Austria-Hungary
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, or the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (Ger. Osterreichisch-ungarische Monarchie or Osterreichisch-ungarisches Reich), the official name of a country situated in central Europe, bounded E. by Russia and Rumania, S. by Rumania, Servia, Turkey and Montenegro, W. by the Adriatic Sea, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the German Empire, and N. by the German Empire and Russia. It occupies about the sixteenth part of the total area of Europe, with an area (1905) of 239,977 sq. m. The monarchy consists of two independent states: the kingdoms and lands represented in the council of the empire (Reichsrat), unofficially called Austria (q.v.) or Cisleithania; and the "lands of St Stephen's Crown," unofficially called Hungary (q.v.) or Transleithania. It received its actual name by the diploma of the emperor Francis Joseph I. of the 14th of November 1868, replacing the name of the Austrian Empire under which the dominions under his sceptre were formerly known. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy is very often called unofficially the Dual Monarchy. It had in 1901 a population of 45,405,267 inhabitants, comprising therefore within its borders, about one-eighth of the total population of Europe. By the Berlin Treaty of 1878 the principalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina with an area of 19,702 sq. m., and a population (1895) of 1,591,036 inhabitants, owning Turkey as suzerain, were placed under the administration of Austria-Hungary, and their annexation in 1908 was recognized by the Powers in 1909, so that they became part of the dominions of the monarchy.
Government. - The present constitution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (see Austria) is based on the Pragmatic Sanction of the emperor Charles VI., first promulgated on the 19th of April 1713, whereby the succession to the throne is settled in the dynasty of Habsburg-Lorraine, descending by right of primogeniture and lineal succession to male heirs, and, in case of their extinction, to the female line, and whereby the indissolubility and indivisibility of the monarchy are determined; is based, further, on the diploma of the emperor Francis Joseph I. of the 20th of October 1860, whereby the constitutional form of government is introduced; and, lastly, on the so-called Ausgleich or "Compromise," concluded on the 8th of February 1867, whereby the relations between Austria and Hungary were regulated.
The two separate states - Austria and Hungary - are completely independent of each other, and each has its own parliament and its own government. The unity of the monarchy is expressed in the common head of the state, who bears the title Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, and in the common administration of a series of affairs, which affect both halves of the Dual Monarchy. These are: (1) foreign affairs, including diplomatic and consular representation abroad; (2) the army, including the navy, but excluding the annual voting of recruits, and the special army of each state; (3) finance in so far as it concerns joint expenditure.
For the administration of these common affairs there are three joint ministries: the ministry of foreign affairs and of the imperial and royal house, the ministry of war, and the ministry of finance. It must be noted that the authority of the joint ministers is restricted to common affairs, and that they are not allowed to direct or exercise any influence on affairs of government affecting separately one of the halves of the monarchy. The minister of foreign affairs conducts the international relations of the Dual Monarchy, and can conclude international treaties. But commercial treaties, and such state treaties as impose burdens on the state, or parts of the state, or involve a change of territory, require the parliamentary assent of both states. The minister of war is the head for the administration of all military affairs, except those of the Austrian Landwehr and of the Hungarian Honveds, which are committed to the ministries for national defence of the two respective states. But the supreme command of the army is vested in the monarch, who has the power to take all measures regarding the whole army. It follows, therefore, that the total armed power of the Dual Monarchy forms a whole under the supreme command of the sovereign. The minister of finance has charge of the finances of common affairs, prepares the joint budget, and administers the joint state debt. (Till 1909 the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were also administered by the joint minister of finance, excepting matters exclusively dependent on the minister of war.) For the control of the common finances, there is appointed a joint supreme court of accounts, which audits the accounts of the joint ministries.
Budget. - Side by side with the budget of each state of the Dual Monarchy, there is a common budget, which comprises the expenditure necessary for the common affairs, namely for the conduct of foreign affairs, for the army, and for the ministry of finance. The revenues of the joint budget consist of the revenues of the joint ministries, the net proceeds of the customs, and the quota, or the proportional contributions of the two states. This quota is fixed for a period of years, and generally coincides with the duration of the customs and commercial treaty. Until 1897 Austria contributed 70%, and Hungary 30% of the joint expenditure, remaining after-deduction of the common revenue. It was then decided that from 1897 to July 1907 the quota should be 66-46/49 for Austria, and 33-2/49 for Hungary. In 1907 Hungary's contribution was raised to 36.4%. Of the total charges 2% is first of all debited to Hungary on account of the incorporation with this state of the former military frontier.
The Budget estimates for the common administration were as follows in 1905: -
Revenue -
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
£21,167
Ministry of War
305,907
Ministry of Finance
4,870
Board of Control
18
The Customs
4,780,000
Proportional contributions
15,650,448
- - - - -
Total
£20,762,410
- - - - -
Expenditure -
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
£485,480
Ministry of War: -
Army
12,679,160
Navy
2,306,100
Ministry of Finance
177,000
Board of Control
13,250
Extraordinary Military Expenditure
4,785,500
Extraordinary Military Expenditure in Bosnia
315,920
- - - - -
Total
£20,762,410
- - - - -
The following table gives in thousands sterling the joint budget for the years 1875-1905: -
Expenditure.
1875.
1885.
1895.
1900.
1905.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
396
368.7
333
433.4
493.8
Ministry of War (Army and Navy)
9005.4
10,085
12,539
13,887.5
18,087.7
Ministry of Finance
154.2
167.2
170.4
175
177.1
Supreme Court of Accounts
10.5
10.6
10.7
12.5
13.3
Total
9566.1
10,631.5
13,053.1
14,508.4
20,430.3
Revenue.
For the above Departments
432
258.2
260.7
260.3
331.9
Customs
997.4
402.2
4476
5202.3
4799.7
Proportional Contributions
8136.7
9971.1
8316.4
9045.8
15,650.4
Total
9566.1
10,631.5
13,053.1
14,508.4
20,430.3
Debt. - Besides the debts of each state of the Dual Monarchy, there is a general debt, which is borne jointly by Austria and Hungary. The following table gives in millions sterling the amount of the general debt for the years 1875-1905: -
1875.
1885.
1895.
1900.
1905.
232.41
231.02
229.67
226.81
224.31
Delegations. - The constitutional right of voting money applicable to the common affairs and of its political control is exercised by the Delegations, which consist each of sixty members, chosen for one year, one-third of them by the Austrian Herrenhaus (Upper House) and the Hungarian Table of Magnates (Upper House), and two-thirds of them by the Austrian and the Hungarian Houses of Representatives. The delegations are annually summoned by the monarch alternately to Vienna and to Budapest. Each delegation has its separate sittings, both alike public. Their decisions are reciprocally communicated in writing, and, in case of non-agreement, their deliberations are renewed. Should three such interchanges be made without agreement, a common plenary sitting is held of an equal number of both delegations; and these collectively, without discussion, decide the question by common vote. The common decisions of both houses require for their validity the sanction of the monarch. Each delegation has the right to formulate resolutions independently, and to call to account and arraign the common ministers. In the exercise of their office the members of both delegations are irresponsible, enjoying constitutional immunity.
Army. - The military system of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is similar in both states, and rests since 1868 upon the principle of the universal and personal obligation of the citizen to bear arms. Its military force is composed of the common army (K. und K.); the special armies, namely the Austrian (K.K.) Landwehr, and the Hungarian Honveds, which are separate national institutions, and the Landsturm or levy-in-mass. As stated above, the common army stands under the administration of the joint minister of war, while the special armies are under the administration of the respective ministries of national defence. The yearly contingent of recruits for the army is fixed by the military bills voted by the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, and is generally determined on the basis of the population, according to the last census returns. It amounted in 1905 to 103,100 men, of which Austria furnished 59,211 men, and Hungary 43,889. Besides 10,000 men are annually allotted to the Austrian Landwehr, and 12,500 to the Hungarian Honveds. The term of service is 2 years (3 years in the cavalry) with the colours, 7 or 8 in the reserve and 2 in the Landwehr; in the case of men not drafted to the active army the same total period of service is spent in various special reserves.
For the military and administrative service of the army the Dual Monarchy is divided into 16 military territorial districts (15 of which correspond to the 15 army corps) and 108 supplementary districts (105 for the army, and 3 for the navy). In 1902, since which year no material change was made in the formal organization of the army, there were 5 cavalry divisions and 31 infantry divisions, formed in 15 army corps, which are located as follows: - I. Cracow, II. Vienna, III. Graz, IV. Budapest, V. Pressburg, VI. Kaschau, VII. Temesvár, VIII. Prague, IX. Josefstadt, X. Przemysl, XI. Lemberg, XII. Herrmannstadt, XIII. Agram, XIV. Innsbruck, XV. Serajewo. In addition there is the military district of Zara. The usual strength of the corps is, 2 infantry divisions (4 brigades, 8 or 9 regiments, 32 or 36 battalions), 1 cavalry brigade (18 squadrons), and 1 artillery brigade (16-18 batteries or 128-144 field-guns), besides technical and departmental units and in some cases fortress artillery regiments. The infantry is organized into line regiments, Jäger and Tirolese regiments, the cavalry into dragoons, lancers, Uhlans and hussars, the artillery into regiments. The Austrian Landwehr (which retains the old designation K.K., formerly applied to the Austrian regular army) is organized in 8 divisions of varying strength, the "Royal Hungarian" Landwehr or Honveds in 7 divisions, both Austrian and Hungarian Landwehr having in addition cavalry (Uhlans and hussars) and artillery. It is probable that a Landwehr or Honveds division will, in war, form part of each army corps except in the case of the Vienna corps, which has 3 divisions in peace. The remaining men of military age (up to 42) as usual form the Landsturm. It is to be noted that this Landsturm comprises many men who would elsewhere be classed as Landwehr.
The strength of the Austro-Hungarian army on a peace footing was as follows in 1905: -
Officers.
Men.
Horses.
Guns.
Infantry -
Common Army
10,801
187,604
1,152
..
Austrian Landwehr
1,883
23,905
174
..
Hungarian Honveds
2,258
21,149
262
..
Cavalry -
Common Army
1,890
45,486
40,740
..
Austrian Landwehr
170
1,861
1,282
..
Hungarian Honveds
390
4,170
3,510
..
Field Artillery
1,630
27,612
14,520
1,048
Fortress Artillery
408
7,722
131
..
Technical troops (Pioneers, and
Railway and Telegraph Regiment)
588
9,935
19
..
Transport Service
461
4,312
3,097
..
Sanitary Service
85
3,062
..
..
Total
20,564
336,818
64,887
1,048
Belonging to the
Common Army
15,863
285,733
59,659
1,048
Austrian Landwehr
2,053
25,766
1,456
..
Hungarian Honveds
2,648
25,319
3,772
..
The troops stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1905 (376 officers and 6372 men) are included in the total for the common army.
The peace strength of the active army in combatants is thus about 350,000 officers and men, inclusive of the two Landwehrs and of the Austrian "K.K." guards, the Hungarian crown guards, the gendarmerie, etc. The numbers of the Landsturm and the war strength of the whole armed forces are not published. It is estimated that the first line army in war would consist of 460,000 infantry, 49,000 cavalry, 78,000 artillery, 21,000 engineers, etc., beside train and non-combatant soldiers. The Landwehr and Honved would yield 219,000 infantry and 18,000 cavalry, and other reserves 223,000 men. These figures give an approximate total strength of 1,147,000, not inclusive of Landsturm.
Fortifications. - The principal fortifications in Austria-Hungary are: Cracow and Przemysl in Galicia; Komárom, the centre of the inland fortifications, Pétervárad, O-Arad and Temesvár in Hungary; Serajewo, Mostar and Bilek in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Alpine frontiers, especially those in Tirol, have numerous fortifications, whose centre is formed by Trent and Franzensfeste; while all the military roads leading into Carinthia have been provided with strong defensive works, as at Malborgeth, Predil Pass, etc. The two capitals, Vienna and Budapest, are not fortified. On the Adriatic coast, the naval harbour of Pola is strongly fortified with sea and land defences; then come Trieste, and several places in Dalmatia, notably Zara and Cattaro.
Navy. - The Austro-Hungarian navy is mainly a coast defence force, and includes also a flotilla of monitors for the Danube. It is administered by the naval department of the ministry of war. It consisted in 1905 of 9 modern battleships, 3 armoured cruisers, 5 cruisers, 4 torpedo gunboats, 20 destroyers and 26 torpedo boats. There was in hand at the same time a naval programme to build 12 armourclads, 5 second-class cruisers, 6 third-class cruisers, and a number of torpedo boats. The headquarters of the fleet are at Pola, which is the principal naval arsenal and harbour of Austria; while another great naval station is Trieste.
Trade. - On the basis of the customs and commercial agreement between Austria and Hungary, concluded in 1867 and renewable every ten years, the following affairs, in addition to the common affairs of the monarchy, are in both states treated according to the same principles: - Commercial affairs, including customs legislation; legislation on the duties closely connected with industrial production - on beer, brandy, sugar and mineral oils; determination of legal tender and coinage, as also of the principles regulating the Austro-Hungarian Bank; ordinances in respect of such railways as affect the interests of both states. In conformity with the customs and commercial compact between the two states, renewed in 1899, the monarchy constitutes one identical customs and commercial territory, inclusive of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the principality of Liechtenstein.
The foreign trade of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is shown in the following table: -
Year.
Imports.
Exports.
1900
£70,666,000
£80,916,000
1901
68,833,000
78,841,000
1902
71,666,000
79,708,000
1903
78,200,000
88,600,000
1904
85,200,000
86,200,000
1905
89,430,000
93,500,000
The following tables give the foreign trade of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy as regards raw material and manufactured goods: -
Imports.
Articles.
Value in Millions Sterling.
1900.
1901.
1902.
1903.
1904.
Raw material (including
articles of food; raw
material for agriculture
and industry; and mining
and smelting products.
41.5
40.5
41.8
45.9
51.9
Semi-manufactured goods
9.6
9.6
10.3
10.6
10.8
Manufactured goods
19.5
18.7
19.5
21.6
22.5
Exports.
Articles.
Value in Millions Sterling.
1900.
1901.
1902.
1903.
1904.
Raw material (as above)
34.1
34.1
35.9
39
35.3
Semi-manufactured goods
12.6
11.1
11.1
12.4
12.6
Manufactured goods.
34.2
33.3
32.8
37.2
38.3
The most important place of derivation and of destination for the Austro-Hungarian trade is the German empire with about 40% of the imports, and about 60% of the exports. Next in importance comes Great Britain, afterwards India, Italy, the United States of America, Russia, France, Switzerland, Rumania, the Balkan states and South America in about the order named. The principal articles of import are cotton and cotton goods, wool and woollen goods, silk and silk goods, coffee, tobacco and metals. The principal articles of export are wood, sugar, cattle, glass and glassware, iron and ironware, eggs, cereals, millinery, fancy goods, earthenware and pottery, and leather goods.
The Austro-Hungarian Bank. - Common to the two states of the monarchy is the "Austro-Hungarian Bank," which possesses a legal exclusive right to the issue of bank-notes. It was founded in 1816, and had the title of the Austrian National Bank until 1878, when it received its actual name. In virtue of the new bank statute of the year 1899 the bank is a joint-stock company, with a stock of £8,780,000. The bank's notes of issue must be covered to the extent of two-fifths by legal specie (gold and current silver) in reserve; the rest of the paper circulation, according to bank usage. The state, under certain conditions, takes a portion of the clear profits of the bank. The management of the bank and the supervision exercised over it by the state are established on a footing of equality, both states having each the same influence. The accounts of the bank at the end of 1900 were as follows: capital, £8,750,000; reserve fund, £428,250; note circulation, £62,251,000; cash, £50,754,000. In 1907 the reserve fund was £548,041; note circulation, £84,501,000; cash, £60,036,625. The charter of the bank, which expired in 1897, was renewed until the end of 1910. In the Hungarian ministerial crisis of 1909 the question of the renewal of the charter played a conspicuous part, the more extreme members of the Independence party demanding the establishment of separate banks for Austria and Hungary with, at most, common superintendence (see History, below).
(O. Br.)
History
I. The Whole Monarchy.
The empire of Austria, as the official designation of the territories ruled by the Habsburg monarchy, dates back only to 1804, when Francis II., the last of the Holy Roman emperors, proclaimed himself emperor of Austria as Francis I. His motive in doing so was to guard against the great house of Habsburg being relegated to a position inferior to the parvenus Bonapartes, in the event of the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, or of the possible election of Napoleon as his own successor on the throne of Charlemagne. The title emperor of Austria, then, replaced that of "Imperator Romanorum semper Augustus" when the Holy Empire came to an end in 1806. From the first, however, it was no more than a title, which represented but ill the actual relation of the Habsburg sovereigns to their several states. Magyars and Slavs never willingly recognized a style which ignored their national rights and implied the superiority of the German elements of the monarchy; to the Germans it was a poor substitute for a title which had represented the political unity of the German race under the Holy Empire. For long after the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815 the "Kaiser" as such exercised a powerful influence over the imaginations of the German people outside the Habsburg dominions; but this was because the title was still surrounded with its ancient halo and the essential change was not at once recognized. The outcome of the long struggle with Prussia, which in 1866 finally broke the spell, and the proclamation of the German empire in 1871 left the title of emperor of Austria stripped of everything but a purely territorial significance. It had, moreover, by the compact with Hungary of 1867, ceased even fully to represent the relation of the emperor to all his dominions; and the title which had been devised to cover the whole of the Habsburg monarchy sank into the official style of the sovereign of but a half; while even within the Austrian empire proper it is resented by those peoples which, like the Bohemians, wish to obtain the same recognition of their national independence as was conceded to Hungary. In placing the account of the origin and development of the Habsburg monarchy under this heading, it is merely for the sake of convenience.
The first nucleus round which the present dominions of the house of Austria gradually accumulated was the mark which lay along the south bank of the Danube, east of the river Enns, founded about A.D. 800 as a defence for the Frankish kingdom against the Slavs. Although its total length from east to west was only about 60 m., it was associated in the popular mind with a large and almost unbroken tract of land in the east of Europe. This fact, together with the position of the mark with regard to Germany in general and to Bavaria in particular, accounts for the name Osterreich (Austria), i.e. east empire or realm, a word first used in a charter of 996, where the phrase in regione vulgari nomine Ostarrichi occurs. The development of this small mark into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was a slow and gradual process, and falls into two main divisions, which almost coincide with the periods during which the dynasties of Babenberg and Habsburg have respectively ruled the land. The energies of the house of Babenberg were chiefly spent in enlarging the area and strengthening the position of the mark itself, and when this was done the house of Habsburg set itself with remarkable perseverance and marvellous success to extend its rule over neighbouring territories. The many vicissitudes which have attended this development have not, however, altered the European position of Austria, which has remained the same for over a thousand years. Standing sentinel over the valley of the middle Danube, and barring the advance of the Slavs on Germany, Austria, whether mark, duchy or empire, has always been the meeting-place of the Teuton and the Slav. It is this fact which gives it a unique interest and importance in the history of Europe, and which unites the ideas of the Germans to-day with those of Charlemagne and Otto the Great.
The southern part of the country now called Austria was inhabited before the opening of the Christian era by the Taurisci, a Celtic tribe, who were subsequently called the Norici, and who were conquered by the Romans about 14 B.C. Their land was afterwards included in the provinces of Pannonia and Noricum, and under Roman rule, Vindobona, the modern Vienna, became a place of some importance. The part of the country north of the Danube was peopled by the Marcomanni and the Quadi, and both of these tribes were frequently at war with the Romans, especially during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, who died at Vindobona in A.D. 180 when campaigning against them. Christianity and civilization obtained entrance into the land, but the increasing weakness of the Roman empire opened the country to the inroads of the barbarians, and during the period of the great migrations it was ravaged in quick succession by a number of these tribes, prominent among whom were the Huns. The lands on both banks of the river shared the same fate, due probably to the fact to which Gibbon has drawn attention, that at this period the Danube was frequently frozen over. About 590 the district was settled by the Slovenes, or Corutanes, a Slavonic people, who formed part of the kingdom of Samo, and were afterwards included in the extensive kingdom of the Avars. The Franks claimed some authority over this people, and probably some of the princes of the Slovenes had recognized this claim, but it could not be regarded as serious while the Avars were in possession of the land. In 791 Charlemagne, after he had established his authority over the Bajuvarii or Bavarians, crossed the river Enns, and moved against the Avars. This attack was followed by campaigns on the part of his lieutenants, and in 805 the Avars were finally subdued, and their land incorporated with the Frankish empire. This step brought the later Austria definitely under the rule of the Franks, and during the struggle Charlemagne erected a mark, called the East Mark, to defend the eastern border of his empire. A series of margraves ruled this small district from 799 to 907, but as the Frankish empire grew weaker, the mark suffered more and more from the ravages of its eastern neighbours. During the 9th century the Frankish supremacy vanished, and the mark was overrun by the Moravians, and then by the Magyars, or Hungarians, who destroyed the few remaining traces of Frankish influence.
A new era dawned after Otto the Great was elected German king in 936, and it is Otto rather than Charlemagne who must be regarded as the real founder of Austria. In August 955 he gained a great victory over the Magyars on the Lechfeld, freed Bavaria from their presence, and refounded the East Mark for the defence of his kingdom. In 976 his son, the emperor Otto II., entrusted the government of this mark, soon to be known as Austria, to Leopold, a member of the family of Babenberg (q.v.), and its administration was conducted with vigour and success. Leopold and his descendants ruled Austria until the extinction of the family in 1246, and by their skill and foresight raised the mark to an important place among the German states. Their first care was to push its eastern frontier down the Danube valley, by colonizing the lands on either side of the river, and the success of this work may be seen in the removal of their capital from Pöchlarn to Melk, then to Tulln, and finally about 1140 to Vienna. The country as far as the Leitha was subsequently incorporated with Austria, and in the other direction the district between the Enns and the Inn was added to the mark in 1156, an important date in Austrian history. Anxious to restore peace to Germany in this year, the new king, Frederick I., raised Austria to the rank of a duchy, and conferred upon it exceptional privileges. The investiture was bestowed not only upon Duke Henry but upon his second wife, Theodora; in case of a failure of male heirs the duchy was to descend to females; and if the duke had no children he could nominate his successor. Controlling all the jurisdiction of the land, the duke's only duties towards the Empire were to appear at any diet held in Bavaria, and to send a contingent to the imperial army for any campaigns in the countries bordering upon Austria. In 1186 Duke Leopold I. made a treaty with Ottakar IV., duke of Styria, an arrangement which brought Styria and upper Austria to the Babenbergs in 1192, and in 1229 Duke Leopold II. purchased some lands from the bishop of Freising, and took the title of lord of Carniola. When the house of Babenberg became extinct in 1246, Austria, stretching from Passau almost to Pressburg, had the frontiers which it retains to-day, and this increase of territory had been accompanied by a corresponding increase in wealth and general prosperity. The chief reason for this prosperity was the growth of trade along the Danube, which stimulated the foundation, or the growth, of towns, and brought considerable riches to the ruler. Under the later Babenbergs Vienna was regarded as one of the most important of German cities, and it was computed that the duke was as rich as the archbishop of Cologne, or the margrave of Brandenburg, and was surpassed in this respect by only one German prince, the king of Bohemia. The interests of the Austrian margraves and dukes were not confined to the acquisition of wealth either in land or chattels. Vienna became a centre of culture and learning, and many religious houses were founded and endowed. The acme of the early prosperity of Austria was reached under Duke Leopold II., surnamed the Glorious, who reigned from 1194 to 1230. He gave a code of municipal law to Vienna, and rights to other towns, welcomed the Minnesingers to his brilliant court, and left to his subjects an enduring memory of valour and wisdom. Leopold and his predecessors were enabled, owing to the special position of Austria, to act practically as independent rulers. Cherishing the privilege of 1156, they made treaties with foreign kings, and arranged marriages with the great families of Europe. With full control of jurisdiction and of commerce, no great bishopric nor imperial city impeded the course of their authority, and the emperor interfered only to settle boundary disputes.
The main lines of Austrian policy under the Babenbergs were warfare with the Hungarians and other eastern neighbours, and a general attitude of loyalty towards the emperors. The story of the Hungarian wars is a monotonous record of forays, of assistance given at times to the Babenbergs by the forces of the Empire, and ending in the gradual eastward advance of Austria. The traditional loyalty to the emperors, which was cemented by several marriages between the imperial house and the Babenbergs, was, however, departed from by the margrave Leopold II., and by Duke Frederick II. During the investiture struggle Leopold deserted the emperor Henry IV., who deprived him of Austria and conferred it upon Vratislav II., duke of the Bohemians. Unable to maintain his position, Vratislav was soon driven out, and in 1083 Leopold again obtained possession of the mark, and was soon reconciled with Henry. Very similar was the result of the conflict between the emperor Frederick II. and Duke Frederick II. Ignoring the the privilege of 1156, the emperor claimed certain rights in Austria, and summoned the duke to his Italian diets. Frederick, who was called the Quarrelsome, had irritated both his neighbours and his subjects, and complaints of his exactions and confiscations reached the ears of the emperor. After the duke had three times refused to appear before the princes, Frederick placed him under the ban, declared the duchies of Austria and Styria to be vacant, and, aided by the king of Bohemia, the duke of Bavaria and other princes, invaded the country in 1236. He met with very slight opposition, declared the duchies to be immediately dependent upon the Empire, made Vienna an imperial city, and imposed other changes upon the constitution of Austria. After his departure, however, the duke returned, and in 1239 was in possession of his former power, while the changes made by the emperor were ignored. Continuing his career of violence and oppression, Duke Frederick was killed in battle by the Hungarians in June 1246, when the family of Babenberg became extinct.
The duchies of Austria and Styria were now claimed by the emperor Frederick II. as vacant fiefs of the Empire, and their government was entrusted to Otto II., duke of Bavaria. Frederick, however, who was in Italy, harassed and afflicted, could do little to assert the imperial authority, and his enemy, Pope Innocent IV., bestowed the two duchies upon Hermann VI., margrave of Baden, whose wife, Gertrude, was a niece of the last of the Babenbergs. Hermann was invested by the German king, William, count of Holland, but he was unable to establish his position, and law and order were quickly disappearing from the duchies. The deaths of Hermann and of the emperor in 1250, however, paved the way for a settlement. Weary of struggle and disorder, and despairing of any help from the central authority, the estates of Austria met at Trübensee in 1251, and chose Ottakar, son of Wenceslaus I., king of Bohemia, as their duke. This step was favoured by the pope, and Ottakar, eagerly accepting the offer, strengthened his position by marrying Margaret, a sister of Duke Frederick II., and in return for his investiture promised his assistance to William of Holland. Styria appears at this time to have shared the fortunes of Austria, but it was claimed by Bela IV., king of Hungary, who conquered the land, and made a treaty with Ottakar in 1254 which confirmed him in its possession. The Hungarian rule was soon resented by the Styrians, and Ottakar, who had become king of Bohemia in 1253, took advantage of this resentment, and interfered in the affairs of the duchy. A war with Hungary was the result, but on this occasion victory rested with Ottakar, and by a treaty made with Bela, in March 1261, he was recognized as duke of Styria. In 1269 Ottakar inherited the duchy of Carinthia on the death of Duke Ulrich III., and, his power having now become very great, he began to aspire to the German throne. He did something to improve the condition of the duchies by restoring order, introducing German colonists into the eastern districts, and seeking to benefit the inhabitants of the towns.
In 1273 Rudolph, count of Habsburg, became German king, and his attention soon turned to Ottakar, whose power menaced the occupant of the German throne. Finding some support in Austria, Rudolph questioned the title of the Bohemian king to the three duchies, and sought to recover the imperial lands which had been in the possession of the emperor Frederick II. Ottakar was summoned twice before the diet, the imperial court declared against him, and in July 1275 he was placed under the ban. War was the result, and in November 1276 Ottakar submitted to Rudolph, and renounced the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia. For some time the three duchies were administered by Rudolph in his capacity as head of the Empire, of which they formed part. Not content with this tie, however, which was personal to himself alone, the king planned to make them hereditary possessions of his family, and to transfer the headquarters of the Habsburgs from the Rhine to the Danube. Some opposition was offered to this scheme; but the perseverance of the king overcame all difficulties, and one of the most important events in European history took place on the 27th of December 1282, when Rudolph invested his sons, Rudolph and Albert, with the duchies of Austria and Styria. He retained Carinthia in his own hands until 1286, when, in return for valuable services, he bestowed it upon Meinhard IV., count of Tirol. The younger Rudolph took no part in the government of Austria and Styria, which was undertaken by Albert, until his election as German king in 1298. Albert appears to have been rather an arbitrary ruler. In 1288 he suppressed a rising of the people of Vienna, and he made the fullest use of the ducal power in asserting his real or supposed rights. At this time the principle of primogeniture was unknown in the house of Habsburg, and for many years the duchies were ruled in common by two, or even three, members of the family. After Albert became German king, his two elder sons, Rudolph and Frederick, were successively associated with him in the government, and after his death in 1308, his four younger sons shared at one time or another in the administration of Austria and Styria. In 1314 Albert's son, Frederick, was chosen German king in opposition to Louis IV., duke of Upper Bavaria, afterwards the emperor Louis IV., and Austria was weakened by the efforts of the Habsburgs to sustain Frederick in his contest with Louis, and also by the struggle carried on between another brother, Leopold, and the Swiss. A series of deaths among the Habsburgs during the first half of the 14th century left Duke Albert II. and his four sons as the only representatives of the family. Albert ruled the duchies alone from 1344 to 1356, and after this date his sons began to take part in the government. The most noteworthy of these was Duke Rudolph IV., a son-in-law of the emperor Charles IV., who showed his interest in learning by founding the university of Vienna in 1365. Rudolph's chief aim was to make Austria into an independent state, and he forged a series of privileges the purport of which was to free the duchy from all its duties towards the Empire. A sharp contest with the emperor followed this proceeding, and the Austrian duke, annoyed that Austria was not raised to the dignity of an electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356, did not shrink from a contest with Charles. In 1361, however, he abandoned his pretensions, but claimed the title of archduke (q.v.) and in 1364 declared that the possessions of the Habsburgs were indivisible. Meanwhile the acquisition of neighbouring territories had been steadily pressed on. In 1335 the duchy of Carinthia, and a part of Carniola, were inherited by Dukes Albert II. and Otto, and in 1363 Rudolph IV. obtained the county of Tirol. In 1364 Carniola was made into an hereditary duchy; in 1374 part of Istria came under the rule of the Habsburgs; in 1382 Trieste submitted voluntarily to Austria, and at various times during the century, other smaller districts were added to the lands of the Habsburgs.
