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Remembering the Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy One Hundred Years on: Three Master Interpretations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2020

R. J. W. Evans
R. J. W. Evans*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article was first conceived as a commemorative address for the centenary of the extinction of the Habsburg monarchy, which occurred in November 1918. It seeks to take a correspondingly broad view, geographically and chronologically, of the factors that occasioned that collapse. It addresses three main themes, structured loosely around three classic historiographical analyses of the monarchy as a whole. The great irony of the last phase of Habsburg rule in Central Europe is that it was undermined by precisely those elements in the politics and society of the region that seemed, on the face of things, to derive most advantage from it. The article concentrates on the long-term dysfunctionality caused by the evolution of the Hungarian and German problems, and by the progressive enfeeblement of dynastic institutions. It also engages more briefly with a countervailing phenomenon, that some of those interests most conspicuously spurned by central government might have been the readiest to rescue it. On the argument presented here, World War I, which finally brought the monarchy low, was a catalyst rather than an independent determiner of that outcome.

Keywords

HabsburgsempirehistoriographyAustriaHungaryGermansBohemiaCzechsCentral EuropeWorld War I
Type
Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 51 , May 2020 , pp. 269 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Revised text of a public lecture given at the Remarque Institute, New York University, on 9 Nov. 2018, in commemoration of the centenary of the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy. I am most grateful to Larry Wolff for this opportunity, and to those who then or since have helped me with their comments, not least two very supportive anonymous readers for this journal. I have sought to preserve the somewhat personal and conversational character of the original.

References

2 Schicksalsjahre Österreichs (see note 22 following), 2:466ff. The documents can be viewed online: see note 97 following. Charles was the first of that name to rule as emperor of Austria, according to the titulature established in 1804, though there had been six homonymous Holy Roman emperors, two of them Habsburgs. He was the fourth Charles to rule as king of Hungary, with one Habsburg among his predecessors.

3 It was certainly current by 1848. See, e.g., a work by the Transylvanian Saxon, von Rosenfeld, Karl Ludwig Czekelius, Ungarns und Siebenbürgens Stellung zur Gesammt-Monarchie (Vienna, 1848)Google Scholar.

4 I think of such titles as Szekfű, Gyula, A magyar állam életrajza: történelmi tanulmány [The life story of the Hungarian state: A historical study] (Budapest, 1917)Google Scholar; Miskolczy, Gyula, A kamarilla a reformkorszakban [The Camarilla in the Reform era] (Budapest, 1938)Google Scholar; and Sashegyi, Oszkár, Ungarns politische Verwaltung in der Ära Bach, 1849‒60 (Graz, 1979)Google Scholar. More recent historians working in this tradition are József Galántai, Imre Gonda, István Diószegi, Éva Somogyi, et al. A work like Gerő, András's Dualizmusok. A Monarchia Magyarországa [Dualisms: The monarchy's Hungary] (Budapest, 2010)Google Scholar, despite its title, has nothing on the structures or workings of dual government.

5 Wandruszka, Adam et al. , eds., Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848‒1918, 12 vols. (Vienna, 1973–2018)Google Scholar.

6 There is a significant but self-contained body of Soviet and post-Soviet literature little known outside Russophone circles, especially on Slav national and cultural subjects within nineteenth-century Central Europe, and on the social, economic, and political history of Slav regions, which is at least by implication general in its scope. The most recent collective work is Khavanova, O. V. et al. , eds., Politicheskie partii i obshchestvennye dvizheniia v monarkhii Gabsburgov, 1848–1914 gg. Ocherki [Political parties and social movements in the Habsburg monarchy, 1848–1914: Essays] (Moscow, 2018)Google Scholar. Most are the product of the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Institut Slavianovedeniia Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk), for which see https://inslav.ru/page/ob-institute, accessed 26 Sept. 2019.

7 Eisenmann has no biography. I have not even found a picture. See obituaries by Dominois, Fuscien in Revue des Études slaves 17 (1937), 240–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Seton-Watson, R. W. in Slavonic and East European Review 16 (1937), 193–98Google Scholar.

8 Paris: Société nouvelle de librairie et d'édition, 1904; reissued in 1968, with a preface by Victor-Lucien Tapié. Digitized at https://archive.org/details/lecompromisaust00eisegoog/page/n8, accessed 20 Sept. 2019.

9 “[A]z ő Felsége uralkodása alatt álló többi országok”; German usage varied: “die zur ungarischen Krone nicht gehörigen Länder seiner Majestät,” or “die übrigen unter der Regierung seiner Majestät stehenden Länder.” Cf. Josef Redlich, Das österreichische Staats- und Reichsproblem, 2:537ff.

10 Law X of 1791 and the decree of 1804 were key texts for future dualism: Eisenmann, Louis, Le Compromis Austro-Hongrois de 1867: Étude Sur Le Dualisme (Paris, 1904), 29, 47Google Scholar.

