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''Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der heiligen ungarischen Stephanskrone''
( German )
''A birodalmi tanácsban képviselt királyságok és országok és a magyar szent korona országai''
( Hungarian )
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Austria-Hungary in Europe
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Kingdoms and countries of Austria-Hungary. : 1. Bohemia, 2. Bukovina, 3. Carinthia, 4. Carniola, 5. Dalmatia, 6. Galicia, 7. Kustenland, 8. Lower Austria, 9. Moravia, 10. Salzburg, 11. Silesia, 12. Styria, 13. Tirol, 14. Upper Austria, 15. Vorarlberg; '''Transleithania''': 16. Hungary, 17. Croatia and Slavonia; 18. '''Bosnia and Herzegovina'''
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War Flag
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Merchant Flag
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Flag of Austria
Coat of arms
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Flag of Hungary
Coat of arms
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Flag of the
Habsburg empire
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(Black-yellow flag was kept as Imperial Flag)
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Official Language s
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In Cisleithenia, German and minority tongues.
In Hungary, Hungarian and Latin .
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Established Church
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Roman Catholic
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Largest Cities
(inhabitants 1910)
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Vienna ( Capital ) 2,031,000
Budapest 882,000 (with suburbs 935,000)
Prague 224,000 (with suburbs 550,000)
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Head Of State
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Emperor Of Austria ,
King Of Hungary ,
King Of Bohemia , etc.
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Area
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676,615 km&2 (1910)
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Population
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51,390,223 (1910)
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Currency
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Austrian Guilder ;
Krone (from 1892 )
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National Anthem
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Volkshymne (People's Anthem)
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Existed
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1867 - 1918
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( Monarchy''', was a dual-monarchic union state (
1867 -
1918 ) in
Central Europe .
It replaced the
Austrian Empire (
1806 -
1867 ) on the same territory and originated in a
Compromise between the ruling
Habsburg dynasty and the Hungarians in order to maintain the state. As a multi-national
Empire in an era of
National awakening, it found its political life dominated by disputes among the eleven principal national groups. Its economic and social life was marked by a rapid economic growth through the age of
Industrialization and social modernization through many liberal and democratic reforms.
The
Habsburg dynasty ruled as
Emperors Of Austria over the western and northern half of the country and as
Kings Of Hungary over the
Kingdom Of Hungary which enjoyed some degree of self-government and representation in joint affairs (principally foreign relations and defence). The federation bore the full name of "The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the
Lands Of The Crown Of St. Stephen ".
Capital of the union state was
Vienna . According to size it was the second largest country in Europe (after
Russia ) and according to population the third largest (after Russia and the
German Empire ).
Many texts refer to the non-Hungarian ("Austrian") half part of Austria-Hungary as
Cisleithania -- because most of its territory lay west (or to "this" side, from an Austrian perspective) of the
Leitha river (although
Galicia to the north-east and
Dalmatia to the south-east also counted as "Austrian"). This region (consisting of more than simply
Austria ) strictly speaking had no collective official name prior to 1915, and hence official sources referred to the "Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council". (The Imperial Council (''
Reichsrat '') functioned as Cisleithania's parliament.) Similarly, the
Transleithania n ("Hungarian") half also consisted of more than simply Hungary, and bore the official designation of the Lands of the Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen" -- a reference to the
Canonised first
Christian king of Hungary.
Source: ''Geographischer Atlas zur Vaterlandskunde an den österreichischen Mittelschulen''. Vienna
1911 . Data according to the
Census of
December 31st 1910 .
The ''
Ausgleich '' ("Compromise"; kiegyezés in
Hungarian ) of February 1867 which inaugurated the Empire's dualist structure in place of the former unitary Austrian Empire (
1804 -1867) originated at a time when Austria had declined in strength and in power -- both in the
Italian peninsula (as a result of the
Austro-Sardinian War of
1859 ) and in greater Germany (culminating in the
Austro-Prussian War of
1866 ). Other factors in the constitutional changes included continued Hungarian dissatisfaction with rule from Vienna, and increasing national consciousness on the part of other nationalities of the Austrian Empire. Hungarian dissatisfaction grew partially from Austria's suppression, with
Russia n support, of the
Hungarian Liberal Revolution of
1848 –
1849 . However, dissatisfaction with Austrian rule had grown for many years within Hungary, and had many causes.
