Revolutions - 7.29- The New Emperor

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

In Dec 1848, the Austrian Empire got a new Emperor. 

Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 7.29, the new emperor. In the spring of 1848, the Habsburgs had nearly lost control of their empire. Liberals and radicals in Vienna rose up in armed revolt. The Hungarians forced through the April laws. The Italians launched a full-blown war of independence. Then the remaining slew of national minorities, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Romanians, all made their own bids for increased rights, recognition, and privileges.

And on top of that, many Austro-Germans look to events in Frankfurt and yearn to join their cousins in the great project of German unification. So going into the summer of 1848, it was not unreasonable to predict that the Austrian Empire might not be long for this world. But coming out of the summer of 1848, Hapsburg Imperial Authority had recovered. Marshall Radetsky had driven the Italians out of Lombardy Venetia, Marshall Vindichgrat suppressed a nascent uprising in Prague, and then reconquered Vienna. So come the winter of 1848, the old imperial regime was on much stronger footing

and able to devote its attention to the great remaining problem, the Kingdom of Hungary. But to deal with that problem and to carry the responsibility of empire forward into the future, one of the great debilitating and destabilizing parts of the empire was going to have to be. be replaced. The Austrian Empire needed a new emperor. So at the beginning of this series on 1848, we discussed a few of the problems with Emperor Ferdinand I don't want to be insensitive, but Ferdinand's physical and mental deficiencies were a huge problem for the empire. Suffering from upwards of 20 seizures a day, even if Ferdinand was perfectly lucid in between those episodes, the constant interruptions drained him emotionally, physically, and mentally.

Now, all of these deficiencies were well known when he ascended to the throne in 1835, and to work around the problem, Medernick, Kolarot, and a few of the emperor's relatives, formed a council of state to make all the real decisions. But the emperor's relatives were uninterested in ruling, and so they left things mostly to Metternich and Kolarot, who unfortunately were often working at cross-purposes. So by the 1840s, the empire was floating along in a sort of aimless, repressive drift. And that very aimless repressive drift contributed to the sudden explosion of 1848. Then, my God, once the revolutions got going, the lack of an engaged and decisive leader only poured gas on the fire.

There is a story out there. I have no idea if it's true, but it's often told, that after Vienna rose up, Emperor Ferdinand asked his ministers, are they allowed to do that? So throughout 1848, the weak emperor was pushed and polled and occasionally bullied into a hot mess of contradictory signals and policies. This is what led to those cycles of cracking down and backing down in Vienna. Order in troops one minute, promise concession to the next. Promote Yelichich to be ban of Croatia, then fire him, then reinstate him. Tell Radetsky to crush the Italians, then tell Radetsky to negotiate with the Italians,

then order him to crush them again. The Habsburg response to the revolutions of 1848 lacked clarity, consistency, purpose, and vision, and it was due in large part to the fact that the empire did not really have a leader. The fact that the emperor was an enfeeble child was not lost on anyone, both in the Habsburg court or in the capitals of Europe, where the emperor's condition was an open secret. So one of the big questions after the March revolutions is when is the emperor, going to abdicate? This question was complicated by number of factors.

First, the abdication of an emperor is no small thing. The whole reason the imperial ministry had been propping him up since 1835 is because they feared a succession crisis. And as we know from our time together, both in the history of Rome and revolutions, a contested succession is the stuff of nightmares. Luckily for the Austrian Empire, though, by the end of 1848, there was not, I repeat not, some frothing pack of Hapsburg men salivating at the chance to be emperor. In terms of political ambition, this generation of Hapsburg men was singularly deficient.

The emperor had two brothers, plenty of uncles, and even more cousins, and not one of them wanted the job. Into this unambitious and unimpressive generation of Hapsburgs comes Archduchess Sophie, who was called even then the only man at court. Sophie was a princess of Bavaria. She had been born in 1805, and then in 1824 had married the Habsburg Archduke Franz Karl, son of old Emperor Francis, and so the younger brother of the future Emperor Ferdinand. Sophie's parents, the king and queen of Bavaria, were not much impressed with Franz Karl as a suitor. He appeared to lack ambition, intellect, and sometimes even basic table manners. But Franz Karl was also the son of the emperor. and with the condition of his unfortunate older brother well-known,

there was a really good chance that Franz Karl would, at some point, become emperor, and that would make Sophie empress. But that never happened. When the old emperor died, Ferdinand was made emperor, and Franz Karl did his best to avoid affairs of state, and let guys like Metternich and Colerot handle running the empire. Her husband's lack of drive and ambition was a great source of frustration for Sophie. So, recognizing Franz Karl as a dead end, Sophie poured all her plans into her eldest son, Franz Yosef.

