EntranceAustria-Hungary in the 19th - early 20th centuries. Foreign policy of Austria-Hungary at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries Austria-Hungary 20th century
1) Domestic policy: exacerbation of social and national problems.
2) Foreign policy: the struggle for a place among the leading powers.
3) Preparation of Austria-Hungary for the First World War and the reasons for the collapse of the empire.
Literature: Shimov Y. Austro-Hungarian Empire. M. 2003 (bibliography of the issue, pp. 603-605).
1. Transformation of a unified Austrian Empire into (dualistic) Austria-Hungary in 1867 allowed the country to maintain its position among the great powers. In December 1867, a liberal constitution was adopted. Emperor Franz Joseph I (1848-1916) had to abandon absolutist illusions and become a constitutional ruler. It seemed that the state had avoided collapse, but it immediately had to face new problems: social conflicts, a sharp aggravation of the national question.
The most pressing issue was the national one. At the same time, the Austrian Germans were dissatisfied with the compromise of 1867. A small but very noisy National Party (Georg von Schenereir) appears in the country. The basis of this party's program was pan-Germanism and support for the Hohenzollern dynasty as the unifiers of all Germans. Chenereyr invented a new tactic of political struggle - not participation in parliamentary life, but noisy street demonstrations and violent actions. Party members raided the offices of a Viennese newspaper that had erroneously announced the death of William I. This tactic was later adopted by Hitler's party.
A more influential political force was another party of Austrian Germans - the Christian Socialists (Karl Lueger).
Program:
1. Exposing the vices of a liberal society that does not care about the poor.
2. Sharp criticism of the ruling elite, which has merged with the trade and financial oligarchy.
3. Calls to fight against the dominance of the Jewish plutocracy.
4. The struggle against socialists and Marxists who are leading Europe to revolution.
The social support of the party was the petty bourgeoisie, the lower ranks of the bureaucracy, part of the peasantry, rural priests, and part of the intelligentsia. In 1895, Christian Socialists won the elections to the Vienna municipality. Luger was elected mayor of Vienna. Emperor Franz Joseph I was against this, who was irritated by Lueger's popularity, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. He refused three times to certify the election results and gave in only in April 1897, having received a promise from Luger to act within the framework of the constitution. Luger kept his promise, dealing exclusively with economic issues and constantly demonstrating loyalty; he even abandoned anti-Semitism (“who is a Jew here, I decide”). Luger becomes the leader and idol of the Austrian middle class.
Workers, urban and rural poor followed the Social Democrats (SDPA). The leader is Viktor Adler, who completely reformed the party. 1888 - the party declares itself with mass actions: organizing “marches of the hungry”, organizing the first actions on May 1. The attitude towards Social Democrats in Austria-Hungary is better than in Germany. Franz Joseph I saw the Social Democrats as allies in the fight against the nationalists.
Adler's personal meeting with the emperor, where he and Karl Renner proposed to the emperor their concept of solving the national question ( project for the federalization of the monarchy):
1. Divide the empire into separate national regions with broad autonomy in the field of internal self-government (Bohemia, Galicia, Moravia, Transylvania, Croatia).
2. Create a cadastre of nationalities and give every resident the right to register in it. He can use his native language in everyday life and in contacts with the state (all languages should be declared equal in the daily life of citizens).
3. All peoples must be granted broad cultural autonomy.
4. The central government should be in charge of developing a general economic strategy, defense and foreign policy of the state.
The project was utopian, but by order of the emperor it began to be implemented in two provinces - Moravia and Bukovina. Strong protest from Austrian Germans and Hungarians. Such a close rapprochement between the socialist leaders and the emperor caused a sharp protest from the Social Democrats and led to a split in this party. Adler's opponents ironically called them "imperial and royal socialists." The SDPA is actually falling apart into several socialist parties.
Nationalism had a detrimental effect on the unity of the empire. After the recognition of Hungarian rights, Czech provinces (Bohemia, Moravia, part of Silesia) began to claim such rights. The Czech Republic is the third most developed after Austria and Hungary. The Czechs demanded not only cultural, but also national-state autonomy.
Back in the early 70s. XIX century The Czech elite split into two groups - the Old Czechs and the Young Czechs. The former soon founded their own national party led by Frantisek Palacky and Rieger. The main point is the restoration of the “historical rights of the Czech crown”, the creation of trialism. The government is ready to negotiate. The head of the Austrian government, Count Hohenwart, in 1871 achieved an agreement with the Old Czechs to grant the Czech lands broad internal autonomy while retaining supreme sovereignty for Vienna. The Austrian Germans and Hungarians opposed it.
The "Hohenwart Compromise" condemns the emperor's entourage. Franz Joseph retreated. On October 30, 1871, he transferred the decision of this issue to the lower house, where opponents of Czech autonomy predominated. The question is buried, Hohenwart's resignation. This intensified the activities of the Young Czechs, who in 1871 created their own “National Liberal Party” (K. Sladkovsky, Gregr). If the Old Czechs boycotted the elections to the Reichstag, the Young Czechs abandon this policy.
In 1879, they entered into a coalition in parliament with Austrian and Polish conservative deputies (“Iron Ring”), thus winning a parliamentary majority. Political support was provided to the Austrian Prime Minister E. Taaffe (1879-1893). The “Taaffe Era” is a time of greatest political stability, economic growth and cultural flourishing. Taaffe played on national contradictions. “Different peoples must be kept in a constant state of mild discontent.”
But as soon as he came up with a project to democratize the electoral system, the bloc supporting him disintegrated. Aristocrats of all nationalities and liberal German nationalists were not ready to allow representatives of “non-privileged peoples”, primarily the Slavs, as well as Social Democrats, into parliament. In 1893, anti-German, anti-Habsburg demonstrations swept through Slavic cities. Reason for Taaffe's resignation. All subsequent governments have had to deal with a very difficult national problem.