Rudolph IV. died childless in 1365, and in 1379 his two remaining brothers, Leopold III. and Albert III., made a division of their lands, by which Albert retained Austria proper and Carniola, and Leopold got Styria, Carinthia and Tirol. Leopold was killed in 1386 at the battle of Sempach, and Albert became guardian for his four nephews, who subsequently ruled their lands in common. The senior line which ruled in Austria was represented after the death of Duke Albert III. in 1395 by his son, Duke Albert IV., and then by his grandson, Duke Albert V., who became German king as Albert II. in 1438. Albert married Elizabeth, daughter of Sigismund, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and on the death of his father-in-law assumed these two crowns. He died in 1439, and just after his death a son was born to him, who was called Ladislaus Posthumus, and succeeded to the duchy of Austria and to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. William and Leopold, the two eldest sons of Duke Leopold III., and, with their younger brothers Ernest and Frederick, the joint rulers of Styria, Carinthia and Tirol, died early in the 15th century, and in 1406 Ernest and Frederick made a division of their lands. Ernest became duke of Styria and Carinthia, and Frederick, count of Tirol. Ernest was succeeded in 1424 by his sons, Frederick and Albert, and Frederick in 1439 by his son, Sigismund, and these three princes were reigning when King Albert II. died in 1439. Frederick, who succeeded Albert as German king, and was soon crowned emperor as Frederick III., acted as guardian for Sigismund of Tirol, who was a minor, and also became regent of Austria in consequence of the infancy of Ladislaus. His rule was a period of struggle and disorder, owing partly to the feebleness of his own character, partly to the wish of his brother, Albert, to share his dignities. The Tirolese soon grew weary of his government, and, in 1446, Sigismund was declared of age. The estates of Austria were equally discontented and headed an open revolt, the object of which was to remove Ladislaus from Frederick's charge and deprive the latter of the regency. The leading spirit in this movement was Ulrich Eiczing (Eitzing or von Eiczinger, d. before 1463), a low-born adventurer, ennobled by Albert II., in whose service he had accumulated vast wealth and power. In 1451 he organized an armed league, and in December, with the aid of the populace, made himself master of Vienna, whither he had summoned the estates. In March 1452 he was joined by Count Ulrich of Cilli, while the Hungarians and the powerful party of the great house of Rosenberg in Bohemia attached themselves to the league. Frederick, who had hurried back from Italy, was besieged in August in the Vienna Neustadt, and was forced to deliver Ladislaus to Count Ulrich, whose influence had meanwhile eclipsed that of Eiczing. Ladislaus now ruled nominally himself, under the tutelage of Count Ulrich. The country was, however, distracted by quarrels between the party of the high aristocracy, which recognized the count of Cilli as its chief, and that of the lesser nobles, citizens and populace, who followed Eiczing. In September 1453 the latter, by a successful émeute, succeeded in ousting Count Ulrich, and remained in power till February 1455, when the count once more entered Vienna in triumph. Ulrich of Cilli was killed before Belgrade in November 1456; a year later Ladislaus himself died (November 1457). Meanwhile Styria and Carinthia were equally unfortunate under the rule of Frederick and Albert; and the death of Ladislaus led to still further complications. Austria, which had been solemnly created an archduchy by the emperor Frederick in 1453, was claimed by the three remaining Habsburg princes, and lower Austria was secured by Frederick, while Albert obtained upper Austria. Both princes were unpopular, and in 1462 Frederick was attacked by the inhabitants of Vienna, and was forced to surrender lower Austria to Albert, whose spendthrift habits soon made his rule disliked. A further struggle between the brothers was prevented by Albert's death in 1463, when the estates did homage to Frederick. The emperor was soon again at issue with the Austrian nobles, and was attacked by Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, who drove him from Vienna in 1485. Although hampered by the inroads of the Turks, Matthias pressed on, and by 1487 was firmly in possession of Austria, Styria and Carinthia, which seemed quite lost to the Habsburgs.
The decline in the fortunes of the family, however, was to be arrested by Frederick's son, Maximilian, afterwards the emperor Maximilian I., who was the second founder of the greatness of the house of Habsburg. Like his ancestor, Rudolph, he had to conquer the lands over which his descendants were destined to rule, and by arranging a treaty of succession to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, he pointed the way to power and empire in eastern Europe. Soon after his election as king of the Romans in 1486, Maximilian attacked the Hungarians, and in 1490 he had driven them from Austria, and recovered his hereditary lands. In the same year he made an arrangement with his kinsman, Sigismund of Tirol, by which he brought this county under his rule, and when the emperor Frederick died in 1493, Maximilian united the whole of the Austrian lands under his sway. Continuing his acquisitions of territory, he inherited the possessions of the counts of Görz in 1500, added some districts to Tirol by intervening in a succession war in Bavaria, and acquired Gradisca in 1512 as the result of a struggle with Venice. He did much for the better government of the Austrian duchies. Bodies were established for executive, financial and judicial purposes, the Austrian lands constituted one of the imperial circles which were established in 1512, and in 1518 representatives of the various diets (Landtage) met at Innsbruck, a proceeding which marks the beginning of an organic unity in the Austrian lands. In these ways Maximilian proved himself a capable and energetic ruler, although his plans for making Austria into a kingdom, or an electorate, were abortive.
At the close of the middle ages the area of Austria had increased to nearly 50,000 sq. m., but its internal condition does not appear to have improved in proportion to this increase in size. The rulers of Austria lacked the prestige which attached to the electoral office, and, although five of them had held the position of German king, the four who preceded Maximilian had added little or nothing to the power and dignity of this position. The ecclesiastical organization of Austria was imperfect, so long as there was no archbishopric within its borders, and its clergy owed allegiance to foreign prelates. The work of unification which was so successfully accomplished by Maximilian was aided by two events, the progress of the Turks in south-eastern Europe, and the loss of most of the Habsburg possessions on the Rhine. The first tended to draw the separate states together for purposes of defence, and the second turned the attention of the Habsburgs to the possibilities of expansion in eastern Europe.
(A. W. H.*)
At the time of the death of the emperor Maximilian in 1519 the Habsburg dominions in eastern Germany included the duchies of Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the county of Tirol. Maximilian was succeeded as archduke of Austria as well as emperor by his grandson Charles of Spain, known in history as the emperor Charles V. To his brother Ferdinand Charles resigned all his Austrian lands, including his claims on Bohemia and Hungary. Austria and Spain were thus divided, and, in spite of the efforts of the archduke Charles in the Spanish Succession War, were never again united, for at the battle of Mohács, on the 28th of August 1526, Suleiman the Magnificent defeated and killed Louis, king of Bohemia and of Hungary, whose sister Anne had married Ferdinand. By this victory the Turks conquered and retained, till the peace of Karlowitz in 1699, the greater part of Hungary. During most of his life Ferdinand was engaged in combating the Turks and in attempting to secure Hungary. In John Zápolya, who was supported by Suleiman, Ferdinand found an active rival. The Turks besieged Vienna in 1530 and made several invasions of Hungary and Austria. At length Ferdinand agreed to pay Suleiman an annual tribute for the small portion - about 12,228 sq. m. - of Hungary which he held. During Charles V.'s struggles with the German Protestants, Ferdinand preserved a neutral attitude, which contributed to gain Germany a short period of internal peace. Though Ferdinand himself did not take a leading part in German religious or foreign politics, the period was one of intense interest to Austria. Throughout the years from 1519 to 1648 there are, said Stubbs, two distinct ideas in progress which "may be regarded as giving a unity to the whole period.... The Reformation is one, the claims of the House of Austria is the other." Austria did not benefit from the reign of Charles V. The emperor was too much absorbed in the affairs of the rest of his vast dominions, notably those of the Empire, rent in two by religious differences and the secular ambitions for which those were the excuse, to give any effective attention to its needs. The peace of Augsburg, 1555, which recognized a dualism within the Empire in religion as in politics, marked the failure of his plan of union (see Charles V.; Germany; Maurice of Saxony); and meanwhile he had been able to accomplish nothing to rescue Hungary from the Turkish yoke. It was left for his brother Ferdinand, a ruler of consummate wisdom (1556-1564) "to establish the modern Habsburg-Austrian empire with its exclusive territorial interests, its administrative experiments, its intricacies of religion and of race."
Before his death Ferdinand divided the inheritance of the German Habsburgs between his three sons. Austria proper was left to his eldest son Maximilian, Tirol to the archduke Ferdinand; and Styria with Carinthia and Carniola to the archduke Charles. Under the emperor Maximilian II. (1564-1576), who was also king of Bohemia and Hungary, a liberal policy preserved peace, but he was unable to free his government from its humiliating position of a tributary to the Turk, and he could do nothing to found religious liberty within his dominions on a permanent basis. The whole of Austria and nearly the whole of Styria were mainly Lutheran; in Bohemia, Silesia and Moravia, various forms of Christian belief struggled for mastery; and Catholicism was almost confined to the mountains of Tirol. The accession of Rudolph II.[1] (1576-1612), a fanatical Spanish Catholic, changed the situation entirely. Under him the Jesuits were encouraged to press on the counter-Reformation. In the early part of his reign there was hardly any government at all. In Bohemia a state of semi-independence existed, while Hungary preferred the Turk to the emperor. In both kingdoms Rudolph had failed to assert his sovereign power except in fitful attempts to extirpate heresy. With anarchy prevalent within the Austrian dominions some action became necessary. Accordingly in 1606 the archdukes made a compact agreeing to acknowledge the archduke Matthias as head of the family. This arrangement proved far from successful. Matthias, who was emperor from 1612 to 1619, proved unable to restore order, and when he died Bohemia was practically independent. His successor Ferdinand II. (1619-1637) was strong of will; and resolved to win back Germany to the Catholic faith. As archduke of Styria he had crushed out Protestantism in that duchy, and having been elected king of Bohemia in 1618 was resolved to establish there the rule of the Jesuits. His attempt to do so led to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War (see Bohemia; Thirty Years' War). Till 1630 the fortunes of Austria brightened under the active rule of Ferdinand, who was assisted by Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic League, and by Wallenstein. The Palatinate was conquered, the Danish king was overthrown, and it seemed that Austria would establish its predominance over the whole of Germany, and that the Baltic would become an Austrian lake. The fortunes of Austria never seemed brighter than in 1628 when Wallenstein began the siege of Stralsund. His failure, followed by the arrival of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany in 1630, proved the death blow of Austrian hopes. In 1632 Gustavus Adolphus was killed, in 1634 Wallenstein was assassinated, and in 1635 France entered into the war. The Thirty Years' War now ceased to be a religious struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism; it resolved itself into a return to the old political strife between France and the Habsburgs. Till 1648 the Bourbon and Habsburg powers continued the war, and at the peace of Westphalia Austria suffered severe losses. Ferdinand III. (1637-1657) was forced to yield Alsace to France, to grant territorial supremacy, including the right of making alliances, to the states of the Empire, and to acknowledge the concurrent jurisdiction of the imperial chamber and the Aulic council. The disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire was now practically accomplished, and though the possession of the imperial dignity continued to give the rulers of Austria prestige, the Habsburgs henceforward devoted themselves to their Austrian interests rather than to those of the Empire.
In 1657 Leopold I., who had already ruled the Austrian dominions for two years, succeeded his father Ferdinand and was crowned emperor in the following year. His long reign of 48 years was of great importance for Austria, as determining both the internal character and the external policy of the monarchy. The long struggle with France to which the ambitions of Louis XIV. gave rise, and which culminated in the War of Spanish Succession, belongs less to the history of Austria proper than to that of Germany and of Europe. Of more importance to Austria itself was the war with Sweden (1657-60) which resulted in the peace of Oliva, by which the independence of Poland was secured and the frontier of Hungary safeguarded, and the campaigns against the Turks (1662-64 and 1683-99), by which the Ottoman power was driven from Hungary, and the Austrian attitude towards Turkey and the Slav peoples of the Balkans determined for a century to come. The first war, due to Ottoman aggression in Transylvania, ended with Montecuculi's victory over the grand vizier at St Gothard on the Raab on the 1st of August 1664. The general political situation prevented Leopold from taking full advantage of this, and the peace of Vasvár (August 10) left the Turks in possession of Nagyvarad (Grosswardein) and the fortress of Ersekujvár (Neuhäusel), Transylvania being recognized as an independent principality. The next Turkish war was the direct outcome of Leopold's policy in Hungary, where the persecution of the Protestants and the suppression of the constitution in 1658, led to a widespread conspiracy. This was mercilessly suppressed; and though after a period of arbitrary government (1672-1679), the palatinate and the constitution, with certain concessions to the Protestants, were restored, the discontent continued. In 1683, invited by Hungarian malcontents and spurred on by Louis XIV., the Turks burst into Hungary, overran the country and appeared before the walls of Vienna. The victory of the 12th of September, gained over the Turks by John Sobieski (see John III. Sobieski, King of Poland) not only saved the Austrian capital, but was the first of a series of successes which drove the Turks permanently beyond the Danube, and established the power of Austria in the East. The victories of Charles of Lorraine at Párkány (1683) and Esztergom (Gran) (1685) were followed by the capture of Budapest (1686) and the defeat of the Ottomans at Mohács (1688). In 1688 the elector took Belgrade; in 1691 Louis William I. of Baden won the battle of Slankamen, and on the 11th of September 1697 Prince Eugene gained the crowning victory of Zenta. This was followed, on the 26th of January 1699, by the peace of Karlowitz, by which Slavonia, Transylvania and all Hungary, except the banat of Temesvár, were ceded to the Austrian crown. Leopold had wisely decided to initiate a conciliatory policy in Hungary. At the diet of Pressburg (1687-1688) the Hungarian crown had been made hereditary in the house of Habsburg, and the crown prince Joseph had been crowned hereditary king of Hungary (q.v.). In 1697 Transylvania was united to the Hungarian monarchy. A further fact of great prospective importance was the immigration, after an abortive rising against the Turks, of some 30,000 Slav and Albanian families into Slavonia and southern Hungary, where they were granted by the emperor Leopold a certain autonomy and the recognition of the Orthodox religion.
By the conquest of Hungary and Transylvania Leopold completed the edifice of the Austrian monarchy, of which the foundations had been laid by Ferdinand I. in 1526. He had also done much for its internal consolidation. By the death of the archduke Sigismund in 1665 he not only gained Tirol, but a considerable sum of money, which he used to buy back the Silesian principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor, pledged by Ferdinand III. to the Poles. In the administration of his dominions, too, Leopold succeeded in strengthening the authority of the central government. The old estates, indeed, survived; but the emperor kept the effective power in his own hands, and to his reign are traceable the first beginnings of that system of centralized bureaucracy which was established under Maria Theresa and survived, for better or for worse, till the revolution of 1848. It was under Leopold, also, that the Austrian standing army was established in spite of much opposition; the regiments raised in 1672 were never disbanded. For the intellectual life of the country Leopold did much. In spite of his intolerant attitude towards religious dissent, he proved himself an enlightened patron of learning. He helped in the establishment of the universities of Innsbruck and Olmütz; and under his auspices, after the defeat of the Turks in 1683, Vienna began to develop from a mere frontier fortress into one of the most brilliant capitals of Europe. (See Leopold I.)
Leopold died in 1705 during the war of Spanish Succession (1702-13), which he left as an evil inheritance to his sons Joseph I. (d. 1711) and Charles VI. The result of the war was a further aggrandizement of the house of Austria; but not to the extent that had been hoped. Apart from the fact that British and Austrian troops had been unable to deprive Philip V. of his throne, it was from the point of view of Europe at large by no means desirable that Charles VI. should succeed in reviving the empire of Charles V. By the treaty of Utrecht, accordingly, Spain was left to the House of Bourbon, while that of Austria received the Spanish Netherlands, Sardinia and Naples.
The treaty of Karlowitz, and the settlement of 1713-1714, marked a new starting-point in the history of Austria. The efforts of Turkey to regain her ascendancy in eastern Europe at the expense of the Habsburgs had ended in failure, and henceforward Turkish efforts were confined to resisting the steady development of Austria in the direction of Constantinople. The treaties of Utrecht, Rastadt and Baden had also re-established and strengthened the position of the Austrian monarchy in western Europe. The days of French invasions of Germany had for the time ceased, and revenge for the attacks made by Louis XIV. was found in the establishment of Austrian supremacy in Italy and in the substitution of Austrian for Spanish domination in the Netherlands.
The situation, though apparently favourable, was full of difficulty, and only a statesman of uncommon dexterity could have guided Austria with success through the ensuing years. Composed of a congeries of nationalities which included Czechs, Magyars, Ruthenes, Rumanians, Germans, Italians, Flemings and other races, and with territories separated by many miles, the Habsburg dominions required from their ruler patience, tolerance, administrative skill and a full knowledge of the currents of European diplomacy. Charles VI. possessed none of these qualities; and when he died in 1740, the weakness of the scattered Habsburg empire rendered it an object of the cupidity of the continental powers. Yet, though the War of Spanish Succession had proved a heavy drain on the resources of the hereditary dominions of the Austrian crown, Charles VI. had done much to compensate for this by the successes of his arms in eastern Europe. In 1716, in alliance with Venice, he declared war on the Turks; Eugene's victory at Peterwardein involved the conquest of the banat of Temesvár, and was followed in 1717 by the capture of Belgrade. By the treaty signed at Passarowitz on the 21st of July 1718, the banat, which rounded off Hungary and Belgrade, with the northern districts of Servia, were annexed to the Habsburg monarchy.
Important as these gains were, the treaty none the less once more illustrated the perpetual sacrifice of the true interests of the hereditary dominions of the house of Habsburg to its European entanglements. Had the war continued, Austria would undoubtedly have extended her conquests down the Danube. But Charles was anxious about Italy, then in danger from Spain, which under Alberoni's guidance had occupied Sardinia and Sicily. On the 2nd of August 1718, accordingly, Charles joined the Triple Alliance, henceforth the Quadruple Alliance. The coercion of Spain resulted in a peace by which Charles obtained Sicily in exchange for Sardinia. The shifting of the balance of power that followed belongs to the history of Europe (q.v.); for Austria the only important outcome was that in 1731 Charles found himself isolated. Being without a son, he was now anxious to secure the throne for his daughter Maria Theresa, in accordance with the Pragmatic Sanction of the 19th of April 1713, in which he had pronounced the indivisibility of the monarchy, and had settled the succession on his daughter, in default of a male heir. It now became his object to secure the adhesion of the powers to this instrument. In 1731 Great Britain and Holland agreed to respect it, in return for the cession of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla to Don Carlos; but the hostility of the Bourbon powers continued, resulting in 1733 in the War of Polish Succession, the outcome of which was the acquisition of Lorraine by France, and of Naples, Sicily and the Tuscan ports by Don Carlos, while the power of the Habsburg monarchy in northern Italy was strengthened by the acquisition of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla. At the same time Spain and Sardinia adhered to the Pragmatic Sanction. Francis, the dispossessed duke of Lorraine, was to be compensated with Tuscany. On the 12th of February 1736 he was married to the archduchess Maria Theresa, and on the 11th of May following he signed the formal act ceding Lorraine to France.
The last years of Charles VI. were embittered by the disastrous outcome of the war with Turkey (1738-1739), on which he had felt compelled to embark in accordance with the terms of a treaty of alliance with Russia signed in 1726. After a campaign of varying fortunes the Turks beat the imperial troops at Krotzka on the 23rd of July 1739 and laid siege to Belgrade, where on the 1st of September a treaty was signed, which, with the exception of the banat, surrendered everything that Austria had gained by the treaty of Passarowitz. On the 20th of October 1740, Charles died, leaving his dominions in no condition to resist the attacks of the powers, which, in spite of having adhered to the Pragmatic Sanction, now sought to profit from their weakness. Yet for their internal development Charles had done much. His religious attitude was moderate and tolerant, and he did his best to promote the enlightenment of his subjects. He was zealous, too, for the promotion of trade and industry, and, besides the East India Company which he established at Ostend, he encouraged the development of Trieste and Fiume as sea-ports and centres of trade with the Levant.
The accession of Maria Theresa to the throne of the Habsburgs marks an important epoch in the history of Austria. For a while, indeed, it seemed that the monarchy was on the point of dissolution. To the diplomacy of the 18th century the breach of a solemn compact was but lightly regarded; and Charles VI. had neglected the advice of Prince Eugene to leave an effective army of 200,000 men as a more solid guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction than the signatures of the powers. As it was, the Austrian forces, disorganized in the long confusion of the Turkish wars, were in no condition to withstand Frederick the Great, when in 1740, at the head of the splendid army bequeathed to him by his father, he invaded Silesia (see Austrian Succession, War of). The Prussian victory at Mollwitz (April 10, 1741) brought into the field against Austria all the powers which were ambitious of expansion at her expense: France, Bavaria, Spain, Saxony and Sardinia. Nor was the peril wholly external. Apart from the perennial discontents of Magyars and Slavs, the confusion and corruption of the administration, and the misery caused by the ruin of the finances, had made the Habsburg dynasty unpopular even in its German states, and in Vienna itself a large section of public opinion was loudly in favour of the claims of Charles of Bavaria. Yet the war, if it revealed the weakness of the Austrian monarchy, revealed also unexpected sources of strength. Not the least of these was the character of Maria Theresa herself, who to the fascination of a young and beautiful woman added a very masculine resolution and judgment. In response to her personal appeal, and also to her wise and timely concessions, the Hungarians had rallied to her support, and for the first time in history awoke not only to a feeling of enthusiastic loyalty to a Habsburg monarch, but also to the realization that their true interests were bound up with those of Austria (see Hungary: History). Although, then, as the result of the war, Silesia was by the treaty of Dresden transferred from Austria to Prussia, while in Italy by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 cessions were made at the expense of the house of Habsburg to the Spanish Don Philip and to Sardinia, the Austrian monarchy as a whole had displayed a vitality that had astonished the world, and was in some respects stronger than at the beginning of the struggle, notably in the great improvement in the army and in the possession of generals schooled by the experience of active service.
The period from 1747 to 1756, the year of the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, was occupied in preparations for carrying into effect the determination of Maria Theresa to recover the lost provinces. To give any chance of success, it was recognized that a twofold change of system was necessary: in internal and in external affairs. To strengthen the state internally a complete revolution of its administration was begun under the auspices of Count F. W. Haugwitz (1700-1765); the motley system which had survived from the middle ages was gradually replaced by an administrative machinery uniformly organized and centralized; and the army especially, hitherto patched together from the quotas raised and maintained by the various diets and provincial estates, was withdrawn from their interference. These reforms were practically confined to the central provinces of the monarchy; for in Hungary, as well as in the outlying territories of Lombardy and the Netherlands, it was recognized that the conservative temper of the peoples made any revolutionary change in the traditional system inadvisable.
Meanwhile, in foreign affairs, it had become clear that for Austria the enemy to be dreaded was no longer France, but Prussia, and Kaunitz prepared the way for a diplomatic revolution, which took effect when, on the 1st of May 1756, Austria and France concluded the first treaty of Versailles. The long rivalry between Bourbons and Habsburgs was thus ended, and France and Austria remained in alliance or at peace until the outbreak of the French Revolution. So far as Austria was concerned, the Seven Years' War (q.v.) in which France and Austria were ranged against Prussia and Great Britain, was an attempt on the part of Maria Theresa to recover Silesia. It failed; and the peace of Hubertsburg, signed on the 15th of February 1763, left Germany divided between Austria and Prussia, whose rivalry for the hegemony was to last until the victory of Königgrätz (1866) definitely decided the issue in favour of the Hohenzollern monarchy.
The loss of Silesia led Austria to look for "compensation" elsewhere. The most obvious direction in which this could be sought was in Bavaria, ruled by the decadent house of Wittelsbach, the secular rival of the house of Habsburg in southern Germany. The question of the annexation of Bavaria by conquest or exchange had occupied the minds of Austrian statesmen throughout the century: it would not only have removed a perpetual menace to the peace of Austria, but would have given to the Habsburg monarchy an overwhelming strength in South Germany. The matter came to an issue in 1777, on the death of the elector Maximilian III. The heir was the elector palatine Charles Theodore, but Joseph II., who had been elected emperor in 1765, in succession to his father, and appointed co-regent with his mother - claimed the inheritance, and prepared to assert his claims by force. The result was the so-called War of Bavarian Succession. As a matter of fact, however, though the armies under Frederick and Joseph were face to face in the field, the affair was settled without actual fighting; Maria Theresa, fearing the chances of another struggle with Prussia, overruled her son at the last moment, and by the treaty of Teschen agreed to be content with the cession of the Quarter of the Inn (Innviertel) and some other districts.
Meanwhile the ambition of Catherine of Russia, and the war with Turkey by which the empire of the tsars was advanced to the Black Sea and threatened to establish itself south of the Danube, were productive of consequences of enormous importance to Austria in the East. Russian control of the Danube was a far more serious menace to Austria than the neighbourhood of the decadent Ottoman power; and for a while the policy of Austria towards the Porte underwent a change that foreshadowed her attitude towards the Eastern Question in the 19th century. In spite of the reluctance of Maria Theresa, Kaunitz, in July 1771, concluded a defensive alliance with the Porte. He would have exchanged this for an active co-operation with Turkey, could Frederick the Great have been persuaded to promise at least neutrality in the event of a Russo-Austrian War. But Frederick was unwilling to break with Russia, with whom he was negotiating the partition of Poland; Austria in these circumstances dared not take the offensive; and Maria Theresa was compelled to purchase the modification of the extreme claims of Russia in Turkey by agreeing to, and sharing in, the spoliation of Poland. Her own share of the spoils was the acquisition, by the first treaty of partition (August 5, 1772), of Galicia and Lodomeria. Turkey was left in the lurch; and Austrian troops even occupied portions of Moldavia, in order to secure the communication between the new Polish provinces and Transylvania. At Constantinople, too, Austria once more supported Russian policy, and was rewarded, in 1777, by the acquisition of Bukovina from Turkey. In Italy the influence of the House of Austria had been strengthened by the marriage of the archduke Ferdinand with the heiress of the d'Estes of Modena, and the establishment of the archduke Leopold in the grand-duchy of Tuscany.
In internal affairs Maria Theresa may be regarded as the practical founder of the unified Austrian state. The new system of centralization has already been referred to. It only remains to add that, in carrying out this system, Maria Theresa was too wise to fall into the errors afterwards made by her son and successor. She was no doctrinaire, and consistently acted on the principle once laid down by Machiavelli, that while changing the substance, the prince should be careful to preserve the form of old institutions. Alongside the new bureaucracy, the old estates survived in somnolent inactivity, and even in Hungary, though the ancient constitution was left untouched, the diet was only summoned four times during the reign, and reforms were carried out, without protest, by royal ordinance. It was under Maria Theresa, too, that the attempt was first made to make German the official language of the whole monarchy; an attempt which was partly successful even in Hungary, especially so far as the army was concerned, though Latin remained the official tongue of the diet, the county-assemblies and the courts.
The social, religious and educational reforms of Maria Theresa also mark her reign as the true epoch of transition from medieval to modern conditions in Austria. In religious matters the empress, though a devout Catholic and herself devoted to the Holy See, was carried away by the prevailing reaction, in which her ministers shared, against the pretensions of the papacy. The anti-papal tendency, known as Febronianism (q.v.), had made immense headway, not only among the laity but among the clergy in the Austrian dominions. By a new law, papal bulls could not be published without the consent of the crown, and the direct intercourse of the bishops with Rome was forbidden; the privileges of the religious orders were curtailed; and the education of the clergy was brought under state control. It was, however, only with reluctance that Maria Theresa agreed to carry out the papal bull suppressing the Society of Jesus; and, while declaring herself against persecution, she could never be persuaded to accept the views of Kaunitz and Joseph in favour of toleration. Parallel with the assertion of the rights of the state as against the church, was the revolution effected in the educational system of the monarchy. This, too, was taken from the control of the church; the universities were remodelled and modernized by the introduction of new faculties, the study of ecclesiastical law being transferred from that of theology to that of jurisprudence, and the elaborate system of elementary and secondary education was established, which survived with slight modification till 1869.
The death of Maria Theresa in 1780 left Joseph II. free to attempt the drastic revolution from above, which had been restrained by the wise statesmanship of his mother. He was himself a strange incarnation at once of doctrinaire liberalism and the old Habsburg autocracy. Of the essential conditions of his empire he was constitutionally unable to form a conception. He was a disciple, not of Machiavelli, but of Rousseau; and his scattered dominions, divided by innumerable divergences of racial and class prejudice, and encumbered with traditional institutions to which the people clung with passionate conservatism, he regarded as so much vacant territory on which to build up his ideal state. He was, in fact, a Revolutionist who happened also to be an emperor. "Reason" and "enlightenment" were his watchwords; opposition to his wise measures he regarded as obscurantist and unreasonable, and unreason, if it proved stubborn, as a vice to be corrected with whips. In this spirit he at once set to work to reconstruct the state, on lines that strangely anticipated the principles of the Constituent Assembly of 1789. He refused to be crowned or to take the oath of the local constitutions, and divided the whole monarchy into thirteen departments, to be governed under a uniform system. In ecclesiastical matters his policy was also that of "reform from above," the complete subordination of the clergy to the state, and the severance of all effective ties with Rome. This treatment of the "Fakirs and Ulemas" (as he called them in his letters), who formed the most powerful element in the monarchy, would alone have ensured the failure of his plans, but failure was made certain by the introduction of the conscription, which turned even the peasants, whom he had done much to emancipate, against him. The threatened revolt of Hungary, and the actual revolt of Tirol and of the Netherlands (see Belgium: History) together with the disasters of the war with Turkey, forced him, before he died, to the formal reversal of the whole policy of reform.
In his foreign policy Joseph II. had been scarcely less unhappy. In 1784 he had resumed his plan of acquiring Bavaria for Austria by negotiating with the elector Charles Theodore its exchange for the Netherlands, which were to be erected for his benefit into a "Kingdom of Burgundy." The elector was not unwilling, but the scheme was wrecked by the opposition of the heir to the Bavarian throne, the duke of Zweibrücken, in response to whose appeal Frederick the Great formed, on the 23rd of July 1785, a confederation of German princes (Fürstenbund) for the purpose of opposing the threatened preponderance of Austria. Prussia was thus for the first time formally recognized as the protector of the German states against Austrian ambition, and had at the same time become the centre of an anti-Austrian alliance, which embraced Sweden, Poland and the maritime powers. In these circumstances the war with Turkey, on which Joseph embarked, in alliance with Russia, in 1788, would hardly have been justified by the most brilliant success. The first campaign, however, which he conducted in person was a dismal failure; the Turks followed the Austrian army, disorganized by disease, across the Danube, and though the transference of the command to the veteran marshal Loudon somewhat retrieved the initial disasters, his successes were more than counterbalanced by the alliance, concluded on the 31st of January 1790, between Prussia and Turkey. Three weeks later, on the 20th of February 1790, Joseph died broken-hearted.
The situation needed all the statesmanship of the new ruler, Leopold II. This was less obvious in his domestic than in his foreign policy, though perhaps equally present. As grand-duke of Tuscany Leopold had won the reputation of an enlightened and liberal ruler; but meanwhile "Josephinism" had not been justified by its results, and the progress of the Revolution in France was beginning to scare even enlightened princes into reaction. Leopold, then, reverted to the traditional Habsburg methods; the old supremacy of the Church, regarded as the one effective bond of empire, was restored; and the Einheitsstaat was once more resolved into its elements, with the old machinery of diets and estates, and the old abuses. It was the beginning of that policy of "stability" associated later with Metternich, which was to last till the cataclysm of 1848. For the time, the policy was justified by its results. The spirit of revolutionary France had not yet touched the heart of the Habsburg empire, and national rivalries were expressed, not so much in expansive ambitions, as in a somnolent clinging to traditional privileges. Leopold, therefore, who made his début on the European stage as the executor of the ban of the Empire against the insurgent Liégeois, was free to pose as the champion of order against the Revolution, without needing to fear the resentment of his subjects. He played this role with consummate skill in the negotiations that led up to the treaty of Reichenbach (August 15, 1790), which ended the quarrel with Prussia and paved the way to the armistice of Giurgevo with Turkey (September 10). Leopold was now free to deal with the Low Countries, which were reduced to order before the end of the year. On the 4th of August 1791, was signed at Sistova the definitive peace with Turkey, which practically established the status quo.
