How Did the Austro-Hungarian Empire Actually Work?

Austria-Hungary was the second-largest state in Europe for half a century, but it functioned unlike any other. Austria and Hungary operated as separate entities in almost all situations, united only in allegiance to a shared monarch: the Emperor-King Franz Joseph I, penultimate head of the House of Habsburg.

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Sources Consulted:
Kardum, Livia, and Bruno Korea Gajski. “The 1903 Crisis of Dualism in Austria-Hungary” Politička misao 49, no. 2 (2012): 97–123.

Miller, Stuart T. Mastering Modern European History. London: Macmillan Education LTD, 1990.

Péter, Laszlo. Hungary's Long Nineteenth Century: Constitutional and Democratic Traditions in a European Perspective. Leiden: BRILL, 2012.

Shepherd, William R. Historical Atlas. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1911.

Tihany, Leslie C. “The Austro-Hungarian Compromise, 1867-1918: A Half Century of Diagnosis; Fifty Years of Post-Mortem” Central European History 2, no. 2 (1969): 114–138.

Music:

[LookBackHistory]

Sorry if my narration is a bit lackluster this time around. It's very smoky here atm and my throat isn't a fan. Thanks for watching!

[AlexAlex-zvfc]

In Hungary, the symbol of state power was not the king, but the crown. The Hungarian nobles decided on whose head they would be placed. This was very democratic, as the noble assembly and the king decided jointly. The Austrians came to the Hungarian crown by inheritance. Tension arose when the Hungarian nobility was excluded by the Austrians (revolution of 1848). This was finally resolved by the compromise (1867).

[Watson]

Most Germans east of the Austrian border, deep into Hungarian territory, were not Austrian. They're the so called "Danube Swabians". They're overwhelmingly South German settlers who sailed down the Danube in pursuit of a better life. Or from another perspective: Colonization efforts by the Austrian monarchy.

[Soulhin]

Sadly I think there is more to be said of the Austro-Hungarians than the normal generalisations. Many of the constituent realms sought independence due to their elites opposing Imperial Authority's attempts to reform, if successful those reforms would force the elite to sacrifice their ancient noble rights over serfdom and "Robot" to name a couple. 'Robot' particularly required subjects to work without pay for their landowners 2 -3 days of each week. When Imperial control successfully united institutions between realms it usually eased the abuses but it was always a struggle as the nobles of each realm were on home turf and had a better position to rally opposition to such attempts. Hungary's noble privileges were the most entrenched.

Even this short comment is still just the tip of the iceberg on the context of the Empire. One thing to note is that its institutions were so varied because unlike most other realms (countries), the Hapsburg realm was not gained by conquest but through multiple inheritances. This meant a lot of separate institutions simply came with inheritance where conquerors could just get rid of them or make them bend when they seized new land.

[FutureBoyWonder]

Generally these ten minute videos say the same thing as every other upload and while i don't expect an in depth breakdowns of imperial governance i found myself enjoying this upload.
You used your ten minutes very well to explain, albeit still an expectedly very basic essay, how the empire worked. You made actual mentions of legislative bodies, agreements and power sharing whereas most videos keep themselves soley centered around the monarch with exceptionally few mentions of other offices.

If anyone has any links to an actual long form presentation on austria-hungarian politics and history id love a share.
I haven't come across anything in depth and i love this period of european political history and yet so many youtubers seem to recycle the same shallow content without any real peek behind the curtains

[princeofchetarria]

Wow literally just one week ago I was looking for a video exactly like this and now… here it is!! Thank you 🙏

[bee-fsvb]

Seems like this video was blessed by the algorithm. I got recommended your channel myself, and now I've been basically watching all your videos! You are very underrated.

[CborgMega]

*Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History, Belknap Press, 2016:*

<<In 1868, conscripts [of Austro-Hungarian army] gained the right to be trained in their own languages and to use their own languages within their regiment with each other and with officers up to the rank of captain. This right stemmed from the language-use guarantees in the Austrian constitution, but it applied to the entire Austro-Hungarian military, not simply to its Austria recruits. If a minimum of 20 percent of a regiment’s recruits spoke one of the official languages of the empire, that language became one of the regiment’s official languages. Recruits also sang songs in their regimental languages when on parade. Officers in each regiment were encouraged to learn the languages spoken by the recruits they commanded. Since the military frequently posted officers to new locations and generally prevented them from serving—at least for a significant amount of time—in their home regions, this language requirement often became a hardship. Officer training rarely included the option of language classes.

By 1900 the intersection of these laws and traditions had produced a situation of functional institutional multilingualism, unique among Europe’s militaries. Regimental linguistic practice, like other imperial experiences such as primary schooling, nationalized soldiers while simultaneously unifying the military through the common use of the German language, wearing common uniforms, and participating in common traditions.

