Hungarian Heritage Review, 1988 (17. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1988-05-01 / 5. szám
Hungarian ^Heritage (Eaíeniiar by PAUL PULITZER THE MALIGNED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE HUNGARIAN ARMY DURING THE HUNGARIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1848-1849): GENERAL ARTHUR GÖRGEY Bom 169 years ago this month (May 21st), the name of General Arthur Görgey is still anathema to many Hungarians and he is seldom, if ever, mentioned at ceremonies commemorating Louis Kossuth and the Hungarian War of Independence. The Root cause of this negative attitude seems to be that there remains in the minds of many Hungarians, and as handed down to them from one generation to another, the belief that he was a traitor who betrayed his country and his troops and was responsible for the surrender of the Hungarian Army under his command at Világos on August 13, 1849. Some contemporary historians, however, have disproved these allegations and, based upon there research into the historical records of the time, now believe that General Arthur Gó'rgey merits recognition as a superb Commander-in-Chief in ‘ ‘the war that was impossible to win” and as one of its greatest heroes. When the Hungarian National Guard (Honved) was formed in 1848 to defend Hungary against Austrian reprisal from without and Austrian-instigated and supported, terrorist attacks from within by ethnic guerrillas, Görgey, who had served as an officer in the Austrian Imperial Guards and Corps of Engineers, offered his services to Louis Kossuth. Commissioned a Major and assigned command of a small untrained, undisciplined, and ill-equipped unit, he wasted no time in whipping his troops into fighting shape and, in the Lake Balaton region, scored a smashing victory over an entire Austro-Croatian Division. For this feat of arms, he was promoted to General and given command of the Hungarian Army in the West. By this time, of course, the Austrian invasion of Hungary was well underway, while guerrilla attacks were intensified. Consequently, the hard-pressed “Freedom Fighters” of Hungary faced a war on two fronts. Aware that his outnumbered and outgunned troops were no match in a face-to-face, pitched-battle with the Austrian Army, General Görgey, who was a brilliant military strategist and tactician, ignored Kossuth’s repeated demands for an immediate counter-offensive against the enemy and, instead, opted to trade space for time in which to prepare properly to confront the Austrians at a time and place of his own choosing. So, like General George Washington did during the American War of Independence, he ordered a rear-guard fought,“strategic withdrawal” into Northern Hungary. This calculated retreat in order to be able to fight another day on more even terms dangerously stretched and weakened the Austrian line of communication and supply. The end result of this military gambit was that, by Spring of 1849, General Gorgey’s battlehardened, well-trained, and disciplined army had counter-attacked the Austrians and had driven them helter-skelter out of Northern Hungary, the Polish General Bern had whipped the Austrians in Transylvania, and almost all of the Austrian Army had been forced out of Hungary. Moreover, even though the personal relationship between Kossuth, the charismatic politician, and General Arthur Görgey, the hard-nosed soldier, was virtually non-existent — because the latter refused to “bend-the-knee” to the former — the 30-yearold General was elevated to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian Army. At this point-in-time, victory over the hated Austrians was in sight. But, then came an unexpected “sledgehammer-blow”. The new Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the 18-year-old Francis Joseph, was induced by his Magyar-despising advisers to outlaw selfgovernment for Hungary and to appeal to the Czar of Russia for military assistance, who responded with 200,000 elite troops! After a series of bloody battles against hopeless odds, his troops exhausted, and lacking adequate supplies, General Görgey had no alternative but to bring hostilities to an honorable end. He surrendered to the Russian General at Világos on August 13, 1849, with the understanding that neither his officers nor men would be harmed. But the blood-thirsty Austrian commander violated this agreement and executed hundreds of Hungarian officers and imprisoned thousands of Hungarian soldiers. General Görgey, himself, was slated for execution, too, but the Russian General would not allow it and demanded that he be pardoned. Taken to Vienna, he was eventually released and allowed to return to Hungary. By that time, Kossuth and his entourage had escaped and gone into exile. General Gó'rgey, however, remained behind — only to be villified as a “traitor” — a stigma he unjustly endured for 68 years! Besides having surrendered at Világos and having been pardoned and freed by the Austrians, what provided credence for the “bad-mouthings” orchestrated against him, was that General Gó'rgey had been fired on several occasions by Kossuth for disobeying orders. However, what was completely overlooked in the heat of this exercise in character assassination was that, on each occasion, Kossuth was forced by the Hungarian Army to reinstate him as Commander-in-Chief. This by itself should have been proof-positive that he was no more a “traitor” than the moon is made out of cream cheese! General Arthur Görgey, the “soldiers’ soldier”, who bid farewell to his army at Világos and broke down in tears when they saluted him with “Long Live Gó'rgey”, lived 68 years longer and, each day of his life, he wore the undeserved and painful “Crown of Thoms” of public humiliation. He died in 1917 in Budapest at the age of 98. MAY 1988 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 13