11 Herein lies Schmerling's great error, his great contradiction. His central parliament could only represent Austria with the help of the Slavs; but the Slavs were from the start thrown into opposition by German policy. Perpetuating the division between Slavs and Germans, his system assured the triumph of the Magyars. If Austria wanted to be constitutional, it only had the choice between the autonomist unity of the Diploma and dualism; centralism necessarily led it to absolutism, whose bankruptcy had already been demonstrated in 1859. “En poursuivant la chimère d'un centralisme constitutionnel—qui implique une contradiction dans les termes—Schmerling et les Allemands ont rendu inévitable le dualisme contre lequel ils se révoltaient.” Eisenmann, Compromis, 304.

12 Eisenmann, Louis, “Austria-Hungary,” in The Cambridge Modern History, vol. 12, The Latest Age (Cambridge, 1910), 174–212Google Scholar, esp. 212.

13 On Tisza and his ideas: Vermes, Gábor, István Tisza: the Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Pölöskei, Ferenc, Tisza István (Budapest, 1985; 2nd ed. 2014)Google Scholar; Tökéczki, László, Tisza István eszmei, politikai arca [István Tisza's ideas and political profile] (Szentendre, 2000; 2nd ed. 2018)Google Scholar, by an admirer.

14 Hanák, Péter, Jászi Oszkár dunai patriotizmusa [Oszkár Jászi's Danubian patriotism] (Budapest, 1985)Google Scholar; Litván, György, A Twentieth-Century Prophet: Oscár Jászi, 1875–1957 (Budapest, 2006)Google Scholar.

15 Jászi, Oszkár, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago, 1929; reissued 1961)Google Scholar; Hungarian translation 1982, with preface by Péter Hanák.

16 Jászi's animus against Hungary's (agrarian) ruling class for its social oppressiveness and ethnic chauvinism had already been articulated earlier, in his Magyariens Schuld, Ungarns Sühne: Revolution und Gegenrevolution in Ungarn (Munich, 1923), etc.

17 Jászi, , A nemzeti államok kialakulása és a nemzetiségi kérdés [The formation of national states and the nationality question] (Budapest, 1912)Google Scholar, esp. 317ff., 436ff. Seton-Watson affords a telling comparison with Eisenmann. He too arrived in Central Europe as a budding historical scholar but, ten years the younger of the two, promptly segued into current affairs as the political situation deteriorated. His historiography came later and was never gesamtmonarchisch.

18 Mérei, Gyula, ed., A magyar polgári pártok programjai, 1867–1918 [Programs of the Hungarian bourgeois parties, 1867–1918] (Budapest, 1971)Google Scholar.

19 Eckhart, Ferenc, A szentkorona-eszme története [The history of the idea of the Holy Crown] (Budapest, 1941)Google Scholar; Péter, László, “The Holy Crown of Hungary, Visible and Invisible,” Slavonic and East European Review 81 (2003): 421–510Google Scholar.

20 E.g., Bernát, Alexander et al. eds., Elemi olvasókönyv az új tanterv és utasítás szerint [Elementary reading primer for the new curriculum and directive] (Budapest, 1906)Google Scholar.

21 Some preliminary thoughts for the earlier part of the period in my “Hungary in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1840–67: A Study of Perceptions,” Etudes Danubiennes 2 (1986): 18–39, now in Evans, R. J. W., Austria, Hungary and the Habsburgs: Central Europe, c. 1683–1867 (Oxford, 2006), 245–65Google Scholar.

22 Redlich's life is recounted, on the basis of much autobiographical material, by Fellner, Fritz in his two remarkable editions: Schicksalsjahre Österreichs 1908–19. Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1953–54)Google Scholar; and, vastly expanded and with Corradini, Doris A. as co-editor: Schicksalsjahre Österreichs. Die Erinnerungen und Tagebücher Josef Redlichs, 1869–1936, 3 vols. (Vienna, 2011)Google Scholar. See also Ng, Amy, Nationalism and Political Liberty. Redlich, Namier, and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Redlich, Josef, Das österreichische Staats- und Reichsproblem: Geschichtliche Darstellung der inneren Politik der habsburgischen Monarchie von 1848 bis zum Untergang des Reiches, 2 vols. in 3 pts. (Leipzig, 1920–26)Google Scholar. Never reissued; digitized at https://archive.org/details/dassterreichis0112redluoft/page/n4, accessed 20 Sept. 2019.

24 In some measure Redlich made good this deficiency with his well-known life of the emperor: Kaiser Franz Joseph von Österreich. Eine Biographie (Berlin, 1928); Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria: A Biography (London, 1929). But that book, although a highly insightful study of the ruler, lacks the deeper analytical framework of the Staats- und Reichsproblem.

