The life of the emperor Francis Joseph — John Shaqi
The life of the emperor Francis JosephGribble, Francis Henry
History
The life of the emperor Francis Joseph
Gribble, Francis Henry
Austria -- Court and courtiers; Austria -- History -- Franz Joseph I, 1848-1916; Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, 1830-1916
For order did not yet reign in Vienna; on the contrary, the revolution
was going from bad to worse, and the Court had to leave the capital.
First it went to loyal Innsbruck, in loyal Tyrol—whence Francis Joseph
paid his visit, already mentioned, to the Army of Italy. Then it
returned, under the illusion that things were going better; and then
it went off again to Olmütz. Hungary and Bohemia, as well as Italy,
were in open rebellion; and Vienna continued to throw up barricades
from time to time. Unwelcome Ministers were forced on the Emperor, made
concessions, and then gave place to others who promised still more
concessions. The conditions of 1789, said the people who knew history,
were giving place to the conditions of 1793. At any moment they might
expect to see the guillotine “going always,” and the Emperor’s head
rolling from the block into a basket.
Nor did the House of Habsburg, in that dark hour, save itself. On the
contrary. “The monarchy,” as Felix Schwarzenberg put it, “was saved
by three mutinous soldiers”: Radetzky, the octogenarian who would not
grow old; Alfred von Windischgraetz, the unbending aristocrat, who
was vastly more imperialist than the Emperor; Jellaçiç, the swaggering
and self-sufficient Ban of Croatia. They agreed, to put it bluntly,
that the Emperor Ferdinand was an old fool who had been bounced by
his Ministers into giving orders which it behoved them to disobey.
So Radetzky, being ordered to evacuate Lombardy, remained there; and
Windischgraetz, being ordered to hold a portion of his forces at the
disposition of the War Minister, replied that he could not spare them;
and Jellaçiç, being dismissed from his command, refused to give it up.
In that way, they collared the situation and saved it.
The Hungarians, marching on Vienna, were met by Jellaçiç and driven
back. Windischgraetz, after first putting down the rising in Bohemia,
marched down to Vienna and laid siege to it. Radetzky reinforced him,
and then the end was near. Windischgraetz, in truth, had other reasons
besides his loyalty to make him furious. His own wife had been one of
the victims of the insurrection—shot while she stood at an open window
to watch the rioting; so that it was not in the least likely that he
would hesitate to shoot, or allow the insurgents to surrender otherwise
than at discretion. First, therefore, he bombarded Vienna; and then he
forced the gates and stormed the barricades. There was a certain show
of resistance, but then, after a few military executions, order did
really reign, and the House of Habsburg was really saved, except in
so far as the Hungarians were still a menace to it. And the Emperor
Ferdinand’s first act, when his safety was assured, was to abdicate in
favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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