do with a voivode; before the Voivodina
is constituted, the districts of Kikinda and Becse, of Bacs and
Baranya must be united with it. Efforts should be directed to that end,
and the subversive activities and intrigues of ambitious
people should be countered, “so that the Imperial army may not proceed with
the Serbs just as with the Magyar rebels!” The Südslawische
Zeitung is already beginning to complain significantly, but these
visionaries, of course, only open their eyes when it is too late and
military rule has become entrenched among them. It is, moreover, clear to everyone
that all these quarrels can only be highly advantageous to the Magyar cause.

How these Serbs wage war, here is just one example, confirmed by
two South Slav newspapers, the Vestnik and Napredak of 27 January.
Weißkirchen in the Banat wished to surrender and therefore sent
a deputation to General Todorovich. Todorovich had
earlier heard that the people of Weißkirchen had killed all the Serbs in their town
and asked the deputation: Which of you delegates is a Serb?
The Germans shrugged their shoulders. “Go,” replied

Todorovich, “I shall enter into no negotiations with you.” The
Serb army then stormed Weißkirchen and took it. Only
two Serbs were found in the town, and both had their eyes put out.
Todorovich then, as travellers relate, had 50 main culprits
selected and all 50 hanged. The rest he had placed in a row
and every fifth man shot. Thus, it is said, 400 were shot.
These are the chivalrous heroes with whom the Kölnische Zeitung sympathises!