The Hungarian leader count Gyula Andrássy (1823-1890) in 1870

From 1860 to 1867, constitutional reform therefore ranked high on the political agenda. Neo-absolutist rule gave way to broader political participation, lively public debate, and the protection of individual rights. The most difficult aspect was the position of Hungary within the framework of the empire. The Hungarian opposition under leaders like Ferenc Deák and Count Gyula Andrássy negotiated the Ausgleich , or Compromise, of 1867, which transformed the Habsburg possessions into Austria-Hungary. From 1867 to 1918, the so-called Dual Monarchy symbolized a union of the Kingdom of Hungary and Austria over the other kingdoms and lands of the Habsburgs; both parts shared the person of the monarch, the King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria, and the settlement of succession laid down in the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713–1723 was the constitutional foundation of Austria-Hungary. According to Law XII of 1867, approved by the Hungarian diet, Hungary also accepted a common foreign policy and a common defense. Currency and foreign trade issues were also to be resolved in common. After 1868, a common Austro-Hungarian army and navy formed the Habsburg monarchy’s fighting forces, but there would also be defense forces for Hungary and Austria. The common ministers of foreign affairs, war, and finances and the prime ministers of Austria and Hungary would deliberate on questions of common interest. Delegations from the parliaments in Vienna and Budapest would discuss regularly the common ministers’ policy. The contributions of Hungary and Austria to the budget of the common ministries had to be negotiated every 10 years. Among the common ministers, the minister of foreign affairs stood out as minister of the Imperial and Royal House. He presided over the session of the common ministerial council if the monarch were not present in the council. High politics were traditionally the most prestigious aspect of government policy, and the decision to wage war or to make peace was considered to be the monarch’s prerogative. In the Dual Monarchy, where there was no common prime minister or chancellor, the foreign minister served as the monarch’s most important political advisor.

In domestic affairs, the emperor and king had to rely on the heads of governments in Vienna and Budapest. The prime ministers of both Austria and Hungary were appointed and dismissed by the monarch, who had to approve any legislation, but the prime ministers nonetheless needed the backing of a parliamentary majority to get their budgets and bills through the legislative assemblies. Emergency legislation offered an opportunity to circumvent unruly parliaments, especially in Austria, but only for brief periods. In Hungary, support for the prime minister in the diet was almost indispensable. The composition of the parliaments in Vienna and Budapest differed significantly. Austria’s ethnic diversity was adequately reflected in parliament, at least by comparison with the ethnically homogenous Hungarian diet. Magyars, the Hungarian-speaking segment of the population, were overrepresented as a consequence of restrictive electoral laws excluding the less affluent and mostly non-Magyar Hungarian citizens. In Austria, the electorate was gradually expanded and universal male suffrage introduced in 1907. The crown supported this democratization in the hope that nationalistic parties with their middle-class supporters would lose clout. The Austrian crown lands had their own parliaments and electoral rules; the administration of the crown lands was headed by a governor, chosen by the emperor and usually drawn from the high nobility. Within the framework of the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, whereas the rest of the Hungarian realm had a more centralized structure than Austria.

