book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1746-1747. Further French conquests in the Netherlands. Lombardy recovered. Genoa won and lost.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747; and ITALY; A. D. 1746-1747.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1748 (October). Termination and results of the War of the Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, THE CONGRESS OF.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1755-1763. The Seven Years War.

Since the conquest of Silesia by Frederick the Great of Prussia, "he had cast off all reserve. In his extraordinary Court at Potsdam this man of wit and war laughed at God, and at his brother philosophers and sovereigns; he ill-treated Voltaire, the chief organ of the new opinions; he wounded kings and queens with his epigrams; he believed neither in the beauty of Madam de Pompadour nor in the poetical genius of the Abbé Bernis, Prime Minister of France. The Empress thought the moment favourable for the recovery of Silesia; she stirred up Europe, especially the queens; she persuaded the Queen of Poland and the Empress of Russia; she paid court to the mistress of Louis XV. The monstrous alliance of France with the ancient state of Austria against a sovereign who maintained the equilibrium of Germany united all Europe against him. England alone supported him and gave him subsidies. She was governed at that time by a gouty lawyer, the famous William Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, who raised himself by his eloquence and by his hatred of the French. England wanted two things; the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe, and the destruction of the French and Spanish colonies. {221} Her griefs were serious; the Spaniards had ill-treated her smugglers and the French wanted to prevent her from settling on their territory in Canada. In India, La Bourdonnaie and his successor Dupleix threatened to found a great empire in the face of the English. As a declaration of war the English confiscated 300 French ships (1756). The marvel of the war was to see this little kingdom of Prussia, interposed between the huge powers of Austria, France, and Russia, run from one to the other, and defy them all. This was the second period of the art of war. The unskillful adversaries of Frederick thought that he owed all his success to the precision of the manœuvres of the Prussian soldiers, to their excellent drill and rapid firing. Frederick had certainly carried the soldier machine to perfection. This was capable of imitation: the Czar Peter III. and the Count of St. Germin created military automatons by means of the lash. But they could not imitate the quickness of his manœuvres; the happy arrangement of his marches, which gave him great facility for moving and concentrating large masses, and directing them on the weak points of the enemy. In this terrible chase given by the large unwieldy armies of the allies to the agile Prussians, one cannot help noticing the amusing circumspection of the Austrian tacticians and the stupid folly of the fine gentlemen who led the armies of France. The Fabius of Austria, the sage and heavy Daun, was satisfied with a war of positions; he could not find encampments strong enough or mountains sufficiently inaccessible; his stationary troops were always beaten by Frederick. To begin with, he freed himself from the enmity of Saxony. He did not hurt, he only disarmed her. He struck his next blow in Bohemia. Repulsed by the Austrians, and abandoned by the English army, which determined at Kloster-seven to fight no more, threatened by the Russians, who were victorious at Joegerndorf, he passed into Saxony and found the French and Imperialists combined there. Prussia was surrounded by four armies. Frederick fancied himself lost and determined on suicide. He wrote to his sister and to d'Argens announcing his intention. There was only one thing which frightened him: it was, that when once he was dead the great distributor of glory--Voltaire--might make free with his name: he wrote an epistle to disarm him. ... Having written this epistle he defeated the enemy at Rosbach. The Prince of Soubise, who thought that he fled, set off rashly in pursuit; then the Prussians unmasked their batteries, killed 3,000 men, and took 7,000 prisoners. In the French camp were found an army of cooks, actors, hair-dressers; a number of parrots, parasols, and huge cases of lavender-water, &c. (1757). None but a tactician could follow the King of Prussia in this series of brilliant and skillful battles. The Seven Years' War, however varied its incidents, was a political and strategical war: it has not the interest of the wars for ideas, the struggles for religion and for freedom of the 16th century and of our own time. The defeat of Rosbach was followed by another at Crevelt, and by great reverses balanced by small advantages; the total ruin of the French navy and colonies; the English masters of the ocean and conquerors of India; the exhaustion and humiliation of old Europe in the presence of young Prussia. This is the history of the Seven Years War. It was terminated under the ministry of the Duke of Choiseul," by the Peace of Hubertsburg and the Peace of Paris.

_J. Michelet, A Summary of Modern History, pages 300-302._

See GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756, to 1763; and, also, SEVEN YEARS' WAR.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1772-1773. The First Partition of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1763-1773.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1777-1779. The question of the Bavarian Succession.

See BAVARIA: A. D. 1777-1779.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1782-1811. Abolition of Serfdom.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1787-1791. War with the Turks. Treaty of Sistova. Slight Acquisitions of Territory.

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1790-1797. Death of Joseph II. and Leopold II. Accession of Francis II. The Coalition against and war with revolutionary France, to the Peace of Campo Formio.