25 “For more than two lifetimes [or generations?] all those who had experience of Austria—Germans and non-Germans, those who affirmed the necessity of its stable continuance as a centuries-old conjunction of so many peoples, tongues and lands of such different kinds, as well as those who rejected this—they have all suffered from Austria and for Austria, each in their own way and each independently of what they desired, or what they feared, as a future for Austria as a whole and for the people to which they belonged.” Redlich, Staats- und Reichsproblem, 1:v.

26 “In this respect the severest fate emotionally was inflicted upon those Germans of Austria, who in their person and their activity affirmed the Austrian idea most strongly and at the same time seriously combatted the Austrian reality—those who had most deeply grasped the greatness and the creativeness achieved in the empire and state founded by the Habsburgs through the spiritual and material powers of the Germans, yet who also recognized the banefully restrictive effect of that very same German political thought and action upon the development of the fruitful and constructive notion which the old empire incorporated, even in a very incomplete form.” Ibid.

27 On him: Fellner, Fritz, Geschichtsschreibung und nationale Identität. Probleme und Leistungen der österreichischen Geschichtswissenschaft (Vienna, 2002), 293–322Google Scholar; Lindström, Fredrik, Empire and Identity: Biographies of the Austrian State Problem in the Late Habsburg Empire (West Lafayette, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedjung, Geschichte in Gesprächen (see following, note 31).

28 Friedjung, Heinrich, Der Ausgleich mit Ungarn, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1878), 4Google Scholar: “1867 haben wir uns einem an Bildung und wirtschaftlichem Sinn tief unter uns stehenden Volk gefügt, dem wir die Hegemonie im politischen Sinne und das Verfügungsrecht über unser Militärbudget zugestanden, so daß faktisch eine Tributpflichtigkeit Oesterreichs an den ungarischen Staat stattfindet.”

29 Friedjung, Heinrich, Österreich von 1848 bis 1860, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1908–12)Google Scholar; Der Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Deutschland, 1859–66, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1897–98); abridged English version, as The Struggle for Supremacy in Germany, 1859–1866, eds. A. J. P. Taylor and W. L. McElwee (London, 1935).

30 “Demnach gab es bei dieser Wendung der Dinge ein edles Opfer: die Deutschen Österreichs, welche vom Mutterlande losgerissen wurden. Sie verloren damals ihren politischen Schwerpunkt und haben ihn noch nicht wieder gefunden.” Friedjung, Kampf, 2:559.

31 Friedjung, Heinrich, Geschichte in Gesprächen. Aufzeichnungen, 1898–1919, 2 vols., eds. Franz Adlgasser and Margret Friedrich (Vienna, 1997), 1:202–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Müller, Jürgen, Deutscher Bund und deutsche Nation, 1848–1866 (Göttingen, 2003)Google Scholar, captures the openness of the outcome more persuasively than Böhme, Helmut, Deutschlands Weg zur Großmacht. Studien zum Verhältnis von Wirtschaft und Staat während der Reichsgründungszeit, 1848–81 (Cologne, 1966)Google Scholar. Cf. also Hope, Nicholas, The Alternative to German Unification: The Anti-Prussian Party: Frankfurt, Nassau and the Two Hessen, 1859–67 (Wiesbaden, 1973)Google Scholar.

33 Friedjung, Aufzeichnungen, 1:31, 2:239. `

34 “[A]ls Schöpfung der deutschen Nation deren nach Südosten vorgeschobenes Bollwerk . . . zu deren Verteidigung es auch andere Nationalitäten sammelte.” Friedjung, Heinrich, Historische Aufsätze (Stuttgart, 1919), xiiiGoogle Scholar.

35 Much evidence for this in Franz, Georg, Liberalismus. Die deutschliberale Bewegung in der Habsburgischen Monarchie (Munich, 1955)Google Scholar. Representative figures would be Gustav Höfken; see Heindl, Waltraud, “‘Wir wollen einen Familientempel bauen . . . .’ (Marginalien zu Mentalität und Familienleben des Beamten Gustave Höfken),” in Verbürgerlichung in Mitteleuropa, ed. Somogyi, Éva (Budapest, 1991), 47–56Google Scholar; Ludwig von Biegeleben: see Biegeleben, Rüdiger von, Ludwig Frh von Biegeleben, ein Vorkämpfer des großdeutschen Gedankens (Vienna, 1930)Google Scholar; and Lorenz von Stein: see Giles Pope, The Political Ideas of Lorenz Stein and Their Influence on Rudolf Gneist and Gustav Schmoller (Ph.D. diss., Oxford, 1985).

36 “[Es] haben weder die Slawen noch die Romanen, noch die Madjaren der Monarchie eine österreichische Kultur anerkannt; sie kannten nur ihre eigene und eine deutsche, die sie nicht mochten.” Fritz Fellner, “Die Historiographie der österreichisch-deutschen Problematik als Spiegel der nationalpolitischen Diskussion,” in his Geschichtsschreibung und nationale Identität, 145–72, quoted at 153.

37 von Plener, Ernst, Erinnerungen, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1911–21), iiGoogle Scholar, passim.

