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Mar 28, 2024 · After his accession, Charles, a peace-loving man, made attempts to take Austria-Hungary out of World War I through secret overtures to the Allied powers, the most promising being through his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus von Bourbon-Parma. All failed, largely because the emperor refused to cede any territories to Italy.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Charles I (born 1288, Naples, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]—died July 16, 1342, Visegrád, Hung.) was a courtly, pious king of Hungary who restored his kingdom to the status of a great power and enriched and civilized it. Charles was the son of Charles Martel of Anjou-Naples and Clemencia of Habsburg, daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Rudolf I.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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- Overview
- The final offensive on the Western Front
The duality of the Habsburg monarchy had been underlined from the very beginning of the war. Whereas the Austrian parliament, or Reichsrat, had been suspended in March 1914 and was not reconvened for three years, the Hungarian parliament in Budapest continued its sessions, and the Hungarian government proved itself constantly less amenable to dictation from the military than had the Austrian. The Slav minorities, however, showed little sign of anti-Habsburg feeling before Russia’s March Revolution of 1917. In May 1917, however, the Reichsrat was reconvened, and just before the opening session the Czech intelligentsia sent a manifesto to its deputies calling for “a democratic Europe…of autonomous states.” The Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 and the Wilsonian peace pronouncements from January 1918 onward encouraged socialism, on the one hand, and nationalism, on the other, or alternatively a combination of both tendencies, among all peoples of the Habsburg monarchy.
Early in September 1918 the Austro-Hungarian government proposed in a circular note to the other powers that a conference be held on neutral territory for a general peace. This proposal was quashed by the United States on the ground that the U.S. position had already been enunciated by the Wilsonian pronouncements (the Fourteen Points, etc.). But when Austria-Hungary, after the collapse of Bulgaria, appealed on October 4 for an armistice based on those very pronouncements, the answer on October 18 was that the U.S. government was now committed to the Czechoslovaks and to the Yugoslavs, who might not be satisfied with the “autonomy” postulated heretofore. The emperor Charles had, in fact, granted autonomy to the peoples of the Austrian Empire (as distinct from the Hungarian Kingdom) on October 16, but this concession was ignored internationally and served only to facilitate the process of disruption within the monarchy: Czechoslovaks in Prague and South Slavs in Zagreb had already set up organs ready to take power.
The last scenes of Austria-Hungary’s dissolution were performed very rapidly. On October 24 (when the Italians launched their very timely offensive), a Hungarian National Council prescribing peace and severance from Austria was set up in Budapest. On October 27 a note accepting the U.S. note of October 18 was sent from Vienna to Washington—to remain unacknowledged. On October 28 the Czechoslovak committee in Prague passed a “law” for an independent state, while a similar Polish committee was formed in Kraków for the incorporation of Galicia and Austrian Silesia into a unified Poland. On October 29, while the Austrian high command was asking the Italians for an armistice, the Croats in Zagreb declared Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia to be independent, pending the formation of a national state of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. On October 30 the German members of the Reichsrat in Vienna proclaimed an independent state of German Austria.
The solicited armistice between the Allies and Austria-Hungary was signed at the Villa Giusti, near Padua, on November 3, 1918, to become effective on November 4. Under its provisions, Austria-Hungary’s forces were required to evacuate not only all territory occupied since August 1914 but also South Tirol, Tarvisio, the Isonzo Valley, Gorizia, Trieste, Istria, western Carniola, and Dalmatia. All German forces should be expelled from Austria-Hungary within 15 days or interned, and the Allies were to have free use of Austria-Hungary’s internal communications and to take possession of most of its warships.
It was eventually agreed among the Allied commanders that Pershing’s American troops should advance across the difficult terrain of the Argonne Forest, so that the combined Allied offensive would consist of converging attacks against the whole German position west of a line drawn from Ypres to Verdun. Thus, the Americans from the front northwest of Verdun and the French from eastern Champagne, the former on the west bank of the Meuse, the latter west of the Argonne Forest, were to launch attacks on September 26, with Mézières as their objective, in order to threaten not only the Germans’ supply line along the Mézières–Sedan–Montmédy railway and the natural line of retreat across Lorraine but also the hinge of the Antwerp–Meuse defensive line that the Germans were now preparing. The British were to attack the Hindenburg Line between Cambrai and Saint-Quentin on September 27 and to try to reach the key rail junction of Maubeuge, so as to threaten the Germans’ line of retreat through the Liège gap. The Belgians, with Allied support, were to begin a drive from Ypres toward Ghent on September 28.
The Americans took Vauquois and Montfaucon in the first two days of their offensive but were soon slowed down, and on October 14, when their attack was suspended, they had only reached Grandpré, less than halfway to Mézières. The French advance meanwhile was halted on the Aisne. The British, though they had broken through the German defenses by October 5 and thenceforward had open country in front of them, could not pursue the Germans fast enough to endanger their withdrawal. Nevertheless, the piercing of the Hindenburg Line unnerved the German supreme command. The Belgians were in possession of all the heights around Ypres by September 30.
A major international conflict fought from 1914 to 1918, World War I was the most deadly and destructive war the world had ever seen to that time. More than 25 countries eventually participated, aligned with either the Allied or the Central powers. The Allies—who won the war—included primarily France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan ...
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, removed this danger and plunged Austria-Hungary into World War I.For the first two years of the war, Tisza upheld the internal system and held the country to its international course and, when Franz Joseph died, persuaded the new king, Charles IV (Austrian Emperor Charles I), to accept coronation (December 1916), thus binding ...
For the first two years of the war, Tisza upheld the internal system and held the country to its international course and, when Franz Joseph died, persuaded the new king, Charles IV (Austrian Emperor Charles I), to accept coronation (December 1916), thus binding himself to uphold the integrity and the constitution of Hungary. Charles, however ...
Linguistically surrounded by alien nations, Hungarians felt isolated through much of their history. After six centuries of independent statehood (896–1526) Hungary became part of two other political entities: the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. In the 19th century it became a partner in Austria-Hungary (1867–1918).