"It is a mistake to imagine that the European Powers attacked the Revolution in France. It was the Revolution which attacked them. The diplomatists of the 18th century viewed at first with cynical indifference the meeting of the States-General at Versailles. ... The two points which occupied the attention of Europe in 1789 were the condition of Poland and the troubles in the East. The ambitious designs of Catherine and the assistance lent to them by Joseph threatened the existence of the Turkish Empire, irritated the Prussian Court, and awakened English apprehensions, always sensitive about the safety of Stamboul. Poland, the battle-field of cynical diplomacy, torn by long dissensions and mined by a miserable constitution, was vainly endeavouring, under the jealous eyes of her great neighbours, to avert the doom impending, and to reassert her ancient claim to a place among the nations of the world. But Russia had long since determined that Poland must be a vassal State to her or cease to be a State at all, while Prussia, driven to face a hard necessity, realised that a strong Poland and a strong Prussia could not exist together, and that if Poland ever rose again to power, Prussia must bid good-bye to unity and greatness. These two questions to the States involved seemed to be of far more moment than any political reform in France, and engrossed the diplomatists of Europe until the summer of 1791. In February, 1790, a new influence was introduced into European politics by the death of the Emperor Joseph and the accession of his brother, Leopold II. Leopold was a man of remarkable ability, no enthusiast and no dreamer, thoroughly versed in the selfish traditions of Austrian policy and in some of the subtleties of Italian statecraft, discerning, temperate, resolute and clear-headed, quietly determined to have his own way, and generally skilful enough to secure it. Leopold found his new dominions in a state of the utmost confusion, with war and rebellion threatening him on every side. He speedily set about restoring order. He repealed the unpopular decrees of Joseph. He conciliated or repressed his discontented subjects. He gradually re-established the authority of the Crown. ... Accordingly, the first eighteen months of Leopold's reign were occupied with his own immediate interests, and at the end of that time his success was marked. {222} Catherine's vast schemes in Turkey had been checked. War had been averted. Poland had been strengthened by internal changes. Prussia had been conciliated and outmanœuvred, and her influence had been impaired. At last, at the end of August, 1791, the Emperor was free to face the French problem, and he set out for the Castle of Pillnitz to meet the King of Prussia and the Emigrant leaders at the Saxon Elector's Court. For some time past the restlessness of the French Emigrants had been causing great perplexity in Europe. Received with open arms by the ecclesiastical princes of the Rhine, by the Electors of Mayence and Trèves, they proceeded to agitate busily for their own restoration. ... The object of the Emigrants was to bring pressure to bear at the European Courts, with the view of inducing the Powers to intervene actively in their behalf. ... After his escape from France, in June, 1790, the Comte de Provence established his Court at Coblentz, where he was joined by his brother the Comte d'Artois, and where, on the plea that Louis was a prisoner, he claimed the title of Regent, and assumed the authority of King. The Court of the two French princes at Coblentz represented faithfully the faults and follies of the Emigrant party. But a more satisfactory spectacle was offered by the camp at Worms, where Condé was bravely trying to organise an army to fight against the Revolution in France. To Condé's standard flocked the more patriotic Emigrants. ... But the German Princes in the neighbourhood looked with disfavour on the Emigrant army. It caused confusion in their dominions, and it drew down on them the hostility of the French Government. The Emperor joined them in protesting against it. In February, 1792, Condé's army was compelled to abandon its camp at Worms, and to retire further into Germany. The Emperor was well aware of the reckless selfishness of the Emigrant princes. He had as little sympathy with them as his sister. He did not intend to listen to their demands. If he interfered in France at all, it would only be in a cautious and tentative manner, and in order to save Marie Antoinette and her husband. Certainly he would not undertake a war for the restoration of the Ancien Régime. ... Accordingly, the interviews at Pillnitz came to nothing. ... Early in March, 1792, Leopold suddenly died. His heir Francis, unrestrained by his father's tact and moderation, assumed a different tone and showed less patience. The chances of any effective pressure from the Powers declined, as the prospect of war rose on the horizon. Francis' language was sufficiently sharp to give the Assembly the pretext which it longed for, and on the 20th April, Louis, amid general enthusiasm, came down to the Assembly and declared war against Austria. The effects of that momentous step no comment can exaggerate. It ruined the best hopes of the Revolution, and prepared the way for a military despotism in the future."

_C. E. Mallet, The French Revolution, chapter 7._

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791; 1791 (JULY-DECEMBER); 1791-1792; 1792 (APRIL-JULY), and (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); 1792-1793 (DECEMBER-FEBRUARY); 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL), and (JULY-DECEMBER); 1794 (MARCH-JULY); 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY); 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER); 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); and 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1794-1796. The Third partition of Poland. Austrian share of the spoils.

See POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1797 (October). Treaty of Campo-Formio with France. Cession of the Netherlands and Lombard provinces. Acquisition of Venice and Venetian territories.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1798-1806. Congress of Rastadt. Second Coalition against France. Peace of Luneville. Third Coalition. Ulm and Austerlitz. Peace of Presburg. Extinction of the Holy Roman Empire. Birth of the Empire of Austria.

