The Habsburg Empire (1790-1918)

by C A Macartney

  No social reform of any sort was introduced. It is true that the year 1806 saw the establishment of a polytechnic and a Realschule in Prague, and the promulgation of the revised Hungarian Ratio Educationis, but the latter instrument had been years in preparation,66 and apart from the fact that Francis, more progressive on this point than his advisers (for the Palatine Joseph shared the view of his predecessor on the detrimental character of education for the poor), had laid down that every child must receive elementary education; if the parish was too poor to maintain a school, the landlord must do it67 – it could hardly be called a progressive document: the object of education was still to make a boy ‘bonus homo, fidelis subditus et pius Christianus.’ For the rest, the new Ratio, yielding to insistent pressure from the Consilium, at last honoured Francis’s promises (which the Court Chancellery had thitherto found ingenious ways of evading) to make the Magyar language a subject of instruction in the grammar schools intra limites regni, but all instruction was to be given in Latin from the eighth year upward.

  *

  Meanwhile, the financial situation went from bad to worse. English subsidies had covered a fraction of the cost of the war, but for the remainder, the printing-press had again been called in. By 1806 the circulation of Bankozettel had stood at nearly 450 million and the discount rate at 175, and the cost of living was still soaring. No one wanted to save a depreciating currency, so those who earned money indulged in a spending spree, but the situation of the fixed-income classes was growing desperate.

  The problem was repeatedly discussed on the highest level, by a Finance Commission, which Francis himself often attended. Charles and Chotek favoured drastic deflation by the simple method of withdrawing a large proportion of the Bankozettel. But Zichy believed that this would cause too much hardship, and would be inequitable, as not hitting all classes of the population equally, and Francis supported him. A forced loan and a surcharge on indirect taxation brought in small sums which were at once swallowed up by the cost of rearmament, and the inflation went on.68

  The financial situation was intimately connected with the Hungarian question, for the one point on which everyone at the Court agreed was that it was hopeless to expect any improvement in the finances of the Monarchy unless Hungary – now a considerably larger and more important proportion of the whole than it had been before the Treaty – could be induced to shoulder a larger share of the burden. In Hungary lay also the most obvious untapped resources of manpower,69 and the Archduke Charles held it absolutely vital that conscription should be introduced there.

  Most of Francis’s inner ring of advisers wanted compulsion applied to Hungary. The Palatine, on the other hand, pleaded that the Hungarians should be presented with a clear and honest statement of the position, and also that consideration should at last be given to their wishes in other fields. Francis chose the middle way, which got the worst of both worlds. After unilaterally raising a number of indirect taxes70 in 1806, he convoked the Diet in April 1807, and asked it for an increased regular contributio, to take into account the rise in prices, a single extraordinary contribution towards the cost of rearmament, and the introduction of conscription so far as was necessary to keep the Hungarian regiments up to strength. All he offered in return was a revision of the judicial procedure and of the law relating to bills of exchange.

  The Diet in return displayed an obstinacy which earned it the historic soubriquet of ‘the Accursed’. It began by demanding assurances (which amounted to something like budgetary control) that anything which it gave would really be used for stopping the inflation and restoring the credit of the State; further pressing for remedy for Hungary’s economic grievances, and throwing in another request for the introduction of Magyar as official language and for more Magyar instruction in schools71 (it was not satisfied with the 1806 Ratio, and moreover, denied education to be the exclusive prerogative of the Monarch). It was obstinate on the conscription issue.

  After very long and acrimonious debates, interrupted and aggravated by a personal issue which aroused intense feeling, the Diet at last agreed to offer a contribution by every noble of one-sixth of his income from his real estate, and one per cent of his other income – this to be a ‘voluntary gift’, not on the basis of official assessment, for as one speaker said,

  It is not advisable to disclose all our assets; the provident wisdom of our ancestors resided in never disclosing to the world how much they really possessed.

