As the document further reinstated the Military Frontier, and also divided civilian Hungary into three ‘Crownlands’ – the Kingdom of Hungary, the Grand Principality of Transylvania (to which the Partium were reattached) and Croatia-Slavonia (which received Fiume and perhaps Dalmatia – this question was left for later decision221) while again promising ‘the Serbian Voivodina’ suitable institutions (the question whether it should be united with ‘another Crownland’ was again left for later regulation) – it might have been simpler to omit this sentence altogether.
1 The Bourse seems to have got wind of what was happening a day even before Rothschild informed Metternich.
2 Collegiális kormányrendszerünk.
3 See above, p. 316.
4 Széchenyi afterwards wrote to Apponyi that the majority had been against them, but had been terrorized into silence; but his word ‘majority’ may contain some exaggeration. Széchenyi himself was thrown into great confusion by the developments. He offered his services as plenipotentiary dictator, but they were rejected.
5 It is impossible to trace the origin of the belief. It was doubtless strengthened when the anonymous author (who was, however, known to be Captain Möring, tutor to the Archduke Rainer’s children) of the pamphlet The Sybilline Books out of Austria, which appeared in January 1848, with its famous apostrophe by Austria to Metternich ‘to give her back her lost thirty years’, dedicated it to the Archduchess; but Möring himself must have had it from somewhere. The legend is accepted, and some or all of the stories based on it repeated, by such serious later historians as Friedjung (Oe. 1848–60, I. 13), Eisenmann, Redlich (Franz Joseph, p. 26) and Srbik (Metternich, II. 26), although Srbik admits the absence of any direct evidence for the alleged contact between the ‘dynastic opposition’ and the Lower Austrian Estates, or for the dramatic scene when Sophie allegedly prostrated herself before the feet of the Archduke Ludwig, imploring him to grant a Constitution. But Corti’s scrupulous examination of the Archduchess’s private papers in his Von Kind bis Kaiser gives an entirely different picture. The papers contain no reference to any contacts whatever with the Opposition, or with Kolowrat, still less to any self-prostration. Whereas rumour credited her with speaking the decisive word in favour of the issue of a Constitution on 14 March (see below, p. 332, n. 3), her papers show that, on the contrary, she felt that ‘she could not welcome such concessions’, since they would have tied her son’s hands when he ascended the throne (op. cit., p. 265), and Corti is categoric that she had no hand in the fall of Metternich; she was not one of the little group who tried to persuade him to withdraw his resignation, ‘but everything beyond that is untrue’ (id., p. 231). Exactly the same conclusion is reached by another writer who examined the Archduchess’s papers (F. Reinohl, Aus dem Tagebuch der Erz., Historische Blätter, Heft 4, Vienna, 1958, p. 111). Her husband did, as will be seen, take a mildly Liberal line on two or three occasions, but there is no evidence that he was prompted to do so by his wife, who may not have had him so totally under her thumb as is generally believed.
6 The actual proposal had come from Kübeck, who argued that if representatives of the Estates were called to Vienna and the financial situation explained to them, ‘they might find ways and means of restoring equilibrium between the national revenue and expenditure’ (Hartig, p. 103); but Metternich seems to have put Kübeck up to it (Srbik, II. 210 f.).
7 Owing to the curious mutually conflicting institutions of official Sunday work and the unofficial ‘blue Monday’, when hangovers were slept off, far more workers were unoccupied on Monday than on any other day of the week.
8 See the vivid description by Violand in the Soziale Geschichte, p. 44, of the huge, truculent workman whom he saw striding down the street, his pockets bulging with what were obviously stones.
9 It has even been suggested that Kolowrat, who was ultimately responsible for security, had purposely omitted to take precautions in order that the clamour against Metternich should not be stifled (Bibl, Tragödie, p. 127), but this is probably a calumny. As we have seen, Sedlnitzky himself had not thought the situation dangerous, and the Landmarschall had been equally confident.
10 It consisted of three infantry regiments, one battalion of grenadiers and one of chasseurs, two regiments of cavalry, one of artillery and a few specialist troops, but all the units were under strength. The total strength was fourteen thousand.
