It was a dark and stormy night, like any other in the big city. I was on my lunch break when
the mutton-chopped Methusalah came through my door in a hurry. He said “I like my historians
like I like my eggs. Hard-boiled.” “Then you’ve come to the right place.” He said
“There’s about to be a murder, the people need to know the truth!” I said “Well
that’s a cute bit, but what am I, a low-budget YouTube film critic from 10 years ago? I can’t
commit a whole episode to-” but he was already gone.
Two years later, Austria-Hungary turns up dead. Open and shut case, the cops say. A
suicide. Too many nations under one empire, army was preoccupied with losing a war and
he erupted from the inside. Something didn’t seem right. Austria-Hungary was hardly the
only ethnically diverse country in the world, and a 600-year-old monarchy doesn’t splatter
itself on the pavement for any old war. And look at the remains… Czechoslovakia. The
kingdom of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes? If it was only nationalism killed the beast,
then why were so many of the successor states just as multinational? Then I remembered the
old man. And I knew I had to get to the bottom of this.
[intro]
Advisor: “Welcome back your majesty! How was your trip to the… future? Or was the
stick figure living in the past?” Franz Joseph: “It doesn’t look good. The
empire is torn up by nationalism-” Advisor: “That’s terrible! But I have
so many friends in Austria, in Hungary, in Croatia, if they’re all independent countries
how am I going to access content from home when I’m traveling abroad?!”
Franz Joseph: “Well that one’s not so bad, thanks to Surfshark VPN! Traveling couldn’t
be easier, with just the click of a button you can virtually place your device in almost
any country! Enjoy the internet from home anywhere in the world or travel the world
without leaving home and watch all that forbidden Netflix content. All the while no matter where
you go your IP address will be masked from trackers and hackers”
Advisor: “Goodness me! Is it expensive?” Franz Joseph: “Not at all!”
Advisor: “Hmmm” FJ: “You’ll also get 83% off!”
Advisor: “Hmmm….” FJ: “And an additional 3 months free!”
Advisor: “Hmm…?” FJ: “And a 30-day money-back guarantee!”
Advisor: “Hmmm…! All right if you insist” FJ: “Just follow the link in the description
or the QR code on-screen and enter the code JackRackam! Other than that though, yeah,
WW2, iron curtain, it’s gonna be a rough century.”
Like the German Revolution, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary is part of the messy end
to World War One that frequently gets glossed over like a shiny wooden boat, and it’s
really confusing if you start to think about it. I keep comparing the end of the First
World War with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in my head. Napoleon took over most of a continent,
but France didn’t explode into tiny pieces, the Allies put the monarchy back in charge
and pretty much went back to the status quo. And yes, unlike France the Austro-Hungarian
Empire was a very diverse place, but it had been for generations, and for that matter
most large empires were the same way.
So like any good detective I started digging, and I began my investigation in 1848. If the
empire was gonna go kaput, that would’ve been the year to do it. Nearly everyone in
Europe was revolting against the powers that be in the name of freedom, democracy, and
yes, nationalism.
To be honest I didn’t fully understand what I was seeing there was so much sound and fury.
Revolutions are complicated. But what I did notice was this: King Ferdinand was obligated
to make certain concessions to the people, but he abdicated in favor of his nephew Franz
Joseph, who didn’t consider himself under the same obligations as his uncle.
The Hungarian parliament was not happy with their new king going back on those concessions,
and the situation escalated into an all-out war of independence for Hungary. Things were
looking a little dicey so Franz Joseph called in a favour from his friends in Russia. Hungarians
didn’t stand a chance, the kingdom was placed under martial law and Herr Joseph would rule
with absolute authority.
Unfortunately for him, things weren’t looking up for Austria’s foreign policy either.
1853 Russia tells Uncle Franz it’s time to cash in that favour and help them out in
the Crimean war, but Franny tells them he’s gonna sit this one out. The Ruskis tell himA
the next time Hungary revolts maybe they’ll decide to sit that one out too. 1859 he lost
a war with France and Sardinia, and had to hand over Lombardy. 1866 he lost a war with
Italy, they forced him to hand over Venice. Well technically he gave Venice to France
out of spite, and they gave it to Italy, but technicalities are the devil’s caviar, I’m
solving a murder here and the important thing is that it sounds sexy.
Now Italy won that war because Austria was busy losing a war against Prussia, allowing
them to create a united Germany without Austria having any say in it. Poor King Joe was in
a tight spot, tight like a pair of skinny jeans you just can’t pull off. His empire
was under a mountain of debt trying to pay for wars that took the country on a one-way
trip to debtsville. Austria didn’t have the money, the manpower, or the friends to
put down a revolution, and the Hungarians could smell it. By all accounts, that should’ve
been the end of it right there. But instead, they came with a compromise.
If Hungary went its own way into the mean streets of central Europe all alone, there’s
no telling who would vacuum them up into their sphere of influence. So they cooperated with
the devil they knew. Hungary wouldn’t be independent, but it would be autonomous. There
would be a Hungarian parliament, a Hungarian police force, and the Hungarians would have
a say in how the empire as a whole would be run. Oh, and they got some of those reforms
they wanted in 1848 too. But at the very top, Austria and Hungary would be united with the
same army and the same emperor. And so Austria-Hungary was born, kicking and screaming like a little
baby.
