The Governments of Europe Part 38

*487. The Establishment of Hapsburg Dominion, 1276.*--In 1251--five years after the death of the last Babenberg--the estates of the duchy elected as duke Ottakar, son of Wenceslaus I., king of Bohemia. In 1276, however, Duke Ottakar was compelled to yield his three dominions of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia to Rudolph of Hapsburg, who, in 1273, upon the breaking of the Interregnum, had become German king and emperor; and at this point began in Austria the rule of the (p. 443) ill.u.s.trious Hapsburg dynasty of which the present Emperor Francis Joseph is a representative. Under the adroit management of Rudolph the center of gravity of Hapsburg power was shifted permanently from the Rhine to the Danube, and throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages the history of Austria is a story largely of the varying fortunes of the Hapsburg interests. In 1453 the duchy was raised to the rank of an archduchy, and later in the century the Emperor Maximilian I.

entertained plans for the establishment of an Austrian electorate, or even an Austrian kingdom. These plans were not carried into execution, but the Austrian lands were const.i.tuted one of the Imperial circles which were created in 1512, and in 1518 representatives of the various Austrian Landtage, or diets, were gathered for the first time in national a.s.sembly at Innsbruck.

*488. Austro-Hungarian Consolidation.*--In 1519 Maximilian I. was succeeded in the archduchy of Austria, as well as in the Imperial office, by his grandson Charles of Spain, known thenceforth as the Emperor Charles V. To his brother Ferdinand, however. Charles resigned the whole of his Austrian possessions, and to Austrian affairs he gave throughout his reign but scant attention. Ferdinand, in turn, devoted himself princ.i.p.ally to warfare with the Turks and to an attempt to secure the sovereignty of Hungary. His efforts met with a measure of success and there resulted that affiliation of Austria and Hungary which, though varying greatly from period to period in strength and in effect, has been maintained to the present day. During a century succeeding Ferdinand's accession to the Imperial throne in 1556, the affairs of Austria were inextricably intertwined with those of the Empire, and it was only with the virtual disintegration of the Empire in consequence of the Thirty Years' War that the Hapsburg sovereigns fell back upon the policy of devoting themselves more immediately to the interests of their Austrian dominion.

The fruits of this policy were manifest during the long reign of Leopold I., who ruled in Austria from 1655 to 1705 and was likewise emperor during the last forty-eight years of this period. At the close of a prolonged series of Turkish wars, the Peace of Karlowitz, January 26, 1699, added definitely to the Austrian dominion Slavonia, Transylvania, and all Hungary save the banat of Temesvar, and thus completed the edifice of the Austrian monarchy.[646] The period was likewise one of internal consolidation. The Diet continued to be (p. 444) summoned from time to time, but the powers of the crown were augmented enormously, and it is to these years that scholars have traced the origins of that thoroughgoing bureaucratic regime which, a.s.suming more definite form under Maria Theresa, continued unimpaired until the revolution of 1848. It was in the same period that the Austrian standing army was established.

[Footnote 646: At the diet of Pressburg, in 1687-1688, the Hungarian crown had been declared hereditary in the house of Hapsburg, and the Austrian heir, Joseph, had been crowned hereditary king. In 1697 Transylvania was united to the Hungarian monarchy. The banat of Temesvar was acquired by the Hapsburgs in 1718. The term "banat"

denotes a border district, or march.]

*489. Development of Autocracy Under Maria Theresa, 1740-1780.*--The princ.i.p.al threads in Austrian history in the eighteenth century are the foreign entanglements, including the war of the Spanish Succession, the war of the Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years'

War, and the internal measures, of reform and otherwise, undertaken by the successive sovereigns, especially Maria Theresa (1740-1780) and Joseph II. (1780-1790). For Austria the net result of the wars was the loss of territory and also of influence, among the states of the Empire, if not among those of all Europe. On the side of internal affairs it may be observed simply that Maria Theresa became virtually the founder of the unified Austrian state, and that, in social conditions generally, the reign of this sovereign marks more largely than that of any other the transition in the Hapsburg dominions from mediaeval to modern times. Unlike her doctrinaire son and successor, Joseph, Maria Theresa was of an eminently practical turn of mind. She introduced innovations, but she clothed them with the vestments of ancient inst.i.tutions. She made the government more than ever autocratic, but she did not interfere with the nominal privileges of the old estates. In Hungary the const.i.tution was left untouched, but during the forty years of the reign the Diet was a.s.sembled only four times, and government was, in effect, by royal decree. Joseph II.

a.s.sumed the throne in 1780 bent primarily upon a policy of "reform from above." Utterly unacquainted with the actual condition of his dominions and unappreciative of the difficulties inherent in their administration, the new sovereign set about the sweeping away of the entire existing order and the subst.i.tuting of a governmental scheme which was logical enough, to be sure, but entirely impracticable. The attempt, as was inevitable, failed utterly.

