The Hungarian compromise and the dual monarchy of Franz Joseph

The failure to achieve a federalist solution satisfactory to all nationalities had exacerbated relations among them. In 1867 it had become obvious that a compromise had to be made with the restive Hungarians. The newly appointed prime minister Beust was, however, insufficiently informed about conditions in the various parts of the Austrian Empire. The result was the kaiserliche und königliche Doppelmonarchie, the “imperial and royal Dual Monarchy” in which an Austrian and a Hungarian half coexisted in equal partnership. The compromise, however, gave the Hungarians considerable leverage to extend their influence. The losers were the Slav peoples, for the Bohemians (Czechs) and Poles did not share in the privileged position of the German Austrians in the Austrian, or western, half of the empire, while the Croats, Slovaks, and South Slavs had none of the prerogatives enjoyed by the Hungarians in the Hungarian, or eastern, half. With this preferred treatment, which Franz Joseph recognized as such, the multinational state had violated its inner law of the basic equality of all national groups. The individual crownland’s relationship to the emperor, which in each case had been the result of a long historical evolution, was now replaced by the submission of the various nationalities to German-Austrian or Hungarian overlordship. Internal restlessness thus continued unabated. A final attempt at reform by which the Slavic languages were to be given equal status with Hungarian and German was vetoed by Franz Joseph under pressure from the German-Austrian nationalists. But, under the influence of the Viennese sociologist Albert Schäffle, the emperor, who on the whole had little use for party politicians and their influence on public life, seems to have followed the continuing process of democratization in his empire with some sympathy.

The question of recognition and restoration of ancient Czech rights hobbled Austro-Hungarian foreign policy and poisoned domestic politics. Even more of a handicap was the problem of the South Slavs. From 1867 on, the Hungarian-ruled Croatians found themselves subjected to a continuing process of Magyarization. Hungarian domination eventually turned Serbia, inhabited by fellow Slavs, into the Dual Monarchy’s mortal enemy.

Franz Joseph, who wholeheartedly supported the Ausgleich (the Hungarian Compromise) as the constitution of the Dual Monarchy, failed to grasp the negative aspects of that highly complex document. Interested primarily in questions of foreign policy and military leadership, he paid too little attention to domestic affairs to understand the nationalities problem in all its gravity. In particular, he failed to see the connection between Austro-Hungarian internal affairs and their effect on the monarchy’s relationship with Russia and on the political situation in the Balkans.

The emperor’s peace policy

Although Franz Joseph always considered foreign policy his own specialty, he was in effect guided by the ablest among his foreign ministers: Andrássy, Gusztav Siegmund, Graf (count) Kálnoky von Köröspatak, and Alois, Graf (count) Lexa von Aehrenthal. Andrássy not only launched the alliance with Germany in 1879, but, by carrying out the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which Franz Joseph had advocated and the Congress of Berlin (1878) had sanctioned, he also gained the first great foreign-policy success of the empire in the Balkans. Franz Joseph defended the German alliance against all opposition. He was considerably more reserved toward Italy, which had joined Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance in 1882, and Romania, with which Austria-Hungary had concluded a secret treaty in 1883; in fact, his reticence contributed to the eventual alienation of both of those allies.

The style of Franz Joseph’s foreign policy was dynastic and personal. Just as he had contributed decisively to the creation of the League of the Three Emperors (Dreikaiserbund) by appearing in Berlin in 1873 by the side of Tsar Alexander II, he endeavoured also on later occasions to forestall potential conflicts with Russia through personal contacts, without realizing the fundamental nature of the antagonism between the two countries. On a visit to St. Petersburg in 1897 and again after Tsar Nicholas II’s visit in 1903, he tried to delimit Austrian and Russian interests in the Balkans—a policy that was rashly jeopardized by Aehrenthal during the crisis leading to the annexation of occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. By then, however, the days were long past when foreign policy was a matter of friendships between sovereigns; conflicts of interest, or for that matter pan-Slav propaganda, could no longer be neutralized on the dynastic level. Also, the emperor found it increasingly difficult to get along with his fellow sovereigns, many of them relatives, of the younger generation. Yet he seems to have appreciated the energetic, dashing, and optimistic manner of William II of Germany.

In the period 1908–14 Franz Joseph held fast to his peace policy in the face of warnings by the chief of the general staff, Franz, Graf (count) Conrad von Hötzendorf, who repeatedly advocated a preventive war against Serbia or Italy. Yet, without having fully thought out the consequences, he let himself in July 1914 be persuaded by Leopold, Graf (count) von Berchtold, the foreign minister, to issue the intransigent ultimatum to Serbia that led to World War I.