In the first two parts of this series of articles, a short history of the Habsburg dynasty was described, up until halfway through the 18th century. The story of the Habsburg dynasty continues in a time of surging nationalism and liberalism. As in earlier articles, I use two books as a guide for this article; one is 'Een familie dient Europa' (A family serves Europe) by JJ Mostard (1963) and the other is 'The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918' by AJP Taylor (1947).
Centralisation and the German question
The second article in this series quickly mentioned the centralisation of the Habsburg monarchy that was taking place under Maria Teresia (ruled 1740-1780) and her son Jozef II (1780-1790). It would mean that all territories under the Habsburg crown would be governed from Vienna, with a small army of bureaucrats spread throughout the regions to make sure that their wishes would be carried out everywhere.
This situation would bring an uneasy question to the forefront for the quite cosmopolitan Habsburg dynasty. The nobility within her empire was (Polish and Italian territories excluded) German and German-speaking. The bureaucratic layer of her administration was almost exclusively German-speaking. So the question arose: was the Habsburg Empire a German empire at this point?
Where Maria Teresia proved to be a ruler that was amenable to many compromises , her son Jozef II was different. He saw his empire as German, himself as a German kaiser, and also acted in this way. This became most clearly visible in Hungary, the area within the empire that had the most quasi-independent privileges. The freedom Hungarians knew in their local administration was ended, and Jozef II also refused to be crowned as king of Hungary. He already was Holy Roman Emperor, and in his view Hungary was nothing more than a German province, which was (using German as language) ruled centrally from Vienna. After his death in 1790, most of his reforms would be reversed, however.
Jozef II was a reformer in other areas as well: he abolished serfdom in the areas within his empire where it still existed in some form (mostly Bohemia and Hungary). He also broke the unofficial alliance that the Habsburgs had known with the Catholic Church, and soon after closures of monasteries followed, and the direct control of churches within the Empire intensified. It would lead to a better situation overall for both Protestants and Jews within the empire, but the rise of secular (and after that atheist) thinking was the most remarkable result of this policy. Because where secularism rose in the 18th century, liberalism often followed.
Napoleon: disaster for the Habsburgs
Both secularism and liberalism would be the foundatition for the French Revolution in 1789. It did not end well for the nobility in France, and the Habsburgs suffered a loss too. Marie Antionette, wife to king Louis XVI, was the daughter of Maria Teresia. She, along with many others of her class, had to suffer the fate of the guillotine in 1793, a few months after the death of her husband.
After a period of chaos in France, order would be restored by the remarkable rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He would damage the position and standing of the Habsburgs in Europe through a series of wars and battles. The Southern Netherlands (roughly today's Belgium) were already lost in 1795 to France without Napoleon's intervention. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 it would be merged with the Netherlands, and would result in the Unified Kingdom of the Netherlands (the combination of today's Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). This configuration would last for just 15 years, until the liberal and revolutionairy bubble burst once again in Brussels.
Napoleon would know a long series of battles and wars during his tenure as general, consul and emperor, which would be too much to describe for the scope of this article. The consequences of these wars were quite big for the Habsburgs, however. After the loss of the Southern Netherlands, they also lost their territories in the Rhineland (western Germany) and large parts of Italy (Lombardy and Venice excluded). Napoleon was able to enter Vienna, the Habsburg capital and centre of power, twice during his career, in 1805 and 1809. Where the Turks had failed, French liberalism succeeded twice.
The first time that Vienna was taken and the Habsburgs were forced to the negotiating table, something remarkable happened in European history: the elimination of the Holy Roman Empire (1806). Napoleon, who had crowned himself Emperor of France in 1804, did not want any other Emperors to exist in 'his' Europe. The last Hasburg Holy Roman Emperor, Franz II, had seen a situation like this coming, and had crowned himself also as Emperor of Austria in 1804. And so it was that two different rulers declared themselves emperors in 1804, based on wholly different principles and ideologies: where Napoleon was spreading liberalism and nationalism with the sword, the Habsburgs kept their cosmopolitan ways, and became a conservative (almost reactionairy) force in Europe.