*490. Austria and France, 1789-1815.*--Leopold II. inherited, in 1790, a dominion substantially as it was at the death of Maria Theresa. Prior to his accession Leopold had acquired a reputation for liberalism, but apprehension aroused by the revolution in France was of itself sufficient to turn him promptly into the traditional paths of Austrian autocracy. His reign was brief (1790-1792), but that of his son and successor, Francis II., which continued through the revolutionary epoch, was essentially a continuation of it, and from first to (p. 445) last there was maintained with complete success that relentless policy of "stability" so conspicuously a.s.sociated later with the name of Metternich. Hardly any portion of Europe was less affected by the ideas and transformations of the Revolution than was Austria.

Having resisted by every means at her disposal, including resort to arms, the progress of revolution, Austria set herself firmly, likewise, in opposition to the ambitions of Napoleon. Of the many consequences of the prolonged combat between Napoleon and the Hapsburg power, one only need be mentioned here. August 11, 1804, Francis II., archduke of Austria and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a.s.sumed the name and t.i.tle of Francis I., emperor of Austria. To the taking of this step the Hapsburg monarch was influenced in part by Napoleon's a.s.sumption, three months previously, of the t.i.tle of emperor of the French, and in part by antic.i.p.ation that the Holy Roman Empire would soon be subverted completely by the conqueror. The apprehension proved well-founded. Within two years it was made known definitely that the Napoleonic plan of international readjustment involved as one of its princ.i.p.al features the termination, once for all, of an inst.i.tution which, as Voltaire had already said, was "no longer holy, Roman, or an empire." August 6, 1806, the t.i.tle and functions of Holy Roman Emperor were relinquished formally by the Austrian monarch. The Austrian imperial t.i.tle of to-day, dates, however, from 1804.

II. HUNGARIAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT TO 1815

*491. Beginnings.*--According to accounts which are but indifferently reliable, the Magyars, or Hungarians, lately come as invaders from Asia, made their first appearance in the land which now bears their name in the year 895. Certain it is that during the first half of the tenth century they terrorized repeatedly the populations of Germany and France, until, in 955, their signal defeat at the Lechfeld by the German king (the later Emperor Otto I.) checked effectually their onslaughts and re-enforced the disposition already in evidence among them to take on a settled mode of life. In the second half of the tenth century they occupied definitely the valleys of the Danube and the Theiss, wedging apart, as do their descendants to this day, the Slavs of the north and those of the Balkan regions.

*492. Inst.i.tutional Growth Under Stephen I., 997-1038.*--The princ.i.p.al formative period in the history of the Hungarian nation is the long reign of Stephen I., or, as he is more commonly known, St. Stephen.

In this reign were established firmly both the Hungarian state and (p. 446) the Hungarian church; and in the organization of both Stephen exhibited a measure of capacity which ent.i.tles him to high rank among the constructive statesmen of mediaeval Europe. Under his predecessor the court had accepted Roman Christianity, but during his reign the nation itself was Christianized and the machinery of the Church was for the first time put effectively in operation. In the year 1001 Pope Sylvester II. accorded formal recognition to Magyar nationality by bestowing upon Prince Stephen a kingly crown, and to this day the joint sovereign of Austria-Hungary is inducted into office as Hungarian monarch with the identical crown which Pope Sylvester transmitted to the missionary-king nine centuries ago. In the elaboration of a governmental system King Stephen and the advisers whom he gathered from foreign lands had virtually a free field. The nation possessed a traditional right to elect its sovereign and to gather in public a.s.sembly, and these privileges were left untouched.

