1848 (43 page)

In Italy Neapolitan peasants occupied estate lands on the outbreak of the revolution. They were supported by a handful of radicals, but their action alarmed the moderates, who watched with relief as the National Guard was deployed to restore order. This meant that the peasant insurrection and the liberal, middle-class opposition to the monarchy were not only acting on different levels, but pulling in opposite directions. It was this that allowed Ferdinand to seize his chance with the coup on 15 May. Henceforth, the moderates, who were more terrified of social revolution than of a return to absolutism, were dependent on the monarchy (or, more precisely, the King's soldiers) for law and order. In the north the revolutionaries made little headway in persuading the peasants to support their cause. The Lombard peasantry had rallied to the insurrection in Milan in March and liberal landlords helped the hard-up peasants by providing bread. Ultimately, however, the economic crisis, aggravated by the closure of the Austrian market for the export of raw silk, combined with the introduction of conscription, a forced loan and Piedmontese requisitioning to alienate the peasantry from the revolution. By July they were actively opposed to a war that they believed to be for the benefit of their liberal landlords. Some were even heard to cheer ‘Viva Radetzky!' Lombard liberals, like Stefano Jacini, began to think that an Austrian restoration would be preferable to the ‘evils of anarchy' that would be unleashed by a peasant insurrection. In neighbouring Venetia peasants were initially enthusiastic for the revolution, fired up by their loyalty to the Pope - affectionately called ‘Pio Nono' - and zealous in their hatred for the Austrian tax collectors, who seemed to personify Habsburg rule. Daniele Manin won over rural hearts early on by abolishing the head tax altogether and by reducing the imposition on salt. Yet the peasants were soon calling for much more than these fiscal concessions: in a wave of protests over the spring, they demanded access to forests and grazing rights on lands that they claimed were commons. Manin did very little to satisfy these demands, because he had no desire to alienate the local landlords, upon whom the reborn Venetian republic was, to some extent, financially dependent. By the summer, therefore, peasant enthusiasm had dissipated. As the tide in the war turned in favour of the Austrians, they shrewdly promised not to restore the head tax. This meant that the peasants now had little to lose in the event of an Austrian resurgence.
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When the counter-revolution struck first in Vienna and soon thereafter in Berlin, the implications for Germany as a whole were severe. The Austrian imperial government's hand, already stronger after the crushing of the workers' insurrection in August, was strengthened further in the wake of riots on 11-13 September. Small investors in a ‘people's bank' established by a clock-maker, August Swoboda, had discovered that the whole business was a swindle. Artisans, shopkeepers, students and master-craftsmen gathered to protest and to convince both the minister of the interior, Baron Anton Doblhoff-Dier, and the Vienna city council that the state should bail them out. When the authorities refused, the crowds became angry, and student radicals used the demonstrations to demand the re-establishment of the Security Committee and the arrest of certain government ministers. On 12 September, Doblhoff-Dier's offices were raided, but the minister made good his escape as the crowd swarmed through the building, smashing windows and doors as they went. The next day, the government called out the entire National Guard and, for good measure, brought in regular troops. However, the more radical suburban units of the militia went over to the Academic Legion in support of the demonstrators. Vienna looked set to witness yet another bloody collision, but the situation was retrieved by the parliament, which coolly voted to make the considerable sum of two million florins available to help small Viennese businesses (which suffered most from the scandal) in the form of interest-free loans, and to underwrite 20 per cent of the shareholders' losses. At the same time, it ordered the withdrawal of the regular troops. In this way the deputies shrewdly took the sting out of the demonstrations without conceding any of the radicals' demands.