38 Karel Kazbunda, Otázka česko-německá v předvečer Velké války. Zrušení ústavnosti země České tzv. annenskými patenty z 26. července 1913 [The Czech-German question on the eve of the Great War: The destruction of constitutionality in Bohemia by the so-called St. Anne's day patents of 26 July 1913], op. posth., ed. Zdeněk Kárník (Prague, 1995). This is a minor historiographical classic of the Gesamtmonarchie by a scholar who knew the pertinent old-Austrian archives better than anyone else: he supervised the transfer of many relevant documents from Vienna to Prague after 1918, but only wrote up his findings a half-century later.

39 Srbik, Heinrich von, Deutsche Einheit. Idee und Wirklichkeit vom Heiligen Reich bis Königgrätz, 4 vols. (Munich, 1935–42)Google Scholar, mainly covers the mid-nineteenth century and luxuriates in notions like “Großösterreichertum,” “Gesamtdeutschtum,” and even “österreichisches Großdeutschtum.” A related debate has been that over the place of Austria(n) within German history as a whole, stimulated by a judicious and astute essay of Erdmann, Karl Dietrich, Die Spur Österreichs in der deutschen Geschichte (Zurich, 1989)Google Scholar. The provocation for Erdmann was the proposed remit of a then new Deutsches Historisches Museum established in Berlin in 1987, as well as the Waldheim-Affäre. See the contributions in Botz, Gerhard and Sprengnagel, Gerald, eds., Kontroversen um Österreichs Zeitgeschichte: verdrängte Vergangenheit, Österreich-Identität, Waldheim und die Historiker, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt, 2008), 194–370Google Scholar.

40 Wiltschegg, Walter, Österreich – der “Zweite deutsche Staat”? Der nationale Gedanke in der Ersten Republik (Graz, 1992)Google Scholar, lacks something in coherence and balance, but cumulates evidence that German-national sentiments were everywhere, while Austrian-national ones were only created retrospectively after 1945.

41 On Macartney, see the thoughtful and eloquent tribute by Watson, Hugh Seton in Proceedings of the British Academy, 67 (1981), 412–32Google Scholar. For his Hungarian associations: Beretzky, Ágnes, Scotus Viator és Macartney Elemér. Magyarország-kép változó előjelekkel, 1905–45 [Scotus Viator and Elemér Macartney: An image of Hungary with changing presages] (Budapest, 2005)Google Scholar; Evans, R. J. W., “Hungary in British Historiography: C. A. Macartney and His Forerunners,” in Mives semmiségek. Elaborate Trifles. Tanulmányok Ruttkay Kálmán 80. Születésnapjára. Studies for Kálmán G. Ruttkay on his 80th Birthday, eds. Ittzés, Gábor and Kiséry, András (Piliscsaba, 2002), 476–92Google Scholar; Evans, , “The Making of October Fifteenth: C. A. Macartney and His Correspondents,” in British-Hungarian Relations since 1848, eds. Péter, László and Rady, Martyn (London, 2004), 259–70Google Scholar. A biography of Macartney is now being prepared by Róbert Barta (Debrecen).

42 Macartney, C. A., The Habsburg Empire, 1790–1918 (London, 1968)Google Scholar; corrected version 1971 (the original was peppered with misprints); reissued 2010; Italian translation, edited by Angelo Ara, 1976.

43 Macartney, Habsburg Empire, xiii.

44 Ibid., 1.

45 For Springer, see the excellent study by Heidler, Jan, Antonín Springer a česká politika v letech 1848–1850 [Antonín Springer and Bohemian politics in the years 1848–1850] (Prague, 1914)Google Scholar, and Friedjung's appreciation in his Historische Aufsätze, 210–23.

46 “[E]bensowenig kann aber verhehlt werden, daß der Eifer, mit welchem Gründe der politischen Vernunft und Zweckmäßigkeit für das Dasein und die Fortdauer des oesterreichischen Kaiserthumes aufgesucht werden, den Mangel an einer natürlichen, unbedingt nothwendigen Grundlage vermuthen [läßt].” Springer, Geschichte Österreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden 1809, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1863–65), 1:1. For the circumstances of the work's composition, see Heidler, Antonín Springer, 205–8.

47 Andrian-Werburg, Victor von, Oesterreich und dessen Zukunft, vol. 1 (Hamburg, 1843), 8Google Scholar: Austria is a “rein imaginärer Name, welcher kein in sich abgeschlossenes Volk, kein Land, keine Nation bedeutet.” Redlich, Staats- und Reichsproblem, 1:59ff. Cf. the recent formulation by Beller, Steven, A Concise History of Austria (Cambridge, 2006), 121–24Google Scholar, that Austria at that time failed to achieve a “unifying, supranational, state-wide civic political authority.”

