Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

The dissolution of Austria-Hungary was a major geopolitical event that occurred as a result of the growth of internal social contradictions and the separation of different parts of Austria-Hungary. The more immediate reasons for the collapse of the state were World War I, the 1918 crop failure, general starvation and the economic crisis. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had additionally been weakened overtime by a widening gap between Magyar and Austrian interests.[2] Furthermore, a history of chronic overcommitment rooted in the 1815 Congress of Vienna in which Metternich pledged Austria to fulfill a role that necessitated unwavering Austrian strength and resulted in overextension.[2] Upon this weakened foundation, additional stressors during World War I catalyzed the collapse of the empire. The 1917 October Revolution and the Wilsonian peace pronouncements from January 1918 onward encouraged socialism on the one hand, and nationalism on the other, or alternatively a combination of both tendencies, among all peoples of the Habsburg monarchy.[3]

Austria–Hungary

Kingdoms and countries of Austria–Hungary:
Cisleithania (Empire of Austria[1]): 1. Bohemia, 2. Bukovina, 3. Carinthia, 4. Carniola, 5. Dalmatia, 6. Galicia, 7. Küstenland, 8. Lower Austria, 9. Moravia, 10. Salzburg, 11. Silesia, 12. Styria, 13. Tyrol, 14. Upper Austria, 15. Vorarlberg;
Transleithania (Kingdom of Hungary[1]): 16. Hungary proper 17. Croatia-Slavonia; 18. Bosnia and Herzegovina (Austro-Hungarian condominium)

The remaining territories inhabited by divided peoples fell into the composition of existing or newly formed states. Legally, the collapse of the empire was formalized in the September 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with Austria, which also acted as a peace treaty after the First World War, and in the June 1920 Treaty of Trianon with Hungary. Later on, a lot of Austrian and Hungarian lands were ceded to other countries.

Process
Combined demographics of the Empire of Austria and Kingdom of Hungary (1910)

Downfall

By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated. The government had failed badly on the homefront. Historian Alexander Watson reports:

across central Europe ... The majority lived in a state of advanced misery by the spring of 1918, and conditions later worsened, for the summer of 1918 saw both the drop in food supplied to the levels of the 'turnip winter', and the onset of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed at least 20 million worldwide. Society was relieved, exhausted and yearned for peace.[4]

As the Imperial economy collapsed into severe hardship and even starvation, its multi-ethnic army lost its morale and was increasingly hard-pressed to hold its line. Furthermore, nationalists within the empire were becoming increasingly embittered as, under expanded wartime powers, the military routinely suspended civil rights and treated different national groups with varying degrees of contempt throughout the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy.[5] At the last Italian offensive, the Austro-Hungarian Army took to the field without any food and munition supply and fought without any political supports for a de facto non-existent empire.

The Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed with dramatic speed in the autumn of 1918. Leftist and pacifist political movements organized strikes in factories, and uprisings in the army had become commonplace.[6] These leftist or left-liberal pro-Entente maverick parties opposed the monarchy as a form of government and considered themselves internationalist rather than patriotic. Eventually, the German defeat and the minor revolutions in Vienna and Budapest gave political power to the left/liberal political parties.

Disintegration
Karl I of Austria proposed a Habsburg Empire of 5 Kingdoms as a last desperate attempt to save the Monarchy.

As the war went on the ethnic unity declined; the Allies encouraged breakaway demands from minorities and the Empire faced disintegration.[7] As it became apparent that the Allied powers 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. In the capital cities of Vienna and Budapest, the leftist and liberal movements and opposition parties strengthened and supported the separatism of ethnic minorities. The multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire started to disintegrate, leaving its army alone on the battlefields. The military breakdown of the Italian front marked the start of the rebellion for the numerous ethnicities who made up the multiethnic Empire, as they refused to keep on fighting for a cause that now appeared senseless. The Emperor had lost much of his power to rule, as his realm disintegrated.[8]

As one of his Fourteen Points, President Woodrow Wilson demanded that the nationalities of Austria–Hungary have the "freest opportunity to autonomous development". In response, Emperor Karl I agreed to reconvene the Imperial Parliament in 1917 and allow the creation of a confederation with each national group exercising self-governance. However, the leaders of these national groups rejected the idea; they deeply distrusted Vienna and were now determined to get independence.

