England possesses, as a rule, a memory of decidedly insular proportions and proclivities. On the tablets of our country's memory are chalked up many names which have figured in the history of her own concerns, or at any rate in concerns with which she has some connection. Perhaps it will be said that this is inevitable. Perhaps it will be said that this way Patriotism lies. Perhaps it will be said that our interests as English citizens and citizenesses are bound to be local, or we could not impress the seal of our empire upon other nations' memories.
And if it is said, it is no doubt in great measure true. It is inevitable that we remember, in sharp unblurred outlines, the names and deeds of our own great men. It is this way that the soil of Patriotism is kept well manured for fresh crops of doughty deeds. We are bound to impress our individuality, as a nation, upon other countries; for if we did not, we could never exist for any length of time as an empire at all.
But when all this is owned up to, there still remains another great necessity which can never with safety be disregarded. And this is the cultivation of our—so to speak—foreign memory. We cannot afford to pamper our insularity. It is true it must exist, but it is equally true that English interests can never be—at least, ought never to be—the sum total of our mental investments. Patriotism is a fine thing. It is an eminently inspiring thing. But it is also a thing that needs to take walks abroad to keep itself in good mental health. There is a certain sort of cosmopolitanism without which no nation's life can be complete—nay, without which it cannot go on at all.
It is the cosmopolitanism of recognizing greatness outside our own borders. The cosmopolitanism of owning that there are as good fish in foreign seas as ever there were in the English Channel. The cosmopolitanism of a human brotherhood, whether it hails from the Sandwich Islands, from France, from Finland, or from Hungary; which recognizes as a salient truth, big with vital issues, that, after all is said and done, it is not the soil which matters, but the man whose feet are upon it now, at this present day, though by birth he may own natal allegiance to a far distant shore.
There are two names to-day which are practically forgotten by modern England. Yet it is only half a century ago that the men who owned them were making a gallant stir for patriotism's sake.
How many Englishmen to-day remember the story of Kossuth and Pulszky? Yet fifty years ago their names sounded loudly enough in the political arena. Fifty years ago they had struck the drum of fame with a boom which reverberated through many a European country.
Yet here is a curious instance of the uncertainty which attends a nation's memory in regard to foreign heroes. Some quite unaccountable factor seems to rule their choice of whose achievements shall be nailed to the door of their memories, like British trophies of old, and which shall be completely forgotten. Garibaldi and Kossuth were patriots of the same decade—one of Italy, the other of Hungary. Yet to-day in England the "red shirt" of the Italian patriot still casts a flaming glow on the English memory, while the struggle of Kossuth for his country is almost dead to us, as far as our remembrance of it is concerned.
Nevertheless in the history of his country, what Kossuth achieved for her of independence and freedom was in no way less fine than Garibaldi's exploits.
In Francis Newman's Reminiscences of Two Wars and Two Exiles, the story of the Hungarian reformer and patriot stands out clearly before us. He gives as his reason for writing it that when, in 1851, Kossuth and Pulszky, his brother agitator, came to England, he himself became their close friend. He says: "When … Kossuth and Pulszky quitted England in 1860, Pulszky told me they were glad to leave behind in me one Englishman who knew all their secrets and could be trusted to expound them." He goes on, however, to say that he was never able to be of so much service to them as Mr. Toulmin Smith, "a constitutional lawyer … and a zealot for Hungary."
1848 was the year when the affairs of Hungary were at their most crucial point. For long the situation had been growing more and more strained between Austria and Hungary. Austria had been trying her hardest to force Hungary into entire subservience to herself—to force her to give up her separate individuality as a nation and become fused into the Austrian empire. But Hungary made a gallant stand against all these attempts which aimed at destroying her independence. She had always been a constitutional monarchy, with power of electing her own kings. Austria had always practically been considered to be a "foreigner" as far as Hungarian laws and offices were concerned.
The London Hungarian Committee in 1849 quoted Article X, by Leopold II, of the House of Hapsburg, in 1790, which definitely stated that "Hungary with her appanages is a free kingdom, and in regard to her whole legal form of government (including all the tribunals) independent; that is, entangled with no other kingdom or people, but having her own peculiar consistence and constitution; accordingly to be governed by her legitimately crowned king after her peculiar laws and customs."
