Austria-Hungary

The dual monarchy has been anachronistically often called simply Austria, referring to the main hereditary lands of the ruling Austrian Habsburgs and particularly to the Austrian Empire, which the dual monarchy emerged from.

The realm's full name used in internal administration was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen

German: Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der Heiligen Ungarischen Stephanskrone

Hungarian: A Birodalmi Tanácsban képviselt királyságok és országok és a Magyar Szent Korona országai

Following a decision of Franz Joseph I in 1868, the realm bore internationally the official name Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (German: Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie, IPA: [ˈøːstəʁaɪçɪʃ ˈʊŋɡaʁɪʃə monaʁˈçiː]; Hungarian: Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia, IPA: [ˈostraːk ˈmɒɟɒr ˈmonɒrɦijɒ]).

Other occasionally used names were the Dual Monarchy (German: Doppel-Monarchie; Hungarian: Dual-Monarchia), The Double Eagle (German: Der Doppel-Adler; Hungarian: Kétsas) or the Danubian Monarchy (German: Donaumonarchie; Hungarian: Dunai Monarchia), but none of these became widespread either in Hungary or elsewhere.

The state used internally the names k. u. k. Monarchie (English: k. u. k. monarchy) (in detail German: Kaiserliche und königliche Monarchie Österreich-Ungarn; Hungarian: Császári és Királyi Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia).

From 1867 onwards, the abbreviations heading the names of official institutions in Austria–Hungary reflected their responsibility:

k. u. k. (kaiserlich und königlich or Imperial and Royal) was the label for institutions common to both parts of the monarchy, e.g., the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine (Navy) and, during the war, the k.u.k. Armee (Army). The common army changed its label from k.k. to k.u.k. only in 1889 at the request of the Hungarian government.

K. k. (kaiserlich-königlich) or Imperial-Royal was the term for institutions of Cisleithania (Austria); "royal" in this label referred to the Crown of Bohemia.

K. u. (königlich-ungarisch) or M. k. (Magyar királyi) ("Royal Hungarian") referred to Transleithania, the lands of the Hungarian crown. In the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia, the autonomous institutions used k. (kraljevski) ("Royal"), since according to the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement, the only official language in Croatia and Slavonia was Croatian, and the institutions were "only" Croatian.

Following Hungary's defeat against the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Mohács of 1526, the Habsburg Empire became more involved in the Kingdom of Hungary, and subsequently assumed the Hungarian throne. However, as the Ottomans expanded further into Hungary, the Habsburgs came to control only a small north-western portion of the former kingdom's territory. Eventually, following the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, all former territories of the Hungarian kingdom were ceded from the Ottomans to the Habsburgs. In the revolutions of 1848, the Kingdom of Hungary called for greater self-government and later even independence from the Austrian Empire. The ensuing Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was crushed by the Austrian military with Russian military assistance, and the level of autonomy that the Hungarian state had enjoyed was replaced with absolutist rule from Vienna. This further increased Hungarian resentment of the Habsburg dominion.

In the 1860s, the Empire faced two severe defeats: its loss in the Second Italian War of Independence broke its dominion over a large part of Northern Italy (Lombardy, Veneto, Modena, Reggio, Tuscany, Parma and Piacenza) while defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 led to the dissolution of the German Confederation (of which the Habsburg emperor was the hereditary president) and the exclusion of Austria from German affairs. These twin defeats gave the Hungarians the opportunity to remove the shackles of absolutist rule.

Realizing the need to compromise with Hungary in order to retain its great power status, the central government in Vienna began negotiations with the Hungarian political leaders, led by Ferenc Deák. The Hungarians maintained that the April Laws were still valid, but conceded that under the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, foreign affairs and defence were "common" to Austria and Hungary. On 20 March 1867, the newly re-established Hungarian parliament at Pest started to negotiate the new laws to be accepted on 30 March. However, Hungarian leaders received word that the Emperor's formal coronation as King of Hungary on 8 June had to have taken place in order for the laws to be enacted within the lands of the Holy Crown of Hungary. On 28 July, Franz Joseph, in his new capacity as King of Hungary, approved and promulgated the new laws, which officially gave birth to the Dual Monarchy.

