Századok – 2012

KÉTSZÁZ ÉVE SZÜLETETT SZEMERE BERTALAN - Urbán Aladár: A rendőrség országos megszervezése és Madarász László rendőrminisztériuma 1848-ban III/517

542 URBÁN ALADÁR THE ORGANISATION OF NATIONAL POLICE AND THE MINISTRY OF POLICY UNDER LÁSZLÓ MADARÁSZ IN 1848 Aladár Urbán (Abstract) On 11 June 1848 a bloody skirmish took place in the Charles garrison at Pest between the Italian soldiers enlisted in Lombardy and the freshly recruited Hungarian volunteers accomodated in the same place. Since it seemed probable that the Italians had been abetted, the minister of home affairs, Bertalan Szemere, set up the National Police Office by edict the next day (see Századok 2009/no. 3.). Its most important responsibility was the control of strangers, but, despite the name, the authority of the office only extended to the territory of the capital, Pest and Buda. This limited competence was criticised from the outset, but the problem was solved only a few months later. The government of the country was resumed in September by the Committee of Defence after the Batthyány government had resigned. In November president Lajos Kossuth considered the reintroduction of cabinet-like administration. He then wanted to put László Madarász, the leader of the parliamentary radicals, at the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs, who was otherwise member of the Committee of Defence. Madarász was unpopular with the moderate members of the Committee, and the former minister of home affairs, Bertalan Szemere, especially objected to the appointment of a radical politician as head of the Ministry. Since his candidates for the other ministries met with similar objections, Kossuth eventually abandoned the idea of reorganising the government. Consequently, committee-government remained operative, and, upon authorisation by the parliament, Kossuth distributed among the members the various branches of government. For his ally Madarász, he created by joining the independent departments of two ministries the National Department of Police and Post. The new institution was officially termed a department, it was led by Madarász as a member of the Committee, and he signed its decrees as such. Yet, thanks to its extensive competences, the office of Madarász was regarded both by governmental officials and in public opinion as a ministry of police. The new institution set to work in the first days of December 1848, but only assumed national dimensions after the number of its employees had been considerably increased. The study overviews the activities of the department with regard to strangers, suspicious individuals and rumour-mongers, and the occasional arrests which ensued. After the accession of Francis Joseph to the throne it became a responsibility of the department to control those officers in the regular regiments who refused to sign the declaration of loyalty to the government. It controlled whatever came out from the press, and even banned a conservative paper in the capital for transgressing the Law of the Press. The last part of the study analyses in detail the activities of the police on 31 December and the first days of the new year, when, in consequence of military defeat the capital was strategically evacuated, and the parliament and the government moved to Debrecen.