The crucial turning point of events was the passing of the April laws which King Ferdinand I ratified, but later the new young Austrian monarch Franz Joseph I arbitrarily revoked it without any legal competence. This unconstitutional act irreversibly escalated the conflict between the Hungarian parliament and Franz Joseph. 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