I.

Introduction

Austria-Hungary, also known as the dual monarchy, nation in central Europe ruled by the Habsburg monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was established in 1867 under Francis Joseph I, the emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. Austria-Hungary extended over more than 675,000 sq km (241,491 sq mi) in central Europe, and included what are now Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, as well as parts of present-day Poland, Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro.

Austria and Hungary were united as a result of the compromise (known in German as the Ausgleich) of March 1867. The compromise was an agreement between the Habsburg Emperor Francis Joseph and the Magyar rulers of the kingdom of Hungary. The people of Austria and the non-Magyar peoples of Hungary were not consulted. Besides a common monarch, the compromise established common ministries of foreign affairs, finance, and defense. Each kingdom had a separate parliament and was able to govern its own internal affairs. The compromise of 1867 established a large nation of about 50 million people. Located in the heart of Europe, Austria-Hungary was composed of many different language groups and nationalities. Austria-Hungary was regarded as a great European power along with France, Germany, Russia, and Britain.

II.

Background

The Habsburgs had ruled many parts of Europe, including Austria, as part of the Holy Roman Empire since the 1200s. Austria was formed during the Napoleonic Wars, a series of wars fought from 1799 to 1815 between France, led by Napoleon I, and a number of European nations. Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806; in anticipation of this, the Austrian Empire had been created in 1804. At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Austria emerged as one of the most powerful states in what was called the German Confederation, and, as such, was one of the stronger nations in Europe. The Austrian Empire included the kingdom of Hungary, although the ruling class of Hungary, the Magyars, persistently pressed for more control in the years leading up to the compromise. For the half century after 1815, the Habsburg monarchy faced many serious internal challenges to its authority. Nationalistic groups demanded more autonomy. Political liberals were dissatisfied with the centralized Habsburg government, which promoted the idea that the emperor had absolute power to rule the Austrian nation without any interference. The Habsburg rulers managed to contain most of these threats by skillfully using the Austrian army and bureaucracy to keep restless subjects in line.

Externally, however, the Austrian Empire lost ground to rival states. Because Austria did not support Russia during the Crimean War (1853-1856), Russia refused in 1859 to support Austria against the French-supported Italian state of Piedmont (Piemonte), which drove Austria out of Lombardy (Lombardia), another state in northern Italy. Under the direction of Prince Otto von Bismarck, the minister-president of the north German state of Prussia, the Prussians began to challenge Austria for supremacy in the German Confederation. In 1866 Bismarck provoked Austria into the Seven Weeks' War. Austria lost and was expelled from the Confederation.

III.

The Compromise

Shocked and humiliated by Austria's defeat, Francis Joseph compromised with the Magyars in Hungary to shore up his empire and save the Habsburg monarchy. First, Francis Joseph consolidated the monarchy's power in the German states that were part of the empire. Then, in exchange for Hungarian support of the monarchy, he agreed to surrender his control of Hungarian internal affairs, including his protection of the non-Magyar peoples. This was a key point in obtaining Magyar cooperation. This agreement was the basis of the compromise of 1867, which divided the old Austrian Empire into two parts, Austria and the kingdom of Hungary. The Habsburg monarch would be both the king of Hungary and the emperor of Austria. The new entity would be called the Austro-Hungarian Empire and would have a single foreign policy, one army, and a unified monetary system.

In the Austrian part of the new empire, the constitutional monarchy that was established in the old Austrian empire by an agreement called the February Patent of 1861 remained in force. The February Patent was the result of calls for a more democratic government. It transferred power from local legislatures that were controlled by the propertied classes and the nobility to a more centralized national government. The Magyars, who comprised the nobles and property owners in Hungary, had opposed the February Patent when it was issued in 1861, and they opposed it again when the compromise was discussed in 1867. To appease the Magyars, Francis Joseph agreed that the February Patent would apply only to Austria's half of the new empire. The compromise therefore sealed Magyar dominance of Hungary.

The compromise united two kingdoms under one head of state. Austria had its legislative branch, known as the Reichsrat, and the Hungarians had theirs, known as the Diet. The Delegations was a common legislative body that included delegates from each parliament; it served as a link between the two national governments. Each kingdom had its ruling class: the German-speaking people in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary. However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire included a significant number of Slavs, although they were a minority in both Austria and Hungary. In the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire of approximately 50 million people, about 23 million were Slavs. Since the compromise was primarily an agreement between the Habsburgs and the Magyars, the Slavic peoples were not consulted before the compromise was enacted. Consequently, most Slavs never supported the compromise and Slavic discontent later became an important issue leading to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

IV.

