The Rise and Fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

The Rise and Fall of Austria-Hungary
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[Jorinton]

Welp you're not wrong, but also you're not really right. Firstly the Entente wasn't interested in breaking A-H up until 1916 and even then there wasn't supposed to be so many countries. And mainly, you claim that so much power was given to the local governments, but you don't mentioned Hungarization or Germanization at all. Despite A-H giving certain competencies to local governments, the fact was that it wasn't at all somehow federalizing or even giving out autonomy. The central government didn't become unimportant all of a sudden. It was the push of the local governments wanting more power over their matters from the central government that fueled the independence lust. The local governments within the Austrian part had little actual power, to the point they had to fight tooth and nail to even get a national theatre or something of that matter and the important legislation being discussed in the Austrian parliament, not the local ones. And that's not even mentioning Hungary, where most people lived a life similar to a serf up until the 1940s. Hungary actively denied autonomy to it's "subjects", especially to Romanians and Slovaks. While yes, Austria did allow language to be used in administration and school, Hungary didn't. Even at the turning point of the century Hungary actively censored local languages and hunted schools teaching in local languages. As far as the Hungarian aristocracy was conserned all in their domein were Hungarian and there was no other nationality in their realm. This is truly what pushed the Empire over the edge, including what you mention in the video.

[History Scope]

Hungarization and Germanization was part of the script at first, but I had to cut because I would have to explain what it was, why it was important, etc. and then relate it to the A-H Empire. This was about 2 pages and broke the flow of the script completely. I had multiple paragraphs explaining how destroying local cultures and integrating them into the ruling culture had caused stability in other countries such as France and China. And yes, reading the comments now I realize I should have made it clear that there was a significant difference between the Hungarian regions and the Austrian regions.

[History Scope]

I'm also pinning your comment because it gives the most accurate critique of this video, I think.

[Jorinton]

@History Scope Thank you c: As an aspiring writer I understand how certain stuff can break the flow of a script and I have no mean no offence with what I saw. I just meant to expand on the video with what I view as a very important factor of the subject at hand.

[RoScFan]

@History Scope Dude, this is youtube... history on youtube.... People always get angrier at omissions rather than videos that are too long. Personally i specifically clicked on this video hoping to find out more details about the opressed lives of Romanians in Hungary. And I found none.

[PakBall & Sam]

ok

[TheAustrianAnimations87]

Another lesser known fun fact about Austria-Hungary: Austria-Hungary was the 3rd largest oil producer worldwide, after the USA & Russia in the early 20th century (especially 1909), since A-H had an oil-rich region, Galicia. The first European attempt to drill for oil was in Bóbrka, Krosno County, Western Galicia, in 1854 (which used to be part of the Austrian Empire). However, there was a decline just before WW1, and although the oil fields weren't destroyed by the Russians in 1914, oil production was stopped. Galicia was the Central Powers' only major domestic source of oil during the Great War. Today we Austrians have little to no oil at all. Imagine Austria being an oil power. 😂

[Bubble?]

my dream

[Gergo Gered]

Schell

[Andrew Zimmerman]

As a consolation prize they get the HQ of OPEC in Vienna.

[yarpen26]

But Austria (I mean today's territory) did end up with large oil reserves within the Vienna Basin and some of the biggest discoveries were made _after_ WWII. In fact, Austrian oil was by far the most significant backdrop of the Soviet occupation, with the drills working around the clock just to pump as much oil as possible Eastward prior to the establishment of a neutral Austria.

[TheAustrianAnimations87]

@yarpen26 Didn't the Soviets take Austrian oil before leaving Austria in 1955 as I've heard?

[SMorcrux]

These types of much more theoretical historical videos are by far my favorite, and they very much remind me of Kraut's videos, especially with the distinctive art style. The fact is that you really can't cram a whole country's history into just 30 minutes, so explaining the much bigger picture first of all lets you convey that country's history without being bogged down in minor historical events, and to be honest might be even clearer that a long, in-depth look at every facet of that country, that would also probably attract less people. I feel that this sort of history is quite lacking both in educational youtube and in schools. Of course you should study the in-depth histories of countries, don't get me wrong, but especially for a wide audience that understandably wouldn't want to pick up a book or watch dozens of hours of lectures about Austrian history, I think this format is much better than just skimming over the Wikipedia article in half an hour.

[PakBall & Sam]

agree he makes really high quality content

[SMorcrux]

@PakBall & Sam why do I always see you in comment sections? You and Avery the Cuban-American

[PakBall & Sam]

@SMorcrux i like to comment i guess you can say that iam the justinY of pakistan

[Captain Obvious]

Warning: This is going to be a loooong comment! As someone who lives in Croatia and knows the history of the Empire I can agree most of this is true. But I would like to mention some things that you skipped in this video that I find very important for further understanding of the subject. I know it's really complicated to mention everything in a 30mins video. Even if the video was 1 hour long, it would still be impossible to put everything in it. War with Prussia could be a separate video. It wasn't Austria's choice to start a war with Prussia. Austria tried to interfere Italian unification and waged wars against Italians but war with Prussia wasn't really something they wanted. It was in fact a rivalry between 2 dominant German speaking countries (Austria and Prussia) and the ultimate goal for both of them was to unite all of the German states. You can check the terms Großdeutschland ("Great Germany" - all German states united under Austrians) and Kleindeutschland ("Little Germany" - most of the German states united under Prussians, without Austria). So when the Prussians won the war and united Germany while leaving Austria out, Otto von Bismarck knew that Austria should not be humiliated but instead he decided to keep her close as a potential ally for future conflicts with other European powers. I agree with the fact that Hungarians wanted more autonomy within the Empire, more civil rights and greater power on their side of the Empire . But the truth is Hungarian elite wanted all those rights for Hungarians only. And not for Croats, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Romanians, Serbs, etc. This is why some nations on the eastern half of the Empire (Transleithania) ruled by Hungarians felt like they became serfs once again. In Hungarian half of the Empire only Croatia had some form of limited autonomy because it had been in personal union with Hungary since 1102 when Coloman of Arpad dynasty came to an agreement with Croatian nobles after the death of the last Croatian king Zvonimir who had no heir to the throne. So Croatia and Hungary spent around 800 years in that personal union. Something that could not be ignored by Hungarian nobles but still, from time to time some of the Hungarian governors tried to ignore Croatian autonomy and impose their rule. Every Croatian school student knows about Lajos Kossuth and his nationalism in 1848 revolution and Khuen-Hedervary (who was a Hungarian nationalist and governed Croatia for 20 years with an iron fist but still did some great things when it comes to economy, culture and infrastructure). Franz Ferdinand actually was interested to federalize the country much earlier. The only problem was that the old Kaiser lived and ruled for so many years and outlived his nephew so Ferdinand never got the chance to become an emperor. There were even plans made by politician and lawyer Aurel Popovici (ethnic Romanian) but those plans stayed only in theory because we all know what happened to Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Fun fact - I was named after him because both of my parents are Habsburg fans :D Who knows what could have happened if he wasn't assassinated and became an emperor. Maybe the country would still exist because all of the minor nations within the Empire wouldn't feel like second class citizens and there would be no need to separate from the Empire and form new countries. But that's something we'll never know. We do know that the Empire was gone and I find it both funny and sad how most people of the time didn't even realize how it's going to change the whole future of this part of the world. I heard so many stories from my neighbours whose ancestors used to say when the Empire was dissolved: "Finally we are free from that whore Austria!". And only few years later when inflation and unemployment rate was high, those same people changed their mind to: "Our beautiful Austria, what have we done?" I know this is a very very long comment but I'm almost done :D Almost. In my opinion, all countries except for Austria can feel sorry for dissolution of the Empire. I'm not saying the Empire was perfect. Of course it wasn't. It had so many issues but still, it managed to keep so many different nations and religions (catholics, protestants, orthodox, jews and even muslims after annexation of Bosnia) together for centuries. The most famous scientists, artists and intellectuals we had were from the imperial era. The Empire was one of the largest economies in the world and was known for its culture and art. Liberal economists from Austrian school in Vienna influenced future economists from all over the world. And it all ended just like that. Look at our history in these last 100 years. Golden era ended, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia became so irrelevant, only 20 years later all these countries were occupied and/or became nazi puppet regimes with countless war crimes, communist came to power after the WW2 with their war crimes, Soviet tanks in Budapest, Prague spring and breakup of Yugoslavia. What a crazy journey we all had in these 100 years. All in all, the lands that formed the Empire are now part of EU, in my hometown there are still many streets and sidewalks by the beach named after imperial dynasty and other historic figures from that era, old buildings and factories and hotels which on the outside still look exactly the same as they used to look back in the 19th century remind us who we were and what we achieved together. From the western perspective (US, UK, France, Italy) that fought against AH in WW1, the Empire is seen as a pawn of Germany and only used as a tool for German world domination. But from our perspective (I met many people who feel the same, not only Croats, but also Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes) it was one of the greatest empires ever and an empire that shaped our societies. AH was so much more than Germany's ally from 1914-1918. AH was was one of the global superpowers and too bad it didn't survive the WW1. Sorry for such a long comment and thank you so much for this nice video. I really enjoyed every moment of it.

