To pacify the public, Franz Joseph gave in; on November 28, 1897, he dismissed Badeni and asked Paul, Freiherr (baron) Gautsch von Frankenthurn, a former minister of education, to form a government out of the German parties of parliament. Gautsch’s attempts to appease the Germans ran into obstruction from the Czechs. The scene of violence shifted from Vienna to Prague and from the Reichsrat to the Bohemian diet. In March 1898 Gautsch was replaced by the former governor of Bohemia, Franz Anton, Fürst zu Thun und Hohenstein, who failed within a year. Of his successors neither Manfred, Graf Clary und Aldringen, who formally revoked the Badeni language ordinance, nor Heinrich Wittek, who headed a short-lived cabinet of a few weeks, managed to solve the nationality problem.
On January 18, 1900, Franz Joseph asked Ernest von Koerber, a former minister of the interior, to form a new cabinet. Koerber was the only commoner to be appointed prime minister by Franz Joseph. As a leading bureaucrat, he formed his ministry from the ranks of other bureaucrats, concentrating in subsequent years on the administration of public affairs and economic programs rather than trying to deal with political problems. First by imperial decree and then, after some political bargaining, by consent of parliament, Koerber carried through a program of economic expansion, social legislation, and administrative reform; among his reforms was the liberation of the press from government and police control. By devious politicking, he managed to keep government activities free from national strife, but he could not prevent national emotions from becoming more and more extremist. The national conflict came to be fought over educational matters, and in the final years of Koerber’s government the desire for national universities aroused the sentiments of Italians, Slovenes, and Ruthenians—turning the traditional Czech-German conflict into a multinational one. In December 1904 Koerber’s various maneuverings faltered, and he was driven from office by a combination of parties.
The political climate in Austria was further complicated by the worsening of relations between the emperor and the Hungarian government. Hungarian separatists had agitated for the separation of the Habsburg army, and when Franz Joseph used an address to the troops at Chłopy (now in Poland) in 1903 for an unequivocal reaffirmation of the common and unified character of his army, a controversy developed that had repercussions in the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy. The plan to use universal suffrage—for which popular demand had strongly increased since the Russian Revolution of 1905—to break the opposition in Hungary actually furthered the cause of political democracy in Austria. Electoral reform
Gautsch, who had been reappointed as prime minister, oversaw a bill that would instate universal franchise in Austria. This first bill, introduced to parliament in February 1906, ran into the opposition of the middle-class and conservative parties that still controlled parliament. Nevertheless, imperial interest and popular pressure—the Social Democrats had organized mass rallies to support the bill—combined to overcome parliamentary opposition. After Gautsch resigned in March 1906 and his successor, Conrad, Fürst (prince) von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, failed to master the situation, Max Wladimir, Freiherr (baron) von Beck (Austrian prime minister from June 1906), managed to carry the bill through parliament. In January 1907 Franz Joseph sanctioned the law, which gave the vote to every male over age 23 and abolished the curiae.
The returns of the election of 1907 made the Germans inescapably a minority in parliament, with 233 members, though they certainly remained the strongest national group. (The Czechs could count on 107 seats, the Poles 82, the Ruthenians 33, the Slovenes 24, the Italians 19, the Serbs and Croats 13, and the Romanians 5.) Universal suffrage also brought the expected decline of the chauvinistic parties. The Young Czechs and the Pan-Germans were reduced to small factions without parliamentary influence, while the Christian Socialists and the Social Democrats returned as the two strongest parties out of more than 30 represented in parliament; the socialist delegation in the Austrian parliament was, in fact, larger than in any other country. The Austrian constitution, however, did not force the emperor to form his government according to the composition of the parliament. Neither the Social Democrats nor the Christian Socialists acquired any significant influence on the shaping of Austrian government affairs.
Beck remained in office and satisfied the Christian Socialists with some concessions but for the most part based his policy on the support of the conservative parties. In 1905 the diet of Moravia had succeeded in finding a compromise between German and Czech national demands, and it was hoped that a similar compromise could be achieved for Bohemia. But, within a short time, national conflicts got the upper hand again, and parliamentary debate and public opinion were once more excited by national strife. In 1908, however, international complications diverted attention from domestic affairs. Foreign policy, 1878–1908
The occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 had reasserted Habsburg interests in Balkan affairs. Facing the possibility of conflict with Russia in this area, Austria-Hungary had looked for an ally, with the result that in 1879 Austria-Hungary and the German Empire had joined in the Dual Alliance, by which the two sovereigns promised each other support in the case of Russian aggression. The signing of the Dual Alliance was Andrássy’s last act as foreign minister, but the alliance survived as the main element in the international position of the Habsburg monarchy until the last day of the empire. Under Andrássy’s successors, Habsburg foreign policy continued its conservative course.
In 1881 an alliance with Serbia, which after the Congress of Berlin (1878) had turned to Austria-Hungary for protection, made this Balkan state a satellite of the Habsburg monarchy. The Three Emperors’ League (comprising Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary) of the same year brought Russian recognition of Habsburg predominance in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. The signatories of this alliance promised to consult one another on any changes in the status quo in the Ottoman Empire, and, while Russia was given assurances that its position regarding Bulgaria and the Straits (the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus) would be recognized, Austria-Hungary received from Russia the promise that there would be no objection to a possible annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the future.
The Three Emperors’ League was an important element in the structure of alliances that German chancellor Bismarck set up to stabilize Europe. Having decided to rely on Austria-Hungary as the fundamental partner in international affairs, Bismarck had to try to neutralize all the areas in which the Habsburg monarchy might be drawn into a conflict. It was essential to avoid being involved in a controversy at an inopportune moment and in a region of little interest to Germany. Bismarck therefore attempted to lessen the possibility of a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia by making them partners in the Three Emperors’ League. And when, in 1882, Italy approached Germany to find a partner in its anti-French policy, Bismarck used the opportunity to neutralize another European trouble spot. He told the Italian foreign minister that the road to Berlin led through Vienna, with the result that the Triple Alliance (comprising Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary) was signed in May 1882. It was primarily a defensive treaty against a French attack on Italy or Germany. It further stated that, in the event of any signatory coming to war with another power, the partners of the alliance would remain neutral. The treaty did not settle the problems still existing between the Habsburg monarchy and the Italian kingdom, but for Bismarck it sufficed that they were neutralized.
In 1883 Bismarck acted again to reduce the danger of war in “Europe’s backyard” by arranging a defensive agreement between Austria-Hungary and Romania. The Triple Alliance and the Romanian Alliance not only strengthened the international status quo but also gave security to the internal order of the Habsburg monarchy by weakening the irredentist movements in Transylvania and the Italian parts of Austria-Hungary. (See also Irredentist.)