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Text: Zhang Runchen
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introduction
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was once the absolute power in Central Europe, but after the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, forming several states on the territory of the empire.
The reason why Austria-Hungary ushered in such an end was largely because it had forced the Russian Empire into a corner step by step......
(The Balkan Peninsula contested by Russia and Austria)
1. The battle for the Russian-Austrian Balkan Peninsula
At the end of the Middle Ages, the last great feudal empire in history spanning Asia, Europe and Africa arose: the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The barrier separating the Ottoman Empire from Europe was the Austrian Empire, the predecessor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Suffice it to say that long before the Austro-Hungarian Empire was formally formed, Austria's rulers had traditional interests in the Balkans. For a long time, there were only two main interests in the Balkans, Austria and Turkey.
But then the Russian Empire also intervened, and Russia and Austria began a century-old struggle in the Balkans.
(Austria-Hungary)
Since the time of Peter I, the main goal of the Russian Empire's external expansion has been the Balkans on the Black Sea coast, and its fundamental purpose is to control the entire Balkan region and thus gain access to the Mediterranean Sea.
Under these circumstances, the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire waged a century-long game in the Balkans. Because the Russians and the Balkan peoples belonged to the Slavs and were considered "cousins", the main direction of the Russian Empire was to promote pan-Slavism and the independence of the Balkan countries.
(Greek War of Independence)
Although the Austrian Empire also had its own territorial claims to the Balkans, it was unable to compete head-on with the Russian Empire due to its own weakness and lack of nationalism, and could only choose to fight the Russian Empire together with the Ottoman Empire.
Moreover, there were many Slavs within the Austrian Empire, so it was also afraid of the spread of Pan-Slavism to the country.
The first meeting between the two sides was in the Greek War of Independence, in which the Russian Empire armed the Greek rebels and helped the Greeks win the War of Independence. Although the Russian Empire did not fully control Greece, it did at least push down the first dominoes in the Balkans.
Austria was deeply jealous of this, and in the Crimean War, it chose to side with France and Britain to sanction the Russian Empire, and sent troops to Moldova to force the Russian Empire to withdraw. After the Crimean War, Russia and Austria completely tore off their disguises, and the two sides began direct competition in the Balkans.
(Crimean War)
But what Austria did not expect was that the Russian Empire actually took a dangerous move to provide all kinds of support to Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War, and directly helped Prussia drive Austria out of Germany and northern Italy.
The Austrian Empire was directly "raided" by the Russian Empire, and after this war, Austria was defeated, and a large number of Hungarians in the country were very dissatisfied with the authorities. Eventually, the Austrian Empire was forced to change its system to a dual empire, elevating the Hungarians to an equal position, and the Austrian Empire became Austria-Hungary.
This had two consequences, the first of which was that Germans and Hungarians in Austria-Hungary were given equal status, but their demands were not the same. The second is that Austria-Hungary was blocked from developing to the north and west, and after that, it could only concentrate on developing in the Balkans.
At this point, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire have become undying enemies, and the Balkan Peninsula has also become the key to the contention between the two empires.
(Bismarck forming the Three Emperors Alliance)
2. The climax of the Balkan game: the Bulgarian crisis
After the Austro-Prussian War, in order to win over Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire to balance Britain, Germany pulled the other two to form a "Three Emperors Alliance", hoping to jointly "share the interests of the Balkan Peninsula" through negotiation.
In the agreement, Bulgaria, as well as the Turkish East Ru Melia, were divided into the Russian Empire.
In the Balkans, the Russian Empire was given such a total of such land, and Bulgaria was the last bridgehead of the Russian Empire in the Balkans. Therefore, the Russian Empire attached great importance to Bulgaria and must not allow Austria-Hungary to "take Bulgaria".
In fact, Austria-Hungary did not intend to seize Bulgaria, but an accident led Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire to a zero-sum game...
(Balkan Wars)
In 1885, with the support of the Russian Empire, an uprising broke out in Philippopoli, the capital of Eastern Rumeilia, in which the insurgents ousted the Turkish governor and officials and declared that they would be united with the Bulgarian principality.
According to the original agreement of the "Three Emperors' Alliance", Bulgaria belonged to the Russian Empire, so Austria-Hungary expressed its support for the union of Bulgaria.
But what people never expected was that this Grand Duke Alexander turned out to be a "second and fifth boy". In order to get rid of the control of the Russian Empire, he even took the initiative to throw himself into the arms of Austria-Hungary.
There was no reason not to want to, and Austria-Hungary began to take the initiative to promote the union of Bulgaria. Tsar Alexander III could not tolerate a disobedient Grand Duke Alexander, and therefore during the Bulgarian crisis, he opposed the union of Bulgaria with Eastern Ru Melia.