In an effort to shore up support for the monarchy, Emperor
Franz Joseph began negotiations for a compromise with the
Magyar nobility to ensure their support. Some members of the government, such as Austrian prime minister
Count Belcredi , advised the Emperor to make a more comprehensive constitutional deal with all of the nationalities that would have created a federal structure. Belcredi worried that an accommodation with the Magyar interests would alienate the other nationalities. However, Franz Joseph was unable to ignore the power of the Magyar nobility, and they would not accept anything less than dualism between themselves and the traditional Austrian élites.
In particular, Hungarian leaders demanded and received the Emperor's coronation as King of Hungary as a re-affirmation of Hungary's historic privileges, and the establishment of a separate parliament at
Budapest with the powers to enact laws for the historic lands of the Hungarian crown (the lands of
St Stephen ), though on a basis which would preserve the political dominance of Hungarian minority (more specifically of the country's nobility and educated élite) and the exclusion from effective power of the country's large
Romanian and
Slavic populations.
Three distinct elements ruled Austria-Hungary:
# the Hungarian government
# the “Austrian” or Cisleithanian government
# a unified administration under the monarch
Hungary and Austria maintained separate
Parliament s, each with its own
Prime Minister . Linking/co-ordinating the two fell to a government under a monarch, wielding power absolute in theory but limited in practice. The monarch’s common government had responsibility for the
Army , for the
Navy , for foreign policy, and for the
Customs Union .
Within Cisleithania and Hungary certain regions, such as Galicia and Croatia, but not the Slovak lands, enjoyed special status with their own unique governmental structures.
A common Ministerial Council ruled the common government: it comprised the three ministers for the joint responsibilities (joint finance, military, and foreign policy), the two prime ministers, some Archdukes and the monarch. Two delegations of representatives, one each from the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, met separately and voted on the expenditures of the Common Ministerial Council, giving the two governments influence in the common administration. However, the ministers ultimately answered only to the monarch, and he had the final decision on matters of foreign and military policy.
Overlapping responsibilities between the joint ministries and the ministries of the two halves caused friction and inefficiencies. The armed forces suffered particularly from overlap. Although the unified government determined overall military direction, the Austrian and Hungarian governments each remained in charge of "the quota of recruits, legislation concerning
Compulsory Military Service , transfer and provision of the armed forces, and regulation of the civic, non-military affairs of members of the armed forces". Needless to say, each government could have a strong influence over common governmental responsibilities. Each half of the Dual Monarchy proved quite prepared to disrupt common operations to advance its own interests.
Relations over the half-century after 1867 between the two halves of the Empire (in fact the Cisleithan part contained about 57% of the combined realm's population and a rather larger share of its economic resources) featured repeated disputes over shared external tariff arrangements and over the financial contribution of each government to the common treasury. Under the terms of the ''Ausgleich'', an agreement, renegotiated every ten years, determined these matters. Each build-up to the renewal of the agreement saw political turmoil. The disputes between the halves of the empire culminated in the mid-
1900s in a prolonged constitutional crisis -- triggered by disagreement over the language of command in Hungarian army units, and deepened by the advent to power in Budapest (April
1906 ) of a Hungarian nationalist coalition. Provisional renewals of the common arrangements occurred in October
1907 and in November
1917 on the basis of the ''status quo''.
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German
Hungarian
Czech
Polish
Ruthenian
Romanian
Croat
Slovak
Serb
Slovene
Italian
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24%
20%
13%
10%
8%
6%
5%
4%
4%
3%
3%
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Article 19 of the Austro-Hungarian constitution stated:
All races of the empire have equal rights, and every 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 those territories in which several races dwell, the public and educational institutions are to be so arranged that, without applying compulsion to learn a second country language ("Landessprache"), each of the races receives the necessary means of education in its own language.
The implementation of this principle led to several disputes since everything depended on the decision which language could be regarded ''landesüblich'' or customary. The Germans demanded the recognition of their language as a customary language in every part of the empire. While
Italian was regarded as an old "culture language" (''Kultursprache'') by German intellectuals and had always been granted equal rights as official language of the Empire, they had particular difficulties in accepting the
Slavic Languages as equal to German. On one occasion Count A. Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) entered the diet of
Carniola carrying the whole of the
Slovenian Literature under his arm to provide evidence that the
Slovenian Language could in his view not be substituted for German as a medium of higher education.
