The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918

Alan Sked

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317880035
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

A new and revised edition of Alan Sked's groundbreaking book which examines how the Habsburg Empire survived the revolutionary turmoil of 1848.

'The Year of Revolutions', saw the whole of Europe convulsed in turmoil and revolt. Yet the Habsburg Empire survived. As state after state succumbed to the violent winds of change that were sweeping the continent. How did the Habsburg Empire survive? How was the army able hold together while the rest of the empire collapsed in civil war, and how was it able to seize the political initiative In this new edition, Alan Sked reflects on the changed understanding of the period which resulted from the first appearance of this book, and widens the discussion to look at the Habsburg Empire alongside the decline of the Russian and German Empires, arguing that it is possible to understand their decline from a broad European perspective, as opposed to the overly narrow focus of recent explanations. Alan Sked makes us look at familiar events with new eyes in this radical, vigorously written classic which is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of nineteenth-century Europe.

1

Metternich and his System, 1815–48

THE MOST prominent figure in nineteenth-century Habsburg history was, of course, Prince Metternich, Foreign Minister between 1809 and 1848 and House, Court and State Chancellor from 1821. Historians occasionally refer to the period 1815–48 as the ‘Age of Metternich’ and often it is said to have been dominated by ‘the Metternich System’. The implication is that Metternich not only formulated the foreign policy of the Habsburg Monarchy, but through that controlled the destiny of Europe. For this reason he is considered a major historical figure and like all such figures is surrounded by controversy. Judgements of him, however, have on the whole been negative. Most textbook writers see him as a reactionary figure whose obsession with suppressing revolution — the Revolution, with a capital R from his point of view — frustrated the establishment of moderate, constructive, reforming regimes in Central Europe. Had it not been for the Metternich System, these writers imply, Europe as a whole might have developed along general liberal lines and perhaps have been spared all sorts of wars and catastrophies. In particular, the Deutscher Sonderweg, that is to say, Germany’s peculiar path of historical development, might never have occurred, Bismarck might never have been necessary, and European history might have taken on an altogether different character. Likewise, if it had not been for Metternich, the Habsburg Empire might have reformed itself constructively, the nationalities might have been appeased, and 1914 might never have happened. From the point of view of liberal or democratic writers, therefore, Metternich has a lot to answer for.

Metternich and his critics

Most writers or critics of this school, however, have assumed three things: first, that Metternich dominated the Empire’s foreign policy and through that the diplomacy of Europe as a whole; secondly, that he was also responsible for the main features of the Empire’s domestic policy; and thirdly, that both his domestic and foreign policies were intimately related. Both, it is said, were based on the same reactionary principles and merged together in the so-called Metternich System. Put another way, these writers believe that Metternich’s foreign and domestic policies were ideological and that his ideology rested on the following beliefs: that the only true form of government was monarchy; that monarchical government should be absolute; that it existed to protect the social order which, like itself, was divinely ordained; that monarchs everywhere should combine to protect this order and the political stability which it engendered; that in practice this meant rejecting the representative principle which presupposed popular sovereignty; upholding the European Concert and the balance of power; and being seen to exert authority through the coordinated use of armies and police forces, and intervening if necessary to save fellow rulers from the Revolution. The practical manifestations of this System were to be seen, therefore, in the Karlsbad Decrees of 1819, the Final Act of the Vienna Congress of 1820, the intervention in Naples in 1821, in Spain in 1823, in the Papal States in 1830, in the Berlin and Miinchengraetz agreements of 1833, in the annexation of Cracow in 1846, in the ‘occupation’ of Ferrara in 1847 and in the imprisonment of such enemies of the regime as Confalonieri, Kossuth and Wesselényi. Yet, in spite of all this repression, the System, in the eyes of these historians, failed. In the end, the moderate reformers were forced to become revolutionaries until in 1848 the inevitable happened and Metternich was overthrown by revolution.

