Andrew II of Hungary

“ Andrew died soon after the promulgation of the charter, and was succeeded by his son Bela IV. The beginning of this prince's reign was troubled with internal dissensions caused by the Cumans [an Eastern tribe which invaded Hungary in the later half of the 11th century—see COSSACKS] , who, after having been vanquished by St. Ladislaus, settled in Hungary between the banks of the Theiss and Marosch. But a greater and quite unexpected danger, which threatened Hungary with utter destruction, arose from the invasion of the Tartars. ”

“ It should be remarked that this question of constitutional government for the other provinces of the Austrian Empire—save Hungary—stands quite apart, and must be considered apart from the complications which have arisen with regard to Hungarian affairs. Hungary declines absorption into the general body of the Empire. Hungary is a kingdom by itself, and refuses to be cast into the melting-pot. She consents to be united to Austria by the golden link of the Crown, but will not budge one inch further. ”

“ The person who has found out the puzzle is the son of a poor woman, who, if he lives, will become King of Hungary. Therefore, if you want the crown yourself, you must get him here and kill him.”
After this conversation another letter was written to the Court of Hungary, saying that if the youth, now in the palace, was not sent to Turkey within three days, a large army would cross the border. The king’s heart was sorrowful as he read, for he was grateful to the lad for what he had done to help him ”

“ The following year Andrew accompanied his son Coloman into Poland, to celebrate his marriage with a daughter of the duke, and intrusted the regency during his absence to Gertrude and her relations. Time and opportunity favored a conspiracy against the imperious Queen, and the first attack was made on her brother, the Archbishop of Colocza. He, however, escaped with his life, and in revenge he induced the Pope (Honorius) to lay Hungary under an interdict. ”

“ The male line of the house of Árpád became extinct by the death of Andrew III. His only daughter, Elizabeth, retired to a convent, and the nation was once more called upon to exercise its ancient right of electing a king, and three candidates, a Czech, a German, and an Italian, at once came into the field. Each of these claimants had a party in the country, and not until the strength of the nation had been wasted by internal strife and warfare during a period of eight years did the Italian party succeed in placing on the throne Charles Robert, who became the founder of the Hungarian Anjous. ”

“ Andrew, king of Hungary, was the only monarch who had leisure or inclination to leave his dominions. He led the army to Palestine and defeated the Saracens, but failed to follow up his victory, and soon after abandoned the enterprise. The Duke of Austria, who succeeded him as leader, directed the whole energy of the crusade against Egypt; and Damietta, which commanded the river Nile, was chosen as the first point of attack. ”

“ He opposed to the oligarchs the gentry, whose ancient immunities he confirmed, and whom he attached to his person by granting them new ones. Duke Albert of Austria, the son of Rudolph of Hapsburg, who was the first to claim the throne, was driven from the country, but the diplomacy of Andrew turned him subsequently from an enemy into a friend and ally. ”

“ If so, this means insurrection in Austria, and Austria in desperation may endeavour to meet the attack by a forward movement in Northern Italy. We now see why Garibaldi refused to accept military rank under Victor Emmanuel. As a private individual, he does not drag the new-born kingdom of Italy at his heels. His acts are his own; but if he is able to give a formal shape and colour to the national movement in Hungary, he will not have laboured in vain, and his present action will have greater political significance than even what he accomplished during the year 1860. ”

“ The feud of the fathers revived in their sons, and King Solomon and the dukes Geyza and Ladislaus confronted each109 other in the same hostile spirit in which their fathers, Andrew and Béla, had once stood face to face. The question which the sword was to decide was not merely whose should be the crown, but as to whether the German power should become the master of the Hungarian kingdom, or not. Fate decided against Solomon. He lost the battle of Mogyoród, and with it his throne, and with his defeat vanished all hopes of establishing German supremacy over Hungary. ”

