Prohászka László: Polish Monuments - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

right hand is bandaged. His middle finger was crushed by a bullet during the battle at Szászváros, and tradition has it that he had the damaged finger amputated without even getting off his horse.

The pedestal, designed by Tibor Müller, displays several inscriptions. The frontal plaque on the base says simply UNCLE BEM. (Józef Bem, or Bem József, in Hungarian, used to be called tlncle Bern by his soldiers, who loved him, and he lives on in the collective memory of Hungarians under that term of endearment.) The inscription on the frontal plane of the base runs: Battle ofPiski 1849/1 will re-conquer the bridge /or I will fall. / Forward, Magyars! /If we do not hold the bridge, we do not hold a country of our own.

The inscription refers to the battle fought near the Transylvanian village ofPiski on 9 February 1849. The Hungarian troops had arrived near Piski after a number of lost battles, where they were supplemented by support troops sent by general Damjanich from Arad. The bloodiest part of the battle was the fight for possession of the bridge over the river Sztrigy. Defying the opinions of battalion commanders Baron Farkas Kemény and Sámuel Inczédy, Bem insisted on the need to hold the bridge, saying “Die Brücke verloren, Siebenbürgen verloren.” (Losing the bridge means losing Transylvania.) The battle raged on with success swinging now to the one side, now to the other. Although the Austrians fought their way in tough hand-to-hand combat over the bridge, the Hungarian soldiers managed to drive them back. Another attack by the imperial troops forced them back to the other side of the river again. When a few field-officers suggested giving up the bridge for good, Bern broke out in the words “The bridge will stay mine or I will die”. After concerted artillery fire and a bayonet attack by the 11th and 24th battalion the Hungarians had won the battle. Bern wreaked a decisive victory and the name of Piski became a part of Hungarian military history. The offensives launched from that place led to the almost complete liberation of Transylvania (with the exception of Gyulafehérvár and the Ore Mountains) by the middle of March 1849.

20