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Historians, the Nationality Question, and the Downfall of the Habsburg Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Alan Sked
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Extract

Was the Habsburg Empire doomed to collapse, and if so, at what point did its collapse become inevitable? This is a question which has been debated consciously and unconsciously by historians ever since 1918. Today, it is true, Austrian historians are warning against it— Professor Wandruszka even a decade ago advised us to do our ‘duty’ and accept ‘the tragic element in history’1—yet the issue is still discussed. Alexander Gerschenkron, for example, in his last work on Austrian history2 chose a counter-factual theme, and in the introduction to his book condemned historians—presumably those like Professor Wandruszka—who were ‘anxious to prevent people from asking pertinent and interesting questions and [had] neither the wit nor the imagination for asking those questions themselves’. Whether Professor Gerschenkron himself employed too much imagination is only one of the issues to be examined in this paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 31 , December 1981 , pp. 175 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1981

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References

1 See Wandruszka, A., ‘Finis Austriae? Reformpläne und Untergangsahnungen in der Habsburger Monarchie’, Der österreichisch-ungarische Ausgleich von 1867. Seine Grundlagen und Auswirkungen (Buchreihe der Sudostdeutschen Historischen Kommission, 20, Munich, 1968), p. 112Google Scholar.

2 Gerschenkron, A., An Economic Spurt That Failed. Four Lectures in Austrian History (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar.

3 One survey of the literature which is readily available to British readers is Novotny, A., ‘Austrian History from 1848 to 1938 as seen by Austrian Historians since 1945’, Austrian History Notebook, 3 (1963), 18–50Google Scholar.

4 Surveys of American writing on Austria-Hungary include Rath, R. J., ‘Das amerikanische Schrifttum über den Untergang der Monarchie’, Die Auflösung des Habsburgerreiches. Zusammenbruch und Neuorientierung im Donauraum, ed. Plashka, R. G. and Mack, K., Vienna, 1970), pp. 236–48Google Scholar; Hoover, Arlie, ‘The Habsburg Monarchy, Austria and Hungary as treated in other U.S. Journals than the Journal of Central European Affairs’, Austrian History Notebook, 3 (1963), 51–72Google Scholar; Deák, I., ‘American (and Some British) Historians look at Austria-Hungary’, New Hungarian Quarterly, 41 (1971) 162–74Google Scholar; Fichtner, Paula S., ‘Americans and the Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy: the Shaping of an Historiographical Model’, The Habsburg Empire in World War I. Essays on the Intellectual, Military, Political and Economic Aspects of the Habsburg War Effort, ed. Kann, R., Kiraly, B. K. and Fichtner, P. S. (New York, 1977), pp. 221–34Google Scholar.

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8 Ibid., p. 128.

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11 Ibid., p. 1.

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13 Sutter, B., ‘Erzherzog Johanns Kritik an Österreich’, Mitteilungen des Osterreichischen Staatsarchivs, 16 (1963)Google Scholar, 165 seq.

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17 See his Hungarian Political Trends between the Revolution and the Compromise (1849–1867) (Budapest, 1977)Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 166–7.

19 The following analysis is based on Sutter, B., ‘Die Ausgleichsverhandlungen zwischen Österreich und Ungarn 1867–1918’, Österreichisch-ungarische Ausgleich von 1867, pp. 71–111Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., p. 90.

21 The saying is apocryphal.

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26 Ibid., p. 88.

27 Ibid., p. 84.

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29 Rath, , ‘Das amerikanische Schrifttum’, p. 236Google Scholar.

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33 Ibid.

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38 Ibid., pp. 18–19.

39 Ibid., p. 43.

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42 Ibid., p. 137.

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47 Sked, , ‘The Metternich System’, p. 111Google Scholar.

48 Gerschenkron, An Economic Spurt That Failed.

49 Ibid., pp. 156–7.

50 Johnson, W., The Austrian Mind: an Intellectual and Social History, 1848–1938 (Berkeley, 1972)Google Scholar.

51 Wandruszka, ‘Finis Austriae?'

52 Ibid., p. 119.

53 See his The Break-up of the Habsburg Empire, 1914–1918. A Study in National and Social Revolution (London, 1961)Google Scholar.

54 See his Great Britain and Austria-Hungary during the First World War. A Study in the Formation of Public Opinion (London, 1962)Google Scholar.

55 See his Peace or Partition. The Habsburg Monarchy and British Policy, 1914–1918 (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

56 Namier, L. B., Vanished Supremacies. Essays on European History, 1812–1918 (London, 1958)Google Scholar, ch. 10.

57 1 refer not only to R. W. Seton-Watson's well-known works, but also to at least one essay by his son, Hugh, , ‘Übernationale Monarchic und Nationalstaat’, Die Auflösung des Habsburgerreiches, ed. Plaschka, and Mack, , pp. 366–76Google Scholar.

58 See his The Hapsburg Monarchy (4th edn., London, 1919)Google Scholar.

59 See his From Sadowa to Sarajevo: the Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866–1914 (London, 1972)Google Scholar; and Great Britain and Austria-Hungary, 1906–14: A Diplomatic History (London, 1972)Google Scholar.

60 See his many articles on civil-military relations in the Habsburg Empire, as well as The Eastern Front 1914–17 (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

61 See, in particular, The Habsburg Monarchy.

62 I refer to Sked, A., The Survival of the Habsburg Empire: Radetzjky, the Imperial Army and the Class War, 1848 (London, 1979)Google Scholar.

63 Bridge, , From Sadowa to Sarajevo, p. 370Google Scholar.

64 Taylor, ‘The Failure of the Habsburg Monarchy’.

65 Ibid., p. 132.

66 See, in particular, Austria, Great Britain and the Crimean War, The Destruction of the European Concert (Ithaca and London, 1972)Google Scholar; Metternich's Diplomacy at its Zenith, 1820–1823 (Austin, 1962)Google Scholar.

67 Schroeder, W., ‘World War I as Galloping Gertie: a Reply to Joachim Remak’, Journal of Modem History, 44 (1972), 341–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the other hand Jellavich, Barbara (The Habsburg Empire in European Affairs, 1814–1916 (New York, 1975), p. 175Google Scholar ) merely accepts that Britain and Austria had different interests in the Near East and Balkans.

68 See his The Lawful Revolution. Louis Kossulh and the Hungarians, 1848–1849 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar.

69 See his The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, 1976)Google Scholar.

70 See, inter alia, his article ‘Nationalitätenfrage und Wirtschaft in der Habsburgermonarchie’, Der Donauraum, 15 (1970), 171–202Google Scholar.

71 Sked, The Survival of the Habsburg Empire.