The Dualist Period

THE DUALIST PERIOD The Compromise of 1867.—The Compromise (Law 12 of 67) established the so-called Dualist system between Austria d Hungary; the two countries had hitherto been united only in their common dynasty (the legal sanction for which was afforded by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1722) and by the work of the central authorities in Vienna, whose activities, however, in so far as applied to Hungary, constituted an infringement of Hungarian law and sovereignty. Under the Compromise Hungary recognized this situation to this extent, that matters vital to national defence were entrusted to three common Ministries, to be held alternately by Austrians and Hungarians : these being Foreign Affairs, War and Finance (the last-named resting chiefly on the customs receipts) ; while Hungarian sovereignty was recognized in the appointment of an independent Ministry, responsible to the Hungarian parliament. Dualism, in the eyes of its creator, Deak, meant complete parity, combined with a sort of de facto union between the two states; and to make this parity possible Deak prevailed on Francis Joseph to "deign to grant the other lands" (i.e., Austria) "constitutional rights" (Law. A. 12, 1867). The common ministries were submitted to the control of "delegations" or committees of the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments. On the basis of this constitution Francis Joseph had himself crowned king of Hungary on June 8, 1867.

First Phase of Dualism.

The difficulties of Dualism became apparent even under the first minister-president, Count Julius Andrassy (q.v.). Led by the archduke Albert, governor-general of Hungary after the defeat of 1849, the generals who had attained such influence at the court of Vienna in the absolutist period opposed the efforts of what they called the "trans-Leithan half of the empire" to attain parity, particularly in military matters. It was only after a long struggle that Andrassy succeeded in recovering the military frontier from the military administra tion and restoring in it the old county system. The same court and military circles wished to join France against Prussia in 187o in a war of revenge. Andrassy, as Hungarian minister-president, prevented this, and thus saved the new State of Austria-Hungary from being drawn into the French disaster, and the war from spreading to other States. In Hungary itself many elements were hostile to dualism and to any community of existence with Austria. They listened to the voice of Kossuth, the leader of 1848, now living in voluntary exile. Shortly before Francis Joseph's coro nation, Kossuth, in his open "Cassandra letter," had accused Deak of treachery to the rights of the nation. The pure Magyars of the Alf old supported Kossuth and elected a parliamentary opposition which took its stand on the so-called "1848 constitu tional basis" and called for revision or revocation of Dualism and a pure personal union with Austria. The 1848 politicians adopted a negative attitude towards all demands of the State throughout the period of Dualism, voted against the budgets and military estimates, and attempted to discredit the Dualist Governments as traitors to the nation.

Threatened at once in Vienna and in Hungary, and supported solely by the emperor-king, who throughout his life remained strictly loyal to his coronation oath, and upheld the Law 12 of 1867, the Hungarian minister-presidents, from Andrassy on, were often forced to employ subterfuges to secure the majorities necessary for the conduct of affairs. As the 1848 ideas were most prevalent in the poorer classes, the franchise was from the first so restricted as to confine all political influence to educated circles. The maintenance of Dualism was secured, first and foremost, by enlisting the "gentry," who had lost the greater part of their estates through the agrarian reform decreed under Art. 9 of the Law of 1848, and executed during the period of absolutism of 1852-53 with the deliberate purpose of breaking the Hun garian aristocracy. As State officials and deputies, this class now became the chief supporters of the Dualist Governments. After Andrassy had become common minister for foreign affairs in 1871, his successors in the premiership of Hungary ruled with the help of the "gentry" and the new Jewish capitalists. The rich natural resources of Hungary had begun to be exploited, railways had been built, mines and factories started, and the profits increased the solidity of the '67 Governmental party, while the '48 party were, where possible, excluded from it. It was, however, only after the death of Deak, a Puritan who refused to take any office, that this was developed into a regular system by Koloman Tisza (q.v.), whose prolonged period of office (1875-9o) made the Government party resting on the landed gentry and capital (the "Liberal Party" or "Free Principle Party") into a permanent institution. He introduced strict discipline into his party, which was most necessary, since the Government was forced year by year, in the interests of Dualism, to pass unpopular laws, such as the military estimates for the "common" army, with its head quarters in Vienna and German word of command. Hungary was making rapid strides in prosperity and culture (this was the "classic" age of Hungarian literature, founded by the great writer Arany), and deeply resented the system under which the supreme decisions on foreign policy and war were withdrawn from the nation and debated in Vienna in the German tongue, the constitu tional influence due to the Hungarian premier not always receiving due weight. The German-speaking army in Hungary was the occasion of continual conflicts ; there were repeated students' riots and patriotic demonstrations against army decrees, or against the maintenance of the Hentzi monument in Budapest (Hentzi was the Austrian general who defended Buda in against Gorgei's national army) ; these flames being vigorously fanned by old Kossuth from Turin. Koloman Tisza fell over a bill affecting Kossuth's rights of Hungarian citizenship.