The Austro-Prussian War was ended by the Peace of Prague (1866) which settled the "German question" in favor of a Lesser German Solution. Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust, who was the foreign minister from 1866 to 1871, hated the Prussian chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who had repeatedly outmaneuvered him. Beust looked to France for avenging Austria's defeat and attempted to negotiate with Emperor Napoleon III of France and Italy for an anti-Prussian alliance, but no terms could be reached. The decisive victory of the Prusso-German armies in the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent founding of the German Empire ended all hope of re-establishing Austrian influence in Germany, and Beust retired.

After being forced out of Germany and Italy, the Dual Monarchy turned to the Balkans, which were in tumult as nationalistic movements were gaining strength and demanding independence. Both Russia and Austria–Hungary saw an opportunity to expand in this region. Russia took on the role of protector of Slavs and Orthodox Christians. Austria envisioned a multi-ethnic, religiously diverse empire under Vienna's control. Count Gyula Andrássy, a Hungarian who was Foreign Minister (1871–1879), made the centerpiece of his policy one of opposition to Russian expansion in the Balkans and blocking Serbian ambitions to dominate a new South Slav federation. He wanted Germany to ally with Austria, not Russia.

Russian Pan-Slavic organizations sent aid to the Balkan rebels and so pressured the tsar's government to declare war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877 in the name of protecting Orthodox Christians. Unable to mediate between the Ottoman Empire and Russia over the control of Serbia, Austria–Hungary declared neutrality when the conflict between the two powers escalated into a war. With help from Romania and Greece, Russia defeated the Ottomans and with the Treaty of San Stefano tried to create a large pro-Russian Bulgaria.

This treaty sparked an international uproar that almost resulted in a general European war. Austria–Hungary and Britain feared that a large Bulgaria would become a Russian satellite that would enable the tsar to dominate the Balkans. British Prime Pinister Benjamin Disraeli moved warships into position against Russia to halt the advance of Russian influence in the eastern Mediterranean so close to Britain's route through the Suez Canal. The Treaty of San Stefano was seen in Austria as much too favourable for Russia and its Orthodox-Slavic goals. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Gyula Andrássy (Minister of Foreign Affairs), with British support, managed to force Russia to reduce its excessive demands in the Balkans. As a result, Greater Bulgaria was broken up and remained under nominal Ottoman control, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania became fully independent and Austria occupied (but did not annex) the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a predominantly Slavic area. The occupation required 150,000 troops and several weeks of fighting; the provinces were put under the administration of the Ministry of Finance. In that year, with Britain's support, Austria–Hungary stationed troops in Bosnia to prevent the Russians from expanding into nearby Serbia. In another measure to keep the Russians out of the Balkans, Austria–Hungary formed an alliance, the Mediterranean Entente, with Britain and Italy in 1887 and concluded mutual defence pacts with Germany in 1879 and Romania in 1883 against a possible Russian attack. Following the Congress of Berlin the European powers attempted to guarantee stability through a complex series of alliances and treaties.

Anxious about Balkan instability and Russian aggression, and to counter French interests in Europe, Austria–Hungary forged a defensive alliance with Germany in October 1879 and in May 1882. In October 1882 Italy joined this partnership in the Triple Alliance largely because of Italy's imperial rivalries with France. Tensions between Russia and Austria–Hungary remained high, so Bismarck replaced the League of the Three Emperors with the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia to keep the Habsburgs from recklessly starting a war over Pan-Slavism. The Sandžak-Raška / Novibazar region was under Austro-Hungarian occupation between 1878 and 1909, when it was returned to the Ottoman Empire, before being ultimately divided between kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia.

The monarchy eventually annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1908 as a common holding of Cisleithania and Transleithania under the control of the Imperial & Royal finance ministry rather than attaching it to either territorial government. The annexation in 1908 led some in Vienna to contemplate combining Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatia to form a third Slavic component of the monarchy. The deaths of Franz Joseph's brother, Maximilian (1867), and his only son, Rudolf, made the Emperor's nephew, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne. The Archduke was rumoured to have been an advocate for this trialism as a means to limit the power of the Hungarian aristocracy.

