Vienna, if any could then in Vienna, an almost unknown foreigner, a
Slavonian by birth, gave up the task, overwhelmed as he was by
universal distrust. Had he persevered, he might have been lynched as a
traitor. Messenhauser, the commander of the insurgent forces, more of
a novel-writer than even of a subaltern officer, was totally
inadequate to the task; and yet, after eight months of revolutionary
struggles, the popular party had not produced or acquired a military
man of more ability than he. Thus the contest began. The Viennese
considering their utterly inadequate means of defence, considering
their utter absence of military skill and organization in the ranks,
offered a most heroic resistance. In many places the order given by
Bem, when he was in command, "to defend that post to the last man,"
was carried out to the letter. But force prevailed. Barricade after
barricade was swept away by the imperial artillery in the long and
wide avenues which form the main streets of the suburbs; and on the
evening of the second day's fighting the Croats occupied the range of
houses facing the glacis of the Old Town. A feeble and disorderly
attack of the Hungarian army had been utterly defeated; and during an
armistice, while some parties in the Old Town capitulated, while
others hesitated and spread confusion, while the remnants of the
Academic Legion prepared fresh intrenchments, an entrance was made by
the imperialists, and in the midst of the general disorder the Old
Town was carried.

The immediate consequences of this victory, the brutalities and
executions by martial law, the unheard-of cruelties and infamies
committed by the Slavonian hordes let loose upon Vienna, are too well
known to be detailed here. The ulterior consequences, the entirely new
turn given to German affairs by the defeat of the revolution in
Vienna, we shall have reason to notice hereafter. There remain two
points to be considered in connection with the storming of Vienna.
The people of that capital had two allies--the Hungarians and the
German people. Where were they in the hour of trial?

We have seen that the Viennese, with all the generosity of a newly
freed people, had risen for a cause which, though ultimately their
own, was in the first instance, and above all, that of the Hungarians.
Rather than suffer the Austrian troops to march upon Hungary, they
would draw their first and most terrific onslaught upon themselves.
And while they thus nobly ca