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Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung April 1849

Hungarian Advances. — Excitement in Vienna


Source: MECW Volume 9, p. 352;
Written: by Engels on April 27, 1849;
First Published: in the special supplement to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 284, April 28, 1849.


Cologne, April 27. Today is Kossuth’s birthday; the leader of the Hungarian revolution is 43 years old today.[266]

Today an official royal imperial Bulletin (No. 35) already confirms the reports of Hungarian advances which we published this morning: that Wohlgemuth has been defeated, Pest and Ofen are taken, and Komorn is relieved. It is now established that the Hungarians have already passed not only the Gran and the Neutra but even the Waag, and that Wohlgemuth has been driven back to Tyrnau, five miles from Pressburg. Altogether only four comitats in Hungary are still in imperial hands, and on all sides it is conceded that on Hungarian soil not a single defensible position is left to the imperial forces.

Great excitement prevails in Vienna. The people throng the streets as in the revolutionary days of last year. The military, usually so impudent, have again become remarkably restrained. Vienna is waiting for the Hungarians to cross the Leitha to effect its fifth revolution, [267] a revolution which will not be simply an Austrian, but simultaneously a European one.

Eljen Kossuth! Eljenek a Magyarak!