Read complete books and articles on: The Habsburgs

Hapsburg - or Habsburgboth: hăpsˈbûrg, Ger. häpsˈboork, ruling house of Austria (1282–1918).

Rise to Power

Hapsburg - or Habsburgboth: hăpsˈbûrg, Ger. häpsˈboork, ruling house of Austria (1282–1918).

Rise to Power

The family, which can be traced to the 10th cent., originally held lands in Alsace and in NW Switzerland. Otto (d. 1111) took the name Hapsburg from a castle near Aargau, Switzerland, when he was designated count. Vast estates in Upper Alsace, Baden, and Switzerland were inherited (1173) by his grandson Count Albert III (d. 1199) and passed to Rudolf II (d. 1232) and Albert IV (d. c.1240). The extinction of the houses of Lenzburg, Zähringen, and Kyburg facilitated family acquisitions.

The election (1273) of Count Rudolf IV as Rudolf I, king of the Germans, provoked war with King Ottocar II of Bohemia. Ottocar's defeat and death at the Marchfeld (1278) confirmed Hapsburg possession of Austria, Carniola, and Styria; these lands and the Austrian ducal title were declared hereditary by Rudolf in 1282. In 1335 Carinthia too was claimed. Possession of these dominions marked the rise of the Hapsburgs to European significance. Held in common by the sons of Albert I and of Albert II, the many lands were divided, after the death (1365) of Duke Rudolf IV, between the Albertine and Leopoldine lines (named for his brothers).

Hapsburg Ascendancy

The Hapsburg lands were reunited under Maximilian I at the end of the 15th cent. In the meantime, Tyrol (1363), NE Istria (1374), and Trieste (1382) were added to the Hapsburg domain. Albert V of Austria, married to a daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, succeeded him as king of Bohemia and Hungary and was chosen (1438) German king as Albert II. Henceforth, with one exception, the head of the house of Hapsburg was elected German king and Holy Roman emperor (see Holy Roman Empire for a complete list of emperors).

Though Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III raised (1453) Austria to an archduchy and acquired (1471) Fiume, he had to struggle to maintain the Hapsburg realms during his constant warfare against Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary and Bohemia. Under Frederick and his son, Maximilian I, a series of marriages greatly increased the hereditary holdings of the dynasty and gave rise to the saying "Let others wage war; thou, happy Austria, marry."

Most of the Low Countries (see Netherlands, Austrian and Spanish) were acquired by the marriage of Maximilian to Mary of Burgundy. The marriage of their son, Philip I, to Joanna of Castile, brought Philip's elder son, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to the throne of Spain. The marriage of Charles's younger brother, Ferdinand, to Anna, daughter of Louis II of Bohemia and Hungary, strengthened the Hapsburg claim to these possessions after the death (1526) of Louis at Mohács. Hapsburg power reached its zenith under Charles V.

The reigns of Maximilian I and Charles V, while encompassing the height of Hapsburg power, also witnessed the emergence of the enduring struggles that eventually sapped Hapsburg strength. These included the defense of Central Europe against the Turks; the support of the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation; and the defense of the dynastic position against the rise of France.

Shifting Fortunes

Charles V divided his dominions between his son, Philip II of Spain, and his brother, Ferdinand of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary, who succeeded Charles as Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. The Spanish and Austrian branches of the dynasty cooperated in the Thirty Years War (1618–48) and opposed the French in the Third Dutch War (1672–78) and in the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–97). The division of the family holdings, the acquisition of the royal crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, and the wars against the Turks in the 17th cent.—these factors transformed the dynasty into a polyglot monarchy, interested more in extending the family power in the Balkans than in purely German affairs.

The Hapsburgs lost Alsace, Franche-Comté, Artois, and part of Flanders and Hainaut during the wars against Louis XIV. In the War of the Spanish Succession, caused by the extinction of the Spanish Hapsburgs at the death (1700) of King Charles II, the family lost their claim to Spain. However, they retained the Austrian Netherlands and Lombardy and reconquered Hungary from the Turks. By the pragmatic sanction (1713), Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI guaranteed the indivisibility of the Hapsburg domains and the succession of his daughter, Maria Theresa.

In the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) and in the Seven Years War (1756–63), Maria Theresa lost Silesia to Prussia but successfully defended the rest of her inheritance. On the death of Charles Albert of Bavaria, Holy Roman emperor as Charles VII (1742–45), the imperial title was bestowed on Archduchess Maria Theresa's husband, Francis, grand duke of Tuscany and former duke of Lorraine, who became Francis I.

Maria Theresa inaugurated the bureaucratic centralization that was carried forward by her son Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. With him began the line of Hapsburg-Lorraine. An enlightened despot, Joseph II instituted reforms that included abolition of serfdom, revision of the penal code, religious toleration, and reduction of the power of the church. Leadership in the Hapsburg empire was given to the Germans. Tuscany, separated (1790) from the main family holding, was held until 1860 by a junior branch of the dynasty (except during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras). The duchy of Modena, acquired (1806) by marriage, was also possessed until 1859 by a junior branch.

