Sándor Lányi's memorial spear tree
Cemeteries, tombstones, graves
Dr. László Kiss: The participants of the “Mexican adventure” from Hont County ; ; On April 14, 1864, there was a lot of activity in the Adriatic military port of the Habsburg Empire in Trieste. The warship carrying Archduke Miksa and his young wife to Mexico set off from the pier of the Mirimare Castle ; . Miksa, the younger brother of Ferenc József, who crushed the Hungarian War of Independence, traveled “beyond the great waters” to seize the throne of distant Mexico with French help. Miksa, who deserved a better fate, was more talented than his brother, had a humanist spirit, and was a friend of Hungary, but did not notice the trap: he should have scraped the hot chestnut for the French Emperor Napoleon III, who wanted to acquire Mexico, and for the greedy French financiers. His “Mexican adventure” ended in a disgraceful failure: the Mexicans led by Juarez resisted, and during their patriotic war, Miksa was captured and executed in 1867. ; Franz Joseph – secretly happy about the departure of Miksa, who was a threat to his throne – graciously allowed the recruitment of a “Mexican volunteer corps”. The backbone of this multinational unit was the Red Hussar Regiment, wearing Hungarian uniforms and obeying Hungarian commands. Many volunteered to serve, hoping that after the victorious campaign they would be able to settle in Mexico as landowners. The list of Hungarian members of the volunteer corps was researched in the Kriegsarchiv (military archive) in Vienna by Lajos Tardy and published in the columns of Hadtörténeti Közlemények in 1990. Browsing through this list, we can find quite a few from Hont County: Lajos Auguszt (Inám, hussar), Pál Badics (Ipolynyék, hunter), Imre Chvala (Selmecbánya, traveler), János Cserven (Hodrusbánya, hunter – fallen), Ferenc Fliegler (Hodrusbánya, hunter), Ignác Gettler (Selmecbánya, hunter), Márton Grimpling (Selmecbánya, hunter), József Hanzél (Ipolykeszi, hunter), István Jusza (Selmecbánya, hunter), Dr. Mihály Kubicza (Szalka, doctor of the corps headquarters), Sándor Lányi (Zalaba, bodyguard), Mihály Klutska (Palást, hussar), Ferenc Mező (Deménd, hussar), Sámuel Pirovszky (Korpona, hussar), János Weinberger (Selmecbánya, hunter).