The Holy Roman Empire (HRE) is a difficult thing to explain. Its beginning does not have a precise date, as it gradually emerged from the remnants of the Carolingian and Ottonian Empires. As the old joke frames it, it was not Holy because it was primarily a secular organization decorated by a superficial relationship to Christian spirituality; it was not Roman, because it was a Central European alliance which only for a few brief years included Rome within its territorial boundaries; it was not an empire, because although its emperors bore that title, they did not have the absolute dictatorial power of emperors in ancient times, but rather were elected to their office and could act only after cobbling together a consensus from those who had elected them.
One clear fact about the HRE is its ending. A series of diplomatic and military maneuverings terminated it in 1806.
If the nature and structure of the HRE are murky and ambiguous, the system and organization of what followed it is even less clear — and what followed it was the Austrian Empire.
The Holy Roman Emperor Franz II declared the Austrian Empire into being in 1804, as a response to Napoleon having declared himself to be the Emperor of the French Empire. Franz II declared that the throne of the Austrian Empire would be hereditary, in contrast to the HRE’s elected emperorship.
The Austrian Empire didn’t come into full effect until Franz II dissolved the HRE in 1806. Napoleon had demanded that Franz II abdicate. Franz II issued a document, the wording of which seemed to dissolve the empire. Rather than abdicate, Franz II may have hoped to thwart any ambitions which Napoleon may have had to be the Holy Roman Emperor. Perhaps Franz II figured that dissolving the empire was the only way to prevent Napoleon from becoming the next Holy Roman Emperor. Historians continue to investigate the exact intentions of both Franz II and Napoleon.
In any case, the HRE came to an end, and Franz was now the Emperor of Austria. He is therefore known both as Franz II of the HRE and as Franz I of the Austrian Empire. Such is the numbering system of hereditary monarchies.
Like the HRE before it, the Austrian Empire had a misleading name. It was not only Austrian, but contained a number of nations: Hungary, Slovakia, and Bohemia; parts of Italy, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Germany. It was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-national empire.
The diversity within the Austrian Empire was both a strength and a weakness. It fueled intellectual creativity and accessed a large range of landscapes and their natural resources. But, again like the HRE, the emperor was obliged to balance the competing interests of the competing nations within his empire, and in the course of these negotiations sometimes was sometimes obliged to compromise his own interests as well.
Perhaps it was inevitable that the Austrian Empire would be characterized by constant change and negotiation, because the creation of the empire was itself an act of compromise, as historian Benjamin Curtis writes:
Several events then provoked the final, flailing expiration of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1804 Napoleon was declared emperor of France, which was a terrible affront to Franz, who could not abide that this Corsican upstart would place himself on a level equal to the prestige of the Habsburgs. Franz was also justifiably worried that Napoleon would either take the German imperial title or dissolve the German empire, which would then leave the Habsburgs actually inferior in rank. Thus in August 1804 Franz proclaimed an Austrian Empire, giving himself an ambitious new title without changing much else about his realms. In fact, in his proclamation, Franz explicitly recognized that he ruled over several states, and promised that he would not change any of their constitutions. The legality of this unilateral proclamation was questionable, but it received solid support from the aristocracy and the rest of his subjects, even in Hungary. Franz’s assumption of a new imperial title was a naked play for dynastic honor, to ensure that he would remain an emperor regardless of what Bonaparte called himself.
The Austrian Empire cannot be separated from the Habsburg dynasty. To study one is to study the other. The Habsburg family created the Austrian Empire, and sat on the throne for its entire existence. The Habsburg dynasty had dominated the HRE prior to the advent of the Austrian Empire, and the Habsburgs would dominate the form of state which finally replaced the Austrian Empire.
From 1273 until the HRE ended in 1806, there were only a few brief periods during which the Habsburgs did not occupy the throne of the HRE. Other dynasties had ruled the HRE prior to 1273.
As Holy Roman Emperors, the Habsburgs ruled a large and changing collection of kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and semi-independent city-states. The last category were called “free imperial cities” and were self-governing, not subject to any local prince or king, but rather representing themselves directly to the Holy Roman Emperor. These cities were successful examples of democracy.