"When Bonaparte sailed for Egypt he had left a congress at Rastadt discussing means for the execution of certain articles in the treaty of Campo Formio which were to establish peace between France and the Empire. ... Though openly undertaking to invite the Germans to a congress in order to settle a general peace on the basis of the integrity of the Empire, the Emperor agreed in secret articles to use his influence to procure for the Republic the left bank of the Rhine with the exception of the Prussian provinces, to join with France in obtaining compensation in Germany for those injured by this change, and to contribute no more than his necessary contingent if the war were prolonged. The ratification of these secret provisions had been extorted from the Congress by threats before Bonaparte had left; but the question of indemnification had progressed no farther than a decision to secularise the ecclesiastical states for the purpose, when extravagant demands from the French deputies brought negotiation to a deadlock. Meanwhile, another coalition war had been brewing. Paul I. of Russia had regarded with little pleasure the doings of the Revolution, and when his proteges, the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, had been deprived of Malta by Bonaparte on his way to Egypt, when the Directory established by force of arms a Helvetic republic in Switzerland, when it found occasion to carry off the Pope into exile and erect a Roman republic, he abandoned the cautious and self-seeking policy of Catherine, and cordially responded to Pitt's advances for an alliance. At the same time Turkey was compelled by the invitation of Egypt to ally itself for once with Russia. Austria, convinced that the French did not intend to pay a fair price for the treaty of Campo Formio, also determined to renew hostilities; and Naples, exasperated by the sacrilege of a republic at Rome, and alarmed by French aggressiveness, enrolled itself in the league. The Neapolitan king, indeed, opened the war with some success, before he could receive support from his allies; but he was soon vanquished by the French, and his dominions were converted into a Parthenopean republic. Austria, on the contrary, awaited the arrival of the Russian forces; and the general campaign began early in 1799. The French, fighting against such generals as the Archduke Charles and the Russian Suvaroff, without the supervision of Carnot or the strategy and enterprise of Bonaparte, suffered severe reverses and great privations. Towards the end the Russian army endured much hardship on account of the selfishness of the Austrian cabinet; and this caused the Tsar, who thought he had other reasons for discontent, to withdraw his troops from the field. {223} When Bonaparte was made First Consul the military position of France was, nevertheless, very precarious. ... The Roman and Cisalpine republics had fallen. The very congress at Rastadt had been dispersed by the approach of the Austrians; and the French emissaries had been sabred by Austrian troopers, though how their insolence came to be thus foully punished has never been clearly explained. At this crisis France was rescued from foreign foes and domestic disorders by its most successful general. ... In the campaign which followed, France obtained signal satisfaction for its chagrin. Leaving Moreau to carry the war into Germany, Bonaparte suddenly crossed the Alps, and defeated the Austrians on the plain of Marengo. The Austrians, though completely cowed, refrained from concluding a definite peace out of respect for their engagements with England; and armistices, expiring into desultory warfare, prolonged the contest till Moreau laid the way open to Vienna, by winning a splendid triumph at Hohenlinden. A treaty of peace was finally concluded at Lunéville, when Francis II. pledged the Empire to its provisions on the ground of the consents already given at Rastadt. In conformity with the treaty of Campo Formio, Austria retained the boundary of the Adige in Italy; France kept Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine; and the princes, dispossessed by the cessions, were promised compensation in Germany; while Tuscany was given to France to sell to Spain at the price of Parma, Louisiana, six ships of the line, and a sum of money. Shortly afterwards peace was extended to Naples on easy terms. ... The time was now come for the Revolution to complete the ruin of the Holy Roman Empire. Pursuant to the treaty of Lunéville, the German Diet met at Regensburg to discuss a scheme of compensation for the dispossessed rulers. Virtually the meeting was a renewal of the congress of Rastadt. ... At Rastadt the incoherence and disintegration of the venerable Empire had become painfully apparent. ... When it was known that the head of the nation, who had guaranteed the integrity of the Empire in the preliminaries of Leoben, and had renewed the assurance when he convoked the assembly, had in truth betrayed to the stranger nearly all the left bank of the Rhine,--the German rulers greedily hastened to secure every possible trifle in the scramble of redistribution. The slow and wearisome debates were supplemented by intrigues of the most degraded nature. Conscious that the French Consul could give a casting vote on any disputed question, the princes found no indignity too shameful, no trick too base, to obtain his favour. ... The First Consul, on his side, prosecuted with a duplicity and address, heretofore unequalled, the traditional policy of France in German affairs. ... Feigning to take into his counsels the young Tsar, whose convenient friendship was thus easily obtained on account of his family connections with the German courts, he drew up a scheme of indemnification and presented it to the Diet for endorsement. In due time a servile assent was given to every point which concerned the two autocrats. By this settlement, Austria and Prussia were more equally balanced against one another, the former being deprived of influence in Western Germany, and the latter finding in more convenient situations a rich recompense for its cessions on the Rhine; while the middle states, Bavaria, Baden, and Würtemberg, received very considerable accessions of territory. But if Bonaparte dislocated yet further the political structure of Germany, he was at least instrumental in removing the worst of the anachronisms which stifled the development of improved institutions among a large division of its people. The same measure which brought German separatism to a climax, also extinguished the ecclesiastical sovereignties and nearly all the free cities. That these strongholds of priestly obscurantism and bourgeois apathy would some day be invaded by their more ambitious and active neighbours, had long been apparent. ... And war was declared when thousands of British subjects visiting France had already been ensnared and imprisoned. ... Pitt had taken the conduct of the war out of the hands of Addington's feeble ministry. Possessing the confidence of the powers, he rapidly concluded offensive alliances with Russia, Sweden, and Austria, though Prussia obstinately remained neutral. Thus, by 1805, Napoleon had put to hazard all his lately won power in a conflict with the greater part of Europe. The battle of Cape Trafalgar crushed for good his maritime power, and rendered England safe from direct attack. The campaign on land, however, made him master of central Europe. Bringing the Austrian army in Germany to an inglorious capitulation at Ulm, he marched through Vienna, and, with inferior forces won in his best style the battle of Austerlitz against the troops of Francis and Alexander. The action was decisive. The allies thought not of renewing the war with the relays of troops which were hurrying up from North and South. Russian and Austrian alike wished to be rid of their ill-fated connection. The Emperor Alexander silently returned home, pursued only by Napoleon's flattering tokens of esteem; the Emperor Francis accepted the peace of Presburg, which deprived his house of the ill-gotten Venetian States, Tyrol, and its more distant possessions in Western Germany; the King of Prussia, who had been on the point of joining the coalition with a large army if his mediation were unsuccessful, was committed to an alliance with the conqueror by his terrified negotiator. And well did Napoleon appear to make the fruits of victory compensate France for its exertions. The empire was not made more unwieldy in bulk, but its dependents, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden, received considerable accessions of territory, and the two first were raised to the rank of kingdoms; while the Emperor's Italian principality, which he had already turned into a kingdom of Italy to the great disgust of Austria, was increased by the addition of the ceded Venetian lands. But the full depth of Europe's humiliation was not experienced till the two following years. In 1806 an Act of Federation was signed by the kings of Bavaria and Würtemberg, the Elector of Baden, and thirteen minor princes, which united them into a league under the protection of the French Emperor. The objects of this confederacy, known as the Rheinbund were defence against foreign aggression and the exercise of complete autonomy at home. ... Already the consequences of the Peace of Lunéville had induced the ruling Hapsburg to assure his equality with the sovereigns of France and Russia by taking the imperial title in his own right; and before the Confederation of the Rhine was made public he formally renounced his office of elective Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and released from allegiance to him all the states and princes of the Reich, The triumph of the German policy of the Consulate was complete."

