Austria-Hungary

gigatos | February 23, 2022

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Summary

Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia), also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Dual Monarchy, was a constitutional union of the Austrian Empire (the Kingdoms and Provinces represented in the Imperial Council) and the Kingdom of Hungary (the Crown Lands of St. Stephen), which existed from 1867 to 1918, when it collapsed as a result of its defeat in World War I. The union was the result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into force on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies (Austria and Hungary) and an autonomous region: the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown, which after negotiations resulted in the Croatian-Hungarian Settlement (“Nagodba”) in 1868. It was administered by the House of Habsburg and was the last phase of the constitutional development of the Habsburg Monarchy. After the reforms of 1867, the Austrian and Hungarian states were equal. Foreign affairs and the military were brought under joint control, but all other governmental powers were divided between the respective states.

Austria-Hungary was a multinational state and one of the Great Powers of the world at that time. It was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, with 621,538 square kilometres, and the third largest in population (after Russia and the German Empire). The Empire created the fourth largest machine-building industry in the world, after the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. Austria-Hungary also became the third largest manufacturer and exporter of electrical household appliances, electrical industrial appliances and power generation devices for power plants, after the United States and the German Empire.

After 1878 Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and political administration until it was fully annexed in 1908, causing the Bosnian Crisis among other powers. Sanjak, the de jure northern part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Novi Pazar (in present-day Montenegro and Serbia), was also under de facto joint occupation during this period, but the Austro-Hungarian army withdrew from there as part of its annexation of Bosnia. The annexation of Bosnia also led to the recognition of Islam as the official religion of the state, due to Bosnia”s Muslim population.

Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I. It had already been effectively disbanded by the time the military authorities signed the Armistice of Villa Justy on 3 November 1918. The Kingdom of Hungary and the First Austrian Republic were treated as its de jure successors, while the independence of the Western and Southern Slavs of the Empire as the Republic of Czechoslovakia, the Republic of Poland and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, respectively, and most of the territorial claims of the Kingdom of Romania were also recognized by the victorious powers in 1920.

The Habsburg monarch reigned as Emperor of Austria, which was the Austrian Empire (“Countries represented in the Imperial Council”) in the western and northern part of the country, and as King of Hungary in the Kingdom of Hungary (“Crown Lands of St. Stephen”). Each member had considerable sovereignty with only a few common competences (mainly diplomatic relations and defence).

The full name of the federation was “The Kingdoms and Countries Represented in the Imperial Council and the Countries of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen”.

Γερμανικά : The kingdoms and lands represented in the Imperial Council and the lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen

Hungary : Kingdoms and countries represented in the Imperial Council and countries of the Hungarian Holy Crown

Some regions, such as Polish Galicia in the Austrian Empire and Croatia (officially the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia), and even Dalmatia in the Kingdom of Hungary, had autonomous status, each with its own unique governmental structures.

The division between Austria and Hungary was so intense that there was no common citizenship: everyone was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian, never both. This also meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, never a common one. However, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports written in Croatian and French and bearing the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia It is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was under the control of both Austria and Hungary.

The Kingdom of Hungary has always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, even after the creation of the Austrian Empire in 1804.The administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary (until the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49) remained largely untouched by the structure of the government of the supreme Austrian Empire. The central governmental structures of Hungary remained clearly separated from the Austrian imperial government The country was governed by the Council of Hungary (Gubernium) – based in the Presburo and later in Pest – and by the Chancellery of the Hungarian Royal Court in Vienna. The Hungarian government and the Hungarian parliament were suspended after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and were reestablished after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867.

Although Austria and Hungary had a common currency, they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. From the beginning of the personal union (from 1527) the government of the Kingdom of Hungary could maintain its separate and independent budget. After the revolution of 1848-1849 the Hungarian budget was merged with the Austrian budget and only after the Compromise of 1867 Hungary obtained a separate budget. From 1527 (creation of the monarchical personal union) to 1851 the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs controls, which made it distinct from the other countries ruled by the Habsburgs. After 1867 the customs union agreement between Austria and Hungary had to be reviewed and agreed upon every ten years. The agreements were renewed and signed by Vienna and Budapest at the end of each decade, as both countries hoped to derive mutual economic benefit from the customs union. The Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary concluded their trade agreements with other states independently of each other.

Austria-Hungary was a great power but contained a large number of ethnic groups claiming their own state. It was ruled by a coalition of two powerful minorities, the Germans and the Hungarians. Ethnic tensions built up and the harsh blow of a failed war caused the system to collapse.

Following a decision by Francis Joseph I in 1868, the state was officially named the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

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The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (Ausgleich in German and Kiegyezés in Hungarian), which introduced the dual structure of the empire in place of the former unified Austrian Empire (1804-67), emerged at a time when Austria had declined in power and authority-both on the Italian Peninsula (after the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859) and among the states of the German Confederation (it had been overtaken by Prussia as the dominant German-speaking power after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866). .

Other factors contributing to the constitutional changes were the continuing Hungarian dissatisfaction with the administration from Vienna and the growing national consciousness of the other nationalities of the Austrian Empire. Hungarian discontent arose in part from Austria”s Russian-backed suppression of the Hungarian liberal revolution of 1848-49. However, dissatisfaction with Austrian rule had been developing for many years in Hungary and had many other causes.

In the late 1850s a large number of Hungarians who had supported the revolution of 1848-49 were willing to accept the Habsburg monarchy. They argued that while Hungary had the right to full internal independence, according to the Sanctio Pragmatica of 1713, foreign affairs and defence were “common” to both Austria and Hungary.

Immediately after the end of the Austro-Prussian War, the Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, together with his staff, examined in detail the causes, one by one, which brought about the unfortunate outcome of the war for his country, he finally found that, in addition to the strategic and tactical errors he had made, a large part of the causes were internal issues centred on the total lack of cohesion and moral values of the various nationalities of the Empire on the common problem of war. To these were added both Hungarian discontent and the growing divisive tendency of the many nationalities in the country. In an attempt to eliminate these projected tendencies the Emperor sought the solution of equalizing the most populous peoples, which were the Germans of Austria and the Magyars of Hungary.

Thus, starting negotiations with the Hungarian aristocracy, which was pushing for an exclusive agreement with the Austrian elites, and securing its support, on the advice of the Austrian Prime Minister Duke Belcredi, for a comprehensive constitutional agreement with all nationalities and the creation of a federal state, the Emperor proceeded to create Austria-Hungary. Although Belcredi was concerned that an agreement limited to the Magyars alone would alienate the other nationalities, Franz Joseph limited himself to them and became an excellent and powerful arbiter of the hierarchy of nationalities in his territory.

In the creation of the federal state the Magyar leaders demanded (and succeeded) that the Emperor be crowned King of Hungary as an acceptance of Hungary”s historical privileges, and the establishment of a separate parliament in Budapest with legislative power for the historical regions of the Hungarian crown (the Lands of St. Stephen), but in such a way as to ensure the political domination of the Magyar majority (more specifically the aristocracy and the educated elite) and the exclusion from the centres of power of the other nationalities, e.g. e.g. Romanian and Slavic populations.

Following the above, and after various preparatory work that preceded it in 1866, Emperor Francis Joseph on 1 February 1867 took the final decision to create the dual Kingdom. On February 17, the first constitutional government was elected in Hungary. Thus on 15 March the so-called “Austro-Hungarian Compromise” was signed, which determined the area of each individual state and was passed a few days later by the Hungarians.

On October 6, Emperor Francis Joseph was crowned King of Hungary. On 21 December (1867), the Austrian government ratified the founding law and finally, on 27 December 1867, Emperor Franz Joseph signed a special act officially naming the dual kingdom Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie (= “Austro-Hungarian Monarchy”, or better known as the “Austro-Hungarian Empire”).

