The Habsburg Empire (1790-1918)

by C A Macartney

  The conspirators were punished with extreme barbarity, several of them executed (after being pilloried publicly for three days) and others condemned to sentences of hard labour running up to sixty and even a hundred years, and after this Francis’s dread of ‘democracy’ and allergy to change became pathological. The internal history of the next years is that of the elaboration and enforcement of a system designed to secure the most absolute stability which ingenuity could devise.

  Political immobility was easily achieved in the western half of the Monarchy by the simple expedient of conducting all rule through the bureaucracy. The Estates were not abolished, for that would have been a revolutionary act, but their activities, where any (the Estates of Galicia were not convoked at all after 1782 until 1817), were purely formal, all their petitions for an extension of their powers being rejected. The meetings became a farce,21 and few of those entitled to attend them troubled to do so. All Government was from above, which did not at all mean that during these years Austria suffered from lack of government. The Vielregieren of Francis’s early years was proverbial; in respect of paper issued, they rivalled Joseph’s. In the flood of enactments22 there could not fail to be some that were beneficial, conspicuous among them an enlightened re-codification of the criminal law.23 After he had been made President of the Hofkriegsrat in 1801,24 Francis’s brother, the Archduke Charles, introduced a number of reforms in the military services, including, besides technical reforms and many measures calculated to improve conditions for the troops and to raise their self-respect and their morale, the epoch-making change that the term of service was reduced from life in all arms to ten years in the infantry, train, etc., twelve in the artillery and fourteen in the engineers. But against these, and a few other measures of real value, had to be set the near-complete fossilization of social, economic and intellectual life. On the land, Francis refused, indeed, to repeal (as the Estates of many Lands tried to make him do) his predecessors’ reforms in favour of the peasants, but he also carried them no further, so that the peasants’ obligations remained fixed, in general, at the levels laid down by Maria Theresa in her Patents.25 On the principal question which Joseph’s death had left undecided – how far the commutation of services and/or dues for cash rents should be imposed, or encouraged – an inquiry undertaken by the Hofkanzlei in 1794 in Bohemia showed that Leopold’s appeal had met with small results.26 Most of the landlords were now against commutation, and even the peasants were reported to be reluctant to bind themselves to cash payments, even where they could afford them. Opinions in the Hofkanzlei were divided: some experts still wanted the whole rural economy put on a cash basis, while others saw in the robot ‘a good school of humility and obedience’ and warned particularly against allowing the peasants to buy themselves out in perpetuity (Bareinkaüfe) as, other dangers apart, ‘they would then in practice become free peasants, could dictate the price of cereals and would let the stocks of horses run down’.27 In 1798 Francis issued a Patent reaffirming the legality of all forms of commutation, provided that both parties agreed, but commutations in perpetuity had to be approved by the Kreisamt, which was not to sanction them unless satisfied that the purchaser would pay. Then, in 1821, by a decision which, as has been justly remarked,28 reversed what had been the whole general policy of the State since the days of Maria Theresa, he issued an order that commutation of robot on State properties was to stop, and Kreis officials were not to express ‘a hint or wish’ that it should be carried through on private estates, ‘since it could be detrimental both to the yields of the properties, and to the “subjects’”.

  The effect of this seems to have been practically to put an end to commutation in perpetuity anywhere in Austria.29 The more or less short-term commutation (Reluirung) inevitably went on in areas where it was convenient to both parties, which were, roughly, those in which money economy was now established and in which there was little demesne farming; so much so that travellers wrote that little robot, or none at all, was worked in the German-Austrian Lands,30 and in Lower Austria payments in kind vanished almost completely.31 Even this, however, remained rare in the less advanced Lands.

  Francis also refused to introduce any general modification of the manorial judiciary system, although changes here would have been welcomed, not only by the subjects, but also by the manorial lords themselves, on account of the expense in which the system involved them. But precisely the same financial consideration, seen from the opposite angle, determined Francis against burdening the exchequer with the cost of a service which, as things stood, he was getting free. It is true that he did not introduce it in the territories acquired from Venice, and that on recovering the areas which had been under the rule of France and her allies from 1809 to 1814, and in which State judiciary systems had been introduced, he refrained from reintroducing the manorial system,32 and after a general inquiry carried through in 1810, subsequently introduced minor modifications elsewhere.

  Official policy towards industry wavered. One school among the bureaucrats was mercantilist-minded, and wanted the maximum development of industry, to increase taxable capacity and to obviate the necessity for imports; others were physiocrats, and they reinforced their arguments that wealth lay in the land (for the exploitation of which labour was still generally short, especially during the campaigns), by appealing to moral considerations: urban life, they contended, was corrupting to morals, both private and political.33 A middle course suggested by some was to develop industry in the rural districts, but not in the towns. The supporters of this view appealed also to the difficulty of supplying large towns in time of war.