The revolt of ethnic Czech units in Austria in May 1918 was brutally suppressed. It was considered a mutiny by the code of military justice.

On 14 October 1918, Foreign Minister Baron István Burián von Rajecz[9] asked for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points. In an apparent attempt to demonstrate good faith, Emperor Karl I issued a proclamation ("Imperial Manifesto of 16 October 1918") two days later which would have significantly altered the structure of the Austrian half of the monarchy. The Polish majority regions of Lesser Poland and part of Galicia were to be granted the option of seceding from the empire to join the earlier established Polish proto-state, in order to reunite with their ethnic brethren in the Polish lands held by Russia and Germany, with the ultimate goal of resurrecting the sovereign Polish statehood. In fact, the Regency Council in Warsaw already adopted on 6 October Wilson's proposals as the basis for creating a Polish state.[10] However, the imperial government attempted to curb the Polish ambitions by inciting the Polish-Ukrainian conflict by separating and retaining the remainder of Galicia and the entire Lodomeria, designated in the secret Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Ukraine–Central Powers) for the purpose of creating a Ukrainian polity, intended in the proclamation to constitute along the rest of Cisleithania a transformed federal union composed of four parts—German, Czech, South Slav, and Ukrainian. Each of these was to be governed by a national council that would negotiate the future of the empire with Vienna. Trieste was to receive a special status. No such proclamation could be issued in Hungary, where Hungarian political elite still believed they could cooperate with other nationalities and maintain the integrity of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen.

It was a dead letter. Four days later, on 18 October, United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing replied that the Allies were now committed to the causes of the Czechs, Slovaks and South Slavs. Therefore, Lansing said, autonomy for the nationalities – the tenth of the Fourteen Points – was no longer enough and Washington could not deal on the basis of the Fourteen Points anymore. The Lansing note was, in effect, the death certificate of Austria–Hungary. In fact, a Czechoslovak provisional government had joined the Allies on 14 October. The South Slavs in both halves of the monarchy had already declared in favor of uniting with Serbia in a large South Slav state by way of the 1917 Corfu Declaration signed by members of the Yugoslav Committee. Indeed, the Croatians had begun disregarding orders from Budapest earlier in October.

The national councils had already begun acting more or less as provisional governments of independent countries. During the Italian battles, the political leaders of Czechs, Slovaks and Southern Slavs declared their independence. With defeat in the war imminent after the Italian offensive in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto beginning on 24 October, Czech politicians peacefully took over command in Prague on 28 October (later declared the birthday of Czechoslovakia) and followed up in other major cities in the next few days. On 30 October, the Slovaks followed in Martin. On 29 October, the Slavs in both portions of what remained of Austria–Hungary proclaimed the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. They also declared that their ultimate intention was to unite with Serbia and Montenegro in a large South Slav state. On the same day, the Czechs and Slovaks formally proclaimed the establishment of Czechoslovakia as an independent state.

Dissolution

Alexander Watson argues that, "The Habsburg regime's doom was sealed when Wilson's response to the note, sent two and a half weeks earlier [by the foreign minister Baron István Burián von Rajecz on 14 October 1918 [9]], arrived on 20 October." Wilson rejected the continuation of the dual monarchy as a negotiable possibility.[11]

On 17 October 1918, the Hungarian Parliament voted in favour of terminating the union with Austria and declaring independence of the country. The most prominent opponent of continued union with Austria, Count Mihály Károlyi, seized power in the Aster Revolution on 31 October. Karl I was all but forced to appoint Károlyi as his Hungarian prime minister. One of Károlyi's first acts was to repudiate the compromise agreement on 31 October, effectively terminating the personal union with Austria and thus officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and state.

By the end of October, there was nothing left of the Habsburg realm but its majority-German Danubian and Alpine provinces, and Karl I's authority was being challenged even there by the German-Austrian state council.[12] Karl I's last Austrian prime minister, Heinrich Lammasch, concluded that Karl I was in an impossible situation, and persuaded Karl I that the best course was to relinquish, at least temporarily, his right to exercise sovereign authority.

