How Did the Habsburg Monarchy Cope with the Demands of Mass Politics 1867 - 1914

How did the Habsburg Monarchy cope with the demands of mass politics

1867 - 1914

The Habsburg Monarchy first had to deal with the Magyar demands of autonomy which culminated into the Compromise of 1867. From then the Emperor Francis Joseph would have the title of King of Hungary. This dual monarchy was to be a success in satisfying both the Habsburgs and the Magyars but had the effect of causing both disappointment and resentment to the significant national minorities in the empire. The Habsburg Monarchy managed to appease many nationalities such as the Poles and Italians (though they had always strived for a unified Italy) by giving them a favoured position in the empire, in which their nobility and relative autonomy was sustained. I will split this answer up into two sections; the Cisleithanian (Austrian) and the Hungarian parts of the empire. Both dealt with the nationalities within their borders differently and consequently were faced with varied political parties representing the demands of their group. The Habsburg Monarchy ruled over a nations of poor, more backward countries of Europe; and in an age where small countries tend to get absorbed by their more powerful neighbours, national minorities were more willing to remain part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Sked points out that the majority of important political movements did not want a break from the Monarchy; rather they wanted either reforms such as the use of their cultural language in schools or proportionate representation in government. Another reason for the lack of any real demand for sovereignty within the empire by its various national minorities is that the division between the Slavs (which constituted roughly half the total population) meant they were unable to exert any real power as a unified nation.

The Compromise of 1867 was the result of the weakness of the Habsburg Empire after the defeat of the battle of Sadowa in 1866 in which its influences of control in Venetia and the German Confederation were lost. John W. Mason argues that the Compromise was a way for the Habsburgs to preserve itself against 'the Russians in the Balkans'(2) and was also a way of strengthening the empire against the rise of Slav nationalism. The Compromise however caused great outrage and resentment among the minorities in both halves of the empire. The most significant outcome was the rise in Czech Pan-Slavism which Palacky, their leader had predicted in 1865. The national groups within the empire were aware of the doubtful possibility of being granted autonomy after the Compromise which Ð''cramped the peoples and classes seeking political recognition'.(3)

The nationality question in Austro-Hungary can be summarised best by R. Kjellen,

Ð''A Great Power can endure without difficulty one Ireland, as England did, even three as imperial Germany did (Poland, Alsace, Schleswig). Different is the case when a Great Power is composed of nothing else but Irelands, as was almost the history of Austro-Hungary' (1). With no single leading, historically based nation to lead the empire sufficiently without operating some kind of repressive regime, we can see the conflicts that occurred since the creation of Austro-Hungary as deriving from this evident weakness.

In the Kingdom of Hungary, the leading national group, the Magyars sought to sustain control by a process of Magyarization utilised best in schools where Magyar was the language of instruction is four times as many elementary schools as were non-Magyar languages. Secondary education was further repressed considering Slovaks and Ruthenes had no educational system after elementary school. Bela Grunwald had commented that Ð''the seconday school isl ike a big engine which takes in at one end hundreds of Slovak youths who come out at the other end as Magyars' (1). Budapest was an example of how powerful Magyarization had become; in 1848 Germans constituted more than three-quarters of the city, by 1910 the Magyars had replaced them as the majority. Conversely, Germanization declined in Austria which may be a reflection of the unstable government and a stark difference in their nationality policies.

The liberal years of 1867 to 1879 were dominated in Cisleithania by the German Liberals who advocated a unitary state as opposed to a federal one. Their policies were based around a central administration in which German is the official language and parliament controlled by a German constitutional party. Before the Depression their policies of economic laissez-faire and a restriction on the power of the church were appealing. However in between the two Liberal ministries of Karl Auersperg (PM 1867-68) and Adolf Auersperg (PM 1871-79) were the few years of desperate change in the Monarchy to turn into a Federal state. The German liberal ministry of Karl Auersperg had angered all national minorities. As a result both the Czechs and Poles refused to sit in Vienna. Francis Joseph had become to willing to strengthen and satisfy the non-German populations of Austria. The Fundamental Articles, under Count Hohenwart (PM 1871) was to give more autonomy to the Czechs and establish a general diet in the Bohemian Crown, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. The Czech language would have been given official status in the Czech Crownlands under a new nationality law. Even the emperor Francis Joseph proposed the construction of the Senate in Cisleithania, half the membership appointed by Francis Joseph, the other half in accordance with the diets. However the Habsburg Monarchy recognised this as the beginning of a federalisation of the empire and therefore rejected it; with strong influence coming from the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Andrassy, who was fiercely opposed to the Fundamental Articles as it threatened the existence of the dualism. But other groups opposed this attempt at constitutional change; the Germans of Bohemia, the Church, the army and the bureaucracy.

The consequence of the liberal years and the failure of the implementation of the Fundamental Articles was the development of a more radical Czech population. After 1871 radical groups such as the 'Young Czechs' organised themselves to achieve equality within the historically Czech territories. Under Taaffe (PM 1879-93) however substantial changes to satisfy the Czechs were being made. The Czechs re-entered the Reichsrat and between 1880 and 1883 advances were being made in giving the Czechs equality in Bohemia and Moravia within the language and educational sphere. However any real changes proposed to give the Czechs more political power in the Reichsrat left the Germans with just 47% of the deputies (a drop from two thirds in 1873). In 1897, Prime Minister Badeni