[Joshua Blackwell]

Great comment, added extra historical context, but also personal sentiment, which is so important to understanding history imo.

[Greekdhdnc]

Magyarországról magyarként igent mondok ! Sajnos a nemesség Magyarországon sem adta meg a teljes jogot a magyaroknak

[Cserpák Balázs]

A Hungarian here. I like your comment and love your country. Cheers.

[Iv]

What a great comment, was a pleasure to read

[Budi Haryadi]

The breakup of A-H is simply an interesting case study, though i personally found it rather depressing. Looking at the direction the country took after The Compromise you almost hope that the system somehow worked and the country was slowly growing, yet it failed. A-H provide important lessons to all multiethnic countries (mine, Indonesia, included) in both how to and how not to manage a multiethnic society.

[nirfz]

It didn't fail because the system was so bad, it needed WW1 and all that happened there to fail. But the most ironic thing to me is, that living in austria today seems like all that never happened in a way: My neighbours are croats, the family across the street is from Bosnia, if you look at the license plates of the cars on our roads, they show exactely the regions that formed the A-H empire. Somehow the EU feels a little bit like the Austro-Hungarian empire.

[nirfz]

@Ryan S depends, if they go to war against the EU, then maybe. But i have less concern that all 3 would go against the EU.

[lamebubblesflysohigh]

@nirfz It would have failed on its own sooner or later. Austrians were too disinterested in what is going on in Hungarian side after the Compromise that if Coats, Slovenes and Serbs received a shipment of weapons from Italy and declared themselves a kingdom within AH or simply kicked Hungarian nobility out of their lands, Austrians wouldn't do squat about it and Hungarians wouldn't be able to do anything about it because the moment they would move troops west, they would have same troubles in the east. AH simply wasn't a viable political entity.

[nirfz]

@lamebubblesflysohigh It's just theorethical: But the austrians were interested in keeping it together. So some form of what "suicide Rudolph" or Franz Ferdinand were aiming for with every crownland forming a federal entity would have solved some of these issues. Also italians would not have done that, as they wanted some territories that were inhabited by Slovenes and Croats, and they would not have given them to the italians in exchange.

[A A]

As an objective Hungarian I do find it pretty significant the lack of criticism against Germanization and Magyarization in the two parts of the empire. It was overall s well documented video, but the loyalty of the minority populations was largely lost with these forceful processes of German and Hungarian nationalism. The federalization should have began much more earlier and then maybe we would have another Switzerland in Central Europe

[lamebubblesflysohigh]

Exactly, if they created some sort of United States of Europe with each ethnically homogeneous region forming one of those states, it could have been still around. As the EU proves, nations do not have a problem with willingly giving some of their sovereignty away if it benefits them but Austrians and Hungarians in the AH made the every bad decision they could have and pushed various Slavic nations, Italians and Romanians to position when anything but AH was a better option.

[George Pop]

You are right.

[Nicholas Lin]

I think the only main problem the Empire had was that its military kept on fighting external wars it could not win. And could not win because it did not have enough factories because the Hungarian part did not industrialize whereas the Austrian part did. Thus the problem was BOTH the loss of the size of the Army and the lack of comparable technology compared to the German Empire.

[Abiril the Archer]

Magyarization was for all intents and purposes the most mild-mannered assimilationist practice of the 19th and 20th centuries. Given another 20 years and the population would have identified as Hungarians (it was 55% in 1914 and the rate of adoption was growing, having hit 10% per every 10 years). The French underwent much more extreme policies to unify their country, nevermind the far more extreme reprisals faced by Hungarians in the successor states of Czechoslovakia and Romania, and even Ukraine/USSR in which people's households were taken from them and they were sent to work camps for being Hungarian. Magyarization is a massively overstated myth used to justify expansionism in the Kingdom of Hungary and the "need to protect" minorities not dissimilar to the reasoning employed by Russia today. Romania wanted Transylvania because it was significantly richer and more developed than the rest of the country (it still is). Slovakia without the majority Hungarian areas is seriously so small that it could not be considered a state and it was purely agrarian with no cities in it as those were already filled with Hungarian, Germans, and Jews, nevermind the fact that they wouldn't have had the capital city (Pozsony - Bratislava) which was where the Hungarian Parliament met. Canadian residential schools were far more extreme. American segregation too. Nevermind what Brits did to the Boer, or what Belgium did in the Congo, or what Russia did to Jews at the time, or even what Italians wanted to do to Croats living in Istria and Trieste.

[drbleed]

Gábor Banciu na ki almodozik itt:DDDD

[Justin J.M. Higner]

Karl I wanted to stay in Austria as Emperor or monarch on some level but was refused this. He did not abdicate exactly but simply withdrew from the affairs of state' which meant the same thing. He tried to regain the crown of Hungary twice but failed. I love all of your videos! Thanks again. This one is a favorite subject of mine as well.