On 11 November, Karl I issued a carefully worded proclamation in which he recognized the Austrian people's right to determine the form of the state.[13] He also renounced the right to participate in Austrian affairs of state. He also dismissed Lammasch and his government from office and released the officials in the Austrian half of the empire from their oath of loyalty to him. Two days later, he issued a similar proclamation for Hungary. However, he did not abdicate, remaining available in the event the people of either state should recall him. For all intents and purposes, this was the end of Habsburg rule.

Karl's I proclamation[14]

Karl I's refusal to abdicate was ultimately irrelevant. On the day after he announced his withdrawal from Austria's politics, the German-Austrian National Council proclaimed the Republic of German Austria. Károlyi followed suit on 16 November, proclaiming the Hungarian Democratic Republic.

Aftermath

Successor states
Main articles: Treaty of Trianon and Treaty of Saint Germain
The Treaty of Trianon: Kingdom of Hungary lost 72% of its land and 3.3 million people of Hungarian ethnicity.

There were two legal successor states of the former Austro–Hungarian monarchy:[15]

The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (between the victors of World War I and Austria) and the Treaty of Trianon (between the victors and Hungary) regulated the new borders of Austria and Hungary, reducing them to small-sized and landlocked states. In regard to areas without a decisive national majority, the Entente powers ruled in many cases in favour of the newly-emancipated independent nation-states, enabling them to claim vast territories containing sizeable German- and Hungarian-speaking populations.

The decisions contained in the treaties had immense political and economic effects. The previously rapid economic growth of the imperial territories initially stalled because the new borders became major economic barriers. Many established industries and infrastructure elements were intended to satisfy the needs of an extensive realm. As a result, the emerging countries were often compelled to considerable sacrifices in order to transform their economies. A major political unease in the affected regions followed as a result of these economic difficulties, fueling in some cases extremist movements.

Austria

As a result, the Republic of Austria lost roughly 60% of the old Austrian Empire's territory. It also had to drop its plans for union with Germany, as it was not allowed to unite with Germany without League approval.

The new Austrian state was, at least on paper, on shakier ground than Hungary. Unlike its former Hungarian partner, Austria had never been a nation in any real sense. While the Austrian state had existed in one form or another for 700 years, it was united only by loyalty to the Habsburgs. With the loss of 60% of the Austrian Empire's prewar territory, Vienna was now a lavish and oversized imperial capital lacking an empire to support it, thus being sarcastically referred to as the “national hydrocephalus”.

However, after a brief period of upheaval and the Allies' refusal to consider a union with Germany, Austria established itself as a federal republic. Despite the temporary Anschluss with Nazi Germany, Austria never permanently unified with Germany.

Hungary

By comparison, Hungary had been a nation and a state for over 900 years. Hungary, however, was severely disrupted by the loss of 72% of its territory, 64% of its population and most of its natural resources. The Hungarian Democratic Republic was short-lived and was temporarily replaced by the communist Hungarian Soviet Republic. Romanian troops ousted Béla Kun and his communist government during the Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919.

In the summer of 1919, a Habsburg, Archduke Joseph August, became regent, but was forced to stand down after only two weeks when it became apparent the Allies would not recognise him.[16] Finally, in March 1920, royal powers were entrusted to a regent, Miklós Horthy, who had been the last commanding admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and had helped organize the counter-revolutionary forces. It was this government that signed the Treaty of Trianon under protest on 4 June 1920 at the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles, France. The restored Kingdom of Hungary lost roughly 72% of the pre-war territory of the Kingdom of Hungary.[17][18]

Czechoslovak declaration of independence rally in Prague on Wenceslas Square, 28 October 1918

Habsburg banishment

Austria had passed the "Habsburg Law," which both dethroned the Habsburgs and banished all Habsburgs from Austrian territory. While Karl I was banned from ever returning to Austria again, other Habsburgs could return if they gave up all claims to the defunct throne.