48 Rogge, Walter, Österreich von Világos bis zur Gegenwart, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1872–73)Google Scholar. For the cartoons, see especially Buzinkay, Géza, Borsszem Jankó és társai: magyar élclapok és karikatúráik a XIX. század második felében [Borsszem Jankó and his chums: Hungarian satirical journals and their caricatures in the second half of the 19th century] (Budapest, 1983)Google Scholar.

49 Reproduced at https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/5575, accessed 25 Sept. 2019. Cf. Evans, R. J. W., “Communicating Empire: The Habsburgs and Their Critics, 1700–1919,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sixth series, 19 (2009), 117–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Even Francis Joseph said, “mein Onkel war doch ein halber Trottel.” Friedjung, Aufzeichnungen, 2:447. Siemann, Wolfram, Metternich: Stratege und Visionär. Eine Biographie (Munich, 2016), 824–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, recognizes the debilitating effect of this (“Das Reich diente als großes Familienfideikommiss”), but exaggerates its role, as an excuse for Metternich's failure.

51 Kann, Robert A., “The Dynasty and the Imperial Idea,” in his Dynasty, Politics, and Culture: Selected Essays (Boulder, 1991), 45–67Google Scholar, is shrewd. On the cult, see von Steinitz, Eduard, ed., Erinnerungen an Franz Joseph I., Kaiser von Österreich (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar; Novotny, Alexander, Franz Joseph I: An der Wende vom alten zum neuen Europa (Göttingen, 1968)Google Scholar, esp. 72–82; Niederle, Helmuth A., Es war sehr schön, es hat mich sehr gefreut: Kaiser Franz Joseph und seine Untertanen (Vienna, 1987)Google Scholar. Hlaváč, Bedřich, František Josef I.: život, povaha, doba [Francis Joseph I: His life, character and times] (Prague, 1933)Google Scholar, is critical; Kohut, Adolph, Kaiser Franz Josef I. als König von Ungarn (Berlin, 1916)Google Scholar, is not. Most recently Telesko, Werner and Schmidl, Stefan, Der verklărte Herrscher. Leben, Tod und Nachleben Kaiser Franz Josephs I. in seinen Reprăsentationen (Vienna, 2016)Google Scholar, stress the mythic character of the imperial image rather than how that image was received, especially in Transleithania.

52 My understanding of these factors builds on my earlier work for earlier periods: especially Evans, R. J. W., The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700: An Interpretation (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar.

53 Weinzierl-Fischer, Erika, “Die Kirchenfrage auf dem Österreichischen Reichstag, 1848–9,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 8 (1955), 160–90Google Scholar.

54 For the earlier period, see Till, Rudolf, Hofbauer und sein Kreis (Vienna, 1951)Google Scholar; Bunnell, Adam, Before Infallibility: Liberal Catholicism in Biedermeier Vienna (London, 1990)Google Scholar. For the later period, see Scheicher, Joseph, Sebastian Brunner. Ein Lebensbild, zugleich ein Stück Zeit- und Kirchengeschichte (Würzburg, 1888)Google Scholar; Ritzen, Renatus, Der junge Sebastian Brunner in seinem Verhältnis zu Jean Paul, Anton Günther und Fürst Metternich (Aichach, 1927)Google Scholar.

55 “Navždy lámeme pouta, v nichž nás týrali věrolomní, cizáčtí a nemravní Habsburkové.” Quoted by Suppan, Arnold, 1000 Jahre Nachbarschaft. “Tschechen” und “Österreicher” in historischer Perspektive (Vienna, 2017), 134Google Scholar.

56 Godsey, William D. Jr., Nobles and Nation in Central Europe: Free Imperial Knights in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Stekl, Hannes, Österreichs Aristokratie im Vormärz: Herrschaftsstil und Lebensformen der Fürstenhäuser Liechtenstein und Schwarzenberg (Munich, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Excellent new survey of this process, covering the whole monarchy and with transnational comparisons, by Županič, äJan, “Promĕna nobilitační politiky podunajské monarchie po roce 1848” [The change in ennoblement policy in the Danubian Monarchy after the year 1848], Český Časopis Historický, 117 (2019): 535–83Google Scholar.

58 Stekl, Hannes, Adel und Bürgertum in der Habsburgermonarchie, 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 101ff.; ibid., 14–34 for a helpful survey of the nineteenth-century developments. For a paradigm family, see Stekl, Hannes and Wakounig, Marija, Windisch-Graetz: ein Fürstenhaus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1992)Google Scholar.

59 Megner, Karl, Beamte. Wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte des k.k. Beamtentums (Vienna, 1985)Google Scholar, 344ff., has statistics. Cf. Heindl, Waltraud, Gehorsame Rebellen: Bürokratie und Beamte in Österreich 1780 bis 1848 (Vienna, 1991)Google Scholar; Heindl, Josephinische Mandarine. Bürokratie und Beamte in Österreich, 1848–1914 (Vienna, 2013). Deak, John, Forging a Multinational State: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War (Stanford, 2015)Google Scholar, makes a more positive case.

