AHC/WI: More successful Josephinism

So I've been toying around with doing an Enlightenment TL and came across Josephinism, the name for the collective reforms by Emperor Joseph II. Now reading what his goals were, Joseph II's reforms would have been the best thing for the long-term continuation of the Austrian Empire. Sadly he attempted too many reforms to quickly and was ultimately forced to resend them, dieing failed and broken at the relatively young age of 48.

So is there a way to make Josephinism stick and transform Austria from a confederation of various nations and nationalities dominated by feudal landowners and various minorities into a (quoting from wikipedia) "unitary state, with a centralized, efficient government, rational and mostly secular society, with greater degrees of equality and freedom, and fewer arbitrary feudal institutions."

I've had a few ideas myself on the topic and thought to try and get opinions on them.

1. Have Joseph II's beloved first wife, Isabella of Parma not catch smallpox, and live to bare a son. This might seem like an odd POD but looking at it from a physiological point of view, Joseph II reminds me a bit of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Joseph had no son, his heir was his brother Leopold, so it seems to me he wanted to get as much done as he possibly could before he died, hoping that they could stick so Leopold wouldn't undo them (as he ultimately did). As I said earlier, similar to Pedro II. Pedro's lack of a son caused him to become apathetic to the Imperial institution and when pushed came to shove, gave up the Empire instead of fighting for it. Now with having a son and heir, could Joseph slow down the pace of his reforms, content in the knowledge that his son would continue the reforms?

2. Have Joseph IIs' health not be ruined in his participation in the Austro-Turkish war of 1787-91, thus living longer. Would a longer lived Joseph, with no ruined health I might add, attempt to continue his reforms, perhaps slowing the pace of them a bit, but continuing non-the-less?

Any other ideas are welcome.:)
 
A neat idea, but frankly a longer lived Joseph might make things worse. By the time he died, Belgium had revolted, the Hungarians were toying with offering a Prussian monarch their crown, etc.
 

Vitruvius

Donor
Joseph had no son, his heir was his brother Leopold, so it seems to me he wanted to get as much done as he possibly could before he died, hoping that they could stick so Leopold wouldn't undo them (as he ultimately did). As I said earlier, similar to Pedro II. Pedro's lack of a son caused him to become apathetic to the Imperial institution and when pushed came to shove, gave up the Empire instead of fighting for it. Now with having a son and heir, could Joseph slow down the pace of his reforms, content in the knowledge that his son would continue the reforms?

I don't think that's really a fair assessment. Leopold was himself quite the reformer, look at what he did in Tuscany. But he was a little more pragmatic perhaps because he had been burned himself by pushing to hard. His reforms of the church (opponents characterized them as attacks) caused a major uproar and threatened to undo everything else he accomplished so he backed off. I think he realized that his brother went too far too fast.

Leopold's example is also instructive in that it shows major structural reforms are possible but not in all areas at the same time. His reform of the grain trade and taxation system was dramatic and bore great fruit for Tuscany but also trying to reform the role of the church at the same time was too much. So too for Austria. Plus the entrenched power structures of the historical states, the traditional autonomy of the Kingdom of Hungary for example made the task of centralizing the state even harder.

So perhaps if Joseph focused on a particular area, political, economic, social/cultural/religious and not all at once he could have accomplished more.
 
I don't think that's really a fair assessment. Leopold was himself quite the reformer, look at what he did in Tuscany. But he was a little more pragmatic perhaps because he had been burned himself by pushing to hard. His reforms of the church (opponents characterized them as attacks) caused a major uproar and threatened to undo everything else he accomplished so he backed off. I think he realized that his brother went too far too fast.

Leopold's example is also instructive in that it shows major structural reforms are possible but not in all areas at the same time. His reform of the grain trade and taxation system was dramatic and bore great fruit for Tuscany but also trying to reform the role of the church at the same time was too much. So too for Austria. Plus the entrenched power structures of the historical states, the traditional autonomy of the Kingdom of Hungary for example made the task of centralizing the state even harder.

So perhaps if Joseph focused on a particular area, political, economic, social/cultural/religious and not all at once he could have accomplished more.

No it is a fair assessment. Leopold did do a lot for Tuscany, I'll fully admit that. But Tuscany is not the Habsburg Empire. Doing reforms in what amounts to a mini-state would be much easier then doing so in a mufti-ethnic nightmare that was Austria. Leopold did pretty much everything he could to undo Joseph's reforms. Undoing Joseph II's attempted Centralization was a huge setback in the Empire. It also taught the Hungarians, and to a lesser extent the Bohemians, that if you kick up enough of a fight, Vienna would back down. It was a dangerous lesson that reverberated throughout the 19th century and a bit into the 20th.

As for the Church, well thats the one area Leopold stayed true in. For instance, no Papal bull could be published in his Lands with his consent.
 
