Central Europe Yearbook

Guardians of the Empire

Nationalism and the Habsburg Army

Benjamin James Manuatu

Victoria University of Wellington

Keywords: Habsburg Empire, military history, nationalism

Abstract

Released by the conquests of Napoleon and stoked by the fires of the 1848 Revolutions, the age of nationalism took Europe by storm in the nineteenth century and lasted well into the twentieth century. For those states that enjoyed a more homogenous population, such as the emerging German Empire, nationalism would prove to be a useful tool in mobilizing their citizens and increasing their capabilities for warfare. For the Austrian Empire, which represented more a polyethnic and multilingual conglomerate than a unified state, nationalism would present itself as an existential threat from which the polity could not recover. This article analyzes the Habsburg army and the role it played in maintaining the Austrian Monarchy in the face of nationalist aggression from the 1848 Revolutions to its ultimate end at the climax of the First World War. The army served not only as a physical shield for the Empire but also as a symbol for the unity of all ethnic groups under the command of the Habsburg emperor and held the potential to be a tool of integration and unity for the multiple ethnic groups. Using military and nationalism theories, this article examines the challenges the army was forced to contend with in order to maintain the monarchy and how the language issue plagued combat effectiveness and also served as a hotbed of grievances for the multiple ethnic groups of the Empire.