The Hungarian prime minister who was hanged but did not die

He was considered the most beautiful man of his time. The ladies of the Paris salons whispered behind his back, but according to gossip, he only had one love, whom he secretly met behind the back of his king and emperor. The monarch, who symbolically hanged him earlier. Therefore, people in Paris regularly called him “the beautiful hanged man” (le beau pendu).

Yes, we are talking about Count Gyula Andrássy. Andrássy was born in March 1823, the year Ferenc Kölcsey wrote the Hungarian National Anthem and two years before István Széchenyi, the Greatest Hungarian, made an offer to fund the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The flourishing reform era in Hungary (1825-1848) had a significant influence on the young nobleman. He admired Széchenyi but joined Kossuth in terms of vehemence.

After the March 1848 revolution, he became the government representative in Zemplén County. He was among the first to fight against the armies coming to crush the Hungarian revolution. He took part in the battle of Pákozd, a decisive victory over the Croatian army, saving the revolution. Later, he served under Artúr Görgei and became colonel by the end of the successful spring campaign.

He was lucky. The government sent him to Constantinople on a diplomatic mission to garner foreign support for the Hungarian revolution, endangered by Russian and Austrian troops. That is why he was not at home at the surrender at Világos (13 August 1849). Therefore, he could not be brought to a military tribunal. But Franz Joseph’s administration symbolically hanged him in his absence.

The most handsome man of the era

He spent the first half of the 1850s in Paris, where the most prestigious ladies sought his company in the salons because they saw him as the most handsome man of his time.

He married Countess Katinka Kendeffy in the emigration. He returned home in 1857 and worked on the compromise with Ferenc Deák, ‘the wisest Hungarian’. Deák proposed him as prime minister.