Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/948

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HUNGARY
 923

prolongation of the charter of the joint bank, and certain concessions to Magyar demands in the matter of the army. It was soon clear, however, that in this Kossuth would not carry his party with him. A trial of strength took place between him and Mr de Justh, the champion of the extreme demands in the matter of Hungarian financial and economic autonomy; on the 7th of November rival banquets were held, one at Mako, Justh’s constituency, over which he presided, one at Budapest with Kossuth in the chair; the attendance at each foreshadowed the outcome of the general meeting of the party held at Budapest on the 11th, when Kossuth found himself in a minority of 46. The Independence party was now split into two groups: the “Independence and 1848 party,” and the “Independence, 1848 and Kossuth party.”

On the 12th Mr de Justh resigned the presidency of the Lower House and sought re-election, so as to test the relative strength of parties. He was defeated by a combination of the Kossuthists, Andrássy Liberals and Clerical People’s party, the 30 Croatian deputies, whose vote might have turned the election, abstaining on Dr Wekerle promising them to deliver Croatia from the oppressive rule of the ban, Baron Rauch. A majority was thus secured for the Kossuthist programme of compromise, but a majority so obviously precarious that the king-emperor, influenced also—it was rumoured—by the views of the heir-apparent, in an interview with Count Andrássy and Mr Kossuth on the 15th, refused to make any concessions to the Magyar national demands. Hereupon Kossuth publicly declared (Nov. 22) to a deputation of his constituents from Czegled that he himself was in favour of an independent bank, but that the king opposed it, and that in the event of no concessions being made he would join the opposition.

How desperate the situation had now become was shown by the fact that on the 27th the king sent for Count Tisza, on the recommendation of the very Coalition ministry which had been formed to overthrow him. This also proved abortive, and affairs rapidly tended to revert to the ex-lex situation. On the 23rd of December Dr Lukacs was again sent for. On the previous day the Hungarian parliament had adopted a proposal in favour of an address to the crown asking for a separate state bank. Against this Dr Wekerle had protested, as opposed to general Hungarian opinion and ruinous to the national credit, pointing out that whenever it was a question of raising a loan, the maintenance of the financial community between Hungary and Austria was always postulated as a preliminary condition. Point was given to this argument by the fact that the premier had just concluded the preliminaries for the negotiation of a loan of £20,000,000 in France, and that the money—which could not be raised in the Austrian market, already glutted with Hungarian securities—was urgently needed to pay for the Hungarian share in the expenses of the annexation policy, for public works (notably the new railway scheme), and for the redemption in 1910 of treasury bonds. It was hoped that, in the circumstances, Dr Lukacs, a financier of experience, might be able to come to terms with Mr de Justh, on the basis of dropping the bank question for the time, or, failing that, to patch together out of the rival parties some sort of a working majority.

On the 28th the Hungarian parliament adjourned sine die, pending the settlement of the crisis, without having voted the estimates for 1910, and without there being any prospect of a meeting of the delegations. On the two following days Dr Lukacs and Mr de Justh had audiences of the king, but without result; and on the 31st Hungary once more entered on a period of extra-constitutional government. After much negotiation a new cabinet was finally constituted on the 17th of January 1910. At its head was Count Khuen Hedérváry, who in addition to the premiership, was minister of the interior, minister for Croatia, and Khuen Hedérváry Government. minister in waiting on the crown. Other ministers were Mr Károly de Hieronymi (commerce), Dr Lukacs (finance), Ferencz de Szekely (justice, education, public worship), Béla Serenyi (agriculture) and General Hazay (national defence). The two main items in the published programme of the new government were the introduction of universal suffrage and—even more revolutionary from the Magyar point of view—the substitution of state-appointed for elected officials in the counties. The real programme was to secure, by hook or by crook, a majority at the polls. Meanwhile, the immediate necessities of the government were provided for by the issue through Messrs Rothschild of £2,000,000 fresh treasury bills. These were to be redeemed in December 1910, together with the £9,000,000 worth issued in 1909, out of the £20,000,000 loan agreed on in principle with the French government; but in view of the opposition in Paris to the idea of advancing money to a member of the Triple Alliance, it was doubtful whether the loan would ever be floated.

