“Do you think the Hungarians are willing to abandon their constitution?”

31 March 2013.

László Lőrinc

The Hungarian public memory ignores Kaiserfeld, although his speech of 31 March 1865 was a key factor inducing Deák to write his momentuous “Easter article”.*

The audience at the Karl Theater in Vienna was greatly entertained in early April 1865 when Anton Ascher appeared in a comedy in the guise of the Minister of State Anton von Schmerling. Although the actor was sentenced to eight days’ imprisonment for disrespect, it only made the head of government look even more ridiculous.

But Schmerling had previously been popular, because in 1861 he introduced a semi-constitutional system instead of absolutism, transferring legislative power to the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) instead of the monarch. While the assemblies of the individual countries and provinces making up the empire could be represented in it, the Hungarians, insisting on their own parliament, did not send representatives to the Reichsrat, and the Czechs and Poles left the council. Moreover, the Reichsrat could not hold the Reich government to account. This, together with the deterioration of the Reich’s financial and foreign policy situation, damaged Schmerling’s prestige.

Moritz von Kaiserfeld, aged 54 at the time, was one of the most determined opponents of Schmerling’s policies. As early as 1862, he argued that the Hungarians had not gambled away their rights by the revolution of 1848-49, and one could speak about constitutionalism in the empire if the continuity of the Hungarian laws of 1848 was recognised and negotiations started with them on that basis. The liberal Kaiserfeld thus did exactly what Lajos Kossuth did (in the opposite direction), who on 3 March 1848 set off the revolutionary avalanche in the empire by demanding a constitution for the other provinces in the Hungarian Assembly of the Orders, which, however, was not competent to do so.

Kaiserfeld’s new approach was an unexpected success (“Good God, I haven’t said anything extraordinary to make such a fuss about,” the MP reportedly said the next day) but for now he remains in the minority. Yet two years later, in the summer of 1864, his views were echoed in a wide range of Austrian liberal newspapers.

After all this, in the autumn of 1864, the Reichsrat was discussing a note to be sent to the Emperor on the unfortunate state of the empire, when on 26 November, baron József Eötvös contributed to the dispute in the periodical Wiener Lloyd. He stated that the “commonality of certain interests and causes” in the empire could not be denied, which might require a change in the Hungarian laws of 1848, but that could only be done if the Hungarian Parliament itself decided on it. He felt that his position was shared by “our venerable leader, Ferenc Deák”.

A packed gallery and excited members of parliament waited in the Reichsrat on 1 December to hear the response of the “in-charge-of-the-Hungarians” Kaiserfeld, who then began with a critique of the Schmerling constitution, saying that the principle of representation, the independence of judges, ministerial responsibility and a number of liberties were not upheld. ” Along with constitutionalism we are dragging behind us a good deal of absolutism”. He declared that the 1848 laws of Hungary were valid, and, echoing Eötvös’s arguments, said that any change to them “can only be made by the Hungarian Parliament”, since “any coercion is painful for Hungary.” He expressed his appreciation of the Hungarians’ adherence to their 1848 laws, since “the continuity of law is the consolidator of all new formations”. Indirectly, he acknowledged that the Hungarian historical grievances are justified (past governmental constitutional violations, presumptuousness and rudeness) but that “the words of the greatest Hungarian patriots indicate that there is an indissoluble community of interest between the peoples of Austria” so despite all of these a settlement of the disputes is possible.

The gallery went wild, the MPs rushed to congratulate, the newspapers came with their compliments. The speech was described as “the most beautiful flower of our parliamentary life” by a newspaper of a more cautious liberal group. The success of the speech was further underlined by the scathing reviews of Schmerling’s response.

Kaiserfeld, a lawyer-politician from a large landowning family in Styria, had no Hungarian ties; he was Hungarian-friendly by principle. “Being a supporter of the parliamentary form of government, I must above all have felt a deep and enduring interest in Hungary and the Hungarians”, he wrote to Miksa Falk in 1866, and “I could not take a stand for one without also defending the right of your country.”.

