Why did Austria-Hungary Collapse?

Diversity was their strength

Francesco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy,

September 1924:

"No country was perished more viciously in

Trianon than Hungary. But this country is

dwelled by spiritually strong people, who won't

be resigned to the demolition of their country.

Hungary's dismembering is so dishonourable

that no one takes responsibility for it.

Everybody acts like they don't know about it,

everybody is in coy silence. The reference to

the right of nations' self-determination is only

an untrue formula... they misused their victory

in the most vicious way... There's no French,

English or Italian who would accept the

conditions forced to Hungary for their own

nation..."

Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom for 8 years, 1925:

"This treaty is no work of statesmen, but the

result of severe and fatal deceptions."

Vladimir Iljic Lenin:

"The treaty was forced down their throat, but

this is a usurious treaty, the treaty of murderers

and butchers... unprecedented, predacious

treaty... this is no treaty, these are conditions

that scampsmen dictate with knives in their

hands to unprotected victims."

Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the U.K., in his

speech on the 7th of October, 1929:

"The whole documentation that we received

from our allies at the peace talk, was deceitfuland untrue. We came to a decision on false

principles"

Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of

the U.K.:

"The result of the Treaty of Trianon in Europe is

not peace, but the fear of another war."

The first minority rights were proclaimed and enacted by the revolutionary Parliament of Hungary in July 1849, and before that we had a revolution against the Austrian empire and the Russian empire 1 v 2 , first country in europe to have rights for minorities.

I can tell you watched the WW1 film from epic history because you literally use the same sentences that the narrator said

Too much diversity…

Make video about Illyria please

I listened to an Austrian hustorian on ÖRF. He said austrian empiror started to many wars. They lost them, and AH KK in the end.too.

THE WORLD WAS CREATED BY GOD , HUMAN LOSS OF LIVES NEVER STOPPED !!!
THE WORLD’S GREED HASN’T LEARNED A DAMN THING .
WHO OWNS EVERYTHING ??
OUR MIGHTY GOD !!
HUMANS ARE TOO STUPID TO REALIZE !!!
🤔🤔🤔

the proto EU

Eastern Europe fractured through Balkanization and WW1, during an era when large super states emerged, either through industrialization induced population growth (UK, France, Russia) or political merger (Germany, Italy).

As a result they became pebbles to be played with by emerging great powers. Quite tragic. Unity would have served them much better (a hindsight, ofc).

Only God knows about it.

hungary got done dirty by Trianon treaty.

Very informative video about the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I've always been fascinated by this period in history. I especially found the discussion of nationalism and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to be very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Bă deci nu îmi vine să cred că acest canal este făcut de de de la dedo

"Served as a powder keg, ill-fated to blow at any given notice." What... what language is that?!?

That red-green naval ensign with the two crowns is one of the best looking flags ever made

name one multi-ethnic nation that hasnt, or isnt, imploding into a hotbed of intersectional partisan violence, conflict and strife...

Austrian and Hungarian nobility wanted everything and ended up with nothing.... and so did their people who became victims of nationalistic fantasies.

Globally the tension, the emergence of national states the partitioning of Austria-Hungary were the primer interests of France. Consider French history: in the XIXth Century France was continuously beaten by Germany. Throughout the earlier centuries France almost always was hostile towards Austria or the Holy Roman Empire. Because of this France had numerous alliences with the Ottoman Empire, while the Turks were attacking the Habsbourgs. In WW1 France's nightmare came true: the Ottomans, Austrians and Germans all allied themselves and attacked French territory. So France's main diplomatic aim was to ensure none of the previous enemy empires stay intact and they all have one or more several thorns in their back. With the Ottoman Empire this meant the partition of the Ottomans territories (Lebanon, Syria, Algeria) and support of the Greeks in the Greco-Turkish war. With the Germans this meant the creation of Poland. With Austria-Hungary this meant the creation of new nation states and strenghtening the French ally Roumania. These countries became known as little Entente later, they were a constant threat to Hungary and Austria.