_A. Weir, The Historical Basis of Modern Europe, chapter 4._

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799, to 1805, and GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803, to 1805-1806.

{224}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1809-1814. The second struggle with Napoleon and the second defeat. The Marriage alliance. The Germanic War of Liberation. The final alliance and the overthrow of the Corsican.

"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. ... {229} 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._

{230}

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 Revised, 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. {231} ... 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.

{232}

No sooner was the war with Denmark over, than "Prussia showed that it was her intention to annex the newly acquired duchies to herself. This Austria could not endure, and accordingly, in 1866, war broke out between Austria and Prussia. Prussia sought alliance with Italy, which she stirred up to attack Austria in her Italian possessions. The Austrian army defeated the Italian at Eustazza [or Custozza (see ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866)]; but the fortunes of war were against them in Germany. Allied with the Austrians were the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Würtembergers, Baden and Hesse, and Hanover. The Prussians advanced with their chief army into Bohemia with the utmost rapidity, dreading lest the Southern allies should march north to Hanover, and cut the kingdom in half, and push on to Berlin. The Prussians had three armies, which were to enter Bohemia and effect a junction. The Elbe army under the King, the first army under Prince Frederick Charles, and the second army under the Crown Prince. The Elbe army advanced across Saxony by Dresden. The first army was in Lusatia, at Reichenberg, and the second army in Silesia at Heisse. They were all to meet at Gitschin. The Austrian army under General Benedek was at Königgrätz, in Eastern Bohemia. ... As in the wars with Napoleon, so was it now; the Austrian generals ... never did the right thing at the right moment. Benedek did indeed march against the first army, but too late, and when he found it was already through the mountain door, he retreated, and so gave time for the three armies to concentrate upon him. The Elbe army and the first met at Münchengratz, and defeated an Austrian army there, pushed on, and drove them back out of Gitschin on Königgrätz. ... The Prussians pushed on, and now the Elbe army went to Smidar, and the first army to Horzitz, whilst the second army, under the Crown Prince, was pushing on, and had got to Gradlitz. The little river Bistritz is crossed by the high road to Königgrätz. It runs through swampy ground, and forms little marshy pools or lakes. To the north of Königgrätz a little stream of much the same character dribbles through bogs into the Elbe. ... But about Chlum, Nedelist and Lippa is terraced high ground, and there Benedek planted his cannon. The Prussians advanced from Smidar against the left wing of the Austrians, from Horzitz against the centre, and the Crown Prince was to attack the right wing. The battle began on the 3d of July, at 7 o'clock in the morning, by the simultaneous advance of the Elbe and the first army upon the Bistritz. At Sadowa is a wood, and there the battle raged most fiercely. ... Two things were against the Austrians; first, the incompetence of their general, and, secondly, the inferiority of their guns. The Prussians had what are called needle-guns, breach-loaders, which are fired by the prick of a needle, and for the rapidity with which they can be fired far surpassed the old-fashioned muzzle-loaders used by the Austrians. After this great battle, which is called by the French and English the battle of Sadowa (Sadowa (o Breve), not Sadowa (o Macron), as it is erroneously pronounced), but which the Germans call the battle of Königgrätz, the Prussians marched on Vienna, and reached the Marchfeld before the Emperor Francis Joseph would come to terms. At last, on the 23d of August, a peace which gave a crushing preponderance in Germany to Prussia, was concluded at Prague."

_S. Baring-Gould, The Story of Germany, pages 390-394._

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866. The War in Italy. Loss of Venetia.

See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867. Concession of nationality to Hungary. Formation of the dual Austro-Hungarian Empire.

