The Strength of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1914 (Part 2)

HOW DOES THE OPPOSING SCHOOL counter the seemingly unanswerable arguments for the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy’s imminent collapse (see the September issue, pages 8-12)? Largely by admitting them as true, but as only part - and a reasonably small part - of the truth. The Habsburg defenders do not try to pretend that everything was well with the Dual Monarchy in its last decades. They admit the difficulties but seek to more than balance them ith positive developments. Take, for example, the attitude of the Magyars. This school does not deny Magyar unhelpfulness or the iniquities of the Magyarisation policy but it notes, as well, positive developments in Hungary after 1867. The Hungarian economy grew impressively at the end of the nineteenth century and undoubtedly benefitted from the Dualist system. The National Austro-Hungarian Bank promoted economic co-operation between the two halves of the Monarchy and guaranteed credit. The economy of the Austrian half, by now basically industrial, complemented that of Hungary which had been predominantly agricultural. By 1906 things were changing. In that year Hungary exported œ40 million worth of agricultural produce to Austria and Austria exported industrial goods to Hungary of approximately the same value. But by now Hungary herself was beginning to industrialise. Large railway building programmes in both halves of the Monarchy (by 1912 there were over 30,000 miles of track in the Austrian half alone) helped promote industrial growth. It has been calculated that after 1871 the Hungarian economy grew by about 1.7 per cent p.a. That places Hungary among the leaders in the late nineteenth century European growth league, matched only by Germany, Sweden and Denmark. The economic historian David Good, in a book significantly entitled The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, concludes:

That doesn’t sound like the description of a state on the verge of collapse.

Furthermore, Magyar tactics during the negotiations every ten years for a renewal of the customs union were not always totally negative. In 1909, for example, a new economic basis for the Dual Monarchy was worked out with Magyar agreement. The customs union was replaced by a binding treaty; an arbitration court was set up; and future commercial agreements with outside countries were to be made in the names of Austria and Hungary rather than jointly in the name of the Emperor. This was a sensible, workmanlike agreement. It went a long way towards ensuring that, in future, the bitter disputes which had characterised relations between the two halves of the Monarchy since 1867 might be avoided. And beneath all the political posturing of these years, internal trade in fact usually flowed quite smoothly to the great advantage bothof Austria and Hungary. By 1914 then, the Dual Monarchy was well on the way to becoming economically fully integrated.

In that same year, a parliamentary reform bill in Hungary increased the electorate from 8 per cent to 25 per cent of the adult male population. A small improvement, perhaps, especially as there had been universal manhood suffrage in the Austrian lands since 1907, but it indicates that the Hungarian leaders were not quite so rigidly opposed to change as has sometimes been made out. One of the reasons the Magyars risked this franchise extension was undoubtedly the success of Magyarisation in certain parts of Hungary. Whatever we might think of the morality (or immorality!) of the policy itself, we cannot doubt that it was working successfully in parts of the kingdom. The German and Jewish minorities had largely became, by 1914, fervent Magyar nationalists. The Slovaks, who initially had resisted Magyarisation, were gradually beginning to succumb, and the larger towns throughout Hungary were developing a clear Magyar character. Moreover, the Magyar-speaking peasantry, at first resentful of the stranglehold operated by their noble and gentry overlords, were being won over by the idea of Magyar national solidarity. It was among the Rumans, the Serbs and, especially, the Croats that Magyarisation was proving a failure and leading to increasingly strained relations. Despite Magyar efforts to drive a wedge between Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs, their common hatred of Magyarisation proved stronger than their suspicions of each other. By 1914 there was a significant movement in Croatia campaigning to change the Dual Monarchy into a Triple Monarchy of Germans, Magyars and Slavs - the so-called Trialist programme. Despite the implacable opposition of the Magyar to this scheme, still only a tiny minority of Trialists wanted the downfall of the Habsburg Monarchy and the creation of a Yugoslav state outside it.

