Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Administration in Habsburg Austria During the Badeni Riots of 1897 Cover

Administration in Habsburg Austria During the Badeni Riots of 1897

Administory
Volume 9 (2024): Issue 1 (December 2024)
By: David Smrček  
Open Access
|Jan 2026

References

  1. The paper is based on research from a dissertation project, “Street Politics and Collective Violence in Cisleithania in 1897,” at Charles University in Prague and the University of Vienna.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  2. Request of the District Captain in Pilsen Hansgirg about resumption of his leave from 9. 11. 1897, Archiv města Plzně (AMP), Presidium okresního hejtmanství (POH), Presidiální spisy (PS), inv. n. 1091, b. 24, n. 898/v.p.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  3. Similarly, Reports of police director Dörfel to Governor Coudenhove considering the police interventions during the December riots of 1897, Národní Archiv České republiky (NAČR), Governorship of Bohemia (GoB), Präsidiale (Präs.), 8/22/7/6, no. 722.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  4. Ronald J. Burke: Stress in policing. An overview, in: Ronald J. Burke (ed.): Stress in Policing. Sources, consequences and interventions, London / New York 2017, pp. 3–27, at p. 10.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  5. Quoted from Peter Urbanitsch: Verfassung und Verwaltung. Landesfürst und Stände, Politiker und Beamte, in: Oliver Kühschelm / Elisabeth Loinig / Stefan Eminger / Willibald Rosner (eds.): Niederösterreich im 19. Jahrhundert. Band 1. Herrschaft und Wirtschaft: eine Regionalgeschichte sozialer Macht, St. Pölten 2021, pp. 139–174 at p. 172.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  6. For example, see Catherine Horel: Multicultural Cities of the Habsburg Empire, 1880–1914: Imagined Communities and Conflictual Encounters, Budapest 2023, p. 24.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  7. Definition of operational and organisational stress, see for example Wolfgang Seibel et al: Verwaltungsresilienz unter Stressbedingungen, in: Der Moderne Staat [dms] – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management 15/1 (2022), pp. 109–129 at p. 110; Burke: Stress in Policing, pp. 3–27 at pp. 8–9.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  8. The political aspect, see, for example, Berthold Sutter: Die Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen von 1897: ihre Genesis und ihre Auswirkung vornehmlich auf die innerösterreichischen Alpenländer I., II., Graz / Köln 1960/1965; Jan Křen: Konfliktní společenství. Češi a Němci 1780–1918, Prague 42013, pp. 257–269; Otto Urban: Česká společnost 1848–1918, Prague 1982, pp. 456–465; Höbelt: Kornblume und Kaiseradler. Die deutschfreiheitlichen Parteien Altösterreichs 1882–1918, Vienna 1990, p. 172.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  9. For example, Michal Frankl: »Emancipace od židů«. Český antisemitismus na konci 19. století, Prague / Litomyšl 2007, pp. 251-271; Ester Neblich: Die Auswirkungen der Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen von 1897 auf die deutsche und tschechische Bevölkerung des historischen Egerlandes, Marburg 2002; Helena Krejčová: Pražský prosincový pogrom roku 1897, in: Helena Krejčová (ed.): Ponížení a odstrčení: města versus katastrofy, Praha 1998, pp. 73–78; Adéla Hall: Deutsch und Tschechisch im sprachenpolitischen Konflikt: eine vergleichende diskursanalytische Untersuchung zu den Sprachenverordnungen Badenis von 1897, Frankfurt am Main / Wien 2008; Nancy M. Wingfield: Flag Wars and Stone Saints. How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech, Cambridge 2007.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  10. For example, Jiří Klabouch: Die Gemeindeselbstverwaltung in Österreich 1848–1918, Vienna 1968.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  11. For example, Adam Wandruszka / Helmut Rumpler (eds.): Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918. 2, Verwaltung und Rechtswesen, Vienna 1975; Milan Hlavačka: Zlatý věk české samosprávy: samospráva a její vliv na hospodářský, sociální a intelektuální rozvoj Čech 1862–1913, Praha 2006; John David Deak: The Austrian Civil Service in an Age of Crisis: Power and the Politics of Reform, 1848–1925, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago 2009; Waltraud Heindl: Bürokratie und Beamte in Österreich. 