On the domestic agenda, dualism and the nationality question stood out. Whether the settlement of 1867 was sufficient to secure Hungarian independence was hotly debated among Hungarian politicians. With the diet in Budapest dominated by the small Hungarian-speaking elite of landowners and bourgeoisie, social or national divisions in the parliament were less significant than the divide between the supporters of the Ausgleich and the followers of almost complete independence. The Liberals under the leadership of Kálmán Tisza accepted the Compromise of 1867 as the legal basis of Hungary’s place in the Habsburg monarchy and controlled Hungarian politics until 1890. Over the following decade, the economic success and growing self-confidence of the Magyar middle class fueled a significant rise in Magyar nationalism. The Independence Party followed the tradition of the revolutionaries of 1848–1849 and put pressure on the Hungarian government to aim for Hungary’s independence. In 1903, the conflict between Hungary and the crown escalated, when Francis Joseph upheld the status quo of the common army in the face of attempts to establish Hungarian as the language of command. A coalition formed around the Independence Party was forced to give in to Francis Joseph when the king threatened to have a general franchise bill introduced in parliament in 1905. In the last years before World War I, István Tisza, the leader of the Hungarian moderates, managed to rein in the opposition within the diet and became the most influential politician in Austro-Hungarian politics. In the late 1880s, Tisza became the first Hungarian prime minister willing to co-finance a massive military buildup. Stability in Hungary and better cooperation between Vienna and Budapest, however, could be achieved only by accepting Magyar dominance in Hungary and Hungarian assertiveness in Austro-Hungarian negotiations. To Francis Ferdinand, Francis Joseph’s nephew and heir apparent, this was anathema. He believed that Hungary’s strong position within the Dual Monarchy would block any sensible solution to nationality problems and would eventually bring down the Habsburg Empire. Yet he and his supporters tried in vain to roll back the political influence of Hungary’s elite, so when war broke out in 1914, dualism was still one of the decisive features of the Habsburg Empire’s political system.

FURTHER READING: Bérenger, Jean. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1780–1918. London: Longman, 1997; Bridge, Francis R. The Habsburg Monarchy Among the Great Powers, 1815–1918. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990; Cornwall, Mark, ed. The Last Years of Austria-Hungary: A Multi- National Experiment in Early Twentieth Century Europe. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002; Evans, Richard J. W. The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984; Ingrao, Charles. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Kann, Robert A. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526– 1918. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974; Kann, Robert A. The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848–1918. 2 vols. New York: Octagon Books, 1964; Macartney, C. A. The Habsburg Empire, 1790–1918. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968; Mason, John W. The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867–1918. London and New York: Longman 1985; May, Arthur J. The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951; Sked, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815–1918. London: Longman, 1989; Taylor, A.J.P. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.

Revolution of 1848: the barricades on Michaeler Square in the night of May 26, 1848. Painting by A. Ziegler, 1848 (Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien).

Without the cooperation of the traditional elites in the various kingdoms and lands, the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire could not be held together. At the same time, it was the dynasty that provided the indispensable unifying bond. Therefore nationalism and the sovereignty of the people were not only anathema to the dynasty, but a deadly threat to the political survival of the union of lands and crowns ruled by the Habsburgs. Since the late eighteenth century, the Austrians sought to contain or destroy revolutionary and nationalist movements. This policy proved costly. In the wars against revolutionary France and Napoleon from 1789 to 1815, Austria not only lost the Netherlands, south-western Germany, and northern Italy but, after the defeat at Wagram in 1809, was forced to cooperate with Napoleon to avoid another armed clash with the French emperor. The new Austrian foreign minister, Count Klemens von Metternich, nevertheless decided to break with Napoleon and re-join the anti-Napoleonic coalition in 1813. Together with his British counterpart, Lord Castlereagh, Metternich worked for a lasting European settlement in 1814–1815, in the wake of Napoleon’s final defeat. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the working of the Congress system until the 1820s gave Austria more than its due share of political influence in Europe. In terms of territory, Austria gave up its former possessions in south-western Germany and the Netherlands. Instead, Salzburg became Austrian and the Habsburgs kept most of the Polish territory acquired in 1774 and 1795. In Italy, Lombardy and Venetia formed a kingdom united with Austria.

