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Habsburg Austria, 1618-1914 a Thesis Submit View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by SHAREOK repository UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE INCOMPLETE STATE-MAKING IN A DIVIDED POLITY: HABSBURG AUSTRIA, 1618-1914 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES By ANNA ELEANOR KIERIG Norman, Oklahoma 2018 INCOMPLETE STATE-MAKING IN A DIVIDED POLITY: HABSBURG AUSTRIA, 1618-1914 A THESIS APPROVED FOR THE COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES BY ______________________________ Dr. Mitchell P. Smith, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Eric A. Heinze ______________________________ Dr. Darren Purcell © Copyright by ANNA ELEANOR KIERIG 2018 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike CC BY-NC-SA Widmung In Dankbarkeit an alle gewidmet, die mir geholfen haben. Ihr wißt, wer ihr seid. —AEK Acknowledgements Very special thanks to my advisor, Mitchell P. Smith for his patience, support, and guidance over the last ten years that I’ve been honored to know him. Throughout my career at OU, Professor Smith has been there, in his own way, at every step I’ve taken. I would not have come this far without him and I will always be grateful. Likewise, I wish to extend my thanks to Darren Purcell and Eric Heinze, the other members of my committee for their assistance. I took Darren’s Human Geography in Spring 2008. My only regret from that course was that I never took more geography courses. During his time as a faculty member in Political Science, Eric Heinze would often stop to talk to my boss, Justin Wert. I was always very thankful he would include me in their always interesting conversations, it made a bigger impression on me than he knows. At the OU Libraries, Karen Rupp-Serrano and Jen Waller have been helpful and encouraging beyond belief. Their encouragement and help has meant so much. Thank you both very much. During my time at the Paris Lodron-Universität-Salzburg, Reinhard Heinisch was a constant advocate for me, whether helping with legal matters, sending some editing work my way, or, of course, during my stint in Austrian national and European politics. Vielen Dank der hoch geschätzten Familie Soder in Unken, bei der ich ungefähr dreieinhalb Jähren gewohnt hatte. Man merkt, daß ich oft schwierig sein kann. Trotzdem, irgendwie sind wir noch immer befreundet. Großartige liebevolle Dank an der Conni: ohne deine Sonnenschein wäre meine Jahre in Österreich viel dunkler. I am very thankful to everyone at the University of Oklahoma, Paris Lodron-Universität-Salzburg, and Oklahoma State University who have iv helped me along the way. There are simply too many people to list all of them. Finally, I am very grateful to my parents and friends for their patience, support, and encouragement. I am sorry that I have often been grumpy, exhausted, and sickly during the writing of this. v Table of Contents Chapter I Making a State in the Salzburger Saalachtal 1 Chapter III Making a State in Habsburg Austria, 1618-1648 8 Chapter III State-Breakdown in Late Habsburg Austria-Hungary 32 Chapter IV Conclusion: Das Kaiserliche und Königliche Ministerium 61 für Administrative Angelegenheiten Bibliography 66 !vi List of Tables 4.1 Comparison of Domestic and International Challenges, Actions Taken, and Outcomes 63 vii Abstract Habsburg Austria is a unique case for the study of “state-making:” the creation of means by which a sovereign state asserts its ability to control its territory. Examples of state-making include the creation of a professional army and the means with which to pay for it, or the defense of state borders. This thesis examines two periods in Austrian history for evidence of how the Habsburg Austrian state succeeded or failed in this process. The first period centers on the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which challenged the very existence of the state and which resulted in the establishment of Europe’s first professional standing army by the end of the war. The second period also features a challenge to the state’s existence. However, in this case, the Habsburgs were constrained by a variety of domestic and economic factors, which amplified their international challenges. Ultimately, their failure to engage in effective state-making combined with their desperate need to preserve their great-power status resulted in a decision for a war that would ultimately destroy the state. viii Chapter 1: State-Making in the Salzburger Saalachtal This thesis actually began some years ago, on a solitary hike in the Austrian village of Unken, as the author walked past the “Kalte Quelle” and towards the “Festung Kniepaß,” a small fortress overlooking the ancient road that runs deep into Salzburg’s Pinzgau. Partially due to its position about 20 meters above the road, partially due to its small size, and partially due to the wear of time, someone driving below the ridge it sits atop would hardly notice it. But those able to take a moment and