2, Josephinische Mandarine: 1848 bis 1914, Vienna / Graz 2013.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  12. See Peter Urbanitsch: Bezirkshauptmänner in Böhmen zwischen Nation und Staat (anhand Wiener Quellen), in: Martin Klečacký (ed.): Úředník sluhou mnoha pánů? Nacionalizace a politizace veřejné správy ve střední Evropě 1848–1948, Prague 2018, pp. 11–42; Martin Klečacký: Poslušný vládce okresu. Okresní hejtman a proměny státní moci v Čechách v letech 1868–1938, Praha 2021; Martin Klečacký: A Municipality Against the State: Power Relations Between State and Local Self-Government Representatives, Based on the Example of Bohemia at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century, in: Acta Poloniae Historica 121 (2020), pp. 121–141; Claire Morelon: State Authorities, municipal forces and military intervention in the policing of strikes in Austria-Hungary, 1890–1914, in: Matteo Milan / Alessandro Saluppo: Corporate Policing, Yellow Unionism, and Strikebreaking, 1890–1930: In Defense of Freedom, London 2020, pp. 79–96.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  13. Gary B. Cohen: Nationalist Politics and the Dynamics of State and Civil Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867–1914, in: Central European History 40 (2007), pp. 241–278 at pp. 254–257.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  14. Urban: Česká společnost, pp. 460–463; Křen: Konfliktní společenství, pp. 259–260; Lothar Höbelt: Kornblume, pp. 156–160.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  15. Höbelt: Kornblume, p. 160.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  16. Described, for example, in Mark Twain: Stirring Times in Austria, in: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 96, (1898), pp. 530–540, online: Stirring Times in Austria - Wikisource, the free online library (03. 05. 2024).
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  17. Political situation, see Urban: Česká společnost, pp. 464–465; Křen: Konfliktní společenství, p. 265; Höbelt: Kornblume, pp. 162–166; Demonstrations and riots in Vienna and Graz, see Oliver Rathkolb: Gewalt und Antisemitismus an der Universität Wien und die Badeni-Krise 1897. Davor und danach, in: Oliver Rathkolb (ed.): Der lange Schatten des Antisemitismus, Göttingen 2013, pp. 69–92; Sutter: Die Badenischen Sprachverordnungen, II., pp. 176–230; John W. Boyer: Badeni and the Revolution of 1897, in: Lucile Dreidemy et al (eds.): Bananen, Cola, Zeitgeschichte: Oliver Rathkolb und das Lange 20. Jahrhundert, Wien 2016, pp. 69–84 at pp. 80–81; Boyer, Austria 1867–1955, Oxford 2022, pp. 323–324.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  18. Eger, see Wingfield: Flag Wars, pp. 53–57; Neblich: Die Auswirkungen der Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen, pp. 106–139.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  19. The files of the riots in different cities are to be found in: NAČR, GoB, Präs., 873/2, 8/1/13/1, boxes 2295 and 2296; Riots in Prague are in separate files, Ibid., 8/22/7, boxes 2554–2558.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  20. During demonstrations and riots in Prague in 1904, both municipal and state administration referred to riots of 1897, see for example Discussion of the Prague municipality and the Governorship from 1. 3. 1904, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA) – Allgemeine Verwaltungsarchiv (AVA) – Ministerium des Innern (MdI) – Präsidium (Präs.), b. 2091, nr. 3808.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  21. Klečacký: Poslušný vládce, p. 126; Klečacký: A Municipality against the State, pp. 124.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  22. Legal and administrative framework of the state and self-administration, see Lukáš Fasora / Pavel Kladiwa: Gemeindeverwaltung und lokale Eliten in den Böhmischen Ländern 1850–1918, Teilergebnisse der Forschung in der Tschechischen Republik, in: East Central Europe 33/1–2 (2006), pp. 337–369 at pp. 341–342; Klečacký: Poslušný vládce, pp. 30–31; Ibid., pp. 126–128; Klečacký: A Municipality Against the State, pp. 121–123; Gary B. Cohen: The Austrian Bureaucracy at the Nexus of State and Society, in: Franz Adlgasser / Fredrik Lindström (eds.): The Habsburg Civil Service and Beyond: Bureaucracy and Civil Servants from the Vormärz to the Inter-War Years, Vienna 2019, pp. 49–65 at p. 50; Urbanitsch: Verfassung und Verwaltung, pp. 164–168; Deak: Austrian Civil Service, p. 114.