FRANCIS JOSEPH I
,
FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
" History does not teach principles, but prudence." BURKE.
FRANCIS JOSEPH I
HIS LIFE AND TIMES
AN ESSAY IN POLITICS
BY
R. P. MAHAFFY
(WITH AN APPENDIX ON RECENT EVENTS)
LONDON
DUCKWORTH AND CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C,
i 908
All Rights Reserved.
1145501
PREFACE
THE following pages contain an attempt to
summarise the events of the life of the
oldest, and in one sense, the most important
of European sovereigns, and to pronounce a
fair judgment as to the part which he has
played in the history of his country. The
brevity of this book shows at once that a great
deal has been left out ; and it contains little
that is not familiar to those who have followed
the story of Austria-Hungary in the last fifty
years. I intended to publish it on or about
December 2, 1908, when the Emperor- King
should have been sixty years on the throne ;
and I hoped that the occurrence of that anni-
versary would have given it a chance of being
read. Since the book was written, events have
occurred in Europe which have directed English
attention in an unusual degree to Austria-
Hungary. These events have not made it
vi FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
necessary to alter or omit anything ; indeed
they are to a great extent explained by the
facts in this book and by the view which is
presented of the life and work of the Emperor-
King. In order to bring it up to date, an
appendix on recent events has been written.
This addition was, however, not composed in
the leisure of the Long Vacation as was the
case with the others, and may show signs
of hasty preparation. Yet I hope it will
serve to correct the false impressions which are
abroad in this country as to the Emperor-King's
recent action.
My first acquaintance with Austria- Hungary
was made in 1889, when I had just left school ;
but in 1894 I went to Hungary on a commis-
sion for a friend, the late Mr. J. G. V. Porter
of Belleisle, in the County Fermanagh, who
desired to have a report on the Hungarian
Constitution. I was at Budapest in the
summer of 1894, when the Civil Marriage
crisis was at its height, and met there many
of the leading men in Hungary, from whom I
learnt what it would be hard to learn from
books. In 1896 I again visited Austria-
Hungary as the correspondent of a London
PREFACE vii
newspaper. In both years I had occasion to
travel about the country, and saw a good deal
of it. The friendships then made have been
interrupted in some cases by death. Those
which have been preserved have enabled me
to hear frequently from a country which, for
politicians, is the most interesting in Europe.
It is difficult to write a book which neces-
sarily deals with many matters of controversy
without taking a side. The view presented in
the following pages is on the whole favourable
to the Magyars and their claims, in the past,
if not in the present. I have no doubt that
the view held by the Hungarians, for which
they fought nobly in 1849, and which received
a striking vindication in 1867, was the right
one ; but I am aware that some people think
otherwise, and regret that the Compromise of
1867 was ever concluded. In modern times
the Hungarians have advanced claims which
cannot be fully satisfied without grave danger to
the military strength of the monarchy. More-
over, they are constantly charged with need-
less persistence in the use of their language
in Hungary. Critics ask why they could not
have been content to keep the German
viii FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
language which they had in 1867, and which
is one of the great languages of the world.
I do not think that it was possible for the
Hungarian leaders of 1867 to say, " Now that
the oppression for which German stood is
gone, we will keep German and not revive
Magyar." Such a course would in theory
have been the best ; but in such matters the
best course is often impracticable. On the
other hand, I think that the Hungarian leaders
of to-day ought not to persist in a policy which
must lead to the division and weakness in the
army of the monarchy ; and I do not believe
that, in the future, their fellow-countrymen
would think worse of them if they abstained
from the full prosecution of their claims. I do
not give this opinion without some diffidence,
for I know it is contrary to the view held by
many prominent men in Hungary. But they
must remember that compromise has been of
good service to them in the past. If their
predecessors had held out for the maximum
of concession, Hungary would not now be what
she is.
I owe much more than formal thanks to Dr.
Friedjung's admirable, if somewhat elaborate,
PREFACE ix
books on Austria, which are referred to in
the notes; to M. Eisenmann's Le Compromis
Austro-Hongrois, and to the same author's
excellent chapters in Lavisse and Rambaud's
Histoire Gtndrale. Miss Arnold Forster's Life
of Francis Dedk, M. Cheradame's L'Autriche,
etc., and Mr. Stillman's Union of Italy have
also been freely used. For the Hungarian
side of the question I have relied more on my
own intimacy with Hungarians and their
views, and on long friendship with Hungarian
politicians, than on any other source. The
best books on this side are in Magyar, of
which I know very little. It is fortunate that
the Hungarians are such good linguists that
anybody who knows French and German can
talk freely with them.
I have not, in the following pages, said
anything about the Emperor- King's private
life ; and I have purposely avoided reference
to family events and to the domestic mis-
fortunes with which he has been afflicted.
Such information as I have on these matters
is, I need hardly say, not at first hand, and
I think it undesirable that, in topics of the
kind, authors should pretend to a knowledge
x FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
which they do not possess. I am sorry to
feel that the deliberate omission ot the per-
sonal element will lose this book some friends
amongst readers who desire chiefly to know
which is the favourite soup of this or that
sovereign, and whether he prefers brown eyes
or blue. At all events no one will read it
under any misunderstanding on this point.
I have abstained from pedantic adherence
to the terms " Emperor-King " and " Austria-
Hungary. (( The position of affairs is now such
that readers no longer need to be constantly
reminded of the absolute legal equality between
the hereditary dominions of the House of
Hapsburg and the Kingdom of St. Stephen.
INNER TEMPLE,
November 4, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1848-1851
PAGE
Austria in 1848 Failure of the Vienna Revolution
Parentage and Education of Francis Joseph The
Constitution of 1849 Revolt in Hungary Vilagos
Novara Olmiitz i
CHAPTER II
1851-1859
The "Bach System "The Concordat of 1855 The
Crimean War and its Results Relations with
Russia and France Victor Emanuel Magenta
and Solferino . . . . .37
CHAPTER III
1859-1866
Schmerling and Liberalism in Austria Schemes for a
new Constitution in Germany Prussia and Austria
The Schleswig-Holstein Question Sadowa
General Benedek . . . . .67
xi
xii FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
CHAPTER IV
1861-1867
I'AGE
Deak and the Hungarian Liberals Passive Resistance
in Hungary The Negotiations of 1865 The
Results of Sadowa The Ausgleich of 1867 . 105
CHAPTER V
1867-1878
Federalist Movement in Austria The Hohenwart
Ministry and its Failure Home Rule in Croatia
Tisza's Ministry Austria and France in 1870
The Russo-Turkish War Bosnia and the Herze-
govina . . . . . .126
CHAPTER VI
1879-1893
Auersperg and Taaffe Ministries in Austria The
Liberal Party in Hungary Tisza Progress of the
Nationalist Question The Balkan Question again
The Emperor's Policy . . . .163
CHAPTER VII
1893-1908
Civil Marriage in Hungary Progress of Events in
Austria The Badeni Ordinance and its Results
The Army Question in Hungary Decline of the
Hungarian Liberal Party The Renewal of the
Ausgleich in 1897 and 1907 Conclusion . '. 200
APPENDICES . . . . .233
CHAPTER I
1848-1851
Austria in 1848 Failure of the Vienna Revolution Parentage
and Education of Francis Joseph The Constitution of
1849 Revolt in Hungary ViMgos Novara Olmiitz.
IT is not easy for us, with the Austria of to-day
before us, to realise what manner of state, or
system of states, was the Austria of December
1848. The political condition of the people
has undergone vast changes, greater, in some
ways, than any which have come to pass else-
where in Europe. A new people, the Austro-
Hungarian people, is being formed. The
map of the country is wholly altered. New
races, scarcely heard of in 1848, rise into
prominence. New territories have been opened
to progress. New cities have sprung up ; and
old cities have put on the vesture of youth.
A new religious liberty, unknown in 1848, is
abroad in the land. These changes make it
hard for us to place ourselves, in imagination,
in the Vienna of 1848 the old Vienna, still
i B
2 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
contained within that circular rampart which
is now beneath the foundations of the most
stately street in Europe. Yet one person
in Vienna is the same as in 1848. It was
in December of that eventful year that at
Olmutz, the old northern capital of Moravia,
Francis Joseph, the present Emperor, and
King of Hungary, ascended the tottering
throne which had been left vacant by the
abdication of his uncle. His personality con-
nects the modern Austria with that of the old
regime. He was brought up in the school of
Metternich, and has lived to see the most
modern type of democracy on foot in his
dominions. He has conquered or outlived
revolution, survived defeat, learnt by mistakes,
surmounted difficulties, and profited by adver-
sity. He has borne family sorrows with
admirable courage, and sustained without
failure a public part such as few men have
taken in the history of their country. The
present essay is an attempt to describe some
of the most interesting events of his reign ;
and to show how the difficulties which beset
him have been met.
In December 1848 the revolution which
broke out in Vienna during the spring of that
year had been crushed; and in Italy the at-
tempt of the Italian nation to shake off Austrian
THE OUTLOOK IN 1848 3
patronage had for the moment failed. Italy
and Austria had taken fire in the spring of
the year after the outbreak of the February
revolution in Paris. Indeed, Italy had taken
the lead in revolution ; for it was in the first
days of 1848 that the Austrian officers who
were smoking in the streets of Milan were
attacked by the mob because the consumption
of tobacco fed the exchequer of the Hapsburg.
In Italy, and also in Hungary, the revolutionary
movement was founded on two distinct ideas,
democracy and nationality. In England and
France political revolutions have not usually
been complicated by the rivalry between
dominant and obedient races. In the Austria
of 1848 they were so; and it is possible that
they may be so also in the future. Since 1815
the Hapsburgs had been practically in un-
disturbed possession of the miscellaneous col-
lection of kingdoms, principalities, and powers
which had from time to time been brought
into their possession by conquest, diplomacy,
or marriage. Known since the dissolution of
the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 as "Emperor
of Austria," the chief of the Hapsburgs was
Archduke, King, or Count of Austria, Bohemia,
Moravia, Carniola and Carinthia, the Tyrol,
Trieste, Dalmatia, and the other territories
comprised in the modern omnibus name
4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
"Austria." He was King of Hungary by virtue
of the acceptance (in 1723) by the Hungarian
Parliament of the Pragmatic Sanction the
edict by which the last of the old male line
of the Hapsburgs declared that he should be
succeeded by his daughter Maria Theresa.
He was President of the German Confedera-
tion, a loosely -built structure of thirty -nine
German states which were pledged not to
pursue divergent foreign policies and to send
delegates to a Congress at Frankfort. He was
King of Lombardy and Venetia, and his soldiers
garrisoned the two noblest cities of northern
Italy. In Parma, Naples and Sicily, petty
sovereigns reigned who, whilst they would
tolerate no liberty in others, were themselves
docile subjects of the Imperial Court of
Vienna. In two other Italian states (Tuscany
and Modena) ruled grand dukes who were
Hapsburg princes and who relied on Austria
for support against their Italian subjects.
Such a position could only last on sufferance.
'I'he Tory advisers of Francis Joseph's two
/ predecessors, Francis and Ferdinand, knew
well that concessions either to nationalism or
to democracy could not be made without
destroying the whole fabric of the empire.
It is a mistake to suppose that Metternich,
the chief of these advisers, was by nature or
THE ARCHDUCHESS SOPHIE 5
preference a champion of absolutism. He was
merely a cautious Conservative, who saw that
the movements which culminated in 1848 spelt
destruction for the Austria of his time.
It was with these views that he committed
the education of the young Archduke Francis
Joseph to the Marquis de Bombelles, the
son of a French refugee, and a strong Con-
servative, and to the Abbe Rauscher, a Tory
cleric of the old school. The Archduke's
father, Francis Charles, was a person of no
great significance. On the other hand, his
mother, the Archduchess Sophie, daughter of
King Max of Bavaria, was^a keen politician,
and entertained views much in advance of the
orthodox Hapsburg creed. She had consider-
able differences with her friend, Prince Met-
ternich, as to the education of the young
Prince. Frightened by the excesses of 1848
she became in that year a Tory of the Tories,
but during the period before the revolution,
when Francis Joseph was growing up, she
inclined towards Liberalism. Some of his
subordinate tutors, too, were of moderate
views; so that when, in December 1848,
the new Emperor acceded, he came to the
throne with the natural indecision of a boy of
eighteen uncorrected by any really consistent
education. He was well trained as a soldier,
6 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
and had served in the earlier part of the war
of '48 in Italy with Radetzky's army, coming
under the fire of the Piedmontese in the
summer campaign. He was now suddenly called
upon to take command in an Empire which
had never been united in anything but name
and sovereignty. In the year of his accession,
it was shaken by no less than three revolutions.
In Vienna the insurrection of March led to
the dismissal of Metternich, and late in the
spring the Emperor Ferdinand had promised
a parliamentary constitution. One concession
after another was given through the following
months until, on the eve of the assembly of
Austria's first Parliament, the Emperor and his
family deserted the capital and retired to safer
quarters at Innsbruck. In his absence his
ministers agreed to most of the demands of
the insurgent populace, and on July 22 the
Parliament in Vienna was convened. A few
of the principal grievances of the people were
swept away by rapid legislation, but differences
of opinion soon appeared in the assembly, which
was composed partly of representatives of
the German bourgeoisie and partly of those of
the peasantry, the majority of whom were of
Slavonic race. It soon became clear that, if
the majority were to have their way, the
German supremacy in Austria would cease ;
REACTION IN VIENNA 7
but, in fact, the peasant deputies were little
disposed for a stand-up fight with the Crown.
They voted for the equality of all citizens
before the law, and for the abolition of feudal
dues and jurisdictions; but, these points gained,
they were not the least interested in theoretical
discussions on constitutional law or in the
resistance to which such discussions might
lead. Meantime the Crown had commenced
that remarkable series of successes by which
it regained all it had lost in the early part of
the year, and which ended in the temporary
triumph of Francis Joseph over the democrats
of '48. On July 25th, Marshal Radetzky de-
feated Charles Albert of Sardinia at Custozza,
whilst in June Prince Windischgratz, the
military governor of Prag, had stamped out
the Liberal and Czech movement in the capital
of Bohemia. On October 7th, the Emperor
Ferdinand, who had returned from Innsbruck
to Schonbrunn, near Vienna, late in the summer,
left the capital again and withdrew to Olmtitz.
Windischgratz and his army were at once let
loose upon Vienna. As there was no organisa-
tion in the insurgent force, the Imperial general
had no difficulty in occupying it (October 31).
The fall of Vienna was a notable victory
for reaction, and left the Hapsburgs so far as
Austria proper was concerned free to deal
8 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
as they thought best with the demand for a
constitution. The Imperial ministers, headed
by Prince Felix Schwartzenberg, were in no
mood to make large concessions to democracy,
but they felt that it was impossible to pre-
serve the old absolutist regime. Accordingly,
at the end of September, the Austrian Prime
Minister issued a manifesto in which he pro-
. mised that a constitution should be granted
within the Emperor's hereditary estates.
Whilst its terms were being discussed the
Austrian Parliament was removed by Imperial
decree from Vienna, and ordered to assemble
at Kremsier, a small town in Moravia, where, it
was thought, the deputies would not be amen-
able to the democratic influences which were
at work in the capital. Whilst the members
of the rusticated Reichsrath were awaiting the
decision of the cabinet, astounding news was
brought to them. The Emperor Ferdinand
had abdicated, his brother the Archduke Francis
Charles had waived his right to succeed, and
the Crown had devolved upon the youthful
Archduke Francis Joseph, who had been
crowned at Olmiitz on December 2nd.
The accession of the young Archduke was
quite legal in Austria, where the Imperial
dynasty were under no obligations of law and
could make their own arrangements. But in
HUNGARIAN CLAIMS 9
Hungary the the royal family were bound
by certain statutes passed in 1723, and the
Hungarians asserted that the spirit of these
laws had not been respected when the Arch-
duke Francis Joseph was called to the throne.
Although the Acts of 1723 contain no provision
as to abdication, the Magyars held that the
Emperor Ferdinand could not abdicate in
Hungary, and that his brother could not waive
his rights, without the assent of the Hungarian
Parliament ; and that no Emperor of Austria
could be King of Hungary till he had been
crowned at Pesth, and signed the declaration
which pledged him to observe the laws of* v y r
the kingdom of St. Stephen. They therefore
refused to recognise Francis Joseph as King,
of Hungary.
It is difficult to agree with the Hungarian
contention that the Emperor had no right to
abdicate, or the Archduke Francis Charles to
waive his rights. But the Magyars were
on firmer ground when they said that Francis
Joseph was not King till he had been crowned /
with the Crown of St. Stephen. His claim to
the throne of Hungary was a good one, but
it was subject to his doing certain things ; and
the first act of his reign showed that he did
not intend to do them. This act was the issue
of a liberal proclamation in which he promised
io FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
to take his subjects into partnership in the
government of his country ; but the pro-
clamation made no mention of the independent
rights of Hungary, and contained an implied
repudiation of them. " We are convinced,"
it said, " of the necessity and value of free
institutions, and enter with confidence on the
path of a prosperous reformation of the
monarchy. On the basis of true liberty, on
the basis of the equality of rights of all our
people, and the equality of all citizens before
the law, and on the basis of their equally par-
taking in legislation and representation, the
country will rise to its ancient grandeur. . . .
Jealous of the glory of the Crown, and re-
solved to maintain its privileges uncurtailed,
but ready to share our privileges with the
representatives of our people, we hope, by
the assistance of God and the co-operation of
our people, to succeed in uniting all the
countries and tribes of the Monarchy into
one integral state" It was to the words
" one integral state" that the Hungarians
objected.
In pursuance of these promises the Emperor
and his advisers set to work to prepare a
constitution for Austria and Hungary. This
constitution was promulgated on March 4,
1849. It was of a moderate type, and would
A NEW ' CONSTITUTION' n
have set up for Austria and Hungary a Parlia-
ment about as democratic as the English
Parliament of the day. The constitution
for Austria was followed shortly afterwards
by separate constitutions for each of the pro-
vinces, which were to possess diets endowed
with the right of sending members to the
central Parliament. As, however, the nomi-
nation of the first diets rested with the
Emperor, it was clear that the so-called con-
stitution gave no guarantee whatever of
popular control. Two things also may be
said about it : first, that it was designed to
include Hungary, and to supersede the
Hungarian constitution ; secondly, that the
Emperor did not intend to allow the other
states of Germany to come into the new and
Parliamentary Austria. The inclusion of
Hungary in a unitary Austrian state was a
thing to which the Magyars would never
submit. The exclusion of the South German
states was a great disappointment to those
German Liberals who had hoped to arrange
for a democratic Parliament for the whole of
Germany.
The constitution of March 1849 was never
taken seriously by its authors, but it served
the young Emperor and his advisers to keep
things quiet at home until they had vanquished
12 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
their enemies in Hungary, Italy, and Germany.
Hungary was subjugated before the end of
1849, and in Italy Marshal Radetzky practi-
cally put an end to all popular movements by
his victory over Charles Albert and his Sar-
cjinian troops at Novara (March 23, 1849). It
was not till the end of 1850 that Austria
succeeded in securing her place in Germany,
and re-establishing the old constitution of the
German Federation as it had existed since
^1815. So soon as this was done, there was
no further reason for keeping up the semblance
of a constitution in Austria. On the last day
of 1851, a few weeks after Napoleon III.'s
successful coup (Tttat in Paris, the Emperor,
by simple edict, abrogated the constitution
of March. Thus Parliamentary institutions
in his Austrian dominions came to an abrupt
and humiliating end.
In abrogating the constitution of 1849 the
Emperor made a mistake. He was influenced
in doing so by his nearest advisers, but chiefly
by Prince Felix Schwartzenberg, his reaction-
ary Prime Minister, and by Alexander Bach,
Minister of the Interior, who in the next
ten years was to become his constant guide
in the management of domestic affairs. Had
the Parliament of 1849 survived, it would have
fallen into the hands of a middle-class majority,
THE ACTS OF 1723 13
and would probably have made for unity in
Austria. It is not likely that Hungary would
ever have sent members to the Austrian
Parliament, but Liberal feelings would have
been conciliated by its existence, and the diffi-
culties which Austria could not for ever stave
off would have been fairly faced. In Italy and
Prussia Parliamentary institutions made for
unity, and this might also have been so fifty
years ago in Austria. But the Emperor was \
in the hands either of aristocratic advisers, who \
hated the idea of parting with any of their
privileges to a middle-class legislature, or of /
upstarts like Bach useful tools, whose con- /
sciences, as well as their industry, could be pur-
chased. And so in 1851 we find the Emperor,
advised by Schwartzenberg and Bach, settling
down to a careful and consistent attempt to
govern the country from their offices at Vienna,
with no other ultimate support than the loyal
army.
In Hungary the Emperor's accession or
usurpation for it was legally no better than
that led to a crisis which made civil war
inevitable. The House of Hapsburg - Lor-
raine only reigned, and to this day only
reigns, in the kingdom of St. Stephen by
virtue of the three first statutes of the year
1723.
i 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
These Acts 1 provided that the Hungarian
Crown should, on the failure of male heirs to
the Emperor Charles VI., pass to his daughter
and her heirs male, if Roman .Catholics, or,
failing them, to the male and Catholic heirs
of his predecessors, the Emperors Leopold I.
and Joseph. But they confirmed also all the
laws and approved customs of Hungary, the
most important of which was the right to
elect and crown their own kings, and to
compel the new king to swear to respect
the liberties of the kingdom. The right to
crown was first conceded to Stephen, King
of Hungary, by Pope Sylvester II. in the
year 1000, as a reward for his having con-
verted great numbers of his subjects to
Christianity ; and the famous Crown of St.
Stephen, which is still preserved in the Castle
at Buda, is, in part at least, the actual Crown
then sent by Sylvester II. to the Hungarian
prince. 2 This Crown was always treasured
as an emblem of Magyar liberty and of the
1 They will be found in Dumont's Corps Diplomatique, vol. viii.
Part II. at p. 52.
2 Thus Dr. Vambery in his Hungary ("Story of the Nations,"
1887); but there is now, I believe, some doubt as to whether any part
of the Crown is as old as 1000 A.D. This wonderful relic is preserved
in a case in the Castle of Buda, and guarded by two hereditary guard-
ians, who are of the noblest Hungarian families. The Crown may
not be taken out of its case without an Act of Parliament ; but such
an Act was passed at the time of the Hungarian millenial celebrations.
I was at Budapest in April and May 1896, and had an opportunity ot
examining the Crown with care. See Appendix B.
MAGYAR CLAIMS 15
right to have kings who were independent
of the Holy Roman Emperor. It may be
urged that the Hungarian rights were swept
away and destroyed by the Turkish occu-
pation (1526-1683) of Hungary, that when
the Hapsburgs recovered the country they
were freed from all obligations, and that the
right of the Hapsburgs to hereditary succes-
sion in Hungary was admitted by the Hun-
garian Diet in 1687. Yet, even if this be so,
it must be remembered that the Diet of
1687 on ly accepted the male line of the Haps-
burgs ; and that their right to make terms
on accepting the female line was fully admitted
by Charles VI. in 1723. During the reign
of Maria Theresa there was no reason for
the Hungarians to reassert their right, but the
centralising tendencies of her son, Joseph II.
(1765-1790), aroused their suspicions. He
was never crowned in Hungary, and never
recognised as king by the Magyars. When
in 1790 Leopold II. came to the throne, they
obtained a full recognition of their complete
independence of Austria and their right to
their constitution. This being so, it is diffi-
cult to agree with disputants who urge that
the decree of 1687 had abolished the right of
the Hungarians to have their kings crowned
at Budapest before they assumed the royal
16 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
prerogative. And even if it be admitted
that the reigning Hapsburg prince, whoever
he may be, is ipso facto King of Hungary,
he is clearly bound by the Acts of 1723
and 1790 to respect the country's insti-
tutions, the most important of which was
the Diet at Budapest. It is not too much
to say that the attempt of the Emperor
Francis Joseph to exercise royal rights in
Hungary without having been crowned was
unlawful ; and that the issue of the constitu-
tion of March 1849, which simply ignored
the rights of Hungary, was a violent attempt
to destroy rights which had been long in
existence, and which his ancestors had freely
admitted. If in such a case insurrection was
not justified, it can never be so.
During the early part of the nineteenth
century the Hungarian Diet had rarely been
convened, but a spirit of independence which
has distinguished the country for many cen-
turies was alive. It had been fostered by
a number of aristocratic leaders, and also
by men of the people who were possessed of
more or less Radical views. In 1847 tne
Diet met at Pressburg, on the frontier between
Austria and Hungary, and the national de-
mands were stated in a programme drawn
up by Francis Deak, the moderate Liberal
HUNGARY IN 1848 17
leader, and a lawyer of the first ability. He
asked for a guarantee that Parliament should
meet annually, and should be elected not by
the old county assemblies but on a ^30
franchise, that the nobles should no longer
be free from taxation, that feudal dues should
be abolished, that judges be appointed for
life, and that the King of Hungary (who was
also Emperor of Austria) should nominate a
ministry for Hungary which should be re
sponsible to the Hungarian Parliament. Early
in April 1848 the Emperor Ferdinand appeared
in state at Pressburg and granted all these
demands. He also agreed to the complete
union of Hungary with Transylvania, a south-
eastern province of the kingdom of St. Stephen,
which had long claimed local independence.
These admissions were a great triumph for the
Magyar race. They gave to Hungary the
position which she holds to-day, and made
her a state of equal rights with Austria. Con-
sequently they aroused the jealousy of the
Slavonic populations throughout the whole
Hapsburg territory. There, every concession
made to the Magyars was used as a precedent
by weaker nationalities.
Ferdinand began to intrigue with these
malcontents, especially with the Croats, whose
invasion of Hungary he secretly favoured.
c
i8 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
So soon as he heard of the success of his
arms in Italy he refused to assent to certain
laws passed by the Hungarian Parliament in
1848 with regard to the organisation of the
Hungarian army. This refusal was followed
by evasive answers to the Hungarian demands
as to the relations of the Emperor with the
Croat leaders. In the meantime Jellachich,
the Ban of Croatia, who had raised a consider-
able Croat army, had invaded Hungary at the
end of July. Shortly before his abdication
Ferdinand declared the Hungarian Parliament
closed (September 9), and named the Croat
invader as commander-in-chief of the troops in
Hungary, and Viceroy of the kingdom. Out-
voted by his own loyal subjects, and unable
to reduce them to obedience, he sought to
conquer them by calling in the Slavs to his
help. His action may justly be compared to
the action of Charles I. of England, who,
unable to defeat the English Republicans of
1642, endeavoured to overpower them by the
help of Irish and Scottish soldiers, offering
their nationalities a high reward if they would
assist him in his English warfare. The policy
of Ferdinand was, indeed, the very policy
which, just two centuries before, had brought a
king of England to the scaffold at Whitehall.
Thus, when Francis Joseph came to the
GORGEI 19
throne in Austria he found in Hungary a\
heritage of tyranny and civil war. The
new Emperor's accession as King of Hun- \
gary was contrary to law, and the Magyars /
were justified in refusing to recognise it.
The Austrians had an army of some 150,000
men, including the Croats and other Slavonic
insurgents who had risen in southern Hun-
gary against Magyar rule. The Magyars
could not put more than 100,000 men into
the field, and at first their forces were
unable to make headway against the motley
army of the Hapsburg usurper. The tide
of Austrian success flowed until February
1849, when Dembinski, a Polish general who
had been given command by Kossuth, was
defeated at Kapolna (February 26th). This
defeat led to the appointment of Colonel
Gorgei, a young Hungarian officer who had
served in the Austrian army, to command the
Magyar forces. Gorgei turned out to be a
strategist of the highest merit, and he was
in addition a man for whom his soldiers fought
with a bravery that deeply stirred the heart
of Western Europe. The Hungarians gained
a series of successes which, in a short time,
brought the Hapsburg monarch to his knees.
Late in April 1849, though he could now com-
mand the regiments whom his victories in Italy
20 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
had set free, he was compelled to beg Russia
to intervene in Hungary. The Hungarian
Government had in the meantime (April 14)
declared the Hapsburgs banished from Hun-
gary for ever as traitors to her liberty and con-
stitution. This was a very strong step, taken
at Kossuth's instigation. The Hungarian
nobility and many of the generals, including
Gorgei, objected to it. One should remember
that it was not taken until after the Emperor
Francis Joseph had promulgated the Austrian
constitution of March 1849. This constitution
aimed at enveloping Hungary in a "great
Austria," and involved an abrogation of her
constitution. As Francis Joseph had assumed
the regal authority without having been
crowned, and as one of his first acts was to
abrogate liberties which his predecessors had
sworn to respect, it cannot be said that the
decree of banishment was without justifi-
cation.
It is not my object to follow at length the
details of the war a entrance which followed
(April September 1849). The intervention
of Russia was resented abroad. In England
and Turkey, where love of liberty or affinity
of race had made many friends for Hun-
gary, feeling ran high against the Austrians.
" I believe," said Lord Palmerston on a
PALMERSTON'S SYMPATHY 21
famous occasion, " I believe that in this war
between Austria and Hungary there are en-
listed on the side of Hungary the hearts and
souls of the whole people of that country. . . .
Such a contest is most painful to behold, as,
whatever may be the result, Austria cannot
but be weakened. If the Hungarians should
be successful, and their success should end in
the entire separation of Hungary from Austria,
it is impossible not to see that this will be
such a dismemberment of the Austrian Empire
as will prevent Austria from continuing to
occupy the great position she has hitherto
held among European powers. If, on the
other hand, the war being fought out to the
uttermost, Hungary should, by superior forces,
be utterly crushed, Austria in that battle will
have crushed her own right arm ! Every field
that is laid waste is an Austrian resource de-
stroyed. Every man who perishes upon the
field among the Hungarian ranks is an Austrian
soldier deducted from the defensive forces of
the Empire." 1
But though Lord Palmerston echoed the
opinion of the majority of Englishmen, Kossuth
never succeeded in bringing about a counter-
intervention, and with Russia and the Haps-
burgs against them, the Magyars were at
1 House of Commons, July 21, 1849.
22 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
length outnumbered and crushed. Kossuth
went into exile, and afterwards, in England
and America, excited foreign audiences to
enthusiasm by his eloquent vindication of
Hungarian rights. Gorgei, invested with
supreme powers, surrendered at Vilagos
(August 13) with 23,000 men; yet it was not
to the Austrian Haynau, but to the Russian
general Paskievitch, that he handed his sword.
At the end of September the last of the
Hungarian strongholds, Komorn, surrendered
with the honours of war. The laws of 1848
and the fundamental charters of Hungarian
liberty were swept away, and, in October
1849, the Emperor Francis Joseph declared
the ancient constitution of Hungary abolished.
For seventeen years the ancient kingdom of
St. Stephen became a subjugated province
of Austria.
Victory over Hungary had thus been
obtained, but only by the help of Russian
troops and of the Croat levies, who were of
Slavonic race. We shall see hereafter how
great a price Francis Joseph had to pay for
Russian help. The surrender at Vildgos oc-
curred only a few days before the surrender of
Venice to Radetzky, and as that event brings
the revolutionary period in Italy to a close, we
turn for a moment to Italian affairs. There
ITALY IN 1848 23
we find a story less discreditable to Austria
than that which is on record in Hungary,
but terminating, like the Hungarian story, in
the triumph of absolutism and reaction over
nationality and progress. At the commence-
ment of 1848 the Hapsburgs were kings of
Lombardy and Venetia, and owned 'Northern
Italy from the Adriatic and the northern
frontier to the Ticino and the Po. Their
governors and garrisons were in Venice, in
Milan, and their magistrates and tax-gatherers
dispensed justice and collected revenue. In
Parma and Modena Hapsburg or Bourbon
princes ruled absolutely, and in Tuscany the
Grand Duke Leopold, a direct descendant of
Maria Theresa, was a respectful client of the
Austrian Court. In Rome, Pope Pius IX.,
elected in 1846 by French influence, had
already granted limited liberties to the popu-
lace. In Tuscany, where the Duke held
mildly Liberal views, some concessions had
been made, and the same thing had occurred
in Piedmont, where the House of Savoy, the
only national dynasty in Italy, ruled in the
person of Charles Albert. In Naples and
Sicily, on the other hand, Ferdinand II., of
the Neapolitan branch of the Bourbons, had
refused all concessions.
At the commencement of 1848 the infection
24 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
of democracy spread from Paris and Vienna to
Italy, and violence took the place of orderly
reform. The revolution broke out first at
the extremes of Italy, Palermo and Milan, and
in Palermo it was successful. King Ferdinand
was compelled to promise a constitution in
February, and during the spring the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, the King of Piedmont, and
the Pope followed suit. In March the Austrian
governors were driven from Venice and Milan,
and Marshal Radetzky, who commanded the
Austrian army, was compelled to retire within
the sheltering fortresses of the Quadrilateral.
When on March 23 the Venetian Republic
was established it might almost be said that
Austria had nothing left in Italy but the
ground on which her soldiers stood.
But the Italian insurrections of 1848 were
isolated events, caused by local circumstances
in each of the little states. The Unionist idea
had gained scarcely any ground. But we see
a first indication of such an idea in the invita-
tion extended by the Milanese to the King
of Savoy to cross the frontier and help them
in their struggle against the Hapsburgs. The
King of Savoy accepted the invitation. Unlike
the weak King of Prussia, he was willing to
answer the call for leadership in Italy ; but,
though willing, he was not able to play his
CUSTOZZA 25
part. His action estranged Pius IX., who
feared the destruction of Austria, the strongest
Catholic power in Europe ; and the support of
the Pope, as temporal prince, was lost to the
new Italian cause. The King of Naples in
May succeeded in restoring his power by a
counter-revolution, and though this success
was used, as in Prussia, with moderation,
Naples gave no official help to the Savoyard
king. With Rome and Naples neutral, the
Austrian general was able to meet and defeat
the forces which Turin, Milan, and Venice
raised against him. Charles Albert was a
bad general, and hesitated to attack the old
Austrian marshal, whose forces were, in May
and June 1849, gradually recruited from
southern Austria. Waiting till his reinforce-
ments gave him an army of 120,000 men,
Radetzky attacked the Italians at Custozza on
24th July. The regular regiments of the
Hapsburgs easily defeated the Italian force,
which consisted largely of undisciplined en-
thusiasts, and Charles Albert was driven back
upon Milan. Unable to defend it, he signed,
on August 9, an armistice which reassured
the Imperial Government of its prestige and
possessions in Northern Italy.
The young Archduke Francis Joseph served
in this brief campaign, and it was shortly
26 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
before its close that he was recalled to Austria
to succeed his uncle on the Hapsburg throne.
Before his accession, therefore, he had seen
his arms victorious in Italy, and felt, no doubt,
that he could defeat the ill-united forces of
the Italian democrats. The revolution was
not, however, ended by the battle of Custozza.
Venice was not daunted by it, and, refusing to
acknowledge Hapsburg authority, prepared for
defence. In the autumn the Grand Duke of
Tuscany was compelled to accept popular
ministers, and Pope Pius IX. was driven to
make concessions to the Romans which he
regarded as incompatible with his temporal
and spiritural authority. He retired to Gaeta
in November to await restoration at the hands
of Austrian soldiers.
In February 1849 republics were pro-
claimed in the Papal States and Tuscany, and
two democratic governments were thus estab-
lished between autocratic Austria and auto-
cratic Naples. The year 1849 saw the isolated
/ movements of 1848 replaced by a general
I movement for the expulsion of the Austrians
and union of Italy. But the German garrison
in Lombardy was still more than strong enough
to maintain the sovereignty of Francis Joseph.
On March 12, the King of Sardinia, coerced
by no democratic fury but by a genuine out-
FALL OF VENICE 27
burst of anti-Austrian enthusiasm, denounced
the armistice of August 1848, and, a week later,
crossed the frontier of Lombardy. He found
Radetzky and his army more than ready for
him. The Italian generalship was poor and
the Italian soldiery not to compare as a fight-
ing force with the Austrian troops. On the
23rd, after an obstinate fight near Novara, the
Italians retired in disorder and could not be
rallied. The disappointed King of Sardinia
abdicated on the morrow of defeat. It
left to the new king, Victor Emanuel, to sign
with the old Austrian general an armistice /
which finally restored the Hapsburg power in
Northern Italy.