From 1867 onwards the abbreviations of the names of official institutions in Austria-Hungary reflected their competence: K. u. k (kaiserlich und königlich or Imperial and Royal was the title of institutions common to both parts of the Monarchy, e.g. the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine (Navy) and, during the war, the k.u.k. Armee (Army). There were three k.u.k. or joint ministries:

The latter was only responsible for financing the Imperial and Royal Court, the diplomatic service, the common army and the common navy. All other state functions of the state were to be handled separately by each of the two states.

The joint army changed its title from k.k. to k.u.k. only in 1889 at the request of the Hungarian government.

There were three parts to the government of the Austro-Hungarian Empire:

Hungary and Austria maintained separate parliaments, each with its own prime minister. The connection

A common cabinet exercised common governance: it included the three ministers for common responsibilities (common finance, defence and foreign policy), the two prime ministers, some archdukes and the monarch. Two committees of delegates (60-60 members), from the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, met separately and voted on the expenditures of the joint cabinet, thus giving the governments influence over the joint administration. However, the ministers ultimately reported only to the monarch, who made the final decision on matters of foreign and defence policy.

Overlapping responsibilities between the joint ministries and the ministries of the two parties have caused friction and inefficiency. The armed forces suffered particularly from duplication. Although the unified government set the overall military direction, the Austrian and Hungarian governments remained responsible for recruitment, supply and training. Each government could exert strong influence over joint government responsibilities. Both parties to the Dual Monarchy proved quite willing to undermine joint actions to further their own interests.

Relations in the half-century after 1867 between the two parties to the Dual Monarchy were marked by repeated disputes over common external tariff arrangements and the financial contribution of each government to the common treasury. Under the terms of the ”Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867” these matters were determined by an agreement that was renegotiated every ten years. There was political tension in the negotiation of each renewal of the agreement. The disputes culminated in the early 1900s with a prolonged constitutional crisis. It was triggered by disagreement over which language should be used for administration in Hungary”s military units and became deeper after a Hungarian nationalist coalition came to power in Budapest in April 1906. The temporary renewal of the joint arrangements took place in October 1907 and November 1917 on the basis of the status quo.

Public administration and local governments

The organisation of the administrative system of the Austrian Empire was complicated by the fact that between the state and the purely local communal administration a third element, based on history, the Länder, was inserted. State administration included all matters relating to rights, obligations and interests ”common to all territories”. All other administrative tasks were entrusted to the territories. Finally, the communities had self-government within their own sphere.

To this distribution of the administration”s work corresponded a threefold organisation of authorities: state, territorial and community. The State authorities were divided along geographical lines into central, intermediate and local, and alongside them there was a division of services for the transaction of business according to the various branches of administration. The central authorities, working together as early as the 18th century in a common core of state administration, were differentiated as soon as the growing work of the administration required specialization. In 1869 there were seven ministries, and in the decade following the Austrian Empire, ministries of labour, food, public health and social welfare were created. Under these ministries were the Statthalter, whose administrative area corresponded to a Crown territory (Kronland); but the great variations in the extent of the Crown territories made a uniform and stable intermediate administrative organisation practically impossible. The lowest administrative unit was the political sub-district (Bezirk) under one official (Bezirkshauptmann), which united almost all the administrative functions divided between the various ministries according to their responsibilities.

Alongside the State administration, in the 17 Crown territories there were also certain administrations of the Crown territories, which were exercised by selected honorary officers, with a staff of professional officials under them. Many branches of the administration of the territories had great similarities with those of the state, so that their spheres of activity often overlapped and came into conflict. This administrative ”double line”, as it was called, led, it is true, in many cases to positive rivalry, but it was altogether extremely costly. The evil of this complex system is obvious and easily condemned. They can be explained partly by the origin of the state – mostly through a voluntary union of countries with a strong sense of their own peculiarity – and partly by the influence in Austria of the Germanic spirit, well understood by the Slavs, which has nothing to do with the Latin tendency to reduce all matters of administration to clear prescriptions as part of a reasonably consistent system. Like the English, the Austrian administrative system was very varied, so much so that it required drastic reform.

Binnert”s last act as prime minister in May 1911 was the appointment of a committee appointed by the Emperor to draw up a plan for administrative reform. As early as 1904 a decree had stipulated that a complete change in the principles of administration was necessary if the state machine was to continue to function. After seven years of inaction, however, this imperial decree was now inadequate. The constant progress of society, he said, had increased the demands on the administration; that is to say, it was supposed that reform was required not so much because of the defects of the administration as because of the progress of the times, not because the administration was bad, but because life was better. It was an attempt to reform the administration without first reforming the State.

A reform commission without a programme naturally dealt first with reforms for which there was no controversy. After a year, it produced “Proposals for the Training of State Officers”. After another two years it had actually produced carefully prepared training material that was of great scientific value. But her proposals, though politically important, provided no basis for large-scale reforms. So when the World War broke out the commission was disbanded without practical results, leaving behind it an imposing series of volumes of great scientific value. It was not until March 1918 that the Scheidler government approved a programme of national autonomy as a basis for administrative reform, but it never came into force.

By 1867 the administrative and political division of the lands belonging to the Hungarian crown had been largely reshaped. In 1868 Transylvania was finally reunited with mainland Hungary and the city and region of Fiume was declared autonomous. In 1873 part of the “Military Borderland” (province) was united with mainland Hungary and partly with Croatia-Slavonia. Hungary itself, in the old sense, was generally divided into four large sections or circles, and Transylvania in 1876 was considered the fifth. In 1876 a general system of municipalities was introduced. According to this division Hungary was divided into seven circles, one of which was Transylvania : 1) left of the Danube with 11 municipalities , 2) right of the Danube with 11, 3) between the Danube and Tisza with 5, 4) right of Tisza with 8, 5) left of Tisza with 8, 6) between Tisza and Maros with 5 and 7) Transylvania with 15 municipalities.

The city and the region of Fiume formed a separate section. Croatia-Slavonia was divided into eight municipalities.

The demoi had a certain degree of self-government. Mainland Hungary was divided into 63 rural and – including Fiume – 26 urban municipalities. These urban municipalities were towns which for their local self-government were independent of the municipalities in which they were located and therefore had greater municipal autonomy than the townships or other towns. The administration of the demoi was carried out by an official appointed by the king, with the help of a representative body. From 1876 each demos had a council of twenty members to exercise control over its administration. The 26 urban municipalities or towns with municipal rights were Arad, Baya, Debrecen, Gyur, Khodmezovasarhei, Kasa, Keshkemeet, Kolozvar, Komarom, Marosvasarhei, Nagivarad, and Panchova, Pecs, Pozzoni, Pozsony, Selmes and Belabania, Sopron, Sobron, Sabatka, Satmarnemety, Szeged, Sekesferhervar, Tmesvar, Ujividec, Wersets, Zobor, the town of Fiume and Budapest, the capital of the country. In Croatia-Slavonia there were 4 urban municipalities or cities with municipal rights, Osijek, Varazdin, Zagreb and Zemun.

The first prime minister of Hungary after the Compromise was Count Gyula Andrassy (1867-1871). The old Hungarian Constitution was restored and Francis Joseph was crowned King of Hungary. Andrassy then served as Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary (1871-1879).

The Empire was increasingly based on a cosmopolitan bureaucracy – in which the Czechs played an important role – supported by legitimate elements, including much of the German, Hungarian, Polish and Croatian aristocracy.

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Political struggles in the empire

The traditional class of aristocracy and landowning nobles was gradually confronted more and more with the urban rich, who had become rich through trade and industrialisation. The bourgeois middle and upper classes began to seek their own power and supported progressive movements after the revolutions in Europe. They were described as ”left-wing liberals” and their representatives began to be elected to the parliaments of Vienna and Budapest. These left-liberal parliamentary parties were supported by the big industrialists, bankers, businessmen and the majority of newspaper publishers.