A proclamation issued on the occasion of its annexation to the Habsburg monarchy in October 1908 promised these lands constitutional institutions, which should secure to their inhabitants full civil rights and a share in the management of their own affairs by means of a local representative assembly. In performance of this promise a constitution was promulgated in 1910.

The principal players in the Bosnian Crisis of 1908–09 were the foreign ministers of Austria and Russia, Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal and Alexander Izvolsky. Both were motivated by political ambition; the first would emerge successful, and the latter would be broken by the crisis. Along the way, they would drag Europe to the brink of war in 1909. They would also divide Europe into the two armed camps that would go to war in July 1914.

Aehrenthal had started with the assumption that the Slavic minorities could never come together, and the Balkan League would never cause any damage to Austria. He turned down an Ottoman proposal for an alliance that would include Austria, Turkey, and Romania. However, his policies alienated the Bulgarians, who turned instead to Russia and Serbia. Although Austria had no intention to embark on additional expansion to the south, Aehrenthal encouraged speculation to that effect, expecting that it would paralyze the Balkan states. Instead, it incited them to feverish activity to create a defensive block to stop Austria. A series of grave miscalculations at the highest level thus significantly strengthened Austria's enemies.

In 1914, Slavic militants in Bosnia rejected Austria's plan to fully absorb the area; they assassinated the Austrian heir and precipitated World War I.

The 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, excessively intensified the existing traditional religion-based ethnic hostilities in Bosnia. However, in Sarajevo itself, Austrian authorities encouraged violence against the Serb residents, which resulted in anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, in which Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims killed two and damaged numerous Serb-owned buildings. Writer Ivo Andrić referred to the violence as the "Sarajevo frenzy of hate." Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were organized not only in Sarajevo but also in many other larger Austro-Hungarian cities in modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned and extradited approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. Four hundred sixty Serbs were sentenced to death and a predominantly Muslim special militia known as the Schutzkorps was established and carried out the persecution of Serbs.

Some members of the government, such as Minister of Foreign Affairs Count Leopold Berchtold and Army Commander Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, had wanted to confront the resurgent Serbian nation for some years in a preventive war, but the Emperor and Hungarian prime minister István Tisza were opposed. The foreign ministry of Austro-Hungarian Empire sent ambassador László Szőgyény to Potsdam, where he inquired about the standpoint of the German emperor, Wilhelm II, on 5 July and received a supportive response.

His Majesty authorized me to report to [Franz Joseph] that in this case, too, we could count on Germany's full support. As mentioned, he first had to consult with the Chancellor, but he did not have the slightest doubt that Herr von Bethmann Hollweg would fully agree with him, particularly with regard to action on our part against Serbia. In his [Wilhelm's] opinion, though, there was no need to wait patiently before taking action...

The leaders of Austria–Hungary therefore decided to confront Serbia militarily before it could incite a revolt; using the assassination as an excuse, they presented a list of ten demands called the July Ultimatum, expecting Serbia would never accept. When Serbia accepted nine of the ten demands but only partially accepted the remaining one, Austria–Hungary declared war. Franz Joseph I finally followed the urgent counsel of his top advisers.

Over the course of July and August 1914, these events caused the start of World War I, as Russia mobilized in support of Serbia, setting off a series of counter-mobilizations. In support of his German ally, on Thursday, 6 August 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph signed the declaration of war on Russia. Italy initially remained neutral, despite its alliance with Austria–Hungary.

The Compromise of 1867 turned the Habsburg domains into a real union between the Austrian Empire ("Lands Represented in the Imperial Council", or Cisleithania) in the western and northern half and the Kingdom of Hungary ("Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen", or Transleithania) in the eastern half.

The government of Austria, which had ruled the monarchy until 1867, became the government of the Austrian part, and another government was formed for the Hungarian part. The common government (officially designated Ministerial Council for Common Affairs, or Ministerrat für gemeinsame Angelegenheiten in German) formed for the few matters of common national security - the Common Army, Navy, foreign policy and the imperial household, and the customs union. Although the two halves shared a common monarch and both foreign relations and defense were managed jointly, all other state functions were to be handled separately as there was no common citizenship.

Hungary and Austria maintained separate parliaments, each with its own prime minister: the Diet of Hungary (commonly known as the National Assembly) and the Imperial Council (German: Reichsrat) in Cisleithania. Each parliament had its own executive government, appointed by the monarch.

