In World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was Germany's main ally. Formally, the all-European war was started by two countries - Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia over the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, organized by the Serbian nationalist organization "Black Hand", caused a chain reaction and led to world war.
Austria-Hungary was a convenient target for such a provocation. Too tight knot of geopolitical, national and socio-economic contradictions was tied in this empire so that it would not be used by external forces interested in unleashing a common European war.
Habsburgs
By the beginning of the 20th century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the great European powers, the second largest and third most populous European country. The origins of the Habsburg dynasty go back to the early Middle Ages. The founder of the dynasty is Guntram the Rich, who lived in the middle of the 10th century. At the end of the 10th century, the Habsburgs appeared in Switzerland and gradually expanded their possessions, becoming the largest landowners of northern Switzerland and counts, turning into a noble family, which was destined to become one of the most famous ruling dynasties in European history.
At first, the Habsburgs were, although quite rich and strong, but still a second-rate family in imperial proportions. They did not belong to a select circle of imperial princes-electors, had no ties with the reigning houses of Europe, their lands were not a separate principality, but a set of lands scattered in Switzerland and southwestern Germany. However, with each generation, the social status of the Habsburgs grew, their possessions and wealth increased. The Habsburgs pursued a long-term mating strategy that became their "trick". Subsequently, it was designated by the slogan: "Let others fight, you, happy Austria, enter into marriages." However, if necessary, the Habsburgs also knew how to fight. After all, it was with the sword that they got Austria.
The reign of Rudolf I (1218-1291) marked the beginning of the ascent of the Habsburgs to European leadership. His marriage to Gertrude Hohenberg, the former heiress of a vast county in central Swabia, made Rudolf I one of the largest rulers of southwestern Germany. Rudolph helped the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Frederick II and his son Konrad IV, which further expanded his possessions in Swabia. After the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty on the imperial throne, a period of interregnum and war began in Germany, which allowed the Habsburgs to further expand their possessions. After the death of the last Count of Cyburg in 1264, the castle and the possessions of the counts passed to Rudolph I of Habsburg, since his father Albrecht IV entered into a profitable marriage with a representative of the Cyburg family - the most influential family in what was then Switzerland, along with the Habsburgs, and Rudolph became the rightful heir to the wealthy kind. As a result, the Habsburgs became the most influential family in Swabia.
After the death of the German king Richard of Cornwall in 1272, the imperial princes chose Rudolf of Habsburg as the new king of Germany. Rudolf defeated the Czech king Přemysl Ottokar II and took from him Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carinthia. Rudolph I transferred these lands hereditary possession to his sons and, in fact, created the Habsburg state. Austria became its foundation. Rudolf Habsburg was not the most prominent of the German emperors and kings, but it was he who laid the foundation for the future power of the Habsburgs, making them the rulers of the destinies of Germany and Europe. After Rudolf, the Habsburgs expanded their territory for centuries with dynastic marriages, diplomacy, and weapons.
Image of Rudolf I in the lobby of Speyer Cathedral
The Habsburgs managed to incorporate Carinthia and Tyrol into their monarchy, making Austria the largest state in Central Europe. Austrian dukes periodically occupied the throne of Germany and Bohemia. At the same time, the old core of the Habsburg possessions in northern and central Switzerland was gradually lost and formed an independent Swiss Confederation. Austria became the core of the future Habsburg empire. The Archduke of Austria Frederick V (1424-1493), as King of Germany, he was called Frederick III, managed to organize the marriage of his son and the heiress of the Burgundian Duchy, which ensured the accession to the Habsburg monarchy of the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Franche-Comte. This was an important step towards the creation of the Habsburg Empire.
Maximilian I (1459 - 1519) agreed with the "Catholic kings" - Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, on the marriage of their daughter and heiress Juana with his son Philip of Burgundy. As a legacy, Juana brought the Habsburgs the Kingdom of Sicily in southern Italy and the colonies in the New World. Ferdinand's marriage to Anna of Bohemia and Hungary in 1521 brought the Habsburgs two more crowns - Bohemian and Hungarian. The Habsburg state became "an empire over which the sun never sets."
