Kossuth’s Proclamation, May 7, 1849

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We are publishing the following passages from a proclamation by Kossuth, dated Gödölllö, April 7, and taken from the Neue Oder-Zeitung.

“The nation’s valiant army has driven out that enemy whose traitorous commissioners in Nograd and Somogy had once more started to subject the people to the yoke of labour services which had been abolished by law and which we shall never permit to be inflicted on you again. It has driven out the enemy who in the past month issued an imperial decree that where the terrier has been abolished, the tenant has to pay half the value of the abolished labour services and tithes out of his own pocket, although the Hungarian law exempted you from this payment. It is our firmest resolve to uphold this law in defence of your freedom.

“Our valiant army is driving from your borders the enemy whose Emperor dared to state: ‘Hungary does not exist and will never again exist’, and who dared to partition us from our brothers in Transylvania, to tear Croatia from Hungary, to cut up our own fatherland and to turn our most fertile regions into a special Rascian Kingdom, [1] for the benefit of those Rascian robbers with whom he did not scruple to ally himself for the purpose of exterminating the Hungarian nation.

“Our valiant army is driving from your borders the enemy who, wherever he went in his flight, robbed like a common highwayman, who, not content with stealing as much as he could eat and drink, destroyed and laid waste what he was unable to consume, in order to leave famine in his wake; what is more, with inhuman ferocity and out of sheer predatory, malignant instincts he snatched the pillows from under the heads of your children, scattering the feathers to the winds. He did not even spare your churches; he tore the marble slabs from the altars, gutted the roofs of the chapels, while some of the officers stole the silver spoons from those who gave them food: thus behaves the enemy that the Austrian Emperor sent to our country, to destroy it, to exterminate our nation, and to make our people slaves and beggars!

“I prophesied to you months ago that Hungary’s freedom, autonomy and independence would blossom out of the tyranny of the Austrian Emperor.

“And, thank God, it is so. Praised he the holy name of the Lord for this, and the nation’s blessing and eternal thanks also to the valiant Hungarian army, to those who gladly sacrificed their lives and blood for the fatherland, who with unshaken courage defeated the united force of the enemy and who with their continuing victories are hastening towards the glorious goal, making you, O Hungarian people, by the sacrifice of their heroic blood free and happy! The enemy boasted of fictitious victories in order to deceive the Hungarian people and to plunge them into desperation.

“That is a characteristic piece of cowardice, for only a coward is capable of lying. The enemy deceived you with lying reports that he had driven our troops out of Transylvania, that Jellachich had taken Szegedin by storm, although he never came anywhere near it.

“Yes, and what is more — now that the enemy has been defeated four times within five days, and forced out of his strongest position, Windischgrätz, Schlick and Jellachich with their whole army in flight from Poroszlo, Pest and Waitzen — now, while I am writing this in Gödölllö, in the very same room where 24 hours ago Windischgrätz dared to dream of Hungary’s subjugation — now, whilst his whole defeated army is on the run and we have snatched the whole of Transylvania, two-thirds of Hungary, from the tyrant’s clutches — even now he is still not ashamed of spreading the lies in the venal Pest journals that he won a victory near Jasz-Bereny. To remove any doubt in the matter, I give you — my brothers, my friends! — the comforting assurance that I and the splendid leaders of our heroes are in Gödölllö with our army, whither our intrepid Honveds fought their way at bayonet’s point. We are in Gödölllö from whose outskirts our artillerymen went into action, shelling the arrogant enemy out of his positions; in Gödölllö from whose outskirts our hussars pursued the fleeing enemy up to the Danube at Pest. — And over there in Transylvania the imperial enemy no longer exists. This Emperor sent the wild Muscovites against us, but Bem and our Hungarian army in Transylvania expelled the enemy and his Muscovite protectors, down to the last man, from the sacred soil of Transylvania.

“And down in the Bacska, Perczel took St. Tamas whose capture cost so much blood on other occasions. And he liberated Peterwardein, which was enmeshed by Austrian treachery, and freed the prosperous Alföld from the Rascian robbers. But up here, where the enemy’s main force planned to subjugate Hungary, Commander-in-Chief Görgey with his generals Damjanich, Aulich, Klapka and Gaspar defeated Schlick near Hatyan, Jellachich near Tapio-Bicske, Windischgrätz and Schlick rejoined by Jellachich near Isaczeg; and now that they and our victorious troops have taken Gödölllö, they are already standing on the Rakos plain. A few more days, and Hungary will be free and no wicked enemy will violate the soil of our fatherland.

“This is the joyful news I give you, my brothers Long live the free Hungarian fatherland!”

  1. The reference is to the schemes for a Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian state under the auspices of the Habsburgs. These were put forward by the Right-wing leaders of the South-Slav national movement. The foundation of a Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian triune kingdom was discussed in the Croatian Sabor as early as the summer of 1848. The scheme under consideration reflected the desire of the top bourgeoisie and landowners in the South-Slav lands for autonomy within the Austrian’ monarchy and a moderate Constitution. The scheme was regarded as part of a broader programme for integrating all the South-Slav lands of the Austrian Empire. The centralising Constitution imposed in March 1849 dealt a heavy blow to the Right wing of the South-Slav national movement, which cherished hopes of obtaining autonomy in collaboration with the Austrian ruling circles. The latter, however, needed the Southern Slavs for the struggle against revolutionary Hungary and Italy, and therefore supported the illusion that this scheme for autonomy could he put into effect. ‘ The Croatian Sabor, in particular, was allowed to negotiate unity with the representatives of Dalmatia. When the uprisings in Hungary and Italy were suppressed, the Austrian authorities curbed all attempts on the part of the South-Slav adherents of autonomy to implement their plans. Engels calls the newly conceived state Raubstaat meaning either a robber state or a dwarfish, dependent state. Pandours — irregular infantry units of the Austrian army recruited mainly in the South-Slav provinces of the Austrian Empire. SerezhansPeterwardein borderers as well as Serezhans and other South-Slav army formations mentioned below performed compulsory military service on the Austro-Turkish border (in the so-called Military Border area). They were named after their regimental or company districts or communities from which the soldiers came. In 1848-49 the Austrian authorities and the Right-wing bourgeois-landowning nationalist elements drew them into the war against revolutionary Hungary. Haiduks — South-Slav guerillas fighting against Turkish conquerors in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. In the Austrian Empire, this name was given to people inhabiting an autonomous district in Hungary who provided special military contingents for the army. Red-coats — An allusion to the Austrian special border troops who wore red-coats and caps and were recruited mainly from among the inhabitants of the Empire’s Slav provinces (Croats, Serbs of the Voivodina etc.). In 1848 and 1849, they were used by the counter-revolution against the revolutionary movement. RasciansRaizen (Rascians, Rascier) is the name for Serbs of the Orthodox denomination, often used to denote Serbs in general; it probably derives from the ancient town of Rassa, the centre of the Raschka district where the first Serbian tribes settled.