1840-1849 Compromise and Autonomy
1867-1914







Austrian Neoabsolutism, 1849-1866


Austria's rule had been reestablished in a civil war waged against the forces of parliament. Many Hungarian leaders either faced exile, such as LAJOS KOSSUTH, or execution, such as Count LAJOS BATTHYANY. Austria's chancellor Count FELIX ZU SCHWARTZENBERG argued the Hungarians had 'forfeited their historical rights'; the diet was called no more, Hungary administrated from Vienna. Croatia-Slavonia, Transylvania, the Vojvodina were separated from Hungary.
A few laws, such as the abolishment of serfdom, had survived the revolution.
In the post-revolutionary years, Hungary's public opinion was split into those loyal to Lajos Kossuth and his exile government, refusing cooperation with Austria, and those who searched to improve Hungary's situation by cooperating.
Internationally, Austria-Hungary was isolated. Russia was displeased with Austria's failure to come to Russia's aid in the Crimean War. In Italy Count Cavour, the prime minister of Savoy, engineered Italy's unification after a successful war against Austria (Battle of Solferino 1859). Worst of all, Lajos Kossuth had been promised French support by adventurous Emperor Napoleon III., and a HUNGARIAN LEGION was recruited in France. Bismarck's Prussia took a leading role, which formally belonged to Austria, in the German Federation. In 1866 Austria's army was defeated, Austria forced to leave the German Federation and concede to Germany's unification under Prussian leadership.
Old-fashioned imperial policy, of holding on to old claims, refusing political representation and participation and playing a leading role in international diplomacy did not work any more; the number of peoples ruled was too big, the base of those who supported the monarchy - the Germans - too small.





EXTERNAL
LINKS 		Hungarian Revival, from A Short History of Austria-Hungary by H. Wickham-Steed, 1914, anti-Habsburg
Revolution and Reaction, from C.A. Macartney, Hungary - A Short History, 1962
The Compromise and the Millennium, from Istvan Lazar, Hungary - A Brief History, 1989/1993, slightly polemic
Hungary, from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914 edition
Steven W. Sowards, Nationalism in Hungary 1848-1867, from Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern Balkan History, at Michigan State
DOCUMENTS Die Petition von Bogarosch 1748 (The Bogarosch Petition), posted by Norbert Neidenbach, in German
REFERENCE Peter F. Sugar (ed.), A History of Hungary, Indiana Univ. Press 1990, 432 pp.


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 11th 2004

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