The senior line was continued by the brother of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, who repealed many of the reforms of Joseph II. Leopold's son, Francis II, assumed (1804) the title Francis I, emperor of Austria, and abdicated as Holy Roman emperor in 1806. Though repeatedly humbled by Napoleon I, Francis emerged at the Congress of Vienna (1815) as one of the most powerful European monarchs. Giving up the Austrian Netherlands, the Hapsburgs regained Dalmatia, Istria, and Tyrol. They were compensated with Salzburg and in N Italy with Lombardy and Venetia, which, with Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, made the Italian peninsula virtually a Hapsburg appendage.

Final Decline

In the 19th cent. the Hapsburg position was challenged in Germany by Prussia, in Italy by Sardinia, and in the Balkans by Russia. During the revolutions of 1848, Francis's son Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his nephew Francis Joseph, whose long rule (1848–1916) saw Austria lose (1859) its dominance in Italy and surrender (1866) leadership in Germany to Prussia.

In 1867 the Hapsburg lands were reorganized as the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Buffeted by the twin forces of liberalism and nationalism and torn by the fratricidal hostilities of the polyglot national groups, the Hapsburg monarchy failed to create any ideological basis for its existence, failed to curb the domineering national groups (Hungarians, Germans, and Poles), and failed to satisfy the demands of the rising middle and industrial classes.

The assassination of heir apparent Francis Ferdinand precipitated World War I; the death (1916) of Francis Joseph left his grandnephew, Emperor Charles I, to witness the defeat of Austria-Hungary, which was dissolved immediately after Charles's abdication in 1918. Charles's son, Archduke Otto, succeeded him as head of the Hapsburgs. The unresolved problems of the Hapsburg monarchy remained to torment the Balkan successor states. After World War I, members of the family who refused to renounce the throne were exiled from Austria; the exile was repealed in 1996.

Bibliography

See R. A. Kann, The Habsburg Empire (1957) and Multinational Empire (1950, repr. 1964); H. Kohn, The Hapsburg Empire: 1804–1918 (1961); A. J. May, The Passing of The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914–1918 (2 vol., 1966) and The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867–1914 (1951, repr. 1968); E. Crankshaw, The Hapsburgs (1971, repr. 1983); V. L. Tapié, The Rise and Fall of the Hapsburg Monarchy (1971); R. J. Evans, The Making of the Hapsburg Monarchy: 1550–1700 (1979); A. Wheatcroft, The Habsburgs (1996).

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14 of the Best Books and Articles on: The Habsburgs

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation » Read Now
by R. J. W. Evans. 532 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

the most significant contribution in any language to the history of early modern Austrian Habsburgs.
2.

The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary » Read Now
by A. J. P. Taylor. 279 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Violence Rewarded: the End of the Habsburgs, 1914-18 233 Epilogue...THE DYNASTY THE Empire of the Habsburgs 1 which was dissolved in 1918 had...the Bukovina, and even...
3.

The Rebirth of the Habsburg Army: Friedrich Beck and the Rise of the General Staff » Read Now
by Scott W. Lackey. 258 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Friedrich Beck was the single most important figure in the transformation of the inept Habsburg military into the modern military state that would wage World War I. He correctly perceived that only an elite body of officers responsible for war planning and preparation could provide lasting security...
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Friedrich Beck was the single most important figure in the transformation of the inept Habsburg military into the modern military state that would wage World War I. He correctly perceived that only an elite body of officers responsible for war planning and preparation could provide lasting security for the Austro-Hungarian empire. After firmly establishing the general staff as an institution, Beck led war planning to counter threats from Russia, Italy, and the Balkans; and spearheaded a vast rebuilding of the rail network. While his rise to power marked a return to the "favorite system" of military administration of the early Franz Joseph period, Beck proved himself a man with real military ability that revolutionized an army.
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4.

After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building: The Soviet Union and Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires » Read Now
by Karen Barkey, Mark von Hagen. 200 pgs.

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This ambitious & important volume brings together a group of some of the most outstanding scholars in political science, history, & historical sociology to examine the causes of imperial decline & collapse.
5.

The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (1929) » Read Now
by Oscar Jaszi. 463 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...building ever recorded. For, if the Habsburgs had been able really to unite those ten...spontaneous co operation, the empire of the Habsburgs would have surpassed the...
6.

