Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

La vigilia del '48
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in their midst (who is ex officio the presiding officer of the House of Magnate) upon which four of the most distinguished members approached his person and raised him three times upon their shoulders amidst the deafening vivala of the assembly, after which the Diet adjonrned. Learning that a week or two would probably be consnmed by the members in visiting and congratulating each other, and that the Diet would not eommence regularly their business bef ore the expiration of that time, I returned to Vienna, and propose making another trip to Presburg, when I hall perceive that they have entered upon their dehates.25)
News of the captare of the city of Mexico, by our troops, has reached ns, but that event was so fully anticipated, that the tidings of it i'ailed to produce any very extraordinary surprises.26) I was congratulated by niany of the diplo-matic corps on the remarkable success of our arme, but those gentleman, although they extolled the skill and valor of our troops, they did not as I conld perceive, wholly approvo of the movements of our government. They seemed to think, although they did inot direcfcly assert it, that the character of a peaceful and business-loving republic, which we had hitherto avowed and sustamed, had now entirely disappeared, and that we had shown ourselves to be an aspiring and grasping nailon, that like the republics of old, we had at length drawn the sword of aggression, that like them, we too, would throw away the scabbard, and our ambition know no end, until our nationality had become extinct by the force of our own expansion. I of course took particular pains to combat this idea and to convince them of the neeessity which had impelled our move­ments from the earliest causes of the difficulty to the present time, when the folly and stubborneas of the Mexicans seemed to have <left us no alternative, short of the subjugation of their entire country. But this idea so unjust, and at the saune time, so injuir-ious to our character and interest as a nation, has been produced not so much by the annexation of Texas or the invasion of Mexico, as by the ill-timed and injudieious agitation of the qnestion, in the sonate of the United States and in the public primis of the country, of the acquisition of Cuba.27)
I have been repeatedly spoken to by officers of rank and merit in the Austrian army, who were desirous of going to America for the purpose of distinguishing themselves in our ranks in the present contest with Mexico, and I am persuaded that any number that conld be desired, of educated and skillful
25) La più ampia trattazione sulla Dieta ungherese dei 1847-1848, non scritta in ungherese, si trova in MIHALY HORVATH, Fùnfundzwanzig Jahre aus der Geschichte Ungarns voti 1823-1848, Leipzig, 1867, voi. I, pp. 377-546.
26) Città del Messico cadde in mano alle truppe statunitensi il 13 settembre 1847; cfr. K. JACK BAUBR, The Mexican War, 1846-1848, New York, 1974, pp. 306-323. Per un breve esame dello sfondo diplomatico della guerra, vedi ALEXANDER DE CONDE, A History of American Foragli Policy, New York, 19712, pp. 178-199. Circa la parte che ebbe l'espan­sionismo americano negli eventi che condussero allo scoppio della guerra, vedi ALBERT K. WEOTBERG, Manìfeat Desllny. A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History, Baltimore, 1935; e DAVID M. PLBTCHER, The Diphmucy of Annexation. Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War Columbia, 1973.
27) Nei 1847 e anche nel 1848 gli espansionisti tentarono di eccitare l'opinione pub-Mica e i circoli ufficiali sulla possibilità di comprare Cuba. Su questi tentativi, vedi BASII. RAUCA, American Interest in Cuba: 1848-1855, New York, 1948, pp. 48-80.