  Francis himself seems to have found it difficult to make up his mind on this question. On the point of economic principle, he agreed with the mercantilists, but he was very susceptible to the political arguments of the other school; he also shrank, on grounds of economy, from any expenditure which did not produce an immediate reward. In 1802, invoking the housing shortage, he forbade the establishment of any new factories in Vienna, although still allowing licences to be granted in rural districts. This device proved impracticable, since labour was available in the towns, but not outside them. Licences were now granted for the towns, but very sparingly, and even the import of machinery was forbidden until 1811. The shortage of manpower, not to speak of capital, was in any case very detrimental to economic development during the war years.

  But Francis’s pursuit of stability extended further than this. With his real gift for going to the heart of a problem and drawing the logical conclusion from what he saw there, he concluded that thought in general, except where directed towards purely technical subjects, was the enemy of stability. Rather interestingly, he did not share the view held by many of his advisers, and perhaps by the majority of landlords, that it was better for the poor to be unlettered. On the contrary, he wished that every child in his dominions should receive a sufficient elementary education, efficiently imparted by trained teachers, and that there should be a sufficient number of secondary and higher schools to produce the educated classes needed by the system. The number of schools of all kinds, especially secondary establishments, in the Monarchy increased largely during the first years of his reign, the Western Lands of which also saw the issue, in 1805, of a new ‘Ratio Educations’ revising curricula and remodelling the organization of the educational system in many respects.

  But like Joseph II and, for that matter, Maria Theresa, both of whose ideas on this point were more like his than is generally admitted, he believed the sole purpose of education to be the production of good, loyal and efficient citizens. The emphasis in the curricula was laid on practical subjects, with abundant instruction in religion, and in the higher schools, on those subjects knowledge of which was necessary for the State service, or le cas échéant, for entry into the Church.

  Abstract thought was strongly discouraged, and teachers held to the strictest orthodoxy. To ensure this, they were placed under close supervision.34

  The teachers, incident
ally, were miserably paid (the annual salary of a village schoolmaster was 120 gulden, or less) and their quality correspondingly low. In 1811 Kübeck wrote, in a drastic memorandum, that they consisted almost exclusively of people unable to get any other job.

  The chief anti-thought institution for the adult population was the censorship. This, as we have seen, was no invention of Francis’s, but very early in his reign he gave the screw another turn – authors of books, or writers in the Press, were not only to abstain from any utterances calculated to disturb the public order but were not allowed to comment in advance on reports of planned legislation. Nothing could appear which represented the French revolution in a favourable light. Then reading-rooms were forbidden; then circulating libraries; and then literary reviews, on the ground that they published extracts from forbidden books. No Austrian might have a book printed abroad without permission from the censor.

  In 1801 the power of censorship was transferred to the police, and became stricter than ever; also slower, since the police often referred a writing to one or more Hofstellen which might be affected for further opinions. The censorship was by now covering even mottoes on fans and snuff-boxes, monuments and toys. Next year an order appeared that when a man died, his books were to be passed on to his heirs only if the latter were suitable persons to receive them. In 1803 journalists were forbidden to print anything whatever on domestic affairs beyond what was contained in the Wiener Diarium (the official gazette) or Ministerial handouts; of foreign news also, only what the censorship passed. In the same year the famous ‘re-censoring commission’ was set up to review all works permitted between 1780 and 1792. Within two years this body pronounced its ban on no less than two thousand five hundred works.

  The result of all this was that the native production of literature, except the most strictly academic works on abstract subjects and fiction of the lightest kind, practically ceased. The habit of reading declined also. The books which were read were foreign products, smuggled in. Foreign newspapers could be imported but were subject to a heavy duty and often held up, or confiscated, if their contents were disagreeable to the Government.

  It was very largely to the Church that Francis looked for help in the inculcation of proper sentiments. While the State retained the responsibility for the salaries of the teachers and the upkeep of the premises, the Church was responsible for seeing that the curricula were followed and that the conduct of the teacher (who was appointed by the Consistory on the proposal of the patron of the school) was satisfactory. The local parish priests exercised this supervision over the elementary schools and the Hauptschulen (outside Vienna), while the Archbishops and Bishops were responsible for the general supervision of the system, with the special function of ‘seeing that the purity of Catholic doctrine was in no way endangered by the instruction’; ordinarily, they delegated this duty to one of their Canons. Higher teaching posts were given by preference to persons in Holy Orders.

  The facilities for theological studies were increased and more gymnasia established in an attempt to attract more men to the priesthood, which had been losing much of its popularity as a career, partly owing to a growing apathy in religious questions. Yet, while personally pious enough, Francis held strictly to the Josephinian conception of the relationship between Church and State. The Church continued to be treated as a branch of the Civil Service, the function of which was the promotion of the useful virtues. Acceptance of this role led more quickly than piety to preferment, and the most influential prelates of the day, especially those connected with the teaching service or the supervision of it, were all pronounced Josephinians. Direct correspondence between the Bishops and Rome was still forbidden, and the Church properties were still administered by laymen.

