million Germans would be placed in a position of subordination; but for the last twenty years there had been a constant encroachment by Czech on German. This was partly due to the direct action of the government. An ordinance of 1880 determined that henceforward all business which had been brought before any government office or law court should be dealt with, within the office, in the language in which it was introduced; this applied to the whole of Bohemia and Moravia, and meant that Czech would henceforward have a position within the government service. It was another step in the same direction when, in 1886, it was ordered that "to avoid frequent translations" business introduced in Czech should be dealt with in the same language in the high courts of Prague and Brünn. Then not only were a large number of Czech elementary schools founded, but also many middle schools were given to the Czechs, and Czech classes introduced in German schools; and, what affected the Germans most, in 1882 classes in Czech were started in the university of Prague—a desecration, as it seemed, of the oldest German university.
The growth of the Slav races was, however, not merely the result of government assistance; it had begun long before Taaffe assumed office; it was to be seen in the census returns and in the results of elections. Prague was no longer the German city it had been fifty years before; the census of 1880 showed 36,000 Germans to 120,000 Czechs. It was the same in Pilsen. In 1861 the Germans had a majority in this town; in 1880 they were not a quarter of the population. This same phenomenon, which occurs elsewhere, cannot be attributed to any laxity of the Germans. The generation which was so vigorously demanding national rights had themselves all been brought up under the old system in German schools, but this had not implanted in them a desire to become German. It was partly due to economic causes—the greater increase among the Czechs, and the greater migration from the country to the towns; partly the result of the romantic and nationalist movement which had arisen about 1830, and partly the result of establishing popular education and parliamentary government at the same time. As soon as these races which had so long been ruled by the Germans received political liberty and the means of education, they naturally used both to reassert their national individuality.
It may be suggested that the resistance to the German language is to some extent a result of the increased national feeling among the Germans themselves. They have made it a matter of principle. In the old days it was common for the children of German parents in Bohemia to learn Czech; since 1867 this has ceased to be the case. It may almost be said that they make it a point of honour not to do so. A result of this is that, as educated Czechs are generally bilingual, it is easier for them to obtain appointments in districts where a knowledge of Czech is required, and the Germans, therefore, regard every order requiring the use of Czech as an order which excludes Germans from a certain number of posts. This attitude of hostility and contempt is strongest among the educated middle class; it is not shown to the same extent by the clergy and the nobles.
The influence of the Church is also favourable to the Slav races, not so much from principle as owing to the fact that they supply more candidates for ordination than the Germans. There is no doubt, however, that the tendency among Germans has been to exalt the principle of nationality above religion, and to give it an absolute authority in which the Roman Catholic Church cannot acquiesce. In this, as in other ways, the Germans in Austria have been much influenced by the course of events in the German empire. This hostility of the Church to the German nationalist movement led in 1898 to an agitation against the Roman Catholic Church, and among the Germans of Styria and other territories large numbers left the Church, going over either to Protestantism or to Old Catholicism. This "Los von Rom" movement, which was caused by the continued alliance of the Clerical party with the Slav parties, is more of the nature of a political demonstration than of a religious movement.
The Germans, so long accustomed to rule, now saw their old German hostility. ascendancy threatened, and they defended it with an energy that increased with each defeat. In 1880 they founded a great society, the Deutscher Schulverein, to establish and assist German schools. It spread over the whole of the empire; in a few years it numbered 100,000 members, and had an income of nearly 300,000 gulden; no private society in Austria had ever attained so great a success. In the Reichsrath a motion was introduced, supported by all the German Liberal parties, demanding that German should be declared the language of state and regulating the conditions under which the other idioms could be recognized; it was referred to a committee from which it never emerged, and a bill to the same effect, introduced in 1886, met a similar fate. In Bohemia they demanded, as a means of protecting themselves against the effect of the language ordinances, that the country should be divided into two parts; in one German was to be the sole language, in the other Czech was to be recognized. A proposal to this effect was introduced by them in the diet at the end of 1886, but since 1882 the Germans had been in a minority. The Czechs, of course, refused even to consider it; it would have cut away the ground on which their whole policy was built up, namely, the indissoluble unity of the Bohemian kingdom, in which German and Czech should throughout be recognized as equal and parallel languages. It was rejected on a motion of Prince Karl Schwarzenberg without discussion, and on this all the Germans rose and left the diet, thereby imitating the action of the Czechs in old days when they had the majority.