Like the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire often used liberal economic policies and practices. By the 1860s, entrepreneurs succeeded in industrializing parts of the empire. The newly prosperous members of the bourgeoisie erected large houses and began to play a prominent role in urban life, competing with the aristocracy. The early years encouraged the government to seek foreign investment to build infrastructure, such as railways, to enhance industrialization, transport and communications, and development.

The influence of the liberals in Austria, most of them ethnically German, was weakened under Count Edward von Taffe, Prime Minister of Austria from 1879 to 1893. Taffe used a coalition of clerical, conservative and Slavic parties to weaken the liberals. In Bohemia, for example, he approved Czech as the official language of the bureaucracy and school system, thus abolishing the monopoly of German-speakers in the administration. Such reforms encouraged other ethnic groups to push for greater autonomy. By using ethnicities, the government ensured the central role of the monarchy in reconciling competing interest groups at a time of rapid change.

During World War I, the rise of national sentiment and labour movements contributed to strikes, protests and political unrest in the empire. After the war, democratic national parties contributed to the disintegration and collapse of the monarchy in Austria and Hungary, and republics were established in Vienna and Budapest.

Ethnic relations

In July 1849 the Hungarian Revolutionary Parliament proclaimed and enacted ethnic and minority rights (the next such laws were in Switzerland), but these were overturned after the Hungarian Revolution was crushed by the Russian and Austrian armies. After the Kingdom of Hungary reached a Compromise with the Habsburg Dynasty in 1867, one of the first acts of its re-established Parliament was to pass a Law on Nationalities (Act XLIV of 1868). It was a liberal piece of legislation and offered extensive linguistic and cultural rights, but did not recognise non-Hungarians” rights to form states with any territorial autonomy.

The “Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867” created the semi-independent states of Hungary and Austria linked by personal union under a common monarch. The Hungarian majority claimed more than its identity within the Kingdom of Hungary. The nationalism of the German-speaking people who dominated the Austrian Empire created tension between Germans and Czechs. In addition, the emergence of national identity in newly independent Romania and Serbia also contributed to ethnic issues in the Empire.

According to Article 19 of the Constitution (Staatsgrundgesetz), which applied only to the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary: “All races of the empire have equal rights and each race has an inviolable right to the preservation and use of its own nationality and language. The equality of all customary languages (landesübliche Sprache) in school, office and public life is recognized by the state. In territories where different tribes inhabit the public and educational institutions shall be so arranged that without the necessity of learning a second language of the country (Landessprache), each of the tribes shall have the necessary means for education in its own language.”

The application of this rule led to several disputes, as it all depended on what was the customary or landesüblich language in each region. The Germans, the traditional bureaucratic, capitalist and cultural elite, demanded the recognition of German as a customary language in all regions of the empire. While Italian was considered an old, cultural language (Kultursprache) by German-speaking intellectuals and had always been accorded equal rights as an official language of the empire, the Germans did not want to accept Slavic languages as equal to German. On one occasion Count A. Auersperg entered the Diet of Carnola carrying what he claimed was the entire body of Slovene literature under study, to proclaim that Slovene could not be replaced by German as the language of higher education

In the following years, many languages were recognised, at least in Austria. A series of laws from 1867 granted Croatian the same status as Italian in Dalmatia. From 1882 Slovenes were in the majority in the Diet of Carniola and in the capital Laibach (Ljubljana) and replaced German with Slovene as their main official language. Galicia designated Polish instead of German in 1869 as the standard language of government. The Poles themselves were discriminating against the Ukrainian minority and Ukrainian never became an official language.

The most intense linguistic conflicts took place in Bohemia, where Czech-speakers were in the majority and claimed equal status for their language with German, even in the German-speaking areas of “Sudetenland” (a later name). Czechs had been living mainly in Bohemia since the 6th century, and German immigrants had begun to settle in the outlying areas of Bohemia by the 13th century. The constitution of 1627 made German the second official language and equal to Czech. German-speakers lost the majority in Bohemia”s Diet in 1880 as well as in the cities of Prague and Pilsen (although they managed to maintain a slim majority in Brno (Brno). Thus the old Carolingian University of Prague, where German-speakers predominated, was divided in 1882 into a German-speaking and a Czech-speaking department.

At the same time, Hungarian sovereignty faced challenges from the local majorities of Romanians in Transylvania and eastern Vanadzor, Slovaks in present-day Slovakia, and Serbs and Croats in the crown lands of Croatia and Dalmatia (present-day Croatia), Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vojvodina. Romanians and Serbs began to seek unity with their homelands and homelinguists in the newly established states of Romania and Serbia.

Hungary”s leaders were more reluctant than the Austrians to share power with minorities but granted a significant degree of autonomy to Croatia in 1868. To some extent they patterned their relationship with that kingdom on the model of their own compromise with Austria the previous year. Despite the nominal autonomy the Croatian government was economically and administratively part of Hungary, which the Croats bore heavily. In the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina many supported the idea of a tripartite Austro-Hungarian Croatian monarchy. Among the supporters of the idea were Archduke Leopold Salvador, Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Emperor and King Charles I, who in his short reign supported the triadic idea, but faced a veto from the Hungarian government and Count István Tisza. The Count finally signed the Triadic Declaration after intense pressure from the King on 23 October 1918, the day after he did.

Language was one of the most controversial issues in Austro-Hungarian politics. All governments faced difficult and divisive obstacles when it came to making decisions about the languages of government and education. Minorities sought the widest opportunities for education in their own languages as well as in the “dominant” languages-Hungarian and German. In the “Decree of April 5, 1897”, the Austrian Prime Minister Count Casimir Felix Badeni granted Czech equal status with German in the internal government of Bohemia, which led to a crisis due to nationalist Germanic anxiety throughout the empire. The Crown dismissed Badeni.

The two kingdoms sometimes divided each other”s sphere of influence. According to Misha Glenny, in his book The Balkans, 1804-1999, the Austrians reacted to Hungarian support of the Czechs by supporting the Croatian national movement in Zagreb.

Recognising that he reigned in a multi-ethnic country, Emperor Francis Joseph was fluent in English, Hungarian and Czech and to some extent Croatian, Serbian, Polish and Italian.

Around 1900 the Jews of the empire numbered about two million.Their status was controversial. As in the rest of Europe, there were anti-Semitic parties and movements, but Vienna and Budapest did not carry out pogroms or implement any official anti-Semitic policies. They feared that such ethnic violence could ignite other ethnic minorities and escalate out of control. Anti-Semitic parties remained on the margins of political life because of their low popularity among voters in parliamentary elections.

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Foreign policy

The foreign minister directed the foreign relations of the Dual Monarchy and negotiated treaties.

The Dual Monarchy was created after the loss of the war in 1866 with Prussia and Italy. In order to restore the prestige of the Habsburgs and take revenge against Prussia, Count Friedrich Fernand von Boist became foreign minister. He hated the Prussian diplomat Otto von Bismarck, who had repeatedly outmanoeuvred him. Boist turned to France and negotiated with Emperor Napoleon III and Italy for an anti-Prussian alliance, but they failed to reach an agreement. The decisive victory of the Prussian-German troops in the 1870 war with France and the establishment of the German Empire ended any hope of revenge.

After being driven out of Germany and Italy, the Dual Monarchy turned to the Balkans, which were in turmoil as nationalist movements tried to end Ottoman rule. Both Russia and Austro-Hungary saw the opportunity to expand into this region. Russia in particular assumed the role of protector of the Slavs and Orthodox Christians. Austria envisioned a multi-ethnic, religiously heterogeneous empire under the control of Vienna. Count Gula Andrassy, a Hungarian, who had been State Secretary of State (1871-1879), focused his policy on halting Russian expansion in the Balkans and Serbia”s ambitions to dominate a new South Slavic federation. He wanted Germany to ally with Austria, not Russia.

