Note 679 — INDEX

Footnote 679: The forcefully expressed view of an eminent Austrian authority, written during the parliamentary deadlock which marked the close of the last century, is of interest. "His [Taaffe's] prolonged ministry had decisive effects upon the political life of Austria. It rendered forever impossible a return to Germanizing centralism. It filled the administrative hierarchy with Slavs, who, remaining Slavs, placed at the service of their national propaganda their official influence. In combatting the Liberal party it restored the power of the court, of the aristocracy, of the Church, and it facilitated the obnoxious restoration of clericalism, by which Austria to-day is dominated. It at the same time aroused and corrupted the nationalities and the parties. It habituated them to give rein unceasingly to their ambitions and to seek to attain them less by their own force and labor than by intrigue. The public demoralization, illustrated to-day so clearly by the Austrian crisis, is properly the result of the Taaffe system." M. L. Eisenmann, in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Générale, XII., 177.(Back)