What does "In Europe there is only ever one interesting politician, the emperor of Austria" mean?

Hello There,

I can only summarise that if this was uttered by a founding father, that it was said between 1780 and 1790 and thus used to describe the Emperor Joseph II.

Joseph II has been described as a liberally progressive monarch, whose reforms to the ancient feudal rights of his kingdoms were driven by the benevolent and paternalistic love he held for his people, and who held their happiness at the forefront of his policies. These reforms were informed by the neostoicism, humanist teachings of the enlightenment period as instructed by one of his mother’s chief minister, Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz. Haugwitz between 1741 and 1757 was charged by Maria Theresa with centralising the myriad traditions, legislations and regional particularisms of her state under an administration created to sustain a standing army and governed by the Habsburg monarchy. His work was an attempt to rationalise the baroque system Maria Theresa inherited, relegate the powers of the pan-feudalistic estates of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary and increase the resources available to the monarchy, eager to reverse their defeat and loss of territory at the hands of Prussia, led by Frederick II.

Joseph II, whilst serving as co-regent between 1765 and 1780, eagerly advocated for a far more progressive programme but was curtailed by his pragmatic mother and her chief adviser Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz. On assuming the throne in 1780, Joseph allowed freedom of the press and did little to censure criticism of him or his government. He introduced a number of decrees alleviating the burden of free labour given to the nobility by the serfs called robot, and removed much of the privileges of the Catholic church. Education was standardised and instructors were trained from a rationalised secularised curriculum, with the Jesuit traditions sidelined, if not relegated. The judicial system was revolutionised, with the death penalty abolished, punishment equitably given across all social classes and most of the punitive measures revoked. Jews and reformed Christians were free to practice their religion and build places of worship and German was introduced as the official language of the heterogeneous state he now ruled. Joseph’s hatred of the Estates, who he viewed as the one obstacle between the monarchy and the people, was a driving factor to many of his ambitious and more controversial decrees, which both sidelined and insulted a great number of the conservative nobles he held in scant regard.

The introduction of German and the removal of the crown of St. Stephen from Budapest to Vienna began what was to be a long running battle between Joseph II and the Magyar nobility of Hungary. Joseph II viewed the kingdom of Hungary as an asset which had yet to be exploited because of the multitude of particularisms given to the Hungarian Estates as recognition of their loyalty. And he and the majority of his followers viewed the pragmatic approaches of such policies as pandering, and subjugated the monarchy to the petty nobles of Hungary. By removing the crown of St. Stephen, Joseph II was sending a message to his peoples that no one group would be placed over another. To the Hungarian nobility this was an overt sign of Vienna’s aggressive intent to completely ’germanise’ their lands, this notion was especially held when German was introduced as the official language of the kingdom instead of Latin. The Hungarian nobility fiercely resisted the changes and advocated for much of the reforms be debate by the Hungarian Diet before being enacted. They also rejected much of the changes to the way the agricultural economy was regulated and continued to call on the robot above the stipulated limitations. Seeing the difficulties Joseph faced in Hungary, he sought to completely rationalise the conservative province of the Austrian Netherlands in one fell swoop, whose governance was firmly rooted in the fifteenth century, with many of its legislative and judiciary policies handed down and enacted upon by the Archbishops who controlled much of the agricultural land. Such an aggressive approach to an entrenched religious culture was met with fierce resistance and open revolt erupted across the province in 1788 and continued until after Joseph’s death in 1790.

Wary of his territory’s fracturing under the pressure of such radical change much of Joseph’s more liberal decrees were rolled backed by the Emperor himself. The Austro-Ottoman war waged on behalf of Russia along the southern realms of his borders had greatly strained an economy already burdened by the debt incurred during the War of the Bavarian Succession. And though the Imperial army was massive, supply and logistics were marred by poor administration and by many of the restrictions that abound. On the ascension of Joseph’s brother Leopold II to the throne, the new emperor rolled back much of the dead emperor’s work. Leopold successor, the young Francis II, confronted with the wars of the French Revolution, handed back even more of the power to the estates in exchange for their support and contribution to the standing army. Both the dynasty and the nobles viewed the liberal middle class as a direct threat to their power, as evident in France and were happy to sideline any government policies that promoted their rise. Though Josephism was popular with the urbane and much of the administrators, it died with him and the attempts to further follow such a process of governance was retarded by the conservatism of his successors.

Many of Joseph II’s changes were for the betterment of his people, the mantra ‘For the people, not by the people,’ inherently rings true. Yet for all his progressive reforms they were in support of the Habsburg monarchy’s control over their land and their sphere of influence. The reforms of the enlightened absolutist were for the husbandry of state resources in support of a standing army that upheld the dynastic tenants of the monarchy. Joseph and his mother’s attempts at removing the power of the Estates and centralising it within the hands of the monarchy, was certainly modern, but far from liberal.

What the majority of Americans thought is hard to assume. Though one can guess if they were truly informed, Americans would understand Joseph’s works were in support of the divine right of kings and not an attempt to ensure the liberty of his people.