#头条创作挑战赛#
The European Revolution of 1848 struck a blow at the autocracy of the European countries, destroying the reactionary Holy League and the Vienna system, but the defeat of the 1848 Revolution led the counter-revolutionaries to develop a new system of absolutism in the following decade, which meant that many peoples, like the Czechs and Slovakia, would have to fight for national independence!
Aftermath of the 1848 Revolution
After the European Revolution of 1848, in the Czech region, Felix Schwarzenberg continued to lead the government until his death in 1852. The Czech liberal politicians were completely defeated by the dissolution of the Kromäriz parliament, and radical democrats once again began to encourage the people to oppose the government.
Felix Schwarzenberg
The new opposition was led by the prominent Czech journalist Karel Gaflichk Borowski, among others, who had previously supported the programme of the liberal bourgeoisie led by Palacky, although he disagreed with Palacky on many issues.
After the defeat of the liberals, he did everything in his power to oppose the counter-revolutionary policy in Vienna. Under the influence of the ideas of the anarchist of the Russian Revolution, Mi. A. Bakunin, the radical democrats hatched a plot against the government in May 1849. However, the plot was betrayed, and the leaders of the incident, Josef Wenceslas Fritsch, Karel Shabina, Yemanuel Arnold, and others, were sentenced to many years in prison.
M.A. Bakunin
By the end of 1851, the "Constitution of Drinking" was abolished, and the Habsburg dynasty was once again a system without a constitution, with Chancellor Alexander Bach in power, hence the name Alexander Bach used to refer to this form of government, "Bach's autocracy".
The "Bach system" is a product of post-revolutionary conservatism, combining a highly centralized bureaucracy with the widespread use of the military, police, and whistleblowers against regional interests and opponents of the regime. German became the official language of government, and the Catholic Church became an ally of the executive apparatus through the 1855 Pact of Religious Affairs, which granted the church as extensive influence over censorship and education as protected church property and recognized ecclesiastical courts.
Bach system
The Sylvester charter of December 31, 1851, abolished any rights won during the Revolution that surpassed the abolition of serfdom, freedom of religion, and civil equality. Censorship was reinstated and stricter police supervision was introduced, so that all freedom of political expression was curtailed. The administrative, judicial and financial systems were reorganized and a cabinet was established, and some of the old system of government was maintained until 1945.
By the end of the 50s of the 19th century, setbacks in foreign policy weakened the foundations of the new absolutist policy of the imperial government. Austria's neutrality during the Crimean War (1854-1856) isolated the Habsburg Empire from the great powers, and the period of diplomatic equilibrium in Europe came to an end.
Crimean War
France intervened in the Italian War of 1859 out of interest, resulting in Austria's loss of Lombardy in northern Italy and an economic crisis at home. Bach's resignation as minister after the defeats of Margenta and Solferino marked the end of the Bach era and opened the way for Emperor Franz Joseph's painstaking efforts to change the new absolutist course of administration.
However, Bach's fall did not ease the autocracy, and in order to open up new sources of revenue to relieve the bankruptcy, the Habsburg government was forced to make political concessions to the wealthy classes, and the bourgeoisie renewed its demands for political rights, so that Franz Joseph I had to abandon the dictatorship in 1860.
Franz Joseph I
The Imperial Correspondence of 20 October 1860 established the Imperial Parliament, which would cooperate with the local councils. This October Document introduced elements of federalism into the administration of the empire, especially against the Hungarians, who received recognition of their special historical status.
In February 1861, the Reich promulgated the Constitution, the "February Charter", which gave the bourgeoisie some power and the creation of the Upper and Lower Houses in the Reichstag, making it a bicameral parliament, thus weakening the Hungarian parliament and transforming the regional parliaments from legislative subjects into instruments of centralized administration.
In response, the Hungarians boycotted the Reichstag by declaring the March Act of 1848 to represent their rightful constitution. Czech liberals sided with the aristocracy and demanded the recognition of Bohemia's historic state rights.
With the enactment of the new publishing law, a number of Czech newspapers were published, the most important of which was Narodní Listy, which supported the radical wing of the so-called National Party, which split into the conservative wing of the "old Czechs" led by Palacky and Regel, and the more progressive "young Czechs" led by Josef Sladkovsky and Julius Greg.