[Mario Mušić]

In Croatia, older people spoke mostly positively about Austro-Hungary. Life was relatively good at that time, a lot was being built at that time. Today, there is a lot of architecture from the time of Austro-Hungary in Croatia. Most of the objections were to the imposition of foreign languages, ie the neglect of the Croatian language. But small nations in history have almost always been under someone’s domination. But when you compare all those forces that had power and influence in this area from the Venetians, Hungarians, Turks, Italy, Yugoslavia, to today's EU, we can say that Austria-Hungary was the most successful in its time and least hated by ordinary people. We have the opinion that Austria-Hungary lost the war and failed when Russia intervened in the First World War. This is not mentioned at all in this video.

[Ben shiotsu]

If you are a Croat, would you rather live in a newly reborn democratized empire or an independent Croatia?

[poonczey]

@Ben shiotsu slovak here: OMFG pls austria, take us back! Seriously tho, none of the successor nations proved to be fit at all for independence and Vienna was able to administer this black hole into a golden age. I'd give another try.

[Mathew J. Deroko]

At 17:37 you mentioned the “Romanian Region of Istria” sir, Istria is a region in CROATIA.

[Son Svensson]

I feel like Slovenes and Croats wants to be closer to us in the Germanic world and not the Slavic.

[Paul Kachur]

Thanks for the background information. All of my grandparents emigrated to America from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire: Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Bohemia. In at least three of the cases, they were sent over by their families to live with relatives because their families could not afford to keep them or could not offer them any sort of prospects for a future.

[Ancient Bohemian]

Lucky you, or not? Anyway, you're always welcome in your lands of ancestry. =')

[Paul Kachur]

@Ancient Bohemian I moved back to Europe in 1988 and have been living here ever since.

[Ancient Bohemian]

@Paul Kachur Nice, so you've seen a lot. A lot of important history in the making. Important for being able to understand the motivations and social, cultural, political and personal values of contemporary Europeans.

[Ancient Bohemian]

@Paul Kachur I wonder how do you feel when you hear typical Americans talk about Central/Eastern Europe these days... News anchors, journalists, podcasters, even academics. Because I feel that 90% of them is pretty much absolutely missing the point... In all questions.

[SiVlog]

It's ironic that Franz Josef, who came to the throne after the Hungarian rebellion and was unpopular with them as such, was grown to be loved in Hungary as a result of his wife

[Lorum Ipsum]

I'm told that frnz Joseph was actually interested in helping them (or at least the Serbs) had he not been killed he might've brought some positive changes. Though the empires collapse I'm sure would have happened anyway

[Chiron Wode]

@Lorum Ipsum Franz Joseph was the emperor for more than half a century, I think if he had progressive ideas he would've implemented them. Perhaps you're thinking about Franz Ferdinand, and on that front the man may have wanted stability but he stated things such as Slavs being less than human, so not a great guy

[Lorum Ipsum]

@Chiron Wode yeah, Franz Ferdinand is what I meant

[Joaquín Velázquez]

@Chiron Wode Which is why he married a czech countess.

[Here_We_Go_Again2]

@Joaquín Velázquez Yet, although Sophie was a Czech countess it was still a morganic marriage because the Austrian (ethnic German) elites/royals did not consider the Czech royalty to be equal with the Austrian royalty. The Austrian elite did not view the Hungarian elite as equals either -- Despite the joint empire.

[Orthane]

The equality part of the Empire showed that had it had just a bit longer to continue with their reforms, and had Franz Ferdinand not been killed, the Empire might actually be around to this day in at least one form or another. Franz Ferdinand was actually in support of greater freedoms for ethnic minorities in the Empire, and killing him crushed any chance those groups had. It's collapse ironically caused places like Yugoslavia to be even more oppressive of ethnic minorities than the Austro-Hungarian Empire was.

[Abiril the Archer]

you dont think that was the goal of the serbian ultranationalists in the first place? They didn't want solutions within the existing paradigm, and if someone could offer them, that was explicitly a bad thing. They wanted a serbian empire that integrated bosnians and croats and forced them to "remember being serbian" as they claimed these were just serbian people in invented countries who forgot who they are

[Ball don't lie]

@Abiril the Archer in the second half of 19th century in rural parts of southern croatia, vatican and their missionaries were still forcing orthodox serbs into catholicism. if the harvest failed and starvation was certain, orthodox peoples was offered food if they join the so-called "union chuch". same policy was the case in galicia with ortodox ukrainians (today's russins). if you join and become a so called "uniat" you're forbidden to go into old orthodox churches, pope is you main and only patriarch and new churches got built. venice republic were converting people directly into catholicism prior to AH takeover, so this "programe" was somekind of middle ground before going full catholic. AH empire was main vatican player in 19th century (spain lost its power, france was way too liberal after the revolution, germany half protestant). with such a long history of forced religous convesions (islamization by ottomans, constant vatican campaigns), people tend to not trust to anyone except those marked as "ours". reverse processes did occur, but on much smaller scale. this is where "remember being serbian" came from.

[R K]

Natan No. In Germany and Italy those same speakers wanted to be 1 country. Croats Bosnians and Macedonians showed you that they are not your countrymen. And dont want to be.

[R K]

Natan Serbian propaganda hahaha. Mate. Showed where during unificarion wars Germans commited the genocide Serbs commited for their " south slavic unification" Yes buddy.Bosnians and Macedonians have been a thing for a long while.

[Joe Ottolino]

I liked how you matched the background music to the nations being discussed at the time. Franz Liszt when discussing Hungary, Chopin when discussing Poland, etc. Nice touch

[niteshades_promise_music]

didnt notice this yet. thanks.🍻

[Tor C]

Please keep making long in depth videos, its great to get an in depth and immersive explanation. For real, more 1hr+ videos! For example, The Rise and Fall of the Aztec Empire is my favorite video of yours.

[Nathanael Hetherington]

This is why I love History Scope. He explains things in incredible Depth. But at the same time keeping easy to understand. Love ya work mate!

[Tom van Daalen]

if this is in depth analysis, i’m mickey mouse…

[Dave Anderson]

Half an hour well spent It's was one great mess, and very complicated And you did a full on job explaining the situation Well done

[Heofonfyr]

Very good presentation. Detailed, insightful, sober 👍🏻 Perfect overview of a few generations of Austro-Hungarian history.

[Mob Db]

There are a few mistakes. #1 serfs didn't give all they had to the nobility, and were far form slaves. Serfs gave about 1/10 to nobel whose land it was and about 1/9 to the church , so much less then required by today's taxes in the same area. #2 special position of Croatia within the monarchy was enjoyed because Hungarian crown that joined with Austria was a personal union of Hungary and Croatia, so each emperor had to be crowned emperor of Austria but separately king of Hungary and King of Croatia.

[Bryant Quinn]

also the communist revolution in russia happened in 1917 not 1817

[Kaladin]

I was thinking the same, I hate when they aren't rigorous enough to give a proper explanation for the concepts that are presented so they just make poor analogies, I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who thought that.