In the short term, the Habsburgs won, mostly due to an unforced error caused by Napoleon's monumental ambition. This ambition made him go for a march through Russia in the winter of 1812, a mistake that would cost him most of his army to the elements. In 1815 he was definitively defeated at the battle of Waterloo by a coalition of European powers.
The Danube Monarchy
(A view of the lands that remained under Habsburg rule after the Napoleonic Wars)(Own cut-out)
The Habsburgs survived Napoleon, albeit with significant losses. What remained of Austria is shown in the image above. In this period the Austrian empire would also become known as the Danube Monarchy, although the area under their control was significantly larger than just the areas surrounding the Danube river. The time period from 1815 to 1918 can be seen as the final period of the Habsburg dynasty, and it plays itself out mostly in the area marked in the image above.
It will be immediately clear to the reader that this Austria, unlike the one today, absolutely cannot be called a nation-state. The Austrian heartland, the nobility and the bureaucrats gave the empire a German character, but that didn't make the entire empire a German state. At this point there were 12 nationalities present in the Danube Monarchy, who each had their own situation and height of national feeling. To really feel this complexity in a practical way, there is nothing else for it but to mention them one by one.
Germans: The most numerous group within the empire, and also the one with the most cultural influence. They were located mostly in the Austria and Czechia (the Sudetenland) of today, but also had a presence in Transylvania (known as Siebenburgen in German) and the Banat (northern Serbia/western Romania). They were also spread throughout many cities and towns in the empire, due to their role as bureaucrats.
The Germans seldom felt like a neglected group prone to riots or civil wars within the Empire. They mostly were pleased with the German cultural dominance that emanated from Vienna, and that the German language was the dominant one also. One of the places where the Germans were hurting quite a lot, was in their wallets, as Taylor notes:
‘’The Germans, though only one third of the population, paid two thirds of the direct taxes; and an individual German paid in taxes twice as much as a Czech or an Italian, nearly five times as much as a Pole, and seven times as much as a Croat or Serb.’’
Hungarians: after the Germans the most numerous group within the empire, and also the people that was a constant thorn in the side of the Habsburgs. The Hungarians still had a large class of lower nobles at the start of the 19th century, which was very unique for its time. These lower nobles, which numbered about 500.000 in a total Hungarian population of 10 million, did not pay any taxes. They would try to maintain their privileges as nobles well into the 19th century, while in most other parts of Europe this class was long gone.
As is mentioned often in this series, the Hungarians enjoyed a semi-independent position within the empire. Hungarian tax money did not go to Vienna: it stayed in Budapest. They also enjoyed a form of local self-rule. They were often prone to rebel against the Habsburgs, going so far as to find allies outside of the empire to help them in their struggles. This trend became crystal clear in the years up to the founding of Austria-Hungary.
The Hungarian territories also brought forth religious issues. Calvinism had taken hold of territories that were in the hands of the Turks, like Transylvania. This would become an extra religious dimension to the differences between the Hungarians and the Habsburgs, who where Catholics without exceptions.
Czech: the people that would want to have the semi-independent position that the Hungarians had. However, their defeat against the Habsburgs in 1620 still echoed through: the Czech did not have a Czech nobility, since they were either killed or driven away as a consequence of their loss in 1620. This, and their numerical disadvantage compared to the Hungarians (and Germans) would mean that the nationalist awakening would have to come from their middle- and lower classes. This process started in the 19th century.
Italians: present in Lombardia, Venice and the Dalmatian coast, the Italians were a people within the empire of which the vast majority was present outside the borders of the empire. The Habsburgs tried to get a grip on the Italians culturally, but failed miserably: the Italians proved to be a proud and self-aware people, owing to their history. Also, there came a vision to the forefront of a unified Italy, one which would not know a Habsburg as a ruler. How the Habsburgs thought of this type of nationalism can be guessed.
Slovenes: we know Slovenia these days as a small independent nation-state, but that is a very recent phenomenon. At the start of the 19th century, the Slovenes did not have much of a national feeling, apart from feeling some kinship with other Slav peoples in the empire. Their position, wedged between Germans, Italians and Hungarians, did not make their national aspirations any more likely at this point in time. Their role in this last part of Habsburg history is therefore quite minimal.