11 Albrecht, then thirty years of age, was the eldest son of the Archduke Charles. He had been destined for a military career, but this was his first independent command.
12 The picture of a licentious soldateska being wantonly set on an inoffensive crowd is completely false. The Archduke himself went forward on foot to exhort the crowd to disperse, and was hit on the head by a missile. The aged Platzkommandant of Vienna, making a similar attempt, was severely injured and barely escaped with his life. The detachment which first opened fire had been met with a hail of stones which knocked out the Commanding Officer. The fatal shots were fired only at 1·30 p.m.
13 This Militärisches Bürgerkorps was a body consisting nominally of two regiments of infantry, with detachments of grenadiers, cavalry and artillery and commanded by the Burgomaster of Vienna, which had been formed during the Napoleonic Wars to replace the garrison of Vienna, which had been sent to the Front. After 1815 its functions had been purely ceremonial.
14 Another of Rothschild’s benefactions (in this Sina participated) was to provide meals for the student patrols.
15 It is a curious fact that no source (to the writer’s knowledge) records this important event; but it is a fact that Franz Karl presided, not only over the Conference of the 14th, but over all subsequent meetings of the Staatskonferenz. Ludwig attended these, but as an ordinary member. It cannot have been the Archduke John who arranged the change, for he had already been persuaded to go down to Graz ‘to pacify Styria’.
16 These are reproduced in Friedjung, op. cit., I. p. 847.
17 The only explanation of this is in Hartig’s Genesis, p. 151. It should be authentic, for Hartig was one of those present at the meeting, but I admit that I cannot, myself, understand the argument put forward. It was that to divide the Monarchy into a number of constitutional States would endanger its unity, since they would put forward mutually conflicting demands.
The final decision had another important aspect, to which some writers have rightly drawn attention: it was the first step which led towards the ultimate creation of a single legislature for all the Western Lands of the Monarchy – the complex later known as the ‘Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrat’.
18 It had now been brought up to a figure of some 20,000 by reinforcements from Lower and Upper Austria and Styria.
19 Czapka was threatened with physical violence and fled the capital. He was an intelligent man and far from illiberal, but public opinion chose to associate him with Metternich, with whom he had been on personally friendly terms.
20 Friedjung (and others) attribute this initiative, like so many, to the Archduchess Sophie, who had allegedly been told by her personal physician that nothing short of a Constitution with specific mention of the magic word would satisfy the people; but see above, p. 325, n. 1.
21 According to G. Spira, op. cit., p. 91, the deputation further revised and strengthened the Address en route. It was only then that it was decided to ask for plenipotentiary powers for the Palatine.
22 It is fair to say that on the 14th he had himself asked to be replaced temporarily by Windisch-Graetz. He asked for his definitive release on 27 March and it was granted on 30 March.
23 Walter, p. 12.
24 Rückblicke, p. 17.
25 His dignities were, indeed, restored to him in 1861.
26 Rumour credits his with being one of the voices which persuaded the Court to its fateful promise of 15 March to grant a Constitution.
27 Strictly, this was issued at first only to the Gubernia of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. It was extended in April to Styria, Carinthia,
and Carniola. It was never addressed to Galicia, where it was replaced by Stadion’s action (see below, p. 368).
28 The demand for the liberation of the peasants, however, said nothing about compensation for the landlords.
29 Some of these Bills had been adopted as early as 14 March; the Lower House had simply passed the appropriate Resolution, and the Magnates had agreed to them without argument.
30 That this provision was confined to ‘received religions’ was due to a strong wave of anti-Semitism which was then sweeping over Hungary.
