Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867

1526–1848

In the Middle Ages, the Duchy of Austria was an autonomous state within the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the House of Habsburg, and the Kingdom of Hungary was a sovereign state outside the empire. In 1526, Hungary was defeated and partially conquered by the Ottoman Empire. King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia had no legitimate heir and died young in the Battle of Mohács. Louis II's brother-in-law, Ferdinand I of Habsburg, was elected King of Hungary by a rump Parliament in Pozsony (now Bratislava) in December 1526. The Ottomans were subsequently driven out of Hungary by the cooperation of international Western Christian forces led by Prince Eugene of Savoy between 1686 and 1699. From 1526 to 1804, Hungary was ruled by the Habsburg dynasty as kings of Hungary, but remained nominally and legally separate from the other lands of the Habsburg monarchy. Unlike other Habsburg-ruled areas, the Kingdom of Hungary had an old historic constitution, which limited the power of the Crown and had greatly increased the authority of the parliament since the 13th century. The Golden Bull of 1222 was one of the earliest examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch, which was forced on the Hungarian king in much the same way King John of England was made to sign the Magna Carta.

The Hungarian parliament was the most important political assembly since the 12th century, which emerged to the position of the supreme legislative institution in the Kingdom of Hungary from the 1290s. Royal decrees were kept inferior to acts of parliament; as such, they could not contravene statutory laws or the cardinal tenets of the historical constitution.

In 1804, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was also ruler of the lands of the Habsburg monarchy, founded the Empire of Austria in which most his so-called Erblande lands were included. However the new Erblande term was not applied to Kingdom of Hungary. In doing so he created a formal overarching structure for the Habsburg Monarchy, which had functioned as a composite monarchy for about 300 years. (Composite states/monarchies were the most common / dominant form of states in early modern era Europe.) The Holy Roman Empire was abolished in 1806. The Kingdom of Hungary had always been considered a separate realm, the country's status was affirmed by Article X, which was added to Hungary's constitution in 1790 during the phase of the composite monarchy; it described the state as a Regnum Independens. From the perspective of the Court since 1723, regnum Hungariae had been a hereditary province of the dynasty's three main branches on both lines. From the perspective of the ország (the country), Hungary was regnum independens, a separate Land as the above-mentioned Article X of 1790 stipulated. The Court reassured the diet, however, that the assumption of the monarch's newly adopted title (Emperor of Austria) did not in any sense affect the laws and the constitution on the territory of Kingdom of Hungary. Hungary's affairs continued to be administered by its own institutions (King and Diet and the local governments of its counties) as they had been previously. Thus, under the new arrangements, no Austrian imperial institutions were involved in its internal government. The Hungarian legal system and judicial system remained separated and independent from the unified legal and judicial systems of the other Habsburg ruled areas.

Accordingly, the administration and the structures of central government of Kingdom of Hungary also remained separate from the Austrian administration and Austrian government until the 1848 revolution. Hungary was governed to a greater degree by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary (the Gubernium) in Pressburg (Pozsony) and, to a lesser extent, by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna, independent of the Imperial Chancellery of Austria.

From 1526 to 1851, the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs borders, which separated Hungary from the united customs system of other Habsburg-ruled territories.

The involvement and integration of Kingdom of Hungary into a different state was legally impossible, due to the provisions of the old Hungarian constitution and Hungarian public law.

"At any time in the past, Hungary might have made peace with a power with which Austria was at war, if the kings had not falsified their oath by not assembling the Hungarian Parliament: for the Diet always had the lawful right of [declaring] War and Peace."

The other serious problem for the Habsburgs was the traditionally highly autonomous counties of Hungary, which proved to be a solid and major obstacle in the construction of absolutism in Hungary. The counties were the centers of local public administration and local politics in Hungary, and they possessed a recognized right to refuse to carry out any "unlawful" (unconstitutional) royal orders. Thus, it was possible to question the legality of a surprisingly high proportion of the royal orders which emanated from Vienna.

Revolution and military dictatorship

Resolution of the Usurpation problem and Coronation

On 8 June 1867, following the taking of the prescribed coronation oath in Matthias Church in Buda, Franz Joseph I was solemnly crowned King of Hungary by János Simor, Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary, with Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy performing the traditional role of placing the Crown of Saint Stephen upon the monarch’s head, thereby completing his formal accession to the Hungarian throne in accordance with the kingdom’s constitutional traditions.