Second Phase of Dualism.—His successors, Count Julius Sza pary (189o-92), Alexander Wekerle (1892-95), Baron Desider Banffy , and Koloman Szell (1899-1903), had still greater difficulties to face. Resistance was increasing, both in Austria and in Hungary. The first fatal mistake had been to provide for a revision of the Austro-Hungarian customs tariff every ten years. In the parliamentary discussions on these occa sions—they were particularly stormy in 1897—the differences between agrarian Hungary and industrial Austria grew acute; the Hungarians complained that their country was treated as a colonial market for the Austrian factories, and they increasingly demanded an independent customs territory. Similar difficulties arose over the commercial treaties with foreign States, which had also to be concluded in common with Austria, and in army ques tions, the latter due mainly to the preference shown to German and Slav officers for high positions. No Hungarian was able to reach a leading position on the Austro-Hungarian general staff up to the end of the World War. Thus dislike of Dualism grew more acute in Hungary; not only the Kossuth Party worked in this direction, but also other politicians who, while remaining loyal to the Compromise, yet looked on it as elastic and aimed at altering its provisions by constitutional methods : creating an independent customs territory, giving the Hungarian element in the army its due, and creating an autonomous national bank. Among these were Count Albert Apponyi (q.v.), and later, the younger Count Julius Andrassy (q.v.) . Francis Joseph, however, would allow no alteration in the Compromise, and these efforts could thus lead only to embittered parliamentary struggles. The number of malcontents increased after the Wekerle Government introduced a reform of the marriage law on liberal lines in 1894; a new opposition party, the Catholic Peoples' Party, came into being, led by Count Ferdinand Zichy (1829-191I), and supported by wide circles of Hungarian, German and Slovak peasantry. The minister-president, Banffy, was only able to break the power of .this party in the elections of 1896 by the most extreme means, forcible intervention by the gendarmerie. In the same year the nation and its king celebrated together its jubilee, the millenary of the occupation of Hungary by the Magyars. Yet events were shaping towards a rupture with the sovereign and the Compro mise. When Count Stephen Tisza (q.v.), as minister-president, attempted to make parliamentary discussion possible in the inter ests of the army estimates by changing the standing orders and was defeated at the elections (1905), the king first tried the expe dient attempted in Austria, of reforming the franchise, to put the nationalist gentry and middle classes in a minority against the workmen and national minorities. When this attempt (Baron Geza Fejervary's Ministry, 1905-06) broke down on the resist ance of the counties, he entrusted the power to the united parties of the Opposition (Wekerle's Ministry, 1906-10), who promised to respect the Compromise. This coalition ministry included both Apponyi, Andrassy and Francis Kossuth, son of the old revolutionary, now dead. Public opinion, however, failing to receive from this ministry the anticipated changes in the Com promise, soon abandoned it. At the next elections the old Party returned in triumph, and remained in power till the World War, after being reorganized by Stephen Tisza, who was minister president for the second time, 1913-17.