  It also authorized the conscription of 12,000 men, but the old system of voluntary recruiting was to be retained for any reinforcement of the army above that figure. This was to be in return for consideration of their gravamina, which Francis promised to give. Instead, he closed the Diet on 16 December, not having considered one of the gravamina.72 The disappointment and indignation were so great that observers described the country as on the verge of revolution.

  All this might have been enough to counsel at least postponement of any thought of revanche, particularly since the international situation had taken another turn for the worse with Prussia crushed at Jena and France and Russia come to terms at Tilsit, so that only England, and her small allies, Portugal and Sweden, were left facing Napoleon. But the party of action in Austria now received a powerful reinforcement in the attractive person of Francis’s third wife, the charming and vivacious Maria Ludovica of Este, whom he had married on 6 January 1808, after another conspicuously short period of bereavement.73 Although Italian by birth (but brought up in Austria) the young lady adopted enthusiastically Stadion’s idea of awakening Germanic national feeling. For her wedding no one bought anything new; the guests wore family heirlooms, and the Empress then set about popularizing a ‘Teutonic fashion’ which suited her better than it did some others who adopted it.

  In 1808 things really began to move. The Archduke John had completed his plans for a Landwehr, or Home Guard, and a Patent establishing this force was issued on 9 June. Service in it was made compulsory for every male between the ages of eighteen and forty-five in the Hereditary and Bohemian Lands,74 unless he was already serving with the colours or in the reserve, or belonged to an exempted category. These were fairly numerous, but persons belonging to them were allowed to volunteer. Meanwhile, Francis had been collecting opinions on the central administration, and a Patent issued on 6 June had introduced another rearrangement. The Staats-und Konferenzministerium was abolished, and the Staatsrat reinstated. There was now no formal machinery for the co-ordination of policy on the top level, but Francis agreed that the Staatsrat should hold regular and frequent conferences under his own Presidency or that of a person delegated by himself, and that these might be attended by the heads of the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence. In practice, Francis seldom attended these meetings but the man whom he made his regular deputy, the Archduke Rainer, proved an efficient substitute. The new head of the Staatsrat, Count Zinzendorf, was not much younger than his aged predecessor, but far his superior in energy and freshness of mind. Finally, in August Zichy was replaced at the head of the Finance Commission by the far more competent O’Donnell, a Galician nobleman of Irish descent.

  Then, on 31 August, Francis convoked another Hungarian Diet, on the pretext of having his new consort crowned. The lessons of the ‘Accursed Diet’ had been taken to heart. The Personalis, István Aczél, went to great pains to ensure that the Counties sent pliable representatives to Pozsony, and these, when they arrived, were mollified by lavish entertainment, a regular Danae’s shower of orders and decorations, and in some cases, more tangible satisfactions. His efforts were successful: the Diet earned itself the name of ‘the Handsome’ by consenting that the strength of the standing army should be raised, if necessary, by a further 20,000 men and by giving the King authority in advance for three years to call out the insurrectio.

  It was true that – as events were to prove only too quickly – the heart of the differences between the Crown and the nation had not been touched. But the immediate point had been gained. Meanwhile th
e spirits of the war party had been inordinately raised by Napoleon’s difficulties in the Peninsula, and in particular, by the Capitulation of Baylen. Surely the spirit, and the efficiency, of Germans would not lag behind those of the Spanish guerillas! So the green light was given. The Imperial couple toured the Western Lands, enthusiastically received. A horde of publicists, some native, like von Collin and the Tirolean Hormayr, others, such as the famous Gentz75 and the brothers Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, imported, were set to whipping up national enthusiasm in Austria, and still more, in the German States. Articles and pamphlets were poured out extolling conditions in Austria, on a basis which, ordinarily, would have made Francis faint. The appeals were directed not only to national, but to democratic feeling; even intellectual freedom was described as ‘the first condition of all culture’, and Austria was hailed as its champion.

