What were some achievements of Maria Theresa?

Answer 1

-Mandatory education for children

-Cadastral maps of entire country to determine the amount of taxed to be yield from land

-Unification of the currency, measures, weights, customs, taxes

-Unification of the administration and transformation of the feudal bureaucracy into the hand of the state bureaucrat

-Unification of the Bohemian, Moravian, Hungarian government.. under one ministries centralized in Vienna.

-Encouragement of free enterprise that would speed up industrialization of the state

-Building system of roadways that were used throughout central Europe well into the end of the 20th century (like Vienna-Brno-Olomouc road that was paved but it remained the same parameters until 1992 when hwy was built eastward of it)

-Set up various government offices like postal, transport, naval, notary

-Created unified judicial code that we called Theresian and was foundation for many today's Central European laws. Beside many others improvement of the law, it forbid inquisition, burning on stake, medieval public tortures like quartering and breaking in wheels. Standard execution was hanging or firing squad for soldier

-Created professional army by mandating seven year service for every male serf in the kingdom

-Enforced German language as the only acceptable language of communication

Among many beneficial programs of her reign, Maria Theresia did everything possible to preserve status of the state as the most reactionary, conservative state in the Continent. She was truly opened antisemitic and ordered expulsion of Jews from Prague (the European the largest Jewish community at that time) and from Bohemia into Poland. She refused to recognize Protestants in her kingdom; therefore, Protestants of Silesia welcomed Prussian as their liberators. She refused to abolish serfdom, which was cause of the impoverishment of the state. She played game with the society that she will do something about relief of the masses which were nothing more than slaves in the countryside. The living standard in the countryside declined so radically in her reign that poverty of that time became part of the collective memory for many nations of the Hapsburg's monarchy. The inefficient serfdom and exploitation reached climax in 1770-1775 where up 1/6 of the population in the monarchy died from hunger. It was the largest famine in our country history. This led to one of the largest peasant rebellion in Europe (1775) where groups of dissatisfied peasants were storming countryside demanding the end of the serfdom. However, until her death, she did absolutely nothing to improve the condition of the peasants.