These events produced a great change on the character of the New German parties. German opposition. It became more and more avowedly racial; the defence of German nationality was put in the front of their programme. The growing national animosity added bitterness to political life, and destroyed the possibility of a strong homogeneous party on which a government might depend. The beginning of this movement can be traced back to the year 1870. About that time a party of young Germans had arisen who professed to care little for constitutionalism and other "legal mummies," but made the preservation and extension of their own nationality their sole object. As is so often the case in Austria, the movement began in the university of Vienna, where a Leseverein (reading club) of German students was formed as a point of cohesion for Germans, which had eventually to be suppressed. The first representative of the movement in parliament was Herr von Schönerer, who did not scruple to declare that the Germans looked forward to union with the German empire. They were strongly influenced by men outside Austria. Bismarck was their national hero, the anniversary of Sedan their political festival, and approximation to Germany was dearer to them than the maintenance of Austria. After 1878 a heightening of racial feeling began among the Radicals, and in 1881 all the German parties in opposition joined together in a club called the United Left, and in their programme put in a prominent place the defence of the position of the Germans as the condition for the existence of the state, and demanded that German should be expressly recognized as the official language. The younger and more ardent spirits, however, found it difficult to work in harmony with the older constitutional leaders. They complained that the party leaders were not sufficiently decisive in the measures for self-defence. In 1885 great festivities in honour of Bismarck's eightieth birthday, which had been arranged in Graz, were forbidden by the government, and the Germans of Styria were very indignant that the party did not take up the matter with sufficient energy. After the elections of 1885 the Left, therefore, broke up again into two clubs, the "German Austrian," which included the more moderate, and the "German," which wished to use sharper language. The German Club, e.g., congratulated Bismarck on his measures against the Poles; the German Austrians refused to take cognizance of events outside Austria with which they had nothing to do. Even the German Club was not sufficiently decided for Herr von Schönerer and his friends, who broke off from it and founded a "National German Union." They spoke much of Germanentum and Unverfälschtes Deutschtum, and they advocated a political union with the German empire, and were strongly anti-Hungarian and wished to resign all control over Galicia, if by a closer union with Germany they could secure German supremacy in Bohemia and the south Slav countries. They play the same part in Austria as does the "pan-Germanic Union" in Germany. When in 1888 the
two clubs, the German Austrians and the Germans, joined once more under the name of the "United German Left" into a new club with eighty-seven members, so as the better to guard against the common danger and to defeat the educational demands of the Clericals, the National Germans remained apart with seventeen members. They were also infected by the growing spirit of anti-Semitism. The German parties had originally been the party of the capitalists, and comprised a large number of Jews; this new German party committed itself to violent attacks upon the Jews, and for this reason alone any real harmony between the different branches would have been impossible.
