Advantages of the Magyars

Hungary. 16 February 1849

* Pesth, 8 February. Mischkolz is once more in the hands of the Hungarians. But how often had all of Hungary already been as good as conquered — in the martial-law newspapers! How many times had Kossuth already been taken prisoner — in the Croatian journals and the newspapers of German imbecility and huckstering spirit? The Diet in Debreczin had been dissolved, after having itself previously dissolved the Hungarian army; a hundred Magyar representatives were already lying begging for mercy at the feet of Windisch-Grätz’s bestiality (for amusement, compare also Dumont’s “Galgenzeitung” in the months of December 1848 and January 1849, where Citizen Schwanbeck regularly raised his Austrian hangman’s howl under the signature Δ). And now? Now, alas, even the “Pesther Zeitung,” the official martial-law paper, is compelled to make the following declaration:

“He (Kossuth) incessantly stirs up the people to rise and to resistance, to fire and devastation, so that the royal troops shall find no sustenance. – Bem has demanded 20,000 saddles, and Kossuth accordingly has them collected from all the inhabitants round about. – The insurgents, still considerable in number, are stationed along the Theiss at Rakamaz, Polgar and Tisza Füred.”

Reports just received from Hermannstadt, dated 2 February, announce that General Bem, with reinforced strength, has again taken the offensive; Puchner finds himself in great difficulties. Deputations from the Saxon towns are begging him to call in the Russian troops.