By the time she gave birth to her son in August of 1830, Sophie was already intimately aware of the deficiencies of her in-laws, and I think she sized them all up and concluded pretty early that her infant son was probably going to be emperor one day. She certainly raised him without expectation. All of his education, his training, his experience, were directed towards preparing him to rule one day. When the March revolutions came, toppling Metternich and sending the court spinning out of control, Archduchess Sophie's response was to dedicate herself to getting Emperor Ferdinand to abdicate in favor of her son. And to be clear, there is nothing really untoward or unreasonable about Sophie's efforts.

She saw an emperor who was incapable, a ministry that had been adrift for years, all kinds of problems going unaddressed, all of which led to. to an explosive revolution, where events moved so quickly that even the most capable and practiced statesmen were destroyed. The empire needed an emperor, and it did not have one. So as a matter of both personal ambition and the best interests of the Austrian Empire, Sophie positioned Franz Josef for the throne. When the March revolutions hit, Franz Josef himself was still only 17 years old. But though he was just a teenager, he was well aware of his place in the line of succession, and he had spent his life being raised to rule.

Wherever there were whispers about replacing the emperor, Franz Yosef's name was always at the top of the list of replacements. After March, Sophie moved quickly to get Franz Yosef into the action. He was appointed governor of Bohemia in early April, but never wound up taking the job because it was decided that what he really needed was an appropriate trial by fire, an introduction to the real business of empire. So instead of going to Bohemia, Franz Josef was assigned to join the staff of Field Marshal Radetsky in Lumberty, Venetia. As I briefly mentioned in episode 7.23, Franz Yosef arrived in the quadrilateral at the end of April

and fought his first real battle on May the 5th. Having performed well against live fire, Sophie determined that was just about enough live fire for the future emperor. So by late May, Franz Yosef was recalled to Innsbruck, where the imperial court was staying after their first flight from Vienna, which we talked about in episode 7.24. Franz Josef then remained at court through the summer, returned with the family to Vienna in August, and then flew the coop with them again the second time the imperial court fled Vienna in October. By early November, though, the pacification of Vienna and the victory against the Hungarians opened up the breathing space necessary to pull off what can only be described as a coup, a coup that many welcome.

as long overdue. There were four major players responsible for the coup. First, Archduchess Sophie, of course. Second, field marshal Vindichgratz, who is described as being determined to see Franz Yosef put on the throne. Vindishgrats supported the young prince for reasons of good, effective imperial rule, but also because Franz Yosef would be able to successfully repudiate all concessions and promises agreed to by Ferdinand, Basically, Franz Josef would be able to come into power and say, look, Ferdinand is the one who swore all these oaths, not me.

The third person critical to the coup was Field Marshal Radetsky. Franz Yosef had just served under him, made a good impression, and certainly looked like a way better option than the current emperor. Radetsky and Vindischgrads were by far the most powerful leaders inside the Austrian Imperial Army. If they supported switching the emperors, well, then the emperors were going to get switched. The man who actually brought about this switch was the fourth major player in the coup, Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg. Born in 1800, Prince Felix was the scion of the Schwarzenbergs, a powerful German bohemian family inside the empire.

For you, Napoleonic war buffs, Prince Felix is the nephew of the Schwarzenberg, who was one of the supreme leaders of the Allied armies during the final campaigns against Napoleon. So that Schwarzenberg is the uncle. of this Schwarzenberg. This Schwarzenberg, though, was not destined for a life in the army. After a very brief stint in the military, Schwarzenberg moved to the diplomatic service,

and he became a protégé of Metternich. Over the course of the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, Schwarzenberg served in posts in St. Petersburg, Paris, London, Turin, and Naples. And so he was amply steeped in the international politics of Europe during the age of Metternich. When that age came to an abrupt and violent end at the beginning of 1848, Schwarzenberg was ambassador to Naples, and he was present when that constitutional wave that swept up the Italian Peninsula got going. When War Cloud started brewing with Piedmont,

Schwarzenberg went up to Lumberty, Venetia, and joined Field Marshal Radetsky's defense of the kingdom. And it's probable he would have also interacted with Franz Yosef during those months. So Schwarzenberg has a working partnership with Radetsky, but he has an even closer family connection to Marshall Vindichgratz, who was his brother-in-law. Vindichgratz was married to Schwarzenberg's sister, Princess Eleanor, and she was the one who was accidentally killed in Prague in June. That was Schwarzenberg's sister.

