Europe Since 1815

te. But the nineteenth century was to see their leadership contested and gradually weakened by the rise of strong national and race movements in Hungary and Bohemia. The Slavs formed the majority of the population of the entire empire, but they were not homogeneous, were geographically scattered, were in civilization inferior, and were for the time quiescent. To rule so conglomerate a realm of twenty-eight or Policy of twenty-nine million people was a task of great difficulty. rrancil J This was the first problem of Francis I (1792-1835) and jjetternlcli. Metternich. Their policy in the main was to keep things as they were. To innovate was to enter a lane that might know no turning. They made no attempt to reform the government. They allowed the various parts of the political machine to continue, lacking as it was in symmetry and in efficiency. This machinery was both chaotic and unscientific. There was no central, coherent cabinet, or group of ministers. There were, of course, various departments, but some had jurisdiction over the whole empire, some only over parts. In any case the boundaries were not carefully defined. Government was exceedingly slow, cumbrous, disjointed, inefficient. Austria was now the classic land of the old regime. Her Austria a boundaries had been repeatedly changed at the hands of an Napoleon, but the internal structure of the state and of society had remained unaltered. The people were sharply divided into classes, each resting on ...