This statute, however, was no sooner made than fresh attempts were made to nullify it. Hungary's needs, as a country, were many. Her taxation required alteration; her peasants had still feudal burdens to bear, instead of being freehold proprietors of land. Religious toleration was not enforced, and free trade was an unknown quantity, for Austria insisted on the produce of Hungary being sent only to her market. Fresh roads and bridges and agricultural improvements were imperatively necessary, but the need was passed by, by Austria.
To every nation, as to every individual, when the hour of worst need strikes, the hand of the man or woman who brings rescue is upon the latch of the door. In the present instance Kossuth was in readiness to redeem his country from the yoke of Austria.
In March, 1848, the Opposition in the Hungarian Diet, with Kossuth at their head, carried a vote "that the Constitution of Hungary could never be free from the machinations of the Austrian Cabinet until Constitutional Government was established in the foreign possessions of the Crown, so as to restore the legal status of the period at which the Diet freely conferred the royalty on the House of Hapsburg." This vote paralysed the Austrian authorities…. The Hungarian Diet immediately claimed for itself also a responsible ministry.
Prompt measures were now taken by the Hungarians to restore the old status of the country, and laws were made which conferred upon the peasants freeholds of land and all other reforms for which they had for so long been agitating.
The London Hungarian Committee, to whose paper I have before referred, tells us that before the French Revolution had broken out this Bill had passed both Houses. "The Austrian Cabinet, seeing their overwhelming unanimity, felt that resistance was impossible"; consequently this Reform Bill of April, 1848, was considered by all Hungarian patriots as their Magna Charta.
Nevertheless it was their fate very shortly after to appreciate the truth of this hard fact, that it is one thing to make a Charter and another thing to keep it. Austria had many ways up her sleeve of breaking the spirit of the letter. First she saw to it that Hungary had no properly equipped home regiments for her defence, and next she dissolved the Hungarian Diet, and again tried to fuse Hungary into the Austrian Empire. Then at last the Hungarians determined at once, by force, to end the contemptible, practical joke which Austria was engaged in playing off upon their country. They gathered an army together, but their utmost efforts could only raise one not half the size of that of their opponents, and consequently the result of the battle was defeat for themselves. Later on, when Kossuth had managed to collect more arms and men, battles on a much larger scale were fought; and after the Austrians had been defeated more than a dozen times, the whole of their armies were driven ignominiously out of Hungary. It was after this series of victories that Kossuth was made his country's governor, and the whole nation declared as one man that the House of Hapsburg had for ever forfeited any claim to the Crown.
It was now that, had England attempted mediation for Hungary (according to Francis Newman), "we should have saved Austria from the yoke of Russia, and have at least put off the Crimean war," because, when Russia had come to the assistance of Austria in her final difficulties with Hungary, after she had been driven out of that country, "if England and France had not fought it, nothing short of an equivalent war must have been fought against Russia by other Powers … because the security of all Europe is endangered by the virtual vassalage of Austria to Russia… for Austria is now so abhorred in Hungary that she cannot keep her conquest except by Russian aid." [Footnote: Reminiscences of Two Wars and Two Exiles.]
In 1848 Kossuth's envoy, Pulszky, was sent to England, and, quite ignorant of the wheels within wheels which hampered the political movements of Lord Palmerston, was amazed that he himself found a repulse awaiting him at the English Minister's hands. Lord Palmerston asserted that the rights or wrongs of Hungary were practically a dead letter to England, who had never thought of that country as existing apart from Austria. He considered "a strong Austria was a European necessity"; but notwithstanding all he said then and later, the impression made itself felt on men's minds that there was a "power behind the throne" in all his speeches, and none knew what that hidden power was. To-day we all know that it was the foreign counsellorhood of Baron StockmÂr, who advised Prince Albert in those days. As Newman says: "It is now open to believe that StockmÂr and his Austrian policy … sometimes drove Palmerston to despair, and our diplomacy into heartlessness."
[Illustration: LOUIS KOSSUTH]
This elucidation of the whole puzzle throws fresh light on that attitude of Lord Palmerston which so completely mystified Kossuth.
"I cannot understand," he said, "what is the policy of Palmerston's heart. He talks one way, yet acts another way—always against the interests and just rights of Hungary."