Now, after Prague was suppressed, Redetsky had claimed victories in Italy and the imperial family returned to Vienna, it seemed like things were getting better. But the October uprising in Vienna proved that far from out of the wood, the empire was still deep in a dark and dangerous forest. A change needed to be made. So after Vindichgrotz pacified Vienna, his brother-in-law, Schwarzenberg, was invited to form a government,

the first truly conservative government since the barricades had gone up back in March. Schwarzenberg's first goal upon entering office was to convince the emperor to abdicate in favor of the now 18-year-old Franz Yosef. This did not actually take much time. To ensure that there would be no trouble, Archduchess Sophie had already secured renunciations of the throne from any of her in-laws who might stand in the way, most especially her own husband.

All the Habsburg men signed willingly. So, then, with the most powerful pillars of the military and the state arrayed behind his nephew, Emperor Ferdinand was induced to abdicate the throne on December 2, 1848. His abdication and the ascension of young Franz Josef marked a new age for the Austrian Empire, because Franz Josef would wind up ruling the empire for the next 68 years until his death in 1916. And though Franz Josef was not technically the last emperor of the Austrian Empire, but he basically was.

When he entered office here at the end of 1848, he had Schwarzenberg as his prime minister, Radetsky and Vindischgrat's leading his armies and his mother as the power behind the throne. So the first goal had been achieved, new emperor. The next goal, reclaim the empire. And the two principal focuses of late 1848 and early 1849 would be Italy and Hungary. So let us now transition to Italy and Hungary. Down in Italy, we left things off two episodes back heading into the winter of 1848, 1849. After limping back to Piedmont at the beginning of August, King Charles Albert was now

working his way back to launching a second invasion of Lumberty, Venetia. But he was far more isolated this time around. Tuscany viewed him more as a rival than a partner. Naples was now actively counter-revolutionary. The Pope had disavowed the war. Milan was lost, and Venice, still holding out, was on the far side of an Austrian army. So the prospects for future success were gloomy, but the king could not really avoid going back to war. He was pressed strongly by nationalist liberal ministers who combined with popular demonstrations in the streets to convince Charles Albert that he would likely lose his crown if he did not return to the fight. But though that factored heavily in his decision-making, he also had to reckon with the fact that there was a growing Republican threat to Italy. Venice

was under the Republican Danielle Manin. The pope, had just fled from Rome, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany would be skipping out of Florence just a few weeks later. So Venice and Rome and Tuscany all seemed to be on the verge of declaring themselves republics. So if monarchy was going to survive the liberation and unification of Italy, a king was going to have to lead the way. And there was no other king to lead the way, but Charles Albert himself. If he retired now, he would cede the Italian peninsula to madmen like Mazzini and Garibaldi. So it was with a deep sense of coerced obligation that Charles Albert geared up for a new

campaign against Austria come the spring. But at that moment, it was not the king who was dominating the headlines, but the Pope. And the Pope was not dominating the headlines just of Italy, but of the whole of Europe. His flight from Rome was a shocking development in a year full of shocking developments. In early December, Spain declared the Pope to be unresolved. under the protection of the Catholic powers of Europe, and then recommended a summit of those Catholic powers to discuss how to deal with the issue. Both Naples and Austria agreed to the summit at once. France, meanwhile, was divided on the issue, and General Cavaniac actually inserted it into the French

presidential campaign in November by endorsing a plan to send French troops to Italy to reinstall the Pope. But now under the theoretical protection of Catholic Europe, Pope Pius I.9th was physically under the protection of the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and he established a court in exile in Gaeta. Now at first, the Pope postured, not inaccurately, that he remained the defender of the constitutional order, that assassination and mob violence were anything but constitutional. But now free of constraints and able to voice his true thoughts, it did not take long for the Pope to drop the act. He no longer believed in the Constitution, if indeed he ever really had. And the thing is, at the moment, many in Rome did much care about the Pope's constitutional scruples, because they were reeling emotionally from the Pope having abandoned them. I mean, it's hard to think of a deeper connection between a leader and a city in like all of human history

than the connection between the Pope and Rome. The two are so closely connected that they're practically synonyms. So the flight of the Pope had spooked a lot of the leaders, including many of the liberal leaders, and they were eager to negotiate the Pope's return to Rome. But now taking advice from conservative cardinals who had followed him to Gaeta, the Pope disavowed the government in Rome and refused all overtures. The Pope's refusal to negotiate discredited the liberals in Rome, and it left the radicals ascendant.

