Karl (Carl) Freiherr von Urban (English: Karl Baron of Urban; Hungarian: Báró Urban Károly; French: Baron Carl d'Urban; born 31 August 1802 in Kraków – died 1 January 1877 in Brünn) was an Austrian Field Marshal-Lieutenant celebrated for his daring tactics of lightning surprise attacks, often against much stronger forces, which earned him the epithet of Austrian Garibaldi.
He is particularly distinguished for his decisive actions during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849, and his participation in the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. Von Urban was the first commander to make a stand against the Revolution in Hungary, organizing the resistance and defending minorities. He captured Klausenburg, the capital of Transylvania, twice.
Early years and baptism of fire Karl von Urban was born in Krakow, at the time part of the Austrian Empire, to a Sudeten German family of officers who served the Imperial Army. He received his education at the prestigious Cadet Academy of Olmütz (Olomouc) and enrolled in the Imperial and Royal Army on 1 November 1815, being assigned to the 29th Infantry Regiment.Pallua-Gall (1895), p. 349
When the Revolution erupted in the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1821, the Quintuple Alliance was assembled at the Congress of Laibach and Prince Metternich decided to intervene to restore the legitimate government.Phillips (1911), p. 83 At the time a young cadet corporal, Urban was selected to integrate the Austrian expeditionary force sent in the name of the Holy Alliance and underwent his baptism of fire at the Battle of Novara on 8 April 1821.von Wurzbach (1884), p. 116
Ascension in the military career After Novara, Urban's progress in the ranks of the Army was meteoric and he performed a variety of prestigious roles. This swift progress was attributed to his strong expertise and remarkable adaptability. He was promoted to Ensign in 1823 and, upon his appointment as Second-Lieutenant in 1828, he was transferred to the 59th Infantry Regiment. Urban was attached to this unit for sixteen years until his promotion to Major in 1844, when he was assigned to the 13th Border Infantry Regiment.Grundbuchblatt-Abschrift: Karl Freiherr von Urban (Service Record - Transcript). Wien: Kriegsarchiev From 1828 to 1835 Karl von Urban was the Adjutant to the Military Commander in Moravia and Silesia, Field Marshal-Lieutenant Baron von Eckhardt. He then took up the position of head and instructor at the Regimental Cadet School, where he shared many new ideas of reform of the army and war of movement with Joseph Radetzky.He headed the military survey and recruitment mission of the Inn Valley in Tyrol in the years 1837—1839 and, from 1843, Urban served as assistant to the General-Command Adjutant of the province of Banat. In 1845 he was named the General-Command Adjutant of the Military Government in the same province, a position he held for two years.
In 1847, Urban was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and was soon transferred to the 2nd Romanian Border Regiment in the Transylvanian Military Frontier. It was in this position that he found himself caught up by the Revolutionary storm that soon spread to Hungary and across the Austrian Empire during the fateful month of March 1848.
Revolutionary War of 1848-1849 A staunch defender of the Habsburg monarchy and of the ethnic minorities oppressed by the revolutionary movement, Karl von Urban was the first military commander to make a stand against the Revolution in Hungary.Meyer (1885-1892), p. 4 Despite being a modest Lieutenant-Colonel at the time, his leadership galvanized the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army and the population of Transylvania on the side of the Emperor and led to the defeat of the Revolutionary movement in the region.Hirtenfeld (1857), p. 1635
Once the hostilities commenced, Von Urban proved to be an audacious and enterprising field commander, taking active part in intense confrontations and winning several victories on the battlefield.Hirtenfeld (1857), p. 1360Bánlaky, József (2001). Transylvanian Events Before Bem's Intervention. In: The Military History of the Hungarian Nation (in Hungarian). Vol. 21. Budapest: Arcanum Adatbazis Kft. By opening a second front on the rearguard of the Revolutionary Forces, Urban contributed to the defeat of the Revolution.
Leader of the resistance against the Revolution
Karl von Urban's leadership against the Revolution derived from his steadfast loyalty to the legitimate Habsburg rule in times of upheaval and increasing tensions in Transylvania and across the Austrian Empire. The changes brought by the Revolution sprung conflicts between ethnicities and institutions, which finally led to civil war. Urban's unwavering commitment to the Emperor, to the rights of minorities, specially Romanians, and to the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army led him to be in direct opposition to the Revolutionary Government.
Tensions started to brew in the Principality of Transylvania and across the Empire when the Hungarian Revolutionary Government passed the April Laws, which annexed the multi-ethnic Transylvania into Hungary. The Revolution further refused to grant equal rights to the Romanian and German minorities in the region.
