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The long-expected revolution erupted on 13 March 1848 – it was a reaction to the Parisian February Revolution as well as Kossuth’s inflammatory speech in the Hungarian Parliament that was meeting not far from Vienna in Pressburg (Bratislava) at the time. Bourgeois circles prepared several petitions to be presented to the court, but the demands were expressed most clearly in the petition that the students formulated in the Aula and handed over to the Lower Austrian State Parliament on 13 March. The first success came soon after the first shots had been fired and the first people had been killed (“the fallen of March”). Metternich, the hated symbolic figure of the old regime, was overthrown on the same evening (the fact that he had already been disempowered was not known outside of court circles).
The Revolution quickly chalked up other victories. Freedom of the press, arming the people (national guards and the Academic Legion), and the promise of a constitution were announced on 15 March. When the so-called Pillersdorf Constitution was enacted on 25 April, it seemed as if the majority of the bourgeois demands had actually been fulfilled. But, the constitution, which was modelled on the Belgian version, had its weaknesses. It had been issued, or imposed, from above and allowed for a two-chamber system and an absolute veto from the monarch.
The “storm petition” of 15 May opposed this and especially the extremely restrictive electoral procedure that had been proclaimed on 9 May. The so-called May Revolution was borne mainly by students, craftsmen, and labourers whose situation had not improved since March. This led to the “bourgeois” revolution finding itself in a decision-making crisis. What was more important – especially for the members of the upper middle-class: the expansion of personal and political rights or the preservation of the Habsburg Empire? Faced with these alternatives, quite a few the dissatisfied bourgeois citizens remained silent. Or – like Franz Grillparzer in early June in his famous poem on Field Marshall Radetzky (“Good luck, Commander! Get it done! […] Austria is on your side”) – came out in favour of the nation state, the military, and ultimately, on the side of the counterrevolution.
However, the Austrian Reichstag assembled before the victory of the counterrevolution – this was the first elected parliament in the Western sector of Habsburg Monarchy (elections to the lower house had been held previously in Hungary – but only entitled members of the nobility had taken part). The election resulted in a clear bourgeois majority: approximately 55 per cent of the 383 representatives belonged to this class. Almost one quarter – 92 – were farmers. They considered the question of the constitution relatively unimportant; their main concern was with the agrarian reform to abolish the landlord’s primary ownership and resulting contractual obligations on the part of the farmer as well as the landlord’s jurisdiction and police force. This was actually passed by the Reichstag at the end of August and made the farmers fully entitled citizens. The differences between citizens and labourers, property owners and those without possession, intensified during these debates. When the empty state coffers caused the Minister of Labour to cut former subsidies, this resulted in mass demonstrations by the workers who were bloodily dispersed by the bourgeois National Guard (“Prater Battle”, 23 August 1848). It proved impossible to overcome this split.
The rest is well known: The Croat Banus Jelačić invaded Hungary, leading to war between that country and the imperial army. When it was planned to send troops from Vienna to Hungary, the October Revolution broke out and ultimately led to the military conquest of Vienna by the emperor’s forces on 31 October. This was followed by numerous arrests and executions.
But, similar to the retarding element before the catastrophic last act of a tragedy, the Reichstag assembled once again – this time, in Kremsier (Kroměňiče) in Moravia in the imposing castle of the Archbishop of Olmütz (the imperial family had been housed in his residence in Olmütz since October 1848). Here, the exclusively “German” liberals were isolated in a Czech environment and there was no danger of a popular uprising for this parliament. However, the Reichstag performed extremely positive work until its dissolution on 7 March 1849 – a draft for a constitution was agreed on: it not only proclaimed the principle of the sovereignty of the people and civil liberties, but also aimed to solve the problem of the coexistence of the different language groups in the multinational state. At the same time as the dissolution of the parliament, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg’s government proclaimed its own constitution (once again: imposed from above) dated 4 March 1849. The parliamentary representatives who were thought to be radical were arrested, and several were sentenced to death (including the “Preacher of the Revolution”, Anton Fuster, Dr Josef Goldmark, Dr Ernst (von) Violand, and the “liberator of the farmers” Hans Kudlich, who – like many others – was able to flee in time).9
The struggles for independence in Hungary – with Russian help – and Italy had been crushed by the summer of 1849.
Neo-absolutism – restoration or bourgeois control?
In contrast to the old form of absolutism, neo-absolutism was characterised by resolute government. Agrarian reform was quickly introduced. Now the “Empire of Austria” became a genuinely unified state for the first time, having been given a unified administration, a unified customs territory, and a unified (private) legal sphere. The decision-making authority was concentrated on the young Emperor Franz Joseph. The bureaucracy became the pillar of this new system of rule. It could be said that, as compensation for political codetermination, the German-Austrian, bourgeois-bureaucratic element was de facto given control not only of the bureaucracy but of all people living in the empire. Seeing that, after 1848, the German-Austrian bourgeoisie developed into the beneficiaries and bearers of the counterrevolution, Habsburg centralism, and concept of large national state, their memories of the “bourgeois” revolution were later relatively insignificant. At the same time, a slow change in the German bourgeoisie’s traditional feeling of cultural superiority led in the direction of an increasingly radical German nationalism (and increasingly radical antisemitism) in which, finally, anticlericalism remained the sole remnant of the once liberal heritage.10
The entrepreneurs also profited from the new unified state. During the Revolution, they had already taken the side of the government and military. The most important thing for them was the preservation of greater Habsburg Austria, with equal rights throughout the country and a uniform customs and currency area. If the counterrevolution guaranteed that the bourgeoisie would achieve their goal, and this was threatened by the Revolution, they would inevitably become an ally of the restoration. One small example:
On 27 March 1848, Giuseppe Miller-Aichholz, a Viennese wholesaler from Trentino, wrote to his father (in Italian) in Cles that the behaviour in Milan and Venice was hair-raising, that they had broken their oaths and were unfaithful traitors. In June, he travelled to Innsbruck as a member of a community committee to beseech the emperor to return to Vienna. On 13 August, he enthusiastically told his father about Radetzky’s victories over the Lombards and Piemontese. In March 1849, Miller was a member of the deputation of Viennese citizens chosen to thank the young Emperor Franz Joseph for the constitution and dissolution of the Reichstag. Only a few days later, he travelled to the war theatre in northern Italy, together with other councillors, to present Radetzky with the diploma making him an honorary citizen of Vienna. This put an impressive seal on the alliance between the upper classes and the army.
The brief reign of the liberal bourgeoisie
Initially, the “German” bourgeoisie only dominated in Austria in the form of the bureaucracy.11 However, simultaneously with the retraction of “civil” liberties, the entrepreneurial upper classes were granted considerable freedoms. The state’s difficult financial situation increased the possibilities of the financial bourgeoisie to have an influence, seeing that the state needed a tremendous amount of money to develop the new court and administration system with its countless new civil servants. At the same time, the expenses for the army and (new!) gendarmery remained high.12 And they increased even further when Austria occupied the Romanian princedoms during the Crimean War and stationed an army in Galicia. These politics led to a state of permanent hostility with Russia, without being able to win the liberal Western powers (England and France) as allies. Finally, after the defeat near Solferino in 1859, the Emperor was informed