The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918

John W. Mason

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317886273
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This book charts the history of the last fifty years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918. it reveals that the Habsburg Monarchy, though not in a healthy state before 1914, was not in fact doomed to collapse. The author examines foreign and domestic policies and reveals the weaknesses inherent in the Empire.He also shows how the Austro-Hungarian Empire attempted to satisfy the claims of eleven distinct national groups.

PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND

1 THE HABSBURG MONARCHY IN EUROPEAN HISTORY

The Habsburg Monarchy existed for over 600 years as a unique political unit in European history. Founded in 1278 as a dynastic creation, it was dissolved in 1918 as a dynastic creation, never having become linked to a single nation. In 1867, when the Monarchy divided into two states, Austria and Hungary, the so-called Dual Monarchy consisted of no fewer than eleven national groups: Germans, Magyars, Poles, Italians, Croats, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Slovenes, Ruthenians and Rumanians. In proportion to its size the Habsburg realm displayed, in L. B. Namier’s words, ‘more frontier and less coherence than any other State in Europe’ [167 p. 139].

The period covered in this book – the last fifty years of the Monarchy, 1867 to 1918 – was a time of political decay and disintegration, but also one of economic growth and extraordinary cultural efflorescence. Although it was the final phase of the Monarchy, the Habsburgs themselves regarded it as just another phase in the rule of their dynasty. Their very survival into the age of nationalism and democracy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was seen by many, both inside and outside the Monarchy, as the surest basis for their continued existence. Why that Monarchy failed, and what it achieved before the final collapse in 1918, are the subjects of this book.

FROM THE ORIGINS OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG TO 1848

The name Habsburg derives from Habichtsburg, ‘the Castle of the Hawks’, situated in what is today the Swiss canton of Aargau. From about the eleventh century the knights of the castle rose to a position of influence in southern Germany by forming alliances with many of the families in the area. Meanwhile, the eastern march (i.e., Oesterreich, or in Latin, Austria) of Charlemagne’s Empire was granted to the Babenberg family in the tenth century and they held it for the next 300 years [24]. In 1273 the imperial electors of the Holy Roman Empire elected Rudolf of Habsburg to the office of German Emperor. From their humble origins in the Swiss mountains the Habsburgs had become a Danubian power on the edge of German-speaking territory with future ambitions directed towards Bohemia, Hungary and south-east Europe.

The Habsburgs gradually increased the power of their house (the Hausmacht) by adding to the territory under their rule. In the fourteenth century they acquired Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrol, Istria and Trieste. In the following century the Habsburgs were elected Holy Roman Emperors and the crown remained in their house almost continuously from 1438 until the end of the Empire in 1806. The foundations for a world empire (including the Spanish Netherlands, Bohemia and Hungary) were laid by a series of dynastic marriages. When King Louis II of Bohemia and Hungary died without issue in 1526 in the battle of Mohács against the Turks, the Habsburgs inherited his two crowns.

The acquisition of Bohemia and Hungary in 1526 (and Croatia in 1527) marked a turning-point in the development of the Habsburg Monarchy [12]. The hereditary lands which had made up the Empire before 1526 were predominantly German in character and therefore could be quite easily integrated under the crown. The new kingdoms of the east, by contrast, were mainly non-German and had long-established independent histories. From the start then, Habsburg rule in the eastern territories had to rest on the free decisions of their own privileged representative assemblies. One significant result of these gains was that the Habsburg Monarchy began to take a different historical path from the countries in western Europe. Just at the time when the nation-state was emerging as the primary unit in the West, the multinational empire was becoming established as the norm in eastern Europe [13; 80].

The enormous problems of governing a multinational empire lay in the future. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Habsburg rulers were preoccupied with defending central Europe against two distinct enemies: the Turks from without and the Protestants from within. Austria’s struggles against these foes unified the Empire, gave it a raison d’etre and in the view of some historians lent it a particular character which it never lost [3; 12]. Twice in these years – first in 1529 and again in 1683 – the Turks laid siege to Vienna, but each time they were driven back by the Habsburg armies. In the process, the Habsburg Empire consolidated its position as a Great Power.

The Habsburg Monarchy emerged as a great European power in the early eighteenth century. The long struggle against the Ottoman Empire had ended in favour of the Habsburgs; henceforth, their main function in Europe would be to act as ‘the great counterpoise to France’ [5 p. iv]. In the War of Spanish Succession (1702–14) Prince Eugene of Savoy, the most heroic military figure in Austrian history, joined with the Duke of Marlborough to defeat the French and won for the dynasty the Spanish Netherlands and the richest provinces of Italy.