Kossuth's next step was to take refuge in Turkey, and here he at once set to work to learn the language, and succeeded so well that he wrote a grammar, which was afterwards used in the Turkish schools. It was said to have been due to Lord Palmerston, by the way, that the Sultan refused to give him up to Austria and Russia. But at any rate the Sultan seemed to owe the decision which guided this refusal in large measure to his own loyalty to those who had sought shelter with him during civil war. At any rate, Kossuth reported that he certainly said, "I will accept war rather than give up the Hungarian fugitives." Eventually an American ship conveyed Kossuth out of Turkey, and he landed at Marseilles. Of course, by then the monarchy had been overthrown in France, and Louis Napoleon-with whom Kossuth was later on to be closely connected—was President.
In October, 1851, Kossuth crossed to England. Newman tells us that though "he was enthusiastically received by the whole nation," yet that "he was slandered, feared, despised, and disliked by those esteemed highest and noblest in England." But, at any rate, he was given a hearty welcome in America, for he did not stay long in England when he saw that those in authority did not warmly espouse his cause.
It is necessary here to remember that in 1851 Louis Napoleon had stepped on to the top of the Republic, whom he had previously served as its President, and had made himself Emperor of the French. It is necessary also to remember that there was a very general sense of alarm throughout England as to his plans regarding an invasion. He was thought to be collecting a fleet destined to attack us. But, later, it was proved that we had been exciting and disturbing ourselves quite unnecessarily. Louis Napoleon wanted something of us, it is true. But that something was alliance.
By this time Kossuth was back in England. One day, Francis Newman says, "Kossuth called suddenly on me with an English Blue-book in his hand, and abruptly said: 'We foreigners look to you to explain your own Blue-books. Please to tell me what does this strange sentence mean?' I read carefully these words from the despatches of the Western Powers to the admirals of their fleets in Constantinople: c You must clearly understand that you are not sent to fight against the Emperor of Russia, but to save the Sultan from religious enthusiasm and fatal auxiliaries'! He pointed out these last words…. 'Religious enthusiasm is the diplomatic phrase for Turkish patriotism; fatal auxiliaries mean Hungarians…. Because Austria dreads lest exiled Hungarians fight in the Turkish ranks, and the object of the Western Powers is to please Austria and not to aid Turkey…. They are angry with the Turks for defending themselves against Russia.'" [Footnote: Reminiscences of Two Wars and Two Exiles.]
[Illustration: This certificate is dated the year after Kossuth's first visit to England, and is in possession of Edward G. Sieveking, Esq. of the firm of Sieveking, Podmore, and Wright, Gracechurch Street, E.C.]
In 1848-9 the Whigs and Tories in England mistook the whole meaning of the disturbances which were going forward abroad. Macaulay (whom Newman quotes) distinctly asserts that in Hungary and Italy "kings were fighting in the cause of civilization, and nationalities were rising to destroy it in the cause of anarchy."
Comment on this is, of course, quite needless when one remembers how misinformed were the English ministers as to the nature of the struggle for liberty which was then going forward in both countries, and how treacherously and cruelly the people had been treated by those in authority over them: and what efforts had been made constantly against their rights as citizens. In 1854 Kossuth was again doing his best to rouse interest on behalf of his country in England. He called on Newman to enquire what would be the best and quickest way of collecting subscriptions. He wanted for immediate national use £5000. Newman referred him to a printer who "was a Zealot for Hungary," and who would supply him with the names of the richest men who had "spoken vigorously for Hungary."
Kossuth proceeded to write out a circular to be sent to these Englishmen, asking for subscriptions. A little later Newman found out that the result of this fishing in English waters was £400, and he had wanted £5000 to enable him to carry out his projects for Hungary!
The following letter from Francis Newman to Professor Martineau (about whose friendship with him I shall have more to say later) is dated November, 1854, and concerns his opinions in re the Crimean War:—
"As to the war, while it is always thought rash to have any strong military convictions, I have always believed that if they would go straight to Sebastopol early in the season they would take it with little difficulty. We have been juggled partly by Austria, partly by the too great age of our military men, partly by clashing counsels of allies. The fortification of Gallipoli I regarded as stupid infatuation: our old military men said it was necessary for safety! We lost all our time while Russia had her hands full on the Danube, we let in Austria to hinder the Turks pursuing the retreat, we delayed ten weeks longer to make preparation, and landed, leaving all our preparations behind. This delay has been the mischief…. The climate is now my fear, not the enemy. But I look on all this as a part of the providential or fatal necessity which determines that war shall not be decided by regular armies. If we will do things in a 'slow and sure' way, Russia will beat us, for she cares nothing for the lives of her men; to us it is agony. But to yield is to make her omnipotent. I expect, therefore, that the harder we fight, and the poorer our success, the more will Austria show Russian sympathies, and the more will the Western Powers be forced to call up Poland and Hungary…. I suppose nothing but severe suffering and vain effort will reconcile Louis Napoleon or the English aristocracy to the revolution in Europe, which alone can permanently cripple Russia.
