Austria

Austria, although the biggest state in the Bund, belonged to it only by virtue of her western provinces, where the German language predominated, and even here there were non-German minorities. Almost 80% of the inhabitants of the Austrian Empire, to which all the lands of the House of Austria belonged and which was named after it, ¹ were non-Germans. In 1846 the Empire comprised 40.7% Slavs, 21.6% Italians and Rumanians, 21% Germans and 16.7% Magyars. But both the Slavs and the Romanic peoples were divided into different nationalities and there were about a dozen distinct peoples in all. Thus, no one people had an absolute majority or even the possibility of joining with a closely related nationality to obtain one. Many of them were economically and culturally backward; some, indeed, had not fully developed their language and these were for the most part in countries where the Germans were paramount. The situation of these various nationalities will be dealt with later in more detail; suffice it to say at this point that in the period under review national consciousness developed in nearly all of them. The conduct of foreign policy lay in the hands of Metternich until the revolution of 1848, while in internal affairs his rival Count Kolowrat gradually acquired decisive influence, and, in matters touching the police and censorship. Count Sedlnitzky. Their policy aimed at keeping the peace, fighting revolutionary movements everywhere in concert with the great powers and suppressing liberalism in the Bund as far as possible, but after the Congress of Vienna revolutionary movements sprang up in all the countries of southern Europe.