Századok – 1993

Tanulmányok - Urbán Aladár: Kossuth és Görgey 1848 őszén I/37

68 URBÁN ALADÁR A Kökényessinek adott, az információt elváró utasítás igazolni látszik Pálffy János véleményét — legalábbis 1848 októberi szerepében —, hogy „Kossuth teremtette Görgeyt"; ld. Pálffy János: Magyarországi és erdélyi urak. Kolozsvár 1939.1. 174. KOSSUTH AND GÖRGEY IN THE FALL OF 1848 by Aladár Urbán Summary The two outstanding personalities of the Hungarian war of independence in 1848-49 were Lajos Kossuth and Artúr Görgey. The former was the political leader, while the latter military one. It was Kossuth who started Görgey's career in the fall of 1848 and it was also Kossuth who — in September 1849, already in exile — accused the general of having betrayed the war of independence by surrendering to the Russian army at Világos. The accusation struck to Görgey until his death in 1916 and is still often mentioned nowadays. The author's goal is to find out: exactly when Kossuth met Görgey, who had returned from abroad in April 1848 (he had stayed abroad previously because of his military studies and service, then after quitting the army he had studied chemistry in Prague). Görgey reported for service when recruiting started into the Hungarian Honvéd Army in mid-May, then he was commissioned as a captain in the battalion organized in Győr at the beginning of June. Ha was ordered to report to the militia's office of Prime Minister Lajos Batthyány a month later and was instructed to study the manufacturing of the so-called cartridge caps necessary for the function of the contemporary modern weapons in Prague and Wiener Neustadt. The government was planning to establish a factory to produce the caps and Görgey was to have been its first director. The outbreak of the war prevented this plan; however, Görgey met the Minister of Finance, Kossuth at the end of August 1848 in order to discuss the financial conditions at the project. Later, during the political crisis of September, Görgey offered his service to Kossuth as „his follower for life and death" on September 13th. The author maintains that the young major gained Kossuth's confidence with this statement of loyalty. Kossuth resigned from his office the previous day. The study goes on to discuss Görgey's role in the events in September 1848 His advance guard captured count Ödön Zichy, an aristocrat loyal to the court, who undertook the ask of establishing contacts between the two Croat columns isolated from each other that month. Gör ey court-martialled the count on the basis of the evidences against him and him hanged. The author proves that Görgey displayed revolutionary zeal and determination, neither the National Defense Committee, nor the leftwing press exulted over the news of the execution. It is true that Görgey was promoted to be a colonel within a week, but the real reason for it was that the Hungarian Defense Committee had granted the same rank to Mór Peczel the day before, who had no rank at all but had applied for it three weeks because of having organized irregular troops. As Görgey was under the command of Perczel, the Committee wanted to avoid that the talented and ambitious major might feel slighted. It seems that Görgey's commission of a colonel happened without Kossuth's initiative. Nevertheless, Kossuth summoned Görgey on October 11th and ordered him to go to the main army, which was standing on the Austrian border, to keep an eye on the commander-in-chief, General Móga. Görgey's commission as a general had already been prepared at that time, but he was promoted officially only after the defeat in the battle of Schwechat on October 30th, 1848. It was know that the promotion was initiated by Kossuth, so it is no surprise that he burst out after the collapse: „I have lifted Görgey from obscurity..."