Of all territories collected together into the HRE, the home territory of the Habsburgs had a special status, different and apart from other parts of the HRE, like Tirol, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, etc.
All the other nations in the HRE had their own monarchs, or freely-elected governments in the case of the imperial cities, but the home territory of Habsburgs was ruled directly by the dynasty. That territory was Austria. So it was reasonable that, when it was necessary to match Napoleon’s bravado, and when it two years later seemed that the HRE was at an end, Austria would form the basis for a new Habsburg empire.
Napoleon’s military aggression shaped European geopolitics from 1800 to 1815, as the French Revolution had shaped them from 1789 to 1799. During those 25 years, when the nations of Europe could agree on little else, they agreed to cooperate in their opposition to Napoleon. Seven coalition wars were fought, the first two defending against the French Revolution, and the next five against Napoleon. In the midst of these wars, the Austrian Empire was born and tested.
Describing early years of the Austrian Empire, historian A.J.P. Taylor refers to Franz by the anglicized form of his name:
In 1804 the lands of the House of Habsburg at last acquired a name: they became the “Austrian Empire.” This threatened to be a death-bed baptism. In 1805 the Habsburg dream of universal monarchy gave a last murmur, and Francis aspired to defend old Europe against Napoleon. Austerlitz shattered the dream, destroyed the relics of the Holy Roman Empire, and left Francis as, at best, a second-class Emperor. Austria emerged at any rate as an independent country and strove for an independent policy. The result was the war of 1809, the attempt to discover a new mainspring of action in leading the liberation of Germany. This war almost destroyed the Austrian Empire. Napoleon appealed for a Hungarian revolt and even sketched plans for a separate Kingdom of Bohemia. What saved Austria was not the strength of her armies nor the loyalty of her peoples, but the jealousy of her Imperial neighbors: Alexander of Russia and Napoleon could not agree on terms of partition and were content with frontier gains — Alexander carried off eastern Galicia, and Napoleon turned the South Slav lands into the French province of Illyria. The events of 1809 set the pattern of Austrian policy for forty years, or even for the century of the Empire’s existence. Austria had become a European necessity. In harsher terms, the Great Powers were agreed that the fragments surviving from the Habsburg bid for universal monarchy were more harmless in Habsburg hands than in those of some new aspirant to world empire. The nature of the Austrian Empire was clearly shown in the contrast between Austria and Prussia. Both were restored to the ranks of the Great Powers on the defeat of Napoleon; but Prussia carried herself there by harsh reforms, Austria by pliant diplomacy and ingenious treaties.
Founded in 1804, entering into full effectiveness in 1806, the Austrian Empire faced its first big test in The War of the Fifth Coalition. The coalition attempted to defend itself against Napoleon’s attacks, but for the most part unsuccessfully. The decisive battle was at Austerlitz. Austerlitz is located near the point at which the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria meet. (Austerlitz is also called Slavkov u Brna; the Czech Republic is roughly the same territory as Bohemia.)
The coalition loss at Austerlitz led to a treaty signed in Pressburg. (Pressburg is also known as Bratislava.) This treaty represented a loss and humiliation for the Austrian Empire. The nineteenth century can be viewed as the long tragic decline of the Austrian Empire, which lost several territories in the Treaty of Pressburg.
When did the Austrian Empire end? Some historians suggest that it ended in 1867, with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. After that year, Hungary was seen as its own independent nation-state, while the remainder of the territories of the Austrian Empire continued under the same name. In an arrangement known as a ‘personal union,’ the same monarch ruled both.
Other historians argue that the Compromise of 1867 did not end the Austrian Empire, but rather merely redesigned it. After this year, Austria-Hungary had the same territory, the same monarch, and many of the same governmental agencies as it did before that year. The Hungarian desire for independence drove the compromise and was partially satisfied by it, but the Habsburgs continued as before to rule a collection of diverse nations, ethnicities, cultures, and languages.
At the latest, then, the Austrian Empire ended on November 11, 1918, when the last Austrian Emperor, Karl, abdicated.