[Dalimil Matousek]

The narrator completely ignored Czechia, the most developed part of Austria-Hungary.

[Mind meghalunk]

​@Dalimil Matousek maybe it wasn't too important to the game of thrones.

[El Mexican Sombrero]

So good video! Had known for so long about the AH Empire yet little did I know about it. Thanks for all the clear explanations and animations

[Wicker Man]

I am Croat, in primary school in 7th grade (2001) we had 3/4 of history classes filled with this thematic. Interesting one. Especially Khuen Hedervary and Hungarization process! Hungarians were big deal back in that age and Austria was simply dying slowly, while Hungary tried to feed on breadcrumbs. At least this was what we where learned in Croatia back then. Interesting topic that deserves more focus. Well done for this! Keep up the good work. All the best

[ZolKaa]

As a Hungarian it's interesting to hear how people from other countries learned this. There were some things that we didn't learn the same.

[Michigan Scythian]

I’m Polish-American and I always hated about how we didn’t learn about Poland and Hungary (not Hungarian but we had vizslas when I was growing up) until WWI, as if these countries didn’t exist as we learned about Britain, France, Germany and Spain. I remember asking my 9th grade history teacher about Poland. “Oh, yeah. Poland was powerful in the 1500s.” “Um, so why didn’t we learn about them when we were learning about the 1500s?” So I had to do the learning on my own after that, eventually went in to get a bachelors degree in history. And now I’m very popular among friends and family for having to explain current events in early 2022 to them. I do speak some Hungarian and have friends in Hungary. If you know of a good video in magyar about Hungarian history, I would love to watch it to help keep up on the language

[vicePVic]

@Michigan Scythian Lengyel Magyar két jó barát együtt harcol s issza borát! Congrats to your history degree. The more you know about other cultures the more you know about the world. As for videos just type into utube search “Magyar történelmi videók” and you should find a number of them. Kind regards from Hungary

[Barnabas Szabolcs]

@HistoryScope fantastic video! I've learned a lot despite being from Hungary and being interested in history. (And, yes, Jorinton's comment is right, as you've agreed as well that throughout history, the Hungarian elites didn't really see the big picture and were playing a totally backwards role, oppressing minorities and dragging their feet at industrialization, despite even losing the revolt in 1848 partly due to going against minorities...) (Also, probably Prussia declared war against A-H in 1866 but the other parts are far too good, along with your new perspective, to make these inaccuracies matter.)

[Tom]

Glad you covered the Austro-Hungarian Empire because its always treated as a footnote in history.

[Aidan]

Nice to see a new video, especially about a relatively forgotten piece of the 20th century! Keep up the good work man!

[MvC]

Excellent video. Thank you. I have been fascinated with the Austrian/A-H Empire for many years. I still think a federation would have been a better idea.

[Nathan Wilson]

Thank you for another very interesting episode. I would enjoy another dive into A-H in the future if ever you were interested. I don't know much about the history of the region. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

[No Videos Yet]

All 8 of my great grandparents emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian empire to the USA around 1900, though none of them were Austrian or Hungarian. 4 were Polish, 2 were Croat, and 2 were Lemko/Ukrainian.

[JP G]

Similar here, on one side of my family they can from Slovakia and Galicia.

[Biel ™]

Hey man, I noticed your patreon is quite humble for such quality videos. I've seen so many stupid channels with so much support and I wish creators like you who are not only informative and educational but also very entertaining.

[kubyo indiya]

You can say it's not an ethnic issue but when the state of economic turmoil hits by which you mentioned to be the key reason weakening the A-H alliance, seems like the disagreement was an ethnic one with which their contradictions of parts in ideology caused there to be no solution other than forming into separation of states. So in the end unresolvable ethnic leaders was related to what was the main impeding factor for not able to rule everyone under one empire.

[Sandor D]

After the introduction I thought, finally, somebody tells the story in a bit more depth! But, while I appreciate the effort that went into the creation of this video, it ended up being superficial and factually wrong on several points (which have already been pointed out in the comments.) For example at the end, we were made to feel as if the empire just peacefully fell apart, along ethnic or old historic lines. Really?! How can you tell the story of the breakup without talking about the Treaty of Trianon? Also, it would've put things into context a bit better with some explanation about how the union of the two leading powers within the union came about and why there were so many ethnic groups and why they were mixed up so much. Of course, people from the region may have their differing views on the details but overall, it was a disappointing effort and I'm afraid that people who only learnt the story from here, they will think they now know what happened but they really don't. Many main points are more or less correct but too many details are simply wrong. Sorry! :-(

[Csaba Kis]

It is a very detailed video, BUT in many questions/details you are on a wrong footing IMO. Those are too neumerous to list - but the 2 main issues I would highlight - when the Empire was reformed into the A-H Empire - the Austrians basically dumped off nationalistic/ethnic questions to regional level - for example the hungarian part had to deal with its ethnicities in their own bracket (so simply the Austrians kept playing off the ethnicities against each other, partially without responsibility), another major issue was, that although there many mixed areas, most of the ethnicities was living in large blocks, so it was relatively easy to make those parts independent (ofc the largest group, the Hungarians in the center suffered the most, suffering from it till today), 3rd major issue - most nationalities (save the slovask and czechs) have their own independent countries already, so the deam of a nation state was prevalent. Comparing the A-H E. is other multi-ethnic states like the USA is actually pretty bad - you could never say that for example Georgia is all black, New Mexico is all mexican, etc. ...all-in-all a nice effort, but not really a successful one, IMO ... Greetings from Hungary! (1 last thought, IMO the Empire would have fallen eventually any way, but without WW1 there probably woudnt have been a WW2, which devastated the region, put most part under communist control, the effects are still felt today ... and all those live lost in vain)

[Frog/Life S]

You have a very hungarian point of view. The AH Empire completely fails because of the the internal factors, one of which, btw, is the narrow minded ruling class of Hungary, which after gaining autonomy from Austria refused to give the very same rights to the minorities within their kingdom and on the contrary wanted to impose their language on the other nationalities.

[Csaba Kis]

@Frog/Life S - I do not have that view. I wrote that the Austrians dumped off ethnic questions to regional/provincial level AND right, in the Kingdom of Hungary the mostly hungarian elite failed to address it. And we payed the price, but ultimately the whole region payed a price in the 20th century, partially even today ... as I said no WW1 = probably no WW2, no Soviet Union, no communism, etc. and probably lot less victims in the end ...

[Victory 799]

@Frog/Life S You say that as if Hungary had no right to rule its own land. Multi ethnic countries throughout history and to this day still do the kinds of forced integration that Hungary tried.

[buddermonger2000]

@Victory 799 However this was in comparison to the devolution to local autonomy the Austrians were practicing. It's not like the Austrians didn't do the same thing, but the irony here is that Hungary did the same integration as Austria when Hungary was a product of the devolution.