31 In practice this had for a long time past been universally paid to the landlords.
32 The German text had only unter Verantwortlichkeit.
33 It remained to the last very obscure. It seems that Batthyány himself had used the title ‘Minister a latere’ when compiling his original list, but in speech had used the term ‘Foreign Minister’, and the latter title was regularly used thereafter, not only by other Hungarian Ministers, but by Esterházy himself, in his official correspondence, and even by Austrian Ministries addressing him (see Hajnal, op. cit., pp. 20 ff.). It seems, however, certain that the Staatskonferenz regarded Ficquelmont (whose official title, it will be observed, was the same as that which had been borne by Metternich – he, too, was ‘Foreign Minister’ only in common parlance) as the Foreign Minister proper for the whole Monarchy. As the Hungarians did not at that time question the validity of the Pragmatic Sanction, nor the Monarch’s right to control foreign affairs, they do not seem to have been thinking of setting up a Ministry of their own parallel to the Haus-Hof-und-Staatskanzlei, but since the Foreign Minister was to be ‘responsible’ (undefined as the term was) in Austria, some similar ‘responsibility’ had to be introduced in Hungary. How far the Hungarian Minister’s ‘effectiveness’ would make him the other man’s equal in power, no man could say. The ambiguity of the whole position was heightened by the fact that the Hungarians habitually spoke of Austria as a ‘foreign’ country, so that their relations with the Hereditary Provinces were to them already ‘foreign affairs’, while to Vienna foreign affairs meant dealings with countries outside the Monarchy.
34 Not, as stated by many English writers (who presumably confuse them with the March Days), the ‘March Laws’. The Laws comprised all those enacted at the 1847–8 Diet. Law I of them thus records the death of the Palatine Joseph, and Law II, the election of his successor.
35 Violand, op. cit., p. 145. See also Zenker, pp. 124 ff. Brügel is entirely uninformative on this subject.
36 Zenker, op. cit., gives in his sixth chapter a conspectus of the left-wing ideas and literature of the day. The chief requests were for a minimum wage, a maximum proportion of machines to hands, reduction of the excessive number of apprentices, help for the sick and invalids, and humane treatment by foremen. There were few demands for vocational organization, and only one workers’ organization came – for a short time – into being: an Erster Allgemeiner Arbeiterverein which was founded on the ‘self-help’ principle. It was afterwards drawn into politics by the agitator Chaizes (see below, p. 401).
37 Pillersdorf (Rückblicke, p. 41) remarks with acerbity that while elaborate provision was made for the training, organization and equipment of the Guard, its exact duties were never defined.
38 He had been born in 1777, Hoyos in 1779.
39 Zanini resigned for a different reason: ‘that he was unable to get his way against Generals senior to him in rank, service and experience.’
40 For specimens of these see in particular Rath, op. cit.
41 Zenker writes (op. cit., p. 46), ‘By the summer not one peasant was doing robot or rendering other services and no lord was asking for them’.
42 Zichy was afterwards court-martialled and broke. He is supposed to have been blackmailed into surrender by threats to the life of his mistress and children (Benedikt, Kaiseradler, pp. 183 ff.).
43 According to Horsetzky, op. cit., p. 536, about 20,000 officers and men had deserted. Radetzky himself said that four-fifths of his Italian troops deserted.
44 For sample quotations, see Bibl, Tragödie, p. 110: Rath, op. cit., pp. 148 ff.
45 Hartig, p. 191.
46 Walter, p. 60.
47 151 were released in Lemberg.
48 It will be noted that at that time Lemberg was largely a German town. The burghers at least, could thus be presumed to be on the side of order.
49 Text in Fischel, Materialen, pp. 319–21.
50 See below, p. 420.
51 Helfert, I. p. 423, writes definitely that Pillersdorf met the deputation, and either he or someone else in his Ministry must have done so. But neither Pillersdorf himself, in his memoirs, nor Walter refers to it, so that someone else may possibly have acted for the Minister.
52 This appeared in the unusual form of a leaflet issued from the Vienna State printing press.
53 In this document Ferdinand promised also to consider the establishment of a Supreme Court of Appeal in Prague.
54 For this paragraph, see Walter, op. cit., pp. 25 ff.
55 Walter, p. 30.
56 The text is in Fischel, Sprachenrecht, pp. 73 ff., but by a fatality, the most important line of all has dropped out from the foot of the page. There should be added: Landtage hat einen Gegenstand der Verhandlung auf dem nächsten Reichstage.