The defeat of Charles Albert was followed
by a rapid restoration of autocracy all over
the peninsula. The last stronghold of Liberal-
ism, Venice, surrendered to a Polish general of
the Austrian Emperor on 27th August 1849.
The victory of Francis Joseph was complete.
His army had proved loyal. Moreover it had
met in Italy a race whose fighting qualities
were inferior to those of the Magyars.
Whilst the Austrian Government was en-
gaged in Italy and Hungary, the politics of
non-Austrian Germany passed through a criti-
cal phase. Both in Prussia and in Germany
at large a movement in favour of constitutional
28 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
government took place early in 1848. In
Prussia the weak king Frederick William IV.
vacillated between the policy of resistance and
that of riding to popularity on the wave which
he could not stem. In Germany at large
the little princes, thirty-seven in all, were
frightened by a movement which threatened
their thrones and privileges. In all matters of
importance they had long looked to Austria
for leadership, and had followed Metternich
and the Austrian statesmen, who controlled
the Federal Council at Frankfort though not
without occasional jealousies and backsliding.
In 1848 these princes were left without
Austrian guidance, for Austria was too busy
elsewhere to attend to German affairs. When,
therefore, the King of Prussia promised to
give the Prussians a constitution, and declared
that he would take the lead in a reform move-
ment in Germany, the Emperor Ferdinand
answered him with a declaration which simply
reserved all Austria's rights. Austria was not
represented at the preliminary Parliament
which met at Frankfort in March 1848 to
discuss a new constitution ; yet when a scheme
of election had been devised and a full German
Parliament assembled at Frankfort in May,
the Archduke John, a popular prince and
brother of the Emperor Ferdinand, secured
GERMANY IN 1848 29
election as Reichsverweser or administrator of
the Empire. The habit of submission to
Austria was too strong to be shaken off, and
the Archduke, assisted by an able Austrophile
minister, Baron Schmerling, used his position
to delay all definite reform until Austria should
again be free to take up her old position in
Germany. Weeks and months were spent in
academic discussion. The revolutionary fires
died down and the championship of progress
was left to the professors and lawyers in \ the
assembly the very last people in the world to
work a revolution with success.
The majority of these were in favour of)
separating Germany and Austria, and of en-
trusting the control of a Federation in North
Germany to a hereditary emperor the policy,
in fact, which Bismarck realised in 1871. _AjLthe \
end^of March 1840 the Parliament passed re-
solutions to this effect, and immediately elected /
the Hmg of Prussia Kmperor of Germany^
This step might have been a great blow to
Austria, more especially as many of her own
representatives voted in the majority ; but the
King of Prussia, Frederick William IV., was
not brave enough to accept the crown which
was thus offered him. He disliked arranging
matters without the assent of his Austrian
cousin, and he objected to becoming an
30 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Emperor by popular election. The preferred
crown was refused, the position of the Frank-
fort Parliament stultified, and Germany plunged
again into confusion from which she did not
emerge for two years. Meantime the new
Emperor at Vienna, whose advisers knew
exactly what they wanted, proceeded to the
conquest of Hungary, and for the present
contented themselves with refusing to join
in any German union in which Prussia had
the leadership. When Prussia, Hanover, and
Saxony tried to take up the tangled threads
and work them into some fabric of Govern-
ment they found no support among the lesser
princes, who were ever jealous of Prussian
ascendency, whilst Francis Joseph simply
opposed. In September 1849 Prince Schwart-
/zenberg, the Austrian Premier, induced the
Prussian Government to sign what was called
an Interim a. treaty by which it was agreed
that Austria and Prussia should direct the
common affairs of Germany until some per-
manent arrangement could be made. This
treaty, which was signed at the moment of
the close of the struggle in Hungary, marks
the re-entry of Austria upon the stage of
German politics. Frederick William seems
to have thought it would lead to the peaceful
preparation of a reformed German constitution ;
GERMANY IN 1850 31
but Francis Joseph and his advisers, now free
to follow the path of reaction, had different
views. In March 1850, the new German
Parliament reassembled at Erfurt, but, with
Austria in opposition and Prussia stupidly
bound to Austria, nothing could be done. In
April, Schwartzenberg sent a circular to the
German Governments inviting them to come
to Vienna to consider what should be done
when the Austro- Prussian interim agreement
expired, and he was now strong enough to
send a threatening despatch to Prussia. It
meant that unless Frederick William IV. would
consent to resume his place in the old frame-
work of Germany, he must be prepared for
war. In May 1850 the old-fashioned Diet of
the German Confederation resumed its sittings,
and though very few states sent delegates, it
was in September declared to be properly
constituted. In October, Francis Joseph,
accompanied by his Prime Minister, had per-
sonal interviews with the Czar Nicholas at
Warsaw, and with the Kings of Wlirtemberg
and Bavaria in Switzerland. He found all
three sovereigns ready to support him against
Prussia. " I am an old soldier," said King
William of Wurtemberg, " and a man of few
words. It is enough for me to say that I
shall obey my Emperor's orders, wherever
32 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
he bids me march." " With such allies," re-
plied Francis Joseph, " I fear no enemy."
The Austrian Emperor was now as strong
as ever, and his army, freed from all distrac-
tions, was ready to march to Berlin. The final
episodes of the story were complicated by
difficulties in Hesse. There Austrian and
i^ Bavarian troops, at the orders of the revived
German Federal Council at Frankfort, had
intervened to support a mean and tyrannous
prince against the successful efforts of his
subjects. The Hessians refused to pay taxes
which had not been legally sanctioned, and the
King of Prussia had sent some troops into
Hessian territory to help the malcontent tax-
payers against their ruler. Frederick William
protested against the presence of Austrian
troops in Hesse, which was, no doubt, very
far north in Germany, and denied that the
revived Council, whose emissaries they were,
had any proper authority. For a moment
the Prussian and the Federal troops faced
one another in the Hessian territory, and
there was urgent danger of the outbreak
of a war which would have anticipated
the Austro- Prussian campaign of 1866. But
Prussia was not strong enough to maintain
her attitude in the face of threats of Aus-
trian invasion and Russian admonitions. On
PRUSSIA HUMBLED 33
2nd November a conciliatory note was sent
from Berlin to Vienna, and Radowitz, the
Prussian Nationalist minister, resigned. He
had anticipated the policy of Bismarck in
trying to exclude Austria from North Ger-
many, but he was before his time. Moltke
had not yet reorganised the Prussian army
or taught Europe the meaning of a nation
in arms, and armed with modern weapons.
Austria had an army which had, after a fashion,
been victorious in Hungary and Italy, and was
ready to fight. The little German states were
timid, and would not be drawn into concerted
action against her. Russia, the dominant
Power in Continental Europe, was eager to put
down all Nationalist movements. Their suc-
cess could not but lead to the revival, in
Poland and elsewhere, of questions which she
dared not face. And so when, in November
1850, Prince Schwartzenberg demanded that
the Prussian troops should give way to the
Federal forces in Hesse, and requested an
answer in forty- eight hours, the Prussian
Government yielded. Terms were arranged
at Olmlitz between Schwartzenberg, who went
thither at the end of the month, and the
Prussian minister, Manteuffcl. The Prussians
bound themselves not to oppose the Federal
force in Hesse, and to put their army on a
D
34 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
peace footing, whilst in exchange they got
only an undertaking that a conference should
meet at Dresden to consider the future of
Germany. The conference met shortly after-
wards, but did nothing. In the summer of
1851 the old-fashioned German Diet resumed
regular sittings.
Thus, after three years of warfare and of
complicated negotiation, Francis Joseph found
himself on the throne of his forefathers
triumphant over the great revolution of 1848.
His position in Italy was saved by the genius
of Radetzky and by disunion amongst the
Italian Liberals, who did not yet fully realise
that the expulsion of the Hapsburg and the
union of Italy were but one single cause. In
Germany he had won a victory without blood-
shed simply because Prussia was not yet ready
to take the lead. Count Bismarck was already
in the Prussian Diet in 1850, and consented to
the humiliation of Olmtitz much as Cromwell
consented to the first payment of ship-money
in England. In the House he defended the
Olmiitz treaty. " The honour of our army,"
he coldly said, "does not require that we should
play the part of Don Quixote in Germany."
In Hungary the young Emperor had met a
more determined opposition than elsewhere.
He had conquered only at a serious cost
RIFTS IN THE LUTE 35
but he had conquered. No young sovereign
has ever been in such a position as the youth-
ful ruler of the Hapsburg territories at the end
of 1851. The traditions on which he had been
nursed, and which in 1848 seemed to be broken
for ever, had been vindicated. The democrats
had been vanquished. His authority, direct or
indirect, stretched from Kiel to Syracuse, and
from Belgrade to the Rhine. Even in France,
where the revolution had upset a throne, a new
Emperor had established himself by a success-
ful coup tfetat. With his trusted Schwartzen-
berg to advise him, his clever mother to give
her experience, and, above all, a faithful and
efficient army, Francis Joseph might well feel
that the mantle of his ancestors had indeed
descended on his shoulders.
Yet there were signs to show that his success
was more apparent than real. Austria held
her own in Italy, but it was obvious that she
ruled there only by the sword. The moment
her army failed to serve, her cause was lost.
A large number of Hungarian soldiers had
deserted from the regiments in Italy during
the wars of 1848, and, with Hungary in passive
resistance and only held down by armed force,
the Hungarian soldiers could not be counted
upon in the future. Moreover, defeat had
taugEt Italy her destiny. The question of
36 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
her unity had become a matter of practical
politics. It was clear that the Roman
and Tuscan Liberals would not be satisfied
with a mere restriction of the powers of their
local sovereigns. It was realised that Italy
would not fear recourse to arms. Her sons,
if they had not yet learned to fight like the
Magyars, knew, as they did, how to die.
CHAPTER II
1851-1859
The "Bach System" The Concordat of 1855 The Crimean
War and its results Relations with Russia and France
Victor Emanuel Magenta and Solferino.
IT will probably occur to the reader who has
read so far in this book that it has been written
without a sense of proportion. A short book
to describe a reign of sixty years ; and yet in
all this time we have got no further than the
end of the year 1851 ! The author can only
defend himself by saying that in his judgment
the first three years were almost, if not quite,
the most important in the Emperor's reign.
They not only foreshadow the difficulties which
beset him and show the weakness of his posi-
tion, but they also illustrate its strength. The
general course of the policy which the Emperor-
King has followed in recent times is indeed
very different from the policy of ruthless
repression which was carried out in his name
during his first three years on the throne ;
37
38 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
but the object, though not the method of
Schwartzenberg, was that of the Emperor-
King to-day. To maintain a strong Catholic
mid- European monarchy, with its centre at
Vienna, was the chief aim of Francis Joseph's
first Chancellor the personification of that
aristocratic caste and spirit which has so long
surrounded the Hapsburgs. The maintenance
of that monarchy is still the aim of the Emperor-
King, and though he has, by time and by ad-
versity, been taught to alter the means by which
that aim is pursued, the object itself has not
changed. At the end of 1851, the skill of
Schwartzenberg and the genius of Radetzky had
freed the Empire from those enemies who, in
1848, had challenged not only the autocratic
authority of the sovereign, but even the exist-
ence of " Austria " itself. Francis Joseph was
now given a breathing-space. As a young
man of twenty-one, he started to govern a
country in which there were many elements
of disloyalty, but in which the majority was
sincerely loyal. How did he do it ?
The answer to this question may be given
in a few words he did it, or tried to do it, by
setting up a strong and intelligent bureaucracy,
by concentrating all power, legislative and
executive, in the offices of ministers at Vienna
who were responsible to no one but himself.
BACH'S SYSTEM 39
As we have already seen, the constitution
which he had given to Austria in March
1849, and which had been declared to be
" irrevocable," was cancelled on the last day of
1851. Its withdrawal was one of the last acts
of Prince Schwartzenberg's regime, and was
quite in harmony with the rest of his policy.
Indeed, it would have been difficult to maintain
the constitution of 1849, which provided for
the representation at Vienna, not only of what
we now call Austria, but of the conquered
Hungary and of Northern Italy. The dis-
appearance of the charter - constitution of
1849 left the way open for the organisation
of a system of centralised government. Its
preparation and execution were committed
after the death of Schwartzenberg in 1852 to
Alexander von Bach, who had for three years
been Minister of the Interior. Bach was a
lawyer of Vienna and a man of the people. In
early days he was credited with Liberal
sympathies, but in '49 he entered the service
of monarchy, and during the eight years follow-
ing 1851 was the head and centre of the system
of government which will go down to history
marked with his name. He succeeded Count
Stadion, a man of Liberal sympathies who had
been in the Austrian Ministry of 1848, as
Minister of the Interior ; and when the con-
40 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
stitution of 1849 was withdrawn he became the
centre of a great system of administration
which embraced the whole of Austria and of the
conquered but reluctant Hungary. Bach was
in some ways an instrument for good. Under
his system the local jurisdictions of the nobility
were abolished, and superseded by courts in
which justice was dispensed in the Emperor's
name. This reform aroused violent opposi-
tion on the part of the old nobility, but it
was undoubtedly an improvement. German
became everywhere the official language, and
Magyar was tabooed in Hungary. The police
force which was raised by Bach spoke German
only, and it is said that in 1860 only one of the
higher police officers in Budapest was able to
speak the language of the people. The smaller
provinces, such as Istria and the Tyrol, retained
their old shape, but Galicia, where a Polish
aristocracy and a Ruthenian peasantry were
equally hostile to Germanism, and Hungary,
where the language of Vienna was the language
of oppression, were cut up into separate pro-
vinces. The very picture of the kingdom of
St. Stephen was wiped off the map. The
right of meeting was strictly limited, and all
political associations were forbidden. No
newspaper could be issued until a copy had
been seen and approved by the police.
ROME AND AUSTRIA 41.
Slav or Hungarian journalists, even when
acquitted by a jury, could be, and were,
"interned" at a distance from their homes.
Bach's system was not directed only against the
Magyars nor designed solely to suppress that
nationality. His hand lay as heavy on Czechs,
Ruthenians, and Roumans, as on Magyars.
Galicia and Transylvania, as well as Hungary,
remained in a state of siege till 1854. The
Hungarians took a gloomy satisfaction in seeing
that the Slavonic race in Croatia, which had
fought for the Hapsburgs in 1849, were no better
treated than themselves. A historian tells a
story of a Croat who one day met a Hungarian
and asked him what Hungary thought of the pre-
sent state of affairs. " We are pleased with it,"
was the reply. " The Austrians give to you as
a reward what they give to us as a punishment."
In the struggle of 1848-1850 the Roman
Catholic Church had formed a close alliance
with the Emperor and his advisers. A
popular success in Hungary was feared by
the bishops, who saw in it the prelude to a
crusade against the wealth and obscurantism
of the Church ; and in the Slavonic borders
Galicia, Croatia, and Southern Hungary-
many of the Slavs either belonged to the
Roman Church, or might be drawn into
it if they were allowed even a modicum of
42 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
political liberty. The bishops assembled at
Vienna in 1849, condemned all Nationalist
pretensions, and when the Nationalist move-
ment was crushed, they commenced an active
campaign in favour of the resumption of
priestly control over marriage and education.
This control was fully granted them by the
Concordat of May 1855, one f tne most un-
popular of the acts of Bach's administration.
Roman Catholicism was by this treaty acknow-
ledged as the religion of the State, and was
granted entire independence of legislation and
the right of acquiring and disposing of pro-
perty. The bishops were given full power
to try and censure the lower clergy, to control
the education of children, and to condemn
dangerous publications, which the State under-
took to suppress. Civil marriage was abolished,
and the State Courts deprived of the power to
punish even criminal priests without giving
notice to their bishops.
Such a system of government could only
exist so long as it was supported by physical
force. It would be unjust to lay the whole
blame for it upon Francis Joseph a young man
still on the right side of thirty and brought up
in bad traditions which had been challenged in
arms, and, by arms, had prevailed. But the
critic can hardly avoid holding him in part
FINANCIAL STRESS 43
responsible for these measures, which rendered
his government odious, and shook the con-
fidence and loyalty even of the most law-
abiding subjects. One evil result of such
misgovernment he could not prevent
financial depression. Capital drifted away
from a country where men had no rights,
and where even ordinary business had to be
conducted under the eyes of Bach's police.
In 1854 a forced loan was raised in the most
high-handed manner in order to cover the cost
of re-establishing a metal currency and buying
back Exchequer bills ; but the money, was
spent on military action during the Crimean
War. This action was undertaken at the
simple orders of the Emperor, who, early in
his reign, abolished the Ministry of War and
assumed complete control of the army. The
expenses of the occupation of the Danubian
principalities and of the preparations for the
Italian war of 1859 stopped all financial reform,
and though the Emperor appointed an able
Finance Minister in 1855, he was unable to
make any progress with the restoration of
the public credit. The breakdown of the Bach
system in 1859 was due to many causes, but to
none more clearly than the absence of any
guarantees for solvency and honesty in the
administration of Austrian finance.
44 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Whilst the direction of internal affairs was
committed to Bach, the conduct of foreign
relations was given to an Austrian nobleman,
Count Buol - Schauenstein. He succeeded
Schwartzenberg as Minister for Foreign Affairs
in 1852, and continued in office till the out-
break of the war of 1859. Trained in the
school of Metternich and Schwartzenberg,
Buol was inferior in ability to either of his
predecessors, and during his period of office
the weakness of Austria's position became clear
to the world; The favours conferred by Russia
in saving Francis Joseph from his insurgent
subjects in Hungary and his rivals in Northern
Germany had left Austria deeply in her debt ;
and Russia, under the Emperor Nicholas, was in
1851 the most powerful state in Europe. The
wave of revolution which swept over the Con-
tinent in 1848 broke harmlessly against her
frontiers. Austria owed her salvation to her.
Northern Germany was divided, and, as yet,
without a leader. The moment was conse-
quently favourable for the resumption of the
old policy of Peter the Great expansion
towards the south ; and the Emperor Nicholas,
seeing his opportunity, reopened the Eastern
Question in 1853. He demanded from the
Sultan the control of the Holy Places in
Palestine and the recognition of a Russian
TURKEY AND EUROPE 45
protectorate over the 16,000,000 Christians in
Turkey. The Sultan could not yield to this
demand without a surrender of part of his
sovereign rights, and without giving the
deepest offence to his Moslem subjects. Not
having received a satisfactory answer, the
Czar, in July 1853, dispatched troops into the
two north - eastern provinces of Turkey
Moldavia and Wallachia (which form the
Roumanian kingdom of to - day). This step
placed the Emperor Francis Joseph in a
serious difficulty. The two provinces lay
between Russia, Austria, and Turkey. ^Their
owner would command the Danube, the great
highway of Austrian trade, and would have a
dominant influence in the Black Sea. Austria
could not see these provinces pass to Russia
without anxiety ; yet amongst the Austrian
aristocracy, and particularly amongst the high
officers in the army, there was a powerful
party which valued the Russian alliance above
everything. Russia and Austria had, in the
last century, made common cause against
Turkey ; and there was no doubt that, if
Austria supported the Russian seizure of the
mouth of the Danube, she might help herself
to some other part of Turkish territory with
the tacit approval of the Czar. On the
other hand, as Count Buol impressed upon
46 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
the young Emperor, the Turkish power could
not be weakened without raising insurgent
movements amongst the southern Slavs along
the borders of the Empire. The Czar of
Russia's demand was based, not only on reli-
gious, but on nationalist grounds. He aimed at
the liberation of men of Slav race and Christian
faith from Mussulman rule. If his claims were
admitted, and the southern Slavs in Turkey
were emancipated, might not the Slovenes and
Serbs in Southern Austria and Hungary rise
also and demand liberties which Francis Joseph
could not grant ? What of the Czechs in
Bohemia, a Slavonic race, who had asked
in vain for liberty in 1848? Moreover, if
Austria supported Russia, she would incur
the enmity of the new French Emperor,
Napoleon III., who could, as he very shortly
did, turn the scale against the Hapsburg rule
in Italy; whilst Nicholas offered to guarantee
to Francis Joseph his Italian possessions.
Between the two policies the Emperor hesi-
tated for many critical months. He wrote
a personal letter to the Czar, in July 1853,
begging him not to occupy the Danubian
principalities, and at the same time appealed
to the Sultan, through his ambassador, to
admit, at least in principle, the Russian claim.
Both requests were rejected, and Francis
ORLOFF AT VIENNA 47
Joseph's attempt at mediation merely showed
that he was not strong enough to impose his
rule upon either party. He permitted the
occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia to take
place without protest ; and when, six months
later, he armed against Russia, his protest had
lost its force. In September and October
meetings took place between the young
Emperor and his Russian patron for he
may almost be called so at Olmiltz and at
Warsaw, and Francis Joseph declared that
he could not permit Turkish territory to be
violated ; but neither this vague assertion,
nor the protocol which he signed to the same
effect with Prussia, France, and England (5th
December 1853), had any deterrent effect on
Russia. The Turks declared war in October
1853, an d had early successes on the Danube,
which caused Russia for a moment to moderate
her attitude. In January 1854 the Emperor
Nicholas sent Count Orloff on to Vienna with
a proposal that Russia should have a free hand
in the Balkans in return for a guarantee of the
whole territory of Austria, to which guarantee
Nicholas offered to secure the adhesion of
Prussia and the German Bund. The offer
was accompanied by the suggestion of an
Austro-Russian protectorate over the Balkan
states. Count Buol advised the Emperor
48 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
to reject these suggestions, knowing that they
would mean a protectorate of the Balkans by
Russia alone ; but it is interesting to recall
the suggestion, which has been, to a certain
extent, followed in modern Turkish politics so
lately as 1903.
On February 21, 1854, the Emperor was
at a ball in the Schwartzenberg Palace in
Vienna, and for the first time showed clear
determination to oppose Russia. Addressing
the Russian Ambassador, who assured him that
a Slav rising in Turkey would not mean the
fall of the Moslem power in Europe, he said :
" I thought as you do until Count Orloff came
here ; and I was very glad to see him. But
from his first words I saw that his proposals
were not identical with those about which I
spoke with the Emperor Nicholas at Olmutz
and Warsaw. I had consequently to take my
own measures. Up till this time I was deter-
mined to remain strictly neutral." l
The failure of Orloff's mission marks the
departure of Francis Joseph from the historic
Austrian policy of alliance with Russia in the
Eastern question. It was followed by the
mobilisation of two army corps in Southern
Hungary, and in April by an Austro-Prussian
treaty, in which the two Powers promised, in
1 Friedj ung, Der Krimkrieg ^tnd die osterreichischt Politik (Stutt-
gart, 1907), p. 19,
THE CRIMEAN WAR 49
certain contingencies, to join forces against the
Czar. In May another Austrian army corps
was mobilised in Galicia, and on June 3 Francis
Joseph sent an ultimatum to St. Petersburg
asking that the Czar should name the date
at which he would evacuate Moldavia and
Wallachia. Nicholas was furious, and never
forgave the Emperor Francis Joseph. " Do
you know," he asked of Count Valentine
Esterhazy, the Austrian ambassador at St.
Petersburg, "do you know who were the two
stupidest Kings of Poland?" And when the
ambassador could not answer, he continued,
"John Sobieski and myself!" For both
Sobieski and Nicholas I. had saved Austria
from her enemies, one in 1683 and the other
in 1849, Y et both were treated with ingratitude. 1
The Austrian demand, however, coupled
with large military preparations, had its effect.
At the end of June the Russians retired
from before the Turkish fortress of Silistria
and recrossed the Danube. A few weeks after
they evacuated Moldavia and Wallachia, and
these principalities were occupied by Austria
in September and October. Thus at the
close of 1854 the Emperor Francis Joseph
1 Sobieski wanted to follow up his victory against the Turks, but
the Emperor Leopold, whom he had saved from them, would not
support him.
E
5 o FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
had entered definitely into the arena of Balkan
politics. Had he remained content with
occupying the principalities and abstained from
further action in the war, his policy might have
been commended. But either from ambition
to play a great part in Europe or from a desire
to conciliate the Emperor of the French, he
allowed himself to be drawn beyond his original
attitude of impartiality, and entered into agree-
ments with the Western Powers for the further
restriction of Russian power in Eastern Europe.
In August he had agreed to certain proposi-
tions put forward by France and England,
and known to diplomats as the " Four Points,"
which Russia was asked, at the point of the
sword, to accept. When the Czar bluntly
rejected the proposals, Francis Joseph, who
was now his own War Minister, ordered his
generals in the principalities to admit the
Turks to free passage through them. This
was followed by a general mobilisation of the
Austrian army. In February 1855 the Haps-
burg force on war footing amounted in all to
the huge total of 327,000 men and 1096 guns.
Yet this great army was not directed by a
strong military policy. It was prepared and
provisioned at vast expense in deference to
Francis Joseph's policy of keeping the war out
of the Danubian principalities and protecting
A FORCED LOAN 51
the mouths of the Danube from the Russian
occupation. Active intervention the Emperor
never contemplated and never allowed. It
would have been better for him had he
done so. France and England would have
sanctioned his annexation of the Danubian
principalities had he, by actual warfare, forced
Russia to sue for peace. But at the moment
when he might have settled the war by prompt
action, he failed to act. In the winter months
of 1854 the peace party in Vienna increased in
strength and drew powerful arguments from the
ruinous aspect of Austrian finance. A forced
loan of some ^35,000,000 was raised in Vienna
in the summer of 1854, to which every tax-
payer was compelled to subscribe according
to his means, and the unpopularity of this
measure, coupled with the feeling that he was
forfeiting Russian friendship, caused Francis
Joseph to incline strongly in the direction of
peace. England and France had forced him
unwillingly along the path of strong action,
and though in November he cancelled his
order of October for a general mobilisation,
they compelled him, by threatening to recall
their ambassadors, to sign a treaty which had
actually, in the first place, been drafted by his
own ministers. The treaty was signed on
2nd December 1854, just five years after the
52 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Emperor's accession. It dealt a final blow at
the policy of Austro-Russian alliance, which
had existed ever since the fall of Napoleon I.
" After this," said the Czar, " I treat no more
with Austria."
Francis Joseph did not sign the treaty
without much misgiving. Count Buol, who
had conducted the whole policy with a view
to securing Austria's position in Europe, did
indeed get his reward, for on 22nd December
England and France gave him a guarantee of
the status quo in Italy during the period of the
war. But he estranged Prussia, whom by a
treaty signed in April 1854 he had bound to
make common cause with him. The lesser
German princes, too, became suspicious of an
Austrian monarch whose schemes foreshadowed
an eastward expansion quite incompatible with
the maintenance of his position as their leader
and as protector of their fragile rights and
frontiers. In January 1855 these princes re-
fused Count Buol's invitation to join in the
treaty of December, whilst at the moment when
he sent that invitation the Austrian Foreign
Minister vied with his sovereign in apolo-
getic expressions and professions of constant
friendship for the Czar Nicholas. Broken
down by long strain and disappointment,
Nicholas I. expired on 2nd March 1855.
THE PEACE OF 1856 53
With the disappearance of that strong and
resolute ruler, the great obstacle to peace
was removed. Proposals for it were at once
made, and in the middle of March the five
great Powers (Prussia was not present) met
by their special envoys at Vienna to discuss
conditions. Lord John Russell went out from
England, and found Francis Joseph and his
advisers in a state of contrition, which left
no hope that they would agree to further action
against Russia. The Emperor refused to join
in demanding the removal of Russian war-
ships from the Black Sea, and on i2th June
orders were issued to place the Austrian army
on a peace footing. In the remainder of the
war Austria took no considerable part. The
victory of the Allies at the Tchernaia (i6th
August) and the subsequent fall of Sebastopol
(8th September) caused no rejoicings at Vienna.
The Emperor's messages of congratulation to
France and England were delayed until they
had only a negative significance.
It is not for the biographer of Francis
Joseph to follow the final episodes of the
diplomacy which brought the Crimean War
to a close. The new Czar Alexander accepted
the terms of peace which Austria, in January
1856, offered in the name of Europe, and a
Congress met in Paris which brought about
54 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
a formal peace in March. The terms to which
Russia assented, whilst humiliating to her,
were to the advantage rather of England and
France than of the Hapsburg monarchy. Eng-
lish trade profited by the " neutralisation " of
the Black Sea and the removal of the Russian
fleet from its waters. The new French Emperor
gained, at least in prestige, by forcing the Czar
to abandon his claim to "protect" the Christian
subjects of the Sultan. The Turkish empire
gained a new lease of life by the defeat of her
nearest and greatest enemy ; and, most of all,
the kingdom of Sardinia, the nucleus of modern
Italy, gained by her admission to the Congress
of Paris as a state of equal rank with the
historic Powers of Europe. Austria may be
said to have gained something by the pre-
servation of an " open door " at the mouth of
the Danube the great outlet for her trade in
the East ; but she failed to get possession of
the Danubian principalities, which were con-
stituted an independent state, shortly to become
the modern kingdom of Roumania. On the
other hand, Francis Joseph, in forfeiting the
friendship of Russia, had sacrificed his most
important political asset. Russia alone in all
Europe was a determined enemy to Liberal
and nationalist movements, and Russia had
shown, by her invasion of Hungary in 1849,
COUNT BUOL'S FAILURE 55
that she would, if necessary, draw the sword
to save Austria. Whatever else might happen,
Francis Joseph could no longer count on the
Czar as an ally ; whilst Prussia, by refusing to
take action against Russia, had earned the
gratitude of the Court of St. Petersburg, which
stood her in good stead in 1866.
The Emperor throughout this period was
advised by Count Buol, and Buol was one of
the school of Austrian statesmen who con-
stantly looked to Austria's position in Italy
and Germany and thought little of her pro-
spects or destinies in the East. Brought up
in the traditions of Metternich, he wished to
keep Austria's influence in Germany and in
Italy intact, and to maintain her position as
the leading Catholic Power in Central Europe.
Both in Italy and in Germany Austria needed
the help of France, and Buol's main idea was
that, by supporting the upstart French Emperor
in his attempt to pose as arbiter in Europe,
he would secure his neutrality for the day in
which the Italians should again rise in arms
against the Hapsburgs. He hoped also for
French, and possibly for English, assistance in
Germany, and thought that the friends whom
he was making for Austria would stand to her
in Germany as well as beyond the Alps. In
pursuing these aims Count Buol was held back
5 6 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
by Francis Joseph ; but though he could not
be induced to join actively in the Crimean
campaign, the young Emperor went far enough
to lose the friendship of Russia, without gain-
ing any compensating advantage.
In this chapter of war and diplomacy we
read the character of Francis Joseph whilst he
was still young and under the influence of the
old generation : an honourable man, loyal at
heart to his friends, yet allowing himself to be
driven to and fro by circumstances, yielding
alternately to his own inclinations and to the
advice of ministers, and, either from indecision
or from prudence, temporising. A charge of
vacillating between alternative but inconsistent
courses has often been brought against him.
How far, upon the record of his sixty years,
he is to be blamed for indecision and how far
praised for prudence we shall consider in the
further study of his career.
One positive result, at least, was attained
by the Crimean War. Sardinia, as well as
Turkey, attained the rank of a " European
Power," and Sardinia was now ruled by a
sovereign of a different mettle to the weak
Charles Albert of 1848. It is not to my pur-
pose to sketch the career of the great Italian,
Victor Emanuel of Savoy, or of the patriot
Cavour, his restless and far-seeing minister.
THE ITALIAN QUESTION 57
Sardinia alone of the Italian states was, as
we have seen, under the rule of a popular
and a national dynasty. Whilst the Austrian
or Austrophile princes in Parma, Modena, and
Tuscany, and King Bomba in Naples, crushed
out the popular institutions which had found
an entry into their states in 1848, Victor
Emanuel retained a popular form of govern-
ment. Silently, yet without concealment, he
prepared for the great struggle with Austria,
and at the end of the year 1856 it was clear
that the Italian question was to become the
question of to-morrow in Europe. In the
Eastern play, one scene of which is acted in
1853-6, Francis Joseph was, as we have seen,
deeply interested ; yet in the Crimean episode
he takes only a secondary part. In the Italian
drama he necessarily plays a part of the first
importance.
The success of Austria in 1849 was intensely
unpopular in Italy, and the Emperor and his
officers did not know how to use their success.
The policy of pure absolutism which had been
followed up to 1848 was resumed. Imitating
the policy of the Austrians, the subservient
princes in Parma, Modena, and Tuscany per-
severed in their autocratic courses as though
the voice of revolution had never spoken at
their doors. In Naples, Ferdinand II., nick-
58 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
named Bomba, reasserted to the full his
sovereign rights, and though he enjoyed to
the last a good deal of personal popularity,
his system was one which may be well de-
scribed by the old phrase, " tyranny tempered
by assassination." The Duke of Tuscany held
his capital with Austrian troops ; these alone
protected him from the knives of persons in
whose eyes patriotism was a good excuse for
murder. The Duke of Parma was murdered
in 1854, at the time of the outbreak of the
Crimean War ; and when England and France
had given an implied approval to the Italian
cause by admitting Sardinian troops to co-
operation in the Crimea, Victor Emanuel and
his minister felt sufficiently strong to raise
definitely the question of Italian unity. The
Austrian envoys at the Congress of Paris
refused to discuss the Italian question, and
maintained an attitude of obstinate opposition
to all the diplomatic efforts of Cavour. Count
Buol, however, knew well that the day of
reckoning was not far distant ; and if there
is any excuse for his policy at the period of
the Crimean War, it is the desire to keep the
peace in Italy as long as possible. But Victor
Emanuel would not, perhaps could not, wait.
He was certain of the friendship of Napoleon
III., himself of Italian blood, and in early life
THE ITALIAN QUESTION 59
a member of one at least of the secret societies
which were formed to liberate Italy. During
the negotiations at Paris Napoleon had showed
special favour to Cavour, and the peace of
1856 released France from her obligation to
guarantee the status quo beyond the Alps.
Had Francis Joseph consented in 1856 to let
Modena and Parma be united with Sardinia,
and to give the Duke of Modena compensa-
tion by making him Prince of Moldavia and
Wallachia, the course of Italian history might,
at all events for a time, have been altered.
The suggestion was made by Cavour in 1856 ;
and Europe would probably have accepted it.
But the Emperor was true to an old Hapsburg
principle of never surrendering territory which
had once been acquired without a fight ; and he
scorned the idea of bargaining with Sardinia,
where shelter was being given to thousands
of political refugees from Milan and Venice.
Had his attitude been different, we might now
have a Hapsburg and not a Hohenzollern king
in Roumania.
In 1857 the ill feeling between Austria and
Sardinia grew apace. The Emperor loyally
supported his docile relatives and allies on
their rickety Italian thrones. In 1855 he
had, as we have seen, concluded a Concordat
with the Pope, which committed his country,
6o FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
in all matters of spiritual doctrine and discip-
line, to the charge and control of the Vatican.
The Concordat was' very unpopular in Austria,
where the majority were good, but not very
strict, Catholics. It was also hated in the
Emperor's Italian domain, where Roman
Catholicism was not a creed but a policy.
Victor Emanuel had refused to recognise the
ecclesiastical courts in his kingdom, and during
1857 a war of newspapers broke out in
Northern Italy, which resulted in November
in the breach of diplomatic relations. The
war with powder and shot was hastened by
Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon III.
(January 1858), and by eloquent letters written
by Orsini before his execution, in which he
implored the French emperor to draw the
sword for Italian unity. In July 1858 Cavour
visited Napoleon at Plombieres, and a secret
agreement was concluded. This assured Sar-
dinia of French help provided that it should
be left to France to choose the moment in
the spring of 1859 for declaring war. The
Emperor did not join in the Sardinian plan
for uniting Italy, and looked to an Italy of
four kingdoms : Sardinia, enlarged by Austrian
cessions, Tuscany, Rome, and Naples. But
Victor Emanuel was content. He foresaw that,
once the war was commenced, Napoleon III.
CAVOUR'S DIPLOMACY 61
would not be able to set a limit to Italian
ambitions. From Plombieres Cavour travelled
to Berlin, and, having assured himself of
Prussian neutrality, returned to Turin to await
the moment when France should throw down
the gauntlet.