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  23. This constellation was valid for the whole of Habsburg Austria. The so-called statutory cities governed by separate municipal rules were the only places with a different system. These towns – in Bohemia, only Prague and Reichenberg/Liberec – were directly subordinated to the Land Committee [Landesausschuss] in the matters of self-government and to the Crownland Governorship in the issues of delegated agenda. Consequently, the municipal councils acted not only as the executive body of the self-administration but also as the lowest instance of the state authorities (instead of a district captain), see Jan Novotný: Projekt provincie »Deutschböhmen« v ambicích liberecké radnice do roku 1914, in: Documenta Pragensia XIV: Mezi liberalismem a totalitou: Komunální politika ve středoevropských zemích 1848–1918, Praha 1997, pp. 183–192 at p. 184.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  24. Cohen: The Austrian Bureaucracy, p. 50; Pavel Kladiwa: The Birth of Czech Nationalist Activism in Reichenberg (Liberec) and its Conflicts with the City Hall (with a focus on the conflict during the 1890 census, in: Prager wirtschafts- und sozialhistorische Mitteilungen = Prague Economic and Social History Papers 22/2 2015, pp. 7–26 at p. 13.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  25. Nationalisation, see Jiří Malíř: Nacionalizace obecní samosprávy a limity demokratizace komunální politiky před rokem 1914 na příkladu Moravy, in: Documenta Pragensia XIV, pp. 73–93 at pp. 73–85.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  26. Klečacký: A Municipality against the State, p. 123.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  27. Ibid., p. 123; Urbanitsch: Bezirkshauptmänner in Böhmen, p. 12; Deak: Austrian Civil Service, pp. 268–274.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  28. Klečacký: Poslušný vládce okresu, pp. 154–156; Similarly, Die Volkstage des Jahres 1897 in Eger, in Státní Okresní Archiv (SOkA) Cheb, Fond 14, inventory number (i.n.) 3; Similarly, Heindl: Josephinische Mandarine, pp. 116–118.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  29. Klečacký: Poslušný vládce okresu, pp. 159.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  30. Quotes and the information about Asch from Urbanitsch: Bezirkshauptmänner in Böhmen, p. 35; See also, Klečacký: Poslušný vládce okresu, p. 156.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  31. Urbanitsch: Bezirkshauptmänner in Böhmen, p. 35.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  32. Cooperation in Louny, see File titled »Laun« in NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, b. 2296, n. 17384/1897; Quoted from Ibid., 18460/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  33. Petr Kučera: Spolková činnost druhé poloviny 19. století v Lounech jako příklad rozvoje občanské společnosti a její vliv na činnost městského zastupitelstva, unpublished master’s thesis, University of Hradec Králové 2017, pp. 31–32; Michal Navrátil: Almanach československých právníků: životopisný slovník čs. právníků, kteří působili v umění, vědě, krásném písemnictví a politice od Karla IV. počínaje až na naše doby: k III. sjezdu čs. právníků v Bratislavě, Prague 1930, p. 154.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  34. Badeni’s concern about associations, see Letter to Bacquehem from 2. 7. 1897, see Landesarchiv Steiermark (LAS), Statthalterei, Präsidium (SP), Aktengruppe (AG) 8, box 364, Fasz. 5 – 4089 – Vereine, n. 5375/1897; Censoring of media, see Report of the Police Director in Prague about the censoring of Prague journals, see NAČR, PM 1891–1900, 8/22/7, b. 2556, n. 18827/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  35. Events of the »Egerer Volkstag«, see Die Volkstage des Jahres 1897 in Eger, SOkA Cheb, F. 14, i. n. 3; Neblich: Die Auswirkungen der Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen, pp. 106–139; Wingfield: Flag Wars, pp. 53–57.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  36. Klečacký: Poslušný vládce okresu, p. 309–310.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  37. Neblich: Die Auswirkungen der Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen, pp. 113–139; Štěpán Karel Odstrčil: Politická krajina historického Chebska v letech 1897–1907, unpublished Master’s Thesis. Masaryk’s University in Brno 2015, pp. 23–24.