The Sun.
London, England, 1850-08-20 00:00:00

LITE RAT URE.

MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF INDE-
' I'ENDErVC.E 1N BUSGARY. '2 Vols. By
General Klapka.
As commandant of the fortress of Komorn—that
strongh.ld which has become for ever illustrious by.
heir*. the last to withstand the united forces of the
Russian and Austrian coalition—General Klapka is
peculiarly qualified to recount the narrative of the
great Magyar war of independence. As secretary-
at-war to the Hungarian Commonwealth, he is like.
wise singularly fitted to assume the responsibilities
and to perform the offices of historian to that Go-
vernment. Any work consequently from his hands,
professing to narrate the vicissitudes, both political
and military, which befel his countrymen daring the
late struggle, must be welcomed with indescribable
eagerness by the student of the contemporary annals
of l' Even the bitterest enemies of that cause
ith which the name of Klapka has become so glori-
ously associated, will not shrink from accepting his
account of its rise, development, and termination
with the most implicit confidence in his veracity—
satisfied that one so gallant in his bearing as a soh
dier could never deign to prevaricate, even in the
slightest particular, in his new and not less digni-
fied capacity' as an annalist. The hand that
has wielded the sword with such remarkable prowess
could not by possibility guide the pen in any other
manlier than that which betrays the writer's alle-
giance to truth. Hence it is with a staunch reliance
upon the candour of Klapka that all parties without
distinction will open these volumes for a perusal ; nor
Full that reliance be misplaced, seeing that in names,
dates, and localities, the work under consideration is
distinguished by its punctilious correctness. To the
end that no misapprehension may arise in the reader's
understanding in consequence of any uncertainty as
to the historical antecedents of the Hungarians, Ge-
neral Klapka has prefaced his records of the late war
by two introductory chapters of extraordinary value
—one epitomizing the history of his country from the
earliest periods on record, the other comprising with
a rapid sketch those events which must be regarded
as the immediate precursors, or rather as the imme-
diate originators of the Hungarian revolution. Ac-
cording to the view entertained by the defen- I
der of Komorn, the first germs of an
ambition to obtain their political and social
liberation were implanted in the bosoms of the
Magyar population no less than three centuries ago,
when having in 1526 invested Ferdinand I. of
Hapsburg with the crown and the cloak of St.
Stephen, that race "created the necessity of a violent
rupture of so unnatural a connexion. After pre-
mising thus much, it cannot, of course, be surprising
to find the writer espousing the cause of "indepen-
dence" with all the ardour of his energetic and en-
thusiastic temperament, when the voice of the im-
mortal Kossuth summoned the nation to awake at
last from its prolonged sleep of servitude. Actuated
solely by that devotion to fatherland which was then
the guiding principle of the whole movement,
Klapka from the first hour of that memorable revo-
lution dedicated himself entirely to aid in working
out the emancipation of the Hungarians. That he
should have scrutinized every occurrence that fol-
lowed that great rising on the part of his compatriots,
is in no respect surprising when the importance of
every incident, however apparently trivial, upon the
fortunes of a community under similar cir-
cumstances, is borne in recollection. Neither can
his ardour in the cause of indei_eadence be deemed
extravagant even by the most phlegmatic philosophers,
when it is remembered that in furtherance of that
same cause was shed the heart's blood of Batthyanyi,
of Kiss, of Aulich, of Damjanitsb, of Nagy-Sandar,
of Torok, of Lehner, of Vecsey, of Knezich, of
Poltenberg, of bchweidel, of Desewffy, of Lazar, of
Gaspar, and of the Count Leiningen-Westernurg.
An earnestness demonstrated to be sincere by so
many tragic executions could not but be participated
in with astonishing fervour by a heart so large and
dauntless as 'that of the young defender of
Komorn. How dauntless his heart was, may be
learnt from the narrative of the defence of that for-
tress ; how large it was may be guessed by those who
peruse the generous extenuation put forward by
Klapka to screen his former brother in arms, the
once noble but now execrable Gorgey, from the
charge of treason to the cause of Hungary.
Within the two compact and enthralling volumes
before us is condensed the entire and unmutilated
narrative of the war of independence. It opens, as a
matter of course, with the famous raising of the siege
of Komorn, when the Hungarian army executed that
renowned manoeuvre which Klapka declares, and not
extravagantly, to be " all but unparalleled in the his-
tory of strategical operations," when, after retreating
to the extremities of the Magyar dominion, the army
of liberation abruptly turned against their assailants
at Debreczin, and, beating them back by a succession
of astonishing victories, routed the Imperial forces,
drove their fragments across the frontiers of Hungary,
and carried their pursuit of the Austrians even under
the walls of Vienna., "At that moment," says the
historian, " the fate of Hungarian independence, and,
what was more, that of the Austrian empire, lay in
the hands of General GOrgey." Had he marched at
once upon the Imperial capital, instead of turning aside
for the conquest of Buda, the crowning victory would
have been achieved, instead of which Gorgey arrived
at exactly an opposite determination, and thereupon
saith Klapka, " with this decision the die was cast,
and the favourable moment was gone, never again to
return." Having mentioned his entrance into Pesth
on the 30th of April (printed by a preposterous mis-
take the 31st, see page 7, vol. i., in defiance of all
the laws of the Gregorian Calendar), General
Klapka proceeds to enumerate the events which
rapidly followed each other during the ensuing May.
Under this head he comprises an estimate of Kos-
suth's Government, a reference to the project of
Russian intervention, an analysis of the plan of de-
fence, and a record of the fall of Buda, the struggle
with the Wallachians in Transylvania, his own
(Klapka's) return to the army, and his assuming the
command at once of the fortress of Komorn and
of the troops on the right bank of the Danube.
Among the occurrences crowded into June
are especially particularised the battles of
Tshorna, of Zsigard, of the Waag, of Aszod, and
of Ihaza, together with the advance of the Aus-
trians against Raab, and the retreat of Kmetty to
the lower Danube. Within the days of July are
compressed a series of yet more important events,
events upon which the fate of a great race was yet
more imminently dependent, the conference with
Kossuth, the battle of Atsh, the recal of Gorgey, the
appointment of Muszaros,and ultimately the final rup-
ture between the traitor Gorgey and the Hungarian
Government. During August we find the embarrass-
ments both of the deceived and the deceivers multi-
plied, the army meeting with disasters, and the
Cabinet with every species of discouragement : im-
mediately after the publication of Kossuth's celebrated
" Address to the Nation," wherein he solemnly made
Gorgey "responsible to od, the nation, and to history,"
come the Russian intervention, and the first miserable
armistice. With September comes the deplorable
consummation of treason, when the Magyar soldiers
bad to pass under the caudine forks in the presence,
as it were, of the Austrian absolutism, represented in
the person of Haynau, and of the Russian despotism,
incarnate in the form of Paskewitch. October finds
Klapka reduced to the necessity of yielding Komorn
to the conqueror, and of proceeding from that strong-
hold to the city of Presburg. A large and interest-
ing mass of documents is collected together at the
close of the second volume, in an admirably arranged
appendix, including among other things the cele-
brated Bulla Aurea, the speech delivered on the 11th
of July by Louis Kossuth, and the oft-quoted dispatch
of Prince Wittgenstein. As a whole, nothing can be
more painstaking than the care with which the dis-
tinguished narrator of the war of independence has per-
formed all his duties as an annalist. Having endeavoured
with his sword to aid in vindicating the rights of
Hungary, he has since that heroic but ineffectual
effort striven with his pen to vindicate her outraged
reputation. In this supplementary essay he has
shown himself eminently successful, and has crowned
the gallant achievements of the soldier with the
honourable labours of the historian.

