Actually the Austro-Hungarian Empire had transformed to be quite liberal and free at the start of the 20th Century. It had basic Civil Rights. What they lacked was an elite and politicians like Churchill that would have kept the Empire together. What they had was Kaiser Franz Joseph I, a genuine symbol of the Empire that was respected, yet an old man that would not reform and modernize the idea of the Empire. That reform never came, which could have overcome the voices of ethnic nationality. Hence what kicked in is majority-politics. People especially in the cities would often speak many languages and didn't think so much about just who exactly they were. That was until they were asked to register to be German, Czech or Hungarian etc. by the government itself. Talk about identity politics on steroids.Hastur wrote:
To be fair the Austro-Hungarian Empire was extremely afraid of nationalism. Prince Metternich put a lot of effort into quelling all signs of nationalistic tendencies. After the French revolution and Napoleon nationalism was seen as the big disruptor by the European monarchs. The Habsburgs were feudal to the core. Feudalism and absolutism were the hills they were defending. All power to and from the feudal lord. To them any talk of nations and constitutions were seditious talk that should be clamped down upon. Brittain was leagues ahead thanks to the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights.
And how adaptable is even the one-people one-country ideology is obvious from modern Austria. Because during the Empire, the German speaking people viewed themselves as Germans. Germans were back then living in many various countries. Only after the notorious Adolf H. did his macabre stuff known as the rise and fall of the Third Reich and WW2, was a separate Austrian identity born and promoted with things positive things being rebranded to be Austrian, like Mozart himself, and the negative things like Nazism to be exclude as a German construct. The fervour of Austrians doing this understandable as the city of Linz is in Austria.
Just how this is implented and how the views differ, here's a great example from an American talk show, with Conan O'Brien: Christoph Waltz on the difference between Austrians and Germans .
Just think if Bavaria would be now an independent country. Boy, would the Bavarians see themselves as totally different from the Germans and the Austrians!