On the one hand, reform of the electoral system was inevitable, on the other hand, the government could not lose the support of the Austrian Germans. The Germans (35% of the population) provided 63% of tax revenues. The Badoni government (1895-1897) fell due to an attempt to introduce bilingualism in the Czech Republic. Czech cities are again being overwhelmed by a wave of unrest. German politicians (von Monsen) called on the Austrian Germans not to surrender to the Slavs. Russia secretly supported the struggle of the Slavs, relying on the Young Czechs. In the western part of the monarchy (Cisleithania), universal suffrage was introduced in 1907, opening the way to parliament for both Slavs and Social Democrats. The fight flares up with renewed vigor.
In addition to the Czech question, there were other pressing national problems in Austria-Hungary. In the South Slavic lands - Pan-Slavism, in Galicia - discord between Polish landowners and Ukrainian peasants, South Tyrol and Istria (700 thousand Italians) were swept by the movement to join Italy (iridentism).
National problems constantly raised new questions for the government. Franz Joseph I was a master of the political compromise “Josephinism,” but he always struggled with the consequences, not the causes.
2. Since the beginning of the 70s. XIX century There were 3 main problems in the foreign policy of Austria-Hungary:
1. Close alliance with Germany.
2. Careful advance into the Balkans.
3. The desire to avoid a new big war.
An alliance with Germany was necessary for Vienna in order to ensure advancement into the Balkans and neutralize Russian influence there. Prussia needed Austrian support to counter France. It remains to do something to counteract the influence of Great Britain. Bismarck proposes to Franz Joseph and Alexander II to conclude the “Union of the Three Emperors” (1873). however, the rivalry between St. Petersburg and Vienna in the Balkans significantly weakened this alliance. Austria-Hungary lost the opportunity to influence the affairs of Germany and Italy. She did not have colonies and did not seek to acquire them. It could strengthen its position only in the Balkans. She is frightened by the possibility of Russia using pan-Slavism to strike at the Ottoman Empire. Vienna is heading towards supporting the Turks.
In 1875, the situation in the Balkans worsened sharply. Slavic uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Turks brutally suppressed the uprisings. In Russia, the public demands that the Tsar provide strong support to his Slavic brothers. Franz Joseph I and his foreign minister, Count Gyula Andróssy, were hesitant: they did not want to alienate Turkey. Bismarck advised to negotiate with Russia on the division of spheres of influence in the Balkans. In January-March 1877, Austro-Russian diplomatic agreements were signed (Vienna received freedom of action in Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for benevolent neutrality during the Russo-Turkish War).
Türkiye lost almost all of its territories on the Balkan Peninsula. In Austria, this caused shock and suspicion of increased Russian activity. But having barely won victory in Turkey, the victors quarreled over the issue of Macedonia. In June 1913, the Second Balkan War began against the aggression of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Romania, in alliance with Turkey, acted. Bulgaria was defeated, losing most of the conquered territory, and Turkey was able to retain a small part of its European possessions, centered in Adrianople (Edirne).
Austria-Hungary decided to use the results of the Second Balkan War to weaken Serbia. Vienna supported the idea of creating an independent Albania, hoping that this state would be under an Austrian protectorate. Russia, supporting Serbia, began to concentrate troops near the Austrian border. Austria does the same. It was about the prestige of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, without which it was impossible to resolve the internal national issue, but the position of Great Britain and Germany temporarily postpones a major war. For a time, the interests of these states intersect.
Both countries believed that it was stupid to start a war over a minor conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Britain did not want to lose profitable trade in the Mediterranean Sea and feared for the routes of communication with the eastern colonies. Germany is actively developing the young Balkan states. Under joint pressure from the great powers, Serbia agrees to the creation of a formally independent Albania. The crisis of 1912 was resolved. But in Vienna there is a feeling of defeat.
Causes:
Serbia did not lose its position in the Balkans and retained its claims to the unification of the Balkan Slavs. Austro-Serbian relations were hopelessly damaged.
The clash between Romania and Bulgaria destroyed the fragile system of relations beneficial to Austria.
More and more contradictions arose between Austria-Hungary and Italy, threatening the collapse of the Triple Alliance.
The abundance of insoluble problems forces Austria-Hungary to rely only on a big war. The elderly Emperor Franz Joseph I did not want war, but was unable to restrain national discord (the Austrian Germans, the Hungarian elite, and the Slavs were dissatisfied). Many Austrian politicians saw a way out of the situation in transferring the throne to the heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (since 1913, he was appointed to the most important military post of Inspector General of the Armed Forces). He spoke out for improving relations with Russia and at the same time was sharply anti-Hungarian.
In June 1914, he went to maneuvers in Bosnia. After the end of the maneuvers, he visited the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. Here he and his wife Countess Sophie von Hohenberg were assassinated on June 28 by Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip of the Black Hand organization. This prompts Vienna to present an ultimatum to Serbia, which becomes the formal reason for the start of the First World War. Participation in the war aggravated the internal problems of the Empire to the limit and led to its collapse in 1918.
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By the 30s - 40s. XIX century The Austrian Empire was a multinational state. It included the territories of Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, as well as part of the territory of modern Romania, Poland, Italy and Ukraine. In these lands, the desire for state independence and national independence grew stronger. The Habsburgs tried to preserve the empire at the cost of minor concessions to the peoples who inhabited it.