The Coming of the First World War (Chap. 3 "The Habsburg Monarchy and the Coming of War") » Read Now
by Robert J. W. Evans, Hartmut Von Strandmann Pogge. 190 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The debate about the conflict which transformed Europe between 1914 and 1918 is one of the most fundamental in modern European history. This book, based on public lectures given in Oxford, makes two distinctive contributions to that debate. It presents readable and judicious accounts of the events...
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The debate about the conflict which transformed Europe between 1914 and 1918 is one of the most fundamental in modern European history. This book, based on public lectures given in Oxford, makes two distinctive contributions to that debate. It presents readable and judicious accounts of the events and decisions which directly precipitated the outbreak of war in each of the main countries and assesses the role of public opinion and popular mood in determining and responding to the "July Crisis." The book offers a stimulating survey of the historiography of the immediate causes of the war, before and since the famous "Fischer controversy" over German responsibility, and new reflections on the character of the official and unofficial "mentalites" during the last weeks of peace. Published on the seventieth anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, this book will appeal to anyone interested in how wars begin.
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7.

Gendarmes and the State in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Chap. 13 "Variations: The Habsburg Lands") » Read Now
by Clive Emsley. 288 pgs.

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The history of police and policing have been the subject of much interest and research in recent years, but this book provides the first serious academic exploration of the origins and development of the role of soldier-policemen: the gendarmeries of nineteenth-century Europe. The author presents a...
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The history of police and policing have been the subject of much interest and research in recent years, but this book provides the first serious academic exploration of the origins and development of the role of soldier-policemen: the gendarmeries of nineteenth-century Europe. The author presents a detailed account of the French Gendarmeries from the old regime up to the First World War, and looks at the reasons for how and why this model came to be exported across continental Europe in the wake of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies. In particular their role is examined within the differing national contexts of Italy, Germany and the Habsburg Empire. The gendarmeries, it is argued, played a significant role in establishing the state, particularly in rural areas. As the physical manifestation of the state, gendarmes carried the state's law and a promise of protection, whilst at the same time ensuring in turn that the state received its annual levies of conscripts and taxes This account fully explores how the organisation and style of nineteenth-century soldier-policing in France developed in such a way that it brought the idea of the state and the state's law to much of twentieth-century continental Europe.
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8.

Liberal Professions and Illiberal Politics: Hungary from the Habsburgs to the Holocaust » Read Now
by Maria M. Kovacs. 172 pgs.

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In this important new historical study, M'aria Kov'acs examines the struggle between liberal and anti-Semitic policies among professional groups--doctors, lawyers, engineers--in Hungary. Kov'acs's main emphasis is on the interwar period when unemployment, expansion of the welfare system, and...
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In this important new historical study, M'aria Kov'acs examines the struggle between liberal and anti-Semitic policies among professional groups--doctors, lawyers, engineers--in Hungary. Kov'acs's main emphasis is on the interwar period when unemployment, expansion of the welfare system, and competition for state jobs during the Great Depression, combined with crass anti-Semitism on the part of engineers and medical associations, radically altered previously liberal policies of open entry and equal educational opportunity. Liberal Professions and Illiberal Politics analyzes to what extent these new policies were dictated by authoritarian governments from above and to what extent they originated within the professions themselves. The story ends with the Holocaust, which sealed the fate of those professionals who had become victims of persecution under the German occupation of Hungary.
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9.

The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspective (Chap. 4 "The Disintegration of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires: A Comparative Analysis" and Chap. 7 "The Habsburg and Ottoman Empires and Their Aftermaths") » Read Now
by Karen Dawisha, Bruce Parrott. 374 pgs.

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10.

Germany in Western Civilization (Chap. 12 "The Habsburg Bid for Ascendancy in Europe") » Read Now
by William Harvey Maehl. 838 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...GERMANY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION GERMANY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION WILLIAM HARVEY MAEHL THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS University , Alabama SECOND PRINTING...
11.

1848: The Revolutionary Tide in Europe (Chap. Five "The Habsburg Lands: The Flare-Up") » Read Now
by Peter N. Stearns. 280 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...1848: The Revolutionary Tide in Europe REVOLUTIONS IN THE MODERN WORLD General Editor: JACK P. GREENE, Johns Hopkins University J. R. JONES The Revolution of...
12.

Why Did the Habsburg-Valois Conflict Last for so Long?, in History Review » Read Now
by Stewart MacDonald. 7 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...periodic triumphs against the French, the Habsburgs invariably found it impossible to finance...spent three years as a hostage of the Habsburgs in Spain, after the Treaty...
13.

The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation ("Habsburg Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina" begins on p. 73) » Read Now
by Francine Friedman. 288 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Here, Francine Friedman provides a comprehensive portrait of the Bosnian Muslims as a people and as a nation. She traces their history and shows how their mixed secular and religious identity has shaped the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
14.

Contemporary Austrian Politics ("The Habsburg Monarchy in the International Context" begins on p. 5) » Read Now
by Volkmar Lauber. 292 pgs.

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...output in the early 1840s Katzenstein 1976, 43 . The military defeat by the Prussians 1866 forced the retreat of the Habsburgs from the German Zollverein ; this also had...