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The Political-Geographic Bases of the Austrian Nationality Problem1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

George W. Hoffman
George W. Hoffman
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

The breakup of the Habsburg monarchy was perhaps the most exceptional change made in the political geography of the European world of our times. It would be too much to say that the shot fired at Sarajevo destroyed the Austro-Hungarian empire. But it is hardly an exaggeration to suggest that the young assassin was a living embodiment of the principle of nationalism in the South Slavic lands and that the shot which he fired was a deliberate blow at the political-geographic structure of the Habsburg monarchy. Those competent to discuss the question are almost unanimous in their verdict: the dissolution of the empire was brought on by a combination of external forces and an internal disintegration. The internal disintegration actually impelled the state to expose itself to the external forces. The works of scholars from many countries and disciplines2 who have carefullyanalyzed the structure and function of the Habsburg empire have been scrutinized with the view of studying the regions which formed this empire, their different characteristics and associations, and their connections with each other and to the state in order to ascertain to what extent the area of the empire constituted a state in the modern sense and to note any weaknesses in its morphology and physiology that helped to account for its collapse. The contribution of political geography to this critical evaluation of nationalism as a disintegrating force of the Habsburg empire lies in an analysis of the major problems of the internal situation of that empire.

Type
Nationalism as a Disintegrating Force
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 1967 , pp. 121 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1967

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References

2 Some of the major discussions providing a political-geographic analysis of the problems of the Austrian empire are cited here. It should be emphasized that these not only include books and scholarly articles by professional geographers but also by scholars from other fields. Among the few American political geographers, Richard Hartshorne and Derwent Whittlesey have concerned themselves with studies in depth of various political-geographical problems of the monarchy. See Hartshorne, Richard, “The Tragedy of Austria-Hungary: A Post Mortem in Political Geography,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. XXVIII (1938), pp. 49–50 (an abstract)Google Scholar; Richard Hartshorne, “The Concepts of ‘Raison d'être’ and ‘Maturity of States’ Illustrated from the Mid-Danube Area,” ibid., Vol. XXX (1940), pp. 59–60 (an abstract); and Whittlesey, Derwent, The Earth and the State (New York: Holt, 1944)Google Scholar. For specific reference to “Capitals of Middle Danube Area,” see pp. 203–223. The Austrian geographers, as can be expected, have been most deeply concerned with the problems of their own state. Of these, Hugo Hassinger is the best known. Among his studies specifically related to our discussions are the following: “Das geographische Wesen Mitteleuropas,” Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft in Wien, Vol. LX (1917), pp. 450–461; “Österreich-Ungarn,” in Die Grossmächte vor und nach dem Weltkriege, edited by R. Kjellen and K. Haushofer (25th ed., Leipzig: Teubner, 1935), pp. 26–45; “Boden und Lage Wiens,” Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft in Wien, Vol. LXXXIV (1941), pp. 359–384; and “Österreichs Wesen und Schicksal, verwurzelt in seiner geographischen Lage,” Wiener Geographische Studien, No. 20 (Vienna: Freytag-Berndt and Artaria, 1949). Other important contributions by geographers include Heiderich, Franz, “Osterreich-Ungarn,” Geographic des Welthandels, edited by Heiderich, Franz and Sieger, Robert, Vol. I (Vienna: Seidel, 1910), pp. 421–612Google Scholar; Lehmann, Otto, “Zur historischpolitischen Geographie von Österreich-Ungarn,” Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft in Wien, Vol. LXII (1919), pp. 150–180Google Scholar; Lendl, Egon, “Zum Problem der altösterreichischen Kulturlandschaft, ”Geographischer Jahresbericht aus Osterreich, Vol. XXVII (1957–1958), pp. 129–148Google Scholar; Partsch, Josef, Mitteleuropa (Gotha: Perthes, 1904)Google Scholar; Sieger, Robert, “Die geographischen Grundlagen der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie und ihrer Aussenpolitik,” Geographische Zeitschrift, Vol. XXI (1915), pp. 1–22, 83–105, and 121–131Google Scholar; and Supan, A., “Österreichischeungarische Monarchie,” Länderkunde von Europa, edited by Kirchhoff, Alfred (Leipzig, 1889)Google Scholar. Among the works of non-geographers the following have been found most useful in the preparation of this study: Droz, Jacques, L'Europe Centrale (Paris: Payot, 1960)Google Scholar; Jaszi, Oscar, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1929)Google Scholar; Kann, Robert A., The Habsburg Empire (New York: Praeger, 1957)Google Scholar; Kann, Robert A., The Multinational Empire (2 vols., New York: Octagon Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Sugar, Peter F., “The Nature of the Non-German Societies under Habsburg Rule,” Slavic Revieio, Vol. XXII (March, 1963), pp. 1–30Google Scholar; and “Sarajewo. Ursachen, Folgen und Lehren,” Die Presse (Vienna), June 27–28, 1964 (a special edition).