When Russia defeated Turkey, the subsequent Treaty of St. Stephen was considered in Austria to be very favourable to Russia and its Orthodox-Slavic objectives. In 1878 the Congress of Berlin allowed Austria to occupy (but not annex) the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a predominantly Slavic region. In 1914 Slavic militants in Bosnia thwarted Austria”s plan to fully absorb the region, assassinated Austria”s heir apparent, and precipitated World War I.

The Austro-Hungarian economy changed dramatically under the Dual Monarchy. The capitalist mode of production spread throughout the empire during its 50 years of existence. Technological changes accelerated industrialisation and urbanisation. The first Austrian stock exchange had opened in Vienna in 1771 and the first stock exchange of the Kingdom of Hungary in Budapest in 1864. The central bank was established as the National Bank of Austria in 1816. In 1878 it became the Austro-Hungarian National Bank with main branches in Vienna and Budapest. The central bank was run by alternating Austrian or Hungarian governors and deputy governors.

However, by the end of the 19th century, economic differences gradually began to be smoothed out, as economic growth in the eastern parts of the monarchy steadily exceeded that of the western parts. The strong agriculture and food industry of the Kingdom of Hungary, centred in Budapest, dominated the empire and provided a large part of the exports to the rest of Europe. Meanwhile the western regions, concentrated mainly around Prague and Vienna, excelled in various manufacturing industries. This division of labor between East and West, in addition to the existing economic and monetary union, led to even faster economic growth throughout Austria-Hungary in the early 20th century. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century the Austrian half of the monarchy was able to maintain its intra-empire dominance in the sectors of the first industrial revolution, but Hungary was better positioned in the industries of the second industrial revolution, in the modern sectors of which Austrian competition could not dominate.

The heavy industry of the empire was mainly focused on the manufacture of machines, particularly for the power industry, the railway engine industry and the automobile industry, while the light industry was dominated by the precision machine industry. In the years leading up to World War I the country became the 4th largest manufacturer of locomotives in the world.

Automotive industry

Before World War I, the Austrian Empire had five car manufacturing companies. These were Austro-Daimler in Wiener Neustadt (trucks, buses), Gräf & Stift in Vienna (passenger cars), Laurin & Klement in Mlada Boleslav (motorcycle, passenger cars), Nesselsdorfer in Neusseldorf (Koprivnice), Moravia (passenger cars) and Lohner-Werke in Vienna (passenger cars). Car production in Austria started in 1897.

Before World War I the Kingdom of Hungary had four car manufacturing companies. These were the Gants Company in Budapest, RÁBA Automobile in Gyur, MÁG (later Magomobil) in Arad. Car production in Hungary started in 1900. Car factories in the Kingdom of Hungary manufactured motorcycles, passenger cars, taxis, trucks and buses.

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Aeronautical industry

The first airplane in Austria, the Eda I was designed by the Slovenian Edvard Russian and made its maiden flight in the Gorizia region on 25 November 1909.

The first Hungarian hydrogen-filled experimental balloons were built by István Zabík and Josef Domín in 1784.The first Hungarian designed and built aircraft flew in Rakosmežo on 4 November 1909.The first Hungarian airplane, powered by a radial engine, was built in 1913. Between 1913 and 1918 the Hungarian aircraft industry began to develop. During the First World War these factories produced fighter, bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The most important aircraft factories were the Weiss Manfred Works, the GANZ Works and the Hungarian Automobile Joint Stock Company Arad.

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Railway locomotive and vehicle industry

Factories for locomotives and wagons, bridges and ironwork were established in Vienna (Lokomotivfabrik der StEG, founded in 1839), Wiener Neustadt (Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik, founded in 1841) and Floridsdorf (Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf, founded in 1869).

The Hungarian factories for locomotives and wagons, bridges and railway construction were MÁVAG in Budapest (locomotives and wagons) and Ganz in Budapest (locomotives, wagons, production of electric locomotives and trams started in 1894); and the RÁBA Company in Győr.

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Transport

In 1913 the total length of the railway lines of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary was 43,280 kilometres. In Western Europe only Germany had a more extensive railway network (63,378 km). The Austro-Hungarian Empire was followed by France (40,770 km), the United Kingdom (32,623 km), Italy (18,873 km) and Spain (15,088 km).

From 1854 to 1879 almost all railway construction was carried out by private investors. Thus 7,952 kilometres were built in the Austrian part of the country and 5,839 kilometres in the Hungarian part. During this period many new regions were integrated into the railway system and existing railway networks were connected and interconnected. This period marked the beginning of extensive rail transport in Austria-Hungary, as well as the integration of transport systems in the region. The railways allowed the empire to consolidate its economy much more than was previously possible when transport was dependent on rivers.

Horse-drawn trams appeared in the first half of the 19th century. Between the 1850s and 1880s many in Vienna (1865), Budapest (1866) and Brno (1869). Steam-powered trams appeared in the late 1860s. Electrification of trams began in the late 1880s. The first electric tram in Austria-Hungary was operated in Budapest in 1887.

Electric tram lines in the Austrian Empire :

Electric tram lines in the Kingdom of Hungary:

Budapest:

Budapest Metro Line 1 (originally the “Francis Joseph Underground Railway Company”) is the second oldest underground railway line in the world (the first being the London Metropolitan Underground Line and the third being the Glasgow Underground Line) and the first in continental Europe. It was built from 1894 to 1896 and opened on 2 May 1896. In 2002 it was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 1900, the engineer K. Wagenfuerer drew up plans to connect the Danube and the Adriatic Sea with a canal from Vienna to Trieste. It was born out of Austro-Hungary”s desire to have a direct connection to the Adriatic Sea but was never constructed.

In 1831 a plan to make the crossing navigable had already been drawn up, on the initiative of the Hungarian politician Istvan Széchenyi. Finally Gábor Baros, Hungary”s “Iron Minister”, managed to finance this project. The rocks of the riverbed and the resulting waterfalls made the canyon valley a dangerous passage for navigation. In German, the passage is still known as Kataraktenstrecke (waterfall road), although the waterfalls no longer exist. Near the actual straits of the “Iron Gates” the Prigranta Rock was the most important obstacle until 1896. The river widened considerably here and the water level was therefore low. Upstream was the notorious Grammen Rock, near the Kazan Gorge.

The length of the Tisza in Hungary was 1,419 kilometres. It crossed the Great Hungarian Plain, which is one of the largest flat areas in Central Europe. Since the plains can make a river flow very slowly, the Tisza followed a course with many bends and curves, which caused many large floods in the region.

After many small-scale efforts István Széchenyi organized the “Tisza Regularization” (Hungarian: Tisza szabályozása) which began on 27 August 1846 and ended in 1880. The new length of the river in Hungary was 966 km (1,358 km in total), with 589 km of “dead channels” and 136 km of new river.

The first Hungarian steamship was built by Adal Bernhard in 1817 and was called the Carolina. It was the first steamship in the Habsburg-occupied states. But the first industrial-scale steamship building company in the Habsburg Empire was the Obuda Shipyard on the Hungarian island of Heilogkari in 1835, founded by Count István Széchenyi (with the help of the Austrian shipbuilding company Erste Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft (DDSG)).

The most important seaport was Trieste (now in Italy), where the Austrian merchant fleet was based. In addition, the two major shipping companies (Austrian Lloyd and Austro-Americana) and many shipyards were located there. The k.u.k. Navy used the port”s shipyards to build its new ships. This port grew as Venice declined. From 1815 to 1866 Venice was owned by the monarchy and was not allowed to compete with Austrian ports. Merchant shipping did not develop until Venice”s maritime interest declined. The navy became important in the Austro-Hungarian era, as industrialization and development brought significant revenues for its development.