None the less, the system that was set up was based upon a conception of royal power unimpaired by those feudal relationships by which in western countries monarchy was being reduced to its lowest estate. The old Magyar tribal system was abolished and as a basis of administration there was adopted the Frankish system of counties. The central and western portions of the country, being more settled, were divided into forty-six counties, at the head of each of which was placed a count, or lord-lieutenant (_foispan_), appointed by the crown and authorized in turn to designate his subordinates, the castellan (_varnagy_), the chief captain (_hadnagy_), and the hundredor (_szazados_). This transplantation of inst.i.tutions is a matter of permanent importance, for, as will appear, the county is still the basal unit of the Hungarian administrative system.

*493. The Golden Bull, 1222.*--During the century and a half which followed the reign of Stephen the consolidation of the kingdom, despite frequent conflicts with the Eastern Empire, was continued. The court took on something of the brilliancy of the Byzantine model, and in the later twelfth century King Bela III. inaugurated a policy--that of crowning as successor the sovereign's eldest son while yet the sovereign lived--by which were introduced in effect the twin principles of heredity and primogeniture. In 1222 King Andrew II.

(1204-1235) promulgated a famous instrument, the _Bulla Aurea_, or Golden Bull, which has been likened many times to the Great Charter conceded to his barons by King John of England seven years earlier.

The precise purport of the Golden Bull is somewhat doubtful. By some the instrument has been understood to have comprised a virtual surrender on the part of the crown in the interest of a cla.s.s of (p. 447) insolent and self-seeking n.o.bles with which the country was cursed. By others it has been interpreted as a measure designed to strengthen the crown by winning the support of the ma.s.s of the lesser n.o.bles against the few greater ones.[647] The exemption of all n.o.bles from taxation was confirmed; all were exempted likewise from arbitrary arrest and punishment. On the other hand, it was forbidden expressly that the t.i.tles and holdings of lords-lieutenant should become hereditary. The most reasonable conclusion is that the instrument represents a compromise designed to afford a working arrangement in a period of unusual stress between crown and n.o.bility. Although the doc.u.ment was amplified in 1231 and its guarantees were placed under the special guardianship of the Church, it does not appear that its positive effects in the period immediately following were p.r.o.nounced. The Golden Bull, none the less, has ever been regarded as the foundation of Hungarian const.i.tutional liberty. As such, it was confirmed specifically in the coronation oath of every Hapsburg sovereign from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

[Footnote 647: J. Andra.s.sy, Development of Hungarian Const.i.tutional Liberty (London, 1908), 93.]

*494. Three Centuries of Const.i.tutional Unsettlement.*--The last century of the arpad dynasty, which was ended in 1308, was a period of depression and of revolution. The weakness of the later arpads, the ruin wrought by the Tatar invasion of 1241-1242, the infiltration of feudalism, and perennial civil discord subverted the splendid monarchical establishment of King Stephen and brought the country into virtual subjection to a small body of avaricious n.o.bles. The arpads were succeeded by two Angevin princes from the kingdom of Naples--Charles I. (1310-1342) and Louis I. (1342-1382)--under whom notable progress was made toward the rehabilitation of the royal power. Yet in the midst of their reforms appeared the first foreshadowings of that great Turkish onslaught by which eventually the independent Hungarian monarchy was destined to be annihilated completely. The long reign of Sigismund (1387-1437) was occupied almost wholly in resistance to the Ottoman advance. So urgent did this sovereign deem the pushing of military preparations that he fell into the custom of summoning the Diet once, and not infrequently twice, a year, and this body acquired rapidly a bulk of legislative and fiscal authority which never before had been accorded it. Persons ent.i.tled to membership were regularly the n.o.bles and higher clergy. But in 1397 the free and royal towns were invited to send deputies, and this privilege seems to have been given statutory confirmation. By the ripening of the Hungarian feudal system, however, and the (p. 448) struggles for the throne which followed the death of King Albert V.

(1439), much that was accomplished by Sigismund and his diets was undone. Ultimately, measures of vigilance were renewed under John Hunyadi,--by voice of the Diet "governor" of Hungary, 1446-1456,--and, under his son King Matthias I. (1458-1490). During the last-mentioned reign fifteen diets are known to have been held, and no fewer than 450 statutes to have been enacted. The Hungarian common law was codified afresh and the entire governmental system overhauled. But again succeeded a period, from the accession of Wladislaus II. to the battle of Mohacs, during which turbulence reigned supreme and national spirit all but disappeared.

