The End Of Austria-Hungary: A Historical Split

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe that existed between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which gave Hungary more autonomy, but left Austria in control of defence, foreign policy and similar. The empire was a dual system in which each half had its own constitution, government and parliament, with a single monarch, Franz Joseph, who was both Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. However, the Compromise did not satisfy nationalist and liberal sentiments across the territories, and in 1918, following World War I, the empire was dissolved, with Hungary terminating the union with Austria on 31 October 1918.

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867

The Compromise was the culmination of negotiations between the Hungarian political leaders, led by Ferenc Deák, and the central government in Vienna, following the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. The Hungarians wanted to regain the traditional status (both legal and political) of the Hungarian state, which had been lost after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. They also wanted to restore the series of reform laws (the so-called April Laws) of the revolutionary parliament of 1848, which were based on 12 points that established modern civil and political rights and economic and societal reforms in Hungary.

Under the Compromise, the lands of the House of Habsburg were reorganized as a real union between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. While Hungary regained its parliament and authority over most internal affairs, the monarchy retained authority over foreign affairs, defence, and the military. The two countries conducted unified diplomatic and defence policies, with common ministries of foreign affairs, defence, and finance (for financing the two common portfolios) maintained under the monarch's direct authority. The Austrian and Hungarian states were co-equal in power and governed by separate parliaments and prime ministers.

The Compromise restored the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Hungary and its old historic constitution. It also restored the Hungarian legal and judicial systems and recognized the validity of the April Laws. However, the power of the monarch was significantly increased compared to the pre-1848 status of Hungary, resulting in a reduction of Hungarian sovereignty and autonomy.

The Dual Monarchy

The establishment of the Dual Monarchy was formalised through the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which granted Hungary more autonomy and restored its parliament. The compromise also led to the creation of a common government, known as the Ministerial Council for Common Affairs, which oversaw foreign policy, the military, and the imperial household. Additionally, "common" ministries of foreign affairs, defence, and finance were established under the direct authority of the monarch.

Despite its power and influence, the Dual Monarchy faced several challenges, including nationalist sentiments among its diverse ethnic groups and tensions between Austria and Hungary over shared external tariff arrangements and financial contributions to the common treasury. These issues would eventually lead to the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy at the end of World War I, as nationalist movements gained momentum and the empire faced military defeat and economic decline.

The Hungarian War of Independence

In April 1848, Hungary became the third country in Continental Europe to enact a law implementing democratic parliamentary elections. The new suffrage law transformed the old feudal parliament into a democratic representative parliament. This law offered the widest right to vote in Europe at the time. The April laws also erased all privileges of the Hungarian nobility.

The crucial turning point came when the new Austrian monarch, Franz Joseph I, arbitrarily revoked the April laws without any legal right. This unconstitutional act irreversibly escalated the conflict between him and the Hungarian parliament. The new constrained Stadion Constitution of Austria, the revocation of the April laws, and the Austrian military campaign against the Kingdom of Hungary resulted in the fall of the pacifist Batthyány government and led to Lajos Kossuth's followers (who demanded full independence for Hungary) suddenly gaining power in the parliament. Austrian military intervention in the Kingdom of Hungary resulted in strong anti-Habsburg sentiment among Hungarians, and the events in Hungary grew into a war for total independence from the Habsburg dynasty.

In the summer of 1848, the Hungarian government, seeing the civil war ahead, tried to get the Habsburgs' support against Ban Josip Jelačić of Croatia and Dalmatia, who was opposed to the new Hungarian government and raised troops in his domains. Legally, this meant that a monarch was preparing to attack one of his country's appointed and lawful governments with another of his country's armies.

In August 1848, the Imperial Government in Vienna officially ordered the Hungarian government in Pest not to form an army. On 29 August, with the assent of parliament, Lajos Batthyány went with Ferenc Deák to the Emperor to ask him to order the Serbs to capitulate and stop Jelačić, who was going to attack Hungary. But Jelačić went ahead and invaded Muraköz (Međimurje) and the Southern Transdanubian parts of Hungary on 11 September 1848.

After the Austrian revolution in Vienna was defeated, Franz Joseph I replaced his uncle, Ferdinand I, who was not of sound mind. Franz Joseph didn't recognise Batthyány's second premiership, which began on 25 September. In addition, Franz Joseph was not recognised as king of Hungary by the Hungarian parliament, and he was not crowned king of Hungary until 1867. In the end, the final break between Vienna and Pest occurred when Field-Marshal Count Franz Philipp von Lamberg was given control of all armies in Hungary (including Jelačić's). He went to Hungary, where he was mobbed and brutally murdered. Following his murder, the Imperial court dissolved the Hungarian Diet and appointed Jelačić as Regent.

In April 1849, the Hungarian Government recovered and scored several victories on the western front. They stopped the Austrian advance and retook Buda and Pest. Then, the Hungarian Army relieved the siege of Komárom. The Spring Offensive hence proved to be a great success for the revolution.

