The people of England, ever ready to sympathise with even the name of freedom, and prone beyond any other nation to delusions springing from generous feelings, acting on erroneous information, were at one time much disposed to sympathise with the Hungarian insurgents. They enlisted the wishes of a considerable part, especially of the citizens of towns, on their side. Never were generous and estimable feelings more misapplied. The contest in Hungary, it is to be feared, was not in the slightest degree a struggle for public freedom: it was an effort only to establish the domination of a race in opposition to a lawful government. Like the Sikhs or Ameers in India at this moment, the Normans in England in former times, or the "insane plebeian noblesse" of Poland, whom John Sobieski denounced as the authors of the ruin of his country, the Magyars were a proud and haughty dominant race, not a fourth part of the whole inhabitants of Hungary, but brave and ambitious, and animated with the strongest desire of establishing an independent oligarchy in their wide-spread country. They took the opportunity for asserting their principles when Austria was pierced to the heart, and its provinces, apparently all falling asunder, had the fairest prospect of establishing separate dominions, as in the ancient Roman empire, on the ruins of the Imperial authority. Had they succeeded, they would have established the same monstrous tyranny of a dominant race, which has so long blasted the happiness, and at length destroyed the independence of Poland.
That the contest in Hungary was one for the domination of a race, not the freedom of people, is evident from two circumstances which have been studiously kept out of view by the Liberal party, both on the Continent and in England. The first is that after the emperor had conceded to Hungary the most extreme liberal institutions, based on universal suffrage, the Magyar leaders sent private orders to all the Hungarian regiments in Radetsky's army to leave his banners, and return to Hungary; thus rendering to all appearance the dismemberment of the monarchy inevitable, and surrendering the Italian provinces, the brightest jewel in the Imperial crown, to the tender mercies of Charles Albert. The second is, that, in the contest which ensued, the Hungarians were in the end overthrown. Possessing, as Hungary does, fourteen millions of inhabitants – nearly a moiety of the whole Austrian empire, and four times more than Upper and Lower Austria, with the Tyrol, which alone could be relied on in that crisis – it is evident that, if the whole Hungarian people had been united, they must have proved victorious, and have decided the contest long before the distant Muscovite battalions could have appeared on the theatre of war. The Hungarian insurrection broke out in April 1848, and was aided by contemporaneous revolts in Prague, Lombardy, Venice, and Vienna. To all appearance the Austrian monarchy was torn in pieces. Muniments of war they had in abundance: Comorn, with its vast arsenal and impregnable walls, opened its arms to receive them. When Georgey capitulated, he had one hundred and thirty-eight guns, besides those in the hands of Kossuth and Bem. Fully half the military stores of Austria fell into the hands of the Hungarians, the moment the insurrection broke out. Yet, with all these advantages, they were overcome. This demonstrates that the war was not a national one, in the proper sense of the word: that is, it did not interest the whole people. It was an effort of a gallant and ambitious race, forming a small minority of the population, to establish a domination over the whole remainder of the inhabitants, and sever themselves from the Austrian empire; and a greater calamity than such a separation, both to the Hungarians themselves and the general balance of power in Europe, cannot be imagined.
How was the balance of power to be maintained in Europe, especially against Russia, if the Austrian monarchy had been broken up? Experience had long ago proved that no coalitions for the preservation of the independence of central Europe, either against Russia on the one side or France on the other, had the least chance of success, in which Austria did not take a prominent part. Even the disasters of the Peninsular campaigns, and the awful catastrophe of the Moscow retreat, could not enable Europe to combat Napoleon, till Metternich, at the Congress of Prague, threw the weight of Austria into the scale. It was by an alliance of Austria, France, and England that, at the Congress of Vienna, a curb was put on the ambition of Russia: by a similar alliance that the Turkish empire was saved from ruin, when the Muscovite standards were advanced to Adrianople, and the Pacha of Egypt was encamped on Scutari. It was a coalition of Austria, England, Russia, and Prussia, which in 1834 coerced the ambition of France, when M. Thiers had sent orders to the French admiral to attack and burn the English fleet in the bay of Vourlas, at dead of night. But if Austria had been broken up into a Hungarian, a Lombard, and a Bohemian republic, how was such an alliance to be formed? What central power could, in such an event, have existed under such circumstances, to oppose a mid impediment to the grasping ambition of Russia on the one side, and France on the other? Prussia, it is well known, is entirely under the influence of Russia, and does not, except in the first fervour of revolution, venture to deviate from the policy which it prescribes. Sweden and Denmark are mere subsidiary states. Austria alone is so strong as to be able, with the aid of England, to bid Russia defiance; and is situated so near to its southern provinces, as to be actuated by a ceaseless dread of its encroachments. The breaking up of the Austrian empire would have been a fatal blow to the balance of power, and with it to real liberty in Europe. It would have left the field open to the Cossacks on the one side, and the Red Republicans on the other.
It is deeply to be regretted that Austria was not able to regain its dominion over its rebellious Hungarian subjects, without the aid of the Muscovite arms. Although the Czar has recalled his troops after the vast service was rendered, and no projects of immediate aggrandisement are apparent, yet it is impossible to doubt – it is fruitless to attempt to disguise – that the influence of Russia in the east of Europe has been immensely extended by this intervention. So weighty an obligation as saving an empire from dismemberment is too great to be easily forgotten; and supposing, what is probably the case, that gratitude is a feeling unknown to cabinets – and that the recollection of salvation from ruin is likely to produce no other sentiment but that of dislike – still the contest, which was adjourned, rather than decided, on the Hungarian plains, has for a very long period, it is to be feared, thrown Austria into the arms of Russia. They are united by the common bond of enduring interest. The Magyars in Hungary, the Poles in Sarmatia, are the enemies of both; and each feels that it is by a close alliance of the cabinets, that the evident dangers of an insurrection of these powerful and warlike races can be provided against. It is more than probable that a secret treaty, offensive and defensive, already unites the two powers; that the crushing of the Magyars was bought by the condition, that the extension of Muscovite influence in Turkey was to be connived at; and that the Czar will one day advance to Constantinople without fear, because he knows that his right flank is secure on the side of Austria. Certain it is, that the joint demand made by Austria and Russia, for the extradition of the Hungarian refugees, and which, as all unwarrantable stretch against the independence of Turkey, was resisted