The
Austrian Empire was in the beginning of the 19th century the most
illiberal and anti-nationalist state in Europe with 12 different natinalities
living under the same emperor, Metternicht. No wonder that the news from the
revolution of France had some impact on the people in Austria. Even if the
happenings in Austria could have caused new states and freedom for the people
nothing really happened. Why was there a revolution then? And why did it fail? We
will try to answer these two questions.
REASONS
FOR THE REVOLUTION:
In the beginning of the 19th century
the Austrian Empire was in a bad condition. There was people who had everything
well. They earned enough money and were just doing well. Naturally this was
just a small group. The biggest part of the people who lived in the cities,
actually Vienna was one of the only cities in Austria, was living in terrible
conditions. The unemployment was really high and if someone had a job they had
to work 12 to 14 hours per day. The use of female and child workers increased,
because they were cheaper to use. The rich bourgeois made the situation even
worse all the time by their factory products. By producing high amounts of
cheap products crushed the chances of the artisan-made articles, which were
much more expensive. The main theme in that times economics was to produce as
much as possible as cheap as possible, which caused that that all the artisans
and men were thrown away and the women and children were taken in to the
factories. This happened more and more.
The
farmers outside the city were doing well even if the harvest were poor. They
needed to rise the price of the food because of their own living, which made
the situation in the cities even worse. At first the people had not had money,
but at least they had had food, but now they lost even the food. The living
conditions of the people became really unhygienic and terrible. Because of the
weakness of the people the diseases started to kill them easily. Also early
aging was common. This all drove the people in the cities to alcoholism, which
caused even more problems.
Even if
the cities in Austria were suffering the main worry of the emperor,
Metternicht, was nationalism. Nationalism had woken up in the other nations and
naturally it came to Austria also. There were 12 natinalities under the power
of the Austrian empire. Evryone had its own willings and wishes to become a
free nation, which would be separated from Austria. The professional classes in
the states had been impacted by the liberal propaganda. They were now more
aware of the situation that they could have a chance to become independent from
the weak Austrian empire. The demands and rivalries of the nation were as
strongs and unsatisfied as ever. As a backup for the demands the nations
impoverished and restless peasant as well as the badly-paid unemployed working
classes in the cities. The revolution was to occur soon.
THE
REVOLUTION:
The
third of March Hungary stepped out. It was the third of March when the leader
of Hungary, Louis Kossuth ( 1802-94 ), made a violent speech in the Hungarian
Diet. He urged the creation of a new constitution, which would make Hungary
completely equal to Austria and establish a separate Hungarian ministry. He
wanted also to do away with the pivileges of the nobility, abolish serfdom and
secure freedom of the press, of meeting and of association. The speech was
followed by demonstrations in Budapest by students. As a result there was
formed the so-called ”March-Laws”, which united Hungary, Trannsylvania and
Croatia into a one united state with a single, indepentend Diet and ministry.
On 13th
of March the parliament of the Lower-Austria was holding a meeting in Vienna in
the Parliament Building. The meeting was disturbed by a demonstration of
citizens and students. What the students wanted was the dismissal of Count
Metternich. At that area there were Italian troops to take care of the
situation and they were ordered to take the control at the Parliament Building.
The troops opened fire at the demonstrating civilians. This exploded the whole
city. When the bourgeois and students were revolting at the Parliament
Building, the proletarian started to riot in the suburbs of Vienna. They
destroyed factories, villas set to fire… They were simply destroying everything
in these areas. Because of the huge riots Metternich had to agree the demands
of the people. Metternich left Vienna, the press was free and the introduction
of a democratic constitution was promised. The beginning of the revolution had
been successful and it had felled down a whole system in a few days!
A few
days after the collapsing of Vienna, a Hungarian delegation came to Vienna. The
delegates came with the “April Laws”, which were created by the Diet of
Hungary. “April Laws” contained the demands from the Hungarian Diet. At first
they wanted that the foreign affairs and finance came under Hungarian’s own
control. They also demanded that Hungary needed to form an own army, which
would march under its own national flag. These “April Laws” contained actually
the new basic laws, like complete religious toleration except for Jews, for a
new state. The idea behind these laws was to make Hungary a new modern, liberal
state, bound to the Emperor only by nominal ties. What did the Austrian empire
say to these delegates? Actually they could not say anything, because Vienna
was still almost in a chaotic situation and the empire had nothing what they
could have used against the Hungarians so they had to obey the demands of the
Hungarians. This was not the only case where the Austrians had to obey demands
similar to the Hungarian’s. After all obeying it seemed as if the Austrian
empire might be reduced to a collection of countries linked only by the loosest
ties, and that Austrian rule in Italy might end completely.
