Tortured by the enemy, in captivity,
Our eternal brother slept with sleep.
Rejoices foe, seeing in the field
Only a series of timeless graves.
But the cause of valor is harsh
With a fighter dead will not die
And the new knight with the power of the new
In place of the singer will come.
(“The grave of a fighter”. Sandor Petofi)
Our eternal brother slept with sleep.
Rejoices foe, seeing in the field
Only a series of timeless graves.
But the cause of valor is harsh
With a fighter dead will not die
And the new knight with the power of the new
In place of the singer will come.
(“The grave of a fighter”. Sandor Petofi)
In 1848 – 1849, under the impression of the revolutionary events in European countries in Hungary, a bourgeois revolution and a national liberation war also began. After all, what was the Austrian Empire at that time? A united state, consisting of many lands and peoples, that wanted independence above all. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the revolution in Hungary won very quickly and spread throughout the country. Democratic reforms were carried out, the first national Hungarian government headed by Lajos Battyany was formed, and in March 1848, the personal dependence of the peasants and all feudal duties with ransom at the expense of the state were eliminated, a general Hungarian parliament was also created. Emperor Ferdinand I was forced to admit all these decisions of the Hungarian government. Then the National Assembly of Hungary decided to create its own army and at the same time refused the Austrian emperor to provide Hungarian troops for the war in Italy. It is clear that all these actions were considered in Vienna, where street battles between revolutionaries and government forces had just ended, as a real disaster, in the fight against which all means were good. First they attacked the Hungarians of the Croats, who wished to secede from Hungary, after which the Croatian troops launched an offensive against Pest from the south. A call for help was sent to the royal government in Russia. And the reaction of Emperor Nicholas followed immediately. Frightened by revolutionary actions throughout Europe, he sent Russian troops to suppress the Hungarian revolution. It did not reach him that it’s better to have as neighbors many small independent and, we add, in any case weak, states than one big, even if a “patchwork” empire. Peter I was much more far-sighted in this regard when he entered into a secret agreement on assistance with Ferenc Rakoczy, the leader of the rebel Kurucians. True, because of the invasion of Charles XII, he did not render this assistance to him, but if he hadn’t happened then the Hungarians would have had every chance to win and then later no Austro-Hungarian party would simply exist, and therefore wouldn’t Russia on its western borders and the enemy №2, since the first after its unification "iron and blood" immediately became Germany.
Opening of the Hungarian parliament in 1848. Painting by August von Pettenkofen (1822 – 1889).
But being the emperor himself, Nicholas was condescending towards “people of a kind and tribe” and could not allow the overthrow of the monarchy in Hungary. Moreover, her example could seem contagious to the Poles, which he also didn’t want. The very idea of Poland’s independence would probably have seemed heretical, although if he had done this, the Poles would have blessed him for centuries. In a similar way would apply to Russia and Hungary, it was enough for Nicholas only to “wash his hands” diplomatically. But the role of "gendarme of Europe" was more to his liking. Therefore, on May 21, the Austrian empire hurried to sign the Warsaw Pact with Russia (Nikolay I personally arrived in Warsaw for a meeting with the Emperor Franz Joseph), and the Austrians had to supply the 100-thousandth Russian army with transportation, food and ammunition, and if for some reason it would be impossible, to compensate all expenses incurred by Russia with money. Soon the troops of the Russian imperial army under the command of Field Marshal Paskevich invaded Hungary. Its attack from the east was supported by the new attack of the Austrians from the west. As a result, the Hungarian troops everywhere were defeated.
Field Marshal Count Ivan Paskevich, Prince of Warsaw. Unknown author.
It is interesting, however, that the imperial troops met the Slavic population of the “patchwork empire” with enthusiasm. "It was rumored that the Russian army moved on the Hungarians, and no one doubted anymore that they had come to an end ... They told me what these Russian are big, strong and terrible, and that they do not need guns, and they go to the assault with huge multi-core whips, and whom they will get, he will not rise. ”
Map of hostilities.
