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world1d ago
The First World War and the Habsburg state's metamorphosis
- The authors argue Austria-Hungary’s WWI era was a period of transformation, not merely a collapse.
- Judson and Zahra say wartime governance expanded welfare but rested on a coercive, elite-dominated state.
- Desertions and peasant militias in 1918 helped topple the empire from within, the authors state.
- The book challenges the idea that nationalism alone doomed the monarchy, showing complex modern state structures persisted.
- The authors argue the successor states built on wartime institutions rather than erasing them.
- The review notes a wartime system that integrated care for widows, orphans, and refugees amid shortages.
- The review identifies the High Command as a central factor behind political stagnation and eventual collapse.
- Civilians experienced broadened state care but diminishing trust in state institutions during the war.
- Cultural and political reforms did not prevent the empire’s dissolution by 1918, the authors argue.
- Ultimately, the empire’s collapse paved the way for new Europe’s borders and identities.
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