Status Updates From Kısa Avusturya Tarihi (Camb...

With Habsburg power restored, Francis Joseph now ruled as advised, disregarding traditional centres of power, abolishing the provincial noble estates & relying solely on the power of his bureaucracy and army to impose his imperial will. This was to be radical absolutism without Baroque niceties, but also to be a modern form with a modernizing imperative, NEO absolutism.

The year 1848 attested not to the weakness of the Habsburg monarchy, but to its surprising tenacity. Its nationalist diversity made any coherent ideology almost impossible for the INSURGENTS, leading to vast conflicts of interests & opinions that beset relations within the monarchy,. Once the Habsburg authorities regained their equilibrium, it proved relatively easy to exploit these divisions.

DIVIDE ET IMPERA

The Counter Reformation was introduced in 1620 in its most brutal form; Czech culture disappeared. Bohemia became the main engine of Austrian Habsburg power. Federinand II urged on by his Sanish & Bavarian allies, expanded the war to the Empire. His ruthless campaign against the Palatinate rallied the Protestant forces & turned a DOMESTIC crisis into an Empire-wide war.

"On 26 August 1278 the army of Rudolf of Habsburg, the German king [ Holy Roman Emperor ?] defeated the forces of Otakar, king of Bohemia, near Dürnkrut on the Marschfeld, north-east of Vienna. Marchfelt was a majour turning point in Austrian history, for it made the Habsburgs rulers of Austria. From then until 1918, its history is inseparable from the career of this paragon of dynastic politics."

Fate took another turn in June 1246. Duke Frederick II was killed fighting the Hungarians. Crucially he had no male heir. The "privilegium minus" provided for succesion through the female line but that was also unclear. The Babenbergs had committed the cardinal sin of European feudal politics. To end the crisis, Austrian nobles invited Otakar, king of Bohemia, but German nobles elected their own candidate ...