Chapter 39 : The Doomed Empire: Austria and Hungary PART TWO: THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE AND THE CREATION OF MODERN AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY With Austria and Hungary united, but still retaining their own individual constitutional structures, it was inevitable that the subjugated peoples within the borders of the Empire, particularly in Eastern Europe, would start agitating for similar independence, imitating the arrangement between Austria and Hungary. The result was that after a fairly short time, serious unrest brewed in the Balkan regions of the Empire - eventually this would lead to the First World War. EXPANSION The territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire expanded still further when the White Russians defeated the non-White Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1878. An international congress (the Congress of Berlin) was held to divide up the last Ottoman possessions. Austria-Hungary was given permission to administer the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with other territories being divided up equally amongst the other powers and some becoming independent, with the most prominent of these independent states being Serbia. Eventually the Austro-Hungarian Empire was to include the territories known today as Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, as well as parts of present-day Poland, Rumania, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Above: The Hungarian Parliament buildings, the largest in the world, on the banks of the Danube river which flows through Budapest. The building dates from the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This picture was taken during the 1980s - the then Communist government added a large red star to the central steeple of the building, visible in the inset. The star was removed when Communism collapsed. TRIPLE ALLIANCE The rise of a united Germany had created a German power to match that of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Defeated in a short conflict over control of some German states, the Austro-Hungarian Empire aligned itself with the united states of Germany. In 1879, Germany and Austria-Hungary signed a formal alliance, joined by Italy in 1882. The pact was called the Triple Alliance. SERBIA AND THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR By 1903, the Serbian state felt strong enough to start trying to create a united Slavic state in southern Europe. Its first natural areas of expansion were the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, still administered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The latter, viewing with alarm the growing power of the Serbian state, formally annexed the two territories in 1908, to the great protest of Serbia and its ally, Russia. The subsequent assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in 1914 by a Serbian nationalist, led to Austria declaring war on Serbia which led to the outbreak of the First World War. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE BREAKS UP INTO REPUBLICS Defeat for the Austro-Hungarian armies on the battlefields of the First World War and mutinies and rebellions at home caused the Austro-Hungarian Empire to suddenly and dramatically break up. In October 1918, the Czechs proclaimed themselves independent in Prague; the Hungarian government announced its complete separation from Austria in November, and in the same month both Austria and Hungary signed armistices with the Allied armies. By mid November 1918, the last Habsburg Emperor had abdicated and within days, Austria and Hungary had declared themselves republics. THE NEW AUSTRIAN REPUBLIC DEPRIVED OF BOHEMIA AND MOROVIA When the Austrian Republic came into existence, it was dramatically smaller than the Empire from which it had emerged - a small region consisting of some 7 million people, devastated by the war and economically crippled. The break-up of the Empire had deprived Austria of its major industrial regions, Bohemia and Morovia - the only realistic option remaining for the German speaking population was union with Germany, but this was specifically forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles which ended the First World War. A democratic state was then instituted in Austria in 1920. Political instability continued, culminating in a Communist riot in Vienna in 1927, when the main court building, the Palace of Justice, was burned down, leading to police firing on the demonstrators, during which at least 100 people were killed. DEMOCRACY SUSPENDED UNDER ENGELBERT DOLLFUSS Growing instability led the Austrian chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, to abolish the democratic constitution and to institute rule by absolute decree in 1933. In February 1934, the Communists were outlawed, and later in that same year all other parties - including the fledgling Austrian Nazi party - were banned. Austria officially became a one party state under Dollfuss. The repression of all political activities led to an attempted Nazi coup in July 1934 - which was unsuccessful, but which saw Dollfuss killed. His replacement, Kurt von Schuschnigg, did not deviate from Dollfuss' policies, leading him into direct conflict with the now mighty Germany under Adolf Hitler. UNION WITH GERMANY 1938 OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTED The continual instability within Austria provided the opportunity for which the Austrian-born Hitler had been searching: in 1938, German troops entered Austria and the country was annexed to Germany under a regional government set up by the Austrian Nazi Party, with the region becoming known under its original name, the Ostmark. A plebiscite, adjudged by the League of Nations to be free and fair, was then held. A massive 98 per cent of all Austrians voted in favor of the union, or Anschluss, with Germany.
