Why didn't Austria-Hungary back down to the british ultimatum in 1914?

[Traitorfish]

I missed where anybody was arguing otherwise.

If you don't dispute my original claim, why did we just spend a week debating it?

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I don't see how you get to 'gross and unfair generalizations' from that, especially considering:

What are you arguing? So far all your points boil down to truisms without a real point.

You're leaving out the Germans (to name but one, but significant minority) in Czechia.

They were a German minority in a province administered in the German part of the Empire, you point being?

 

[Agent327]

What are you arguing? So far all your points boil down to truisms without a real point.

Sometimes saying things that are actually true is better than arguing. But since you do, the point was you accuse someone of gross simplification while doing the exact same thing. Someone might call that somewhat inconsistent.

They were a German minority in a province administered in the German part of the Empire, you point being?

How good of you to ask. Besides what I just pointed out, the empire was fraught with minorities, each indulging in their particular brand of nationalism. In Bohemia this was 'solved' by a similar compromise as the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich. Which is fine as long as the status quo remains as is, but it doesn't usually. Going to war with Serbia certainly wasn't the answer the imperialists were hoping for. But then, heading blindly into war usually isn't. It was clear even to the then Austrian foreign minister that things couldn't go on as they were. It's just a pity that the only solution he saw wasn't one - except in terms of dissolution.

If you don't dispute my original claim, why did we just spend a week debating it?

I'm not sure what you were doing - besides shifting goalposts -, but I wasn't arguing that, in case you'd missed it.My argument was that the then Austrio-Hungarian governnng circles could have known better. They chose not to.

 

[Kyriakos]

We don't need to actually resemble the AH in infighting in the thread ^^

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not sure what you were doing - besides shifting goalposts -, but I wasn't arguing that, in case you'd missed it.My argument was that the then Austrio-Hungarian governnng circles could have known better. They chose not to.

"I'm smarter than the Emperor", while perhaps accurate, is not a useful insight. The question was why the Austro-Hungarian leadership were prepared to go to war in 1914, not what Agent327 would have advised were he a member of that leadership.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

To get back on topic...

Given that AH wasn't exactly as strong as Germany, and it had already backed down to british ultimatums in the past (eg in the build up to a war between AH and Switzerland) i wanted to ask if their refusal this time was more of an autonomous action or was the analogous compliance that Megara retained leaving its stronger ally (Thebes) to dictate diplomacy with the enemy powers.

1) On why the Austrians didn't comply with the British ultimatum: Let my turn your question back on its head. Why would the Austrians accept the British ultimatum. London was a little tarty to the party in terms of getting their opinions known to those in Europe in July 1914, indeed many historians have criticized Asquith, Grey, and the Foreign Office for their lackluster and often listless approach to the July Crisis. By the time that Britain sen out their ultimatums, war was already apparent, Britain had missed their chance to be a calming factor in Europe. Particularly with the German one, the ultimatums were more about giving Britain a moralistic reason to join the war (defended the neutrality of Belgium). Though isn't interesting that a state that claimed to have entered the war to defend the rights of neutral nations in 1914 would turn around and violate the neutrality of a sovereign nation themselves in 1915...

2) At the beginning of the war, Austria-Hungary was treated far more as an equal by Germany than they would in the later years. The more Germany troops, and particularly nco's were needed to shore up the A-H lines, the more operational control the Austrians had to surrender to the Germans. Charles' secret communications with the Allies in 1917 didn't give him a strong hand in dealing with Germany when the French ratted him out the next year. Before the war and until at least 1915 the level of coordination between Austria and Germany would be abhorrent to modern alliance members. There was no regular communication, no coordinated military plans, no high-level summits, mostly reassurances that they were still best friends.

Anyway, that Austria-Hungary was the weakest of the main powers became obvious very soon, given it managed to (in the first half of WW1) lose to Serbia and be pushed back, and then was ruined in Galicia by Russia (Kafka mentions several times the organisation of refugees from lost Galicia, eg in 1916).