"Ever yours affectionately,
"F. W. Newman."
And in August, 1855, he wrote again:—
"I do not think you see truly the treachery of our Government (I cannot use a weaker word), nor know truly what Kossuth has always demanded. To my first question, 'Do you expect us to drive Austria into hostility?' he replied (probably in November, 1853), 'Certainly not; but I claim that you shall not try to hinder our fighting our just and necessary battle against Austria.' This is the turning point. We did try to hinder it, hoping thereby to seduce Austria to our side. To whisper to Austria the words 'H. P. I.' would not have been to stir up those countries to insurrection, but to compel Austria not to threaten Turkey with her armies. Our Government encouraged her in it, and aided her to occupy the Principalities, forcing the Sultan to take pliable Ministers…. We reap the bitter fruit, as Kossuth from the beginning told us we should. I, however, still hope that we shall regain a morally right position, and that if we fare the worse Hungary may be the better; for then Austria might have been neutral, now she will be our enemy."
Kossuth suffered greatly in his political aims and endeavours from lack of funds. Indeed, from his first journey to England until he finally gave up coming over here, he was terribly hampered by want of money. Newman, too, was out of pocket owing to his efforts to push forward the Hungarian cause. I have before me now a letter from Kossuth written in January, 1854, from 21 Alpha Road, Regent's Park, to E. Sieveking and Son, members of my family, who were keenly interested in Hungarian politics, and who transacted many business arrangements for Kossuth from time to time while he was in England. The letter is on behalf of a friend of his, a Mr. Ernest Poenisch, and is written in German:—
"Honoured Sir,
"Would you not do me the kindness to give a favourable reference about the honourability [sic] of Mr. Ernest G. Poenisch if anyone should happen to make enquiries of you about him?
"Mr. Ernest Poenisch is a merchant in the city, a German by birth, and was a merchant of importance, and as he often has commercial business of importance to look after for me, you will be doing to me myself, a kindness if you would give him a good reference in a general way, should opportunity occur.
"Renewing my request to you, I sign myself, "Respectfully yours,
"L. Kossuth. "To E. Sieveking and Son."
In June, 1855, Francis Newman writes to Dr. Martineau, in answer to a letter from him:—
"I do not write in support of the oppressed nations because 'I have confidence in the stability and morality of a continental democracy,' but because the foreign kings who now trample nations down neither have nor pretend to have any right but that of armies; it is a pure avowed robber- rule, essentially in morals, and all will extol the nations as patriotic whenever they throw it off. … Certainly I maintain that Hungary and Poland are nations; so in fact is Italy: but Austria is only a Court and Army, not a nation. We have had public relations with Hungary as a nation; we violated our duty to Hungary in 1848-9; and complain we are still allowing Austria to get the benefit of our wrong. So also to Poland, I feel we have grossly neglected our duty, and still neglect it…. We know that Hungary (Poland, Italy) is in the right; but though called on to say so, we will not say it; nor even mediate, for it will lead to republicanism. Again, I call it immoral to argue: 'We know that Austria is giving Turkey just cause of war; but we must not allow the Sultan to resent it by declaring war; for it will give the nationalities an opportunity of throwing off the Austrian yoke.'… Then, my dear friend, do you forget that I approved of the French, and disapproved of the Austrian alliance?… Not to ally with Louis Napoleon is not to join him against the French nation; while to ally with Francis Joseph was to join him against the French nation, which his armies are trampling down. Again, we did not catch Louis Napoleon engaged in a scheme with Nicholas (Emperor of Russia) to dismember Turkey, and bribe Louis Napoleon to join us by the promise or hint that he should still get his slice of Turkey. We have done this to Austria, and have used our severe pressure on the Turkish Government to get Austria admitted into the Principalities…. I fear this summer will be as deadly to our army as the winter was; my only comfort will be, that I shall make sure that Austria will the clearer show her true colours.
"Hoping you are all well, I am,
"Ever yours affectionately,
"F. W. Newman."
