ABSTRACT
During the war of 1914-18 the Romanov and Habsburg empires collapsed. Though the timing and circumstances of their fall were different it is, nevertheless, evident that the principal cause was that of the effects of the war upon the political and economic systems of the two states which eventually rendered their governments helpless. Widespread agreement on the existence of a relationship between the strains of war and imperial collapse masks profound disagreement concerning the strengths and capacities of the two states in the quarter-century preceding 1914. It has been argued that both states were strong, or that both were weak, or that Russia was strong but Austria-Hungary weak and vice versa. Historians have adduced evidence from all aspects of life: the economy, society, culture, religion, nationalities, political representation, the legal and administrative systems, and, perhaps most significantly, the conflicts between traditionalism and modernization. Contemporary opinion in the two states was similarly unagreed on their actual and relative strength and, in addition, was often characterized by wishful thinking, national interest or prejudice, rather than by observation and rigorous analysis.