*496. The Establishment of Austrian Dominion.*--In 1526 the long expected blow fell. Under the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent the Turks invaded the Hungarian kingdom and at the battle of Mohacs, August 28, put to rout the entire Hungarian army. The invading hosts chose to return almost instantly to Constantinople, but when they withdrew they left one-quarter of the Hungarian dominion in utter desolation. It was at this point, as has been stated, that the Hapsburg rulers of Austria first acquired the throne of Hungary. The death of King Louis at Mohacs was followed by the election of John Zapolya as king. But the archduke Ferdinand, whose wife, Anne, was a sister of Louis, laid claim to the throne and, in November, 1527, contrived to procure an election thereto at the hand of the Diet. In 1529 the deposed Zapolya was reinstated at Buda by the Sultan. The upshot was civil war, which was terminated in 1538 by a treaty under whose terms the kingdom was divided between the two claimants. Zapolya retained approximately two-thirds of the country, while to Ferdinand was conceded the remaining portion, comprising Croatia-Slavonia and the five westernmost counties. The government which Zapolya maintained at Buda had rather the better claim to be considered the continuation of the old Hungarian monarchy; but from 1527 onwards some portion of Hungary, and eventually the whole, was attached regularly to the Hapsburg crown.

In 1540 Zapolya died and the Diet at Buda elected as king his infant son John Sigismund. On the basis of earlier pledges Ferdinand laid claim to Zapolya's possessions, but the Sultan intervened and in 1547 there was worked out a three-fold division of the kingdom, on the principle of _uti possedetis_, under which thirty-five counties (including Croatia and Slavonia) were a.s.signed to Ferdinand, Transylvania and sixteen adjacent counties were retained by John Sigismund, while the remaining portions of the kingdom were annexed to the dominions of the Sultan. With frequent modifications in detail, this three-fold division persisted through the next century and a (p. 449) half. The period was marked by frequent wars, by political confusion, and by the a.s.sumption on the part of the Hapsburg sovereigns of an increasingly autocratic att.i.tude in relation to their Hungarian dependencies. It was brought to a close by the Peace of Karlowitz, January 26, 1699, whereby the Hapsburg dynasty acquired dominion over the whole of Hungary, except the banat of Tamesvar, which was acquired nineteen years later.

*496. Austrian Encroachment: the Pragmatic Sanction.*--The immediate effect of the termination of the Turkish wars was to enhance yet further the despotism of the Hapsburgs in Hungary. In 1687 the Emperor Leopold I. induced a rump diet at Pressburg to abrogate that clause of the Golden Bull which authorized armed resistance to unconst.i.tutional acts of the sovereign, and likewise to declare the Hungarian crown hereditary in the house of Hapsburg. After upwards of seven hundred years of existence, the elective Hungarian monarchy was brought thus to an end. In 1715 King Charles III.[648] persuaded the Diet to consent to the establishment of a standing army, recruited and supported under regulation of the Diet but controlled by the Austrian council of war. By the diet of 1722 there was established a Hungarian court of chancery at Vienna and the government of Hungary was committed to a stadtholder at Pressburg who was made independent of the Diet and responsible to the sovereign alone. The diet of 1722 likewise accepted formally the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 by which the Emperor Charles settled the succession to his hereditary dominions, in default of male heirs, upon his daughter Maria Theresa and her heirs;[649] and in measures promulgated during the succeeding year the Emperor entered into a fresh compact with his Hungarian subjects which continued the basis of Hapsburg-Hungarian relations until 1848. On the one hand, Hungary was declared inseparable from the Hapsburg dominions, so long as there should be a legal heir; on the other, the crown was sworn to preserve the Hungarian const.i.tution intact, with all the rights, privileges, laws, and customs of the kingdom. The net result of all of these measures, none the less, was to impair perceptibly the original autonomy of the Hungarian state.

[Footnote 648: Charles VI. as emperor.]

[Footnote 649: The Pragmatic Sanction was accepted at different dates by the various diets of the Austro-Hungarian lands: in 1713 by Croatia, and from 1720 to 1724 by the other diets. It was finally proclaimed a fundamental law in 1724.]

