emanding the establishment of separate banks for
Austria and Hungary with, at most, common superintendence (see _History_,
below).

(O. BR.)

HISTORY

I. _The Whole Monarchy._

[Illustration]

[Sidenote: The title "Emperor of Austria."]

The empire of Austria, as the official designation of the territories ruled
by the Habsburg monarchy, dates back only to 1804, when Francis II., the
last of the Holy Roman emperors, proclaimed himself emperor of Austria as
Francis I. His motive in doing so was to guard against the great house of
Habsburg being relegated to a position inferior to the _parvenus_
Bonapartes, in the event of the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, or
of the possible election of Napoleon as his own successor on the throne of
Charlemagne. The title emperor of Austria, then, replaced that of
"Imperator Romanorum semper Augustus" when the Holy Empire came to an end
in 1806. From the first, however, it was no more than a title, which
represented but ill the actual relation of the Habsburg sovereigns to their
several states. [v.03 p.0005] Magyars and Slavs never willingly recognized
a style which ignored their national rights and implied the superiority of
the German elements of the monarchy; to the Germans it was a poor
substitute for a title which had represented the political unity of the
German race under the Holy Empire. For long after the Vienna Congress of
1814-1815 the "Kaiser" as such exercised a powerful influence over the
imaginations of the German people outside the Habsburg dominions; but this
was because the title was still surrounded with its ancient halo and the
essential change was not at once recognized. The outcome of the long
struggle with Prussia, which in 1866 finally broke the spell, and the
proclamation of the German empire in 1871 left the title of emperor of
Austria stripped of everything but a purely territorial significance. It
had, moreover, by the compact with Hungary of 1867, ceased even fully to
represent the relation of the emperor to all his dominions; and the title
which had been devised to cover the whole of the Habsburg monarchy sank
into the official style of the sovereign of but a half; while even within
the Austrian empire proper it is resented by those peoples which, like the
Bohemians, wish to obtain the same recognition of their national
independence as was conceded to Hungary. In placing the account of the
origin and development of the Habsburg monarchy unde