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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
Defining and writing the history of Austria from the Carolingian frontier marches to the Second Austrian Republic presents a unique problem. In this period, covering more than 1100 years, Austria formed neither a geographic nor an ethnic or national conceptual unit. In fact, except for the brief periods of 1804–1867, 1918–1938, and from 1945 on, there has been no political constitutional entity which could form the undisputed object of a Gesamtdarstellung of Austrian history. The only cohesive factor was provided by the existence of a politicogeographic center, whether one defines it as the Middle Danube or, perhaps better, as Vienna. No other great country possessed similarly ever changing frontiers; nor did the capital city of any other land play a similar formative role as one of the very few centripetal attraction-forces enduring over the centuries.
1 See Hans, Kohn, “AEIOU: Some Reflections on the Meaning and Mission of Austria,” The journal of Modern History, Vol. XI, No. 4 (December, 1939), pp. 513–527Google Scholar. See also his Not by Arms Alone (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940), pp. 43–64.Google Scholar
2 Alphons, Lhotsky, Österreichische Historiographie (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1962), p. 124Google Scholar. Also of importance is the same author's Geschichte des Instituis für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 1854–1954 (1954). As ProfessorAlexander, Novotny rightly points out, these are standard works, which illumine the way in which Austrian historians over the centuries have interpreted “the meaning of Austria.” See Austrian History News Letter, No. 4 (1963), p. 37.Google Scholar
3 Erich, Zöllner, Geschichte Österreichs. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1961), p. 221.Google Scholar
4 See Lhotsky, Österreichische Historiographie, p. 136, n. 438. See also “The Quest for an Austrian Idea,” in Hans, Kohn, The Habsburg Empire, 1804–1918 (Princeton, New Jersey: Van Nostrand, 1961), pp. 49–57Google Scholar; and Kann, Robert A., The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848–1918 (2 vols., New York: Columbia University Press, 1950).Google Scholar
5 That was also true of the Austro-German historians, especially at the University of Graz. See Lhotsky, Österreichische Historiographie, p. 196, n. 598. Even in 1918, instead of appealing to the community of the Austrian peoples, a leading Austrian historian, Alfons Dopsch, could say that “die nicht-deutschen Völker … gerade durch die Zugestandnisse (!) in Schule und Amt, in Wirtschaft und Zentralregierung … ihre geistige und materielle Kultur zu ungeahnter Höhe entwickelt [haben].” Österreichische geschichtliche Sendung. In Ouml;sterreichische Bucherei, No. 1 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1918), p. 94Google Scholar. If this was Austria's historical mission, it is understandable that it was rejected by the Slav and other “inferior” peoples.
6 This formulation went even beyond Woodrow Wilson's point 10, demanding the opportunity of autonomous development for the peoples of Austria-Hungary. Winston Churchill, in an often quoted passage from his The Second World War, regretted the disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy. But this regrettable disintegration was not caused by the peace treaties of St. Germain and Trianon. Long before, by October, 1918, the monarchy had disintegrated. On this disintegration, see Leo, Valiani, La dissoluzione dell'Austria-Ungheria,” Rivista Storica Italiana, Vol. LXXIV (1962), pp. 52–92 and 250–283. The responsibility for it does not fall upon the Allies; it is divided between the reactionary policy followed by the monarchy after 1848 and the nationalist master-race theories of Magyars and Germans after 1867. Magyars and Germans favored the alliance with the German Retch.Google Scholar
7 See Heinrich, Benedikt in Der Donauraum, Vol. VIII, No. 5 (1963), p. 316.Google Scholar
8 On Schnitzler see Carl, Schorske, “Pclitics and the Psyche in Fin de Siécle Viennn: Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal,” The American Historical Review, Vol. LXVI, No. 4 (July, 1961);Google ScholarKann, Robert A., “The Image of the Austrian in Arlhur Schnitzlcrs Writings.” Studies in Arthur Schnitzler (Chapel Hill, N. C: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), pp. 45–70Google Scholar; and Hans, Kohn, Karl Kraus, Arthur Schnitzler, Otto Weininger (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1962). See the interpretation of the Austrian character in pp. 1–11 and 63–70 of the last work.Google Scholar