Most of his reforms would have been accpeted had he not insisted on implementation German as the official language. That action was the spark that ignited Hungarian, Czech and Croatian nationalism. Keep latin as official language (in other words a neutral language) and other reofrms might work.
 
Most of his reforms would have been accpeted had he not insisted on implementation German as the official language. That action was the spark that ignited Hungarian, Czech and Croatian nationalism. Keep latin as official language (in other words a neutral language) and other reofrms might work.

That could work. Did implementing German as the official language really cause that much opposition or was it merely the straw the broke the camels back? If it was the former then Perhaps Latin could be kept, with German being used for the language or government? Or something to that effect.
 
It caused a major scare that the Emperor was trying to turn them into germans apart from taking away some of their previously held liberties in other words threatening their national survivals. The general population mostly couldn't care less about the loss of some privilegies of the nobility but the language thing stroke a cord and gave them a common ground with the nobility to resist the reforms.
 
It caused a major scare that the Emperor was trying to turn them into germans apart from taking away some of their previously held liberties in other words threatening their national survivals. The general population mostly couldn't care less about the loss of some privilegies of the nobility but the language thing stroke a cord and gave them a common ground with the nobility to resist the reforms.

Ah makes sense. So maybe with less obvious centralization and language changes we could see more successful prolongation of the Reforms. Personally I think strippig the Hungarians of their "special privileges" would be a very good think, especially in retrospect. The Hungarians did pretty much cause the end of the Austrian Empire by their pigheadedness and shortsightedness. So braking up the Magyar landed nobility's power and perhaps estates would be a very good thing.
 
He would also have to give up his excessive micromanagement of all areas of his subjects' private lives, in some cases going as far as regulating how many candles people were allowed to light during obsequies for their departed relatives as well as his benevolent, but rather antidemocratic attitude of "everything for the people, but nothing through the people".
 
He would also have to give up his excessive micromanagement of all areas of his subjects' private lives, in some cases going as far as regulating how many candles people were allowed to light during obsequies for their departed relatives as well as his benevolent, but rather antidemocratic attitude of "everything for the people, but nothing through the people".

Really? Laws about how many candles? Do you have a cite for that because that sounds a bit farfetched. And as for antidemocratic, well what era do you think this is? There was no democratic state in Europe during the age of Enlightenment. The closest you would get is Britain and even that was a very limited form of democracy. Truthfully democracy matter little in this era.
 
Most of his reforms would have been accpeted had he not insisted on implementation German as the official language. That action was the spark that ignited Hungarian, Czech and Croatian nationalism. Keep latin as official language (in other words a neutral language) and other reofrms might work.

While Latin still had an important status in the church and even parts the government (it was the lingua franca of the Kingdom of Hungary's government until the 1830s), it doesn't exactly strike me as a great command language, The fact there are so many nationalities means there needs to be some sort of overall command language amongst the officers, but also for the soldiers -- typically in this time recruits were taught basic phrases so they knew when fire, what to do tactically, ect. There is the dubious story of the Battle of Karánsebes (where essentially the Austrian army defeated it's self because of confusion in the ranks and language barriers), but it was still a very real issue that when dealing with so many languages you do need one for branches such as the military. If Joseph hadn't been so heavy handed in basically demanding all government business be handled in German (thus leaving the respective states of the empire, Hungary especially) to continue operating as they do, I think he'd be able to sell German as at least the official language of the army.
 
Really? Laws about how many candles? Do you have a cite for that because that sounds a bit farfetched. And as for antidemocratic, well what era do you think this is? There was no democratic state in Europe during the age of Enlightenment. The closest you would get is Britain and even that was a very limited form of democracy. Truthfully democracy matter little in this era.
It was a documentary I saw during a vacation in Austria on the ORF (Austrian public TV) about Austrian rulers, the idea behind said regulation being to limit the run away expenditures for funerals since obviously many households nearly ruined themselves by ordering overly lavish baroque funerals and sepulchral monuments for their departed family members (even today there is still the popular viennese term 'a schene Leich' literally translated as 'a beautiful corpse' but really refering to a grandiose funeral, originating in this time) and the regulation did of course not only determine the number of candles lighted, but also the number of pallbearers employed, the extent of the floral decoration of both the church and the tomb, even the maximum number of guests catered during the funeral meal with regard to the social status of the bereaved. It was certainly well meant, but perceived as rather intrusive and seen as an example of the somewhat high handed approach of the Emperor in regard to implementing enlightenment ideas.

As to democracy, we have to remember that this was the time between the Declerations of Independence and of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen so it was pretty much a topic of public discussion already, at least in progressive circles. Joseph's main problem was that he managed to alienate both the conservatives by implementing enlightenment ideas at all and the progressives by the rather authoritarian way he did implement some while not others they wanted to see implemented as well. It was in a certain way the same predicament faced by Gorbachev two centuries later.
 
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