Notwithstanding the concessions about language the Czechs had, however, made no advance towards their real object—the recognition of the Bohemian kingdom. Perhaps the leaders of the party, who were now growing old, would have been content with the influence they had already attained, but they were The agreement with Bohemia. hard pressed at home by the Young Czechs, who were more impatient. When Count Thun was appointed governor of Bohemia their hopes ran high, for he was supposed to favour the coronation of the emperor at Prague. In 1890, however, instead of proceeding to the coronation as was expected, Taaffe attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the opposing parties. The influence by which his policy was directed is not quite clear, but the Czechs had been of recent years less easy to deal with, and Taaffe had never really shown any wish to alter the constitution; his policy always was to destroy the influence of parliament by playing off one party against the other, and so to win a clear field for the government. During the month of January conferences were held at Vienna, with Taaffe in the chair, to which were invited representatives of the three groups into which the Bohemian representatives were divided, the German party, the Czechs, and the Feudal party. After a fortnight's discussion an agreement was made on the basis of a separation between the German and the Czech districts, and a revision of the electoral law. A protocol enumerating the points agreed on was signed by all who had taken part in the conference, and in May bills were laid before the diet incorporating the chief points in the agreement. But they were not carried; the chief reason being that the Young Czechs had not been asked to take part in the conference, and did not consider themselves bound by its decisions; they opposed the measures and had recourse to obstruction, and a certain number of the Old Czechs gradually came over to them. Their chief ground of criticizing the proposed measures was that they would threaten the unity of the Bohemian country.[[18]] At the elections in 1891 a great struggle took place between the Old and the Young Czechs. The latter were completely victorious; Rieger, who had led the party for thirty years, disappeared from the Reichsrath. The first result was that the proposed agreement with Bohemia came to an end. But the disappearance of the Old Czechs made the parliamentary situation very insecure. The Young Czechs could not take their place: their Radical and anti-clerical tendencies alarmed the Feudalists and Clericalists who formed so large a part of the Right; they attacked the alliance with Germany; they made public demonstration of their French sympathies; they entered into communication with other Slav races, especially the Serbs of Hungary and Bosnia; they demanded universal suffrage, and occasionally supported the German Radicals in their opposition to the Clerical parties, especially in educational matters; under their influence disorder increased in Bohemia, a secret society called the Umladina (an imitation of the Servian society of that name) was discovered, and stringent measures had to be taken to preserve order. The government therefore veered round towards the German Liberals; some of the ministers most obnoxious to the Germans resigned, and their places were taken by Germans. For two years the government seemed to waver, looking now to the Left, now to Hohenwart and his friends; for a time Taaffe really had the support of all parties except the Young Czechs.
After two years he gave up his cautious policy and took a Electoral reform. bold move. In October 1893 he introduced a reform bill. Universal suffrage had long been demanded by the working men and the Socialists; the Young Czechs also had put it on their programme, and many of the Christian Socialists and anti-Semites desired an alteration of the franchise. Taaffe's bill, while keeping the curiae of the feudal proprietors and the chambers of commerce as they were, and making no change in the number of members, proposed to give the franchise in both towns and rural districts to every one who could read and write, and had resided six months in one place. This was opposed by the Liberals, for with the growth of socialism and anti-Semitism, they knew that the extension of the franchise would destroy their influence. On this Taaffe had probably calculated, but he had omitted to inquire what the other parties would do. He had not even consulted Hohenwart, to whose assistance he owed his long tenure of power. Not even the pleasure of ruining the Liberals was sufficient to persuade the Conservatives to vote for a measure which would transfer the power from the well-to-do to the indigent, and Hohenwart justly complained that they ought to have been secure against surprises of this kind. The Poles also were against a measure which would give more influence to the Ruthenes. The position of the government was hopeless, and without waiting for a division Taaffe resigned.
The event to which for fourteen years the Left had looked The coalition ministry, 1893. forward had now happened. Once more they could have a share in the government, which they always believed belonged to them by nature. Taught by experience and adversity, they did not scruple to enter into an alliance with their old enemies, and a coalition ministry was formed from the Left, the Clericals and the Poles. The president was Prince Alfred Windisch-Grätz, grandson of the celebrated general, one of Hohenwart's ablest lieutenants; Hohenwart himself did not take office. Of course an administration of this kind could not take a definite line on any controversial question, but during 1894 they carried through the commercial treaty with Russia and the laws for the continuance of the currency reform. The differences of the clubs appeared, however, in the discussions on franchise reform; the government, not strong enough to have a policy of its own, had referred the matter to a committee; for the question having once been raised, it was impossible not to go on with it. This would probably have been fatal to the coalition, but the final blow was given by a matter of very small importance arising from the disputes on nationality. The Slovenes had asked that in the gymnasium at Cilli classes in which instruction was given in Slovenian should be formed parallel to the German classes. This request caused great excitement in Styria and the neighbouring districts; the Styrian diet (from which the Slovene minority had seceded) protested. The Slovenes were, however, members of the Hohenwart Club, so Hohenwart and his followers supported the request, which was adopted by the ministry. The German Left opposed it; they were compelled to do so by the popular indignation in the German districts; and when the vote was carried against them (12th June 1895) they made it a question of confidence, and formally withdrew their support from the government, which therefore at once resigned.