Episode 142: World War I and the Hapsburg Empire

[00:00:00] Ben Wright: This is 15 Minute History, a podcast for educators, students, and anyone interested in history, featuring the minds and voices of the University of Texas at Austin.

As a person interested in history, you may well have asked yourself at some point, what the heck was the Habsburg Empire? Well, wonder no more. Jonathan Parker is here to answer all our questions, or at least mine. Jonathan is a historian of nationalism and national identity, especially within the Austro Hungarian lands in the decades before and after the First World War.

His current project examines the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918 and the transfer of popular allegiances from the empire to the nation state. He received an International Masters in Russian, Central and Eastern European Studies from the University of Glasgow, and an MA in European Studies from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

Jonathan, welcome to 15 Minute History.

[00:01:09] Jonathan Parker: Thank you, Ben. Glad to be here.

[00:01:11] Ben Wright: The Hapsburg Empire is this strange, amorphous, mysterious phenomenon, if you like, that I find profoundly interesting, but also profoundly confounding, if you can say such a thing. Where do you think we should begin?

[00:01:25] Jonathan Parker: We could start in 1526.

I think that would be a good place to start. That is when Habsburgs got permanent control of Bohemia and Hungary, kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, which lasted until the collapse 20th century.

[00:01:39] Ben Wright: So what is it that happens in 1526?

[00:01:41] Jonathan Parker: In 1526, the last yal, colonian heirs to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemian, uh, perish in the battle of Moha against, uh, the Ottomans and the Habsburgs are the last ones standing, and they inherit both of those thrones.

Those do remain as distinct legal entities. So there is not a. coherent single unit that we can call the Habsburg Empire in that period. Rather, the Habsburgs hold multiple different titles. They hold Archduchy of Austria, Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Hungary. They are also very often Holy Roman Emperors, which, again, the Holy Roman Empire included Austria and Bohemia, but not the Habsburgs.

Hungary. So I think we can consider the Habsburgs in this kind of longer historical period going back into the Middle Ages. We can consider them as a sort of dynastic composite monarchy where there are many different pieces, but each piece has its own rules and its own relationship to it. To the Habsburgs as a dynasty.

Over time, the Habsburgs take different measures to reinforce the control over each of these pieces and to try to consolidate those pieces into a single coherent entity. You said before the Habsburg Empire is, is confounding. But I think this also makes it very interesting. It breaks a lot of the narratives that we’re accustomed to thinking about empire from an Atlantic or a West European perspective.

[00:03:08] Ben Wright: When would we say the Golden Age is? Would we be right in thinking 1867 to 1914 or is that too simplistic a way of thinking about it?

[00:03:18] Jonathan Parker: I mean, I think we can ask a lot of questions about, well, what is a golden age? And, you know, the first answer that comes to mind is the, you know, the, the, the so called Belle Epoque, the so, the decades preceding the First World War, kind of, people talk about Europe’s last summer, this era of, you know, relative peace and prosperity, growth, um, gradual democratization.

There were very few major European wars in the 19th century, like among European powers themselves, with a couple important exceptions. Um, but again, this is also an era of colonialism, imperialism, European empires, uh, viciously exploiting, uh, indigenous peoples in Africa, in Asia, and beyond. The Habsburg Empire didn’t have any overseas colonies.

[00:04:04] Ben Wright: in this period? Why is that? Because all the other empires of the period, Russian, British, French, German emerging, all have interests outside of their core lands. Whereas the Habsburg Empire is only ever a European.

[00:04:19] Jonathan Parker: Wasn’t for lack of trying. The Habsburgs were definitely interested in overseas influence.

There’s been some interesting new research that has shown that the Austro Hungarian government did sponsor overseas scientific expeditions, often piggybacking on other European powers colonial ventures abroad. And, you know, this is not to say that Austria Hungary didn’t have any colonies at all. There were certainly profound inequalities and profound hierarchies within this continental European empire.

And, you know, an empire doesn’t have to be an overseas empire. Uh, you know, a lot of people have been talking about recently talking about Russia as a colonial power, uh, in Central Asia and in Siberia and beyond. And I think with the Habsburgs, the main example of that kind of colonial empire is going to be Bosnia.