*497. The Later Eighteenth Century.*--Maria Theresa cherished a genuine interest in Hungarian affairs and was deeply solicitous concerning the welfare of her Hungarian subjects. It was never her intent, however, to encourage Hungarian self-government. The const.i.tution of the (p. 450) kingdom was not subverted; it was simply ignored. The Diet was summoned but seldom, and after 1764 not at all. Reforms were introduced, especially in connection with education, but through the medium of royal decrees alone. Joseph II. continued nominally the policy of enlightened despotism, but in so tactless a manner that most of his projects were brought to nought. Approaching the problem of Hungarian administration with his accustomed idealism, he undertook deliberately to sweep away not only the const.i.tution of the kingdom but the whole body of Hungarian inst.i.tutions and traditions. He refused even to be crowned king of Hungary or to recognize in any manner the established status of the country. His purpose was clearly to build of Austria and Hungary one consolidated and absolute state--a purpose which, it need hardly be remarked, failed of realization. The statesmanship of Leopold II. averted the impending revolt. The const.i.tution was restored, the ancient liberties of the kingdom were confirmed, and it was agreed that the Diet should be a.s.sembled regularly every three years. Through a quarter of a century the princ.i.p.al interest of Leopold's successor, Francis II. (1792-1835),[650]

was the waging of war upon revolutionary France and upon Napoleon, and during this period circ.u.mstances conspired to cement more firmly the relations between the Hapsburg monarchy and the Hungarian people. In Hungary, as in Austria, the time was one of political stagnation.

Prior to 1811 the Diet was several times convened, but never for any purpose other than that of obtaining war subsidies.

[Footnote 650: As emperor of Austria, Francis I.

(1804-1835).]

III. THE ERA OF METTERNICH

In the thoroughgoing reaction which set in with the Congress of Vienna it fell to Austria to play the princ.i.p.al role. This was in part because the dominions of the Hapsburgs had emerged from the revolutionary epoch virtually unscathed, but rather more by reason of the remarkable position occupied during the period 1815-1848 by Emperor Francis I.'s minister and mentor, Prince Metternich. Easily the most commanding personality in Europe, Metternich was at the same time the moving spirit in international affairs and the autocrat of Austro-Hungarian politics. Within both spheres he was, as he declared himself to be, "the man of the _status quo_." Innovation he abhorred; immobility he glorified. The settlement at Vienna he regarded as essentially his own handiwork, and all that that settlement involved he proposed to safeguard relentlessly. Throughout a full generation he contrived, with consummate skill, to dam the stream of liberalism in more than half of Europe.

*498. Condition of the Monarchy in 1815.*--In the dominions of the (p. 451) Hapsburgs the situation was peculiarly such as to render all change, from the point of view of Metternich, revolutionary and ruinous. In respect to territory and prestige Austria emerged from the Napoleonic wars with a distinctly improved status. But the internal condition of the monarchy, now as ever, imparted a forbidding aspect to any policy or movement which should give promise of unsettling in the minutest degree the delicate, haphazard balance that had been arrived at among the multiplicity of races, religions, and interests represented in the Emperor's dominions. In the west were the duchies, essentially German, which comprised the ancestral possessions of the Hapsburg dynasty; in the north was Bohemia, comprising, besides Bohemia proper, Silesia, and Moravia, and containing a population largely Czech; to the south lay the lately acquired Italian kingdom of Lombardo-Venetia; to the east lay the kingdom of Hungary, including the kingdom of Croatia and the princ.i.p.ality of Transylvania, with a population preponderantly Slavic but dominated politically by the Magyars. Several of these component states retained privileges which were peculiar to themselves and were bound to the Hapsburg monarchy by ties that were at best precarious. And the differences everywhere of race, religion, language, tradition, and interest were such as to create for the Vienna Government a seemingly impossible task.

So decadent and ineffective was the Austrian administrative system when Metternich entered, in 1809, upon his ministry that not even he could have supposed that change would not eventually have to come.

Change, however, he dreaded, because when change begins it is not possible to foresee how far it will go, or to control altogether the course it shall follow. Change, therefore, Metternich resisted by every available means, putting off at least as long as might be the evil day. The spirit of liberalism, once disseminated throughout the conglomerate Empire, might be expected to prompt the various nationalities to demand const.i.tutions; const.i.tutions would mean autonomy; and autonomy might well mean the end of the Empire itself.