[Kalimdor199]

@Csaba Kis You fail to mention that Hungary mishandled the ethnic minority management too. Rather than promote a form of national conciliation and dialogue, giving freedom of administration, education and rights to all nations, Hungary opted for assimilation policies. While at the beginning, the liberal government of Hungary wanted a Hungarian political union composed of people of various ethnic origins, this quickly shifted to a one-nation state. And that is when Hungary failed. Blaming Austria for taking advantage of ethnic dissensions within Hungary, most of which was created by Hungarian politicians is stupid. You played a big part in the downfall of your country.

[balzug]

One major problem that rose by splitting A-H into smaller countries was, that ethnic populations' locations were not taken into account when some of the new countries were created. That led to problems people face even today. e.g. supression of ethnic Hungarians in Transkarpatia which was taken from Czechoslovakia and given to Ukraine by Stalin after WW2.

[You're not my supervisor]

I mean, Austria didn't exactly "decide" to go to war with Prussia in 1866. War was declared on them by Prussia. In 1864, Austria and Prussia successfully defeated Denmark in a 9 month war, and Austria was given control over Holstein (a small region in that neck area where the border of what's now Germany and Denmark is). But about a year and a half later, Prussia correctly guessed that (with some help from Risorgimento Italy) they could easily defeat Austria's military, so they claimed that a certain law Austria passed in Holstein violated the treaty ending the 1864 war; Prussia used that as justification to seize Holstein and to declare war on Austria. The war only lasted about a month.

[Florian Schweiger]

History-Scope makes only jokes in his video. Everyone knows, that the monarchy was best for all ethnics in the monarchy with a good law and right system in comparison to other nations. The k&k empire had only problems with the lag of a real communication language, shame on latin. So education, military and justice had problems to work without massive efforts.

[Florian Schweiger]

Milan Kraguljac Ja

[Miklós Panyi]

So many false information and false conclusions in this video. Joke.

[History Scope]

Good point. Should have worded that very differently.

[Mr. NTF]

@History Scope Also Austria didn't choose to go to war with France and Italy in 1859 either.

[Anonymous]

Man, the rise and fall of the Austria-Hungarian Empire is both magnificent and sad.

[Civil War Week By Week]

A topic I haven't thought about for over a year, yeah its worth the half hour

[PakBall & Sam]

hi dude

[Sam B]

Agreed.

[manugamer99]

People remain loyal to a state if they believe in its future. If it becomes clear the state you live in has no future, you’ll look for other alternatives: since all national identities had a birth date at some point, other communities can still develop their current identity or exchange it with another. This is particularly important in countries like Italy and Germany, where a national identity coexists with strong local cultures. Both countries’ identity had to be both created and fostered

[ldillon33]

This was incredible work Avery. I would love to hear someone try and refute your arguments, because imo they are rock solid. I learned a good deal here.

[U B]

As an Austrian this puts a tear in my eye.

[Szlonko Busjbusj]

Imperial Germany without Alsace-Lorraine looks weird. That's not the first time you show pre-WW1 Germany without it. Also talking about possible ethnic conflict in early Czechoslovakia between Czechs and Slovaks and not mentioning its 2nd largest ethnic group is quite strange.

[Florian Schweiger]

Or the fact, that south Slovakia wanted to stay by Austria.

[xannybruder]

i think he showed it because he was talking about the Unification of all those small german nations and alsace-lorraine wasn't really a german nation. it was annexed later on from France. (Idk why, i think because of the napoleonic wars or because of the ethnic germans living there back then)

[Florian Schweiger]

@xannybruder it was and still is a german nation. Elsass, not Lothringen.

[Tyler Bozinovski]

Yes, you're right. The second largest ethnic group in interwar Czechoslovakia were the Germans, not the Slovaks.

[Joshua Doran]

Well done, again! Always interesting and well made!

[Cb Slimee]

You should do a video on the History of the Bahamas it would be very interesting Ps. I love your videos keep doing what you’re doing

[Miezuni]

Thank you so much for this video! I hope you can do one on Russia too! I would love to know how Russia rose as an empire & then became the Soviet Union.

[Goat Ops 9]

Excellent vid! Love learning about an interesting empire like this one

[TheLegoYoda]

Amazing videos! Can’t wait to watch more of these!

[Gergo Gered]

As a Hungarian, I approve this video. Thanks!

[Plaudering-Time]

Thank you very much for this great video. I learned a lot!

[Bill Birkett]

It's funny to think of what things might be like in Europe if Austria-Hungary still existed as a state (or alternatively, if Yugoslavia had never collapsed). I think there is some argument to be made that larger states have advantages over smaller countries. But you cannot suppress a people's identity and language forever...however, too much fragmentation is also not a good thing.

[nathan hammond]

It's interesting that when you look at the mass scale ethnic cleansing of the second world war, and the Yugoslav wars, that took place in this region. Much of it probably would not have happened. Had a United States of the Danube been formed. A federal parliamentary system with a strong executive monarch could actually really have worked on this part of the world. Not only would civil rights and a functional judiciary have removed much of the impetus for ethnic conflict. But a strong executive monarch would have been well equipped to resist foreign great power influence.

[OuzoPator]

8:55 well the country included Austria (Österreich) and Hungary (Ungarn) so the name Austria-Hungary (Österreich-Ungarn) wasnt a very exotic choice. The polish-lithuanian commonwealth got also the name Poland-Lithuania (Polen-Litauen) in the german language. :) (As a german EU4 player at first i was like "wtf is a commonwealth" xD)

[Lajos Nagy]

Absolutely great video, discussing the most important elements of this event. 👍

[The Pæonic Kingdom]

My parents are Hungarian and thus so am I even though I was born in Oradea/Nagyvárad, Romaniawity mixed ancestry. It’s interesting to learn about this!

[Darius]

My great grandmother was born in the empire she was from South tyroll its interesting how they still speak german

[V. G. R. L.]

Brilliant synthesis of a complex process. I wonder who the host is and is he has written on the subject independently of this documentary. Congratulations.

[phen]

just finished all of your videos, pretty good. looking forward for more

[History Scope]

New video will probably be out by the end of February or beginning of March

[Cborg Mega]

From the book published by Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War , Macmillan Education, New York, 1991: (pages 24 - 26)

[Illuminati]

The reason it fell was that Sissi didn't live forever :( She would've listened to the Hungarians who didn't want a war. Our one and only emperor, without her AH wouldn't even exist and neither would the Austrian Empire, my great-great-great-grandfather (I hope I didn't forget a great or added one) was a soldier in the Hungarian revolution and my great-great-grandfather was a member of the AH police force so the relationship with the empire is interesting. I think that nationalism had a big role in the fall of AH, because Austrians and Hungarian thought of themselves as superiors and I think that Franz Joseph thought that Austrians were above Hungarians, while Sissi was in love with Hungary.