War, however, came about by no declaration
of France. Francis Joseph was deeply injured
by the policy of Victor Emanuel, and on April
23rd, 1859, he suddenly demanded the dis-
armament of the Sardinian army, yet without
giving any promise that his own army should
be placed on a peace footing. The Emperor
was convinced that his soldiers were a match
for the Sardinians in Italy, and he took no steps
to make it certain that Prussia or the German
Bund would hold France to neutrality by a
demonstration on the Rhine. Prince William
of Prussia who, in October 1858, was declared
Regent of Prussia, owing to the insanity of his
brother, King Frederick William, was ready to
support Austria by a demonstration against
France. But he would only sell his co-operation
at a price which Austria would not pay the
concession of the right to command the forces
of the Confederation. This suggestion was
rejected by Francis Joseph for reasons similar
to those which had prompted his refusal to
trade with Sardinia in 1856. The mission of
62 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
the Archduke Albrecht, who went to Berlin just
before the outbreak of war, to secure, if possible,
Prussian co-operation, was a failure. Austria,
proudly refusing to give up her right to military
leadership of the German forces, went into the
Italian war alone. The ultimatum of April 23,
1859, was despatched to Turin on the very day
on which the Archduke Albrecht left Berlin.
Moreover, it was sent, not through the Foreign
Office, but from the Emperor's Militar-kanzlei,
and on his simple fiat.
The Austrian force in Lombardy was 200,000
strong. Francis Joseph believed that Sardinia
was not ready to fight, and that he could advance
to Turin. On April 29, Count Gyulai, the
Hungarian general in command at Milan,
crossed the Ticino and invaded the dominions
of Victor Emanuel. But at this very moment
the heads of the French columns were across
the Alps, and Austria found herself without
allies and opposed to two formidable enemies.
It is not my purpose to follow the six weeks'
campaign which followed on the familiar battle-
ground of Northern Italy. The first big battle,
Magenta (June 4) was not decisive, though the
honours of the day rested with the Allies ; but
on June 24th the Austrians, under the nominal
command of Francis Joseph, but the real
control of Marshal Hess, were worsted at
SOLFERINO 63
Solferino. They were compelled to retire in
spite of successes in one part of the battlefield,
where, in a bloody action, General Benedek
held the Sardinian force in check. During
the period of war the three princes of Tuscany,
Modena, and Parma were expelled from their
thrones, and rendered powerless to help the
Austrian Emperor, who had so long supported
them. The young king, Francis II. of Naples,
the brother-in-law of Francis Joseph, was "con-
tained " by the French force in occupation of
Rome, which could have intercepted any troops
sent to support the Austrians. After Solferino
both parties were ready for peace. Francis
Joseph was afraid of a rising in Hungary.
Large numbers of his troops (it is said six per
cent of his whole force) were unwounded
prisoners of the enemy, and he feared losses
which might ruin his prestige in Germany.
Napoleon, on the other hand, was deeply
affected by the loss of 10,000 French soldiers
at Solferino, and his troops were weakened
by fever. Moreover, he was afraid of the
Ultramontane party in France, which was
strongly opposed to the further humiliation of
the leading Roman Catholic Power in Europe.
Thus it came about that the first offers of peace,
which came from the victors of Solferino, were
readily accepted. The peace of Villafranca was
64 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
signed on i ith June, Austria ceded Lombardy
to France, and France in turn handed it over
to Sardinia. Parma was also united to the
Piedmontese kingdom. But Francis Joseph
kept Venetia, and with it the strong forts of
the " Quadrilateral." The Grand Dukes of
Tuscany and Modena were restored to their
territories, and it was agreed that Pope
Pius IX. should be requested to reform the
government of his territories.
The news of the peace of Villafranca caused
intense surprise in Europe. Everywhere it
had been thought that Francis Joseph must
surrender the whole of his Italian territories,
and, probably, pay a large indemnity. He was
now to keep Venetia and its wealthy capital,
and this would enable him to play a great part
in Italian politics. Two of his subject-princes
for one may call them so were restored
to power ; and his position in Germany was
untouched. The Italian unionists denounced
Napoleon as a traitor. Cavour, who had been
dismissed by Victor Emanuel after a stormy
interview as to the terms of peace, set to work
to establish provisional popular governments in
Florence and Modena which should still further
the cause he had at heart. To review the
further history of Italian unity is beyond my
purpose. Here I need only notice that the
AUSTRIA AND ITALY 65
Emperor Francis Joseph, though defeated, was
not disgraced. His army had shown itself well
able to fight, and ninety per cent of it, though
not the whole, was loyal. Austria, in fact, was
still a great power. Now, as afterwards, Francis
Joseph seemed like William of Orange,
strongest in the moment of defeat.
It has been urged against the young
Emperor that if he had taken an active part in
the Crimean war, and saved France and England
from the losses of the Sebastopol campaign, he
might have obtained a permanent, and not a
temporary guarantee of his Italian possessions ;
and that if this had been granted, he would not
have had to fight Marshal MacMahon and his
Frenchmen in 1859. In answer to this I may
say that, in the first place, Francis Joseph was,
at bottom, controlled by feelings of gratitude
towards the Emperor Nicholas which were
honourable to him, however unworthy their
cause, and for which he cannot be censured.
Moreover, with France and England com-
mitted to a Liberal policy in Italy, he must
have known that their guarantees, even if
obtained, would be of little value. On the
other hand, he seems to have nursed the hope
that the German Federal body could be induced
to take part in the defence of his Italian
dominions. He tried to make the preservation
66 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
of the Hapsburg interest in Italy a matter of
German policy and a cause for German expendi-
ture of men and money. This was a mistake,
but one which a ruler of Francis Joseph's
traditions and training might easily make. The
Austria of Prince Eugene and Kaunitz had
often fought with German troops in Italy
and Hungary, and with Magyars or Croats in
Germany, and the Emperor had been brought
up by statesmen who taught him that he had
only to command and the rest of Germany
would follow. Had not the old King of
Wlirtemberg said so to him in so many words
in 1850? Well might he look back with
reproach to those who had started him in the
course of policy which now ended in mortifica-
tion and defeat. The most difficult task which
Fate has brought the Emperor has been the
sacrifice of old traditions, and the establishment
not only of a new geographical state, but of an
idea, a principle, a policy, which may unite his
subjects by a sense of common duty, common
purpose, and mutual confidence.
As his reign and policy proceed we shall
see how he endeavours to perform that task.
CHAPTER III
1859-1866
Schmerling and Liberalism in Austria Schemes for a new
Constitution in Germany Prussia and Austria The
Schleswig-Holstein Question Sadowa General Benedek.
THE peace of Villafranca marks the end of one
period in the public life of the Emperor
Francis Joseph. The humiliation of Magenta
and Solferino and the loss of Lornbardy were
a warning to him that there were forces at
work in Europe which tended to the dis-
integration, if not to the destruction, of the
old Hapsburg monarchy. Italian " nationality "
would not be checked and confined by the
antiquated government of Austrian satraps,
however honestly and efficiently these officers
performed their duties. The people of Northern
Italy were Italians, and preferred being gov-
erned, even badly, by themselves to being well
governed by foreigners. They had fought on
this ground, and, with the help of the French,
had established their right to govern them-
67
68 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
selves, well or badly. Lombardy had been
lost to Austria, and it was more or less an
accident that Venetia had not been lost also.
The forces which had conquered the Austrians
in Italy were democracy and nationalism : and
the Emperor, now in his thirtieth year, observed
quickly enough that if they could paralyse his
rule in Italy, they might upset his authority
in Austria and undermine his position in Italy,
Germany, and Hungary. It was time to make
concessions to the people in his remaining
territories. The old Conservative advisers who
had been about him since 1848 were apparently
in the wrong. Under their advice the Em-
peror had done his best to set up an enlight-
ened despotism and to govern the people
not by their own will, but for their own good.
The result was an army that could not be
wholly trusted, a nation ill-content with its
government ; and, lastly, an exchequer crippled
by the chronic reluctance of capitalists to invest
their money in the country. Hungary was
hopelessly alienated, and watched the Austrian
defeat in Italy with complacency. Germany
caught the infection of unionism and democ-
racy from Italy. In the hereditary Hapsburg
dominions voices called for popular rights
which might be disregarded for a time, but
could not be silenced.
AUSTRIA'S PROSPECT IN 1859 69
The next seven years of the Emperor's life
were devoted to an attempt to meet or
control these popular movements ; and the
attempt was largely, though not wholly,
unsuccessful. In meeting them, in attempting
to maintain his position in Hungary and also
in Germany, the Emperor had a certain number
of resources on which he could fall back. In
opposing democracy he could rely on the
support of the Prussian Government, which
cared for German democratic unity as little as
he did. The lesser states of Germany, if they
disliked Austrian supremacy, were not at all
disposed to side with Prussia against the
Hapsburgs. Then the Emperor had a great
fund of loyalty in his hereditary dominions,
whose inhabitants were quite at one with him
in his determination to remain the first power
in Germany. Two difficulties lay in his way.
Hungary would not agree to any settlement
which did not give her legislative independence
of the Parliament at Vienna. Prussia would
not come into any new Federal constitution
which left Austria with the power of out-voting
her in the Federal Council or left to Francis
Joseph and his smaller German allies the
control of the policy of the northern German
states. In the end it turned out that the forces
against the Emperor were too strong for him ;
70 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
but his attempt to grapple with them occupies
an interesting and critical period in his reign.
He honestly tries to meet the difficulties
of the present ; but fails to do so. As he fails
we see before him the difficulties of the future.
Francis Joseph began his period of reform
by appointing as Minister- President Baron
Anton von Schmerling, an Austrian politician
who, since 1848, had been distinguished by
Liberal views. Schmerling had been Austrian
representative at Frankfort in 1848, and had
assisted the Archduke Albrecht to keep things
from going too fast in Germany in that year.
He was thoroughly German in his sympathies,
and hoped, after making a Parliament in
Austria, to construct some all-German Parlia-
ment of the future in which Austria's primacy
should be assured. After a preliminary attempt
in 1860, he produced a constitution for Austria
in the spring of 1861, and this was issued by
letters patent under the Emperor's hand on
February 27. An Upper House, composed
of royal princes, large landowners, and the
princes of the Church in Austria, to whom the
Emperor might add life peers ; a Lower
House of 343 members, who were to be elected
by the local diets (85 for Hungary, 54 for
Bohemia, 20 for Venetia, and so forth), and
a clause for annual Parliaments, were the chief
SCHMERLING'S PLANS 71
features of the " February Patent," as it is
called. It was a mere gift from the sovereign,
and recognised no previous rights whatever.
It again flouted the claims of Hungary,
reducing her Parliament to the level of a
provincial assembly, and setting up Croatia
and Transylvania, which were dependencies of
the kingdom of St. Stephen, as of equal rank
with that kingdom itself. Of the attitude of
Hungary towards this mandatory constitution
I shall say more in the next chapter. Apart
from the fact that the Magyars would have
nothing to say to it, it was not a great success.
The Emperor tried loyally to make it a success,
and supported Schmerling for two years in
the endeavour to work it ; but he still fell,
occasionally, under the influence of reactionary
advisers who, after 1862, seem to have con-
trolled him so far as Austrian domestic politics
were concerned. As a matter of fact, the
inflated Reichsrath of Schmerling's consti-
tution was not by any means a popular body.
Its members were to be chosen by the
provincial diets of the Empire. As these
were not at the time in existence and were
to be nominated by the Crown, it is obvious
that the inflated Reichsrath was not in the
modern sense a popular body.
Baron Schmerling's ideas expanded as he
72 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
continued in office; and he tried in 1862 to
realise his visions of a new Federal Parliament
at Frankfort, in which all Germany should be
represented. When, in December 1861, the
Prussian Government issued a Note to the
German Princes in favour of a North German
Confederation, Austria stoutly opposed it ; and
in February 1862 the Austrian Government
replied with a counter-proposal for a Federal
Parliament and Federal Directory at Frank-
fort, which should have large control over the
common affairs of Germany. This proposal
was rejected owing to the opposition of Prussia
and of the smaller states. Its importance is
that it showed the Austrian Emperor to be
ready to assist in a modification of the German
Bund, and to make some concession to popular
feeling. The failure of his scheme brought
into strong relief the differences between
Austria and Prussia. A new constitution had
been proposed by the Emperor, and had been
wrecked because Prussia would not consent to
limit her freedom of action or to resign any
part of her sovereign rights to a Federal body.
It is the essence of a Federation that each
constituent state should commit some por-
tion, however small, of her independence into
the hands of a supreme common authority.
Federation failed in Germany because Ger-
BISMARCK 73
many contained two states, each of which was
a European Power, and neither of which would
consent to the exercise of any part of its
sovereign powers through the medium of any
other authority. As a matter of fact, the
Emperor Francis Joseph and his advisers
knew or hoped that they would be able to
outvote Prussia in the Federal Parliament ;
and that, in a matter of peace or war, they
would be able to carry it against her. Prussia
knew or feared this also. Hence her refusal
to accept the Austrian proposal of February
1862. The year was darkened by the shadow
of events to come.
Though we are not considering the history
of Prussia, it is worth while noticing that the
point at which we have now arrived the
autumn of 1862 is the moment of Bismarck's
entry into the arena. He became Prime
Minister of Prussia in September 1862, at the
very time when the proposals of Baron Schmer-
ling were rejected. At the first he appears as
the very opposite of a popular North German
leader. His appointment follows upon the
refusal of the Prussian Diet to sanction military
expenses which the Government desired to
incur. He agrees to take office, and enforce
the collection of the necessary money without
the sanction of the Diet. He is most
74 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
unpopular in Prussia, the delight of a small
and nervous aristocracy, the avowed enemy of
the Prussian people. He is supported, some-
what timorously, by the King, his master, but
hotly opposed by the Crown Prince Frederick,
whose English wife, carefully trained by her
father, is a friend to popular institutions. He
stands out against popular government and
the will of the Prussian people as expressed by
the Prussian Diet. He is suspected as a tyrant
throughout the North German states, the very
states which, within a few years, he was to lead,
through warfare, to unity and Empire.
The proposals made by Austria in 1862
were renewed in a more formal manner in
1863, when the Emperor Francis Joseph him-
self appeared at Frankfort to submit to the
Bundestag a scheme for a Federal consti-
tution. This scheme had been sketched out
in the first place by Julius FrObel, but it was
warmly approved by the Emperor Francis
Joseph, and earnestly supported by Baron
Schmerling. It had, of course, a good
many opponents, even in Austria. Baron
Rechberg, the Tory Foreign Minister at
Vienna, who hated democracy even more
bitterly than he hated Prussia, opposed it
with all his force, and declared that it could
only lead to war with Prussia. When he
AT FRANKFORT, 1863 75
found the Emperor was determined to put it
forward at FrankfCrt he resigned, but, on the
Emperor's request, returned to office. It is
one of the remarkable features about Francis
Joseph and his Government we shall see
examples of it as we go further that his
ministers, if he requests it, continue in office
though they desire to resign, and assume office
at his request even though they do not wish
to do so. We find Count Rechberg returning
to office when a constitution is proposed for
Germany which he declares to be absurd and
certain to lead to war, which it did. Later we
shall find Count Mensdorff urging peace, yet
remaining in office in a war ministry, and
General Benedek taking command and fighting
a campaign which he has asserted must lead to
disaster. To resume. In August 1863 the
Emperor proposed that the affairs of the
Federation should be managed, in the first
place, by a directorate of four members, three
of whom should be appointed by Austria,
Prussia, and Bavaria. Besides these there
was to be an Upper House of Princes of the
Empire, and a Lower House of delegates with
very extensive powers. The proposal was not
democratic enough to please the progressive
sense of Germany, and was certain to be
opposed by Prussia. As to its popularity, we
76 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
know 1 that more democratic proposals were
suggested to the Emperor, but that he rejected
them. As to the Prussian opposition, it was
only to be expected ; but the result of it was
that the smaller German states became alarmed.
The chief guarantee that their rights would be
respected lay in the fact that there were two
great Powers Austria and Prussia in the
Bund\ and when it became clear that Prussia
would not come into the new Federation, they
took fright lest they should be handed over to
Austria alone. " Will uns denn Oesterreich
Kapzit machent" asked George V., the blind
King of Hanover, in his colloquial German.
King William of Prussia was anxious to attend
the Congress of 1863, and would have done so
had he not been dissuaded by Bismarck, in
whom he now placed complete confidence.
For Bismarck's policy the realisation of the
programme of 1863 would have meant ruin.
According to his view, the Austrian object
was either to provide machinery for outvoting
Prussia in the general affairs of Germany and
prevent her from being a really independent
state, or else to create an instrument for oppos-
ing democracy and throttling the spirit of
German nationality. The second of these ends
was fatal to Bismarck's policy ; the first was,
1 Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, English edition, vol. i. p. 275.
FAILURE AT FRANKFORT 77
for the moment, one in which he did not care
to assist. He could control the influence in
Prussia, and cared for nothing else. And so,
as Bismarck's master acted on his advice,
Francis Joseph's large plan of 1863 came to
nothing. For a few more years, Germany
was left in her old configuration.
The failure of 1863 was very disappointing
to the Emperor, who used his personal in-
fluence to commend the scheme in a way
which is foreign to his character. He re-
turned to Vienna in deep depression. He
had made a proposal of the first importance,
which Prussia had rejected and which could
not be forced upon her except at the point
of the sword. When Rechberg had suggested
going on without Prussia and forming a new
Federation, the smaller states had refused to
go on. The Prussians were in the position
which the Confederate States had taken up at
the outset of the great struggle which was
now being fought out beyond the Atlantic ;
but whereas in America the majority were
ready to force the minority to remain in union
with them upon certain terms, in Germany
the majority were unwilling to support their
traditional leader in forcing a new federal
contract upon the minority. It was as if
President Lincoln, placed at the head of the
78 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Federal Government, should have found that
the Northern States were prepared to concede
to the Southern Confederacy the right of in-
dependent action in all the highest matters
of policy. Well may the Emperor Francis
Joseph, brought up in the old traditions of
Austrian supremacy, have felt that the founda-
tions of his political belief, and even the
foundations of his empire, were trembling
beneath his feet.
It is difficult to understand why, from this
time onward, preparations for war with Prussia
were not made. Bismarck had given warning.
"Our relations must become either better or
worse than they are," he said to Count
Karolyi in December 1862. " I am prepared
for a joint attempt to improve them. If it
fails through your refusal, you will have to
deal with us as one of the Great Powers of
Europe." But Prussia had given no proof
of a desire to make this joint attempt. She
had not attended the Congress of Frankfort
in 1863, and had refused even to discuss
Francis Joseph's proposals. The Emperor or
his advisers must surely have seen in Bis-
marck's attitude the indication of warlike
intention ; and if they did see it, it is hard
to see why no steps were taken to prepare
the Austrian army for the coming contest.
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN 79
As things turned out, the occasion which
Bismarck wanted for breach with Austria
and promotion of Prussia arrived suddenly
and with marvellous opportunity.
In November 1863 died Frederick VII.,
last of the line of Schleswig - Holstein -
Sonderburg - Augustenburg. A question at
once arose as to who should succeed him in
the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. It
is not without some trepidation that the author
of a short book mentions the Schleswig-Hol-
stein question. That question has now been
settled for ever, and the documents about it
in the Foreign Office, which are said to have
weighed a ton, have, let us ,hope, been dis-
posed of long ago as waste paper. If discussed
from its outset it would fill many pages, and,
for the most part, it is quite devoid of interest.
But the settlement of that question gave to
Prussia Kiel and the soil beneath the Kiel
Ganal, things which may prove to be of im-
portance in the history of Europe. Moreover,
the manner of that settlement involved Francis
Joseph in his last great war, which opened
the way to changes in Europe, whose ultimate
results are still far distant in the future. Let
these things excuse my speaking of it.
In 1852, to go no further back, the Powers
of Europe had agreed to a convention signed
8o FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
in London, providing that the Duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein should for ever remain
part of Denmark, and that, on the death of
Frederick VII., he should be succeeded by
Prince Christian of Sonderburg - Glucksburg,
better known to us as the late King Christian
IX. of Denmark. Compensation was to be
given to the Duke of Augustenburg (who,
as a collateral, had substantial claims to the
Duchies), on condition of his waiving his right
to the succession. The duke accepted this
compensation. Austria and Prussia, too, had
bound themselves to acknowledge the indivisi-
bility of the Danish monarchy, even after the
then existing Danish dynasty of Sonderburg-
Augustenburg should die out. But though
the Duke of Augustenburg had accepted com-
pensation in respect of his own right, he had
not bound his heirs nor had they bound
themselves not to prosecute their claim to
the Duchies at any future time. The German
Federation was not a party to the London
Convention of 1852, and Schleswig was,
though Holstein was not, a member of the
German Federation. The Convention had
stipulated that large concessions should be
made to the German population in the
Duchies ; and these, so declared the German
inhabitants and their sympathisers, had not
AUSTRIA AND DENMARK 81
been made. Whether the Germans in the
Duchies had been fairly treated or not was
an arguable question, but the Danish consti-
tution, which was promulgated in 1863 by the
new King Christian IX., certainly paid little
respect to their rights. The king signed the
constitution, which had been approved by the
Danish Diet two days before his accession,
with much reluctance. He was persuaded to
do so by a storm of public feeling in Denmark
which threatened his throne, and even his life,
should he refuse to sign it. Its promulgation
was the signal for an outburst of national feeling
in Germany. Princes and diets alike declared
for the freedom of the Germans in the Duchies,
and Duke Frederick of Augustenburg, riding
on the favouring wave, openly appeared as
Duke of Schleswig- Holstein, asserting that
his father's acceptance of compensation could
not bind him. The Prussian Diet in December
passed a resolution in favour of the recognition
of the new Duke. Then came the question,
What would Austria do ?
The Emperor Francis Joseph could not
admit the claim of the Germans. In the first
place, he was a party to the Convention of
London which recognised the unity of Den-
mark and guaranteed the integrity of Denmark.
In the second place, the demand for recogni-
G
82 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
tion of Duke Frederick's claim came from the
Nationalist element in Germany. It was urged
by men who thought that blood and race were
stronger than treaties or conventions, who were
filled with the ideas which only a few years ago
had conquered the Austrians in Italy. More-
over, if the Duchies were joined to Denmark,
they would enjoy a democratic constitution,
which must create a precedent for democracy
throughout Germany. The Emperor, on the
other hand, was quite loyal to the discontented
Germans in Schleswig-Holstein. He refused
to receive the officer who came from Christian
IX. to announce his accession. The new king
was recognised as King of Denmark and of
the Duchies ; but was reminded that the
liberties to which those Duchies were entitled
under the arrangement of 1852 had not been
granted. Thus in this matter the Emperor
is found half-way between two policies. He
did not warmly champion the cause of the
oppressed Germans or recognise the Augus-
tenburg prince as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein.
He did not, on the other hand, conceal the fact
that the Germans in Schleswig-Holstein had
good cause for complaint. Most important of
all, he consented to deal with the question
apart from the rest of the German Federation, to
treat it as a matter of ordinary foreign policy.
BISMARCK'S POLICY 83
This was a fatal error. It gave to Bismarck the
chance for which he had been waiting.
The Prussian Government was at first
troubled by the Schleswig-Holstein imbroglio.
The demand for home rule in the Duchies
was a democratic cry, and Prussia was as little
democratic as Austria. Accordingly, we find
that Prussia at first agreed with Francis Joseph
in the matter, recognised Christian IX. as
Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, but demanded
local home rule for these provinces. Bis-
marck's great difficulty was to get rid of the
Treaty of London, for, so long as it stood, his
master, always an honourable man, would not
consent to the seizure of Schleswig-Holstein.
Could not Denmark be drawn into war? If
this could only be done, the Treaty of London
would be abrogated by an accepted rule of inter-
national custom. Then Prussia might come
forward as a candidate for the Augustenburg
heritage, might take the place of Denmark, and
gain an invaluable outlet to the sea. Everything
happened as Bismarck had hoped ; and what
was perhaps beyond his hopes Austria con-
sented to join Prussia in a war against Denmark,
and to deal with the question without consult-
ing the Federal Council at Frankfort. Baron
Rechburg, who still advised Francis Joseph on
foreign affairs, protested against this policy of
84 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
joint action, unless it were understood that the
succession to the Duchies should be regulated
by consent of Austria and Prussia. The
Emperor, in fact, proposed that the Duchies
should not be separated from Denmark with-
out such consent. But he and his ministers
were frightened by Bismarck's threat to invade
Schleswig-Holstein without them if they would
not go on. Austria, accordingly, joined in the
attack on the Danish garrison without any
guarantee as to what was to happen when
once it had been expelled.
The obvious policy for Austria was to put
herself at the head of the smaller German states,
repudiate the Treaty of London (for which there
was fairly good ground), and declare for a
German prince in the Duchies. But Francis
Joseph and his advisers were not gifted with
the foresight and courage necessary for such a
step. When, in January 1864, they undertook
to co-operate with Prussia in the invasion of the
Elbe Duchies, they were playing straight into
Prussia's hands.
The King of Denmark was obdurate, and
in January 1864 began the short war in
Schleswig-Holstein. The Danes made a
brave defence, and it is noteworthy that in
this little war there was no sign of the great
superiority of the Prussian over the Austrian
WAR WITH THE DANES 85
troops. The Prussian artillery had been re-
armed with the needle-gun, and the Austrian
officers who saw it at work recognised that
it was better than anything which they had.
Otherwise the Austrian force seemed quite as
efficient as the Prussian. Danish resistance
was conquered by the end of April. England
sympathised deeply with Denmark, but she
remained true to her traditional policy of not
intervening alone in Europe in a case in
which she would have had to confront a
combination of Continental powers. As soon
as the Danes were driven out, Duke Frederick
endeavoured to take their place and to become
de facto Duke of Schleswig - Holstein ; but
Prussia refused to recognise him unless he
consented to conditions which would, in effect,
make the Duchies dependent upon Prussia.
Kiel must be handed over to Prussia as a
naval and commercial port. She must have
the right to make and fortify a canal connect-
ing Kiel with the German Ocean, and the
Duke must enter into a military convention
which would place the troops of the Duchy
under the command of Prussia. His soldiers
must even take the oath of allegiance to the
Prussian king.
The latter part of the year 1864 was spent
in negotiations between the Emperor and the
86 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
King of Prussia as to the future of Schleswig-
Holstein. In August King William and Bis-
marck visited Schonbrunn and talked the
matter over with the Emperor and Rechberg.
They were still on good terms, and the two
sovereigns were such good friends, and so
anxious to deal fairly with one another, that
a breach between them seemed unlikely. Bis-
marck, however, prevented his master from
coming to any terms as to the future of the
Duchies, and shortly after the meeting at
Schonbrunn Rechberg, who had been Francis
Joseph's Foreign Minister since 1860, re-
signed. He had, however reluctantly, com-
mitted Austria to dual action with Prussia. He
had done all Bismarck wanted, yet got nothing
from him. Consequently he was discredited
in his own country. His successor was Count
Mensdorff, a nobleman of French extraction,
whose forbears had risen to high place in
Austria by military service and by a fortunate
marriage with a Coburg princess. Mensdorff
united to charming manners the conventional
loyalty of the Austrian statesmen and a
greater amount of foresight than most of them
possessed. He was not, however, of the mettle
of Rechberg, and was unable to cope with the
man who now directed Prussian policy. He
deprecated war with Prussia and constantly
PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA 87
advised against it ; indeed, after the war of
1866 was over, he published documents which
show that he was strongly opposed to it. His
chief subordinate was Baron Biegeleben, who
seems to have influenced both him and the
Emperor Francis Joseph in the following year,
when Austria hurried into her fatal war with
Prussia. But at the critical time Mensdorff
was officially the Emperor's chief adviser.
In the winter of 1864-5, Austria and Prussia
remained in joint occupation of Schleswig and
Holstein, Austria pressing for the admission ot
Duke Frederick, and Prussia objecting to it
except on the terms stated above. When
these were formulated in a despatch sent to
Vienna in February 1865, the Emperor Francis
Joseph, through Count Mensdorff, declined
to agree to them. Austria made no objection
to Prussia having a naval port or a fortress or
two on the isthmus ; but, on constitutional
grounds, she refused even to discuss the pro-
posal that the Duke of Holstein's troops should
take the oath of allegiance to the Prussian
king. Such an idea was, indeed, wholly
subversive of the constitution of the Bund,
which contemplated only princes with equal
rights ; and Bismarck now showed openly that
he was not to be bound by any considerations
of constitutional precedent. " I f Austria wishes
88 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
to be our ally," he said in July 1865, "she
must give way to us." It is probable that the
war would have broken out in this year, but
for a meeting between the Emperor Francis
Joseph and the King of Prussia at Gastein in
July 1865. A friendly arrangement, which
Bismarck contemptuously called a " piece of
sticking-plaster," was made between the two
sovereigns which postponed war for a year.
Schleswig was to be governed by Austria, and
Holstein by Prussia, which thus got control
of Kiel and of the roads leading to the north.
At the same moment Baron Schmerling, who
had guided the domestic policy of Austria in a
Liberal direction for several years, was dismissed.
Schmerling's fall was due to a number of
different circumstances. He was unpopular with
the Austrian aristocracy on account of his Liberal
views, and he was opposed by the Hungarian
Liberals, who would never agree with his policy
of a unified Austria sending members to a Parlia-
ment at Vienna. In domestic policy the Emperor
seems to have been guided chiefly by Count
Maurice Esterhazy ; but be this as it may,
the combination against Schmerling was an
unholy alliance, entered into by persons who
were in no real agreement with one another.
He was succeeded by Count Belcredi, a man
of Conservative principles but of no force of
WEAK ADVISERS 89
character. From the time of Schmerling's
fall to that of the Battle of Sadowa the
Emperor's chief advisers were Esterhazy a
Tory of the Tories, who wanted to put back
the clock to before 1848 and the polite but
invertebrate Mensdorff. As a soldier Mens-
dorff had a wholesome respect for the Prussian
army ; but as a servant of the Emperor Francis
Joseph he deemed that obedience was his first
and, indeed, his only duty. Neither Mensdorff
nor Esterhazy possessed at once the foresight
to estimate the dangers of a war with Prussia
and the courage to dissuade the Emperor from
it. Francis Joseph, nursed in the old tradi-
tions of the Hapsburgs, could not but appeal to
arms when, at the same time, the ancient rights
of his house in Germany and Italy were chal-
lenged. That he found himself without allies
when he drew the sword is due in part to his
own mistaken policy ; but the blame for it
must rest largely on the ministers who were
too stupid to foresee, or too subservient to
insist upon, the desperate risk of war.
Had the Emperor been well advised in
the autumn of 1865, he might have retired
from the Elbe Duchies and from Venetia on
highly favourable terms. During the autumn
months, offers were made to give Austria
compensation in money if she would relinquish
90 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
her rights in these outlying territories. These
were refused on the ground that it was beneath
the dignity of the House of Hapsburg to
surrender its birthright for a mess of pottage.
There might have been some force in the
argument if the conduct of Austria had been
consistent; but so lately as July 1865 she had
agreed to sell her rights in Lauenburg, a county
of the Elbe Duchies, for two and a half million
dollars. Moreover, the Emperor and his
advisers, besides making mistakes abroad,
alienated public feeling at home by a high-
handed revocation of the constitution of 1861.
On September 20, 1865, after a precarious
life of four years, it was revoked by a
stroke of the Imperial pen ; and though a
formal recognition was given of the powers
of the provincial diets in Austria, and of the
Hungarian Diet at Budapest, nobody was
satisfied. The Hungarians throughout main-
tained that Hungary was not a province with
a mere provincial assembly, but a kingdom
entitled to a separate Parliament and ministry.
The Germans in Austria resented the revoca-
tion of a constitution which had been solemnly
declared to be " irrevocable." The Czechs and
other Slavonic inhabitants regarded the fall of
Schmerling's constitution as a victory ; but
those of them who understood things knew
THE SPRING OF 1866 91
very well that this change brought them no
nearer to the realisation of Federalist dreams.
The year 1866, the most important in the
Emperor's life, opened with an angry inter-
change of notes between Berlin and Vienna.
In the portion of the Elbe Duchies which
was under her control, Austria allowed royal
receptions to be given to the wife of the
Augustenburg claimant. Bismarck declared
that such an action was tantamount to inciting
the Duchies to rebellion against the dual
control, and threatened to repudiate all obli-
gation to act in common with Austria.
Throughout February and March, both parties
prepared for war, and Bismarck opened nego-
tiations to secure the neutrality of Italy. These
resulted, on the 8th of April, in a treaty
which placed the Italian army at his disposal
for three months. Prussia did not bind herself
to go to war, but it was stipulated that, if she
should do so, the Italian army would support
her by an attack on Austria's Italian province.
If a war took place, Italy was to have Venetia,
but Prussia must receive " compensation " for
this either in the shape of Austrian territory
or of concessions to her policy on the part of
Austria. Bismarck thus bought Italian sup-
port with an offer of Austrian territory one
of the most characteristic performances in his
92 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
history. The treaty once secured, Prussia was
in a very strong position, and Italy, with every-
thing to gain and nothing to lose by war,
hoped eagerly for its declaration. Neverthe-
less, the outbreak was delayed for three
months by the reluctance both of the Emperor
Francis Joseph and of King William of Prussia
to appear before Europe as the aggressor.
Friendly notes were exchanged throughout
April, and at the end of the month the
Italian envoy in Paris spoke despondently of
the prospect of obtaining Venice the coping-
stone of Italian unity. The mobilisation of
the Austrian army, which was ordered on
April 27, was ostensibly, and, it may be, sin-
cerely intended for defence against Italy; but
the terms of the alliance between Italy and
Prussia gradually became known in Austria
and raised so strong a feeling in the country,
that it would have been difficult for even the
most pacific Government to disregard it. So
soon as the nature of this treaty became
known the Emperor and his weak counsellors
changed their tactics. At the moment of
mobilisation they instructed Count Metternich,
the Austrian ambassador in Paris, to ask for
the mediation of the Emperor Napoleon III.
in the Italian question. Had this step been
taken earlier it might have prevented the
FRENCH MEDIATION 93
alliance between Italy and Prussia ; but the
Italian Government were now bound hand
and foot to Bismarck for three months.
Francis Joseph offered liberal terms, first, to
retire from Venetia on receiving compensa-
tion elsewhere ; and later, when he was harder
pressed, to retire unconditionally. But his
attempt to release his Italian army for service
in Bohemia failed. In asking for French
mediation he made a further mistake, for, in
a controversy between Prussia and Austria,
France could not be impartial. The Emperor
Napoleon believed, as did most people at the
time, that the Austrian army, if not divided
by two enemies, could easily overcome the
Prussians. If, then, Napoleon should dis-
suade Italy from engaging the Archduke
Albrecht on the Mincio, France must look
forward to the defeat of Prussia and to the
unquestioned supremacy of Austria in Germany,
and probably on the European Continent of
the future. Such a result was contrary to
the policy which France had followed ever
since the days of Richelieu ; and Napoleon III.
hesitated to take a step which might lead
to it. On the other hand, he tried to use
his position as a neutral to obtain con-
cessions on the Rhine from Prussia, and
allowed Bismarck to know that he had been
94 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
asked to mediate. This policy which, in addi-
tion to being stupid, was contemptible, of
course prevented a fair mediation. The Italian
Government refused to receive Venetia at
the hands of France, and Austria's attempt
to disarm Italy and concentrate all forces to
strike Prussia a decisive blow was a complete
failure.
Though outmanoeuvred in Italy Francis
Joseph had still a great position in Germany.
Bavaria was on his side, though she did not
actively co-operate and refused to lend her
army for defence of Bohemia. Saxony was
thoroughly loyal to Austria. Hanover, once
the most formidable rival to Prussia in
the north, rejected Prussia's request for
neutrality with scorn, and Hesse and other
small German states were passively favour-
able to the Hapsburg. The Emperor
Francis Joseph appealed to several of the
smaller states for help, and, as we know,
Hanover and Hesse suffered for their
loyalty to him. But he had made a grave
mistake in allowing himself to be drawn off
Federal ground, and the results of this mis-
take were now clearly seen. He could not
invite the Federal body to settle a question
which he had, in 1864, promised to settle in
exclusive agreement with Prussia. Yet, on
WAR 95
June i, 1866, he did call on the Bund to inter-
vene, alleging that he had found it impossible
to come to an agreement with Prussia as
contemplated by the treaty of 1864. The
Prussian Government at once denounced
Francis Joseph's action as a breach of the
treaty of 1864, and after issuing an insolent
circular note, denounced the treaty. On the
7th, Prussian troops commenced to pour into
the Duchies. They arrested the Austrian
Commissioner there, who was about to sum-
mon the Diet of Holstein in order to obtain
their opinion as to the future. On June 14,
when the German Council resolved, at the
instance of Bavaria, to place four of the
Federal army corps on a war footing, the
Prussian delegate declared that the resolution
was contrary to Federal law, that the Federa-
tion was broken, and that Prussia retired from
it. For this action there was no sort of legal
justification. The decree against which Prussia
protested was passed as the proposal of Bavaria,
and contained no menace to anybody. On
the other hand, the alliance between Prussia
and Italy of March 1866 was a flagrant breach
of a fundamental rule of the Bund that no
member of it should enter into an alliance
inimical to any other. But the Prussians were
now ready. On June i5th they invaded Han-
96 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
over and Hesse ; and Moltke's wide-winged
march upon Bohemia had commenced.