Locally panslavism played a great role. This means that in Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia there was a great cultural revival in the early 1900s. The slavic habits, slavic mythoses, culture were adored and inserted in their national canons. The slavic people were oppressed, their culture was considered less worthy, first by the Austrians and German culture, then by the Hungarians after 1867.
The situation in Gallicia and southern Poland was another. Those areas were mainly inhabited by Poles, Ukranians and Jews. After WW1 that area was contested: the Red Army, the Polish Army and the Ukranians all wanted to subdue those territories.
The third case was with Transylvania and Roumania. The population was approximatly 40% Roumanians, 30% Hungarians, 30% Germans. However the Roumanians were very lucky and cautious during the XXth Century. Just quickly retrospectively: they didn't join WW1 until it seemed that the Brusilov offensive will be succesfull. After that they were beaten severely and occupied by the Central powers. But they didn't sign any peace treaties, trusting that the Entente will win. Which occured and the Roumanians reentered the war, attacking Austria-Hungary. After the war they immediatly attacked Transylvania and captured it because the Hungarian army was disintegrating and Hungary became a short time communist dictatorship.
During WW2 the Germans gave parts of Transylvania back to Hungary (there was almost another Hungarian-Roumanian war). After supporting the Axis until 1944, the Roumanians switched sides and attacked. So they got Transylvania back again.

Overall, it was not realistic to keep Austria-Hungary together, even as a federation. There were too many territories, each speaking another language. Even with Franz Ferdinand not assasinated and his solution of a 3 power center based empire (slavic countries, Austria, Hungary), the situation of for example the Croats (almost autonomous) and the Slovaks (no autonomy at all) was too different. People in Galicia, South Poland had no real interests to fight for such an empire.

The Hungarian PM István Tisza knew that WW1 will be the death sentence of the Empire. Attacking and eventually conquering Serbia would have only brought another slavic nation to the Empire, which was even then unable to deal with the others already within its borders.

To scede from the empire was not the will of Hungarians.
Károlyi was leading a social democratic dictatorship and he was installed trough a revolution a revolution what was orchestrated by freemasons of the Martinovich lodge.

Franz Ferdinand had abandoned the idea of Trialism well before his assassination.

Thanks for the video. Austria and Hungary were not one state, it's completely false to see it as one state. Nationalism didn't have any role, two horrible multiethnic states were formed after the collapse, Yugoslavia had 6-7 different nations, and the area was often multiethnic so there was not one dominant ethnic group. For instance among the lands that were taken from Hungary Transylvania was the most homogenous - with a little more than 50% Romanians. The ethnic groups did nothing for the collapse, there were no revolutions, etc., and in most cases, they were against the collapse, and they were not even asked about it. An average Slovakian or Croatian was not asked at all what they wanted. The Great Powers wanted to destroy this empire and form bizarre states out of it against Austrians and Hungarians.

these 2 little countries, Austria and Hungary, started WW1, in which tens of millions of innocent people died, absolutely incredible! They should have been punished much harsher, just as the Nazi Germany was punished for starting WW2!

Very true about soldiers in ww1. They basically did nothing, just germans vs the world

Damn how interesting in 1867 population in Italy have doubled, France +30m, Germany +20m, Brits +20m and Turkey have quadrupled!! Oh and Russia worst place on earth has declined 10m

This empire should have never fell apart. 😪

Alan Sked, Istvan Deak, John Deak and others disagree, as I do. It was never an empire doomed to fail. Its collapse was not inevitable. It's only hindsight you are using to "prove" it was not viable.

I knew a half Austrian half Slovenian girl . Father was Slovenian. Very pretty girl, anyway she said Slovenia should've became completely independent post 1918, instead of joining an union with the Croats, Serbs and Macedonians. Due to Slovenia being the most developed , mainly central European mentality and the only Yugoslavian state at that time where the great majority of the population were literate. While states like Serbia and Macedonia,the great majority of the population were illiterate. Until the end of Yugoslavia, Slovenia contributed the lion share of the Yugoslavian economy and this put a drain on Slovenia she said.

