ABSTRACT
Empires provide a picture of "massivity, stability and endurance," but also of "long declines and, sometimes, precipitous falls." From that theoretical perspective, the imperial structure of the Habsburg empire, and not the presence on its territory of diverse nationalities—the latter was inherent in the former—was its most basic feature and the one that ultimately determined its destiny. Chief among the internal political realities was the Habsburg army—"trained and equipped primarily to maintain order at home"—and the readiness of the emperor and his advisers to use it to put down challenges to the existing imperial structure. The Habsburg empire, like all historical empires, was a collection of formerly independent or potentially independent historical-political entities that came under the sway of the Habsburgs. The disintegration of the Habsburg empire, along with the similarly multinational Russian and Ottoman empires, led logically to "Balkanization" in East Central Europe.
