Hungarians And Romanians In 1849–1850

Abstract

Before 1848 Hungary had been a kingdom under the Habsburg scepter, with its own Diet, powerful nobility and enjoying a considerable amount of political autonomy. One of the main setbacks of the new constitutional arrangement was the incipient dualism it instituted. The Hungarian leaders were uncertain whether Hungary should or could in the long term stay in the monarchy, and they oscillated between their need for Austrian support and their nationalist-separatist ambitions. In March 1849, the British Consul in Bucharest, Robert Colquhoun, dispatched his trusted secretary on a sensitive mission: he was to survey and report on the situation in Transylvania, where the war was escalating. In Transylvania, the situation was becoming more confused and entangled, as the fighting now opposed not only the Hungarian army against the Austrian and Russian troops, but also, in the parallel civil war, the ethnic Romanians, Germans and Serbs against the Hungarians.Keywords: ethnic Romanians; Hungarian leaders; Robert Colquhoun; Transylvania