Nevertheless the following years saw an emancipation of several languages at least in the Cisleithanian part of the Empire. In a series of laws since 1867 the
Croatian Language was raised to equality with the hitherto officially dominating Italian language in
Dalmatia . Since 1882 there was a Slovenian majority in the diet of Carniola and in the capital
Laibach (Ljubljana) , thereby replacing German as dominant official language. Polish was introduced instead of German in 1869 in
Galicia as the normal language of government. The Poles themselves systematically disregarded the large Ukrainian minority in the country, which was not granted the status as an official language.
The language disputes were most fiercely fought in
Bohemia and
Moravia were the Czechs wanted to establish their language as the dominating language even in the purely German-speaking bordering areas of the country (later called the "
Sudetenland "). Germans lost their majority in the Bohemian diet in 1880 and their dominating position in the cities of
Prague and
Pilsen (while retaining a slight numerical majority in the city of
Brno (Brünn) ) and found themselves in an unfamiliar minority position. The old
Charles University In Prague hitherto dominated by the Germans was divided in a German and a Czech part in
1882 .
At the same time, Magyar dominance faced challenges from the local majorities of
Romanians in
Transylvania and in the eastern
Banat , of
Slovaks in today's
Slovakia , of
Croats and
Serbs in the crownlands of
Croatia and of
Dalmatia (today's
Croatia ), in
Bosnia And Herzegovina and in the provinces known as the
Vojvodina (today's northern
Serbia ). The Romanians and the Serbs also looked to union with their fellow-nationalists in the newly-founded states of
Romania (1859 - 1878) and
Serbia .
Though Hungary's leaders showed on the whole less willingness than their German Austrian counterparts to share power with their subject minorities, they granted (it is argued) a large measure of autonomy to the kingdom of
Croatia in
1868 , parallelling to some extent their own accommodation within the Empire the previous year.
Language was one of the most contentious questions in Austro-Hungarian politics. All governments faced difficult and divisive hurdles in sorting out the languages of government and of instruction. Minorities wanted to ensure the widest possibility for education in their own language as well as in the "dominant" languages of Hungarian and German. On one notable occasion, that of the so-called "ordinance of April 5, 1897", the Austrian Prime Minister
Kasimir Felix Graf Badeni gave Czech equal standing with German in the internal government of
Bohemia also in the purely German-speaking parts of Bohemia, leading to a crisis because of nationalist German agitation throughout the Empire. In the end Badeni was dismissed.
From January 1907 all the public and private schools in Slovak part (aprox. 3 mil. people) of Hungary were forced to teach in Hungarian language only, burning Slovak books and newspapers. This led to wide criticism by
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson among others.
It was not rare for the two kingdoms to divide spheres of influence. According to
Misha Glenny (''The Balkans, 1804-1999''), the Austrians responded to Hungarian badgering of Czechs by supporting the Croatian national movement in Zagreb. (Croatia, in spite of nominal autonomy, was in fact an economic and administrative arm of Hungary; this the Croats resented.)
Emperor Franz Josef himself was very well aware that he reigned a multiethnic country and spoke fluently German, Hungarian, Czech and to some degree also Polish and Italian.
'''
The Austro-Hungarian economy changed dramatically during the existence of the Dual Monarchy. Technological change accelerated
Industrialization and
Urbanization . The
Capitalist mode of production spread throughout the Empire during its fifty-year existence. The old institutions of
Feudalism continued to disappear. Economic growth centred around Vienna, the Austrian lands (areas of modern Austria), the Alpine lands, and the Bohemian lands. In the later years of the nineteenth century rapid economic growth spread to the central Hungarian plain and to the Carpathian lands. As a result of this pattern wide disparities of development existed within the Empire. In general the western areas achieved far more development than the east. By the early 20th century most of the Empire had started to experience rapid economic growth. The
GNP per capita grew roughly 1.45% per year from 1870 to 1913. That level of growth compared very favourably to that of other European nations such as Britain (1.00%), France (1.06%), and Germany (1.51%). (Source: Good, David. ''The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire''). However, the Empire's economy as a whole still lagged considerably behind the economies of other powers, as it had only begun sustained modernization much later. Britain had a GNP per-capita almost three times larger than the Habsburg Empire, while Germany's stood almost twice as high as Austria-Hungary's. Nonetheless, these large discrepancies hide different levels of development within the Empire.
