Chapter 3: , page 89 (30)

"On the 12th of July, 1806, fourteen princes of the south and
west of Germany united themselves into the confederation of
the Rhine, and recognised Napoleon as their protector. On the
1st of August, they signified to the diet of Ratisbon their
separation from the Germanic body. The Empire of Germany
ceased to exist, and Francis II. abdicated the title by
proclamation. By a convention signed at Vienna, on the 15th of
December, Prussia exchanged the territories of Anspach, Cleves
and Neufchâtel for the electorate of Hanover, Napoleon had all
the west under his power. Absolute master of France and Italy,
as emperor and king, he was also master of Spain, by the
dependence of that court; of Naples and Holland, by his two
brothers; of Switzerland, by the act of mediation; and in
Germany he had at his disposal the kings of Bavaria and
Wurtemberg, and the confederation of the Rhine against Austria
and Prussia. … This encroaching progress gave rise to the
fourth coalition. Prussia, neutral since the peace of Bâle,
had, in the last campaign, been on the point of joining the
Austro-Russian coalition. The rapidity of the emperor's
victories had alone restrained her; but now, alarmed at the
aggrandizement of the empire, and encouraged by the fine
condition of her troops, she leagued with Russia to drive the
French from Germany. … The campaign opened early in October.
Napoleon, as usual, overwhelmed the coalition by the
promptitude of his marches and the vigour of his measures. On
the 14th of October, he destroyed at Jena the military
monarchy of Prussia, by a decisive victory. … The campaign
in Poland was less rapid, but as brilliant as that of Prussia.
Russia, for the third time, measured its strength with France.
Conquered at Zurich and Austerlitz, it was also defeated at Eylau
and Friedland. After these memorable battles, the emperor
Alexander entered into a negotiation, and concluded at Tilsit,
on the 21st of June, 1807, an armistice which was followed by
a definitive treaty on the 7th of July. The peace of Tilsit
extended the French domination on the continent. Prussia was
reduced to half its extent. In the south of Germany, Napoleon
had instituted the two kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemberg
against Austria; further to the north, he created the two
feudatory kingdoms of Saxony and Westphalia against Prussia.
… In order to obtain universal and uncontested supremacy, he
made use of arms against the continent, and the cessation of
commerce against England. But in forbidding to the continental
states all communication with England, he was preparing new
difficulties for himself, and soon added to the animosity of
opinion excited by his despotism, and the hatred of states
produced by his conquering domination, the exasperation of
private interests and commercial suffering occasioned by the
blockade. … The expedition of Portugal in 1807, and the
invasion of Spain in 1808, began for him and for Europe a new
order of events. … The reaction manifested itself in three
countries, hitherto allies of France, and it brought on the
fifth coalition. The court of Rome was dissatisfied; the
peninsula was wounded in its national pride by having imposed
upon it a foreign king; in its usages, by the suppression of
convents, of the Inquisition, and of the grandees; Holland
suffered in its commerce from the blockade, and Austria
supported impatiently its losses and subordinate condition.
England, watching for an opportunity to revive the struggle on
the continent, excited the resistance of Rome, the peninsula,
and the cabinet of Vienna. … Austria … made a powerful
effort, and raised 550,000 men, comprising the Landwehr, and
took the field in the spring of 1809. The Tyrol rose, and King
Jerome was driven from his capital by the Westphalians: Italy
wavered; and Prussia only waited till Napoleon met with a
reverse, to take arms; but the emperor was still at the height
of his power and prosperity. He hastened from Madrid in the
beginning of February, and directed the members of the
confederation to keep their contingents in readiness. On the
12th of April he left Paris, passed the Rhine, plunged into
Germany, gained the victories of Eckmühl and Essling, occupied
Vienna a second time on the 15th of May and overthrew this new
coalition by the battle of Wagram, after a campaign of four
mouths. … The peace of Vienna, of the 11th of October, 1809,
deprived the house of Austria of several more provinces, and
compelled it again to adopt the continental system. …
Napoleon, who seemed to follow a rash but inflexible policy,
deviated from his course about this time by a second marriage.
He divorced Josephine that he might give an heir to the
empire, and married, on the 1st of April, 1810, Marie-Louise,
arch-duchess of Austria. This was a decided error. He quitted
his position and his post as a parvenu and revolutionary
monarch, opposing in France the ancient courts as the republic
had opposed the ancient governments. He placed himself in a
false situation with respect to Austria, which he ought either
to have crushed after the victory of Wagram, or to have
reinstated in its possessions after his marriage with the
arch-duchess. … The birth, on the 20th of March, 1811, of a
son, who received the title of king of Rome, seemed to
consolidate the power of Napoleon, by securing to him a
successor. The war in Spain was prosecuted with vigour during
the years 1810 and 1811. … While the war was proceeding in
the peninsula with advantage, but without any decided success,
a new campaign was preparing in the north. Russia perceived
the empire of Napoleon approaching its territories. … About
the close of 1810, it increased its armies, renewed its
commercial relations with Great Britain, and did not seem
indisposed to a rupture. The year 1811 was spent in
negotiations which led to nothing, and preparations for war
were made on both sides. … On the 9th of March, Napoleon
left Paris. … During several months he fixed his court at
Dresden, where the emperor of Austria, the king of Prussia,
and all the sovereigns of Germany, came to bow before his high
fortune.
{225}
On the 22nd of June, war was declared against Russia. …
Napoleon, who, according to his custom, wished to finish all
in one campaign, advanced at once into the heart of Russia,
instead of prudently organizing the Polish barrier against it.
His army amounted to about 500,000 men. He passed the Niemen
on the 24th of June; took Wilna, and Witepsk, defeated the
Russians at Astrowno, Polotsk, Mohilow Smolensko, at the
Moskowa, and on the 14th of September, made his entry into
Moscow. … Moscow was burned by its governor. … The emperor
ought to have seen that this war would not terminate as the
others had done; yet, conqueror of the foe, and master of his
capital, he conceived hopes of peace which the Russians
skilfully encouraged. Winter was approaching, and Napoleon
prolonged his stay at Moscow for six weeks. He delayed his
movements on account of the deceptive negotiations of the
Russians; and did not decide on a retreat till the 19th of
October. This retreat was disastrous, and began the downfall
of the empire. … The cabinet of Berlin began the defections.
On the 1st of March, 1813, it joined Russia and England, which
were forming the sixth coalition. Sweden acceded to it soon
after; yet the emperor, whom the confederate power thought
prostrated by the last disaster, opened the campaign with new
victories. The battle of Lutzen, won by conscripts, on the 2nd
of May, the occupation of Dresden; the victory of Bautzen, and
the war carried to the Elbe, astonished the coalition.
Austria, which, since 1810, had been on a footing of peace,
was resuming arms, and already meditating a change of
alliance. She now proposed herself as a mediatrix between the
emperor and the confederates. Her meditation was accepted; an
armistice was concluded at Plesswitz, on the 4th of June, and
a congress assembled at Prague to negotiate peace. It was
impossible to come to terms. … Austria joined the coalition,
and war, the only means of settling this great contest, was
resumed. The emperor had only 280,000 men against 520,000.
…. Victory seemed, at first, to second him. At Dresden he
defeated the combined forces; but the defeats of his
lieutenants deranged his plans. … The princes of the
confederation of the Rhine chose this moment to desert the
cause of the empire. A vast engagement having taken place at
Leipsic between the two armies, the Saxons and Wurtembergers
passed over to the enemy on the field of battle. This
defection to the strength of the coalesced powers, who had
learned a more compact and skilful mode of warfare, obliged
Napoleon to retreat, after a struggle of three days. … The
empire was invaded in all directions. The Austrians entered
Italy; the English, having made themselves masters of the
peninsula during the last two years, had passed the Bidassoa,
under General Wellington, and appeared on the Pyrenees. Three
armies pressed on France to the east and north. … Napoleon
was … obliged to submit to the conditions of the allied
powers; their pretensions increased with their power. … On
the 11th of April, 1814, he renounced for himself and children
the thrones of France and Italy, and received in exchange for
his vast sovereignty, the limits of which had extended from
Cadiz to the Baltic Sea, the little island of Elba."

