e crowned or to take the oath
of the local constitutions, and divided the whole monarchy into thirteen
departments, to be governed under a uniform system. In ecclesiastical
matters his policy was also that of "reform from above," the complete
subordination of the clergy to the state, and the severance of all
effective ties with Rome. This treatment of the "Fakirs and Ulemas" (as he
called them in his letters), who formed the most powerful element in the
monarchy, would alone have ensured the failure of his plans, but failure
was made certain by the introduction of the conscription, which turned even
the peasants, whom he had done much to emancipate, against him. The
threatened revolt of Hungary, and the actual revolt of Tirol and of the
Netherlands (see BELGIUM: _History_) together with the disasters of the war
with Turkey, forced him, before he died, to the formal reversal of the
whole policy of reform.

In his foreign policy Joseph II. had been scarcely less unhappy. In 1784 he
had resumed his plan of acquiring Bavaria for Austria by negotiating with
the elector Charles Theodore its exchange for the Netherlands, which were
to be erected for his benefit into a "Kingdom of Burgundy." The elector was
not unwilling, but the scheme was wrecked by the opposition of the heir to
the Bavarian throne, the duke of Zweibruecken, in response to whose appeal
Frederick the Great formed, on the 23rd of July 1785, a confederation of
German princes (_Fuerstenbund_) for the purpose of opposing the threatened
preponderance of Austria. Prussia was thus for the first time formally
recognized as the protector of the German states against Austrian ambition,
and had at the same time become the centre of an anti-Austrian alliance,
which embraced Sweden, Poland and the maritime powers. In these
circumstances the war with Turkey, on which Joseph embarked, in alliance
with Russia, in 1788, would hardly have been justified by the most
brilliant success. The first campaign, however, which he conducted in
person was a dismal failure; the Turks followed the Austrian army,
disorganized by disease, across the Danube, and though the transference of
the command to the veteran marshal Loudon somewhat retrieved the initial
disasters, his successes were more than counterbalanced by the alliance,
concluded on the 31st of January 1790, between Prussia and Turkey. Three
weeks later, on the 20th of February 1790, Joseph died broken-hearted.

[Sidenote: Leopold