Vienna, named Gold, was sentenced to death on his own confession that he was ready to open the way of the enemy’s entry into the city. In the last moment, at least, the courage of the revolutionary party failed. The garrison of Vienna had, by the volunteering of citizens and students, and other accessions, risen to nearly 5,000 men, against which a few resolute men in the opposition, or if these were even numbered by hundreds, could not venture such a stroke as the surrender of a gate. When Thurn perceived that he had been deluded in his hopes, the conviction could not but be forced upon him that, with his defective armament and his want of artillery, his project had ended in a failure, and that nothing remained but to return to Bohemia. Moreover, he was repeatedly called back by the Directors, as the daily increasing force of Buquoi gave them great solicitude.
Thus the expedition against Vienna would have proved itself a wholly abortive enterprise, if Thurn had not, in the last moment, found an opportunity to speak with some members of the Hungarian Diet and win them to the cause of the insurrection. All the exertions which the Bohemians had put forth the previous year to this end had been unsuccessful. Now, for the first time, the sympathies of the Hungarians showed themselves strongly in the newly-called Diet, in a resolution to offer a mediation in the Bohemian contest, and thus promote the pacification of Bohemia. For this purpose they sent a deputation to Vienna. One of the members of this was Count Thurzo, who, on this occasion, visited Thurn in his camp, and assured him that he should employ his whole influence to bring the Hungarians to favor still more the cause of his countrymen. This promise, and the intimate relations with Hungary which followed, were the result of the