_F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 15._

See
GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE), to 1813;
RUSSIA: A. D. 1812; and
FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812 to 1814.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1814.
Restored rule in Northern Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814-1815.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1814-1815.
Treaties of Paris and Congress of Vienna.
Readjustment of French boundaries.
Recovery of the Tyrol from Bavaria and Lombardy in Italy.
Acquisition of the Venetian states.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE),
and 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER):
also VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1814-1820.
Formation of the Germanic Confederation.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815.
The Holy Alliance.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815.
Return of Napoleon from Elba.
The Quadruple Alliance.
The Waterloo Campaign and Its results.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814-1815.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1835.
Emperor Francis, Prince Metternich, and "the system."

"After the treaty of Vienna in 1809, and still more
conspicuously after the pacification of Europe, the political
wisdom of the rulers of Austria inclined them ever more and
more to the maintenance of that state of things which was
known to friends and foes as the System. But what was the
System? It was the organisation of do-nothing. It cannot even
be said to have been reactionary: it was simply reactionary.
… 'Mark time in place' was the word of command in every
government office. The bureaucracy was engaged from morning to
night in making work, but nothing ever came of it. Not even
were the liberal innovations which had lasted through the
reign of Leopold got rid of. Everything went on in the
confused, unfinished, and ineffective state in which the great
war had found it. Such was the famous System which was
venerated by the ultra-Tories of every land, and most
venerated where it was least understood. Two men dominate the
history of Austria during this unhappy time—men who, though
utterly unlike in character and intellect, were nevertheless
admirably fitted to work together, and whose names will be
long united in an unenviable notoriety. These were the Emperor
Francis and Prince Metternich. The first was the evil genius
of internal politics; the second exercised a hardly less
baneful influence over foreign affairs. … For the external
policy of Prince Metternich, the first and most necessary
condition was, that Austria should give to Europe the
impression of fixed adherence to the most extreme Conservative
views. So for many years they worked together, Prince
Metternich always declaring that he was a mere tool in the
hands of his master, but in reality far more absolute in the
direction of his own department than the emperor was in his.
… Prince Metternich had the power of making the most of all
he knew, and constantly left upon persons of real merit the
impression that he was a man of lofty aspirations and liberal
views, who forced himself to repress such tendencies in others
because he thought that their repression was a sine quâ non for
Austria. The men of ability, who knew him intimately, thought
less well of him.
{226}
To them he appeared vain and superficial, with much that
recalled the French noblesse of the old régime in his way of
looking at things, and emphatically wanting in every element
of greatness. With the outbreak of the Greek insurrection in
1821, began a period of difficulty and complications for the
statesmen of Austria. There were two things of which they were
mortally afraid—Russia and the revolution. Now, if they
assisted the Greeks, they would be playing into the hands of
the second; and if they opposed the Greeks, they would be
likely to embroil themselves with the first. The whole art of
Prince Metternich was therefore exerted to keep things quiet
in the Eastern Peninsula, and to postpone the intolerable
'question d'Orient.' Many were the shifts he tried, and
sometimes, as just after the accession of Nicholas, his hopes
rose very high. All was, however, in vain. England and Russia
settled matters behind his back; and although the tone which
the publicists in his pay adopted towards the Greeks became
more favourable in 1826-7, the battle of Navarino was a sad
surprise and mortification to the wily chancellor. Not less
annoying was the commencement of hostilities on the Danube
between Russia and the Porte. The reverses with which the
great neighbour met in his first campaign cannot have been
otherwise than pleasing at Vienna. But the unfortunate success
which attended his arms in the second campaign soon turned
ill-dissembled joy into ill-concealed sorrow, and the treaty
of Adrianople at once lowered Austria's prestige in the East,
and deposed Metternich from the commanding position which he
had occupied in the councils of the Holy Allies. It became,
indeed, ever more and more evident in the next few years that
the age of Congress politics, during which he had been the
observed of all observers, was past and gone, that the
diplomatic period had vanished away, and that the military
period had begun. The very form in which the highest
international questions were debated was utterly changed. At
Vienna, in 1814, the diplomatists had been really the primary,
the sovereigns only secondary personages; while at the
interview of Münchengratz, between Nicholas and the Emperor
Francis, in 1833, the great autocrat appeared to look upon
