Background
Bach was born in Loosdorf, Lower Austria, on Jan. 4, 1813, of peasant stock. He made his name as an advocate and leading figure in the Juridisch-politisches Leseverein (Juridico-political Reading Society) and other focuses of the reform movement in Vienna in the 1840's. In July 1848 he became minister of justice in the liberal Wessenberg-Doblhoff cabinet, but followed the swing to the right in Austrian politics and accepted office in Prince Felix Schwarzenberg's cabinet of November 1848, first as minister of justice, then (May 1849) as minister of the interior. He held the latter office for ten years, during which he was perhaps the most important man in Austria, the organizer and largely the inspirer of the centralist and Germanizing system under which the Dual Monarchy was then ruled. His name is associated chiefly with the organization of the bureaucracy on which the system rested, but he also carried through the execution of the land reform and liberation of the peasants, which was the most enduring achievement of 1848, and drafted the country's reformed judicial procedure. He was also involved in the negotiation of the Concordat of 1855, giving the Catholic Church extensive rights in Austria.