Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/146

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310 WORKMEN AND HEROES There was now but one course left for the Hungarians : to maintain by force of arms the position they had assumed. We cannot detail the events of the war which followed, but merely touch upon the most salient points. Jellachich was speedily driven out of Hungary toward Vienna. In October" the Austrian forces were concentrated, under command of Windischgnitz, to the number oi 120,000 veterans, and were put on the march for Hungary. To oppose them the only forces under the command of the new government of Hungary were 20,000 regular infantry, 7,000 cavalry, and 14,000 recruits, who received the name of Honveds, or " protectors of home." Of all the movements that fol- lowed, Kossuth was the soul and chief. His burning and passionate appeals stirred up the souls of the peasants, and sent them by thousands to the camp. He kindled enthusiasm, he organized that enthusiasm, and transformed those raw recruits into soldiers more than a match for the veteran troops of Austria. Though himself not a soldier, he discovered and drew about him soldiers and generals of a high order. The result was that Windischgratz was driven back from Hungary, and of the 120,000 troops which he led into that kingdom in October, one-half were killed, disabled, or taken prisoners at the end of April. The state of the war on May 1st may be gathered from the imperial manifesto of that date, which announced that "the insurrection in Hungary had grown to such an extent " that the Imperial Government " had been induced to appeal to the assistance of his majesty the Czar of all the Russias, who generously and readily granted it to a most satisfactory extent." The issue of the contest could no longer be doubtful when the immense weight of Russia was thrown into the scale. In modern warfare there is a limit beyond which devotion and enthu- siasm cannot supply the place of numbers and material force And that limit was overpassed when Russia and Austria were pitted against Hungary. On May 1st the Russian intervention was announced. On August 1 ith Kossuth resigned his dictatorship into the hands of Gorgey, who, two days after, in effect closed the war by surrendering to the Russians. The Hungarian war thus lasted a little more than eleven months, during which time there was but one ruling and directing spirit, and that was Kossuth, to whose immediate career we now return. Nothing remained for him and his companions but flight. They gained tht Turkish frontier, and threw themselves on the hospitality of the sultan, who promised them a safe asylum. Russia and Austria demanded that the fugitives should be given up ; but being supported by France and England, the sultan ar- ranged a compromise by which they were detained in Asia Minor as prisoners. Kossuth was released in 1851, and made a tour of the United States, agitating in favor of Hungary. He never returned to his native land, but lived an exile for over forty years. For a while he struggled desperately to help the Hungarians ; .then, finding that the universal progress of liberal ideas was doing more for them than he ever could, he resigned himself to a peaceful life devoted to literature and science. He died at Turin, March 20, 1894, reverenced by all the world, and mourned bj his countrymen with tumultuous demonstrations as their national hero.