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  38. Luboš Velek: Rozvíjení české samosprávy jako náhrady neexistujícího státu a jako předstupně státní samostatnosti, in: Lukáš Fasora (ed.): Občanské elity a obecní samospráva 1848-1948, Brno 2006, pp. 146–151; Jiří Malíř: Samospráva jako prostředek poslanecké kariéry, in: Ibid.: pp. 152–164; Klečacký: A Municipality against the State, p. 122.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  39. Ibid., pp. 122–123.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  40. Quoted from the Report of the District Hauptmann about the events of 27. and 28. 11. 1897, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, n. 16928/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  41. Ibid.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  42. Quoted from Report of the District Captain in Königgrätz from 3. 12. 1897, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, b. 2295, n. 17351/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  43. Ibid.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  44. Other similar cases were, for example, the autumn demonstrations in Reichenberg, where Magistrate Official Ringelhaan persuaded the people to calmly disperse, Ibid., b. 2296, n. 16944/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  45. Weber’s approach, see Statement of Weber about his activities in Pilsen, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/15/4, b. 2316, n. 13080; Report about the military assistance from 2. 12. 1897, Ibid., n. 17302; Report of Hansgirg to the Governor of Bohemia about the military interventions from 4. 9. 1897, Ibid., n. 12656; Complaints of the Municipal Council and Peták, see Ibid., n. 875; Report about the deterioration of the relations between the citizens of Pilsen and the military from 10. 9. 1897, Archiv města Plzně, Presidium okresního hejtmanství, Presidiální spisy, inventory number 1091, b. 24, n. 909/v.p.; Complaint about the behavior of the Police Referent Josef Schmidt from 7. 9. 1897, Ibid., n. 908/v.p.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  46. Complaint of Hansgirg about the failing cooperation of the mayor’s office from 27. 12. 1897, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/15/4, b. 2316, n. 18970.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  47. Quoted from Discussion about Schmied’s behavior, see Answer of Hansgirg to the Governor of Bohemia about Schmied’s behavior, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/15/4, b. 2316, n. 1320.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  48. Ibid.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  49. Morelon: State Authorities, pp. 80–81.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  50. Hermann Oberhummer: Die Wiener Polizei. Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte des Sicherheitswesens in den Ländern der ehemaligen Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie. Band I., Vienna 1937, pp. 265–268.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  51. Richard Georg Plaschka: Innere Front: Militärassistenz, Widerstand und Umsturz in der Donaumonarchie 1918, Bd. 1, Zwischen Streik und Meuterei, Reprint 2014, Köln 2015, pp. 21–25.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  52. Morelon: State Authorities, p. 83.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  53. Lohr Eugene Miller: Politics, the Nationality Problem, and the Habsburg Army, 1848–1914, unpublished PhD thesis, Louisiana State University 1992, pp. 201–202.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  54. For example, the District Captain Steinfeld complaint in Slaný/Schlan to the Governor of Bohemia from 21. 12. 1897, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, b. 2296, ad 18743/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  55. Miller: Politics, the Nationality Problem, and the Habsburg Army, p. 201.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  56. Quoted from Report of the District Captain in Tetschen about the security in the city from 10. 12. 1897, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, b. 2296, n. 17695.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  57. Riots in Tetschen, see Report of the gendarmerie in Tetschen, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, b. 2296, n. 17877/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  58. Report of the District Captain of Tetschen from 10. 12. 