"For twelve years the name of Hungary, as a State, was erased from the map of Europe. Bureaucratic Absolutism ruled supreme in Austria, and did its best to obliterate all Hungarian institutions. Germanisation was the order of the day, the German tongue being declared the exclusive language of official life as well as of the higher schools. Government was carried on by means of foreign, German, and Czech officials. No vestige was left, not only of the national independence, but either of Home Rule or of self-government of any sort; the country was divided into provinces without regard for historical traditions; in short, an attempt was made to wipe out every trace denoting the existence of a separate Hungary. All ranks and classes opposed a sullen passive resistance to these attacks against the existence of the nation; even the sections of the nationalities which had rebelled against the enactments of 1848, at the instigation of the reactionary Camarilla, were equally disaffected in consequence of the short-sighted policy of despotical centralisation. ... Finally, after the collapse of the system of Absolutism in consequence of financial disasters and of the misfortunes of the Italian War of 1859, the Hungarian Parliament was again convoked; and after protracted negotiations, broken off and resumed again, the impracticability of a system of provincial Federalism having been proved in the meantime, and the defeat incurred in the Prussian War of 1866 having demonstrated the futility of any reconstruction of the Empire of Austria in which the national aspirations of Hungary were not taken into due consideration--an arrangement was concluded under the auspices of Francis Deák, Count Andrássy, and Count Beust, on the basis of the full acknowledgment of the separate national existence of Hungary, and of the continuity of its legal rights. The idea of a centralised Austrian Empire had to give way to the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which is in fact an indissoluble federation of two equal States, under the common rule of a single sovereign, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, each of the States having a constitution, government, and parliament of its own, Hungary especially retaining, with slight modifications, its ancient institutions remodelled in 1848. The administration of the foreign policy, the management of the army, and the disbursement of the expenditure necessary for these purposes, were settled upon as common affairs of the entire monarchy, for the management of which common ministers were instituted, responsible to the two delegations, co-equal committees of the parliaments of Hungary and of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) provinces. Elaborate provisions were framed for the smooth working of these common institutions, for giving weight to the constitutional influence, even in matters of common policy, of the separate Cisleithanian and Hungarian ministries, and for rendering their responsibility to the respective Parliaments an earnest and solid reality. {233} The financial questions pending in the two independent and equal States were settled by a compromise; measures were taken for the equitable arrangement of all matters which might arise in relation to interests touching both States, such as duties, commerce, and indirect taxation, all legislation on these subjects taking place by means of identical laws separately enacted by the Parliament of each State. ... Simultaneously with these arrangements the political differences between Hungary and Croatia were compromised by granting provincial Home Rule to the latter. ... Thus the organisation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on the basis of dualism, and the compromise entered into between the two halves composing it, whilst uniting for the purposes of defence the forces of two States of a moderate size and extent into those of a great empire, able to cope with the exigencies of an adequate position amongst the first-class Powers of Europe, restored also to Hungary its independence and its unfettered sovereignty in all internal matters."

_A. Pulszky, Hungary (National Life and Thought, lecture 3)._

"The Ausgleich, or agreement with Hungary, was arranged by a committee of 67 members of the Hungarian diet, at the head of whom was the Franklin of Hungary, Francis Deák, the true patriot and inexorable legist, who had taken no part in the revolutions, but who had never given up one of the smallest of the rights of his country. ... On the 8th of June [1867], the emperor Francis Joseph was crowned with great pomp at Pesth. On the 28th of the following June, he approved the decisions of the diet, which settled the position of Hungary with regard to the other countries belonging to his majesty, and modified some portions of the laws of 1848. ... Since the Ausgleich the empire has consisted of two parts. ... For the sake of clearness, political language has been increased by the invention of two new terms, Cisleithania and Transleithania, to describe the two groups, separated a little below Vienna by a small affluent of the Danube, called the Leitha--a stream which never expected to become so celebrated."

_L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 35._

ALSO IN: _Francis Deák, A Memoir, chapter 26-31._

_Count von Beust, Memoirs, volume 2, chapter 38._

_L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 5._

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1887. The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its new national life. Its difficulties and promises. Its ambitions and aims in Southeastern Europe.