23 June was the first successful battle for the Russian army with the five-thousandth detachment of General Vysotsky near the town of Shamosh. A participant in this campaign, someone Likhutin, wrote about this event in the following way: “Our troops, who had overtaken the enemy for the first time, clung to it with bitterness; Immediately melee fight ensued. From the units that followed behind, which probably became already at the camps, the Cossacks and those who could have jumped forward alone and rushed into battle. They said that in single battles opponents, having broken weapon, they were torturing each other with their hands and teeth ... Although the matter was small, his impression on the Hungarians, apparently, was very strong. I myself happened to hear in Kashau the day after the Samos affair the Magyars; “What are you fighting with us with such ferocity? What have we done to you?” ”Then, to seize the bridge over the Tissu, Paskevich moved the 4 body to the Tokai wine-making center.
Death of Petoff. Laszlo Hegedyush 1850. In the years of the revolution 1848 -1849. famous poet Shandor Petofi wrote songs that raised the morale of the Hungarian soldiers. Finally, he personally went to the army and died in battle. The exact circumstances of the death of the poet and the national hero of the Hungarian people are still unknown. According to common opinion, Petefi died in a skirmish with the Cossacks of the royal army of Paskevich in the Battle of Shegeswar in Transylvania 31 in July 1849, but it is based on the diary entry of only one Russian field doctor. No other data. It is believed that he was buried in a mass grave, but in what is unknown.
Russian cavalry broke into the city and, one might say, swept through it, but then it was under fire by enemy artillery located on the opposite bank of the river, and with losses had to retreat. And then a few shots came from private houses. Again, Likhutin tells about what happened next as follows: “At the first shots from the windows, the soldiers, of course, rushed to the houses from which they shot, broke down doors and gates, scattered small barricades arranged in the hallway and the gate, and burst inside the houses. Some residents, including one woman, were captured with guns still smoking from shots, they all died; the massacre was swift and strangled the people's war, if it was possible, at the very beginning ... ”
By order of Nicholas I of 22 January 1850, in memory of participation in the suppression of the Hungarian uprising, all combatants were awarded a medal minted from silver with a diameter of 29 mm. The participants included generals, officers, soldiers, as well as regimental priests, doctors and medical officials and employees. A total of 213 593 medals were minted. Presented to 212 330. Obverse medals.
Her reverse.
Interestingly, the same Likhutin does not cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Russian popular war 1812 of the year, but he writes about the inadmissibility of the same war by the Hungarians as something completely taken for granted. However, this murder of civilians, caught in arms, had a reverse medal, about which this memoirist also wrote. According to him, the lesson went to the future, so throughout the subsequent 1849 campaign of the year: “Our people drove along the roads one by one, on horseback or in carriages and carts, like at home. However, during the whole continuation of the war, no incident or misfortune happened to a single officer; the people everywhere remained calm and even single people were received calmly and hospitably. Accidents happened only with the lower ranks, who were always drunk. ”
“Gyurgey's capitulation” by Istvan Skizzak-Klinovsky, 1850 (1820 –1880)
But the disputes with the Vienna Court in respect of compensation for expenses incurred by Russia then continued for quite some time. It got to the point that Paskevich wrote the following about the Austrians about the Austrians: “In gratitude for their salvation, they are capable of much.” Prince Schwarzenberg put it even more precisely, stating that "Austria will still surprise the world with its ingratitude." And in the end, because it happened. The position taken by Austria during the Eastern War 1853 - 1856 was frankly hostile to Russia, and in the same way the Austro-Hungarian monarchy behaved in subsequent years, right up to the very beginning of the First World War.
In addition to the award medal, the generals and senior staff officers were also awarded a commemorative table medal with a diameter of 70 of silver and a glass of a glass of a glass of a glass of a glass of a glass box and a glass of a glass of a glass of a glass box and a tem of an opt, and an inscription on the obverse: “RUSSIAN POW-TO-HIGH-END-OF-A-WAY HAS BEEN IMPOSSIBLE AND WRITTENED year. " The authors of the medal are Fedor Tolstoy and Alexander Lyalin. Obverse medals.
Her reverse.
The losses of the Russian army during the participation in the Hungarian campaign amounted to 708 killed, 2447 injured, while 10 885 soldiers and officers died from cholera. The cost of the war amounted to about 47,5 million rubles, which Russia demanded to be reimbursed from Austria. The losses of the Austrian army were more significant as the Austrians conducted more active military operations. 16600 was killed and wounded, and 41 one thousand died of disease. The losses of the Hungarian rebels amounted to thousands of people 24.
To be continued ...