Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/14

12 the waning German predominance. The Bohemians energetically opposed the new constitution and declined to send their representatives to Vienna. In 1871. it seemed probable for a moment, that the wishes of the Bohemians—who desire, that their ancient constitution should be reestablished in a modernised, form would be realised. The new Austrian prime-minister Count Charles Hohenwart took office with the firm intention of effecting an agreement between Bohemia and the other parts of the Habsburg empire. Prolonged negotiations ensued to establish a constitutional system, which while satisfying the claims of the Bohemians would yet have firmly connected them with the other lands ruled by the house of Habsburg. An Imperial message, addressed to the diet od Prague on September 14th 1871, stated, that the sovereign in consideration of the former constitutional position of Bohemia, and remembering the power and glory, which its crown had conferred on his ancestors, and the constant fidelity of its population, gladly recognised the rights of the kingdom of Bohemia, and was willing to confirm this assurance by taking the coronation-oath. Various influences contributed to the failure of this attempt to effect a reconciliation between Bohemia and Austria. In 1872 a government of pronounced German tendency took office in Vienna and the Bohemians for a time again refused to attend the parliamentary assemblies of Vienna and Prague. In 1879. Count Edward Taafe—an Austrian of Irish origin—became Austrian prime-minister, and he succeeded in persuading the representatives of Bohemia to take part in the deliberations of the parliament of Vienna. They did so after stating, that they took this step without prejudice to their view, that Bohemia with Moravia and Silesia constituted a separate state under the rule of the same sovereign as Austria and Hungary. The government of Count Taafe, in recognition of this con-