How does European history look like from Habsburg/Austro-Hungarian perspective?

[Green Painting]

Reading European History gives people an impression that the Habsburg Dynasty, or after the loss of its Spanish part, the Austrian/Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the biggest "con man" in everyone else's stories.

If you accept the "formation of Nation-States" narrative, the failure of Habsburg bid for European hegemony was necessary for the creation of Westphalian system. From then onward, Austria presented a hindrance to the nationalism of the France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary and the many Slavic states, etc.

However, there must be another side of this story. No state could survive, for two and a half century after Westphalia, if both its elite and people thought they were on the losing side of history.

So, how did the Habsburg Empire view itself and the history that was unfolding around it during this dramatic transformation?

 

[Falecius]

Reading European History gives people an impression that the Habsburg Dynasty, or after the loss of its Spanish part, the Austrian/Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the biggest "con man" in everyone else's stories.

If you accept the "formation of Nation-States" narrative, the failure of Habsburg bid for European hegemony was necessary for the creation of Westphalian system. From then onward, Austria presented a hindrance to the nationalism of the France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary and the many Slavic states, etc.

However, there must be another side of this story. No state could survive, for two and a half century after Westphalia, if both its elite and people thought they were on the losing side of history.

So, how did the Habsburg Empire view itself and the history that was unfolding around it during this dramatic transformation?

For a long time, the main view was as The Bulwark of European (or German, in some phases) Liberty Against Horrible All-Eating French Tyrannical Monster.
Which didn't stop Vienna intermarrying with the Valois/Bourbons all the time.
Then, the was the "European necessity" narrative, espoused, according to Taylor, by Metternich: "We are a requirement for the Balance of Power, you cannot do without us" with two corollaries: "You wouldn't want to touch the mess that would result of our demise" and "Our subjects are not REAL nations anyway, WE bring civilization to them".
Also note that the constituencies that mattered in most Hapsburg domains awoke to nationalism relatively late (except in Italy): peasants did not care and tended to be loyal to the dynasty rather than the language. Elites were often nobles and stuck to the dynasty for that reason in many cases. Nationalism usually does better among the urban middle classes (literacy being a requirement for its diffusion in the AH Empire) which, aside from being relatively tiny, in many parts of the Empire were primarily linguistically German in a sea of Slavic/Hungarian/Romanian peasantry and gentry, until about the second third of the nineteenth century (again, Italy was a glaring exception). This slowed the spread of nationalism.
Outside Italy, only a few radicals ever argued that dynasty was "on the losing side of history" within the Empire, for a long time (didn't help that quite many of those radicals were Germans hoping for Grossdeutschland, therefore from the dominant national group of the Empire). And of course, basically nobody ever thought so before about the time of the French Revolutionary Wars.

EDIT: of course, there's also the "Bulwark of Christianity against the Horrible Turk" thing.

 

[Essam]

For a long time, the main view was as The Bulwark of European (or German, in some phases) Liberty Against Horrible All-Eating French Tyrannical Monster.
Which didn't stop Vienna intermarrying with the Valois/Bourbons all the time.
Then, the was the "European necessity" narrative, espoused, according to Taylor, by Metternich: "We are a requirement for the Balance of Power, you cannot do without us" with two corollaries: "You wouldn't want to touch the mess that would result of our demise" and "Our subjects are not REAL nations anyway, WE bring civilization to them".
Also note that the constituencies that mattered in most Hapsburg domains awoke to nationalism relatively late (except in Italy): peasants did not care and tended to be loyal to the dynasty rather than the language. Elites were often nobles and stuck to the dynasty for that reason in many cases. Nationalism usually does better among the urban middle classes (literacy being a requirement for its diffusion in the AH Empire) which, aside from being relatively tiny, in many parts of the Empire were primarily linguistically German in a sea of Slavic/Hungarian/Romanian peasantry and gentry, until about the second third of the nineteenth century (again, Italy was a glaring exception). This slowed the spread of nationalism.
Outside Italy, only a few radicals ever argued that dynasty was "on the losing side of history" within the Empire, for a long time (didn't help that quite many of those radicals were Germans hoping for Grossdeutschland, therefore from the dominant national group of the Empire). And of course, basically nobody ever thought so before about the time of the French Revolutionary Wars.

EDIT: of course, there's also the "Bulwark of Christianity against the Horrible Turk" thing.

Fascinating. More of these posts and topics would be incredibly useful!