WORLD WAR II - SOVIET OCCUPATION AT WAR END As part of the rising German Reich, Austria shared in the economic prosperity of that country, but also in its defeat during the Second World War. The country was first occupied by Soviet troops, although it was later placed under Western Allied control, and a limited democratic government (limited because it ironically used Nazi laws to ban the Nazi party and to prevent publicly identified former Nazis from voting or standing for office) was instituted in 1946. INDEPENDENCE IN 1955 UNDER RESTRICTIONS The four Allies and Austria signed a State Treaty in May 1955, in terms of which the Austrian Republic was formally re-established. The treaty prohibited union between Austria and Germany, denied Austria the right to own or manufacture nuclear weapons or guided missiles, and obligated Austria to give the Soviet Union part of its crude oil output for years to come. In 1957, the issue of the territory of South Tyrol resurfaced. This German speaking region had been incorporated into Italy at the end of the First World War, and nationalists once again became active against Italian rule in the mid 1950's, which included a limited guerrilla sabotage campaign against Italian infrastructure. Finally in 1970, a settlement was reached between Italy and Austria whereby a 1946 agreement was implemented guaranteeing the linguistic and cultural rights of the German-speaking Austrian population in South Tyrol. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND PROSPERITY Recovering well from the trepidations of the war, Austria reorganized its economy around state owned banks and infrastructure and soon became one of the most prosperous countries of Western Europe, settling down to a period of peace and stability which it had never seen during its previous 1500 years of formal existence. Austria also maintained a very high degree of racial homogeneity through all these events - the major factor contributing to her ability to survive. DISSENT AT NON-WHITE IMMIGRATION Situated as it is at the "door" to Western Europe, and attractive in its own right as a destination for Third World immigrants, the issue of immigration into Austria has also come to dominate political and social life in Austria in the last quarter of the 20th Century, causing the rise of anti-immigrant parties such as the Freedom Party. The implications of these immigration trends are discussed in a later chapter. AUSTRIANS IN HISTORY The influence on world history by the Austrians has been marked. Many thought of as Germans were in fact Austrians, although the dividing lines between Austrians and Germans has always been sufficiently blurred to allow for them to be called Germans: racially speaking they are in any event of virtually identical stock. The classical composers Wolfgang Mozart, Franz Hayden, Franz Schubert and Wilhelm Bruckner, were all Austrians. The most famous Austrian of all time, however, still remains Adolf Hitler. HUNGARY - THE FOURTH INDEPENDENT HUNGARIAN STATE No sooner had Hungary declared itself independent from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, than a Communist revolution, led by the Jewish Communist Bela Kun (whose real name was Cohen) broke out. Committing terrible atrocities, the Communists faced a popular anti-Communist rebellion which forced Kun and his communists to flee. In 1920, the country was proclaimed a constitutional monarchy. This new government accepted a peace treaty officially ending Hungary's participation in the First World War, called the Treaty of Trianon, which greatly reduced Hungarian territory. The treaty stripped away about two-thirds of Hungary's territory, including Transylvania, Croatia, and Slovakia. RISE OF HUNGARIAN NATIONALISM Partly as a result of admiration for Adolf Hitler's Germany, and partly out of a desire to see the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Trianon overturned, Hungary was dominated by the rise of a nationalistic fervor during the years leading up to the Second World War, culminating in Hungary sharing in the territorial division of the state of Czechoslovakia in 1938. A formal alliance with Germany followed in January 1939, when Hungary signed the international anti-Communist alliance - the Anti-Comintern Alliance - whose members included Germany, Italy, Japan, Rumania, Bulgaria, Spain, Denmark and Finland. SECOND WORLD WAR The invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany in June 1941, saw Hungarian troops supporting the German army in full combat roles, fighting on the Eastern Front with great distinction. During the war years, a fully fledged pro-Nazi government was installed in Hungary. German defeat led to Soviet occupation of the country in late 1944, despite Hungarian SS units putting up a desperate and heroic defense of Budapest to the very last man. Many hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans and pro-German Hungarians fled Hungary at this time. SOVIET ERA Despite assurances to the contrary, the Soviet Union set up a pro-Communist government in Hungary, which although claiming to be democratic, was little more than a Soviet satellite state. Economic decline followed the Sovietization of Hungarian society, which saw the country being forced to pay reparations to the Soviet Union for its pro-German stance during the war adding to the country's struggling economic woes. THE 1956 UPRISING Popular discontent mounted in 1956, when public demonstrations against Soviet rule were encouraged by a similar outbreak of rebellion in Poland. Political revolutionaries proclaimed Hungary a neutral state, and the Hungarian uprising of that year began. Marked by a vehement anti-Jewish streak, the anti-Semitic feelings were heightened when it emerged that many leading Communist Party officials were Hungarian Jews. The Soviet Union then intervened militarily, sending tanks into Budapest and crushing the lightly armed rebels. Hundreds of Hungarians were executed, thousands more imprisoned, and nearly 200,000 fled the country. A new Communist dictatorship was installed, and the punishment of rebels continued for years, instituting a reign of terror so penetrating that there was never again any uprising in Hungary.
Right: Uprising! Hungarians turn to armed resistance in an attempt to drive out the Communists in 1956. Here groups of Hungarian patriots wave the Hungarian flag atop a captured Soviet tank in Budapest. The world stood by while a Soviet army unit attacked the city and after fierce street battles ensued for days, but in the end the superior Soviet military machine crushed the rebellion. POST COMMUNIST HUNGARY After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism in 1989, Hungary's constitution was changed to allow for multiparty democracy and the country's name changed to the Republic of Hungary. The transformation from Communism to free enterprise was difficult, and the Hungarian economy struggled to get back on its feet. IMMIGRATION AND THE GYPSIES Largely because of its geographical position, Hungary has served as a point of entry, along with other Balkan states, for waves of illegal Third World immigrants entering Western Europe. This development is discussed in a later chapter. Hungary also has a large Gypsy population - estimated in 1992 to be around half a million. These dark skinned - originally Indian - elements have impacted slightly upon the Hungarian population. Chapter 39: Part One: Pre-Empire Austria and Hungary All material (c) copyright Ostara Publications, 1999. Re-use for commercial purposes strictly forbidden. |