  A special feature was the agitation in the Tirol, where the Archduke John and Hormayr (acting, it seems, without the knowledge of the Emperor, and perhaps also of Stadion) got in touch with local leaders, whom they encouraged to organize a popular revolt, which was to begin simultaneously with the outbreak of war between Austria and France. Proclamations and patriotic literature were smuggled into the country, and military and financial help promised.

  It throws a curious light on the mental outlook of the group then controlling the policy of what was already the ‘Austrian Empire’ (and for that matter, of the later German historians of the events) that they were able to ignore almost entirely the mainly non-Germanic ethnic composition of the Monarchy. Some of the patriotic literature was translated into Czech and Slovene, these peoples being, broadly, regarded as subjects of the Empire who happened not yet to speak German; but Hungary and Galicia were simply left out of the reckoning. In fact, feeling in both countries was far from satisfactory. In spite of the success of the Handsome Diet, the Hungarians showed no enthusiasm whatever for a war which, if successful, would only increase the preponderance of the Germanic element in the Monarchy, while the Poles of Galicia made no concealment of their sympathies for Napoleon, to whom they were looking to restore the Kingdom of Poland. But the appeals went down well enough among the Germans of Austria. The Viennese burghers found vast pleasure in dancing at redoutes, Teutonically garbed, in listening to their favourite actors declaiming patriotic speeches, and in being rude to the Frenchmen in the city. The calling-up notices for the Landwehr were obeyed cheerfully enough, and many persons belonging to the exempted classes volunteered for service. By the beginning of 1809 the force numbered over 150,000. Vienna raised six volunteer battalions. Especially students and young people in general came forward in such numbers that the authorities had to restrain the students in the interest of the future intellectual life of the country.

  Meanwhile, the international situation had not really improved at all. No foreign government had guaranteed any substantial help: only England had promised a subsidy and a diversionary attack in the Netherlands. The army was still exhausted and, to boot, in the middle of a great reorganization of its entire tactical methods – the old discarded, the new not yet fully learned. On this and other grounds, the Archduke Charles pleaded strongly with his brother at least to postpone the adventure and if possible, to reach a composition with Napoleon. But the war party, headed by Stadion and the Empress, with Baldacci in the background, was deaf to warnings. They believed implicitly in Germany’s will to throw off the French yoke; further, some completely misleading reports from Metternich, then Austrian ambassador in Paris, had contained assurances of strong opposition to Napoleon in France itself; and the Government allowed itself to entertain equally crass illusions about the secret intentions of the Czar. As to finance, Stadion admitted that Austria could not afford a war; but she would be even less able to afford one later.

  Seeing that the war was going to be waged, with him or without him, Charles gave up his resistance. In February 1809 active preparations were set on foot. On 6 April a fiery proclamation to his troops, signed by Charles (Friedrich Schlegel had composed it), assured them that:

  Europe seeks freedom beneath your standards. Your victories will loose her bonds.

  On the 9th, Austria declared war on France. On the 10th, Charles led his armies across the Inn. Another army, under the Archduke John, entered Italy, while a third force, led by Field-Marshal L. Chasteler, penetrated the Tirol, where the local militia, headed by the famous ‘Sandwirt’, Andreas Hofer, rose to help them.

  Immediate disaster followed. All Stadion’s calculations proved mistaken. France remained perfectly united, the Czar made no motions to betray him. In Germany poets schwärmed for the cause and in one or two of the minor States there were small outbreaks of unrest, easily suppressed. But the people who mattered, the German Princes, refused flatly and even contumeliously to range themselves behind Austria; on the contrary, Bavaria and Württemberg sent large contingents to reinforce Napoleon’s armies. Outside Austria’s existing frontiers, only the Tiroleans fought for her, with obstinate courage. Inside them, the Landwehr often fought bravely, but could not constitute a serious force. Thus the story of 1805 repeated itself, with even more sensational celerity. Napoleon cut the Austrian armies of the Danube into two, and by 10 May had reached Vienna itself. The Queen’s brother, the Archduke Maximilian, had been left in charge of the capital while the Court retreated to Hungary, and had vowed to defend it to the last, but a few hours’ bombardment broke the will of the Viennese (who had earlier petitioned that the city should not be defended), and the city surrendered in the small hours of the 13th; its entire garrison was made prisoners of war.