Under Maria Theresa (1740–80) and her son, Joseph II (1780–90), the Empire became a centralized administrative system for the first time [18]. Hungary, however, retained its constitutional independence and privileges, in spite of attempts by Joseph to crush them. At this time, Austria’s leading position in central Europe was contested by Hohenzollern Prussia, which under Frederick the Great took the rich German-speaking province of Silesia from Austria. Austria received some compensation for this loss by taking Galicia in the first partition of Poland in 1772. But Prussia was now a threat to the Habsburg Monarchy and there was no way in which the latter could sustain a struggle against her northern rival without the support of Hungary [19]. The price that had to be paid was concessions to Hungary. We can see foreshadowed here the shape of relations between Austria and Hungary under the Dual Monarchy from 1867.

The French Revolution and the twenty years of war it unleashed had a profound effect on the Habsburg Monarchy. Two of the main ideas of the French Revolution – nationalism and political democracy – struck at the very roots of the multinational Habsburg Empire; it now became the ideological opponent of the new order which France, under Napoleon, was seeking to impose on all Europe. When Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor of the French in 1804, Francis II (1792–1835) responded by proclaiming himself Emperor of Austria. The Habsburgs had been elected Holy Roman Emperors for centuries, but in 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved and henceforth they became hereditary Austrian Emperors. Although the change of title did not affect the internal position of the various states, it registered the shift of the centre of the House of Austria away from Germany towards the east [13]. In the words of V. L. Tapié, ‘modern Austria had been born’ [24 p. 248].

After Napoleon’s final defeat in 1813 the victors met in Vienna, which became the diplomatic capital of Europe. The Habsburgs assumed the leadership of the loose German Confederation and took over two rich territories in Italy – Lombardy and Venetia. But behind the outward strength and dedication to absolute rule the Empire was weak and unable to cope with the new forces of liberalism and nationalism. Metternich served as Foreign Minister from 1809, and as Chancellor from 1829 to 1848, and his name became the symbol of the age which culminated in the revolutions of 1848. Metternich’s aim was to preserve the territorial status quo and uphold the old patriarchal system of government; the means he used were an enlarged police force, censorship and political repression [16].

THE PERIOD OF CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIMENTS:1848–67

The period 1848–67 was a crucial and formative one in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. Internal revolution, foreign wars and constitutional crises left the Monarchy in a weakened position in 1867. The 1848 revolutions shook most countries in Europe to their foundations. But they had a greater impact on Austria than elsewhere because there the government had to face a nationalist challenge in addition to the democratic one. What happened in Austria in 1848 and after was that national aspirations conflicted with liberal claims and the latter lost. One of the tragedies of central Europe in the mid-nineteenth century was that national unity took precedence over liberty [25; 167].

In 1848 five separate but interrelated revolutions took place within the Habsburg Empire: the German (in Vienna), the Czech (in Prague), the Magyar (in Budapest), the Croat (in Agram) and the Italian (in Milan and Venice) [16]. Metternich was forced to resign, the court had to leave Vienna, and the Monarchy was momentarily thrown off balance. But the Habsburg armies under Marshal Radetsky and Prince Windischgratz soon crushed the rebel forces in Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Italy. Hungary, which had proclaimed an independent republic in 1849, was forced to capitulate when the Russian army came to the aid of Austria and defeated the Hungarian forces at Vilagos in the same year. Hungary’s defeat at the hands of Russia was never forgotten by the Magyars and was crucial in shaping their future relationship with Austria.

By 1850 the Habsburg Empire had regained her position of leadership in Italy and Germany. In December 1848 the feeble Emperor Ferdinand (1835–48) abdicated in favour of his eighteen-year-old nephew, Franz Joseph, who was to rule for the next 68 years. Franz Joseph fell under the sway of Prince Schwarzenberg, who led the return to absolutist, centralized rule until his death in 1852. His work was carried on by Alexander Bach in the 1850s [18].