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The Austrian Empire in the first half of the 19th century The peasantry remained without rights, corvee labor reached 104 days a year, and quitrent was collected. The country was dominated by guild restrictions. There were internal customs duties. The construction of new manufactories and factories was prohibited. Severe censorship. The school was under the control of the clergy. Political and spiritual oppression of the peoples of the empire (the principle of “divide and conquer” was applied to the oppressed peoples). Emperor of the Austrian Empire Franz I Austrian Chancellor Clement Wenzel Metternich
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1848 - revolutions in the Austrian Empire (Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic) The development of the industrial revolution was hampered by the old feudal order. The prohibitive policy of the Habsburgs in the field of economics. Political repression. 1847 – global economic crisis (“the hungry forties”) The desire of the peoples of the empire for national independence. Causes Results of the Revolution suppressed by the troops of Austria and Russia Emperor of the Austrian Empire Ferdinand I (1835 - 1848)
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Results of the revolutions in the Austrian Empire Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the throne in favor of his nephew, eighteen-year-old Franz Joseph (1830-1916). Introduction of a constitution establishing the integrity of the empire. Establishing a high property qualification for voters. Carrying out peasant reform in Hungary: the abolition of corvée and church tithes, one third of the cultivated land passed into the hands of the peasants. All peoples of the Hungarian kingdom received political freedoms and land. However, the peoples of the Austrian Empire did not receive national independence. Emperor of the Austrian Empire Franz Joseph
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1867 - Austro-Hungarian agreement on the transformation of the Habsburg Empire into a dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, consisting of two states independent from each other in the internal affairs - Austria and Hungary. Defeats in the wars with France, Piedmont and Prussia Unrest in Hungary The need to strengthen the integrity of the state increased Emperor of Austria-Hungary Franz Joseph
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Political structure of Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary is a constitutional monarchy without universal suffrage Franz Joseph - Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary But Austria and Hungary each had their own: constitution, parliament, government. Austria and Hungary have in common: flag, army, three ministries: military , finance and foreign affairs. financial system. There were no customs borders between Austria and Hungary
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1868 - The Czech state (Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia) raised the question of separation from Austria. Austria agreed to carry out democratic reforms: The property qualification that gave the right to participate in elections was reduced, as a result, wide layers of small owners of the city and village, some workers received voting right. The Czechs got their representatives into the Austrian parliament. In areas where there was a mixed population, two languages were introduced, and officials of the Czech Republic and Moravia were required to know them. In general, the position of the Czechs, who raised the question of complete separation from Austria, remained the same. Hungary also opposed their claims to independence, fearing similar demands from “their” Slavs.
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All Austrian governments pursued a policy of small concessions in order to maintain the population of the empire in a "state of moderate discontent" and not drive them into dangerous explosions. Austria-Hungary became a federation, but the borders of Austria and Hungary did not coincide with national borders.
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Austria-Hungary at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. From the late 1880s. the pace of economic development accelerated. Large centers of transport engineering and weapons production grew. In connection with the rapid development of railway construction, metal processing and mechanical engineering began to actively develop. In Hungary, the leading industry was the processing of agricultural products. In 1873, three cities - Buda, Pest and Óbuda - merged into one city, Budapest. In 1887, the first tram ran through the city, and in 1895 the metro opened. By the beginning of the 20th century. Monopoly capitalism was rapidly developing in the empire (cartels were the main form of business association). England, France and Germany actively invested capital in the industry of the empire. The old nobility, in alliance with the new bourgeoisie, became the dominant force of the empire. In the village there was a process of stratification of the peasantry.
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Problems of Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century Government crises (from 1897 to 1914, governments changed 15 times in Austria). Social legislation in the country practically did not exist. Only in 1907 in Austria did the parliament pass a new electoral law, granting the right to vote to all men over 24 years of age. In Hungary in 1908, the right to vote was granted only to literate men, and the owners of any property received two votes. Land-poor and landless peasants went to the cities or emigrated. The bulk of the peasants lived in terrible poverty. In many areas, landowners and peasants belonged to different nationalities, and this increased national hostility. The desire for national independence and state independence of the peoples that were part of the empire At the beginning of the 20th century. the empire rested largely on the authority of the old emperor and on the bayonets of the Habsburg army. Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary
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Foreign policy of Austria-Hungary At the beginning of the 20th century. Austria-Hungary began to intensify its penetration into the Balkans. In 1878, the empire received the right to administer Bosnia and Herzegovina, which formally remained part of the Ottoman Empire. 1882 Austria-Hungary entered the Triple Alliance. In 1908, a revolution occurred in Turkey, the emperor sent troops into Bosnia and Herzegovina and declared them part of Austria-Hungary. Tension was growing in the Balkans, and the interests of leading European powers were colliding there. On June 28, 1914, Gavrila Princip, a member of the secret nationalist organization Mlada Bosna, killed in Sarajevo the nephew of Franz Joseph, heir to the Austro-Hungarian thrones, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, who was there at military maneuvers. This became the reason for the outbreak of the First World War.
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Homework § 23. Workbook No. 2: No. 33-36 pp. 15-17
The Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary in the 19th century
In the 19th century, the rulers of the multinational Austrian Empire had to fight revolutionary and national liberation movements on their territory. Interethnic contradictions, which could not be resolved, led Austria-Hungary to the threshold of the First World War.
Background
The Austrian ruler Franz II proclaimed the Habsburg hereditary possessions as an empire and himself as Emperor Francis I, in response to the imperial policies of Napoleon Bonaparte. During the Napoleonic wars, the Austrian Empire suffered defeats, but in the end, thanks to the actions of Russia, it was among the winners. It was in Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire, that an international congress took place in 1815, at which the fate of post-war Europe was determined. After the Congress of Vienna, Austria tried to resist any revolutionary manifestations on the continent.
Events
1859 - defeat in the war with France and Sardinia, loss of Lombardy (see).
1866 - defeat in the war with Prussia and Italy, loss of Silesia and Venice (see).
