Kaiser Franz Josef, farsighted politicians and many scholars made innumerable attempts; but politics became dominated more and more by slogans and demagogical maneuvers. Governments came to fall; heated parliamentary debates flared up; it came to riots in the streets and demonstrations for weeks at a time. The so-called Young Czech Party and All-Germans confronted each other irreconcilably. Conditions were notably serious in regions and towns of mixed nationalities. Prague was placed under emergency law from 1893 to 1895. The rift between Germans, Czechs and Hungarians grew deeper and deeper. Jews died in pogroms because they were equated with Germans. All this happened when the first dark clouds began dimming the skies over Europe and a period of world politics arose with the great powers throwing dice for continents. But the stormy years had also their elevating moments. 1894 saw the founding of the "Society of Germans in Bohemia". The "Association for the Promotion of German Culture and Science in Bohemia" was active since 1891; the "German Folk-Council" was initiated in 1903.

The highly gifted Archduke Rudolf ended his life by suicide in 1889. Today, after the evaluation of many sources, it is believed that his tragic death was not the result of an unhappy love affair, but that political motives played a role. Rudolf was driven to despair most of all by his thoughts about the future of Austria. His cousin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, successor to the throne, personified a more robust, younger generation. After 1905 his influence was evident in the matters of state. In 1907, the first Bohemian parliament convened after a general election with equal voting rights. It brought representatives of German, Czech and Polish parties together to work in cooperation. However, the work of the Reichsrat elected in 1911 was soon hampered by nationality conflicts; by 1914 it became unfit to function. Emergency orders became the rule of the day. Austria postponed practically all political decisions. It appeared as though the Reichsrat was awaiting the death of the old monarch and the succession. All hopes were directed towards the fifty year old Franz Ferdinand who aspired a country governed by a strong central power, with equal rights for all lands, and each land granted a high measure of autonomy. In foreign policy he envisioned close cooperation between the three empires of Germany, Austria and Russia.