On the 6th of October 1700, Leopold had been crowned Roman emperor at Frankfort, and it was as emperor, not as Habsburg, that he first found himself in direct antagonism to the France of the Revolution. The fact that Leopold's sister, Marie Antoinette, was the wife of Louis XVI. had done little to cement the Franco-Austrian alliance, which since 1763 had been practically non-existent; nor was it now the mainspring of his attitude towards revolutionary France. But by the decree of the 4th of August, which in the general abolition of feudal rights involved the possessions of many German princes enclavés in Alsace and Lorraine, the Constituent Assembly had made the first move in the war against the established European system. Leopold protested as sovereign of Germany; and the protest was soon enlarged into one made in the name of Europe. The circular letter of Count Kaunitz, dated the 6th of July 1791, calling on the sovereigns to unite against the Revolution, was at once the beginning of the Concert of Europe, and in a sense the last manifesto of the Holy Roman Empire as "the centre of political unity." But the common policy proclaimed in the famous declaration of Pillnitz (August 27), was soon wrecked upon the particular interests of the powers. Both Austria and Prussia were much occupied with the Polish question, and to have plunged into a crusade against France would have been to have left Poland, where the new constitution had been proclaimed on the 3rd of May, to the mercy of Russia. Towards the further development of events in France, therefore, Leopold assumed at first a studiously moderate attitude; but his refusal to respond to the demand of the French government for the dispersal of the corps of émigrés assembled under the protection of the German princes on the frontier of France, and the insistence on the rights of princes dispossessed in Alsace and Lorraine, precipitated the crisis. On the 25th of January 1792 the French Assembly adopted the decree declaring that, in the event of no satisfactory reply having been received from the emperor by the 1st of March, war should be declared. On the 7th of February Austria and Prussia signed at Berlin an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance. Thus was ushered in the series of stupendous events which were to change the face of Europe and profoundly to affect the destinies of Austria. Leopold himself did not live to see the beginning of the struggle; he died on the 1st of March 1792, the day fixed by the Legislative Assembly as that on which the question of peace or war was to be decided.
The events of the period that followed, in which Austria necessarily played a conspicuous part, are dealt with elsewhere (see Europe, French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleon, Napoleonic Campaigns). Here it will only be necessary to mention those which form permanent landmarks in the progressive conformation of the Austrian monarchy. Such was the second partition of Poland (January 23, 1793), which eliminated the "buffer state" on which Austrian statesmanship had hitherto laid such importance, and brought the Austrian and Russian frontiers into contact. Such, too, was the treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797) which ended the first revolutionary war. By this treaty the loss of the Belgian provinces was confirmed, and though Austria gained Venice, the establishment of French preponderance in the rest of Italy made a breach in the tradition of Habsburg supremacy in the peninsula, which was to have its full effect only in the struggles of the next century. The rise of Napoleon, and his masterful interference in Germany, produced a complete and permanent revolution in the relations of Austria to the German states. The campaigns which issued in the treaty of Lunéville (February 9, 1801) practically sealed the fate of the old Empire. Even were the venerable name to survive, it was felt that it would pass, by the election of the princes now tributary to France, from the house of Habsburg to that of Bonaparte. Francis II. determined to forestall the possible indignity of the subordination of his family to an upstart dynasty. On the 14th of May 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed emperor of the French; on the 11th of August Francis II. assumed the style of Francis I., hereditary emperor of Austria. Two years later, when the defeat of Austerlitz had led to the treaty of Pressburg (January 1st, 1806) by which Austria lost Venice and Tirol, and Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine had broken the unity of Germany, Francis formally abdicated the title and functions of Holy Roman emperor (August 6, 1806).
Austria had to undergo further losses and humiliations, notably by the treaty of Vienna (1809), before the outcome of Napoleon's Russian campaign in 1812 gave her the opportunity for recuperation and revenge. The skilful diplomacy of Metternich, who was now at the head of the Austrian government, enabled Austria to take full advantage of the situation created by the disaster to Napoleon's arms. His object was to recover Austria's lost possessions and if possible to add to them, a policy which did not necessarily involve the complete overthrow of the French emperor. Austria, therefore, refused to join the alliance between Russia and Prussia signed on the 17th of March 1813, but pressed on her armaments so as to be ready in any event. Her opportunity came after the defeats of the Allies at Lützen and Bautzen and the conclusion of an armistice at Pleswitz. Between 200,000 and 300,000 Austrian troops were massed in Bohemia; and Austria took up the rôle of mediator, prepared to throw the weight of her support into the scale of whichever side should prove most amenable to her claims. The news of the battle of Vittoria, following on the reluctance of Napoleon to listen to demands involving the overthrow of the whole of his political system in Central Europe, decided Austria in favour of the Allies. By this fateful decision Napoleon's fall was assured. By the treaty of Trachenberg (July 12, 1813) the Grand Alliance was completed; on the 16th, 17th and 18th of October the battle of Leipzig was fought; and the victorious advance into France was begun, which issued, on the 11th of April 1814, in Napoleon's abdication. (See Napoleon, Napoleonic Campaigns, Europe.)
It was a recognition of the decisive part played by Austria in these great events that Vienna was chosen as the scene of the great international congress summoned (September 1814) for the purpose of re-establishing the balance of power in Europe, which Napoleon's conquests had upset. An account of the congress is given elsewhere (see Vienna, Congress of). The result for Austria was a triumphant vindication of Metternich's diplomacy. He had, it is true, been unable to prevent the retention of the grand-duchy of Warsaw by Alexander of Russia; but with the aid of Great Britain and France (secret treaty of January 3, 1815) he had frustrated the efforts of Prussia to absorb the whole of Saxony, Bavaria was forced to disgorge the territories gained for her by Napoleon at Austria's expense, Illyria and Dalmatia were regained, and Lombardy was added to Venetia to constitute a kingdom under the Habsburg crown; while in the whole Italian peninsula French was replaced by Austrian influence. In Germany the settlement was even more fateful for Austria's future. The Holy Empire, in spite of the protests of the Holy See, was not restored, Austria preferring the loose confederation of sovereign states (Staatenbund) actually constituted under her presidency. Such a body, Metternich held, "powerful for defence, powerless for offence," would form a guarantee of the peace of central Europe - and of the preponderance of Austria; and in its councils Austrian diplomacy, backed by the weight of the Habsburg power beyond the borders of Germany, would exercise a greater influence than any possible prestige derived from a venerable title that had become a by-word for the union of unlimited pretensions with practical impotence. Moreover, to the refusal to revive the Empire - which shattered so many patriotic hopes in Germany - Austria added another decision yet more fateful. By relinquishing her claim to the Belgian provinces and other outlying territories in western Germany, and by acquiescing in the establishment of Prussia in the Rhine provinces, she abdicated to Prussia her position as the bulwark of Germany against France, and hastened the process of her own gravitation towards the Slavonic East to which the final impetus was given in 1866.
In order to understand the foreign policy of Austria, inseparably associated with the name of Metternich, during the period from the close of the congress of Vienna to the outbreak of the revolutions of 1848, it is necessary to know something of the internal conditions of the monarchy before and during this time. In 1792 Leopold II. had been succeeded by his son Francis II. His popular designation of "our good Kaiser Franz" this monarch owed to a certain simplicity of address and bonhomie which pleased the Viennese, certainly not to his serious qualities as a ruler. He shared to the full the autocratic temper of the Habsburgs, their narrow-mindedness and their religious and intellectual obscurantism; and the qualities which would have made him a kindly, if somewhat tyrannical, father of a family, and an excellent head clerk, were hardly those required by the conditions of the Austrian monarchy during a singularly critical period of its history.
The personal character of the emperor, moreover, gained a special importance owing to the modifications that were made in the administrative system of the empire. This had been originally organized in a series of departments: Aulic chanceries for Austria, for Hungary and Transylvania, a general Aulic chamber for finance, domains, mines, trade, post, etc., an Aulic council of war, a general directory of accounts, and a chancery of the household, court and state. The heads of all these departments had the rank of secretaries of state and met in council under the royal presidency. In course of time, however, this body became too unwieldy for an effective cabinet, and Maria Theresa established the council of state. During the early years of the reign of Francis, the emperor kept himself in touch with the various departments by means of a cabinet minister; but he had a passion for detail, and after 1805 he himself undertook the function of keeping the administration together. At the same time he had no personal contact with ministers, who might communicate with him only in writing, and for months together never met for the discussion of business. The council of state was, moreover, itself soon enlarged and subdivided; and in course of time the emperor alone represented any synthesis of the various departments of the administration. The jurisdiction of the heads of departments, moreover, was strictly defined, and all that lay outside this was reserved for the imperial decision. Whatever was covered by established precedent could be settled by the department at once; but matters falling outside such precedent, however insignificant, had to be referred to the throne.[2] A system so inelastic, and so deadening to all initiative, could have but one result. Gradually the officials, high and low, subjected to an elaborate system of checks, refused to take any responsibility whatever; and the minutest administrative questions were handed up, through all the stages of the bureaucratic hierarchy, to be shelved and forgotten in the imperial cabinet. For Francis could not possibly himself deal with all the questions of detail arising in his vast empire, even had he desired to do so. In fact, his attitude towards all troublesome problems was summed up in his favourite phrase, "Let us sleep upon it": questions unanswered would answer themselves.
The result was the gradual atrophy of the whole administrative machine. The Austrian government was not consciously tyrannical, even in Italy; and Francis himself, though determined to be absolute, intended also to be paternal. Nor would the cruelties inflicted on the bolder spirits who dared to preach reform, which made the Austrian government a by-word among the nations, alone have excited the passionate spirit of revolt which carried all before it in 1848. The cause of this is to be sought rather in the daily friction of a system which had ceased to be efficient and only succeeded in irritating the public opinion it was powerless to curb.
Metternich himself was fully conscious of the evil. He recognized that the fault of the government lay in the fact that it did not govern, and he deplored that his own function, in a decadent age, was but "to prop up mouldering institutions." He was not constitutionally averse from change; and he was too clear-sighted not to see that, sooner or later, change was inevitable. But his interest was in the fascinating game of diplomacy; he was ambitious of playing the leading part on the great stage of international politics; and he was too consummate a courtier to risk the loss of the imperial favour by any insistence on unpalatable reforms, which, after all, would perhaps only reveal the necessity for the complete revolution which he feared.
The alternative was to use the whole force of the government to keep things as they were. The disintegrating force of the ever-simmering racial rivalries could be kept in check by the army; Hungarian regiments garrisoned Italy, Italian regiments guarded Galicia, Poles occupied Austria, and Austrians Hungary. The peril from the infiltration of "revolutionary" ideas from without was met by the erection round the Austrian dominions of a Chinese wall of tariffs and censors, which had, however, no more success than is usual with such expedients.[3] The peril from the independent growth of Liberalism within was guarded against by a rigid supervision of the press and the re-establishment of clerical control over education. Music alone flourished, free from government interference; but, curiously enough, the movements, in Bohemia, Croatia and elsewhere, for the revival of the national literatures and languages - which were to issue in the most difficult problem facing the Austrian government at the opening of the 20th century - were encouraged in exalted circles, as tending to divert attention from political to purely scientific interests. Meanwhile the old system of provincial diets and estates was continued or revived (in 1816 in Tirol and Vorarlberg, 1817 in Galicia, 1818 in Carniola, 1828 in the circle of Salzburg), but they were in no sense representative, clergy and nobles alone being eligible, with a few delegates from the towns, and they had practically no functions beyond registering the imperial decrees, relative to recruiting or taxation, and dealing with matters of local police.[4] Even the ancient right of petition was seldom exercised, and then only to meet with the imperial disfavour. And this stagnation of the administration was accompanied, as might have been expected, by economic stagnation. Agriculture languished, hampered, as in France before the Revolution, by the feudal privileges of a noble caste which no longer gave any equivalent service to the state; trade was strangled by the system of high tariffs at the frontier and internal octrois; and finally public credit was shaken to its foundations by lavish issues of paper money and the neglect to publish the budget.
The maintenance within the empire of a system so artificial and so unsound, involved in foreign affairs the policy of preventing the success of any movements by which it might be threatened. The triumph of Liberal principles or of national aspirations in Germany, or elsewhere in Europe, might easily, as the events of 1848 proved, shatter the whole rotten structure of the Habsburg monarchy, which survived only owing to the apathy of the populations it oppressed. This, then, is the explanation of the system of "stability" which Metternich succeeded in imposing for thirty years upon Europe. If he persuaded Frederick William III. that the grant of a popular constitution would be fatal to the Prussian monarchy, this was through no love of Prussia; the Carlsbad Decrees and the Vienna Final Act were designed to keep Germany quiet, lest the sleep of Austria should be disturbed; the lofty claims of the Troppau Protocol were but to cover an Austrian aggression directed to purely Austrian ends: and in the Eastern Question, the moral support given to the "legitimate" authority of the sultan over the "rebel" Greeks was dictated solely by the interest of Austria in maintaining the integrity of Turkey. (See Europe: History; Germany: History; Alexander I. of Russia; Metternich, etc.)
Judged by the standard of its own aims Metternich's diplomacy was, on the whole, completely successful. For fifteen years after the congress of Vienna, in spite of frequent alarms, the peace of Europe was not seriously disturbed; and even in 1830, the revolution at Paris found no echo in the great body of the Austrian dominions. The isolated revolts in Italy were easily suppressed; and the insurrection of Poland, though it provoked the lively sympathy of the Magyars and Czechs, led to no actual movement in the Habsburg states. For a moment, indeed, Metternich had meditated taking advantage of the popular feeling to throw the weight of Austria into the scale in favour of the Poles, and thus, by re-establishing a Polish kingdom under Austrian influence, to restore the barrier between the two empires which the partition of Poland had destroyed. But cautious counsels prevailed, and by the victory of the Russian arms the status quo was restored (see Poland).
The years that followed were not wanting in signs of the coming storm. On the 2nd of March 1835 Francis I. died, and was succeeded by his son Ferdinand I. The new emperor was personally amiable, but so enfeebled by epilepsy as to be incapable of ruling; a veiled regency had to be constituted to carry on the government, and the vices of the administration were further accentuated by weakness and divided counsels at the centre. Under these circumstances popular discontent made rapid headway. The earliest symptoms of political agitation were in Hungary, where the diet began to show signs of vigorous life, and the growing Slav separatist movements, especially in the south of the kingdom, were rousing the old spirit of Magyar ascendancy (see Hungary: History). For everywhere the Slav populations were growing restive under the German-Magyar domination. In Bohemia the Czech literary movement had developed into an organized resistance to the established order, which was attacked under the disguise of a criticism of the English administration in Ireland. "Repeal" became the watchword of Bohemian, as of Irish, nationalists (see Bohemia). Among the southern Slavs the "Illyrian" movement, voiced from 1836 onward in the Illyrian National Gazette of Ljudevit Gaj, was directed in the first instance to a somewhat shadowy Pan-Slav union, which, on the interference of the Austrian government in 1844, was exchanged for the more definite object of a revival of "the Triune Kingdom" (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia) independent of the Hungarian crown (see Croatia, etc.). In the German provinces also, in spite of Metternich's censors and police, the national movements in Germany had gained an entrance, and, as the revolution of 1848 in Vienna was to show, the most advanced revolutionary views were making headway.
The most important of all the symptoms of the approaching cataclysm was, however, the growing unrest among the peasants. As had been proved in France in 1789, and was again to be shown in Russia in 1906, the success of any political revolution depended ultimately upon the attitude of the peasant class. In this lies the main significance of the rising in Galicia in 1846. This was in its origin a Polish nationalist movement, hatched in the little independent republic of Cracow. As such it had little importance; though, owing to the incompetence of the Austrian commander, the Poles gained some initial successes. More fateful was the attitude of the Orthodox Ruthenian peasantry, who were divided from their Catholic Polish over-lords by centuries of religious and feudal oppression. The Poles had sought, by lavish promises, to draw them into their ranks; their reply was to rise in support of the Austrian government. In the fight at Gdow (February 26th), where Benedek laid the foundations of the military reputation that was to end so tragically at Königgrätz, flail and scythe wrought more havoc in the rebel ranks than the Austrian musketry. Since, in spite of this object-lesson, the Polish nobles still continued their offers, the peasants consulted the local Austrian authorities as to what course they should take; and the local authorities, unaccustomed to arriving at any decision without consulting Vienna, practically gave them carte blanche to do as they liked. A hideous jacquerie followed for three or four days; during which cartloads of dead were carried into Tarnow, where the peasants received a reward for every "rebel" brought in.
This affair was not only a scandal for which the Austrian government, through its agents, was responsible; but it placed the authorities at Vienna in a serious dilemma. For the Ruthenians, elated by their victory, refused to return to work, and demanded the abolition of all feudal obligations as the reward of their loyalty. To refuse this claim would have meant the indefinite prolongation of the crisis; to concede it would have been to invite the peasantry of the whole empire to put forth similar demands on pain of a general rising. On the 13th of April 1846 an imperial decree abolished some of the more burdensome feudal obligations; but this concession was greeted with so fierce an outcry, as an authoritative endorsement of the atrocities, that it was again revoked, and Count Franz von Stadion was sent to restore order in Galicia. The result was, that the peasants saw that though their wrongs were admitted, their sole hope of redress lay in a change of government, and added the dead weight of their resentment to the forces making for revolution. It was the union of the agrarian with the nationalist movements that made the downfall of the Austrian system inevitable.
The material for the conflagration in Austria was thus all prepared when in February 1848 the fall of Louis Philippe fanned into a blaze the smouldering fires of revolution throughout Europe. On the 3rd of March, Kossuth, in the diet at Pressburg, delivered the famous speech which was the declaration of war of Hungarian Liberalism against the Austrian system. "From the charnel-house of the Vienna cabinet," he exclaimed, "a pestilential air breathes on us, which dulls our nerves and paralyses the flight of our spirit." Hungary liberated was to become the centre of freedom for all the races under the Austrian crown, and the outcome was to be a new "fraternization of the Austrian peoples." In the enthusiasm of the moment the crucial question of the position to be occupied by the conflicting nationalities in this "fraternal union" was overlooked. Germanism had so far served as the basis of the Austrian system, not as a national ideal, but because "it formed a sort of unnational mediating, and common element among the contradictory and clamorous racial tendencies." But with the growth of the idea of German unity, Germanism had established a new ideal, of which the centre lay beyond the boundaries of the Austrian monarchy, and which was bound to be antagonistic to the aspirations of other races. The new doctrine of the fraternization of the Austrian races would inevitably soon come into conflict with the traditional German ascendancy strengthened by the new sentiment of a united Germany. It was on this rock that, both in Austria and in Germany, the revolution suffered shipwreck.
Meanwhile events progressed rapidly. On the 11th of March a meeting of "young Czechs" at Prague drew up a petition embodying nationalist and liberal demands; and on the same day the diet of Lower Austria petitioned the crown to summon a meeting of the delegates of the diets to set the Austrian finances in order. To this last proposal the government, next day, gave its consent. But in the actual temper of the Viennese the slightest concession was dangerous. The hall of the diet was invaded by a mob of students and workmen, Kossuth's speech was read and its proposals adopted as the popular programme, and the members of the diet were forced to lead a tumultuous procession to the Hofburg, to force the assent of the government to a petition based on the catch-words of the Revolution. The authorities, taken by surprise, were forced to temporize and agreed to lay the petition before the emperor. Meanwhile round the hall of the diet a riot had broken out; the soldiers intervened and blood was shed. The middle classes now joined the rebels; and the riots had become a revolution. Threatened by the violence of the mob, Metternich, on the evening of the 13th of March, escaped from the Hofburg and passed into exile in England.
The fall of Metternich was the signal for the outburst of the storm, not in Austria only, but throughout central Europe. In Hungary, on the 31st of March, the government was forced to consent to a new constitution which virtually erected Hungary into an independent state. On the 8th of April a separate constitution was promised to Bohemia; and if the petition of the Croats for a similar concession was rejected, this was due to the armed mob of Vienna, which was in close alliance with Kossuth and the Magyars. The impotence of the Austrian government in this crisis was due to the necessity of keeping the bulk of the Austrian forces in Italy, where the news of Metternich's fall had also led to a concerted rising against the Habsburg rule (see Italy). Upon the fortunes of war in the peninsula depended the ultimate issue of the revolutions so far as Austria was concerned.
The army and the prestige of the imperial tradition were, in fact, the two sheet-anchors that enabled the Habsburg monarchy to weather the storm. For the time the latter was the only one available; but it proved invaluable, especially in Germany, in preventing any settlement, until Radetzky's victory of Novara had set free the army, and thus once more enabled Austria to back her policy by force. The Austrian government, in no position to refuse, had consented to send delegates from its German provinces to the parliament of united Germany, which met at Frankfort on the 18th of May 1848. The question at once arose of the place of the Austrian monarchy in united Germany. Were only its German provinces to be included? Or was it to be incorporated whole? As to the first, the Austrian government would not listen to the suggestion of a settlement which would have split the monarchy in half and subjected it to a double allegiance. As to the second, German patriots could not stomach the inclusion in Germany of a vast non-German population. The dilemma was from the first so obvious that the parliament would have done well to have recognized at once that the only possible solution was that arrived at, after the withdrawal of the Austrian delegates, by the exclusion of Austria altogether and the offer of the crown of Germany to Frederick William of Prussia. But the shadow of the Holy Empire, immemorially associated with the house of Habsburg, still darkened the counsels of German statesmen. The Austrian archduke John had been appointed regent, pending the election of an emperor; and the political leaders could neither break loose from the tradition of Austrian hegemony, nor reconcile themselves with the idea of a mutilated Germany, till it was too late, and Austria was once more in a position to re-establish the system devised by her diplomacy at the congress of Vienna. (See Germany: History.)
This fatal procrastination was perhaps not without excuse, in view of the critical situation of the Austrian monarchy during 1848. For months after the fall of Metternich Austria was practically without a central government. Vienna itself, where on the 14th of March the establishment of a National Guard was authorized by the emperor, was ruled by a committee of students and citizens, who arrogated to themselves a voice in imperial affairs, and imposed their will on the distracted ministry. On the 15th of March the government proposed to summon a central committee of local diets; but this was far from satisfying public opinion, and on the 25th of April a constitution was proclaimed, including the whole monarchy with the exception of Hungary and Lombardo-Venetia. This was, however, met by vigorous protests from Czechs and Poles, while its provisions for a partly nominated senate, and the indirect election of deputies, excited the wrath of radical Vienna. Committees of students and national guards were formed; on the 13th of May a Central Committee was established; and on the 15th a fresh insurrection broke out, as a result of which the government once more yielded, recognizing the Central Committee, admitting the right of the National Guard to take an active part in politics, and promising the convocation of a National Convention on the basis of a single chamber elected by universal suffrage. On the 17th the emperor left Vienna for Innsbruck "for the benefit of his health," and thence, on the 20th, issued a proclamation in which he cast himself on the loyalty of his faithful provinces, and, while confirming the concessions of March, ignored those of the 15th of May. The flight of the emperor had led to a revulsion of feeling in Vienna; but the issue of the proclamation and the attempt of the government to disperse the students by closing the university, led to a fresh outbreak on the 26th. Once more the ministry conceded all the demands of the insurgents, and even went so far as to hand over the public treasury and the responsibility of keeping order to a newly constituted Committee of Public Safety.
The tide was now, however, on the turn. The Jacobinism of the Vienna democracy was not really representative of any widespread opinion even in the German parts of Austria, while its loud-voiced Germanism excited the lively opposition of the other races. Each of these had taken advantage of the March troubles to press its claims, and everywhere the government had shown the same yielding spirit. In Bohemia, where the attempt to hold elections for the Frankfort parliament had broken down on the opposition of the Czechs and the conservative German aristocracy, a separate constitution had been proclaimed on the 8th of April; on March the 23rd the election by the diet of Agram of Baron Joseph Jellachich as ban of Croatia was confirmed, as a concession to the agitation among the southern Slavs; on the 18th of March Count Stadion had proclaimed a new constitution for Galicia. Even where, as in the case of the Serbs and Rumans, the government had given no formal sanction to the national claims, the emperor was regarded as the ultimate guarantee of their success; and deputations from the various provinces poured into Innsbruck protesting their loyalty.
To say that the government deliberately adopted the Machiavellian policy of mastering the revolution by setting race against race would be to pay too high a compliment to its capacity. The policy was forced upon it; and was only pursued consciously when it became obvious. Count Stadion began it in Galicia, where, before bombarding insurgent Cracow into submission (April 26), he had won over the Ruthenian peasants by the abolition of feudal dues and by forwarding a petition to the emperor for the official recognition of their language alongside Polish. But the great object lesson was furnished by the events in Prague, where the quarrel between Czechs and Germans, radicals and conservatives, issued on the 12th of June in a rising of the Czech students and populace. The suppression of this rising, and with it of the revolution in Bohemia, on the 16th of June, by Prince Windischgrätz, was not only the first victory of the army, but was the signal for the outbreak of a universal race war, in which the idea of constitutional liberty was sacrificed to the bitter spirit of national rivalry. The parliament at Frankfort hailed Windischgrätz as a national hero, and offered to send troops to his aid; the German revolutionists in Vienna welcomed every success of Radetzky's arms in Italy as a victory for Germanism. The natural result was to drive the Slav nationalities to the side of the imperial government, since, whether at Vienna or at Budapest, the radicals were their worst enemies.
The 16th of June had been fatal to the idea of an independent Bohemia, fatal also to Pan-Slav dreams. To the Czechs the most immediate peril now seemed that from the German parliament, and in the interests of their nationality they were willing to join the Austrian government in the struggle against German liberalism. The Bohemian diet, summoned for the 19th, never met. Writs were issued in Bohemia for the election to the Austrian Reichsrath; and when, on the 10th of July, this assembled, the Slav deputies were found to be in a majority. This fact, which was to lead to violent trouble later, was at first subordinate to other issues, of which the most important was the question of the emancipation of the peasants. After long debates the law abolishing feudal services - the sole permanent outcome of the revolution - was carried on the 31st of August, and on the 7th of September received the imperial consent. The peasants thus received all that they desired, and their vast weight was henceforth thrown into the scale of the government against the revolution.
Meanwhile the alliance between the Slav nationalities and the conservative elements within the empire had found a powerful representative in Jellachich, the ban of Croatia. At first, indeed, his activity had been looked at askance at Innsbruck, as but another force making for disintegration. He had apparently identified himself with the "Illyrian" party, had broken off all communications with the Hungarian government, and, in spite of an imperial edict issued in response to the urgency of Batthyáni, had summoned a diet to Agram, which on the 9th of June decreed the separation of the "Triune Kingdom" from Hungary. The imperial government, which still hoped for Magyar aid against the Viennese revolutionists, repudiated the action of the ban, accused him of disobedience and treason, and deprived him of his military rank. But his true motives were soon apparent; his object was to play off the nationalism of the "Illyrians" against the radicalism of Magyars and Germans, and thus to preserve his province for the monarchy; and the Hungarian radicals played into his hands. The fate of the Habsburg empire depended upon the issue of the campaign in Italy, which would have been lost by the withdrawal of the Magyar and Croatian regiments; and the Hungarian government chose this critical moment to tamper with the relations of the army to the monarchy. In May a National Guard had been established; and the soldiers of the line were invited to join this, with the promise of higher pay; on the 1st of June the garrison of Pest took the oath to the Constitution. On the 10th Jellachich issued a proclamation to the Croatian regiments in Italy, bidding them remain and fight for the emperor and the common Fatherland. His loyalty to the tradition of the imperial army was thus announced, and the alliance was cemented between the army and the southern Slavs.
Jellachich, who had gone to Innsbruck to lay the Slav view before the emperor, was allowed to return to Agram, though not as yet formally reinstated. Here the diet passed a resolution denouncing the dual system and demanding the restoration of the union of the empire. Thus was proclaimed the identity of the Slav and the conservative points of view; the radical "Illyrian" assembly had done its work, and on the 9th of July Jellachich, while declaring it "permanent," prorogued it indefinitely "with a paternal greeting," on the ground that the safety of the Fatherland depended now "more upon physical than upon moral force." The diet thus prorogued never met again. Absolute master of the forces of the banat, Jellachich now waited until the intractable politicians of Pest should give him the occasion and the excuse for setting the imperial army in motion against them.
The occasion was not to be long postponed. Every day the rift between the dominant radical element in the Hungarian parliament and imperial court was widened. Kossuth and his followers were evidently aiming at the complete separation of Hungary from Austria; they were in sympathy, if not in alliance, with the German radicals in Vienna and Frankfort; they were less than half-hearted in their support of the imperial arms in Italy. The imperial government, pressed by the Magyar nationalists to renounce Jellachich and all his works, equivocated and procrastinated, while within its councils the idea of a centralized state, to replace the loose federalism of the old empire, slowly took shape under the pressure of the military party. It was encouraged by the news from Italy, where, on the 25th of July, Radetzky had won the battle of Custozza, and on the 6th of August the Austrian standard once more floated over the towers of Milan. At Custozza Magyar hussars, Croats from the Military Frontier, and Tirolese sharpshooters had fought side by side. The possibility was obvious of combating the radical and nationalist revolution by means of the army, with its spirit of comradeship in arms and its imperialist tradition.
So early as the beginning of July, Austrian officers, with the permission of the minister of war, had joined the Serb insurgents who, under Stratemirović, were defying the Magyar power in the banat. By the end of August the breach between the Austrian and Hungarian governments was open and complete; on the 4th of September Jellachich was reinstated in all his honours, and on the 11th he crossed the Drave to the invasion of Hungary. The die was thus cast; and, though efforts continued to be made to arrange matters, the time for moderate counsels was passed. The conservative leaders of the Hungarian nationalists, Eötvös and Deák, retired from public life; and, though Batthyáni consented to remain in office, the slender hope that this gave of peace was ruined by the flight of the palatine (September 24) and the murder of Count Lamberg, the newly appointed commissioner and commander-in-chief in Hungary, by the mob at Pest (September 27). The appeal was now to arms; and the fortunes of the Habsburg monarchy were bound up with the fate of the war in Hungary (see Hungary: History).
Meanwhile, renewed trouble had broken out in Vienna, where the radical populace was in conflict alike with the government and with the Slav majority of the Reichsrath. The German democrats appealed for aid to the Hungarian government; but the Magyar passion for constitutional legality led to delay, and before the Hungarian advance could be made effective, it was too late. On the 7th of October the emperor Ferdinand had fled from Schönbrunn to Olmütz, a Slav district, whence he issued a proclamation inviting whoever loved "Austria and freedom" to rally round the throne. On the 11th Windischgrätz proclaimed his intention of marching against rebellious Vienna, and on the 16th an imperial rescript appointed him a field-marshal and commander-in-chief of all the Austrian armies except that of Italy. Meanwhile, of the Reichsrath, the members of the Right and the Slav majority had left Vienna and announced a meeting of the diet at Brünn for the 20th of October; all that remained in the capital was a rump of German radicals, impotent in the hands of the proletariat and the students. The defence of the city was hastily organized under Bern, an ex-officer of Napoleon; but in the absence of help from Hungary it was futile. On the 28th of October Windischgrätz began his attack; on the 1st of November he was master of the city.