Thus, the Hungarian Government was equally successful on its eastern front (Transylvania) against the Russians and on its western front against the Austrians. But there was a third front—the southern front in Banat, fighting the troops of the Serbian national movement and the Croatian troops of Jelačić within the province of Vojvodina itself. Mór Perczel, the General of the Hungarian forces in the Banat, was initially successful in battles along the southern front.

In April 1849, Ludwig Baron von Welden replaced Windischgrätz as the new supreme commander of Austrian forces in Hungary. Instead of pursuing the Austrian army, the Hungarians stopped to retake the Fort of Buda and prepared defences. At the same time, however, victory in Italy had freed many Austrian troops, which had hitherto been fighting on this front. In June 1849, Russian and Austrian troops entered Hungary, heavily outnumbering the Hungarian army. After all appeals to other European states failed, Kossuth abdicated on 11 August 1849 in favour of Artúr Görgey, who he thought was the only general capable of saving the nation.

However, in May 1849, Tsar Nicholas I pledged to redouble his efforts against the Hungarian Government. He and Emperor Franz Joseph started to regather and rearm an army to be commanded by Anton Vogl, the Austrian lieutenant-field-marshal. But even at this stage, Vogl was occupied trying to stop another revolutionary uprising in Galicia. The Tsar was also preparing to send 30,000 Russian soldiers back over the Eastern Carpathian Mountains from Poland. Austria held Galicia and moved into Hungary, independent of Vogl's forces. At the same time, the able Julius Jacob von Haynau led an army of 60,000 Austrians from the West and retook the ground lost throughout the spring. On 18 July, he finally captured Buda and Pest. The Russians were also successful in the east, and the situation of the Hungarians became increasingly desperate.

On 13 August, after several bitter defeats, especially the battle of Segesvár against the Russians and the battles of Szöreg and Temesvár against the Austrian army, it was clear that Hungary had lost. In a hopeless situation, Görgey signed a surrender at Világos (now Şiria, Romania) to the Russians (so that the war would be considered a Russian victory, and because the rebels considered the Russians more lenient), who handed the army over to the Austrians.

The Hungarian struggle for independence came to an end after the victories of the Austrian army in Italy gave the court in Vienna more room for manoeuvre. The young Emperor Franz Joseph appealed to Russia for assistance, and Tsar Nicholas I agreed immediately because the news of the revolution in Hungary had already inflamed the situation in Russian-occupied Poland. The Magyar idealists were no match for the full force of the Russian army. The Hungarian war of independence ended on 13 August 1849 with the capitulation of the revolutionary army in Világos near Arad.

The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina

In 1908, the Young Turks staged a revolution in Constantinople (now Istanbul), established a constitutional government, and inaugurated a reform program. The Austrian foreign minister, Alois Aehrenthal, resolved to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina before the new Turkish regime could regain control over them. Aehrenthal met the Russian foreign minister, Alexander Izvolsky, at Buchlau, in Moravia, and on September 16, 1908, Izvolsky agreed that Russia would not object to the annexation. Aehrenthal pledged that in return, Austria would not object to opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to Russian warships, an advantage that had been denied to Russia since 1841. By a rescript of October 7, 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The annexation was met with strong opposition from Russia and Serbia, which was closely related to Bosnia and Herzegovina geographically and ethnically. Serbia demanded that Austria cede a portion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Izvolsky, pressured by anti-Austrian opinion in Russia, was forced to support the Serbian claims. Austria, firmly supported by its ally Germany, threatened to invade Serbia if it persisted in its demands. Russia, having failed to secure equally strong support from its ally France, could not risk a war against both Austria-Hungary and Germany for Serbia's sake. In March 1909, Izvolsky notified Germany that Russia accepted Austria's annexation. Although the crisis was resolved without immediate warfare, the resulting embittered relations between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, and Russia's resentment at having been deceived and humiliated, contributed to the outbreak of World War I.

The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on 28 June 1914, was one of the key events that led to World War I. The assassination was carried out by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip, who was part of a group of six Bosnian assassins, all but one of whom were Bosnian Serbs and members of a student revolutionary group that later became known as Young Bosnia. The assassins were aided by the Black Hand, a Serbian secret nationalist group, and their political objective was to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austria-Hungarian rule and establish a common South Slav ("Yugoslav") state.

On the day of the assassination, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were travelling in a motorcade from the train station to Sarajevo's Town Hall. The first attempt on their lives failed when Nedeljko Čabrinović threw a bomb at their car, which bounced off and exploded underneath the car behind, injuring a few passengers and some spectators. The couple were then hurriedly taken to the Town Hall, but Franz Ferdinand ignored advice to cancel the rest of the tour and insisted on continuing with the official programme.

Tragically, a change of plan was not communicated to the driver, who turned into the wrong street. As the car attempted to reverse, Princip whipped out his pistol and fired two shots at the Archduke from point-blank range, piercing him in the neck and also striking Sophie's abdomen. Sophie died in the car, and Franz Ferdinand shortly after reaching the residence of the Governor. Princip, who was too young to be executed, was sentenced to 20 years in jail, but he died of tuberculosis in April 1918, at the age of 23.

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