From 1848 to 1916, Franz Josef controlled the destiny of not only Austria, but most of central and eastern Europe, as well.

The UNION OF AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY IN 1867 is a good example of such a marriage. The Italian and German campaigns for national unification altered the balance of power in continental Europe. These campaigns challenged the dominance of Austria's Habsburg Monarchy.

While Italy and Germany were each coming together, the Austrian Empire was coming apart. Within its boundaries lived Austrian Germans, the Magyars of Hungary, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Romanians, Serbs, and Croats. Its people practiced the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Muslim religions. Little other than geography held these groups together.

Austria's defeat at the hands of French and Piedmont forces in 1859 and its crushing loss to Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War crippled Austria's influence in Europe and encouraged resistance within the borders of its empire. Faced with the dual threat of a rapidly industrializing German state and a unified Italy, Austria courted a new political partner to prevent the further erosion of its power.

During the revolutions of 1848, Magyar leaders of Hungary and Czech leaders from Bohemia had asserted their independence from Austrian rule. The Magyar leader LAJOS KOSSUTH helped establish a parliamentary democracy with the passage of the March Laws of 1848. Austrian military forces crushed the Czech revolt, but Kossuth's HOME DEFENSE ARMY held firm. Soon afterwards Kossuth was elected president of the new Hungarian republic. But Austrian forces, with the help of 100,000 Russian troops, reasserted control over the defiant Magyars. Kossuth fled to exile in Turkey.

In an effort to remain a world power and consolidate its crumbling empire in central and eastern Europe, Austria joined with Hungary to form the unusual alliance called the Dual Monarchy.

Hungary Heart

Lajos Kossuth was not just a beloved hero of Hungary. He was widely worshipped in the United States as well. While on tour in the U.S., he was received by cheering crowds everywhere he went. This is an image of his parade down Broadway in New York City.

With the passage of the Settlement of 1867, known in Germany as the AUSGLEICH, the Austrian Empire became the AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE, a dual monarchy. In a dramatic ceremony in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, the Austrian Habsburg ruler FRANZ JOSEF received the crown of St. Stephen, Hungary's first king. Franz Josef was desperately trying to keep the crumbling empire intact.

The HABSBURG EMPIRE was now divided into two main territories: the AUSTRIAN EMPIRE and the KINGDOM OF HUNGARY. Both were ruled by the Habsburg monarch, who was centered in Vienna. Austria remained governed by the FEBRUARY PATENT OF 1861, which established a parliament known as the Reichsrat. The March Laws of 1848 governed Hungary.

Leader of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Lajos Kossuth was the first president of the new Hungarian Republic.

Although Austria and Hungary each had a parliament to manage their domestic affairs and those of their respective provinces, a joint cabinet controlled mostly by Austrian and Hungarian aristocrats handled foreign affairs, military affairs, and finances. And though in principle the new empire was a constitutional monarchy, the emperor retained considerable powers, especially that of dissolving the parliaments by fiat.

The Settlement of 1867

Other nationalist groups of the empire resented German and Magyar hegemony. The Magyar aristocracy aggressively pursued a policy of Magyarization, or forcing minority groups such as Croats and Serbs to assimilate into Hungarian society by adopting its language and customs. This pressure to conform backfired, as minority groups became even more conscious of their national identities than before. As minority nationalities stepped up their campaigns for independence, the response from Austrian and Hungarian rulers was repression — in particular, the end of press freedoms and trial by jury.

Hungary also sought to further its independence from Austria, provoking EMPEROR FRANZ JOSEF I to suspend the Hungarian constitution in 1903. This repression fueled the growth of pan-Slavic terrorist groups such as the Black Hand, which was responsible for the assassination of Austrian ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND in 1914, an event that helped trigger World War I.

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