After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina came under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was fully annexed in 1908, provoking the Bosnian crisis with the Great Powers and Austria-Hungary's Balkan neighbors, Serbia and Montenegro.

Relations during the half-century after 1867 between the two parts of the dual monarchy featured repeated disputes over shared external tariff arrangements and over the financial contribution of each government to the common treasury. These matters were determined by the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, in which common expenditures were allocated 70% to Austria and 30% to Hungary. This division had to be renegotiated every ten years. There was political turmoil during the build-up to each renewal of the agreement. By 1907, the Hungarian share had risen to 36.4%. The disputes culminated in the early 1900s in a prolonged constitutional crisis. It was triggered by disagreement over which language to use for command in Hungarian army units and deepened by the advent to power in Budapest in April 1906 of a Hungarian nationalist coalition. Provisional renewals of the common arrangements occurred in October 1907 and in November 1917 on the basis of the status quo. The negotiations in 1917 ended with the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy.

To the north, Austria-Hungary bordered Saxony, Prussia, and Russia; to the east, Romania and Russia; to the south, Romania, Serbia, the Ottoman Empire, Montenegro, and Italy, and it was washed by the Adriatic Sea; to the west, it bordered Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Bavaria (from 1871, Saxony, Prussia, and Bavaria were part of the German Empire).

Austria-Hungary was predominantly a continental power, with access only to the Adriatic Sea, where the country's main ports were located—Trieste (Cisleithania) and Fiume (now Rijeka, Transleithania). The largest peninsulas of the country were Istria and Sabbioncello (now Pelješac, Croatia). The largest islands were Veglia (Krk), Cherso (Cres), Pago (Pag), Brazza (Brač), Lesina (Hvar), Curzola (Korčula), and Meleda (Mljet).

The relief of Austria-Hungary was predominantly mountainous: about three quarters of the country consisted of mountains, and only one quarter of plains and lowlands. The mountain systems of Austria-Hungary included:

the eastern regions of the Alps, including part of the Ortler massif, where the highest point of Austria-Hungary was located—Mount Ortler (German: Ortler);

the mountains of Bohemia and Moravia;

part of the Carpathian Mountains;

part of the Balkan Mountains.

The lowlands of Austria-Hungary included:

Tullnerfeld

the Vienna Basin (Central Danubian Lowland)

Kisalföld (Little Hungarian Plain)

Alföld (Great Hungarian Plain)

the lowlands of the Vistula and Dniester rivers

The largest bays of Austria-Hungary were the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner Gulf; the Bay of Kotor was also of importance.

The most important rivers of Austria-Hungary:

the Elbe, Oder, Vistula, Dniester, and Adige originated in Austria-Hungary and flowed into the sea outside the country;

the Danube (the main river of the empire) originated outside the country and also flowed into the sea beyond Austria-Hungary;

a small section of the western border of Vorarlberg was (and still is) washed by the Rhine;

navigation on the Po River was controlled by the largest Austro-Hungarian shipping company, Austrian Lloyd, and the river was also considered part of the river system of Austria-Hungary.

Other major rivers of the country included the Tisza, Sava, and Western Bug.

The waters of the rivers flowing through Austria-Hungary belonged to the basins of four seas, as symbolized by the “Austria” Fountain in Vienna, which allegorically depicts four rivers of Austria-Hungary flowing into four seas—the Baltic (Vistula), Black (Danube), Adriatic (Po), and North (Elbe).

The largest lakes of Austria-Hungary:

Plattensee (now Balaton in Hungary)

Bodensee

Garda

Neusiedler See

Attersee

Wörthersee

The extreme settlements of Austria-Hungary:

the northernmost settlement coincided with the northernmost settlement of the present-day Czech Republic—the village of Hilgersdorf in the district of Hainspach (now Severní);

the westernmost coincided with the westernmost settlement of modern Austria—the village of Bangs near Feldkirch in Vorarlberg;

the southernmost was Spizza in Dalmatia (now Sutomore, Montenegro);

the easternmost was Chilișeni in Bukovina (now in Romania).