Having been blocked by Danielle Menin in Venice, Giuseppe Metzini's crew of revolutionary Republicans move now to Rome and hope that it would become the basis of Republican expansion. And having driven the Pope from the Eternal City, these Republicans aimed at restoring that most glorious of all glories, the Roman Republic. So through November and December, they agitated for elections for a new Democratic Assembly,

A Democratic Assembly, they would almost certainly declare Rome a republic as soon as it convened. From his exile in Gaeta, the Pope tried to use his temporal authority as sovereign of Rome to order them to desist. But when the Romans persisted, the Pope massively up the ante. His temporal authority ignored, he deployed his spiritual authority. On December the 26th, the Pope ordered the formal dissolution of the Roman Parliament and threatened preemptive excommunication for anyone who participated in the organization and convening of any new assembly, which means that everyone in Rome, many of whom were sincere Catholics, whatever their politics, now had to choose between representative government and their immortal souls.

On December the 29th, Rome defiantly decided to go forward with the election. So having now spent all his authority, turned to a more powerful friend. Right at the end of the year, Pius sent a very nice note to his, quote, very dear son, the new emperor Franz Josef. So at the beginning of 1848, the general consensus was that Pope Pius Ith

was on board for liberation and unification, that he would be a leader in a war against Austria. And now here at the end of 1848, he is begging the Austrian army to steamroll its way down the peninsula. There would not be any immediate intervention, however, because as the Pope was sending off this note to young Franz Yosef, not quite three weeks on the job, there was already a far more important operation underway. The reconquest of Hungary. The new leadership of the empire was planning to maintain their aggressive momentum. So, as Schwarzenberg was setting up a new ministry and pressuring the emperor to abdicate,

Marshal Vindichgratz was preparing a full-blown invasion of Hungary. When Franz Josef ascended to the throne in the first week of December, Vindigrots was ready to go. And upon ascending to the throne, Franz Yosef did what Vindigrots had wanted all along. The 18-year-old emperor repudiated all the oaths and promises made to the Hungarians by his uncle over the past year. Franz Yosef declared the government in Budapest to be rebels, and he outlawed the lot of them. Back in Budapest, that now rebel government, was being led by Laioskoshchut and the committee. of national defense. They took the Emperor's declarations as an announcement that the Austrian army was about to come knocking

on their door. But Asco Schut scrambled a response. He was not able to mask the whole of the Hungarian national defenses in the West to block the Austrians, in part because at that moment, he was also dealing with simultaneous uprisings from the Serbs and the Romanians. The Romanian uprising was coming out of Transylvania. And remember, Transylvania is a lot of. a mess. The minority Majjar had voted for fusion with Hungary, and the majority

Romanians were not happy about it, especially when Madjar recruiters came round to conscript Romanian peasants into the Hungarian army. Recognizing an opportunity here was the commander of the imperial forces out on the Transylvanian military border. Remember, those military borders are the bands on the outskirts of the Austrian Empire that lived under permanent martial law. The Austrian general von Putscher cast himself as the friend and defender of the Romanian people. He did not lift a finger to prevent a mass meeting of the Romanians in September to protest

Hungarian conscription. When Austria formally declared war on Hungary on October 3rd, von Putscher resolved to claim executive authority over all of Transylvania, not just the military border, and prevent its reunion with Hungary. Then, on October the 18th, as all the armies in the West were congregating around Vienna, von Putscher issued a proclamation in Transylvania that openly called for the Romanians to rise up against the rebel Majar. But the Madjar population was, of course, going to fight back.

So the declaration marks the beginning of a very bitter and bloody civil war inside of Transylvania. There were peasant uprisings against Madjar landlords, ethnic attacks inside towns and cities. There was assassinations and lynch mobs, vandalism. And then backed by the imperial troops stationed on the military border, the Romanian swept across Transylvania by the end of November, leaving the Majdart with a few pockets of stubborn resistance. And this was the beginning of a seriously bloody and prolonged campaign that would be likened to the Von Dei in terms of its destruction and loss of life and lingering bitterness. Meanwhile, down in the south, the minority Serbs were also rising up, opening another vein of brutal ethnic conflict in the Crownlands. of Hungary, as the uprising and attacks on Madjar neighbors and representatives would lead to

retaliation by the Madjar. Some might say over-retaliation, and the whole region was soon engulfed in atrocities and counter-attrocities. There was starvation and privation, ruin, villages, assault, rape, vandalism, murder, skirmishes, and massacres. From mid-December to late February, so running concurrently to the fighting in Transylvania and the fighting against the Austrians, Hungarian forces chased after rebel Serbs, sometimes burning entire villages to the ground. It was all a very brutal business, and as we're talking about the Romanians and the Serbs rising up, I should also mention that the Croatians are still out there. I mean, Banjellichich is himself heavily involved in the preparations for the looming Austrian invasion of Hungary.