Austria entered upon the post-Napoleonic period handicapped by the fact that the principle upon which Europe during the nineteenth century was to solve many of her problems--the principle of nationality--contained for her nought but the menace of disintegration. Conservatism, as one writer has put it, was imposed upon the Empire by the very conditions of its being.

*499. Metternich's System: the Rise of Liberalism.*--The key to Austrian history during the period 1815--1848 is, then, the maxim of the Emperor Francis, "Govern and change nothing." In Hungary government was nominally const.i.tutional; elsewhere it was frankly absolute. (p. 452) The diets of the component parts of the Empire were not abolished, nor were the estates of the several Austrian provinces. But, const.i.tuted as they generally were on an aristocratic basis and convened but irregularly and for brief periods, their existence was a source neither of embarra.s.sment to the Government nor of benefit to the people. "I also have my Estates," declared the Emperor upon one occasion. "I have maintained their const.i.tution, and do not worry them; but if they go too far I snap my fingers at them or send them home." The Diet of Hungary was not once convened during the years 1812-1825. On the side of administration Metternich did propose that the various executive departments, hitherto gathered under no common management nor correlated in any degree whatsoever, should be brought under the supervision of a single minister. But not even this project was carried out effectively. Throughout the period the central government continued c.u.mbersome, disjointed, and inefficient.

With every pa.s.sing decade the difficulties of the Government were augmented. Despite a most extraordinary censorship of education and of the press, western liberalism crept slowly into the Empire and the spirit of disaffection laid hold of increasing numbers of people. The revolutions of 1820 pa.s.sed without eliciting response; those of 1830 occasioned but a ripple. But during the decade 1830-1840, and especially after 1840, the growth of liberalism was rapid. In 1835 the aged Francis I. was succeeded by Ferdinand I., but as the new sovereign was mentally incapacitated the dominance of Metternich continued unimpaired.[651] In Bohemia, Hungary, and elsewhere there were revivals of racial enthusiasm and of nationalistic aspirations which grew increasingly ominous. The Hungarian diet of 1844 subst.i.tuted as the official language of the chambers Magyar for Latin, and during the forties there was built up, under the leadership of Louis Kossuth and Francis Deak, a flourishing Liberal party, whose aim was the re-establishment of the autonomy of the kingdom and the thoroughgoing reform of the government. By 1847-1848 this party was insisting strenuously upon the adoption of its "Ten Points," in which were included a responsible ministry, the abolition of serfdom, equality of citizens before the law, complete religious liberty, fuller representation in the Diet, taxation of the n.o.bles, and (p. 453) control by the Diet of all public expenditures.[652]

[Footnote 651: Technically the control of the government was vested in a small group of dignitaries known as the Staatskonferenz, or State Conference. The nominal president of this body was the Archduke Louis, representing the crown; but the actual direction of its proceedings fell to Metternich. H. von Sybel, Die osterreichische Staatskonferenz von 1836, in _Historische Zeitschrift_, 1877.]

[Footnote 652: On Austria during the period of Metternich see Cambridge Modern History, X., Chap.

11, XI., Chap. 3; Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale, X., Chap. 17; A. Stern, Geschichte Europas (Berlin, 1904-1911), I., Chap. 3; A.

Springer, Geschichte osterreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden 1809 (Leipzig, 1863), I., 275-322; H.

Meynert, Kaiser Franz I. (Vienna, 1872).]

IV. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848

*500. The Fall of Metternich.*--The crash came in 1848. Under the electrifying effect of the news of the fall of Louis Philippe at Paris (February 24), and of the eloquent fulminations of Kossuth, translated into German and scattered broadcast in the Austrian capital, there broke out at Vienna, March 12-13, an insurrection which instantly got quite beyond the Government's power to control. Hard fighting took place between the troops and the populace, and an infuriated mob, breaking into the royal palace, called with an insistence that would not be denied for the dismissal of Metternich. Recognizing the uselessness of resistance, the minister placed in the hands of the Emperor his resignation and, effecting an escape from the city, made his way out of the country and eventually to England. March 15 there was issued a hurriedly devised Imperial proclamation, designed to appease the populace, in which was promised the convocation of an a.s.sembly with a view to the drafting of a national const.i.tution.