"Peace politicians may say that a war always does more harm than good to the nations which engage in it. Perhaps it always does, at any rate, morally speaking, to the victors: but that it does not to the vanquished, Austria stands as a living evidence. Finally excluded from Italy and Germany by the campaign of 1866, she has cast aside her dreams of foreign domination, and has set herself manfully to the task of making a nation out of the various conflicting nationalities over which she presides. It does not require much insight to perceive that as long as she held her position in Germany this fusion was hopeless. The overwhelming preponderance of the German element made any approach to a reciprocity of interests impossible. The Germans always were regarded as sovereigns, the remaining nationalities as subjects; it was for these to command, for those to obey. In like manner, it was impossible for the Austrian Government to establish a mutual understanding with a population which felt itself attracted--alike by the ties of race, language, and geographical position--to another political union. Nay more, as long as the occupation of the Italian provinces remained as a blot on the Imperial escutcheon, it was impossible for the Government to command any genuine sympathy from any of its subjects. But with the close of the war with Prussia these two difficulties--the relations with Germany and the relations with Italy--were swept away. From this time forward Austria could appear before the world as a Power binding together for the interests of all, a number of petty nationalities, each of which was too feeble to maintain a separate existence. In short, from the year 1866 Austria had a raison d'être, whereas before she had none. ... Baron Beust, on the 7th of February, 1867, took office under Franz Joseph. His programme may be stated as follows. He saw that the day of centralism and imperial unity was gone past recall, and that the most liberal Constitution in the world would never reconcile the nationalities to their present position, as provinces under the always detested and now despised Empire. But then came the question--Granted that a certain disintegration is inevitable, how far is this disintegration to go? Beust proposed to disarm the opposition of the leading nationality by the gift of an almost complete independence, and, resting on the support thus obtained, to gain time for conciliating the remaining provinces by building up a new system of free government. It would be out of place to give a detailed account of the well-known measure which converted the 'Austrian empire' into the 'Austro-Hungarian monarchy.' It will be necessary, however, to describe the additions made to it by the political machinery. The Hungarian Reichstag was constructed on the same principle as the Austrian Reichsrath. It was to meet in Pesth, as the Reichsrath at Vienna, and was to have its own responsible ministers. From the members of the Reichsrath and Reichstag respectively were to be chosen annually sixty delegates to represent Cisleithanian and sixty to represent Hungarian interests--twenty being taken in each case from the Upper, forty from the Lower House. These two 'Delegations,' whose votes were to be taken, when necessary, collectively, though each Delegation sat in a distinct chamber, owing to the difference of language, formed the Supreme Imperial Assembly, and met alternate years at Vienna and Pesth. They were competent in matters of foreign policy, in military administration, and in Imperial finance. At their head stood three Imperial ministers--the Reichskanzler, who presided at the Foreign Office, and was ex officio Prime Minister, the Minister of War, and the Minister of Finance. These three ministers were independent of the Reichsrath and Reichstag, and could only be dismissed by a vote of want of confidence on the part of the Delegations. The 'Ausgleich' or scheme of federation with Hungary is, no doubt, much open to criticism, both as a whole and in its several parts. It must always be borne in mind that administratively and politically it was a retrogression. {234} At a time in which all other European nations--notably North Germany--were simplifying and unifying their political systems, Austria was found doing the very reverse. ... The true answer to these objections is, that the measure of 1867 was constructed to meet a practical difficulty. Its end was not the formation of a symmetrical system of government, but the pacification of Hungary. ... The internal history of the two halves of the empire flows in two different channels. Graf Andrassy, the Hungarian Premier, had a comparatively easy task before him. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the predominance of the Magyars in Hungary was more assured than that of the Germans in Cisleithania. It is true that they numbered only 5,000,000 out of the 16,000,000 inhabitants; but in these 5,000,000 were included almost all the rank, wealth, and intelligence of the country. Hence they formed in the Reichstag a compact and homogeneous majority, under which the remaining Slovaks and Croatians soon learnt to range themselves. In the second place, Hungary had the great advantage of starting in a certain degree afresh. Her government was not bound by the traditional policy of former Vienna ministries, and ... it had managed to keep its financial credit unimpaired. In the third place, as those who are acquainted with Hungarian history well know, Parliamentary institutions had for a long time flourished in Hungary. Indeed the Magyars, who among their many virtues can hardly be credited with the virtue of humility, assert that the world is mistaken in ascribing to England the glory of having invented representative government, and claim this glory for themselves. Hence one of the main difficulties with which the Cisleithanian Government had to deal was already solved for Graf Andrassy and his colleagues."--_Austria since Sadowa (Quarterly Review, volume 131, pages 90-95)._--"It is difficult for anyone except an Austro-Hungarian statesman to realise the difficulties of governing the Dual Monarchy. Cisleithania has, as is well-known, a Reichsrath and seventeen Provincial Diets. The two Austrias, Styria, Carinthia, and Salzburg present no difficulties, but causes of trouble are abundant in the other districts. The Emperor will probably end by getting himself crowned King of Bohemia, although it will be difficult for him to lend himself to a proscription of the German language by the Tsechs, as he has been forced by the Magyars to lend himself to the proscription in parts of Hungary of Rouman and of various Slavonic languages. But how far is this process to continue? The German Austrians are as unpopular in Istria and Dalmatia as in Bohemia; and Dalmatia is also an ancient kingdom. These territories were originally obtained by the election of the King of Hungary to the crown of the tripartite kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. Is 'Ferencz Jozsef' to be crowned King of Dalmatia? And is Dalmatia to have its separate Ministry and its separate official language, and its completely separate laws? And what then of Fiume, the so-called Hungarian port? Then, again, Galicia is also an ancient kingdom, although it has at other times formed part of Poland; and the Emperor is King of Galicia, as he is King of Bohemia and Dalmatia. Is he to be crowned King of Galicia? And if so, is the separate existence of Galicia to be a Polish or a Ruthenian existence, or, indeed, a Jewish? for the Jews are not only extraordinarily powerful and numerous there, but are gaining ground day by day. The Ruthenians complain as bitterly of being bullied by the Poles in Galicia as the Croats complain of the Magyars. Even here the difficulties are not ended. The Margraviate of Moravia contains a large Tsech population, and will have to be added to the Bohemian kingdom. Bukowina may go with Galicia or Transylvania, Austrian Silesia may be divided between the Tsechs of Bohemia and Moravia on the one part, and the Poles or Ruthenians or Jews of Galicia on the other. But what is to become of that which, with the most obstinate disregard of pedants, I intend to continue to call the Tyrol? Trieste must go with Austria and Salzburg, and the Northern Tyrol and Styria and Carinthia no doubt; but it is not difficult to show that Austria would actually be strengthened by giving up the Southern Tyrol, where the Italian people, or at least the Italian language, is gaining ground day by day. There really seems very little left of the integrity of the Austrian Empire at the conclusion of our survey of its constituent parts. Matters do not look much better if we turn to Trans-Leithania. Hungary has its Reichstag (which is also known by some terrible Magyar name), its House of Representatives, and its House of Magnates, and, although there are not so many Provincial Diets as in Austria, Slavonia and the Banat of Croatia possess a Common Diet with which the Magyars are far from popular; and the Principality of Transylvania also possessed separate local rights, for trying completely to suppress which the Magyars are at present highly unpopular. The Principality, although under Magyar rule, is divided between 'Saxons' and Roumans, who equally detest the Magyars, and the Croats and Slovenes who people the Banat are Slavs who also execrate their Ugrian rulers, inscriptions in whose language are defaced whenever seen. Croatia is under-represented at Pest, and says that she goes unheard, and the Croats, who have partial Home Rule without an executive, ask for a local executive as well, and demand Fiume and Dalmatia. If we look to the numbers of the various races, there are in Austria of Germans and Jews about 9,000,000 to about 13,000,000 Slavs and a few Italians and Roumans. There are in the lands of the Crown of Hungary 2,000,000 of Germans and Jews, of Roumans nearly 3,000,000, although the Magyars only acknowledge 2,500,000, and of Magyars and Slavs between five and six millions apiece. In the whole of the territories of the Dual Monarchy it will be seen that there are 18,000,000 of Slavs and only 17,000,000 of the ruling races--Germans, Jews, and Magyars--while between three and four millions of Roumans and Italians count along with the Slav majority as being hostile to the dominant nationalities. It is difficult to exaggerate the gravity for Austria of the state of things which these figures reveal."

