48.]

2. The ministry of Louis Bathyanyi and Kossuth have been attacked on
opposite grounds,--because they _did_, and because they did
_not_, attempt to subdue the Italians by force of arms. The facts
are rather complicated, but deserve here to be stated concisely.

When the ministry was appointed, there were _already_ Hungarians in
Italy with Radetzki, and Austrian soldiers in Hungary. The Viennese
ministry promised to exchange them, as fast as could be done without
encountering great expense or dislocating the regiments and making them
inefficient. With this promise the Hungarian ministry was forced to
content itself at the time. At a later period, when it discovered that
the Austrian commanders in Hungary had secret orders not to fight
against the Serbian marauders, and that the Austrian troops could not be
trusted, the Hungarian ministry _desired_ to get back their men
from Italy for their own defence; which desire proved ineffectual, yet
has been severely blamed by some of our monarchists. But meanwhile the
Viennese ministry, as early as June, 1848, endeavoured to buy of the
Hungarian ministry an increased grant of troops against Italy, by
conceding a most energetic "King's Speech" against the Serbs, with which
the Archduke Palatine was to open, and did open, the Diet on July 2d. A
part of this speech is quoted in Appendix II., and indeed it is a
loathsome exhibition of Austrian treachery. The Hungarian ministry were
pressed by the arguments, that since Austria was attacked in Italy by
the King of Sardinia, the war was not merely against the Lombards; and
that the Pragmatic Sanction bound Hungary to defend the empire if
assailed from without. This led them to acknowledge the
_principle_, that they were bound to assist, if able; but they
replied that Hungary itself must first be secured against marauders, and
no troops could be spared until the Serbs were subdued. At the same
time orders were sent to Radetzki from Vienna to offer independence to
the Lombards, and constitutional nationality under the Austrian crown to
the Venetians: hence the Hungarian ministry for a time fancied that they
would not be fighting against the Italians, as they expected the terms
to be accepted by them. When it was farther represented that the
Italians had rejected them,--(for Radetzki, acting probably by secret
orders, suppressed the despatches, and never offered independence to
Lombardy, though the Austrian ministers made diplomatic c