Those historians who refuse to accept the inevitability of Habsburg collapse also stress the traditional ‘cohesive factors’ in support of their point of view, claiming that most of these were as relevant and effective in 1914 as they had been a century earlier. The Empire still made excellent geographical sense, centred as it was around the great Hungarian plain, with natural frontiers in the west (the Alps), the east (the Carpathians), the south (the Balkan Mountains) with an Adriatic outlet to the outside world and the Danube running like a main artery through the middle. The Roman Catholic Church, reflecting the faith of the overwhelming majority of Habsburg subjects, was another unifying factor; and the historic links between the Church and the House of Habsburg had been an element of stability in central and southern Europe for centuries. So long as Franz Joseph survived (and he lived until the end of 1916, dying at the age of 86 after a reign of 68 years) the vast majority of his subjects remained kaisertreu (loyal to the Emperor). Although as a man he possessed no outstanding qualities, his longevity had bestowed on him a semi-mystical quality. When ordinary people actually saw or met the Emperor, it felt as though they had come into contact with a living legend: someone who had known Metternich, who had experienced the 1848 revolutions, a link with another age. Also, memories of 1848-9 lived on among political leaders of the minority races, particularly in the Austrian lands, and Palacky’s famous admission ‘if Austria did not exist it would be necessary to invent it’ rang true, probably far more in 1914 than it had in 1848. Furthermore, the level of cultural and intellectual development within the Monarchy was on an altogether higher plane than that in the tiny peasant nation states on its southern and eastern frontiers. An educated Serb or Ruman living within Austria-Hungary might not fully understand the psychology of Freud or appreciate the music of Schoenberg, but he knew he belonged to a country with a civilisation infinitely superior to anything he could expect to enjoy as a citizen of Serbia or Rumania.

As to what the future might hold for the Monarchy, recent research suggests that even the much-derided heir, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was not such a potential disaster for Habsburg survival as some older historians would have us believe. True, his plans for domestic changes were governed by his overriding hatred for the Magyar ruling clique and his adherence to the traditional Habsburg tactic of ‘divide and rule’. Most of his ideas, and he changed them quite frequently, would not, if put into practice, have done much to help solve the Monarchy’s problems: some of them might even have made those problems worse. But he pushed hard for reforms in the army, and he was quite successful in encouraging naval expansion. The Habsburg fleet, traditionally little more than a coastal defence force, was by 1914 able to counter any Russian threat in Adriatic or Mediterranean waters, and in size was rapidly catching up with the Italian navy. It had fifteen dreadnoughts, a long-term consistent policy, and highly disciplined personnel. At least some of the credit for this must go to Franz Ferdinand. But his greatest potential contribution was in foreign policy, for here - contrary to previously accepted opinion - he was a leading member of the peace party. His conservative instincts inclined him to favour the Goluchowski line in foreign policy. In 1897 the Habsburg Foreign Minister, Goluchowski, had secured an agreement with Russia to put the Balkans ‘on ice’ - that is, to co-operate to preserve the status quo. Such a policy, thought Franz Ferdinand, might lead to such improved Austro-Russian relations that the old Dreikaiserbund might be revived, thus cementing close ties with Russia in the interests of monarchical solidarity. He disapproved of the more aggressive line taken by Aerenthal after 1906 and was dubious of the wisdom of annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. In the following years he drew further and further away from the pro-war rantings of his one-time ally Conrad von Hötzendorff, and worked hard to keep Austria-Hungary out of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. His murder at Sarajevo in June 1914 removed one of the leading voices calling for peace, and left the way open for Franz Conrad von H"tzendorff and the war party to push Franz Joseph into war.