There was to be one last great upheaval, in which the radicals finished by fighting for the survival of the very liberal order that they had done so much to undermine. The immediate spark for the Viennese insurrection in October was the outbreak of open conflict between the Habsburg monarchy and Hungary. When the Emperor formally declared war on 3 October, the Viennese radicals immediately opposed it: Magyar resistance represented the strongest shield against the forces of reaction anywhere in the empire. Moreover, from the German perspective, the Magyars pursued the wholesome occupation of keeping the empire's troublesome Slavs in their place. Workers and suburban National Guards appeared before the students, assuring the Academic Legion of their unqualified support in trying to regain the revolutionary initiative. Meanwhile, Austrians wearing the Habsburg black-gold cockade were beaten up in the streets. There were attacks on property by angry workers, sometimes with radical endorsement. The atmosphere became poisonous with suspicion and hostility. ‘A dark cloud hung over the city,' wrote Stiles. ‘It daily grew more ominous. All saw and felt that it must soon burst upon their devoted heads, and yet, spell-bound, no one attempted to avert or prevent the catastrophe.'
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When Latour, the hated conservative war minister, ordered troops to board trains for the Hungarian frontier in the small hours of the morning of 6 October, workers, students and National Guards prevented them from leaving. A grenadier battalion mutinied and smashed up all the furniture in its barracks in the Gumpendorf, one of the working-class suburbs. In response Latour called out more troops, who forced the grenadiers towards the railway station. Progress was fitful, since the National Guard made repeated efforts to block the way, while the grenadiers defiantly beat their drums to rally the people in their support. And rally they did: soon a huge crowd had gathered at the railway depot and had torn up the rails. Undeterred, the officers prodded the reluctant soldiers across the Tabor Bridge towards the first station. Yet several arches had been torn apart and the lumber used to build a barricade. When General Hugo von Bredy, the imperial commander, brought up sappers to destroy the obstacle and restore the bridge, there was a stand-off during which some workers tried to seize one of the army's cannon. This was too much for Bredy, who ordered his troops to fire as the gleeful insurgents were dragging off the gun. When the Academic Legion returned a volley, Bredy fell mortally wounded from his horse. There followed a murderous exchange of fire, in which some thirty mutinying grenadiers were cut down in the relentless hail of government musketry. Numerical superiority on the part of the insurgents soon told, however, and the military fell back. The revolutionaries marched jubilantly into the city, pulling two captured cannon and the grim trophies of Bredy's hat and sabre.
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By now, imperial troops were being attacked everywhere in Vienna by the National Guard, by the students and the workers. Moderate units of the National Guard were forced to barricade themselves into Saint Stephen's Cathedral by their radical comrades until its doors were battered down and the officer in charge was killed. Parliament and government alike called for calm, but by now barricades had risen around the city centre. Left with minimal protection, the ministries were exposed to the vengeance of the crowd. Latour was protected by a cordon of soldiers outside the War Ministry, but the government, seeking to stop the bloodshed, ordered the military to retreat. This left the minister horribly vulnerable to an angry mob bearing axes, pikes and iron bars. They smashed at the immense doors of the ministry, shouting, ‘Where is Latour? He must die!' A deputation from the parliament rushed to the scene to intercede, while Latour took shelter in the attic of the building. The crowd jeered at the deputies and streamed through the ministry, looking for their prey. When they found Latour, the parliamentarians tried to shield him from their fury, but they were pushed aside. The minister was then battered to death, his head caved in with a hammer and cleaved with a sabre before a bayonet sliced into his heart. He was then set upon with a grisly array of weapons until his mangled, limp body was dragged to the square of Am Hof. There the broken corpse was left dangling from a lamp-post for fourteen hours before it was finally cut down.
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Meanwhile, the arsenal had been taken by the insurgents, but only after the troops guarding it had swept the streets with grapeshot and inflicted terrible casualties. The revolutionaries had then bombarded the building with captured Congreve rockets and it burst into flames. Thousands of muskets were seized, however, and some insurgents were seen leaving the arsenal wearing breast-plates and medieval helmets and bearing a range of other historical artefacts, including Turkish scimitars. In comparison with this sight, sniffed Stiles, ‘Falstaff 's regiment would have appeared a noble guard.'
