His extreme cleverness in maintaining rela¬ tions with the Catholic Church won over the younger clergy. In fact, the old Clerical Party were forced to retire from the field, or else they more sensibly joined the new Party in the hope of gradually regaining their position.
Much injustice would be done to the man if we regard the foregoing as his only characteristic. For he possessed the qualities not only of a great tactician, but also of a really great and inspired reformer ; but he had the restraints due to an exact knowledge of the possibilities before him and also of his own capabilities.
The aims which this truly outstanding man set before himself were intensely practical. He wished to capture Vienna, the heart of the Monarchy. From that city the final vestiges of life filtered into the sickly, worn-out body of the decaying Empire. If the heart were sound, the rest of the body was bound to revive —an idea correct in principle, but the period for turn¬ ing it into action was finite and limited.