Palatsky
The older Czechs in the Jatiya Party sought the support of the land-owning aristocracy and the earliest Czech industrialists, while the young Czechs concentrated on peasants, artisans, and intellectuals. Contrary to the older Czechs, they did not agree to this tactic of passive resistance and formed their own independent party in 1874.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was established
In 1866, with competition with Prussia in the German Confederation, the Austro-Prussian War between the Habsburg Empire and Prussia broke out in June. The responsibility for this conflict rested with Prussia, which sought to control the German Confederation, which included Austria among its members.
Austro-Prussian War
Faced with a crisis, the Imperial Government began negotiations to secure the support of opposition Czech and Hungarian parliamentarians in Parliament. The Hungarian delegates categorically rejected any form of assistance, as their demands for the establishment of self-government and national freedom could not be met.
The Czech parliamentarians, on the other hand, once again pledged their allegiance to the dynasty and fully supported the land-owning aristocracy. However, the result of the war was the defeat of the Austrian army at Hradts-Kralov in eastern Bohemia in July 1866, and the Habsburgs surrendered.
Prussia then invaded Bohemia under the leadership of Wilhelm I and Prime Minister Alto von Bismarck. Austria was expelled from the German Confederation, in which Prussia played a manipulative role, thus laying the foundations of a new German empire that was eventually established after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.
On July 3, 1866, after the decisive defeat at Sadova (Koenig Gretz) near Hradec-Králové, Emperor Franz Josef and his government found themselves separated from the process of German unification, and it was difficult to avoid Hungary's demand for greater autonomy, and the empire also suffered a major fiscal deficit, all of which exposed the weakness within the empire.
Emperor Franz Joseph
Fearing further action on the part of the Hungarian nobility and the bourgeoisie, the Austrian government acceded to the demands of the Hungarian parliamentarians, while rejecting the demands of the Czech deputies. This was the Ausgleich of 1867, followed by the establishment of a dual system of Austria and Hungary in the Empire, confirmed by the December Constitution of 1867.
In 1867 the Austrian Empire was officially divided into two parts: one consisting of all the Austrian territories west of the Leta River (i.e., the Czech Crown Territories, Austria and Galicia), known as the "Neletania", and the other part of the territory east of the Leta River (i.e., the Hungarian Crown), known as the Kingdom of Hungary.
In this way, the dualist empire survived under the name "Austria-Hungary". The rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would serve as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, while these two parts of the empire retained their own legislative and legal sovereignty, however sharing common departments such as foreign affairs, finance, and military.
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Thereafter, the Hungarian aristocracy and the bourgeoisie had their own parliament and government: with the exception of foreign policy, finance, and certain other functions, which were jointly executed, the other powers were in their own hands, which the Hungarian aristocracy and bourgeoisie conveniently used to pursue their chauvinistic policies in order to exclude non-Hungarian nationalities, especially the Slovaks.
Strict Hungarianization measures were also introduced in Slovakia: a number of Slovak schools opened after 1848 were closed, and the Slovak Society, the only national cultural group of Slovaks, founded in 1862, was dissolved. Slovak intellectuals were only able to be educated in Hungarian schools, which again hampered Slovakia's cultural progress.
Slovak Society
The December Constitution of 1867 made constitutional arrangements for the institutions of the empire, which remained in force until the end of the monarchy in 1918. The constitution adopted the political arrangements prevailing in Western European countries, such as the right of assembly, association, religion, press and education, and so on.
However, this did not eradicate certain feudal remnants, such as the privileged position of the owners of large territories that owned most of the country's land in the country's economy and policy, the political power of the emperor, the royal family and the aristocracy, especially in the military and foreign policy, and the enormous influence of the Catholic Church in the development of culture and education.
The establishment of a dualist system, and the dominance of the German bourgeoisie in all of Austria west of the Lata River, meant the failure of the Czech bourgeois policy and its efforts to surrender to feudalism. In its struggle against the powerful German bourgeoisie, the Czech bourgeoisie relied on an unstable alliance with the aristocracy that opposed the German bourgeoisie.
So Czech nationalists, both "old Czechs" and "young Czechs", came together to oppose the December Constitution, because it failed to satisfy the historic state rights of Bohemia or to grant privileges to the most developed and industrialized parts of the empire.
In response to the Constitution, the Czechs boycotted the Imperial Diet and the local councils, while leaders such as Palacky and Legel began to seek external support from France or Russia. However, the visit of Palacsky and Legel to St. Petersburg in May 1867 failed to obtain any commitment from Alexander II.
Alexander II
And the memorandum sent to Napoleon III in 1869 representing the interests of the Slavs in the empire did not arouse much interest among the French. France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 created the opportunity for Bismarck to proclaim the establishment of a united German Empire in January 1871.
