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The Austro-Hungarian Empire
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the lesser known participants in the Great War.
The Holy Roman Empire was developed at the same time as the Frankish Empire (which would become France in the middle ages) with the crowning of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in CE 800. This lead to one of the ironies of the Great War, three of the largest combatants (France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary) could trace some portion of their historical formation to the same event in history. During the beginning of the 19th century the Empire was ripped apart by the Napoleonic wars, and the independent Austrian Empire was formed from the lands held by the Hapsburg Empires and centered on the old capital of Vienna.
The Austrian Empire, like the earlier Holy Roman Empire, was never a cohesive nation like France or England. It was instead made from dozens of cultural groups divided into two main areas of influence, the German speaking Austrian Kingdom, and the Hungarian speaking Hungarian Kingdom (whose court language was Latin). The Hapsburg Emperor was German speaking and was often seen as a foreign ruler by individual peoples.
This was made worse by the struggles that the southern portions of the empire had with the Ottoman Turks. The Battle of Mohács in 1526 and the ending of the ruling Jagiellonian dynasty with the death of Louis II has resulted in Austrian rule more as an expression of the lack of other choices rather than a voluntary association. Even after the Empire fell and the Austrian Empire was formed, the Hungarian Kingdom was not all that connected to their German speaking brethren.
This came to a head in 1848 when young Hungarian intellectuals revolted against the Hapsburgs in 1848 and were only defeated with the aid of Russia. Despite putting down the rebellion the Hapsburgs recognized that their Empire was not a strong as those of the French or Russians. The issues were made worse by the creation of a unified Italian state, formation of great Prussia from the Northern German states, and the defeat of Austria by Prussia.
The compromise of 1866 saw a two headed Empire being formed. The Kingdom of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary agreed to form an equal partnership that shared defense and foreign trade but were otherwise ruled separately. Each Kingdom had its own monarchy, but each operated under a single Emperor. The Empire itself would adopt the Roman Catholicism of the Hapsburgs, and would have two primary and six regional "official" languages. A single monetary policy and currency would cover both Kingdoms, but the citizens of the two kingdoms would have different passports and be subject to local laws. The nation itself would be the second largest in Europe in terms of land (with 680,000 square kilometers) and would be the third largest in terms of population (with 52 million inhabitants in 1914). The army would be built of three parts: the Imperial Army, the Austrian Landwehr, and the Hungarian Honved. The joint Imperial Army had a reputation of being poorly lead and equipped, since most military funding coming from the Austrian and Hungarian Kingdoms went to their own units instead of the joint force.
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