Many of these arguments were used by contemporary critics of Metternich, for whom he loomed very large indeed. One of these, for example, an Austrian writing in 1830, could declare: ‘Never was a man more feared or detested than Metternich. From Belgium to the Pyrenees, from the frontiers of Turkey to the borders of Holland, there is only one opinion of this minister and it is one of execration. For it is he who has principally contributed to giving Europe its present political form, who has been the inventor and main spring of the Holy Alliance, that embryo of great events… Liberty has never had as dangerous an enemy as Metternich.’¹ Lord Palmerston put the second half of the case to the Austrian Ambassador in London: ‘Prince Metternich believes that he is a conservative by obstinately upholding the political status quo in Europe: we believe that we are conservatives by everywhere preaching and counselling reforms and improvements where these things are designated and claimed to be necessary by the public. You, on the other hand, reject everything. When order and tranquillity reign in your land, you say that concessions are useless; in moments of crisis and revolt you equally refuse them, not wishing to weaken authority by appearing to bend before the storm. You also persist in rejecting absolutely everything that public opinion demands in your country and in the lands in which you have influence and patronage; [finally you reject] everything that is granted close or far from you. No, this immobility is not conservatism…. Your repressive and suffocating policy is also a fatal one and will lead to an explosion just as certainly as would a boiler that was hermetically sealed and deprived of an outlet for steam.’² Kolowrat, the Prince’s main rival within the Austrian government, said much the same to his face: ‘I am an aristocrat by birth and by conviction and completely agree with you that people must strive for conservatism and do everything to achieve it. Yet we differ about means. Your means consist of a forest of bayonets and fixed adherence to things as they are. To my mind, by following these lines we are playing into the hands of the revolutionaries…. Your ways will lead us… not tomorrow or next year – but soon enough — to our ruin.’³ After the revolutions of 1848, it became the standard view of Metternich that this was precisely what had happened and today that view remains the orthodox one. Paul Schroeder’s examination of Metternich’s Diplomacy at its Zenith⁴ for example, concludes with a chapter describing him as a statesman whose policies were neither constructive, conservative nor European. Worse still, he is now often regarded as irrelevant. His much vaunted principles are dismissed as clichés — in A. J. P. Taylor’s words, ‘most men could do better than this when shaving’⁵ — whereas a number of studies⁶ have demonstrated that in European diplomacy, his was not the decisive voice: it was Castlereagh who dominated the Congress of Vienna; it was Palmerston who solved the Belgian Question; it was Russia and Great Britain who took charge of the Eastern Question; and in the affairs of Greece or Spain or Portugal, Metternich had little say. He may have persuaded Alexander of Russia to support a reactionary Troppau Protocol, but he did this at the price of losing whatever influence he had with Great Britain and did not even manage to keep control of the so-called Congress System thereafter. On his own doorstep, it was Prussia which seized the leadership of Germany through the Zollverein and it was his reactionary allies in Switzerland who were defeated in the Sonderbund war of 1847. Even in day-to-day diplomacy, it can be argued, Mettermeli’s reputation among his European colleagues did not stand high: Nicholas of Russia regarded him as ‘the cohort of Satan’; Nesselrode complained of his ‘lack of frankness, his panics and his jeramiads, his pusillanimity and his jealousy, his unhealthy obsession with scribbling things on paper and deliberately confusing even the most simple affairs’. Nor did he enjoy a reputation for honesty. Talleyrand, comparing him with Cardinal Mazarin, said: ‘The Cardinal deceived but never lied – Mettermeli always lies but never deceives.’ Napoleon complained: ‘Everyone lies sometimes, but to lie all the time, that is too much.’ Canning called him the ‘greatest rogue and liar on the Continent perhaps in the civilized world’, whereas the real trouble with Mettermeli, according to the poet Grillparzer, was that he believed his own lies in the end.⁷ Altogether, therefore, there is a case to be made out that Metternich was very much a failure: repressive in both domestic and foreign policy to an extent that actually encouraged revolution; irrelevant in foreign affairs; disrespected by his diplomatic contemporaries; and even lacking consistent principles of action. What then can be said in his defence?