[Illuminati]

I heard that a lot of Romanian intellectuals wanted to stay with AH if they had a high level of autonomy, but a lot of Hungarians do not see that we are the ones to blame for the fall of our empire, at one part in the Banat region a lot of Swabian Germans wanted to be part of Romania instead of Hungary because of the nationalist Hungarians and when we had a chance to show that we learned our lesson and got back Northern Transylvania (where also a lot of Romanians lived) we just showed that nothing changed.. my grandfather from my father's side was from Targu-Mures (Marosvasarhely) and he told my father how Romanians were beaten or killed in the streets by the fascist party, while he had to jump from a moving train on his way back from Siberia because the Romanians waited for the Hungarian soldiers to get back from the Siberian Camps to beat them even more.. I just hope that this EU stuff works out and the only wars we have will be on COD, because hearing from my grandfather from my mother's side that: "when he was little the Romanians lined up the Hungarians in Siria (Arad county, Romania) and shot them" (this was in 1944-45 I think) makes you happy to not experience stuff like that

[VegasGoldenKnightsEnjoyer]

This man really is the history version of summoning salt. I can always just turn on these videos and let time pass lmao

[DarkLordXP]

In 1909 they annexed Bosnia and up until than their economic growth was somewhat impressive, so no Austria Hungary had a small rise

[A.E.I.O.U]

What you got wrong was the reason for the wars in 1859 and 1866. They weren't territorial expansion, but territorial integrity, as Austria felt itself threatened by outside forces

[matthewawesome121]

Love the profile picture ❤

[Julia Marple]

So helpful & easy to understand. Thanks.

[Raye Symoné]

Thank you so much for the quality content yet again

[My Take]

Another great video man. Always love watching this channel.

[Emu in denial]

Excellent job once again 👏👏 Can you please make a video about the Holy Roman empire?

[Delusional]

Could you do a series on the rise and fall of Austria as a whole? Like how they United Austria and styria etc

[bozokundak]

There's so much to say here. I'm not a historian. I'm a Croat and what I learned is most certainly skewed to our perspective. First of all, had @History Scope tried to do justice to all the intricacies of the A-H Empire he'd have to make a separate 2hr video for each nationality. I guess it's an ok video to give the world at large kind of an inkling of the reasons of why it dissolved. It was all about national identity. It would have either transformed into a federation or confederation or dissolve anyway. Austrians and Hungarians had the power and wouldn't share it freely. Hungarians suppressed Croatian identity wherever they could. So did Austrians. What we did was super smart....get out of A-H Empire and "join" the Serbian Kingdom...again, it was anything but equal share of rights. That died in WWII and then communists formed Yugoslavia...where again all national identity was suppressed in favor of Yugoslav identity...that didn't work either...ever since the idea of national identity formed, you can't suppress it. Well - you can annihilate minority identities within you country...as some countries do to this day.

[Citrone]

At least hungarians, and croats were good with each other for 400 years in the medieval period. Like England, and Sctothland in today, cuz they are in a personal union too. When all went wrong, is the Ottoman conquest, when we hungarians lost our kingdom. When the Ottomas has gone, we tried to get our ruler power again, and when we get it from the austrians, we feared we might be lost it again. That is why we have followed exactly the French example, cuz they are succeded forge a strong country with differect ethnic cultires, even if they take away their rights. As we know, that was a bad choice. We f*cked up! At least, my people, and yours are free now!

[bozokundak]

@Citrone True, true. But different times, different people, different situations. I much prefer today and our EU. Cheers, mate!

[Ira23]

I agree Yugoslavia was Serbias biggest mistake for all time.

[Barkasz]

How did Hungarians suppress Croatians? I am genuinely curious. To my knowledge they were always managed as a separate country. The Pacta Conventa of 1102 makes it clear that Hungarians cannot settle south of the Drava river en mass, that the Croatian nobility would retain their autonomy and that Croatia would always have its own independent legislation. That’s why Hungary never took part in maritime activities, since we didn’t even have a sea port until Fiume/Rijeka was granted to Hungary by Franz Joseph. To my knowledge even in 1849 when the Republic was declared in response to the Russian intervention, Croatia was offered full independence in exchange for help. And in 1868 the Croatian-Hungarian compromise quickly followed the Austro-Hungarian compromise.

[bozokundak]

@Ira23 You mean Serbia could've annexed all those lands after WWI anyway? Possibly, yes. And this comment tells me all I need to know about you.

[Morp Morpt]

Interesting..thank your for producing. I am half-Austrian and realise I know very little history about Austria

[Alin Alexandru]

While this isn't a bad video, it still barely scratches the surface of the problems that led to the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I feel like you started way too late with the 1848 revolution, instead you should've went back a century or two, to the beginning of Austria taking control of the region, and also cover the situation in Hungary and its regions (like for example the Unio Trium Nationum). You also covered the federalization of the Empire but it still was too brief, and you didn't talk about Franz Ferdinand's involvement in the plan either. Anything else about the video, Jorinton covered that in his comment.

[Michael Thomas]

Ppl stating certain (correct) facts not mentioned in this video are ignoring the time constraints and the amount of simplification needed in videos like this. All in all this is a decent explanation of how the old Osterreich broke apart. And yes, before anyone starts typing, I know 'Osterreich' is the name of present day Austria.

[Baibhav Chakraborty]

History Matters make history lessons funny. History Scope add depth to history lessons. Btw both are my fav. Love from India ❤️

[Anthony Gilford]

History Scope makes it funny too.

[Baibhav Chakraborty]

@Anthony Gilford of course

[Cristi Scurtu]

Interesting video. Just as a sidenote at 17:34, Istria is not a region of Romania. Istria is a croatian region. Interestingly though there is a istro-romanian dialect that is spoken in the peninsula.

[JennyRoses1975]

I descend from Danube-Swabians from the Banat, now Romania. I was hoping for a bit on the German directive to transplant Germans throughout the region and what happened to these people after WWI and their disappearance after WWII. my family left for the U.S. in 1903 but always identified as German. my Great grandmother who was born in Biled, said she never heard from family again after 1945.

[M. Valentina]

Also both Hungarians and Germans from transylvania and Banat were deported out after ww1 closer to the southern Hungarian border, and large communities still live there. (Most people tried to emigrate or go to the west.) This happened to my great grandparents and they also wanted to emigrate to the USA but they decided to stay in Hungary because my great grandma was pregnant with twins(they had flee their house and on the road she gave birth.). So in the aftermath they lived in area full of swabische and mixed villages. and I grow up in the same region and can see how their cultures influenced eachother in a peaceful way. /traditions, words, food, religion, architecture./

[Gajah Mada]

A tragic masterpiece… set to a Waltz. Bravo!

[mvs]

I like how the presentation emphasized reasons and not just individuals

[Republic Media (RM)]

Good video. The Original Sinn Fein political party (the one in Ireland with links to the IRA) envisioned Ireland gaining it's independence the same way Hungary did, by creating a dual monarchy system with Britain between 1905 - 1917, this policy was dropped in favour of gaining independence by declaring an Irish Republic & fighting a war of liberation.

[Garrett Merkin]

Awesome to see an upload on this channel! Always great videos.

