Dualism: The Relationship Between Austria And Ida Ferenczy
3995 Words16 Pages
The creation of Dualism between Austria and Hungary in 1867 was a government form
Non-existing before. Franz Joseph was the only emperor of his time who reined a dual monarchy. Its creation had far reaching consequences resulting in intensifying the prevailing nationalism in the whole of Austria – Hungary leading to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914, a key factor in the cause of World War I.
To answer the guilt question for starting WW1, one has to analyse who was the driving force in the creation of Dualism and could therefore be partially blamed for causing the war.
My aim in this essay is to evaluate to what extent empress Elisabeth of Austria was the driving force in the creation of dualism in 1867. Therefore I am going to…show more content… Her arrival was planned as well as her friendship with the Empress. Being an intimate of the Empress the Hungarian revolutionaries “were very clever at exploiting for their own purposes the Empress’s isolation at the Viennese court and her differences with the anti – Hungarian Archduchess Sophie. Showing Deáks and Andrássys way of starting the compromise: exploiting the empress and making her vulnerable, they could use her for their own advantage. Their first step towards a compromise between Hungary and Austria was a meeting of both sides. The question from the Hungarian side was: How do we convince the emperor to come to Budapest to discuss a settlement with us that he does not really wish to discuss? In order to solve this question Ida had to make the empress push her husband towards a meeting in Budapest. Nobody had thought about a meeting until Ida came. A few weeks after her arrival she had influenced the empress vehemently, resulting in the empress understanding that a meeting was inevitable. Sadly for Ida and her supporters, nobody listened to the empress. She had to convince her husband more drastically, this succeeded and resulted in him going to Budapest in June 1865. “(…) Franz Joseph, (…) after months of urging on the part of the Hungarians ( and Elisabeths), actually went to Budapest and started to make concessions.” Her husband to made small concessions to the Hungarians by abolishing the military jurisdiction and to enact an amnesty for press offence. If Ida hadn’t convinced the empress of the necessity of such a visit in Budapest, nobody would have taught about it and the compromise would have been far away in the future. Frank Deák, the “sage”, published his famous easter article “Pesti