46 DYNASTIC EMPIRE, c. 1765-1867
in 1783, 'all the rivalries and prejudices which have been the cause of so many quarrels between province and province, nation and nation must cease. One thought should fill the nvind.'G But for some years Joseph refrained from major initiatives outside his Austro-Bohemian lands. Then, in spring 1784, he launched several lines of policy more, or less together. The crown of St Stephen, symbol of Hungarian so'ver- , ■■■< eignty - thoughjosephhad declined to be crowned, to avoid the con- ]■■. stitutional oath - was brought from Pressburg castle to Vienna, reportedly to the sound of thunderclaps in the offended heavens. A ^ Hungarian census was ordered as groundwork ibr the introduction of/E the Austrian system of military conscription, but since censuses were I; conventionally concerned with the assessment of taxable resources the 1 unprecedented inclusion ofhitherto untaxed nobles in the count made it still more ominous. In addition, German replaced Latin as Hun*:! gary's administrative language, all officials being given three yearsj| to learn it. Resistance to these innovations was immediate and deep, and included the Hungarian Chancellor himself, to whom .Joseph . scathingly replied that he would not be put off by side noises. .Hell showed the same intransigence to the Tyrol where the military cpijgff scriptiou system was also being introduced for the first time. §j Initially, the hard line appeared to work. The disorder predictejil by Joseph's advisers did not occur or rather, it came from a diflerenfjf quarter, from Transylvanian Romanian peasants under Horea,J§i peasant himself who had met Joseph and claimed to be acting iuhisli name against the unjust lords. Their rising, easily crushed, led Joseph! to extend his abolition of persona! serfdom to Hungary (17855-jf Flushed with success he now turned against the Hungarian counties;-'! forbidding their assemblies to meet without his permission ;land:I making their deputy sheriffs government nominees, subordinatej&Htj§ new network often Royal Commissioners. The year 1784-85:islhel turning-point in Joseph's reign, when initiatives piled on each.qtpif in domestic and foreign affairs. Judging by letters to his brother Leo*| pold Joseph interpreted this period very much along the lines oflNI pro-Enlightenment Journal General de 1'Europe in 1785: §
It is not surprising that the reforms are undergoing contradieiiwHsi and giving rise to rnurmurings. But an enlightened and linn guy-... eminent sets itself above such murmurings and continuestpiatfllifi to the people's weal despite themselves.7
Later events were to show such nonchalance was premature.;.:.-!*:
JOSEPH II AND HIS LEGACY 47 The Crisis of Enlightened Absolutism - to 1795
In the middle years of Joseph's reign, while domestic opposition fumed inwardly, the foreign pot began to bubble. That Joseph's !;:.-i;:reforms were intended primarily to strengthen the state as the instru-Siiirhehtofhis own martial glory has been a commonplace first voiced by ^contemporaries. Was this not Frederick the Great's notorious rival, ;=:i;iwho said on his final leave-taking with his troops that his first desire
had always been to be a soldier? Mfe'lYet:as so often with this complex man everything is not quite as it llmight seem. Joseph's letters from the campaign trail of the War of ■'l-'Bavarian Succession (1778-79) breathe a spirit of repugnance for ll|v!ar, 'a horrible thing ... much worse than I had visualised ... the IliJuiirof so many innocent people'.8 Foreign diplomats in the 1780s llSieved that his martial appetite was in decline. It is likely, as with llhSSlifavburite general Lacy, that Joseph was always more military Iflijh^tnistrator than pugnacious warlord, a man whose travels had KEoldfiim that Hungarian linen socks issued to Austro-German Iroops gave them blisters and much more of the same. He had, it |s|ems;:no master plan in foreign affairs but sought: opportunistically llllpj-ofit from events to consolidate his territories. Here a key theme of sKShian policy applied, the need voiced by the great Habsburg gen-|§HljiErince Eugen of Savoy (1663-1736) to round off the scattered iiiiiperial lands. Thus the Austrian Netherlands and even Galicia imHir&seenas potentially dispensable, while gains in Bavaria remained ||l||nost attractive goal, as the war of 1 778-79 had indicated. l(H|;n|heidiplomatic setting for these rather indefinite-'purposes left rtBlBihing to be desired. Prussia under Frederick II appeared an irre-||§|plab]e foe. France, which had replaced Britain as Austria's ally |§lU:r the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, remained a fickle friend, itterasunder Catherine II, the other potential ally, was disconcert-is'utijly expansionist towards enfeebled Poland and Turkey. In these Ijpiprnstances the defensive agreement concluded with Russia in |||il:f :78 Lcame to dominate the reign. 11 seemed to otter Austria pro-iSK&against Prussia and the chance either to contain or profit from a£bdtarinc's designs. In fact, the. limits on Austria's freedom of action M||i!Sisd;by her anti-Prussian fixation made her the weaker partner iHlfealliance.and besides, eighteenth-century enlightened statecraft IjHH little value on the depopulated, impoverished Balkan lands Aus-jjjlllpwjujd have gained from a partition of Turkey. Whether acqui-r-jliigpSias;,. .Serbia and Bosnia at that time would have made the