Austro-Hungarian Monarchy

  General Description  
“The Ausgleich (“compromise”) reached with Hungary in 1867 was a major concession for Franz Joseph, and it created the so-called dualist Austria-Hungary that existed until 1918… The arrangement was dualist because it was not federalist. Rather than parceling out the monarchy into a structure in which the Austro-German lands, the Czech lands, Galicia, and Hungary-Croatia would all have roughly equal weight, it was divided simply into two, the Hungarian half and the Austrian half. This latter was not really called “Austria” but rather “Cisleithania,” meaning “beyond the Leitha River,” which was the border between Austria and Hungary. The formal name of the Cisleithanian half was “the countries and realms represented in the Reichsrat,” which gives some indication of the insubstantial basis for common identity of those territories. The governmental link between these two halves was also minimal. Foreign and military policy belonged almost exclusively to Franz Joseph. He retained the power to appoint and dismiss ministers, who thus had only a partial responsibility to parliament, and he could reject laws passed by the Reichsrat. There was a joint financial ministry and tariff regime. But details such as Hungary’s share of the budget could be renegotiated every decade, which led to repeated political conflicts in the years ahead, so dualism’s division of powers was by no means entirely clear. Nearly everything else was separate. There were distinct parliaments for the Cisleithanian and Hungarian halves, and each half had its own administrative, legal, and school systems. The realm was designated as kaiserlich (“imperial”) for the Austrian Empire of Cisleithania and königlich (“royal”) for the Kingdom of Hungary. In practice, dualism meant that the Austro-Germans dominated the other peoples in their half, and the Hungarians the other peoples in theirs. In many ways, Hungary’s weight within the Dual Monarchy only grew after 1867, thanks to economic advances that in turn fed into greater assertiveness on the part of the Magyar elite… Ultimately, even the Austro-Germans and the Hungarians disliked dualism. The former resented Hungarians’ disproportionate weight in the monarchy, while the latter constantly pushed for more autonomy and resisted any changes that would reduce their weight. And virtually all the other national groups detested the arrangement because it unfairly excluded them.” ^[1]
“By the summer of 1918 the Habsburg dynasty’s death knell was ringing… Karl presided impotently over the progressive hollowing out of the whole monarchical state until there was almost nothing left that he actually governed. At the end of October the nearly 400-year-old monarchy dissolved in a matter of weeks. Karl issued a proposal for federalization on 16 October, but he and his idea were already irrelevant by that point. Gyula Andrássy, the last foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, said that the implicit logic behind the final, futile moves taken by the leadership was that “so that no one can kill us, we’ll commit suicide.”15 The initiative was instead firmly in the hands of the various national groups. On 18 October Romanians in Hungary called for union with the Kingdom of Romania. On the 21st the Germans of the monarchy declared their right to self-determination. On the 28th the Czech National Council declared independence, and on the 30th the new Czechoslovakia was officially formed. On the 29th the Croatian parliament formally dissolved its connections to Austria and Hungary and pledged to join the new Yugoslav kingdom. On the 31st the Ruthenians in Galicia announced their secession. On 1 November the Hungarians proclaimed their ties to the monarchy ended, followed ten days later by Galicia joining the new Polish republic. As all this was happening, Karl was still working at his desk in Schönbrunn, but the palace was mostly empty. Only a few loyal servants remained, since even his bodyguards had left. Finally on 11 November Karl signed papers that he was “temporarily” giving up his powers. He never formally abdicated but went into exile, first in Switzerland. Karl twice tried to retake the throne in Hungary in 1921, but after these unsuccessful attempts he was removed by the British to Madeira, where he died in 1922.” ^[2]

[1]: (Curtis 2013: 284-286) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92

[2]: (Curtis 2013: 304-305) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92