ned a diet to Agram, which on the 9th of June decreed
the separation of the "Triune Kingdom" from Hungary. The imperial
government, which still hoped for Magyar aid against the Viennese
revolutionists, repudiated the action of the ban, accused him of
disobedience and treason, and deprived him of his military rank. But his
true motives were soon apparent; his object was to play off the nationalism
of the "Illyrians" against the radicalism of Magyars and Germans, and thus
to preserve his province for the monarchy; and the Hungarian radicals
played into his hands. The fate of the Habsburg empire depended upon the
issue of the campaign in Italy, which would have been lost by the
withdrawal of the Magyar and Croatian regiments; and the Hungarian
government chose this critical moment to tamper with the relations of the
army to the monarchy. In May a National Guard had been established; [v.03
p.0016] and the soldiers of the line were invited to join this, with the
promise of higher pay; on the 1st of June the garrison of Pest took the
oath to the Constitution. On the 10th Jellachich issued a proclamation to
the Croatian regiments in Italy, bidding them remain and fight for the
emperor and the common Fatherland. His loyalty to the tradition of the
imperial army was thus announced, and the alliance was cemented between the
army and the southern Slavs.

Jellachich, who had gone to Innsbruck to lay the Slav view before the
emperor, was allowed to return to Agram, though not as yet formally
reinstated. Here the diet passed a resolution denouncing the dual system
and demanding the restoration of the union of the empire. Thus was
proclaimed the identity of the Slav and the conservative points of view;
the radical "Illyrian" assembly had done its work, and on the 9th of July
Jellachich, while declaring it "permanent," prorogued it indefinitely "with
a paternal greeting," on the ground that the safety of the Fatherland
depended now "more upon physical than upon moral force." The diet thus
prorogued never met again. Absolute master of the forces of the banat,
Jellachich now waited until the intractable politicians of Pest should give
him the occasion and the excuse for setting the imperial army in motion
against them.

[Sidenote: Hungary.]

The occasion was not to be long postponed. Every day the rift between the
dominant radical element in the Hungarian parliament and imperial court was
widened. Kossuth and his followers were evident