Problems of the Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was not a strong national state with a unified history and culture. Rather, it represented the heterogeneous possessions of the Habsburg dynasty accumulated over centuries, whose inhabitants had different ethnic and national identities. The Austrians themselves, whose native language was German, constituted a minority in the Austrian Empire. In addition to them, in this state there was a large number of Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, Czechs, Poles and representatives of other peoples. Some of these peoples had full experience of living within the framework of an independent nation-state, so their desire to gain at least broad autonomy within the empire, and at most complete independence, was very strong.
At the same time, the Austrian rulers made concessions only to the extent necessary to maintain the formal unity of the state. In general, the peoples' desire for independence was suppressed.
In 1867, with the granting of broad autonomy to Hungary, Austria also adopted a constitution and convened a parliament. There was a gradual liberalization of electoral legislation until the introduction of universal suffrage for men.
Conclusion
The national policy of Austria-Hungary, within the framework of which the peoples who inhabited it did not receive equal status with the Austrians and continued to strive for independence, became one of the reasons for the collapse of this state after the First World War.
Parallels
Austria is clear evidence of the instability of empire as a type of state entity. If several peoples coexist within the framework of one state, while the powers of power belong to one of them, and the rest are in a subordinate position, such a state will sooner or later be forced to spend enormous resources in order to keep all these peoples in the orbit of its influence, and in the end eventually becomes unable to cope with this task. The story of the Ottoman Empire was similar, which in its heyday conquered many peoples, and then turned out to be unable to resist their desire for independence.
Agreement of 1867 and establishment of a dualist monarchy
Numerous non-Austrian territories were under the Habsburg scepter. The centuries-old policy of assimilation of enslaved peoples was not crowned with success, and the peoples inhabiting the empire were increasingly imbued with the spirit of national identity.This process was actively underway in Bohemia (Czech Republic). The actual loss of independence of the Czech Kingdom was a consequence of the failure of the anti-Habsburg uprising, which culminated in the defeat in 1620 at the White Mountain. Under Maria Theresa, the Czech possessions of the Habsburgs in 1749 completely lost their administrative independence. German culture and language were implanted in the cities. But already in the first half of the 19th century. A movement for national revival begins in Czech cities. In the late 60s - early 70s. XIX century The process of formation of the Czech nation is completed. And although the ideas of Austroslavism dominated among the Czech intelligentsia, the political reality itself fed nationalist sentiments.
A number of provinces were partially, and Kraina completely, inhabited by Slovenes. They were considered the most Germanized Slavic ethnic group, but even here national self-awareness grew. In 1868, at one of the rallies, the appeal aroused general approval: “All of us, Slovenes, do not want to be Styrians, Carinthians, or Primorye residents, we only want to be Slovenes, united into a single Slovenia.”
Cieszyn Silesia and Western Galicia, which fell under Habsburg rule, comprised less than 10% of the ethnically Polish lands, but by 1870 they were home to almost 25% of the Poles who inhabited the entire Polish national territory. The Poles had a pronounced desire to restore national-state independence. Only in Eastern Galicia did the socially and nationally oppressed Ukrainian peasantry gravitate toward other Little Russian regions, but even here the ruling class was Polish or Polonized, which determined the guidelines for political development.
National-ethnic processes were even more acute in the Kingdom of Hungary, which was part of the Habsburg monarchy. Revolution of 1848-1849 consolidated the Hungarian nation, which was facilitated by a number of factors: the presence of a powerful noble class; continuous state-political tradition of the Kingdom of Hungary, preserved despite its loss in the 16th century. independence and Ottoman rule in the 16th-17th centuries; the presence of political institutions in the form of a state assembly and a developed comitat system; administrative and political unity of the kingdom, which included the entire mass of the Magyar population; finally, the sharp difference between the Magyar language and the language of its neighbors.
The formation of the Croatian nation took place in conditions of administrative and political fragmentation: Croatia and Slavonia were part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and the so-called Croatian-Slavonian military border was under the control of the Ministry of War. In addition, Croatia in 1868 received some autonomous rights that the rest of the Yugoslav regions of the empire did not have. The conflict with the dominant Magyar core of the kingdom was fueled first by the ideas of Illyrianism (the creation of the Illyrian Kingdom under Habsburg rule as part of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia), and then by Yugoslavism, that is, the unification of the South Slavic peoples (Croats, Slovenes, Serbs) into a single state entity.
Serbs inhabited the southern part of the Kingdom of Hungary - Vojvodina, lived in Croatia, Slavonia, on the territory of the Croatian-Slavic military border, in Dalmatia. They gravitated towards Serbia, which, with the acquisition of autonomy, became the center of gravity and the core of Serbian statehood.
Since the early Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Hungary included Slovakia. The Magyarization of its ruling class, although it slowed down, could not stop the tendency towards the formation of a special Slovak identity.
The Romanians of Transylvania, which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, continued to have friction with the Magyar authorities. Awareness of their ethnic community with the population of the Romanian principalities, and then the independent Romanian state, caused, especially during the First World War, a desire for reunification with Romania.
The indigenous people of Austria themselves faced a very difficult ethnic problem. The centuries-old desire of the Germans of Austria for hegemony in the German lands did not allow them to recognize themselves as a separate national entity from the Germans of Germany. They were also united by a common language and culture. But the collapse of the idea of unifying the German lands under the leadership of Austria as a result of defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the subsequent formation of the North German Confederation, and then the German Empire, required a revision of the existing national-political priorities. The Austrian Germans were faced with the need to accept as inevitable the path of independent national development. But this reorientation was painful and difficult, since, according to a contemporary, the entire German-speaking part of the empire “thought and felt like Germans and perceived state division as unnatural, as a result of Prussian power politics.” The process of self-identification of Austrian Germans as Austrians took almost a century. Austria had to go through many dramatic events so that after the Second World War, in October 1946, the Austrian Chancellor L. Figl could clearly record a new sense of the national identity of the Austrians: “Centuries have passed over Austria. From the mixing of the ancient Celtic population with the Bavarians and Franks, under the shadow of the standing conglomerate of the Roman legions, just as later under the shadow of the aggressive invasions of the Asian peoples - Magyars, Huns and others, including the invading Turks, finally mixing heavily with the young Slavic blood , with Magyar and Romanesque elements, here a people arose from below, which represents something of its own in Europe, but not a second German state and not a second German people, but a new Austrian people.”