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM KOSSUTH TO MESSRS. SIEVEKING JANUARY, 1854]
"Hungary and Poland are nations; so in fact is Italy: but Austria is only a Court and Army, not a nation." Here is practically the gist of the whole matter, as far as Francis Newman is concerned. Throughout all his writings one comes again and again upon this note. "The People! The People!" is his ever-recurring thought. What are "the People" suffering; what are their needs, their wrongs which call for justice? The People is the living nation; the Court and the Army may be inevitable adjuncts of a nation's being, as things at present are constituted; but they are artificial adjuncts; the People are the very life essence of the Nation, its real motive power. Let their voice be heard, and the soul of empire at once springs into being.
In the next letter from Newman to Martineau, 9th June, 1856, from which I shall quote, it is shown that our Colonial Office was enraged against Kossuth because he had "mischievously hindered the Austrian Government from getting troops to put down Italian insurrection." Newman goes on to show how the treachery of Austria in her dealing with other nations was a potent fact, and he adds, "Hungary was bound" (according to Kossuth's views) "to assist Austria against foreign attack, and therefore against the King of Sardinia; but in the interval, before this could come to any practical result, the intrigues of the Austrian Court with the Serbs were brought to light; Austrian officers with the Emperor-King's commission in their pockets were made prisoners from among the Serb ranks, and the internal danger of Hungary, as well as the treachery of the Court, made it simply impossible to carry out, or wish to carry out, the Protocol. But Kossuth was still the King's Minister, and could not say this openly. Unless he would have taken the first step to civil war, he was bound to throw a thin veil over it in public speech and action. The measure which he then promoted was … that no Hungarian soldier should leave the country until the internal rebellion was thoroughly subdued. That no Hungarian regiments should fight against Italians until the Italians had had from Austria the offer of national institutions and freedom under the Austrian Crown, putting them on a par with the Hungarians."
Nothing could have been fairer than these conditions, and this was very shortly recognized when it became known that Latour and the Court were employing all their energies for long after this date in stirring up the Serb rebellion. Yet they were shameless enough to complain of Kossuth having incited the Hungarians to revolt. Writing the next day to Dr. Martineau, Newman openly avows his belief that "every nation in the world is grasping and unjust in its foreign policy in exact proportion to its power, England not being at all an exception." The italics are my own. Have we not proof positive of this before our very eyes to-day? We cannot look at India and say "no," for by our charter of 1833 we bound ourselves over to hold India only until the education, which we had made possible for them, should enable the Indians to take a share in the government of their own country. But when we look at the India of to-day, we cannot but plead guilty to not having kept that charter honestly before our eyes. There is but one office to which natives are admitted on equal terms with Englishmen to-day!
To go back to the letter:—
"England has no great European army, and cannot covet and subdue any portion of the European continent. That is no great credit; but in Asia, where she is strong and her neighbours weak, she is as grasping and unjust as Russia, Austria, France, or the U.S…. Lord Palmerston had never heard (or pretended never to have heard) of the peace of Satmar, and that England was mediator of it between Austria and Hungary. I think it is not mere knowledge, but higher morality, which is the first need of policy on both sides the Atlantic."
It is now that Louis Napoleon comes on the scene as regards the beginnings of his connection with Kossuth. Newman says that it was in 1856 that the closer friendship between Napoleon and Cavour (Sardinian Minister) had begun. Not very long after it was borne in on the mind of Cavour that Kossuth would be an invaluable ally in the plans of future conquest which they were then preparing.
Louis knowing that Kossuth was in sore need of funds for his political enterprises, sent a messenger to him to intimate that he would join forces with him; that he would supply him financially with all he would require in the way of ready cash. Kossuth was not averse from receiving in good part Napoleon's advances, though he offered temporary resistance. He saw clearly that if France were to help Italy, Austria would be weakened, Newman tells us that when Napoleon announced in 1858 that he was about to marry Clotilde, daughter of the King of Sardinia, Kossuth at once said to him: "I have always resisted Napoleon's overtures, but I expect now that I shall be forced to visit him in Paris, because I now see that he is resolved upon war against Austria. This Piedmontese marriage is evidently his pledge also to Italians that he means to drive Austria out of Italy."
Then, in 1859, a few inimical words which Napoleon spoke to the Austrian ambassador showed very clearly to what quarter the political wind in France had veered. "War was felt to be intended, and Russia was no longer a support to Austria behind."