_The Present Position of European Polities (Fortnightly Review, April, 1887)._

{235}

"In past times, when Austria had held France tight bound between Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, she had aspired to a dominant position in Western Europe; and, so long as her eyes were turned in that direction, she naturally had every interest in preserving the Ottoman Empire intact, for she was thus guaranteed against all attacks from the south. But, after the loss of her Italian possessions in 1805, and of part of Croatia in 1809, after the disasters of 1849, 1859 and 1866, she thought more and more seriously of indemnifying herself at the expense of Turkey. It was moreover evident that, in order to paralyse the damaging power of Hungary, it was essential for her to assimilate the primitive and scattered peoples of Turkey, accustomed to centuries of complete submission and obedience, and form thus a kind of iron band which should encircle Hungary and effectually prevent her from rising. If, in fact, we glance back at the position of Austria in 1860, and take the trouble carefully to study the change of ideas and interests which had then taken place in the policy of France and of Russia, the tendencies of the strongly constituted nations who were repugnant to the authority and influence of Austria, the basis of the power of that empire, and, finally, the internal ruin with which she was then threatened, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that Austria, by the very instinct of self-preservation, was forced to turn eastwards and to consider how best she might devour some, at least, of the European provinces of Turkey. Austrian statesmen have been thoroughly convinced of this fact, and, impelled by the instinct above-mentioned, have not ceased carefully and consistently to prepare and follow out the policy here indicated. Their objects have already been partially attained by the practical annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 [see TURKS: A. D. 1878]; and it was striking to observe with what bitter feeling and resentment this measure was looked upon at the time by the Hungarian section of the empire. ... Russia has never made any secret of her designs upon Turkey; she has, indeed, more than once openly made war in order to carry them out. But Austria remains a fatal obstacle in her path. Even as things at present stand, Austria, by her geographical position, so commands and dominates the Russian line of operations that, once the Danube passed, the Russians are constantly menaced by Austria on the flank and rear. ... And if this be true now, how much more true would it be were Austria to continue her march eastwards towards Salonica. That necessarily, at some time or other, that march must be continued may be taken for almost certain; but that Austria has it in her power to commence it for the present, cannot, I think, be admitted. She must further consolidate and make certain of what she has. Movement now would bring upon her a struggle for life or death--a struggle whose issue may fairly be said, in no unfriendly spirit to Austria, to be doubtful. With at home a bitterly discontented Croatia, strong Pan-slavistic tendencies in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, a Greek population thoroughly disaffected, and a Hungary whose loyalty is doubtful, she would have to deal beyond her frontiers with the not contemptible armies, when combined, of Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, whose aspirations she would be asphyxiating for ever, with a bitterly hostile population in Macedonia, with the whole armed force of Turkey, and with the gigantic military power of Russia; whilst it is not fantastic to suppose that Germany would be hovering near ready to pounce on her German provinces when the 'moment psychologique' should occur. With such a prospect before her, it would be worse than madness for Austria to move until the cards fell more favourably for her."

_V. Caillard, The Bulgarian Imbroglio (Fortnightly Review, December, 1885)._

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1878. The Treaty of Berlin. Acquisition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878.

AUSTRIA: End----------

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867.

AUTERI, The.

See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

AUTUN: Origin.

See GAULS.

AUTUN: A. D. 287. Sacked by the Bagauds.

See BAGAUDS.

AUTUN: End----------

AUVERGNE, Ancient. The country of the Arverni.

See ÆDUI; also GAULS.

AUVERGNE, The Great Days of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1665.

AUXILIUM.

See TALLAGE.

AVA.

See INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833.

AVALON.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655; and MARYLAND: A. D. 1632.

AVARICUM.