In order to overcome the growing social and national-political contradictions, modernization of the empire and radical reforms were required. In 1867, Austria and Hungary signed an agreement. The Austrian Empire was transformed into a dualistic (dual) monarchy - Austria-Hungary. The legislative basis of the new state was a set of laws, the so-called December Constitution, adopted on December 21, 1867. In accordance with it, both parts of the empire were united on the basis of a personal union - the Emperor of Austria was the King of Hungary, therefore Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elizabeth were crowned in Budapest as Hungarian king and queen. Only the ministries of foreign affairs, military and finance were common to the entire state. Each of both countries had its own parliament, government, national army, and had almost equal rights and responsibilities. The parliaments in Vienna and Budapest elected delegations of 60 representatives each to consider imperial issues. The monarch was given extensive rights: in relation to both states, to appoint and dismiss heads of government, give consent to the appointment of ministers, approve laws adopted by parliaments, convene and dissolve parliaments, and issue emergency decrees. The emperor led foreign policy and the armed forces. The Constitution provided for the equality of subjects of all parts of the empire before the law, guaranteed basic civil rights - freedom of speech, assembly, religion, declared the inviolability of private property and home, and the secrecy of correspondence. Austria-Hungary acquired the status of a constitutional monarchy.
The introduction of a dualistic system of government provided for the assignment of the leading role to the Austrians in the lands subordinate to Austria, and to the Magyars - to Hungary. The territories of Austrian and Hungarian competence, separated by the Leitha River, constituted Cisleithania and Transleithania.
Cisleithania included: Austria proper; Moravia with a predominant German population (capital Brno); Czech Republic (known then as Bohemia); Silesia (the most important center is Cieszyn) and Western Galicia (the main city is Krakow), populated mainly by Poles; Eastern Galicia (center - Lviv) and Bukovina (center - Chernivtsi) with predominant Ukrainians; Krajna, Istria, Hertz and Trieste, which together made up Slovenia with its center in Ljubljana; Dalmatia, stretching along the coast of the Adriatic Sea, inhabited by Slavs and Italians. The Germans in Cisleithania made up only a third of the population.
Transyatania included: Hungary; Transylvania, Romanian in population composition; Slavic provinces - Transcarpathia (the most important city is Uzhgorod), Slovakia (center - Bratislava), Croatia and Slavonia (center - Zagreb), Serbian Vojvodina and Banat (city of Temesvar); Adriatic port Fiume. The Magyars in Transleithania numbered less than half.
Austro-Hungarian dualism removed a significant part of the contradictions between Austria and Hungary, but the removal from power on the principles of autonomy of the Romanians of Transylvania, the Italians of the Tyrol and Primorye, and the Slavic peoples exacerbated the confrontation between them and the privileged Austrian and Hungarian elites. After the agreement of 1867, Emperor Franz Joseph and his governments were unable to solve the Slavic problem, on the contrary, they made it even more difficult in connection with the Bosnian question. In accordance with the decision of the Berlin Congress, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, but Turkey retained formal sovereignty over them. When the Young Turk revolution occurred in 1908, a situation arose in which Austria-Hungary could lose control over the actually captured lands. In order to prevent this, on October 5, 1908, Franz Joseph annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Turkey, without the support of the great powers, signed an agreement with Austria-Hungary in February 1909, according to which it recognized the annexation and accepted 2.5 million pounds as payment for renouncing sovereignty over these areas. Art.
The annexation of new provinces intensified interethnic contradictions in the empire. According to the 1910 census, out of a population of almost 52 million, about 30 million were Slavs, Romanians, and Italians; There were 12 million Germans and almost 10 million Magyars. Ethnically heterogeneous parts of the state, not connected with the Habsburgs or with each other by a commonality of interests and goals, uncontrollably took the path of national revival. The Czechs unsuccessfully sought equal status with Austria and Hungary, i.e. transformation of dualism into trialism in the form of a federation of Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The separatist movement in South Tyrol with a predominant Italian population was very intense. Croats and Romanians demanded recognition of cultural identity and political equality. Clashes with the Austrian and Hungarian authorities were complicated by interethnic contradictions between Germans and Czechs in Bohemia, Croats and Italians in Dalmatia, Serbs and Croats in the southern regions of Hungary and Austria, Polish landowners and Ukrainian peasants in Eastern Galicia. Hopes for acquiring autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy were not destined to come true. National movements of incomplete peoples came into irreconcilable conflict with the policies of the empire and gave rise to irreparable conflicts that gradually undermined the Habsburg monarchy and ultimately destroyed it.