The fall of revolutionary Vienna practically involved that of the revolution in Frankfort and in Pest. From Italy the congratulations of Radetzky's victorious army came to Windischgrätz, from Russia the even more significant commendations of the emperor Nicholas. The moral of the victory was painted for all the world by the military execution of Robert Blum, whose person, as a deputy of the German parliament, should have been sacrosanct. The time had, indeed, not yet come to attempt any conspicuous breach with the constitutional principle; but the new ministry was such as the imperial sentiment would approve, inimical to the German ideals of Frankfort, devoted to the traditions of the Habsburg monarchy. At its head was Prince Felix Schwarzenberg (q.v.), the "army-diplomat," a statesman at once strong and unscrupulous. On the 27th of November a proclamation announced that the continuation of Austria as a united state was necessary both for Germany and for Europe. On the 2nd of December the emperor Ferdinand, bound by too many personal obligations to the revolutionary parties to serve as a useful instrument for the new policy, abdicated, and his nephew Francis Joseph ascended the throne. The proclamation of the new emperor was a gage of defiance thrown down to Magyars and German unionists alike: "Firmly determined to preserve undimmed the lustre of our crown," it ran, "but prepared to share our rights with the representatives of our peoples, we trust that with God's aid and in common with our peoples we shall succeed in uniting all the countries and races of the monarchy in one great body politic."
While the Reichsrath, transferred to Kremsier, was discussing "fundamental rights" and the difficult question of how to reconcile the theoretical unity with the actual dualism of the empire, the knot was being cut by the sword on the plains of Hungary. The Hungarian retreat after the bloody battle of Kapolna (February 26-27, 1849) was followed by the dissolution of the Kremsier assembly, and a proclamation in which the emperor announced his intention of granting a constitution to the whole monarchy "one and indivisible." On the 4th of March the constitution was published; but it proved all but as distasteful to Czechs and Croats as to the Magyars, and the speedy successes of the Hungarian arms made it, for the while, a dead letter. It needed the intervention of the emperor Nicholas, in the loftiest spirit of the Holy Alliance, before even an experimental unity of the Habsburg dominions could be established (see Hungary: History).
The capitulation of Világos, which ended the Hungarian insurrection, gave Schwarzenberg a free hand for completing the work of restoring the status quo ante and the influence of Austria in Germany. The account of the process by which this was accomplished belongs to the history of Germany (q.v.). Here it will suffice to say that the terms of the Convention of Olmütz (September 29, 1850) seemed at the time a complete triumph for Austria over Prussia. As a matter of fact, however, the convention was, in the words of Count Beust, "not a Prussian humiliation, but an Austrian weakness." It was in the power of Austria to crush Prussia and to put an end to the dual influence in the Confederation which experience had proved to be unworkable; she preferred to re-establish a discredited system, and to leave to Prussia time and opportunity to gather strength for the inevitable conflict.
In 1851 Austria had apparently triumphed over all its difficulties. The revolutionary movements had been suppressed, the attempt of Prussia to assume the leadership in Germany defeated, the old Federal Diet of 1815 had been restored. Vienna again became the centre of a despotic government the objects of which were to Germanize the Magyars and Slavs, to check all agitation for a constitution, and to suppress all attempts to secure a free press. For some ten years the Austrian dominion groaned under one of the worst possible forms of autocratic government. The failure of the Habsburg emperor to perpetuate this despotic régime was due (1) to the Crimean War, (2) to the establishment of Italian unity, and (3) to the successful assertion by Prussia of its claim to the leadership in Germany. The disputes which resulted in the Crimean War revealed the fact that "gratitude" plays but a small part in international affairs. In the minds of Austrian statesmen the question of the free navigation of the Danube, which would have been imperilled by a Russian occupation of the Principalities, outweighed their sense of obligation to Russia, on which the emperor Nicholas had rashly relied. That Austria at first took no active part in the war was due, not to any sentimental weakness, but to the refusal of Prussia to go along with her and to the fear of a Sardinian attack on her Italian provinces. But, on the withdrawal of the Russian forces from the Principalities, these were occupied by Austrian troops, and on the 2nd of December 1854, a treaty of alliance was signed at Vienna, between Great Britain, Austria and France, by which Austria undertook to occupy Moldavia and Walachia during the continuance of the war and "to defend the frontier of the said principalities against any return of the Russian forces." By Article III., in the event of war between Russia and Austria the alliance both offensive and defensive was to be made effective (Hertslet, No. 252). With the progressive disasters of the Russian arms, however, Austria grew bolder, and it was the ultimatum delivered by her to the emperor Alexander II. in December 1855, that forced Russia to come to terms (Treaty of Paris, March 30, 1856).
Though, however, Austria by her diplomatic attitude had secured, without striking a blow, the settlement in her sense of the Eastern Question, she emerged from the contest without allies and without friends. The "Holy Alliance" of the three autocratic northern powers, recemented at Münchengrätz in 1833, which had gained for Austria the decisive intervention of the tsar in 1849, had been hopelessly shattered by her attitude during the Crimean War. Russia, justly offended, drew closer her ties with Prussia, where Bismarck was already hatching the plans which were to mature in 1866; and, if the attitude of Napoleon in the Polish question prevented any revival of the alliance of Tilsit, the goodwill of Russia was assured for France in the coming struggle with Austria in Italy. Already the isolation of Austria had been conspicuous in the congress of Paris, where Cavour, the Sardinian plenipotentiary, laid bare before assembled Europe the scandal of her rule in Italy. It was emphasized during the campaign of 1859, when Sardinia, in alliance with France, laid the foundations of united Italy. The threat of Prussian intervention, which determined the provisions of the armistice of Villafranca, was due, not to love of Austria, but to fear of the undue aggrandizement of France. The campaign of 1859, and the diplomatic events that led up to it, are dealt with elsewhere (see Italy, Italian Wars, Napoleon III., Cavour). The results to Austria were two-fold. Externally, she lost all her Italian possessions except Venice; internally, her failure led to the necessity of conciliating public opinion by constitutional concessions.
The proclamation on the 26th of February 1861 of the new constitution for the whole monarchy, elaborated by Anton von Schmerling, though far from satisfying the national aspirations of the races within the empire, at least gave Austria a temporary popularity in Germany; the liberalism of the Habsburg monarchy was favourably contrasted with the "reactionary" policy of Prussia, where Bismarck was defying the majority of the diet in his determination to build up the military power of Prussia. The meeting of the princes summoned to Frankfort by the emperor Francis Joseph, in 1863, revealed the ascendancy of Austria among the smaller states of the Confederation; but it revealed also the impossibility of any consolidation of the Confederation without the co-operation of Prussia, which stood outside. Bismarck had long since decided that the matter could only be settled by the exclusion of Austria altogether, and that the means to this end were not discussion, but "Blood and Iron." The issue was forced by the developments of the tangled Schleswig-Holstein Question (q.v.), which led to the definitive breach between the two great German powers, to the campaign of 1866, and the collapse of Austria on the field of Koniggratz (July 3. See Seven Weeks' War).
(W. A. P.; A. Hl.)
The war of 1866 began a new era in the history of the Austrian empire. By the treaty of Prague (August 23, 1866) the emperor surrendered the position in Germany which his ancestors had held for so many centuries; Austria and Tirol, Bohemia and Salzburg, ceased to be German, and eight million Germans were cut off from all political union with their fellow-countrymen. At the same time the surrender of Venetia completed the work of 1859, and the last remnant of the old-established Habsburg domination in Italy ceased. The war was immediately followed by a reorganization of the government. The Magyar nation, as well as the Czechs, had refused to recognize the validity of the constitution of 1861 which had established a common parliament for the whole empire; they demanded that the independence of the kingdom of Hungary should be restored. Even before the war the necessity of coming to terms with the Hungarians had been recognized. In June 1865 the emperor Francis Joseph visited Pest and replaced the chancellors of Transylvania and Hungary, Counts Francis Zichy and Nadásdy, supporters of the February constitution, by Count Majláth, a leader of the old conservative magnates. This was at once followed by the resignation of Schmerling, who was succeeded by Count Richard Belcredi. On the 20th of September the Reichsrath was prorogued, which was equivalent to the suspension of the constitution; and in December the emperor opened the Hungarian diet in person, with a speech from the throne that recognized the validity of the laws of 1848. Before any definite arrangement as to their re-introduction could be made, however, the war broke out; and after the defeats on the field of battle the Hungarian diet was able to make its own terms. They recognized no union between their country and the other parts of the monarchy except that which was based on the Pragmatic Sanction.[5] All recent innovations, all attempts made during the last hundred years to absorb Hungary in a greater Austria, were revoked. An agreement was made by which the emperor was to be crowned at Pest and take the ancient oath to the Golden Bull; Hungary (including Transylvania and Croatia) was to have its own parliament and its own ministry; Magyar was to be the official language; the emperor was to rule as king; there was to be complete separation of the finances; not even a common nationality was recognized between the Hungarians and the other subjects of the emperor; a Hungarian was to be a foreigner in Vienna, an Austrian a foreigner in Budapest. A large party wished indeed that nothing should be left but a purely personal union similar to that between England and Hanover. Deák and the majority agreed, however, that there should be certain institutions common to Hungary and the rest of the monarchy; these were - (1) foreign affairs, including the diplomatic and consular service; (2) the army and navy; (3) the control of the expenses required for these branches of the public service.
Recognizing in a declaratory act the legal existence of these common institutions, they also determined the method by which they should be administered. In doing so they carried out with great exactitude the principle of dualism, establishing in form a complete parity between Hungary on one side and the other territories of the king on the other. They made it a condition that there should be constitutional government in the rest of the monarchy as well as in Hungary, and a parliament in which all the other territories should be represented. From both the Hungarian and the Austrian parliament there was to be elected a Delegation, consisting of sixty members; to these Delegations the common ministers were to be responsible, and to them the estimates for the joint services were to be submitted. The annual meetings were to be held alternately in Vienna and in Pest. They were very careful that these Delegations should not overshadow the parliaments by which they were appointed. The Delegations were not to sit together; each was to meet separately; they were to communicate by writing, every document being accompanied by a translation in Magyar or German, as the case might be; only if after three times exchanging notes they failed to agree was there to be a common session; in that case there would be no discussion, and they were to vote in silence; a simple majority was sufficient. There were to be three ministers for common purposes - (1) for foreign affairs; (2) for war; (3) for finance; these ministers were responsible to the Delegations, but the Delegations were really given no legislative power. The minister of war controlled the common army, but even the laws determining the method by which the army was to be recruited had to be voted separately in each of the parliaments. The minister of finance had to lay before them the common budget, but they could not raise money or vote taxes; after they had passed the budget the money required had to be provided by the separate parliaments. Even the determination of the proportion which each half of the monarchy was to contribute was not left to the Delegations. It was to be fixed once every ten years by separate committees chosen for that purpose from the Austrian Reichsrath and the Hungarian parliament, the so-called Quota-Deputations. In addition to these "common affairs" the Hungarians, indeed, recognized that there were certain other matters which it was desirable should be managed on identical principles in the two halves of the monarchy - namely, customs and excise currency; the army and common railways. For these, however, no common institutions were created; they must be arranged by agreement; the ministers must confer and then introduce identical acts in the Hungarian and the Austrian parliaments.
The main principles of this agreement were decided during the spring of 1867; but during this period the Austrians were not really consulted at all. The negotiations on behalf of the court of Vienna were entrusted to Beust, whom the emperor appointed chancellor of the empire and also minister-president of Austria. He had no previous experience of Austrian affairs, and was only anxious at once to bring about a settlement which would enable the empire to take a strong position in international politics. In the summer of 1867, however (the Austrian Reichsrath having met), the two parliaments each elected a deputation of fifteen members to arrange the financial settlement. The first matter was the debt, amounting to over 3000 million gulden, in addition to the floating debt, which had been contracted during recent years. The Hungarians laid down the principle that they were in no way responsible for debts contracted during a time when they had been deprived of their constitutional liberties; they consented, however, to pay each year 29 million gulden towards the interest. The whole responsibility for the payment of the remainder of the interest, amounting annually to over a hundred million gulden, and the management of the debt, was left to the Austrians. The Hungarians wished that a considerable part of it should be repudiated. It was then agreed that the two states should form a Customs Union for the next ten years; the customs were to be paid to the common exchequer; all sums required in addition to this to meet the expenses were to be provided as to 30% by Hungary and as to 70% by Austria. After the financial question had been thus settled, the whole of these arrangements were then, on the 21st and the 24th of December 1867, enacted by the two parliaments, and the system of dualism was established.
The acts were accepted in Austria out of necessity; but no parties were really satisfied. The Germans, who accepted the principle of dualism, were indignant at the financial arrangements; for Hungary, while gaining more than an equal share of power, paid less than one-third of the common expenses. On the other hand, according to British ideas of taxable capacity, Hungary paid, and still pays, more than her share. The Germans, however, could at least hope that in the future the financial arrangements might be revised; the complaints of the Slav races were political, and within the constitution there was no means of remedy, for, while the settlement gave to the Hungarians all that they demanded, it deprived the Bohemians or Galicians of any hope that they would be able to obtain similar independence. Politically, the principle underlying the agreement was that the empire should be divided into two portions; in one of these the Magyars were to rule, in the other the Germans; in either section the Slav races - the Serbs and Croatians, the Czechs, Poles and Slovenes - were to be placed in a position of political inferiority.[6]
The logical consistency with which the principle of Dualism was carried out is shown in a change of title. By a letter to Beust of the 14th of November 1868 the emperor ordered that he should henceforward be styled, not as before "Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, etc.," but "Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, etc., and Apostolic King of Hungary," thereby signifying the separation of the two districts over which he rules. His shorter style is "His Majesty the Emperor and King," and "His Imperial and Apostolic Royal Majesty"; the lands over which he rules are called "The Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy" or "The Austrian-Hungarian Realm." The new terminology, "Imperial and Royal" (Kaiserlich und Königlich), has since then been applied to all those branches of the public service which belong to the common ministries; this was first the case with the diplomatic service; not till 1889 was it applied to the army, which for some time kept up the old style of Kaiserlich-Königlich; in 1895 it was applied to the ministry of the imperial house, an office always held by the minister for foreign affairs. The minister for foreign affairs was at first called the Reichskanzler; but in 1871, when Andrássy succeeded Beust, this was given up in deference to Hungarian feeling, for it might be taken to imply that there was a single state of which he was minister. The old style Kaiserlich-Königlich, the "K.K." which has become so familiar through long use, is still retained in the Austrian half of the monarchy. There are, therefore, e.g., three ministries of finance: the Kaiserlich und Königlich for joint affairs; the Kaiserlich-Königlich for Austrian affairs; the Királyé for Hungary.
The settlement with Hungary consisted then of three parts: - (1) the political settlement, which was to be permanent and has since remained part of the fundamental constitution of the monarchy; (2) the periodical financial settlement, determining the partition of the common expenses as arranged by the Quota-Deputations and ratified by the parliaments; (3) the Customs Union and the agreement as to currency - a voluntary and terminable arrangement made between the two governments and parliaments. The history of the common affairs which fall under the management of the common ministries is, then, the history of the foreign policy of the empire and of the army. It is with this and this alone that the Delegations are occupied, and it is to this that we must now turn. The annual meetings call for little notice; they have generally been the occasion on which the foreign minister has explained and justified his policy; according to the English custom, red books, sometimes containing important despatches, have been laid before them; but the debates have caused less embarrassment to the government than is generally the case in parliamentary assemblies, and the army budget has generally been passed with few and unimportant alterations.
For the first four years, while Beust was chancellor, the foreign policy was still influenced by the feelings left by the war of 1866. We do not know how far there was a real intention to revenge Königgrätz and recover the position lost in Germany. This would be at least a possible policy, and one to which Beust by his previous history would be inclined. There were sharp passages of arms with the Prussian government regarding the position of the South German states; a close friendship was maintained with France; there were meetings of the emperor and of Napoleon at Salzburg in 1868, and the next year at Paris; the death of Maximilian in Mexico cast a shadow over the friendship, but did not destroy it. The opposition of the Hungarians and financial difficulties probably prevented a warlike policy. In 1870 there were discussions preparatory to a formal alliance with France against the North German Confederation, but nothing was signed.[7] The war of 1870 put an end to all ideas of this kind; the German successes were so rapid that Austria was not exposed to the temptation of intervening, a temptation that could hardly have been resisted had the result been doubtful or the struggle prolonged. The absorption of South Germany in the German empire took away the chief cause for friction; and from that time warm friendship, based on the maintenance of the established order, has existed between the two empires. Austria gave up all hope of regaining her position in Germany; Germany disclaimed all intention of acquiring the German provinces of Austria. Beust's retirement in 1871 put the finishing touch on the new relations. His successor, Count Andrássy, a Hungarian, established a good understanding with Bismarck; and in 1872 the visit of the emperor Francis Joseph, accompanied by his minister, to Berlin, was the final sign of the reconciliation with his uncle. The tsar was also present on that occasion, and for the next six years the close friendship between the three empires removed all danger of war. Three years later the full reconciliation with Italy followed, when Francis Joseph consented to visit Victor Emmanuel in Venice.
The outbreak of disturbance in the Balkans ended this period of calm. The insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina immediately affected Austria; refugees in large numbers crossed the frontier and had to be maintained by the government. The political problem presented was a very difficult one. The sympathy of the Slav inhabitants of the empire made it impossible for the government of Vienna to regard with indifference the sufferings of Christians in Turkey. Active support was impossible, because the Hungarians, among whom the events of 1848 had obliterated the remembrance of the earlier days of Turkish conquest, were full of sympathy for the Turks. It was a cardinal principle of Austrian policy that she could not allow the erection of new Slav states on her southern frontier. Moreover, the disturbances were fomented by Russian agents, and any increase of Russian influence (for which the Pan-Slav party was working) was full of danger to Austria. For a time the mediation of Germany preserved the good understanding between the two eastern empires. In 1875 Andrássy drafted a note, which was accepted by the powers, requiring Turkey to institute the reforms necessary for the good government of the provinces. Turkey agreed to do this, but the insurgents required a guarantee from the Powers that Turkey would keep her engagements. This could not be given, and the rebellion continued and spread to Bulgaria. The lead then passed to Russia, and Austria, even after the outbreak of war, did not oppose Russian measures. At the beginning of 1877 a secret understanding had been made between the two powers, by which Russia undertook not to annex any territory, and in other ways not to take steps which would be injurious to Austria. The advance of the Russian army on Constantinople, however, was a serious menace to Austrian influence; Andrássy therefore demanded that the terms of peace should be submitted to a European conference, which he suggested should meet at Vienna. The peace of San Stefano violated the engagements made by Russia, and Andrássy was therefore compelled to ask for a credit of 60 million gulden and to mobilize a small portion of the army; the money was granted unanimously in the Hungarian Delegation, though the Magyars disliked a policy the object of which appeared to be not the defence of Turkey against Russia, but an agreement with Russia which would give Austria compensation at the expense of Turkey; in the Austrian Deputation it was voted only by a majority of 39 to 20, for the Germans were alarmed at the report that it would be used for an occupation of part of the Turkish territory.
The active share taken by Great Britain, however, relieved Austria from the necessity of having recourse to further measures. By an arrangement made beforehand, Austria was requested at the congress of Berlin to undertake the occupation and administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina - an honourable but arduous task. The provinces could not be left to the Turks; Austria could not allow them to fall under Russian influence. The occupation was immediately begun, and 60,000 Austrian troops, under the command of General Philippovich,[8] crossed the frontier on the 29th of July. The work was, however, more difficult than had been anticipated; the Mahommedans offered a strenuous resistance; military operations were attended with great difficulty in the mountainous country; 200,000 men were required, and they did not succeed in crushing the resistance till after some months of obstinate fighting. The losses on either side were very heavy; even after the capture of Serajevo in August, the resistance was continued; and besides those who fell in battle, a considerable number of the insurgents were put to death under military law. The opposition in the Delegations, which met at the end of the year, was so strong that the government had to be content with a credit to cover the expenses for 1879 of less than half what they had originally asked, and the supplementary estimate of 40,000,000 gulden for 1878 was not voted till the next year. In 1879 the Porte, after long delay, recognized the occupation on the distinct understanding that the sovereignty of the sultan was acknowledged. A civil administration was then established, the provinces not being attached to either half of the empire, but placed under the control of the joint minister of finance. The government during the first two years was not very successful; the Christian population were disappointed at finding that they still had, as in the old days, to pay rent to the Mahommedan begs. There were difficulties also between the Roman Catholics and the members of the Greek Church. In 1881 disturbances in Dalmatia spread over the frontier into Herzegovina, and another expedition had to be sent to restore order. When this was done Benjamin de Kallay was appointed minister, and under his judicious government order and prosperity were established in the provinces. In accordance with another clause of the treaty of Berlin, Austria was permitted to place troops in the sanjak of Novi-Bazar, a district of great strategic importance, which separated Servia and Montenegro, and through which the communication between Bosnia and Salonica passed. This was done in September 1879, an agreement with Turkey having specified the numbers and position of the garrison. Another slight alteration of the frontier was made in the same year, when, during the delimitation of the new frontier of Montenegro, the district of Spizza was incorporated in the kingdom of Dalmatia.
The congress of Berlin indirectly caused some difficulties with Italy. In that country was a large party which, under the name of the "Irredentists," demanded that those Italian-speaking districts, South Tirol, Istria and Trieste, which were under Austrian rule, should be joined to Italy; there were public meetings and riots in Italy; the Austrian flag was torn down from the consulate in Venice and the embassy at Rome insulted. The excitement spread across the frontier; there were riots in Trieste, and in Tirol it was necessary to make some slight movement of troops as a sign that the Austrian government was determined not to surrender any territory. For a short time there was apprehension that the Italian government might not be strong enough to resist the movement, and might even attempt to realize these wishes by means of an alliance with Russia; but the danger quickly passed away.
In the year 1879 the European position of the monarchy was placed on a more secure footing by the conclusion of a formal alliance with Germany. In the autumn of that year Bismarck visited Vienna and arranged with Andrássy a treaty by which Germany bound herself to support Austria against an attack from Russia, Austria-Hungary pledging herself to help Germany against a combined attack of France and Russia; the result of this treaty, of which the tsar was informed, was to remove, at least for the time, the danger of war between Austria-Hungary and Russia. It was the last achievement of Andrássy, who had already resigned, but it was maintained by his successor, Baron Haymerle, and after his death in 1881 by Count Kalnóky. It was strengthened in 1882 by the adhesion of Italy, for after 1881 the Italians required support, owing to the French occupation of Tunis, and after five years it was renewed. Since that time it has been the foundation on which the policy of Austria-Hungary has depended, and it has survived all dangers arising either from commercial differences (as between 1880 and 1890) or national discord. The alliance was naturally very popular among the German Austrians; some of them went so far as to attempt to use it to influence internal policy, and suggested that fidelity to this alliance required that there should be a ministry at Vienna which supported the Germans in their internal struggle with the Slavs; they represented it as a national alliance of the Teutonic races, and there were some Germans in the empire who supported them in this view. The governments on both sides could of course give no countenance to this theory; Bismarck especially was very careful never to let it be supposed that he desired to exercise influence over the internal affairs of his ally. Had he done so, the strong anti-German passions of the Czechs and Poles, always inclined to an alliance with France, would have been aroused, and no government could have maintained the alliance. After 1880, the exertions of Count Kalnóky again established a fairly good understanding with Russia, as was shown by the meetings of Francis Joseph with the tsar in 1884 and 1885, but the outbreak of the Bulgarian question in 1885 again brought into prominence the opposed interests of Russia and Austria-Hungary. In the December of this year Austria-Hungary indeed decisively interfered in the war between Bulgaria and Servia, for at this time Austrian influence predominated in Servia, and after the battle of Slivnitza the Austro-Hungarian minister warned Prince Alexander of Bulgaria that if he advanced farther he would be met by Austro-Hungarian as well as Servian troops. But after the abdication of Alexander, Count Kalnóky stated in the Delegations that Austria-Hungary would not permit Russia to interfere with the independence of Bulgaria. This decided step was required by Hungarian feeling, but it was a policy in which Austria-Hungary could not depend on the support of Germany, for - as Bismarck stated - Bulgaria was not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Austria-Hungary also differed from Russia as to the position of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and during 1886-1887 much alarm was caused by the massing of Russian troops on the Galician frontier. Councils of war were summoned to consider how this exposed and distant province was to be defended, and for some months war was considered inevitable; but the danger was averted by the renewal of the Triple Alliance and the other decisive steps taken at this time by the German government (see Germany).[9]
Since this time the foreign policy of Austria-Hungary has been peaceful and unambitious; the close connexion with Germany has so far been maintained, though during the last few years it has been increasingly difficult to prevent the violent passions engendered by national enmity at home from reacting on the foreign policy of the monarchy; it would scarcely be possible to do so, were it not that discussions on foreign policy take place not in the parliaments but in the Delegations where the numbers are fewer and the passions cooler. In May 1895 Count Kalnóky had to retire, owing to a difference with Bánffy, the Hungarian premier, arising out of the struggle with Rome. He was succeeded by Count Goluchowski, the son of a well-known Polish statesman. In 1898 the expulsion of Austrian subjects from Prussia, in connexion with the Anti-Polish policy of the Prussian government, caused a passing irritation, to which Count Thun, the Austrian premier, gave expression. The chief objects of the government in recent years have been to maintain Austro-Hungarian trade and influence in the Balkan states by the building of railways, by the opening of the Danube for navigation, and by commercial treaties with Rumania, Servia and Bulgaria; since the abdication of King Milan especially, the affairs of Servia and the growth of Russian influence in that country have caused serious anxiety.
The disturbed state of European politics and the great increase in the military establishments of other countries made it desirable for Austria also to strengthen her military resources. The bad condition of the finances rendered it, however, impossible to carry out any very great measures. In 1868 there had been introduced compulsory military service in both Austria and Hungary; the total of the army available in war had been fixed at 800,000 men. Besides this joint army placed under the joint ministry of war, there was in each part of the monarchy a separate militia and a separate minister for national defence. In Hungary this national force or honvéd was kept quite distinct from the ordinary army; in Austria, however (except in Dalmatia and Tirol, where there was a separate local militia), the Landwehr, as it was called, was practically organized as part of the standing army. At the renewal of the periodical financial and economic settlement (Ausgleich) in 1877 no important change was made, but in 1882 the system of compulsory service was extended to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a reorganization was carried out, including the introduction of army corps and local organization on the Prussian plan. This was useful for the purposes of speedy mobilization, though there was some danger that the local and national spirit might penetrate into the army. In 1886 a law was carried in either parliament creating a Landsturm, and providing for the arming and organization of the whole male population up to the age of forty-two in case of emergency, and in 1889 a small increase was made in the annual number of recruits. A further increase was made in 1892-1893. In contrast, however, with the military history of other continental powers, that of Austria-Hungary shows a small increase in the army establishment. Of recent years there have been signs of an attempt to tamper with the use of German as the common language for the whole army. This, which is now the principal remnant of the old ascendancy of German, and the one point of unity for the whole monarchy, is a matter on which the government and the monarch allow no concession, but in the Hungarian parliament protests against it have been raised, and in 1899 and 1900 it was necessary to punish recruits from Bohemia, who answered the roll call in the Czechish zde instead of the German hier.
In those matters which belong to the periodical and terminable agreement, the most important is the Customs Union, which was established in 1867, and it is convenient to treat separately the commercial policy of the dual state.[10] At first the customs tariff in Austria-Hungary, as in most other countries, was based on a number of commercial treaties with Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, etc., each of which specified the maximum duties that could be levied on certain articles, and all of which contained a "most favoured nation" clause. The practical result was a system very nearly approaching to the absence of any customs duties, and for the period for which these treaties lasted a revision of the tariff could not be carried out by means of legislation. After the year 1873, a strong movement in favour of protective duties made itself felt among the Austrian manufacturers who were affected by the competition of German, English and Belgian goods, and Austria was influenced by the general movement in economic thought which about this time caused the reaction against the doctrines of free trade. Hungary, on the other hand, was still in favour of free trade, for there were no important manufacturing industries in that country, and it required a secure market for agricultural produce. After 1875 the commercial treaties expired; Hungary thereupon also gave notice to terminate the commercial union with Austria, and negotiations began as to the principle on which it was to be renewed. This was done during the year 1877, and in the new treaty, while raw material was still imported free of duty, a low duty was placed on textile goods as well as on corn, and the excise on sugar and brandy was raised. All duties, moreover, were to be paid in gold - this at once involving a considerable increase. The tariff treaties with Great Britain and France were not renewed, and all attempts to come to some agreement with Germany broke down, owing to the change of policy which Bismarck was adopting at this period. The result was that the system of commercial treaties ceased, and Austria-Hungary was free to introduce a fresh tariff depending simply on legislation, an "autonomous tariff" as it is called. With Great Britain, France and Germany, there was now only a "most favoured nation" agreement; fresh commercial treaties were made with Italy (1879), Switzerland and Servia (1881). During 1881-1882 Hungary, desiring means of retaliation against the duties on corn and the impediments to the importation of cattle recently introduced into Germany, withdrew her opposition to protective duties; the tariff was completely revised, protective duties were introduced on all articles of home production, and high finance duties on other articles such as coffee and petroleum. At the same time special privileges were granted to articles imported by sea, so as to foster the trade of Trieste and Fiume; as in Germany a subvention was granted to the great shipping companies, the Austrian Lloyd and Adria; the area of the Customs Union was enlarged so as to include Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1887 a further increase of duties was laid on corn (this was at the desire of Hungary as against Rumania, for a vigorous customs war was being carried on at this time) and on woollen and textile goods. Austria, therefore, during these years completely gave up the principle of free trade, and adopted a nationalist policy similar to that which prevailed in Germany. A peculiar feature of these treaties was that the government was empowered to impose an additional duty (Retorsionszoll) on goods imported from countries in which Austria-Hungary received unfavourable treatment. In 1881 this was fixed at 10% (5% for some articles), but in 1887 it was raised to 30 and 15% respectively. In 1892 Austria-Hungary joined with Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland in commercial treaties to last for twelve years, the object being to secure to the states of central Europe a stable and extended market; for the introduction of high tariffs in Russia and America had crippled industry. Two years later Austria-Hungary also arranged with Russia a treaty similar to that already made between Russia and Germany; the reductions in the tariff secured in these treaties were applicable also to Great Britain, with which there still was a most favoured nation treaty. The system thus introduced gave commercial security till the year 1903.