The system of regimental languages and of the German command language did, however, repeatedly ignite heated debates in both the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, as well as in the crownland diets. (...) Hungarian politicians regularly demanded equal status for the Hungarian language in the military and an end to German as the sole language of command and service. During the 1880s and 1890s, radical Hungarian nationalists used the language-of-command issue to mobilize political opposition against the liberal nationalists who dominated the Hungarian Parliament, whom they accused of being slaves of a nationally humiliating status quo. Their efforts orchestrated a major constitutional crisis in the years 1903–1906, when the nationalist opposition unseated the governing party in the Hungarian Parliament, but was incapable of forming a government acceptable to Francis Joseph.

Francis Joseph was determined to maintain a single language of command in the military. He threatened to introduce universal manhood suffrage in Hungary as a way to force the new government to compromise in its demands to introduce Hungarian as the language of command. As much as Hungarian nationalists sought to increase their country’s independence from Austria in every way, their deep fears of universal manhood suffrage—which would enfranchise high numbers of other linguistic groups as well as hostile social classes—forced them eventually to compromise on this issue.
It wasn’t simply the privileged position of German as command and service language that raised the ire of Hungarian politicians. They also argued that regimental language practices based on provisions in the Austrian constitution legitimated the public use of Slovak, Romanian, or Serb. This directly undermined Hungary’s policies of linguistic assimilation. For this reason they also sought—unsuccessfully—to strengthen the position of Hungarian as a regimental language for units stationed within Hungary and to prevent other languages from being used in those units.>> (p. 431 - 432)

[dustgreylynx]

It didn't. Here, saved you 10 minutes

[TheDirtysouthfan]

The flag purported to be Austria Hungary’s was never used as the state didn’t have an official flag. In most images the traditional Habsburg black and yellow flag was used so I’m always wondering where the hell this other one came from.

That said, it’s truly a bizarre country looking back on it, in many ways much like the Ottoman Empire to its South and it collapsed under its many contradictions. On the one hand, the commitment to pluralism was noble, but on the other not having a widespread Lingua Franca made politics and war making difficult. Whenever they did fight wars they were often losing, but they were still needed as part of the Great Powers ideology of the Congress of Vienna, to counterbalance the other powers.

Which makes me think, had Austria colonized its lands with Germans like Prussia and Russia did, would it have been able to hold together? Because it seems odd that after hundreds of years the Germans were still only a majority in Austria proper and some parts of Bohemia and Hungary.

[dan_mer]

The big issue the Empire had was that they didn't control entire nations and large parts of the people were outside of the Empire: part of Germany, part of Poland, part of Croatia, part of Italy, part of Ukraine... The only nations that were fully within the borders were the Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks. These nations represented a constant source of instability.

[Veriox]

The austrians deserve credit for managing to rule over such diverse lands for such a long time. I believe austria should have seen its collapse coming and try to unite with germany, with the peoples of the empire getting independence and german influence.

[gigikontra]

I still remember as a kid the obscenities scribbled by Austro-Hungarian soldiers in the frescoes of Romanian orthodox monasteries in Northern Moldova (aka Bukovina). Just one more reason why Romanians detest imperialism under all its guises.

[carlosmiguelteixeiraott]

*Looks at title
"Here's the secret..."
*Whispering "It didn't."

[kycklingsallad]

There were never any "Serbo-Croatians". The probable reason for this misunderstanding is that there was a political construct during the communist Yugoslavia times, a country which existed way past the collapse of the A-H empire, that tried to promote a supposed "Serbo-Croatian" language. That in turn was the first step in attempting to annihilate Croatians as a separate culture and language and amalgamating them into Serbdom.

This evil enterprise has survived to this day in many universities and administrations around the world. since the Croatians never knew how to speak up for themselves.

In Sweden, where the academic world are true leftists, the newly, in the 1990-ies, minted Bosnian language was recognized before the Croatian. The naive Swedes believed that the Croatians were "fascists" and that the Serbs were supporters of "unity" and kumbaya. Rather the opposite is true.

There is a flag in this video, blue, white and red, that represents no country or people of the time. This too seems to come from Yugoslavia, which featured those colors, but way later than the A-H empire.

[savagedarksider]

Great job with the video. I have one question: Do you think the Habsburgs should have drop all of their non-german territories and focus on unifying Austria with the rest of the german states prior to the Pussia-Austria war ?

[xavereicher]

Correction 4:50 : 1. Archduchy of Lower Austria 2. Archduchy of Upper Austria

[Remus-zy]

Cool video! Interesting what if, what if the Hungarian revolution of 1848 was a success? If Russia didn’t send support and the Hungarians gain independence, would Austria have joined Germany and what would happen with ww1?

[kgius]

Austrian/Habsburg Empire lasted for 600 years with all it lows and hights. Thats not a bad run. Many of its, often feudal, institution were just antiquated and needed reforms. What it needed was a less stupid and more progressive monarch with ideas and visions, like Maria Theresia or Joseph II.
Beside abandoning Russia, the Ausgleich 1867 was the biggest mistake of its existance. A more central Gouvernement, which granted federal right to its minorities and regions would have prevented many tribal conflicts and disorganisation.

[ZS-rwqq]

2:44 I really like how maps of the period make no distinction between Serbs and Croats