ld be made effective, it
was too late. On the 7th of October the emperor Ferdinand had fled from
Schoenbrunn to Olmuetz, a Slav district, whence he issued a proclamation
inviting whoever loved "Austria and freedom" to rally round the throne. On
the 11th Windischgraetz proclaimed his intention of marching against
rebellious Vienna, and on the 16th an imperial rescript appointed him a
field-marshal and commander-in-chief of all the Austrian armies except that
of Italy. Meanwhile, of the Reichsrath, the members of the Right and the
Slav majority had left Vienna and announced a meeting of the diet at Bruenn
for the 20th of October; all that remained in the capital was a rump of
German radicals, impotent in the hands of the proletariat and the students.
The defence of the city was hastily organized under Bern, an ex-officer of
Napoleon; but in the absence of help from Hungary it was futile. On the
28th of October Windischgraetz began his attack; on the 1st of November he
was master of the city.

The fall of revolutionary Vienna practically involved that of the
revolution in Frankfort and in Pest. From Italy the congratulations of
Radetzky's victorious army came to Windischgraetz, from Russia the even
more significant commendations of the emperor Nicholas. The moral of the
victory was painted for all the world by the military execution of Robert
Blum, whose person, as a deputy of the German parliament, should have been
sacrosanct. The time had, indeed, not yet come to attempt any conspicuous
breach with the constitutional principle; but the new ministry was such as
the imperial sentiment would approve, inimical to the German ideals of
Frankfort, devoted to the traditions of the Habsburg monarchy. At its head
was Prince Felix Schwarzenberg (_q.v._), the "army-diplomat," a statesman
at once strong and unscrupulous. On the 27th of November a proclamation
announced that the continuation of Austria as a united state was necessary
both for Germany and for Europe. [Sidenote: Accession of Francis Joseph,
1848] On the 2nd of December the emperor Ferdinand, bound by too many
personal obligations to the revolutionary parties to serve as a useful
instrument for the new policy, abdicated, and his nephew Francis Joseph
ascended the throne. The proclamation of the new emperor was a gage of
defiance thrown down to Magyars and German unionists alike: "Firmly
determined to preserve undimmed the lustre of our crown," it ran, "but
prepared to sha