Uh, in 1878, the Austro Hungarians occupy the Ottoman province of Bosnia. This is in a period when the Ottoman Empire has been in a very gradual. We can say decline, I think, although that’s a decline very much fueled by outside competition. But leaving that aside, the Austro Hungarians occupy Bosnia as a kind of condominium where both halves of the empire have or share control over Bosnia, it becomes a sort of third part of the empire.

where they treated the province as a colony in many ways, and they sought to, to develop it, to, um, to some extent to extract resources from it. The main rationale, however, for, for occupying the colony was to try and manage rivalry between Croatian and Serbian nationalism by trying to support Bosnian nationalism, support a sort of separate Bosnian identity that could be geared towards loyalty to, to the Habsburg throne.

And that Continues, I think, the Habsburgs formally occupy, formally annex Bosnia, not until 1908, which then triggers a series of international crises leading up to the First World War, which, of course, began in 1914.

[00:06:17] Ben Wright: So we’ve got a great survivor, right? In the sense that they outlived the Holy Roman Empire, they survived the Reformation, this sort of cobbled together series of lands survives the Thirty Years War, the Age of Revolution, the French Revolution, it survives War with pressure in 1867.

Uh, but it doesn’t survive World War I. Mm-Hmm. , why does Austria get involved in World War I? And why is World War I the empires undoing?

[00:06:46] Jonathan Parker: That’s a great question and we could, we could spend hours talking about this, I think. Um, yes. It’s not 15 hours , so we’ll have to. Yes, I think obviously the main thing is the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo.

This

[00:07:02] Ben Wright: is of an Austrian Archduke.

[00:07:04] Jonathan Parker: Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo, the heir to the throne, um, by a, by a Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist. But I think, In some ways, that is more the spark in a very volatile situation. I mentioned earlier that Oh, just just to be clear. So that assassination took place in Sarajevo in Bosnia, which, as I was saying earlier, had been occupied and later annexed by the Habsburgs from the Ottoman Empire.

And in many ways, I think It was occupied in order to try and get a hold on the rising tide of Croatian and Serbian nationalism, which many of the more conservative people in the Habsburg establishment regarded as a threat. They regarded, particularly in the military high command, the Armee Oberkommando, they regarded uh, nationalism and democracy with a great deal of skepticism.

These were very conservative, almost reactionary men who wanted in many ways to go back to the neo absolutism of the 1850s. Uh, I wanted to put the emperor back in charge more fully, get rid of all of this, uh, kind of rowdy democratic, uh, politics in the parliament, which, which through which nationalism was also, uh, was also functioning.

Um, so they always see

[00:08:23] Ben Wright: this. situation, the very beginning of World War I as an opportunity to assert some authority.

[00:08:30] Jonathan Parker: Exactly. It’s an opportunity to make an example of Serbian nationalists and to say that nationalism is not welcome in this empire. They committed fairly egregious atrocities, uh, in the occupied part portions of Serbia during the war.

They also suspended many democratic institutions in the first two years of the war in Austria Hungary. And there was generally a kind of, a kind of witch hunt, if you will, a kind of McCarthyist witch hunt for anyone who could possibly be deemed suspicious in the eyes, in the eyes of the military authorities to tamp down on any perceived nationalist dissent, including even kind of Slavic or nationalist celebrations of the if it was deemed Too political, like too similar or too, uh, contentious potentially, um, and then this in turn undermines the monarchy’s legitimacy in many ways for many people on top of that.

On top of that, during the war, you have terrible shortages, uh, food and fuel and things like that. And while the government doesn’t is not really willing to do. take on responsibility for welfare organizations itself. It does allow nationalist organizations to provide that welfare to ordinary people, to provide that relief.

And so in many ways, you have simultaneously delegitimization of the empire, of the dynasty. And I should also mention, of course, that India, Franz Josef, the Habsburg Emperor, died rather, with rather poor timing, in 1916, in the middle of World War I. He’d been on the throne since 1848. He’d been on the throne for as long as most people could remember.

That, that’s a symbolically significant. On top of that, you have These, these welfare organizations which kind of turn people more and more towards a nationalist way of thinking. Um, I’d also add that, you know, at the beginning of the war, there was plenty of, of popular support for the monarchy and even for participation in the war.

People didn’t know yet how bad it would get. Uh, people, everyone, you know, famously everyone thought that it would be over by Christmas and it would be, but four years later, of course, not, not that Christmas,

[00:10:40] Ben Wright: right? We could, again, talk for hours about the aftermath and the legacy of the war. the Austria Hungarian Empire of the Habsburg Empire.