Socio-political and economic development of Austria-Hungary in the 19th - 20th centuries
The internal political vector of the Habsburg Empire in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. They determined the loss of Lombardy and Venice as a result of defeat in the Austro-Italian-French War of 1859 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the collapse of Austrian plans for the Great German path of unification of Germany as a result of the loss of Prussia in the same war of 1866, and finally, the transformation in 1867 the empire into the dualistic Austro-Hungarian monarchy. These events decisively changed the range of internal political problems of Austria-Hungary. The monarchy threw off the burden of German affairs, ceding the concerns associated with them to Prussia, freed itself from the need for constant confrontation with the national liberation movement in the Italian provinces, and simplified the national situation in the empire itself in connection with the granting of certain independence to Hungary. All this freed up forces to modernize the political field of the empire itself.Interethnic conflicts between Germans and Czechs in Bohemia, Poles and Rusyns in Galicia, Croats and Italians in Dalmatia, Serbs and Croats in the southern regions of Hungary and Austria prompted the monarchy to find ways to overcome them. The severity of national contradictions dictated the need for reforms. They steadily moved the country towards the gradual establishment of bourgeois-democratic institutions. Already the first Austrian government after the formation of the dual monarchy, Prince Adolf Auersperg, passed the anti-Catholic “May Laws” on marriage and interfaith relations in 1868. In 1870, the concordat of 1855 was canceled, according to which the Catholic Church was endowed with autonomy, Catholicism was recognized as the state religion, and civil marriage between Catholics was prohibited. In 1868 and 1869 passed laws on public education that established an interfaith state compulsory eight-year school, although it retained the teaching of religion. The development of schooling led to a rapid reduction in illiteracy. In 1872, the Jury Court was introduced, and in 1875, the Higher Administrative Court in Vienna.
In the 1880s. reformed labor legislation: established a maximum working day for adults and adolescents, introduced compulsory Sunday rest, social insurance for illness and accidents, and created a system of labor safety inspectors.
In 1873, the Auersperg government, in order to limit the role of local diets (landtags)1, carried out a reform according to which the Reichsrat began to be elected not by the diets, but directly by voters. The latter were divided into four curiae with different rates of representation. One deputy was elected: by the curia of the chambers of commerce - every 24 large industrialists and financiers; for the curia of large landowners - every 53 landowners; for the citywide curia - every 4 thousand voters; for the curia of rural communities - every 12 thousand voters. The new electoral system, having established a high property qualification, attracted only 6% of the population to the elections. The electoral reform ensured the hegemony of the landed aristocracy and the big bourgeoisie, and also guaranteed the predominance of Austrian Germans in the Reichsrat: there were 220 of them against just over 130 deputies of other nationalities. In 1882, the government of Edward Taaffe reduced the property qualification for those eligible to vote from 10 to 5 florins of annual tax, which significantly increased the number of voters at the expense of artisans, small traders and peasants. The cabinet of Casimir Badeni, which came to power in 1895, in another attempt to eliminate the internal political crisis, established the fifth, so-called general curia. It included all men over 24 years of age, who elected one deputy from almost 70 thousand voters - the electorate increased from 1.7 to 5 million people. In line with the democratization of the political system of Austria, the electoral reform of 1907 took place. It provided for universal, equal, direct and secret voting for men. The number of mandates was determined not according to population size, but by nationality, taking into account their tax burden. Therefore, the Germans, who made up 35% of the population but paid 63% of taxes, received 43% of the mandates.
During the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The economy of the Habsburg monarchy gradually overcame its previous, predominantly agrarian character, as a result of which the empire became an industrial-agrarian country. In 1913, among the 20 leading industrial powers of the world, Austria-Hungary ranked 10th in industrial production per capita. This progress was largely a consequence of the agreement of 1867 and the establishment of a liberal constitutional order in the empire, which favored the capitalist development of the economy, especially industry. In the interests of the bourgeoisie, laws restricting the free sale of land were repealed. The state exempted railway companies from taxes and guaranteed them a 5% profit on invested capital, which gave impetus to railway construction and, consequently, the development of heavy industry. Foreign banks received the right to open branches in Vienna.
Large enterprises emerged during this period. The Skoda company in the Czech Republic became one of the main suppliers of weapons not only for Austria-Hungary, but also for many European countries. In the 1870s the formation of monopolistic industrial associations began. Thus, the production of iron and steel in Cisleithania was concentrated by 6 largest associations, concentrating 90% of iron production and 92% of steel production. Investments in industry have increased sharply. Only in 1910 and 1911. 10 times more capital was invested in joint-stock companies than industry, trade and handicraft production combined received over the previous 80 years. The sheer number of joint stock companies in Cisleithania by 1910 exceeded 580. At the same time, a high degree of concentration of production and the presence of monopolies were combined with a large number of small enterprises.
A characteristic feature of the economic development of Cisleithania was its unevenness. A significant part of the industry was concentrated in the Austrian lands proper, as well as in the Czech Republic and Moravia. The number of workers employed in the industry of the Czech lands in 1910 amounted to 56% of the industrial proletariat of Cisleithania. At the same time, in Galicia, for example, in 1910, 8 2% of the population was employed in agriculture and only 5.7% in industry. The manufacturing industry of the Slovenian lands (Kraina, Istria) was in its infancy. In terms of the general level of economic development, Dalmatia lagged behind even Carniola.
Despite the high rates of economic development, the absolute size of production in the empire was small. At the turn of the century, Austria ranked only 7th in iron smelting. Under these conditions, favorable opportunities were created for the penetration of foreign capital into the country: English, French, Belgian, Italian. But by the end of the 19th century. Germany became the main creditor and trading partner of the Habsburg Monarchy. The strong influence of German capital was felt in all sectors of the Austro-Hungarian economy: banking, railway construction, mechanical engineering, chemical and electrical industries. In the pre-war years, German capital owned 50% of Austrian and Hungarian securities. In the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, according to data for 1899, 52% of exports went to Germany and 34% of imports from Germany. The financial and economic dependence of the Habsburg Monarchy on Germany became increasingly stronger.
The concentration process led to the formation of powerful financial groups in Austria. How strong the Austrian banks were is clear from the fact that the National Bank in 1909 owned a capital of 85 million pounds. Art., and the Bank of England controlled 82 million f. Art. Austrian financial capital, which had largely ceded its field of activity in the empire to foreign monopolies, compensated for itself by penetrating Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. The Austrian bourgeoisie controlled a significant part of the industry of these countries and most of the banks there, and sought economic and political assertion in the Balkan countries. The aggressive foreign policy of the empire in this region should also be associated with this.