The K.u.K.'s record in 1914 is less to do with the skill of the army than with their leader, Conrad von Hötzendorf. Conrad made some seriously goofy decisions. In 1914 for example, there were two operational options the K.u.K. had at the start of the war that at least made semi-sense, concentrate against Russia and leave Serbia for later, or go on the defensive against Russia and try to crush Serbia as quickly as possible then shift forces north/east. Conrad went with a third option, launch half-baked operations against both of them and get embarrassed in the process. Continuing with the theme of the lack of Austro-German coordination, both Berlin and Vienna believed that the other was going to contribute more to the war with Russia, and when both realized their mistake Conrad decided to send the Second Army, which was only just arriving on the Serbian front, to Galicia. This lead to a series of actions that should've had the Benny Hill theme playing over them; Troops disembarking from cars after long rides only to almost immediately get back onto those same cars to go to Russia, rail lines absolutely congested, equipment straight up dissapearing or arriving to the wrong stations, units being left behind and being used in the 1914 invasion pf Serbia to the confusion of their offices, and so on and so on. No army could properly operate in those conditions.

History seems to allow the British to have gotten away with some silly mistakes and decisions of their own in their first engagements in the Great War.

 

[Kyriakos]

Re the possibility (mentioned in page #1) of an Austria-Czechia to replace Austria-Hungary, it seems that the czech people were third-class citizens in Bohemia under AH (first class being germans, and second class being jewish). Which is particularly interesting given also that Bohemia was -afaik- the most industrialized part of AH, probably due to the natural resources there.
Of course the status of jewish people changed after ww1, but AH was no more then anyway.

 

[historix69]

A (language) census for A-H in 1910 counted :
German : 12 million
Hungary : 10 million
Czech : 6.4 million
Poles : 5 million
Kroats (and Serbs) : 4.4 million
Ukraines (Ruthenes) : 4 million
Romanians : 3.2 million
Slovaks : 2 million
Slovenians : 1.3 million
Italians : 770,000
others : 2.3 million

see the map

Spoiler :

Edit :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary#Ethnic_relations

Article 19 of the 1867 "Basic State Act" (Staatsgrundgesetz), valid only for the Cisleithanian (Austrian) part of Austria-Hungary, said:

"All races of the empire have equal rights, and every race has an inviolable right to the preservation and use of its own nationality and language. The equality of all customary languages ("landesübliche Sprachen") in school, office and public life, is recognized by the state. In those territories in which several races dwell, the public and educational institutions are to be so arranged that, without applying compulsion to learn a second country language ("Landessprache"), each of the races receives the necessary means of education in its own language."

In recognition that he reigned in a multi-ethnic country, Emperor Franz Joseph spoke (and used) German, Hungarian and Czech fluently, and Croatian, Serbian, Polish and Italian to some degree.

 

[Kyriakos]

AH didn't include Bosnia until 1912, though.

 

[historix69]

"Bosnia and Herzegovina fell under Austro-Hungarian rule in 1878 when the Congress of Berlin approved the occupation of the Bosnia Vilayet, which officially remained part of the Ottoman Empire. Three decades later, in 1908, Austria-Hungary provoked the Bosnian crisis by formally annexing the occupied zone, establishing the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the joint control of Austria and Hungary."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_rule_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina

 

[Kyriakos]

"Bosnia and Herzegovina fell under Austro-Hungarian rule in 1878 when the Congress of Berlin approved the occupation of the Bosnia Vilayet, which officially remained part of the Ottoman Empire. Three decades later, in 1908, Austria-Hungary provoked the Bosnian crisis by formally annexing the occupied zone, establishing the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the joint control of Austria and Hungary."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_rule_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina

I didn't know that, thanks I was under the impression that AH annexed Bosnia in the beginning of the first balkan war, which was what triggered the issues with Serbia ever since.

 

[historix69]

AH was neutral during the Balkan Wars while Serbia roughly doubled its territory.
The Greeks conquered Thessaloniki during the Balkan Wars and also gained around +70% in territory and population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Serbia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars

 

[Kyriakos]

AH was neutral during the Balkan Wars while Serbia roughly doubled its territory.
The Greeks conquered Thessaloniki during the Balkan Wars and also gained around +70% in territory and population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Serbia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars

Yes, i just was under the impression that AH annexed Bosnia unilaterally, without officially being part of the balkan war.

 

[Lexicus]

That isn't how the Austrians saw it, though. It wasn't necessarily how most contemporaries saw it. It's easy to look back at a century of ethnic and national conflict and see the Balkans as a region naturally comprised of a dozen or more squabbling states, but at the time, the common sense of the Austrian elite was that the problem of minorities was one of good government, whether this meant pluralism or a firmer hand.

This made me think that the Balkans had been under the rule of large multiethnic empires for the majority of the last, what, eighteen centuries?