See BOURGES, ORIGIN OF.

AVARS, The.

The true Avars are represented to have been a powerful Turanian people who exercised in the sixth century a wide dominion in Central Asia. Among the tribes subject to them was one called the Ogors, or Ouigours, or Ouiars, or Ouar Khouni, or Varchonites (these diverse names have been given to the nation) which is supposed to have belonged to the national family of the Huns. Some time in the early half of the sixth century, the Turks, then a people who dwelt in the very center of Asia, at the foot of the Altai mountains, making their first appearance in history as conquerors, crushed and almost annihilated the Avars, thereby becoming the lords of the Ouigours, or Ouar Khouni. But the latter found an opportunity to escape from the Turkish yoke. "Gathering together their wives and their children, their flocks and their herds, they turned their waggons towards the Setting Sun. This immense exodus comprised upwards of 200,000 persons. The terror which inspired their flight rendered them resistless in the onset; for the avenging Turk was behind their track. They overturned everything before them, even the Hunnic tribes of kindred origin, who had long hovered on the north-east frontiers of the Empire, and, driving out or enslaving the inhabitants, established themselves in the wide plains which stretch between·the Volga and the Don. In that age of imperfect information they were naturally enough confounded with the greatest and most formidable tribe of the Turanian stock known to the nations of the West. The report that the Avars had broken loose from Asia, and were coming in irresistible force to overrun Europe, spread itself all along both banks of the Danube and penetrated to the Byzantine court. With true barbaric cunning, the Ouar Khouni availed themselves of the mistake, and by calling themselves Avars largely increased the terrors of their name and their chances of conquest." The pretended Avars were taken into the pay of the Empire by Justinian and employed against the Hun tribes north and east of the Black Sea. {236} They presently acquired a firm footing on both banks of the Danube, and turned their arms against the Empire. The important city of Sirmium was taken by them after an obstinate siege and its inhabitants put to the sword. Their ravages extended over central Europe to the Elbe, where they were beaten back by the warlike Franks, and, southwards, through Moesia, Illyria, Thrace, Macedonia and Greece, even to the Peloponnesus. Constantinople itself was threatened more than once, and in the summer of 626, it was desperately attacked by Avars and Persians in conjunction (see ROME: A. D. 565-628), with disastrous results to the assailants. But the seat of their Empire was the Dacian country--modern Roumania, Transylvania and part of Hungary--in which the Avars had helped the Lombards to crush and extinguish the Gepidæ. The Slavic tribes which, by this time, had moved in great numbers into central and south-eastern Europe, were largely in subjection to the Avars and did their bidding in war and peace. "These unfortunate creatures, of apparently an imperfect, or, at any rate, imperfectly cultivated intelligence, endured such frightful tyranny from their Avar conquerors, that their very name has passed into a synonyme for the most degraded servitude."

_J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 42. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

AVARS: 7th Century. The Slavic Revolt.

The Empire of the Avars was shaken and much diminished in the Seventh Century by an extensive rising of their oppressed Slavic subjects, roused and led, it is said, by a Frank merchant, or adventurer, named Samo, who became their king. The first to throw off the yoke were a tribe called the Vendes, or Wendes, or Venedi, in Bohemia, who were reputed to be half-castes, resulting from intercourse between the Avar warriors and the women of their Slavic vassals. Under the lead of Samo, the Wendes and Slovenes or Slavonians drove the Avars to the east and north; and it seems to have been in connection with this revolution that the Emperor Heraclius induced the Serbs or Servians and Croats--Slavic tribes of the same race and region--to settle in depopulated Dalmatia. "'From the year 630 A. D.' writes M. Thierry, 'the Avar people are no longer mentioned in the annals of of the East; the successors of Attila no longer figure beside the successors of Constantine. It required new wars in the West to bring upon the stage of history the khan and his people.' In these wars [of Pepin and Charlemagne] they were finally swept off from the roll of European nations."

_J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4._

AVARS: A. D. 791-805. Conquest by Charlemagne.

"Hungary, now so called, was possessed by the Avars, who, joining with themselves a multitude of Hunnish tribes, accumulated the immense spoils which both they themselves and their equally barbarous predecessors had torn from the other nations of Europe. ... They extended their limits towards Lombardy, and touched upon the very verge of Bavaria. ... Much of their eastern frontier was now lost, almost without a struggle on their part, by the rise of other barbarous nations, especially the various tribes of Bulgarians." This was the position of the Avars at the time of Charlemagne, whom they provoked by forming an alliance with the ambitious Duke of Bavaria, Tassilo,--most obstinate of all who resisted the Frank king's imperious and imperial rule. In a series of vigorous campaigns, between 791 and 797 Charlemagne crushed the power of the Avars and took possession of their country. The royal "ring" or stronghold--believed to have been situated in the neighborhood of Tatar, between the Danube and the Theiss--was penetrated, and the vast treasure stored there was seized. Charlemagne distributed it with a generous hand to churches, to monasteries and to the poor, as well as to his own nobles, servants and soldiers, who are said to have been made rich. There were subsequent risings of the Avars and wars, until 805, when the remnant of that almost annihilated people obtained permission to settle on a tract of land between Sarwar and Haimburg, on the right bank of the Danube, where they would be protected from their Slavonian enemies. This was the end of the Avar nation.

_G. P. R. James, History of Charlemagne, books 9 and 11._

ALSO IN: _J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great,