In March, or a little later, Kossuth and Pulszky were invited to Paris, and were met, very cordially, at the station by Prince Napoleon, cousin to the Emperor. Later, Louis Napoleon himself spoke with them, and said very frankly that he had never had any special idea of assisting Hungary, but that in case he could not settle affairs in Italy, as regarded his war with Austria, and he should find himself obliged to send his army into Croatia, he wanted advice with respect to many details regarding this province, which he knew that Kossuth could give him. Newman was the recipient of Kossuth's communications concerning this secret interview with Napoleon. And he told him that besides needing his advice about Croatia, he wanted him (knowing he had influence in England) "to drive Lord Derby out of office." I quote Napoleon's words as recorded by Newman.
"The French army is very formidable; but I cannot pretend that in it I have such superiority to Austria that I may expect easy or certain success. My only clear superiority is on the sea. As Louis Philippe before, so have I from the first carefully nursed my fleet. Hereby I override Austria in the Adriatic—a most critical advantage…. I cannot be sure but that without declaring war, or giving warning, he (Lord Derby) may all at once strike a blow which will annihilate my fleet, and then what could compensate me? If you can find any way of moving discontent against this ministry, I want you to cripple or eject him."
Newman adds that Kossuth did not tell him what reply he himself gave to all this.
Everyone knows the sequel to this. After Lord Derby had resigned in March, Lord Palmerston took office. In May the Austrians were defeated; and this defeat was followed by more disaster for them, and the end of the whole matter resolved itself into a peace between Francis Joseph and Louis Napoleon.
Then it was that the latter proclaimed freedom from Austrian supremacy to all Italy; and now came the end for which Kossuth had struggled, and longed, and waited. Napoleon despatched a messenger to him asking what demands Kossuth wished now to make. His prompt answer was delivered thus to the envoy:—
"Sir, I have two demands on your master: First, he must extract from the Emperor Francis Joseph an amnesty for every Hungarian or Croatian soldier who has taken military service under the King of Sardinia. Secondly, no man thus amnestied shall ever be pressed into the Austrian army."
A fortnight went by, and Kossuth heard nothing from the Emperor. Then, when at last the news came, it was almost too good to be true. Francis Joseph had agreed to both stipulations.
In August, 1860, Francis Newman, writing from Keswick, touches on the progress in success made by the Italian patriot, Garibaldi.
"I do not think you can be dissatisfied with Garibaldi's progress. Louis N. could have stopt [sic] him, and ruined his hopes for ever, by one word to Austria as soon as Garibaldi landed in Sicily. On the contrary, he has sternly forbidden Austria to meddle at all in Italy, and has allowed Cavour to proclaim in Parliament that L. N.'s greatest merit to Italy is not the great battle of Solferino, but his having avowed in his letter to the Pope that priests shall no longer rule in Italy…. When Hungary is free, all views will change, and perhaps France also."
Kossuth and Pulszky, who had visited England constantly between the years 1851 and 1860, finally left our shores for good in the latter year, Kossuth for Italy, for he took no further share in politics, and Pulszky for Hungary, where he became Finance Minister to Francis Joseph's new constitutional monarchy.
Before finally leaving England, Kossuth gave to Newman his own "reading" of the real character of Louis Napoleon. He said: "Louis Napoleon is a man at whom, on account of his coup d'État, [Footnote: Louis Napoleon's raid on the French citizens, in violation of his promises, in order to make himself supreme.] I shudder, and it may seem a duty to hate him. Yet I am bound to say, not only has he been wholly faithful to us, but every time I have been closeted with him I have come away with a higher opinion, not only of his talents and sagacity, but also of his morals." The italics are mine. It seems difficult for the outsider to-day quite to sign to this point of view, when one remembers Louis Napoleon's deception and his broken honour and cruelty. There is a very enlightening and suggestive passage in one of Robert Louis Stevenson's books, "To travel happily is better than to arrive." In Kossuth's case the reverse was true. He travelled towards his goal unhappily, but he "arrived," and that was a reward which is not given to every patriot who gives his life to win his country's freedom.
