Friday, March 8, 2013
A World Without the Hapsburgs, Part III
Concluded from Part II
And what of the two primary partners of the Dual-Monarchy? In the case of Hungary, it is hard to imagine there being a more unjust outcome than the peace following the Great War as it affected the Hungarians. No other European power was as horribly butchered as Hungary who were certainly no more guilty than any other major participant in the war. When it was over, Hungary lost 70% of its territory and roughly a third of its entire population to the post-war carve-up. And all of this in spite of the fact that the Hungarian prime minister had tried to avoid the march to war in 1914. Istvan Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary, was reluctant to the last to link the assassination in Bosnia with the Serbian government, only supporting the war once the ultimatum to Belgrade had been sent and the ties between the government and the “Black Hand” were concretely proven. He was worried (correctly as it turned out) that while troops were fighting the Russians and Serbs that Romania would enter the war and attack Hungary. He also opposed the planned-for annexation of a conquered Serbia even though this was quite popular with many military leaders in Vienna at the time. Painted as a villain after the war, even those who were most in agreement with the Allies ended up suffering along with the rest.
Finally, there is the case of Austria itself. The Austrians, deprived of their empire, were naturally inclined, originally, to unite with Germany simply for the sake of security and economic recovery. The Allies refused to allow this and civil war, again, broke out between communist and non-communist forces with real stability only being restored by the establishment of the so-called “Austrofascist” regime of Engelbert Dollfuss. Ignore the labels, Dollfuss was a good man and a man who began setting the stage for the restoration of the Hapsburg monarchy and the wider world, certainly Europe, should be more aware of Dollfuss and inter-war Austrian history because it was the one, great opportunity for the European community to have stopped Hitler in his tracks. Because Dollfuss was a proud, Austrian patriot he was the number one enemy of the Austrian Nazi Party which wanted union with the “Third Reich” and the key moment came when the Nazis assassinated Dollfuss in 1934. Benito Mussolini, thoroughly outraged, ordered a partial mobilization and rushed Italian troops to the border, threatening war with Germany if Hitler took one step into Austria to take advantage of the situation. At that stage, Italy could have potentially defeated the Germans and Hitler backed off.