The Habsburg Empire: A New History Hardcover – April 25, 2016

The Habsburg Empire, also known as the Austrian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or Austria-Hungary, often seems to conjure up a comic-opera image of strutting officials in lavish uniforms, overdressed ladies consuming vast quantities of sweets, and a general air of pomposity, inefficiency, and incompetence. Nearly one hundred years after the Empire's collapse in 1918, however, Pieter M. Judson's new history makes the case that the Habsburgs and the bureaucracies they created to help them rule their vast territories were more capable and better organized than is generally perceived. This is a lengthy book of some 450 pages, plus another 100 pages of extensive Notes. Divided into eight chapters and an epilogue, it covers the period from Maria Theresa's reign in the eighteenth century through the 1918 collapse and its aftermath. It's a lengthy book with a lot of detail, but it is also well written, with new material and conclusions that challenge long accepted interpretations and hold the reader's interest.The Habsburg Dynasty was one of the world's great success stories. Emerging from a single castle in what is now Switzerland during the Middle Ages, the family managed through an adroit policy of making advantageous marriages and managing inheritances to gain control of much of Central Europe and become Holy Roman Emperors. Judson's history begins with Maria Theresa, only child of Emperor Charles VI. When she succeeded her father in 1740 her territories almost immediately came under attack from rapacious neighbors like Frederick the Great's Prussia. Maria Theresa was intelligent and charismatic, and she was able to rally her subjects and defeat or at least fight to a stalemate most of her enemies. The Empress was responsible for developing a new way of treating the people she ruled: as individual citizens with rights and privileges that were to be guaranteed and protected by the central state. She and her two sons Emperors Joseph II and Leopold II laid the groundwork for a bureaucracy that helped them govern from the center and weaken the power of local landlords and nobles. This process continued under Emperor Francis I, who became Emperor of Austria when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by Napoleon in 1806.During the nineteenth century the policy of centralization and bureaucratic rule continued. Emperor Francis Joseph I, who ruled from 1848 to 1916, had to deal with the growth of nationalist impulses that threatened the unity of his multi-ethnic empire. These nationalisms could be based on language, ethnicity, or a combination of both. The Emperor proved to be fairly adroit in playing off competing sides against each other and in balancing demands so that he and the central government kept the upper hand most of the time. When he was forced into allowing the Hungarian section of his territories to become independent, thus creating the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867, he continued to manage to keep things rumbling along successfully most of the time. At the back of Francis Joseph and his predecessors' plan all along was the commitment to keep the Empire's subjects loyal to the Empire rather than to their specific language or national group. For the most part, during the prosperous late nineteenth century, Francis Joseph succeeded. Railroads, telephones, telegraphs and other technological developments helped tie distant provinces firmly to the capitals of Vienna and Budapest, and most of his subjects saw Francis Joseph as the final guarantor of their rights andfreedoms.The outbreak of World War I in 1914 is commonly held to have doomed Austria-Hungary right way. Judson makes the point that the Empire was fairly successful in holding together for the first year or so of the war, but food and supply shortages and high casualty rates placed too much stress on its governing structure. Francis Joseph's death in 1916 and the succession of his great-nephew Emperor Charles seemed to provide a brief burst of new energy and hope, but by the fall of 1918 the end was inevitable. In a several weeks long collapse the different segments of the Empire broke free, and the last Emperor and his family were forced to flee.In the post war period the new nation-states that arose from the ruins of Austria-Hungary tore down imperial emblems and statues but retained many of the Empire's laws and even some of its officials. The new nations were often weak and their governments frequently turned to a fervent new form of nationalism that emphasized specific peoples and languages, rather than continuing the Imperial policy that focused on the unity of disparate peoples under one government. That is probably one of the most important of Judson's insights, especially at a time when new fears of immigration appear to be encouraging new and more strident forms of nationalism in the West.

Learned, well researched, but ultimately too narrow in its point of view. Pieter Judson dedicates the book to one or two major ideas. The first of these is that the traditional story/narrative that nationalist strivings brought the Hapsburg Empire to dissolution, that the Empire was "the other sick man of Europe," is false. He views it as very effective until the final days. The second major idea is that the idea of a nation-state based primarily on language/culture had not even developed for much of the time the Empire existed. The primary issues were instead the struggle with local nobles to give up/share power with first emerging middle classes, and later, workers and peasants. Whether Czech or Ruthenian the people saw the central Hapsburg state being their likely ALLY against the power of the nobles. These are two good and well made points, though I'm not sure that 440 pages of sometimes turgid prose were necessary to make them.My issues with the book are the intensely narrow focus on making these points to the exclusion of the many issues that led to an almost complete military collapse in the first year of WWI and subsequently essentially becoming a satellite of the German Empire.There is no exploration of how Austria-Hungary lagged behind other European empires in industrialization, steel production, miles of railways, armaments production, incorporation of modern tactics in the mllitary, etc. There is no exploration of how the intensely rigid and authoritatrian behavior of Emperor Franz Joseph led his son and heir to commit suicide in partial desperation about being able to introduce reforms. There is no exploration of how Conrad van Hotzendorf was allowed to pursue suicidal strategies in the war against Serbia despite repeated failure and the loss of hundreds of thousands of men. Were there no other generals? Why not? There is no exploration of why the Empire was unable to provide food for the cities, the issue that eventually appeared to precipitate the revolutions that eventually resulted in the creation of multiple new states. Judson is so intent in proving his hypothesis that the Empire was effective and garnered the loyalty of the people that he misses many of the deficiencies of the society that are implicated in its collapse.For some further information on these unexplored areas I recommend two books by Frederic Morton, Thunder at Twilight and A Nervous Splendor.I think Judson's work, as someone else said, is very like a dissertation trying to prove a hypothesis, and in doing so misses other important data. With all that said, I am glad I read it and feel it is an important read for persons interested in Central European history.

