866 Ch. 22 • The Great War
Irreconcilable hatreds existed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which
was made up of a great many different nationalities. The Austrians and the
Hungarians, who dominated the other nationalities of their territories (see
Chapter 17), were satisfied, but other peoples were not. Thus Czechs, Slo
vaks, Poles, and others resented Austrian and Hungarian domination. And
Romanians were unhappy with Hungary’s vigorous campaign to “Mag
yarize” public life at the expense of non-Hungarian minorities.
The South Slavs were the most dissatisfied peoples within the Austro
Hungarian monarchy. The southern territories of Austria-Hungary included
South Slav peoples—majorities in some regions—who resented subservience
to the monarchy. These included Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs (see Map
17.3).
During the mid-nineteenth-century revolutions, the Russian army had
bailed out the then-youthful Emperor Francis Joseph, invading Hungary in
1849 and defeating its rebellious army (see Chapter 16). But by the turn of
the century, the Russian government was eagerly fanning Pan-Slav fervor
in the Balkans, stirring ethnic tension in the southern regions of the Hab
sburg domains. In the mountainous Habsburg Balkan territories of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, which included Orthodox Serbs, Muslims, and Catholic
Croats, many Serbs were committed to joining Bosnia to Serbia. The impli
cation of Pan-Slav nationalism, that Slavs sharing a common culture ought
also to share a common government, threatened the very existence of the
Habsburg monarchy. The threat of Russian-oriented Pan-Slavism made
Austria-Hungary even more dependent on Germany, as it contemplated the
possibility of one day being drawn into a war against Russia.
For centuries Russia had coveted the strategically crucial Dardanelles
strait, as well as the narrow Bosporus strait of Constantinople, controlled
by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Russian mastery over the straits that sep
arate Europe and Asia would allow it to control entry to the Black Sea and
afford it easy access to the Mediterranean. Russia’s defeat in the Crimean
War (1853—1856) by Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire had only
temporarily diminished Russian interest in the region. British policy in the
Balkans had long been predicated on keeping the straits from Russian
control.
The Alliance SystemThe alliance system of late-nineteenth-century Europe, then, hinged on
German and French enmity, the competing interests of Austria-Hungary and
Russia in the Balkans, and Germany’s fear of being attacked from both east
and west by Russia and France (see Map 22.1). Great Britain stood inde
pendent of any alliance until undertaking an Entente with France in 1904.
Colonial rival of both Germany and France and the opponent of Russian
expansion, Britain ultimately came to fear the expanding German navy more
than French colonial competition or Russia.