But it seems to me a rather simple way to think about this is that in 1867, most Europeans are living in multi ethnic empires. Today Europeans are living in what we wouldn’t call a multi ethnic empire, but certainly a multi ethnic bureaucracy. So it’s certainly a pan or even post nationalist political entity.

Is that one of the legacies of the Habsburg Empire? Does it give us a sort of model for how we think about the European Union?

[00:11:14] Jonathan Parker: I think that comparison has definitely been made. I’m not sure that there’s a direct line there because of course the European Union has its roots in cooperation among West European countries after World War II beginning I believe with with coal and steel industries consolidating European

[00:11:30] Ben Wright: coal and steel community

[00:11:31] Jonathan Parker: precisely yes and that of course included you know France, Italy, West Germany, the Low Countries, specifically not countries that had been significant parts of the Habsburg Empire.

But I think It’s in many ways, haptic empire is more of a warning than necessarily a positive model to follow, I think, because obviously it did not, it ultimately collapsed. And that is not something we want to repeat, I think. Um, and also, of course, it was an empire despite its tendencies towards democracy in its later years.

It was, it still remained an empire with a monarch who was ultimately, notionally was ultimately in charge.

[00:12:13] Ben Wright: Did the nation states that follow, immediately follow the Austro Hungarian Empire, did they do any better?

[00:12:20] Jonathan Parker: Well, that’s a difficult one to judge. Because obviously, 20 years after the fall of the Abzug Empire, we have the outbreak of the Second World War.

And many of these countries, either were occupied by the Nazis or allied themselves with the Nazis, more or less under duress, but or somewhat under duress, somewhat of their own volition. And then immediately after that, most of these countries are then taken over by, by communist coups. So it’s a difficult one to judge.

I think this, but then again, this is partly why there is a lot of nostalgia, I think, for the Habsburg Empire in the region to this day, partly because what came after was so Was so terrible with the Nazi occupation, with the communist years. There’s also a lot of nostalgia for the, the interwar period, for the period immediately following the Habsburgs.

Again, for the same reason for this period that this sort of supposedly democratic golden era before the, uh, before, before the Nazi occupation, although I should say that’s. That’s mainly to do with Czechoslovakia, which is, which is my specialty. Other, other, other countries in the region like Poland and Hungary tended to in a more authoritarian direction after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, um, particularly Hungary, um, and other countries as well.

[00:13:33] Ben Wright: What does the Habsburg Empire teaches today about European?

[00:13:38] Jonathan Parker: I think it teaches us that There, there are multiple stories that we can tell about European history. It isn’t simply a story of consolidating nation states. I think that has been the traditional narrative. And that’s one that might work if you focus on France or even Germany.

But I think trying to bring the rest of Central Europe into this conversation shows the limits of that kind of narrative. I think as we’ve been talking, it’s it’s it’s clear that it’s such a messy complicated story. I think it’s messy and complicated because we don’t necessarily have the ready narrative at hand to, to explain, to explain the Habsburg Empire.

It doesn’t fit neatly into the narratives that we are accustomed to. So I think what we can take away from the Habsburg Empire today is that big multinational states are workable. But there are also risks involved. I think we’ve already taken that lesson away from the success or failure of democracies in the past.

Um, I think, you know, this is something that we will continue to grapple with, um, in the future. I think the main thing I would say is, It’s important to keep the conversation going. It’s important to keep the conversation going. So long as everyone is able to have a seat at the table and to participate in a conversation, and we can keep it going, I think we will always be able to work out these, these kind of significant differences.

Difficulty comes when you start Rounding people up and arresting them as the military authorities did during the First World War.

[00:15:14] Ben Wright: And seems like they were digging their own grave without knowing it.

[00:15:18] Jonathan Parker: Yes, they thought they were saving the empire, but in many ways they doomed it.

[00:15:22] Ben Wright: Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us today.

This was fascinating.

[00:15:26] Jonathan Parker: Thank you, Ben. Glad to be here. Thank you.

[00:15:29] Ben Wright: Fifteen Minute History is produced at the University of Texas at Austin in partnership with Not Even Past and Hemispheres in the College of Liberal Arts. It is recorded at the Leitz Development Studio. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, follow us on social media and visit our website for more information and resources.

See y’all next week.