 

[Falecius]

Specific case: Hungary. In Hungary (unlike other parts of the Empire) the main vehicle of nationalism was actually the local gentry. But they were willing to compromise with Vienna (and did so at various points, particularly in 1867). The upper echeleon of Hungarian nobility tended to be even more loyal to the Habsburgs.
The urban middle classes of Hungary were willing to embrace a much more radical path (embodied by Kossuth, which was one of them), but this only had an impact relatively late in the game because the Hungarian middle classes before the mid-nineteenth century were generally not committed to a Magyar identity (which was, as said above, the domain of the gentry) and were often literate in German. IIRC, the Hungarian Diet (whose traditional seat had long been Pressburg/Pozsony/Bratislava, then a firmly German city) shifted from Latin to Hungarian as official language in 1848 and some official administrative bodies in Budapest officially used German until towards the end of the century.
This means that radical anti-Habsburg nationalism had a limited social base in Hungary, although it existed and gained ground. Outside a relatively limited milieus, the average Hungarian was generally loyal to the dynasty, despite some moments of "unpleasantness" such as 1849. Also, the moderate, aristocratic mold of Hungarian nationalists felt that Vienna's support in keeping down Slovaks/Romanians/Rusyns/whatever (and the Magyar peasantry itself; nations in that context were heavily intermingled with class, although that was probably even strnger in Poland) was worth having. This changed overtime as Hungary urbanized, literacy spread, and the gentry, while remaining powerful into and after WWI, no longer had a quasi-monopoly of nationalistic discourse or the ability to define what being "Hungarian" meant. Which also led to increased radicalization on sections of the gentry itself, with a partial estrangement with Vienna among the consequences (compare two of the most influential Hungarian politicians of the Ausgleich era, representative of the gentry, Kalman Tisza and his son Istvan. Both were nationalist, but Istvan was a lot more antagonistic to Vienna and focused on specifically Hungarian issues and interests).

 

[Green Painting]

Thank you so much Falecius.

I do wonder how did the arrangements of the AH empire affect how the people in the successor states view the world.

You mentioned German ultranationalists in the Habsburg Empire, which reminds me of how in his Mein Kampf, Hitler remembered the hatred for the Empire in his Austrian pan-German circle for its "pro-Slavic" tendencies.

A related question was that was there any nostalgia for the Habsburgs outside Austria after the Empire's fall?

 

[Falecius]

Thank you so much Falecius.

I do wonder how did the arrangements of the AH empire affect how the people in the successor states view the world.

You mentioned German ultranationalists in the Habsburg Empire, which reminds me of how in his Mein Kampf, Hitler remembered the hatred for the Empire in his Austrian pan-German circle for its "pro-Slavic" tendencies.

A related question was that was there any nostalgia for the Habsburgs outside Austria after the Empire's fall?

Glad to be of service.
Nostalgia was so huge in some circles, although it varied. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth is an outstanding literary example of that sentiment. Of course it varied. The average Serb under Austrian rule had much less to feel nostalgic about than people from Vienna or Prague, although somewhat nostalgic can be glimpsed in Ivo Andric's work as well.

 

[Halagaz]

Glad to be of service.
Nostalgia was so huge in some circles, although it varied. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth is an outstanding literary example of that sentiment. Of course it varied. The average Serb under Austrian rule had much less to feel nostalgic about than people from Vienna or Prague, although somewhat nostalgic can be glimpsed in Ivo Andric's work as well.

Does he really have glimpses of nostalgia? I only read some of Andric's work, so it's possible I simply missed them; but in his Story From Japan he's extremely angry and resentful to Austria-Hungary, calling it "a mad and cruel empress" whose "bloody reign" was cut short scattering her "malicious courtiers" and so on. And I think there are shades of this resentment in some of his other works as well.

Austria-Hungary did imprison him, after all - if anything, I'd expect the average Serb from Croatia etc. to be slightly more nostalgic then Andric, although A-H nostalgia seems to have been very rare among the Serbs anyway.

You mentioned German ultranationalists in the Habsburg Empire, which reminds me of how in his Mein Kampf, Hitler remembered the hatred for the Empire in his Austrian pan-German circle for its "pro-Slavic" tendencies.

According to Hermann Neubacher (WW2 diplomat in Nazi Germany), later in Hitler's career he completely reversed his earlier dislike of Austria-Hungary. Neubacher quotes one of the statements Hitler apparently made illustrating his changed position: "While you are on this assignment, remember that you are Austrian! The more I learn about the politics of Vienna's Emperors, the more I am compelled to admire them."