[Firehusky]

i feel like this is the only video that actually gets this topic in history right

[Tyler Clayton]

The US has only lost a few wars in it’s entire history and most of those were political loses not tactical or strategic loses. Other countries like Russia or France have lost dozens of wars in just the past few hundred years

[arch]

sure, but it didnt win a single war after 1945..

[Andrew Stallings]

“Serfdom - Slavery with extra steps.” I love this explanation.

[Kristjan Rom]

Great stuff, even as slovene I learnt a lot

[Matus Oparty]

Quite good video. It´s just there is huge confusion between Hungurians and Magyars. Not the same peoples (as ethnicities).

[Mace]

Love the video! Great history!

[Ioni D'Hunedoara]

My grandfather Amil Visov "identified" as Emil Weissenstein and staked his future as a career officer in the Imperial Austrian army 1914-18. That didn't work out well for him and mama had to be rescued from starvation in 1919 Vienna by Slovak farmers. Grandfather remained in Vienna trying to secure the remnant of his ruined fortune and seek pension benefits. Its believed he was murdered in 1940-42 for refusing to join the Wehrmacht and he died as Amil Visov- on the right side of history but characteristically without luck.

[Hannah Alexy]

Interesting. My great grandfather was an ethnic Serb (I'm Hungarian/Australian) who got joined the yugoslav army at the start of WW2 as a Serb partisan. Well...when 1941 rolled around he disappeared for 2 years and we thought him dead, only for him to come.back from the dead and start writing letters, now from Germany, as a high ranking SS member. So he was denounced from our family. He kept writing right until mid 45. Guess he was a nutcase lol

[Onurb Schrednei]

I mean isn't that an extremely normal thing to do? Immigrating to another part and trying to integrate? Most modern day Viennese people have ancestors from non-German Austro-Hungarians.

[Pathfinder]

It is not fully right to compare e.g. Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia with Austria Hungary as multiethnic. They are but they were also based on very close ethnic relationships between the major ethnic groups that diminish their multhiethnicity extent quite a lot. Actually if these countries were formed in 19th century they would probably become monolith nations as e.g. Italy. In Austria Hungary ethnic differences were much larger. However, sometimes small differences make the relationships even harder.

[TorresBoss96]

I can relate deeply with the emphasis in this story as I played Germany in hearts of iron 4

[MetallicRoosterSailor]

One of my favorite empires.

[Harvey Steele]

my grandmothers wish was for the HBs to come back to power. and she would talk of her seeing the royal family journey from the crowd as they left BH and went to SB. and back later.

[Orthane]

It's interesting that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was ready to Americanize in a way. With each state having a large amount of autonomy.

[Ale Haim]

19:00 "Russian revolution of 1817" I didn't remember communism being the ideology of Russia for 174 years

[FreeStyle]

This video voiceover has so many mistakes

[Ale Haim]

@FreeStyle well there is still the infamous missing Balkans incident on one map of an earlier video

[Spicyleaves]

@FreeStyle well spending weeks studying, animating, and doing the voicover as an amateur historian is impressive

[Jeffrey Hill]

I love the self awareness to pin this comment

[GamblerDuckling]

Yes I have been looking forward to this! Worth the wait, great video!

[Prakhar Singh]

Thank you so much for your work

[Artemis]

That moldavian bussy got me questioning my loyalty to the emperor

[dj no]

what

[R3generation_♡]

Oh no... not the bussy! Anything but bussy!!!

[pivoman slovensko]

@dj no Boipussy

[pivoman slovensko]

😳

[Comrade Iosif]

My favorite inbred empire alongside the Confederacy. Seriously though, Austria-Hungary is constantly overlooked by other European countries.

[You're not my supervisor]

Probably because the Habsburgs were great at breeding but generally pretty lousy at warfare.

[Bubble?]

@You're not my supervisor Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube!

[The Third Sicily]

@You're not my supervisor I mean after the Napoleonic wars I'd agree but before then the Habsburg Monarchy was a pretty big powerhouse, wars with the Ottomans, French (sometimes both at the same time) all the while trying to manage their shitshow in the HRE.

[Barkasz]

“Russia helped Austria in the 1848 revolution” is sort of a gross simplification. The Russians crushed the rebellion and without them the revolution would have been successful.

[Hannah Alexy]

It's a recurring theme

[Victor Hugo]

Fun fact, prince Franz Ferdinand supported the idea of creating the "United States of Greater Austria", an entity in which every nationality was going to have the right to self governance and could rule itself as a kingdom as long as they accepted the rule of the Royal Family, a propose that was very reasonable at the time. Franz Ferdinand was also against the idea starting a war for some backward Balkan country and hated this prospect. Actually the Crown Prince wanted to decrease the tensions among the European Empires and increase economic ties and development. This could have led to the creation of a sort of European Union but this time more conservative, authoritarian and less liberal than the version we have now. However, old Emperor Franz Joseph made the foolish mistake of starting a war and his new heir, Charles, failed to reach a ceasefire in 1917. This is, at least for me, one of the reasons why the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was such an unfortunate event, I feel the wrong man was killed. And this is my main disagreement with this video: it emphasizes too much in the external factors conspiring against the AH Empire but completely fails to mentions the internal factor, one of which, btw, is the narrow minded ruling class of Hungary, which after gaining autonomy from Austria refused to give the very same rights to the minorities within their kingdom and on the contrary wanted to impose the magyar language on the other nationalities.

[Samuel Stephen]

You ever think that the reason the Archduke was killed was the fact that he was the only voice speaking out for the Serbs? He was killed by radicals who wanted a separate country and this would have been a great excuse to get one, Austria would invade and the Serbs would rally together and defeat them and maybe convince other minorities to do the same. Side note, I doubt the radicals wanted the war to be would be "World War 1", I pretty sure they just wanted a "Third Balkan War".

[Dommi1405]

3:41 Im pretty sure the colors for prussian allies and prussian annexed territory should be swapped. As for example Hanover was on Austria's side and was subsequently annexed by prussia, while Oldenburg or Mecklenburg remained (partially) sovereign until the Nazis came around

[Philipp Illmaier]

Amazing Video! It would've been interesting to see a Danube Federation, but there is the reason, no Austrian likes the French or Brits ;)

[Matt Russell]

"Serfdom is basically slavery with extra steps" nice Rick and Morty reference!

[Llama]

Cool! Austria-Hungary has always been interesting. So learned a ton thx

[ilFrancotti]

The Austro-Hungarian Empire never "rose". It came out as a consequence of the defeat against Prussia in 1866.