9 Zöllner, Geschichte Österreichs, p. 477.
10 Oscar Jászi considered that “never in the history of the world was the principle of national equality in a great empire and under so many different nations carried as far as in former Austria.” See his The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago, Ill.: University at Chicago Press, 1929), p. 296Google Scholar. Jászi thought that the “fiction of a unitary Magyar state” made further progress impossible. But in Austria, as in Switzerland, ethnic “homogeneity was eventually merged into a broadly egalitarian citizenship.” Friedrich, Carl Joachim, Man and his Government (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 584Google Scholar. On the fundamental attitudes necessary for such a development, see Hans, Kohn, Nationalism and Liberty. The Swiss Example (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956)Google Scholar. For a similar favorable judgment on Austria's nationality policy by a Western historian, see Die, J.. L'Europe ccntrale: éuolution historique de I'idée de “Mitteleuropa” (Paris: Payot, 1960), p. 161.Google Scholar
11 Zöllner, Geschichtn Österreichs, p. 481. See also p. 480: “Österreich brach am 25. Juli die diplomatischen Bezichungen [mit Serbien] ab und Berchtold veran-lasste Kaiser Franz Joseph auf die Nachricht von einem Gefecht bei Temes-Kubin—bei dem es sich höchstens um eine belanglose Schiesserei gehandelt haben kann, auch einige Ubergriffe gegen osterreichische Donauschiffe sollen erfolgt sein—zur Unterschrift unter die Kriegserklärung.” Austria's ultimatum to Serbia repeated the grievous mistake made in the ultimatum to Sardinia on April 23, 1859. Only this time the consequences were much more tragic. Germany's willing co-operation with Austria precipitated the first major war since Napoleon I, this time a war for German hegemony, as Ludwig Dehio has pointed out—a hegemony which in the case of success would have relegated Austria to a satel lite position and was felt as a threat to the equality of the Austrian Slavs. Fritz, Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914/18 (Diisseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1961), throws much new light on these problems from new documents and opens up new and widely overlooked perspectives on the background of the war and on the prevailing mood in Germany which can not be found in archival documents.Google Scholar
12 2 vols., Graz: Verlag Styria, 1963.
13 Francis Ferdinand's much discussed reform plans remained indefinite Because he was more concerned with preserving the primacy of the Catholic Church and the Germans. When Czechs and Germans in Bohemia seemed near a compromise in 1913, “griff der Thronfolger hemmend ein, weil ihm das Tschechentum sehr bevorzugt erschien und er eine Verstandigung der Liberalen beider Nationalitätcn Böhmens befürchtete. … Er wies den Innenminister Baron Heinold an, die Verhandlungen im Sande verlaufen zu lassen.” Rudolf, Kiszling, “Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand und seine Pläne für den Umbau der Donaumonarchie,” Der Donauraum, Vol. VIII, No. 5 (1963), p. 265Google Scholar. See also Baron, J. A. de Eichhoff, “Les Ctats-Unis de la Grande-Autriche aux Etats-Unis d'Europe. Reflexions sur les projects du feu l'archiduc François-Ferdinand d'Autriche,” La Revue Hebdomadaire, 1926, No. 13.Google Scholar
14 On the efforts of the last Habsburg emperor Charles to conclude a separate peace and to liberalize his realm, which might have saved it, see Leo, Valiani, “Nuovi document! sui tentativi di pace nel 1917,” Rivista Storica Italiana, Vol. LXXV (1963), pp. 559–587Google Scholar. On the background, see Heinrich, Benedikt, Die Friedensaktion der Meinlgruppe 1917–18 (Graz: H. Böhlaus Nachf., 1962)Google Scholar; and Mamatey, Victor S., The United States and East Central Europe 1914–1918 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957).Google Scholar
15 Edward, Crankshaw, The Fall of the House of Habsburg (New York: Viking Press, 1963), pp. 307 and 312. This well written book is destined for the general reader. It concentrates on the monarch, less upon the political and social forces shaping the life of the people. It puts the chief blame for the fall of the monarchy where it belongs: on “the abuse by the Magyars of their special position, which hamstrung all attempts at reform elsewhere” (p. 305) and on the monarchy being “harnessed to a dynamic power with very definite war aims of an imperialistic kind” (p. 407).Google Scholar
16 Hugo, Hantsch, Die Geschichte Österreichs, Vol. II (3rd printing, Graz: Verlag Styria, 1962), pp. 503 and 525Google Scholar. When some “realists” among the Germans recognized the necessity of such an abandonment as “unausbleiblich” (Ibid., p. 533), it was too late. How far German nationalism went under the Habsburgs may be seen from a letter written by Hermann Bahr on June 22, 1884, when he was a student under the influence of Georg von Schonerer: “Ich halte es für eine unausweichliche Pflicht, sobald ich etwas gelernt, alien Traumen von künftigem Gliick mannesmutig zu entsagen, wieder nach Österreich zu gehen und dort aufs Neue den Kampf aufzunehmen, ohne Ruhe und ohne die geringste Rücksicht auf meinen persönlichen Vorteil unausgesetzt mit alien Mitteln mitzuarbeiten an der endgiiltigen Vernichtung dieses wahnwitzigen Staatengebildes, das so recht der Erbfluch nicht bloss aller Deutschen, sondem jeder europaischen Cultur ist.… [I]ch bin fest überzeugt, dass wir es noch erleben, wie der ganze Plunder krachend zusammenfallt.” Quoted by Daviau, Donald C. in Journal of the International Arthur Schnitzler Association, 1963, p. 17.Google Scholar
17 On Leopold II see the new biography by Adam, Wandruszka, Leopold II (2 vols., Vienna: Herold Verlag, 1963-1964);Google ScholarDenis, Silagi, Jakobiner in der Habsfcurger Monarchie (Vienna: Herold Verlag, 1962)Google Scholar; and Heimito von, Doderer, “Neuland österreichischer Geschichte,” Das Forum, November, 1962, p. 459.Google Scholar
18 Franco, Valsecchi in a review of Zur italienischen Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Graz: Bohlau Verlag, 1961), in Studi Italiana, Vol. VI, p. 104.Google Scholar