A description of the Seven Weeks' War is
outside the scope of this essay. The Emperor
Francis Joseph placed entire reliance on Mar-
shal Benedek, and forced the command of the
northern army upon him against his will. In
acting thus he was advised by Esterhdzy,
who warned him of the evil results which
might ensue if the army sustained a defeat
when under the command of the only other
general, the Archduke Albrecht. Benedek was
in some ways a strong man, but he was not
capable of taking command of 200,000 men
and of fighting a great campaign in Bohemia.
It must be remembered that he from the
first modestly and firmly protested his in-
ability. He knew Italy well, he said, but
could not fight a campaign in the north with
success. Once committed to the task he did
his best, but from the first he misinterpreted
the designs of the Prussian generals.
The concentration of the Austrian army in
Moravia was due to a fear that Prussia would
attempt a direct attack on Vienna by way of
Glatz. Benedek remained in Moravia gathering
his forces together when he should have been
in Bohemia to interrupt the Prussian concentra-
tion and establish connection with the Saxon
BEFORE SADOWA 97
army to the West. The Austrian concentra-
tion was necessarily slower than the Prussian
owing to the fact that the Austrian regiments
were, for political reasons, not kept near the
place at which they were recruited. Thus,
recruits from Venice had to go to Hungary,
and recruits from Galicia or Transylvania to
Bohemia, in order to join their colours.
Despite these difficulties, however, Benedek
ought to have reached the scene of action
much earlier than he did ; and even a few days
before the decisive battle he had a very favour-
able prospect of throwing his whole force
against the eastern Prussian army under
the command of the Crown Prince. On
the morning of June 28 his army was
quartered in and about Josefstadt, and
was in that position, beloved of Napoleon,
which enabled him to strike first at one and
then at the other of two converging enemies,
in each case with superior force. This was
pointed out to General Krismanitch, Benedek's
adviser, on the morning of the 28th by at
least one officer, who took the bold step of
advising his superiors 1 to strike first at the
eastern arm of the Prussian attack. The
advice was rejected. It seems certain that
the Austrian army could have reached and
1 Friedjung, Der Kampfwn die Vorherrschaft in Deutschland, ii. 85, 86.
H
98 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
attacked the Crown Prince late on the 28th,
whilst he was still half entangled in the passes
of the mountains, and the " Red Prince,"
Frederick Charles of Prussia, was two or three
days' march away. The chance which was thus
offered did not occur again.
The Emperor awaited anxiously the result
of the first engagements. He was ill-in-
formed as to the course of events until June
30, when Benedek told him of the recent
retirement to Koniggratz. The general at-
tributed the necessity for this retreat to the
" dtbticle " of the ist and Saxon army corps, who
had fought an unsuccessful engagement with
the Prussians at Yitchin on the 29th. This
was scarcely just, for both the corps here
engaged, though defeated, had retired in good
order. The Emperor was surprised, but with
the courage which never deserts his house at
such times, sent an encouraging reply to
Benedek hoping for " favourable results " from
his " energetic leadership." On the night of
the 3Oth a hurried and disorderly retreat of
the whole army took place. In the next fore-
noon, as his tired men found their new positions
about Koniggratz, Benedek sent an urgent
telegram to the Emperor begging him to make
peace at any price, and announcing that a
catastrophe was unavoidable. The Emperor
SADOWA 99
replied at 2 P.M., " To make peace is im-
possible. If a retreat is necessary, let it be
made. Has there been a battle ? " The last
words of the telegram show that Francis Joseph
was little aware of the course of events at the
front, but its first words go down to the bottom
of the Hapsburg creed. He would never
make peace whilst the enemy was in his
territories and he had an army wherewith to
expel them. The result, which has already
been the subject of many histories, needs no
description here. The Prussian forces, which
scattered widely for the advance, converged on
July 2, and on the next day attacked Benedek
in overwhelming force. The Austrian and
Saxon armies lost in killed, wounded, and
captured, over 44,000 men and 1 74 guns ; the
victors, 300 officers and less than 9,000 men.
Benedek withdrew his scattered army towards
the east, and so, through Moravia, southwards
towards the Danube. But for the reckless
bravery with which a portion of his cavalry and
artillery covered his retreat, the losses of the
Austrian army must have been much heavier.
Benedek was removed from his command
in July when his army had withdrawn to the
Danube, and was ordered to attend a military
inquiry into his conduct of the campaign.
The court of inquiry presented a preliminary
ioo FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
report to the Emperor, which was not published,
and Francis Joseph, having read it, suspended
all further proceedings against him and his
subordinates, Krismanitch and Henikstein, by
an order of December 4. A few days earlier
Francis Joseph had sent to Count Clam-Gallas,
the unsuccessful cavalry general, a letter which
exculpated him from all blame. Krismanitch
re-entered the service in 1876 and was given
command of a fortress. Benedek retired to
Gratz in Styria. Whilst awaiting news from
Vienna he was visited on November 19 by the
Archduke Albrecht. The Archduke asked him
to give a written undertaking not to publish
any correspondence which had passed between
himself and his generals, or between himself
and the Emperor, and not to make any public
vindication of his conduct. Benedek gave this
undertaking ; and was surprised by the appear-
ance, shortly afterwards, of an article in the
official Wiener Zeitung, in which he was con-
demned. After referring to the fact that there
was no law which punished incompetence, the
article proceeded : " For the rest, the loss of
the confidence of his Imperial master, the
destruction of his military reputation before the
world of to-day and of the future, the recog-
nition of the immeasurable misfortune that,
under his command, has befallen the army,
BENEDEK 101
and, through its defect, has befallen the whole
monarchy, must be a heavier penalty for
the high-minded man that Benedek always
was, than any punishment which could have
come upon him by continuation of legal
proceedings."
Benedek deeply resented the publication of
this announcement after he had given a
promise of silence ; and in his will he declaims
against it as contrary to right and justice. He
never forgave the Archduke Albrecht, and
Field-Marshal John, whom he believed to be
responsible for it. He never saw the Arch-
duke again, and refused to see General John.
In 1873 ^e Crown Prince Rudolf came to
Gratz and wrote saying that the Emperor had
requested him to bring news of Benedek's
health : but the old general asked for no
audience of the young Prince, merely saying
that he wanted nothing but rest. He died at
Gratz in 1881. His will contained a special
direction that his corpse should not be laid to
rest in Austrian uniform.
It has often been stated that the Archduke
Albrecht persuaded Benedek to take the com-
mand in Bohemia by saying that if he did not
do so and he (the Archduke) were appointed
and defeated, the dynasty would be threatened,
whilst if Benedek took it and failed, he alone
102 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
would be sacrificed. It has further been stated
that the Emperor Francis Joseph always refused
to receive the defeated general after his with-
drawal to Gratz. These statements, so far as
I have been able to discover, rest on the
evidence of the general's widow contained in a
memorandum which she wrote in 1 886 ; l and
on them the critics have framed a serious in-
dictment against the Emperor. It does not
seem to me material whether these facts be
true or untrue. We know that Benedek was
very unwilling to take the command in Bohemia
and that he took it at the Emperor's command ;
and it is absurd to say that a general may
refuse at any time to take a certain duty
upon himself because he thinks that he may
not be able to conduct a war with success.
If such a doctrine were admitted into military
law or custom, there would be an end of all dis-
cipline in the highest ranks of the army. It is
admitted that Benedek was an unsuccessful
general ; and his champions have not proved,
though they have sometimes asserted, that his
hands were not really free whilst he was in
command of the northern army. On the other
hand, the mission of the Archduke Albrecht to
Gratz in December 1866, and the binding of
Benedek to silence by a written bond, is a pro-
1 Friedjung, Der Kampf, etc., ii. 579.
BENEDEK 103
ceeding of which it is difficult to believe that
the Emperor was ignorant. The article in the
Wiener Zeitung of 8th December 1866 could
hardly have been published without his consent;
and the silence with which he allowed it to cir-
culate must be taken, by reasonable men, to be
tantamount to approval. If the Emperor did
approve the publication of this article, his ap-
proval conflicts with the rule of common justice
that a man should be allowed to defend himself
in public before he is publicly condemned. It
is further inconsistent with the Emperor's own
actions in ordering proceedings against General
Benedek to be stayed. If the Emperor did not
approve of the article, could he not have either
informed his general of the fact or have per-
mitted him to vindicate himself either in public,
or, at least, personally before his sovereign ?
It is impossible, on a fair view of the matter, to
conclude that the Emperor treated his general
fairly ; and the reasonable conclusion is that
there was something to conceal.
Speculation as to what that something was
is interesting, but idle. In cases of this import-
ance it may be that the necessities of State
override even the ordinary principles of justice.
The Austrian Government allowed their diplo-
macy to outrun their defensive preparations
and plunged Austria into a war for which she
io 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
was ill prepared. The Austria of the day was
an autocracy, and autocracy can only submit to
the trial of public opinion if it is certain of a
favourable verdict. The Emperor must, how-
ever, have had something serious on his political
conscience if he thus allowed a faithful, though
inefficient, servant to be bound to silence, and
then, in his silence, condemned. And, justice
apart, it was an undignified thing to permit an
article of this kind to go forth under the im-
primatur of the Government. Whatever other
mistakes they may have made, the Hapsburgs
have rarely been wrong upon a point of dignity.
After Sadowa Francis Joseph soon sued for
peace, which, after preliminaries at Nikolsburg,
was signed in the Blue Star inn at Prag on
August 23rd. Austria ceded Venetia and the
"Quadrilateral" forts to Napoleon III., who
handed them over to Italy ; and so Italy,
though defeated on land and sea by Austria,
gained unity by Francis Joseph's defeat.
Austria recognised the new German Con-
federation in which she should have no part.
She ceded no Hapsburg lands and paid but
a small indemnity. Generous terms, on which
Bismarck insisted against the will of his
master, lest Austria should be estranged for
ever. Even in 1866 he was preparing for
the war with France.
CHAPTER IV
1861-1867
Deak and the Hungarian Liberals Passive resistance in
Hungary The negotiations of 1865 The result of
Sadowa The Ausgleich of 1867.
WE must now return to Hungary, which for
sixteen years had been ruled by German offi-
cials from Vienna as a mere province of Austria.
The defeat of 1849 had, as I have said, been
followed by the introduction of the Bach system.
Bach not only disregarded all the rights and
privileges of the Hungarians, but actually cut
up the kingdom into districts. For ten years
Hungary disappeared from the map, and ceased
to be even a geographical expression.
The Bach system was one of the most in-
teresting and able attempts at bureaucratic
government which has ever been tried in
Europe ; but a description of it would be out
of place in this book. When the defeat came
in Italy in 1859, Bach was dismissed, and
Schmerling, who succeeded him, did his utmost
io6 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
to induce the Hungarians to co-operate in
working his constitution of 1861. Schmer-
ling's policy would have reduced the Hungarian
Parliament to the level of any one of the pro-
vincial Diets of Austria. " We acknowledge,"
said the Rescript promulgating his constitution,
" that the Hungarian Diet will, in deviation
from former law, deliberate on all questions
concerning taxation and liability to military
service and its regulations henceforth only in
common with the other constitutional represent-
atives of the Empire." This was the essence
of Austrian Liberalism in 1861. During the
summer of that year the Hungarian Diet was
convened to elect members for the Austrian
Parliament. Debates took place upon Schmer-
ling's proposal, and the Hungarians refused to
accept it. The Hungarian Parliament replied
to his invitation in two remarkable addresses
which are the work of Francis Deak, and
which set out the Hungarian claim at great
length; and a Royal Rescript of August 1861
expresses the views of Francis Joseph, as
advised by Schmerling, upon them. The
Hungarian address shows that, for reasons
which I have already described, Hungary
could not accept Francis Joseph as King
until he had legalised his position in the
country by coronation. He must further admit
MAGYAR CLAIMS 107
the legality of the Parliament of 1848 by assent-
ing to the laws which had been passed in
that year, and to which his predecessor had
promised assent. Coronation with the Crown
of St. Stephen and recognition of the legality
of the 1848 Parliament were the two things
which Hungary must have. But apart from
them, she did not admit the right of Schmerling's
bogus Parliament to vote Hungarian taxes,
and would not take part in the proceedings of
any Diet in which the representatives of any
other country but her own were present. Her
leaders were, however, ready to make terms
with the Emperor as to the small matters in
which they could make concessions. Their
attitude throughout was as loyal as possible ;
but on some points they would make no com-
promise. The leaders, moreover, were men of
the first ability and knew how to wait. In
patience, moderation, and resource they com-
pared favourably with the Viennese ministers.
The Emperor would not listen to the
addresses of the Diet, and dissolved it on
2 ist August. The dissolution caused profound
discontent, and a conspiracy to refuse to pay
taxes spread rapidly. The Emperor replied to
this combination by billeting soldiers in the
towns and villages of Hungary, and the taxes,
when collected by force, were at length sullenly
io8 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
paid. The country, in the autumn of 1861,
resigned itself again to political inaction and
arbitrary rule. The results of this treatment
of Hungary were seen in 1866 when the Hun-
garians looked on in silence at the defeat of
Austria by Prussia.
It is difficult to say how far the Emperor
was responsible for the maintenance of the
Schmerling policy. In German affairs he
seems to have supported Schmerling's views,
at all events till the end of 1863, when the
failure at Frankfort proved to him that the idea
of a Great Germany with Austria at her head
was impracticable. Towards the Hungarians
we know that he always had gracious intentions,
and there are reasons for thinking that he did
not altogether approve of the foolish policy of
attempting to govern Hungary by means of
Austrian ministers. A certain number of
noble Hungarians were always about his court,
and his beautiful wife was a constant friend to
the champions of Magyar rights. The amnesty
which he granted in 1862 to all political offenders
in Hungary was given at the request of Count
Forgach, the Governor of Hungary, and did not
come through the ministry at Vienna. About
the same time he spoke a few words to a deputa-
tion representing the Hungarian Landowners'
Association which made a great impression. "It
DEAK'S -EASTER ARTICLE" 109
is my wish," he said, "to satisfy Hungary not only
in material respects, but in other matters also."
But until Easter 1865 nothing more was
done to satisfy the Hungarians " in other matters
also." The Hungarian question again came
upon the carpet when Deak wrote his famous
" Easter article " in the Pesti Naplo, a news-
paper which reflected his views. This article
and a series of letters with which Deak followed
it up were of great importance as showing that
the Hungarian Liberals were ready to admit
the existence of " common affairs " as between
Austria and Hungary. Whilst discussions
raised by the Easter manifesto were occupy-
ing his advisers, the Emperor in June paid a
visit to Budapest, and was received with great
enthusiasm. He made a friendly speech, which
gave no promises, but assured the Hungarians
of the sympathy of their King. Moreover, he
spoke in Magyar, which was at the moment
tabooed by his own officials. The good impres-
sion caused by this speech was confirmed by
the appointment of a Hungarian nobleman,
Count Mailath, as a Court chancellor; whilst
the ancient and honoured post of Tavernicus,
or Treasurer of Hungary, was given to Baron
Sennyei, a Conservative magnate who had long
been in favour of a compromise with Hungary.
These changes synchronised with the decline
no FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
and fall of the Schmerling ministry in Vienna,
of which I have said something in a previous
chapter. That event affected Hungary only to
this extent, that Schmerling was essentially a
German, and his constitution was framed so as
to bring about a government by the middle
classes and the bourgeoisie. Hungary, at that
time a country of aristocrats and peasants, had
no middle class, and was profoundly hostile to
the idea of German middle-class government.
Count Belcredi, who succeeded Schmerling
in July 1865, was a Moravian, a Conservative,
and, above all, a Federalist. Under his advice
the Emperor, on September 2, published a
remarkable manifesto. This document may be
recommended to those who desire to become
masters in the art of obscure expression. The
gist of it was that the Emperor suspended the
Schmerling constitution, and exchanged the
policy of a strong central Parliament and
powerless provincial Diets for one in which
a large measure of power was given to the
Diets and the central authority proportionately
weakened. This change was due in part to a
feeling in Vienna that it was hopeless to go on
with Schmerling's Parliament if the Hungarians
would not send deputies to it. The Emperor's
speeches of 1865 at Budapest have this behind
them ; and the Conservative advisers who
CONCESSIONS in
surrounded him in that year had never been so
hostile to the Hungarian claims as the middle-
class German Liberals. Esterhazy, his confi-
dential friend and adviser at the time, was, of
course, a Magyar by blood though a cosmopolitan
by taste and training. Mensdorff, the Premier,
was first of all a soldier ; and, as a soldier, knew
that, difficult as it would be for Austria to wage
a successful war with Prussia, a success would
be impossible without the cordial co-operation
of Hungary. For the second time in a single
year Francis Joseph visited Budapest in
December 1865, and the speech which he made
in opening the Diet showed that he was anxious
to come to terms with the Magyar leaders.
" We are now come," he said, " to finish the
work which our feeling of the duties of govern-
ment compelled us to begin. Our object in
coming among you in person is more effectually
to remove those scruples which till now have
prevented the solution of the political questions
with which we have to deal." Proceeding with
his speech, the Emperor formally abandoned
the doctrine, long maintained by the extreme
Austrians, that Hungary had forfeited her rights
by the insurrection of 1848. He admitted
the existence of the Pragmatic Sanction, and
consequently, the conditions upon which it was
accepted by the kingdom of St. Stephen. He
ii2 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
asked the Diet to take its stand upon that law,
to consider the constitutions of October 1860
and February 1861, and the recent manifesto
of September 1865, and this was the most
important point " to revise or reform that
part of the laws of 1848 which refers to the
exercise of our rights of sovereignty and the
limitations of the attributes of government."
" Only when this has been done," continued
the Emperor, " will it be possible for the
King with a quiet conscience to take the Royal
Coronation oath to the Hungarian constitu-
tion . . . and be solemnly invested with the
diadem of St. Stephen, our Apostolic forefather,
with that sacred crown in which we would fain
insert, as its most precious jewel, the prosperity
of our kingdom of Hungary and the unbroken
love of our people."
This speech was a great advance upon any-
thing which the Emperor had yet said to
Hungary, but it did not go far enough to
satisfy Andrassy and Deak, now the recog-
nised Hungarian leaders. The acceptance of
the constitution of 1860 or 1861 would have
reduced the Hungarian Parliament to the level
of the provincial Diets of Austria, and would
in consequence have left no room or function
for an independent Hungarian Cabinet. The
Magyars held out for the right to surround
BEAK'S VIEWS 113
the Emperor as King of Hungary with
Hungarian advisers, who should be responsible
to a Hungarian Parliament. They were deter-
mined now, as in 1849, to resist the inclusion
of Hungary in any parliamentary system which
might be set up in Austria. They knew that
such a system, if set up by an autocrat, might
at any time be withdrawn at will, as had
been the case with the constitutions of 1849
and 1 86 1. They refused to imperil their time-
honoured institutions by exchanging them for
paper-made rights which might be cancelled in
a moment. The reason for this is obvious. If
the Hungarians came to a Parliament in Vienna
they would always be in a minority. They
would be unable to legislate for their own
country, and must take laws framed by the
deputies representing the rest of the Empire.
Above all, they would be prevented from pre-
serving the Magyar " nationality " by legisla-
tion as to language, franchise, and education.
In the history of Francis Joseph's life we read
a great deal about constitutional law and con-
stitutional machinery. Such things are only a
means to an end. The Hungarian end was
to prevent their place and nation from being
expunged from the map of Europe, as Poland
had been wiped out eighty years before. All
the disputes about the " laws of '48," " con-
i
n 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
tinuity of right," diplomas, patents, and so
forth, had this, and this only, for their object.
The address in reply which the Hungarian
Diet presented to the Emperor (February 24,
1866) was framed with these views in mind.
The Hungarians admitted that there were
matters which were common to the Kingdom
of St. Stephen and the other lands owned by
the Hapsburg dynasty. They promised that a
Bill should be introduced to make provision for
the definition and treatment of these affairs,
and that the revision of the laws of 1 848 should
be considered ; but it required as a sine qua
non that the proposals for revision of those
laws should be laid before the Diet by a re-
sponsible Hungarian ministry. "The land,"
they said, " still remains under absolute rule.
Sanctioned laws to which even your Majesty
allows that no objection can be raised on the
score of legality are treated as if non-existent.
. . . We therefore plead for continuity of right
above all in respect of our laws, for parliament-
ary government and for a responsible ministry.
... All we demand is the restoration of the
law : for a law not enforced is a dead letter."
Such was the answer which Hungary gave
to the Emperor in February 1866. Francis
Joseph received it in the audience chamber of
the palace on the hill at Buda. His answer
MAGYAR MODERATION 115
was short. The interest and the peoples of
Austria required that the principles laid down
in the speech from the throne of December
12, 1865, should be respected. So saying, the
Emperor turned and left the chamber. He did
not meet the Hungarian leaders again until the
Prussian legions were on the road to Vienna.
Though their demand for a ministry was
thus rejected, the Diet, at Deak's advice, did
not refuse to consider the preliminaries of a
possible settlement. Deak drew up a scheme
for the management of the foreign affairs of
Austria and Hungary and submitted it to a
large committee of the Diet. The House also
proceeded to discuss the revision of the laws
of 1848. They were engaged in these tasks
when on i8th June Prussia and Italy declared
war on Austria. After the Austrian victory at
Custozza on 24th June, the Emperor, however,
thought himself strong enough to meet his
enemies without having to concede the points
demanded by Hungary. On 24th June the
Magyar Diet was dissolved whilst Magyar
regiments were marching to the battle-fields
in Bohemia. On 3rd July the battle of
Sadowa was fought and lost.
Two weeks after the defeat in Bohemia the
Emperor summoned Deak to Vienna. The
Hungarian leader arrived late in the evening.
n6 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
He was at once admitted to an audience, and
found Francis Joseph alone and lost in thought.
After a short time the monarch turned round
and said abruptly, " Well, Deak, what shall I
do now ? " Deak answered, " Your Majesty
must first make peace and then give Hungary
her rights." " Will the Hungarian Parliament
give me men to carry on the war if I give the
constitution at once ? " asked the Emperor.
To his great credit be it said that Deak
refused. The Emperor again waited for some
time, and finally said, " I suppose it must be
so." l The interview terminated at once, and,
without seeing any officials, Deak returned to
Budapest. His answer to Francis Joseph's
request was one which only a strong man
could have given. The Hungarian Liberals
had admitted that in the conduct of foreign
affairs Austria and Hungary should and could
act together ; and surely the defence of the
monarchy might be said to be a matter of
common interest. But the war of 1866 had
been brought on by the mistakes and weakness
of the old absolutist regime, and Deak refused,
even if Hungary were now satisfied, to involve
Hungary in a war which was undertaken before
that satisfaction was given.
1 Francis Dedk: a Memoir (Macmillans, 1880), p.^ 237. I am
much indebted to this admirable book.
BEUST AND TISZA 117
The defeat of Sadowa led, not unnaturally,
to a change of ministers at Vienna. Count
Mensdorff resigned, and Count Beust, till
lately Minister-President in Saxony, succeeded
him. As to Count Beust's views and policy
in Austria proper something will be said
elsewhere. With regard to Hungary, his view
was that the Hungarian terms must at all costs
be accepted. These terms were embodied in
the draft constitution prepared by Deak which
had been discussed by a committee of the
Hungarian Diet for some time before its dis-
solution. The Diet reassembled shortly after
Sadowa, and took up the scheme ; but opinion
in Hungary was divided as to its merits, and a
strong party in the Parliament thought that it
went too far in the path of compromise with
Austria. These men proposed to have no con-
nection at all with the Hapsburg territories
except the mere fact that the same man should
be Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.
They were led by Koloman Tisza, afterwards
for fifteen years (1875-1890) Prime Minister of
Hungary, who, though inferior to Deak in
logic, prudence, and consistency, was more
than a match for him in eloquence and the
craft of Parliamentary leadership. Deak saw
that Hungary must make some allowance for
Austrian susceptibilities and difficulties. Tisza
n8 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
wanted to make none, and Tisza's position was
strengthened by the fact that, in spite of
Beust's advice, the Emperor was still slow
to admit the Hungarian claim in its entirety.
The debates in Hungary, which took up the
rest of the year 1866, cannot be detailed
here. At its close public opinion in Hungary
was embittered by the procrastination of the
Emperor, but in the first weeks of 1867 his
reluctance was gradually conquered. Early
in February Count Belcredi resigned office at
Vienna, and on the i8th a royal Rescript was
issued restoring the constitution of Hungary,
and cancelling the autocratic decrees for mili-
tary service, thus accepting the Hungarian
military law of 1848. Count Julius Andrassy,
a Liberal nobleman who had been condemned
to death in 1849 as an accomplice of Kossuth,
was entrusted with the formation of a respon-
sible Hungarian ministry. Almost at the same
time a decree was issued at Vienna, signed
by Count Beust, convoking a Parliament for
the Austrian dominions of the Emperor.
The new Parliament was not to discuss the
Hungarian constitution at all, or to alter the
arrangements made for regulating the common
affairs of the monarchy. It was to accept them
as an accomplished fact.
This decree evoked angry protest from the
THE AUSGLEICH OF 1867 119
several provinces of the Austrian Empire.
These provinces relied on the promise of the
Emperor contained in the manifesto of Sep-
tember 1865, which said that the arrangement
with Hungary should be submitted for ap-
proval to the provincial diets. The institution
of a central Parliament for the whole of
non- Hungarian Austria was, it was urged, a
breach of faith. About the objections of the
Bohemians and other nationalities I shall say
more in another chapter. Here I need only
say that Deak's policy was accepted by the
Emperor and Count Beust. It consisted in
establishing two nationalities the German in
Austria, the Magyar in Hungary as supreme
in Austria- Hungary. These two were to be
dominant races. The others were to be subject
to them.
The main provisions of the constitution of
1867, which still endures, may be described in
a few words. Austria and Hungary became
two states of equal rights and powers. Each
was to have a Parliament of two houses, and
in each a ministry was to be appointed to
advise the sovereign, and to answer to the
Parliaments for his acts. Certain matters
the conduct of war and diplomacy, and the
expenditure of money necessary therefor
were recognised as common to Hungary and
120 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Austria, and were removed from the com-
petence and discussion of both Parliaments.
Three "Austro- Hungarian " ministers were
to be appointed to advise the Emperor now
the " Emperor - King " on these matters.
These were to be responsible, not to either
Parliament but to two bodies of sixty men
called " Delegations." Of the sixty delegates
forty were in each case to be elected by the
Lower Houses of the Parliaments, and twenty
by the Houses of Peers. These Delegations
were to meet year and year about at Vienna
and Budapest, and to sit and debate apart.
The idea of their meeting and debating to-
gether was strenuously opposed by Deak, as
such a joint meeting would surely form the
germ of a single Parliament. The Delegations
communicate by means of messages, and only
meet if, after three messages and answers,
they are unable to agree. Should such a
meeting take place, the members simply as-
semble and vote without discussion ; and the
Emperor has a casting vote. The army, navy,
and diplomatic service being the only subjects
of joint expenditure are supported by a fund
composed of, first, the yield of the customs,
and then of moneys contributed by the two
states to the common exchequer.
In addition to the "common affairs" of
THE AUSGLEICH OF 1867 121
Austria and Hungary certain things are
declared by the constitution of 1867 to be
matters for similar legislation by the Parlia-
ments of the two countries, and for arrange-
ment by treaty between the two nations.
These are the customs, indirect taxations,
currency, banking, and the fixing of the pro-
portions in which Austria and Hungary shall
contribute to the common expenses of the
monarchy. Austria originally agreed to pay
70 and Hungary 30 per cent. The treaty
made between the two nations in 1867 lapses
every ten years, and has since been renewed.
It was renewed in 1878 and 1888, and has
since been prolonged so as to last till 1917.
The discussions as to its renewal raised violent
controversy between the two parties to the
monarchy, of which I shall have to say some-
thing in a later chapter. The Hungarian
" quota " of common expenses has been slightly
increased by modern changes, and is now about
34 per cent.
The enactment of this constitution was
the most important event in the reign of
Francis Joseph. The history of its sub-
sequent years is the history of an attempt
to work out the compromise which it effected,
and to use its machinery for the government
and preservation of a great mid -European
122 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
monarchy. In one sense the compromise was
an admission by Francis Joseph of the prin-
ciple against which he had long contended
the principle of nationality. It granted to
the Magyars the fullest recognition of ancient
rights or claims, and admitted that neither
the surrender of 1683 nor the conquest of 1849
had extinguished them. But this grant, or
rather recognition, of Magyar rights was in
reality very different from the recognition of
the nationalist claims of Poles, Croats, Czechs
or Slovacks which have so frequently been
put forward in modern times. Hungary had
a very firm basis of historic right for her
demands. She was not, like Ireland, a country
inhabited by tribes alien to the dominant
race, but which had never had an organised
government separate from England. She had
for many centuries had her own King and
Parliament, and from the year 1000 had
held, by grant from the then author of all
political sovereignty, the right to elect and
crown independent sovereigns. The com-
promise of 1867 was a recognition of this
right. It gave to Hungary nothing which
she had not had before. Their demands
conceded, the Hungarians admitted on their
part that their acceptance of the Hapsburgs
as Kings of Hungary carried with it certain
THE AUSGLEICH OF 1867 123
obligations to the other subjects of that
dynasty. These obligations they fulfilled by
committing the control of their army and the
conduct of their relations with foreign countries
to an authority over which they could not
exercise complete control. The Emperor and
the aristocratic caste which represented, which
was, the old Austria, looked upon the preser-
vation of the Hapsburg dynasty and dignity
as paramount to all considerations of popular
liberties or nationalist aspirations. To the
maintenance of their principle, the existence
of a single army and the control of that army
in peace or war by the Crown was vital. In
the compromise of 1867 the Hungarians ad-
mitted that respect was due to this conception
of public law. This compromise, therefore,
was a compromise in the truest sense of the
word. A way was found to combine liberty
with discipline and reconcile two conflicting
theories of state. Like all compromises the
institution of the Church of England is a case
in point it was open to criticism by men of
pure logic : but as compromise is latent in
the nature and character of men, it is also
latent in the nature and character of states.
The question for the future was whether this
compromise would last. It has yet to be
answered.
i2 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
On the 8th of June 1867 the Emperor was
crowned with the Crown of St. Stephen in the
cathedral of Buda. Escorted by a long pro-
cession of the nobles of Church and State
dressed in the splendid costume of that order,
he went from the church of coronation to the
Coronation Hill in Pesth. Mounted on a
white horse, he ascended the hill, and, in
accordance with ancient ceremony, waved his
sword to the four points of the compass, to
symbolise the readiness of the King of
Hungary to meet his subjects' enemies, from
whatever quarter they might come. An
English writer l has described the feelings
of the Hungarian nation on this great occa-
sion. " To those," she writes, " who could
recall the bitter experiences of war, oppres-
sion, and acute helpless misery which their
country had been doomed to undergo . . .,
who had followed with keen anxiety the hopes
and disappointments of the last six years,
and the slow but patient advance of Hungary
towards recovery of her ancient and never-
forgotten rights ; to them the ceremony of
the 8th of June was something more than an
imposing pageant. For beneath the quaint
symbolism, the gorgeous trappings that seemed
more befitting the glories of the Field of the
1 The author of Francis Dedk> quoted above, p. 116,
JUNE 8, 1867 125
Cloth of Gold than the sober usages of the
nineteenth century, might be felt the beating
of a nation's heart. Every detail in the
stately and elaborate ceremony was fraught
with genuine significance to those in whose
minds the traditions of their past history were
so closely interwoven with the events of
present politics, as to be matters not of
antiquarian interest, but of actual practical
importance. It is not often that in this
prosaic age the deepest realities of national
life and feelings have their true expression
in so picturesque a form as on the coronation
day of the Hapsburg King of Hungary."
CHAPTER V
1867-1878
Federalist Movement in Austria The Hohenwart Ministry
and its Failure Home Rule in Croatia Tisza's Ministry
Austria and France in 1870 The Russo-Turkish War
Bosnia and the Herzegovina.
THUS, after many attempts and many errors,
did Francis Joseph at length make a successful
stroke in politics. The new monarchy, which
was created by the compromise of 1867, has
since existed, and has become an important
member of the society of European states.
It cannot be said that the compromise solved
all, or nearly all, the difficulties with which
the Emperor had to deal ; but nobody can
deny that it has resulted in a great accession
of strength to the states who were parties
to it. The defeats of Solferino and Sadowa,
which were supposed to be nails in the coffin
of Austria, have turned out to be something
quite different, and preluded the entry of
Austria and Hungary into a new position,
1*6
NEW QUESTIONS 127
and a new importance in Europe. During
the ten years following 1867, Austria does
not appear on the stage of European politics.
She is neutral during the Franco -Prussian
war, yet she does not, like the France of
Napoleon III., try to sell her neutrality for
territory or compensation. The Emperor re-
tires from the field of Europe, and his country
endeavours to realise its new character and
position. The process takes much time and
causes many difficulties. Let us review the
period first in Austria and then in Hungary;
and lastly, in 1878, look once more abroad.
One of the most important sections of the
act of Compromise declared that Hungary
could only deal with Austria so long as she
was in possession of a representative system ;
that is to say, of an elected legislature to
which the Austrian ministry was responsible.
This provision made it necessary to call a
Parliament in Austria, where there had been
no central legislature since the Belcredi
manifesto of September, 1865. In the summer
of 1867, accordingly, a Reichsrath was sum-
moned, but it could only accept, and not modify,
the agreement made by Francis Joseph with
Hungary. The Austrian Parliament did so,
and, at the same time, submitted a new form
of constitution for itself, which on December
128 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
12, 1867, received the Imperial approval. This
scheme prohibited further suspensions of the
constitution of Austria, and provided for the
independence of the judges. The franchise
law, which had been devised by Baron von
Schmerling so as to ensure a majority of
Germans, was left untouched. Prince Charles
Auersperg assumed office as Prime Minister,
and was supported by a Cabinet of German
bourgeois, who observed the compromise with
Hungary and acted loyally to it in the
arrangement of those questions which had
been declared to be matter for treaty between
the two countries. A treaty was made in
1868 to last for ten years, and the Austrian
Parliament passed to local matters which called
for urgent treatment. The control of the
Church over marriage and education, which
had been secured to the priesthood by the
Concordat of 1855, was recovered for the state.
This step raised a violent clerical agitation in
the country which, coming at the same time as
the Bohemian protest, occupied the attention
of the Austrian Ministry for many years.
The Czech leaders in Bohemia promptly
opposed the compromise of 1867. In August
1868 they issued a declaration which may be
said to mark the formal commencement of an
agitation that has since passed through many
THE FEDERALISTS 129
phases but is not yet satisfied. The men who
signed this declaration had been returned by
the Czech constituencies to the Bohemian
Diet of 1868; but, owing to the peculiar pro-
visions of Baron Schmerling's electoral law,
they were in the minority in the Diet though
representing the majority of the population.
They consequently refused to attend the Diet,
and issued their declaration. It said that
Bohemia was united with Austria only by the
personal tie of a common sovereign, that the
" Austria " recognised by the compromise of
1867 was a mere invention and had no political
existence, that the revolution of the Austrian
Reichsrath could not bind Bohemia or impose
any burdens upon her, and that the kingdom of
Venceslas must be entitled to a just franchise
law, and an " honest election " in order that
the will of her people might be expressed in
the Diet. Moravia, a Czech province of
Austria, followed suit with an even stronger
declaration, and in the winter of 1868-9 the
agitation against the compromise became so
violent that in the following spring the
Emperor had to declare a " state of siege "
in Prag. In Galicia the Polish aristocracy
had no historic rights to go upon, but in
September 1867 they claimed a position similar
to that asked for by the Czechs, and demanded
K
1 3 o FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
a ministry responsible to their own local Diet.