For the purpose of studying the territory of the country, efforts were undertaken to map the lands within it. Three major cartographic surveys are known, named after the emperors under whom they were conducted:

the Josephinian Land Survey (German: Josephinische Landesaufnahme), carried out in the 1760s–1780s under Joseph II;

the Second Military Survey (German: Franzisco-Josephinische Landesaufnahme), carried out in the 1810s–1850s under Francis II;

the Third Military Survey (German: Franzisco-Josephinische Landesaufnahme), carried out in the 1870s–1880s under Franz Joseph I.

There also exists the reference work The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Word and Image (German: Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild), a 24-volume encyclopedia devoted to the regional and cultural features of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The encyclopedia was initiated in 1883 at the initiative of the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince Rudolf, and is therefore also known as the Crown Prince's Work (German: Kronprinzenwerk). A total of 432 authors participated in its creation, including Crown Prince Rudolf himself, who died by suicide in 1889. The encyclopedia was published in German (24 volumes) and Hungarian (21 volumes; Hungarian: Az Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia írásban és képben). The German edition contains 587 articles across 12,596 pages of text, as well as 4,529 wood engravings.

As Austria-Hungary was a union of two states, an internal border existed between the two halves of the monarchy. There was no passport control along this border, although an internal customs line (Zwischenzoll-Linie) existed between the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the empire.

The best-known settlement on the internal imperial border was Bruck an der Leitha, located on the Leitha River, from whose name the terms Cisleithania and Transleithania were derived. On the Hungarian side, the corresponding border settlement was Bruckneudorf (Bruckneudorf, Királyhida). Border railway stations and customs facilities were located in both settlements.

Important border railway stations of the empire (the Austro-Hungarian station is listed on the left, and the corresponding foreign border station immediately across the frontier on the right):

Spitzberg / Železná Ruda ⇄ Bayerisch Eisenstein

Salzburg ⇄ Freilassing

Kufstein ⇄ Kiefersfelden

Schärding ⇄ Passau

Tetschen-Bodenbach (Děčín) ⇄ Schöna (Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna)

Eger (Cheb) ⇄ Schirnding

Oderberg (Bohumín) ⇄ Annaberg (now Chałupki)

Szczakowa ⇄ Granica

Brody ⇄ Radziwiłłów

Pidvolochysk ⇄ Volochysk

Husiatyn ⇄ Husiatyn

Novoselytsia ⇄ Novoselytsia

Ițcani ⇄ Burdujeni

Gyimesbükk ⇄ Palanca

Predeal ⇄ Predeal

Orșova ⇄ Verciorova

Ala, Trentino ⇄ Peri

Tezze ⇄ Primolano

Pontafel ⇄ Pontebba

Cormons ⇄ San Giovanni al Natisone

Cervignano ⇄ San Giorgio di Nogaro

Zemun / Semlin ⇄ Belgrade

Feldkirch ⇄ Buchs (St. Gallen)

Bregenz / Lauterach ⇄ St. Margrethen

In July 1849, the Hungarian Revolutionary Parliament proclaimed and enacted ethnic and minority rights (the next such laws were in Switzerland), but these were overturned after the Russian and Austrian armies crushed the Hungarian Revolution. After the Kingdom of Hungary reached the Compromise with the Habsburg Dynasty in 1867, one of the first acts of its restored Parliament was to pass a Law on Nationalities (Act Number XLIV of 1868). It was a liberal piece of legislation and offered extensive language and cultural rights. It did not recognize non-Hungarians to have rights to form states with any territorial autonomy.

Article 19 of the 1867 "Basic State Act" (Staatsgrundgesetz), valid only for the Cisleithanian (Austrian) part of Austria–Hungary, said:

All races of the empire have equal rights, and every race has an inviolable right to the preservation and use of its own nationality and language. The equality of all customary languages ("landesübliche Sprachen") in school, office and public life, is recognized by the state. In those territories in which several races dwell, the public and educational institutions are to be so arranged that, without applying compulsion to learn a second country language ("Landessprache"), each of the races receives the necessary means of education in its own language. The implementation of this principle led to several disputes, as it was not clear which languages could be regarded as "customary". The Germans, the traditional bureaucratic, capitalist and cultural elite, demanded the recognition of their language as a customary language in every part of the empire. German nationalists, especially in the Sudetenland (part of Bohemia), looked to Berlin in the new German Empire.