  Charles gave battle at Aspern on the 21st, at first with success, but inexplicably, to those who had watched the battle, failed to follow up his victory. The question was now whether Napoleon’s Army of Italy, under Beauharnais, could reach him before the Archduke John, whom Charles’s retreat had forced to retreat similarly, could join his brother; it was planned that he should make his way back through Carinthia and Styria into Hungary, where he was to join up with the insurrectio, under the Palatine. Meanwhile the Tirol had perforce been left to its fate: the Bavarians, who had been driven out of the province in April, re-entered Innsbruck on 19 May.

  But John’s armies moved slowly, and a disappointment awaited them when they reached Hungary. At the remarkable date of 2 April the Hofkriegsrat had informed the Palatine that it would be unable to supply the insurrectio with arms, or even uniforms, Nevertheless the call-up was obeyed well enough, and a proclamation by Napoleon, dated 15 May, inviting Hungary to rise against Austria, fell almost flat. But when the junction was at last effected, the combined forces were heavily defeated at Györ, on 14 June. Beauharnais was able to join forces with Napoleon. Charles, after sending urgent messages to John to join him, gave battle again at Wagram on 6 July; but John’s army did not come up in time, and Charles was defeated with heavy losses.76 On the 11th/12th he signed an armistice with Napoleon.

  Now there was hardly anyone left (except the Empress) who wanted to continue the war, and what enthusiasm had been left disappeared when the promised British diversion, in any case belated, proved a humiliating failure. It remained to negotiate the peace, which was signed at Vienna on 14 October. It was even harder than its predecessor of Pressburg. Austria lost the entire Littoral (Trieste, Gorizia, Carniola, part of Carinthia, Istria, the Hungarian Littoral and Croatia south of the Save), all which areas, with Dalmatia, were formed into a new ‘Kingdom of Illyria’ under French rule; her Polish acquisitions under the Second and Third Partitions, all of which, except a small part taken by Russia, went to the ‘Grand Duchy of Warsaw’, and Salzburg, Berchtesgaden and part of Upper Austria to Bavaria. She had to pay an indemnity of 85 million francs, to reduce her army to 150,000 men, and to join the Continental Blockade.

  The part of all this story which had, humanly speaking, the saddest ending, as it had been the most inspiring while it lasted, was the rising in the Tirol. This had been prearranged in January 1809, whe
n Hofer had come to Vienna and negotiated with the Archduke John and Stadion, both of whom promised the Tiroleans money and arms if they rose, and the restoration of their ancient liberties, which had been largely disregarded under the Bavarian regime (it is interesting that Francis had at first opposed the plan, on the grounds that it constituted a violation of the principle of legitimacy, which was on the Bavarians’ side, but Hormayr, who acted as intermediary in the negotiations, found a way of satisfying his scruples77). Hofer’s militia and Chasteler’s regulars were at first completely successful; they cleared the Tirol, and on 29 May, Francis assured the Tirolean Estates that he would not sign any peace which did not reunite the Tirol irrevocably with the Monarchy. He broke his promise – perforce – when he signed the Peace of Vienna, but the Tirolean peasants went on fighting alone, and it cost the French troops sent against them no little trouble to overcome their resistance. In the end, however, the big battalions inevitably prevailed. The fighting petered out. Hofer’s hiding-place was betrayed. He was taken in fetters to Mantua and Napoleon had him shot there, although both Metternich (for Francis) and Beauharnais interceded for him. His lieutenant, Mayr, was offered his life if he would plead that he had not known of the armistice and the peace. He refused ‘to buy his life with a lie’, and he, too, was shot.