Thus we see that the example of Hungary was
followed by the outlying provinces of Austria
in which races alien to the German had a
numerical majority. The claims of these races
were never recognised to the full by Francis
Joseph. In Galicia the population consists of
the aristocracy of Roman Catholic Poles and
a numerous peasantry and working-class of
Greek Orthodox or Greek-Catholic Ruthenians.
In the old days of the Polish kingdom, and
indeed up to 1867, the Poles lorded it over
the Ruthenians. When, therefore, the Poles
put forward the demands of 1868, they were
opposed by the Ruthenians, who feared that
their Polish overlords might become too
powerful. Indeed, the Ruthenians liked the
idea of strong central government to help them
against their overlords. The Emperor refused
to make the concessions demanded by the
Poles. The chief result of their agitation was
that an Imperial visit to Galicia, which was
planned for the summer of 1868, was abandoned.
Small concessions were made to Galicia by
allowing the use of the Polish language
as the official tongue in the province, by
appointing a special minister " for Galicia " in
the Austrian Cabinet, and by extending slightly
the competence of the Galician Diet : but
BOHEMIAN CLAIMS 131
beyond this the largest province of Austria
which " marches " for many hundred miles
with Russia, has remained completely subject
to the Parliament and Government at Vienna.
In Dalmatia the Servians claimed the same
rights as the Poles, and here again there was
a contest between the Italian gentry or nobility
and a peasantry who are of Servian race.
The Servians took up arms in 1869, and the
Government of Vienna had to send soldiers to
suppress them. The Dalmatian revolt was
not suppressed till the close of 1869.
The Emperor was determined to make no
concessions in Galicia or Dalmatia, but in
Bohemia the Czechs had a certain amount
of " historic justice " to support their claim, 1
and after waiting for a year or two, he appointed
a Federalist ministry with the avowed intention
of meeting their demands. Count Hohenwart,
formerly Governor of Upper Austria, became
Premier. He was a staunch German by tradi-
1 In 1522, Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and afterwards Emperor,
married Anne, the heiress to the Crowns of Hungary and Bohemia,
and succeeded her brother, Louis II., as king of both countries in
1526 ; but, waiving his hereditary right, stood for election, and was
elected in October 1526. He was crowned at Prag in 1527, and
promised to respect the laws and customs of Bohemia. The Bohemians,
eighty years afterwards, disowned the Emperor Ferdinand II. as King
of Bohemia, and elected the Elector Palatine, son-in-law of James I. of
England, as king in August 1619. He was only king for a winter,
however (the "Winter King"), and deserted his kingdom after the
defeat of Prag (November 1620). The Government of the Haps-
burgs was then restored, and all Bohemian rights abolished.
132 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
tion, but he called two Czech politicians into
his Cabinet and appointed to the Ministry of
Commerce Dr. Schaffle, a Professor of Tub-
ingen University, who had been expelled from
his chair for publicly expressing his hatred of
the Prussians. This ministry entered into
negotiations with the Czech and German
leaders, and the negotiations went on satisfac-
torily during the early months of 1871. The
Germans in the Reichsrath, however, protested
violently, as they have since done, against any
concession to the Czechs, and, on May 26th,
passed a vote of no confidence in the ministry.
The Emperor, now committed to a Federalist
policy, waited until the Budget was passed,
and then prorogued the Austrian Parliament.
This step was followed by a decree of dissolu-
tion on August 10, and at the same moment by
the dissolution of the Diets of Silesia and
Moravia, in which the Germans had a majority.
On September 14 the Bohemian Diet was
opened at Prag, and the Czech deputies for
the first time took their seats and found them-
selves in a majority. The Emperor's speech
at the opening was conciliatory, and promised
that the kingdom of Bohemia should be
recognised.
" Recognising the political importance of
the Crown of Bohemia," said the Emperor,
BOHEMIAN CLAIMS 133
" calling to mind the renown and glory which
that Crown has conferred upon our predecessors,
and full of gratitude for the fidelity with which
the Bohemian nation has supported our throne,
we are ready to recognise the rights of the
kingdom, and to repeat this recognition by the
coronation oath." But Francis Joseph stated
that he was already under certain obligations to
the other races of the monarchy, and could not
go back upon his acceptance of the Hungarian
compromise of 1867. He therefore invited the
Diet to consider means of agreement between
Bohemia and the rest of the monarchy in
conformity with that compromise.
The Czech party in the Diet were delighted
at this message. Left alone by the secession
of the Germans, they elaborated " fundamental
articles " which were submitted for the approval
of the Crown. Bohemia was to have special
representatives in the Austrian Delegation,
and these were to be chosen, not by the Parlia-
ment at Vienna, but by the Bohemian Diet.
A council composed of delegates from the
Austrian provincial diets was to be estab-
lished with power to legislate as to the
common affairs of non - Hungarian Austria;
and the franchise and distribution of seats,
now regulated in the interest of the Germans
by Schmerling's laws, was to be revised so as
i 3 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
to give to the Czechs the seats to which their
numbers and property entitled them. If these
proposals had been accepted, the Austrian Parlia-
ment must have ceased to exist. The Emperor,
though he received them with goodwill, saw
that it was not possible to accede to them.
He begged the Czech leaders to secure the
return of Czech deputies to the Austrian Parlia-
ment, and to thrash out the matter in that
Parliament. " I will octroyer no more con-
stitutions," he said. It was on this point,
the recognition of the Austrian Parliament as
competent to deal with Bohemian affairs, that
the negotiations with the Czechs came to grief.
The Bohemians, and more especially the Czech
aristocracy, refused to recognise it, and whilst
the attempts were being made to wean them
from this view, Hungary intervened. Count
Andrassy, the Hungarian Premier, appeared
in October at Vienna and entered a firm pro-
test against the policy of submitting the Act of
1867 to the approval of the Bohemian Diet.
After long discussions and many meetings of
the Austrian and Hungarian Premiers, the
Magyars carried the day. A ministerial council
was held on 2Oth October, and directly after-
wards the Czech leaders were informed that
the Emperor could not be crowned at Prag
unless the Austro- Hungarian compromise were
HOHENWART'S FAILURE 135
first accepted in toto by their followers. The
Czechs refused to accept it, and on 3Oth
October the Federalist Ministry sent in its
resignation. Count Hohenwart's Ministry was
ultimately succeeded by a Cabinet of anti-
Federalists under Prince Adolf Auersperg.
The Bohemian Diet was asked to send
deputies to the Parliament which was sum-
moned to meet at the end of November.
Copies of the Emperor's address, in which he
promised to recognise the rights of Bohemia,
were seized by the police and destroyed. The
Bohemian Diet was dissolved. Although the
Federalist deputies stayed away, a quorum was
obtained at Vienna, and the dual system was
restored as if nothing had happened since
1867.
Hohenwart's resignation was soon followed
by the retirement of Count Beust, who,
during the whole of these negotiations,
had been Foreign Minister and Chancellor
of the dual monarchy. The actual reasons for
Beust's retirement have not been made clear,
and his own memoirs throw little light upon
them. Beust was a strong opponent of the
Federalist policy ; and yet at the moment
when the Federalist policy is condemned
he retired and was " side- tracked," as the
Americans say, to the embassy in London.
i 3 6 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Beust was, however, a strong opponent of the
clerical party, and the clericals, though they
had lately lost much ground, were still power-
ful in the entourage of the Emperor. The
Chancellor was, moreover, suspected of being
a strong friend of the Germans in Austria, and
after his friendly meeting with Bismarck at
Gastein in May 1871 was often charged with
complaisance towards the great Prussian. Of
this there is no evidence, but it may be that
the Emperor, having decided against the
Czechs and other Federalists, wished to
placate them by sacrificing a minister whom
they believed to be their enemy. On at least
one other occasion in his reign he took this
course. To accept the principles or measures
of a statesman and to sacrifice the minister who
has fought for them is one of his favourite
moves in the game of politics. It secures a
material victory for the side which he considers
right, and allows the defeated party to con-
sole itself with something which passes for a
personal triumph.
That the Emperor has on so many occasions
made the move with success speaks well both
for his own judgment and for the loyalty of
his servants. To the modern critic it is per-
plexing. It is possible, however I suggest
this as an explanation of the disappearance of
BEUST'S RESIGNATION 137
Beust that the Chancellor had not really
opposed the policy of concession to Bohemia,
but had allowed it to go forward. It did, in
fact, go forward, and that, too, at a time when
he was able to stop it, or to resign if the
Emperor proceeded in it. He did not resign,
and we are therefore entitled to suppose that
he consented to the Hohenwart programme, if
nothing more. Then the Hungarians spoke.
Andrassy came to Vienna and said he would
not have a triple monarchy ; and Beust, whom
nobody could take for a strong man, wobbled
and supported Andrassy. One can well sup-
pose the Emperor saying to his Chancellor,
" Very well, if you won't advise the coronation
at Prag, I shan't go on ; but, as you have sup-
ported me in this policy, I won't have you as
Chancellor any more. I appoint you my
Ambassador in London." And so Beust goes,
and, as we know, goes without bitterness. This
is merely a suggestion offered to explain a
strange move in the game. The Emperor
is the only man now alive who could say
whether it is correct.
Count Andrassy, the Hungarian Prime
Minister, was appointed to succeed Beust as
Chancellor on November 14, 1871 ; this ap-
pointment closes the history of four eventful
years. His entry into the inner counsels of
138 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
the Emperor-King marks the establishment
of the Hungarian domination in Austria-
Hungary. In 1867 the Hungarians had
succeeded in being placed on equal footing
with the Germans of Austria as a ruling
nationality. In 1871 they secured that no
other nationality should have a similar position.
The Emperor, now no longer under the ad-
vice of the old school, appears in this period as a
moderate and judicious ruler. The Hungarian
compromise had not been obtained from him
without many searchings of heart ; but, once
his word was pledged, he loyally adhered to it.
Although the Czechs regarded his policy at
the end of 1871 as a breach of faith, it must be
remembered that he had promised to be crowned
in Bohemia only upon certain conditions, and
that these conditions had not been fulfilled.
Francis Joseph hoped that as the Hungarians
had framed a constitution which he could
accept without breaking up the military and
diplomatic unity if I may use these terms
of his monarchy, so the Czechs would find
some means by which he could satisfy their
demands without violating either the unity of
the monarchy or the constitution of 1867.
But the Czechs did not recognise the con-
stitution of 1867, and claimed that in 1871 they
were dealing with the Emperor as a free
HUNGARY AND BOHEMIA 139
agent. He was no longer free, for he had
undertaken in 1867 to maintain a Parliament
for the whole of Austria. He could not,
therefore, agree with the Bohemians who would
not, and did not, recognise that Parliament.
Some critics have said that Francis Joseph
was wrong in not bringing on the two ques-
tions together. If he was going to acknow-
ledge the separate rights of Bohemia at all, he
should, they say, have recognised them in
1867 before closing with the Hungarian
leaders. In one sense, therefore, his policy
of 1867 may be blamed for shortsightedness.
After 1867 the need for an agreement with
Hungary was, from one point of view, no
longer pressing, and he might have been able
to effect a double bargain with Bohemia and
Hungary. But it is a moot point whether the
Magyars would have accepted a constitution
which gave to Bohemia a place in the monarchy
equal to theirs. The closest observer of
Hungary's policy must doubt that they would
ever have done so. Evidently, this was Francis
Joseph's view.
If the Federalist action of the Hohenwart
and Potochi ministries was unpopular, their
action in repudiating the Concordat of 1855
was quite the reverse. The history of Italy
and of Rome does not, after 1859, concern
140 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Francis Joseph so closely as before; but Austria,
as a whole, was deeply interested in the proceed-
ings of the Ecumenical Council of 1870, and her
representatives amongst the Bishops took a
distinguished part in its debates. Cardinal
Schwartzenberg, Archbishop of Prag ; Cardinal
Rauscher, Archbishop of Vienna, who had been
his tutor, and Bishop Strossmayer, of Diakova
in Croatia, were amongst the most distinguished
members of the Liberal opposition, and con-
stantly spoke and voted against the preten-
sions of the extreme Ultramontanes. Count
Beust supported this attitude in despatches
to the Austrian Ambassador at Rome. The
repudiation of the Concordat of 1855 took
place on 3Oth July 1870, and is an event of
great significance. Austria had from time
immemorial been a close friend and political
patron of the Holy See. Her influence had
supported the Pope as a temporal monarch.
Francis Joseph and Pius IX. had a
common enemy in Victor Emanuel, and a
common interest in the disintegration of Italy.
Even after Sadowa, the Austrian Emperor
maintained considerable influence in Italy
merely by force of tradition. But this now
ceases. The repudiation of the Concordat
happened, though by an accident, to syn-
chronise with the withdrawal of the French
ELECTORAL REFORM 141
troops from Rome, the occupation of Victor
Emanuel, and the final completion of the work
of Italian unity. At this moment Austria
shakes off her partial servitude to the Pope,
and her liberation prepares the way for a
rapprochement with the new kingdom of Italy.
In the events of 1870 we see premonitory signs
of the new Triple Alliance which is a striking
feature of the Emperor's later policy.
Between 1872 and 1878 Austria remains at
peace within her borders. After the fall of
the Hohenwart ministry the internal politics
of the country enter upon a period of repose.
Prince Adolf Auersperg became Premier and
remained in charge of the affairs of the country
for eight years. The year 1872 was devoted
to electoral reform, and on March 1873 a new
electoral law was passed which abolished the
old system of indirect elections by diets of the
provinces, and divided the Austrian electors
into four classes or colleges. The great landed
proprietors, the municipalities, the chambers of
commerce, and the country districts each re-
turned a certain number of members ; and
this old-fashioned system prevailed in Austria
until the introduction of universal suffrage in
1907. The Poles of Galicia objected strongly
to the change, and the Italian members for the
Trentino, a " circle " of the Southern Tyrol,
142 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
also protested ; but as these last were only two
in number, the Emperor was able to disregard
their objection. He favoured the Poles by
appointing the Mayor of Lemberg a minister
without portfolio in his Cabinet, as a mark of
his " constant solicitude for the affairs of
Galicia." The cynical observer of the nation-
alist movements must observe with delight how
often and how easily provincial patriots have
been induced to forgo the pleasures of liberty
by a taste of the sweets of office.
In October 1873 elections took place under
the new electoral law. They resulted in a
centralist victory, the central group getting a
majority of over 100 in a House of 353. In
1875 ^e clerical policy of the Emperor was
completed and the last vestiges of the Con-
cordat disappeared. When the first decade of
Austria's parliamentary life closed the Parlia-
ment at Vienna was well in hand and the
Premier could count on a good majority.
In Hungary the ten years following 1867
were not without important events, but as
these have no direct bearing upon the subject
of this essay they need no long notice. Deak
remained the ruling statesman in Hungary till
his death in 1876. Andrassy, Premier till
1876, was his fast friend, and after Andrdssy's
promotion a series of Premiers took office, ending
CROATIAN HOME RULE 143
in 1875 with Tisza, whose Premiership began
in that year and did not end till 1890. During
all this time the Liberal party was in power in
Hungary. It took office in 1867 and held
it without interruption till 1904. In 1868
Hungary turned to Croatia, whose claims to a
separate government she had always recog-
nised, and asked her to formulate her claims.
" Here is a clean sheet," said Deak. "Write
on it what you will, and so long as it does not
violate the unity of Hungary we will agree to
it beforehand." After a negotiation unusually
short, generous terms were given to the Croats.
Three departments of state justice, education,
and domestic affairs were handed over to local
control, and local ministers, called chiefs of
sections, were entrusted with their manage-
ment. The collection and imposition of taxes
remained in the competence of the Hungarian
Parliament, and of the revenue collected in
Croatia 55 per cent was kept for the Hungarian
Budget, whilst the remainder was handed to
the local authorities for local needs. Hungary
guaranteed, however, that Croatia should always
have 2,200,000 florins for her own use, and
if 45 per cent of the Croatian revenue does
not, in any year, make up that sum, the pay-
ment to Hungary is reduced so as to allow to
Croatia the guaranteed sum. If, on the other
i 4 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
hand, 45 per cent of the Croatian revenue
comes to more than 2,200,000 florins, Croatia
gains by the surplus. A special clause in the
1868 constitution provides that Croatia shall
not be bound to repay out of the surplus of
one year any sum which Hungary may have
had to remit out of the 55 per cent in a pre-
vious year. Thus Croatia knows for certain
what her minimum revenue will be. The Ban
of Croatia, an officer of ancient traditions,
became Lord- Lieutenant of the country and at
the same time chairman of the Diet, and, one
may say, Prime Minister of the country. He
is appointed by the King of Hungary on the
recommendation of the Hungarian ministry,
and therefore comes and goes with the Hun-
garian ministry. He answers questions as to
the general policy of the Government and
makes ministerial statements from the Speaker's
chair. The Diet sends twenty-nine delegates
to the Hungarian Lower House and two to
the Hungarian Chamber of Peers. These
attend and debate on common affairs, but leave
the House when a matter of purely Hungarian
interest is under discussion. They have the
right of speaking in Croat, but do not now
exercise it. In the Cabinet at Pesth there is a
special minister for Croatia.
If I have made too long a digression to
CROATIAN HOME RULE 145
explain the Croatian Act of 1868, my excuse
must be that it is the one big experiment which
has been used in Austria- Hungary in conces-
sion to nationalist claims ; and that it has often
been cited as a precedent for others. The
Czech leaders in Bohemia often appeal to it as
a precedent for a concession to Bohemia, and
it has been cited as a precedent for Home Rule
in Ireland. 1 It has not been altered since 1868,
and generous as it was, it was resented as unfair
by a substantial party in Croatia. Panslavist
feeling is very strong in this south Slav pro-
vince, and the Panslavists had for many years
the assistance and guidance of the famous
Bishop Strossmayer, who was constantly a
thorn in the side of the Hungarian unionist
party. The Croats have often objected to the
fact that their railways have been preserved as
part of the Hungarian state -rail way system
and have never been placed under local control.
The Magyar Government has, however, held
1 When I was in Agram in 1894 one of the Sektions-chefs told me that
some years before, I suppose before 1886, an emissary of Mr. Glad-
stone had come to Croatia to get information about the Croatian
constitution, but that he had afterwards heard that Mr. Gladstone con-
sidered the financial arrangement so generous to Croatia that he could
not use it as a precedent in his Home Rule scheme. Mr. Gladstone
publicly cited the Croatian case in 1893, an< ^ ne > as a financier, must
have been aware that the financial provisions such as it contained
would not be readily accepted by England and Scotland. If any
of my readers should have followed Irish affairs, they may remember
Mr. Gladstone's fiction of the "over-taxation" of Ireland which
afterwards led to so many absurdities.
L
146 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
that the railway system for the whole kingdom
of St. Stephen must be under one control, and,
in spite of much opposition, still maintains that
view. No further concession has been made
to the subject-nationalities of Hungary. A
"law of nationalities" was passed in 1868, but
whilst promising justice and equality to all
races, it practically asserted the primacy of the
Magyars. It made their language the sole
language of the state, relegating the others,
at the best, to use in municipal affairs of
non-Magyar towns.
In 1869 and 1872 general elections took
place, and in both of these the Liberal party,
which was under Deak's real leadership and, of
course, loyal to the compromise of 1867, was
returned. The King of Hungary visited his
dominions twice in 1872, and, during his first
visit, went for a tour in the south-eastern parts,
which he had never seen before. He was
everywhere well received by the Magyars, and
his visit did much to obliterate bitter memories
upon the scene of the fiercest fights of 1849.
It is interesting to notice that Francis Joseph
was met at Temesvar by an envoy from the
Sultan. The meeting symbolised the old
friendship between the Magyars and the Turks.
Men drew from it an assurance that the new
King of Hungary would preserve the traditional
DEATH OF DEAK 147
policy of alliance with Turkey against Slavonic
aggression.
In 1873 and 1874 Deak's influence was
gradually withdrawn, owing to his illness, and
with his disappearance the need for fresh
leaders for the Liberal party became apparent.
After some short or provisional ministries,
M. Tisza, the ablest of the opponents of the
Compromise of 1867, took office. In doing so
he assented to the programme of his former
opponents ; that is to say, he undertook to carry
on the Government in loyalty to the agreement
with Austria. M. Tisza remained Premier of
Hungary until 1890, and by his force of character
and brilliant eloquence became in these years
a very prominent statesman in Europe. He is
of course open to the charge of inconsistency
which may be brought against Mr. Gladstone
and Mr. Chamberlain, to mention no smaller
men in England. Inconsistent or not, he was
undoubtedly of great service to the Emperor-
King in carrying out the arrangement of 1867.
In promoting the growth of Austro-Hungarian
citizenship and unity, in combating the idea that
Austria and Hungary are opposite states, he
did the highest service. In January 1876 Deak
died at Pesth. Royal princes went to his
funeral, and the last procession in his honour,
which was four miles long, was a striking
148 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
tribute to this truly great man. Without
either the advantage of noble birth or the gift
of eloquence, which are given to many of his
fellow-countrymen, he possessed honesty, con-
sistency, good judgment, patience and resource
in a degree rarely found in a public man. He
took his stand on the long-established rights of
Hungary, and he would yield none of those
rights except in return for something from the
other side. He had a profound belief in the
efficacy of law and reason. Though not a friend
to war, his moral courage was imperturbable.
He was conciliatory in 1848 when no one else
was so. It was his policy of obstinate consist-
ency, coupled with judicious conciliation, which
won a great and honourable triumph for his
country and made her the dominant power in
the Dual monarchy.
In the wider field of foreign affairs Austria
plays no part in the years 1867-77. The
expenditure caused by the war had been great
and the army needed remodelling and a new
gun. A great deal has been written about the
attitude of Francis Joseph at the time of the
Franco -Prussian war. Some writers have
accused his chief minister of pursuing a policy
of revanche against Prussia, and even of having
betrayed France into hopes of Austrian co-
operation against the common enemy. These
FRANCE AND AUSTRIA IN 1870 149
accusations are, I believe, unfounded. Beust
was a Saxon, and deeply resented the treat-
ment of Saxony by the Prussians in 1866. He
wished for a strong southern confederation in
Germany, and he was no friend to Bismarck
and his ways. But I cannot find that he ever
gave positive assurances of Austrian help for
France. Nor would he have been permitted
to do so by the Emperor, who, in matters of
so great importance, leaves nothing to his
ministers. If Count Beust had some general
discussions with the French as to the possi-
bility of common measures, they never got
beyond that stage. The Chancellor's despatch
of July n, I870, 1 to the Austro- Hungarian
Ambassador in Paris proves that Francis Joseph
did not allow the French Government to remain
under any delusions as to the attitude which
would be maintained at Vienna should war
break out between Prussia and France. Beust
admitted that Austria had agreed not to make
any agreement with any third party without
the knowledge of France, and said that she
would not do so ; but he repudiated all idea of
action against Prussia even were it only to go
so far as the placing of a corps d' observation in
Bohemia. If Russia joined Prussia in the war,
Austria would intervene ; but in case of a war
1 Beust's Memoirs (1887), vol. ii. Appendix C.
150 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
between France and Prussia alone, she would
remain neutral.
The Emperor-King was, however, in some
difficulty in the matter. A strong party in
Austria called for measures of revenge against
Prussia. Moreover, it was by no means certain
that if France were reduced to making terms
alone with Prussia a bargain might not be
struck which would be disadvantageous to
Austria involving, perhaps, the loss of the
German portion of Bohemia. At the same
time the Emperor was forced to look to the
mouths of the Danube and the Black Sea, where
Russia was about to repudiate the restrictions
placed upon her in 1856. Prussia could not
help her to resist the Russian action in this
direction, but France, with her traditional
interest and influence in Eastern affairs, would
no doubt be able to do so. All these reasons
moved the Emperor to take up a sympathetic
attitude towards France. On the other hand,
the Germans in Austria and the ruling Magyars
in Hungary were now good friends to Prussia.
For them a Prussian victory meant the
strengthening of the Teutonic element in
Central Europe, which alone could balance the
influence of Panslavism, both within and with-
out their borders. Deak, as we have seen, had
refused to implicate Hungary in the war of
ANDRASSY'S POLICY 151
1866. Andrassy, the friend, and I may perhaps
say, the pupil of Deak, was strongly against any
action in the war of 1870. Moreover, Austrian
finances were only beginning to recover from
the great expenditure of the war of 1866. The
artillery was being re-armed with a breech-
loading gun, and provided with a new equip-
ment. Even had Francis Joseph and his
subjects wished for war in 1870, they could not
have placed an efficient army in the field.
In the early seventies Austria- Hungary was
beginning to recover from the waste of war-
fare, and until 1878 no military expenditure
interferes to prevent the recovery of her
finances. The Emperor-King, advised by the
Liberal Hungarian nobleman who succeeded
Count Beust, engages in no further European
wars, and the new Austria- Hungary begins
to realise her position and quietly renew her
forces. In May 1873 the exhibition of Vienna
was opened, and though its success was marred
by a financial crisis and by the prevalence of
disease in Vienna, it served to attract large
numbers of visitors to the capital and to
publish the commercial possibilities of Austria
and Hungary. The two sovereigns who had
conquered Austria in successive wars William,
now Emperor of Germany, and Victor Emanuel,
King of United Italy visited their former
i S 2 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
enemy in his capital, and old rivalries were
forgotten in good fellowship and the exchange
of friendly assurances. In the autumn of the
following year Francis Joseph visited Bohemia,
which, three years before, had been smarting
under a sense of broken pledges. He was
well received. His uncle and predecessor,
the ex-Emperor Ferdinand, was still living in
the Hradschin Palace on the hill overlooking the
Moldau at Prag, but was too ill in body and
mind to make any public appearance. In the
following year the Emperor visited his southern-
most province of Dalmatia, where the popula-
tion, of Italian race, had long resented incor-
poration in the Austrian empire ; but his
reception was, on the whole, good. Afterwards
he went to Venice, a former pillar of his Italian
power, but now contented in union with Italy.
The reception given him there showed that a
few years had sufficed to extinguish the hostile
feelings of the past.
The year 1875, too > was one when many
links with the past were severed. The ex-
Emperor Ferdinand died in June. " Ich
haU keiri Constitution, und ich mag keiri
Constitution " had been his favourite saying
in the old days before 1848; but he had
lived on, a weak and useless old man, to
see the Austria which he had ruled twice
THE OLD ORDER CHANGES 153
defeated and reformed into a new and pro-
gressive state. His funeral procession in
Vienna took place without any marks of public
regret. The heirs-apparent to five Kingdoms
followed him to his last resting-place beneath
the Capuchin church ; but the populace of
Vienna was indifferent. In the same year
died Francis, the expelled Grand Duke of
Modena, a Hapsburg of the Este branch, one
of the last of the little tyrants who, under the
protection of Austria, had stood out against
union and freedom in Italy. The exiled
Grand Duke had long ceased to interest the
public. He left no children and no friends
behind him ; but some curiosity was felt as to
how he would dispose of the valuable Este
estate in Central Italy which was his private
property. This he bequeathed to the
Emperor's nephew, the young Archduke
Francis Ferdinand (born in 1863) and the
present heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. 1
At the same time the Emperor lost his old
tutor and valued friend, Cardinal Rauscher,
Archbishop of Vienna. Rauscher had taught
him politics when he was in his 'teens, and
the Emperor owed his strict Conservative
views as much to the courtly priest as to
1 Exaggerated reports were circulated at the time as to the wealth
of the Grand Duke. The Este estate, at the time, was worth rather
over ;i, 000,000.
i 5 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Prince Metternich. The Cardinal was con-
stantly at his pupil's side in 1849 an d 1850,
but in later years had adopted moderate
views. He never belonged to the extreme
Ultramontane party which was so powerful in
Austria, and, at the Ecumenical Council of
1870, had protested strongly against the issue
of the Bull of Infallibility. Though he actively
opposed the suspension of the Concordat and
the laws which gave to the civil govern-
ment control over marriage and education, he
did not dispute the validity of those laws
when once passed. In his last years he was
the most popular of the Emperor's older
counsellors.
Whilst these men of the old school were
leaving the stage a new scene in the European
drama was about to commence. The Eastern
question was re -opened by the insurrection
against Turkish rule in Servia and Monte-
negro, and by the advance of Russia to help
as she said her oppressed co-religionists
in Turkey. The outbreak and course of the
Russo - Turkish war are matters outside the
scope of this book, but they were of great
interest to the Emperor Francis Joseph, and
were * observed with mingled feelings by the
different races under his sway. The Slavs of
all kinds, except the Poles, were heartily in
RUSSIA AND TURKEY 155
sympathy with Russia, and looking at Austria
as a Slavonic empire, urged the Government
to take action in favour of the oppressed Slavs
in Turkey. Demonstrations of friendship for
Russia took place in the outlying provinces,
and the Russian Hymn was played by military
bands at Agram in the presence of an Austrian
Archduke. In Hungary, racial sympathy with
Turkey is stronger than any religious sym-
pathy which might have joined the Magyars
and the Christian subjects of the Sultan.
Feeling at Pesth ran strongly in favour of the
Moslem. In January 1877 a band of Hun-
garian students went to Constantinople to
present a sword of honour to a Turkish
general who had had some success in putting
down the Servian insurrection ; and the general
made a speech cursing all the wars which had
ever taken place between the Magyars and
Turks, and declaring eternal friendship. The
Germans in Austria were honestly neutral,
and though the Emperor's personal inclina-
tions favoured Russia, he decided to take no
part in the war. Lord Salisbury, Under-
secretary for Foreign Affairs in the English
Cabinet, passed through Vienna in October
1876, on his way to Constantinople, and met
Count Andrassy in conference. Both states-
men agreed that the Christian subjects of the
156 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Sultan were being badly treated, but they
agreed also that Turkey must, in the last
resort, be supported against Russia. After
seeing Count Andrassy, Lord Salisbury was
received by the Emperor who, in the course
of the interview, observed, " Our interests are
identical." Francis Joseph had already, in
1854 and 1855, ma de one unlucky venture
in Eastern politics, and he was determined
to avoid, if possible, another intervention of
the same kind. Moreover, with one -half of
his subjects urging him in one direction and
one in another, he realised that his newly-
made monarchy was not yet capable of pursuing
an active foreign policy. Before the outbreak
of war the Russian Government promised
Count Andrassy not to make Servia the scene
of military operations. Turkey gladly gave
him a similar assurance. These promises,
secured by diplomatic action, helped to prevent
a general rising of the southern Slavs, which
must surely have spread across the Emperor's
frontiers. It was greatly to Austria's credit
that such security was easily obtained. The
declarations made by M. Tisza, the Hungarian
Premier, and Count Andrassy, the common
Foreign Minister, at the end of 1877 made it
clear that Austria- Hungary was in a far
stronger position in that year than in 1853,
CONGRESS OF BERLIN 157
when the Eastern question had last come
upon the carpet. She was now able to declare
her policy of neutrality, her desire to localise
the war, and her opinion that the Sultan must
reform his Government ; yet she was not to
be cajoled by England (as she had been by
France in 1854) into hostile action against
Russia. She had no rising in Italy or Hun-
gary to fear, no enemies behind her in Ger-
many. In 1853 and 1854 we saw a halting
and diffident policy actuated in turn by the
Emperor's gratitude to Russia, by the fear
of Slav uprisings in the south, and by the
veiled threats of France to stir up discontent
in Italy. We now find a fixed and steady
policy of neutrality coupled with constructive
proposals for Turkish reform and a firm vin-
dication of Austro- Hungarian rights on the
Lower Danube. Francis Joseph feels no need
to go into the arena, either at the bidding of
friends whom he cannot afford to displease
or for the aversion of dangers which he cannot
face. He stands aside and allows time to pass.
When the diplomats meet at Berlin to correct
Ignatiev's map of the Balkans, he sends his
able Magyar minister to the capital of his old
rival, to receive two valuable provinces from a
congress with the consent of his old enemy,
Bismarck.
158 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
In England the occupation of Bosnia and
the Herzegovina was attributed to a sugges-
tion of Lord Salisbury. If he was the first to
suggest it at the Congress, it had certainly
been mooted before, and Hungarian ministers
had discussed it in the Parliament at Pesth. 1
The idea of the occupation was at first resented
in Hungary, where it was construed as amove
against the Turks, and as likely to encourage
Slav aspirations elsewhere. Tisza boldly de-
fended it as a counterblast to Panslavism, and
in the end opposition at home was silenced or
overcome. It was otherwise in the provinces
of Bosnia and the Herzegovina themselves,
where a hardy and courageous population of
Moslems vigorously opposed the occupation.
Turkey had yielded the provinces to Austria,
and did not openly interfere ; but she sym-
pathised with the Moslems, and her sympathy
assumed in some cases a material form. The
army of occupation, under Generals Filipovitch
and Szapary, began operations in July 1878,
and did not complete its task for three months.
Austria-Hungary had at one time as many as
200,000 men and 480 guns operating against
1 As Prince Bismarck states (Recollections, English edition by
A. J. Butler, vol. ii. p. 232), the occupation of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina was really agreed upon in a secret treaty of January
1877 between Austria and Russia. Russia consented to it in order
to secure Austria's neutrality.
BOSNIA OCCUPIED 159
the mountaineers. All organised resistance
was, however, at an end when the two Parlia-
ments met on the last day of October. The
ministers in both halves of the monarchy, in
thanking the troops for their services, could
say that peace now reigned in Bosnia.
The occupation of these territories was the
finest diplomatic stroke in the reign of Francis
Joseph. Coming after many defeats, it restored
the prestige of the monarchy in Europe, and
it opened new possibilities of expansion whose
realisation has only just commenced. Europe
has already tried many other prescriptions for
curing the (so-called) " Sick Man." She began
in 1856 by admitting the Turks to the Concert
of Europe. This meant, so far as it meant
anything, that the fate or future of Turkey
was to be a matter of common concern to the
whole of Europe, and not to be decided by
Russia alone. This was the fundamental
principle of the policy of Napoleon III. and
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the two moving
spirits of the Crimean war. It was re-asserted
at Berlin in 1878 when Europe insisted on its
right to intervene between Russia and Turkey.
In 1856, too, the Concert of Europe devised
three expedients for securing peace and justice
in the Turkish territories. One was to establish
areas of local Home Rule (as in Bulgaria) ;
i6o FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
another to sever such areas from Turkey
(as in the case of Roumania, and, earlier, of
Greece) ; a third was to obtain from the
Porte promises of good government, and to
take such measures as were possible to see that
these promises were carried out. A fourth
expedient was tried in 1878 that of commis-
sioning one of the Great Powers to take charge
of a portion of the Sultan's territory and to
supersede his Government. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina the Turks had long been, as they
have been elsewhere, a dominant race. They
always will be a dominant race, and if the
attempts made by outsiders to reform Turkey
have failed, it is because the Turks will not
forgo their privileges. In 1878 the Turkish
Government was expelled from these two
provinces, but they were not given Home Rule.
They obtain no Diet like their neighbours in
Croatia, no Skupstchina like their other neigh-
bours in Servia. They were placed under the
control of a dominant Power, which continued
to rule them autocratically, but with justice and
enlightenment. That power is not Austria,
nor is it Hungary. It is Austria- Hungary.
The authority which rules in these new
provinces is the Power which has come into
being under Francis Joseph's rule. The
Bosnian regiments are neither Austrian nor
BOSNIA 161
Hungarian. The Bosnian officials are "dual"
officials, and are controlled by a minister not
of Austria or Hungary, but of the whole
monarchy. Austria- Hungary, lately recognised
by Europe, is now formally approved ; and, at
the same time, a common stake and interest is
given to the two states which have hitherto had
nothing in common but the sovereign and the
army. Here, at least, Austria and Hungary
can meet, not in rivalry or jealousy, but in
sincere co - operation for an important and
interesting task. Here Germans and Magyars,
and Czechs too if they qualify for it, can work
side by side as public servants, and each can
learn, in the friendly intercourse of officials, that
the others are after all not so bad as they were
painted. It is too soon, as yet, to say what the
ultimate results of the Hapsburg mission in
the Near East will be. We know that the
occupied provinces are very well governed, and
that they present an aspect of peace and pro-
gress which is, unhappily, not common in the
other European territories of the Sultan.