The Habsburg Empire by Dr. Pieter M. Judson a professor of history in Florence Italy reads like a dense textbook on the explosive region. The period covered begins in the eighteenth century as the Swiss Habsburg Family seized the dynastic reins in Vienna. Thje Austrian Empire was a stabilizing force in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Strong administration, a good tax system and freedom and liberalization for peasant communities all emerged under the liberal despotic regimes of the formidable Maria Theresa and her sons who followed her in the succession to the throne. There were problems with rebellions in Hungary and far flung areas of the huge empire where over thirty millon people lived. The year of 1848 led to the fall of Prince Metternich in Vienna and greater autonomy for the areas and regions controlled from Vienna. Franz Joseph became the emperor in 1848. The Austrian Empire collapsed in 1918 after fighting on the losing side in World War I. The book's main them is that the Habsburg Empire was basically well governed throughout most of its long history. The volume also gave this reviewer a good overall history of Eastern Europe that is usually omitted from books dealing with European history in the period covered. It is dry reading but contains good information. I wished the author would have humanized his argument with anecdotes but alas he did not1 Nevertheless, this is the book to read on the famous Habsburg Duynasty. Well illustrated with copious footnotes in the back of the book.

I bought this book to provide further understanding to an area I don't know much about and I wasn't disappointed. From the first chapter providing the rise of the Habsburg, this book is full of facts, clear writing and accessible argument. This argument is an interesting one as it portrays the empire not as decaying empire or even a reactionary one, and I personally found it convincing; for every perspm opposed to change there was one keen to modernise the empire. The author uses examples such as police/army levels in the various European capitals to support the main argument and portrays the Habsburg regime as a generally popular one at least until the war years when the trials and tribulations of the conflict eroding loyalties and the popularity of the regime.I thought the book could have had another chapter as it seemed to stop suddenly and also didn't seem to cover the end of empire in much detail. However, that could have been the authors intention in showing the relative strength of the empire until just before the end. All in all, I found a convincing argument hidden in this easy to read book (I read it on my lunch break at work) and is easy to drift in and out and would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the Habsburgs.

This is not really the history of the Habsburg Empire I was looking for. After reading Joseph Roth’s “The Radetsky March” I became interested in the long, slow decline of the empire and the character of Emperor Francis Joseph who in a long and hardworking reign saw his empire crumble and disappear. If you seek some insight into the emperors and their characters and relative historical importance you will not find it here. In fact, beyond the barest skeleton, the Habsburg monarchy is virtually written out of this history. For example, on page 379 we learn that the heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, sympathized with south Slavs and opposed the Hungarians. Yet we had heard nothing of this before and hear nothing of it again. How significant was the archduke in framing policy? How did this affect his assassination? We are not told. As for the character of Francis Joseph we learn almost nothing about his character beyond the fact that he was diligent, which again is a presented in an almost offhand way. Yet this is a man who ruled a vast empire for 68 years, from 1848 to 1916.I appreciate that Professor Judson did this deliberately, presumably to avoid writing a “history from above”. In its place we have a very structural approach, focusing on the various assemblies and administrative structures in different parts of the empire, which are constantly changing. This is important of course but it can make for quite dull reading.Major events are also skirted over. We get little sense of the place of the empire in 19th century Europe or its relations with other states. Even very major events, such as the defeat to Prussia in 1866, virtually happen offstage – they are only seen as important insofar as they have a bearing on the structure of the empire. Maximilian, the emperor's brother, who was executed in a botched attempt to establish an empire in Mexico, is hardly mentioned.Finally, Professor Judson has a number of pet theories that are presented rather too often, especially towards the end of the book. One of these is that the traditional approach. which sees the large and disparate Habsburg Empire as falling victim to 19th century nationalism should be placed on its head; rather, the nation states that evolved out of the empire were themselves “mini-empires”. I am not sure that this semantic argument gets us very far. Naturally, Judson addresses the multilingual nature of the empire, but he de-emphasizes one of its key weaknesses; the absence of a dominant language. He points out that other nations and nations being formed, such as the UK, France, and Italy, also contained speakers of other languages within their borders, but the difference was that these nations were able to define themselves in terms of the dominant language.I realize that I may have not assessed the book according to its own aims, but rather against what I was looking for, which was a more traditional history of the empire. It is after all described as a "new" history. The book is very well researched and the writing is generally clear. If you are interested in a detailed account of the workings of state and society in the Habsburg Empire, you will find material to interest you here.

Clearly well researched but frustratingly hard work to read this book although I am persevering because I am very interested in the subject. The author always chooses the most long winded and awkward way of saying something and then says it again in a different convoluted way often interspersing the text with questions asking the same thing. (Maybe trying to get the word count up, to meet the publisher's target? ) The most disappointing thing for me is that the book lacks soul. There is no attempt whatsover to portray the human side of the Hapsburg key players. No attempt to portray how they felt, their personalities, how they overcame their obstacles, what they were like as people. It is just a chronological list of events - dry, wordy and dull. Because it is well researched, I will try to finish this book but it might finish me off first !

Here we have a book on the last centuries of Hapsburg rule, which tells you almost nothing about the events that took place during that period. The happenings that normal history books center on are, here, so far off to the side that they are actually in other books! That said, what this book does do, and does very well, indeed, is show the background of the Empire; its political, social and economic changes that do explain the "grand events" that the usual histories focus on. Reading this book I was first disappointed, but as I read further, and realised its author's point of view, I found it more and more satisfying. I learnt a lot.

Not for the faint hearted! But a very informative read! This book puts a new perspective on the Habsburg empire!