Hungarian crisis (1905)
The Hungarian crisis was a political conflict in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1905 and 1906 between I. Emperor Franz Joseph (King Ferenc József from Hungary) and Habsburg loyal forces like the Liberal Party on the one hand and the opposition led by the Independence Party on the other side.
In the Hungarian parliamentary elections in January 1905, the Liberal Party lost its majority for the first time since the compromise in 1867 , while the Independence Party under Ferenc Kossuth led a coalition with a parliamentary majority. The main point of contention between the throne and the opposition was the abolition of the German language of command in the Joint Army . Tensions rose when the victorious coalition declared separation of the common army a political goal. The Viennese court was convinced that the end of the Austro-Hungarian army would also mean the end of the common empire. As a result, Prime Minister István Tisza remained in office without a majority for the time being, which led to a serious constitutional conflict.
Despite the majority of the opposition in the Reichstag , King Ferenc József finally appointed General Géza Fejérváry as head of government of an official government on June 18, 1905 . The opposition called the new government unconstitutional because it did not spring from a parliamentary majority. Therefore Fejérváry ruled with the help of the king, who adjourned the parliament several times, bypassing the Reichstag. The opposition then called for “national resistance” against the “gendarme government”, and recruitment and tax payments were refused in many counties . Interior Minister Jósef Kristóffy reacted to the "national resistance" with tough police measures. About a third of the MPs of the Liberal Party, which was committed to dualism, finally switched to the coalition camp, which thus had a three-quarters majority.
Fejérváry offered his immediate resignation, but the king refused. At the same time there were nationwide strikes in industry and agriculture due to unfulfilled wage demands, but also as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905 .
Kristóffy, the real head of the cabinet , then started negotiations with the social democrats and left-wing liberals, to whom he promised reforms in the electoral law and in the social policy area. The planned universal suffrage, however, endangered the power of the national aristocratic Magyar elite. An explosive domestic political climate arose in Vienna War Office were from General Beck plans developed ( "Fall U" for Hungary) quell a possible uprising in Hungary by force. On February 19, 1906, Franz Joseph and Fejérváry had the parliament building occupied by the Honvéd militarily. The mood in the population and civil servants gradually turned against the opposition and it was agreed on Sándor Wekerle as the new prime minister, who replaced Fejérváry on April 8, 1906.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Eduard Winkler: Suffrage reforms and elections in Trieste 1905-1909. An analysis of political participation in a multinational urban region of the Habsburg monarchy. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-56486-2 , pp. 93f.
- ↑ a b c d Géza Andreas von Geyr: Sándor Wekerle. 1848-1921. The political biography of a Hungarian statesman of the Danube Monarchy. (= Southeast European Works 91) Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-56037-9 , p. 212ff.
- ^ Benda: Kristóffy, József. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1969, p. 278.
- ↑ Erich Zöllner : History of Austria. From the beginning to the present. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-486-46708-5 , p. 434.
- ^ Alice Freifeld: Nationalism and the crowd in liberal Hungary, 1848-1914. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington DC, 2000, ISBN 0-8018-6462-3 , p. 219.
- ↑ István Deák : Beyond nationalism. A social and political history of the Habsburg officer corps, 1848-1918. Oxford University Press, New York 1990, ISBN 0-19-504505-X , p. 70.