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The imperial government pulled its forces out of the city, leaving Vienna to the revolutionaries. The victorious radicals then issued their demands, including the reversal of the declaration of war against Hungary, the deposition of Ban Jelačić and the appointment of a ‘new and popular government'. The only person who had the authority to issue these orders was the Emperor, but the imperial family was soon taking flight once more, leaving the palace at Schönbrunn, under heavy military escort, and heading to the great Moravian fortress at Olmütz. Before long, most of the remaining government ministers had joined them. Foreign Minister Wessenberg escaped only because no one recognised him as he slipped through the Viennese crowds. Hübner also stole away, disguised in a worker's blouse with his short-cropped hair hidden underneath a hat borrowed from a servant.
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These refugees were joined by the moderate members of parliament, who no longer felt safe in the capital. The assembly was now in the hands of a left-wing rump and, since the exodus included the large phalanx of Czechs, what remained of the parliament was also dominated by Germans. But there was a range of other political organisations that could try to fill the political vacuum - including the city council, the students' committee and the radical clubs (which were now coordinated by a central committee) - and the result was governmental paralysis, although lower-ranking officials soldiered on bravely. The parliament established a permanent committee to deal with the crisis. Though it was meant to get the legislature's approval for all its measures, in the emergency it was able to issue orders freely.
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Its main task was the defence of the city: on 8 October, the Emperor authorised a build-up of troops outside Vienna, to add to the twelve-thousand-strong garrison under Count Maximilien Auersperg, which was encamped just outside the city. Facing them was the National Guard, but the imperial commander wanted to be sure of his victory by amassing overwhelming force. One of Auersperg's couriers rode through the night to Jelačić, who was then taking advantage of a truce with the Magyars and pulling his troops towards Vienna, where he felt he was needed most. When he received Auersperg's appeal for help, he immediately detached a small section of his army to move rapidly on to the imperial capital and ordered the rest of his troops to follow. Thanks to a forced march, he was two hours away from the city with twelve thousand men by 9 October. The Hungarians were in hot pursuit, though, so for the Habsburgs time was now of the essence: the imperial forces had to crush the Viennese revolution before the Magyars arrived to save it. The Hungarian parliament had already offered military assistance to the Viennese, but the Austrian parliament was in an invidious position. On the one hand, since it claimed to be the legal, constitutional authority in Austria, it had to send assurances to Ferdinand of its loyalty and urged him to return to Vienna and withdraw his troops. On the other, most deputies were realistic enough to know that they could not depend upon the Emperor's goodwill, so an appeal to the Hungarians was now the only real hope for the survival of liberal Austria. Since no one was willing to grasp this particular nettle, there was a game of political tennis, in which the parliament and the city council kept returning the question of Magyar assistance to each other. The students and the radicals sent a deputation to Budapest to make their own appeal to the Magyars, but the latter - now poised on the Austrian border - would respond only to a request from the legal authorities in Vienna, which meant the parliament.
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Meanwhile, the Emperor rebuffed the parliamentary committee's plea for him to withdraw his troops. This meant that the middle, constitutional road was no longer an option: there could now be victory only for either the revolution or the monarchy. To make matters worse, on the evening of 10 October, Jelačić's approaching Croats were spotted by lookouts perched in the steeple of Saint Stephen's Cathedral. Viennese fear was palpable: the streets were deserted except for companies of the civic militia and National Guards, the Academic Legion and the new Mobile Guard (set up with funds made available by parliament), who tramped through the streets in ominous silence. Watch-fires burned through the night along the city walls. Everyone knew that the only good chance of victory would be provided by the timely arrival of the Hungarians. From Frankfurt, Archduke John sent two German delegates to mediate between the court and the city, but the imperial government was now determined to crush the revolution and gave them a frosty reception. Meanwhile, after their motion to send help to Vienna was voted down by the Frankfurt parliament, the German radical deputies sent two of their colleagues, Robert Blum and Julius Fröbel, to Vienna to offer moral support. They arrived on 17 October.
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