68 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



rath. Baron Gautsch had only one object in view 

 in accepting the post of Austrian Prime minister at 

 this critical juncture. It was to effect some sort of 

 compromise that would do away with obstruction 

 in the Reichsrath and enable it to pass the Ansyleich 

 measures. The mediation of the Gautsch ministry 

 proved, however, as ineffective as the previous 

 efforts of the Badeni Cabinet to bring about a con- 

 e-illation between the warring nationalities. The 

 Austrian Government proposed a modification of 

 the language ony nances, offering as a counter-con- 

 cession to the Czechs alterations in the curriculum 

 of the Bohemian intermediate schools designed to 

 promote the practical acquisition of the Czech 

 language. While the two measures together were 

 favorably received by the Czechs, the Germans pro- 

 tested against this last proposition as a 'second 

 apple of discord. The proposed new language 

 ordinance divided Bohemia into Czech, German, 

 and mixed districts, in which respectively officials 

 would be required to transact the business of public 

 offices in Czech, in German, or in both languages, 

 the object being to insure to each inhabitant of the 

 kingdom, whether German or Czech, the right to 

 transact his affairs with the officials in his own 

 tongue. The parliamentary controversy over the 

 question was attended by angry demonstration out 

 of doors. German students were assailed in the 

 streets of Prague for wearing their national badges, 

 and when the police authorities prohibited societies 

 from wearing their colors in public the senate of 

 the German university resigned on Jan. 22 and the 

 whole body of German students resolved to abstain 

 from attending university lectures. The German 

 students in the universities of Vienna, Briinn, 

 InnsbrQck, and in other Austrian high schools 

 struck out of sympathy with their brothers of 

 Prague, and refused to attend lectures until the 

 obnoxious police regulation should be withdrawn. 

 Their action gave occasion to the Slavs to demand 

 for themselves separate educational facilities in the 

 professional and technical schools. The disinte- 

 grating nationalist movement pervaded the entire 

 empire of the Hapsburgs, gaining a fresh impetus 

 with every new attempt at conciliation. The Poles, 

 offended at the dismissal of Count Badeni, wavered 

 in their fidelity to the alliance with the Czechs. 

 The Ruthenians demanded in the Galician Diet 

 that their language be used concurrently with 

 Polish and a knowledge of it be made obligatory for 

 all public officials in the districts of Austrian 

 Poland inhabited by both nationalities. In the 

 Styrian Diet the Slovenian minority threatened to 

 withdraw from the deliberations unless their 

 nationality were recognized. There was a renewal 

 of the agitation among the southern Slavs in favor 

 of combining to form a new nationality. Even in 

 the land of the Hungarian Crown various nationali- 

 ties leagued together to assert themselves in opposi- 

 tiuii. to the strong centralizing tendency. The 

 Saxons of Transylvania joined with Servians. Rou- 

 manians, and Slovaks in a protest against the sub- 

 stitution of Magyar names of places for those of 

 other languages at present in use. In Carniola the 

 Slovene majority in the Diet carried a motion in 

 favor of establishing a Slovene university at 

 Lai bach. The Prime Minister threatened to visit 

 pains and penalties upon the recalcitrant German 

 students, but they were forgiven upon their con- 

 forming again to academic discipline, much to the 

 disappointment of the clerical Slav supporters of 

 the Government in the Reichsrath. When (he 

 Czechs in the Bohemian Diet, supported by the 

 feudal aristocracy, insisted on inserting in a jubilee 

 address to the Emperor an expression of tin-h- 

 asp! rations for a separate kingdom of Bohemia, in- 

 cluding Moravia and Silesia, they provoked the 



threatened rupture of the Germans, who on Feb. 

 26 left the house. The Diet was closed by im- 

 perial decree on March 2, and on March 4 the 

 modified language ordinances were published. Be- 

 fore their effect could be seen Count Gautsch, who 

 had long despaired of consolidating a working 

 majority, and who now encountered fresh dilli- 

 culties in the negotiations over the Austro-IIun- 

 garian Ansgleich with Baron Banffy, the Hungarian 

 Premier desiring to treat the customs union and 

 the charter of the Austro-Hungarian bank apart 

 from the question of the quota, offered his resigna- 

 tion on March 5 in order to make way for Count 

 Thun and a new ministerial combination. 



Ministry of Count Thun. The new ministry 

 was constituted on March 7 as follows : President 

 of the Council and Minister of the Interior. Graf 

 Franz Thun-Hohenstein ; Minister of Public In- 

 struction and Ecclesiastical Affairs. Graf Bylandt- 

 Reydt ; Minister of Finance, Herr Kaitzl ; Minister 

 of Agriculture, Baron Kast; Minister of Commerce 

 and National Economy, Dr. von Barenreither ; 

 Minister of National Defense, Field-Marshal Graf 

 Zeno W T elser von Welsersheimb ; Minister of Justice, 

 Edler von Ruber ; Minister of Railroads, Ritter von 

 Wittek; without portfolio, Herr Jandrejevich 

 Count Thun, once known as a Czech patriot, after- 

 ward, when Governor of Bohemia before the advent 

 of Count Badeni to power, the terror of the Younjr 

 Czech agitators, against whom he applied the, 

 arbitrary powers of the state of siege, had made his 

 peace with the Czechs before the close of the session 

 of 1897. In the ministry the Young Czechs, tho 

 Poles, and the moderate section of the German 

 Liberals were represented, as well as the Clerical 

 and Feudalist Conservatives, of whom the Prime 

 Minister was one. These heterogeneous elements 

 were called into the Cabinet in the hope of concili- 

 ating the moderate members of the different parties 

 so as to make it possible to carry the Ausghich. ' 



The Reichsrath reassembled on March 21. The 

 German Nationalist group, numbering 5 members 

 only, but exercising a dominating influence as the 

 foremost champions of the Germanic cause, offered 

 uncompromising opposition to the Government 

 until the language ordinances were repealed and 

 German confirmed as the state language. Tho 

 German People's party, which numbered 39 mem- 

 bers, hailing mostly from the Alpine provinces, de- 

 cided to continue obstruction till the repeal of the 

 lex Falkenhayn and the language ordinances, and 

 the 49 members of the German Progressives, repre- 

 senting Bohemian and Moravian constituencies, 

 adopted also a hostile attitude, while the German 

 Feudalist group, numbering 26, reserved liberty o ' 

 action. The Social Democrats, 14 in number, 

 promised their support to any effort to drive on 

 the representative of the aristocratic reactionaries. 

 Count Thun stated the Government programme to 

 be the restoration of normal conditions in tho 

 Reichsrath and of regular legislation and the con- 

 clusion of an arrangement with Hungary, and ho 

 appealed for the support of all who had the credit 

 of the monarchy and the existence of parlia- 

 mentary forms at heart to support the Cabinet, 

 whose guiding principle would be justice to all tho 

 peoples and races of the country and whose aims 

 embraced social reform, intellectual progress, im- 

 provement of the moral and material condition of 

 the population, and the encouragement of industry 

 and agriculture. The Reichsrath took a reccs* 

 after organizing, reassembling on April 20. A 

 motion to refer to a committee the impeachment of 

 the former Prime Minister, Count Badeni, after a 

 tumultuous debate was carried by a majority of 

 175 to 167 on April 26. The lex Falkenhayn, 

 which was a resolution passed by the Reichsratli 