Prince Metternich as hardly more than a confidential clerk.
The dull monotony of servitude which oppressed nearly the
whole of the empire was varied by the agitations of one of its
component parts. When the Hungarian Diet was dissolved in
1812, the emperor had solemnly promised that it should be
called together again within three years. Up to 1815,
accordingly, the nation went on giving extraordinary levies
and supplies without much opposition. When, however, the
appointed time was fulfilled, it began to murmur. … Year by
year the agitation went on increasing, till at last the
breaking out of the Greek revolution, and the threatening
appearance of Eastern politics, induced Prince Metternich to
join his entreaties to those of many other counsellors, who
could not be suspected of the slightest leaning to
constitutional views. At length the emperor yielded, and in
1825 Presburg was once more filled with the best blood and
most active spirits of the land, assembled in parliament. Long
and stormy were the debates which ensued. Bitter was, from
time to time, the vexation of the emperor, and great was the
excitement throughout Hungary. In the end, however, the court
of Vienna triumphed. Hardly any grievances were redressed,
while its demands were fully conceded. The Diet of 1825 was,
however, not without fruit. The discussion which took place
advanced the political education of the people, who were
brought back to the point where they stood at the death of
Joseph II.—that is, before the long wars with France had
come to distract their attention from their own affairs. …
The slumbers of Austria were not yet over. The System dragged
its slow length along. Little or nothing was done for the
improvement of the country. Klebelsberg administered the
finances in an easy and careless manner. Conspiracies and
risings in Italy were easily checked, and batches of prisoners
sent off from time to time to Mantua or Spielberg. Austrian
influence rose ever higher and higher in all the petty courts
of the Peninsula. … In other regions Russia or England might
be willing to thwart him, but in Italy Prince Metternich might
proudly reflect that Austria was indeed a 'great power.' The
French Revolution of 1830 was at first alarming; but when it
resulted in the enthronement of a dynasty which called to its
aid a 'cabinet of repression,' all fears were stilled. The
Emperor Francis continued to say, when any change was
proposed, 'We must sleep upon it,' and died in 1835 in 'the
abundance of peace.'"

_M. E. Grant Duff,
Studies in European Politics,
pages 140-149._

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1819-1847.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846.
Gains of the Hapsburg monarchy.
Its aggressive absolutism.
Death of Francis I.
Accession of Ferdinand I.
Suppression of revolt in Galicia.
Extinction and annexation of the Republic of Cracow.

"In the new partition of Europe, arranged in the Congress of
Vienna [see VIENNA. THE CONGRESS OF], Austria received
Lombardy and Venice under the title of a Lombardo-Venetian
kingdom, the Illyrian provinces also as a kingdom, Venetian
Dalmatia, the Tirol, Vorarlberg, Salzburg, the Innviertel and
Hausrucksviertel, and the part of Galicia ceded by her at an
earlier period. Thus, after three and twenty years of war, the
monarchy had gained a considerable accession of strength,
having obtained, in lieu of its remote and unprofitable
possessions in the Netherlands, territories which consolidated
its power in Italy, and made it as great in extent as it had
been in the days of Charles VI., and far more compact and
defensible. The grand duchies of Modena, Parma, and Placentia,
were moreover restored to the collateral branches of the house
of Hapsburg. … After the last fall of Napoleon … the great
powers of the continent … constituted themselves the
champions of the principle of absolute monarchy. The
maintenance of that principle ultimately became the chief
object of the so-called Holy Alliance established in 1816
between Russia, Austria and Prussia, and was pursued with
remarkable steadfastness by the Emperor Francis and his
minister, Prince Metternich [see HOLY ALLIANCE]. …
Thenceforth it became the avowed policy of the chief
sovereigns of Germany to maintain the rights of dynasties in
an adverse sense to those of their subjects. The people, on
the other hand, deeply resented the breach of those promises
which had been so lavishly made to them on the general summons
to the war of liberation.
{227}
Disaffection took the place of that enthusiastic loyalty with
which they had bled and suffered for their native princes; the
secret societies, formed with the concurrence of their rulers,
for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of the foreigner,
became ready instruments of sedition. … In the winter of
1819, a German federative congress assembled at Vienna. In May
of the following year it published an act containing closer
definitions of the Federative Act, having for their essential
objects the exclusion of the various provincial Diets from all
positive interference in the general affairs of Germany, and
an increase of the power of the princes over their respective
Diets, by a guarantee of aid on the part of the confederates"
(see GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820). During the next three years,
the powers of the Holy Alliance, under the lead of Austria,
and acting under a concert established at the successive
congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona (see VERONA,
CONGRESS OF), interfered to put down popular risings against
the tyranny of government in Italy and Spain, while they
discouraged the revolt of the Greeks.

See ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821;
and SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

"The commotions that pervaded Europe after the French
Revolution of 1830 affected Austria only in her Italian
dominions, and there but indirectly, for the imperial
authority remained undisputed in the Lombardo-Venetian
kingdom. But the duke of Modena and the archduke of Parma were
obliged to quit those states, and a formidable insurrection
broke out in the territory of the Church. An Austrian army of
18,000 men quickly put down the insurgents, who rose again,
however, as soon as it was withdrawn: The pope again invoked
the aid of Austria, whose troops entered Bologna in January,
1832, and established themselves there in garrison. Upon this,
the French immediately sent a force to occupy Ancona, and for
a while a renewal of the oft-repeated conflict between Austria
and France on Italian ground seemed inevitable; but it soon
appeared that France was not prepared to support the
revolutionary party in the pope's dominions, and that danger
passed away. The French remained for some years in Ancona, and
the Austrians in Bologna and other towns of Romagna. This was
the last important incident in the foreign affairs of Austria
previous to the death of the Emperor Francis I. on the 2nd of
March, 1835, after a reign of 43 years. … The Emperor
Francis was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand I., whose
accession occasioned no change in the political or
administrative system of the empire. Incapacitated, by
physical and mental infirmity, from labouring as his father
had done in the business of the state, the new monarch left to
Prince Metternich a much more unrestricted power than that
minister had wielded in the preceding reign. … The province
of Galicia began early in the new reign to occasion uneasiness
to the government. The Congress of Vienna had constituted the
city of Cracow an independent republic—a futile
representative of that Polish nationality which had once
extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. After the failure
of the Polish insurrection of 1831 against Russia, Cracow
became the focus of fresh conspiracies, to put an end to which
the city was occupied by a mixed force of Russians, Prussians,
and Austrians; the two former were soon withdrawn, but the
latter remained until 1840. When they also had retired, the
Polish propaganda was renewed with considerable effect. An
insurrection broke out in Galicia in 1846, when the scantiness
of the Austrian military force in the province seemed to
promise it success. It failed, however, as all previous
efforts of the Polish patriots had failed, because it rested
on no basis of popular sympathy. The nationality for which
they contended had ever been of an oligarchical pattern,
hostile to the freedom of the middle and lower classes. The
Galician peasants had no mind to exchange the yoke of Austria,
which pressed lightly upon them, for the feudal oppression of
the Polish nobles. They turned upon the insurgents and slew or
took them prisoners, the police inciting them to the work by
publicly offering a reward of five florins for every suspected
person delivered up by them, alive or dead. Thus the agents of
a civilized government became the avowed instigators of an
inhuman 'jacquerie.' The houses of the landed proprietors were
sacked by the peasants, their inmates were tortured and
murdered, and bloody anarchy raged throughout the land in the
prostituted name of loyalty. The Austrian troops at last
restored order; but Szela, the leader of the sanguinary
marauders, was thanked and highly rewarded in the name of his
sovereign. In the same year the three protecting powers,
Austria, Russia, and Prussia, took possession of Cracow, and,
ignoring the right of the other parties to the treaty of
Vienna to concern themselves about the fate of the republic,
they announced that its independence was annulled, and that
the city and territory of Cracow were annexed to, and forever
incorporated with, the Austrian monarchy. From this time forth
the political atmosphere of Europe became more and more loaded
with the presages of the storm that burst in 1848."

_W. K. Kelly,
Continuation of Coxe's History of the House of Austria,
chapter 5-6._

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1849.
Arrangements in Italy of the Congress of Vienna.
Heaviness of the Austrian yoke.
The Italian risings.

"By the treaty of Vienna (1815), the … entire kingdom of
Venetian-Lombardy was handed over to the Austrians; the
duchies of Modena, Reggio, with Massa and Carrara, given to
Austrian princes; Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to Napoleon's
queen, Maria Luisa, because she was an Austrian princess; the
grand-duchy of Tuscany to Ferdinand III. of Austria; the duchy
of Lucca to a Bourbon. Rome and the Roman states were restored
to the new Pope, Pius VII.; Sicily was united to Naples under
the Bourbons, and later deprived of her constitution, despite
the promised protection of England; the Canton Ticino, though
strictly Italian, annexed to the Swiss Confederation; the
little republic of St. Marino left intact, even as the
principality of Monaco. England retained Malta; Corsica was
left to France. Italy, so Metternich and Europe fondly hoped,
was reduced to a geographical expression. Unjust, brutal, and
treacherous as was that partition, at least it taught the
Italians that 'who would be free himself must strike the
blow.' It united them into one common hatred of Austria and
Austrian satellites. By substituting papal, Austrian, and
Bourbon despotism for the free institutions, codes, and
constitutions of the Napoleonic era, it taught them the
difference between rule and misrule.
{228}
Hence the demand of the Neapolitans during their first
revolution (1820) was for a constitution; that of the
Piedmontese and Lombards (1821) for a constitution and war
against Austria. The Bourbon swore and foreswore, and the
Austrians 'restored order' in Naples. The Piedmontese, who had
not concerted their movement until Naples was crushed—after
the abdication of Victor Emmanuel I., the granting of the
constitution by the regent Charles Albert, and its abrogation
by the new king Charles Felix—saw the Austrians enter
Piedmont, while the leaders of the revolution went out into
exile [see ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821]. But those revolutions and
those failures were the beginning of the end. The will to be
independent of all foreigners, the thirst for freedom, was
universal; the very name of empire or of emperor, was rendered
ridiculous, reduced to a parody—in the person of Ferdinand of
Austria. But one illusion remained—in the liberating virtues
of France and the French; this had to be dispelled by bitter
experience, and for it substituted the new idea of one Italy
for the Italians, a nation united, independent, free, governed
by a president or by a king chosen by the sovereign people.
The apostle of this idea, to which for fifty years victims and
martyrs were sacrificed by thousands, was Joseph Mazzini; its
champion, Joseph Garibaldi. By the genius of the former, the
prowess of the latter, the abnegation, the constancy, the
tenacity, the iron will of both, all the populations of Italy
were subjugated by that idea: philosophers demonstrated it,
poets sung it, pious Christian priests proclaimed it,
statesmen found it confronting their negotiations, baffling
their half-measures."