Workers' movement
By the second half of the 19th century, local Czech industry had developed further. It is characterized by the development of the machine industry more and more than the textile industry, as a result of which the city has been further expanded. In addition, the Czech sugar industry expanded, and from the sixties of the nineteenth century onwards began to expand to foreign markets.
There was also a significant increase in industrial enterprises in other sectors, especially in the construction of railways. During the boom period of 1867-1873, the banking sector also developed considerably: in 1869 the first Czech bank, the "Bank of Crafts", was founded, followed by a number of banks and joint-stock companies.
In commercial enterprises, German capital still dominates. The bankruptcy of the stock exchange in 1873 interrupted economic development and caused an economic crisis that lasted until 1879. Weaker firms went bankrupt and capital became more concentrated, and German capital, in particular, took advantage of the situation.
The more well-resourced machine factories survived the crisis by expanding their exports to Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Turkey, India and South America. During this period, a series of new enterprises appeared, such as the Krzyjack Company, founded in 1881, which was the first enterprise to manufacture electrical equipment and build electric railways.
In 1886 the first foundry was established at the Skoda Machine Plant and the production of guns and armored vehicles began. The development of the machine industry was made possible by the growth of the ironmaking industry and the coal mines of the Volstraval-Calvina and Kladno coalfields. Coal from the Muster and Varknov regions was then exported, mainly to Germany.
With the development of industry and commerce, the population of the Czech region had grown to about 9 million by about 1890. At this time, however, the agricultural situation in the Czech Republic was still bad: agrarian reform was urgently needed in agriculture, and the peasants, who made up four-fifths of the total number of small landowners, kept only 12 percent of the land, while the rest belonged to large estates and aristocratic domains.
In this context, the rate of Czech emigration was very high, especially to the United States, from 1857 to 1890 when more than half a million people moved out of the Czech region. After 1870, the birth rate declined, a feature that remained until 1946.
After the Austro-Prussian War, the resurgence of Prussia terrified the Habsburg ruling circles and forced them to start negotiations with Czech politicians. From 1867 onwards, Czech politicians adopted a strategy of passive resistance and refused to attend both houses of parliament. The Czech opposition was confined to negotiations with the monarch and reactionary politicians, who once again took refuge in the powerful conservative aristocracy.
After negotiations in 1871, the two sides concluded the so-called "basic terms", according to which the existing Austro-Hungarian dual system was transformed into a triumvirate. The article provided for the establishment of a Czech Legislative Assembly and a Czech government, with a Czech as prime minister, who represented the Czech regions in the Imperial Government. Only matters involving the entire empire were submitted to the Imperial Parliament for discussion.
Unfortunately, this "basic clause" was not put into practice, because on the one hand the German and Hungarian bourgeoisie were strongly opposed, and on the other hand there was pressure from Prussia and Tsarist Russia. The failure of the Czech settlement led to the final collapse of constitutional policy.
From the sixties of the nineteenth century onwards, the political demands of the Czech workers became more and more resolute. The original purpose of the workers' struggle was to fight for the right to vote, as the workers were denied the right to vote under the current electoral law. The law on the right of assembly and association facilitated the formation of the first political organisations of the working class and the publication of the first workers' press.
The workers' movement, founded by Ferdinand Lassalle, encouraged the formation of working-class associations from the German side, while the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels gradually gained more and more influence. In 1868, the German workers of Liberets in Bohemia formed the first social democratic organization in Austria.
Ferdinand Lasalle
At the end of the sixties, the Prague workers were still under the influence of the bourgeoisie, especially the old Czechs, who tried to promote "self-help" cooperation in order to divert the political enthusiasm of the workers. On the other hand, the Young Czechs sought to win over the workers to constitutional nationalism.
The Young Czech Party published its Social Democratic programme in the Workers' Newspaper in 1873 and the Czech workers' delegates at the Newdauffel Congress in 1874, at which the Austrian Social Democratic Party was founded, which had a strong influence on the development of the Czech workers' movement.
Because the industrial enterprises were mostly concentrated in the hands of the German capitalists, the attention of the Czech workers was focused on the national struggle. The rise of the workers' movement throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire alarmed the ruling circles and forced them to decide to change their tactics, apparently having to make concessions to the bourgeoisie of the various nationalities in the empire in order to gain their support for the policies of the new government against the growing working-class movement.
With the advent of the working class on the stage of history, the dawn of the struggle for national independence of the Czechs and Slovakia finally arrived! Catalyzed by the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and the Czechoslovak Republic was united by the Czech and Slovak Republics......