ABSTRACT
Certainly all the major powers bear some measure of responsibility for the war that began in 1914.2
Nationalism was the major force behind the First World War, and nowhere was this more obvious than in Austria-Hungary, ruled since 1848 by Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef. Although the empire may have made sense economically, it was a racial mélange of at least a dozen minorities. Austria’s defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1866 led to the Ausgleich (agreement) the next year. This allowed the Germans (23 per cent of the population) and the Magyars (19 per cent, the empire’s next largest minority and pre-eminent in Hungary) to dominate the empire’s other peoples. The Dual Monarchy was essentially two sovereign states that functioned as one in military, foreign, and tariff policies.3