60 Heindl, Josephinische Mandarine, 92. But on his Totenschein, under “Berufszweig und Berufsstellung,” Francis Joseph was recorded as “Kaiser von Österreich, König von Ungarn, etc.” Telesko and Schmidl, Der verklărte Herrscher, 84.

61 Marek Nekula, “Franz Kafka als Beamter der Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt für Böhmen in Prag,” in Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty Brnĕnské univerzity [Proceedings of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Brno], ser. 6 (2001), 113–40: https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/105963/1_BrunnerBeitratgeGermanistikNordistik_15-2001-1_8.pdf?sequence=1, accessed 22 Sept. 2019.

62 Klabouch., Jiří Die Gemeindeselbstverwaltung in Österreich, 1848–1918 (Munich, 1968)Google Scholar, 124ff.; Boyer, John, “The Problem of Vienna in a General History of Austria,” in Wien um 1900: Aufbruch in die Moderne, eds. Berner, Peter et al. . (Munich, 1986), 205–20Google Scholar. On the vagaries of the Bohemian budget: Baernreither, Joseph Maria, Zur böhmischen Frage (Vienna, 1910)Google Scholar; Kazbunda, Otázka česko-německá.

63 Redlich, Josef, Österreichische Regierung und Verwaltung im Weltkriege (Vienna, 1925), 39–81Google Scholar.

64 Rothenberg, Gunther E., The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, 1976), 22–37Google Scholar and passim; Sked, Alan, The Survival of the Habsburg Empire: Radetzky, the Imperial Army, and the Class War, 1848 (London, 1979)Google Scholar.

65 “[K]ényszerű nemzetekfelettiség . . . egy sajátos, anakronisztikus lelki németség.” Hajdu, Tibor, Tisztikar és középosztály, 1850–1914: Ferenc József magyar tisztjei [Officer corps and middle class, 1850–1914: Francis Joseph's Hungarian officers] (Budapest, 1999), 164Google Scholar.

66 Das einheitliche deutsche Commando: eine Gefahr für die Schlagfertigkeit des k. und k. Heeres (Budapest, 1905). “Schlagfertigkeit” also and more usually means “wittiness”; here presumably a pun is intended. I'm grateful to Judit Kormos for a copy of this pamphlet.

67 Beer, Adolf, Die Finanzen Oesterreichs im 19. Jahrhundert (Prague, 1877), 202ffGoogle Scholar.; Brandt, Harm-Hinrich, Der österreichische Neoabsolutismus: Staatsfinanzen und Politik, 1848–60, 2 vols. (Göttingen, 1978)Google Scholar. Schmidt-Brentano, Antonio, Die Armee in Österreich: Militär, Staat und Gesellschaft 1848–67 (Boppard am Rhein, 1975)Google Scholar, demonstrates weaknesses and conservatism at the army's mid-century peak of influence.

68 Mitchell, A. Wess, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton, 2018)Google Scholar.

69 Bridge, F. R., The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 1815–1918 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar. In its vivid and mischievous way, the celebrated account by Taylor, A. J. P., The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, 2nd ed. (London, 1948)Google Scholar, also rests on this insight.

70 Srbik, Heinrich von, Metternich: Der Staatsmann und der Mensch, 3 vols. (Munich, 1925–54)Google Scholar; Siemann, Metternich. Theirs are widely divergent apologias anyway: Siemann, Metternich, 21–30, demolishes his predecessor's case. My own view of Metternich in “Primat der Außenpolitik? Metternich und das österreichische Staats- und Reichsproblem,” in Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Anzeiger der philosophisch-historischen Klasse, 144. Jg. 2. Hbb. (2009), 61–76.

71 Siemann, Metternich, 792–829, addresses issues of Innenpolitik seriously only from 1835; but then there is still nothing at all on Hungary, Croatia, or the Czechs. The most renowned of all treatments of Metternichian diplomacy, Kissinger, Henry, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812–22 (London, 1957)Google Scholar, does not even engage with this issue.

72 Cf. Eisenmann, Compromis, 76: “La monarchie autrichienne, depuis 1815, ne se soutenait pas par ses propres forces: elle était étayée du dehors. Sa durée était liée à la durée de l'ordre européen institué par le Congrès de Vienne.”

73 Schmidt-Brentano, Die Armee in Österreich, esp. 104ff.; Péter, Lดszló, “The Army Question in Hungarian Politics, 1867–1918,” Central Europe 4 (2006): 83–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Diószegi, István, “A Deák-párt és a német egység [The Deák-party and German unity],” Századok 104 (1970): 227–49Google Scholar; cf. Diószegi, , Bismarck und Andrássy: Ungarn in der deutschen Machtpolitik in der 2. Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Vienna, 1999)Google Scholar.

