CHAPTER II
THE MAKING OF MODERN AUSTRIA
Others of Maria Teresa’s descendants, besides Joseph, held the title of Emperor, but as the Germanic states grew more united among themselves this tended to become an empty dignity. It was dropped at last by Francis II., who ascended the throne in 1792. But before that, Francis had gone through the terrible wars of the Napoleonic era, and had been shorn of all his dominions beyond Austria and its immediate dependencies. The first of his outlying dominions to be taken by the French was the Netherlands, in the same year that he became sovereign.
At that time Francis ruled also in Lombardy, and it was not to be supposed that Buonaparte would allow any country so near France to remain untouched; he spread his tentacles over it in 1796, and it became the Cisalpine Republic. The Austrians did not give up without a struggle; they made a strong resistance but were outplayed at every turn. This laid the way to Vienna open to the French, and they immediately took advantage of it, marching through the Tyrol. Austria thereupon concluded peace, giving up all idea of recovering her possessions in the Low Countries, and agreeing to recognise the Cisalpine Republic, in return for which she received the Venetian territory. But the greatest advantage Austria received for thus declaring herself on the side of the conqueror was the province of Dalmatia, which gave her access to the sea and had long been coveted by her.
HOHENSALZBURG
The people of Austria, however, had to be reckoned with, and this peace was altogether opposed to their wishes; after violent uprisings they broke through the neutrality, and joining Russia and Prussia declared war on France. This led to the disastrous defeats of Marengo and Hohenlinden in 1800, and on the latter occasion between four and five thousand Austrians were left dead on the field and seven thousand were taken prisoners. Austria once again cried out for peace and abandoned the Tyrol to the French without the consent of the Tyrolese themselves, who had very different views on the subject. It was in 1804 that Francis II. dropped the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which had become an empty form, and adopted instead that of Emperor of Austria, which he made hereditary; no one seems to have objected, and as Buonaparte had a few months before declared himself Emperor of the French, the two newly created emperors agreed to recognise each other’s titles. Very shortly after Austria was again drawn into opposition to her temporary ally by England and Russia, and took up arms once more against the French. This was followed by the disastrous field of Ulm, with a humiliating capitulation on the part of the Austrians. The Archduke Charles then succeeded General Mack, who had been deprived of his command and condemned to ten years’ imprisonment. Napoleon entered Vienna and established his headquarters in the Imperial palace. The Russians and Austrians together met him once more in full fight at Austerlitz, where they were again badly beaten, losing fifteen thousand killed, and ten thousand prisoners. This was called the battle of the Three Emperors, for they were all present in person.
Austria now lay under the heel of the French, and a peace was signed at Pressburg in December 1805. By this Austria agreed, among other things, to give up her recent possession of Dalmatia; she ceded the Tyrol to Bavaria, and received instead Salzburg, which lay on her frontier and had been ever coveted. We shall see in the chapters on the Tyrol how the Tyrolese regarded this generosity at their expense! It was not till 1809 that the struggle, as a national struggle, was again renewed and war once more declared against France. The result of this was that for a second time the French entered Vienna as conquerors and Napoleon established himself there. The terrible battle of Aspern, in which neither side could claim a victory, left the Colossus with more respect for the fighting powers of his enemies, for it is said that he remarked once, “He who has not seen the Austrians at Aspern has seen nothing.” The fate of the empire hung on the next move, which was accomplished at Wagram on July 5, 1809. The Archduke Charles had placed himself in a fine strategic position on the hills above Vienna, and waited for the French to cross the river, yet in spite of this the Austrians were smashed to pieces. Their bravery is evinced by the fact that forty thousand dead and wounded were left on the field, but nothing could withstand the genius of the Man of War who had let loose his hounds upon them. The peace of Schönbrunn, signed in October, gave up to the conqueror over forty-three thousand square miles of territory, including the Tyrol, which the Austrians had once again attempted to save. Austria lay prone, and it is greatly to her credit that after an interval she once again agreed with the allies, Prussia and Russia, to make another desperate struggle for liberty, even though Napoleon had married the daughter of Francis II.
This princess, Maria Louisa, was of a despicable character, and did not deserve a better fate. She was the mother of the boy afterwards known as the King of Rome and the Duke of Reichstadt. She died at Vienna in 1847.
Metternich, the celebrated Austrian minister, played a large part in affairs during this unhappy time; he was born in 1773 and was not in reality an Austrian, having first seen the light in the Rhenish provinces, at a small village from which he took his name. The European nations, by now banded together in resistance to their common foe, met in consultation; three great armies were formed, one in the Netherlands of English, Dutch, and Prussians, with Wellington and Blücher in command; another on the Rhine, of Austrians, Russians, and Germans; and a third in Italy, chiefly of Austrians. This was in 1815, and the result was made known in the world-famous battle of Waterloo, at which no Austrian happened to be present.
At the end of the war Austria had indeed been deprived of her Netherlands possessions, but she had instead Dalmatia, and also Venetia,—which was not finally reft from her until 1866,—and her hereditary dominions in the Tyrol and in Carinthia and Carniola were secured to her. She was compact and welded together, and instead of suffering from the long protracted trials which she had endured, she came out the stronger from them.