Radicals may object that there is no Parliament
in these provinces. If that great panacea for
all ills is denied them, they have at least been
free from the public murders, the organised
butcheries, and the wholesale corruption which
mark the swing of the pendulum in the consti-
M
i62 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
tutional governments of the Near East. What
the future will bring forth we do not know ;
but the step taken in 1878 has hitherto proved
successful. 1 That it was taken, and that it has
so succeeded, is a strong indication of the
prudence and policy of the Emperor King.
1 The Bosnian administration pays its own way, and the last figures
obtainable show a revenue of 5 1 million francs, and a slight surplus.
Austria-Hungary incurs some expenditure for the maintenance of troops
in Bosnia. This was in 1906 7^ million francs, but in 1907 .187,000
was put down in the Bosnian Budget as expenditure for the common
army of the Monarchy.
CHAPTER VI
1879-1893
Auersperg and Taafife Ministries in Austria The Liberal
Party in Hungary Tisza Progress of the Nationalist
Question The Balkan Question again The Emperor's
Policy.
GREAT as were the advantages secured to
the Austro- Hungarian monarchy by the
occupation of Bosnia, the step was not popu-
lar either in Austria or Hungary. Politicians
of the provincial or parochial school have little
inclination to think about questions of Imperial
expansion or politics at large, and are apt
to resent them as distracting attention from
the meaner controversies which rage round
the parish pump. In Austria and Hungary
parochial politicians abound ; and if they con-
sider larger questions at all, they look at them
from the point of view of the party or nation-
ality to which they belong at home. They
approve or disapprove the moves on the great
chessboard of Europe according as these seem
163
1 64 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
to them to favour their chances in the little
game which they are playing with one another.
In Austria the Germans resented the annexa-
tion of Bosnia and the Herzegovina as im-
porting a fresh and vigorous Slav ingredient
into the composition of the Dual Monarchy.
The war of occupation had been costly. Lives
had been lost, and the general result of the
new move was to encourage the Drang nach
Osten, which has never been popular with the
stay-at-home politicians of the German pro-
vinces. The Czechs and other Slavs did not
like to see a new Slavonic race put into the
monarchy as subject to the dominant Germans
and Magyars. By these two objections the
position of Auersperg, the Austrian Premier,
was weakened. In the winter of 1878-9 the
solid phalanx of German groups which had
kept him in power since 1871 gradually fell
to pieces. In February 1879 he resigned.
Auersperg's resignation brings to an end
the first period of constitutional rule in Austria.
During the eight years of his administration
the German groups had been able to keep
a majority in the Reichsrath, and, if they
were aided occasionally by different sec-
tions of the non- Germans, it may yet be
said that up to 1879 the old primacy of
the Germans was maintained, After 1879
CZECHS AND POLES 165
we find a change. During the years 1871-9
the Slavs in Bohemia had been increasing
in numbers, wealth, and education. The
Emperor knew from the outset that if a
constitutional system was to be kept up in
Austria, it could only be so by the help of all,
or at least of the majority of, the Nationalists.
He waited patiently until the Bohemians who,
after 1871, had refused to attend the Parlia-
ment of Vienna should have so far forgotten
their grievances as to be amenable to reason.
Their abstention caused him much uneasiness
during the years of Auersperg's ministry. He
could not forget how many Slavs or Magyars
had been found unwounded l in the hands of
his enemies in Italy in 1859, and he knew
by experience that it was not practicable to
construct a popular state in Central Europe,
and to equip it with a strong and loyal army,
unless all the races of his Empire of Austria
were reconciled to the existing order of
domestic government. To the Poles in
Galicia he had already granted concessions,
somewhat greater than were allowed to
Bohemia. There was, as I have said, a
minister for Galicia in the Cabinet, and the
Galician Diet had wider powers of legislation
1 A valuable article in the Contemporary Review for February 1893,
to which I am much indebted, states the number at 15,000, or six
per cent of the Austrian fighting force.
1 66 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
than the other provincial assemblies. These
concessions could be given in Poland without
fear that they would lead to separation ; for
the Poles were next door to tyrannous
Russia. They could see across the frontier
to where their brother Poles were crushed
under the despotism of the Czar; and they
wanted nothing better than a strong and just
Austrian Emperor who should protect them
against a similar fate. Of all the nationalities
in Austria the Poles had been the most prudent
and the most loyal to the Austro- Hungarian
idea. Whilst not losing sight of their Nation-
alist claims, they had consented to take part in
the government of centralised Austria. Friendly
to the Austrian Germans, and allied by ancient
tradition to the Magyars, they have greatly
assisted the Emperor in his task of making a
new country in Central Europe, and are to-day
amongst the most trustworthy of his citizens.
The Czechs in Bohemia were not in the
same position. They had never recognised
the Constitution of 1867, and were rivals
both of the Germans and the Hungarians.
They were strong Federalists, and hated the
German language as sincerely as the Hun-
garians. It was therefore more difficult and
more dangerous to entrust the government
to them than to the Poles ; but as neither
COUNT TAAFFE 167
could govern Austria alone, the Emperor
gradually formed the intention of committing
the care of the Empire to a combination of
them, assisted by the Clerical and Conservative
deputies from the Tyrol, the Vorarlberg, and
southern Austrian provinces. These last had
stood aloof from the Liberal German regime
inaugurated by Auersperg.
The team once selected, it became neces-
sary to find a man who would drive it ; and
a driver of extraordinary skill was discovered
in Count Taaffe. Edward, Viscount Taaffe
of Corran and Baron of Ballymote in the
county of Sligo in Ireland, and Count Taaffe
in Austria, was the son of a noble Irish
family who had long been distinguished in
Austria for gallantry in war and successful
administration in peace. One member of the
family had been ambassador of Charles II.
at the Imperial Court, and in 1667 an ancestor
of the new Premier had been made Count
of the Empire as a reward for bravery. The
Taaffes had from the first been members of the
Court aristocracy, a small coterie of noble ser-
vants immediately surrounding the Emperors,
and placed somewhat apart from the great
feudal nobles who formed a " country party."
A characteristic saying has been attributed to
a member of this coterie " Mankind begins
i68 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
with the barons and ends with the monarch."
If in the old days such a maxim had been
theirs, the Count Taaffe who lived in the
Austria of the 'eighties certainly did not sub-
scribe to it. His motto may be said to have
been, " Mankind begins with the monarch and
ends with the last man who can be induced
to support his government." He had been
a playmate of Francis Joseph's early youth,
and the influence of his family was so strong
at Court that he might have aspired to high
office in early life. Yet he commenced his
public service at the bottom of the Civil
Service ladder, and it was due to a chance
meeting with the Emperor that, after some
years, he obtained quick promotion. He was
appointed Minister of the Interior in 1867
under Beust, and had been even Minister-
President for a short time, but in 1871-9,
during the rule of Auersperg and the Ger-
mans, he was Statthalter of the Tyrol, a
post of temporary retirement which might
lead to anything. In 1879 he was called upon
to take up the position of Minister-President,
and with it the Ministry of the Interior.
The new Premier was a man whom the
Federalists might certainly claim for their own.
He was a Catholic, and therefore popular with
the loyal Catholics ; but he was no thorough-
CHARACTER OF TAAFFE 169
paced Ultramontane, and had voted against
the Concordat. He had been in the citizen
ministry of the first Prince Auersperg in 1867,
so that even the Liberals, who were now in
opposition, could not think very badly of him.
When the Emperor dissolved the Reichsrath,
in May 1879, before Taaffe took office, the
Germans lost forty-five seats, and the Federalist
gains were opportune for the task which he
was about to undertake. From the first he
showed extraordinary skill in smoothing over
difficulties and inducing recalcitrant deputies
to postpone grievances or fads. He received
angry deputations of Czechs or Clericals who
wanted concessions to the language in Bohemia
or to the Church in the control of schools.
He listened to them politely, told them risky
stories, mimicked the attitude of their enemies
with a humour which had survived two
centuries of absence from the west of Ireland.
As for their complaints, these were serious, but
as the matters in question were too important
to be discussed by a single minister, he would
lay them before the Cabinet and see what could
be done. In the meantime he suggested that
they should reserve these questions and take
part in the government of the country. This
course would make them eligible should occa-
sions for promotion arise. The usual result
170 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
was that the deputations went away satisfied,
or cajoled into acquiescence. It is scarcely
an exaggeration to say that these were the
means by which Count Taaffe maintained a
Government in Austria for fourteen years.
He was a pure opportunist and a confirmed
cynic, believed that every man had his price,
and knew no principle and had no policy but
unswerving loyalty to his master.
It is not necessary to describe at any length
the political landmarks of these fifteen years.
We find them a succession of protests by
Czechs or Germans, riots in Bohemia between
Germans and Czechs, or in Dalmatia between
Croats and Italians, concessions made to one
or the other, a minister appointed here because
he is a Czech, a judge there because he is a
Croat. The general trend of Taaffe's policy
was to give more power to the Slavonic pro-
vinces in the management of their affairs, to
teach them that Austria was able to satisfy all
their reasonable grievances, and to associate
them in the support of the established order
of things. Thus, in 1879, a Pole and a Czech
were brought into the ministry, but it also
contained one German Liberal. In 1880
another Polish minister is introduced, and
slight concessions made in the matter of the
use of Slavonic languages in official corre-
THE YOUNG CZECHS 171
spondence. In 1881 two German ministers
leave the Cabinet and two Federalists come
in, whilst in the same year a Czech University
is set up in Prag beside the old University.
The establishment of the Czech University was
an event of great importance, and undoubtedly
gave an impetus to a movement which ulti-
mately upset Count Taaffe's Government
the rise of the " Young Czech " party in
Bohemia. The old Czechs, whilst loyal to
their race, were loyal also to the Emperor.
They were Roman Catholics, and Roman
Catholicism has always been a strong unionist
force in Austria. The young Czechs were
Slavs before everything else. They were
anti-Clerical, and not bound to the Hapsburg
dynasty by the old ties of tradition and service
which held the Czech nobility. Yet the
institution of a Czech University could not
have been withheld, especially by a sovereign
whose object was to satisfy all just claims. The
Emperor hoped, as he still hopes, to form a
middle party in Austria which would recognise
the compromise of 1867, and form the new
Austrian half of the monarchy. This hope or
policy lay behind the schemes and jokes and
compromises of Count Taaffe. H is ministry was
a bold attempt to mitigate the violence of the
racial malcontents in Austria and give them
i;2 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
time to become reasonable. It cannot be said
that he succeeded ; but he gained time.
In 1883 the Bohemian Diet was dissolved,
and the elections resulted in sending a Czech
majority to Prag, but the anti-German agitation
was still kept under by Taaffe's dexterous
hands. Socialism began to grow rapidly in
Austria in these years, and strong measures
had to be taken against the Socialists in 1884.
Possibly the fear of Socialism was one of the
causes which gave the ministry a small majority
(192 votes in a House of 353) at the Austrian
elections in 1885. The Premier had, however,
not sufficient support to enable him to get on
without successive concessions to the Czechs,
and these were strenuously opposed by the
Germans. Occasionally local riots took place.
At Koniginhof in Bohemia, in August 1885,
several people were killed, and the hatred
between Germans and Czechs began to find
expression in severe criticism of the foreign
policy of the monarchy, now firmly based on
the friendship with the new Empire of Germany.
It is highly characteristic of the condition of
Austrian politics at the period that the Austro-
Hungarian Government was able to inaugurate
and carry out a foreign policy of friendship
with Germany which was keenly opposed by
the Slavonic majority in the Reichsrath, whilst
TAAFFE'S DECLINE 173
the Germans, who were in opposition, warmly
approved it. The policy of Germany in ex-
pelling Polish or Ruthenian workmen from
German territory also gave a handle to the
Slav deputies in the Reichsrath, and Count
Taaffe was more than once placed in a difficulty
by interpellations on this subject.
Taaffe's ministry lasted as long as he
could keep the Czechs in hand by conces-
sions. The old Czechs were contented with
these, but the young Czechs were not so, and
in 1889 the advanced party conquered their
opponents in the elections for the Bohemian
Diet. 1 Before 1889 the young Czechs had had
only a few seats, but after the election of this
year they returned 37 members, and at the
end of 1870 their force had increased to 42.
In November 1889* the new Diet met, and
the German deputies absenting themselves, the
young and old Czechs stood face to face. The
young Czechs introduced a motion to erect a
memorial tablet to John Huss in the Bohemian
Museum. If anybody could be expected to
support such a proposal it would be, we might
think, the "old Czechs": but this party was
under Clerical influence, and the name of
the great Protestant reformer of Prag was
1 By the Schmerling constitution there were 236 elected and 6
official members of the Diet. The elected were originally divided as
follows : Great landowners, 70 ; Germans, 69 ; Czechs, 99,
174 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
anathema to the Roman Catholic Church. The
Czech nobles and old Czechs rejected the motion,
and the young Czechs immediately set the
country on fire with agitation against clericalism
and feudalism. They were so powerful in the
Landtag and the local administration that
Taaffe had to control them, if the govern-
ment of the country was to go on. By the
Emperor's direction he invited Czechs and the
moderate Germans to a conference at Vienna.
The old Czechs and the Germans attended,
but the young Czechs held aloof, and for once
Count Taaffe had met a party in Austria which
would not yield to his blandishments. A
compromise was made at Vienna which, if it
had been executed, would have kept peace for a
time. The provincial councils for agriculture
and education were to be divided into Czech
and German sections. Electoral districts were
also to be divided so that as far as possible
each district should contain people of only one
race, and petty sessional districts were to be
divided in the same way. In June 1890 the
Emperor approved this scheme. The old
Czechs agreed to it ; but the young Czechs op-
posed it with all their strength, and it was never
put in force. The difficulty of carrying out such
an arrangement was great. Speaking roughly,
the Czechs occupy the east of Bohemia and the
CZECHS INCREASE 175
Germans the west, but modern developments,
especially the growth of factories, have brought
about a condition in which the two races
are inextricably intermingled. Thus it was
estimated in 1890 that out of 216 petty
sessional districts in Bohemia there were only
five in which the population was not mixed.
Yet, even had it been easy to carry out the
scheme, the young Czechs would never have
accepted it. It would have firmly rooted the
German element in Bohemia and have given
to Germanism a fixed sphere of influence.
It is the policy of the Czechs not to permit
this. Their numbers had grown rapidly
during the Taaffe administration. In 1856
Prag contained 73,000 Germans and 50,000
Czechs and was practically a German town.
In 1890, including the suburbs, it contained
264,000 Czechs, 40,000 Germans, and 21,000
Jews. l In 1890 there was not a single Teuton
in the Town Council of Prag nor a single
German representative of the city of Prag
in the Reichsrath. All were Czechs. It is
scarcely to be wondered at that the Slavonic
majority would make no terms with an
enemy whom they expect to be able to
destroy.
1 I take the figures for 1856 from the article in the Contemporary
Review cited above, and for 1890 from M. Cheradame's D Europe et la
question d'Autriche, etc. (Paris, 1906), p. 233.
176 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
The failure of the compromise of 1890
virtually put an end to Count Taaffe's adminis-
tration. He remained in office till the autumn
of 1893, Dut a f ter the rise of the young Czechs
to power in Bohemia it was realised that his
period had come to an end. His policy, if it
failed to conciliate the Czechs, was hateful to
the various German groups, and the German
Liberals, now ably led by Dr. von Plener, were
strong enough to make further concessions to
Federalism impracticable. In 1891 Taaffe was,
indeed, hoist with his own petard. The Tyrol had
in 1890 caught Nationalist fever from Bohemia,
and early in the new year the twenty-five Italian
members of the Tyrolese Diet resigned because
the Government refused to separate the Italian
and German parts of the Tyrol. Ministers
could not govern the province without a Diet,
and the action of the Tyrolese brought about
the dissolution of the Reichsrath (2Oth January
1891). The most significant event of the
elections which followed was the success of the
young Czechs. They returned 38 members to
the Reichsrath in which they had not previously
been represented. The German Liberals,
revived by twelve years in the shade of opposi-
tion, came back no strong, whilst there were
58 Poles, 1 7 German Nationalists, and a number
of smaller groups. By forming a temporary
RIOTOUS DEPUTIES 177
alliance with the German Liberals Taaffe
managed to keep a majority until 1893, m which
year the agitation of the Czechs for concessions
to their language became too fierce for longer
dalliance. Originally they had demanded only
a fair number of Czech teachers in schools, and
a guarantee that persons who were tried for any
offence should be tried in their own language ;
but as time went on their demands grew. They
now demanded that all officials should after a
certain time be bi-lingual, and even attempted
to control the language in which official corre-
spondence was carried on. On May 17, 1893,
during a debate in the Bohemian Diet, a number
of Czech deputies attacked a German member
whilst he was speaking. There followed
one of those scenes at which Englishmen
merely laugh language which no publisher
would permit in these pages, ink poured over
Germans by Czechs, and Czechs beaten with
bluebooks or rulers by Germans. Scenes of
this sort are indeed very funny to those who
do not read their true meaning, which is that
Parliamentary government in Austria is very
difficult to maintain, and may at any time
break down altogether. The Emperor has
honestly and conscientiously endeavoured to
get the Austrian Parliament to do its work.
He has given to the various nationalities as
N
178 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
much as can be given without dissolving
Austria into a confederation, and he has
earnestly sought to let all the Nationalist
leaders see that he is ready to trust them and
to commit a share in the government of the
country to their hands. It is unfortunate that
some of the Austrian deputies, and more
especially the firebrands of Bohemia, have not
merited the Emperor's confidence. But it
must be remembered, and the Emperor no
doubt remembers, that these deputies are new
men, and that the Austrian Parliament is a new
Parliament. It takes time for such men to
learn the manners and moderation of debate,
and to discover that they do not advance their
cause by throwing ink over those whose
opinions do not coincide with their own.
The scene in the Diet was followed by dis-
orders in Bohemia which had a somewhat
anti-dynastic colour ; and in the summer, Stand-
recht.m a modified state of siege, was proclaimed
in Prag. In recent years proclamations of
this kind have more than once been necessary
in Bohemia ; and they generally have the
desired result. Their effect is to suspend the
liberty of the Press, the right of public
meeting, and trial by jury. When, under the
observation of police and military, people have
had time to get cool, they feel rather ashamed
TAAFFE'S FALL 179
of themselves, and the pulse and temperature
of the body politic returns to normal tempera-
ture until the next attack. In 1893, however,
the state of Prag was serious, and when, on
the day after the conflict of May T;, the
Emperor closed the Diet, riots took place
which were not suppressed without bloodshed.
Taaffe, who never knew when he was beaten,
proposed to popularise the Government by
introducing a Bill for partial universal suffrage.
Under this scheme the nobles and chambers
of commerce l were to elect members as here-
tofore, but in the towns and country divisions
all male citizens of a certain age were to have
a vote. The Bill was stoutly opposed by the
German parties under von Plener, and it
aroused considerable opposition in Hungary.
The Hungarians had, of course, no more right
to speak in the matter than the English or the
Turks ; but Hungary is always afraid that any
step of this kind which may be taken in Austria
may be used as a pretext for demanding similar
action by the Government at Pesth. The
supremacy of the Magyars in the Hungarian
legislature depends on the maintenance of a
1 At this time the Austrian Parliament was elected by four orders,
the large landlords, chambers of commerce, towns, and rural districts.
The first two returned 85 and 21 members respectively out of a total
of 353. This old constitution was of course superseded by the intro-
duction, two years ago, of direct universal suffrage.
i8o FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
high suffrage; or, at least, the Hungarians them-
selves think so. With the Germans hostile to
this measure, and to his policy as a whole, the
Czechs calling out for more concessions, and
the Hungarian government silently hostile,
Count Taaffe had no option but to resign.
And so, in October 1893, tm ' s brilliant and
attractive figure quits the crowded stage on
which we are trying to observe what is going
on. The Emperor parted most reluctantly
from a near friend of his early youth, who had
served him with unflinching loyalty and with
consummate ability. Taaffe had so controlled
the Reichsrath that for many years the Emperor
had enjoyed unrestricted power. In the years
before 1891 Francis Joseph was more autocratic
in Austria than at any other time in his reign.
His Prime Minister interested a sufficient
number of groups in the Government to be
sure of a majority ; or, if a few deputies became
recalcitrant and refused to come to heel, he
could always manage to bring in a few men
from some other group, who knew that there
was no real chance of upsetting them. He main-
tained constitutional rule, and thus satisfied the
conditions of the Constitution of 1867. During
his term of office the Customs and commercial
treaty with Hungary was renewed for a second
period (1887-1897) and, in business and finance,
TAAFE'S FIFTEEN YEARS 181
the country prospered. It is true that, when
the fifteen years of his government were over,
the Nationalist feuds again broke out in Austria.
It is true that Taaffe did not put an end to
racial or religious differences, or secure the final
acceptance of the new idea of a state which it
has been the Emperor's duty to promote. But
it is also true that he showed how, in spite of
Nationalist feuds and rivalries, the government
might go on. He gave time for young men to
grow up under the new system, and for men of
different creeds and races to live together and
find out that it is possible to exist without
fighting. Had his tenure of office been thirty
years instead of fifteen, Austria would have
been much the better for it ; for in the forma-
tion of a new State and a new citizenship time
and repose are above all things necessary.
During the fifteen years the new Austria was
trying to make up her mind what manner of
state she was going to be. She did not then
make up her mind, and has not yet, so far as
we can see, finally decided what her own
constitution is to be. In the last few years
circumstances have occurred which have dis-
turbed her reflections, so that to-day she is
still undecided. But so far as the form of
Dual Monarchy is concerned, it may be said
that Count Taaffe's fifteen years were most
182 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
useful in that they enabled the Constitution
of 1867 to grow up in, at least, comparative
peace. Whatever may be the ultimate destiny
of the Dual Monarchy, the fifteen years' breath-
ing space which the Emperor and Taaffe
secured for her must be counted to them for
righteousness.
We turn to Hungary. A survey of the his-
tory of that kingdom during these fifteen
years shows us that the King of Hungary
has a different sort of reign from the Emperor
of Austria. Here there is no need of cajol-
ing different groups or sections, or reconciling
ethnographic zealots to a state of affairs which
they hate, but tolerate. The dominant
Magyars are really a dominant race not quite
half of the population in numbers, but in intelli-
gence, wealth, and political power three-quarters
or more of the whole. Whilst the dominant
Germans are diminishing in Bohemia, and are
out of power at Vienna, the Magyars are
undisputed masters in Hungary. Croatia they
have quieted by the concession of Home Rule
on terms which, to an unprejudiced critic, must
appear generous. Roumanian claims to pro-
vincial independence they do not recognise,
and though there is no suppression of the
Rouman language, Magyar is enforced every-
where as the one language of the state. The
KOLOMAN TISZA 183
Liberal party in Hungary, the most powerful
political organisation in any constitutional state
in Europe during the nineteenth century, was
supreme during the period which we are now
considering. Again and again it came success-
fully out of the battle at the polls. Its enemies
were the " Independence " party, who did not
recognise the Compromise of 1867, looked still
to the exiled Kossuth as their leader, and
wanted separate armies and ambassadors for
Austria and Hungary ; and a middle party,
who accept the Compromise as a whole, but
desire a change in its details. Neither of these
parties had, however, any large following in
Parliament, and neither of them had a leader
who, for ability and personal influence, was a
match for Tisza. From 1875 to 1890 Tisza
was the acknowledged champion of Magyar
Liberalism. During that period his position
was unassailable ; and the confidence given him
in Hungary not only made him one of the
most important of the Emperor's advisers, but
gave him for a time a great position amongst
the Liberal statesmen of Europe. He was
disliked by the highly-placed Clericals who sur-
round the Court of Vienna, and by the Court
aristocracy of that capital ; for he was neither
of noble birth nor of the Roman faith ; but the
Emperor-King trusted him. His policy was
1 84 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
devoted to the maintenance of the Compromise
of 1867, and the preservation of the Magyar
rule in Hungary. In Austria -Hungary he
wished to build up a strong and united
monarchy around the citadel of the ancient
empire of Austria. To this work of construc-
tion he brought the ready co-operation of a
free and prosperous Hungary.
In 1 88 1 the Liberal party were given a new
lease of power by the constituencies, and with
Tisza at the helm and a Hungarian, Count
Kalnoky, at the Austro- Hungarian Foreign
Office, the Magyars provided two out of the
three first statesmen of the monarchy. Count
Kalnoky, however, though a Hungarian by
race, was Russophile in policy. He had been
ambassador at St. Petersburg, and throughout
his tenure of office (1881-96) was suspected of
Russophile and Clerical leanings. The Hun-
garian Government, with Tisza at its head,
was, as always, anti- Russian. Hungary is an
island in a sea of Slavs, and anything which
tended to increase the influence of Russia, in
the Balkan States or elsewhere, was strenuously
opposed at Pesth. The Hungarian Parliament
was not, as yet, strongly anti-Clerical. No
movement for the disestablishment of the
Church has found popular support there,
although the vast estates and revenues
TISZA AND KALLAY 185
of the Church were a bait which might well
tempt a Government anxious to increase its
income, and secretly opposed by reactionary
Clericals at Vienna. In 1882 the Emperor
appointed Herr von Kallay, a Hungarian
official, to be Common Minister of Finance, and
as this post carried with it the control of the
occupied provinces of Bosnia and the Herzego-
vina, Magyar influence is extended into these
dependencies also. The dual occupation of
Bosnia had been at first unpopular in Hungary
simply because it added more Slavs to the
Empire, and when in 1882 a rising in the
Herzegovina brought about a month's warfare
and much expenditure, Tisza found it difficult
to obtain the approval of the common budget
at the hands of his followers. As time has
passed, however, the Hungarian objections
have disappeared. Hungarian officials are
now amongst the ablest of the civil servants
which have made Bosnia a model to the other
provinces successively cut away from the
Sultan's dominions. In 1882 also, reforms
of the army took place which made it territorial
that is to say, the regiments were to be
raised from this or that part of the monarchy,
and to have their depots there. This step was
a distinct gain for the Hungarians, since it
enabled them to say that certain regiments
1 86 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
were Hungarian and not Austrian. In con-
sidering the last ten years of the Emperor's
reign we shall see that this change led to a con-
test of vital importance, the final result of which
will be written in the history of the future.
Although the Liberal party were firmly
seated in office, and were again successful at
the polls in 1884, difficulties were experienced
in this and the following years, which showed
that the nationality question in Hungary,
though latent, would at some time have to be
faced. The anti- Magyar minority in Croatia,
led by M. Starchevitch and encouraged by the
arch-Panslavist, Bishop Strossmayer, became
restive, and in 1883 and 1884 riots took place
owing to insults offered to the Hungarian flags
or escutcheons which are placed on public
buildings in Croatia. At the end of 1884 tne
lobbies of the Hall of the Diet at Agram were
occupied by police, and the opposition members
were summarily expelled. During the follow-
ing years the subject Slavs here and there
broke out, and had to be repressed. An
annual occasion for Panslavist or anti-Magyar
exhibitions takes place at Pesth in May, when
the anniversary of the death of General Hentzi
comes round. This officer, a Croat, defended
the castle of Buda in 1849 against General
Gorgei, and fell with three hundred men when
HENTZI QUESTION 187
the Hungarians captured it. When the anni-
versary came round in 1886, an officer of Croat
blood in the garrison at Pesth placed a wreath
on his tomb. An angry crowd of Hungarians
attacked his house, and broke the windows
with a shower of stones. Tisza was inter-
pellated as to the action of this officer, which was
condemned by the commander-in-chief of the
Honved. 1 He replied censuring the " want of
tact and foresight" of the officer who had placed
the wreath, and the terms of his reply gave a
good deal of offence at Vienna. The Emperor
shortly afterwards placed the commander-in-
chief of the Honved on the retired list, and
promoted the Croat officer whose action had
caused the disturbance. His Majesty's con-
duct caused profound discontent in Hungary,
and Francis Joseph afterwards explained it in
a letter to the Premier, which was made public.
He regretted that certain changes amongst
officers should have led to misunderstandings.
" The spirit of the army," he wrote, " is that of
its chief commander, which is the best guarantee
that it will zealously perform its duties, stand
apart from all political parties, keep order in
the land, guard the laws, and thereby the
constitution."
The movement for the separation of the
1 The local army of Hungary.
1 88 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Hungarian from the Austrian portion of the
common army took its rise in these years.
Though it has only become important in recent
times, its beginning caused much difficulty to
Tisza. Loyal to the Emperor and the Com-
promise, he was not less loyal to Hungary, and
he was acute enough to foresee the difficulties
which must follow in the wake of an agitation
for military separation. In 1889 an establish-
ment for the common army was laid before the
Houses of Austria and Hungary, whose Parlia-
ments had never lost control of the recruiting
and terms of service to be prescribed for the
soldiery of the common force. It was found
that the draft establishment was not, as there-
tofore, limited to ten years. The change was
probably due to the fact that the Austrian
Government found difficulties in getting the
establishment passed in Austria, and wished to
pursue a continuous military policy undisturbed
by the inconvenient necessities of Parliamentary
approval. The Hungarians objected to the
change as tending to diminish civil control over
the army. Their opposition was so vigorous
that the Crown had to give way, and the ten
years' limit was again introduced into the Army
Bill. The Magyars had another victory, as
they deemed it, in 1889, when they succeeded
in having the title " Imperial and Royal " sub-
ARMY QUESTIONS 189
stituted for " Imperial- Royal" as the official
name of the Austro- Hungarian army. The
presence of the little word " and " at the head-
ing of official notepaper and notices may
seem to be a trifle. Outside critics laughed
when they heard that the Hungarian Cabinet
made its insertion a question of confidence.
In fact, the alteration was important, for it
involved the admission that the common army
was not one army, but two joined together
under a supreme head. In the survey of the
most recent years of the Emperor's reign we
shall see that it was the prelude to episodes
of much interest.
Before tackling the question of the common
army, however, the Hungarian Government
were anxious to alter the law as to marriage,
which was at the time controlled by the
Catholic Church ; and the introduction of
Dr. Wekerle and M. Szilagyi, a Lutheran
and a Calvinist, into the ministry in 1889 was
an indication that the question of Clerical con-
trol would be dealt with by the Liberal party
in the immediate future. As this question led
to a controversy between the Hungarians and
the Crown, I postpone it to the next chapter.
Tisza's long period of Premiership came to
an end in 1890. It is interesting to observe
that his fall was ultimately due to the force
FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
of the traditions of 1848. With these he had
flirted in his early days in opposition (1867-
1875), but he had deserted them when he came
to lead the Liberal party. In 1890 Kossuth
was still alive, and an exile in Italy, and owing
to the state of the law of nationalisation he
would cease to be a Hungarian citizen unless
he returned to Pesth in 1890 or acknowledged
the existing Government. This he consistently
refused to do, and Tisza declined to make
special provision by law for preserving Kos-
suth's citizenship, and maintained that a man
who did not recognise the existing constitu-
tion, and who considered the King of Hungary
to be an outlaw and a traitor, could not expect
special privileges at the hands of the Hun-
garian Government. It is impossible to quarrel
with this view, but in Hungary, as in other
countries, politicians are not always reasonable,
and Tisza's declaration produced such an out-
cry that he was soon compelled to resign.
Though he was for many years a considerable
power in the Liberal party, he did not again
take office. His fifteen years of premiership
were years when Hungary enjoyed peace and
prosperity. The country, whilst maintaining
all its rights, worked in harmony with Austria
and assumed in partnership with her the posi-
tion and duties of a great European Power.
NOVI-BAZAR 191
The policy of amity with Austria was highly
beneficial to Hungary, and was of great service
in developing the idea of Austro- Hungarian
citizenship. The Emperor-King therefore had
good reason to be grateful to the clever old
Hungarian who kept power in his hands by
methods very different from those of Taaffe
in Austria but not less successful. The dis-
appearance of Tisza closes a period of harmony
and good-fellowship. That of his successors
saw the commencement of a long and complex
conflict between Austria and Hungary. It is
not yet decided.
Before concluding our observations of this
period we turn to the wider field of foreign
affairs. The Emperor of Austria has many
difficulties during this period, and the King
of Hungary has few; but the Emperor-King
of Austria- Hungary has a long holiday, during
which he profits by the sound policy of 1878,
does the duties which Europe has assigned to
him, and maintains and improves the position
of his country amongst the nations of Europe.
Before Count Andrassy retired from the Foreign
Office in 1879 the advance guard of the army
of occupation in Bosnia pushed down into the
Sandjak 1 of Novi-Bazar. Thus the contact
1 In Turkish sandjak means a "flag"; but the word is also used
for a district.
192 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
between the dominions of the Sultan and those
of the Emperor-King, which had been severed
to the southward by the establishment of the
minor Balkan states, is permanently established
to the western side of the Balkan peninsula.
Even after the occupation of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina by Austria the belt of Slav
territory between Turkey and the rest of
Europe might have been completed from the
Black Sea to the Adriatic, if only this rugged
little tongue of land had fallen into the hands
either of Servia or Montenegro. The Dual
Monarchy had, however, stretched down to
join hands with Turkey, and after 1879 it has
always been possible for Austria and her allies
to join forces with Turkey without crossing
the territory of any other Power, whether
hostile or not. The occupation of Novi- Bazar
had been sanctioned by the Treaty of Berlin ;
nevertheless, the Czar was extremely angry
at Francis Joseph's advance. The attitude of
the Russian press, which was at that time
strictly controlled by censors, became so
threatening, that Austria and Prussia drew
together in fear of a Franco-Russian alliance.
Prince Bismarck and Count Andrassy had met
at Gastein in the summer of 1879, and a treaty
for mutual defence, on the basis of the Berlin
Treaty, was prepared and agreed upon between
HAYMERLE 193
them. Francis Joseph signed it on the under-
standing that the German Emperor would do
so ; but the German Emperor's assent was
not very readily given, for he was opposed to
any arrangements which might be construed
as implying hostility to the Czar. The conclu-
sion of the treaty was no doubt accelerated
by the militant attitude of Russia. Italy gave
her adherence to it in iSSi, 1 and it forms the
foundation-stone of the foreign policy of Aus-
tria-Hungary in modern times. Thus the
Dual Monarchy stands hand in hand with the
two powerful neighbours who had defeated
her in 1859 and 1866, and is, for the moment,
in opposition to Russia, who had saved Austria
from the Hungarians in 1849. Count Andrassy,
who, at the time of his retirement, ranked
second only to Bismarck in the hierarchy of
European statesmen, retired in 1879 and gave
place to Baron Haymerle. Haymerle's period
of office was short, but not undistinguished.
In 1 88 1 he died, but not before a visit of the
King of Italy to Vienna had been arranged.
King Humbert was cordially received at
Vienna on October 27 ; and his visit was
assumed to mean that Austria and Italy were
1 Count Kalnoky, the Common Foreign Minister, announced the
adhesion of Italy to the Delegations in October 1883 ; but it was
obtained by his predecessor, Baron Haymerle, who died suddenly on
October 10, 1881.
O
i 9 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
now allies. Haymerle was succeeded by Count
Kalnoky, and whilst he was in charge of
foreign affairs the foreign policy of Austria
pursued a vigorous and successful course.
The attempt of Roumania to control the
mouths of the Danube, which had been placed
under an international commission by the
Treaty of Berlin, was checked, and in the
autumn of 1883 Count Kalnoky said in his
speech to the Delegations that if Austria and
Russia should ever go to war, Austria would
not stand alone. The conclusion of the Triple
Alliance established a powerful concert of
Powers in Central Europe. From Kiel to
Syracuse, and from Orsova to Metz,
stretched the territories of these States who
were agreed as to the prevention of aggressive
war.
