ABSTRACT
The Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi, considered a Concordat, to be the way out, clearly assuming that Austria would compromise. The Habsburg Empire, he told Metternich, had no greater friend than the Pope and a pact between Rome and Vienna would silence their common enemies. Solomon Wank believes that the Habsburg Empire was already declining in this way before 1914 and was only saved by the benevolence of the great powers and the international system. Imperial Germany, for her part, was to witness rapid economic and social change during the Wilhelmine era. The economic boom was partly the reason for – and partly the result of – the falling number of German emigrants. All German citizens, in all states, in town and country, had a right to common-school education at public expense. Frequent excursions were also made, even in the holidays, under the supervision of schoolteachers and at public expense.