In March and again in October 1921, ill-prepared attempts by Karl I to regain the throne in Budapest collapsed. The initially wavering Horthy, after receiving threats of intervention from the Allied Powers and the Little Entente, refused his cooperation. Soon afterward, the Hungarian government nullified the Pragmatic Sanction, effectively dethroning the Habsburgs. Subsequently, the British took custody of Karl I and removed him and his family to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where he died the following year.

Immediate aftermath of World War I

The following states were formed, re-established or expanded at the dissolution of the former Austro–Hungarian monarchy:[15]

The Principality of Liechtenstein, which had formerly looked to Vienna for protection and whose ruling house held sizable real estate in Cisleithania, formed a customs and defense 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.

New hand-drawn borders of Austria–Hungary in the Treaty of Trianon and Saint Germain. (1919–1920)
New borders of Austria–Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon and Saint Germain
  Border of Austria–Hungary in 1914
  Borders in 1914
  Borders in 1920
  Empire of Austria in 1914
  Kingdom of Hungary in 1914
  Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1914
Post-WWI borders on an ethnic map

Present

The following present-day countries and parts of countries were within the boundaries of Austria–Hungary when the empire was dissolved. Some other provinces of Europe had been part of the Habsburg monarchy at one time before 1867. Prominent examples are the regions of Lombardy and Veneto in Italy, Silesia in Poland, most of Belgium and Serbia, and parts of northern Switzerland and southwestern Germany.

Empire of Austria (Cisleithania):

Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania):

Austro-Hungarian Condominium

Other possessions of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy

Literature
  • Cornwall, Mark, ed. The Last Years of Austria-Hungary University of Exeter Press, 2002. ISBN 0-85989-563-7

See also

References
  1. Headlam, James Wycliffe (1911). "Austria-Hungary" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 2–39.
  2. Evans, R. J. W. (2020-04-02). "Remembering the Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy One Hundred Years on: Three Master Interpretations". Austrian History Yearbook. 51: 269–291. doi:10.1017/s0067237820000181. ISSN 0067-2378.
  3. "The collapse of Austria-Hungary". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  4. Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria–Hungary in World War I (2014), p 536
  5. Judson, Pieter M. (April 2017). ""Where our commonality is necessary…": Rethinking the End of the Habsburg Monarchy". Austrian History Yearbook. 48: 1–21. doi:10.1017/s0067237816000527. ISSN 0067-2378.
  6. Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria–Hungary at War, 1914–1918 (2014). pp 536–40.
  7. Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (1988) pp 139–48.
  8. Watson, Ring of Steel pp 536–40
  9. "Hungarian foreign ministers from 1848 to our days". Mfa.gov.hu. Archived from the original on 21 June 2006. Retrieved 28 August 2016.
  10. The Regency Kingdom has been referred to as a puppet state by Norman Davies in Europe: A history ( Internet Archive, p. 910); by Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki in A Concise History of Poland (Google Books, p. 218); by Piotr J. Wroblel in Chronology of Polish History and Nation and History (Google Books, p. 454); and by Raymond Leslie Buell in Poland: Key to Europe (Google Books, p. 68: "The Polish Kingdom... was merely a pawn [of Germany]").
  11. Watson, Ring of Steel pp. 541–2
  12. Watson, Ring of Steel pp 542–56
  13. The 1918 Karl's proclamation. British Library.
  14. The Karl's I proclamation. British Library.
  15. Stangl, Andrea. "The successor states to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy". habsburger.net. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  16. "Die amtliche Meldung über den Rücktritt" (in German). Neue Freie Presse, Morgenblatt. 24 August 1919. p. 2. Archived from the original on 26 December 2015. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  17. "Trianon, Treaty of". The Columbia Encyclopedia. 2012. Archived from the original on 28 December 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2016.
  18. Tucker, Spencer; Priscilla Mary Roberts (2005). Encyclopedia of World War I (1 ed.). ABC-CLIO. p. 1183. ISBN 978-1-85109-420-2. Virtually the entire population of what remained of Hungary regarded the Treaty of Trianon as manifestly unfair, and agitation for revision began immediately.
  19. Samuel R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the origins of the First World War (Macmillan International Higher Education, 1990), states, "Through the occupation Austria-Hungary became a colonial power." p. 63.
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