Arms of the Austrian Hungarian Crown Lands

Around the turn of the century the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy enjoyed a glorious flowering in the arts, scholarship and science. At the same time, however, the country was shaken by apparently insoluble social and national conflicts. Under a dazzlingly brilliant surface the Habsburg imperium was struggling with a profound crisis.

It soon became clear that the western European concept of the unity of nation and state could not be applied to the Habsburg Monarchy because of its ethnic, linguistic and religious multiplicity.