“ All the great lords of the realm rallied round the king. A large black flag was carried in front of the Hungarian army and on it was depicted the pale face of Andrew. On two occasions they were led by the king against Naples, and each time he was accompanied by the most distinguished Hungarian families. Michael Kont, Andrew and Stephen Laczfy, with Dionysius, the son of the latter, and a host of others, brought with them their armed trains, by whose mighty blows both Aversa, of mournful memory, and proud Naples were soon reduced. ”

“ Nor did this matrimonial alliance with Austria secure peace to Hungary. Pope Nicholas IV. was bent upon gaining the crown of St. Stephen for Charles Martel, son of Charles d'Anjou of Naples, who put forward his claims to the Hungarian crown in virtue of his mother, Mary, daughter of king Stephen V.," transferring them at his death to Charles Robert, nephew of the king of Naples. Andrew III., the last Arpad, died in 1301. E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, part 1, chapter 2. HUNGARY: A. D. 1285. Wallachian struggle for independence. ”

“ Jacobins, Hungarian league of, 392 Jagello, Duke of Lithuania, marries Hedvig, a daughter of Louis of Hungary, 174 James, son of Vatha, leads pagan rebellion against Béla I., 107; defeated, 107 Jellachich, Ban, leader of the Croats, 426; defeated, 428 Jesuits inaugurate Thirty Years’ War, 347 Joanna of Naples, wife of Andrew, conspires against her husband, 165; marries Louis of Taranto, 167; sentenced by the Pope, 168 Jókai, Maurus, 422 Joseph I., Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, 366; grants amnesty to the insurgents, 367 Joseph II., sends crown back to Buda, 386 ”

“ Save the Magyars alone, the ruling race in the Hungarian kingdom, there is no case in those lands in which the whole continuous territory inhabited by speakers of the same tongue is placed under a separate national government of its own. And, even in this case, the identity between nation and government is imperfect in two ways. It is imperfect, because, after all, though Hungary has a separate national government in internal matters, yet it is not the Hungarian kingdom, but the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of which it forms a part, which counts as a power among the other powers of Europe. ”

“ What was then impossible has now happened without a Széchenyi, without any great men: the nation has itself felt the interests of the dynasty and of the nation to be identical and placed all its forces at the service of the throne.”
The Czechs, on the other hand, Count Andrássy continued, have proved disloyal, and part of their troops have joined the enemy. As there is no Czech army to enforce their claims by conquering Hungary they could only attain their aims in one way, by revolution; “and to admit openly such a policy is only calculated to weaken them and strengthen us. ”

“ Budapest is the citadel of racial domination, and he who speaks within its walls must forswear the self-determination of peoples. He may speak, like Czernin, of international goodwill, but not of the neighbourly duty of the Magyar to the Croat; he may paint the picture of a new Europe under the rule of Right, but it must be a Europe in which the ruling race of Hungary shall enjoy for ever their “right” to exploit all the others. That is why the touchstone of Austro-Hungarian sincerity is not “peace” but “nationality.” ”

“ In a contest between the Russians and the Hungarians, the sympathy of all Germany, of all western Europe, would be with the Majjars. Half the Emperor of Austria's own heart would be on the side of the loyal nation to which his house owes so large a debt of gratitude; who, he must be aware, have been alienated only by the errors and the injustice of his advisers, and who, if they are sacrificed, will not, and cannot be sacrificed to his interests. Hungary was perfectly satisfied with her constitution and her government, as established by the laws of April 1848. ”

“ He declared his belief that, but for the treason of Görgey, the Hungarians could have defeated the united armies of their foes. But the House of Hapsburg, as a dynasty, exists no more. It merely vegetates at the whim of the mighty Czar, to whom it has become the obedient servant. But if England would only say that Russia should not thus set her foot on the neck of Hungary, all might yet be well. Hungary would have knowledge, patriotism, loyalty, and courage enough to dispose of its own domestic matters, as it is the sovereign right of every nation to do. ”