MEMOIRS OF A HUNGARIAN LADY. 2

Vols. By Theresa Fulsky.
No more interesting contribution could have been
offered to the future annalist of the Hungarian re-
volution than these two attractive volumes, from the
hand of a lady so noble-hearted and patriotic as the
wife of Francis Pulsky. Every intelligent man in
England is already long since aware that that distin-
guished foreigner arrived amongst us during the
time of the Magyar war of independence, accredited
as a kind of ambassador to the British Government
from the Government of the Hungarians. Pulsky oc-
cupied in London the position occupied in Paris by
Teleki ; they were the diplomatic emissaries from the
Cabinet of Debreczin, deputed to negotiate, if neces-
sary, with the Councils of St. James's and the Elvsbe
on the part of that extraordinary man, the Poet-king
of the Magyars, who then presided over the destinies
of Hungary with the supreme power and dignity of a
Dictator. Like most of the women of that heroic
country, Theresa Pulsky regarded the cause of which
Louis Kossuth was the very incarnation, the cause of
Hungarian independence,. with a devotion at once
profound, tender, and passmeate. The dream of na-
tional emancipation possessed for them a charm be-
yond all description, coloured as it was with the
witcheries of their fancy and their affections. The
Spartan matrons tw:sting their long tresses
into bowstrings, is among the incidents which aught
not inaptly have been represented upon
h .the
scarves and banners of Peter vvardein, as symblsing
in some manner the sentiments Lf the ladies of Hun-
gary. Among these noble women, not the least
devoted, as she was certainly one of the most intelli-
gent, was the wife of the Magyar Plenipotentiary to
England, Theresa Pulsky, the authoress of this bril-
liant and touching memorial. Like the writer of the