Hardening of the Fronts: The Czech Demand for the Bohemian Compromise

This led to a hardening of the fronts between the two linguistic groups in the country. The Czech demand for Bohemia’s autonomy was rejected by the Bohemian Germans, who would have then been put in the position of an ethnic minority. The representatives of the centralist German-liberal camp forming the Government spoke out for the retention of the status quo, according to which the Czechs would be granted national rights on the local level, but the Bohemian lands would still be ruled from Vienna. The demands of the German nationals were more radical; they wanted a partition of Bohemia according to ethnic principles and planned annexation of the German-speaking parts of the country to the German-speaking Danube and Alpine lands and Germany. Thus was in turn rejected by the Czechs, who insisted upon the historical borders and saw themselves as the majority population and bearers of Bohemian statehood.

The controversy surrounding the Bohemian question subsequently became the determinant theme in Cisleithania. The Czech members in the Imperial Council hindered cooperation with the Government through their obstruction politics. Participation in political affairs in the Imperial Council was spent in reading protest notes and the subsequent demonstrative withdrawal from the sessions, which in the long run led to an isolation of the Czechs in the Imperial Council.

After the collapse of the liberal Government in 1871, Hohenwarth’s more intensively federalist-oriented cabinet attempted a détente with the Czechs. This led to secret negotiations with the top representatives of the Czech political scene. The outcome materialised in the Bohemian Fundamental Articles, which manifested a distinctly positive approach to Czech demands. It contained acknowledgement of Bohemian statehood within its historical borders and widespread equality of Czechs with the Germans in the Bohemian lands. The outcome would have been a kind of “Compromise”.

However, this Compromise foundered on the opposition of the Germans not only in the Bohemian lands, but also in the whole of Cisleithania. Massive solidarity actions erupted in all German-speaking areas of Austria. Even the Magyars spoke emphatically against the dilution of Dualism. After this repeated attempt to achieve a Bohemian Compromise had foundered, for the Czechs it meant the end of collaboration with the empire of Austria.

Translation: Abigail Prohaska