European possessions of the Habsburgs in 1547
Thus, the Habsburgs had for quite a long time - from the beginning of the 16th century until the collapse of the empire in 1918 - to manage a group of lands that were inhabited by peoples belonging to different language groups - Germanic, Romance, Slavic and Finno-Ugric, possessing different religions and in many ways different cultures.
It is clear that such a variety existed not only in the Habsburg empire. A similar situation was in Russia, as well as in the British and French colonial empires. However, in the Habsburg empire, unlike the colonial empires, there was never a metropolis, and, unlike the Russian continental empire, there was not even a predominant, state-forming ethnos. The incarnation of the metropolis, the only center of power here was the dynasty, and loyalty to it for centuries replaced the nationality of the subjects of the Habsburgs. Being Austrians under the Habsburgs meant being a kind of Central European cosmopolitan. The Habsburgs were served by prominent statesmen and military leaders who represented a wide variety of peoples. They were Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, Italians, Croats, Poles and others.
The Habsburgs themselves did not forget about their Germanic roots, but most of them were alien to the policy of Germanization. Exceptions, of course, were, like the intensified Germanization and Catholicization of the Czech Republic after the defeat of the Czech Protestant army at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. Even the most zealous Germanizer of all the Habsburg monarchs, Joseph II, considered the German language only as a means of strengthening state unity, but not the subordination of other peoples to the Germans. However, objectively, the German beginning of the Habsburgs opposed the national upsurge of the Slavs, Italians and Hungarians that began at the end of the 18th century. Therefore, the Germanizing efforts not only did not lead to success, but also led to the aggravation of the national question, and ultimately to the collapse of the "patchwork empire." Nevertheless, the very fact of such a long reign of the Habsburg dynasty in lands so diverse in their ethnic composition, religion and culture, not to mention the socio-economic and natural-climatic factors between different regions of the empire, is unique.
The Habsburgs retained their empire for a surprisingly long time. Apparently, if the Habsburgs (like the Romanovs and the Hohenzollerns) did not get into the First World War, succumbing to the game of European Masons and Anglo-Saxons, who dreamed of destroying the old aristocratic peoples' empires, their empire would continue to exist
Finally formed in the XVI - XVII centuries. The Habsburg Empire, in a not much changed form (in terms of territory), existed until 1918, having survived the confrontation with the Ottoman Empire, even during the years of its greatness and prosperity, the Thirty Years War, the wars with Prussia, France and Napoleon, the revolution of 1848. These shocks would be enough for the collapse of even less heterogeneous states in terms of their internal structure. However, the Habsburg house survived.
An important role in the fact that the Habsburg state survived was played by the fact that its rulers knew how to negotiate. The most striking example of this ability is Hungary. There the power of the Habsburgs was held for almost four centuries solely thanks to compromises with the rebellious Hungarian nobility. The power of the Habsburgs in Central Europe (the Spanish Habsburgs died out in 1700 and Spain passed to the Bourbons), in fact, became hereditary and contractual, especially after the adoption of the Pragmatic Sanction of Emperor Charles VI at the beginning of the 18th century. The estates of the Habsburg lands approved "that as long as the Austrian home is the Habsburg dynasty, the Pragmatic sanction remains in force and all Habsburg lands belong to one sovereign."
Another factor that allowed the Habsburgs over the centuries to largely determine the politics of Europe was the sacred halo that surrounded the dynasty and the historical, ideological and political authority of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. This title from 1437 became hereditary in the Austrian house. The Habsburgs could not unite Germany, but the very ancient crown of the state formation, which claimed the continuity of the ancient Roman Empire and the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, and tried to unite the entire European Christian world, gave the Habsburg power a sacred role, a kind of higher legitimacy.
