Page - 33 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Socialisation of Violence 33 The Socialisation of Violence A few years before the outbreak of the First World War, the equality of all nations was described as the ‘strongest foundation of the Austrian imperial design’.49 However, an approach that was intended to be both a statement and a programme, and also a guar- anteed right, was unable to prevent the peoples in the Empire from drifting apart. After the ‘Compromise’ of 1867, which divided the Habsburg Monarchy into two halves that from then on, aside from the ruler in person, only shared their foreign, defence and finance ministries, a certain mood of unease had arisen, particularly in Hungary. However, for the peoples of the Empire as a whole, the situation was too little and too much at the same time. The reduction of commonalities to the person of the Monarch, the external borders of the Monarchy and the Imperial and Royal foreign, war and finance ministers caused the sense of shared responsibility to decline. A further source of endless friction was the increasing emphasis on the historical rights of the ethnic groups that sought to assert their claims domestically rather than abroad. While one side claimed to be disadvantaged, it was accused by the other of enjoying special privi- leges. But there could only be losers in the eternal debates of the jealous parties. There was one dominant nation within each of the two halves of the Empire. In Cisleithania, the Austrian half, it was the Germans, while in Transleithania, it was the Hungarians. While the parliaments united the nations of these two halves, and the gov- ernments of Austria and Hungary mostly consisted of representatives from all nations, there was never a Czech prime minister in Vienna, for example, just as there was never a Croatian or Slovakian prime minister in Budapest. Although several running metres of books had been written about the imperial reform, and leading politicians including the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Fer- dinand, strove to achieve an end to dualism through a stronger federalist solution, by 1914, not much progress had been made. Despite several ‘compensations’ between in- dividual ethnic groups, no fundamental solution had been found. It is hardly surpris- ing that at least some of the nationalities in the Habsburg Empire felt more closely connected to those neighbouring states that were vanguards of nationalism. However, the connection between the nationalities of Austria-Hungary and their co-nationals beyond the Empire’s borders almost inevitably contributed to the destabilisation of the Empire. National autonomies, which were ever more frequently sought and also achieved, developed an ‘unstoppable force of impact’.50 Meanwhile, Europe stood and watched. For some of the European cabinets, it was certainly of significance until the outbreak of the Great War that the Habsburg Monarchy, despite all its problems, seemed to be more or less a stable entity, in stark contrast to the ‘kaleidoscopic’ region on the other side of the south-eastern border of the Empire.51 The ruling dynasty and Austrian no-