Metternich and his defenders

We shall deal with his influence in domestic affairs in a moment. With regard to foreign policy, his supporters would make the following points: that in an absolutist state, his power depended on the will of the Emperor; that in foreign policy, he was handicapped by the obvious economic and military weaknesses of the Monarchy; that in spite of these, however, he still managed to exercise considerable influence in Europe, not merely in Italy and in Germany, but in Europe generally where he was recognized as the main spokesman for the conservative cause and where he did indeed pursue broad principles consistently over such a long period of time that there is justice in speaking of a ‘Metternich System’ or even of an ‘Age of Metternich’. Let us therefore examine the positive side of this negative figure.

Not a great deal is known about the exact nature of his working relationship with Francis I, but what there is suggests that he perhaps had more influence with that monarch than at times he made out. Thus, although he told a Russian general on one occasion that were he to ‘diverge’ from the Emperor’s will, ‘Prince Metternich would not remain Foreign Minister for twenty-four hours’,⁸ and despite his famous statement, ‘I may have governed Europe occasionally, but Austria never’, there can be little doubt that he played a very powerful role in both the Empire’s foreign and domestic affairs. Metternich, in any case, was given to contradicting himself. He said on other occasions: ‘I rule the Russian cabinet, just as I rule the Austrian one’ or ‘The Emperor always does what I want, although I want only what he should want.’⁹ The truth seems to be that although there were occasions on which Metternich and Francis quarrelled, their views on most issues were much the same: both were horrified by change and both were committed absolutely to the struggle against the Revolution and the Comité Directeur which they believed was in control of it. As the Russian Ambassador commented, ‘Austria’s policies [were] based on Francis’s character and guided by Metternich’s spirit. ’¹⁰ Or as the Chancellor himself confessed: ‘Heaven has placed me next to a man who might have been created for me as I for him. The Emperor Francis knows what he wants and that never differs in any way from what I most want. ’¹¹ It is sometimes asked, however, why Metternich did not push harder occasionally to get his own way, particularly in domestic policy, over issues on which the two men were divided. There are several possible explanations for this: probably Metternich knew that it was impossible for Francis to change his style of rule; maybe he himself lacked sufficient determination to pursue his objectives (in fact this lack of determination was often ascribed to a ‘feminine’ vein in his character which several contemporaries remarked upon); it could well be that he did not believe that he had the right in a monarchical state to demand that he get his own way over everything. What is very difficult to maintain is that a threat to resign on Metternich’s part would have brought his instant dismissal. Francis simply had too high an opinion of his Chancellor, for one thing; on the other hand, it is known that Kolowrat threatened to resign on no fewer than twenty occasions. This part of the case for the defence is therefore perhaps not as strong as it might first appear, although it can by no means be discounted. As absolute ruler, Francis always had the last word and it was almost always reactionary.

On the matter of the economic and military weaknesses of the Monarchy, Metternich’s defenders are on much safer ground. Kolowrat, for a start, controlled the purse strings of the Monarchy and, as we have seen, he objected to Metternich’s policy of a ‘forest of bayonets’. In fact, he described the Austrian military budget as ‘a shield which weighed down the rider’¹² and made determined efforts to reduce military expenditure wherever possible. He was anxious to keep Austria’s budget balanced (something he achieved only once in 1829) and to reduce the state debt, which was enormously high. He was determined, in short, to reduce Austria’s reputation for being something of a credit risk, a reputation established during the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1811 the Monarchy had had to declare itself bankrupt, yet in spite of this it had had to run up further enormous debts between 1813 and 1815. In the following years, some order had been restored into its finances but, during the period 1815–48, the annual interest paid on the state debt amounted to roughly 30 per cent of the entire state revenue. If, according to one Fr...