CHAPTER XIV
Francis Joseph comes to terms with Hungary—His famous interview with Francis Deák—“Well, Deák, what does Hungary demand?”—Dualism—The objection of the Slavs to Dualism—Coronation at Buda—Andrassy, whom he had hanged in effigy, becomes his Prime Minister.
Defeated by the Prussians, Francis Joseph felt that he must come to terms with the Hungarians. Their sullen and enduring disaffection had been one of the causes of his discomfiture. They seemed to be looking on, rather pleased than otherwise, at the spectacle of the Habsburg Empire in the melting-pot, and there were even Hungarian exiles helping the enemies of the Habsburgs. It was necessary to win them over, even at the cost of giving them what they wanted.
The popularity of the Empress helped to make them approachable. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Hungarians loved the Emperor because they had first loved the Empress, and loved the Empress because of her friendship for Nicholas Esterhazy; but that, nevertheless, was the trend of Hungarian sentiment. Elizabeth was, at all events, a friend at Court, and since she had been Empress there had been far more Hungarians about the Court than previously. So now, after Sadowa, but before his acceptance of the Prussian terms, Francis Joseph sent for the Hungarian leader, Francis Deák: a stubborn man, but moderate, and with a statesman’s eye for the practical.
Deák obeyed the summons, and was ushered into a room in which he saw the Emperor alone, absorbed in thought. After a short silence, a short dialogue passed between them:—
“Well, Deák, what does Hungary demand?”
“No more than she demanded before Sadowa—but no less.”
“And what have I to do now?”
“Your Majesty must first make peace, and then give Hungary her rights.”
“If I give Hungary a constitution at once, will the Hungarian Parliament vote me money to carry on this war?”
“No, your Majesty, the Hungarian Parliament will do nothing of the kind.”
For two reasons: because Hungary had no quarrel with Prussia, and because the hour of Francis Joseph’s embarrassment was the hour in which it would be easiest to bargain with him. So Francis Joseph realised that Deák had him at an advantage. He remained silent for a few moments, and then said simply: “Very well. I suppose it must be as you insist.”
That was the quiet origin of the present Austro-Hungarian constitution—the system known as Dualism. It solved one Austrian problem with a stroke of the pen; but there were a good many other problems which it left unsolved. Notably it left unsolved the pressing problem of the Slavs, whom the Hungarians, no less than the Austrians, regarded as inferior people, only fit to be oppressed. What the Hungarians had wanted—and now obtained—was not equal rights all round, but an invitation to go into partnership with the oppressors, and Magyarise one-half of the Empire while the Austrians were Germanising the other half. Whereupon there came a furious protest from a Slav historian:—
“If it is decided” (wrote Palacky) “to reverse the natural policy of Austria; if this Empire, composed of a medley of different nationalities, refuses to accord equal rights to all, and organises the supremacy of certain races over the others; if the Slavs are to be treated as an inferior people, and handed over to two dominant peoples as mere material to be governed by them; then Nature will assert herself and resume her rights. An inflexible resistance will transform hope into despair, and a peaceful into a warlike spirit; and there will be a series of conflicts and struggles of which it will be impossible to foresee the end. We Slavs existed before Austria; and we shall continue to exist after Austria has disappeared.”
That is hardly doubtful. “Imprison a Slav idea,” it has been written, “in the deepest dungeon of a fortress, and it will blow up the fortress in order to get out.” But that peril belonged to the future. For the moment Austria was once more saved; and the Emperor’s coronation in the cathedral, in 1867, was a magnificent ceremony, every detail of it fraught with significance to those who knew their history. We have to picture Francis Joseph, mounted on a snow-white horse, ascending the ancient hill, and brandishing his sword to the four points of Heaven as a sign that he would confound his subjects’ enemies, whether they came from north, south, east, or west; a very different experience truly from that of the days when Milan had received him and the Empress, with their heads covered, in stony silence, and the people of Venice had shunned the Archduke Maximilian and the Archduchess Charlotte as if they were lepers who had escaped from quarantine. A part of the ceremony consisted in the presentation to him of a purse of money, and he ordered its contents to be distributed among the families of those who had fallen fighting against him in 1849. It was one of those magnificent gestures which, like kind words, are worth much and cost little.
So that Francis Joseph, having turned a rebuff to his advantage, was stronger after Sadowa than before it; and he soon showed his skill in conciliating individuals by bestowing the office of Prime Minister upon the Count Andrassy who had been condemned to death, and hanged in effigy, for his share in the Hungarian rebellion. “I am so glad I didn’t really hang you,” he said genially, “for, in that case, I should have deprived myself of the most capable and amiable of my Prime Ministers”; and he did as good a day’s work when he said that as when he promoted the old soldiers whom he had caught poaching to be game-keepers. Moreover, he displayed a similar readiness to let bygones be bygones and to fight shoulder to shoulder with his old enemies when Prussia fell out with France in 1870.
That, however, is an intricate story, and demands a separate chapter.