It was only with great difficulty, however, that Tisza succeeded in carrying the army estimates in the last years preceding the World War. In the '48 Party the influence of the leaders com promised in the Wekerle Ministry was now superseded by that of Count Michael Karolyi (q.v.), who introduced extreme tendencies into the Party of Independence. At the same time, symptoms of social unrest appeared. The Socialist Party, which was Marxist in creed, made several unsuccessful efforts to find new followers among the agricultural labourers; but in the first decade of the 20th century it found an ally in the Radical Party, composed of semi-Socialistic bourgeoisie, doctors, lawyers and merchants, which aimed at a complete remodelling of social conditions with the assistance of general suffrage. Its leader, Oscar Jaszi, failed to win the nationalist middle classes for his movement, and his propaganda, which was in part directed against the Church, only deepened the conflicts between the Hungarian middle classes and the Jews out of which his party was largely recruited.

National Struggles.

At the same time the question of the national minorities, for which Europe at that time possessed no universally accepted principles, also became acute. After the long period of Turkish rule in the 16th and 17th centuries, the dimin ished ranks of the Hungarians had been replaced in many parts of the country by Germans, Serbs, Rumanians and Slovaks, who were encouraged, and in some cases introduced, by the Viennese Government. In earlier times there was no linguistic struggle, the official language being the neutral one of Latin. Only when, in the age of national reforms, the first half of the 19th century, the Magyar language was, in the struggle against the Government in Vienna, made the official language of Hungary, did the other nations, whose own cultural development was just beginning, feel themselves put at a disadvantage. After 1849 the absolutist Gov ernment introduced German as the official language, this being again replaced by Magyar in 1867. To protect the interests of the other nationalities, Deak and Baron Davos, the minister of education, a humanist philosopher, brought in Law 44, 1868, on "national equality," which ensured persons of language other than Magyar the use of their own language in justice and admin istration, allowed any language desired by one-fifth of the persons present to be used in the protocols of county and city meetings, and left all persons full liberty to use any language they wished in such meetings. Later, the county representative bodies usually allowed languages other than Magyar to be used only when of those present were non-Magyars ; and this led to continual complaints from the Slovak, Rumanian and Serb deputies. The Government was also obliged by law to provide facilities for any person, in any part of Hungary, to receive secondary education in his mother tongue, and also allowed communities, churches and individuals to found and maintain schools, which received equality of status with the State schools. Under this law the Rumanians had six secondary and 2,87o primary schools, which were main tained by the Rumanian Church with State assistance. Of the 16,929 primary schools in Hungary in 1913, 397o gave instruc tion in language other than Magyar; the figures for secondary schools being 215 and 17 respectively. In 1913-14 the Hungarian State paid 3,041,861 crowns to the schools giving instruction in a language other than Magyar. The State, however, thinking pri mary schools the best means of propagating the Magyar language, established these mostly in the non-Magyar districts, and neglected education in the essentially Magyar Alfold. The new middle classes of non-Magyar nationality which issued from these State schools grew increasingly ambitious of political power. Their leaders were inspired by the example of Austria, where the gen eral suffrage had broken the supremacy of the Germans, and everything was tending towards a federative system with a Sla vonic majority. These ambitions were encouraged by the heir to the throne, the archduke Francis Ferdinand (q.v.), whose inter est in the unity of the army also led him to wish to break the supremacy of the Magyars. He advocated replacing Dualism by Trialism, creating a third Slavonic State out of the southern Serbo-Croat parts of Austria and Hungary, with Bosnia, and thus putting Hungary in a minority of i :2. The situation was further complicated by the irredentist agitation conducted by the fellow countrymen beyond the frontier of the various nationalities (e.g., the Marmaros trial in 1911 respecting Ruthenian irredenta, sup ported by Russia; the Klausenburg Memorandum trial of against Rumanian irredentists ; the attempt on the life of the Hungarian bishop in Debrecin, Feb. 1914, etc.) . The main object of the Government was the preservation of the old frontiers against such endeavours, and even Count Tisza, who in his second term of office made several attempts to reach an understanding with the nationalities, especially the Rumanians, was obliged to the last to oppose general suffrage, because he feared that it would have meant the supremacy of the nationalities, assisted by the Hungarian Socialists (the Magyars numbered 54.5% of the total population), and therewith a federalization of the State. To prevent this, the abortive Andrassy draft of 1908 had attempted to combine general franchise with plural voting for the educated classes.