THE NEW EUROPE
ruins of the Bohemian revolution when it was crushed by Windischgraetz.
After the Bohemian, the Viennese and the Hungarian revolutions were also crushed. Russia helped Austria against the Magyars in the name of Legitimacy; the Croats, led by Jelačić, fought for Austria on the assumption that Ban Jelačić was something more than an Austrian general; the Slovaks also were driven by Magyar oppression into joining the Austrian colours. Similarly, in Italy, Radetzky was successful in crushing the revolution. On the 5th of March, 1849, a new constitution was introduced, and this, in its turn, was succeeded by the constitution of '51. Austria was again a united and centralised empire. The system of Metternich was re—introduced under Bach. Absolutist centralism, anti-nationalism, and clericalism, were its foundations. The brilliant Bohemian publicist, Havliček, was interned in Brixen, but the other leaders of the revolution escaped and fled to America or to England. London, for a time, became the centre of this "new Europe." No sooner was the old régime restored than Austria returned to her German policy; to meet Pangerman ideals, Prince Schwarzenberg, the head of the Austrian Foreign Office, tried to unite Austria; he revived the old Austrian imperialism and dreamt of an empire of 72,000,000 people. True to its foundation and spirit, Austria stipulated with Rome the Concordat, and the old mediaeval régime seemed to be restored.
The only result of the revolution was the liberation of the peasants. The revolution of '48, no doubt, was, to a great extent, social. The old financial and economic system was overthrown; the liberation of the peasants, and with it the revival of communal and municipal liberties, became, to an extent little suspected by the official classes, the germ of future national and democratic development.
Francis Joseph began his political career as a constitutional monarch, but he soon reverted to absolutism, his person being virtually proclaimed as holy. The Concordat concluded with Rome in the fifties seemed to promise safety to this re-established absolutism. The Crimean War and its effect on autocratic Russia might have taught Francis Joseph that Europe must be re-shaped, and that Austria must yield to the new spirit; but not till 1859 did he realise that mediæval absolutism, even if sanctified by the Pope,
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