The Height of the Dual Monarchy: 1867-1895

For the first 20 years after 1867, Austria-Hungary enjoyed a measure of security both at home and abroad. Hungary was calm for the first time in decades. Under the guidance of Kálmán Tisza, Hungary's prime minister from 1875 to 1890, the Hungarian liberals in power were loyal to the compromise. The Magyars encountered strong resistance, however, when they tried to impose the Magyar language and Magyar culture on the non-Magyar peoples of Hungary. Austria experienced a period of reform and prosperity under German liberal governments from 1867 to 1879. After 1879, a coalition of conservative, aristocratic, clerical, and Slavic elements managed to neutralize the contending nationalities by setting one group against another so that no one group would ever become too powerful. This small group of political insiders known as the Iron Ring was controlled until 1893 by Prime Minister Count Eduard Taaffe, a childhood friend of Francis Joseph.

The Habsburg monarchy's foreign policy was simplified when it lost territory in Italy and lost the Seven Weeks' War to Prussia in 1866. It concentrated on maintaining commercial markets and keeping expansionist powers from claiming Habsburg possessions that were populated largely by Romanians and Slavic peoples. On the last point, Francis Joseph knew those territories were safe as long as he could prevent two or more great powers from uniting against Austria-Hungary. In their efforts to forestall such a combination, Austro-Hungarian statesmen showed considerable flexibility and ingenuity. They were able to achieve their foreign policy objectives peacefully by securing timely alliances with other great powers.

Austria-Hungary was most concerned about limiting Russia's expansion in the Balkan Peninsula. In 1878 the Balkan Peninsula was made up of the independent countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro, in addition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which still belonged to the Ottoman Empire. In that year, with Britain's support, Austria-Hungary stationed troops in Bosnia, to prevent the Russians from expanding into nearby Serbia. In another measure to keep the Russians out of the Balkans, Austria-Hungary formed an alliance, the Mediterranean Entente, with Britain and Italy in 1887 and concluded mutual defense pacts, with Germany in 1879 and with Romania in 1883, against possible Russian attack. Relations with Serbia, Italy, and Romania were improved in the early 1880s with separate alliances. Finally, Austria-Hungary worked with Russia to resolve their mutual differences peacefully through the Three Emperors' League (1873-1878) and then the Three Emperors' Alliances (1881-1887). The three emperors were Francis Joseph, William I of Germany, and Alexander II (who died in 1881) and Alexander III of Russia. These measures helped Austria-Hungary to achieve security.

V.

Crises at Home, Passivity Abroad: 1895-1906

Between 1895 and 1906, Austria-Hungary was preoccupied with internal problems. During the early years of the compromise, nationalistic and ethnic conflicts were pushed aside, but these conflicts exploded in the mid-1890s. Conflicts between the Germans and the Czechs in Bohemia paralyzed the Austrian Reichsrat. In Hungary, the long-repressed critics of the compromise, mainly the non-Magyar peoples who resented the rule of the Magyars, could no longer be silenced. Negotiations in Hungary for the renewal of the compromise, which had to be approved every 10 years, dragged on from 1897 to 1906 without resolution. Some opponents of the compromise objected to institutionalized Magyar rule. Other opponents insisted that Magyar contingents in the imperial army received preferential treatment.

Francis Joseph handled most of these domestic problems by resorting to his imperial executive powers to rule Austria-Hungary. He governed through the cabinet ministers and appointed civil servants. Since the Austrian Reichsrat and the Hungarian Diet were so divided they could do little more than debate the issues, the emperor enacted emergency legislation and budgets were administered by emergency decrees. He subjected Hungary to a virtual state of martial law. The dual monarchy seemed to be close to breaking apart, especially in 1905 when, in Hungary, the defenders of the 1867 compromise were defeated at the polls. Francis Joseph finally brought the Hungarians in line in 1906 when he threatened to give voting rights to the non-Magyars in Hungary. The Magyars were a minority population in Hungary, and they knew this would end their supremacy. The renewal of the compromise finally won Hungarian approval in 1906.

In foreign affairs between 1895 and 1906, Austria-Hungary seemed to drift. In 1897 Russia and Austria-Hungary agreed to maintain the status quo in the Balkans. This accord significantly reduced tensions in Europe for the next 10 years. However, between 1895 and 1906, Germany and Russia grew closer together. Concerned more with domestic matters, Austria-Hungary neglected its relationship with Britain, a long-time ally of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans. This might have allowed Russia to increase its influence in the Balkans, but Russia was concentrating on expanding its holdings in eastern Asia, a policy that eventually resulted in conflicts with Japan. Russian imperialism in east Asia ended in 1905 when Russia lost the Russo-Japanese War. After that defeat, Russia turned its attention to the Balkans again.

