While the hatred of Austria was felt by all throughout Hungary, Croatia and Sclavonia were actuated, on the contrary, by feelings of the deepest loyalty to the house of Hapsburg. Baron W., who published his adventures under the title of "Scenes of the Civil War in Hungary in 1848-9, with the personal adventures of an Austrian officer, etc.," declares that the Croatians joined the Imperial standard by thousands; even the women, moved by an ardent and loyal courage, aided in defending the frontiers against the Bosnians, who, excited by the emissaries of Kossuth, took every opportunity for raids and invasions over the border. While the men were flocking to the banners of Jellachich, the ban of Croatia, their wives and daughters took up arms and repaired to the chain of posts on the Turkish boundary, "that all the men might be able to take the field; and such an eight days' duty as these frontier posts," he adds, "is no trifle, and requires not a little firmness." Old, half-invalided frontier subalterns, incapacitated for taking the field, were the commandants; young, many of them handsome, females composed their troops. "By my faith!" exclaims the Baron, "I should have no objection to be the commander of such a corps of Ottochan females myself!"
Numbers of Croatian and Sclavonian women accompanied the Austrian army into Germany and Italy. "We had," says the same author, "wives and daughters of frontier soldiers with us in Peschiera and on the march through Hungary, who equalled the men in the endurance of fatigue, and displayed undaunted courage in battle. In Hungary we had with us a young Croatian, the daughter of an old Seressan, who was as daring a rider as the best hussar, and more than once fearlessly joined the men in the charge. A Hungarian _jurat_ gave her in an action a cut on the left cheek, which she returned with a severe blow on the arm, seized the bridle of his horse, and took him prisoner. This horse, a grey stallion, she ever afterwards rode, and refused to sell, though I offered her forty ducats for him."
The Countess Helene St. ----, a Hungarian patriot, was the sister of an old comrade of Baron W. The brother, who owned a magnificent estate, was a Magyar to the very core; and directly the insurrection broke out, he took up arms, and fell bravely fighting for his country in February, 1849. His dying agonies were soothed by an unexpected meeting with his early friend; the Baron.