_J. W. V. Mario,
Introduction to Autobiography of Garibaldi._

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832, and 1848-1849.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1835.
Accession of the Emperor Ferdinand I.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1839-1840.
The Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.
Quadruple Alliance.

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848.
The Germanic revolutionary rising.
National Assembly at Frankfort.
Archduke John elected Administrator of Germany.

"When the third French Revolution broke out, its influence was
immediately felt in Germany. The popular movement this time
was very different from any the Governments had hitherto had
to contend with. The people were evidently in earnest, and
resolved to obtain, at whatever cost, their chief demands. …
The Revolution was most serious in the two great German
States, Prussia and Austria. … It was generally hoped that
union as well as freedom was now to be achieved by Germany;
but, as Prussia and Austria were in too much disorder to do
anything, about 500 Germans from the various States met at
Frankfurt, and on March 21 constituted themselves a
provisional Parliament. An extreme party wished the assembly
to declare itself permanent; but to this the majority would
not agree. It was decided that a National Assembly should be
elected forthwith by the German people. The Confederate Diet,
knowing that the provisional Parliament was approved by the
nation, recognized its authority. Through the Diet the various
Governments were communicated with, and all of them agreed to
make arrangements for the elections. … The National Assembly
was opened in Frankfurt on May 18, 1848. It elected the
Archduke John of Austria as the head of a new provisional
central Government. The choice was a happy one. The Archduke
was at once acknowledged by the different governments, and on
July 12 the President of the Confederate Diet formally made
over to him the authority which had hitherto belonged to the
Diet. The Diet then ceased to exist. The Archduke chose from
the Assembly seven members, who formed a responsible ministry.
The Assembly was divided into two parties, the Right and the
Left. These again were broken up into various sections. Much
time was lost in useless discussions, and it was soon
suspected that the Assembly would not in the end prove equal
to the great task it had undertaken."

_J. Sime,
History of Germany,
chapter 19, sections 8-11._

See GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848 (December).
Accession of the Emperor Francis Joseph I.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
Revolutionary risings.
Bombardment of Prague and Vienna.
Abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand.
Accession of Francis Joseph.
The Hungarian struggle for independence.