57 Rückblicke, pp. 20 ff.
58 The Diet repeated this declaration in September, when it added that Moravia’s link with the Empire was ‘organic’ and its ‘only’ link.
59 The Silesian Diet contained no Czech representatives. The figures in Moravia were 124 Slavs to 123 Germans, but the Moravian Slavs were at this time, as before (see above, pp. 215, 298), no Czech nationalists; many of them even regarded themselves as belonging to a separate, ‘Moravian’ nationality.
60 Living as they did in widely dispersed areas, the Germans of Bohemia had not possessed any central organization of their own, and the lead was taken for them by an ‘Association of German Bohemians in Vienna’ which was hurriedly formed after 13 March. According to an unsigned article in Die Bauernbefreiung 1848 (Leitmaritz, 1923, pp. 32 ff.), this Committee then saw Pillersdorf and gave him some material; they also saw Francis Joseph ‘who did not seem to know what it was all about’. On 9 March they sent in to the Ministry a strong protest against the ‘Charter’.
61 It should be added that Ficquelmont’s ideas on German nationalism were not very different from Metternich’s. Orders had actually been sent to Austrian troops to reinforce the home garrisons in some of the more turbulent German towns, when the local governments themselves took fright and the moves were called off.
62 The students’ petition of 12 March had already asked that the German Lands of the Monarchy should be represented at Frankfurt.
63 Von Schwarzer had been born in Moravia and Schuselka in Bohemia, but both had come to live in Vienna.
64 This famous phrase was not Palacký’s original invention. It had been used by Perthaler in an article in the Wiener Zeitung on 23 March 1848.
65 In their petition, which reached the Court only on 1 April, but had been drafted earlier, the Slovenes said that as Slavs, they could not belong to the German Bund, based as it was on German nationality.
66 These were very different from the rather random lot selected by the Vorparlament, all of whom had refused, except Schuselka. The other five to go then were Kuranda, Endlicher, Hornbostel, Mühlfeld and Schilling.
67 Their numbers included such notable figures as Schmerling, ‘Anastasius Grün’, Andrian, Mühlfeld, Bruck and Perthaler.
68 Horváth, Magyarorszäg Függetlenségi Harcza, I. 120–2.
69 As the prospective Monarch, who would have to work through it.
70 Francis Joseph had, apparently, none to make.
71 The qualification was purely material; birth did not enter into it. The owners of small landtäflich estates thus lost their former privileged position. The Prelates of the larger Houses, however, got into the list in virtue of the property
owned by their foundations.
72 Pillersdorf’s first draft had laid down the principle of complete religious freedom and equality, but the Estates had objected to the complete and immediate emancipation of the Jews, ‘not on principle, but on account of popular feeling’ (Walter, p. 49). The revised draft provided therefore only for freedom of worship for all recognized Christian confessions. The Reichstag was to deal with ‘the question of the abolition of all inter-confessional inequalities’.
73 According to Strobl von Ravelsberg’s entertaining and sometimes well-informed work, Metternich und seine Zeit (I. 386), the campaign against Ficquelmont was organized largely by certain Polish ladies who bore him a grudge from earlier days. See also Walter, op. cit., pp. 67–8.
The Church was another special butt of the reformers of these weeks. The Archbishop of Vienna was one of the persons treated to Katzenmusik, and the Liguorians and Penitent Sisters were actually terrorized into leaving Vienna.
74 Oeffentliche Arbeiten. The phrase included State enterprises such as the tobacco factories, the nationalized railways, etc., as well as ‘public works’ as that phrase is usually understood in English.
75 Francis Joseph was now in Italy. The Ministerial Council, although (as said) announcing his appointment as Statthalter of Bohemia on 6 April, had itself decided on the 8th ‘that it would be better, in the circumstances, if he did not hurry to take it up’, but waited to see how things developed. On 19 April, Windisch-Graetz suggested to the Archduchess that the boy should be sent down to Radetzky, where he would be safe from political pressure. Francis Joseph himself was burning to see active service; the suggestion was accepted, and the young man started from Vienna (incidentally without the Government’s having been informed) a week later.
The Habsburg Empire (1790-1918) Page 66