The Imperial Council[a] was the legislature of the Austrian Empire from 1861[b] until 1918. It was a bicameral body: the upper house was the House of Lords (German: Herrenhaus), and the lower house was the House of Deputies (German: Abgeordnetenhaus). To become law, bills had to be passed by both houses, signed by the government minister responsible, and then granted royal assent by the Emperor. After having been passed, laws were published in the Reichsgesetzblatt (lit. Reich Law Gazette). In addition to the Imperial Council, the fifteen individual crown lands of Cisleithania had their own diets (German: Landtage).
The seat of the Imperial Council from 4 December 1883 was in the Parliament Building on Ringstraße in Vienna. Prior to the completion of this building, the House of Lords met in the Estates House of Lower Austria, and the House of Deputies met in a temporary wooden building designed by Ferdinand Fellner on Währinger Straße. The Imperial Council was dissolved on 12 November 1918, following Austria-Hungary's defeat in the First World War.
On 4 March 1849, however, minister-president Felix zu Schwarzenberg took the initiative and imposed the March Constitution, which promised the equality of all Austrian people and also provided for a bicameral "Imperial Diet". It was nevertheless only a sidestep, as Schwarzenberg three days later forcefully disbanded the Kremsier Parliament and finally had the constitution annulled with the New Year's Eve Patent (Silvesterpatent) of 1851. Emperor Franz Joseph went on to rule with absolute power. In place of the Imperial Diet, he installed an "Imperial Council" (German: Reichsrat), whose members were appointed on his authority.
In the 1850s, chronic fiscal malaise became acute. The dire nature of the situation was revealed to the Emperor after the Second Italian War of Independence and the bloody defeat of Austrian forces at the 1859 Battle of Solferino. To calm the domestic front and to gain the support of wealthy Bourgeoisie, Franz Joseph issued the October Diploma in 1860. An "Imperial Diet", still meant as a conciliatory body, was supposed to have 100 delegates elected by provincial diets that were to be established for each Austrian crown land. This electoral system, however, satisfied neither the bourgeois liberals nor the Hungarian nobility, who refused to accept any authority higher than the Hungarian Diet.
For this reason, the Diploma was discarded and replaced by the February Patent of 1861, which was drafted by liberal minister-president Anton von Schmerling. This established a bicameral Imperial Council: the upper house was the House of Lords (German: Herrenhaus), and the lower house was the House of Deputies (German: Abgeordnetenhaus).
The House of Lords was convened for the first time on 29 April 1861. It was similar in form to the present day House of Lords of the United Kingdom. It met in the Palais Niederösterreich in Vienna until the Parliament Building was completed in 1883. The House of Lords was composed of:
Hereditary peers – selected from certain families among the hereditary landowning nobility
Life peers – citizens of Austria appointed to the House for life by the Emperor, for services to the state, the church, science, or art
The last meeting of the House of Lords was held on 30 October 1918. The meeting was adjourned within five minutes. The House of Lords chamber of the Parliament Building was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. It was rebuilt in a contemporary style, and serves as the chamber of the now democratically elected National Council of the Republic of Austria.
House of Deputies
Seats of the House of Deputies of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Council. Situation after the November 1911 Cisleithanian legislative elections. The seats are marked by nationality.
Upon establishment of the Imperial Council by the February Patent, elections to the House of Deputies were conducted through a system of "curiae".[1] In this system, there were 343 deputies elected by the diets of the crown lands. The diets themselves were elected by four curiae. The curiae were essentially assemblies of certain social classes. There was one curia for the landowning class, one curia for the chambers of commerce, one curia for the towns and cities, and one curia for rural communities. Each curia would elect a select number of deputies to the diets, which would in turn elect deputies to the Imperial Council.[1] To be part of the curia of the cities and the curia of the rural communities, a man had to pay at least ten guilders in tax. This system was rejected by Hungary, as with the October Diploma, and Hungary never sent any delegates to the Council. The February Patent was suspended in 1865.
