István Türr (Italian: Stefano Türr, French: Étienne Türr; 10 August 1825 – 3 May 1908) was a Hungarian soldier, revolutionary, canal architect and engineer, remembered in Italy for his role in that country's unification and his association with Garibaldi. In the later years of his life became known as a peace activist.
Türr was born in the city of Baja, Hungary, the fifth child of an ironmonger. His mother was Terézia Udvary, whose father was a medical doctor. When young he was not a diligent pupil and left school early. As a teenager he tried his father's profession as well as working in a mill and as an unskilled mason, but did not show great aptitude for any of these three jobs.
The first time he tried to enlist in the Austrian Army he was rejected, but on his re-application in 1842 he was accepted at the age of 17. Moreover, officers found in him a hitherto unnoticed promise and encouraged him to improve himself and undergo officer's training at Pécs. By 1848 he was already a military engineer at the rank of lieutenant in a Hungarian grenadier regiment.
Deserting the Austrian Army, fighting for the 1848 Revolution in Italy
At the time when the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 engulfed his homeland, Türr was stationed in Lombardy, Italy. He was involved in early fighting against Piedmont and witnessed the cruel reprisals inflicted on rebellious Italians at Monza, where he was stationed, which caused him to change his loyalties.
On 19 January 1849 Türr crossed the bridge over the Ticino and went over to the Piedmont side. He was immediately placed in command of the newly formed "Hungarian Legion", comprising numerous deserters of the Austrian Imperial Army. Its ranks were swelled by the increasing desertion of Hungarian soldiers and officers, crossing the Ticino in small boats every night until the Austrian command moved them away.
In a parallel development, another Hungarian Legion, headed by Lajos Winkler (1810–1861) who would later become Türr's close associate, was formed at Venice and fought in defence of the revolutionary Repubblica di San Marco headed by Daniele Manin.
Thus, Türr became involved in the First Italian War of Independence, under the leadership of King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont. The final Austrian victory at Novara dashed the Italian hopes. Carlo Alberto had to abdicate and go into exile, and Piedmont could no longer carry on the struggle.
Under the terms of the ceasefire imposed on Piedmont, the Hungarian Legion (and a similar Polish Legion, also composed of deserters from the Austrian Army) were to be disbanded. Privates and NCO's up to the rank of sergeant-major were offered a pardon and a return home. This did not include the officers, but the Austrians did not object to their accepting commissions in the Piedmontese Army.
However, when Türr put it to his men, they voted by acclamation to reject the Austrian pardon, stay together and leave Piedmont in search of a place whose revolution was still holding out. At first they set out for the Roman Republic, but were blocked by the French forces besieging the city (thus, Türr's meeting with Garibaldi, at this time directing Rome's defence, was delayed for ten years).
Next, the Hungarians entered France itself via Nice, where they had to give up their arms and the authorities regarded them with considerable suspicion. The Hungarians, kept for a considerable time in Toulon, conceived the idea of going to the Ottoman Empire, where some Hungarians already got refuge (and many more would follow in the coming years). However, the French disliked this idea, attempting to send them instead to Algiers, where, Türr feared, the Hungarian Legion would "melt down". He then decided to try heading to Britain in the hope that from there it would be easier to get to Turkey.
Hearing of the revolutionary ferment at Baden, Germany, where "the army had joined with the people to overthrow the monarchial government", Türr decided to set out in that direction, also in the hope of eventually returning to a liberated Hungary via Germany. Two contingents of the Hungarian Legion did manage to cross into Germany and reach Baden; a third was stopped by the French and diverted to Folkestone, where the British put them on a ship headed to Turkey.
Bringing sorely needed reinforcements, Türr was warmly welcomed in Baden, made immediately upon arrival a colonel in its revolutionary army, and got three battalions of German troops under his command in addition to the Hungarians who came with him. He did not hold this position long, however, as the Baden revolution soon succumbed to an overwhelming Prussian attack. Together with the overthrown Baden Government, he and his troops had to seek refuge in Switzerland. The victors, in control of occupied Baden, were summarily executing the officers of the revolutionary army who fell into their hands.
In Bern, Türr got the bitter news of the revolution being crushed in his own homeland, too, after prolonged fighting throughout Hungary. He was faced with the prospect of an exile life of indefinite duration, with his life forfeit if he ever tried to go home.
In the wake of the Hungarian Army's surrender at Világos (now Şiria, Romania) on 13 August 1849, the Austrians in the following month, September, renewed the offer of a free pardon to the men of the Hungarian Legion. This time, a considerable part of them accepted the offer, "tired of incessant fatigues and disappointments, and having lost all hope of ever being able to fight for their country's cause", and went back to defeated Hungary.
The sympathetic Government of Switzerland, described by Türr as "always humane and noble minded", financed and facilitated the sending the rest of the Hungarian soldiers to America. (This Federal Swiss government was newly installed, composed of the Radicals, who won the Swiss civil war two years earlier, one of the few regimes established by the Revolutions of 1848 that remained in power, inclined to help the less fortunate revolutionary refugees.)
Türr himself, dejected and in bad health, remained in Europe, alternating between Switzerland and Piedmont, and living on a pension that the Piedmont-Sardinian Government granted to him.
In October 1850, the above-mentioned Captain Lajos Winkler, who had fought at Venice, came over from Lombardy, in command of a party of about a hundred Hungarian privates that he had kept together under discipline. Türr's 1856 brochure, mentioning this and other events of the 1850s,