Diversity was their strength

I found a mistake on your thumbnail, Poland and Ukraine split the Kingdom of Galicia-Lodomeria into Poland and the WUPR. As the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was 🇺🇦🇵🇱

Just one fix... There were no Bosnians as ethnic group at that time, it is just the name of all people that live there and it was used only since 1990s as name of Serb ethnic group that ever since wishes to renounce their Serbian roots by changing the ethnic origin, mainly Muslim Serbs, but not all. This is a reaction since they fought their Orthrodox and Cathlic brethren in 1990s and felt betrayed, just like people in all republics of Yugoslavia. In Bosnia there are Serbs mainly with less of Croats and even lesser of Slovenes since early middle ages, even though they called their state, kingdom of Hercegovina at that time. Interesting fact also, after death of Saint Simeon Nemanjic of Serbia, they had even bigger cult of that Saint then any kingdom of Serbia till today. Only after Ottomans invaded and had 200 year rule did the cult weakened, because of pressure to convert to Islam.

Quick question, Why does everyone have this hatred for Hungary, well "certain" people.

Because every empire finally collapses.

So owesome and interesting thank you pleasd do more!! ❤🙏

Austria should have been allowed
to Anschluss with Germany around
1918 - 1919 .

It survive as of today . The place is Called Canada .. if there were no WWI and Russia they might still survive

Dobrze że nie ma już tego tworu zwanego Austro-Węgry. Amen.

This felt like a nothing video. Clearly the most surface level research

Ancient Greece: Invented democracy and philosophy. Also invented arguing with strangers for fun, so not much has changed.

This is what the US and the west has to look forward to. Lessons of the past not grasped and learned from. Pure multiculturalism has an inevitable failing point. Well structured representation and a balance of residential stability are key ways to keep stability in regions. Importing new populations and increased movement of populations around the area of geographical control actually pushed the west backwards by its policies which encourage nomadicism. A way of life that is very tribalistiv and individualistic in that the people who move around, place to place, apartment to apartment do not participate in democratic systems and do not upkeep or improve their immediate surroundings. This can be found in voting records in the US. Those who have an investment and something to loose will fight to keep what they have and perhaps this is the point of the increase in immigration, to subdue the native populations and out compete them in order the those in power to keep it and gain power with those who are new with incentives, buying them off. The biggest mafia ever.

Thanks for this teaching!

Germany actually had Alsace-Lorrainein 1914, no?

Why is there no alsace—lorraine in germany?This is wrong😒

No, Austria-Hungary didn't immediately declare war on Serbia following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

The 1st thing Austria-Hungary did was send an ultimatum of 10 demands to Serbia,to the shock of almost everyone, Serbia actually agreed to 8 or 9 of the demands.

Serbia wanted the 1 or 2 points they didn't agree to be sent to the international tribunal at the Hague for arbitration.

However, Austria-Hungary considered the rejection of the 1 or 2 points as a rejection of the whole thing and thus they declared war

I'm surprised that after Franz Ferdinand was assassinated that Franz Joseph didn't say:" We're going to need another heir to the throne."

You see, Franz Ferdinand was the 3rd heir to the throne after his father,Franz Joseph's brother Karl Ludwig, died of typhoid fever in 1895.

Ksrl Ludwig became heir in 1889 after Franz Joseph's son, Rudolf,killed himself

The problem with the creation of the Dual Monarchy/Austro-Hungarian Empire was that,like pretty much all the Habsburg Compromises,it pleased no one.


1. As you mentioned, when the Hungarians were given their status in the empire,you had the other minorities and even language groups saying "What about us? Where are our rights?"

2. The more conservative elements in the empire opposed it on the grounds that it gave too much say to the Hungarians