The result of these and other laws was an improvement in financial conditions, which enabled the government at last to take in hand the long-delayed task of reforming the currency. Hitherto the currency had been partly in silver (gulden), the "Austrian currency" which had been introduced in 1857, partly in paper money, which took the form of notes issued by the Austro-Hungarian Bank. This institution had, in 1867, belonged entirely to Austria; it had branches in Hungary, and its notes were current throughout the monarchy, but the direction was entirely Austrian. The Hungarians had not sufficient credit to establish a national bank of their own, and at the settlement of 1877 they procured, as a concession to themselves, that it should be converted into an Austro-Hungarian bank, with a head office at Pest as well as at Vienna, and with the management divided between the two countries. This arrangement was renewed in 1887. In 1848 the government had been obliged to authorize the bank to suspend cash payments, and the wars of 1859 and 1866 had rendered abortive all attempts to renew them. The notes, therefore, formed an inconvertible paper currency. The bank by its charter had the sole right of issuing notes, but during the war of 1866 the government, in order to raise money, had itself issued notes (Staatsnoten) to the value of 312 million gulden, thereby violating the charter of the bank. The operation begun in 1892 was therefore threefold: (1) the substitution of a gold for a silver standard; (2) the redemption of the Staatsnoten; (3) the resumption of cash payments by the bank.
In 1867 Austria-Hungary had taken part in the monetary conference which led to the formation of the Latin Union; it was intended to join the Union, but this was not done. A first step, however, had been taken in this direction by the issue of gold coins of the value of eight and four gulden. No attempt was made, however, to regulate the relations of these coins to the "Austrian" silver coinage; the two issues were not brought into connexion, and every payment was made in silver, unless it was definitely agreed that it should be paid in gold. In 1879, owing to the continued depreciation of silver, the free coinage of silver was suspended. In 1892 laws introducing a completely new coinage were carried in both parliaments, in accordance with agreements made by the ministers. The unit in the new issue was to be the krone, divided into 100 heller; the krone being almost of the same value (24-25th) as the franc. (The twenty-krone piece in gold weighs 6.775 gr., the twenty-franc piece 6.453.) The gold krone was equal to .42 of the gold gulden, and it was declared equal to .5 of the silver gulden, so much allowance being made for the depreciation of silver. The first step towards putting this act into practice was the issue of one-krone pieces (silver), which circulated as half gulden, and of nickel coins; all the copper coins and other silver coins were recalled, the silver gulden alone being left in circulation. The coinage of the gold four- and eight-gulden was suspended. Nothing more could be done till the supply of gold had been increased. The bank was required to buy gold (during 1892 it bought over forty M. gulden), and was obliged to coin into twenty- or ten-krone pieces all gold brought to it for that purpose. Then a loan of 150 M. gulden at 4% was made, and from the gold (chiefly bar gold and sovereigns) which Rothschild, who undertook the loan, paid in, coins of the new issue were struck to the value of over 34 million kronen. This was, however, not put into circulation; it was used first for paying off the Staatsnoten. By 1894 the state was able to redeem them to the amount of 200 million gulden, including all those for one gulden. It paid them, however, not in gold, but in silver (one-krone pieces and gulden) and in bank notes, the coins and notes being provided by the bank, and in exchange the newly-coined gold was paid to the bank to be kept as a reserve to cover the issue of notes. At the same time arrangements were made between Austria and Hungary to pay off about 80 million of exchequer bills which had been issued on the security of the government salt-works, and were therefore called "salinenscheine." In 1899 the remainder of the Staatsnoten (112 million gulden) were redeemed in a similar manner. The bank had in this way acquired a large reserve of gold, and in the new charter which was (after long delay) passed in 1899, a clause was introduced requiring the resumption of cash payments, though this was not to come into operation immediately. Then from 1st January 1900 the old reckoning by gulden was superseded, that by krone being introduced in all government accounts, the new silver being made a legal tender only for a limited amount. For the time until the 1st of July 1908, however, the old gulden were left in circulation, payments made in them, at the rate of two kronen to one gulden, being legal up to any amount.
This important reform has thereby been brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and at a time when the political difficulties had reached a most acute stage. It is indeed remarkable that notwithstanding the complicated machinery of the dual monarchy, and the numerous obstacles which have to be overcome before a reform affecting both countries can be carried out, the financial, the commercial, and the foreign policy has been conducted since 1870 with success. The credit of the state has risen, the chronic deficit has disappeared, the currency has been put on a sound basis, and part of the unfunded debt has been paid off. Universal military service has been introduced, and all this has been done in the presence of difficulties greater than existed in any other civilized country.
Each of the financial and economic reforms described above was, of course, the subject of a separate law, but, so far as they are determined at the general settlement which takes place between Austria and Hungary every ten years, they are comprised under the expression "Ausgleich" (compact or compromise), which includes especially the determination of the Quota, and to this extent they are all dealt with together as part of a general settlement and bargain. In this settlement a concession on commercial policy would be set off against a gain on the financial agreement; e.g. in 1877 Austria gave Hungary a share in the management of the bank, while the arrangement for paying the bonus on exported sugar was favourable to Austria; on the other hand, since the increased duty on coffee and petroleum would fall more heavily on Austria, the Austrians wished to persuade the Hungarians to pay a larger quota of the common expenses, and there was also a dispute whether Hungary was partly responsible for a debt of 80 M. gulden to the bank. Each measure had, therefore, to be considered not only on its own merits, but in relation to the general balance of advantage, and an amendment in one might bring about the rejection of all. The whole series of acts had to be carried in two parliaments, each open to the influence of national jealousy and race hatred in its most extreme form, so that the negotiations have been conducted under serious difficulties, and the periodical settlement has always been a time of great anxiety. The first settlement occupied two full years, from 1876, when the negotiations began, to June 1878, when at last all the bills were carried successfully through the two parliaments; and it was necessary to prolong the previous arrangements (which expired at the end of 1877) till the middle of 1878. First the two ministries had to agree on the drafts of all the bills; then the bills had to be laid before the two parliaments. Each parliament elected a committee to consider them, and the two committees carried on long negotiations by notes supplemented by verbal discussions. Then followed the debates in the two parliaments; there was a ministerial crisis in Austria, because the House refused to accept the tax on coffee and petroleum which was recommended by the ministers; and finally a great council of all the ministers, with the emperor presiding, determined the compromise that was at last accepted. In 1887 things went better; there was some difficulty about the tariff, especially about the tax on petroleum, but Count Taaffe had a stronger position than the Austrian ministers of 1877. Ten years later, on the third renewal, the difficulties were still greater. They sprang from a double cause. First the Austrians were determined to get a more favourable division of the common expenses; that of 1867 still continued, although Hungary had grown relatively in wealth.[11] Moreover, a proposed alteration in the taxes on sugar would be of considerable advantage to Hungary; the Austrians, therefore, demanded that henceforth the proportion should be not 68.6:31.4 but 58:42. On this there was a deadlock; all through 1897 and 1898 the Quota-Deputations failed to come to an agreement. This, however, was not the worst. Parliamentary government in Austria had broken down; the opposition had recourse to obstruction, and no business could be done. Their object was to drive out the Badeni government, and for that reason the obstruction was chiefly directed against the renewal of the Ausgleich; for, as this was the first necessity of state, no government could remain in office which failed to carry it through. The extreme parties of the Germans and the anti-Semites were also, for racial reasons, opposed to the whole system. When, therefore, the government at the end of 1897 introduced the necessary measures for prolonging the existing arrangements provisionally till the differences with Hungary had been settled, scenes of great disorder ensued, and at the end of the year the financial arrangements had not been prolonged, and neither the bank charter nor the Customs Union had been renewed. The government, therefore (Badeni having resigned), had to proclaim the necessary measures by imperial warrant. Next year it was even worse, for there was obstruction in Hungary as well as in Austria; the Quota-Deputations again came to no agreement, and the proposals for the renewal of the Bank charter, the reform of the currency, the renewal of the Customs Union, and the new taxes on beer and brandy, which were laid before parliament both at Vienna and Pest, were not carried in either country; this time, therefore, the existing arrangements had to be prolonged provisionally by imperial and royal warrant both in Austria and Hungary. During 1899 parliamentary peace was restored in Hungary by the resignation of Bánffy; in Austria, however, though there was again a change of ministry the only result was that the Czechs imitated the example of the Germans and resorted to obstruction so that still no business could be done. The Austrian ministry, therefore, came to an agreement with the Hungarians that the terms of the new Ausgleich should be finally proclaimed in Austria by imperial warrant; the Hungarians only giving their assent to this in return for considerable financial concessions.
The main points of the agreement were: (1) the Bank charter was to be renewed till 1910, the Hungarians receiving a larger share in the direction than they had hitherto enjoyed; (2) the Customs Union so far as it was based on a reciprocal and binding treaty lapsed, both sides, however, continuing it in practice, and promising to do so until the 31st of December 1907. Not later than 1901 negotiations were to be begun for a renewal of the alliance, and if possible it was to be renewed from the year 1903, in which year the commercial treaties would expire. If this were done, then the tariff would be revised before any fresh commercial treaties were made. If it were not done, then no fresh treaties would be made extending beyond the year 1907, so that if the Commercial Union of Austria and Hungary were not renewed before 1907, each party would be able to determine its own policy unshackled by any previous treaties. These arrangements in Hungary received the sanction of the parliament; but this could not be procured in Austria, and they were, therefore, proclaimed by imperial warrant; first of all, on 20th July, the new duties on beer, brandy and sugar; then on 23rd September the Bank charter, etc. In November the Quota-Deputations at last agreed that Hungary should henceforward pay 33-3/49, a very small increase, and this was also in Austria proclaimed in the same way. The result was that a working agreement was made, by which the Union was preserved.
(J. W. He.)
Since the years 1866-1871 no period of Austro-Hungarian development has been so important as the years 1903-1907. The defeat of the old Austria by Prussia at Sadowa in 1866, the establishment of the Dual Monarchy in 1867 and the foundation of the new German empire in 1871, formed the starting-point of Austro-Hungarian history properly so called; but the Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1903-1906 - a crisis temporarily settled but not definitively solved, - and the introduction of universal suffrage in Austria, discredited the original interpretation of the dual system and raised the question whether it represented the permanent form of the Austro-Hungarian polity.
At the close of the 19th century both states of the Dual Monarchy were visited by political crises of some severity. Parliamentary life in Austria was paralysed by the feud between Germans and Czechs that resulted directly from the Badeni language ordinances of 1897 and indirectly from the development of Slav influence, particularly that of Czechs and Poles during the Taaffe era (1879-1893). Government in Austria was carried on by cabinets of officials with the help of the emergency clause (paragraph 14) of the constitution. Ministers, nominally responsible to parliament, were in practice responsible only to the emperor. Thus during the closing years of last and the opening years of the present century, political life in Austria was at a low ebb and the constitution was observed in the letter rather than in spirit.
Hungary was apparently better situated. Despite the campaign of obstruction that overthrew the Bánffy and led to the formation of the Széll cabinet in 1899, the hegemony of the Liberal party which, under various names, had been the mainstay of dualism since 1867, appeared to be unshaken. But clear signs of the decay of the dualist and of the growth of an extreme nationalist Magyar spirit were already visible. The Army bills of 1889, which involved an increase of the peace footing of the joint Austro-Hungarian army, had been carried with difficulty, despite the efforts of Koloman Tisza and of Count Julius Andrássy the Elder. Demands tending towards the Magyarization of the joint army had been advanced and had found such an echo in Magyar public opinion that Count Andrássy was obliged solemnly to warn the country of the dangers of nationalist Chauvinism and to remind it of its obligations under the Compact of 1867. The struggle over the civil marriage and divorce laws that filled the greater part of the nineties served and was perhaps intended by the Liberal leaders to serve as a diversion in favour of the Liberal-dualist standpoint; nevertheless, Nationalist feeling found strong expression during the negotiations of Bánffy and Széll with various Austrian premiers for the renewal of the economic Ausgleich, or "Customs and Trade Alliance." At the end of 1902 the Hungarian premier, Széll, concluded with the Austrian premier, Körber, a new customs and trade alliance comprising a joint Austro-Hungarian tariff as a basis for the negotiation of new commercial treaties with Germany, Italy and other states. This arrangement, which for the sake of brevity will henceforth be referred to as the Széll-Körber Compact, was destined to play an important part in the history of the next few years, though it was never fully ratified by either parliament and was ultimately discarded. Its conclusion was prematurely greeted as the end of a period of economic strife between the two halves of the monarchy and as a pledge of a decade of peaceful development. Events were soon to demonstrate the baselessness of these hopes.
In the autumn of 1902 the Austrian and the Hungarian governments, at the instance of the crown and in agreement with the joint minister for war and the Austrian and Hungarian ministers for national defence, laid before their respective parliaments bills providing for an increase of 21,000 men in the annual contingents of recruits. 16,700 men were needed for the joint army, and the remainder for the Austrian and Hungarian national defence troops (Landwehr and honvéd). The total contribution of Hungary would have been some 6500 and of Austria some 14,500 men. The military authorities made, however, the mistake of detaining in barracks several thousand supernumerary recruits (i.e. recruits liable to military service but in excess of the annual 103,000 enrollable by law) pending the adoption of the Army bills by the two parliaments. The object of this apparently high-handed step was to avoid the expense and delay of summoning the supernumeraries again to the colours when the bills should have received parliamentary sanction; but it was not unnaturally resented by the Hungarian Chamber, which has ever possessed a lively sense of its prerogatives. The Opposition, consisting chiefly of the independence party led by Francis Kossuth (eldest son of Louis Kossuth), made capital out of the grievance and decided to obstruct ministerial measures until the supernumeraries should be discharged. The estimates could not be sanctioned, and though Kossuth granted the Széll cabinet a vote on account for the first four months of 1903, the Government found itself at the mercy of the Opposition. At the end of 1902 the supernumeraries were discharged - too late to calm the ardour of the Opposition, which proceeded to demand that the Army bills should be entirely withdrawn or that, if adopted, they should be counterbalanced by concessions to Magyar nationalist feeling calculated to promote the use of the Magyar language in the Hungarian part of the army and to render the Hungarian regiments, few of which are purely Magyar, more and more Magyar in character. Széll, who vainly advised the crown and the military authorities to make timely concessions, was obliged to reject these demands which enjoyed the secret support of Count Albert Apponyi, the Liberal president of the Chamber and of his adherents. The obstruction of the estimates continued. On the 1st of May the Széll cabinet found itself without supply and governed for a time "ex-lex"; Széll, who had lost the confidence of the crown, resigned and was succeeded (June 26) by Count Khuen-Hederváry, previously ban, or governor, of Croatia. Before taking office Khuen-Hederváry negotiated with Kossuth and other Opposition leaders, who undertook that obstruction should cease if the Army bills were withdrawn. Despite the fact that the Austrian Army bill had been voted by the Reichsrath (February 19), the crown consented to withdraw the bills and thus compelled the Austrian parliament to repeal, at the dictation of the Hungarian obstructionists, what it regarded as a patriotic measure. Austrian feeling became embittered towards Hungary and the action of the crown was openly criticized.
Meanwhile the Hungarian Opposition broke its engagement. Obstruction was continued by a section of the independence party; and Kossuth, seeing his authority ignored, resigned the leadership. The obstructionists now raised the cry that the German words of command in the joint army must be replaced by Magyar words in the regiments recruited from Hungary - a demand which, apart from its disintegrating influence on the army, the crown considered to be an encroachment upon the royal military prerogatives as defined by the Hungarian Fundamental Law XII. of 1867. Clause 11 of the law runs: - "In pursuance of the constitutional military prerogatives of His Majesty, everything relating to the unitary direction, leadership and inner organization of the whole army, and thus also of the Hungarian army as a complementary part of the whole army, is recognized as subject to His Majesty's disposal." The cry for the Magyar words of command on which the subsequent constitutional crisis turned, was tantamount to a demand that the monarch should differentiate the Hungarian from the Austrian part of the joint army, and should render it impossible for any but Magyar officers to command Hungarian regiments, less than half of which have a majority of Magyar recruits. The partisans of the Magyar words of command based their claim upon clause 12 of the Fundamental Law XII. of 1867 - which runs: - "Nevertheless the country reserves its right periodically to complete the Hungarian army and the right of granting recruits, the fixing of the conditions on which the recruits are granted, the fixing of the term of service and all the dispositions concerning the stationing and the supplies of the troops according to existing law both as regards legislation and administration." Since Hungary reserved her right to fix the conditions on which recruits should be granted, the partisans of the Magyar words of command argued that the abolition of the German words of command in the Hungarian regiments might be made such a condition, despite the enumeration in the preceding clause 11, of everything appertaining to the unitary leadership and inner organization of the joint Austro-Hungarian army as belonging to the constitutional military prerogatives of the crown. Practically, the dispute was a trial of strength between Magyar nationalist feeling and the crown. Austrian feeling strongly supported the monarch in his determination to defend the unity of the army, and the conflict gradually acquired an intensity that appeared to threaten the very existence of the dual system.
When Count Khuen-Hederváry took office and Kossuth relinquished the leadership of the independence party, the extension of the crisis could not be foreseen. A few extreme nationalists continued to obstruct the estimates, and it appeared as though their energy would soon flag. An attempt to quicken this process by bribery provoked, however, an outburst of feeling against Khuen-Hederváry who, though personally innocent, found his position shaken. Shortly afterwards Magyar resentment of an army order issued from the cavalry manœuvres at Chlopy in Galicia - in which the monarch declared that he would "hold fast to the existing and well-tried organization of the army" and would never "relinquish the rights and privileges guaranteed to its highest war-lord"; and of a provocative utterance of the Austrian premier Körber in the Reichsrath led to the overthrow of the Khuen-Hederváry cabinet (September 30) by an immense majority. The cabinet fell on a motion of censure brought forward by Kossuth, who had profited by the bribery incident to resume the leadership of his party.
An interval of negotiation between the crown and many leading Magyar Liberals followed, until at the end of October 1903 Count Stephen Tisza, son of Koloman Tisza, accepted a mission to form a cabinet after all others had declined. As programme Tisza brought with him a number of concessions from the crown to Magyar nationalist feeling in regard to military matters, particularly in regard to military badges, penal procedure, the transfer of officers of Hungarian origin from Austrian to Hungarian regiments, the establishment of military scholarships for Magyar youths and the introduction of the two years' service system. In regard to the military language, the Tisza programme - which, having been drafted by a committee of nine members, is known as the "programme of the nine" - declared that the responsibility of the cabinet extends to the military prerogatives of the crown, and that "the legal influence of parliament exists in this respect as in respect of every constitutional right." The programme, however, expressly excluded for "weighty political reasons affecting great interests of the nation" the question of the military language; and on Tisza's motion the Liberal party adopted an addendum, sanctioned by the crown: "the party maintains the standpoint that the king has a right to fix the language of service and command in the Hungarian army on the basis of his constitutional prerogatives as recognized in clause 11 of law XII. of 1867."
Notwithstanding the concessions, obstruction was continued by the Clericals and the extreme Independents, partly in the hope of compelling the crown to grant the Magyar words of command and partly out of antipathy towards the person of the young calvinist premier. In March 1904, Tisza, therefore, introduced a drastic "guillotine" motion to amend the standing orders of the House, but withdrew it in return for an undertaking from the Opposition that obstruction would cease. This time the Opposition kept its word. The Recruits bill and the estimates were adopted, the Delegations were enabled to meet at Budapest - where they voted £22,000,000 as extraordinary estimates for the army and navy and especially for the renewal of the field artillery - and the negotiations for new commercial treaties with Germany and Italy were sanctioned, although parliament had never been able to ratify the Széll-Körber compact with the tariff on the basis of which the negotiations would have to be conducted. But, as the autumn session approached, Tisza foresaw a new campaign of obstruction, and resolved to revert to his drastic reform of the standing orders. The announcement of his determination caused the Opposition to rally against him, and when on the 18th of November the Liberal party adopted a "guillotine" motion by a show of hands in defiance of orthodox procedure, a section of the party seceded. On the 13th of December the Opposition, infuriated by the formation of a special corps of parliamentary constables, invaded and wrecked the Chamber. Tisza appealed to the country and suffered, on the 26th of January 1905, an overwhelming defeat at the hands of a coalition composed of dissentient Liberals, Clericals, Independents and a few Bánffyites. The Coalition gained an absolute majority and the Independence party became the strongest political group. Nevertheless the various adherents of the dual system retained an actual majority in the Chamber and prevented the Independence party from attempting to realize its programme of reducing the ties between Hungary and Austria to the person of the joint ruler. On the 25th of January, the day before his defeat, Count Tisza had signed on behalf of Hungary the new commercial treaties concluded by the Austro-Hungarian foreign office with Germany and Italy on the basis of the Széll-Körber tariff. He acted ultra vires, but by his act saved Hungary from a severe economic crisis and retained for her the right to benefit by economic partnership with Austria until the expiry of the new treaties in 1917.
A deadlock, lasting from January 1905 until April 1906, ensued between the crown and Hungary and, to a great extent, between Hungary and Austria. The Coalition, though possessing the majority in the Chamber, resolved not to take office unless the crown should grant its demands, including the Magyar words of command and customs separation from Austria. The crown declined to concede these points, either of which would have wrecked the dual system as interpreted since 1867. The Tisza cabinet could not be relieved of its functions till June 1905, when it was succeeded by a non-parliamentary administration under the premiership of General Baron Fejerváry, formerly minister for national defence. Seeing that the Coalition would not take office on acceptable terms, Fejerváry obtained the consent of the crown to a scheme, drafted by Kristóffy, minister of the interior, that the dispute between the crown and the Coalition should be subjected to the test of universal suffrage and that to this end the franchise in Hungary be radically reformed. The scheme alarmed the Coalition, which saw that universal suffrage might destroy not only the hegemony of the Magyar nobility and gentry in whose hands political power was concentrated, but might, by admitting the non-Magyars to political equality with the Magyars, undermine the supremacy of the Magyar race itself. Yet the Coalition did not yield at once. Not until the Chamber had been dissolved by military force (February 19, 1906) and an open breach of the constitution seemed within sight did they come to terms with the crown and form an administration. The miserable state of public finances and the depression of trade doubtless helped to induce them to perform a duty which they ought to have performed from the first; but their chief motive was the desire to escape the menace of universal suffrage or, at least, to make sure that it would be introduced in such a form as to safeguard Magyar supremacy over the other Hungarian races.
The pact concluded (April 8, 1906) between the Coalition and the crown is known to have contained the following conditions: - All military questions to be suspended until after the introduction of universal suffrage; the estimates and the normal contingent of recruits to be voted for 1905 and 1906; the extraordinary military credits, sanctioned by the delegations in 1904, to be voted by the Hungarian Chamber; ratification of the commercial treaties concluded by Tisza; election of the Hungarian Delegation and of the Quota-Deputation; introduction of a suffrage reform at least as far reaching as the Kristóffy scheme. These "capitulations" obliged the Coalition government to carry on a dualist policy, although the majority of its adherents became, by the general election of May 1906, members of the Kossuth or Independence party, and, as such, pledged to the economic and political separation of Hungary from Austria save as regards the person of the ruler. Attempts were, however, made to emphasize the independence of Hungary. During the deadlock (June 2, 1905) Kossuth had obtained the adoption of a motion to authorize the compilation of an autonomous Hungarian tariff, and on the 28th of May 1906, the Coalition cabinet was authorized by the crown to present the Széll-Körber tariff to the Chamber in the form of a Hungarian autonomous tariff distinct from but identical with the Austrian tariff. This concession of form having been made to the Magyars without the knowledge of the Austrian government, Prince Konrad Hohenlohe, the Austrian premier, resigned office; and his successor, Baron Beck, eventually (July 6) withdrew from the table of the Reichsrath the whole Széll-Körber compact, declaring that the only remaining economic ties between the two countries were freedom of trade, the commercial treaties with foreign countries, the joint state bank and the management of excise. If the Hungarian government wished to regulate its relationship to Austria in a more definite form, added the Austrian premier, it must conclude a new agreement before the end of the year 1907, when the reciprocity arrangement of 1899 would lapse. The Hungarian government replied that any new arrangement with Austria must be concluded in the form of a commercial treaty as between two foreign states and not in the form of a "customs and trade alliance."
Austria ultimately consented to negotiate on this basis. In October 1907 an agreement was attained, thanks chiefly to the sobering of Hungarian opinion by a severe economic crisis, which brought out with unusual clearness the fact that separation from Austria would involve a period of distress if not of commercial ruin for Hungary. Austria also came to see that separation from Hungary would seriously enhance the cost of living in Cisleithania and would deprive Austrian manufacturers of their best market. The main features of the new "customs and commercial treaty" were: (1) Each state to possess a separate but identical customs tariff. (2) Hungary to facilitate the establishment of direct railway communication between Vienna and Dalmatia, the communication to be established by the end of 1911, each state building the sections of line that passed through its own territory. (3) Austria to facilitate railway communication between Hungary and Prussia. (4) Hungary to reform her produce and Stock Exchange laws so as to prevent speculation in agrarian produce. (5) A court of arbitration to be established for the settlement of differences between the two states, Hungary selecting four Austrian and Austria four Hungarian judges, the presidency of the court being decided by lot, and each government being represented before the court by its own delegates. (6) Impediments to free trade in sugar to be practically abolished. (7) Hungary to be entitled to redeem her share of the old Austrian debt (originally bearing interest at 5 and now at 4.2%) at the rate of 4.325% within the next ten years; if not redeemed within ten years the rate of capitalization to decrease annually by 1/12% until it reaches 4.2%. This arrangement represents a potential economy of some £2,000,000 capital for Hungary as compared with the original Austrian demand that the Hungarian contribution to the service of the old Austrian debt be capitalized at 4.2%. (8) The securities of the two governments to rank as investments for savings banks, insurance companies and similar institutions in both countries, but not as trust fund investments. (9) Commercial treaties with foreign countries to be negotiated, not, as hitherto, by the joint minister for foreign affairs alone, but also by a nominee of each government. (10) The quota of Austrian and Hungarian contribution to joint expenditure to be 63.6 and 36.4 respectively - an increase of 2% in the Hungarian quota, equal to some £200,000 a year.
The economic dispute between Hungary and Austria was thus settled for ten years after negotiations lasting more than twelve years. One important question, however, that of the future of the joint State Bank, was left over for subsequent decision. During the negotiations for the customs and commercial treaty, the Austrian government attempted to conclude for a longer period than ten years, but was unable to overcome Hungarian resistance. Therefore, at the end of 1917, the commercial treaties with Germany, Italy and other countries, and the Austro-Hungarian customs and commercial treaty, would all lapse. Ten years of economic unity remained during which the Dual Monarchy might grow together or grow asunder, increasing accordingly in strength or in weakness.
(H. W. S.)
During this period of internal crisis the international position of the Dual Monarchy was threatened by two external dangers. The unrest in Macedonia threatened to reopen the Eastern Question in an acute form; with Italy the irredentist attitude of the Zanardelli cabinet led in 1902-1903 to such strained relations that war seemed imminent. The southern Tirol, the chief passes into Italy, strategic points on the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts, were strongly fortified, while in the interior the Tauern, Karawanken and Wochein railways were constructed, partly in order to facilitate the movement of troops towards the Italian border. The tension was relaxed with the fall of the Zanardelli government, and comparatively cordial relations were gradually re-established.
In the affairs of the Balkan Peninsula a temporary agreement with Russia was reached in 1903 by the so-called "February Programme," supplemented in the following October by the "Mürzsteg Programme" (see Macedonia; Turkey; Europe: History). The terms of the Mürzsteg programme were observed by Count Goluchowski, in spite of the ruin of Russian prestige in the war with Japan, so long as he remained in office. In October 1906, however, he retired, and it was soon clear that his successor, Baron von Aerenthal,[12] was determined to take advantage of the changed European situation to take up once more the traditional policy of the Habsburg monarchy in the Balkan Peninsula. He gradually departed from the Mürzsteg basis, and in January 1908 deliberately undermined the Austro-Russian agreement by obtaining from the sultan a concession for a railway from the Bosnian frontier through the sanjak of Novibazar to the Turkish terminus at Mitrovitza. This was done in the teeth of the expressed wish of Russia; it roused the helpless resentment of Servia, whose economic dependence upon the Dual Monarchy was emphasized by the outcome of the war of tariffs into which she had plunged in 1906, and who saw in this scheme another link in the chain forged for her by the Habsburg empire; it offended several of the great powers, who seemed to see in this railway concession the price of the abandonment by Austria-Hungary of her interest in Macedonian reforms. That Baron von Aerenthal was able to pursue a policy apparently so rash, was due to the fact that he could reckon on the support of Germany. The intimate relations between the two powers had been revealed during the dispute between France and Germany about Morocco; in the critical division of the 3rd of March 1906 at the Algeciras Conference Austria-Hungary, alone of all the powers, had sided with Germany, and it was a proposal of the Austro-Hungarian plenipotentiary that formed the basis of the ultimate settlement between Germany and France (see Morocco: History). The cordial relations thus emphasized encouraged Baron Aerenthal, in the autumn of 1908, to pursue a still bolder policy. The revolution in Turkey had entirely changed the face of the Eastern Question; the problem of Macedonian reform was swallowed up in that of the reform of the Ottoman empire generally, there was even a danger that a rejuvenated Turkey might in time lay claim to the provinces occupied by Austria-Hungary under the treaty of Berlin; in any case, the position of these provinces, governed autocratically from Vienna, between a constitutional Turkey and a constitutional Austria-Hungary, would have been highly anomalous. In the circumstances Baron Aerenthal determined on a bold policy. Without consulting the co-signatory powers of the treaty of Berlin, and in deliberate violation of its provisions, the king-emperor issued, on the 13th of October, a decree annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Habsburg Monarchy, and at the same time announcing the withdrawal of the Austro-Hungarian troops from the sanjak of Novibazar. (See Europe: History.)
Meanwhile the relations between the two halves of the Dual Monarchy had again become critical. The agreement of 1907 had been but a truce in the battle between two irreconcilable principles: between Magyar nationalism, determined to maintain its ascendancy in an independent Hungary, and Habsburg imperialism, equally determined to preserve the economic and military unity of the Dual Monarchy. In this conflict the tactical advantage lay with the monarchy; for the Magyars were in a minority in Hungary, their ascendancy was based on a narrow and artificial franchise, and it was open to the king-emperor to hold in terrorem over them an appeal to the disfranchised majority. It was the introduction of a Universal Suffrage Bill by Mr Joseph Kristóffy, minister of the interior in the "unconstitutional" cabinet of Baron Fejérváry, which brought the Opposition leaders in the Hungarian parliament to terms and made possible the agreement of 1907. But the Wekerle ministry which succeeded that of Fejérváry on the 9th of April 1906 contained elements which made any lasting compromise impossible. The burning question of the "Magyar word of command" remained unsettled, save in so far as the fixed determination of the king-emperor had settled it; the equally important question of the renewal of the charter of the Austro-Hungarian State Bank had also formed no part of the agreement of 1907. On the other hand, the Wekerle ministry was pledged to a measure of franchise reform, a pledge which they showed no eagerness to redeem, though the granting of universal suffrage in the Austrian half of the Monarchy had made such a change inevitable. In March 1908 Mr Hallo laid before the Hungarian parliament a formal proposal that the charter of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, which was to expire at the end of 1910, should not be renewed; and that, in the event of failure to negotiate a convention between the banks of Austria and Hungary, a separate Hungarian Bank should be established. This question, obscured during the winter by the Balkan crisis, once more became acute in the spring of 1909. In the Coalition cabinet itself opinion was sharply divided, but in the end the views of the Independence party prevailed, and Dr Wekerle laid the proposal for a separate Hungarian Bank before the king-emperor and the Austrian government. Its reception was significant. The emperor Francis Joseph pointed out that the question of a separate Bank for Hungary did not figure in the act of 1867, and could not be introduced into it, especially since the capital article of the ministerial programme, i.e. electoral reform, was not realized, nor near being realized. This was tantamount to an appeal from the Magyar populus to the Hungarian plebs, the disfranchised non-Magyar majority; an appeal all the more significant from the fact that it ignored the suffrage bill brought in on behalf of the Hungarian government by Count Julius Andrássy in November 1908, a bill which, under the guise of granting the principle of universal suffrage, was ingeniously framed so as to safeguard and even to extend Magyar ascendancy (see Hungary: History). In consequence of this rebuff Dr Wekerle tendered his resignation on the 27th of April. Months passed without it being possible to form a new cabinet, and a fresh period of crisis and agitation was begun.