(Tsar Alexander III)
For this reason, the Russian Empire decided to directly depose Archduke Alexander and establish a pro-Russian government in Bulgaria. But the Russians' plan was only half successful, Grand Duke Alexander was deposed, but power fell into the hands of the pro-Austrian capitalist Stablov, and the Russian Empire was dissatisfied, and then prepared to overthrow the Bulgarian government, but was again stopped by the Bulgarians.
After a series of farces, Bulgaria became the sphere of influence of Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empire was largely expelled from the Balkans.
Austria-Hungary seemed to have no rivals in the Balkans, but what the Habsburgs in Vienna did not know was that their worst enemy after losing the balance was actually the empire itself, and Austria-Hungary was about to embark on a disorderly expansion that dragged itself into the abyss.
At the same time, the Russian-Austrian contradictions derived from the Balkan issue have also become completely irreconcilable...
(Alliance of the Three Emperors)
III. The Prelude to the First World War
Bosnia and Herzegovina were the two "autonomous provinces" that Austria-Hungary had won in its war with the Ottoman Empire.
Previously, because the Hungarian aristocracy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not want the number of Slavs to be equal to their own and share their power, they did not want the empire to annex the two provinces, after all, most of the two regions were Slavs, so the two regions have always maintained a relatively embarrassing state.
But as the power of the Hungarian aristocracy grew, the Austrian-Hungarian Austrians were unhappy again, and they wanted to annex the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a way to increase the number of Slavs in the empire and thus balance the Hungarians.
Therefore, the Austrian authorities decided to annex the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, taking into account the overall situation. The opportunity was the Turkish Al-Shabaab revolution in 1908, after the far-right nationalist party Al-Shabaab came to power, Austria-Hungary had to start considering the possibility of Turkey's demand for the return of Bosnia and Herzegovina provinces to Turkey, so it simply annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina without doing anything.
(Alliance of the Three Emperors)
But the Austro-Hungarian Empire's move further provoked international discontent, including the Russian Empire and Serbia. But the Russian Empire had just experienced a crushing defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, and with Germany firmly on the side of Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire had no choice but to endure it.
On the other hand, the Kingdom of Italy, a new power with long-standing ambitions in the Balkans, became dissatisfied with the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary, which eventually led to an increasing separation between the Kingdom of Italy and the Central Powers. But the most dissatisfied people are the Serbs, and Bosnia and Herzegovina itself has a large number of Serbs, so Serbia also has territorial claims here.
As a result of the Bosnian crisis, almost all of Austria-Hungary's neighbors and stakeholders were pushed against Austria-Hungary.
From a short-term point of view, although Austria-Hungary drove away Russia and occupied a large number of territories in the Balkan Peninsula, it seems to be very profitable, but in the long run, Austria-Hungary has almost offended the surrounding countries, which is equivalent to setting a trap for itself, and Austria-Hungary, which has not enough strength to support and has begun to decline, is simply unable to resist the siege of surrounding countries.
(Balkans before World War I)
Austria-Hungary saw only the benefits of annexing the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but did not see the disadvantages of its own annexation of Bosnia. As we mentioned earlier, Serbia also has its own territorial claims to Bosnia, which is also a Slavic state and has a large number of Serbs.
But Serbia in 1908 was too weak to sit back and watch Austria-Hungary annex Bosnia. However, this also greatly stimulated the "pan-Slavic nationalism" sentiment in the Balkans, so much so that four years later, in 1912, Serbia united almost all the Balkan countries to form the "Balkan Alliance" to take the initiative to attack the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary.
This Balkan coalition was in fact supported by the Russian Empire, which means that the Russian Empire finally returned its power to the Balkans in this way. And in the face of the "uprising" in the whole region, even if Austria-Hungary had the heart to support the Ottoman Empire, it was still powerless.
(Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand)
At the same time, the self-confidence of Serbia and other Balkan countries began to skyrocket, and the Slavs within Austria-Hungary also began to turn outward.
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by a nationalist, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia in a fit of rage.
And the Austro-Hungarian Empire also paid the price for this, and this price was its own country, which disintegrated into many countries after World War I. In this Balkan game, Austria-Hungary loses its own future.
Resources:
[1] Zhu Congrui.The game between Russia and Austria during the Bosnian crisis[J].Public Relations World,2020,(02):71-72.
[2] Zhang Yufen.Austro-Hungarian Balkan Policy and Bulgarian Crisis[J].Nandu Xuetan,2007,(06):35-37.DOI:10.16700/j.cnki.cn41-1157/c.2007.06.014.
[3] Xu Fengzhen.On the collapse of British diplomacy and the alliance of the Three Emperors in the Near East crisis of 1875-1878[J].World History,1992,(06):91-97+106.