The most important port for the Hungarian part was Fiume (Rijeka, today in Croatia), where Hungarian shipping companies such as Adria operated. The largest Hungarian shipbuilding company was Ganz-Danubius. Another important port was Paula (Pula, today in Croatia) – especially for the navy. In 1889 the Austrian merchant fleet consisted of 10,022 ships, with 7,992 fishing vessels. The coast and sea trade had a total of 1,859 sailing ships with a crew of 6,489 men and a cargo capacity of 140,838 tons, and 171 steamships with a cargo capacity of 96,323 tons and a crew of 3,199 men.

The first Danube steamship company, Donau-Dampfschiffahrt-Gesellschaft (DDSG), was the largest inland shipbuilding company in the world until the collapse of the Empire. Austrian Lloyd was one of the largest ocean shipping companies of the time. Before the start of World War I the company owned 65 medium and large steamships. Austro-Americana owned a third of them, including one of the largest Austrian passenger ships, the Kaiser Franz Joseph I. Compared to Austro-American Lloyd, Austro-American concentrated on destinations in North and South America.

The following data are based on the official Austro-Hungarian census of 1910.

Note that some languages are considered dialects of more widely spoken languages. For example, Ruthenian and Ukrainian were counted as Ruthenian in the census and Rhaeto-Romanic languages as Italian.

Historic areas:

Religion

Only in the Austrian Empire:

Only in the Kingdom of Hungary:

Larger cities

Data: 1910 census

The military organisation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was similar in both states and was based from 1868 on the principle of the universal and personal obligation of citizens to bear arms. Its military force consisted of the common army, the special armies, namely the Austrian Landwehr and the Hungarian Honved, which were separate national institutions, and the Landsturm or militia. As mentioned above, the common army was under the command of the common minister of war, while the special armies were under the command of the respective ministries of national defence. The annual number of those selected for the army was determined by the military bills passed by the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments and was generally calculated on the basis of population, according to the results of the latter. In 1905 it amounted to 103,100 men, of whom Austria contributed 59,211 men and Hungary 43,889. In addition to these 10,000 men were annually allotted to the Austrian Landwehr and 12,500 to the Hungarian Honved. The period of service was two years (three years in the cavalry) and seven or eight in the reserve and two in the Landwehr. In the case of men who did not join the active army, the same total period of service was performed in various auxiliary services.

The joint minister of war was the head of the command of all the military except those of the Austrian Landwehr and the Hungarian Honved, which were under the national defence ministries of the two respective states. But the supreme command of the army belonged to the monarch, who had the power to take any measure with respect to the whole army.

The Austro-Hungarian navy was primarily a coastal defence force and also included a patrol flotilla on the Danube. It was commanded by the naval department of the Ministry of War.

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Introduction: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Russian (Pan-Slavist) organizations sent aid to the Balkan rebels and thus pressured the Tsar”s government to declare war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877 in the name of protecting Orthodox Christians. Unable to mediate between the Ottoman Empire and Russia for control of Serbia, Austria-Hungary declared neutrality when the conflict between the two powers escalated into war. With the help of Romania and Greece, Russia defeated the Ottomans and with the Treaty of St. Stephen tried to create a large Russophile Bulgaria. This treaty sparked international unease that nearly caused a general European war. Austria-Hungary and Britain feared that a large Bulgaria would become a satellite of Russia, allowing the Tsar to dominate the Balkans. UK Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli moved warships to take up a position against Russia to halt the rise of Russian influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, close to Britain”s Suez Canal corridor.

The Congress of Berlin reversed the Russian victory by dividing the large Bulgarian state that Russia had cut off from Ottoman territory and denying any part of Bulgaria full independence from the Ottomans. Austria conquered Bosnia and Herzegovina to gain influence in the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania became fully independent. Nevertheless, the Balkans remained a place of political turmoil with great aspirations for independence and antagonisms between the great powers. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Foreign Minister Gula Andrássy succeeded in forcing Russia to withdraw from further claims in the Balkans. As a result, Great Bulgaria was dissolved and Serbia”s independence was guaranteed. in the same year, with the support of Britain, Austria-Hungary stationed troops in Bosnia to prevent the Russians from expanding into neighbouring Serbia. As another measure to keep the Russians out of the Balkans, Austria-Hungary formed an alliance, the Mediterranean Pact, with Britain and Italy in 1887 and concluded mutual defense pacts with Germany in 1879 and Romania in 1883 against possible Russian attack. After the Berlin Congress, the European powers sought to secure stability through a complex series of alliances and treaties.

Concerned about Balkan instability and Russian aggression and about countering French interests in Europe, Austria-Hungary forged a defensive alliance with Germany in October 1879 and May 1882. In October 1882 Italy joined it, creating the Triple Alliance, mainly because of its competition with France. Tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary remained strong, so Bismarck replaced the Triple Alliance with the secret Treaty of Non-Security with Russia to prevent the Habsburgs from recklessly starting a war for Pan-Slavism.

At the end of the Great Balkan Crisis the Austro-Hungarian forces occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 1878 and the monarchy finally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1908 as a joint possession of Austria and Hungary under the control of the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Finance rather than attached to one of the two territorial governments. The 1908 annexation led some in Vienna to consider combining Bosnia-Herzegovina with Croatia to form a third Slavic component of the monarchy. The deaths of Francis Joseph”s brother, Maximilian, (1867) and his only son, Rodolfo, made the emperor”s nephew, Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne. The Archduke is rumoured to have been an advocate of this trinitarianism as a means of limiting the power of the Hungarian aristocracy

A proclamation, issued on the occasion of their annexation to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1908, promised these areas constitutional institutions that would give their inhabitants full political rights and participation in the management of their own affairs through a local representative assembly. In fulfilment of this promise a constitution was published in 1910. It included a Land Statute (Landesstatut) establishing a Regional Diet, regulations for the election and operation of the Diet and laws on associations, public assemblies and regional councils. Under this statute Bosnia and Herzegovina became a single administrative region under the direction and supervision of the Ministry of Finance of the Dual Monarchy of Vienna. The administration of the country, together with the implementation of laws, was transferred to the Regional Government in Sarajevo, which was subordinate and responsible to the joint Ministry of Finance. The existing judicial and administrative authorities in the region retained their previous organisation and function. This statute introduced modern rights and laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina and ensured in general the civil rights of the inhabitants of the territory, namely citizenship, personal freedom, protection by the competent judicial authorities, freedom of faith and conscience, individuality and language, freedom of speech, freedom of education, the inviolability of the home, the secrecy of mail and telegrams, the inviolability of property, the right to petition and, finally, the right of assembly.

The Bosnia and Herzegovina Diet (Sabor) that was established consisted of a single body, elected on the principle of representation of interests. It had 92 members. Of these, 20 were representatives of all religious denominations, the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the Bar Association, the President of the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor of Sarajevo. There were 72 other deputies, elected by three constituencies. The first included the large landowners, the highest taxpayers and people who had reached a certain level of education, regardless of the amount they paid in taxes. The second included urban dwellers who were not qualified to vote in the first group and the third included rural dwellers, who were similarly excluded from the first group. This system was combined with the grouping of the mandates and voters according to the three prevailing denominations (Catholic, Serbian Orthodox, Muslim).