So from the Madjar perspective, Hungary was currently on fire. And then the Austrian army invaded. The winter campaign of what was about to become the Hungarian War of Independence started when Marshall Vindichgrat led his army down the Danube and across the border into Hungary. He crossed that border in the third week of December 1848. Having suppressed both Prague and Vienna, Vindichgrats was now looking to add Budapest to the necklace he was making of the skulls of dead rebel capitals. But though the neo-absolutus cabal now in charge of Austria,

a plan to force the Hungarians back into line, it was going to be a lot harder to take down the Kingdom of Hungary than it had been the cities of Prague and Vienna. But he had every right to expect victory. Vindich Gratz was leading about 50,000 men and 200 guns. Meanwhile, the scrambling Hungarians could concentrate only about 30,000 men with 80 guns. And that didn't even begin to tell the story of the discrepancy. The Hungarian army was currently in a terrible state. After failing to relieve Vienna, they were now retreating back down the Danube, and as they moved away from the Austro-Hungarian border, they had been forced to abandon critical supplies and tents. They were poorly armed, they were cold, they were hungry, and they were demoralized. And now all they could do was retreat, which only added to the demoralization.

Into this mess, rose a new dynamic force inside the Hungarian national defense, 30-year-old General Artur Gerge. Gurgh was the son of poor common nobility. He had joined the army as a teenager but could not afford life as an officer. There are stories of him eating only bread and water for breakfast and frequently skipping dinner. This unsustainable lifestyle led him to resign from the army and instead try out life as a poor student, eventually taking a degree in chemistry. His passion and military talent did not wane, though. And when the revolutions of 1848 broke out, he was among the first to join the patriotic Hanbed battal entering service at the rank of captain.

Over the summer of 1848, he was actually dispatched by Prime Minister Batanii to acquire munitions from abroad and to use his chemistry background to study the best way to manufacture percussion caps. By the time Yelichich invaded in September, Gorge was a major, and he turned heads immediately. He was the one who had successfully maneuvered that 10,000-man-Croat army into being surrounded and captured. Gorgay also got a reputation for ruthlessness.

He hanged a local magnate for possessing some of Yelichich's proclamations. But he was promoted to general and then played a prominent role in the campaign to relieve Vienna. And it was said that Gorgay was one of the few officers to emerge from that disaster with a decent reputation. And with Lyoskoshkoshchut himself racing back to Budapest, Gorgay was left in charge of the army. And the unenviable task of halting the inevitable Austrian counter-invasion. But as soon as he took the job, Gorgay determined that he would not be able to halt the inevitable Austrian counter-invasion. A Hungarian standing their ground would be suicide. So as Vindischgrat's pushed down the Danube and crossed the border, Gorgay operated a fighting retreat, or at least a

harassing retreat. He never let the Austrians forget that the invasion was contested, but he also never really contested it. Lius Koshut grew frustrated with Gorgay's retreat and sent dispatches imploring the general to stand his ground. I mean, at least for the politics of the thing. If Hungary was going to survive, the Hungarians needed to see their army standing firm. But from Gorgay's perspective, that was loony-tune stuff. He had looked a few moves ahead and concluded that there was no stopping the Austrians from capturing Budapest. Now, losing the capital would, of course, be a devastating political setback, but Gorgay looked a few moves even beyond that, and concluded that while Austria would be able to take Budapest,

they wouldn't really be able to advance any further. If Vindich Gratz tried to try to, to move further into the Hungarian interior, his supply lines would be overextended and open to attack. So losing Budapest would be far from the end of the war. Koschut and the political leaders in Budapest were not happy about any of this, but unable to get Gorgay to change his mind. They sent a more aggressive general with 6,000 men on a direct assault of one of the advancing Austrian columns, the one that just so happened to be led by Ban Yosep Yelichich. but this 6,000-man-Hungarian army was mauled into a chaotic retreat, and they lost just shy of half their army to casualties and capture, which frankly only proved Gorgay's point. With the capital deemed indefensible, Laoschkochut and the Committee of National Defense announced that the parliament would be reconvening 140 miles further into the interior of Hungary in the very small town of Debrtson.

