A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

678 Ch. 17 • The Era of National Unification

Furthermore, Hungarians, the
second-largest ethnic group within
the empire, demanded political
influence commensurate with the
size of the Magyar territorial
domains.
After the mid-century revolu­
tions, the Habsburg monarchy, like
the German states and France, con­
tinued an unrelenting repression of
liberal and national movements.
Beginning with Francis Joseph’s
accession to the Habsburg throne,
the monarchy entered a period of
“neo-absolutism,” codified in the
Alexander von Bach “Patent” of December 1851. Alexan­

der von Bach (1813-1893), the
minister of the interior (and essen­
tially prime minister without the title), put some of the most potent tools of
the state to work, including a hierarchy of officials and police sent out
from Vienna into the imperial provinces. The nobles, some of whom
resented the abrogation of peasant obligations after 1848, in general wel­
comed the restoration of Habsburg authoritarianism. But they also had
lost some of their regional privileges and prerogatives to the state.
In 1855, Bach signed a Concordat with the Catholic Church, restoring
many of its privileges and extending ecclesiastical authority, including the
right of prelates to judge the clergy. As in France, the Church made a come­
back. The monarchy eliminated civil marriage and restored the Church’s
de facto control over education. Protestants were not allowed to teach in
Catholic schools, and new restrictions limited the right of Jews to acquire
property. A contemporary cynically described the Bach system: “The admin­
istration was run by a standing army of soldiers, a kneeling one of those
praying in church to be acceptable to the government, and a crawling one of
informers.”

Political Crisis and Foreign Policy Disasters

In the wake of the defeat of Austrian forces in Italy and amid mounting

hostility between Germans and non-Germans and the growing unpopular­

ity of neo-absolutism, in August 1859 Francis Joseph dismissed Bach as

the head of government. He then promulgated a new constitution, the

October Diploma of 1860, which reestablished a form of conservative fed­

eralism. The provincial assemblies received new authority, placating the

nobles. Nonetheless, the October Diploma did not satisfy the Hungarian