The Hungarian Minority Act of 1868 gave the minorities (Slovaks, Romanians, Serbs, et al.) individual (but not also communal) rights to use their language in offices, schools (although in practice often only in those founded by them and not by the state), courts and municipalities (if 20% of the deputies demanded it). Beginning with the 1879 Primary Education Act and the 1883 Secondary Education Act, the Hungarian state made more efforts to reduce the use of non-Magyar languages, in strong violation of the 1868 Nationalities Law. After 1875, all Slovak language schools higher than elementary were closed, including the only three high schools (gymnasiums) in Revúca (Nagyrőce), Turčiansky Svätý Martin (Turócszentmárton) and Kláštor pod Znievom (Znióváralja).

Language was, as a proxy for ethnicity, one of the most contentious issues in Austro-Hungarian politics. All governments faced difficult and divisive hurdles in deciding on the languages of government and of instruction. The minorities sought the widest opportunities for education in their own languages, as well as in the "dominant" languages—Hungarian and German. By the "Ordinance of 5 April 1897", the Austrian Prime Minister Count Kasimir Felix Badeni gave Czech equal standing with German in the internal government of Bohemia; this led to a crisis because of nationalist German agitation throughout the empire. The Crown dismissed Badeni.

Italian was regarded as an old "culture language" (Kultursprache) by German intellectuals and had always been granted equal rights as an official language of the Empire, but the Germans had difficulty in accepting the Slavic languages as equal to their own. On one occasion Count A. Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) entered the Diet of Carniola carrying what he claimed to be the whole corpus of Slovene literature under his arm; this was to demonstrate that the Slovene language could not be substituted for German as the language of higher education.

The following years saw official recognition of several languages, at least in Austria. Since 1867, laws awarded Croatian equal status with Italian in Dalmatia. Beginning in 1882, there was a Slovene majority in the Diet of Carniola and in the capital Laibach (Ljubljana); they replaced German with Slovene as their primary official language. Galicia designated Polish instead of German in 1869 as the customary language of government.

As of June 1907, all public and private schools in Hungary were obliged to ensure that after the fourth grade, the pupils could express themselves fluently in Hungarian. This led to the further closing of minority schools, devoted mostly to the Slovak and Rusyn languages. The two kingdoms sometimes divided their spheres of influence. According to Misha Glenny in his book, The Balkans, 1804–1999, the Austrians responded to Hungarian support of Czechs by supporting the Croatian national movement in Zagreb. In recognition that he reigned in a multi-ethnic country, Emperor Franz Joseph spoke (and used) German, Hungarian and Czech fluently, and Croatian, Serbian, Polish and Italian to some degree.

The language disputes were most fiercely fought in Bohemia, where the Czech speakers formed a majority and sought equal status for their language to German. The Czechs had lived primarily in Bohemia since the 6th century and German immigrants had begun settling the Bohemian periphery in the 13th century. The constitution of 1627 made the German language a second official language and equal to Czech. German speakers lost their majority in the Bohemian Diet in 1880 and became a minority to Czech speakers in the cities of Prague and Pilsen (while retaining a slight numerical majority in the city of Brno (Brünn)). The old Charles University in Prague, hitherto dominated by German speakers, was divided into German and Czech-speaking faculties in 1882.

At the same time, Hungarian dominance faced challenges from majority populated areas of Romanians, Slovaks and Serbs. The Romanians and the Serbs began to agitate for union with their fellow nationalists and language speakers in the newly founded states of Romania (1859–1878) and Serbia.

Hungary's leaders were generally less willing than their Austrian counterparts to share power with their subject minorities, but they granted a large measure of autonomy to Croatia in 1868. To some extent, they modeled their relationship to that kingdom on their own compromise with Austria of the previous year. In spite of nominal autonomy, the Croatian government was an economic and administrative part of Hungary, which the Croatians resented. In the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina many advocated the idea of a trialist Austro-Hungaro-Croatian monarchy; among the supporters of the idea were Archduke Leopold Salvator, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and emperor and king Charles I who during his short reign supported the trialist idea only to be vetoed by the Hungarian government and Count István Tisza. The count finally signed the trialist proclamation after heavy pressure from the king on 23 October 1918.