In 1804, in response to the self-coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II claimed the title of hereditary Austrian emperor. Under French pressure, Francis in effect dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Metternich refrained from any attempt to resurrect the Holy Roman Empire, and in the newly created German Confederation Austria chaired the deliberations of the diet but could not achieve much without Prussian consent. Still, through Metternich’s skilful diplomacy, the Habsburg Empire was able to win the support of Prussia and other German states to use the confederation as a tool to suppress liberal and nationalistic groups in Germany. In Italy there was no equivalent of the German Confederation, so Austria intervened militarily when revolutionary movements threatened to destabilize the Italian states. Austrian anti-revolutionary zeal undermined the solidarity among the Great Powers and damaged Austro-British cooperation in the 1820s; Metternich found himself isolated when Britain, France, and Russia fought for the independence of Greece from Turkey in 1827. Austria refrained from a policy of territorial expansion on the Balkan Peninsula and considered the preservation of the Ottoman Empire as indispensable to its own survival. The Habsburg Empire thus acted as the most clear cut case of a status quo power and annexed Kraków only to contain the spread of Polish nationalism. Unable to establish an efficient tax-system, however, the empire suffered from inadequate financial means to play the role of Great Power. Overcommitted and underfinanced, Austria depended on a favorable climate of anti-revolutionary consensus and a preference for peaceful crisis settlement among the other Great Powers. Austria’s policy of repression, directed against liberals and nationalists at home and abroad, collapsed in 1848.

The revolution of 1848–1849 challenged Habsburg rule in several ways. In Vienna, a liberal government replaced Metternich, and an assembly was summoned to deliberate and decide on a new constitution. In Hungary, nationalists took control and were fighting for independence. In Italy, nationalist uprisings and an attack on Piedmont-Sardinia aimed at the expulsion of Austria from the region. With young Emperor Francis Joseph and a conservative government under Prince Felix Schwarzenberg in charge, the Habsburgs were able to fend off the danger. By 1850, the Habsburg rule had been restored, as was the German Confederation. Francis Joseph’s neo-absolutist regime was based on tradition, repression, economic progress, and prestige. During the Crimean War (1853–56), Austria’s policy offended a Russia Empire that had supported the Habsburgs against the Hungarian insurgency in 1849 yet did not lead to an alliance with France and Great Britain. In 1858, the French Emperor Napoleon III formed an alliance with Piedmont-Sardinia to expel Austria from northern Italy. In response to Sardinian provocations, the Habsburg monarchy went to war. Defeated by the French-Sardinian alliance in the Battles of Magenta and Solferino, Austria was forced to cede Lombardy in 1859. The Habsburg Empire had no choice but to watch helplessly from the sidelines as the Italian kingdoms and principalities were swept aside by a combination of nationalism and Sardinian power politics. The next blow to Habsburg prestige came in the 1860s when Prussia under Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck outmaneuvered Austrian foreign policy in the debate about a reformed German Confederation and the future of the former Danish duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, both occupied by Austrian and Prussian forces after the German-Danish War of 1864. The Prussian secession from the German Confederation led in 1866 to war between Prussia and Austria and most of the other German states. The Battle of Königgrätz ended with a clear Prussian victory and forced Francis Joseph to accept Austria’s exclusion from Germany. Victories over Prussia’s ally Italy in the Battles of Custoza and Lissa were of little political significance and could not prevent the loss of Venetia. The creation of two new nation-states, Germany and Italy, had come at the expense of the Habsburg Empire, which could survive as a Great Power only as long as the opposition within it could be mollified.

FURTHER READING: Bérenger, Jean. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1780–1918. London: Longman, 1997; Bridge, Francis R. The Habsburg Monarchy Among the Great Powers, 1815–1918. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990; Cornwall, Mark, ed. The Last Years of Austria-Hungary: A Multi- National Experiment in Early Twentieth Century Europe. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002; Evans, Richard J. W. The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984; Ingrao, Charles. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Kann, Robert A. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526– 1918. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974; Kann, Robert A. The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848–1918. 2 vols. New York: Octagon Books, 1964; Macartney, C. A. The Habsburg Empire, 1790–1918. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968; Mason, John W. The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867–1918. London and New York: Longman 1985; May, Arthur J. The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951; Sked, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815–1918. London: Longman, 1989; Taylor, A.J.P. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.

Battle at Tápióbicske (4 April 1849) by Mór Than

In 1848 revolution broke out in Paris. As the news from Paris reached Hungary, Kossuth went on the political offensive at the Pozsony Diet with his liberal-radical program, which was soon relayed to Pest. The Opposition Circle drafted the ‘demands of the Hungarian nation,’ the famous Twelve Points constituting the essence of Kossuth’s program and reflecting the ideas of the Pest radicals. The twenty-five-year-old poet Sándor Petőfi, drafted the fiery ‘National Song,’ and the next day the young revolutionaries had the poem and the Twelve Points printed without the censor’s approval.

The Twelve Points expressed what the nation demanded: freedom of the press, abolition of censorship, a cabinet of responsible ministers and a National Assembly in Buda-Pest, equality of civic and religious rights, equal and universal contribution to public expenses, abolition of tax privileges, a national bank and national armed forces, freeing of political prisoners, legal reforms, and union with Transylvania. The revolution wanted to abolish restrictive and discriminatory laws, indeed, the entire political and economic system. At the Pozsony Diet, conservatives in both chambers were swept aside by Kossuth’s party, a victory due partially at least to the rumor that a peasant army led by Petőfi was set to march on the city.

At the imperial capital, the March revolution succeeded because the government was weak and psychologically destabilized. After Metternich’s dismissal, the feeble King Ferdinand and his court ratified the key laws of the Hungarian Diet, the ‘April laws.’ The promulgation of these laws meant that the revolutionary achievements became legalized. A government accountable to the assembly was to be installed, serfdom abolished, and the road to universal suffrage opened. The main national demands had been granted. The new Hungarian council of ministers, presided over by Count Lajos Batthyany, included Kossuth as minister of finance and Szechenyi as minister of public works and transport.

On 11 April, the ancient diet was dissolved and replaced by the National Assembly, elected by direct suffrage constituted by the nobles, the bourgeoisie, and wealthy peasants. Hungary was now a constitutional parliamentary monarchy, governed by an accountable ministry. The Habsburg emperor, however, remained king of Hungary; Hungarian sovereignty was not internationally recognized, and there was no foreign office in Pest. A national currency, the forint, was soon in circulation, and a Hungarian National Guard and army were established. Finally, following a general election, the first National Assembly of 415 deputies, mainly from the provincial nobility, opened on 5 July, with few radicals elected.

Transylvania proclaimed reunification with Hungary, and the issue of military frontiers under Austrian rule was also resolved. The demands of ethnic minorities were listened to, placated, but basically refused. Hungarian liberals of 1848 were not ready to renounce the concept of a unitary state and to concede autonomous territories to the different nationalities. They felt that liberating the serfs and ensuring equal civic rights to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity or creed, would solve the minority problem.

Croatia constituted a special case. It was part of the Hungarian Crownlands, but enjoyed considerable autonomy and its own diet, while also dependent on the authority of the civil governor designated by the king of Hungary. Neither the ban, General Josip Jelačić, a strong national figure, nor the more powerful section of the Croatian political class wanted to march alongside the Magyars. Vienna initially approved Hungary’s position with regard to the national minorities and went as far as recalling Jelačić, but quickly restored him. The intention was to put an end to the Hungarian revolution. Victories against the rebels in Italy and in Bohemia, and news that the Paris barricades had fallen, had restored Austria’s confidence.

The Habsburg government tried to reverse the political concessions it had made in its moment of weakness and set about encouraging ethnic separatism within Hungary. In the face of danger, the Buda-Pest government hastened its own preparations for war. A national army—called Honvédség, “defender of the Homeland”—was set up, armament and equipment factories bought, political and social rights broadened, and patriotic propaganda increased. “The fatherland is in danger,” a slogan launched by Kossuth, reverberated throughout the land. His speech to the assembly led the deputies to vote for recruiting 200,000 men and extending a sizable military credit.

On 11 September, 1848, Jelačić’s army entered Hungary. Austria was still negotiating, but clearly Jelačić’s war was Vienna’s. After Batthyány’s resignation, Hungary came to be governed by a Defense Committee, which the assembly vested with all powers. It was Kossuth’s moment—his speeches fanned the fires of patriotism and mobilized the population. 

On 29 September, the Honvéd army stopped Jelačić at Pákozd. After this, the monarchy dissolved parliament and replaced Batthyány; the Hungarian Assembly declared these decisions null and void. On 6 October, the people of Vienna rebelled, forcing the court to escape to Olmütz (Olomouc) in Moravia. Two days later, the assembly in Pest nominated Kossuth to be president of the Defense Committee, with almost dictatorial powers.

By December, Austria had a new emperor, Franz Joseph. The eighteen-year-old emperor-king soon demonstrated his ambition to reestablish absolute authority at all costs and without compromise. Meanwhile, the legendary Polish general, Józef Bem, had offered his services to Hungary and taken command of the Transylvanian army. Having won several battles, the Austrian commander, General Windischgrätz, told the emperor that Hungarian resistance was over. Vienna, encouraged by the news, issued a manifesto that nullified the 1848 laws and subjected Hungary to the government in Vienna. This caused serious dissent within Kossuth’s army and unrest in the Hungarian Peace Party, which was opposed to the pursuit of war. Kossuth’s eloquence and his policies won over the peasantry, inspired the army, and rallied the moderates and the undecided—but not the entire political class.

Vienna’s absolutist circles wanted to drown Hungarian ambitions once and for all. There was little room for negotiations. Kossuth saw only two courses of action: either to fight until victory had been achieved, which he still thought possible, or to capitulate unconditionally. He chose the former. On 13 April 1849, despite opposition from members of the legislature, Kossuth proposed a Declaration of Independence of the Hungarian state and the dethroning of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine before the National Assembly. The bill was unanimously approved the following day at a public meeting of an enlarged Assembly. Kossuth now had behind him not only the majority of parliament, but also, he claimed, the loyalty of the army and popular support. The break with Vienna and the king was now complete.

Hungary was not proclaimed a republic. The constitutional shape the Hungarian state was to take would be decided later. For the moment, Kossuth was elected president-governor, but, contrary to the wishes of a small radical left, the assembly did not confer full powers on him. Kossuth was more representative of the dominant middle nobility in the assembly than of the Left or, indeed, the opposition, which favored accommodation with Vienna. His principal objective had been achieved. Hungary had become independent.

Despite initial optimism and success, Hungary’s days of independence were numbered. Responding to his imperial cousin’s call, Russia’s Tsar Nicholas decided to deploy his army against the Hungarians. In June the Russians invaded Hungary, and the Hungarians found themselves caught in a stranglehold. Austrian and Russian superiority of forces was overwhelming.

Kossuth’s government concentrated on its military effort, while pursuing its liberal democratic policymaking. On 28 July, it emancipated the country’s Jews, and an enlightened nationalities law was promulgated on the same day. This legislation gave minorities the freedom to use their mother tongue at the local administrative level, at tribunals, in primary schools, in community life, and even within the national guard of non-Magyar councils. It was the first law in Europe to recognize minority rights. These actions, however, were too late to influence events in the two weeks leading up to military defeat.

After the Russian invasion, hopes of saving the country were slim. On 9 August, General Haynau beat and dispersed the main Hungarian army. Kossuth abdicated, transferred all powers to General Artur Görgey, and sought refuge in Turkey. Three days later, the War Council decided to surrender to the Russians at Világos, near the city of Arad.

The war ended and repression began. The tsar sent his son to Vienna to persuade Franz Joseph to act with clemency, but the Austrians executed thirteen top generals along with the former president of the Council of Ministers, Count Lajos Batthyány, and several other military and civil individuals. Nicholas was able to save only the life of Görgey. Many were condemned to death by war tribunals, others were simply massacred, and thousands received long prison sentences. The poet Petőfi died two weeks before the end, fighting with Bem’s army. He was twenty-six years old. Count Szechenyi fell into a depression in September 1848. His tortured soul found a degree of tranquillity in a psychiatric establishment near Vienna, where he continued to write and to receive friends; he took his own life in 1860.