"The rise of national feeling among the Hungarian, Slavonic,
and Italian subjects of the House of Hapsburg was not the only
difficulty of the Emperor Ferdinand I. Vienna was then the
gayest and the dearest centre of fashion and luxury in Europe,
but side by side with wealth there seethed a mass of wretched
poverty; and the protective trade system of Austria so
increased the price of the necessaries of life that
bread-riots were frequent. … The university students were
foremost in the demand for a constitution and for the removal
of the rigid censorship of the press and of all books. So,
when the news came of the flight of Louis Philippe from Paris
[see FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848, and 1848] the students as well
as the artisans of Vienna rose in revolt (March 13, 1848), the
latter breaking machinery and attacking the houses of
unpopular employers. A deputation of citizens clamoured for
the resignation of the hated Metternich: his house was burnt
down, and he fled to England. A second outbreak of the excited
populace (May 15, 1848), sent the Emperor Ferdinand in
helpless flight to Innsprück in Tyrol; but he returned when
they avowed their loyalty to his person, though they detested
the old bureaucratic system. Far more complicated, however,
were the race jealousies of the Empire. The Slavs of Bohemia
… had demanded of Ferdinand the union of Bohemia, Moravia,
and Austrian Silesia in Estates for those provinces, and that
the Slavs should enjoy equal privileges with the Germans.
After an unsatisfactory answer had been received, they
convoked a Slavonic Congress at Prague. … But while this
Babel of tongues was seeking for a means of fusion, Prince
Windischgrätz was assembling Austrian troops around the
Bohemian capital. Fights in the streets led to a bombardment
of the city, which Windischgrätz soon entered in triumph. This
has left a bitterness between the Tsechs or Bohemians and the
Germans which still divides Bohemia socially and politically.
… The exciting news of the spring of 1848 had made the hot
Asiatic blood of the Magyars boil; yet even Kossuth and the
democrats at first only demanded the abolition of Metternich's
system in favour of a representative government. …
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Unfortunately Kossuth claimed that the Magyar laws and
language must now be supreme, not only in Hungary proper, but
also in the Hungarian 'crown lands' of Dalmatia, Croatia, and
Slavonia, and the enthusiastic Magyars wished also to absorb
the ancient principality of Transylvania; but this again was
stoutly resisted by the Roumanians, Slavs, and Saxons of that
little known corner of Europe, and their discontent was fanned
by the court of Vienna. Jellachich, the Ban or Governor of
Croatia, headed this movement, which aimed at making Agram the
capital of the southern Slavs. Their revolt against the
Hungarian ministry of Batthyanyi was at first disavowed in
June, 1848, but in October was encouraged, by the perfidious
government of Vienna. A conference between Batthyanyi and
Jellachich ended with words of defiance: 'Then we must meet on
the Drave,' said the Hungarian. 'No, on the Danube,' retorted
the champion of the Slavs. The vacillating Ferdinand annulled
his acceptance of the new Hungarian constitution and declared
Jellachich dictator of Hungary. His tool was unfortunate.
After crossing the Drave, the Slavs were defeated by the brave
Hungarian 'honveds' (defenders); and as many as 9,000 were
made prisoners. Unable to subdue Hungary, Jellachich turned
aside towards Vienna to crush the popular party there. For the
democrats, exasperated by the perfidious policy of the
government, had, on October 6, 1848, risen a third time: the
war-minister, Latour, had been hanged on a lamp-post, and the
emperor again fled from his turbulent capital to the
ever-faithful Tyrolese. But now Jellachich and Windischgrätz
bombarded the rebellious capital. It was on the point of
surrendering when the Hungarians appeared to aid the city; but
the levies raised by the exertions of Kossuth were this time
outmanœuvred [and defeated] by the imperialists at Schwechat
(October 30, 1848), and on the next day Vienna surrendered.
Blum, a delegate from Saxony [to the German Parliament of
Frankfort, who had come on a mission of mediation to Vienna,
but who had taken a part in the fighting], and some other
democrats, were shot. By this clever but unscrupulous use of
race jealousy the Viennese Government seemed to have overcome
Bohemians, Italians, Hungarians, and the citizens of its own
capital in turn; while it had diverted the southern Slavonians
from hostility to actual service on its side. … The weak
health and vacillating spirit of Ferdinand did not satisfy the
knot of courtiers of Vienna, who now, flushed by success,
sought to concentrate all power in the Viennese Cabinet. Worn
out by the excitements of the year and by the demands of these
men, Ferdinand, on December 2, 1848, yielded up the crown, not
to his rightful successor, his brother, but to his nephew,
Francis Joseph. He, a youth of eighteen, ascended the throne
so rudely shaken, and still, in spite of almost uniform
disaster in war, holds sway over an empire larger and more
powerful than he found it in 1848. The Hungarians refused to
recognise the young sovereign thus forced upon them; and the
fact that he was not crowned at Presburg with the sacred iron
crown of St. Stephen showed that he did not intend to
recognise the Hungarian constitution. Austrian troops under
Windischgrätz entered Buda-Pesth, but the Hungarian patriots
withdrew from their capital to organize a national resistance;
and when the Austrian Government proclaimed the Hungarian
constitution abolished and the complete absorption of Hungary
in the Austrian Empire, Kossuth and his colleagues retorted by
a Declaration of Independence (April 24, 1849). The House of
Hapsburg was declared banished from Hungary, which was to be a
republic. Kossuth, the first governor of the new republic, and
Görgei, its general, raised armies which soon showed their
prowess." The first important battle of the war had been
fought at Kapolna, on the right bank of the Theiss, on the
26th of February, 1849, Görgei and Dembinski commanding the
Hungarians and Windischgrätz leading the Austrians. The latter
won the victory, and the Hungarians retreated toward the
Theiss. About the middle of March, Görgei resumed the
offensive, advancing toward Pesth, and encountered the
Austrians at Isaszeg, where he defeated them in a hard-fought
battle,—or rather in two battles which are sometimes called
by different names: viz., that of Tapio Biscke fought April
4th, and that of Godolo, fought on the 5th. It was now the
turn of the Austrians to fall back, and they concentrated
behind the Rakos, to cover Pesth. The Hungarian general passed
round their left, carried Waitzen by storm, forced them to
evacuate Pesth and to retreat to Presburg, abandoning the
whole of Hungary with the exception of a few fortresses, which
they held. The most important of these fortresses, that of
Buda, the "twin-city," opposite Pesth on the Danube, was
besieged by the Hungarians and carried by storm on the 21st of
May. "In Transylvania, too, the Hungarians, under the talented
Polish general Bem, overcame the Austrians, Slavonians, and
Roumanians in many brilliant encounters. But the proclamation
of a republic had alienated those Hungarians who had only
striven for their old constitutional rights, so quarrels arose
between Görgei and the ardent democrat Kossuth. Worse still,
the Czar Nicholas, dreading the formation of a republic near
his Polish provinces sent the military aid which Francis
Joseph in May 1849 implored. Soon 80,000 Russians under
Paskiewitch poured over the northern Carpathians to help the
beaten Austrians, while others overpowered the gallant Bem in
Transylvania. Jellachich with his Croats again invaded South
Hungary, and Haynau, the scourge of Lombardy, marched on the
strongest Hungarian fortress, Komorn, on the Danube." The
Hungarians, overpowered by the combination of Austrians and
Russians against them, were defeated at Pered, June 21; at
Acz, July 3; at Komorn, July 11; at Waitzen, July 16; at
Tzombor, July 20; at Segesvar, July 31; at Debreczin, August
2; at Szegedin, August 4; at Temesvar, August 10. "In despair
Kossuth handed over his dictatorship to his rival Görgei, who
soon surrendered at Vilagos with all his forces to the
Russians (August 13, 1849). About 5,000 men with Kossuth, Bem,
and other leaders, escaped to Turkey. Even there Russia and
Austria sought to drive them forth; but the Porte, upheld by
the Western Powers, maintained its right to give sanctuary
according to the Koran. Kossuth and many of his fellow-exiles
finally sailed to England [and afterwards to America], where
his majestic eloquence aroused deep sympathy for the afflicted
country. Many Hungarian patriots suffered death. All rebels had
their property confiscated and the country was for years ruled
by armed force, and its old rights were abolished."