[FR.majoris]

Great video, as always, but there are just one or two things that I kinda questioning firstly, Germanization and Hungarization which absent in your video. But, pinned comment already mention that so I let it pass second, about the autonomy of ethnic groups. what I get is kinda contradictive, in the "rise of empire" part you say the autonomy given to Hungary was a success and bring more stability to AH, but in the last part autonomy is one of main causes for the collapse of AH. I think because this is different from "autonomy" in modern terms which is more synonymous to state autonomy in the USA and Scots autonomy under UK rather than AH autonomy. The autonomy given to Hungary was complete autonomy, as they can have their own military, diplomatic relation, a parliament that was independent of that of the Austrian half, and law that was completely independent without national restriction. While in state terms (also including Scotland for the UK) they can have their own parliament, constitution, language, etc like AH BUT they cannot have their own military (only gendarmerie class), their own diplomatic relation, their parliament is subject to national (not by one constituent state) parliament (like new york HR and S is subordinate to HR and S of USA), and national (or federal) law which restricts and above state law. in modern parliament and political sense, A and H in AH is more like two country glue together without any cohesion and completely independent of each other, and because the legislation must pass the two parliaments, this will ensure the passage of bill WILL always never got pass. third, about the parliaments themselves. AH (especially the Hungarian half) parliaments are described in Encyclopedia Britannica as "the most illiberal in the world" (which said a lot as there were more illiberal states that barely have constitution like Russian and Ottoman at that time). the parliament didn't have any representation for, not just the serf population, but also the working class. the middle class (which drives the country economy) only gets 6%-ish of the parliaments reps. This is also one of the reasons why AH got a constitution in the first place because bankers and the middle class refuse to finance any war unless they got a constitution and reps in parliament. this is bad because the parliament is functionally dependent on nobility and aristocracy which is too conservative and refuses to change anything, which angers the middle class, which stops the economy, which angers the working class, which stops the nation completely. This is why famine happens in late WWI and made AH susceptible to nationalism and separatism. forth, about the entente conspiracy. while yes it is one of the causes, I don't think it is one of the "main" causes of AH collapse. because it is an outside factor and only played as the WWI got too late-stage. Like the pinned comment had said, it's after the late stage of the war they considered it. and that's all, I'm sorry if my comment is too long and/or my english is broken. and I said it again, this is a great video. and also, bonus question. for some reason (you got hit by truck-kun maybe? idk) tomorrow you wake up as Emperor Franz Joseph before the creation of Austro Hungarian Empire, what would you do to save (or destroy?) your empire and ultimately yourself? I am really curious about what others might do in this kind of situation. (and because this is the staple to "isekai" genre in Japanese manga)

[nirfz]

Maybe i didn't understand your comment correct, but Hungaries autonomy did not include their own military or their own diplomatic relations. 3 things that were not split but only done together for the whole empire were the army, the foreign ministry and the finance ministry. What the hungarians got in the army were their own dress uniforms, for their troop bodies that carried traditional hungarian names.

[FR.majoris]

@nirfz Well, it is quite complicated. if you see the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of1867, you can see contradicting points like common foreign minister but also "international commercial treaties and agreements were conducted by Austria and Hungary as an independent nation". This compromise is the foundation of dual monarchy and of AH itself, so we can take a look at it. for the military, "Royal Hungarian Hovend was restored and Imperial-Royal Landwehr was created ... which were respectively placed under the direct control of Austrian and Hungarian Defense Minister only" this is different from the national guard of state in USA because Hovend and Landwehr were established standing army that only subordinate to Hungary or Austria without central command and "The common army and common minister of defense has no right to command Hovend and Landwehr". for the common army as you said, they have different uniform, battalion, names, and if the Hungarian proposal was successful, language and command. Fortunately, the proposal was shut down, but you can see the extent of AH autonomy in it, as A and H have different views on how the army should function. for diplomatic relations, as I said before, although they had a common foreign minister, diplomatic regarding trade and commerce is independent. The parliament also had a lot of sway in diplomatic relations, as they can even reject emperor proposals like the Hungarian parliament rejection to support emperor Franz's proposal to ally with France during the Franco-Prussian war. If only this proposal pass, the german empire maybe wasn't formed, or at very least, been postponed for years. for finance, the compromise also points out "they (A and H) were fiscally sovereign and independent entities" and that's it. sorry if I'm pointing something wrong and/or my English is not good enough. I am using a Wikipedia list of the compromise, so you can check it out if you want to see it more.

[nirfz]

@FR.majoris I haven't found anything about the diplomatic stuff that was supposed to be not handled by the common ministery. (But that doesn't automatically mean you are wrong) The thing with the Hoved on the other hand is a bit more complicated i think than the english wiki page states. Yes, it was not part of the army, and under it's own minister of defense. And it was not under the common ministry of war. But the Honved and the Landwehr were smaller bodies than the army, and only consisted of infantery and cavallry. And yet their supreme commander during peace time was Franz Joseph. As the supreme commander of all armed forces. And in wartime this command was given to a high ranking experienced officer. So they were only "not part of the common armed forces for land warfare" during peacetime.

[Greekdhdnc]

@FR.majoris Wikipédia - hahaha

[RedLogic]

What's worse is that the allies forgot that while Austria-Hungary and Germany we're allies in recent history at the time- Austria was a buffer state for Prussian/German dominance in Central Europe/Mid South-Eastern Europe in 18th-19th centuries. In my opinion what would've been smarter is to make Austria-Hungary an equal union similar to what the empire suggested itself. This way the allies could've promoted a healthy democratic nation in central Europe, but also keep this old major power strong- strong enough to combat Germany's influence- but weak enough that it wouldn't be able to handle a war between all the major allies. The union could've been made up of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Czech, Slovakia, and the Romanian and Polish territories could be given to both countries while Bosnia-Herzegovina could be given a choice between sticking with the union or joining Serbia & Montenegro. This would all be done to promote the collaboration between otherwise small European nations to become full blown local powers. The union would just be mainly a union of military and economies, though there would be a federal parliament made up of an equal amount of representatives from each province- they would have the power to propose more economic reforms to ensure further collaboration and also to have a vote to declare war- requires a 2/3rds majority to do so. If the union or individual province is attacked- all states that make up the union are called in. No states have the ability to declare war for themselves, but they do have the right to secede by 2/3rds majority in their own state congress and every state makes their own laws. I'd suggest a language like English be the preferred language in federal parliament that way no country feels offended that another ethnic people/culture had their language chosen- and seeing as English wouldn't be the first language of any state- it's a good choice. This would all be to prevent Germany, Italy, and Russia from gobbling up the Balkans and would prevent the unification of Germany & Austria- while also reducing future resentment from Hungary and Austria about lost territory. The Balkans wouldn't feel pressured by Germany, the allies would HEAVILY endorse a friendship guarantee between the Union and Poland and Romania (if any of them get attacked its an attack on all of them), and while it wouldn't be a perfect union it would definitely be better than a broken Europe that was forced to follow Germany's, Italy's, and Russia's commands.

[It's Siyric]

The United States of the Danube sounds like a wonderful idea. The nations comprising central and southeastern Europe have been taken advantage of for too long.

[Jaspor Flex]

This video helps explain a lot. Thank you. Still, can you remove Austria Hungary's flag from the thumbnail since its not their actual flag but their civil esign. This supports the misinformation regarding AH's flag. If you search up for propanganda posters of Austria Hungary during world war 1 the closest thing you will find of its national flag is the Habsburg flag. So add that instead for accuracy.