Ways to resolve the national problem in the programs of socio-political movements
The national-political history of the empire in the era of dualism is characterized by the struggle of two directions - centralist and federalist. Centralism was the core of the Habsburg monarchy and the dominance of the Austro-German and Hungarian ruling classes. At the same time, the unresolved national question prompted political parties, social movements and the ruling elite itself to look for ways out of the political crisis in the transition to a federalist state structure. Plans to transform the monarchy from dualistic to trialistic were hatched by the heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his entourage. It was planned to create a third state entity within the borders of the empire by uniting Transleithanian Croatia-Slavonia, the Austrian province of Dalmatia and annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Austro-Hungarian-Yugoslav trialism project pursued the goal of paralyzing the liberation movements of the Yugoslavs and strengthening their loyalty to Austria, neutralizing the unifying aspirations of Serbia, which was thinking about gathering the South Slavs in one state. Of no small importance was the intention to create a counterbalance to the Hungarian opposition. Naturally, Hungary sharply opposed these plans.The problems of national reconstruction of the empire were at the center of attention of various public groups. The Christian Social Party, formed in 1891 and absorbing the Conservative Catholic People's Party in 1907, took anti-Hungarian and anti-Semitic positions on the national question. She rejected Austro-Hungarian dualism and put forward the idea of transforming the country on the basis of federalism in the state form of the United States of Austria under the leadership of the Habsburgs.
The consolidation of the socialist forces in Austria led to the overcoming of the split between the moderate and radical movements and the formation at the unification congress in Heinfeld (December 30, 1888 - January 1, 1889) of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDPA), whose leader was Victor Adler. The party did not function as a single entity for long. The Prague Congress (1896) transformed the SDPA into the Federal Union of individual national social democratic parties: Austrian, Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Yugoslav, Italian. Each of the national parties had its own leadership centers and had broad autonomy. A certain unity was ensured by the all-party Executive Committee and the Congress, intended to resolve the most general programmatic and organizational issues. The adopted party structure led to a situation where, at the same enterprise, workers of different nationalities found themselves in different party organizations. The SDPA transferred the principle of division along ethnic lines to its vision of solving the national problem in the empire.
One of the leaders of the SDPA, Karl Renner, put forward a program of cultural-national autonomy in 1899. Renner believed that cultural-national autonomy, i.e. a cultural-national community, regardless of location, will ensure the preservation of a multinational empire. Renner's ideas were to a certain extent adopted by the national program adopted at the SDPA congress in Brünn (1899). She demanded: “Austria must be transformed into a state representing a democratic union of nationalities... In place of the historical crown lands, separate national self-governing administrative units must be formed, in each of which legislation and administration would be in the hands of a national parliament elected on the basis of universal, direct and equal voting." The combination of the ideas of extra-territorial cultural-national autonomy and limited territorial self-government of nations in the preserved Habsburg empire could not but lead to new conflicts: “national self-governing administrative units” were by no means always nationally homogeneous; on the contrary, especially in cities, they were distinguished by a multi-ethnic composition of the population.
If these parties proceeded from the need to preserve the empire, then the German National Movement, led by Georg von Schörner, called for its destruction. The Linz program of 1882, reflecting the concept of the movement, focused on the unification of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia into a single whole with the German language as the state language and the “German character” as the ethnic dominant. The next step in ethnic cleansing was to be the transfer of Galicia and the Yugoslav lands under the jurisdiction of Hungary, ties with which are limited to a personal union. Finally, Schörner demanded that Jewish influence be excluded from all spheres of public life. The final stage was supposed to include the annexation of ethnically and racially “cleansed” Austria to Germany. Thus, the pan-German-minded Austrian Germans put forward a program for the actual dismemberment of the empire, but these plans were met with sharp rejection by the monarchy and the majority of the Austrian Germans themselves, who did not seek the abolition of the Habsburg Empire and the Anschluss.
All these plans for overcoming the crisis were not and could not be implemented: the imperial state mechanism was not able to modernize itself, even if it realized that we were talking about preserving the empire. The failure of attempts to resolve Czech-German contradictions testifies to this.
The economy of Austria-Hungary at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries was characterized by weak rates of industrial development, backward agriculture, uneven economic development of individual regions, and a focus on self-sufficiency.
Austria-Hungary was a moderately developed agrarian-industrial country. The vast majority of the population was employed in agriculture and forestry (more than 11 million people) The low level of rural statehood was determined by landowner latifundia, where manual labor of farm laborers was used. In Hungary, Croatia, Galicia, Transylvania, about a third of the cultivated The land belonged to large landowners, who occupied more than 10 thousand hectares every year.
In Austria-Hungary, the same economic processes took place as in other developed capitalist countries - the concentration of production and capital, an increase in investment. According to individual gross indicators (steel smelting), the empire was ahead of England and France in the second half of the 19th century?? Were they industrially developed? Austria and the Czech The six largest monopolies controlled the extraction of almost all ore and more than 90% of steel production. The Skoda metallurgical concern in the Czech Republic was one of the largest enterprises in the European military industry. In total, small and medium-sized industry predominated in Austria-Hungary. A characteristic feature of the economy The empire was technologically backward, poorly supplied with the latest technology and the absence of the latest industries. German and French capital was actively invested in basic industries - oil production, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, machine manufacturing.
Industry and agriculture worked for the benefit of their own market. In the Danube Monarchy, products were consumed mainly from their own production. Trade between internal imperial territories received a significant boost after the elimination of customs duties in the second half of the 19th century, and producers from different parts of Austria-Hungary mastered the promising markets of Cisleithania and Transleithania, Galicia Imports, like exports of goods, were insignificant and barely reached 5 5%.