Shortly after Kalnoky's appointment, Austria
and Russia entered into an agreement with
regard to the questions of the Near East
which concerned them. The report of this
agreement elicited hostile criticism in Hungary,
where the very name of an agreement with
Russia gives rise to suspicions, and where
Kalnoky was suspected of too warm friendship
for Russia. Dr. Szilagyi, now a rising politician
in Hungary, questioned Kalnoky closely about
it in the Hungarian Delegation in 1884, but
SERVIA 195
was reassured by the statement that Austria-
Hungary had written obligations with no
Power except Germany. The Russian agree-
ment was at all events beneficial to Austria-
Hungary, since it put a stop to the little risings
in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which were
attributed, with some show of justice, to
Panslavist intrigue. Francis Joseph's posi-
tion in Europe was never stronger than at this
time; and when, in the autumn of 1885, the
Bulgarians in Eastern Roumelia rose and pro-
claimed their union with Bulgaria, Austria was
able to take a decisive action without eliciting
any opposition from Russia. Since 1879 he
had maintained friendly relations with Prince
Milan of Servia. Austrian financiers helped
the Prince to build the railway from Belgrad to
Tzaribrod on the Bulgarian frontier, which,
by the Treaty of Berlin, he had been directed
to build; and when in 1882 the Prince, born of
recent swineherd ancestry, suddenly declared
himself King, he was recognised by the most
punctilious Court in Europe. Though married
to a wealthy Russian lady, Milan was a deter-
mined Western. Francis Joseph has many
Servian subjects, and it was desirable to keep on
good terms with Milan, who might cause trouble
in Southern Hungary and elsewhere were he to
call the Serb race to join in the formation of a
196 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
" Great Servia." The revolution of the autumn
of 1885 in Roumelia set the idea of a "Great
Bulgaria" actually on the road to realisation.
Milan was jealous of the success of the gallant
Battenberger in the rival principality, and in-
vaded it on November 14, without a declara-
tion of war, claiming " compensation " for the
expansion of Bulgaria in the Balkans. Few
wars have been shorter than that of Servia
and Bulgaria in 1885. Prince Alexander
marched his army across Bulgaria in two days,
and on the i7th put the Servian army to flight
at Slivnitza. On the 26th the victorious
Bulgarians entered Servia, and must have
occupied Belgrad if they had not been ordered
by the Emperor Francis Joseph to halt. By
this summary order the short war of 1885
was brought to a close. Into the subsequent
diplomacy at Constantinople we need not
enter. Bulgaria was, practically, enlarged as
the insurgents desired, but Russia soon found
that Prince Alexander and his stout minister,
Stambouloff, would not allow her army to
become a division of the Russian host, or her
revenues and railways to be exploited by a
financial coterie from St. Petersburg. The
kidnapping of Prince Alexander followed, and,
nine years afterwards, the murder of Stambou-
loff. In Servia we have the divorce and
NATIONALITIES 197
attempted expulsion of Queen Natalie, the
abdication of King Milan, and other epi-
sodes which put to shame the fancy of Mr.
Anthony Hope. But these events, interest-
ing as they were for the Emperor-King and
his subjects, lie beyond the limits of this
book.
The period which we are now considering
closes without further important action in
foreign affairs. As we look back over it we
see that Austria-Hungary is re-established as
a Great Power, and is, indeed, the centre of
a system of Great Powers, all of which are on
the best terms with her. She is still the
mistress of many races who, if nationality
and sovereignty were always to be united,
would quit their Austrian or Hungarian citizen-
ship, and join the territories of the various
surrounding states. There are Italians in
Trieste and the Trentino who sometimes ask
for incorporation in Italy; Germans, a few of
whom are beginning to think that union with
Germany would be preferable to death by
drowning in a sea of Slavs; Roumans in
Transylvania, who want home rule from
Hungary, and send congratulatory telegrams
to the King of Roumania ; Serbs yearning for
the august patronage of King Milan. Yet,
with all these surrounding Powers, Austria has
r 9 8 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
contracted alliances. Germany and Italy are
her most intimate and important friends.
Russia, in spite of her Balkan pretensions,
has been drawn into friendship, and the
Emperor-King is able, in October 1886, to
speak to the Delegations of an Austro-Russian
understanding in the most cordial and con-
fident terms. Roumania has given her adhesion
to the Triple Alliance ; Servia is docile, and
Bulgaria, for the time at least, shows no inclina-
tion of going over to Russia. Thus, in 1890,
Francis Joseph, who for forty years had looked
round his frontiers to see only actual or poten-
tial enemies, could say that he was on good
terms with all his neighbours. This happy
state of affairs had been reached without great
sacrifices of men or money, and without the
giving of any inconvenient promises. More-
over, in the course of these years the territory
of his Empire was increased, and new lands
opened for expansion, whilst on the virgin soil
of Galicia and Hungary agriculture and com-
merce were growing apace. It is the habit
of the Emperor's detractors to say that he
does nothing but wait, vacillate, temporise.
They do not realise, as he has done, that there
are cases in which mere patience, and even
delay, are the wisest policy. The patient period
of 1867-93 in the Emperor's life was one
TIME AND PATIENCE 199
when his subjects prospered and gained know-
ledge of one another. That period did not
put an end to all difficulties, but it showed that
co-operation was possible; and that if there
were difficulties, they were not insurmountable.
This was no small thing.
CHAPTER VII
18931908
Civil Marriage in Hungary Progress of Events in Austria
The Badeni Ordinance and its Results The Army
Question in Hungary Decline of the Hungarian
Liberal Party The Renewal of the Ausgleich in 1897
and 1907 Conclusion.
WHEN the year 1893 opened the Emperor-
King was in a position of great strength
abroad, but the outlook at home was uncertain.
Taaffe's premiership in Austria came to an
end during this year, and he was succeeded by
Prince Alfred Windischgratz, one of the chiefs
of a noble house who in olden times had been
devoted servants of the Hapsburgs, and whose
possessions and dignities raised them to semi-
royal rank. Prince Windischgratz was a
distinguished member of the Conservative
party, who by his conduct in the Reichsrath
had earned the respect of all men save only
a few extremists. His ministry was strength-
ened by the co-operation of Dr. von Plener and
200
CIVIL MARRIAGE 201
two Polish Ministers. The young Czechs
were still in opposition, but the Emperor hoped
that with time their demands might be moder-
ated, and for the time being nothing was done.
Prince Windischgratz held office for two years,
but his ministry saw no events of great import-
ance. The agitation in Bohemia simmered,
but nothing more. It was not till 1897 tnat
any important change of policy took place in
Austria.
But in Hungary the year 1894 saw an
interesting crisis of which something must be
said. In 1892 the Hungarian Liberals took up
the question of civil marriage, and this speedily
led to the disappearance of the Premier, Count
Szapary (Tisza's successor), who, as a loyal
Roman Catholic, would not be a party to
measures disliked by the Roman Church.
Under the existing law as to mixed marriages
the children were educated in the religion of
their father if they were boys, and, if girls, in
that of their mother ; but this law was per-
petually evaded by the Roman Catholic priests,
who either refused to celebrate mixed marriages,
or else declined to do so unless the parents
gave, at the altar, a pledge that all their
children should be brought up in the Roman
Catholic faith. As the registers of marriages
were kept by the clergy, the law required that a
202 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
clergyman who married persons of different
faiths should communicate to the priest of the
other faith the fact that he had performed the
service, in order that it might be entered in
the registers of his church. This law had also
been evaded by the Roman priests ; and owing
to their action, the number of illegitimate con-
nections was scandalously large. People who
would not bind themselves by the pledges
demanded at the altar often went into married
life without any ceremony, and owing to the
irregularity with which the registers were kept,
proofs of marriage and legitimacy were often
unobtainable when wanted. Certain religions
were recognised by the state ; but persons
holding to the unrecognised creeds could not
legally marry. The Hebrew faith was not
recognised, and the injustices and scandals
which followed in a country where there were
many Jews may easily be imagined. In 1884
a Bill was introduced into the Lower House
of the Hungarian Legislature for legalising
marriage between Jews and Christians, but
though it twice passed the Lower House, the
Magnates, who were in these matters under
the control of the Roman clergy, rejected it.
The grievance of the Jews, and indeed of the
Catholics who wished to marry Protestants,
became so obvious in the early 'nineties that
CIVIL MARRIAGE 203
action could not be delayed, and at the general
election of 1892 many of the Liberal candidates
put compulsory civil marriage into their pro-
grammes. The elections, which took place in
mid-winter (January 4, 1892), caused extra-
ordinary scenes. The lower clergy threw
themselves into the fray with a zeal unknown
before, and went among the peasants, crucifix
in hand, asking pledges from their flocks as to
the children of mixed marriages. But despite
the exertions of the priests, the Liberal party,
which had been in power ever since 1867,
again carried the day at the polls ; and the
majority of the Cabinet were now prepared to
deal with the question. The three great issues
were : Should the priesthood be allowed to
forbid mixed marriages ; should they be allowed
to retain control of the registers, and should they
be permitted to exact pledges at the altar as
to the religion of children yet unborn ? The
Catholic Premier, Szapary, might have sup-
ported a moderate measure, but he would not
consent to compulsory civil marriage, and, in
November 1892, as I have said, he retired.
He was succeeded by Dr. Wekerle, a bourgeois
minister whose family had originally come
from Wiirtemberg, and who had gained
a high reputation by his reform of the Hun-
garian currency. The strongest man in the
204 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Cabinet was, however, the Calvinist Minister
of Justice, Desiderius Szilagyi, who, from the
Bar and a professorial chair, had come to the
House and had rapidly forced his way into the
front rank of the Liberal party.
The Emperor is no friend to Ultra-
montanism, but he is a loyal Roman Catholic,
and was for a time opposed to the introduction
of a compulsory Bill. The speech with which
he opened the Hungarian Parliament in
February 1892 urged moderation in this and
other matters in words whose true meaning
could not be mistaken. During 1893, how-
ever, he was gradually gained over to approve
the introduction of the measure, and at length,
in the first week of December, it was laid
before the House. It provided that no
marriage should be legal unless the civil form
were used, and imposed a fine of ^50 on any
clergyman who married persons before this
contract of marriage had been signed at the
civil registry. Various details were imported
from the French civil code, which brought
divorce within the jurisdiction of the civil
courts, and allowed decrees of divorce to be
given on grounds not recognised by the canon
law. Thus a divorce was to be obtainable
for " deliberate neglect of matrimonial duties,"
and power was to be given to the judge to
CRISIS IN HUNGARY 205
prohibit marriage of a divorced wife or husband
with the co-respondent in the divorce suit.
The Bill was fiercely opposed by the Roman
Catholic Church, and although Cardinal Vaszdry,
Archbishop of Gran and Prince Primate of Hun-
gary, took no active part against it, the bishops as
a body and the lower clergy stopped at nothing
not even at the use of the confessional to
stir up feeling against the ministry. After
long debate, in which Szilagyi again and again
distinguished himself by magnificent speeches,
the Bill was passed in the Chamber of Deputies
on April 7, and sent to the Upper House ; but,
on May 10, was rejected by a majority of
twenty-one. As the House of Peers contains
twenty- nine Roman Catholic bishops, it was
plain that the clerical vote had turned the
scale. Wekerle, using an English precedent,
asked the King of Hungary to create a suffi-
cient number of peers to out-vote the bishops.
The King refused, and, on May 31, the
Cabinet resigned. The country was now in
a condition of great excitement, and for the
first time for many years words hostile to the
dynasty were used in Hungary. But they
were premature. The King was in a difficult
position, which may well be compared to
that of the late Queen Victoria when Mr.
Gladstone insisted on her signing the Bill
206 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
Before using his constitutional powers Francis
Joseph desired to be assured that the Civil
Marriage Bill really represented the will of the
Hungarian people. This he did, not by dis-
solving the Parliament, but by summoning
Count Charles Khuen-Hedervary, the Ban of
Croatia, and asking him to form a ministry.
Count Khuen was a good Liberal. Had he not
been so, he could not, of course, have been Ban
of Croatia under a Liberal regime. He was,
however, a marked man for promotion, and
held views as to the formation of ministries
and governments which savoured rather of
Taaffe than of Wekerle or Szilagyi. Count
Khuen's attempt did not last many days. He
was unable to get any substantial following in
the Parliament ; and, having heard his views,
Francis Joseph loyally, if reluctantly, gave
way. Dr. Wekerle was reinstated, and on
June n read a message in both Houses, 1 in
which he declared, on royal authority, that the
passage of the Civil Marriage Bill was regarded
by the King as a " political necessity." He
hoped, therefore, not to be forced to use his con-
stitutional powers in order that it might pass.
The bishops and clerical magnates now
surrendered; and the Civil Marriage Bill passed
1 In Hungary Ministers can speak in either House.
SZILAGYI RETIRES 207
both Houses, whilst before the end of the year
other measures of the Wekerle-Szilagyi code
(providing for the children of mixed marriages
and for civil registration) were placed on the
statute book. The passage of these Bills was
a great triumph for the Liberal party, and was
not the least, though it was almost the last,
of their many achievements. The Royal assent
was given to the three Bills on December 9 ;
and when giving it the King of Hungary
asked for the resignation of his Hungarian
Ministers. I was in Hungary not long after
this event, and was told on good authority that
the King regretted this step, but said, " I am
pledged to a change of persons." The Minis-
ters, though they had a majority in the House,
resigned on December 21. A new Ministry,
composed of some lesser lights in the Liberal
party, was formed under Baron Banffy, a
Protestant, who had made his reputation as
Prefect of a restless department of Transylvania.
Dr. Szilagyi afterwards became President of
the Hungarian Parliament (which, in Hungary,
is a party office), and distinguished himself
there by his profound knowledge of constitu-
tional law and his great force of character.
To-day, Wekerle is again Premier in Hungary,
but in company with men who were at one
time his opponents. Szilagyi is in his grave.
208 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
The resignation of the Liberal leaders at a
moment of triumph is an event which must
excite the curiosity of people who have the
ordinary English notions about constitutional
government. Undoubtedly the position of
these leaders was weakened by their victory
on the civil marriage question. The majority
of Hungarians are loyal Roman Catholics, and
their bishops and priests had used every effort
to undermine the Wekerle Cabinet. In this
they succeeded, and they were no doubt aided
by Roman Catholic influences at Court. Francis
Joseph had been in 1894 placed in the most
difficult position in which a man can find
himself, when faith and duty conflict, and he
has to choose between the course which his
spiritual advisers command and that which is
required of him in his position of constitutional
King. In Austria the Emperor has always
looked for the support of the Roman Church,
which is, in the main, hostile to Nationalist
pretensions and Radical change. If it is easy
to criticise his conduct in dismissing the victors
of 1894, ft i s not difficult, I think, to appreciate
the difficulty in which he was placed. By part-
ing with Wekerle and Szildgyi he retained the
support of the Roman Church in Austria, yet
without sacrificing the liberties which had been
gained for his Hungarian subjects. When
'AFFAIRE AGLIARDT 209
Wekerle and Szilagyi retired they put the
Roman Catholic Church in its place for the
present generation, and that without raising
any such general hostility to her as has been
seen in the Germany of Bismarck and the Italy
of Crispi. They had done more than this :
they had, if I may say so, vindicated the liberty
of all the unborn children in Hungary.
After the fall of Wekerle and Szildgyi
the Liberal party continued in power under
Baron Banffy, who held office till 1899.
Banffy completed the programme of the party
by passing the remaining religious Bills, and his
followers did not again have to measure their
strength against the clerical reactionaries in
Austria. The ill-feeling which existed between
the Hungarian Liberals and the Ultramontane
faction at Vienna was, however, illustrated in
1895 by the " Affaire Agliardi," which led to
the downfall of the Foreign Minister of the
monarchy, Count Kalnoky. Mgr. Agliardi was
the Papal Nuncio at Vienna, and during a visit
to Hungary in the spring of '95 he took occa-
sion to speak openly against the Liberal party
and the recent acts, and freely encouraged
resistance to the law. His utterances be-
came so violent that questions were put in
the Hungarian House of Commons. Baron
Banffy, who had previously communicated his
P
210 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
views on the matter to the Foreign Office, said
that a note would be sent to the Vatican by
the common Government of Austria- Hungary
demanding an explanation of the Nuncio's
conduct. No such note had been sent, but
Banffy had assumed that a demand in the
substance of his communication to Count Kal-
noky would, as a matter of course, be despatched.
Count Kalnoky had delayed in the matter in
order to satisfy himself by independent inquiry
of the accuracy of the Hungarian Premier's
information on the Nuncio's conduct. He now
issued an official note saying that Baron Banffy's
statement was a breach of confidence, and
tendered his resignation to the Emperor-King
on the ground that he could not usefully co-
operate with the Hungarian Premier. Francis
Joseph at first declined to accept the resigna-
tion, but shortly afterwards did so, thus vindi-
cating the action of the Liberal leader. The
affair was attributed to personal animosity
between the two men, into which it is needless
for us to inquire. Its real importance, and the
reason why it has a place in a survey of the
Emperor's reign, is that it involved the admis-
sion of Hungary's claim to deal with Foreign
Powers through the medium of the Foreign
Office, and not only by action in the Delega-
tions, according to the provisions of the
COUNT BADENI 211
Constitution of 1867. Questions such as those
put to Banffy in the Hungarian House should
have been put to Count Kalnoky in the Delega-
tions ; and these, in fact, were about to meet
at the time when the dispute arose. Here we
find a case where a question involving diplo-
matic relations is put, not in the Delegations,
but in the Hungarian Parliament, and answered
by the Hungarian Premier. The action of the
Emperor-King in accepting Kalnoky's resig-
nation admitted this procedure, and the episode
may at any time be used as a precedent.
So long as a Hungarian Premier has the
confidence of his House at Pesth he may, it
seems, disregard the provisions of the consti-
tution which commit foreign affairs to the care
of the Delegates.
Turning to Austria, we find the strife
of nations still rampant in the 'nineties.
Prince Windischgratz, who had succeeded Count
Taaffe in 1893, retained office till the summer
of 1895. ^ n J une he fell, and after a short
provisional ministry under Count Kielmansegg
(the first Protestant Premier in Austria), Count
Badeni took office in October. Badeni came
in with a programme which may be stated in
the words, " Austria first, the nationalities after-
wards." He began his period of office by
adding to the four curiae of electors to the
212 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Reichsrath (nobles, chambers of commerce,
urban voters, rural voters) a fifth curia on the
basis of universal suffrage. This was a step
towards the introduction of universal suffrage
in Austria which, as my readers are probably
aware, was instituted in 1906-7. The fifth
curia was to elect 72 members, so that the total
number of deputies was raised from 353 to 425.
The elections of March 1897 resulted in the
return of no less than twenty-five parties to the
Reichsrath, amongst whom the Czechs (61) and
the Poles (59) were the strongest groups.
Count Badeni could count on their support
if he put Czech and German on level terms
in Bohemia. As he needed a majority in
order to carry through tha renewal of the
terminable portions of the Austro- Hungarian
compromise, he issued in April ordinances for
Bohemia which required a knowledge of
German and Czech from all officials. The
ordinances were afterwards toned down so that
the obligation should not arise until 1907, but
even in their modified form they were opposed
by the whole force of the German population.
The new rules inflicted no hardship on Czech
officials, for a knowledge of German had always
been required from them. 1 In Bohemia every
1 Valuable articles on this subject appeared in the Quarterly
Review for October 1901, and in the Nineteenth Century for De-
cember 1899.
THE BADENI DECREES 213
educated Czech knew German, but the
Germans, with the exception of the officials in
Czech districts, did not know Czech. The
Germans now raised an agitation which seri-
ously threatened the peace of Bohemia. Riots
took place at Eger, a centre of German industry,
and elsewhere, and on 4th and 5th November
took place a famous all-night sitting of the
Reichsrath, in which the German opposition
surpassed even the worst performances of
previous years. Badeni resigned in November,
though not until he had challenged a German
firebrand and been wounded in a duel. He
was succeeded by Baron Gautsch, an official
of the Vienna bureaucracy, who modified the
language ordinances ; then by Count Francis
Thun, who (in March 1898) renewed the
terminable parts of the Austro- Hungarian
compromise by Imperial decree ; and then
(October 1889) by Count Manfred Clary, who
repealed the ordinances altogether. The repeal
marks the end of a second period in which the
Emperor tried to induce the Federalists to
support his rule in Austria. The attempt had
two results. It caused the Germans to appeal
for help to the various societies in Germany
whose institution and efforts, taken altogether,
are summarised in the word " Pan-German-
ism," It also prevented the constitutional
2i 4 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
renewal of the Austro- Hungarian compromise.
The renewal should have been approved by the
Reichsrath in 1897 J but the Reichsrath and the
Hungarian House did not give their sanction
for several years. The first of these results is
of great importance. If I deal with it shortly
it is because it raises a question of to-day and
to-morrow which, being as yet only in its early
stages, cannot be fully discussed in a book
which is designed for biography. 1 The German
societies are of different ages and sizes,
some founded early in the last century, some
later ; but their activity as to Austria became
observable in the period of Taaffe's ministry,
and has since constantly increased. There are in
Austria, and especially in Bohemia, a number
of sister societies, 2 mostly founded in the years
1890-1900, whose object is the maintenance of
the German language and German supremacy
in Bohemia. Counter societies have been
formed by the Czechs, and the rival organ-
isations have kept up a fusillade of pamphlets,
speeches, and demonstrations in which tons
of paper, hogsheads of ink, and a great deal
of money have been expended. The formation
1 A great deal of information on this subject will be found in
M. Cheradame's L? Europe et la Question d'Autriche (Paris, 4th edition,
1906). The book is frankly hostile to Germany, but, taken as such,
is highly instructive.
2 Chtiradame, op. cit. p. 130.
PAN-GERMANISM 215
and work of these societies show how great is
the importance attached by the Germans and
Slavs to the conflict in Bohemia. In that
kingdom two of the great races of Europe
stand face to face, and it is there that the
battle between them will be fought out. The
prophets who predict an ultimate disruption of
Austria see in the German societies, in their
preachers and pamphleteers, in their school-
teachers whom they subsidise, in the very
Christmas trees which they provide for Ger-
man children, the advance-guard of the Hohen-
zollern. The Germans see in the Czech
societies the advance-guard of Panslavism,
and fear that, at some future time, the Emperor
of Russia may follow them up and declare
himself the protector of all Slavonic races in
Francis Joseph's dominions. Since the Russian
Government became involved in the Far
East and suffered reverses there, the advance
of Panslavism in Europe has been checked.
The agreement between Francis Joseph and
Nicholas II. as to non-intervention in the
Balkans, made in 1897, has been loyally
observed in St. Petersburg, and the abortive
Bulgarian rising of 1903 found no practical
support in Russia. These circumstances have
given to the Emperor-King, and his Govern-
ment much relief from the Slavophil intrigues
216 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
which were long a source of difficulty, and which
greatly encouraged the young Czech movement
of the nineties. On the other hand, the mar-
vellous growth and prosperity of Germany has
drawn Austria- Hungary to a certain extent
under her influence, and has compelled the
Emperor- King to adopt, both at home and
abroad, a policy consistent with the desires . of
the Emperor William. It would, however, be
wrong to assert that Austria- Hungary is simply
the vassal state of Germany. On more than
one occasion, notably in the case of complaints
made by Austrian Poles of their expulsion from
East Prussia, the Austrian Premier has taken
up a firm attitude ; and if the Emperor-King
is always found on the side of the Emperor
William in the councils of Europe, the fact is
due to identity of interest and policy, and not
to any subservience of one to the views or aims
of the other.
In the Bohemian question Francis Joseph
has always hoped that time would bring
moderation and a solution acceptable to
reasonable men. There is no real reason
why Czechs and Germans should not agree
together. They are for the most part Roman
Catholics (though there have recently been
many conversions to Protestantism among
the Germans), and are by no means so divided
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 217
as the Poles and Ruthenes in Galicia, who
differ both in creed and race, or the Croats
and Serbs and Italians in southern Austria
and Croatia. The Emperor has constantly
and patiently waited, giving as much as could
be given with safety, withdrawing his gifts
only when he found that they went too far,
and trying to teach his people to be Austrians
first and Czechs or Germans afterwards. The
lesson, however, is being but slowly learnt,
and, except for the year 1901, when the
dexterity of Baron Gautsch produced a tem-
porary truce, the Czechs and Germans have
been at daggers'.drawn ever since the time of
the withdrawal of the Badeni ordinance. The
necessary arrangements with Hungary were
prolonged from year to year, by decree, but
parliamentary action was paralysed, and the
country was frequently without a legalised
Budget or legally raised recruits.
In 1906 the Emperor, tired of his prolonged
efforts in the cause of good citizenship, readily
acceded to the demand for universal suffrage
which followed the grant of a constitution in
Russia. Early in 1907 a Parliament met in
Vienna, elected by no privileged classes of
voters, but by all male Austrians over twenty-
four years of age. Thus the Francis Joseph
who began his life with a paper promise of
2i8 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
representative government, but who ruled for
nearly twenty years without a Parliament at
all, has lived to see a legislative assembly in
Austria, against which even the most advanced
democrats can make no complaint. Strange
to say, the institution of universal suffrage
has considerably improved the Reichsrath.
The new Parliament is not strongly marked by
the old lines of cleavage between races or
nationalities. It looks as though it might
fall into two large parties, Christian Socialists
on the one side and Social Democrats on
the other, which will mean ultimately a con-
flict between the Roman Church and the
anti-clerical elements in the country. How-
ever this may be, the Emperor of Austria
has certainly had his hands strengthened for
purposes of dealing with the Parliament of
Hungary. At the present moment he is at
the head of a democratic state in Austria,
whilst he is waiting for the dominant Magyars
to introduce universal suffrage in Hungary.
Until they have done so, the questions at
issue between the Crown and Hungary have
been postponed.
Of these the most important is the army
question. During the long regime of the
Liberal party little question was raised as to
the management of the " common " army.
THE ARMY QUESTION 219
In 1889 a nominal recognition of the fact
that the Austro- Hungarian army is two
armies was given by a change in its formal
title, 1 but the Liberals did not complain of
the use of German as the sole language of
the army or armies, whichever be the correct
word. The " National " party in Hungary,
brilliantly led through many years of op-
position by Count Albert Apponyi, had
always pressed for the use of Magyar in the
Magyar regiments of the army, and with
the decay of the Liberal organisation, the
advance to power of the National party and
the Independents, who were now led by the
son of Louis Kossuth, the question came to
the front. A Hungarian Act of 1868 pro-
vided that recruits raised in Hungary should
be enlisted only in Hungarian regiments,
and a royal decree of the same year directed
that Hungarian troops should be commanded
by Hungarian officers. These provisions were
not strictly carried out, and in the higher
military schools German was the only language
used. Hungary has, of course, a large militia
of its own, called the Honved, a most efficient
force, and containing some of the finest
cavalry in Europe, but without artillery.
Count Apponyi's followers constantly com-
1 Above, pp. 188-189.
220 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
plained that the training given in the Honved
schools was not good enough. Some improve-
ments were effected whilst Baron Banffy was
Premier; but it was not till 1903, when a
Recruits Bill came before the House, that the
present agitation began in earnest.
The Bill of 1903 asked for an in-
creased number of recruits, in order that
Austria- Hungary might keep pace with the
military preparations of her neighbours.
Francis Kossuth, the leader of the extreme
Left, opposed the increase in order to protest
against the whole system of dual government.
Apponyi's followers joined in the opposition
with a demand that Magyar should become the
language of drill and command in all Hun-
garian regiments. The Crown refused assent,
and the Premier, M. de Szell, resigned.
Count Khuen - Hedervary, who was again
summoned from Agram to try to form a
Government, failed to do so. The country
was left without recruits and without a
Budget in the last half of 1903, and it was
necessary, in order to maintain the peace
strength of the army, to keep time-expired
men under the colours. In September the
Emperor went to Galicia to attend the
autumn manoeuvres, and on the i4th he
issued at Chlopy a remarkable army order.
THE 'CHLOPY ORDER' 221
He declared that, as commander- in -chief, he
" must and will hold fast the existing organ-
isation of the army " which was " threatened
by one-sided aspirations." The order was
received with acclamations in Austria, but
with defiance in Hungary, and it was found
necessary to tone it down by a concilia-
tory message to the Hungarian House of
Commons. In October 1903 a compromise
was arrived at which provided that Hungarian
standards and emblems should be placed beside
those of Austria on all military buildings, that
instruction should be given in Magyar in all
military schools, and that all Hungarian officers
in Austrian regiments should be transferred to
Hungarian regiments. Other small concessions
were made, and Count Stephen Tisza, son
of the Premier of 1875-1890, took office and
tried to carry on the Government.
Obstruction was, however, too strong for
him, and the debates became so angry
that strong, and even illegal, measures had
to be taken to stop them. " The Tiszas are
like chimney-sweeps," said one of the most
polite of the new Premier's opponents; "the
higher they go, the blacker they get ! " In
March 1894 Count Tisza suspended the
measures for meeting obstruction, and the
Recruits Bill was passed, mainly in order to
222 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
allow time-expired men to return to their
homes ; but the Premier's proposals for deal-
ing with obstruction, revived after its passage,
led to a long and heated controversy, and
ended in an appeal to the country. The elec-
tions, which took place in January 1905 in the
depth of winter, put an end to the Liberal
party. After a life of thirty-seven years it was
vanquished at the hustings.
The Emperor was not discouraged by the
Liberal defeat. He appointed an old soldier,
Baron Fejervary, Prime Minister, and the
country was governed through 1905 and up to
April 1906 without even the semblance of
Parliamentary sanction. The most remarkable
feature of the elections of 1905 was the
appearance of a new party, consisting of some
twenty members, who represented the Rou-
manian population in Transylvania. This pro-
vince, situated in the south-east of Hungary,
is inhabited by three races Magyars, Saxons
who immigrated long ago from Germany, and
Roumanians, who are brothers to the adjacent
population of Roumania. Up to 1905 they
abstained from sending members to the Hun-
garian Parliament as a protest against the
centralist Government of Hungary and the
use of Magyar as the only official language in
their district. They now entered the field,
THE MAGYAR DANGER 223
came to Parliament, and propounded a pro-
gramme of universal suffrage, redistribution,
and the use in each regiment of the language
to which the greatest number of soldiers in it
belonged. The demand for universal suffrage
was taken up in 1905 all through the kingdom
of Hungary, and was most embarrassing to
the majority, now led by Kossuth and Apponyi.
Though unassailable in point of numbers, they
were simply disregarded by the stout old soldier,
Fejervary,whocarriedon the Government as best
he could without them. Suffrage in Hungary
is the highest in Europe ; and out of 17,000,000
inhabitants, less than 1,000,000 have votes. If
universal suffrage were granted, the Magyar
supremacy would be almost certain to come to
an end, and the ancient Parliament of Hungary
would probably be reduced to the humble level
of the Austrian assembly. Yet the leaders of
the majority, who claimed to represent the
national will, could not very well oppose a
change which was about to take place in
Austria. Francis Joseph, with his usual sound
judgment, saw this. In his negotiation with the
Hungarian leaders in April 1906 he made dex-
terous use of it. Summoning Dr. Wekerle, the
ex-Premier of 1894, and Kossuth, whose father
had, in '49, proclaimed him a traitor and an
outlaw, he entrusted them in April with the
224 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
formation of a ministry. Apponyi, now the first
orator in Hungary, became Minister of Educa-
tion, and it was agreed that the army question
should be postponed until manhood suffrage
had been established in the western half of the
monarchy. The Hungarian leaders have thus
been left to settle amongst themselves the
question of electoral reform in their country.
They refused to carry on the Government
unless concessions were made to which Francis
Joseph could not consent. They appealed
against the King to the will of the people.
To the people, said Francis Joseph, let them
go; but to the whole people. It may have been
his Majesty's last card ; but it was a good one.
Before the truce of 1906 was arranged the
Hungarian ministers agreed to pass the laws
which were necessary to renew the terminable
parts of the compromise of 1867. This has
since been done, and the present arrangements
will last till 1917. After that date Hungary and
Austria will have free hands, and it has been
settled that the treaty-obligations which bind
both of them to foreign countries shall terminate
at the time when they gain freedom from one
another. The Emperor-King has undertaken
not to enforce any fresh commercial treaties
by decree, so that in 1917 no treaty may be in
force to fetter the free action of both states in
ECONOMIC RIVALRY 225
their tariff arrangements with foreign states.
To speak accurately, Austria and Hungary are
now in theory independent, but they have
agreed to maintain free trade with one another
for ten years, and to charge similar duties
during that period upon imported goods.
A full discussion of this complicated subject
would be out of place here. 1 Austria and
Hungary are two countries whose commercial
interests are by no means the same. Austria
was in 1867 an old-established and highly-
developed industrial country, with factories,
highly specialised industries, and a great
accumulation of capital. Certain parts of
Austria, such as the great province of Galicia,
were, economically speaking, in their youth ;
but on the whole she was a full-grown state.
Hungary was almost wholly agricultural a
vast prairie, with land of great fertility but
without industries or manufactures. It can
easily be seen that, if there is free trade between
two countries in these conditions, it will tend to
prevent the agricultural country from develop-
ing manufactures. If any industrial under-
taking is started in Hungary, the Austrian
manufacturers, by making an agreement, can
undersell for a time the Hungarian -made
1 An article on this topic from the pen of Count Joseph Mailath
appeared in the Contemporary Review for September 1908.
Q
226 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
product and choke the new industry in its early
days. So long as the Hungarians are unpro-
tected by a tariff this must be possible. The
result must be, indeed to a great extent has
been, that Hungary has remained, commercially
speaking, an appanage of Austria. One can
easily imagine that if we in England had never
permitted our colonies to protect themselves
by a tariff wall against us, whilst they were
protected against other countries, they would
have remained to this day in complete depend-
ence on us for all manufactured goods. They
would still be prairies. In the case of our
earliest colony, Ireland, this course was adopted
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The discontent which it caused in the younger
and weaker country has, as we know, continued
down to our own day. In the nineteenth
century we did not attempt such a policy.
The later colonies have set up tariffs against
us, and, owing to them, have commenced indus-
trial life. In Hungary this could not be done,
and it is chiefly due to the ingenious devices
of successive Hungarian Governments that
Hungarian manufacture has made considerable
progress in spite of Austrian competition.
Thus the Government at Pesth has offered
free land, partial exemption from taxation, and
the first refusal of Government contracts to
ECONOMIC RIVALRY 227
Austrian manufacturers if they would transfer
their plant to Hungary. When this offer
has been accepted, the manufacturer has come
over to Hungary and given employment and
training there whilst he was, of course, still
able to keep his Austrian custom.
The Austrians think this is not fair play,
and most people will agree with them. When
I was in Pesth in 1896, at the time of the
Hungarian Millennial Exhibition, I heard the
matter discussed at some length. The King
of Hungary was there at the moment, and I
remember that on one occasion when I was
talking over that subject with some friends,
His Majesty had just been going round the
industrial part of the Exhibition. I was told by
a person who had good reason to know that he
repeatedly asked of those in charge, " Who are
your principal customers ? " In almost every
case they answered, " Sire, your Majesty's
Government." This answer was significant.
It helps outsiders to understand one of the
causes of commercial jealousy between the two
states. Again it is easy to imagine cases in
which a duty, where it may be approved in
industrial Austria, may be disliked in agricul-
tural Hungary. The one wants the newest
agricultural machinery, from England or the
United States, to come in as nearly free as
228 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
possible. The other wants a high duty on
such machinery, so as to make a preference in
favour of her home-made machinery. One
wants a duty on food products, so as to favour
home-grown produce ; the other does not, and
so forth. These matters, however, take us far
away from the life of the Emperor- King. For
an essayist it is enough to mention that there
is, and must always be, a certain divergence of
economic interest and policy between the two
states. Its presence adds to the difficulty of
Francis Joseph's task the task of welding
the two peoples into a single and solid monarchy
peopled by citizens who are willing and able to
work together, each for the good of the whole.
And now, in 1908, we turn to look back over
the period which we have considered. As the
sixtieth year of his long reign draws to a close
we find this old monarch still at his post,
patient, watchful, zealous in all that is for the
good of his subjects, anxious to trust them as
far as he may, risen far beyond the tradi-
tions of his early life, the sovereign of a new
monarchy wholly different from the Austria
of his youth, the accepted of democracy in
Austria, and actually, by a freak of fortune, the
champion of democracy in the vaunted home
of Liberty beyond the Leitha. The Austrian
Franchise Bill not only permits universal
CONCLUSIONS 229
suffrage, but enables the provincial diets to
make it compulsory. In Hungary the King
asks his Hungarian ministers to introduce a
similar measure; yet they hesitate. 1 Here, then,
is this autocratic Hapsburg, the grandson of
Francis II., who confined the earliest Italian
patriots in dungeons and took from them the
sparrows which they had tamed to share their
solitude, the pupil of Metternich, the execu-
tioner of Batthyany, not only asking his
subjects to share his powers, but actually
cramming political power down their throats ;
begging the very son of Louis Kossuth, who
declared him an outlaw and a traitor for
tyranny in 1848, to permit the whole of Kos-
suth's country to share in its government. At
the time of writing, the newspapers tell us that
Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have hitherto
been only " occupied and administered," are to
be formally annexed ; and this because it is
intended to give them a constitution. Surely
no born autocrat has ever undergone so
remarkable a conversion !