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Re the possibility (mentioned in page #1) of an Austria-Czechia to replace Austria-Hungary, it seems that the czech people were third-class citizens in Bohemia under AH (first class being germans, and second class being jewish). Which is particularly interesting given also that Bohemia was -afaik- the most industrialized part of AH, probably due to the natural resources there.
Of course the status of jewish people changed after ww1, but AH was no more then anyway.

The Austrians replacing the Hungarians with the Czechs was never gonna happen, and indeed might have precipitated a civil war on the part of the Hungarians who by 1900 had their own military forces as well as experience governing themselves and some minorities in their kingdom.

What could have happened, and depending on some historians' claims was beginning to happen, was that the Czechs could have been promoted as a sort of third main "ethnic" force, thus creating a possible ally for the Austrians with regards to internal politics of the A-HE. While there were some prominent/vocal Czech supporters of Independence, the rank and file of the business & political classes of Bohemia were still more or less loyal/supporters of the Empire (or at least the idea of the Empire). The Czechs made up a significant block in the Austrian parliament and in the K.u.K. Generally the Czechs ranked with the Croats as being among the more "loyal" of the various ethnic groupings in the Empire.

 

[historix69]

This made me think that the Balkans had been under the rule of large multiethnic empires for the majority of the last, what, eighteen centuries?

The balkan region wasn't stable in the last eighteen centuries, e.g.
- the Great Migration
- in 9th century the Hungarians/Magyar invaded/migrated from the north (originating from Ural region)
- invasion and migration of turk people, rise of Ottoman empire

The Austrians replacing the Hungarians with the Czechs was never gonna happen, and indeed might have precipitated a civil war on the part of the Hungarians who by 1900 had their own military forces as well as experience governing themselves and some minorities in their kingdom.

What could have happened, and depending on some historians' claims was beginning to happen, was that the Czechs could have been promoted as a sort of third main "ethnic" force, thus creating a possible ally for the Austrians with regards to internal politics of the A-HE. While there were some prominent/vocal Czech supporters of Independence, the rank and file of the business & political classes of Bohemia were still more or less loyal/supporters of the Empire (or at least the idea of the Empire). The Czechs made up a significant block in the Austrian parliament and in the K.u.K. Generally the Czechs ranked with the Croats as being among the more "loyal" of the various ethnic groupings in the Empire.

According to Clark and other historians, the murdered arch-duke supported the idea of a trialism including the slaws instead of the Austria-Hungarian Dualism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trialism_in_Austria-Hungary

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

According to Clark and other historians, the murdered arch-duke supported the idea of a trialism including the slaws instead of the Austria-Hungarian Dualism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trialism_in_Austria-Hungary

Clark's The Sleepwalkers is a book I highly recommend to those interested in the early 20th century.

The main problem with Trialism was, like so many other problems with the Habsburg Empire, the Hungarians. The crown of Croatia was legally under the Crown Lands of St. Stephen (Hungary), though Croatia proper had been split between the Austrians and Hungarians. This further split the Croatians between an Austria who was sympathetic to Trialism and a Hungary which viewed any proposal to alter the borders of the Kingdom to be a threat to the crown.

Its interesting to note that Croatian politicians and advocates were lobbying hard for a tripartite monarchy all the way until the last week of October 1918. The South Slavs literally waited until the collapse of administrative authority of the Habsburg Monarchy to declare independence.

 

[historix69]

The situation of the South Slavs was difficult. To not end as Italian "loot" for WW1 losses (and Italian treachery against Central Powers), they had to become independant and strong. That's probably the reason to form a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes instead of forming smaller national states as we know them today.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

The situation of the South Slavs was difficult. To not end as Italian "loot" for WW1 losses (and Italian treachery against Central Powers), they had to become independant and strong. That's probably the reason to form a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes instead of forming smaller national states as we know them today.

Serbia would also need a very public bone to be throne their way, as for the French the war was prosecuted in their "defense" and among the surviving Allied powers they had "suffered" the most. Further, a collection of strong regional powers was key to France's future strategy of containing the successors to the Hohenzollern & Habsburg states.

In the minds of the Allies, Italy should content themselves with bits of Austria proper, and if not they can suck an egg...

 

[historix69]

By helping to found Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia at the end of WW1 with territory from the dissolved Russian and A-H Empire and parts of Germany / territory with German population, France created its own group of (small) allies. (Russia was no longer in the game and the British might not join in a coming French-German conflict.)