Vienna
tried to gather up itself by a man called Kilowrat and other elderly court
officials, who proclaimed on 25th of April a new constitution of
their own for the whole Austrian Empire. This was made to help the Vienna to take
control of the separating provinces in the empire. The students did not accept
this, because the constitution gave a lot of power for the Emperor. On 15th
of May the working-men appeared on the streets armed with spades and
pick-handles supporting the students thoughts. The Court tried to disband the
Academic Legion, but they had to leave, because the barricades were set up once
again and shooting occurred in Vienna. This was the second time when the Court
had to leave Vienna.
The
first setback of the revolution occurred on the 20th of May, when
the student patrols in Vienna allowed Metternich leave Vienna. The Emperor and
the archdukes went to Innsbruck where they could freely organize the defeat of
the revolutionary movements. In May in a conference there were tries to unite
Austria, because they thought that only under the Hadsburg’s ruling they could
escape the German or Russian domination. This thought never worked in reality.
After a while the different nationals started to fight against each others. It
started from Hungarians, who wanted now to dominate all the other nations
around them now when they had showed their power against Austria. This movement
was called the fanatical natinalism. There were many attacks made by almost all
the nations. No big conquering was made by anyone. Actually the only thing that
the people was doing now was that they were weakening their own nations. They
were not a one force anymore. They were many separate “tribes” who were not
fighting against the Austrian Empire, ruling of the Hadsburg, but they fought
against each others.
One of
the attacks was made by the Croats, who thought that by attacking to Hungary
they could get more freedom from the Empire by now helping them. The attack was
anyway defeated by the Hungarians. The Court of the Austrian Empire decided to
send Austrian troops to help the Croats. The train, which was supposed to
transport the troops, was stopped. Some troops faired against the
demonstrators. This caused the third rising in Vienna. The minister of War was
hanged from a lamp-post, which scared the court so that they decided to leave
Vienna ( 3rd time! ).
Even if
the revolution had been quite successful until to these days it fell down. On
23rd of October the armies of the Croatian Banus Jellacian and Count
Windischgrätz with a Hungarian army had been ordered by the Austrian Empire,
which was now operating from Kresmier, to encircle Vienna. The revolutionaries
had roughly 15 000 men and women, which were led by a poor poet called Wenzel
Messenhauser, who no sense about strategy. The armies around Vienna had 70 000
well trained soldiers equipped with 200 cannons. The fighting ended on the 31st
of October and almost 2000 were killed. The leaders of the revolutionaries were
executed except those who fled to Hungary. The occupation caused a lot of
damage to the city, because the Croatian troops started to steal from shops and
homes, murdering and slaughtering whole families.
After
Vienna was “cleaned” the authority of Hadsburg was restored everywhere else
except Hungary. The new Emperor was elected. The new Emperor was Francis
Joseph, Joseph II. Austria started to co-operate with Russia. The reason why
Russia started to work with the Austrians was that the Russians were worried
about Hungary. Hungary was getting more powerful and the Russians could not
attack Hungary, because they were not really sure what would the Austrians say
about this. The co-operation with the Austrians was getting a permission to
attack Hungary. In July 1849 three armies entered Hungary. Russians, Austrians
and Croatians together captured Hungary. The order in the whole Empire was kept
up by ruling without any mercy the different nationalities. The Emperor started
to use effectively the “Divide and Conquer” politics, which we now from the
ancient Rome.
THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION:
A lot
of plans came up when the leaders were discussed about how to lead the new born
Empire. A new system, with autonomic provinces and local diets. This system was
thrown in to the trash can. The Emperor, Joseph II, was an entirely absolutist.
Even if he thought that the people had to be ruled well and fairly he declared
in December 1851 that he was now the only one ruling in the whole Empire. The
revolutions were followed by even more powerful absolutism wielded by the
Hadsburgh monarchy. For example the Croats never got any freedom or rights even
if they had helped the Emperor many times during the revolution!
WHAT WENT WRONG?
The
main reason why the revolting could not actually change Austria was that there
was no such a group, which had been enough powerful. The fact is that the
farmers on the countryside never attended the revolution. The basic of the
revolting groups was the working class, which existed only in the cities, but
there were only very few cities during that time in Austria. The other
nationalities like Hungarians and Croats lost their chances when they started
to fight against each others. They should have crushed the Emperor and not
their allies. The reason is the Emperor with his conservative backups who were
able to do their own politics, the very effective “Divide and
Conquer”-politics.
THE CONCLUSION
What can there be said. The people saw a
possibility to make their lives better, but could not stop themselves and
finally destroyed themselves. In other words: the revolution was a failure.
Even if there are mentioning that this was the beginning of the Austrian
democracy we think that the whole revolution was mostly killing and suffering
of the civilians.
THE
LIST OF THE SOURCES:
Primary
Source:
Leonard W. Cowie & Robert Wolfson: European
History
Secondary
Source:
http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History/hungary/austria/chap4.htm
Other Internet pages which we have forget to
take up sorry…