Indokolatlan kegyetlenség vagy „keserű szükség”? A „Professzor” és a „Nagy Renegát” konfliktusa 1848 novemberében
Unjustified Cruelty or “Bitter Need”? The Conflict between the “Professor” and the “Great Renegade” in November 1848

Summary/Abstract: In the late autumn of 1848, in the Banat theater of the „small war” in the southern territories against the Serbian rebels, Hungarians were gradually gaining ground. As a result of battles there, many commanders and corps had acquired experience in combat and companionship that later proved to be useful elsewhere. But it was also this time that the front’s best soldier, Antal Vetter and János Damjanich fatefully confronted each other. There were only a few preliminary sings of this conflict. Both officers, about the same age, came from military families, both chose the military profession for themselves, both excelled with extraordinary performance and both were the advocates of legitimacy. However, Vetter, being “stiff” and apolitical, considered himself a staff officer, while the “fiery” Damjanich, who was also enthusiastic about reforms, was a real line officer. 1848 gave momentum to the career of both, and both had already had their first successes and had gained fame by the time they met on the same front at the beginning of November. The major-general, a brilliant planner, and the lieutenant-colonel, a great executor might have complemented each other. But the latter’s first great success on this front – the capture of the Serb military camp in Lagerdorf on 9 November 1848 – marked not the beginning but the end of their good relationship. As the troops of Damjanich inflicted severe losses not only on the garrison, but on civilians as well, and they plundered and burned down the defiant village and its neighborhood. The situation was aggravated by the acts of cruelty to the prisoners of war carried out by the soldiers of the 9th battalion in “the hell of Fehértemplom (Bela Crkva)”. Having heard of the events, Vetter reprimanded his subordinate in a letter, who in turn visited his superior in person in mid-November 1848. Although we cannot reconstruct in detail what happened, it seems evident that what was meant to be a clarifying conversation turned into a heated debate. The partners did not understand each other. Vetter, the corps commander, who viewed the events from the perspective of a staff officer, intended to wage a “regular” war fought along the rules and principles he had learned at the Theresian Military Academy in Bécsújhely (Wiener Neustadt). On the other hand, holding firmly to his Serbian identity, Damjanich, who saw the cruelty of the insurgents to the non-Serbian population as well as the poor supply of his troops, acted as a line officer and was forced to adjust to the circumstances of the “irregular” theater of war in the hope of a quick success. Although, according to their later remarks, their views on army discipline and the ways of warfare were scarcely different, their dissimilar character and combat experiences prevented them from coming to terms with each other.

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