The crucial turning point came when the new Austrian monarch Franz Joseph I arbitrarily revoked the April laws (ratified by King Ferdinand I) without any legal right to do so, an unconstitutional act which irreversibly escalated the conflict between him and the Hungarian parliament. The new constrained Stadion Constitution of Austria, the revocation of the April laws, and the Austrian military campaign against the Kingdom of Hungary resulted in the fall of the pacifist Batthyány government (who sought