On 28 June 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand visited the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. A group of six assassins (Cvietko Popovic, Gavrilo Principi, Muhammad Mehmedbasic, Nedeljko Chabrinovic, Trifko Grabez, Vaso Čubrilovic) from the nationalist group Mlada Bosna (New Bosnia), armed by the Black Hand (a secret Serbian military organization), had gathered on the road where the Archduke”s convoy will pass. Chabrinovic threw a grenade at the car, but missed. He wounded a few people nearby and the convoy of Francis Ferdinand was able to continue. The other assassins failed to act as the cars quickly passed them. About an hour later, when Francis Ferdinand was returning from a visit to Sarajevo Hospital, the escort accidentally turned into a street where Gavrilo Principe was coincidentally standing. With his pistol, Principe shot and killed Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophia. The reaction among the Austrian people was mild, almost indifferent. As the Czech historian Z.A.B. Zeman later wrote. On Sunday and Monday , the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine as if nothing had happened.”

The murder greatly intensified existing traditional ethnic hostilities in Bosnia based on religion.However, in Sarajevo itself, the Austrian authorities encouraged violence against Serb residents, which resulted in the anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, in which Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims killed two and destroyed numerous Serb buildings. The writer Ivo Adric referred to the violence as a “frenzy of hatred in Sarajevo”. Violent acts against Serbs were organized not only in Sarajevo but also in many other larger Austro-Hungarian cities in present-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned and extradited about 5,500 prominent Serbs, of whom 700 to 2,200 died in prison. 460 Serbs were sentenced to death and a mainly Muslim special militia, known as the Schutzkorps, was created and carried out the persecution of Serbs.

While the military expenditure of the empire had not even doubled since the Berlin Congress of 1878, that of Germany had increased fivefold, while that of Britain, Russia and France had tripled. The empire had lost ethnically Italian regions to Piedmont because of the ethnic movements that had swept through Italy, and many Austro-Hungarians saw the threat of losing to Serbia the southern regions inhabited by Slavs as imminent. Serbia had recently gained significant territory in the Second Balkan War of 1913, causing great discontent in government circles in Vienna and Budapest. The former ambassador and foreign minister, Count Alois Aerendal, had concluded that any future war would take place in the Balkan region.

Hungarian Prime Minister and political scientist István Tisza opposed the expansion of the monarchy into the Balkans because “the Dual Monarchy already had too many Slavs”, which would further threaten its integrity.

In March 1914 Tisza wrote a memorandum to Emperor Francis Joseph. His letter had a strongly apocalyptic, prognosticating and angry tone. He precisely used the hitherto unknown word “Weltkrieg” (meaning World War) in his letter. “I am deeply convinced that Germany”s two neighbors are carefully proceeding with military preparations, but will not start the war as long as they have not achieved a unification of the Balkan states against us, which would confront the monarchy with an attack from three sides and settle most of our forces on our eastern and southern fronts. “

On the day of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Tisza immediately travelled to Vienna where he met with the Foreign Minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, and the Army Chief of Staff, Franz Conrad von Hetzendorf. They proposed to solve the conflict with arms by attacking Serbia. Tisha suggested that the Serbian government be given time to take a position on whether it was involved in organizing the assassination and proposed a peaceful resolution, arguing that the international situation would soon be restored. Returning to Budapest, he wrote to Emperor Francis Joseph saying that he would take no responsibility for the armed conflict because there was no evidence that Serbia had planned the assassination. Tisza opposed war with Serbia, stating (correctly, as it turned out) that any war with the Serbs was certain to cause a war with Russia and therefore a general European war. He did not trust Italy”s alliance because of the political aftermath of the Second Italian War of Independence; he felt that even a successful Austro-Hungarian war would be disastrous for the integrity of the Kingdom of Hungary, where Hungary would be the next victim of Austrian policy. After a successful war against Serbia, Tisza foresaw a possible Austrian military attack against the Kingdom of Hungary to break up the territory of Hungary.

Some members of the government, such as Count Franz Conrad von Hetzendorf, had wanted to confront the reborn Serbian nation for some years with a preventive war, but the Emperor, 84 years old and the enemy of all adventure, disapproved.

The Foreign Ministry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire sent Ambassador Laszlo Segeni to Potsdam, where he inquired about the German Emperor”s opinion on July 5. Segeni describes what happened in a secret report in Vienna later that day:

“I presented myself to His Majesty with the letter and the attached memorandum. Keiser read both papers with great care in my presence: At first His Majesty assured me that he expected us to take strong action against Serbia, but he had to admit that, owing to the conflicts he was facing , he had to take into account a serious complication in Europe, and therefore he did not want to give a definite answer before consulting the Chancellor … .

When, after our breakfast, I again emphasised the seriousness of the situation, His Majesty authorised me to report to him that in this case too we could rely on the full support of Germany. As has been mentioned, he had first to consult the Chancellor, but he had not the slightest doubt that Herr von Bettmann-Holweg would fully agree with him, particularly as regards action on our part against Serbia. In his opinion, however, there was no need to wait patiently before taking action. Kaiser said that Russia”s attitude would always be hostile, but he had been prepared for it for many years, and even if war broke out between Austria-Hungary and Russia, we could be sure that Germany would take our side, with her usual loyalty. According to Kaiser, as things now stood, Russia was by no means ready for war. Surely it should have thought seriously before calling to arms.”

But now the leaders of Austria-Hungary, especially General Count Leopold von Berchtold, supported by their ally Germany, decided to clash militarily with Serbia before it could instigate an insurrection. Using assassination as an excuse, they presented a list of ten demands called the July Ultimatum, expecting that Serbia would never accept them. When Serbia accepted nine of the ten demands, but only partially accepted the tenth, Austria-Hungary declared war. Francis Joseph finally followed the urgent advice of his top advisers.

During July and August 1914, these events triggered the beginning of World War I, as Russia declared a draft to support Serbia, starting a series of counter-marches. In support of his German ally, on Thursday 6 August 1914, Emperor Francis Joseph signed the declaration of war on Russia. Italy initially remained neutral, although it was allied with Austria-Hungary. In 1915 it turned to the side of the Entente forces, hoping to gain territory from its former ally.

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Foreign policy during the war

The Austro-Hungarian Empire played a relatively passive diplomatic role in the war, as it was increasingly dominated and controlled by Germany. The only goal was to punish Serbia and try to prevent the national disintegration of the Empire, which ultimately failed. Instead, as the war continued, the unity of the nationalities diminished. The Allies encouraged secessionist demands by minorities and the Empire was threatened with disintegration. In late 1916 the new Emperor Charles removed pro-German officials and made peace proposals to the Allies, whereby the war as a whole could be ended by compromise or perhaps Austria could make a separate peace from Germany. This effort was met mainly with opposition from Italy, which had been promised large parts of Austria to join the Allies in 1915. Austria was prepared to return only the Trentino region, but nothing more. Charles was considered a defeatist, which weakened his position with both the Allies and Germany.

As the Empire”s economy collapsed amidst severe deprivation and even starvation, its multi-ethnic army was losing its morale and was under increasing pressure to hold the ranks. In the capitals of Vienna and Budapest, left-wing and liberal movements and opposition parties supported and encouraged the secession of ethnic minorities. As it became apparent that the Allies would win the war, nationalist movements, which had previously called for a greater degree of autonomy for their majority regions, began to demand full independence. The emperor had lost much of his power to rule as his kingdom disintegrated.

In the summer of 1918 the “Green Detachments” of army deserters had formed armed groups in the hills of Croatia-Slavonia and the political authorities had been disbanded. By the end of October violence and mass looting broke out and attempts were made to create peasant republics. However, the Croatian political leadership focused on creating a new state (Yugoslavia) and collaborated with the advancing Serbian army to impose control and end the uprisings.