19 Lhotsky, Österreichische Historiographie, p. 213.
20 4 vols., Munich: Bruckmann, 1935–42. “Die österreichische Idee erschien mirstets als eine im Wesen deutsche Idee, das österreichische Werden vieler Jahrhunderte schien mir nur durch die Reichsterbundenheit ermoglicht, und Österreichs ‘historische Mission’ sah ich ebenso wie seine Gegenwart und Zukunft nur in der unlosbaren Verklammerung mit der Gesamtnation gegeben.” Srbik, , Deutsche Einheit, Vol. I, p. 10Google Scholar. Answering his opponents in “Zur gesamtdeutschen Geschichtsauffassung,” Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. CLVI (1937), 229–262Google Scholar, Srbik envisaged, in 1937, the German Reich as “der feste nationalstaatliche Kern der Erdteilsmitte, mit ihm in festester nationaler Lebensgemeinschaft verbunden das heutige rein deutsche Österreich, ferner angegliedert auf der Grundlage der Achtung ihrer Staatlichkeit und der Achtung ungehemmten Lebensrechtes ihrer Völker die ostmitteleuropaische Staatenwelt.” After this adherence to the extreme nationalist program far the reordering of Central and Central-Eastern Europe, it is not astonishing that Professor Srbik, in an article in the Volkischer Beobachter, March 19, 1939, entitled “Deutsche Fiihrung—der Segen des Bohmischen Raums,” welcomed enthusiastically the annexation of Bohemia by the National Socialists. He did not inquire whether the respect for the “Staatlichkeit und ungehemmtes Lebensrecht” of the Czech people had been preserved in that “blessing.”
21 Srbik himself mentions (See his “Zur gesamtdeutschen Geschichtsauffassung,” p. 243) that his interpretation is regarded in certain circles in Austria as a disguised Prussian interpretation, “die in unlosbaiem Widerspruch zum osterreichischen Staatsgedanken stehe, die österreichische Geschichte verzeickne und letzten Endes zu Gewalt und Bluttat führe,” which it did.
22 Josef Nadler called the Baroque civilization the foundation of a “volkhaft und sprachlich neutrale Staatsbildung. Aus dieser lateinisch-romanischen Gemeinbildung des Weltreiches erwachst auf alien Gebieten eine ebenso gemeinsame Kunst mit dem gleichen barocken Stilgeprage in Bildkunst und Baukunst, in Musik, Dichtung, und Theater. … Weltmacht Österreich heisst Dichtung aus dem Gesamterlebnis Europas und aus dem formbildenden Willen eines grossstaatlichen Gesamtverbandes.”
23 In “Austrian History from 1848 to 1938 as seen by Austrian Historians since 1945,” Austrian History News Letter, No. 4 (1963), p. 20Google Scholar. Professor Hantsch edited a symposium entitled Gestalter der Geschickc Österreichs. In Studien der Wiener Katholischen Akademie, Vol. II (Innsbruck: Tyrolia Verlag, 1962) under the sign AEIOU. The large and handsome volume starts with Charlemagne and the Babenberg Duke Leopold III and ends with Dr. Engelber Dollfuss and Dr. Karl Renner.Google Scholar
24 Hugo, Hantsch, Die Geschichte Österrekhs, Vol. I: 4th ed., Graz: Styrii Verlag, 1959; Vol. II: 3rd ed., Graz: Styria Verlag, 1962.Google Scholar
25 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 162.
26 Speech by the Tyrolian Liberal Karl von Grabmayr on April 15, 1898, in bid., Vol. II, p. 448.
27 For a complete citation see p. 8, n. 3.