It is also worth remembering that the Habsburgs among the European dynasties consolidated the special role of “defenders of the Christian world”. The Habsburg Empire held back the onslaught of the Ottomans in Central Europe for a long time. The Turkish army stormed Vienna twice. The unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1529 marked the end of the rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Central Europe, although the battles raged for another century and a half. The Battle of Vienna in 1683 put an end to the wars of conquest of the Ottoman Empire in Europe forever. The Habsburgs began to conquer Hungary and Transylvania from the Ottomans. In 1699, at the Karlovytsky Congress, the Turks ceded all of Hungary and Transylvania to Austria. In 1772 and 1795, the Habsburgs took part in the first and third partitions of the Commonwealth, having received Lesser Poland, all of Galicia (Chervonnaya Rus), Krakow, part of Podlasie and Mazovia.
However, the internal looseness of the House of Habsburgs did not allow them to turn it into the leading military power in Europe in the 18th century. Moreover, in the middle of this century, the Habsburg power almost collapsed under the blows of external enemies, the most dangerous of which were the empires of Napoleon and Prussia, which began to claim leadership in Germany. The Habsburgs faced a choice: either the continuation of the struggle for leadership in Germany - with unclear prospects, small hopes for success and the possibility of a military-political catastrophe, or strengthening the core of the hereditary lands. The House of Habsburgs, which were almost always distinguished by their pragmatism, preferred the latter, retaining the title of German Emperor until 1806. True, the struggle with Prussia for primacy in Germany, although not so tough, continued until the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Austria suffered a crushing defeat in this war, and Prussia became the nucleus of a unified Germany.
Russia played an important role in the fact that Austria began to yield to Prussia. Austria and Russia were traditional allies, first in the fight against Turkey, and then in containing France and Prussia. Russia saved the Habsburg house from an uprising in Hungary. However, the treacherous policy of Austria during the Eastern (Crimean) War buried the alliance of St. Petersburg and Vienna. Petersburg began to look at Berlin and Paris. Which led to the defeat of Austria in Italy and Germany, and the creation of a unified Italy and Germany
However, the main enemy of the Habsburg house was the internal enemy - nationalism. In a long struggle with him, the Habsburgs, with all their amazing flexibility, did not manage to take up. The Austro-Hungarian Agreement of 1867 between the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I and representatives of the Hungarian national movement, led by Ferenc Deak, transformed the Austrian Empire into the dualist monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Hungary gained complete independence in internal affairs, while maintaining unity in foreign, naval and financial policies. From that moment on, the Habsburg emperor from the bearer of the supreme absolute power turned into only one of the political institutions of the two-fold state. The empire began to degrade rapidly.
In the eastern part of Austria-Hungary, the Magyar (Hungarian) political elite tried to create a nation state on the territory of historical Hungary. At the same time, the territory of Hungary was also not united nationally, it was inhabited by representatives of a dozen nationalities. In the western part of the empire, there was a constant struggle for domination between the Germans and the Slavs. Part of the Slavs, unable to satisfy their potential in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, chose the path of struggle for independence. Vienna was unable to resolve these contradictions and approached the First World War in a weakened state.
The unity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be preserved only if the House of Habsburgs could show the advantages of the joint existence of the peoples of Central Europe along with the realization of their desire for independence. These contradictions could be resolved in the form of a federation or confederation, with broad grassroots self-government. The Slavic part of the empire's population was to become part of the already triune empire. At the same time, the monarchical form of government could be retained, for example, in Great Britain, when the king reigns, but does not rule. The Austrian monarchy could be a symbol of the sacredness of power and historical continuity. However, such a radical restructuring of Austria-Hungary turned out to be impossible due to a number of internal and external reasons. Among the internal reasons, one can single out the conservatism of the Austrian dynasty, which turned out to be incapable of reforms from above. The death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand finally buried the possibility of modernization and preservation of the Habsburg empire. External forces, interested in the destruction of traditional monarchies in Europe, which stood in the way of building a "democratic" New World Order, also had a hand in this tragedy.