3 The term “Geographische Einheit” is often used in the writings of European scholars. It has been defined as a natural region, well demarcated, differing from its surroundings and homogeneous within itself.

4 Sieger, “Die geographischen Grundlagen der österreich-ungarischen Monarchie und ihrer Aussenpolitik,” p. 1.

5 Ibid., pp. 6 and 128.

6 Hassinger, “Österreich-Ungarn,” p. 30.

7 See Krebs, Norbert, Länderkunde der Österreichischen Alpen (Stuttgart: Engelhorns Nachf., 1913), passimGoogle Scholar.

8 Historians like Robert A. Kann have also analyzed the importance of so-called “geographic unity.” See his The Habsburg Empire, p. 13.

9 Scholars from many fields have frequently written analyses of the geographic location of Vienna. See Hassinger, “Boden und Lage Wiens,” pp. 359–384; and Whittlesey, The Earth and the State, pp. 218–219, to cite only a few.

10 According to the late Austrian geographer Johann Sölch, Sieger was probably the first to stress the importance of “whole bundles of routes” as against the idea “of the crossroads to two major continental routes.” Sieger stressed this point in his Salzburg lectures in 1912 and discussed it in detail in his “Die geographischen Grundlagen der österreichischungarischen Monarchie und ihrer Aussenpolitik,” p. 13.

11 Lehmann, “Zur historisch-politischen Geographie von Österreich-Ungarn,” pp. 150–180.

12 The studies which the author found most useful for background material for the interpretations in this section are Benedikt, Heinrich, Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in der Franz-Joseph-Zeit. In Wiener Historische Studien, No. 4 (Vienna: Herold, 1958)Google Scholar; Grunzel, JosephHandelspolitik und Ausgleich in Österreich-Ungarn (Vienna: Hölder, 1912)Google Scholar; Heiderich, “Österreich-Ungarn,” pp. 421–612; Hertz, Friedrich, The Economic Problem of the Danubian States (London: Gollancz, 1947)Google Scholar; Hertz, Friedrich, “Die Gemeinschaft der Donaunationen,” Der Donauraum, Vol. II (1957), pp. 77–83Google Scholar; Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy; Kann, The Habsburg Empire; Kolossa, Tibor, ”Statistische Untersuchung der gesellschaftlichen Struktur der Agrarbevölkerung in den Ländern der Österreich-Ungarischen Monarchie (um 1900),” Third International Conference: History of the Dual Monarchy (Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, May, 1964) (mimeographed)Google Scholar; Marz, Edward, “Some Economic Aspects of the Nationality Conflict in the Habsburg Empire,” Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. XIII (July, 1953), pp. 123–135Google Scholar; Miskolczy, Julius, Ungarn in der Habsburger Monarchie. In Wiener Historische Studien, No. 5 (Vienna: Herold, 1959)Google Scholar; Schüller, Richard, “Die Entstehung des österreichisch-ungarischen Wirtschaftsgebietes,” Der wirtschaftliche Zusammenbruch Österreich-Ungarns, edited by Gratz, Gustav and Schüller, Richard (Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1930), pp. 1–35Google Scholar; Sieghart, Rudolf, Zolltrennung und Zolleinheit. Die Geschichte der österreichischen Zwischenzoll Linie (Vienna: Manz, 1915)Google Scholar; and Sugar, Peter F., Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

13 See especially the discussion in Kann, The Habsburg Empire, pp. 94–106.

14 Macartney, C. A., Problems of the Danube Basin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942), p. 77Google Scholar.