1897, Ibid., n. 17695/1897; Answer to the interpellation of MP Jandourek from 13. 3. 1898, Ibid., n. 4478/1898.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  59. Phone report of the District Captain in Brüx from 28. 11. 1897, Ibid., b. 2295, 16950/1897; Response of the District Captain in Brüx to the interpellation of the MP Černohorský and his colleagues, Ibid., ad. 1840/1898.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  60. Report of the District Captain in Aussig from 29. 11. 1897, Ibid., n. 17547; Report of the District Captain in Saaz about the behavior of the municipality, Ibid., b. 2295, n. 1123/1898; Riots in Rakovník, see Report of the District Captain Pablasko in Rakovník from 4. 12. 1897, Ibid., n. 17452/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  61. Worries of the District Captain Blach in Gabel about the development in Zwickau, see Ibid., b. 2295, n. 17153/1897.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  62. See, for example, Peter Urbanitsch: Bürgerliche Eliten, Modernisierung, und Wertewandel in Klein- und Mittelstädten Cisleithaniens 1848–1918, in: Lukáš Fasora (ed.): Občanské elity a obecní samospráva 1848–1948, Brno 2006, pp. 49–65 at pp. 56–57; Miloslava Melanová: Zápas o libereckou radnici v roce 1885. Formování německého nacionálního hnutí v Čechách, in: Documenta Pragensia XIV (1997), pp. 171–180.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  63. Which happened in Asch, see Urbanitsch: Bezirkshauptmänner in Böhmen, p. 35; Klečacký, Poslušný vládce, pp. 309–311.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  64. Klečacký: Vládce okresu, p. 311.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  65. Sutter: Die Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen, pp. 233–236.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  66. Gemeindeordnung für das Königreich Böhmen, quoted from Landesgesetzblatt Böhmen 1848–1918 (1864), 14, online: https://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?aid=lbo&datum=1864&page=58&size=45 (2. 7. 2024).
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  67. Such as in Saaz, Report about the reimbursement of the damages in Saaz from 29. 4. 1898, NAČR, GoB, Präs., 8/1/13/1, b. 2296, n. 6957.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  68. Graf’s behavior, see Bacquehem’s criticism of Graf’s appeal to the citizens of Graz, see LAS, SP, AG 8, box 364, n. 3819/1897; Bacquehem’s complaint to Gautsch about Graf’s behavior, Ibid., 3932/1897; Graf’s defense from 1. 12. 1897, ÖStA, Kriegsarchiv, Zentralstellen, Kriegsministerium und Militärliquidierungsamt, Präsidialbüro, b. 1031, 52-26/6 ad 3; Dissolution of the municipal council, see Sutter: Die Badenischen Sprachenverordnungen, p. 230.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  69. Quoted from Armin Sippel: Der Grazer Gemeinderat und seine Bürgermeister von 1850 bis 1919, unpublished Master’s Thesis, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz 2010, pp. 109–110.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  70. Sippel: Der Grazer Gemeinderat, pp. 109–110; See also Martin Moll: Wohltätigkeitsfeste, Fahnenschmuck und Militärmusik: Konfliktfelder zwischen steirischem Deutschnationalismus und kaiserlichem Statthalter um 1900, in: Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereines für Steiermark Jahrgang 95 2004, pp. 255–282 at pp. 257–258.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  71. Klečacký: Poslušný vládce, pp. 135–151; Heindl: Josephinische Mandarine, pp. 99–105.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  72. Klečacký: A Municipality against the State, pp. 139–140.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
  73. Morelon: State Authorities, p. 91.
    Search in Google ScholarBack to article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/adhi-2024-0004 | Journal eISSN: 2519-1187
Journal RSS Feed
Language: English
Page range: 42 - 58
Published on: Jan 22, 2026
Published by: University of Vienna
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year
Related subjects:
History,
Topics in history,
Constitutional and legal history,
Topics in history, other,
Law,
Public law,
Public law, other,
Social sciences,
Political science,
Local government and administration

© 2026 David Smrček, published by University of Vienna
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Previous articleVolume 9 (2024): Issue 1 (December 2024)Next article