*501. Hungary: the March Laws.*--On the same day the Diet of Hungary, impelled by the oratory of Kossuth, began the enactment of an elaborate series of measures--the so-called March Laws--by which was carried rapidly toward completion a programme of modernization which, in the teeth of Austrian opposition, had been during some years under way. The March Laws fell into two princ.i.p.al categories. The first dealt with the internal government of the kingdom, the second with the relations which henceforth were to subsist between Hungary and the Austrian Empire. For the ancient aristocratic machinery of the monarchy was subst.i.tuted a modern const.i.tutional system of government, with a diet whose lower chamber, of 337 members, was to be elected by all Hungarians of the age of twenty who possessed property to the value of approximately $150. Meetings of this diet were to be annual and were to be held, no longer at Pressburg, near the Austrian border, but at the interior city of Budapest, the logical capital of the kingdom. Taxation was extended to all cla.s.ses; feudal servitudes and t.i.tles payable by the peasantry were abolished; trial by jury, religious liberty, and freedom of the press were guaranteed. In the second place, it was stipulated that henceforth Hungary should (p. 454) have an entirely separate and a responsible ministry, thus ensuring the essential autonomy of the kingdom. The sole tie remaining between the two monarchies was to be the person of the sovereign. Impelled by the force of circ.u.mstances, the Government at Vienna designated Count Louis Batthyany premier of the first responsible Hungarian ministry and, April 10, accorded reluctant a.s.sent to the March Laws. These statutes, though later subverted, became thenceforth the _Grundrechte_ of the Hungarian people.

*502. The Austrian Const.i.tution of 1848.*--In the meantime, the Austrians were pressing their demand for const.i.tutionalism. The framing of the instrument which had been promised was intrusted by the Emperor to the ministers, and early in April there was submitted to an informal gathering of thirty notables representing various portions of the Empire a draft based upon the Belgium const.i.tution of 1831. This instrument was given some consideration in several of the provincial diets, but was never submitted, as it had been promised in the manifesto of March 15 it should be, to the Imperial Diet, or to any sort of national a.s.sembly. Instead it was promulgated, April 25, on the sole authority of the Emperor. The territories to which it was made applicable comprised the whole of the Emperor's dominions, save Hungary and the other Transleithanian lands and the Italian dependencies. By it the Empire was declared an indissoluble const.i.tutional monarchy, and to all citizens were extended full rights of civil and religious liberty. There was inst.i.tuted a Reichstag, or general diet, to consist of an upper house of princes of the royal family and nominees of the landlords, and a lower of 383 members, to be elected according to a system to be devised by the Reichstag itself. All ministers were to be responsible to this diet. July 22 there was convened at Vienna the first a.s.sembly of the new type, and the organization of const.i.tutional government was put definitely under way.

*503. The Reaction.*--Recovery, however, on the part of the forces of reaction was rapid. In Hungary the same sort of nationalistic feeling that had inspired the Magyars to a.s.sert their rights as against Austria inspired the Serbs, the Croats, and the Roumanians to demand from the Magyar Government a recognition of their several traditions and interests. The purpose of the Magyars, however, was to maintain absolutely their own ascendancy in the kingdom, and every demand on the part of the subject nationalities met only with contemptuous refusal. Dissatisfaction bred dissension, and dissension broke speedily into civil war. With consummate skill the situation was exploited by the Vienna Government, while at the same time the armies of Radetzky and Windischgratz were stamping out every trace of (p. 455) insurrection in Lombardo-Venetia, in Bohemia, and eventually in Vienna itself. December 2, 1848, the easy-going, incompetent Emperor Ferdinand was induced by the reactionaries to abdicate. His brother, Francis Charles, the heir-presumptive, renounced his claim to the throne, and the crown devolved upon the late Emperor's youthful nephew, Francis Joseph I., whose phenomenally prolonged reign has continued to the present day. Under the guidance of Schwarzenberg, who now became the dominating figure in Austrian politics, the Hungarian March Laws were abrogated and preparations were set on foot to reduce Hungary, as other portions of the Imperial dominions had been reduced, by force of arms. p.r.o.nouncing Francis Joseph a usurper, the Magyars rose _en ma.s.se_ in defense of their const.i.tution and of the deposed Ferdinand. In the conflict which ensued they were compelled to fight not only the Austrians but also their rebellious Roumanian, Croatian, and Slavonian subjects, and their chances of success were from the outset slender. In a moment of exultation, April 14, 1849, the Diet at Budapest went so far as to declare Hungary an independent nation and to elect Kossuth to the presidency of a supposit.i.tious republic. The only effect, however, was to impart to the contest an international character. Upon appeal from Francis Joseph, Tsar Nicholas I.

intervened in behalf of the "legitimate" Austrian power; whereupon the Hungarians, seeking in vain for allies, were overcome by the weight of the odds against them, and by the middle of August, 1849, the war was ended.

