Reenacting the Battle of Tapiobicske

There are pictures in the news today of the latest reenactment of the Battle of Tapiobicske, fought in Hungary on April 4, 1849. They do this every year.

The battle was part of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the great powers of Europe had agreed among themselves to preserve the traditional order of the continent. Most people would continue to be ruled by kings and emperors, the British would preserve their ancient mixed, largely aristocratic government, and the democratic and nationalist energies released by the French Revolution would be suppressed. This led to a century of political struggle. Parties from the mildly reformist to the anarchist sought to reduce the power of kings and increase that of the people, and also to achieve independence for their own peoples from the multi-national empires (British, Russian, Austro-Hungarian) that ruled them.

All of this boiled over in 1848. The French pitched their king and set up a short-lived Republic. The Poles rose against the Russian Tsar, many Germans rose against their princes, and the Hungarians rose against the Austrian emperor. Great mobs marched on the seats of their government and peacefully set up a new, parliamentary government. The date this revolt began, May 15, is still a holiday in Hungary.

But as we know from the experience of our own time, democratic revolution is never a simple thing in southeastern Europe. Hungarians were a minority in the Hungarian Republic they had just declared, which included large numbers of Romanians, Serbs, Croats, and others. The Austrian leadership retired their feeble-minded emperor and put his strong-willed and reactionary brother Franz-Joseph on the throne. He refused to accept Hungarian independence, an once he had put down the workers' revolt in Vienna he began the work of reconquering Hungary. He called in help from the Russian Tsar, who sent in 20,000 troops in the name of solidarity among reactionary emperors. More importantly, he worked on all of Hungary's other minorities, convincing them that this Hungarian state was no good for them. The Hungarian government helped by repeatedly declaring their state by and for Hungarians; Lajos Kossuth, one of the leaders, later said that their mistake was in declaring one Hungarian state, rather than a chain of ethnic republicans for Romanians, Serbs, Bohemians, and others.

Attacked from every side by Austrians, Russians, Bohemians, Serbs, and Romanians, the Hungarian army was overwhelmed and surrendered in August, 1849. Thirteen leaders were executed, becoming the Martyrs of Arad. Many others fled into exile, especially in America, where hundreds of Hungarians ended up fighting for the Union in the American Civil War.

On flickr there are dozens of photos of these reenactors. After all, this is a great period for reenacting, with wonderful uniforms of a hundred types. Soldiers from a dozen nationalities fought at Tapiobicske, Serbs and Romanians on the Austrian side and volunteers from Poland, France and Germany on the Hungarian side. Hungarians can revel in a little patriotism, Austrians can remember when they were a great power, and everybody can enjoy a multi-national drinking fest.

This guy even has the Hussar's mustache.

Not sure where this picture came from, but I think maybe these guys got too into the reality of nineteenth-century warfare. What could we do that would be really authentic? I know! Let's burn something down!