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Military action

The Austro-Hungarian Empire recruited 7.8 million soldiers during World War I. General von Hetzendorf was the Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff. Franz Joseph I, too old to command the army, appointed Archduke Frederick of Austria and Duke of Tesen as Supreme Army Commander (Armeeoberkommandant), but asked him to give von Hetzendorf the freedom to make decisions. von Hetzendorf remained de facto commander of the armed forces until Emperor Charles I took over supreme command himself at the end of 1916 and dismissed Conrad von Hetzendorf in 1917. In the meantime, economic conditions at the rear deteriorated rapidly. The Empire was dependent on agriculture and agriculture on the hard work of millions of men now in the army. Food production declined, the transport system reached its limits and industrial production could not successfully meet the huge need for ammunition. Germany provided a great deal of aid, but it was not enough. Moreover, the political instability of the Empire”s multiple ethnic groups now exhausted any hope of national consensus in support of the war. Increasingly, the question of the dissolution of the Empire and the ,creation of autonomous nation-states based on historical cultures based on language was becoming an issue. The new Emperor sought terms of peace from the Allies, but his initiatives met with the refusal of Italy.

At the beginning of the war, the army was divided into two sections. The smaller one took over the attack against Serbia, while the larger one was assigned to face the Russian army. The invasion of Serbia proved disastrous: at the end of 1914 Austria-Hungary had not conquered any territory and had lost 227,000 of a total force of 450,000 men. However, in the autumn of 1915 the Serbian Army was defeated by the Central Powers (Austrians with the help of the Germans and Bulgarians), resulting in the occupation of Serbia. Near the end of 1915, in a massive rescue operation involving over 1,000 runs by Italian, French and British steamships, 260,000 Serbian soldiers were transported to Corfu, where they awaited the possibility of victory for the Allied Forces to claim their country. Corfu hosted the Serbian government in exile after the collapse of Serbia and served as a supply base for the Greek front. In April 1916, a large number of Serbian troops were transferred by British and French warships from Corfu to mainland Greece. The total force of over 120,000 men replaced a much smaller army on the Macedonian Front and fought alongside British and French troops.

On the Eastern Front the war began just as badly. The Austro-Hungarian army was defeated at the Battle of Leberg and the great fortress city of Peschemysl was besieged and fell in March 1915. The Gerlich-Tarnów Offensive began as a secondary German offensive to relieve the pressure of Russian numerical superiority over Austria-Hungary, but the cooperation of the Central Powers resulted in huge Russian casualties, the complete collapse of the Russian lines and their retreat 100 km into Russia. The Russian Third Army was decimated. In the summer of 1915 the Austro-Hungarian Army, under unified command with the Germans, participated in the successful Gerlich-Tarnów offensive. From June 1916 the Russians focused their attacks on the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Brusilov offensive, taking advantage of the numerical inferiority of the Austro-Hungarian Army. In late September 1916 Austria-Hungary recruited and assembled new forces and the successful Russian advance was halted and gradually repulsed, but the Austrian armies suffered heavy losses (about 1 million men) from which they never recovered. The Battle of Zborov (1917) was the first major action of the Czechoslovak Legion, fighting for the independence of Czechoslovakia against the Austro-Hungarian Army. However, the huge losses in men and material suffered by the Russians during the offensive contributed significantly to the 1917 revolutions and this caused the economic collapse of the Russian Empire.

In May 1915 Italy attacked Austria-Hungary. Italy was the only military opponent of Austria-Hungary that had a similar degree of industrialization and economic level. Moreover, its army was numerous (~1,000,000 men were already in arms), but suffered from inadequate leadership, training and organization. Chief of Staff Luigi Cantorna led his army towards the Isonzo River, hoping to capture Ljubljana and eventually threaten Vienna. However, the Royal Italian Army was intercepted on the river, where four battles took place over five months (23 June – 2 December 1915). The battle was extremely bloody and exhausting for both opponents. On 15 May 1916, the Austrian Chief of Staff Conrad von Hetzentroff launched the Strafexpedition (”punitive expedition”): the Austrians broke through the opposing front and captured the Asiago Plateau. The Italians managed to resist and with a counterattack, they captured Gorizia on 9 August. However, they were forced to stop at Carso, a few kilometers away from the border. At this point several months of ambiguous trench warfare (similar to that of the Western Front) followed. As the Russian Empire collapsed as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russians ended their participation in the war, the Germans and Austrians were able to transfer to the Western and Southern fronts much manpower from the fighting on the former Eastern Front. On 24 October 1917 the Austrians (now enjoying decisive German support) attacked Caporetto using new infiltration tactics. Although they advanced more than 100 km to Venice and gained significant supplies, they were intercepted and could not cross the Piave River. Italy, although suffering huge losses, recovered from the blow: a coalition government was formed under Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. Italy also received support from the Entente forces: in 1918 large quantities of war material and some auxiliary American, British and French divisions arrived on the Italian front. Cantorna was replaced by General Armando Dias. Under his command, the Italians regained the initiative and won the decisive Battle of the Piave River (15-23 June 1918), where some 60,000 Austrians and 43,000 Italian soldiers were killed. The multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire began to disintegrate, leaving only its army on the battlefields. The final battle was at Vittorio Veneto: after 4 days of fierce resistance, the Italian troops crossed the Piave River and after losing 90,000 men, the defeated Austrian troops retreated in disorder, pursued by the Italians. The Italians captured 428,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers, 24 of whom were generals, 5,600 cannons and mortars, 4,000 machine guns. The military collapse also marked the beginning of rebellion for the numerous ethnic groups that made up the multi-ethnic empire, as they refused to continue fighting for a cause that now seemed meaningless. These events marked the end of Austria-Hungary, which collapsed on 31 October 1918. The armistice was signed in Villa Giusti, outside Padua on 3 November.

On 27 August 1916 Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary. The Romanian Army crossed the border of Eastern Hungary (Transylvania). By November 1916 the Central Powers had defeated the Romanian Army and occupied the southern and eastern part of Romania. On 6 December the Central Powers occupied Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

Austria-Hungary held out for years, as the Hungarian part of it provided sufficient supplies to the army to continue the war. This became evident in a transfer of power, after which Hungary”s Prime Minister, Count István Tisza, and Foreign Minister, Count István Boyria, had decisive influence over the monarchy”s internal and external affairs. At the end of 1916 the government requested an armistice from the Entente forces. However, this failed as Britain and France no longer had any interest in the integrity of the monarchy due to Austro-Hungarian support for Germany.

Analysis of the defeat

The failures suffered by the Austrian army in 1914 and 1915 can be largely attributed to the fact that Austria-Hungary became a military satellite of the German Empire from the first day of the war and were aggravated by the incompetence of the Austrian high command. After the attack on Serbia her forces soon had to withdraw to protect her eastern frontier from Russian attack, while German units were busy fighting on the Western Front. This resulted in a greater than expected loss of men in the invasion of Serbia. Moreover, it became apparent that Austria”s high command had not drawn up plans for a possible continental war and that her army and navy were also inadequately equipped to handle such a conflict.

From 1916 the Austro-Hungarian war effort became increasingly dependent on the directions of the German rulers. The Austrians valued the German Army, while on the other hand, from 1916 onwards the general belief in Germany was that Germany, in the context of its alliance with Austria-Hungary, was “involved with a corpse”. The operational capability of the Austro-Hungarian army was severely affected by inadequate supplies, low morale and a high casualty rate, and by its composition, with multiple ethnicities with different languages and habits.

The last two Austrian successes, the Romanian offensive and that of Caporetto, were German-assisted operations. As the Dual Monarchy became more unstable politically, it became increasingly dependent on German assistance. The majority of its people, except for the Hungarians and German Austrians, were becoming increasingly restless.

In 1917 the Eastern front of the Entente forces collapsed completely.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire then withdrew from all the defeated countries. By 1918 the economic situation had deteriorated. The leftist and pacifist political movements were organizing strikes in factories and the military uprisings were constant. During the Italian battles the Czechoslovaks and the Southern Slavs declared their independence. On 31 October Hungary ended its personal union with Austria, formally dissolving the Monarchy. During the last Italian offensive, the Austro-Hungarian Army was driven into the battlefield without food and ammunition and fought without any political support for a de facto non-existent empire. At the end of the decisive joint Italian, British and French offensive at Vittorio Veneto, a disintegrated Austria-Hungary signed the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918.

