to this effect was introduced
by them in the diet at the end of 1886, but since 1882 the Germans had been
in a minority. The Czechs, of course, refused even to consider it; it would
have cut away the ground on which their whole policy was built up, namely,
the indissoluble unity of the Bohemian kingdom, in which German and Czech
should throughout be recognized as equal and parallel languages. It was
rejected on a motion of Prince Karl Schwarzenberg without discussion, and
on this all the Germans rose and left the diet, thereby imitating the
action of the Czechs in old days when they had the majority.

[Sidenote: New German parties.]

These events produced a great change on the character of the German
opposition. It became more and more avowedly racial; the defence of German
nationality was put in the front of their programme. The growing national
animosity added bitterness to political life, and destroyed the possibility
of a strong homogeneous party on which a government might depend. The
beginning of this movement can be traced back to the year 1870. About that
time a party of young Germans had arisen who professed to care little for
constitutionalism and other "legal mummies," but made the preservation and
extension of their own nationality their sole object. As is so often the
case in Austria, the movement began in the university of Vienna, where a
_Leseverein_ (reading club) of German students was formed as a point of
cohesion for Germans, which had eventually to be suppressed. The first
representative of the movement in parliament was Herr von Schoenerer, who
did not scruple to declare that the Germans looked forward to union with
the German empire. They were strongly influenced by men outside Austria.
Bismarck was their national hero, the anniversary of Sedan their political
festival, and approximation to Germany was dearer to them than the
maintenance of Austria. After 1878 a heightening of racial feeling began
among the Radicals, and in 1881 all the German parties in opposition joined
together in a club called the United Left, and in their programme put in a
prominent place the defence of the position of the Germans as the condition
for the existence of the state, and demanded that German should be
expressly recognized as the official language. The younger and more ardent
spirits, however, found it difficult to work in harmony with the older
constitutional leaders. They complained that the party leaders were no