In Istria, the Istro-Romanians, a small ethnic group composed by around 2,600 people in the 1880s, suffered severe discrimination. The Croats of the region, who formed the majority, tried to assimilate them, while the Italian minority supported them in their requests for self-determination. In 1888, the possibility of opening the first school for the Istro-Romanians teaching in the Romanian language was discussed in the Diet of Istria. The proposal was very popular among them. The Italian deputies showed their support, but the Croat ones opposed it and tried to show that the Istro-Romanians were in fact Slavs. During Austro-Hungarian rule, the Istro-Romanians lived under poverty conditions, and those living in the island of Krk were fully assimilated by 1875.

Around 1900, Jews numbered about two million in the whole territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; their position was ambiguous. The populist and antisemitic politics of the Christian Social Party are sometimes viewed as a model for Adolf Hitler's Nazism. Antisemitic parties and movements existed, but the governments of Vienna and Budapest did not initiate pogroms or implement official antisemitic policies. They feared that such ethnic violence could ignite other ethnic minorities and escalate out of control. The antisemitic parties remained on the periphery of the political sphere due to their low popularity among voters in the parliamentary elections.

In that period, the majority of Jews in Austria–Hungary lived in small towns (shtetls) in Galicia and rural areas in Hungary and Bohemia; however, they had large communities and even local majorities in the downtown districts of Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Kraków and Lwów. Of the pre-World War I military forces of the major European powers, the Austro-Hungarian army was almost alone in its regular promotion of Jews to positions of command. While the Jewish population of the lands of the Dual Monarchy was about 5%, Jews made up nearly 18% of the reserve officer corps. Thanks to the modernity of the constitution and to the benevolence of emperor Franz Joseph, the Austrian Jews came to regard the era of Austria–Hungary as a golden era of their history. By 1910 about 900,000 religious Jews made up approximately 5% of the population of Hungary and about 23% of Budapest's citizenry. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire the generally fiercely patriotic Hungarian Jews were securing the tenuous Hungarian majority in the Kingdom of Hungary. Jews accounted for 54% of commercial business owners, 85% of financial institution directors and owners in banking, and 62% of all employees in commerce, 20% of all general grammar school students, and 37% of all commercial scientific grammar school students, 31.9% of all engineering students, and 34.1% of all students in human faculties of the universities. Jews accounted for 48.5% of all physicians, and 49.4% of all lawyers/jurists in Hungary. Note: The numbers of Jews were reconstructed from religious censuses. They did not include the people of Jewish origin who had converted to Christianity, or the number of atheists. Among many Hungarian parliament members of Jewish origin, the most famous Jewish members in Hungarian political life were Minister of Justice Vilmos Vázsonyi, Minister of War Samu Hazai, Minister of Finance János Teleszky, and ministers of trade János Harkányi and József Szterényi.

In political terms, Austria-Hungary was divided into two parts: the Austrian lands, officially called the “Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council” (die im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder), governed through the Imperial Council (Reichsrat), and the Kingdom of Hungary, which included the historic lands of the Hungarian Crown and was subordinate to the Hungarian parliament and government.

Informally, these two parts were referred to as Cisleithania and Transleithania respectively. The annexed Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 was not included in either Cisleithania or Transleithania and was administered by special governing authorities.

In administrative terms, Austria-Hungary was divided into the following constituent parts (Crown Lands).

The representative bodies of the constituent parts (Hungary and Croatia) were the regional diets (Landtage), while the executive authorities were the regional governments, consisting of a regional prime minister and regional ministers.

The emperor in the crown lands was represented by the Statthalterei (Statthalterei). The representative bodies of the crown lands were the regional diets (Landtage), while the executive authorities were the regional committees (Landesausschuss), headed by the regional governor (Landeshauptmann) and regional councillors (Landesräte).

At district level, the imperial administration was represented by district captaincies (Bezirkshauptmannschaften). In cities, the representative bodies were municipal councils (Gemeinderäte), and the executive bodies were city councils (Stadträte), consisting of a mayor (Bürgermeister) and city councillors (Stadträte).

In municipalities, the representative bodies were municipal assemblies (Gemeindevertretungen), while the executive bodies were municipal committees (Gemeindeausschüsse), consisting of a mayor and municipal councillors.