In Hungary in 1851, by Charles Loring Brace, there are many keenly interesting details about Kossuth. Mr. Brace made a tour in Europe, chiefly on foot, during the spring of 1851, and met Kossuth in Pesth; his mother was then living there. "To say that Kossuth is beloved here seems hardly necessary after what I have seen. He is idolized. Every word and trait of his character is remembered with an indescribable affection …"; but they all acknowledged, he added, that he did not possess the necessary gifts for a revolutionary leader. Still, he moved his countrymen in so stirring a manner that they would have followed him anywhere. "He 'agitated' the whole land, and there is not a Bauer in the villages or a Csikos (wild cattle driver) on the prairies, they say, who does not remember as the day of days the time when he listened to those thrilling tones … as they spoke … of the wrongs of their beloved Fatherland."
This is a short account by a journalist who knew him personally, and was present at the time, of the manner in which Kossuth was received in Scotland during his visit to Britain:—
"In travelling from Edinburgh to Perth, Kossuth was received at every station by vast crowds of people, including many ladies, with vociferous cheers and waving of hats and handkerchiefs. This was particularly the case at Stirling, where hundreds crowded up to the carriage in which he sat to grasp his hand."
One day it was suggested that Kossuth, Colonel Ibaz his aide-de-camp, and the journalist should go for a drive up Kinnoul Hill, near Perth. "We soon got into a rough country road winding among the farms. At one place the carriage came to a stand while a gate had to be opened to allow it to pass through. At this gate stood a tall, venerable-looking farmer, with long white hair and beard … who might have served as a painter's model for an old Scottish Covenanter. He stood ready to open the gate…. He had, of course, heard of Kossuth's invitation to lecture in Perth, and at once divined that the carriage might contain his hero, as all visitors to Perth ascend the Hill of Kinnoul…. In a very deep and solemn voice he said … 'I reckon that Loois Koshoot is in this carriage. Am I richt? Whuch is him?' Kossuth leaned forward and said in a very gracious manner, 'Yes, he is, good man. I am Louis Kossuth.' Whereupon the venerable man reverently took off his bonnet, came close up, grasped Kossuth's hand in both his own, and said, 'God bless you, sir, an' may He prosper you in your great waurk to free yer kintra frae the rod o' the oppressor. May He strengthen ye and croon ye wi' victory….'
"Colonel Ihaz was a bronzed, stern-looking officer, perhaps ten years older than his chief; yet with all his military stiffness and sternness he was quite capable of relaxing into ordinary human feelings and becoming quite a facetious old fellow under favourable conditions. He could speak very little English. He enjoyed the humour of some Scottish stories and anecdotes I told, and which Kossuth translated for him. He was greatly pleased and amused when I initiated him into the art and mystery of concocting a tumbler of whisky toddy as a proper and orthodox finish to the evening…. He thoroughly appreciated the beverage, smacking his lips … and exclaiming with gusto, 'Toddo is goot. Toddo very goot.'" He mentions that Kossuth was keenly interested in Scottish ballads and stories, etc., and he actually learnt one ballad by heart, "which for thrilling passion, and power, and sweetness … were never equalled by human voice. His appeals … were addressed exceedingly often to the religious feelings of his hearers. In fact, this tendency of his is perhaps one great secret of his power over the people of Hungary—for the peasantry of that land, beyond that of almost any other, are remarkable for a simple, reverent piety."
When, after the deliverance of Hungary from the yoke of Austria, Kossuth was made Governor, Brace says that he considers he belonged, by reason of his talent for organization and finance, to the highest rank of statesmen. He had not "the unrelenting, tremendous force of a Cromwell or Napoleon, or the iron will of a Jackson…." But he has shown that a man "could be a military Dictator without staining his hands either in the blood of his rivals or of his friends."
"One of the privates in an Austrian regiment stationed in Vienna, himself a Hungarian, was overheard by his officer to say 'Eljen Kossuth!' He was ordered 'five-and-twenty' at once. It appears when a man is flogged in the Austrian army he is obliged by law to thank the officer. This the Hungarian refused to do. Another 'five-and-twenty' were given him. Still he refused. Again another flogging; and the Hungarian, as he rose, muttered his thanks with the words, 'My back belongs to the Emperor, but my heart to Kossuth.'"
In regard to Kossuth's manner of delivery in his great public speeches, Mr. Brace says: "His opening words, they say, were like Hungarian national airs, always low and plaintive in the utterance…. But gradually his face lighted up, his voice deepened and swelled with his feeling," and there came forth tones which thrilled his hearers with a strange rousing power.
