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Austria The End of the Habsburg Empire and the Birth of the Austrian Republic
The dismantling of the Habsburg Empire had not been an
objective of the Allies. Following the collapse of the tsarist
government in Russia, however, the Allies increasingly portrayed
the war as pitting freedom and democracy against oppression and
autocracy. This strategy benefited the representatives of Czech,
Slovak, Hungarian, and other nationalist committees-in-exile,
which skillfully played on the theme of self-determination
expressed in United States president Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen
Points. Austria-Hungary was unable to put forward a meaningful
program of reform while still preserving the monarchy and so
could not successfully resist the centrifugal forces pulling it
apart. By mid-1918 the Allies began recognizing the national
committees-in-exile and made plans for an independent Poland and
Czechoslovakia. By October 1918, when the Austro-Hungarian
government was seeking an armistice, control of the empire's
constituent lands was passing to national committees, including
one representing German Austrians.
On October 21, German Austrian delegates to the Austrian
parliament voted to establish an Austrian state incorporating all
districts inhabited by ethnic Germans. At the end of the month,
the delegates established a coalition provisional government. On
November 3, imperial authorities signed an armistice, bringing
Austro-Hungarian participation in World War I to an official end.
On November 11, Karl renounced any role in the new Austrian
state, and the next day the provisional government issued a
constitution for the German Austrian Republic.
Data as of December 1993
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