(W. A. P.)
II. Austria Proper since 1867.
As already explained, the name Austria is used for convenience to designate those portions of the possessions of the house of Habsburg, which were not included by the settlement of 1867 among the lands of the Hungarian crown. The separation of Hungary made it necessary to determine the method by which these territories[13] were henceforth to be governed. It was the misfortune of the country that there was no clear legal basis on which new institutions could be erected. Each of the territories was a separate political unit with a separate history, and some of them had a historic claim to a large amount of self-government; in many the old feudal estates had survived till 1848. Since that year the empire had been the subject of numerous experiments in government; by the last, which began in 1860, Landtage or diets have been instituted in each of the territories on a nearly uniform system and with nearly identical powers, and by the constitution published in February 1861 (the February Constitution, as it is called), which is still the ultimate basis for the government, there was instituted a Reichsrath or parliament for the whole empire; it consisted of a House of Lords (Herrenhaus), in which sat the archbishops and prince bishops, members of the imperial family, and other members appointed for life, besides some hereditary members, and a Chamber of Deputies. The members of the latter for each territory were not chosen by direct election, but by the diets. The diets themselves were elected for six years; they were chosen generally (there were slight local differences) in the following way: (a) a certain number of bishops and rectors of universities sat in virtue of their office; (b) the rest of the members were chosen by four electoral bodies or curiae, - (1) the owners of estates which before 1848 had enjoyed certain feudal privileges, the so-called great proprietors; (2) the chambers of commerce; (3) the towns; (4) the rural districts. In the two latter classes all had the suffrage who paid at least ten gulden in direct taxes. The districts were so arranged as to give the towns a very large representation in proportion to their populations. In Bohemia, e.g., the diet consisted of 241 members: of these five were ex officio members; the feudal proprietors had seventy; the towns and chambers of commerce together had eighty-seven; the rural districts seventy-nine. The electors in the rural districts were 236,000, in the towns 93,000. This arrangement seems to have been deliberately made by Schmerling, so as to give greater power to the German inhabitants of the towns; the votes of the proprietors would, moreover, nearly always give the final decision to the court and the government, for the influence exercised by the government over the nobility would generally be strong enough to secure a majority in favour of the government policy.
This constitution had failed; territories so different in size, history and circumstances were not contented with similar institutions, and a form of self-government which satisfied Lower Austria and Salzburg did not satisfy Galicia and Bohemia. The Czechs of Bohemia, like the Magyars, had refused to recognize the common parliament on the ground that it violated the historic rights of the Bohemian as of the Hungarian crown, and in 1865 the constitution of 1861 had been superseded, while the territorial diets remained. In 1867 it was necessary once more to summon, in some form or another, a common parliament for the whole of Austria, by which the settlement with Hungary could be ratified.
This necessity brought to a decisive issue the struggle between the parties of the Centralists and Federalists. The latter claimed that the new constitution must be made by agreement with the territories; the former maintained that the constitution of 1861 was still valid, and demanded that in accordance with it the Reichsrath should be summoned and a "constitutional" government restored. The difference between the two parties was to a great extent, though not entirely, one of race. The kernel of the empire was the purely German district, including Upper and Lower Austria, Salzburg, Tirol (except the south) and Vorarlberg, all Styria except the southern districts, and a large part of Carinthia. There was strong local feeling, especially in Tirol, but it was local feeling similar to that which formerly existed in the provinces of France; among all classes and parties there was great, loyalty both to the ruling house and to the idea of the Austrian state; but while the Liberal party, which was dominant in Lower Austria and Styria, desired to develop the central institutions, there was a strong Conservative and Clerical party which supported local institutions as a protection against the Liberal influence of a centralized parliament and bureaucracy, and the bishops and clergy were willing to gain support in the struggle by alliance with the Federalists.
Very different was it in the other territories where the majority of the population was not German - and where there was a lively recollection of the time when they were not Austrian. With Palacky, they said, "We existed before Austria; we shall continue to exist after it is gone." Especially was this the case in Bohemia. In this great country, the richest part of the Austrian dominions, where over three-fifths of the population were Czech, racial feeling was supported by the appeal to historic law. A great party, led by Palacky and Rieger, demanded the restoration of the Bohemian monarchy in its fullest extent, including Moravia and Silesia, and insisted that the emperor should be crowned as king of Bohemia at Prague as his predecessors had been, and that Bohemia should have a position in the monarchy similar to that obtained by Hungary. Not only did the party include all the Czechs, but they were supported by many of the great nobles who were of German descent, including Count Leo Thun, his brother-in-law Count Heinrich Clam-Martinitz, and Prince Friedrich von Schwarzenberg, cardinal archbishop of Prague, who hoped in a self-governing kingdom of Bohemia to preserve that power which was threatened by the German Liberals. The feudal nobles had great power arising from their wealth, the great traditions of their families, and the connexion with the court, and by the electoral law they had a large number of representatives in the diet. On the other hand the Germans of Bohemia, fearful of falling under the control of the Czechs, were the most ardent advocates of centralization. The Czechs were supported also by their fellow-countrymen in Moravia, and some of the nobles, headed by Count Belcredi, brother of the minister; but in Brünn there was a strong German party. In Silesia the Germans had a considerable majority, and as there was a large Polish element which did not support the Czechs, the diet refused to recognize the claims of the Bohemians.
The Poles of Galicia stood apart from the other Slav races. The German-speaking population was very small, consisting chiefly of government officials, railway servants and Jews; but there was a large minority (some 43%) of Ruthenes. The Poles wished to gain as much autonomy as they could for their own province, but they had no interest in opposing the centralization of other parts; they were satisfied if Austria would surrender the Ruthenes to them. They were little influenced by the pan-Slav agitation; it was desirable for them that Austria, which gave them freedom and power, should continue strong and united. Their real interests were outside the monarchy, and they did not cease to look forward to a restoration of the Polish kingdom. The great danger was that they might entangle Austria in a war with Russia.
The southern Slavs had neither the unity, nor the organization, nor the historical traditions of the Czechs and Poles; but the Slovenes, who formed a large majority of the population in Carniola, and a considerable minority in the adjoining territory of Carinthia and the south of Styria, demanded that their language should be used for purposes of government and education. Their political ideal was an "Illyrian" kingdom, including Croatia and all the southern Slavs in the coast district, and a not very successful movement had been started to establish a so-called Illyrian language, which should be accepted by both Croats and Slovenes. There was, however, another element in the southern districts, viz. the Serbs, who, though of the same race and language as the Croats, were separated from them by religion. Belonging to the Orthodox Church they were attracted by Russia. They were in constant communication with Servia and Montenegro; and their ultimate hope, the creation of a great Servian kingdom, was less easy to reconcile with loyalty to Austria. Of late years attempts have been made to turn the Slovenian national movement into this direction, and to attract the Slovenes also towards the Orthodox non-Austrian Slavs.
In the extreme south of Dalmatia is a small district which had not formed part of the older duchy of Dalmatia, and had not been joined to the Austrian empire till 1814; in former years part of it formed the republic of Ragusa, and the rest belonged to Albania. The inhabitants of this part, who chiefly belonged to the Greek Church, still kept up a close connexion with Albania and with Montenegro, and Austrian authority was maintained with difficulty. Disturbances had already broken out once before; and in 1869 another outbreak took place. This district had hitherto been exempted from military service; by the law of 1869, which introduced universal military service, those who had hitherto been exempted were required to serve, not in the regular army but in the militia. The inhabitants of the district round the Bocche di Cattaro (the Bocchesi, as they are commonly called) refused to obey this order, and when a military force was sent it failed to overcome their resistance; and by an agreement made at Knezlac in December 1869, Rodics, who had taken command, granted the insurgents all they asked and a complete amnesty. After the conquest of Bosnia another attempt was made to enforce military service; once more a rebellion broke out, and spread to the contiguous districts of Herzegovina. This time, however, the government, whose position in the Balkans had been much strengthened by the occupation of the new provinces, did not fear to act with decision. A considerable force was sent under General Baron Stephan von Jovanovich (1828-1885); they were supported from sea by the navy, and eventually the rebellion was crushed. An amnesty was proclaimed, but the greater number of the insurgents sought refuge in Montenegro rather than submit to military service.
The Italians of Trieste and Istria were the only people of the empire who really desired separation from Austria; annexation to Italy was the aim of the Italianissimi, as they were called. The feeling was less strong in Tirol, where, except in the city of Trent, they seem chiefly to have wished for separate local institutions, so that they should no longer be governed from Innsbruck. The Italian-speaking population on the coast of Dalmatia only asked that the government should uphold them against the pressure of the Slav races in the interior, and for this reason were ready to support the German constitutionalists.
The party of centralization was then the Liberal German party, supported by a few Italians and the Ruthenes, and as years went by it was to become the National German party. They hoped by a common parliament to create the feeling of a common Austrian nationality, by German schools to spread the use of the German language. Every grant of self-government to the territories must diminish the influence of the Germans, and bring about a restriction in the use of the German language; moreover, in countries such as Bohemia, full self-government would almost certainly mean that the Germans would become the subject race. This was a result which they could not accept. It was intolerable to them that just at the time when the national power of the non-Austrian Germans was so greatly increased, and the Germans were becoming the first race in Europe, they themselves should resign the position as rulers which they had won during the last three hundred years. They maintained, moreover, that the ascendancy of the Germans was the only means of preserving the unity of the monarchy; German was the only language in which the different races could communicate with one another; it must be the language of the army, the civil service and the parliament. They laid much stress on the historic task of Austria in bringing German culture to the half-civilized races of the east. They demanded, therefore, that all higher schools and universities should remain German, and that so far as possible the elementary schools should be Germanized. They looked on the German schoolmaster as the apostle of German culture, and they looked forward to the time when the feeling of a common Austrian nationality should obscure the national feeling of the Slavs, and the Slavonic idioms should survive merely as the local dialects of the peasantry, the territories becoming merely the provinces of a united and centralized state. The total German population was not quite a third of the whole. The maintenance of their rule was, therefore, only possible by the exercise of great political ability, the more so, since, as we have seen, they were not united among themselves, the clergy and Feudal party being opposed to the Liberals. Their watchword was the constitution of 1861, which had been drawn up by their leaders; they demanded that it should be restored, and with it parliamentary government. They called themselves, therefore, the Constitutional party. But the introduction of parliamentary government really added greatly to the difficulty of the task before them. In the old days German ascendancy had been secured by the common army, the civil service and the court. As soon, however, as power was transferred to a parliament, the Germans must inevitably be in a minority, unless the method of election was deliberately arranged so as to give them a majority. Parliamentary discussion, moreover, was sure to bring out those racial differences which it was desirable should be forgotten, and the elections carried into every part of the empire a political agitation which was very harmful when each party represented a different race.
The very first events showed one of those extraordinary changes of policy so characteristic of modern Austrian history. The decision of the government on the constitutional question was really determined by immediate practical necessity. The Hungarians required that the settlement should be ratified by a parliament, therefore a parliament must be procured which would do this. It must be a parliament in which the Germans had a majority, for the system of dualism was directly opposed to the ambitions of the Slavs and the Federalists. Belcredi, who had come into power in 1865 as a Federalist, and had suspended the constitution of 1861 on the 2nd of January 1867, ordered new elections for the diets, which were then to elect deputies to an extraordinary Reichsrath which should consider the Ausgleich, or compact with Hungary. The wording of the decree implied that the February constitution did not exist as of law; the Germans and Liberals, strenuously objecting to a "feudal-federal" constitution which would give the Slavs a preponderance in the empire, maintained that the February constitution was still in force, and that changes could only be introduced by a regular Reichsrath summoned in accordance with it, protested against the decree, and, in some cases, threatened not to take part in the elections. As the Federalists were all opposed to the Ausgleich, it was clear that a Reichsrath chosen in these circumstances would refuse to ratify it, and this was probably Belcredi's intention. As the existence of the empire would thereby be endangered, Beust interfered; Belcredi was dismissed, Beust himself became minister-president on the 7th of February 1867, and a new edict was issued from Vienna ordering the diets to elect a Reichsrath, according to the constitution, which was now said to be completely valid. Of course, however, those diets in which there was a Federalist majority, viz. those of Bohemia, Moravia, Carinthia and Tirol, which were already pledged to support the January policy of the government, did not acquiesce in the February policy; and they refused to elect except on terms which the government could not accept. The first three were immediately dissolved. In the elections which followed in Bohemia the influence of the government was sufficient to secure a German majority among the landed proprietors; the Czechs, who were therefore in a minority, declared the elections invalid, refused to take any part in electing deputies for the Reichsrath, and seceded altogether from the diet. The result was that Bohemia now sent a large German majority to Vienna, and the few Czechs who were chosen refused to take their seat in the parliament. Had the example of the Czechs been followed by the other Slav races it would still have been difficult to get together a Reichsrath to pass the Ausgleich. It was, however, easier to deal with the Poles of Galicia, for they had no historical rights to defend; and by sending delegates to Vienna they would not sacrifice any principle or prejudice any legal claim; they had only to consider how they could make the best bargain. Their position was a strong one; their votes were essential to the government, and the government could be useful to them; it could give them the complete control over the Ruthenes. A compact then was easily arranged.
Beust promised them that there should be a special minister for Galicia, a separate board for Galician education, that Polish should be the language of instruction in all secondary schools, that Polish instead of German should be the official language in the law courts and public offices, Ruthenian being only used in the elementary schools under strict limitations. On these terms the Polish deputies, led by Ziemialkowski, agreed to go to Vienna and vote for the Ausgleich.
When the Reichsrath met, the government had a large majority; and in the House, in which all the races except the Czechs were represented, the Ausgleich was ratified almost unanimously. This having been done, it was possible to proceed to special legislation for the territories, which were henceforward officially known as "the kingdoms and lands represented in the Reichsrath." A series of fundamental laws were carried, which formally established parliamentary government, with responsibility of ministers, and complete control over the budget, and there were included a number of clauses guaranteeing personal rights and liberties in the way common to all modern constitutions. The influence of the Poles was still sufficient to secure considerable concessions to the wishes of the Federalists, since if they did not get what they wished they would leave the House, and the Slovenes, Dalmatians and Tirolese would certainly follow them. Hence the German Liberals were prevented from introducing direct elections to the Reichsrath, and the functions of the Reichsrath were slightly less extensive than they had hitherto been. Moreover, the Delegation was to be chosen not by the House as a whole, but by the representatives of the separate territories. This is one reason for the comparative weakness of Austria as compared with Hungary, where the Delegation is elected by each House as a whole; the Bohemian representatives, e.g., meet and choose 10 delegates, the Galicians 7, those from Trieste 1; the Delegation, is, therefore, not representative of the majority of the chamber of deputies, but includes representatives of all the groups which may be opposing the government there, and they can carry on their opposition even in the Delegation. So it came about in 1869, that on the first occasion when there was a joint sitting of the Delegations to settle a point in the budget, which Hungary had accepted and Austria rejected, the Poles and Tirolese voted in favour of the Hungarian proposal.
As soon as these laws had been carried (December 1867), Beust retired from the post of minister-president; and in accordance with constitutional practice a parliamentary ministry was appointed entirely from the ranks of the Liberal majority; a ministry generally known as the "Bürger Ministerium" in which Giskra and Herbst - the leaders of the German party in Moravia and Bohemia - were the most important members. Austria now began its new life as a modern constitutional state. From this time the maintenance of the revised constitution of 1867 has been the watchword of what is called the Constitutional party. The first use which the new government made of their power was to settle the finances, and in this their best work was done. Among them were nearly all the representatives of trade and industry, of commercial enterprise and financial speculation; they were the men who hoped to make Austria a great industrial state, and at this time they were much occupied with railway enterprise. Convinced free-traders, they hoped by private energy to build up the fortunes of the country, parliamentary government - which meant for them the rule of the educated and well-to-do middle class - being one of the means to this end. They accepted the great burden of debt which the action of Hungary imposed upon the country, and rejected the proposals for repudiation, but notwithstanding the protest of foreign bondholders they imposed a tax of 16% on all interest on the debt. They carried out an extension of the commercial treaty with Great Britain by which a further advance was made in the direction of free trade.
Of equal importance was their work in freeing Austria from the control of the Church, which checked the intellectual life of the people. The concordat of 1855 had given the Church complete freedom in the management of all ecclesiastical affairs; there was full liberty of intercourse with Rome, the state gave up all control over the appointment of the clergy, and in matters of church discipline the civil courts had no voice - the clergy being absolutely subject to the power of the bishops, who could impose temporal as well as spiritual penalties. The state had even resigned to the Church all authority over some departments of civil life, and restored the authority of the canon law. This was the case as regards marriage; all disputes were to be tried before ecclesiastical courts, and the marriage registers were kept by the priests. All the schools were under the control of the Church; the bishops could forbid the use of books prejudicial to religion; in elementary schools all teachers were subject to the inspection of the Church, and in higher schools only Roman Catholics could be appointed. It had been agreed that the whole education of the Roman Catholic youth, in all schools, private as well as public, should be in accordance with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The authority of the Church extended even to the universities. Some change in this system was essential; the Liberal party demanded that the government should simply state that the concordat had ceased to exist. To this, however, the emperor would not assent, and there was a difficulty in overthrowing an act which took the form of a treaty. The government wished to come to some agreement by friendly discussion with Rome, but Pius IX. was not willing to abate anything of his full claims. The ministry, therefore, proceeded by internal legislation, and in 1868 introduced three laws: (1) a marriage law transferred the decisions on all questions of marriage from the ecclesiastical to the civil courts, abolished the authority of the canon law, and introduced civil marriage in those cases where the clergy refused to perform the ceremony; (2) the control of secular education was taken from the Church, and the management of schools transferred to local authorities which were to be created by the diets; (3) complete civil equality between Catholics and non-Catholics was established. These laws were carried through both Houses in May amid almost unparalleled excitement, and at once received the imperial sanction, notwithstanding the protest of all the bishops, led by Joseph Othmar von Rauscher (1797-1875), cardinal archbishop of Vienna, who had earned his red hat by the share he had taken in arranging the concordat of 1855, and now attempted to use his great personal influence with the emperor (his former pupil) to defeat the bill.
The ministry had the enthusiastic support of the German population in the towns. They were also supported by the teaching profession, which desired emancipation from ecclesiastical control, and hoped that German schools and German railways were to complete the work which Joseph II. had begun. But the hostility of the Church was dangerous. The pope, in an allocution of 22nd June 1868, declared that these "damnable and abominable laws" which were "contrary to the concordat, to the laws of the Church and to the principles of Christianity," were "absolutely and for ever null and void." The natural result was that when they were carried into effect the bishops in many cases refused to obey. They claimed that the laws were inconsistent with the concordat, that the concordat still was in force, and that the laws were consequently invalid. The argument was forcible, but the courts decided against them. Rudigier, bishop of Linz, was summoned to a criminal court for disturbing the public peace; he refused to appear, for by the concordat bishops were not subject to temporal jurisdiction; and when he was condemned to imprisonment the emperor at once telegraphed his full pardon. In the rural districts the clergy had much influence; they were supported by the peasants, and the diets of Tirol and Vorarlberg, where there was a clerical majority, refused to carry out the school law.
On the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870, the government took the opportunity of declaring that the concordat had lapsed, on the ground that there was a fundamental change in the character of the papacy. Nearly all the Austrian prelates had been opposed to the new doctrine; many of them remained to the end of the council and voted against it, and they only declared their submission with great reluctance. The Old Catholic movement, however, never made much progress in Austria. Laws regulating the position of the Church were carried in 1874. (For the concordat see Laveleye, La Prusse et l'Autriche, Paris, 1870.)
During 1868 the constitution then was open to attack on two sides, for the nationalist movement was gaining ground in Bohemia and Galicia. In Galicia the extreme party, headed by Smolka, had always desired to imitate the Czechs and not attend at Vienna; they were outvoted, but all parties agreed on a declaration in which the final demands of the Poles were drawn up;[14] they asked that the powers of the Galician diet should be much increased, and that the members from Galicia should cease to attend the Reichsrath on the discussion of those matters with which the Galician diet should be qualified to deal. If these demands were not granted they would leave the Reichsrath. In Bohemia the Czechs were very active; while the Poles were parading their hostility to Russia in such a manner as to cause the emperor to avoid visiting Galicia, some of the Czech leaders attended a Slav demonstration at Moscow, and in 1868 they drew up and presented to the diet at Prague a "declaration" which has since been regarded as the official statement of their claims. They asked for the full restoration of the Bohemian kingdom; they contended that no foreign assembly was qualified to impose taxes in Bohemia; that the diet was not qualified to elect representatives to go to Vienna, and that a separate settlement must be made with Bohemia similar to that with Hungary. This declaration was signed by eighty-one members, including many of the feudal nobles and bishops.[15] The German majority declared that they had forfeited their seats, and ordered new elections. The agitation spread over the country, serious riots took place, and with a view to keeping order the government decreed exceptional laws. Similar events happened in Moravia, and in Dalmatia the revolt broke out among the Bocchesi.
Before the combination of Clericals and Federalists the ministry broke down; they were divided among themselves; Counts Taaffe and Alfred Potocki, the minister of agriculture, wished to conciliate the Slav races - a policy recommended by Beust, probably with the sympathy of the emperor; the others determined to cripple the opposition by taking away the elections for the Reichsrath from the diets. Taaffe and his friends resigned in January 1870, but the majority did not long survive. In March, after long delay, the new Galician demands were definitely rejected; the whole of the Polish club, followed by the Tirolese and Slovenes, left the House, which consequently consisted of 110 members - the Germans and German representatives from Bohemia and Moravia. It was clearly impossible to govern with such a parliament. Not four years had gone by, and the new constitution seemed to have failed like the old one. The only thing to do was to attempt a reconciliation with the Slavs. The ministry resigned, and Potocki and Taaffe formed a government with this object. Potocki, now minister-president, then entered on negotiations, hoping to persuade the Czechs to accept the constitution. Rieger and Thun were summoned to Vienna; he himself went to Prague, but after two days he had to give up the attempt in despair. Feudals and Czechs all supported the declaration of 1868, and would accept no compromise, and he returned to Vienna after what was the greatest disappointment of his life. Government, however, had to be carried on; the war between Germany and France broke out in July, and Austria might be drawn into it; the emperor could not at such a crisis alienate either the Germans or the Slavs. The Reichsrath and all the diets were dissolved. This time in Bohemia the Czechs, supported by the Feudals and the Clericals, gained a large majority; they took their seats in the diet only to declare that they did not regard it as the legal representative of the Bohemian kingdom, but merely an informal assembly, and refused to elect delegates for the Reichsrath. The Germans in their turn now left the diet, and the Czechs voted an address to the crown, drawn up by Count Thun, demanding the restoration of the Bohemian kingdom. When the Reichsrath met there were present only 130 out of 203 members, for the whole Bohemian contingent was absent; the government then, under a law of 1868, ordered that as the Bohemian diet had sent no delegates, they were to be chosen directly from the people. Twenty-four Constitutionalists and thirty Declaranten were chosen; the latter, of course, did not go to Vienna, but the additional twenty-four made a working majority by which the government was carried on for the rest of the year.
But Potocki's influence was gone, and as soon as the European crisis was over, in February 1871, the emperor appointed a ministry chosen not from the Liberals but from the Federalists and Clericals, led by Count Hohenwart and A. E. F. Schäffle, a professor at the university of Vienna, chiefly known for his writings on political economy. They attempted to solve the problem by granting to the Federalists all their demands. So long as parliament was sitting they were kept in check; as soon as it had voted supplies and the Delegations had separated, they ordered new elections in all those diets where there was a Liberal majority. By the help of the Clericals they won enough seats to put the Liberals in a minority in the Reichsrath, and it would be possible to revise the constitution if the Czechs consented to come. They would only attend, however, on their own terms, which were a complete recognition by the government of the claims made in the Declaration. This was agreed to; and on the 12th of September at the opening of the diet, the governor read a royal message recognizing the separate existence of the Bohemian kingdom, and promising that the emperor should be crowned as king at Prague. It was received with delight throughout Bohemia, and the Czechs drew a draft constitution of fundamental rights. On this the Germans, now that they were in a minority, left the diet, and began preparations for resistance. In Upper Austria, Moravia and Carinthia, where they were outvoted by the Clericals, they seceded, and the whole work of 1867 was on the point of being overthrown. Were the movement not stopped the constitution would be superseded, and the union with Hungary endangered. Beust and Andrássy warned the emperor of the danger, and the crown prince of Saxony was summoned by Beust to remonstrate with him. A great council was called at Vienna (October 20), at which the emperor gave his decision that the Bohemian demands could not be accepted. The Czechs must come to Vienna, and consider a revision of the constitution in a constitutional manner. Hohenwart resigned, but at the same time Beust was dismissed, and a new cabinet was chosen once more from among the German Liberals, under the leadership of Prince Adolf Auersperg, whose brother Carlos had been one of the chief members in the Bürger Ministerium. For the second time in four years the policy of the government had completely changed within a few months. On 12th September the decree had been published accepting the Bohemian claims; before the end of the year copies of it were seized by the police, and men were thrown into prison for circulating it.
Auersperg's ministry held office for eight years. They began as had the Bürger Ministerium, with a vigorous Liberal centralizing policy. In Bohemia they succeeded at first in almost crushing the opposition. In 1872 the diet was dissolved; and the whole influence of the government was used to procure a German majority. Koller, the governor, acted with great vigour. Opposition newspapers were suppressed; cases in which Czech journalists were concerned were transferred to the German districts, so that they were tried by a hostile German jury. Czech manifestoes were confiscated, and meetings stopped at the slightest appearance of disorder; and the riots were punished by quartering soldiers upon the inhabitants. The decision between the two races turned on the vote of the feudal proprietors, and in order to win this a society was formed among the German capitalists of Vienna (to which the name of Chabrus was popularly given) to acquire by real or fictitious purchase portions of those estates to which a vote was attached. These measures were successful; a large German majority was secured; Jews from Vienna sat in the place of the Thuns and the Schwarzenbergs; and as for many years the Czechs refused to sit in the diet, the government could be carried on without difficulty. A still greater blow to the Federalists was the passing of a new electoral law in 1873. The measure transferred the right of electing members of the Reichsrath from the diets to the direct vote of the people, the result being to deprive the Federalists of their chief weapon; it was no longer possible to take a formal vote of the legal representatives in any territory refusing to appoint deputies, and if a Czech or Slovene member did not take his seat the only result was that a single constituency was unrepresented, and the opposition weakened. The measure was strongly opposed. A petition with 250,000 names was presented from Bohemia; and the Poles withdrew from the Reichsrath when the law was introduced. But enough members remained to give the legal quorum, and it was carried by 120 to 2 votes. At the same time the number of members was increased to 353, but the proportion of representatives from the different territories was maintained and the system of election was not altered. The proportion of members assigned to the towns was increased, the special representatives of the chambers of commerce and of the landed proprietors were retained, and the suffrage was not extended. The artificial system which gave to the Germans a parliamentary majority continued.
At this time the Czechs were much weakened by quarrels among themselves. A new party had arisen, calling themselves Radicals, but generally known as the Young Czechs. They disliked the alliance with the aristocracy and the clergy; they wished for universal suffrage, and recalled the Hussite traditions. They desired to take their seats in the diet, and to join with the Germans in political reform. They violently attacked Rieger, the leader of the Old Czechs, who maintained the alliance with the Feudalists and the policy of passive opposition. Twenty-seven members of the diet led by Gregr and Stadkowsky, being outvoted in the Czech Club, resigned their seats. They were completely defeated in the elections which followed, but for the next four years the two parties among the Czechs were as much occupied in opposing one another as in opposing the Germans. These events might have secured the predominance of the Liberals for many years. The election after the reform bill gave them an increased majority in the Reichsrath. Forty-two Czechs who had won seats did not attend; forty-three Poles stood aloof from all party combination, giving their votes on each occasion as the interest of their country seemed to require; the real opposition was limited to forty Clericals and representatives of the other Slav races, who were collected on the Right under the leadership of Hohenwart. Against them were 227 Constitutionalists, and it seemed to matter little that they were divided into three groups; there were 105 in the Liberal Club under the leadership of Herbst, 57 Constitutionalists, elected by the landed proprietors, and a third body of Radicals, some of whom were more democratic than the old Constitutional party, while others laid more stress on nationality. They used their majority to carry a number of important laws regarding ecclesiastical affairs. Yet within four years the government was obliged to turn for support to the Federalists and Clericals, and the rule of the German Liberals was overthrown. Their influence was indirectly affected by the great commercial crisis of 1873. For some years there had been active speculations on the Stock Exchange; a great number of companies, chiefly banks and building societies, had been founded on a very insecure basis. The inevitable crisis began in 1872; it was postponed for a short time, and there was some hope that the Exhibition, fixed for 1873, would bring fresh prosperity; the hope was not, however, fulfilled, and the final crash, which occurred in May, brought with it the collapse of hundreds of undertakings. The loss fell almost entirely on those who had attempted to increase their wealth by speculative investment. Sound industrial concerns were little touched by it, but speculation had become so general that every class of society was affected, and in the investigation which followed it became apparent that some of the most distinguished members of the governing Liberal party, including at least two members of the government, were among those who had profited by the unsound finance. It appeared also that many of the leading newspapers of Vienna, by which the Liberal party was supported, had received money from financiers. For the next two years political interest was transferred from parliament to the law courts, in which financial scandals were exposed, and the reputations of some of the leading politicians were destroyed.[16]
This was to bring about a reaction against the economic doctrines which had held the field for nearly twenty years; but the full effect of the change was not seen for some time. What ruined the government was the want of unity in the party, and their neglect to support a ministry which had been taken from their own ranks. In a country like Austria, in which a mistaken foreign policy or a serious quarrel with Hungary might bring about the disruption of the monarchy, parliamentary government was impossible unless the party which the government helped in internal matters were prepared to support it in foreign affairs and in the commercial policy bound up with the settlement with Hungary. This the constitutional parties did not do. During discussions on the economic arrangement with Hungary in 1877 a large number voted against the duties on coffee and petroleum, which were an essential part of the agreement; they demanded, moreover, that the treaty of Berlin should be laid before the House, and 112 members, led by Herbst, gave a vote hostile to some of its provisions, and in the Delegation refused the supplies necessary for the occupation of Bosnia. They doubtless were acting in accordance with their principles, but the situation was such that it would have been impossible to carry out their wishes; the only result was that the Austrian ministers and Andrássy had to turn for help to the Poles, who began to acquire the position of a government party, which they have kept since then. At the beginning of 1870 Auersperg's resignation, which had long been offered, was accepted. The constitutionalists remained in power; but in the reconstructed cabinet, though Stremayr was president, Count Taaffe, as minister of the interior, was the most important member.
