Why did the Austrian Habsburgs have a more difficult time than the French in creating an absolutist government?
What will be an ideal response?
Answers will vary. The major problem facing Leopold I and other Habsburg rulers is that the population of their lands was quite heterogeneous, encompassing Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia. Leopold was never able to implement the type of national unity that was seen in France because the nobility in the Habsburg lands was considerably stronger than in France, and maintained a degree of self-rule, particularly in the Hungarian Diet. Further, there was competition within the German states from the Hohenzollern dynasty and the buildup of the Prussian state. Another unifying factor in France was the state-endorsed focus on Catholicism. This could not be imposed in the Habsburg lands because, even though there was a large contingency of Catholics in the southern German lands, there was still the maintenance of a large Protestant community, which prevented unification. Finally, the long tradition of the electorate within the Holy Roman Empire and subsequent states did not allow for a vertical structuring of the dependent nobility that France had.
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Fill in the blank(s) with correct word
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