The government had completely failed at the back. Historian Alexander Watson reports:

The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed dramatically in the autumn of 1918. In the capitals of Vienna and Budapest, left-wing and liberal movements and politicians (the opposition parties) supported the secession of ethnic minorities. These left-wing or left-liberal pro-Antant unorthodox parties were opposed to the monarchy as a form of government and considered themselves internationalist rather than patriotic. Eventually the German defeat and the Hellenic revolutions in Vienna and Budapest gave political power to the left

Alexander Watson argues that “the fate of the Habsburg regime was sealed when Wilson”s reply to the note, sent to him two and a half weeks earlier, arrived on 20 October”. Wilson rejected the survival of the dual monarchy as a negotiable possibility. In one of his Fourteen Points, President Woodrow Wilson called for the nationalities of Austria-Hungary to have the “freest opportunity for autonomous development.” In response, Emperor Charles I agreed to reconvene the Imperial Parliament in 1917 and allow the creation of a confederation with each ethnic group exercising self-government. However, the leaders of these ethnic groups rejected the idea, distrusted Vienna completely and were now determined to gain independence.

On 14 October 1918, Baron Istvan Bourian von Ragetz, the Baron”s Foreign Minister, called for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points. In an apparent attempt to show good faith, Emperor Charles issued a proclamation (“Imperial Manifesto of 16 October 1918”) two days later that would significantly change the structure of the Austrian part of the monarchy. The Polish majority regions of Galicia and Lodomeria were to be granted the right to secede from the Empire and were to be allowed to join their ethnic brothers in Russia and Germany to create a Polish state. The rest of the Austrian Empire was transformed into a federal union consisting of four parts – German, Czech, South Slavic and Ukrainian. Each of these would be governed by a national council, which would negotiate the future of the empire with Vienna. Trieste was to be given special status. No such proclamation could be issued in Hungary, where Hungarian aristocrats still believed they could subjugate other nationalities and preserve the “Holy Kingdom of St. Stephen”.

It was a dead letter. Four days later, on October 18, the United States Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, replied that the Allies had now accepted the rights of the Czechs, Slovaks and Southern Slavs. Therefore, Lansing said that the autonomy of the nationalities – the tenth of the Fourteen Points – was no longer enough and Washington could no longer deal with the Fourteen Points. In effect, a provisional government of Czechoslovakia had joined the Allies on 14 October. The Southern Slavs in both parts of the monarchy had already advocated unification with Serbia into a large South Slavic state through the 1917 Corfu Declaration signed by members of the Yugoslav Committee. Indeed, the Croats had begun to ignore the orders from Budapest by early October.

Lansing”s reply was in fact the death certificate of Austria-Hungary. The national councils had already begun to act more or less as provisional governments of independent countries. With defeat in the war imminent after the Italian attack at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto on 24 October, Czech politicians peacefully took over the administration in Prague on 28 October (later declared the birthday of Czechoslovakia) and followed in other major cities in the following days. On 30 October the Slovaks followed in Martin. On 29 October the Slavs in both parts of what was left of Austro-Hungary declared the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. They also declared that their ultimate intention was to unite with Serbia and Montenegro in a large South Slavic state. On the same day the Czechs and Slovaks officially declared the establishment of Czechoslovakia as an independent state.

In Hungary the most prominent opponent of the continuing union with Austria, Count Michal Caroli, seized power in the Chrysanthemum Revolution on October 31. Charles was forced to appoint Karoly as his prime minister of Hungary. One of Karoly”s first actions was to cancel the Compromise Agreement, formally dissolving the Austro-Hungarian state.

By the end of October nothing remained of the kingdom of Habsburg beyond the predominantly German provinces of the Danube and the Alps, but Charles” authority was challenged even there by the German-Austrian state council. Charles” last Austrian prime minister, Heinrich Lammas, concluded that Charles was weakened and convinced him that the best solution was to relinquish, at least temporarily, his right to exercise power.

Consequences

On 11 November Charles issued a carefully worded declaration in which he recognised the right of the Austrian people to determine the form of the state. He also renounced the right to participate in Austrian state affairs. He also dismissed Lamas and his government and released officials in the Austrian part of the empire from their oath of allegiance to him. Two days later he issued a similar proclamation for Hungary. However, he did not resign, remaining available in case the people of either state recalled him. In all respects this was the end of Habsburg rule.

Charles” refusal to resign was ultimately of no consequence. The day after he announced his withdrawal from Austrian politics, the German-Austrian National Council proclaimed the Republic of German Austria. Caroli followed suit on 16 November, proclaiming the Hungarian People”s Republic.

The decisions of the nations of the former Austria-Hungary and the victors of the Great War, contained in the heavily one-sided treaties, had disastrous political and economic consequences. The previously rapid economic growth of the Dual Monarchy came to an abrupt halt because the new borders became major economic obstacles. All formerly established industries, as well as the infrastructure that supported them, were designed to meet the needs of a sprawling country. As a result, the resulting countries were forced to make significant sacrifices to transform their economies. The circumstances created great political anxiety. As a result of these economic difficulties, extremist movements were strengthened and there was no regional superpower in central Europe.

In the summer of 1919 an Habsburg, Archduke Joseph Augustus, became regent, but was forced to resign after only two weeks when it became obvious that the Allies would not recognise him. Finally in March 1920 the royal forces were assigned to a viceroy, Miklos Horthy, who was the last chief admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and had helped organize the counter-revolutionary forces. His government signed the Treaty of Trient, amid protests, on 4 June 1920 at the Grand Trient Palace in Versailles, France.

In March and again in October 1921, Charles” spasmodic attempts to regain the throne in Budapest failed. The initially reluctant Horthy, after receiving threats of intervention from the Allied Powers and neighbouring countries, refused to cooperate. Shortly afterwards the Hungarian government annulled the Doctrinal Ratification, effectively dethroning the Habsburgs. Two years later, Austria passed the “Habsburg Law”, which not only dethroned the Habsburgs but forbade Charles from returning to Austria again.

The British then took Charles into custody and removed him and his family to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where he died the following year (1922).

The following successor states were formed (in whole or in part) on the territory of the former Austria-Hungary:

Austro-Hungarian territories were also assigned to the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Italy. The Principality of Liechtenstein, previously seeking the protection of Vienna, formed a customs and defence union with Switzerland and adopted the Swiss currency instead of the Austrian. In April 1919 Forarlberg – Austria”s westernmost province – voted by a large majority to unite with Switzerland, but both the Swiss and the Allies ignored this result.

The following present-day countries and parts of countries were within the borders of Austria-Hungary when the empire was dissolved:

Empire of Austria :

Kingdom of Hungary:

Austro-Hungarian Empire

Possessions of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy

Other parts of Europe had once been part of the Habsburg monarchy, but it had lost them before its dissolution in 1918. Notable examples are the regions of Lombardy and Veneto in Italy, Silesia in Poland, most of Serbia, and parts of northern Switzerland and southwestern Germany.

Flags

Although Austria-Hungary did not have a common national flag, there was a common coat of arms for the navy and a merchant flag (introduced in 1869).

The black and yellow colour was used on the flag of the Austrian section. The Hungarian section used a flag bearing the Hungarian coat of arms on red, white and green.

Also read, biographies – Astrakhan Khanate

Coffins

The double-headed eagle of the Habsburg dynasty was used as the coat of arms of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1915. In 1915 a new coat of arms was adopted, combining the coat of arms of the two parts of the empire and the coat of arms of the Habsburg dynasty.

In addition, each of the two parts of Austria-Hungary had its own coat of arms.

Sources