“ Nor did these same ministers even remonstrate, when the Emperor Nicolas lent 200,000 men to Austria in 1849, in order to crush the freedom of Hungary, after Hungary had won her victory over Austria. Lord Palmerston then volunteered to say in Parliament, that Hungary was a nation fighting for its rights. Those were actually treaty-rights. Hungary had a national history as old as England. It was a cause of freedom, of free religion, and of hereditary law. The mass of the nobility and the church were as warm in the cause as the meanest gipsy, peasant, and Jew. ”

“ With the year 1825, when that Diet met, began the modern struggle of Hungary to recover that home rule which one after another of her Hapsburg kings had solemnly sworn to respect, and had as perfidiously disregarded. Thus the seed of the Magyar revolution was sown, like that of so many others, in a demand for the restoration of acknowledged rights, and not in a demand for innovation. Home rule,—Hungary to govern herself, instead of being bullied by foreigners who happened to be also subjects of her Emperor-King,—that seemed an object as simple and definite as it was just. ”

“ From 1490 to his death in 1521 he was the leading statesman of Hungary and mainly responsible for her foreign policy. It was solely through his efforts that Hungary did not accede to the league of Cambrai, was consistently friendly with Venice, and formed a family compact with the Habsburgs. He was also the only Magyar prelate who seriously aspired to the papal throne. In 1513, on the death of Julius II., he went to Rome for the express purpose of bringing about his own election as pope. ”

“ Magyar was to be the official language; the emperor was to rule as king; there was to be complete separation of the finances; not even a common nationality was recognized between the Hungarians and the other subjects of the emperor; a Hungarian was to be a foreigner in Vienna, an Austrian a foreigner in Budapest. A large party wished indeed that nothing should be left but a purely personal union similar to that between England and Hanover. Deák and the majority agreed, however, that there should be certain institutions common to Hungary and the rest of the monarchy ”

“ The Hungarian diet frantically opposed every Austrian alliance as endangering the national independence, but to any unprejudiced observer a union with the house of Habsburg, even with the contingent probability of a Habsburg king, was infinitely preferable to the condition into which Hungary, under native aristocratic misrule, was swiftly drifting. ”

“ The Hungarians held that their king had no power to abdicate; that so long as he lived he must continue to be their king; that if he became incapable of performing the regal functions, the laws had reserved to the diet the power to provide for their due performance; that the crown of Hungary was settled by statute on the heirs of the House of Hapsburg, and the Emperor Francis Joseph was not the heir. ”

“ Like Poland two centuries later, Hungary had ceased to be a civilized autonomous state because her prelates and her magnates, uncontrolled by any higher authority, and too ignorant or corrupt to look beyond their own immediate interests, abandoned themselves to the exclusive enjoyment of their inordinate privileges, while openly repudiating their primal obligation of defending the state against extraneous enemies. During these miserable years everything like patriotism or public spirit seems to have died out of the hearts of the Hungarian aristocracy. ”

“ In some respects the Hungarian mind is the brightest and most alert in Europe, and you are probably the only monarchical people wholly without servility. If you wreck yourselves, and this rich and enterprising country, because you love your weaknesses more than your virtues, then you deserve to be crushed like an egg between the enemies who will take a particular delight in the process. But your party does not represent Hungary. The enlightened majority are not extremists. You can obstruct and keep the country in a turmoil, but when it comes to the general vote you must be beaten. ”

“ It is said that when he was advised not to go into a place of danger he replied that those who were afraid might retire. He succeeded his father as emperor in 1705, and it was his good fortune to govern the Austrian dominions, and to be head of the Empire during the years in which his trusted general Prince Eugène, either acting alone in Italy or with the duke of Marlborough in Germany and Flanders, was beating the armies of Louis XIV. During the whole of his reign Hungary was disturbed by the conflict with Francis Ráckóczy II., who eventually took refuge in France. ”