It was the Habsburg army whose loyalty had saved the dynasty during the upheavals of 1848, and ultimate control of the military had been reserved to the Emperor by the Ausgleich. Franz Joseph jealously guarded that perogative against all encroachments. In 1906 he threatened the Magyars with universal suffrage in Hungary unless they gave up demands for separate Hungarian regiments. What was the condition of the army in 1914, for this was bound to have a profound effect on the Monarchy’s future prospects? In a highly significant article Norman Stone quotes the German ambassador to Austria-Hungary reporting in 1913 to his government: ‘I believe (the Habsburg army) to be thoroughly healthy - at the moment it is the only healthy element in the Monarchy.’1 Stone chronicles the well-known problems of the army, placing the blame for them firmly on the Magyar leadership. ‘The weakness of the Habsburg army in 1914 stemmed not from the disaffection of its soldiers but from the intransigence of politicians in Hungary’, and he goes on to describe how one cavalry officer went to war in 1914 wearing the uniform in which he had once attended a gala dinner at Buckingham Palace, so short were military supplies. It was in 1912 that the Magyars were at last forced to agree to essential military reforms, but these would not become effective for a number of years. The war which Conrad was so eager to unleash must be fought by an army whose organisation had been laid down as long ago as 1889. Nevertheless, Norman Stone concludes:

It seems, therefore that the army too, though starved of equipment, was in good and loyal heart in 1914 and devoted, as much as ever, to the survival of the dynasty.

So what hope was there for the Habsburgs in 1914? Was their state in a condition of terminal decay which the war merely speeded up? Or did the weakest of the great powers still have a future, which was snuffed out simply and solely by the First World War? ‘If there is one lesson the history of the Monarchy should teach’, wrote C.A. Macartney rather fatuously ‘it is that there was never at any time an easy solution to its problems.’ In 1914 those problems loomed larger and no obvious solutions were in sight. Parliamentary life was still in abeyance in Austria. Magyarisation was pushing relentlessly ahead in Hungary. Dissatisfaction was growing among South Slavs in Bosnia and Croatia, and remained endemic among the Czechs of Bohemia. Conrad kept nagging at political leaders to wage war against Serbia while there was still time. Franz Joseph still refused to allow Franz Ferdinand any involvement in government. The Monarchy seemed beset by enormous difficulties, and there were no solutions on the horizon. But was it not ever thus in the Habsburg Empire? Was the position in 1914 markedly different from usual? As the old Austrian saying had it, ‘the situation was hopeless but not serious’ - meaning that the problems were insoluble, yet hardly anyone considered that a good enough reason for destroying the regime. Economically, culturally and intellectually the position in 1914 was rather better than in earlier times. A Polish trade union leader in Galicia put things very clearly when he described his railwaymen colleagues as the First World War was beginning:

It would seem on balance that what was true of Galicia was true, also, of the Habsburg Monarchy as a whole. Henry W. Nevinson, back in 1909, was not far from the truth: ‘Austria-Hungary ... in all likelihood ... will go on surviving, if only by habit.’ It took the tragedy of 1914-18 for the habit - and the Monarchy - to be broken, with consequences which seem likely to endure into the twenty first century.

1 Norman Stone, ‘Army and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy 1900-1914’, Past and Present No. 33 (April 1966)

franchise: the right to vote.

clique: a small exclusive group of friends or associates.

status quo: the existing state of affairs.

prerogative: a power, privilege or right.

intransigence: not willing to compromise, obstinacy.

endemic: present within a particular area or peculiar to a particlar group of people.

fatuously: foolishly.

abeyance: suspended or put aside temporarily.

w Does the fate of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy illustrate the inadequacy of geography as an influence on state boundaries?

Further Reading: Jean-Paul Bled (trans Teresa Bridgeman), Franz Joseph, Blackwell, 1992; Lavender Cassels, The Archduke and the Assassin, Dorset Press, 1984; Mark Cornwell (ed.), The Last Years of Austria-Hungary, University of Exeter Press, 1990; C.A. Macartney, The House of Austria, Edinburgh University Press, 1978; Alan Palmer, Twilight of the Habsburgs, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994; Alan Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815-1918, Longman, 1989; A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, Hamish Hamilton, 1948; Samuel R. Williamson Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, Macmillan, 1991; Z.A.B. Zeman, The Twilight of the Habsburgs, Macdonald, 1971.

The Strength of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1914 by John Garland © new perspective 1997