In 1835 Francis II. died and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand IV., who in 1848 abdicated in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph, the present ruler of the Dual Monarchy. However, Francis Joseph did not come to an easy inheritance, for Hungary was racked with the strain of trying to burst the limits imposed on her, in order to give her nationality free play. It was in this struggle that the great leader Kossuth came to the front, and in 1848 laws were passed allowing to Hungary a responsible ministry, parliaments to be held annually in Budapest, popular representation and freedom of the press; but nevertheless Hungary was soon again in the throes of revolution. The Croats, Serbs, and the Wallachs of Transylvania rose against her. The turmoil ended in a war between Austria and Hungary, in which Kossuth was the moving spirit on the Hungarian side. But when Russia joined her might to that of Austria, Hungary was ground between two mills and had no chance. Kossuth fled to Turkey, and thence later journeyed to England and the United States, preaching his cause. He died in exile in Italy in 1894, at the age of ninety-two.
In 1867 Hungary was granted a separate constitution and recognised fully as a separate kingdom. It was then ratified by Act of Parliament “That Hungary in the spirit of the constitution is an independent country and does not belong to the countries included in the Austrian Empire.”
The titles of the present Austrian ruler are extraordinarily numerous; besides being Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary he is King of Bohemia, Galicia, Croatia, Slavonia, Illyria, and Dalmatia; Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Lorraine, of Salzburg, of Styria, Carinthia, Bukowina, and Carniola; Count of the Tyrol, Graditz, and Gradiska, and even this does not exhaust the list of titles. Among them is the purely fanciful one of King of Jerusalem and that of Count of Hohenhembs, under which, as Countess, the unfortunate Empress was travelling incognito when murdered.
The two chief powers in the Germanic states were the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, and it was recognised by all the smaller states that the Presidency of the Diet, as it was called, must fall to one of these two. In 1865 Prussia and Austria came to grips over the question of Schleswig-Holstein, and in “The Seven Weeks’ War” the Austrians were decisively beaten. So important was this war in the history of modern Europe that it must be described somewhat more at length, as it settled for our own time the question of the power of the German and Austrian monarchs.
In 1864 Austria and Prussia together wrenched from Denmark the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein and the Duchy of Lauenburg, and almost immediately thereafter difficulties ensued regarding the administration of them. After a while it was agreed that Austria should take over the administration of Holstein and Prussia that of Schleswig, but when mischief is brewing between two nations who have for years been rubbing up against each other’s sore points, any settlement can only be temporary, and this arrangement ended in a further quarrel. Almost before the other states had realised what was happening, Prussian troops had invaded Austrian territory by way of Saxony and Bohemia. This was in June 1866, and no amount of reasoning on the part of Austria could have averted it, the Prussians were ripe for a fight, and under the leadership of their great general, Von Moltke, were confident of victory. On paper indeed Austria seemed to have quite as good a show as her aggressive neighbour, for many of the smaller states, such as Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, and the two Hesses were on her side, but Prussia had secured the alliance of Italy, always in a state of irritation against Austria on account of her coterminous border. She now intervened, with the effect of causing a dispersal of Austrian troops through the necessity of being on guard in the south. The Prussians advanced almost without opposition through Saxony, and were careful to treat the inhabitants of the country fairly so as to secure their co-operation.
In Bohemia the Austrians made some resistance but the luck was against them. The action at Podoll, where the river Iser is 100 yards wide, was an instance of this. The Austrians held the village and were determined to make a stand. The Prussians were better armed, however, and particularly had an advantage in the rapid fire of their needle-guns or breech-loading rifles, then just coming into use, while the Austrians still carried muzzle-loaders.
The Prussians had arrived just as night was closing in, and though the Austrians had the shelter of the houses in which they were entrenched, they were pressed back, and mercilessly outplayed by the German Jägers.
The contest ended in a clear victory for the Prussians. Close on five hundred unwounded Austrian prisoners were next morning marched up to headquarters, and the Austrian loss in killed and wounded was very considerable. The medical officers officially reported the proportion of wounded Austrians to wounded Prussians as five to one.
Besides the great strategist, Von Moltke, the Prussians possessed an able leader in Prince Frederick Charles, the brother of the King, to say nothing of the Crown Prince.
The Austrian cavalry, consisting of the Hussars and Dragoons, especially the Windischgrätz Dragoons, were among the most famous in the world, but again and again in desperate hand-to-hand encounters, sometimes in narrow streets, hemmed in, they met their match in the Prussian Uhlans and the Dragoons of their enemies.