The Hungarian Parliament formally recognised Franz Joseph I as the "lawful and legitimate King of Hungary" through Act I of 1867, which provided for his coronation in accordance with the constitutional traditions of the Kingdom of Hungary, while Act II of 1867 incorporated his coronation diploma and oath into Hungarian law, thereby reaffirming the kingdom’s traditional historic constitutional rights and legal guarantees.

The resistance of Austrian politicians and administration

Before 1849, Hungary's government, administration, judiciary, and political institutions had never been under the rule of the Austrian government, only a mere personal union existed between Kingdom of Hungary and the Austrian Empire.

In the aftermath of the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1849, the Austrian government and political elite were determined to retain the power they had acquired by bringing a vast territory and population under their direct administrative and political control, an expansion of state authority unprecedented in scale in Austrian history.

In 1849, the Habsburg regime established an extensive centralized administrative apparatus in Hungary, staffed by Czech and Austrian-German born officials sent from other parts of the empire. Hungarian critics derisively referred to these officials as "Bach Hussars," after Interior Minister Alexander Bach, alluding to the distinctive hussar-inspired uniforms worn by certain officials of the neo-absolutist administration. Alongside this administrative apparatus, the regime expanded its system of political surveillance, employing a secret police network and paid informers to monitor opposition to Habsburg rule.

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the restoration of constitutional government in Hungary led to the dismissal of many foreign officials associated with the neo-absolutist administration, most of whom faced prolonged unemployment, with many returning to the German- and Slavic-speaking crownlands of the empire in search of new positions in public service.

Although it is commonly referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, in constitutional terms it was in fact concluded between Emperor Francis Joseph and the Hungarian parliamentary majority, while the Austrian side had no decisive say in the negotiations. In 1865, the Emperor had even suspended the Austrian Parliament, specifically to remove the Austrian side from the equation and facilitate an agreement with the Hungarians.

In Austria, the Dual Monarchy was unpopular and was widely regarded as a forced concession to the Hungarians; the Austrian Parliament was ultimately presented with a fait accompli.

Under pressure from Emperor Francis Joseph, who regarded an agreement with Hungary as essential to preserving the monarchy after Austria’s military defeats, the Austrian political establishment was ultimately compelled to accept the Compromise. Baron Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust was among the few Austrian statesmen who supported the Compromise, as he regarded it as the only means of preserving the monarchy’s status as a great power. As Austrian Minister-President and Foreign Minister, Beust played a crucial role in advancing the settlement, which was presented to the Austrian Reichsrat as an accomplished fact rather than an agreement open to renegotiation. The Austrian Reichsrat ultimately endorsed the arrangement in December 1867, while its constitutional implementation was accompanied by the December Constitution, including the law on the common affairs of the monarchy (Reichsgesetzblatt No. 146/1867), which provided its legal basis of the compromise in Austria.

Hungarian resistance against the Compromise

Although the Compromise of 1867 established the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and restored constitutional government in Hungary, with Count Gyula Andrássy becoming prime minister, its acceptance was far from universal. For supporters of full Hungarian independence, the settlement represented a betrayal of the political legacy of the Revolution of 1848–1849.

In his open letter to Ferenc Deák, dated 22 May 1867 and first published in the Magyar Újság (Hungarian News) on 26 May, Lajos Kossuth warned that the settlement would lead to the loss of Hungary's political independence. In the letter, later known as the Cassandra Letter, Kossuth wrote: “I see in this act the death of the nation”, and concluded his appeal with the warning: “But consider that Cassandra was right!”

Inspired by Lajos Kossuth's letters against the Compromise, democratic circles were founded across the country, forming a highly visible wave of protest against the compromise. Guided by Kossuth's directions from exile, the circles openly agitated against the Compromise and demanded the full restoration of the 1848 foundations of independence.

The Compromise was negotiated and enacted by a narrow political elite, while the restricted franchise excluded most of the population from parliamentary elections. The radical opposition consequently disputed not only the terms of the settlement but also its political legitimacy, arguing that the parliament elected in 1865 had not received a mandate to enact a constitutional settlement with Austria.