15 It must be remembered that the influence of the united chancery at Vienna extended over all administrative, including economic, policies of the empire everywhere except Hungary and Transylvania.

16 Blum, Jerome, “Transportation and Industry in Austria, 1815–1848,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. XV (March, 1943), pp. 24–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Freudenberger, Herman, “Industrialization in Bohemia and Moravia in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. XIX (January, 1960), pp. 347–356Google Scholar.

17 Blum, “Transportation and Industry in Austria, 1815–1848,” p. 24.

18 Freudenberger, “Industrialization in Bohemia and Moravia in the Eighteenth Century,” pp. 354–365.

19 In his recent study, “Statistische Untersuchung der gesellschaftlichen Struktur der Agrarbevolkerung,” which is based on an exhaustive survey of statistical material, Kolossa has come to the following conclusions in regard to the agrarian-industrial structure of the monarchy: The monarchy was, on the whole, an agrarian country in 1890. By 1910 it had reached an agrarian-industrial level. In all parts of Cisleithanian Austria the agricultural population declined to less than 50 percent of the total population. Kolossa grouped industrial versus agricultural areas as follows: (1) Industrial areas: with a population in industry, trade, and transportation above 40 percent and an agrarian population below 40 percent—Lower Austria, Vorarlberg, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. The industrial population of Moravia was below 40 percent. (2) Agrarian-industrial or industrial-agrarian areas: with a population in industry, trade, and transportation of between 30 and 40 percent and an agrarian population of around 50 percent—Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, the Tyrol, the coastal regions (largely Trieste and Istria), and the Hungarian plains, including Budapest. (3) Mostly agrarian; Hungary, with the exception of the above, and Krain, with an agrarian population in 1910 of 60 percent and an. industrial population of about 25 percent. (4) Predominantly agraiian: 70 percent of the total population in agriculture and less than 20 percent in industry, trade, and transportation—Galicia, Bukovina, and Croatia. The industrial population of Dalmatia was less than 10 percent. Kolossa also concluded that the agricultural population of the monarchy increased by approximately 5 percent between 1890 and 1910. Absolute figures show a decline in the Alpine and northwest areas, as well as in Krain, while the northeast areas of Hungary, Croatia, the coastal areas, and Dalmatia continually showed great increases. The relationship between the agrarian population and the total population declined all over the monarchy.

20 Macartney, in his Problems of the Danube Basin, pp. 75–76, pointed out that the monarchy's “foreign trade usually balanced approximately at the low figure per head of the population of about £3, against £12 in France, £13 in Germany and £22 in the United Kingdom. Few commodities regarded as essential by more than a minority of the population were not produced in one or another part of the Monarchy.”

21 Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, p. 187.

22 Kann, The Habsburg Empire, p. 102.

23 High tariffs, for example, provided protection for the industries of Bohemia against competition from Saxony and for the Serbian pig breeders of Hungary against cheaper products from Serbia. The political implications of such a protective tariff policy were obvious and left a deep impact on various neighbors of the monarchy.

24 See Hertz, The Economic Problem of the Danubian States, pp. 40–42. The years included in Hertz's evaluation are normal as far as economic progress is concerned. In spite of the increase in assessed income and wages, the standard of living in all parts of the empire as expressed in per capita consumption figures was strikingly low, as Macartney (see his Problems of the Danube Basin, pp. 74–75) and others have pointed out.

25 Kann, The Habsburg Empire, pp. 104–106.

26 Ibid., p. 106.

27 Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 185, 211–212, and 364.

28 Benedikt, Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in der Franz-Joseph-Zeit, p. 159.

29 Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, p. 206.

30 Aussenhandel und Zwischenverkehr der im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreiche und Länder der ungarischen Krone (13 vols., Vienna: Zwischenverkehrs-statistisches Amt, Handelsministerium, Hofdruckerei, 1902–1914), Vols. 1901 and 1913Google Scholar.

