National Awakenings in the Habsburg Lands 675

Table 17.1. Ethnic Composition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in
1910 (in millions)

Ethnic Group Population Ethnic Group Population

Germans 12.0 Serbs 2.0

Magyars 10.1 Slovaks 2.0

Czechs 6.6 Slovenes 1.4

Poles 5.0 Italians 0.8

Ukrainians 4.0 Bosnian Muslims 0.6

Romanians 3.2 Others 0.4

Croats 2.9

major nationalities lived within the territorial boundaries of the empire;

these included Czechs in Bohemia and Slovaks to their east; Poles in Gali­

cia; Slovenes, Croats, Muslim Bosnians, and Serbs in the Balkans; Roma­

nians and Ukrainians in the southeast; and Italians in the Alpine Tyrol, as

well as Jews and Gypsies. But by far the two largest national groups were

the Germans (35 percent of the population), living principally in Austria

but numerous also in Bohemia, and the Hungarians, or Magyars (23 per­

cent). The traditional Hungarian crown lands formed the largest territory

in the empire, divided into Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania, the Vojvodina,

and the Military Frontier. Yet the Germans and Hungarians were outnum­

bered by the various Slavic groups, who together accounted for about 45

percent of the empires population. Czechs comprised 23 percent of Aus­

tria’s population. In Hungary, Romanians (with 19 percent of the popula­

tion) formed the next largest group after the Magyars (see Table 17.1).

Inadequate transportation networks accentuated the insular and over­

whelmingly rural nature of many ethnic regions—for example, there was

no railroad between Vienna and the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

How did this polyglot empire hold together as long as it did among all of

the competing ethnic rivalries and demands? The answers tell us some­

thing of the process of statemaking from the point of view of the non­

national state. First, the tradition of the Habsburg monarchy itself was an

important force for cohesion, rooted in centuries of Central European his­

tory. Emperor Francis Joseph, who was eighteen when he came to power in

1848, had taken the second part of his name from his enlightened ancestor

Joseph II to invoke the tradition of the House of Habsburg in those revolu­

tionary times. As a Hungarian statesman put it during the Revolutions of

1848, “It was not the idea of unity that had saved the monarchy, but the

idea of the monarchy that saved unity.”

Second, the Habsburgs depended on the support of the German middle

class and of the enormous German-speaking bureaucracy. The most salient

cultural traditions (for example, music) of the imperial capital, Vienna, were

overwhelmingly German. Viennese liberals celebrated their domination of