3 - 1852–1867: Transformation

Summary

At the beginning of 1852, the Habsburg Monarchy appeared to have wholly withstood the dramatic challenge afforded by the revolution of 1848. In many ways, it was in better shape. Instead of a mentally incompetent invalid as emperor, there was a dashing, virile, and quite well educated, and well-trained young man in total control of government. The military had proven ultimately strong enough, and loyal enough, to put down a series of revolutions; the many nationalisms that had been unleashed by the ‘springtime of the peoples’ had proven an advantage to the Habsburg government, as they had cancelled each other out. The Monarchy's alliances had stood the test as well: Russia had come to its rescue, not only against the Hungarian insurgency in 1849, but also when support was needed to deter Prussia in 1850 from going it alone with the other German states in the crisis that led up to the Punctation of Olmütz. Prussia, meanwhile, largely due to the character of its king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, had ultimately not been able to overcome its habit of deferring to Austria. In that sense, as Alan Sked has argued, Metternich's System had not been defeated; in 1852 it appeared vindicated. Austrian prospects looked good.

Fifteen years later, the Austrian Empire no longer existed as such, was now clearly a second-rate power, with Russia its deadly enemy, and Prussia its successful usurper of supremacy over the German states. The young emperor who had once so self-confidently regained absolute power had now had to allow his power to be fettered by not one but two, even three, constitutional systems: in Hungary, Cisleithania (Austria) and in Austria-Hungary. This radical transformation had many causes. It turned out that the changes set in train by 1848 could not be so easily reined in, more because of the revolution's consequences outside the Monarchy's borders than within them. Once again, foreign policy was to show its primacy in Habsburg history. As important, though, was to be the manner in which the Monarchy's leadership responded to the challenges of post-1848 modernity. At the centre of that leadership was the new, young emperor himself, Franz Joseph.