Croats: the Croats were basically ruled by two powers at the start of the 19th century. They fell under the Habsburg rule of Vienna, but also under the Hungarian kingdom. In practice, this would mean mostly that they were ruled by the Hungarians from Budapest. Croat nationalism was mostly espoused by Croat intellectuals, who combined it with forms of pan-Slavism.
Serbs: part of modern-day Serbia lies north of the Danube. This part, known as the Vojvodina, was under Habsburg rule at the start of the 19th century. They had taken it from the Turks after the Turkish loss at Vienna in 1683. The rest of the Serbs were still under Turkish rule, until the Serbian Revolution at the start of the 19th century, which succeeded in gaining Serbian independence from the Turks. The Serbs north of the Danube were intently watching this turn of events: could they also shake of their rulers and become independent? They were not that numerous within the empire, but they were the most national-minded of all the Slavic peoples within the empire.
Romanians: Transylvania was a diverse territory. The Romanians were the most numerous there, but there also were large minorities of both Hungarians and Germans there. Just like the Croats, the Romanians fell under both the Austrian and Hungarian crown, which would mean they were mostly ruled by the Hungarians. In practice, the Romanians were third-class citizens in Transylvania, below both the Hungarian and German minorities. Romanians outside of Habsburg borders would have to contend with other great powers like Russia and the Ottoman Empire. All these powers had a common cause in suppressing Romanian nationalism.
Slovaks: when one would think today of a people to which the Slovaks were bound, he/she would probably think of the Czech. 200 years ago this was not the case, however. The Slovaks fell under the Hungarian kingdom. There was not yet much of a national consciousness among Slovaks, which also became obvious in their later subservient role in Czecho-Slovakia.
Poles: the Poles were a great power for a long time in the form of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They had fallen on hard times at the end of the 18th century, in which the Commonwealth was fully partitioned. This partition had three winners: Russia, Prussia and Austria, which gained Galicia. The Poles, who had known independence for a long time, strove for it again almost immediately, and were continuously in contact with Poles at the other side of the border.
Ruthenes: the peoples in this list who are somewhat hard to align with a modern-day peoples, the Ruthenes could be found in Galicia along with the Poles. They differed from the Poles in both language and religion (Ruthenes were Orthodox, Poles Catholic). They do not play a role in this period of Habsburg history, save for their internal struggles with the Poles in Galicia. Today, most Ruthenes would fall under the Ukrainian ethnicity, though some still retain their identity as Ruthenes apart from them.
Jews: probably the group that felt most at home in the cosmopolitan setting of the Habsburg Empire. They were quite numerous in Vienna and other towns in the Empire, and in the rural parts of Galicia.
Conclusion
You might be asking yourself: 'why bother with such a list of nationalities'? My reason to do this is quite simple: this short summary of nationalities, culture groups, religions and languages within the same borders is already quite a handful. All of these groups try to get the best situation for themselves, they jostle for the best position within (or without) the Empire for their own gain: a simple Darwinistic impulse. How to keep the peace in this Empire, without having itself torn apart by all these groups?
The fact that this was a monumental task, is shown in the situation of central Europe today: there is no empire to speak of. But these lessons of history have not been learned by the political class in Europe. These days, a political elite in Brussels is trying to walk the same path, by melting the nations of Europe together in a centrally ruled conglomeration which carries the name of 'European Union'.
History has proven that this is bound to fail. Even if you exclude the massive influx of non-European peoples into the continent over the past 50 years, the same rules apply: diversity of peoples is not a strength, but a weakness. Peoples will jostle for position in a zero-sum game: what one people gains will be the loss of another.
The Habsburgs, in the last 100 years of their Empire, had only one way of solving these multicultural/multi-ethnic/multi-religious issues: ruling with an iron fist. Ironically, the European union is trying to do the same thing on an even grander scale. How this way of dealing with the nations went for the Habsburgs will be told in the next article. Until the next one,
-Pieter