1811.
Second, he opposed the construction of railways, one of
the key new technologies that came with the Industrial
Revolution. When a plan to build a northern railway was put
before Francis I, he replied, “No, no, I will have nothing to
do with it, lest the revolution might come into the country.”
Since the government would not grant a concession to
build a steam railway, the first railway built in the empire
had to use horse-drawn carriages. The line, which ran
between the city of Linz, on the Danube, to the Bohemian
city of Budweis, on the Moldau River, was built with
gradients and corners, which meant that it was impossible
subsequently to convert it to steam engines. So it continued
with horse power until the 1860s. The economic potential
for railway development in the empire had been sensed
early by the banker Salomon Rothschild, the representative
in Vienna of the great banking family. Salomon’s brother
Nathan, who was based in England, was very impressed by
George Stephenson’s engine “The Rocket” and the
potential for steam locomotion. He contacted his brother to
encourage him to look for opportunities to develop railways
in Austria, since he believed that the family could make
large profits by financing railway development. Nathan
agreed, but the scheme went nowhere because Emperor
Francis again simply said no.
The opposition to industry and steam railways stemmed
from Francis’s concern about the creative destruction that
accompanied the development of a modern economy. His
main priorities were ensuring the stability of the extractive
institutions over which he ruled and protecting the
advantages of the traditional elites who supported him. Not
only was there little to gain from industrialization, which
would undermine the feudal order by attracting labor from
the countryside to the cities, but Francis also recognized
the threat that major economic changes would pose to his
political power. As a consequence, he blocked industry and
economic progress, locking in economic backwardness,
which manifested itself in many ways. For instance, as late
as 1883, when 90 percent of world iron output was
produced using coal, more than half of the output in the
Habsburg territories still used much less efficient charcoal.
Similarly, right up to the First World War, when the empire