It is usual for a biography to end with some
final judgment on the life and work of its
subject. I do not approve of this custom.
If the biography has fairly stated the facts of
1 From recent ministerial utterances it appears that a bill will soon
be brought forward in Hungary ; but not for "one man, one vote."
230 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
the case, those who read it may well be left to
draw their own conclusions. It would be a
mistake to say that Francis Joseph is a great
man ; but it is certainly, I believe, a mistake to
imagine that he has had no policy at all, and
has merely lived from year to year, meeting
difficulties one by one as they arose, without
any idea as to what may happen in the end.
The true view seems to be that Francis
Joseph began his reign as one who had been
reared in an atmosphere of autocracy, in a
school where the old Hapsburg traditions pre-
vailed. In the first three years of his reign
he saw those ideas challenged and vindicated.
From 1849 to J ^59 ne continued in them.
In 1859 he suffered his first defeat, and in 1866
was defeated again. Yet in 1859 ne was a ^^ e
to make peace on very easy terms, whilst in
1866 his enemies again made peace with him
upon conditions which might easily have been
more severe. The year of Sadowa is the
turning-point in his reign. One may almost
say that he has had two reigns the first, of
twenty years as an autocrat ; the second, of
forty as a constitutional sovereign. The intro-
duction of constitutional government is always
a difficult process, never accomplished, even in
England, without bloodshed ; and in Austria-
Hungary it was much more difficult than else-
CONCLUSIONS 231
where. It was followed by a long period of
cautious and patient administration, the main
object of which is all along visible to any careful
observer. It is the education of a vast and
varied population in the duties of citizenship,
the development of the state-idea in races or
small nations which have long been rivals or
enemies and which are distracted from Austria
by external states. In a case of this kind
great results are difficult of attainment in a
short time ; final results are unattainable.
The full significance and effect of this reign
cannot, therefore, be realised, or even well
estimated, until long after it has closed. What
Francis Joseph has done for Austria- Hungary
is to give her time. In political pathology
time is invaluable ; and those who, like our
own great Queen Elizabeth and the Emperor
Francis Joseph, realise that time and rest are
necessary for political development, and who
secure for their subjects that long period of
time, are wise and good rulers.
To those who agree with this view it is a
cause for gratitude that the Emperor- King
has been spared to rule at Vienna and Pesth
for sixty years. They can desire nothing so
much as that he should reign for a century.
As this is not to be, we can only hope that the
fine example of judgment and patience which
232 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
he has shown will not be forgotten by those
who, I trust at a very distant date, may be
called upon to succeed him. In our own lives
we see constantly that the example of men
and women who have lived well is not touched
by Death, and remains a valued possession
after they have gone. And that which is true
of ordinary men should also be true of Kings.
In this case, at all events, let us hope so.
APPENDIX A
THE foregoing pages had been written and were ready
for printing when the annexation of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina was proclaimed. The annexation caused
some surprise in Europe, and, oddly enough, evoked a
great deal of hostile comment in this country. It was
denounced as a breach of the Treaty of Berlin, as though
Austria- Hungary had been put under some restrictions by
that Treaty, whereas in fact no restriction of any kind was
placed upon her. Those who denounced her action seem
to have forgotten (if they ever knew it) that the commission
to Austria-Hungary to occupy and administer Bosnia and
the Herzegovina was given at the suggestion of Lord
Salisbury, the junior delegate for England at the Berlin
Conference, and that this was done in the execution of the
traditional policy of England in the Near East, which is to
preserve an even balance between the contending parties
there, and to take all possible measures for the better
government of the population of those parts. Before 1875
the government of Bosnia and the Herzegovina was ex-
tremely bad; but the conflict of races and creeds was
so keen that it was impossible to establish Bosnia and the
Herzegovina as a principality after the manner of Bulgaria.
The population consists largely of men of Slavonic race,
the Ottomans being in a small minority. After the Turkish
conquest, which was completed about the year 1480, many
of the Slav inhabitants were converted to Mohammedanism,
and in course of time many others were converted to
Roman Catholicism or joined the Greek Catholic Church,
(which holds the Catholic doctrine but has services in the
vernacular and permits its priests to marry). The Moham-
233
234 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
medan Slavs had in course of time become quite loyal to
Turkey, and it was they who gave the Austro-Hungarian
generals so much trouble in the campaign of occupation
which took place in the late summer of 1878. The Greek
Orthodox Slavs looked to Servia or Montenegro, and
positively hoped for union with one or other of these
States. The Roman or Greek Catholics were attracted
by religion rather towards Austria or Italy. The Turks
knew that they could not satisfy all these aspirations,
and consequently adopted their usual expedient of not
satisfying any of them. Apart from that, their govern-
ment was extremely bad. The taxes were farmed to
extortionate undertakers. The land laws were oppressive,
and tithes were frequently raised to an unjust extent.
The difficulties and scandals in connection with the law
courts, which always occur where Mohammedans are judges
and Christians are litigants or witnesses, were rampant
throughout the country. Something had to be done to
remedy these evils ; yet, as I have said, the people of the
country were even less fit than the Bulgarians and Servians
to govern themselves. Fortunately this was understood.
The mistake of entrusting men who have been freed from a
long period of Turkish misgovernment with a paper-made
democratic constitution has been made more than once.
It is the worst remedy for the ills of the Near East. The
impotence, corruption, misgovernment, and murder which
have dogged the steps of popular government in the Balkans
do not justify the tyranny of the Sultan ; but they impress
those who have followed the history of the Balkan States
with the dangers which may follow if races who have just
been freed from tyranny are at once let loose upon them-
selves. A humane and judicious despotism is undoubtedly,
so far as experience goes, the best form of government for
such people. 1 It has been tried in Bosnia and the Herze-
govina, and has not been found wanting.
1 Some interesting observations on this matter will be found in Mr.
Miller's excellent book, Travel and Politics in the Near East (London,
1897).
APPENDIX 235
The RussoTurkish war of 1877 was, as every schoolboy
knows, prefaced by a rising in Montenegro and the Herzego-
vina, where the tithes had been suddenly raised. The Sultan,
after quelling the insurrection, endeavoured to meet the
reasonable demands of the insurgents by issuing a Firman
and an Irad (in October and December 1875), renewing
and confirming in their favour the privileges granted to the
Christians in Turkey by two charters known as the Hatt-i-
sherif of Gulhan (1839) and the Hatt-i-hamayoun (1856).
The rising in the Herzegovina caused considerable trouble
in Austria-Hungary, where any Slav movements which take
place outside the Dual Monarchy are apt to awaken sym-
pathetic echoes. Count Andrdssy, then Foreign Minister in
Austria-Hungary, accordingly invited the co-operation of
the Powers which had signed the Treaty of Paris to take
steps for securing to Bosnia and the Herzegovina that the
privileges promised them should be really and honestly
conceded. His proposals were framed in a circular sent
to the Powers in December 1876, and usually known as
the " Andrassy Note."- Its suggestions were based on the
charters of 1839 an< 3 1856, and it asked for guarantees of
religious liberty, for the abolition of tax-farming, the regula-
tion of the tithes, and the appropriation to Bosnia and the
Herzegovina of all revenue raised by direct taxes within
their borders, and other things. The Porte accepted these
proposals, and in February 1876 issued a Firman embody-
ing them. The insurgents were, however, not yet content.
They held out for a reduction of the Turkish garrison, the
appointment of Austro-Hungarian and Russian agents in
six towns in the provinces to supervise the execution of the
reforms, and the right to keep their arms in their hands till
they should be carried out. 1 The Porte agreed to these
demands, but in fact it did nothing, and the situation in
Bosnia and the Herzegovina remained unchanged. The
preliminaries of Adrianople agreed upon between Russia
and Turkey gave home rule to the provinces, and provided
that two years' revenue should be hypothecated to restoring
1 I take the facts from Spalaikovitch's La Eosnic, etc. (Paris, 1897).
236 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
the refugees, wiping off the arrears due from the local tax-
payers to the Turkish Exchequer, and giving the people a fresh
start. When the arrangements between Turkey and Russia
were revised at Berlin, Count Andrassy openly expressed
the view that in Bosnia and the Herzegovina home rule
would be impracticable. 1 He drew attention to the rivalries
between Christians and Mussulmans there, which had been
the first cause of the late war, and declared that these
rivalries would be rather increased than diminished by local
home rule. The independence or semi-independence of
Servia and Bulgaria was sure to be used as a precedent in
demanding Bosnian independence j and the demand must
lead to an agitation which Turkey could not quell. Further,
if Servia and Montenegro should be extended so as to adjoin
one another, the commercial interests of Austria-Hungary
would suffer, and the Congress must keep this in view.
Austria-Hungary bordered on Bosnia, and had suffered
great losses owing to the perpetual disturbances in the
province. She had in the last two years had to support
200,000 refugees at a cost of nearly ;i, 000,000, and had
had to keep a large army on the frontier to prevent
incursions.
Lord Salisbury followed Count Andrdssy, and at once
proposed that the provinces should be occupied and ad-
ministered by Austria -Hungary. He declared that the
Porte could not restore or keep order in Bosnia and the
Herzegovina, and that the provinces were of no use or
value to Turkey. Moreover, he declared that if a large
part of it fell into the hands of one of the neighbouring
principalities, a chain of Slav States would be formed
which would extend across the Balkans from sea to sea,
which would be a menace to other races occupying territories
to the south of that chain. Lord Salisbury's proposal was
supported by France and Germany, and, after some hesitation,
by Italy. Count Andrdssy declared that Austria was ready
1 The debate on this subject at the Congress of Berlin (June 28,
1878) is well reported in Samwer and Hopf, Reaicil dt Trails, etc.,
2nd series, vol. iii. at pp. 331-340.
APPENDIX 237
to occupy and govern, but said that, although for the purpose
of keeping open a commercial road to the south she must
have the right of garrisoning the district of Novi-Bazar,
she had no desire to occupy that portion of Bosnia. Turkish
authority might therefore remain in force there.
This discussion was embodied in the Treaty of Berlin.
Nothing was said, aye or no, as to the permanence of the
occupation. It must be remembered, however, that Prince
Gortchakoff, when assenting, for Russia, to the occupation,
explained that the Russian vote "s'applique exclusivement
aux termes de la motion de Lord Salisbury " ; that is, it was
a vote in favour of occupation and administration, but of
nothing more.
It is fairly clear from these facts that Great Britain,
Germany, France, Austria -Hungary, and Italy, though they
did not say that the occupation should be permanent,
meant that it should be so. If Gortchakoff had not
felt that this was the sense of the meeting, he would
hardly have made the reservation which I have just
mentioned.
The diplomatists at Berlin had, in fact, to decide who
should exercise the humane despotism over Bosnia and the
Herzegovina. Such a despotism was necessary in order
that these territories might recover from the effects of
ancient misrule, and from the exhausting war in which
their inhabitants had tried to oust the Turks. Lord Salis-
bury's speech, which I have already mentioned, shows
England's reasons for not entrusting Russia with the mis-
sion. His objections to the extension of a Slavophil
chain across the Balkans, would, of course, have applied
with equal force to an arrangement by which Russia herself
would have formed or held a link in that chain. Such a
chain would sever Turkey from Europe, and would greatly
increase that influence of Russia in the Near East which
it had been our object in 1856 and 1878 to prevent.
Lord Salisbury was strongly opposed to a course which would
enable Russia and her vassal states, by a judicious policy
of railway tariffs, to cut off Turkey altogether from Europe.
238 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
The English statesmen of 1878 thought this a great danger.
In the Victorian age Russia was still regarded by England
as the most formidable Power in the Near East ; and had
often shown that she was so. We had not yet occupied
Egypt or Cyprus, which protect the great road to India and
Australia, and the fear that Russia, by absorbing Turkey,
might assume a position which would enable her to block
that road, was a constant and genuine motive to our diplo-
macy. The problem of 1878, therefore, was how to
secure good government in Bosnia and the Herzegovina,
without magnifying Russian influence in the Balkans. The
solution let Austria-Hungary govern them came easily.
Count Andrassy's reason for not taking over the district
of Novi-Bazar is not very clear. At the Congress of Berlin
he said that Austria did not wish for the commission to
govern it because it did not border on Austria-Hungary.
His decision may have been due to a desire to save
Turkey's feelings, or to a feeling that Austria-Hungary
would have enough on her hands without it. However
this may be, it was agreed that the Turkish civil administra-
tion should remain in operation in Novi-Bazar, but Austria-
Hungary was authorised to make roads and railways in the
district, and to keep garrisons to protect those roads. Thus
was Lord Salisbury's anxiety relieved, and the Slav belt
from the Black Sea to the Adriatic broken. The agreement
is typical of the character of the Treaty of Berlin. It
secured good government in the Balkans, and restricted
Russian influence there.
The Treaty of Berlin may be regarded as a triumph for
Austrian diplomacy, because Count Andrassy induced
Europe to take up and support the Austro-Hungarian view
as to the future of Bosnia. This view had been clearly
expressed in a speech made by Count Andrassy to the
Austrian Delegation on i9th December 1877. He then
declared that if Servia should invade Bosnia and the
Herzegovina, whose fate was then in the balance, Austria-
Hungary would make certain claims, and that if these
claims were not listened to, she would invade the pro-
APPENDIX 239
vinces. 1 It is indeed clear that if Bosnia and the Herze-
govina had been erected into a Slav principality, Austria's
power in the south and west and on the Adriatic would
have been gravely prejudiced. The narrow strip of territory
Dalmatia which runs for many miles between Bosnia
and the sea, could not have been held, and Austria must,
in the end, have retired once more, as she did in 1859 and
1866, from lands which she could not hold. It was,
indeed, essential to Austria-Hungary that if the provinces
must be freed from Turkish authority, they should not be
handed over to the government of Russia as vassals.
Had they been so, the balance of power in South-Eastern
Europe would have been greatly one may say decisively
altered in favour of the Slavs, as against that combina-
tion of Germans and Magyars which is, so to speak, per-
sonified in Austria-Hungary.
In this case the policy of the Dual Monarchy was in
accord with the public policy of Europe. For England,
for France and Italy and Germany, it was essential that
Russia should not become the predominant power in the
Balkan States. It was to prevent her becoming so that
several of the Powers of Europe had intervened in 1856
between the Czar Nicholas and Turkey. To allow Bosnia
and the Herzegovina to pass into Slavonic hands would
have been to stultify all that England, France, and Young
Italy had done, by war or diplomacy, in 1854, 1855,
and 1856. These Powers were therefore in this position:
they wished to secure good government for the Bosniaks,
but they wished to restrict and not increase the Russian
power in South-Eastern Europe. Thus their policy and
the Austro- Hungarian policy were found to coincide,
and were satisfied by the commission which Austria-
Hungary undertook. She has carried it out with an
ability, a dexterity, and a devotion proved by the evi-
dence of every independent witness who has seen her
work.
1 The sitting of the Delegations was held with closed doors ; but see
The Times of 2 1st December 1877, p. 3.
240 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
The Berlin Congress did not arrange the details of the
occupation, but left Austria and Turkey to work them
out together, and the result of Austro-Turkish discussions
was summarised in a treaty signed in April 1879. I
need not refer at length to this Treaty. It reserved the
sovereignty of the Sultan in Bosnia, but the Austrians
refused to saddle their administration, like the English
administration of Cyprus, with the liability to pay tribute
to the Porte. The Sultan took special guarantees for the
protection of the Moslem faith ; and these have been ob-
served with scrupulous respect. It was agreed that any
surplus of the revenue of the provinces over current
expense should be spent in Bosnia. Thus Bosnia has the
full benefit of any improvement which may take place
in her economic condition. Moreover, the "Law of Ad-
ministration " of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which was
passed through the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments in
1880, provided 1 that if the revenue of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina should not in any year suffice to meet the
needs of the local government, the deficit should be made
good out of the common fund of the Dual Monarchy. This
was a most generous provision, and gave to Bosnia the
advantage of being able to rely on the Dual Exchequer
for works of improvement of all kinds. Taken together
with the financial provision of the Austria-Turkish Treaty,
it placed her in a position which other Balkan States may
well envy. She could make no debts ! Could Servia,
with her rotten finance, have given such terms ? Would
Russia have done so?
As to the manner in which Austria-Hungary has carried
out her work in Bosnia and Herzegovina there cannot, I think,
be any serious conflict of opinion. 2 The roads, the schools,
the railways, the mining works, the survival of her splendid
forests, the hospitals and gymnasia, and above all, the
1 Spalaikovitch, op. cit. pp. 176, 178.
2 For an independent judgment I may again refer to Mr. Miller's
book (cited above, p. 234). His opinion is confirmed by numerous
newspaper reports which have since been published.
APPENDIX 241
security of life and property, bear conclusive testimony to
the competence and integrity of the Austrian Government.
Indeed, that competence and integrity has never been
seriously questioned, so that it is almost waste of time to
dilate upon them.
A traveller is as safe now in the mountains of Bosnia as
in London, and a good deal safer than in Chicago. The
Austrian and Hungarian civil service has always been a
training-ground for young men of good, often of noble
family, who enter it in early years before they succeed to
their property, or before they turn to politics. The Bosnian
service has been filled with civilians of this class who
have devoted themselves with the utmost keenness and with
high intelligence to their work ; and in thirty years they
have literally done wonders. Complete tolerance is secured
to all creeds, and the old land system which would have
been just enough if it had been honestly worked, has been
preserved and is worked with honesty. The labouring
peasantry can draw on the Government for purchase of their
holdings on terms of generosity which are exceeded only in
Ireland. Travelling is very cheap for the poor, and can be
comfortable for the rich ; and the Government has provided
hotels in which modern comforts can be obtained, and the
terrors of Eastern travel forgotten.
" From a considerable experience," says an independent
witness, " of the Austria-Hungarian authorities, not merely
in the chief towns and on the beaten track, but up country
and off the ordinary routes, I have come to the conclusion
that they resemble our own civil servants in their integrity,
their absolute devotion to their duty, and their unflagging
energy, whilst I think they surpass the average Anglo-Indian
official in their keen interest in the welfare of the people
committed to their charge." l
And now, after exactly thirty years, the Emperor Francis
Joseph has announced that he will not retire from Bosnia
and the Herzegovina, and that he has superseded the
sovereignty of the Sultan there by his own. This is not,
1 Miller, op. cit. pp. 116-17.
242 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
either in form or in substance, a violation of any clause in the
Treaty of Berlin. That Treaty never stated that the occupa-
tion should be temporary or provisional ; nor did it safe-
guard the sovereignty or suzerainty of the Sultan, as was
done in the case of Bulgaria. 1 On the other hand, the
Treaty of 1879 between Austria-Hungary and Turkey did
declare that the Sultan's sovereignty in Bosnia and the
Herzegovina was to be maintained ; and Turkey will
undoubtedly complain that this Treaty has been violated.
The only question for English diplomatists is whether, under
these circumstances, we have any locus standi for objecting
to what Austria has done.
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 admitted Turkey to "the
advantages " of the Concert of Europe. Though I won the
Whewell scholarship at Cambridge, I have never clearly
understood what this means. Those who believe that they
do so, say it means that Turkey is to be an independent
country, and that arrangements or treaties with her are not
to be made by single states, but are a matter of common
concern in which the Powers of Europe are to be consulted. 2
These two alleged meanings are so clearly inconsistent
that it is hard to agree with them, or to share the opinion
of their sponsors that they have really mastered the meaning
of the Treaty of Paris. I suggest that this admission of
Turkey to the Concert of Europe meant not that she was
to be independent, but that she was to be dependent on
all the other states of the Concert, and that no one of them
might deal separately or alone with her in any matter which
involved the alteration of her territory or the diminution of
her rights. Before 1856 many infringements of Turkish
territory had taken place. The Russian demand for the
right to " protect " the Christians in Turkey was an attempt
to trespass on the Sultan's prerogative. The old French
1 The declaration of Bulgarian independence was therefore much
more like a violation of the Treaty of Berlin than the Austrian annexa-
tion of Bosnia.
2 See, e.g.) the late Duke of Argyll's Our Responsibilities towards
Turkey , pp. 14-16.
APPENDIX 243
claim to protect the Eastern Catholics and the "capitula-
tions" may be cited as instances of the same thing. I
imagine that the real meaning of admitting Turkey to the
Concert of Europe was that arrangements of this kind were
not to be made in the future by any one Power without the
previous knowledge and consent of all the others. Now, if
this suggestion be right, it may be argued with some show
of justice that the annexation of Bosnia and the Herze-
govina should not have taken place without at least a
previous interchange of views between the Powers. On
this ground Great Britain may have some locus standi for
objecting to the annexation. 1 The Treaty of Berlin gives
her none.
I may notice, in passing, that the determination of the
Austro-Hungarian Government to keep a free hand (so far
as the Concert of Europe was concerned) in the matter of
Bosnia and the Herzegovina ought to have been clear to the
Powers of Europe very soon after the Treaty of Berlin was
signed. In July 1880 the signatories of that Treaty were
pressing Turkey to carry out some of its provisions which
concerned the Greek and Montenegrin frontiers and the
improvement of the government of Turkish Armenia.
Whilst this pressure was being put upon Turkey, Lord
Granville 2 proposed to the Powers that they should sign a
protocol in the nature of a self-denying agreement. Such
agreements have often been signed by Powers acting to-
gether for a common object, and in them those Powers
have bound themselves not to seek increase of territory or
other exclusive influence or advantage. The form of agree-
ment proposed by Lord Granville was as follows :
"The Governments represented by the undersigned en-
gage not to seek in any arrangement which may be come to
in consequence of their concerted action for the execution of
1 By a Treaty ot I5th April 1856, Austria, France, and Great
Britain bound themselves to consider any infraction of the Treaty of
Paris as a casus belli.
2 I take the facts from the Blue Book, marked "Turkey, No. 3,
1881 [C, 2759]-"
244 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
the Treaty of Berlin, any augmentation of territory, any exclu-
sive influence, or any commercial advantage for their subjects
which those of every other nation may not equally obtain."
The Austro-Hungarian Government, before signing this
agreement, asked for its modification, and it was changed
so as in substance to read after " Treaty of Berlin," the
words " in regard to the Montenegrin question, and eventu-
ally the Greek question." The significance of this change,
to which the Powers acceded, was not appreciated at the
time, and Baron Haymerle's diplomatic explanation of it
was accepted. Its true significance is now clear. Had
Austria-Hungary signed the protocol as originally drafted,
she would not have retained the freedom of action which
she has lately used.
But, after all, though this annexation may be formally
incorrect, is it worth fighting about? It was carried out
suddenly, and Englishmen may feel nettled that King
Edward (as they say) heard nothing of it when he was
abroad last summer. The step from occupation to annexa-
tion was one which might have been taken at any time, and
which has very small practical results. The work which
Austria-Hungary has done in Bosnia has been as good as
ours in Egypt and Cyprus ; and a time may come when the
step which has been so boldly and frankly taken by Austria
may have to be taken by ourselves. If we wanted to take
such a step, should we like to have to consult a congress
first ? The attitude of the English Press towards the recent
action of Austria-Hungary has certainly given a good handle
to those who would have us do so. As for giving "com-
pensation," the Sultan will hardly expect compensation for
the nominal loss of a province which has already been lost
in substance for thirty years. The annexation has delivered
Turkey from the unpleasant possibility of having to call
Bosnians to her Parliament, in which they would form a
violent and recalcitrant home rule party. Compensation
to Servia for something which never belonged to her, and
which was withheld from her in 1878, is hardly a thing to
press for, even if Servia had shown herself capable of decent
APPENDIX 245
government. How much less should we press for it when
Servia is governed by men whose titles are rooted in murder
and whose hands still smell of human blood.
The objections made in England to this annexation, so
far as they are sincere, are probably due at the bottom to
the suspicion that Germany may be pulling the strings of
Austro-Hungarian policy. The new move is pictured as a
step in the march of German expansion and a sign of the
approach of Germany to the field of Levantine politics.
The enemies of Germany in England to-day are so many
and so bitter that a writer who does not agree with them
may well feel it useless to argue. If, however, the Emperor
William should have instigated this step, it is strange that
the annexation should not have included Novi-Bazar. So
far as expansion of trade to the East is concerned, Novi-
Bazar was very important, for it enabled Austro-Hungarian
goods to get into Turkey without passing through any
foreign country, and placed Vienna in direct communica-
tion actual or prospective with Salonica. Yet at the
moment of annexation the garrisons in Novi-Bazar are
withdrawn. Austria-Hungary surrenders the right of
protecting her roads and railway into Turkey, for which
she asked in 1878, and which was vital to schemes
of expansion towards the Levant. If the wicked hand
of Germany were really at work here, is it not strange that
this should be done? Those who do not see German
design in every step which is taken in Continental politics
may well conclude that the annexation is a step which has
long been contemplated and which was prompted by a
number of reasons. If I may venture to express my own
view, it is that the Emperor-King, in his decree of annexation,
told the truth. He desired to give local powers to Bosnia
and the Herzegovina, and his action was brought about by
the granting of a constitution in Turkey. Austria-Hungary
is friendly to the Young Turkish movement, and the
giving of local power to the Bosnians was a method of
showing her assent to the inauguration of popular govern-
ment in Turkey. Whilst the nominal sovereignty of
246 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Turkey remained in Bosnia, it was quite possible that
members from Bosnia might be summoned to the new
Parliament at Constantinople, which would have led to
the absurdity of the provinces being governed and taxed
by one state whilst it was represented in the Parliament of
another. The Emperor-King, desiring to grant local home
rule in Bosnia, found himself impeded by the fact that
the question of sovereignty was undetermined. The clock
had either to be put back or forward; and, after all
Austria has done in Bosnia, she could not put it back.
Far from casting an aspersion on the Young Turkish move-
ment, Austria's action has given it a tacit approval. 1
A question of some interest, and one which has yet to
be solved, is whether Bosnia and the Herzegovina will be
annexed to Austria or to Hungary. There is no such
thing in law as Austro- Hungarian citizenship. The
Emperor -King's subjects are citizens either of one state
or the other, but not of both. If it is intended to give the
Bosnians a constitution, the common Government will
at some time have to decide whether they are to become
Austrian or Hungarian citizens and send members to
the Austrian or the Hungarian Parliament. Whichever
country gets them, the other will object. Hungary has
certain historic claims, for, in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, Bosnia, or some parts of it, formed part of the
Kingdom of St. Stephen. Moreover, Bosnia and the Herze-
govina are to a large extent surrounded by the Hungarian
province of Croatia, and the system of local independence
which Croatia has may be used as a precedent for giving
Bosnia a modest diet and a strong governor after the manner
of the Ban of Croatia. Hungary, on the other hand, is aux
prises with the Slavs within her boundaries, and may not
like to have these two Slav provinces thrown into her lap.
Austria has already got to the bottom of her nationality
question ; or, at least, she has taken the Slavs into partner-
1 Since this was written, the Nineteenth Century (November 1908)
has appeared with a valuable article from Dr. Emil Reich to which
the reader is referred.
APPENDIX 247
ship, and abandoned the idea of German supremacy.
Her Parliament is kept going, when it does go, by effecting
a compromise with two or three races who agree to outvote
the others ; and if the Bosnian peasantry came to Vienna
they might in a short time find a suitable place in the
kaleidoscope of Austrian parties. The annexation of
Bosnia must in accordance with the fifth section of the
Bosnian Law of Administration of 1880 be submitted to
the Austrian and Hungarian Houses of Parliament. When
it is so submitted we shall no doubt hear more on this
question.
Meantime the Delegations have met, and it is of the
greatest interest to observe that they passed off in unusual
concord, and readily approved the annexation. This is
remarkable for more than one reason ; first, because the
Delegates might fairly have expected to be consulted before
the issue of the decree ; secondly, because the occupation
of Bosnia and the Herzegovina in 1878 was unpopular both
in the Austrian and the Hungarian Parliaments ; thirdly,
because, at all events in the Austrian Delegation, there
are many members who might be supposed favourable to
South Slav claims ; fourthly, because the question whether
the provinces shall be annexed to Austria or to Hungary
has not been settled. In spite of all these reasons to the
contrary, a very general and loyal approval has been given
to the action of the Emperor- King. In the most important
action of his later years he is supported by men whose
political predecessors opposed the occupation of 1878;
and who might have given a great deal of trouble had they
wished to do so. The Emperor has now the support
of a unanimous Monarchy, and in the silence of consent,
which contrasts so strongly with the vapouring of respon-
sible or irresponsible persons in Servia, there is strength.
To friends of Austria-Hungary this is a cause for profound
satisfaction. The Emperor -King's long and patient en-
deavours to create a spirit and feeling of citizenship have
met with many checks and disappointments ; yet here, at
the end of sixty years, a step is taken in which he has the
248 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
ready support of his subjects. The differences between
Magyars and Germans, the disputes between Germans,
Magyars, Slavs, and Italians seem, at the moment of this
great experiment, to have sunk into unimportance. And so
this old Sovereign, having cast his bread upon the waters,
has found it after many days.
APPENDIX B
THE CROWN OF ST. STEPHEN l
THE structure, history, and adventures of the famous Crown
have been the subject of prolonged controversy and of a
whole literature of lectures and essays. Some years before
1896 it was taken out of its box in the Castle of Buda an
Act of Parliament being necessary for the purpose and
was submitted to careful examination by the most com-
petent critics. Many new facts were observed and com-
mented upon, but the true history of the Crown never has
been, and probably never will be, written. It would require
an archaeological treatise to deal fully with this subject, but
the main facts can be told in a short space. The Crown
consists of two parts, the diadem which surrounds the head,
and the dome, which is surmounted by a slanting cross.
The diadem is a beautiful piece of Byzantine gold-work.
Precious stones and enamels are alternately set around it.
The enamel in front is a figure of Christ ; that behind is a
portrait bust of the Emperor Michael Ducas VII., who,
about the year 1071, gave this part of the Crown to Geza I.,
who was at this time trying to upset and supplant Salomon,
King of Hungary. This part of the Crown is surmounted
by crenellations apparently of a later date, alternately
rounded and pointed and made of transparent enamel.
The dome of the Crown has a Latin inscription, and may
therefore be of Italian workmanship. If the modern piece
of cloth-of-gold which is put in to " roof in " the Crown be
taken away, the framework of the dome will remain. It is
a cross of tenth-century gold-work, which may be either
Byzantine or Italian, enamelled with figures of Christ and of
1 The substance of this Appendix appeared in the Morning Post in
June 1906. I thank the proprietor for leave to reproduce it.
250 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
eight of the twelve Apostles. An examination of this Cross,
which is bent down in four curves from its centre so as to
be joined on to the diadem and form the frame of a dome,
shows that it was not originally intended to be part of a
Crown. Had it been so, there would have been no evi-
dence, as there is, of violence used to bend the four lirnbs
of a Cross into quarter-circle curves. Moreover, there are
only eight Apostles, two on each of the four curves ; and
there is evidence that the other four Apostles were enamelled
at the ends of the limbs of the Cross and were broken off,
so that the dome of the Crown might not be too high.
The dome is, therefore, probably made of some relic,
possibly the binding of a valuable book, probably the
central part of a Byzantine portable altar which was hastily
taken and used, in conjunction with the Byzantine diadem,
to form a complete Crown.
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Cross
which surmounts the dome is driven into it through the
middle of the enamelled figure of the Saviour, a regular
piece of tinkering which could never have been perpetrated
if those who were making the Crown had had plenty of
time and materials at their disposal. No really satisfactory
explanation of the construction of the Crown has as yet
been given, but a very ingenious one was put forward in
1 88 1 by a Hungarian archaeologist, whose monograph was
afterwards published by the Hungarian Academy, and is a
fine contribution to this thorny question. The critics in
Hungary are rather afraid of the conclusion to which the
facts lead, which is this : that the Crown as it exists now
is not the Crown given by Sylvester II. to Stephen, King
of Hungary, in A.D. 1000, but the Crown given to King
Geza about 1073. There is documentary evidence for
the fact that King Salomon, who was deposed in 1074,
handed over the Crown of St. Stephen to the Emperor
Henry III., and that the Emperor returned it to the Pope,
as if to put an end to any independent rights which the
Hungarian nation might have gained by its presentation to
them. Salomon was succeeded by Geza, who got the
APPENDIX 251
present Crown from Rome. The lower part he had already
been given by Michael Ducas ; the upper may have been
part of the old Crown given to St. Stephen, or may not.
At all events, this Crown has been the Crown with
which, since 1073, all the kings of Hungary have been
crowned, except during times of civil war when one party
held the Crown. It was early invested with special sanctity
by the tradition that it (really its predecessor) had been
delivered to Pope Sylvester II. by an angel. The angel
appeared to him in a dream saying that on the morrow
emissaries would come from a heathen race in the East and
ask for admission to the Church and for a Crown where-
with to crown their kings. He was to grant their request
and give them the Crown now delivered. This is the
tradition ; and the emissaries did come and received a
Crown, whilst the Bull of Sylvester II. granted their petition.
The tradition and the Bull of Sylvester have placed the
Crown of St. Stephen in a different position from any other
relic. It is at once a badge of sovereignty and Divine
right, and an emblem of the king's obligations towards his
people; for the Bull of Sylvester recognises the right of
the Hungarian people to elect their kings, which existed
whilst they were still heathen. The Cross which sur-
mounts the dome is not vertical, but inclines backwards at
an angle of about twelve degrees ; and the common tradition
is that this is due to a blow which bent the Cross ; but
this explanation can hardly be correct. The screw which
fastens the Cross into the dome has not been bent, and
passes quite straight into the little ball at the base of the
Cross, whilst the Cross springs from this ball at a point
not directly opposite that at which the screw enters.
Moreover, the Cross bears no signs of violence ; and if the
Crown had ever met with an accident which had bent the
Cross, it is hard to believe that it would not have been set
straight again. The conclusion is that the Cross was in-
tended to stand at a slant on the top of the Crown on the
head of the Magyar kings. What is the significance of
this inclination ? The question has not been answered.
252 FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
One might be eloquent on the adventures of this famous
relic. It has been stolen, lost, pawned, buried, and re-
covered again. It was taken to Prag during the Turkish
occupation of Hungary, but brought back when the Turks
were driven out in the seventeenth century, and laws for
its keeping, which are still in force, were then made. The
Emperor Joseph II. took it to Vienna at the end of the
eighteenth century, the act being part of the centralist
policy to which he devoted his abilities; but Hungarian
public feeling compelled him to return it. In 1849, a ^ ter
the failure of the Hungarian insurrection, an agent of
Kossuth took it away and buried it near the Iron Gates of
the Danube, but, owing to a breach of confidence by one
who knew the secret of its whereabouts, it was discovered
and taken to Vienna. It was returned to Pesth in 1867 for
the Coronation ceremony which I have described elsewhere ;
and in 1896 was taken out again for the inauguration of
the new Hungarian House of Parliament. It returned to
its old home in the Castle of Buda. There, high over
the rushing Danube and guarded by two great nobles of
Magyar race, it awaits the next coronation. I am not
aware that the sanctity which attaches to it is claimed for
any other Crown except the Iron Crown of Italy
(whether it be that in Vienna or at Monza).
In England we have so many crowns that no particular
one can be of supreme importance ; and provided our
Sovereign is crowned and anointed and takes the oaths
prescribed by law, the actual crown does not matter. In
Hungary this is not so. To be legally King of Hungary
the person entitled under the Pragmatic Sanction must have
been crowned with the Crown of St. Stephen and with no
other. This sanctity sprang from the tradition that the
Crown was miraculously delivered to Sylvester II. 900
years ago. It is, in fact, a fetish the only one, so far as I
know, which, in the twentieth century, has a place and
recognition in the public law of Europe.
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
DB
85
M3
Mahaffy, Robert
Pentland, 1671.
Francis Joseph I.
His life and times; an
essay in politics,
Duckworth (1908)
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