In March 1865, when the Reichsrat started to discuss the budget, even Schmerling’s own party refused to vote for the proposed version. Once again the “Hungarian question” was raised as a prerequisite for a solution to the financial situation, since it was expected that the Hungarian Parliament, which was to be convened, would provide the budget with more money from the Eastern half of the empire. In response, the Minister of State himself, as if riding to a fall, brought up Kaiserfeld’s December speech and unexpectedly rejected the idea of convening the Hungarian Parliament more emphatically than ever before. Understandably, then, public opinion was anxious to see what Kaiserfeld would do with the gauntlet thrown into his face.

As it had been expected, in his speech of 31 March 1865, the Styrian deputy spoke out more vehemently than ever against the oppressive policy concerning the Hungarians. Quoting Schmerling’s remark that the government could do as it pleased independently of the legislature, he asked, “Does Herr Minister think that the Hungarians will be willing to abandon their 800-year-old constitution for the sake of such principles?” He painted in vivid colours the consequences of an economic policy that has been unable to respond to the effects of the American Civil War: scores of people unemployed and the empire begging for loans in Europe’s capitals. This, he explained, was the reason why Prussia could threaten Austria with humiliation, as the latter would be defenceless in the event of a military attack. If Austria is to avoid “the whirlpool which we are facing and which threatens to engulf us”, it needs a government which acts in accordance with the law, Kaiserfeld returned to the demand for a real constitution.

Once again, the success was enormous, and perhaps the effect of this was also evident in the Karl theatre scandal. But the real political significance of the speech was based not on the dramatic words but a proposal. It suggested that certain parts of the budget should be divided between the two empires’ respective legislatures, and that only the costs of common affairs should be decided on by a joint legislature. This was the first time that a proposal had been made in the Reichsrat for a possible way of cooperation between the two halves of the empire. Accordingly, the Austrian liberal newspapers devoted most space to this proposal, and although some disputed the concrete solution, the public discourse was already about how dualist system could be achieved.

After all this, it may come as a surprise that the paper Pesti Napló described Kaiserfeld’s proposal to distribute money as too cautious, at the same time casting him as the “most likeable of personalities” of the Reichsrat, a “pure chief, strong mind, honest character, good patriot and distinguished orator”. But the editor-in-chief of the Pesti Napló, Deák’s confidant, baron Zsigmond Kemény already knew a lot that others at the time did not. Between the December and March speeches, the Austro-Hungarian compromise was already outlined in the greatest secrecy, and Schmerling’s sacking was a foregone conclusion.

King Franz Joseph had already announced in confidence at the Council of Ministers on 5 January 1865 that he wished to come to an agreement with the Hungarians, and immediately emphasized that the move was desired also by the Reichsrat, the press and public opinion. Kaiserfeld’s actions played a major role in the development of these factors.

But there was something else that influenced the monarch’s decision: at the time of the January announcement, he had already received baron Antal Augusz’s report that Deák was willing to negotiate a compromise.

The fact that Kaiserfeld and his circle knew nothing about the negotiations they themselves had called for was not only the fault of the Emperor, but also of Deák. He refused to meet with the Austrian liberals because he believed that contacting them would only make the Emperor distrustful. Eötvös, who was in contact with Kaiserfeld, took a completely different view. “Deák expects everything from the prince,” he wrote to Miksa Falk in May 1865, “I place more confidence in the discretion of those who want freedom in Austria, and if we must flatter ourselves to be politicians, I prefer to flatter the party of the Reichsrat that is verging towards us.” In his letters, he returns to those who “cling only to the Hungarian nobleman’s frogged costume”, who “are happy to scold and beat the Germans, whether they can do it for the sake of freedom or absolutism”. It was only that Deák had to convince partly these very people that a compromise with the Habsburgs was not treason. Eötvös “had been given the role,” writes historian Éva Somogyi in a 1976 monograph, “of always remaining alone with his views being unassailable both logically and based on liberal principles. The leader is Deák, because he is the one who has a following.”

Deák eventually succeeded in the negotiations, and even made up to the Austrian liberals for his seclusion in the past, as he made it a condition of the reconciliation that the constitution be introduced in the Western half of the empire. Prior to this, however, he had to make his intentions known, which he did by contributing to the press debate following Kaiserfeld’s March speech with his famous Easter article.

Hungarian historiography – with the exception of Éva Somogyi – has so far ignored the “Styrian” friends of the Hungarians.

László Lőrinc

31 March 2013.

*An earlier version of this article appeared in Heti Világgazdaság on 23 May 2007.

Moritz von Kaiserfeld