Nationalism and the Habsburg Empire
During the latter periods of the empire’s existence however, the officer corps became less useful in the maintenance of loyalty among the wealthiest in society. Many national minorities began to refuse to send their sons to officer training academies in order to signal their opposition to a German-speaking government governing non-German speakers (Deak, 1990, p.181). The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 would see much greater power granted to the Kingdom of Hungary, and the renaming of the country to Austria-Hungary. Between 1848 and 1867, Franz Joseph did not particularly succeed in increasing loyalty towards him and the empire. In the period of 1849 to 1860, Franz Joesph instituted neo-absolutism. Its increased repression saw greater hatred of the central government, while very little was done to address growing nationalism in the period which saw particular popularity among the middle classes. Unlike how he was viewed in his later years as king, where he served as a national figurehead, Franz Joseph of this period was seen as a symbol of the unjustness of the out-dated centralized, monarchist system of government (Cornwall, 2025). Franz Joseph was forced to compromise and give up much of his absolutist tendencies after 1859. In 1859, Austrian forces were defeated and shown to be ineffectual during the Second Italian War of Independence. Following a second humiliating defeat in 1866 to Prussia, Franz Joseph was forced to further concede to popular demand and agree to the formation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867. Despite the lack of progress for much of this period, the Austro-Hungarian Compromise and its legislation was a major step towards ensuring decreased discontent among national minorities. However, it marked an irreversible step away from the creation of a supranational, imperial identity. It was not what Franz Joseph would have wanted, although he would later abide by it almost religiously (Cohen, 2025). Yet it was successful in ensuring the aid of the Hungarians in maintaining the Habsburg Empire. This was because it gave the Hungarians control over the entirety of the historical Kingdom of Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary comprised much more territory than Hungarians actually inhabited, including much of modern-day Romania, Serbia, and Austria, and all of modern-day Croatia and Slovakia. Furthermore, the reforms undertaken in 1867 ensured, despite the vagueness of the terms (Judson, 2016, pp. 193–194), that minorities’ rights to have children educated in their native language were guaranteed. This was however, limited by the need for a significant population of people who spoke that language in the catchment area. These reforms appeased and increased the loyalty of largely middle-class nationalists who were very keen on children of all classes being taught the ‘correct’ language (Judson, 2016, pp. 193–194). However, many working-class parents actually sent their children to schools that spoke another language such as Hungarian, Polish or German (Cohen, 2000, p. 217). They believed that knowledge of one of these more prestigious languages would better set up their children for the future. Besides, many citizens of the Habsburg Empire spoke multiple languages fluently – particularly in regions where nationalities mixed such as Burgenland (between Austria and Hungary) and the Sudetenland (between Germany and the Czech lands). These variances between the desires of the middle class for the working class, and the desires of the working class itself are emblematic of nationalism in Austria-Hungary.
Particularly before the introduction of universal male suffrage, nationalism was a political idea much more important to the less exploited middle classes than the working classes who had different political
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