Gergely András: Reform and Revolution 1830 - 1849 - East European Monographs 736. Atlantic Studies on Society Change 130. (New York, 2009)
10. The Divergence and Unification of the Reform Opposition - The Administrative System
András Gergely 258 of the previous lord lieutenants, and they could employ well-paid secretaries, provided for by public funds. Their recommendations for promotions and honors had to be heeded. Two objectives were paramount in selecting the new administrators: they should have no ties to the county where they were appointed, and they had to be willing to represent unpopular policies. The necessary political apparatus, however, was lacking, and the new administrators, who were antipathetic to the counties, enjoyed little respect. Nevertheless, in a few cases previous members of the opposition were successfully recruited for the new appointments. The new administrators used different tactics from those of their predecessors. In several counties they sought compromises and mediated between the Conservatives and the Liberals, redistributed the county offices, and in some places even managed to appoint new county representatives. Elsewhere they deliberately provoked the nobility that attended the county assemblies, ignored their decisions, initiated conflicts, and used the soldiery to impose their will. The Emperor, bypassing tradition, left the county protests unanswered and refused to give any audience to the representatives of the complaining counties. The violence, the corruption and the offers of compromise, as well as the unexpected and quick actions, surprised and confused the opposition. The political base of the Municipalists became endangered, and not because they wanted a policy of centralization, or because they wanted to eliminate the counties, but because the counties themselves had become the instrument of absolutism. For one last time the government attempted to use administrative methods in order to launch a general attack on the forces of transformation. Due to social and political realities, the effort was doomed to failure. On the other hand, it could at least hold back the transformation for a couple of decades. The Viennese government could conclude with a degree of justifiable satisfaction that they had been able to force the opposition to retreat and that the majority of the counties supported Conservative policies. The advantage could be solidified at the elections of county representatives in 1847.