Chapters

One of the fundamental differences between the two states in the Dual Monarchy after the Compromise of 1867 was that Hungary, unlike the Austrian half of the Empire, did not see itself as a multinational entity but rather as a Magyar nation state.

The two halves of the Dual Monarchy evolved in different directions after 1867. Opinions about the rights and obligations of the two parts of the empire with regard to the state as a whole diverged increasingly.

With his national feudal views, Count István Tisza was a typical representative of the Hungarian gentry, who dominated Hungary’s political landscape around 1900. As Hungarian minister president, he cultivated an authoritarian style with distant loyalty to Vienna and an uncompromising attitude to the demands of ethnic minorities.

The outbreak of war put the dynamic urban development and construction in Vienna on hold. Building activity was dictated by the war, its unhappy progress and the inadequate preparation and organization. The constant flow of refugees and wounded soldiers made it necessary to transform Vienna into a city of barracks and hospitals.

In spite of the numbers – according to the 1910 census, 6.4 per cent of the population of Austria-Hungary belonged to the Romanian language group – the Romanians were an underprivileged nation.

In view of the absence of social elites – the nobility in the Romanian settlement areas of the Habsburg Monarchy were Magyar, and the urban bourgeoisie Magyar and German with considerable Jewish, Greek and Armenian elements – the Romanian intelligentsia was recruited mainly from the clergy.

Despite the ethnic background, the Transylvanian Romanians identified initially with the Hungarian crown. Their enthusiasm for Hungarianism waned in 1867, however, as a reaction to the Magyarization of the Hungarian half of the empire.

The irredentist tendencies of the Romanians in the Dual Monarchy ran parallel to the emancipation of Romania from Ottoman rule. The chequered relations between Romania and Austria-Hungary offer a textbook example of the connections between domestic and foreign policy in dealing with the complex ethnic situation in south-eastern Europe.

The utopia of the unification of all Slavs, which from the pan-Slav point of view were interpreted as being one single nation, served the smaller Slav peoples of central Europe as an initial basis for their efforts towards national emancipation, while the Germans and the Hungarians saw it as the nightmare of "extinction in a sea of Slavs".

Austro-Slavism as an ideological programme of the Slavs under Habsburg rule regarded the Austrian empire as the optimum political framework for the existence of the Slav peoples of central Europe. They demanded the restructuring of the empire into a federalist state and the equality of the Austrian Slavs in order to ensure their unrestricted development.

The war became increasingly present in Vienna. Shortly after it started, thousands of refugees, including many Jews, began to stream into the city. Neither the city council nor the government was adequately prepared for this situation. And within the population, envy, aggression and increased anti-Semitism soon became evident.

The definition of the Czechoslav nation usual in the Habsburg empire covered the speakers of Slavic dialects in Bohemia, Moravia and Upper Hungary. These were regarded as a single entity, as was also apparent in the official lists of linguistic circumstances, where Czech and Slovak were mostly recorded together.

With the outbreak of the war, the economy had to be adapted to the new situation, and it contained several planned economy elements and dictatorial characteristics. This process was combined with the militarization of businesses and working conditions. A shortage of labour soon became apparent, compensated increasingly through the use of women. The lack of preparation for a war of this length and intensity can be seen as well in the dire supply situation to the population of Vienna, with shortages practically across the board.

As the war progressed, the indications that a decisive change was taking place became increasingly obvious. The initial euphoric patriotism and enthusiasm gave way to disillusionment and often bitterness. The year 1916 was the decisive turning point in the perception of the war due to the increasing shortages and the unpromising news from the front. Emperor Franz Joseph I, the most important representative of the ‘world of yesterday’, also died that year.

Construction work came to a complete standstill when war broke out. In spite of the calamitous housing situation, it was not so much the housing shortage as the acute food shortages that led to the spread of allotments. The spontaneous activities that arose during the war were aimed above all at producing food.

The old world was increasingly falling apart. The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and the proclamation of the republic marked a clear change, but wartime and post-war Vienna showed remarkable parallels. An improvement in the living conditions of the people of Vienna was not in sight. Added to this was the fear or hope, depending on ideology, of revolution and a soviet dictatorship. From the end of October 1918 to June 1919 Vienna was the scene of bloody demonstrations and clashes.

During the First World War propaganda was acknowledged to be a crucial tool in modern warfare. Not only posters, flyers and postcards were brought out with patriotic motifs and vilifying slogans against the enemy, but also sound recordings with political speeches and propagandist pieces of music.

In the course of the 1848 Revolution, the liberal opposition with its critical attitude to the government and led above all by the intelligentsia, the students and the propertied and educated middle-classes, who were weary of being excluded from political participation, demanded the drafting of a constitution. This constitution was to guarantee the formation of a Parliament and the right to the freedom of opinion and freedom of assembly.

The constitution adopted in December 1867 was the first constitution of the monarchy that was not imposed by the Emperor but adopted by the Reichsrat. It can be seen as the birth of Austrian parliamentarianism, which from then on would continue to develop without interruption.

The conflicting interests of the different social classes and of the different nationalities meant that the political and ideological movements that were developing within the Habsburg Monarchy in the second half of the 19th century were extremely heterogeneous. This was also reflected in the party landscape. However, two major lines of development can be distinguished, conservatism and liberalism.

From the middle of the 1860s, the liberals made huge gains and levered liberalism into power. However, the liberal age proved to be short-lived, coming to an abrupt end with the electoral defeat of the Constitutional Party in 1879.

As early as 1848, the first harbingers of a labour movement appeared, a movement that played a significant role in the – if only short-term – successes of the middle-class revolution. Its political objectives corresponded over large areas with those of the liberal middle class, which likewise demanded political participation and fought against the neo-absolutist system, censorship and feudalism.

The Hainfeld party conference was held at the turn of the year 1888/89, and achieved the unification of the different ideological movements within social democracy, which was now able to present itself to the public with a single political programme.

The outbreak of war in July 1914 put the Austrian labour movement in an ambivalent position. It basically supported peace, following the model of international socialism, but at the same time it was becoming a party of the establishment.