With the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Hungary would no longer send deputies to the Imperial Council.[2] Instead, the Empire was reorganised into two equal parts: Cisleithania and Transleithania. Cisleithania consisted of the Austrian part of the Empire, officially "The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council". Transleithania consisted of the Kingdom of Hungary and its subordinate, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Instead of a subordinate regional diet, Hungary was granted its own parliament, and essentially attained the status of "sovereign state". The curia system, however, remained in place.[3][4] At this point, the Council had extensive legislative powers in all Cisleithanian matters. Appointment and dismissal of the government of the Cisleithania and the Minister-President remained the right of the emperor. The number of deputies each diet sent to the Imperial Council was set by the Compromise. There were 203 deputies in total:[5]
The next great change to the Imperial Council came in 1873.[6] The number of deputies was increased from 203 to 353. Deputies would no longer be elected by the diets of the crown lands. Instead, they would be directly elected through the curia system for six year terms.[7] The curia of the landowners elected 85 deputies, that of the chambers of commerce 21, that of cities 118, and that of the rural communities 128. Overall, only 6% of the population of the Empire could vote in these elections. Tax requirements for entry into the curiae remained the same, but was lowered to five guilders in 1883.[8]
On October 10, 1893, minister-presidentEduard Taaffe, 11th Viscount Taaffe submitted a bill in the House of Deputies that intended to abolish the fourth curia, and introduce universal suffrage in the third curia for those men below the five guilder threshold.[8] This was fervently opposed, and was not passed into law. Despite this, the number of deputies was increased to 425 on 14 June 1896 through reforms by minister-president Count Kasimir Felix Badeni. A fifth curia was added, which granted universal suffrage to all men over the age of 24.[9] This curia elected 72 deputies, shifting the balance of power away from the nobility.
Debating chamber of the House of Deputies
Minister-president Paul Gautsch von Frankenthurn introduced the final electoral reform in the history of the House of Deputies in 1906, after mass demonstrations by the rising Social Democratic Party, and despite fierce opposition in the House of Lords.[10][11] Universal suffrage for men was introduced, and the curia system was abolished. The number of deputies was raised to 516, and seats were allotted once again based on the crown lands.[8]
Universal suffrage allowed greater representation for members of the working class, and diminished the power of the German-speaking bourgeoisie. Whilst this was an advance for democracy, it resulted in the splintering of the House of Deputies into numerous factions based on nationality and ideology, which made it dysfunctional. Throughout its existence, the effectiveness of the Imperial Council suffered heavily from conflicts between and within the numerous constituent nationalities of the Empire. Governments of Cisleithania had to rely on loose ad hoc alliances, often with the support of the Polish representatives (Polenklub), and there were as many as 29 Minister-Presidents between 1867 and 1918.
Dissolution
From the July Crisis in 1914, the Imperial Council was suspended.[10] It remained so for the duration of the First World War, until it was finally reconvened in May 1917. It was permanently dissolved on 12 November 1918, the day after the de facto abdication of Emperor Charles.[10]
1 2 3 Ernst Bruckmüller (2001). Der Reichsrat, das Parlament der westlichen Reichshälfte Österreich-Ungarns (1861–1918) (in German). Vienna: Schriften des Institutes für Österreichkunde. pp.60–109. ISBN3-209-03811-2.
The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a multinational European great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, it was the third most populous monarchy in Europe after the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom, while geographically, it was the third-largest empire in Europe after the Russian Empire and the First French Empire.
Cisleithania, officially The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, was the northern and western part of Austria-Hungary, the Dual Monarchy created in the Compromise of 1867—as distinguished from Transleithania. This name for the region was a common, but unofficial one.
The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was a political entity that was constituted in October 1918, at the end of World War I, by Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (Prečani) residing in what were the southernmost parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although internationally unrecognised, this was the first incarnation of a Yugoslav state founded on the Pan-Slavic ideology. Thirty-three days after it was proclaimed, the state joined the Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
The emperor of Austria was the ruler of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The hereditary imperial title and office was proclaimed in 1804 by Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and continually held by him and his heirs until Charles I relinquished power in 1918.
The phrase Imperial and Royal refers to the court/government of the Habsburgs in a broader historical perspective. Some modern authors restrict its use to the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918.
The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm, was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is also referred to as the Austrian monarchy or the Danubian monarchy.
The February Patent was a constitution of the Austrian Empire promulgated in the form of letters patent on 26 February 1861.
The Duchy of Carniola was an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire, established under Habsburg rule on the territory of the former East Frankish March of Carniola in 1364. A hereditary land of the Habsburg monarchy, it became a constituent land of the Austrian Empire in 1804 and part of the Kingdom of Illyria until 1849. A separate crown land from 1849, it was incorporated into the Cisleithanian territories of Austria-Hungary from 1867 until the state's dissolution in 1918. Its capital was German: Laibach, today Ljubljana.
The Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna is the meeting place of the two houses of the Austrian Parliament. The building is located on the Ringstraße in the first district, Innere Stadt, near Hofburg Palace and the Palace of Justice. It was built to house the two chambers of the Imperial Council (Reichsrat), the bicameral legislature of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since its construction, the Parliament Building has been the seat of these two houses, and their successors—the National Council (Nationalrat) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat)—of the Austrian legislature.
From 1867 to 1918, Országgyűlés was the name of the bicameral parliament of the Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania) during the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918), replacing the earlier Hungarian Diet.
The Republic of German-Austria and German-Austria was an unrecognised state that was created following World War I as an initial rump state for areas with a predominantly German-speaking and ethnic German population within what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with plans for eventual unification with Germany. The territories covered an area of 118,311 km2 (45,680 sq mi), with 10.4 million inhabitants.
The Archduchy of Austria was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire and the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy. With its capital at Vienna, the archduchy was centered at the Empire's southeastern periphery.
The Young Czech Party was formed in the Bohemian crown land of Austria-Hungary in 1874. It initiated the democratization of Czech political parties and led to the establishment of the political base of Czechoslovakia.
The Croatian–Hungarian Settlement was a pact signed in 1868 that governed Croatia's political status in the Hungarian-ruled part of Austria-Hungary. It lasted until the end of World War I, when the Croatian Parliament, as the representative of the historical sovereignty of Croatia, decided on October 29, 1918 to end all state and legal ties with the old Austria-Hungary.
The Reichstag, also called Kremsier Parliament, was the first elected parliament in the Austrian Empire. It lasted for only a short time between July 1848 and 7 March 1849, but had an important effect on Austrian history. Its main product was the Kremsier Constitution which was preempted by the imposed March Constitution.
The Diet of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and of the Grand Duchy of Cracow was the regional assembly of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a crown land of the Austrian Empire, and later Austria-Hungary. In the history of the Polish parliaments, it is considered the successor of the former sejm walny, or general sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and also of the sejmik, or local councils, in the territories of the Austrian Partition. It existed from 1861 until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918.
The Deutscher Nationalverband was a loose coalition of ethnic German national and liberal political parties in Cisleithania, a part of Austria-Hungary. It was formed to contest the 1911 election of the lower house of the Imperial Council of Cisleithania. Loose coalitions of this type were common in the Imperial Council. It comprised ten individual parties, including the German People's Party, German Progress Party, German Radical Party, and German Agrarian Party.
The House of Lords was the upper house of the Imperial Council, the bicameral legislature of the Austrian Empire from 1861 and of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) half of Austria-Hungary upon the Compromise of 1867. Created by the February Patent issued by Emperor Franz Joseph I on 26 February 1861, it existed until the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, when on 12 November 1918 the transitional National Assembly of German-Austria declared it abolished. It was superseded by the Federal Council of the Austrian Parliament implemented by the 1920 Federal Constitutional Law.
During its existence, Austria-Hungary did not have a common flag – a "national flag" could not exist since the Dual Monarchy consisted of two sovereign states. However, the black-gold flag of the ruling Habsburg Dynasty was sometimes used as a de facto national flag and a common civil ensign was introduced in 1869 for civilian vessels. Until 1918, the k.u.k. War Fleet continued to carry the Austrian ensign it had used since 1786 and the regiments of the k.u.k. Army carried the double-eagle banners they had used before 1867, as they had a long history in many cases. New ensigns created in 1915 were not implemented due to the ongoing war. At state functions, the Austrian black-gold and the Hungarian red-white-green tricolor were used.
The government of Austria-Hungary was the political system of Austria-Hungary between the formation of the dual monarchy in the Compromise of 1867 and the dissolution of the empire in 1918. The Compromise turned the Habsburg domains into a real union between the Austrian Empire in the western and northern half and the Kingdom of Hungary. in the eastern half. The two halves shared a common monarch, who ruled as Emperor of Austria over the western and northern half portion and as King of Hungary over the eastern portion. Foreign relations and defense were managed jointly, and the two countries also formed a customs union. All other state functions were to be handled separately by each of the two states.
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