The Habsburg Monarchy and World War I: Integration, Disintegration, and Demise

Abstract

The Habsburg Monarchy and World War I:Integration, Disintegration, and Demise Peter Thaler Forging a Multinational Empire: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War. By John Deak. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. Pp. 376. Cloth $70.00. ISBN 978-0804795579. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. By Pieter M. Judson. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. 592. Paper $21.95. ISBN 978-0674986763. Military Culture and Popular Patriotism in Late Imperial Austria. By Laurence Cole. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 320. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-0199672042. Stehen oder Fallen. Österreichische Politik im Ersten Weltkrieg. By Lothar Höbelt. Vienna: Böhlau, 2015. Pp. 323. Cloth €45.00. ISBN 978-3205796503. Der Erste Weltkrieg und das Ende der Habsburgermonarchie 1914–1918. By Manfried Rauchensteiner. Vienna: Böhlau, 2013. Pp. 1222. Cloth €45.00. ISBN 978-3205782834. A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire. By Geoffrey Wawro. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Pp. 472. Paper $14.99. ISBN 978-0465080816. There was a time when many portrayed the Habsburg Monarchy of the early twentieth century as yet another sick man of Europe. A remnant of the dynastic conglomerate states of earlier epochs, it no longer fit into the new world of middle-class societies and their core tenets of liberalism and nationalism. Its dissolution was just a matter of time. This perspective was widely propagated by the activists who promoted the monarchy's replacement by nation-states, but it also reverberated in interwar scholarship. Oscar Jászi set the tone with his influential 1929 tome The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy.1 In this work, the émigré Habsburg scholar ascribed the demise of the Dual Monarchy to its failure to adjust to the new realities of domestic and international politics. The monarchy did not merely fall because of external events such as World War I but owed its collapse to a much longer history of disintegration. It was not a [End Page 149] mechanical but an organic process and largely caused by flawed governance. Habsburg leaders relied on dynastic patriotism to combat cultural nationalism and failed to install an overarching state identity. Over the decades, interpretations have changed. Newer studies have taken a more positive view of the monarchy. Much of this reorientation has been connected with the increasing diversification of Western societies and the corresponding challenges to the concept of nation-states. The rise of a supranational association such as the European Union renewed interest in the Habsburg experience, which seemed to offer visible parallels. The historical debate merged into contemporary politics. As a consequence, the demise of the Habsburg Monarchy continues to evoke strong feelings and conflicting interpretations. This article reviews six recent studies that have reenergized the scholarly debate. They encompass a variety of approaches, ranging from synthesizing interpretations of the Habsburg idea via monographic studies of state- and identity-building in the late monarchy to narrowly subscribed analyses of the monarchy's response to the challenges of a world war. These monographs differ not only in subject matter and approach, however, but also in assessment and evaluation. In what follows I search for commonalities among these different accounts while at the same time doing justice to the breadth of interpretation they offer. Like the Habsburg Monarchy itself, its historians need to navigate the promises and challenges of diversity. State-Building and Identity Formation In Forging a Multinational Empire, John Deak examines the Habsburg Monarchy through the prism of state-building. The American historian argues that the Habsburg Monarchy fully partook in the modernization process that transformed European societies in the 1800s. He rejects conventional assumptions that the Habsburg polity was little more than a medieval holdover and an obstacle to European development. Such simplifications are not only factually incorrect, Deak argues, but restrict the course of Western civilization to the budding nation-states of the European West. The eastern half of the continent, including the Habsburg Monarchy, is thereby largely written out of this narrative. Deak proposes an alternative way of looking at European history, divorced from narratives that privilege the rise of nation-states. Citing...