 

[Green Painting]

According to Hermann Neubacher (WW2 diplomat in Nazi Germany), later in Hitler's career he completely reversed his earlier dislike of Austria-Hungary. Neubacher quotes one of the statements Hitler apparently made illustrating his changed position: "While you are on this assignment, remember that you are Austrian! The more I learn about the politics of Vienna's Emperors, the more I am compelled to admire them."

And yet he changed even Austria's name to Ostmark?

I think even if he appreciate the Habsburgs, it was a feeling he kept for himself and shared with few friends. Nazi ideology was still against the Habsburgs.

In the film Kolberg (the last and one of the finest Nazi propaganda films):

This is followed by a dialogue between King Frederick William III of Prussia and Count August von Gneisenau, in which Gneisenau explains that the siege of Kolberg taught the importance of citizen armies. Ending with the admonition that kings who cannot lead must abdicate, the scene switches to Vienna in 1806 to show the abdication of the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of Austria, whom the script has Gneisenau call "an Emperor who abandoned the German people in their hour of need".

 

[B-29_Bomber]

For a long time, the main view was as The Bulwark of European (or German, in some phases) Liberty Against Horrible All-Eating French Tyrannical Monster.
Which didn't stop Vienna intermarrying with the Valois/Bourbons all the time.
Then, the was the "European necessity" narrative, espoused, according to Taylor, by Metternich: "We are a requirement for the Balance of Power, you cannot do without us" with two corollaries: "You wouldn't want to touch the mess that would result of our demise" and "Our subjects are not REAL nations anyway, WE bring civilization to them".
Also note that the constituencies that mattered in most Hapsburg domains awoke to nationalism relatively late (except in Italy): peasants did not care and tended to be loyal to the dynasty rather than the language. Elites were often nobles and stuck to the dynasty for that reason in many cases. Nationalism usually does better among the urban middle classes (literacy being a requirement for its diffusion in the AH Empire) which, aside from being relatively tiny, in many parts of the Empire were primarily linguistically German in a sea of Slavic/Hungarian/Romanian peasantry and gentry, until about the second third of the nineteenth century (again, Italy was a glaring exception). This slowed the spread of nationalism.
Outside Italy, only a few radicals ever argued that dynasty was "on the losing side of history" within the Empire, for a long time (didn't help that quite many of those radicals were Germans hoping for Grossdeutschland, therefore from the dominant national group of the Empire). And of course, basically nobody ever thought so before about the time of the French Revolutionary Wars.

EDIT: of course, there's also the "Bulwark of Christianity against the Horrible Turk" thing.

And to their credit they were kind of right on that point...

 

[Falecius]

And to their credit they were kind of right on that point...

Quite true, although part of the mess was indeed their own making. Playing ethnicities against each other was part of the late Habsburg policy.
But I agree that the Eastern Europe was not a good place to play nationalistic politics in general. The consequences were horrible and the nasty after-effects are deeply felt to this day, in my opinion (but part of this is hindsight).

 

[Falecius]

Does he really have glimpses of nostalgia? I only read some of Andric's work, so it's possible I simply missed them; but in his Story From Japan he's extremely angry and resentful to Austria-Hungary, calling it "a mad and cruel empress" whose "bloody reign" was cut short scattering her "malicious courtiers" and so on. And I think there are shades of this resentment in some of his other works as well.

Austria-Hungary did imprison him, after all - if anything, I'd expect the average Serb from Croatia etc. to be slightly more nostalgic then Andric, although A-H nostalgia seems to have been very rare among the Serbs anyway.

I stated the very point you make above. I confess that I am not that familiar with much of relevant Serbian literature (certainly you know it more than I do - I gather that you are a Bosnian Serbian, so you can read relevant texts in the original, which I can't) but I think that it's reasonable to expect that Serbs from Bosnia were among the least ethnic groups to feel any sort of attachment to Austrian rule (I suppose Serbs from Croatia and Vojvodina were only slighltly more loyal to Vienna, in general, particularly after the abolition of the Military Frontier).
Regarding Andric, I would not describe him as a nostalgic of Austrian rule in general (indeed, I get a stronger sympathy for the Ottomans overall, though I would not call him as nostalgic of them either). But when reading A Bridge on the Drina, I got some glimpses of nostalgia - the main point I got from reading Andric is the horrible nature of nationalism, but maybe it's just me fitting my own Sanchezista prejudices onto his words.