Parliamentary life in Austria was paralysed by the feud between Germans and Czechs that resulted directly from the Badeni language ordinances of 1897 and indirectly from the development of Slav influence, particularly that of Czechs and Poles during the Taaffe era (1879-1893).
Before the combination of Clericals and Federalists the ministry broke down; they were divided among themselves; Counts Taaffe and Alfred Potocki, the minister of agriculture, wished to conciliate the Slav races - a policy recommended 1 The documents are printed in Baron de Worms, op. cit.
Taaffe and his friends resigned in January 1870, but mentary the majority did not long survive.
The ministry resigned, and Potocki and Taaffe formed a government with this object.
The disliked the alliance with the aristocracy and the Y in power; but in the reconstructed cabinet, though Stremayr was president, Count Taaffe, as minister of the interior, was the most important member.