Rail Transport expanded rapidly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its predecessor state, the
Habsburg Empire , had built a substantial core of railways in the west originating from Vienna by
1841 . At that point the government realized the military possibilities of rail and began to invest heavily in their construction.
Bratislava , Budapest, Prague,
Kraków ,
Graz , Laibach (
Ljubljana ), and
Venice became linked to the main network. By 1854 the Empire had almost 2000 kilometres of track, about 60 to 70% of it in state hands. At that point the government began to sell off large portions of track to private investors to recoup some of its investments and because of the financial strains of the
1848 Revolution and of the
Crimean War .
From
1854 to
1879 private interests conducted almost all rail construction. What would become Cisleithania gained 7952 track kilometres, and Hungary built 5839 track kilometres. During this time many new areas joined the railway system and the existing rail networks gained connections and interconnections. This period marked the beginning of widespread rail transportation in Austria-Hungary, and also the integration of transportation systems in the area. Railways allowed the Empire to integrate its economy far more than previously possible, when transportation depended on rivers.
After 1879 the Austro-Hungarian government slowly began to re-nationalize the rail network, largely because of the sluggish pace of development during the worldwide
Depression of the
1870s . The years between 1879 and
1900 saw more than 25,000 km of railways built in Cisleithania and Hungary. Most of this constituted "filling in" of the existing network, although some areas, primarily in the far east, gained rail connections for the first time during this period. The railroad reduced transportation costs throughout the Empire, opening new markets for products from other lands of the Dual Monarchy.
The Imperial (Austrian) and Royal (Hungarian) governments differed also to some extent in their attitude toward the Empire's common foreign policy. Politicians in Budapest particularly feared annexations of territory which would add to the kingdom's non-Hungarian populations. But the Empire's alliance with
Germany against
Russia from October
1879 (see
Dual Alliance, 1879 ) commanded general acceptance, since Russia seemed the principal external military threat to both parts.
Austro-Hungarian forces occupied the territory of
Bosnia And Herzegovina from August
1878 under the
Treaty Of Berlin . The Empire annexed this territory in October
1908 as a common holding under the control of the finance ministry rather than attaching it to either territorial government. The annexation set up an anomalous situation which led some in Vienna to contemplate combining Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatia to form a third component of the Empire, uniting its southern Slav regions under the domination of Croats (who might have proved more sympathetic to
Vienna than to Budapest). Some historians maintain that the reality of a Triune Monarch of Austria-Hungary-Croatia prompted the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serb nationalists.
to emphasize the unity of the Empire during
World War I .]]
On ''
After the
{Link without Title} expecting Serbia would never accept. When Serbia accepted nine of the ten demands but only partially accepted the remaining one, Austria-Hungary declared war.
These events brought the Empire into conflict with Serbia and over the course of July and August 1914, caused the start of
World War I , as Russia mobilized in support of Serbia, setting off a series of counter-mobilizations.
Italy initially remained neutral, although it had an alliance with Austria-Hungary. In 1915 it switched to the side of the
Entente Powers , hoping to gain territory from Austria-Hungary.
General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf was the Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff during the war. Under his command, Austro-Hungarian troops were involved in much of the fighting in the Great War.
At the start of the war, the army was divided in two, the smaller half attacked Serbia while the larger half fought against the massive Russian army. The 1914 invasion of Serbia was a disaster, by the end of the year the Austrian army had taken no territory and had lost 227,000 men (out of a total force of 450,000 men). See the
Serbian_Campaign_%28World_War_I%29 for details.
On the Eastern front, things started out equally badly. The Austrian army was defeated at the
Battle Of Lemberg and the mighty fort city of
Przemysl Was Besieged (it would fall in March of 1915).
In May of 1915, Italy joined the Allies and attacked Austria-Hungary. The bloody but indecisive fighting on the
Italian Front would last for the next three and a half years.
