Király, Béla K. (szerk.): War And Society in East Central Europe. IV. East Central European Society and War in the Era of Revolutions, 1775 - 1856 - Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change 13. East European monographs 150. Atlantic studies (New York, 1984)
V. The East Central European Revolutions of 1848 - 1849 - György Szabad: Hungary's Recognition of Croatia's Self-Determination in 1848 and Its Immediate Antecendets
605 HUNGARY'S RECOGNITION OF CROATIA let them tell us what they want. We’ll give Croatia everything, even secession; let them go, but let’s be good friends ... if they want to secede, they should go ahead, let them be free and happy, but let them not bring blood and misfortune on the two countries for a foreign reactionary power.”65 The royal edict of August 31, 1848 (the day of Jelacic’s first military action, the occupation of Fiume) left no doubt that the Habsburgs, encouraged by their victory in Italy, were determined to curtail the self-government Hungary had won with the royally sanctioned laws of the spring of 1848; Batthyány and Deák had to go to Vienna to negotiate. In their absence, but obviously with their consent, Kossuth presented the bill Deák had framed (and the Council of Ministers passed) for the House to consider without further delay. It was a closed session, and we can only suppose that the council’s stand on the issue of Croatia’s possible secession was also raised; we know that Kossuth spoke of the matter on two separate occasions at the time of presenting the bill. Referring in turn to the stand Pest County had taken in 1842 at his instigation and then to László Teleki’s proposal to the House on July 22, 1848, he urged that Croatia’s secession be agreed to should the provisions of the bill prove unacceptable to the Croats.66 On September 4, at Kossuth’s suggestion, the House appointed twelve of its prominent members to draft a resolution on the Croatian issue. The resolution empowered László Csányi to convoke an independent “parliament” of the Croatian and Slavonian representatives, in order to be able to meet all the demands aiming “at the full guarantee of the nationhood, nationwide rights and liberties of the Croatian and Slavonian people.” The House had no time to pass the resolution; Jelaiic, whom the ruler had officially reinstated as Ban of Croatia on September 4, launched his offensive. On the morrow of Jelacic’s crossing into Hungary, however, on September 12, the government had the text of the resolution printed up on a placard.67 It is hardly likely that a resolution passed by the House would have availed Csányi more in his attempt to secure peace. Csányi knew of all the latest concessions the government was prepared to make to Croatia; his letter of September 5 to Kossuth, however, reports that Jelaőic was adamant in his refusal to negotiate, a circumstance Csányi attributed to the fact that Croatia’s absolute leader wanted war, not peace. On September 8, Csányi sent his own foster son and another officer to Zagreb, all in vain.68 Jelaéic wanted to win a victory over the Hungarian government, not concessions from it. The oft-repeated Hungarian prophecy of the summer of 1848, that the Croats would become the tools of reaction, had been fulfilled. The defeat the Hungarian National Guard suffered a year later at the hands