The overwhelming victory of the government in June at the polls produced a lull in a crisis which at the beginning of the year had threatened the stability of the Dual Monarchy and the peace of Europe; but, in view of the methods by which the victory had been won, not the most sanguine could assert that the crisis was overpassed. Its deep underlying causes can only be understood in the light of the whole of Hungarian history. It is easy to denounce the dominant Magyar classes as a selfish oligarchy, and to criticize the methods by which they have sought to maintain their power. But a nation that for a thousand years had maintained its individuality in the midst of hostile and rival races could not be expected to allow itself without a struggle to be sacrificed to the force of mere numbers, and the less so if it were justified in its claim that it stood for a higher ideal of culture and civilization. The Magyars had certainly done much to justify their claim to a special measure of enlightenment. In their efforts to establish Hungarian independence on the firm basis of national efficiency they had succeeded in changing their country from one of very backward economic conditions into one which promised to be in a position to hold its own on equal terms with any in the world.  (W. A. P.) 

Bibliography.—(a) Sources. The earliest important collection of sources of Hungarian history was Johann Georg Schrandtner’s Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum (4th ed., Vienna, 1766–1768). The Codex diplomaticus of György Fejér (40 vols., Buda, 1829–1844), though full of errors, remains an inexhaustible storehouse of materials. In 1849 Stephen Ladislaus Endlicher (1804–1849), better known as a botanist than as a historian, published a collection of documents, Rerum hungaricarum monumenta Arpadiana. This was followed by Gustav Wenzel’s Codex diplomaticus arpadianus continuens (12 vols., Pest, 1857) and A. Theiner’s Vet. monumenta hist. Hungariam sacram illustrantia (2 vols., Rome, 1859, &c.). Later collections are Documents of the Angevin Period, ed. by G. Wenzel and Imre Nagy (8 vols., ib. 1874–1876); Diplomatic Records of the Time of King Matthias (Mag. and Lat.), ed. by Ivan Nagy (ib. 1875–1878); National Documents (Mag. and Lat.), ed. by Fárkas Deák and others (Pest, 1878–1891); Monumenta Vaticana historiam regni Hungariae illustrantia (8 vols., Budapest, 1885–1891), a valuable collection of materials from the Vatican archives, edited under the auspices of the Hungarian bishops; Principal Sources for the Magyar Conquest (Mag.), by Gyula Pauler and Sándor Szilágyì (ib. 1900). Numerous documents have also been issued in the various publications of the Hungarian Academy and the Hungarian Historical Society. Of these the most important is the Monumenta Hungariae Historica, published by the Academy. This falls into three main groups: Diplomata (30 vols.); Scriptores (40 vols.); Monumenta Comitialia (records of the Hungarian and Transylvanian diets, 12 vols. and 21 vols.). With these are associated the Turkish-Hungarian Records (9 vols.), Turkish Historians (2 vols. pubd.), and the Archives of the Hungarian subordinate countries (2 vols. pubd.).

On the sources see Hendrik Marczali, Ungarns Geschichtsquellen im Zeitalter des Arpáden (Berlin, 1882); Kaindl, Studien zu den ungarischen Geschichtsquellen (Vienna, 1894–1902); and, for a general appreciation, Mangold, Pragmatic History of the Hungarians (in Mag., 5th ed., Budapest, 1907).

(b) Works: The modern literature of Hungary is very rich in historical monographs, of which a long list will be found in the Subject Index of the London Library. Here it is only possible to give some of the more important general histories, together with such special works as are most readily accessible to English readers. Of the earlier Hungarian historians two are still of some value: Katona, Hist. critica regum Hungariae (42 vols., Pest, 1779–1810), and Pray, Annales regum Hungariae (5 vols., Vienna, 1764–1770). Of modern histories written in Magyar the most imposing is the History of the Hungarian Nation (10 vols., Budapest, 1898), issued to commemorate the celebration of the millennium of the foundation of the monarchy, by Sándor Szilágyì and numerous collaborators. Of importance, too,