The European revolutionary movement of 1848 primarily took the form of a

class conflict in almost every other country, but in Austria it took the

form of a new racial struggle. In so far as the German-Austrians there

forgot the origins of the movement, or perhaps had failed to recognize

them at the start and consequently took part in the revolutionary

uprising, they sealed their own fate. For they thus helped to awaken the

spirit of Western Democracy which, within a short while, shattered the

foundations of their own existence.

The setting up of a representative parliamentary body, without insisting

on the preliminary that only one language should be used in all public

intercourse under the State, was the first great blow to the

predominance of the German element in the Dual Monarchy. From that

moment the State was also doomed to collapse sooner or later. All that

followed was nothing but the historical liquidation of an Empire.