Parliament was dissolved in the summer, and Taaffe, by private negotiations, first of all persuaded the Bohemian feudal proprietors to give the Feudalists, who had long been excluded, a certain number of seats; secondly, he succeeded where Potocki had failed, and came to an agreement with the Czechs; they had already, in 1878, taken their seats in the diet at Prague, and now gave up the policy of "passive resistance," and consented to take their seats also in the parliament at Vienna.
On entering the House they took the oath without reservation, but in the speech from the throne the emperor himself stated that they had entered without prejudice to their convictions, and on the first day of the session Rieger read a formal reservation of right. The Liberals had also lost many seats, so that the House now had a completely different aspect; the constitutionalists were reduced to 91 Liberals and 54 Radicals; but the Right, under Hohenwart, had increased to 57, and there were 57 Poles and 54 Czechs. A combination of these three parties might govern against the constitutionalists. Taaffe, who now became first minister, tried first of all to govern by the help of the moderates of all parties, and he included representatives of nearly every party in his cabinet. But the Liberals again voted against the government on an important military bill, an offence almost as unpardonable in Austria as in Germany, and a great meeting of the party decided that they would not support the government. Taaffe, therefore, was obliged to turn for support to the Right. The German members of the government resigned, their place was taken by Clericals, Poles and Czechs, Smolka was elected president of the Lower House of the Reichsrath, and the German Liberals found themselves in a minority opposed by the "iron ring" of these three parties, and helpless in the parliament of their own creation. For fourteen years Taaffe succeeded in maintaining the position he had thus secured. He was not himself a party man; he had sat in a Liberal government; he had never assented to the principles of the Federalists, nor was he an adherent of the Clerical party. He continued to rule according to the constitution; his watchword was "unpolitical politics," and he brought in little contentious legislation. The great source of his strength was that he stood between the Right and a Liberal government. There was a large minority of constitutionalists; they might easily become a majority, and the Right were therefore obliged to support Taaffe in order to avert this. They continued to support him, even if they did not get from him all that they could have wished, and the Czechs acquiesced in a foreign policy with which they had little sympathy. Something, however, had to be done for them, and from time to time concessions had to be made to the Clericals and the Federalists.
The real desire of the Clericals was an alteration of the school law, by which the control of the schools should be restored to the Church and the period of compulsory education reduced. In this, however, the government did not meet them, and in 1882 the Clericals, under Prince Alfred v. Liechtenstein, separated from Hohenwart's party and founded their own club, so that they could act more freely. Both the new Clerical Club and the remainder of the Conservatives were much affected by the reaction against the doctrines of economic Liberalism. They began to adopt the principles of Christian Socialism expounded by Rudolf Mayer and Baron von Vogelfang, and the economic revolt against the influence of capital was with them joined to a half-religious attack upon the Jews. They represented that Austria was being governed by a close ring of political financiers, many of whom were Jews or in the pay of the Jews, who used the forms of the constitution, under which there was no representation of the working classes, to exploit the labour of the poor at the same time that they ruined the people by alienating them from Christianity in "godless schools." It was during these years that the foundation for the democratic clericalism of the future was laid. The chief political leader in this new tendency was Prince Aloys v. Liechtenstein, who complained of the political influence exercised by the chambers of commerce, and demanded the organization of working men in gilds. It was by their influence that a law was introduced limiting the rate of interest, and they co-operated with the government in legislation for improving the material condition of the people, which had been neglected during the period of Liberal government, and which was partly similar to the laws introduced at the same time in Germany.
There seems no doubt that the condition of the workmen in the factories of Moravia and the oil-mines of Galicia was peculiarly unfortunate; the hours of work were very long, the conditions were very injurious to health, and there were no precautions against accidents. The report of a parliamentary inquiry, called for by the Christian Socialists, showed the necessity for interference. In 1883 a law was carried, introducing factory inspection, extending to mines and all industrial undertakings. The measure seems to have been successful, and there is a general agreement that the inspectors have done their work with skill and courage. In 1884 and 1885 important laws were passed regulating the work in mines and factories, and introducing a maximum working day of eleven hours in factories, and ten hours in mines. Sunday labour was forbidden, and the hours during which women and children could be employed were limited. Great power was given to the administrative authorities to relax the application of these laws in special cases and special trades. This power was at first freely used, but it was closely restricted by a further law of 1893. In 1887-1888 laws, modelled on the new German laws, introduced compulsory insurance against accidents and sickness. These measures, though severely criticized by the Opposition, were introduced to remedy obvious, and in some cases terrible social evils. Other laws to restore gilds among working men had a more direct political object. Another form of state socialism was the acquisition of railways by the state. Originally railways had been built by private enterprise, supported in some cases by a state guarantee; a law of 1877 permitted the acquisition of private lines; when Taaffe retired the state possessed nearly 5000 m. of railway, not including those which belonged to Austria and Hungary conjointly. In 1889 a minister of railways was appointed. In this policy military considerations as well as economic were of influence. In every department we find the same reaction against the doctrines of laissez-faire. In 1889 for the first time the Austrian budget showed a surplus, partly the result of the new import duties, partly due to a reform of taxation.
For a fuller description of these social reforms, see the Jahrbuch fur Gesetzgebung (Leipzig, 1886, 1888 and 1894); also the annual summary of new laws in the Zeitschrift fur Staatswissenschaft (Stuttgart). For the Christian Socialists, see Nitti, Catholic Socialism (London, 1895).
Meanwhile it was necessary for the government to do something for the Czechs and the other Slavs, on whose support they depended for their majority. The influence of the government became more favourable to them in the matter of language, and this caused the struggle of nationalities to assume the first place in Austrian public life - a place which it has ever since maintained. The question of language becomes a political one, so far as it concerns the use of different languages in the public offices and law courts, and in the schools. There never was any general law laying down clear and universal rules, but since the time of Joseph II. German had been the ordinary language of the government. All laws were published in German; German was the sole language used in the central public offices in Vienna, and the language of the court and of the army; moreover, in almost every part of the monarchy it had become the language of what is called the internal service in the public offices and law courts; all books and correspondence were kept in German, not only in the German districts, but also in countries such as Bohemia and Galicia. The bureaucracy and the law courts had therefore become a network of German-speaking officialism extending over the whole country; no one had any share in the government unless he could speak and write German. The only exception was in the Italian districts; not only in Italy itself (in Lombardy, and afterwards in Venetia), but in South Tirol, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia, Italian has always been used, even for the internal service of the government offices, and though the actual words of command are now given in German and the officers are obliged to know Serbo-Croatian it remains to this day the language of the Austrian navy. Any interference with the use of German would be a serious blow to the cause of those who hoped to Germanize the whole empire. Since 1867 the old rules have been maintained absolutely as regards the army, and German has also, as required by the military authorities, become the language of the railway administration. It remains the language of the central offices in Vienna, and is the usual, though not the only, language used in the Reichsrath. In 1869 a great innovation was made, when Polish was introduced throughout the whole of Galicia as the normal language of government; and since that time the use of German has almost entirely disappeared in that territory. Similar innovations have also begun, as we shall see, in other parts.
Different from this is what is called the external service. Even in the old days it was customary to use the language of the district in communication between the government offices and private individuals, and evidence could be given in the law courts in the language generally spoken. This was not the result of any law, but depended on administrative regulations of the government service; it was practically necessary in remote districts, such as Galicia and Bukovina, where few of the population understood German. In some places a Slav-speaking individual would himself have to provide the interpreter, and approach the government in German. Local authorities, e.g. town councils and the diets, were free to use what language they wished, and in this matter the Austrian government has shown great liberality. The constitution of 1867 laid down a principle of much importance, by which previous custom became established as a right. Article 19 runs: "All races of the empire have equal rights, and every race has an inviolable right to the preservation and use of its own nationality and language. The equality of all customary (landesüblich) languages in school, office and public life, is recognized by the state. In those territories in which several races dwell, the public and educational institutions are to be so arranged that, without applying compulsion to learn a second Landessprache, each of the races receives the necessary means of education in its own language." The application of this law gives great power to the government, for everything depends on what is meant by landesüblich, and it rests with them to determine when a language is customary. The Germans demand the recognition of German as a customary language in every part of the empire, so that a German may claim to have his business attended to in his own language, even in Dalmatia and Galicia. In Bohemia the Czechs claim that their language shall be recognized as customary, even in those districts such as Reichenberg, which are almost completely German; the Germans, on the other hand, claim that the Czech language shall only be recognized in those towns and districts where there is a considerable Czech population. What Taaffe's Administration did was to interpret this law in a sense more favourable to the Slavs than had hitherto been the case.
Peculiar importance is attached to the question of education. The law of 1867 required that the education in the elementary schools in the Slav districts should be given in Czech or Slovenian, as the case might be. The Slavs, however, required that, even when a small minority of Slav race settled in any town, they should not be compelled to go to the German schools, but should have their own school provided for them; and this demand was granted by Prazak, minister of education under Count Taaffe. The Germans had always hoped that the people as they became educated would cease to use their own particular language. Owing to economic causes the Slavs, who increase more rapidly than the Germans, tend to move westwards, and large numbers settle in the towns and manufacturing districts. It might have been expected that they would then cease to use their own language and become Germanized; but, on the contrary, the movement of population is spreading their language and they claim that special schools should be provided for them, and that men of their own nationality should be appointed to government offices to deal with their business. This has happened not only in many places in Bohemia, but in Styria, and even in Vienna, where there has been a great increase in the Czech population and a Czech school has been founded. The introduction of Slavonic into the middle and higher schools has affected the Germans in their most sensitive point. They have always insisted that German is the Kultur-sprache. On one occasion Count A. Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) entered the diet of Carniola carrying the whole of the Slovenian literature under his arm, as evidence that the Slovenian language could not well be substituted for German as a medium of higher education.
The first important regulations which were issued under the law of 1867 applied to Dalmatia, and for that country between 1872 and 1876 a series of laws and edicts were issued determining to what extent the Slavonic idioms were to be recognized. Hitherto all business had been done in Italian, the language of a small minority living in the seaport towns. The effect of these laws has been to raise Croatian to equality with Italian. It has been introduced in all schools, so that nearly all education is given in Croatian, even though a knowledge of Italian is quite essential for the maritime population; and it is only in one or two towns, such as Zara, the ancient capital of the country, that Italian is able to maintain itself. Since 1882 there has been a Slav majority in the diet, and Italian has been disused in the proceedings of that body. In this case the concessions to the Servo-Croatians had been made by the Liberal ministry; they required the parliamentary support of the Dalmatian representatives, who were more numerous than the Italian, and it was also necessary to cultivate the loyalty of the Slav races in this part so as to gain a support for Austria against the Russian party, which was very active in the Balkan Peninsula. It was better to sacrifice the Italians of Dalmatia than the Germans of Carinthia.[17]
It was not till 1879 that the Slovenes received the support of the government. In Carniola they succeeded, in 1882, in winning a majority in the diet, and from this time, while the diet of Styria is the centre of the German, that of Carniola is the chief support of the Slovene agitation. In the same year they won the majority in the town council of Laibach, which had hitherto been German. They were able, therefore, to introduce Illyrian as the official language, and cause the names of the streets to be written up in Illyrian. This question of street names is, as it were, a sign of victory. Serious riots broke out in some of the towns of Istria when, for the first time, Illyrian was used for this purpose as well as Italian. In Prague the victory of the Czechs has been marked by the removal of all German street names, and the Czech town council even passed a by-law forbidding private individuals to have tablets put up with the name of the street in German. In consequence of a motion by the Slovene members of the Reichsrath and a resolution of the diet of Carniola, the government also declared Slovenian to be a recognized language for the whole of Carniola, for the district of Cilli in Styria, and for the Slovene and mixed districts in the south of Carinthia, and determined that in Laibach a Slovene gymnasium should be maintained as well as the German one.
The Germans complain that in many cases the government acted very unfairly to them. They constantly refer to the case of Klagenfurt. This town in Carinthia had a population of 16,491 German-speaking Austrians; the Slovenian-speaking population numbered 568, of whom 180 were inhabitants of the gaol or the hospital. The government, however, in 1880 declared Slovenian a customary language, so that provision had to be made in public offices and law courts for dealing with business in Slovenian. It must be remembered, however, that even though the town was German, the rural population of the surrounding villages was chiefly Slovene.
It was in Bohemia and Moravia that the contest was fought out with the greatest vehemence. The two races were nearly equal, and the victory of Czech would mean that nearly two million Germans would be placed in a position of subordination; but for the last twenty years there had been a constant encroachment by Czech on German. This was partly due to the direct action of the government. An ordinance of 1880 determined that henceforward all business which had been brought before any government office or law court should be dealt with, within the office, in the language in which it was introduced; this applied to the whole of Bohemia and Moravia, and meant that Czech would henceforward have a position within the government service. It was another step in the same direction when, in 1886, it was ordered that "to avoid frequent translations" business introduced in Czech should be dealt with in the same language in the high courts of Prague and Brünn. Then not only were a large number of Czech elementary schools founded, but also many middle schools were given to the Czechs, and Czech classes introduced in German schools; and, what affected the Germans most, in 1882 classes in Czech were started in the university of Prague - a desecration, as it seemed, of the oldest German university.
The growth of the Slav races was, however, not merely the result of government assistance; it had begun long before Taaffe assumed office; it was to be seen in the census returns and in the results of elections. Prague was no longer the German city it had been fifty years before; the census of 1880 showed 36,000 Germans to 120,000 Czechs. It was the same in Pilsen. In 1861 the Germans had a majority in this town; in 1880 they were not a quarter of the population. This same phenomenon, which occurs elsewhere, cannot be attributed to any laxity of the Germans. The generation which was so vigorously demanding national rights had themselves all been brought up under the old system in German schools, but this had not implanted in them a desire to become German. It was partly due to economic causes - the greater increase among the Czechs, and the greater migration from the country to the towns; partly the result of the romantic and nationalist movement which had arisen about 1830, and partly the result of establishing popular education and parliamentary government at the same time. As soon as these races which had so long been ruled by the Germans received political liberty and the means of education, they naturally used both to reassert their national individuality.
It may be suggested that the resistance to the German language is to some extent a result of the increased national feeling among the Germans themselves. They have made it a matter of principle. In the old days it was common for the children of German parents in Bohemia to learn Czech; since 1867 this has ceased to be the case. It may almost be said that they make it a point of honour not to do so. A result of this is that, as educated Czechs are generally bilingual, it is easier for them to obtain appointments in districts where a knowledge of Czech is required, and the Germans, therefore, regard every order requiring the use of Czech as an order which excludes Germans from a certain number of posts. This attitude of hostility and contempt is strongest among the educated middle class; it is not shown to the same extent by the clergy and the nobles.
The influence of the Church is also favourable to the Slav races, not so much from principle as owing to the fact that they supply more candidates for ordination than the Germans. There is no doubt, however, that the tendency among Germans has been to exalt the principle of nationality above religion, and to give it an absolute authority in which the Roman Catholic Church cannot acquiesce. In this, as in other ways, the Germans in Austria have been much influenced by the course of events in the German empire. This hostility of the Church to the German nationalist movement led in 1898 to an agitation against the Roman Catholic Church, and among the Germans of Styria and other territories large numbers left the Church, going over either to Protestantism or to Old Catholicism. This "Los von Rom" movement, which was caused by the continued alliance of the Clerical party with the Slav parties, is more of the nature of a political demonstration than of a religious movement.
The Germans, so long accustomed to rule, now saw their old ascendancy threatened, and they defended it with an energy that increased with each defeat. In 1880 they founded a great society, the Deutscher Schulverein, to establish and assist German schools. It spread over the whole of the empire; in a few years it numbered 100,000 members, and had an income of nearly 300,000 gulden; no private society in Austria had ever attained so great a success. In the Reichsrath a motion was introduced, supported by all the German Liberal parties, demanding that German should be declared the language of state and regulating the conditions under which the other idioms could be recognized; it was referred to a committee from which it never emerged, and a bill to the same effect, introduced in 1886, met a similar fate. In Bohemia they demanded, as a means of protecting themselves against the effect of the language ordinances, that the country should be divided into two parts; in one German was to be the sole language, in the other Czech was to be recognized. A proposal to this effect was introduced by them in the diet at the end of 1886, but since 1882 the Germans had been in a minority. The Czechs, of course, refused even to consider it; it would have cut away the ground on which their whole policy was built up, namely, the indissoluble unity of the Bohemian kingdom, in which German and Czech should throughout be recognized as equal and parallel languages. It was rejected on a motion of Prince Karl Schwarzenberg without discussion, and on this all the Germans rose and left the diet, thereby imitating the action of the Czechs in old days when they had the majority.
These events produced a great change on the character of the German opposition. It became more and more avowedly racial; the defence of German nationality was put in the front of their programme. The growing national animosity added bitterness to political life, and destroyed the possibility of a strong homogeneous party on which a government might depend. The beginning of this movement can be traced back to the year 1870. About that time a party of young Germans had arisen who professed to care little for constitutionalism and other "legal mummies," but made the preservation and extension of their own nationality their sole object. As is so often the case in Austria, the movement began in the university of Vienna, where a Leseverein (reading club) of German students was formed as a point of cohesion for Germans, which had eventually to be suppressed. The first representative of the movement in parliament was Herr von Schönerer, who did not scruple to declare that the Germans looked forward to union with the German empire. They were strongly influenced by men outside Austria. Bismarck was their national hero, the anniversary of Sedan their political festival, and approximation to Germany was dearer to them than the maintenance of Austria. After 1878 a heightening of racial feeling began among the Radicals, and in 1881 all the German parties in opposition joined together in a club called the United Left, and in their programme put in a prominent place the defence of the position of the Germans as the condition for the existence of the state, and demanded that German should be expressly recognized as the official language. The younger and more ardent spirits, however, found it difficult to work in harmony with the older constitutional leaders. They complained that the party leaders were not sufficiently decisive in the measures for self-defence. In 1885 great festivities in honour of Bismarck's eightieth birthday, which had been arranged in Graz, were forbidden by the government, and the Germans of Styria were very indignant that the party did not take up the matter with sufficient energy. After the elections of 1885 the Left, therefore, broke up again into two clubs, the "German Austrian," which included the more moderate, and the "German," which wished to use sharper language. The German Club, e.g., congratulated Bismarck on his measures against the Poles; the German Austrians refused to take cognizance of events outside Austria with which they had nothing to do. Even the German Club was not sufficiently decided for Herr von Schönerer and his friends, who broke off from it and founded a "National German Union." They spoke much of Germanentum and Unverfälschtes Deutschtum, and they advocated a political union with the German empire, and were strongly anti-Hungarian and wished to resign all control over Galicia, if by a closer union with Germany they could secure German supremacy in Bohemia and the south Slav countries. They play the same part in Austria as does the "pan-Germanic Union" in Germany. When in 1888 the two clubs, the German Austrians and the Germans, joined once more under the name of the "United German Left" into a new club with eighty-seven members, so as the better to guard against the common danger and to defeat the educational demands of the Clericals, the National Germans remained apart with seventeen members. They were also infected by the growing spirit of anti-Semitism. The German parties had originally been the party of the capitalists, and comprised a large number of Jews; this new German party committed itself to violent attacks upon the Jews, and for this reason alone any real harmony between the different branches would have been impossible.
Notwithstanding the concessions about language the Czechs had, however, made no advance towards their real object - the recognition of the Bohemian kingdom. Perhaps the leaders of the party, who were now growing old, would have been content with the influence they had already attained, but they were hard pressed at home by the Young Czechs, who were more impatient. When Count Thun was appointed governor of Bohemia their hopes ran high, for he was supposed to favour the coronation of the emperor at Prague. In 1890, however, instead of proceeding to the coronation as was expected, Taaffe attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the opposing parties. The influence by which his policy was directed is not quite clear, but the Czechs had been of recent years less easy to deal with, and Taaffe had never really shown any wish to alter the constitution; his policy always was to destroy the influence of parliament by playing off one party against the other, and so to win a clear field for the government. During the month of January conferences were held at Vienna, with Taaffe in the chair, to which were invited representatives of the three groups into which the Bohemian representatives were divided, the German party, the Czechs, and the Feudal party. After a fortnight's discussion an agreement was made on the basis of a separation between the German and the Czech districts, and a revision of the electoral law. A protocol enumerating the points agreed on was signed by all who had taken part in the conference, and in May bills were laid before the diet incorporating the chief points in the agreement. But they were not carried; the chief reason being that the Young Czechs had not been asked to take part in the conference, and did not consider themselves bound by its decisions; they opposed the measures and had recourse to obstruction, and a certain number of the Old Czechs gradually came over to them. Their chief ground of criticizing the proposed measures was that they would threaten the unity of the Bohemian country.[18] At the elections in 1891 a great struggle took place between the Old and the Young Czechs. The latter were completely victorious; Rieger, who had led the party for thirty years, disappeared from the Reichsrath. The first result was that the proposed agreement with Bohemia came to an end. But the disappearance of the Old Czechs made the parliamentary situation very insecure. The Young Czechs could not take their place: their Radical and anti-clerical tendencies alarmed the Feudalists and Clericalists who formed so large a part of the Right; they attacked the alliance with Germany; they made public demonstration of their French sympathies; they entered into communication with other Slav races, especially the Serbs of Hungary and Bosnia; they demanded universal suffrage, and occasionally supported the German Radicals in their opposition to the Clerical parties, especially in educational matters; under their influence disorder increased in Bohemia, a secret society called the Umladina (an imitation of the Servian society of that name) was discovered, and stringent measures had to be taken to preserve order. The government therefore veered round towards the German Liberals; some of the ministers most obnoxious to the Germans resigned, and their places were taken by Germans. For two years the government seemed to waver, looking now to the Left, now to Hohenwart and his friends; for a time Taaffe really had the support of all parties except the Young Czechs.
After two years he gave up his cautious policy and took a bold move. In October 1893 he introduced a reform bill. Universal suffrage had long been demanded by the working men and the Socialists; the Young Czechs also had put it on their programme, and many of the Christian Socialists and anti-Semites desired an alteration of the franchise. Taaffe's bill, while keeping the curiae of the feudal proprietors and the chambers of commerce as they were, and making no change in the number of members, proposed to give the franchise in both towns and rural districts to every one who could read and write, and had resided six months in one place. This was opposed by the Liberals, for with the growth of socialism and anti-Semitism, they knew that the extension of the franchise would destroy their influence. On this Taaffe had probably calculated, but he had omitted to inquire what the other parties would do. He had not even consulted Hohenwart, to whose assistance he owed his long tenure of power. Not even the pleasure of ruining the Liberals was sufficient to persuade the Conservatives to vote for a measure which would transfer the power from the well-to-do to the indigent, and Hohenwart justly complained that they ought to have been secure against surprises of this kind. The Poles also were against a measure which would give more influence to the Ruthenes. The position of the government was hopeless, and without waiting for a division Taaffe resigned.
The event to which for fourteen years the Left had looked forward had now happened. Once more they could have a share in the government, which they always believed belonged to them by nature. Taught by experience and adversity, they did not scruple to enter into an alliance with their old enemies, and a coalition ministry was formed from the Left, the Clericals and the Poles. The president was Prince Alfred Windisch-Grätz, grandson of the celebrated general, one of Hohenwart's ablest lieutenants; Hohenwart himself did not take office. Of course an administration of this kind could not take a definite line on any controversial question, but during 1894 they carried through the commercial treaty with Russia and the laws for the continuance of the currency reform. The differences of the clubs appeared, however, in the discussions on franchise reform; the government, not strong enough to have a policy of its own, had referred the matter to a committee; for the question having once been raised, it was impossible not to go on with it. This would probably have been fatal to the coalition, but the final blow was given by a matter of very small importance arising from the disputes on nationality. The Slovenes had asked that in the gymnasium at Cilli classes in which instruction was given in Slovenian should be formed parallel to the German classes. This request caused great excitement in Styria and the neighbouring districts; the Styrian diet (from which the Slovene minority had seceded) protested. The Slovenes were, however, members of the Hohenwart Club, so Hohenwart and his followers supported the request, which was adopted by the ministry. The German Left opposed it; they were compelled to do so by the popular indignation in the German districts; and when the vote was carried against them (12th June 1895) they made it a question of confidence, and formally withdrew their support from the government, which therefore at once resigned.
After a short interval the emperor appointed as minister-president Count Badeni, who had earned a great reputation as governer of Galicia. He formed an administration the merit of which, as of so many others, was that it was to belong to no party and to have no programme. He hoped to be able to work in harmony with the moderate elements of the Left; his mission was to carry through the composition (Ausgleich) with Hungary; to this everything else must be subordinated. During 1896 he succeeded in carrying a franchise reform bill, which satisfied nearly all parties. All the old categories of members were maintained, but a fifth curia was added, in which almost any one might vote who had resided six months in one place and was not in domestic service; in this way seventy-two would be added to the existing members. This matter having been settled, parliament was dissolved. The result of the elections of 1897 was the return of a House so constituted as to make any strong government impossible. On both sides the anti-Semitic parties representing the extreme demagogic elements were present in considerable numbers. The United German Left had almost disappeared; it was represented only by a few members chosen by the great proprietors; in its place there were the three parties - the German Popular party, the German Nationalists, and the German Radicals - who all put questions of nationality first and had deserted the old standpoint of the constitution. Then there were the fourteen Social Democrats who had won their seats under the new franchise. The old party of the Right was, however, also broken up; side by side with forty-one Clericals there were twenty-eight Christian Socialists led by Dr Lueger, a man of great oratorical power, who had won a predominant influence in Vienna, so long the centre of Liberalism, and had quite eclipsed the more modest efforts of Prince Liechtenstein. As among the German National party, there were strong nationalist elements in his programme, but they were chiefly directed against Jews and Hungarians; Lueger had already distinguished himself by his violent attacks on Hungary, which had caused some embarrassment to the government at a time when the negotiations for the Ausgleich were in progress. Like anti-Semites elsewhere, the Christian Socialists were reckless and irresponsible, appealing directly to the passions and prejudices of the most ignorant. There were altogether 200 German members of the Reichsrath, but they were divided into eight parties, and nowhere did there seem to be the elements on which a government could be built up.
The parliamentary situation is best explained by the following table showing the parties: -
German Liberals -
1897.
1901.
Constitutional Landed Proprietors
28
28
German Radicals
49
41
German Popular Party
42
51
Schoenerer Group
5
21
Kronawetter
1
. .
Democrat
1
. .
-
126
-
141
Social Democrats
14
10
German Conservatives -
German Clericals
30
}
37
German Popular Party
15
Christian Socialists
28
23
-
73
-
60
Federalist Great Proprietors
16
16
Czechs -
Young Czechs
60
53
Radical Young Czechs
1
4
Clerical Czechs
1
2
Agrarian Czechs
1
6
-
63
-
65
Poles -
Polish Club
59
60
Stoyalovski Group
6
. .
Popular Polish Party
3
11
-
68
-
71
Slovenes -
Clerical Slovenes
11
. .
Radical "
5
. .
-
16
-
16
Italians -
Liberal Italians
14
. .
Clerical "
5
. .
-
19
-
19
Croatians
11
9
Serbs
2
2
Ruthenes -
Ruthenes
6
. .
Young Ruthenes
5
. .
-
11
-
11
Rumanians -
Rumanians
5
. .
Young Rumanians
1
. .
-
6
-
5
- -
- -
Total
425
425
The most remarkable result of the elections was the disappearance of the Liberals in Vienna. In 1879, out of 37 members returned in Lower Austria, 33 were Liberals, but now they were replaced to a large extent by the Socialists. It was impossible to maintain a strong party of moderate constitutionalists, on whom the government could depend, unless there was a large nucleus from Lower Austria. The influence of Lueger was very embarrassing; he had now a majority of two-thirds in the town council, and had been elected burgomaster. The emperor had refused to confirm the election; he had been re-elected, and then the emperor, in a personal interview, appealed to him to withdraw. He consented to do so; but, after the election of 1897 had given him so many followers in the Reichsrath, Badeni advised that his election as burgomaster should be confirmed. There was violent antipathy between the Christian Socialists and the German Nationalists, and the transference of their quarrels from the Viennese Council Chamber to the Reichsrath was very detrimental to the orderly conduct of debate.
The limited suffrage had hitherto prevented socialism from becoming a political force in Austria as it had in Germany, and the national divisions have always impeded the creation of a centralized socialist party. The first object of the working classes necessarily was the attainment of political power; in 1867 there had been mass demonstrations and petitions to the government for universal suffrage. During the next years there was the beginning of a real socialist movement in Vienna and in Styria, where there is a considerable industrial population; after 1879, however, the growth of the party was interrupted by the introduction of anarchical doctrines. Most's paper, the Freiheit, was introduced through Switzerland, and had a large circulation. The anarchists, under the leadership of Peukert, seem to have attained considerable numbers. In 1883-1884 there were a number of serious strikes, collisions between the police and the workmen, followed by assassinations; it was a peculiarity of Austrian anarchists that in some cases they united robbery to murder. The government, which was seriously alarmed, introduced severe repressive measures; the leading anarchists were expelled or fled the country. In 1887, under the leadership of Dr Adler, the socialist party began to revive (the party of violence having died away), and since then it has steadily gained in numbers; in the forefront of the political programme is put the demand for universal suffrage. In no country is the 1st of May, as the festival of Labour, celebrated so generally.
