Fight, Flight, and Negotiating the Road Back Home: Hungarian and Polish ’48ers under Ottoman Protection

In July and August 1849, around 5,000 Hungarian and Polish revolutionaries fled defeat at the hands of the Habsburg army, crossed the Carpathian mountains, and surrendered to Ottoman border authorities in present-day Romania. Ottoman officials disarmed the refugees, removed them from the border, eventually relocating them to a large refugee camp in Vidin, on the Danube River. At Vidin, the refugees were both protected and trapped: the Ottoman Sultan vowed to protect them with political asylum, but by those terms, was also unable to allow them to leave.

Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman diplomatic struggles over returning the refugees started immediately, with the Ottoman government unwilling to meet unconditional demands of extradition. Negotiations revolved at first around interpretations of existing treaties, whether or not the Ottomans stood under legal obligation to return the refugees at all, and if so under what terms and with what guarantees.

This paper examines the diplomatic negotiations among the three Empires over refugees and refugee management and how the Ottomans sought to extend protections both to those whom it offered asylum as well as to refugees seeking to return home. Looking at shifting assertions of subjecthood and the legal requirements of protection, the paper also asks how conversion, either permanent or temporary, changed refugees’ international status and the claims of foreign powers.