examine the site will find a plaque, commemorating its erection in 1613 under Prince- Archbishop Markus Sittikus. In the years to come, this fortress and Unken’s Landvolk militia who guarded it would play a critical role in Salzburg’s efforts to remain unsnarled with the brutal fighting of the Thirty Years War and were charged with expanding it considerably during the 1630s to defend against a potential Swedish invasion.1 However, this fortress served a larger purpose: it was an effort by the Prince-Archbishops who ruled Salzburg to delineate and defend their territory as a sovereign and autonomous part of the Holy Roman Empire, and to consolidate the means of effective force over this territory. The Festung Kniepaß was a 1 Friederike Zaisberger and Walter Schlegel, Burgen und Schlösser in Salzburg: Pinzgau, Pongau, Lungau (Vienna: Birken-Verlag, 1978), pp. 143-145. 1 statement of sovereign authority, it was an act of state-making. Modern Austria is full of tokens of the state-making process like Kniepaß, another example being the Theresianum Military Academy’s large stone relief adorned with the letters “AEIOU” “Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan” or “All the world is subject to Austria,” the motto chosen by the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III (1415-1493, HRE 1452-1493).2 Many of the officers and generals who contributed to the achievement (or failure) of Austria’s political and military goals, from the victories of the Napoleonic Wars to the destruction and defeat of World War I, spent their formative years training on the grounds of the Theresianum: their stories and failures are well known to students of European history. The Theresianum is significant for the history of Austrian state-making, as its establishment was another step in the creation of a professional standing army.3 The construction of the fortress in Unken or the opening of the Theresianum in Wiener Neustadt were both acts of state-making: the interlocking historical processes through which sovereign rulers established the institutions, practices, and norms that allowed them to assert their claim to rule over the territory they controlled. State-making 2 Autorenkollektiv, "A. E. I. O. U.," in Meyers Konversationslexikon (Vienna: Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, 1885), p. 1. 3 At various points in this work, Austria, Habsburg Austria, Habsburg Central Europe, and Austria-Hungary are used to refer to the same political unit, which was centered on Vienna and ruled by a member of the Habsburg family. 2 was a process of capacity building, for example, the creation of a capable and professional army, relatively efficient means to collect taxes, and, as in Unken, the construction of fortresses from which agents of the sovereign might assert their claim to hold monopoly of legitimate force---their right to use violence to defend the state. 4 A sovereign power can be generally defined as a political body that controls a well-defined space, is relatively centralized, and which differentiates itself from other bodies or corporate structures (e.g. the Catholic Church or a tribal group).5 Sovereignty is a result of state-making: a strong state is able to enforce its claims to a monopoly of violence and overcome challenges to its authority. This thesis seeks to demonstrate how state-making was attempted within Habsburg Austria. The first case takes place during the Thirty Years War as Protestant invasion and revolt was a profound threat to the state’s ongoing existence. The second case examines how Habsburg Austria- Hungary functioned as a confederation between an industrializing western half and a backward eastern half, and did so in an international context that became gradually more unfavorable to their continued survival. 4 Charles Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-Making," in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. Charles Tilly (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 27. 5 Tilly, “Reflection on the History of European State-Making,” pp. 28-29. 3 Habsburg Austria is a peculiar case for the study of state-making because it is often claimed to have not achieved the full “promise” of a state as France or Britain are claimed to have done. For example, in his introductory chapter to The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Charles Tilly refers to Habsburg Austria as a “rickety federation” that remained “weakly subordinated to the imperial center.”6 This view is largely correct, but it misses a more important point: the Habsburgs were able to engage in the process of state-making, they made an effort to create a functionally unified political entity just as France or Britain did, even if the Habsburgs were ultimately less successful. The Habsburgs did this in a context that was less conducive to the process than in Britain or France and which masks the nature of their efforts, leading to Habsburg Austria’s exclusion from the scholarly literature.
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