Alpha Book

[Sidenote: Diversity of Habsburg Dominions]
Between the various peoples who were thus brought under the Habsburg
sway, the bond was of loosest description. They spoke a dozen different
languages and presented an even greater diversity of interests. They
did not constitute a compact, strongly centralized, national state like
France. Charles VI ruled his territories by manifold titles: he was
archduke of Austria, king of Bohemia, king of Hungary, duke of Milan,
and prince of the Netherlands; and the administration of each of these
five major groups was independent of the others. The single bond of
union was the common allegiance to the Habsburg monarch.
[Sidenote: Check upon Habsburg Ambitions in the Germanies]
To adopt and pursue a policy which would suit all these lands and
peoples would hardly be possible for any mortal: it certainly surpassed
the wit of the Habsburgs. They had made an attempt in the seventeenth
century to develop a vigorous German policy, to unify the empire and to
strengthen their hold upon it, but they had failed dismally.


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