31 Kann, The Habsburg Empire, p. 96.

32 See the discussion by Jaszi in his The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 101–102, of the economic reforms during the absolutist Bach system which brought about a “unitary custom barrier [which] guaranteed free trade between Hungary and the other parts of the empire…. [New] railroads and new highways were built in all the countries of the monarchy…. [Bach] took the liberation of the serfs very seriously and carried on the great reform against all resistance and laid the foundation of the modern state in administration and in economics.”

33 Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 186–191.

34 Kann, The Habsburg Empire, p. 103.

35 Whittlesey, Derwent, “Austria: A Geographic Hub of European Politics,” The Journal of Geography, Vol. XXXIV (1935), p. 138Google Scholar. Besides Whittlesey and Hartshorne, political geographers have generally been concerned with the problem of finding a justification for the existence of a state. Among the many general scholarly contributions discussing the problem of cultural disunity in Europe, and specifically in the Mid-Danubian area, see especially Dominian, Leon, The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe (New York: Holt, 1917)Google Scholar; Hantsch, Hugo, Die Nationalitätenfrage im alten Österreich. In Wiener Historische Studien, No. 1 (Vienna: Herold, 1953)Google Scholar; Mommsen, Hans, Die Sozialdemokratie und die Nationalitätenfrage im habsburgischen Vielvolkerstaat, Vol. I. In Veröffentlichungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für die Geschichte der Arbeiterbetvegung in Österreich, No. 1 (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1963)Google Scholar; Renner, Karl, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen (Vienna: Deuticke, 1918)Google Scholar; and Paul Samassa, Der Völkerstreit im Habsburgerstaat (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1910).

36 Numerous projects for reorganizing the monarchy along federal lines were proposed. Some of these went into considerable detail; others outlined the problems only in generalities. The Czech historian František Palacký was probably the first to present a project for the reorganization of the empire after the 1848 revolution. The Hungarian Louis Kossuth, the Austrian Adolph Fischhof, the Transylvanian-Rumanian Aurel Popovici, the Croatian Count Richard Belcredi, the late Austrian President Karl Renner (writing under the pseudonym of Rudolf Springer), the late Czech President Eduard Benesš, and even the heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, advocated important changes in the structure of the empire. Also, after the acquisition of Bosnia and Herzegovina certain South Slav and Austrian elements in the monarchy raised the question of transforming the state into a “trialistic” structure. These and other projects had one thing in common: they all understood the need for the state to provide a better organizational structure in order to provide a lasting justification for its existence and thereby find a closer working relationship with its minorities.

37 For each 1,000 people in Austria there were 908 Roman Catholics, 21 Protestants, 23 members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and 46 Jews. Hungary had 618 Roman Catholics, 190 Protestants, 143 Greek Orthodox, and 45 Jews per 1,000 inhabitants; and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 233 Roman Catholics, 3 Protestants, 435 Moslems, and 6 Jews.

38 Shortly before the war, in Hungary 324 of the largest estates, averaging 41,000 acres apiece, covered over 19 percent of the whole agricultural area. In his The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 220–239, Jászi estimated that four-fifths of the agricultural population and one-half of the total populace of Hungary owned less than a third of the total agricultural acreage. Also, the non-Hungarian peasants constituted a majority of the underprivileged small landowners, and only a very small number of these could maintain modest subsistence levels. For details, see also Kolossa, “Statistische Untersuchung der gesellschaftlichen Struktur der Agrarbevölkerung.”

39 The leaders of the Socialist Party were certainly very much interested in a reorganization of the empire, but they viewed federalism as a means to a different end.

40 Hassinger first used the terms “immature and mature,” and Hart shorne incorporated them in an unpublished manuscript in 1939. Hartshorne understood the terms to indicate the “time required for the development of any social organization, including man's political organization of land areas.” He further explained that “upon whatever values a state bases its raison d'être, if it is able to make these appear of preponderant importance in all of its regional parts so that the populations of these regions regard their areas as permanent parts of that state, we may say that the state is mature in its territorial organization. Until that status of cohesion is attained, the state is immature.”

41 Hartshorne, “The Tragedy of Austria-Hungary: A Post-Mortem in Political Geography,” p. 50.