Nationalism In the Empire

Throughout Europe in the 19th century there was a movement toward political independence by-groups of people who shared a common language and culture but who did not have their own political states. This spirit of nationalism was a threat to the Hapsburg empire, since the empire was made up of people of many nationalities.

Though German-speaking people formed a majority in some parts of Austria, they were only a minority in the empire. They received special consideration at the expense of the other nationalities because the House of Hapsburg was German. The second largest national group in the empire was the Magyars, or Hungarians, who dreamed of reestablishing the independence of their kingdom.

Other national groups in the empire also resented being governed by the German minority. Each area, however, contained not one, but several, nationalities, who hated each other as bitterly as they did the Germans. In Hungary the Magyars quarreled with the Romanians and Slavs, in Galicia the Poles quarreled with the Ukrainians. This lack of common bonds among the peoples of the empire allowed the Hapsburg monarchs to retain power.

Between 1820 and 1831 there were a number of nationalistic and democratic revolutions in Europe. Under Austrian leadership the Quadruple Alliance managed to quell most of them. Austria also tried to suppress nationalism and the desire for German unification throughout the Germanies. However, it was unable to prevent the Germanies from developing closer ties under the leadership of Prussia.

In 1835 Ferdinand I became emperor after the death of his father, Francis. In 1848 a new wave of revolutions swept through Europe, striking hardest at the Austrian empire. In Vienna revolutionaries forced the powerful foreign minister, Prince Clemens von Metternich, from office. Hungary and Bohemia established independent governments. In Italy, the Austrian possessions and the small Hapsburg states threw off Austrian domination. Representatives of the small countries of the German Confederation met at the free city of Frankfurt, intending to create a union not dominated by Austria. Ferdinand, too weak to control the disorder, abdicated in favor of his nephew, who became Francis Joseph I.

However, none of these revolutions was successful for long. Francis Joseph I reestablished order in Vienna. In Hungary and Bohemia the revolutionary governments were weakened by the quarrels of various nationalities. The Hungarians refused to grant equal citizenship to the Slavs and Romanians; the Bohemian Poles and Germans fought each other bitterly. Austria crushed these rebellions and also the Italian revolts. At the Frankfurt Assembly the German states were unable to find a basis for union by democratic methods. When the Prussian monarch, Frederick William IV, attempted to lead a German unification movement, the Austrian government ordered him, in a highly insulting fashion, to cease his efforts.