Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/172

 152 AUSTRIA courts over the marriage relations of Catholics, transferred the supreme direction and superin- tendence of the entire department of instruction and education to the state, and regulated the relations of the churches recognized hy the state on the basis of equal rights. The papal nuncio in Vienna protested against these laws as a vio- lation of the concordat, and the pope declared them to be null and void ; but the government, while endeavoring to conciliate the bishops as much as possible, carried them through. An- other important victory was gained by the lib- eral party in 1870, when the government declar- ed the concordat of 1855 to be no longer valid. Still more important than this religious conflict was that between the different nationalities represented in the Eeichsrath. The Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia demanded for the lands of "the crown of St. Wenceslas," by which they understood the provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, an autonomy equal or at least similar to that of Hungary, and including in particular a Czech parliament in the place of Czech deputies to the Vienna Reichsrath. The Silesian diet almost unanimously protested against these schemes; but in Bohemia and Moravia the Czech population gave them an enthusiastic support. As the Germans in 1868 controlled the diets of both Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech members in August re- signed their seats, and presented to the presi- dents of the diets a declaration fully setting forth their views and plans. At the new election for the Bohemian diet all the 81 signers of the declaration, with but one ex- ception, were reflected. They again refused to attend the diet convoked in September, 1869, as the German members were again in . the majority. The Vienna government was willing to enter into negotiations with the Czechs; but the leaders of the latter, Rieger and Sladkowsky, declined to attend the con- ference which had been proposed by Giskra, and the representatives of the Czech nation- ality whom Count Potocki in April, 1870, called to Vienna, were equally unwilling to make any concessions. The success of Hun- gary and the Czech agitation strengthened the hope of the Poles of Galicia that they also might be able to obtain for the Polish parts of the empire an autonomy like that of Hungary, and that thus Galicia might become the nucleus of a restored Polish realm. Accordingly the diet, on Sept. 16, 1868, resolved to petition the emperor to give to the former kingdoms of Ga- licia and Lodomeria and to the grand duchy of Cracow a separate government, under the direction of a chancellor or special minister, who should be responsible to the diet. When the committee of the Vienna Reichstag de- clared the Polish demands to be inadmissible, the Polish members of the Reichsrath resigned, and their example was soon followed by the majority of all the Slavic deputies. An insurrec- tion which in October, 1869, broke out in the Slavic province of Dalmatia, in the district of Cattaro, had no connection with the nation- ality movements. The people of this district, which is separated from the remainder of Dal- matia by a high mountain ridge, and who num- ber only 30,000 souls, had formerly been ex- empt from military service, and therefore made a forcible resistance to an attempt to enroll them, in accordance with the new military law, in the landwehr. After several bloody encoun- ters, in which the imperial troops suffered se- vere losses, the insurgents submitted in Jan- uary, 1870, when several concessions were made to them. In view of the alarming dimen- sions which the nationality conflicts assumed, the members of the Cisleithan ministry were themselves divided in their opinion as to the best policy to be pursued. The majority, to which the ministers Plener, Giskra, Herbst, Hasner, and Brestel belonged, were unwilling to make further concessions to the Czechs, Poles, and other non-German nationalities, and de- sired to strengthen the authority of the central Reichsrath by a reform of the electoral law. The three other ministers, Taafe, Berger, and Potocki, favored concessions to the nationali- ties and to federalism. As the majority of both houses of the Reichsrath, which was opened on Dec. 13, 1869, sympathized with the majority of the ministry, the emperor in Jan- uary, 1870, accepted the resignation of the minority. Soon, however, when the emperor refused to sanction several measures pro- posed by the new ministry which had been formed by Plener, a new ministerial crisis oc- curred, and Count Potocki was on April 4 commissioned to form another ministry. The overtures made by Count Potocki to the leaders of the Czechs and Poles, and the dissolution of the Reichsrath (May 23) and all the diets, pro- duced an immense agitation, but the further development of the conflict was adjourned by the outbreak of the Franco-German war. The German centralists were not only dissatisfied with the cabinet of Potocki, but also with the chancellor, Count Beust, whom they likewise charged with making undue concessions to the nationalities. After the outbreak of the Fran- co-German war, the Austrian government gave new offence to the German Austrians hy check- ing their enthusiastic demonstrations of sympa- thy with the cause of Germany. The Czechs and the Poles, on the other hand, made dem- onstrations in favor of France ; and the leader of the Czechs, Dr. Rieger, even went so far as to make Napoleon a direct offer of an alliance between France and the Czechs, on condition that Napoleon should aid the Czechs in restor- ing the independent kingdom of Bohemia. The new kingdom was at once to embrace the Austrian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia, to which subsequently Prus- sian Silesia, Lusatia, and the Slovak districts of northern Hungary were to be added. In the new Reichsrath, which was opened on Sept. 5, the German liberals again controlled a majority of both houses. The provincial