The situation was exacerbated on 11 July 1848, when the parliament in Budapest enacted the law creating the Hungarian Revolutionary Army, the Honvédség, and implementing mass conscription. The conscription included men from all ethnicities, which aggravated the minorities, not consulted in the process. Furthermore, the minorities were exasperated by the summary executions and massacres of Romanians by Revolutionary units and tribunals on the orders of the government in Pest, mostly for refusing forced conscription.Seton-Watson (1934), p. 292
The July Law also incorporated several units of the Austrian Imperial and Royal army into the Honvédség and ordered them to implement both the conscription and the punishments on the population. Every military personnel was also obliged to make an oath of allegiance to the April Laws.
Besides, the Revolution established a competing and separate armed force, the National Guard. Despite the condemnation by the Imperial Government, the Revolutionary authorities accelerated the recruitment of ethnic Hungarians to this force and to militia units, which set the ground for a civil and ethnic conflagration in the Empire.
In this context of increasing tensions, Karl von Urban came to understand that the Revolution was ill-intended and in opposition to the well being of the Empire, despite discourses on the contrary, and decided to take the initiative at great personal risk and to his career. In fact, Baron Anton von Puchner, the highest Austrian military authority in Transylvania, had sent a directive on 7 May ordering his subordinates to swear allegiance to the April Laws.
Notwithstanding this opposition, Urban spent the Summer of 1848 in intense activity to restrain the Revolutionary influence among the army and the population by dispatching envoys to villages, communicating with other officials and gathering intelligence. When Puchner established a peremptory deadline to all officers to swear allegiance to the April Laws - threatening with dismissal any officer who refused doing so - and ordering the army to implement the mass conscription to the Honvédség, Urban took interim command of his regiment from the debilitated Colonel Jovicvon Wurzbach (1884), p. 116-117 and became the first officer of the Imperial and Royal Army to refuse the pledge of allegiance to the April Laws, and thus to the Revolution.
Lieutenant-Colonel Urban made a first public defiance against the Revolution with a speech directed to his troops, during the mobilization of the first battalion of his regiment. Urban addressed the soldiers in Romanian, their native language, exhorting them to remain faithful to the Imperial House and to their original oath to the Emperor, and urging them to refuse to swear the mandatory allegiance to the April Laws.Hirtenfeld (1857), p. 1634
The Assembly of September 10 at Naszód
Von Urban proceeded by summoning leaders of all 44 regimental districts to his headquarters in Naszód (Năsăud) for a General Assembly on 10 September 1848. The villages and cities responded enthusiastically: backed by the local leaderships and with the travel expenses afforded by the communities' collective support, hundreds of delegates were sent to attend the Assembly and apply for the Pajura (eagle in Romanian), a certificate declaring that a village was loyal to the Habsburg Emperor and willing to mobilize and fight for him.
At the Assembly, Karl von Urban demonstrated sensibility to the legitimate concerns of diverse social groups, offering protection to villages and peasants that rejected forced conscription and to landowners who feared a peasant uprising. He then administered the oath of allegiance to the hundreds of peasants and village delegates.
The Memorandum of 14 September Soon after, Karl von Urban denounced the Revolution in a Memorandum widely distributed. In the manifest Urban boldly stated that it was his duty to declare the Revolutionary government and its ministries as illegitimate and, thus, the concessions forced from the Emperor and the secession of Hungary from the monarchy as invalid; the annexation of Transylvania to Hungary was void, since the minorities such as the Romanians were not consulted; and Transylvanias were not obliged to be enlisted in the Revolutionary Army, given the lack of legality of the law passed by the Hungarian Parliament, which was not sanctioned by the Emperor. Urban further declared that his actions aimed at saving the Austrian monarchy from destruction, and that he was bearing the Imperial Flag to fight the revolutionary forces who have taken up in arms.
Urban's impactful actions resulted in 918 communities in the region withdrawing their support from the Revolution and embracing the Imperial and Counter-revolutionary cause by the conclusion of September. This proved to be a fatal blow to the revolutionary party's power and influence, effectively thwarting the plans of the Revolution to conduct mass recruitment for the new Revolutionary Army in Transylvania.von Wurzbach (1884), p. 117
The initiatives and measures taken by Karl von Urban also set an example for other officers of the army, who followed his lead and summoned their own assemblies in their military districts. In contrast, Puchner initial response to Urban's activities was the threat of strict investigation and even the use of military force to restore the order. The government in Budapest also pressurized Urban's superiors to act against him, however no real measure was undertaken and Von Urban remained unimpeded in his counter-revolutionary movement.
Strategic Commander Without communication with the Headquarters in Vienna and operating without directives or logistic support, Urban initiated preparatives for the looming conflict. He readied his small force of Grenz Infantry for the herculean challenge of fighting the Revolution and organized the Romanian National Militia, a task made easier given his immense popularity among the Romanian population: thousands of men had flocked to Urban's headquarters in Naszód to offer their service and follow his leadership.Seton-Watson (1934), p. 287
In the beginning of October 1848 the War Minister Count von Latour appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Urban the Strategic Commander for northern Transylvania in the event of conflict, with the instruction to "trust himself and his judgment". This honor was given despite the presence of six higher-ranking generals in the region.