In the summer, the Austrian army, working under a unified command with the Germans, participated in the successful
Gorlice-Tarnow_Offensive .
Later in 1915, the Austrian army, in conjunction with the German and Bulgarian armies, conquered Serbia.
In 1916, the Russians focused their attacks on the Austrian-Hungarian army in the
Brusilov Offensive . The Austrian armies took massive losses (losing about 1.5 million men) and never recovered. The Austro-Hungarian war effort became more and more subordinate to the direction of German planners. Supply shortages, low morale, and the high casualty rate seriously effected the operational abilities of the army.
The last two successes for the Austrians: the
Conquest Of Romania and the
Capporeto Offensive , were largely German operations.
In June 1918, Conrad attempted a double edged offensive with the bulk of remaining Austro-Hungarian forces against Italy. It failed and in October 1918, an Italian-led
Allied army couter-attacked, gaining victory in the battle of
Vittorio Veneto , destroying the last of the Austrian Army and ending the Habsburg Empire.
in late 1918. Click on the image to read a translation.]]
As it became apparent that the Allied Powers of the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the United States would win World War I, nationalist movements which had previously been calling for a greater degree of autonomy for various areas, started pressing for full independence. With defeat in the war imminent, Czechoslovakia declared independence on
28 October 1918 and on
29 October the southern slav areas declared the
State Of Slovenes, Croats And Serbs . In
Austria and
Hungary , separate republics were declared at the end of the war in November. The
Treaty Of Saint Germain between the victors of World War I and Austria, and the
Treaty Of Trianon between the victors and Hungary regulated the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. The last Habsburg emperor-king,
Karl I (styled Károly IV in Hungary), renounced participation in affairs of state (but did not abdicate) and fled to
Switzerland .
A monarchist revival in Hungary after a short-lived
Communist Revolution and the Romanian intervention of
1919 resulted in the restoration of the Hungarian monarchy (March
1920 ), with the royal powers entrusted to a
Regent , the naval hero Admiral
Miklós Horthy . Ill prepared attempts by
Karl to regain the throne in Budapest (March, October
1921 ) collapsed when the initially wavering Horthy, who had received threats of intervention from the
Allied Powers and neighboring countries, refused his cooperation. Subsequently the British took custody of Karl and removed him and his family to the
Portuguese island of
Madeira , where he died the following year.
]]
The following successor states were formed (entirely or in part) from the former Habsburg lands:
Some Austro-Hungarian lands were also ceded to
Romania and
Italy .
Liechtenstein , which had formerly looked to Vienna for protection, formed a customs and defence union with
Switzerland , and adopted the Swiss currency instead of the Austrian. In April 1919
Vorarlberg , the westernmost province of Austria, voted by a large majority to join Switzerland; however both the Swiss and the Allies disregarded this result.
Historical views of Austria-Hungary have varied throughout the 20th century:
Historians in the early part of the century tended to have emotional and/or personal involvement with the issues surrounding Austria-Hungary. Nationalist historians tended to view the Habsburg polity as
Despot ic and obsolete. Other scholars, usually associated with the old government, became apologists for the traditional leadership and tried to explain their policies.
- Major writers from the early period who remain influential include: Oskar Jászi and Josef Redlich.
Subsequent experience of the region's inter-war "
Balkanization ", of
Nazi occupation, and then of
Soviet domination, led to a more sympathetic interpretation of the Empire, based primarily in a large exiled community in the United States. Meanwhile, Marxist historians still tended to judge the Empire in a negative way.
- Major scholars of this period include: C. A Macartney, Robert A. Kann, Charles Ingrau and Arthur J. May.
One controversy among historians remains: whether the Empire faced inevitable collapse as the result of a decades-long decline; or whether it would have survived in some form in the absence of military defeat in World War I.
- Alan Sked has advanced the view that, "to speak of decline and fall with regard to the Monarchy is simply misleading: it fell because it lost a major war." (''The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815–1918'')
- David F. Good supports Sked's view.
- Others, such as Solomon Wank, remain skeptical.
The current countries whose entire territory were located inside Austria-Hungary by the time of the dissolution of the empire are:
The current countries whose part of their territory were located inside Austria-Hungary by the time of the dissolution of the empire are:
