Vienna: The Nationalist Revolution in Central Europe and Italy

1. Vienna: The Nationalist Revolution in Central Europe and Italy Section 12.59:

2. The Austrian Empire in 1848 • Most populous state except Russia • Consisted of three major areas: Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary • Consisted of numerous nationalities: Germans, Magyars, and Slavs • Some areas had highly interlaced populations of diverse groups • Languages changed from village to village, house to house • Germans occupied Austria and scattered into other places • Czechs (Slavs) occupied Bohemia and Moravia • Magyars were dominant in Hungary • Slavs were interspersed and divided • Band of Romanians, Magyars, and Germans divided southern and northern Slavs • Large differences existed between cultures

3. Vienna authority and Leadership • served as the political authority over the diverse empire • Habsburgs influence was felt throughout Germany • Ex: Carlsbad Decrees • Habsburg influence was also felt throughout Italy • Italy is more a geographic region • papal states looked politically to Vienna for leadership • many of these nationalities had felt feeling of volksgeist • Metternich was unsuccessful in dealing with rising tide of nationalism (Germans, Italians, Poles, Hungarians) • He tried to evade the question of nationalism • Said that nationalism would produce “the war of all against all..” if allowed to flourish • Promoted a benevolent government with an official bureaucracy that did not need a connection with them • Antiquated ideas about government proved to be unsatisfactory for rising nationalistic interests

4. The March Days • Incredibly swift collapse • News of the February Rev in Paris aroused the radical part in Hungarian diet • 3/1848 Hungary under Louis Kossuth rises in revolution • His speech on liberty mass produced • Students in Vienna follow with barricades and resistance • Metternich fled in disguise to England • Rioting in Berlin(3/15) led to call for a constitution • March Laws declare Hungary independence (but still recog Habs) • Emperor Ferdinand gave same status to Bohemia • Venice declares itself independent • Charles Albert of Savoy granted a constitution and claims Lombardy-Venetia • Everywhere the call for civil liberties, constitutions, freedom of press, abolition of serfdom, and broad suffrage is made

5. The Turning of the Tide after June • Old governments rebound • Their were only stunned in March, not broken • Revolutionary leaders were not very strong • Middle class interests were not as developed as in western Europe • Bourgeoisie were afraid of lower classes • Intellectuals were leaders (writers, students); not really spokesmen for social and economic interests • Working class was not as literate, irritated, politically conscience or organized as they needed • Liberated nationalities began to disagree • The peasants were free and no longer interested in revolution and not nationalistically conscience • The armies were largely run by internationally minded aristocrats and influenced peasant soldiers • not strongly nationalistic • German assembly met at Frankfurt • Idea of a German state are formulating

6. The First Pan-Slav Assembly • All German national assembly met at Frankfurt in May • Threat of an all German state gave rise to pan-Slavism • Czechs in Bohemia refuse to attend and call for their own • They call for a Pan Slav assembly • Meet in Prague (June 1848) • Profoundly Anti-German • Pro-Austrian empire • Most viewed the Austrian empire as a vehicle to preserve Slavic interests • Germans of Bohemia (Sudentenland) lean toward Frankfurt • Czechs of Bohemia lean toward Prague Uniforms of the Prague National Guard and student legions from the revolution in 1848 on a contemporary coloured lithograph published by F Kretzschmar in Prague. (AMP, iconographic collection, sign. III-332. Photo: JL)

7. Victories of the Counterrevolution, June-December, 1848 • To Ferdinand nationalism comes with baggage (liberalism, and restrictions of his power) • Ferdinand moves against the national movements Prague= 1st victory • Czechs and Germans are fighting each other • Prague is attacked by the army under Windischgratz • Habsburg control is quickly asserted • the Slav congress is dispersed Italy= 2nd Victory • Lombardy-Venetia had declared independence • Hoped for aid from France • Italy is attacked by the army under Radetsky (Austrian commander) • Defeats the king of Sardinia (Charles Albert) at Custozza (7/25/1848) • Lombardy and Venetia were restored Prince Windischgraetz

8. Magyar Nationalism 3rd Victory • In Hungary ethnic minorities rebel against Louis Kossuth (a liberal but especially a Magyar) Magyar supremacy • Hungarian radical party moved capital from Pressburg to Budapest and changed official language to Magyar • even thou less then half were Magyar and it is extremely difficult language to Indo Europeans • Croats, Slovaks, Romanians, Germans, Serbs resisted being nationalized (Magyarized) • Croat Count Jellachich (the ban or provincial governor) is made commander against the Magyars by Ferdinand • Non Magyars fall into the arms of the Habsburgs • as Metternich had predicted, Hungary dissolved into the war of all against all Louis Kossuth Count Jellachich

9. Conservatives Prevail • Revolutionaries of Vienna see Jellachich’s success against Magyars as threat (they’ll be next) • Rebelled in Oct. 1848 • forced Ferdinand to flee • Windischgratz intervenes and Vienna is recaptured (Halloween) • Conservatives view the emperor as damaged goods (he gave in to Revolutionaries in March) • Ferdinand abdicates on Dec. 2, 1848 • Francis Joseph becomes Emperor (until 1916) at age 18 Ferdinand I of Austria Franz Joseph I of Austria

10. Final Outburst and Repression 1849 • Early 1849 revolution still seems to blaze • Riots in German, reforming minister of Pope Pius IX assassinated, pope flees city, radical Roman Republic proclaimed under 3 Triumvirs • All of this was short lived • Last gasp of revolutionary activity is suppressed • 100,000 Russian troops (invited by Francis Joseph and sent by Nicholas I) put down the last of the Magyar revolt (Holy Alliance) • Habsburg authority was reasserted over nationalists • Pope restored • Anti-revolutionism became the order of the day • Distance between Pope (Pius IX) and liberalism increased • He had been a liberal supporter (“liberal pope”) in 1846 but was now disillusioned • Syllabus of Errors (1864) warned all Catholics against everything that went under the names liberalism, progress, modern civilization • Austrian Empire under Prince Schwarzenberg oppose all forms of popular self expression • he relies on military force to root out constitutionalism and nationalism • Austrian Germans will turn to Frankfurt under oppression Pope Pius IX Syllabus of Errors

11. The Bach System • Bach system is employed • Named after Alexander Bach, the minister of interior • Becomes rigidly centralized • Hungary loses separate rights • Become a model of administrative efficiency • Built roads, free trade, upheld emancipation, legal reforms, free trading zones created • aim, like Louis Napoleon, was to make people forget liberty, internal tariffs eliminated • Still many remembered the brief “Spring” of liberalism • Liberals saw Bach system as “a standing army of soldiers, a sitting army of officials, a kneeling army of priests, and a creeping army of informers.”