_J. H. Rose,
A Century of Continental History,
chapter 31._

ALSO IN:
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1815-1852,
chapter 55._

_A. Görgei,
My Life and Acts in Hungary._

_General Klapka,
Memoirs of the War of Independence in Hungary._

_Count Hartig,
Genesis of the Revolution in Austria._

_W. H. Stiles,
Austria in 1848-49._

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AUSTRIA: A. D.1848-1849.
Revolt in Lombardy and Venetia.
War with Sardinia.
Victories of Radetzky.
Italy vanquished again.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1850.
Failure of the movement for Germanic national unity.
End of the Frankfort Assembly.

"Frankfort had become the centre of the movement. The helpless
Diet had acknowledged the necessity of a German parliament,
and had summoned twelve men of confidence charged with drawing
up a new imperial constitution. But it was unable to supply
what was most wanted—a strong executive. … Instead of
establishing before all a strong executive able to control and
to realise its resolutions, the Assembly lost months in
discussing the fundamental rights of the German people, and
thus was overhauled by the events. In June, Prince
Windischgraetz crushed the insurrection at Prague; and in
November the anarchy which had prevailed during the whole
summer at Berlin was put down, when Count Brandenburg became
first minister. … Schwarzenberg [at Vienna] declared as soon
as he had taken the reins, that his programme was to maintain
the unity of the Austrian empire, and demanded that the whole
of it should enter into the Germanic confederation. This was
incompatible with the federal state as contemplated by the
National Assembly, and therefore Gagern, who had become
president of the imperial ministry [at Frankfort], answered
Schwarzenberg's programme by declaring that the entering of
the Austrian monarchy with a majority of non-German
nationalities into the German federal state was an
impossibility. Thus nothing was left but to place the king of
Prussia at the head of the German state. But in order to win a
majority for this plan Gagern found it necessary to make large
concessions to the democratic party, amongst others universal
suffrage. This was not calculated to make the offer of the
imperial crown acceptable to Frederic William IV., but his
principal reason for declining it was, that he would not
exercise any pressure on the other German sovereigns, and
that, notwithstanding Schwarzenberg's haughty demeanour, he
could not make up his mind to exclude Austria from Germany.
After the refusal of the crown by the king, the National
Assembly was doomed; it had certainly committed great faults,
but the decisive reason of its failure was the lack of a clear
and resolute will in Prussia. History, however, teaches that
great enterprises, such as it was to unify an empire
dismembered for centuries, rarely succeed at the first
attempt. The capital importance of the events of 1848 was that
they had made the German unionist movement an historical fact;
it could never be effaced from the annals, that all the German
governments had publicly acknowledged that tendency as
legitimate, the direction for the future was given, and even
at the time of failure it was certain, as Stockmar said, that
the necessity of circumstances would bring forward the man
who, profiting by the experiences of 1848, would fulfil the
national aspirations."

_F. H. Geffcken,
The Unity of Germany
(English Historical Review, April, 1891)_.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1848-1850.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1849-1859.
The Return to pure Absolutism.
Bureaucracy triumphant.

"The two great gains which the moral earthquake of 1848
brought to Austria were, that through wide provinces of the
Empire, and more especially in Hungary, it swept away the sort
of semi-vassalage in which the peasantry had been left by the
Urbarium of Maria Theresa [an edict which gave to the peasants
the right of moving from place to place, and the right of
bringing up their children as they wished, while it
established in certain courts the trial of all suits to which
they were parties], and other reforms akin to or founded upon
it, and introduced modern in the place of middle-age relations
between the two extremes of society. Secondly, it overthrew
the policy of do-nothing—a surer guarantee for the
continuance of abuses than even the determination, which soon
manifested itself at headquarters, to make the head of the
state more absolute than ever. After the taking of Vienna by
Windischgrätz, the National Assembly had, on the 15th of
November 1848, been removed from the capital to the small town
of Kremsier, in Moravia. Here it prolonged all ineffective
existence till March 1849, when the court camarilla felt
itself strong enough to put an end to an inconvenient censor,
and in March 1849 it ceased to exist. A constitution was at
the same time promulgated which contained many good
provisions, but which was never heartily approved by the
ruling powers, or vigorously carried into effect—the
proclamation of a state of siege in many cities, and other
expedients of authority in a revolutionary period, easily
enabling it to be set at naught. The successes of the reaction
in other parts of Europe, and, above all, the coup d'état in
Paris, emboldened Schwartzenberg to throw off the mask; and on
the last day of 1851 Austria became once more a pure
despotism. The young emperor had taken 'Viribus unitis' for
his motto; and his advisers interpreted those words to mean
that Austria was henceforward to be a state as highly
centralised as France—a state in which the minister at Vienna
was absolutely to govern everything from Salzburg to the Iron
Gate. The hand of authority had been severely felt in the
pre-revolutionary period, but now advantage was to be taken of
the revolution to make it felt far more than ever. In Hungary,
for example, … it was fondly imagined that there would be no
more trouble. The old political division into counties was
swept away; the whole land was divided into five provinces;
and the courtiers might imagine that from henceforth the
Magyars would be as easily led as the inhabitants of Upper
Austria. These delusions soon became general, but they owed
their origin partly to the enthusiastic ignorance of those who
were at the head of the army, and partly to two men"—Prince
Schwartzenberg and Alexander Bach. Of the latter, the "two
leading ideas were to cover the whole empire with a German
bureaucracy, and to draw closer the ties which connected the
court of Vienna with that of Rome.
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… If absolutism in Austria had a fair trial from the 31st of
December 1851 to the Italian war, it is to Bach that it was
owing; and if it utterly and ludicrously failed, it is he more
than any other man who must bear the blame. Already, in 1849,
the bureaucracy had been reorganised, but in 1852 new and
stricter regulations were introduced. Everything was
determined by precise rules—even the exact amount of hair
which the employee was permitted to wear upon his face. Hardly
any question was thought sufficiently insignificant to be
decided upon the spot. The smallest matters had to be referred
to Vienna. …. We can hardly be surprised that the great ruin
of the Italian war brought down with a crash the whole edifice of
the reaction."