*504. Restoration of Autocracy.*--In Austria and Hungary alike the reaction was complete. In the Empire there had been promulgated, March 4, 1849, a revised const.i.tution; but at no time had it been intended by the sovereign or by those who surrounded him that const.i.tutionalism should be established upon a permanent basis, and during 1850-1851 one step after another was taken in the direction of the revival of autocracy. December 31, 1851, "in the name of the unity of the Empire and of monarchical principles," the const.i.tution was revoked by Imperial patent. At a stroke all of the peoples of the Empire were deprived of their representative rights. Yet so incompletely had the liberal regime struck root that its pa.s.sing occasioned scarcely a murmur. Except that the abolition of feudal obligations was permanent, the Empire settled back into a status which was almost precisely that of the age of Metternich. Vienna became once more the seat of a government whose fundamental objects may be summarized as (1) to Germanize the Magyars and Slavs, (2) to restrain all agitation in behalf of const.i.tutionalism; and (3) to prevent freedom of thought and the establishment of a free press. Hungary, by reason of her (p. 456) rebellion, was considered to have forfeited utterly the fundamental rights which for centuries had been more or less grudgingly conceded her. She not only lost every vestige of her const.i.tutional system, her diet, her county a.s.semblies, her local self-government; large territories were stripped from her, and she was herself cut into five districts, each to be administered separately, largely by German officials from Vienna. So far as possible, all traces of her historic nationality were obliterated.[653]

[Footnote 653: Brief accounts of the revolution of 1848-1849 in Austria-Hungary will be found in Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chaps. 6-7 (bibliography, pp. 887-893), and Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale, XI., Chap. 4. The most important treatise is H. Friedjung, osterreich von 1848 bis 1860 (2d ed., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1908), the first volume of which covers the period 1848-1851. There is a serviceable account in L.

Leger, History of Austria-Hungary from the Beginning to the Year 1878, trans. by B. Hill (London, 1889), Chaps. 30-33. Older accounts in English include W. H. Stiles, Austria in 1848-9 (New York, 1852), and W. c.o.xe, History of the House of Austria (3d ed., London, 1907). The Hungarian phases of the subject are admirably presented in L.

Eisenmann, Le compromis austro-hongroise (Paris, 1904).]

V. THE REVIVAL OF CONSt.i.tUTIONALISM: THE AUSGLEICH

*505. Const.i.tutional Experiments, 1860-1861.*--The decade 1850-1860 was in Austria-Hungary a period of political and intellectual torpor.

Embarra.s.sed by fiscal difficulties and by international complications, the Government at Vienna struggled with desperation to maintain the _status quo_ as against the numerous forces that would have overthrown it. For a time the effort was successful, but toward the close of the decade a swift decline of Imperial prestige compelled the adoption of a more conciliatory policy. The Crimean War cost the Empire both allies and friends, and the disasters of the Italian campaigns of 1859 added to the seriousness of the Imperial position. By 1860 both the Emperor and his princ.i.p.al minister, Goluchowski, were prepared to undertake in all sincerity a reformation of the illiberal and unpopular governmental system. To this end the Emperor called together, March 5, 1860, representatives of the various provinces and instructed them, in conjunction with the Reichsrath, or Imperial Council, to take under consideration plans for the reorganization of the Empire. The majority of this "reinforced Reichsrath" recommended the establishment permanently of a broadly national Reichsrath, or Imperial a.s.sembly, together with the reconst.i.tution of the old provincial diets. The upshot was the promulgation, October 20, 1860, of a "permanent and irrevocable" diploma in which the Emperor made known his intention thereafter to share all powers of legislation and finance with the diets of the various portions of the Empire, and (p. 457) with a central Reichsrath at Vienna, the latter to be made up of members chosen by the Emperor from triple lists of nominees presented by the provincial diets.