Badeni after the election sent in his resignation, but the emperor refused to accept it, and he had, therefore, to do the best he could and turn for support to the other nationalities. The strongest of them were the fifty-nine Poles and sixty Young Czechs; he therefore attempted, as Taaffe had done, to come to some agreement with them. The Poles were always ready to support the government; among the Young Czechs the more moderate had already attempted to restrain the wilder spirits of the party, and they were quite prepared to enter into negotiations. They did not wish to lose the opportunity which now was open to them of winning influence over the administration. What they required was further concession as to the language in Bohemia. In May 1897 Badeni, therefore, published his celebrated ordinances. They determined (1) that all correspondence and documents regarding every matter brought before the government officials should be conducted in the language in which it was first introduced. This applied to the whole of Bohemia, and meant the introduction of Czech into the government offices throughout the whole of the kingdom; (2) after 1903 no one was to be appointed to a post under the government in Bohemia until he had passed an examination in Czech. These ordinances fulfilled the worst fears of the Germans. The German Nationalists and Radicals declared that no business should be done till they were repealed and Badeni dismissed. They resorted to obstruction. They brought in repeated motions to impeach the ministers, and parliament had to be prorogued in June, although no business of any kind had been transacted. Badeni had not anticipated the effect his ordinances would have; as a Pole he had little experience in the western part of the empire. During the recess he tried to open negotiations, but the Germans refused even to enter into a discussion until the ordinances had been withdrawn. The agitation spread throughout the country; great meetings were held at Eger and Aussig, which were attended by Germans from across the frontier, and led to serious disturbances; the cornflower, which had become the symbol of German nationality and union with Germany, was freely worn, and the language used was in many cases treasonable. The emperor insisted that the Reichsrath should again be summoned to pass the necessary measures for the agreement with Hungary; scenes then took place which have no parallel in parliamentary history. To meet the obstruction it was determined to sit at night, but this was unsuccessful. On one occasion Dr Lecher, one of the representatives of Moravia, spoke for twelve hours, from 9 P.M. till 9 A.M., against the Ausgleich. The opposition was not always limited to feats of endurance of this kind. On the 3rd of November there was a free fight in the House; it arose from a quarrel between Dr Lueger and the Christian Socialists on the one side (for the Christian Socialists had supported the government since the confirmation of Lueger as burgomaster) and the German Nationalists under Herr Wolf, a German from Bohemia, the violence of whose language had already caused Badeni to challenge him to a duel. The Nationalists refused to allow Lueger to speak, clapping their desks, hissing and making other noises, till at last the Young Czechs attempted to prevent the disorder by violence. On the 24th of November the scenes of disturbance were renewed. The president, Herr v. Abrahamovitch, an Armenian from Galicia, refused to call on Schönerer to speak. The Nationalists therefore stormed the platform, and the president and ministers had to fly into their private rooms to escape personal violence, until the Czechs came to their rescue, and by superiority in numbers and physical strength severely punished Herr Wolf and his friends. The rules of the House giving the president no authority for maintaining order, he determined, with the assent of the ministers, to propose alterations in procedure. The next day, when the sitting began, one of the ministers, Count Falkenhayn, a Clerical who was very unpopular, moved "That any member who continued to disturb a sitting after being twice called to order could be suspended - for three days by the president, and for thirty days by the House." The din and uproar was such that not a word could be heard, but at a pre-arranged signal from the president all the Right rose, and he then declared that the new order had been carried, although the procedure of the House required that it should be submitted to a committee. The next day, at the beginning of the sitting, the Socialists rushed on the platform, tore up and destroyed all the papers lying there, seized the president, and held him against the wall. After he had escaped, eighty police were introduced into the House and carried out the fourteen Socialists. The next day Herr Wolf was treated in the same manner. The excitement spread to the street. Serious disorders took place in Vienna and in Graz; the German opposition had the support of the people, and Lueger warned the ministers that as burgomaster he would be unable to maintain order in Vienna; even the Clerical Germans showed signs of deserting the government. The emperor, hastily summoned to Vienna, accepted Badeni's resignation, the Germans having thus by obstruction attained part of their wishes. The new minister, Gautsch, a man popular with all parties, held office for three months; he proclaimed the budget and the Ausgleich, and in February replaced the language ordinances by others, under which Bohemia was to be divided into three districts - one Czech, one German and one mixed. The Germans, however, were not satisfied with this; they demanded absolute repeal. The Czechs also were offended; they arranged riots at Prague; the professors in the university refused to lecture unless the German students were defended from violence; Gautsch resigned, and Thun, who had been governor of Bohemia, was appointed minister. Martial law was proclaimed in Bohemia, and strictly enforced. Thun then arranged with the Hungarian ministers a compromise about the Ausgleich.
The Reichsrath was again summoned, and the meetings were less disturbed than in the former year, but the Germans still prevented any business from being done. The Germans now had a new cause of complaint. Paragraph 14 of the Constitutional law of 1867 provided that, in cases of pressing necessity, orders for which the assent of the Reichsrath was required might, if the Reichsrath were not in session, be proclaimed by the emperor; they had to be signed by the whole ministry, and if they were not laid before the Reichsrath within four months of its meeting, or if they did not receive the approval of both Houses, they ceased to be valid. The Germans contended that the application of this clause to the Ausgleich was invalid, and demanded that it should be repealed. Thun had in consequence to retire, in September 1899. His successor, Count Clary, began by withdrawing the ordinances which had been the cause of so much trouble, but it was now too late to restore peace. The Germans were not sufficiently strong and united to keep in power a minister who had brought them the relief for which they had been clamouring for two years. The Czechs, of course, went into opposition, and used obstruction. The extreme German party, however, took the occasion to demand that paragraph 14 should be repealed. Clary explained that this was impossible, but he gave a formal pledge that he would not use it. The Czechs, however, prevented him passing a law on excise which was a necessary part of the agreements with Hungary; it was, therefore, impossible for him to carry on the government without breaking his word; there was nothing left for him to do but to resign, after holding office for less than three months. The emperor then appointed a ministry of officials, who were not bound by his pledge, and used paragraph 14 for the necessary purposes of state. They then made way for a ministry under Herr v. Körber. During the early months of 1900 matters were more peaceful, and Körber hoped to be able to arrange a compromise; but the Czechs now demanded the restoration of their language in the internal service of Bohemia, and on 8th June, by noise and disturbance, obliged the president to suspend the sitting. The Reichsrath was immediately dissolved, the emperor having determined to make a final attempt to get together a parliament with which it would be possible to govern. The new elections on which so much was to depend did not take place till January 1901. They resulted in a great increase of the extreme German Nationalist parties. Schönerer and the German Radicals - the fanatical German party who in their new programme advocated union of German Austria with the German empire - now numbered twenty-one, who chiefly came from Bohemia. They were able for the first time to procure the election of one of their party in the Austrian Delegation, and threatened to introduce into the Assembly scenes of disorder similar to those which they had made common in the Reichsrath. All those parties which did not primarily appeal to national feeling suffered loss; especially was this the case with the two sections of the Clericals, the Christian Socialists and the Ultramontanes; and the increasing enmity between the German Nationalists (who refused even the name German to a Roman Catholic) and the Church became one of the most conspicuous features in the political situation. The loss of seats by the Socialists showed that even among the working men the national agitation was gaining ground; the diminished influence of the anti-Semites was the most encouraging sign.
Notwithstanding the result of the elections, the first months of the new parliament passed in comparative peace. There was a truce between the nationalities. The Germans were more occupied with their opposition to the Clericals than with their feud with the Slavs. The Czechs refrained from obstruction, for they did not wish to forfeit the alliance with the Poles and Conservatives, on which their parliamentary strength depended, and the Germans used the opportunity to pass measures for promoting the material prosperity of the country, especially for an important system of canals which would bring additional prosperity to the coal-fields and manufactures of Bohemia.
(J. W. He.)
The history of Austria since the general election of 1901 is the history of franchise reform as a crowning attempt to restore parliament to normal working conditions. The premier, Dr von Körber, who had undertaken to overcome obstruction and who hoped to effect a compromise between Germans and Czechs, induced the Chamber to sanction the estimates, the contingent of recruits and other "necessities of state" for 1901 and 1902, by promising to undertake large public works in which Czechs and Germans were alike interested. These public works were chiefly a canal from the Danube to the Oder; a ship canal from the Danube to the Moldau near Budweis, and the canalization of the Moldau from Budweis to Prague; a ship canal running from the projected Danube-Oder canal near Prerau to the Elbe near Pardubitz, and the canalization of the Elbe from Pardubitz to Melnik; a navigable connexion between the Danube-Oder Canal and the Vistula and the Dniester. It was estimated that the construction of these four canals would require twenty years, the funds being furnished by a 4% loan amortizable in ninety years. In addition to the canals, the cabinet proposed and the Chamber sanctioned the construction of a "second railway route to Trieste" designed to shorten the distance between South Germany, Salzburg and the Adriatic, by means of a line passing under the Alpine ranges of central and southern Austria. The principal sections of this line were named after the ranges they pierced, the chief tunnels being bored through the Tauern, Karawanken and Wochein hills. Sections were to be thrown open to traffic as soon as completed and the whole work to be ended during 1909. The line forms one of the most interesting railway routes in Europe. The cost, however, greatly exceeded the estimate sanctioned by parliament; and the contention that the parliamentary adoption of the Budget in 1901-1902 cost the state £100,000,000 for public works, is not entirely unfounded. True, these works were in most cases desirable and in some cases necessary, but they were hastily promised and often hastily begun under pressure of political expediency. The Körber administration was for this reason subsequently exposed to severe censure.
Despite these public works Dr von Körber found himself unable to induce parliament to vote the Budgets for 1903, 1904 or 1905, and was obliged to revert to the expedient employed by his predecessors of sanctioning the estimates by imperial ordinance under paragraph 14 of the constitution. His attempts in December 1902 and January 1903 to promote a compromise between Czechs and Germans proved equally futile. Körber proposed that Bohemia be divided into 10 districts, of which 5 would be Czech, 3 German and 2 mixed. Of the 234 district tribunals, 133 were to be Czech, 94 German and 7 mixed. The Czechs demanded on the contrary that both their language and German should be placed on an equal footing throughout Bohemia, and be used for all official purposes in the same way. As this demand involved the recognition of Czech as a language of internal service in Bohemia it was refused by the Germans. Thenceforward, until his fall on the 31st of December 1904, Körber governed practically without parliament. The Chamber was summoned at intervals rather as a pretext for the subsequent employment of paragraph 14 than in the hope of securing its assent to legislative measures. The Czechs blocked business by a pile of "urgency motions" and occasionally indulged in noisy obstruction. On one occasion a sitting lasted 57 hours without interruption. In consequence of Czech aggressiveness, the German parties (the German Progressists, the German Populists, the Constitutional Landed Proprietors and the Christian Socialists) created a joint executive committee and a supreme committee of four members to watch over German racial interests.
By the end of 1904 it had become clear that the system of government by paragraph 14, which Dr von Körber had perfected was not effective in the long run. Loans were needed for military and other purposes, and paragraph 14 itself declares that it cannot be employed for the contraction of any lasting burden upon the exchequer, nor for any sale of state patrimony. As the person of the premier had become so obnoxious to the Czechs that his removal would be regarded by them as a concession, his resignation was suddenly accepted by the emperor, and, on the 1st of January 1905, a former premier, Baron von Gautsch, was appointed in his stead. Parliamentary activity was at once resumed; the Austro-Hungarian tariff contained in the Széll-Körber compact was adopted, the estimates were discussed and the commercial treaty with Germany ratified. In the early autumn, however, a radical change came over the spirit of Austrian politics. For nearly three years Austria had been watching with bitterness and depression the course of the crisis in Hungary. Parliament had repeatedly expressed its disapproval of the Magyar demands upon the crown, but had succeeded only in demonstrating its own impotence. The feeling that Austria could be compelled by imperial ordinance under paragraph 14 to acquiesce in whatever concessions the crown might make to Hungary galled Austrian public opinion and prepared it for coming changes. In August 1905 the crown took into consideration and in September sanctioned the proposal that universal suffrage be introduced into the official programme of the Fejérváry cabinet then engaged in combating the Coalition in Hungary. It is not to be supposed that the king of Hungary assented to this programme without reflecting that what he sought to further in Hungary, it would be impossible for him, as emperor of Austria, to oppose in Cisleithania. His subsequent action justifies, indeed, the belief that, when sanctioning the Fejérváry programme, the monarch had already decided that universal suffrage should be introduced in Austria; but even he can scarcely have been prepared for the rapidity with which the movement in Austria gained ground and accomplished its object.
On the 15th of September 1905 a huge socialist and working-class demonstration in favour of universal suffrage took place before the parliament at Budapest. The Austrian Socialist party, encouraged by this manifestation and influenced by the revolutionary movement in Russia, resolved to press for franchise reform in Austria also. An initial demonstration, resulting in some bloodshed, was organized in Vienna at the beginning of November. At Prague, Graz and other towns, demonstrations and collisions with the police were frequent. The premier, Baron Gautsch, who had previously discountenanced universal suffrage while admitting the desirability of a restricted reform, then changed attitude and permitted an enormous Socialist demonstration, in support of universal suffrage, to take place (November 28) in the Vienna Ringstrasse. Traffic was suspended for five hours while an orderly procession of workmen, ten abreast, marched silently along the Ringstrasse past the houses of parliament. The demonstration made a deep impression upon public opinion. On the same day the premier promised to introduce by February a large measure of franchise reform so framed as to protect racial minorities from being overwhelmed at the polls by majorities of other races. On the 23rd of February 1906 he indeed brought in a series of franchise reform measures. Their main principles were the abolition of the curia or electoral class system and the establishment of the franchise on the basis of universal suffrage; and the division of Austria electorally into racial compartments within which each race would be assured against molestation from other races. The Gautsch redistribution bill proposed to increase the number of constituencies from 425 to 455, to allot a fixed number of constituencies to each province and, within each province, to each race according to its numbers and tax-paying capacity. The reform bill proper proposed to enfranchise every male citizen above 24 years of age with one year's residential qualification.
At first the chances of the adoption of such a measure seemed small. It was warmly supported from outside by the Social Democrats, who held only 11 seats in the House; inside, the Christian Socialists or Lueger party were favourable on the whole as they hoped to gain seats at the expense of the German Progressives and German Populists and to extend their own organization throughout the empire. The Young Czechs, too, were favourable, while the Poles reserved their attitude. Hostile in principle and by instinct, they waited to ascertain the mind of the emperor, before actively opposing the reform. With the exception of the German Populists who felt that a German "Liberal" party could not well oppose an extension of popular rights, all the German Liberals were antagonistic, some bitterly, to the measure. The Constitutional Landed Proprietors who had played so large a part in Austrian politics since the 'sixties, and had for a generation held the leadership of the German element in parliament and in the country, saw themselves doomed and the leadership of the Germans given to the Christian Socialists. None of the representatives of the curia system fought so tenaciously for their privileges as did the German nominees of the curia of large landed proprietors. Their opposition proved unavailing. The emperor frowned repeatedly upon their efforts.
Baron Gautsch fell in April over a difference with the Poles, and his successor, Prince Konrad zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, who had taken over the reform bills, resigned also, six weeks later, as a protest against the action of the crown in consenting to the enactment of a customs tariff in Hungary distinct from, though identical with, the joint Austro-Hungarian tariff comprised in the Széll-Körber compact and enacted as a joint tariff by the Reichsrath. A new cabinet was formed (June 2) by Baron von Beck, permanent under secretary of state in the ministry for agriculture, an official of considerable ability who had first acquired prominence as an instructor of the heir apparent, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, in constitutional and administrative law. By dint of skilful negotiation with the various parties and races, and steadily supported by the emperor who, on one occasion, summoned the recalcitrant party leaders to the Hofburg ad audiendum verbum and told them the reform "must be accomplished," Baron Beck succeeded, in October 1906, in attaining a final agreement, and on the 1st of December in securing the adoption of the reform. During the negotiations the number of constituencies was raised to 516, divided, according to provinces, as follows: -
Bohemia
130
previously
110
Galicia
106
"
78
Lower Austria
64
"
46
Moravia
49
"
43
Styria
30
"
27
Tirol
25
"
21
Upper Austria
22
"
20
Austrian Silesia
15
"
12
Bukovina
14
"
11
Carniola
12
"
11
Dalmatia
11
"
11
Carinthia
10
"
10
Salzburg
7
"
7
Istria
6
"
5
Görz and Gradisca
6
"
5
Trieste and territory
5
"
5
Vorarlberg
4
"
4
In the allotment of the constituencies to the various races their tax-paying capacity was taken into consideration. In mixed districts separate constituencies and registers were established for the electors of each race, who could only vote on their own register for a candidate of their own race. Thus Germans were obliged to vote for Germans and Czechs for Czechs; and, though there might be victories of Clerical over Liberal Germans or of Czech Radicals over Young Czechs, there could be no victories of Czechs over Germans, Poles over Ruthenes, or Slovenes over Italians. The constituencies were divided according to race as follows: -
Germans of all parties
233
previously
205
Czechs of all parties
108
"
81
Poles
80
"
71
Southern Slavs (Slovenes, Croats, Serbs)
37
"
27
Ruthenes
34
"
11
Italians
19
"
18
Rumanians
5
"
5
These allotments were slightly modified at the polls by the victory of some Social Democratic candidates not susceptible of strict racial classification. The chief feature of the allotment was, however, the formal overthrow of the fiction that Austria is preponderatingly a German country and not a country preponderatingly Slav with a German dynasty and a German façade. The German constituencies, though allotted in a proportion unduly favourable, left the Germans, with 233 seats, in a permanent minority as compared with the 259 Slav seats. Even with the addition of the "Latin" (Rumanian and Italian) seats the "German-Latin block" amounted only to 257. This "block" no longer exists in practice, as the Italians now tend to co-operate rather with the Slavs than with the Germans. The greatest gainers by the redistribution were the Ruthenes, whose representation was trebled, though it is still far from being proportioned to their numbers. This and other anomalies will doubtless be corrected in future revisions of the allotment, although the German parties, foreseeing that any revision must work out to their disadvantage, stipulated that a two-thirds majority should be necessary for any alteration of the law.
After unsuccessful attempts by the Upper House to introduce plural voting, the bill became law in January 1907, the peers insisting only upon the establishment of a fixed maximum number or numerus clausus, of non-hereditary peers, so as to prevent the resistance of the Upper Chamber from being overwhelmed at any critical moment by an influx of crown nominees appointed ad hoc. The general election which took place amid considerable enthusiasm on the 14th of May resulted in a sweeping victory for the Social Democrats whose number rose from 11 to 87; in a less complete triumph for the Christian Socialists who increased from 27 to 67; and in the success of the extremer over the conservative elements in all races. A classification of the groups in the new Chamber presents many difficulties, but the following statement is approximately accurate. It must be premised that, in order to render the Christian Socialist or Lueger party the strongest group in parliament, an amalgamation was effected between them and the conservative Catholic party: -
German Conservatives -
Total.
Christian Socialists
96
German Agrarians
19
German Liberals -
Progressives
15
Populists
29
Pan-German radicals (Wolf group)
13
Unattached Pan-Germans
3
" Progressives
2
Czechs -
-
177
Czech Agrarians
28
Young Czechs
18
Czech Clericals
17
Old Czechs
7
Czech National Socialists
9
Realists
2
Unattached Czech
1
Social Democrats -
-
82
Of all races
87
87
Poles -
Democrats
26
Conservatives
15
Populists
18
Centre
12
Independent Socialist
1
Ruthenes -
-
72
National Democrats
25
Old or Russophil Ruthenes
5
Slovenes -
-
30
Clericals
17
Southern Slav Club -
Croats
20
37
Serbs
Slovene Liberals
Italians -
Clerical Populists
11
Liberals
4
-
15
Rumanians -
Rumanian Club
5
5
Jews -
Zionists
4
Democrats
1
5
-
Unclassified, vacancies, etc
6
6
- -
The legislature elected by universal suffrage worked fairly smoothly during the first year of its existence. The estimates were voted with regularity, racial animosity was somewhat less prominent, and some large issues were debated. The desire not to disturb the emperor's Diamond Jubilee year by untoward scenes doubtless contributed to calm political passion, and it was celebrated in 1908 with complete success. But it was no sooner over than the crisis over the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is dealt with above, eclipsed all purely domestic affairs in the larger European question.
(H. W. S.)
Bibliography. - 1. Sources. A collection of early authorities on Austrian history was published in 3 vols. folio by Hieronymus Pez (Leipzig, 1721-1725) under the title Scriptores rerum Austriacarum veteres et genuini, of which a new edition was printed at Regensburg in 1745, and again, under the title of Rerum Austriacarum scriptores, by A. Rauch at Vienna in 1793-1794. It was not, however, till the latter half of the 19th century that the vast store of public and private archives began to be systematically exploited. Apart from the material published in the Monumenta Germ. Hist. of Pertz and his collaborators, there are several collections devoted specially to the sources of Austrian history. Of these the most notable is the Fontes rerum Austriacarum, published under the auspices of the Historical Commission of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna; the series, of which the first volume was published in 1855, is divided into two parts: (i.) Scriptores, of which the 9th vol. appeared in 1904; (ii.) Diplomataria et Acta, of which the 58th vol. appeared in 1906. It covers the whole range of Austrian history, medieval and modern. Another collection is the Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte, Literatur und Sprache Osterreichs und seiner Kronländer, edited by J. Hirn and J. E. Wackernagel (Graz, 1895, etc.), of which vol. x. appeared in 1906. Besides these there are numerous accounts and inventories of public and private archives, for which see Dahlmann-Waitz, Quellenkunde (ed. 1906), pp. 14-15, 43, and suppl. vol. (1907), pp. 4-5. Of collections of treaties the most notable is that of L. Neumann, Recueil des traités conclus par l'Autriche avec les puissances étrangères depuis 1763 (6 vols., Leipzig, 1855: c.), continued by A. de Plason (18 vols., Vienna, 1877-1905). In 1907, however, the Imperial Commission for the Modern History of Austria issued the first volume of a new series, Osterreichische Staatsverträge, which promises to be of the utmost value. Like the Recueil des traités conclus par la Russie of T. T. de Martens, it is compiled on the principle of devoting separate volumes to the treaties entered into with the several states; this is obviously convenient as enabling the student to obtain a clear review of the relations of Austria to any particular state throughout the whole period covered. For treaties see also J. Freiherr von Vasque von Püttlingen, Ubersicht der österreichischen Staatsverträge seit Maria Theresa bis auf die neueste Zeit (Vienna, 1868); and L. Bittner, Chronologisches Verzeichnis der österreichischen Staatsverträge (Band G, 1526-1723, Vienna, 1903).
2. Works. - (a) General. Archdeacon William Coxe's History of the House of Austria, 1218-1792 (3 vols., London, 1817), with its continuation by W. Kelly (London, 1853; new edition, 1873), remains the only general history of Austria in the English language. It has, of course, long been superseded as a result of the research indicated above. The amount of work that has been devoted to this subject since Coxe's time will be seen from the following list of books, which are given in the chronological order of their publication: - J. Majláth, Geschichte des österreichischen Kaiserstaates (5 vols., Hamburg, 1834-1850); Count F. von Hartig, Genesis der Revolution in Osterreich im Jahre 1848 (Leipzig, 1851; 3rd edition, enlarged, ib., 1851; translated as appendix to Coxe's House of Austria, ed. 1853), a work which created a great sensation at the time and remains of much value; W. H. Stiles, Austria in 1848-1849 (2 vols., New York, 1852), by an eye-witness of events; M. Büdinger, Osterreichische Gesch. bis zum Ausgange des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. i. to A.D. 1055 (Leipzig, 1858); A. Springer, Geschichte Osterreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden, 1809 (2 vols. to 1849; Leipzig, 1863-1865); A. von Arneth, Geschichte Maria Theresias (10 vols., Vienna, 1863-1879); the series Osterreichische Gesch. für das Volk, 17 vols., by various authors (Vienna, 1864, etc.), for which see Dahlmann-Waitz, p. 86; H. Bidermann, Gesch. der österreichischen Gesamtstaatsidee, 1526-1804, parts 1 and 2 to 1740 (Innsbruck, 1867, 1887); J. A. Freiherr von Helfert, Gesch. Osterreichs vom Ausgange des Oktoberaufstandes, 1848, vols. i.-iv. (Leipzig and Prague, 1869-1889); W. Rogge, Osterreich von Világos bis zur Gegenwart (3 vols., Leipzig and Vienna, 1872, 1873), and Osterreich seit der Katastrophe Hohenwart-Beust (Leipzig, 1879), written from a somewhat violent German standpoint; Franz X. Krones (Ritter von Marchland), Handbuch der Gesch. Osterreichs (5 vols., Berlin, 1876-1879), with copious references, Gesch. der Neuzeit Osterreichs vom 18ten Jahrhundert bis auf die Gegenwart (Berlin, 1879), from the German-liberal point of view, and Grundriss der österreichischen Gesch. (Vienna, 1882); Baron Henry de Worms, The Austro-Hungarian Empire (London, 2nd ed., 1876); Louis Asseline, Histoire de l'Autriche depuis la mort de Marie Thérèse (Paris, 1877), sides with the Slavs against Germans and Magyars; Louis Leger, Hist. de l'Autriche-Hongrie (Paris, 1879), also strongly Slavophil; A. Wolf, Geschichtliche Bilder aus Osterreich (2 vols., Vienna, 1878-1880), and Osterreich unter Maria Theresia, Joseph II. und Leopold I. (Berlin, 1882); E. Wertheimer, Gesch. Osterreichs und Ungarns im ersten Jahrzehnt des 19ten Jahrhunderts (2 vols., Leipzig, 1884-1890); A. Huber, Gesch. Osterreichs, vols. i. to v. up to 1648 (in Heeren's Gesch. der europ. Staaten, Gotha, 1885-1895); J. Emmer, Kaiser Franz Joseph I., fünfzig Jahre österreichischer Gesch. (2 vols., Vienna, 1898); F. M. Mayer, Gesch. Osterreichs mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Kulturleben (2 vols. 2nd ed., Vienna, 1900-1901); A. Dopsch, Forschungen zur inneren Gesch. Osterreichs, vol. i. 1 (Innsbruck, 1903); Louis Eisenmann, Le Compromis austro-hongrois de 1867 (Paris, 1904); H. Friedjung, Osterreich von 1848 bis 1860 (Stuttgart, 1908 seq.); Geoffrey Drage, Austria-Hungary (London, 1909).
(b) Constitutional. - E. Werunsky, Osterreichische Reichs- und Rechtsgeschichte (Vienna, 1894, etc.); A. Bechmann, Lehrbuch der österreichischen Reichsgesch. (Prague, 1895-1896); A. Huber, Osterreichische Reichsgesch. (Leipzig and Vienna, 1895, 2nd ed. by A. Dopsch, ib., 1901); A. Luschin von Ebengreuth, Osterreichische Reichsgesch. (2 vols., Bamberg, 1895, 1896), a work of first-class importance; and Grundriss der österreichischen Reichsgesch. (Bamberg, 1899); G. Kolmer, Parlament und Verfassung in Osterreich, vols. i. to iii. from 1848 to 1885 (Vienna, 1902-1905). For relations with Hungary see J. Andrássy, Ungarns Ausgleich mit Osterreich, 1867 (Leipzig, 1897); L. Eisenmann, Le Compromis austro-hongrois de 1867 (Paris, 1904).
(c) Diplomatic. - A. Beer, Zehn Jahre österreichischer Politik, 1801-1810 (Leipzig, 1877), and Die orientalische Politik Osterreichs seit 1774 (Prague and Leipzig, 1883); A. Fournier, Gentz und Cobenzl: Gesch. der öst. Politik in den Jahren 1801-1805 (Vienna, 1880); F. von Demelitsch, Metternich und seine auswärtige Politik, vol. i. (1809-1812, Stuttgart, 1898); H. Ubersberger, Osterreich und Russland seit dem Ende des 15ten Jahrhunderts, vol. i. 1488 to 1605 (Kommission für die neuere Gesch. Osterreichs, Vienna, 1905). See further the bibliographies to the articles on Metternich, Gentz, etc. For the latest developments of the "Austrian question" see André Chéradame, L'Europe et la question d'Autriche au seuil du XXe siècle (Paris, 1901), and L'Allemagne, la France et la question d'Autriche (76, 1902); René Henry, Questions d'Autriche-Hongrie et question d'orient (Paris, 1903), with preface by Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu; "Scotus Viator," The Future of Austria-Hungary (London, 1907).
(d) Racial Question. - There is a very extensive literature on the question of languages and race in Austria. The best statement of the legal questions involved is in Josef Ulbrith and Ernst Mischler's Osterr. Staatswörterbuch (3 vols., Vienna, 1894-1897; 2nd ed. 1904, etc.). See also Dummreicher, Südostdeutsche Betrachtungen (Leipzig, 1893); Hainisch, Die Zukunft der Deutsch-Osterreicher (Vienna, 1892); Herkner, Die Zukunft der Deutsch-Osterreicher (ib. 1893); L. Leger, La Save, le Danube et le Balkan (Paris, 1884); Bressnitz von Sydacoff, Die panslavistische Agitation (Berlin, 1899); Bertrand Auerbach, Les Races et les nationalités en Autriche-Hongrie (Paris, 1898).
(e) Biographical. - C. von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaisertums Osterreich (60 vols., Vienna, 1856-1891); also the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie.
Many further authorities, whether works, memoirs or collections of documents, are referred to in the lists appended to the articles in this book on the various Austrian sovereigns and statesmen. For full bibliography see Dahlmann-Waitz, Quellenkunde (ed. 1906, and subsequent supplements); many works, covering particular periods, are also enumerated in the bibliographies in the several volumes of the Cambridge Modern History.
(W. A. P.)
[1] Rudolph V. as archduke of Austria, II. as emperor.
[2] Thus, while the number of recruits, though varying from year to year, could be settled by the war department, the question of the claim of a single conscript for exemption, on grounds not recognized by precedent, could only be settled by imperial decree.
[3] Forbidden books were the only ones read, and forbidden newspapers the only ones believed.
[4] In Hungary the diet was not summoned at all between 1811 and 1825, nor in Transylvania between 1811 and 1834.
[5] For the separate political histories of Austria and Hungary see the section on II. Austria Proper, below, and Hungary; the present section deals with the history of the whole monarchy as such.
[6] Baron H. de Worms, The Austro-Hungarian Empire (London, 1876), and Beust's Memoirs.
[7] See General Le Brun, Souvenirs militaires (1866-1870, Paris, 1895); also, Baron de Worms, op. cit., and the article on Beust.
[8] Josef, Freiherr Philippović von Philippsberg (1818-1889), belonged to an old Christian noble family of Bosnia.
[9] Sir Charles Dilke, The Present Position of European Politics (London, 1887).
[10] Matlekovits, Die Zollpolitik der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie (Leipzig, 1891), gives the Hungarian point of view; Bazant, Die Handelspolitik Osterreich-Ungarns (1875-1892, Leipzig, 1894).
[11] The only change was that as the military frontier had been given over to Hungary, Hungary in consequence of this addition of territory had to pay 2%, the remaining 98% being divided as before, so that the real proportion was 31.4 and 68.6.
[12] Alois, Count Lexa von Aerenthal, was born on the 27th of September 1854 at Gross-Skal in Bohemia, studied at Bonn and Prague, was attaché at Paris (1877) and afterwards at St Petersburg, envoy extraordinary at Bucharest (1895) and ambassador at St Petersburg (1896). He was created a count on the emperor's 79th birthday in 1909.
[13] It is impossible to avoid using the word "Austria" to designate these territories, though it is probably incorrect. Officially the word "Austria" is not found, and though the sovereign is emperor of Austria, an Austrian empire appears not to exist; the territories are spoken of in official documents as "the kingdoms and lands represented in the Reichsrath." The Hungarians and the German party in Austria have expressed their desire that the word Austria should be used, but it has not been gratified. On the other hand, expressions such as "Austrian citizens," "Austrian law" are found. The reason of this peculiar use is probably twofold. On the one hand, a reluctance to confess that Hungary is no longer in any sense a part of Austria; on the other hand, the refusal of the Czechs to recognize that their country is part of Austria. Sometimes the word Erbländer, which properly is applied only to the older ancestral dominions of the house of Habsburg, is used for want of a better word.
[14] The documents are printed in Baron de Worms, op. cit.
[15] It is printed in the Europaischer Geschichtskalender (1868).
[16] See Wirth, Geschichte der Handelskrisen (Frankfort, 1885); and an interesting article by Schäffle in the Zeitschrift f. Staatswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1874).
[17] For Dalmatia, see T. G. Jackson, Dalmatia etc., (Oxford, 1889).
[18] On this see Menger, Der Ausgleich mit Böhmen (Vienna, 1891), where the documents are printed.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