Securing public acceptance of the Compromise proved difficult in Hungary. The counties of Heves, Pest and Szatmár were among those that rejected the settlement and declared their support for Kossuth. The opposition organised a nation-wide network of democratic circles, while mass anti-government and anti-Compromise meetings, attended by thousands, took place across the Great Hungarian Plain. The democratic-circle movement sent declarations of confidence to Kossuth and submitted petitions against the common affairs established by the Compromise; it spread rapidly and mobilised large numbers of poor peasants.

The new Hungarian government responded with coercive measures. The government portrayed these restrictions as temporary emergency measures required by an acute crisis of public order and by the fragility of the newly created constitutional regime. Yet, in order to overcome that crisis, it temporarily placed the preservation of the state and the consolidation of the Compromise above elements of its own liberal programme, curtailing freedoms of association, assembly and the press until it considered the new order secure. It prosecuted and imprisoned László Böszörményi, editor of the radical opposition newspaper Magyar Újság, for publishing one of Kossuth's letters; Böszörményi was sentenced to one year in prison and died in custody in March 1869. In April 1868 the government banned the democratic circles. In Heves County, where resistance was particularly strong, it temporarily suspended the county assembly and appointed Gyula Szapáry as government commissioner to administer the county.

Dominance of the Liberal Party

The Austro-Hungarian compromise and its supporting liberal parliamentary parties remained bitterly unpopular among the ethnic Hungarian voters, and the continuous successes of the pro-compromise Liberal Party in the Hungarian parliamentary elections caused long lasting frustration for Hungarians. The ethnic minorities had the key role in the political maintenance of the compromise in Hungary, because they were able to vote the pro-compromise liberal parties into the position of the majority/ruling parties of the Hungarian parliament. The pro-compromise Liberal Party of Hungary was the most popular among ethnic minority voters, however i.e. the Slovak, Serb and Romanian minority parties remained unpopular among their own ethnic minority voters. The coalitions of Hungarian nationalist parties – which were supported by the overwhelming majority of ethnic Hungarian voters – always remained in the opposition, with the exception of the 1906–1910 period, where the Hungarian-supported nationalist parties were able to form a government.

Ethnic minorities

Before World War I, only three European countries declared ethnic minority rights, and enacted minority-protecting laws: the first was Hungary (1849 and 1868), the second was Austria (1867), and the third was Belgium (1898). In contrast, the legal systems of other pre-WW1 era European countries did not allow the use of European minority languages in primary schools, in cultural institutions, in offices of public administration and at the legal courts.

The resulting system was maintained until the dissolution of the dual monarchy after World War I. The favoritism shown to the Magyars, the second largest ethnic group in the dual monarchy after the Germans, caused discontent on the part of other ethnic groups like the Slovaks and Romanians. Although a "Nationalities Law" was enacted to preserve the rights of ethnic minorities, the two parliaments took very different approaches to this issue.^{[citation needed]}

The basic problem in the later years was that the Compromise with Hungary only encouraged the appetites of non-Hungarian minorities in Hungary that were historically within the boundaries of the Hungarian Kingdom. The majority of Hungarians felt they had accepted the Compromise only under coercion.^{[citation needed]} The Hungarian monarchs were always crowned as King of Hungary, due to the Hungarian coronation oath they had to agree to uphold the old constitutional arrangements of the country and preserve the territorial integrity of the Hungarian realm. This coronation oath was obligatory for the Hungarian monarchs during the coronation process since the Golden Bull of 1222. The Hungarians, who were regarded as equal after the Compromise, only partially acquiesced to granting "their" minorities recognition and local autonomy.^{[citation needed]}

In the Kingdom of Hungary, several ethnic minorities faced increased pressures of Magyarization. Further, the renegotiation that occurred every ten years often led to constitutional crises. Ultimately, although the Compromise hoped to fix the problems faced by a multi-national state while maintaining the benefits of a large state, the new system still faced the same internal pressures as the old. To what extent the dual monarchy stabilized the country in the face of national awakenings and to what extent it alleviated or aggravated the situation is still debated today.^{[citation needed]}

In a letter on 1 February 1913, to Foreign Minister Berchtold, Archduke Franz Ferdinand said that "irredentism in our country ... will cease immediately if our Slavs are given a comfortable, fair and good life" instead of being trampled on (as they were being trampled on by the Hungarians).