_M. E. G. Duff,
Studies in European Politics,
chapter 3._

ALSO IN:
_L. Leger,
History of Austro-Hungary,
chapter 33._

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1853.
Commercial Treaty with the German Zollverein.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1853-1856.
Attitude in the Crimean War.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854, to 1854-1856.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1856-1859.
The war in Italy with Sardinia and France.
Reverses at Magenta and Solferino.
Peace of Villafranca.
Surrender of Lombardy.

"From the wars of 1848-9 the King of Sardinia was looked upon
by the moderate party as the champion of Italian freedom.
Charles Albert had failed: yet his son would not, and indeed
could not, go back, though, when he began his reign, there
were many things against him. … Great efforts were made to
win him over to the Austrian party, but the King was neither
cast down by defeat and distrust nor won over by soft words.
He soon showed that, though he had been forced to make a
treaty with Austria, yet he would not cast in his lot with the
oppression of Italy. He made Massimo d'Azeglio his chief
Minister, and Camillo Benso di Cavour his Minister of
Commerce. With the help of these two men he honestly carried
out the reforms which had been granted by his father, and set
new ones on foot. … The quick progress of reform frightened
Count Massimo d'Azeglio. He retired from office in 1853, and
his place was taken by Count Cavour, who made a coalition with
the democratic party in Piedmont headed by Urbano Rattazzi.
The new chief Minister began to work not only for the good of
Piedmont but for Italy at large. The Milanese still listened
to the hopes which Mazzini held out, and could not quietly
hear their subjection. Count Cavour indignantly remonstrated
with Radetzky for his harsh government. … The division and
slavery of Italy had shut her out from European politics.
Cavour held that, if she was once looked upon as an useful
ally, then her deliverance might be hastened by foreign
interference. The Sardinian army had been brought into good
order by Alfonso della Marmora; and was ready for action. In
1855, Sardinia made alliance with England and France, who were
at war with Russia; for Cavour looked on that power as the
great support of the system of despotism on the Continent, and
held that it was necessary for Italian freedom that Russia
should be humbled. The Sardinian army was therefore sent to
the Crimea, under La Marmora, where it did good service in the
battle of Tchernaya. … The next year the Congress of Paris
was held to arrange terms of peace between the allies and
Russia, and Cavour took the opportunity of laying before the
representatives of the European powers the unhappy state of
his countrymen. … In December, 1851, Louis Napoleon
Buonaparte, the President of the French Republic, seized the
government, and the next year took the title of Emperor of the
French. He was anxious to weaken the power of Austria, and at
the beginning of 1859 it became evident that war would soon
break out. As a sign of the friendly feeling of the French
Emperor towards the Italian cause, his cousin, Napoleon
Joseph, married Clotilda, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel.
Count Cavour now declared that Sardinia would make war on
Austria, unless a separate and national government was granted
to Lombardy and Venetia, and unless Austria promised to meddle
no more with the rest of Italy. On the other hand, Austria
demanded the disarmament of Sardinia. The King would not
listen to this demand, and France and Sardinia declared war
against Austria. The Emperor Napoleon declared that he would
free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic. … The Austrian
army crossed the Ticino, but was defeated by the King and
General Cialdini. The French victory of Magenta, on June 4th
forced the Austrians to retreat from Lombardy. … On June
24th the Austrians, who had crossed the Mincio, were defeated
at Solferino by the allied armies of France and Sardinia. It
seemed as though the French Emperor would keep his word. But
he found that if he went further, Prussia would take up the
cause of Austria, and that he would have to fight on the Rhine
as well as on the Adige. When, therefore, the French army came
before Verona, a meeting was arranged between the two
Emperors. This took place at Villafranca, and there
Buonaparte, without consulting his ally, agreed with Francis
Joseph to favour the establishment of an Italian
Confederation. …Austria gave up to the King of Sardinia
Lombardy to the west of Mincio. But the Grand Duke of Tuscany
and the Duke of Modena were to return to their States. The
proposed Confederation was never made, for the people of
Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna sent to the King to pray
that they might be made part of his Kingdom, and Victor
Emmanuel refused to enter on the scheme of the French Emperor.
In return for allowing the Italians of Central Italy to shake
off the yoke, Buonaparte asked for Savoy and Nizza. … The
King … consented to give up the 'glorious cradle of his
Monarchy' in exchange for Central Italy."

_W. A. Hunt,
History of Italy,
chapter 11._

ALSO IN:
_J. W. Probyn,
Italy from 1815 to 1890,
chapter 9-10._

_C. de Mazade,
Life of Count Cavour,
chapter 2-7._

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859, and 1859-1861.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1862-1866.
The Schleswig-Holstein question.
Quarrel with Prussia.
The humiliating Seven Weeks War.

Conflict with Prussia grew out of the complicated
Schleswig-Holstein question, reopened in 1862 and
provisionally settled by a delusive arrangement between
Prussia and Austria, into which the latter was artfully drawn
by Prince Bismarck.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862,
and GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.

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