VI.

The External Threat, 1906-1914

Although domestic discord troubled the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end, the main threats to the empire after 1906 came more from outside than from within. Specifically, relations between Austria-Hungary and Russia deteriorated to the point where war was increasingly likely.

At this time, the Ottoman Empire, which had once controlled much of southeastern Europe and still controlled the Straits of Bosporus at Constantinople (present-day İstanbul), was in its final stages of disintegration. In 1908 Austria-Hungary took the Ottoman possessions it wanted when it annexed the Balkan states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of which were populated by Slavs. The Russians were denied what they wanted—safe passage for their warships through the Straits of Bosporus, the narrow channel of water that runs between the Black Sea, home of the Russian fleet, and the Mediterranean Sea. Austria-Hungary's unilateral actions angered the Slavs in the region and infuriated the Russians, who were still excluded from the straits. At this time, Germany supported Austria-Hungary, but was unwilling to risk war with Russia. Thus, Austria-Hungary was isolated in its Balkans policy. Austria-Hungary's sense of isolation over the Balkans developed into a national obsession with keeping Russian power in the region to a minimum.

VII.

World War I and the End of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1914-1918

Greek and Balkan nationalists carved up the Ottoman Empire during a conflict known as the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). The Balkan state of Serbia was a major victor, emerging as a much enlarged nation that posed a direct threat to Austro-Hungarian holdings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austro-Hungarian statesmen were convinced that Russia was working to increase nationalism in the Balkans. It appeared to Austria-Hungary that Russia, a Slavic nation, was encouraging the growth of new, predominantly Slavic states, thus tipping the regional balance of power in favor of Russia and against Austria-Hungary. The Slavic peoples who were, for the most part, denied a voice in the affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were calling for nationalistic self-determination. The leaders of Austria-Hungary believed that Slavic unrest in the Balkans presented a serious threat to the dual monarchy.

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the presumed heir to the Austrian and Hungarian crowns, was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Serbian patriot. The leaders of Austria-Hungary were sure the Serbian government and ultimately the Russians were responsible. Austria-Hungary prepared for war, and this time the Germans were willing to support them. On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. For a complete discussion of the conflict, see World War I.

Although the war was started to preserve Austria-Hungary as a great power, it actually destroyed the empire even before defeat and dissolution officially overcame the monarchy. Austria-Hungary had only one ally—Germany, which had its own plans for Europe. These plans made no provisions for a truly independent Austria-Hungary. Austro-Hungarian losses on the battlefield served to increase its dependence on Germany. Francis Joseph died in 1916, and the new emperor, Charles I (1916-1918), tried secretly to conclude a separate peace with the Allies in 1917. However, negotiations failed, and when they became public, outraged Germans from inside and outside the empire brought pressure on the emperor to follow Germany's lead in every respect. The emperor had no option but to comply; Austria-Hungary was suffering losses on every military front. By the end of 1917, Austria-Hungary was almost totally dependent on Germany.

In 1918, although defeat in the war seemed likely, the monarchy's future remained uncertain. In domestic affairs, critics of the 1867 compromise were still demanding more influence within the monarchy, rather than independence outside the monarchy. The states with territorial claims against Austria-Hungary already were defeated in the war. There was considerable support among Austria-Hungary's Allied opponents for preserving the dual monarchy as a buffer against German power in the post-war world. The Allies were prepared to insist on federal reforms that would end the domination enjoyed by the empire's German and Magyar populations. However, the Germans and Magyars of the empire refused to consider such reforms. They staked their future on a German victory, and lost. A final effort by the emperor to save the monarchy by constitutional reform along federal lines was overwhelmingly rejected by the Hungarians.

A new map for central Europe was being drawn up in the months before the end of the war. Beginning in 1917, representatives of the Czechs, Poles, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up organizations in the Allied countries to gain sympathy and recognition. By late 1917 nationalist activities made the monarchy increasingly untenable. Shortages of food and other necessities triggered strikes and demonstrations at home and mutinies in the army and navy. Recognizing that the collapse of the monarchy was inevitable, the nationalist groups within the empire organized national councils that acted as separate governments. The Southern Slavs, meeting in Zagreb on October 6, 1918, advocated union with Serbia, and on October 28 the Czechs proclaimed an independent republic in Prague. On October 31 the Magyars had a revolution that initiated the creation of an independent Hungarian republic. On November 3, Austria and Hungary each signed an armistice with the Allies. On November 11, Charles I relinquished all his royal prerogatives in the administration of the empire and left Austria. His actions brought an end to Austria-Hungary and to the Habsburg monarchy. Within days Austria and Hungary declared themselves republics.