75 “[T]oute l'histoire politique de la monarchie depuis 1848 montre que la vie constitutionelle de l'Autriche moderne s'est développée sous l'action exclusive ou tout au moins prépondérante de préoccupations ou de desseins extérieurs.” Eisenmann, Compromis, 677–78. He adds the typically shrewd observation that good relations with Germany allowed the Austrian government more flexibility to cultivate non-Germans at home.

76 Kolm, Evelyn, Die Ambitionen Österreich-Ungarns im Zeitalter des Hochimperialismus (Frankfurt, 2001)Google Scholar; Fried, Marvin, Austro-Hungarian War Aims in the Balkans during World War I (Basingstoke, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 “Die dualistische Structur der Monarchie und die paritätische Stellung Ungarns in derselben [sind] eine Conditio sine qua non unseres Zusammenlebens mit den anderen Völkern der Monarchie. Ungarn hat sich als selbstständiger Staat freiwillig der Monarchie angeschlossen, es hat eine über ihm stehende Zentralgewalt nie anerkannt, und sich einer Majorisierung nie unterworfen. Noch weniger kann dies nach den Erlebnissen dieses Krieges geschehen.” Broucek, Peter, Karl I. (IV.) Der politische Weg des letzten Herrschers der Donaumonarchie (Vienna, 1997), 192–94Google Scholar.

78 Farkas, Márton, Katonai összeomlás és forradalom 1918-ban [Military collapse and revolution in 1918] (Budapest, 1969)Google Scholar, is absurdly doctrinaire, but contains much material about rising levels of insubordination among the troops.

79 For the Denkschrift, see Ramhardter, Günther, Geschichtswissenschaft und Patriotismus: österreichische Historiker im Weltkrieg, 1914–18 (Munich, 1973), 73–99Google Scholar. For Tisza, see Pölöskei, Tisza, 238ff.

80 “[D]as ganze deutsche System, das hier in Österreich herrschte, das war einer der stärksten Gründe, warum die Leute jedwede Lust zum Kriege verloren haben. Die Leute haben das Interesse an Österreich verloren . . . entweder ist Österreich nicht deutsch . . . oder es hat keine Existenzberechtigung.” Quoted by in, Holger Afflerbach Die Habsburgermonarchie und der Erste Weltkrieg, pt. 1, ed. Rumpler, Helmut (Vienna, 2016), 673Google Scholar.

81 Gottsmann, Andreas, ed., Kaiser Karl I. (IV.), der Erste Weltkrieg und das Ende der Donaumonarchie (Vienna, 2007), 9–10Google Scholar, sees him as “fűr den nötigen Neuanfang in den letzten beiden Jahren des Ersten Weltkrieges wohl nicht der richtige Mann . . . [und] . . . an weltpolitischen Strukturproblemen gescheitert.” See the recent firmer indictment by Christopher Brennan, “Reforming Austria-Hungary: Beyond His Control or beyond His Capacity? The Domestic Policies of Emperor Karl I, November 1916–May 1917 (Ph.D. diss., London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, 2012).

82 As reported by the German-national staff officer, Edmund Glaise-Horstenau: Broucek, Karl I. (IV.), 201–2.

83 Schlitter, Hanns, Versäumte Gelegenheiten. Die Oktroyierte Verfassung vom 4. März 1849: ein Beitrag zu ihrer Geschichte (Zurich, 1920)Google Scholar. The same mood pervades Schlitter's important concurrent gesamtmonarchisch archival series, Aus Österreichs Vormärz, 4 vols. (Zurich, 1920).

84 Key texts are Eugen Kvaternik, La Croatie et la confédération italienne (Paris, 1859); Kvaternik, “Politička razmatranja” [Political reflections], in Politički spisi: Rasprave, govori, članci, memorandumi, pisma [Political writings: Debates, speeches, articles, memoranda, letters], ed. Ljerka Kuntić (Zagreb, 1971), 168–216, 409–503; and his proposals to the Sabor in 1861, ibid., 217–379. Commentary in Gross, Mirjana, Povijest pravaške ideologije [History of the state-right ideology] (Zagreb, 1973)Google Scholar; Gross, Izvorno pravaštvo: ideologija, agitacija, pokret [The origin of state-rightism: Ideology, agitation, movement] (Zagreb, 2000); Behschnitt, Wolf Dietrich, Nationalismus bei Serben und Kroaten, 1830–1914: Analyse und Typologie der nationalen Ideologie (Munich, 1980), 161ffGoogle Scholar.; Schödl, Günter, Kroatische Nationalpolitik und “Jugoslavenstvo”: Studien zu nationaler Integration und regionaler Politik in Kroatien-Dalmatien am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1990)Google Scholar.

85 “[E]ine Schaar der frechsten, gefährlichsten und schamlosesten Hochverräter . . . eine genaue Kopie der Politik Ludwigs XVI.” Broucek, Karl I. (IV.), 125–26.