If General Gorgay was right, and he was, the Austrians would not be able to reach them there, and they could safely plan a national defense. So packing up the state treasury, including the Crown of St. Stephen, which was the ancient symbol of Hungarian sovereignty, Koshute and his comrades fled to Debritsen, just days ahead of Vindigrots' army. Not everyone followed, though. Now ex-Prime Minister Betanyi resolved to stay to try to negotiate leniency or terms or something, but his overtures to Vindich Grots came back with that same reply.

We do not treat with rebels. Batanyi was arrested, and on January 5, 1849, the Austrians captured Budapest. The Hungarian parliament reconvened on January the 9th in Departzen. Of the 415 delegates, only 145 were present for this first session, but that number would eventually rise to over 300. But even among those who reconvened, many still wanted to. negotiate. The parliament was stacked with the kind of guys who wanted the April laws and autonomy for Hungary, but inside the empire. They didn't want to be at war with Austria. But Koshute and his

allies knew all too well that this was no longer the basis for any settlement. There could be no settlement. There was victory, or there was defeat. There was nothing in between. So exercising their near dictatorial powers, Lyoskosh Koshut and the Committee of National Defense organized what could only be described as a Hungarian Levea en masse. The only way they were going to win this war is if the whole nation rose up as won. So over the summer, enrollment in the Han Ved battalions increased tenfold. Eventually the total army would grow to 170,000 strong. Officers would be promoted mostly for zeal and determination over practically any other qualification.

They also organized the economy around the war effort, offering, for example, financial inducements and loans to artisans and manufacturing. who would take up the supply of the army. Artisans who enlisted in the Hanved battalions were identified and diverted to national workshops. They were soon cranking out 500 muskets a day, but the Hungarian army still suffered shortages in practically every category, especially through the winter, coats, shoes, boots, all of it, all in short supply. Now this Hungarian LeVeon Mass also resembles the French original and the Committee of Public Safety and everything that surrounded their attempt to beat back the forces of Europe, because Koschut dispatched about

80 guys with nearly unlimited grants of power to direct the war effort out in the provinces. These guys, who could only be described as Hungarian representatives on mission, were often at loggerheads with local officials who resisted their demands or who were active traitors. In the capital, a revolutionary tribunal was set up that would eventually sentence more than 100 people to death, almost all of them convicted of treason. As this Hungarian Leveon mass was getting going, there was tension between Lyoskosh and General Gorgh about what the point of all this was, because politically it turns out that Gorgay was a moderate liberal. He agreed with those in the parliament who wanted to negotiate. He himself saw the aims

of the war as the reconfirmation of the April laws, followed by the reintegration of a more liberal but still autonomous Kingdom of Hungary into the empire. Most of the officers in the Hungarian army did not like the revolutionary direction Koschut was taking things, and Gorgay dealt with frequent defections. Then rumors swirled back from Debritson that Koschut was preparing a declaration of independence and a proclamation of a Hungarian republic. So on January the 5th, the same day Austria took Budapest, General Gorgay issued a declaration that he remained faithful to his oath to the Constitution and that his army would defend that constitution. Now, this stopped the defection of his officers, but it drove Koshute crazy. He admitted Gorgay's indispensability, but privately, Koshut called Gorgay a traitor. But Gorgay was not a traitor. He just wanted what he wanted, not what Koshut and his comrades

in Debritson wanted. Vindigrots tried to get Gorgay to defect and hand over the Hungarian army, but Gorgh refused and demanded a negotiated settlement on the basis of the April laws. When Vindich Grotz refused that, Gorgay spent the winter harassing isolated Austrian units trying to probe deeper into Hungarian territory, while also massing forces for a spring counter-offensive at the River Tiza. But we will come back around in two episodes for the beginning of that spring campaign, a campaign that would see the Hungarians surprise everyone and roar back to life, knocking the Austrians well back on their heels, and proving that even though it was now 1849, 1840s. wasn't over yet.

Next week, however, we need to go back to Germany and reckon with the last gasps of the Frankfurt Parliament. Because as the Habsburgs were returning with a neo-absolutus vengeance at the end of the year, so too was King Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia. By the fall of 1848, the king had concluded that he had had just about enough of all of this. And so, by the time the Frankfurt Parliament finished its work and produced a draft of a constitution for a united Germany, nobody was listening.