There were up to a million officials in the country - twice as many as workers. And for every ten peasants there was one official. Bureaucracy reached unprecedented proportions, which in turn led to sharp social contrasts. The general standard of living was very low. For example, in 1906 in Vienna 6% of the population spent the night in shelters. The standard of living was different in the capital and in provincial cities. In Vienna, a worker received an average of 4 guilders a day, in Lviv - about 2. In addition, prices for consumer goods in the capital were lower than in the provincial provinces. During the last third of the 19th century. The economy of Austria-Hungary lost its former, predominantly agricultural character. During this period, large enterprises emerged that employed thousands of workers: Vitkovice metallurgical plants and Skoda enterprises in the Czech Republic, which became the main supplier of weapons not only for Austria-Hungary, but also for a number of neighboring states; large mining and iron-making enterprises in Styria, etc. By 1900, oil production in Austria-Hungary amounted to 347 thousand tons (fourth place in the world). The railway network grew rapidly. However, with quite significant rates of development in many industries, the absolute size of production was still very small. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Austria-Hungary, for example, ranked seventh in the world in pig iron production, behind the United States of America, Germany, England, Russia, France and Belgium.
Austria-Hungary was one of the last places in Europe in the use of machinery in agriculture and in the use of fertilizers. The peasantry suffered from land shortage. At the same time, colossal tracts of land belonged to a small elite of nobles. Four thousand Hungarian magnates owned over 1000 hectares each.
In the Czech Republic, small peasant farms (over 80% of the total number of households) cultivated only 12.5% of the land, while a third of the land was concentrated in the hands of several hundred large landowners (mostly Austrian). Ukrainian peasants in Galicia experienced severe land hunger. In the Polish lands of Cieszyn Silesia, the vast majority of peasants also belonged to the category of landless and land-poor.
The needs of the working peasantry have especially intensified due to the global agrarian crisis. In 1888 alone, in Cisleithania (the Austrian part of the Habsburg monarchy), the property of about 12 thousand peasants was auctioned off. In 10 years - from 1892 to 1901 - about 750 thousand people left Austria-Hungary; emigrants most often were representatives of the Slavic peoples - the most oppressed in Austria-Hungary.
In 1881-1890 An average of 7 thousand people a year emigrated from western Galicia, and in the 90s - over 17 thousand. The relative cheapness of labor caused an influx of foreign capital, mainly German and French, into Austria-Hungary. German capitalists managed to seize important positions in mechanical engineering, in the steel and chemical industries, and later in the electrical industry. Skoda factories were in close connection with Krupp enterprises. French capital was channeled into the construction of railways, the coal industry, metallurgical enterprises in Styria, etc. Dependence on foreign capital was combined with persistent attempts by the Austrian bourgeoisie to pursue its own expansionist policy, the objects of which were primarily the countries of the Balkan Peninsula.
In the 70s, the first large industrial associations were formed, prototypes of future monopolies. Large banks played a major role in accelerating the process of capital concentration. A clear example of this was the participation of the Credit Institution Bank and the Czech Accounting Bank in the transformation of the Skoda factories into a joint-stock company (1899).
In metallurgy, the concentration of production proceeded at a particularly rapid pace. The largest monopolistic company was the mining and metallurgical company Alpine-Montan, founded in 1881, which actually became the owner of the heavy industry of the Alpine regions of Austria.
The first cartel, uniting both Austrian and Hungarian iron enterprises, arose in the 70s; it disintegrated several times due to acute contradictions between its participants and was finally recreated at the beginning of the 20th century. on new, more favorable terms for the Hungarian monopolists.
Monopolization of industry occurred only in the most industrialized regions of the country. Many areas of Austria-Hungary remained at a very low level of economic development. The Austrian bourgeoisie sought to transform all non-Austrian lands, including Hungary, into agricultural and raw materials appendages of its industry, to create “internal colonies” for the latter. In some cases this was successful. For example, the industrial development of Galicia was artificially inhibited; the oil fields that existed here used extremely backward and predatory methods. For the most part, these aspirations of the capitalists of the ruling nation turned out to be unrealistic. Thus, the Czech regions became the area of greatest development of heavy industry. By the end of the 19th century. The Czech Republic and Moravia accounted for 90% of hard coal production and 82% of brown coal, and over 90% of steel production in Cisleithania.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, Austria-Hungary was one of the most backward countries in Europe. The preserved remnants of feudalism in the country led to a slowdown in the pace of industrial progress in relation to the advanced countries of Europe.
In the 90s, the city's population accounted for only one third of the total population of Austria-Hungary. Even in Austria, the most developed part of the empire, the majority of the population was rural. And Hungary continued to remain more of an agrarian, semi-feudal country.
The Austro-Hungarian Agreement concluded in 1867 was a definite impetus for the economic development of Hungary. Based on the coal base of Hungary, the metallurgical industry began to develop. But the main industrial sector of Hungary was still food. In 1898, Hungary's share in the empire in flour milling, winemaking, sugar and other food products was 47.3%. In the industrial regions of the country - Lower Austria and the Czech Republic - the process of concentration of production and the formation of monopolies proceeded at a rapid pace.
By the beginning of the 20th century, loan capital was collected mainly in several large banks in Vienna (National, Kreditanstalt, Bodenkreditanstalt and the Association of Vienna Banks). The influence of the financial oligarchy in the life of the country has intensified.
Another characteristic feature of the empire's progress is its increasing dependence on foreign capital. The banks of France, Belgium, and Germany filled Austria with their capital by investing in industry. German capital gained the upper hand.
Such industries of Austria-Hungary as metallurgy, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, etc., were financially supported by German firms. In textile and engineering enterprises, the position of German capital was very high. German capital also broke into agriculture. 200,000 hectares of land in Austria belonged to German landowners