Dissolution of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary dissolved in October and November 1918 while its army was still in the field. The empire had been held together by the dynasty, the army, the bureaucracy and the Catholic church, and by 1918 all four were failing at once. Charles I, who had succeeded in 1916, had tried a secret peace approach through his brother-in-law in 1917, had been exposed and humiliated, and was left dependent on Germany entirely. The nationalities did not so much secede as walk away. The Czechoslovak National Council was recognised by the Allies in the summer, largely on the strength of the Legion fighting its way along the Trans-Siberian Railway; a Czechoslovak republic was proclaimed in Prague on 28 October; the South Slavs declared a state on 29 October and joined Serbia on 1 December; Hungary declared its union with Austria at an end on 31 October; and the Poles took Galicia. The Italians attacked at Vittorio Veneto on 24 October into an army whose Hungarian regiments were demanding to go home, and took some 300,000 prisoners from a force that had ceased to have a state behind it. The emperor renounced participation in government on 11 November without abdicating, and the Republic of German-Austria was declared the next day. A monarchy of 640 years and 51 million people became seven successor states in about six weeks. The successor states were not more homogeneous than what they replaced. Czechoslovakia was a third German and Slovak, Poland a third minority, Romania and Yugoslavia the same, and the minority problem the empire had failed to solve was reproduced in seven smaller and less durable versions. Hitler used it from 1938.
- Year: 1918 CE
- Category: Political
