deteriorating influence upon the military efficiency of the army.
He acted in complete good faith. He thought that he had kept his word, and that therefore he could justly demand that the nation should carry out her promise. However, his point of view was wrong. The nation had not abandoned in 1867 the rights which were re-instituted according to the constitution, and which referred to military questions. The nation had undoubtedly the right to sanction the number of recruits from year to year and to make such conditions restricting their numbers as would be binding upon the rights of the Chief War Lord.
There is no such thing as stagnation in life. The nation could regard the status quo in the new army as satisfactory only as long as it served her own purposes, or as long as they appeared to be advantageous for political reasons. As soon as the nation considered that existing circumstances demanded a reform, it was natural that they sought to make their determination felt. The action of Parliament could only have been avoided if the king himself had ordered the necessary developments step by step. This gradual progress, however, did not come about. The spirit of the army was prepared to adjust itself to the rights of the State, only very slowly. It was impossible that the nation should send her sons without opposition into an army in which the special patriotism of the Hungarians was repressed by an artificial communal feeling, and in which the Hungarian language and the Hungarian flag did not play a corresponding rôle.
