ABSTRACT
These two quotations illustrate the very different views held about the central problem of the Habsburg empire. How, in an age when nationalism was rampant, could a multinational empire be held together? According to Taylor, the problem was never solved and the First World War simply accelerated the empire’s collapse. According to Sked it was at least possible that the Empire might have survived had it not been for the First World War. Other historians go further: ‘The AustroHungarian Empire still looks better as a solution to the tangled problems of that part of the world than anything that has succeeded it’ (George Kennan, cited in Sked, Habsburg Empire, p. 6).