  The particular instrument perfected by Francis for the maintenance of the ‘system’ was the secret police. Here, too, he was only following his uncle and his father, but neither Joseph nor Leopold had taken into his service the enormous number of police spies recruited by Francis’s ministers – from every walk of life, concierges, Legation servants, prostitutes (these in great numbers), as well as much more highly-placed persons, nor had kept so large a proportion of the population under observation. In Francis’s day, not only the obvious objects of suspicion, foreigners and middle-class intellectuals, were constantly watched, their doings reported, their correspondence opened; but the surveillance was extended to the highest in the land, Ministers of State and even members of the Imperial family. Francis took a personal and lively interest in the spies’ reports, many of which he had sent to him direct; he even had his own informers, who by-passed the police organization itself.

  It is possible, indeed, to form an exaggerated opinion both of the omnipotence and the malevolence of this service; even probable that such exaggeration has been fostered by the circumstance that its operations were encountered at the Congress of Vienna by foreigners unaccustomed to the institution, and also by the fact that certain prominent and vocal figures fell victim to its workings in a famous case in Lombardy-Venetia, in 1821–2.35 The Italian Provinces at the date in question were a special case, riddled with secret societies of subversive character, against which the authorities had no course but to employ secret counter-measures. The Congress of Vienna, in view of the importance of the business conducted at it, may also be fairly called a special case. It should also be remembered that the word ‘secret police’ covered criminal as well as political detection.36 The whole purpose of the service was prophylactic rather than punitive. Even under Francis, Austria was never a police state in the sense in which Himmler and Beria have brought a later generation to understand the term. It knew no concentration camps. It was rare for persons to be arrested and kept in prison without trial on political grounds, and sentences for political offences, after the notable exception of those of 1794, were usually relatively mild, at least by modern standards. Francis himself, like his father and his uncle before him, used the police reports rather as a means of informing himself on current affairs, including public opinion, than for any more sinister purpose. Intercepted letters were never used against their authors or addressees. A man might have his doings and sayings reported for years, and yet live quite unmolested. Francis’s first Chief of Police, although a thorough-going obscurantist, was no sadist, and Count Saurau, his deputy, an exceptionally enlightened man.

  The service began largely as a defensive measure against the infiltration of revolutionary ideas from France and other foci of subversion which was thought to be threatening the Monarchy in the ’90s. At that time, it was directed chiefly against the émigrés and their friends, and against the secret societies, including freemasonry, which Francis and his advisers regarded, not without justification, as the main channels of those ideas.37 It was really dangerous to be a mason, and in 1801 all State employees, at home and abroad, including the Archdukes themselves, were required to sign a declaration that they did not belong to any such society. To the last, membership of a secret society remained the most certain way of incurring disgrace or punishment.

  This did not, however, nearly exhaust the field of the police’s activities. While, strictly, it was only secret societies which lay under the ban, non-political and even religious associations were suspect also. The formation even of charitable associations required special permission, and learned societies were forbidden, except those devoted to the promotion of agriculture. The term ‘association’ was stretched so widely that permission had to be obtained even for a dance employing an orchestra of more than two instruments.

  Especial and systematic attention was paid to the middle classes. Colloredo and others of Francis’s early advisers had, from their careful and on the whole correct observation of the French scene, drawn the conclusion that the middle classes, and especially the professions, had provided the fermenting agency in the revolution, so that any ‘intellectual’ was an automatic suspect. Furthermore, since the security of the State depended on the loyalty of its civil servants and its off
icers (and the defeats suffered by Austria’s Generals had been so constant and so conspicuous that Francis was not satisfied with the normal explanation of inefficiency, but smelt treason), it was thought necessary to keep these classes under the closest supervision. They worked under a twofold shadow: of confidential reports (which they did not see) regularly rendered on them by their superiors, and of secret reports by the police. Suspicious conduct might easily result in dismissal, or condemnation to a life of subordinate service in some remote corner of the Monarchy.

  *

  A notable weakness which made even the Vielregieren excessively difficult and inefficient was the cumbersome governmental machinery.

  We have already mentioned38 the institution of the Staatsrat, the duty of which was to advise the Monarch on any subject on which he chose to consult it. In practice the system had developed that the Ministers (so to call them; their titles varied with great frequency) of Foreign Affairs, Defence and (most often) Finance were regarded as exempt from the jurisdiction of the Staatsrat, and reported direct to the Monarch. Questions of home affairs, in the broadest sense, where they could not be decided departmentally, went on to the Staatsrat, which as the Austrian Dienstreglement prescribed, rendered an opinion on them in the shape of a written report by each member; these reports went up to the Monarch, via his Kabinett.