86 “Wahrlich existierte der österreichische Kaiserstaat nicht schon längst, man müßte im Interesse von Europa, im Interesse der Humanität selbst, sich beeilen, ihn zu schaffen.” “Zajisté, kdyby státu Rakouského nebylo již od dávna, musili bychom v interessu Europy, ba humanity samé přičiniti se co nejdříve, aby se utvořil.” Text of the Frankfurt Letter in Palacký, František, Radhost: sbírka spisůw drobných [Radhost: A collection of shorter writings], 3 vols. (Prague, 1871–73), 3:10–17Google Scholar. For the context, see Kořalka, Jiří, František Palacký, 1798–1976: životopis [František Palacký, 1798–1976: A biography] (Prague, 1998), 265–73Google Scholar.

87 An anticipation (from 1843) in Wesselényi, Miklós, Szózat a magyar és szláv nemzetiség ügyében [An appeal on the matter of Hungarian and Slav nationality], ed. Deák, Ágnes (Budapest, 1992), 277Google Scholar. Another version in Springer, Geschichte Österreichs, 1:1.

88 Cf., in general, R. J. W. Evans, “The Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia, 1526–1848,” in Austria, Hungary and the Habsburgs, 75–98.

89 Palacký, František, Dějiny národu českého w Čechách a w Morawě, dle půwodních pramenů [The history of the Czech people in Bohemia and Moravia, from original sources], 5 vols. in 11 pts. (Prague, 1848–72)Google Scholar. Cf. Baár, Monika, Historians and Nationalism: East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 29ff., 138ff., and passim.

90 Heidler, Springer, a fine appreciation: “Renegátem nebyl, byl apostatou” (ibid., 192).

91 Rieger, , Drobné spisy [Shorter writings], 2 vols, ed. Kadlec, Karel (Prague, 1914–15)Google Scholar; Rieger, , Zřízení krajské v Čechách [Local government in Bohemia], 2 vols. (Prague, 1889–93)Google Scholar. Cf. Redlich, Josef, Das Wesen der österreichischen Kommunalverfassung (Leipzig, 1910)Google Scholar. A general view, but a Czech perspective, in Klabouch, Gemeindeselbstverwaltung.

92 Rieger's ideas can be reconstructed from an extended series of journal articles collected in his Drobné spisy. They deal with Reichsgeschichte “sub specie Bohemiae,” from the mid-eighteenth century onward. Cf. his Říšské dějiny rakouské [Imperial history of Austria] (Prague, 1908). Josef Kalousek's České státní právo [Bohemian state right], first published in 1871 (Prague) coincidentally with the key parliamentary negotiations on the failed “Bohemian Compromise,” and reissued in 1892, presented the most authoritative case for the whole historic claim of the Bohemian/Czech political nation.

93 JPekař, osef, Z české fronty [From the Bohemian/Czech front], vol. 1 (Prague, 1917), 22–29Google Scholar and passim. For Pekař's attitude toward the Austrian state and his political stances during the war, see the discerning study by Kučera, Martin, Rakouský občan Josef Pekař. Kapitoly z kulturně politických dějin [Josef Pekař as an Austrian citizen: Chapters of cultural-political history] (Prague, 2005)Google Scholar.

94 Kučera, Martin, Pekař proti Masarykovi. Historik a politika [Pekař against Masaryk: The historian and politics] (Prague, 1995)Google Scholar.

95 This is no place to itemize it. Conveniently, much is now encapsulated and summarized in Judson, Pieter, The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Cambridge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 The latest relevant monograph, Moos, Carlo, Habsburg post mortem: Betrachtungen zum Weiterleben der Habsburgermonarchie (Vienna, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is very feeble and limited in scope. See now also Miller, Paul and Morelon, Claire, eds. Embers of Empire: Continuity and Rupture in the Habsburg Successor States after 1918 (New York, 2019)Google Scholar. In the 1920s it was only in rump Hungary, ironically, that Habsburg legitimism enjoyed any measurable support. In Austria its political wing, the Kaisertreue Volkspartei, recorded a total of 1,235 votes at the parliamentary election of 1923.

97 “Ich habe den Völkern den Weg zu ihrer selbständigen staatlichen Entwicklung eröffnet.” Declaration of abdication by Emperor Charles I/IV, 11 Nov. 1918, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Karl_I_of_Austria?uselang=de#/media/File:Verzichtserkl%C3%A4rung_Karl_I._11.11.1918.jpg. “Nem akarom, hogy személyem akadályul szolgáljon a magyar nemzet szabad fejlődésének.” See: https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckartsaui_nyilatkozat#/media/F%C3%A1jl:Eckartsaui_nyilatkozat.jpg, both accessed 24 Sept. 2019.

98 Some have accounted Macartney a conservative. Certainly he wrote with empathy about conservatives, but that is a different thing. He once told me that, when he arrived in Vienna in 1919, he felt himself “mildly pink,” and his first book, The Social Revolution in Austria (Cambridge, 1926), fits with that self-description.