Franz Joseph owed the survival of his dynasty to the army in 1848–49; by the same logic the defeats of the army in separate wars against France in 1859 and Prussia in 1866 left the Monarchy in a weakened position in 1867 [8]. Austria maintained a neutral position during the Crimean War (1853–56), fought between Russia and the two Western powers, Britain and France. She thereby isolated herself diplomatically and was unable to resist changes in Italy and Germany in 1859 and 1866, when they were backed by the French and Prussian armies respectively [138].

In 1859, France, in support of Piedmont, defeated Austria in the battles of Magenta and Solferino and forced Austria to cede Lombardy. One result of these defeats was a financial and constitutional crisis within Austria which forced her to introduce a constitutional government in 1860–61. But the constitution of 1861, which emphasized the unitary character of the Habsburg Empire, satisfied neither the nationalists nor the liberals. More important, the Magyars opposed the constitution from the beginning and were eventually able to wring concessions from Franz Joseph when Austria once again found herself in a foreign-policy crisis with Germany, in 1865 [16]. Austria had hoped to ally with Prussia in 1860 in a crusade against France to recover Lombardy. But Prussia – which, since 1862, had been under its new Prime Minister, Bismarck – had other plans. He hoped to win over the states in the German Confederation from Austrian control. Austria now found herself isolated: Italy allied with Prussia, while France and Russia remained neutral [24].

Austria suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of Prussia in the battle of Sadowa in 1866. The Treaty of Prague (1866) sealed the exclusion of the Habsburg Monarchy from Germany, thus ending 600 years of history. Further, it marked the triumph of German (and Magyar) nationalism in central Europe and ended all attempts to find a federal solution to the problem of governing an empire of many nationalities. The final constitutional transformation of the Habsburg Monarchy into the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867 was determined by the Prussian needle gun on the battlefield of Sadowa [25].

2 1867 – THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN COMPROMISE

The Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867 recognized the sovereign equality of the two states – Austria and Hungary – and brought them together under a common ruler, Franz Joseph, as Emperor in Austria and King in Hungary. This ended the long period of uncertainty and constitutional experiments since 1848 and settled the final form of the Habsburg Empire until its break-up in 1918. The dualist system has been severely criticized by historians for failing to solve the internal problems of the Monarchy, especially the problem of Slav nationalism [12; 25]. Even at the time critics in Vienna dubbed the new system an ‘Empire under notice’ [20 p. 342].

Before we make any judgement on the Compromise it is necessary to ask under what circumstances it was created. The Monarchy had just lost the battle of Sadowa in 1866 and was forced to yield control of the Germanic Confederation to Prussia and abandon the province of Venetia to Italy. The power and prestige of the Habsburg dynasty were at their lowest ebb and the outlook was bleak. Franz Joseph was intent on restoring the Monarchy’s position as a great power and he sought revenge against Prussia. This could only be achieved by winning over the Hungarians through compromises. The events of 1866–67 illustrate how closely foreign and domestic affairs were interwoven in the Habsburg Monarchy. In the words of Louis Eisenmann, ‘modern dualism owes its origin to Sadowa’ [8 p. 182].

The man called by Franz Joseph to carry out the internal reorganization of the Monarchy was Baron Beust, a former Prime Minister of Saxony and bitter opponent of Bismarck’s Prussia. But even more important were the statesmen on the Hungarian side. After the defeat at Sadowa the Emperor invited Francis Deak, the leader of the moderate Magyar Compromise Party, to Vienna and asked him what conditions he would demand to come to a settlement with Austria. His celebrated answer was, ‘no more after Sadowa than before’ [19 p. 34]. Thus encouraged, Franz Joseph restored the Hungarian constitution in February 1867 and authorized the formation of a ministry responsible to the Hungarian parliament. In June Franz Joseph, already Emperor of Austria, was crowned King of Hungary in the most colourful spectacle ever witnessed in Budapest.

The Compromise was a unique constitutional creation. The two independent states were not fully sovereign, as would be the case in a confederation, nor was there a state above them, as there would be in a federation. But they did share a common ruler and were joined together by more than a personal union [14]. Each half of the Monarchy was completely independent of the other, except for the army, a common ministry of foreign affairs, and the financing of these two activities. Each half had its own prime minister, responsible to Franz Joseph, as King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria. The three common ministries – defence, foreign affairs and joint finances – were appointed by the Emperor, but they were responsible to two bodies, called Delegations, chosen from the Upper and Lower Houses of each parliament. The odd thing about the Delegations was that they met separately in Vienna and Budapest and only communicated to each other in writing.

The basic...