With the creation of Austria-Hungary came a number of other reforms. New laws in 1868
guaranteed the rights of minorities to use their native languages in public documents,
schools, et cetera, wherever ⅕ of the population demanded it. Maybe these language laws fostered
nationalism, or maybe they were the result of nationalism, either way they had both the
chicken and the egg. At the same time, regional governments cropped up throughout the empire,
and especially in the Austrian half of the empire they had some autonomy themselves.
So if anybody ever wanted to jump ship, there was the framework in place to govern an independent
nation. I was beginning to think maybe this was a suicide, plain and simple.
But still the question remained, why leave after all that trouble to stay? After 1868,
things seemed to be on the upswing. Austria-Hungary was one of the fastest growing economies in
Europe, one of Europe’s largest populations, one of the world’s largest manufacturers
and exporters. And then I realized… most of those riches made their way to Austria,
while the aristocrats of Hungary preferred not to compete with wealthy businessmen fatcats
and the more politically involved public that often comes with industrialization. They did
their best to keep their kingdom agrarian and conservative. Economically the empire
was starting to come apart.
There was one other big difference between 1848, 1868, and 1918. Ethnic diversity had
always been present in the lands held by the Habsburg monarchy, but that doesn’t mean
everyone was a nationalist in 1848. To name just one example, The Czech National Revival
was only gathering steam in the early 1800s but later in the century Czech was once again
the language of the Czech intelligentsia, and nationalists had made their way into the
Bohemian diet and Austrian senate.
And then came that fateful day in 1914. Franz Joseph’s family had the worst luck. His
brother Max died after the French invited him to become the emperor of Mexico, which
explains why Americans eat tacos on the 5th of May. His son committed suicide in 1889,
his wife was assassinated in 1898, and then there’s Franz Ferdinand.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was visiting Sarajevo when an assassin threw a grenade at his car,
but it bounced and blew up on the car behind him. Later that day Franz Ferdinand went to
visit the injured, but no one told the driver that until he’d already turned off the main
road to go to wherever they were going to go before the explosion happened. The Governor
riding with Ferdinand shouts at the driver to stop the car and turn around, but in his
attempt to do so, the driver stalls the car. Right outside a cafe where another assassin
was having lunch. In the immortal words of Spike Spiegel: bang.
The assassins in Sarajevo that day were citizens of Austria-Hungary but official investigations
tied them to an officer in the Serbian military. Austria-Hungary, and you’ll notice I don’t
bother saying Franz Joseph because he lost a lot of power after 1868, they’re getting
ready for war with Serbia but are a little anxious about Russia stepping in to defend
Serbia and, y’know, potentially escalating the situation, turning molehills into mountains,
turning up the heat in Europe and forgetting they left the stove on. That is, until Germany
said “Yes! You and me, shooting Ruskis, let’s do this! Nothing could possibly-”
Everything went wrong for Austria-Hungary and the Central Powers. Over a million Austro-Hungarian
soldiers were killed, to say nothing of the wounded, captured, or the economic devastation
that wracked the empire. And by the end of the war, Austria-Hungary’s army was entirely
subservient to German command, which means what is the emperor even doing? Why even…
have an emperor? Especially after Franz Joseph died in 1916 [end card] yeah we’re gonna
skip past that I don’t know if you’ve noticed but this isn’t much of a biography,
especially after Franz Joseph died in 1916 there wasn’t even a sentimental reason to
keep the monarchy around.
Which is why the empire came to an end not with riots in the streets, or at least if
there were any they weren’t the primary reason, but with a soft good night whimper.
I’ll hand it to Franz Joseph’s successor, he made a good effort, but it wasn’t enough.
“Hey, hey where’s everyone going?” “Home, sir.”
“No, wait, hang on, we could compromise! Right? We - we could be the United States
of the Danube! So we split apart but then we get together again!”
“I’ll call you a taxi, Mr. Habsburg”
The United States of the Danube was a real proposal, but there was one final reason why
such a compromise would never have worked. From the Allies’ perspective, they didn’t
need an Austria-Hungary anymore either. For years the Habsburgs had been an essential
component of the European balance of power, but after the great war, the Russian Empire
collapsed, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and Germany would be repaying France till the
end of time if the French had anything to say about it. That also solved the issue of
smaller states being gobbled up by their neighbors and y’know things were just simpler that
way. Uncomplicated. Straightforward. Without need of further clarification. Not to mention
popular opinion was with the would-be breakaways. Which is why in the final weeks of the war,
Wilson’s secretary of state sent a letter saying that the United States and her allies
were committed to the independence of Czechs, Slovaks, and South Slavs within the empire.
Or in other words “The war’s not over till the emperor’s gone!”
I had to sit for a moment on how weird it is that America had such a big say over the
new world order in Europe. It’s like if a food fight broke out in the cafeteria and
then some kid from another school came in right before it ended, handed out detentions,
then found the kid that started it and divorced his parents. Sure, that relationship was up
a creek without a paddle, but why is Timmy the one to call it off?
As for those multinational states at the end of the war? Down South the Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes saw themselves as Slavs first and foremost, up North, chalk it up to circumstance.
The Czechs and the Slovaks common interests in World War One, Masaryk and the Czechoslovak
legion.
So that’s my story. As hot a take as it would be to come in and blame everything on
Wilson, this was no murder, the cracks in the system were showing long before the Allies
showed up. Even so, to call it a suicide feels misguided. Austria-Hungary was divided by
nationalism, but it wasn’t torn apart in the throes of revolution. The Habsburg monarchy
wasn’t so much overthrown as it was… obsolete. But as for these two, well… that’s a story
for another time.