In 1900 AD, the year of Gengzi, the Manchu Dynasty, which had sunset and was crumbling, was so arrogant and stupid that it had a war with the coalition forces of the eight most powerful military countries in the world, which was known as the Eight-Nation Allied War of Aggression against China.
We should be very familiar with these eight bandit countries that invaded China, because seven of these countries still exist, and the vast majority of them are still bandit countries, still engaged in bandit behavior of bullying and bullying the weak.
But among the Eight-Nation Alliance, there is a country, I believe you may be a little unfamiliar, do not know its past and present life, and this country suddenly disintegrated after the First World War, disappeared without a trace, and even many young people do not know that this country once existed!
This country is the once powerful Austro-Crème Empire, which dominated Europe!
The Eight-Nation Alliance, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States, Japan, Russia, Austria, the eight countries, the first 7 are not unfamiliar to everyone, but which country is Austria, it is estimated that many people will understand Austria, in fact, Austria refers to Austria-Hungary.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a relatively young country in Europe, a constitutional dual monarchy in European history, formerly known as the Austrian Empire.
What is a constitutional dual monarchy?
Binary means that the monarch and parliament share power, the monarch appoints the cabinet, the cabinet is responsible to the monarch, the monarch has executive power, and the parliament exercises legislative power, but the monarch has the right to veto.
In the Middle Ages, Austria was originally a principality of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe, and in 1156 AD, during the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, the great powers within the empire were dismantled, and Austria was upgraded from a border region to a principality, and the state was officially established.
In 1282, the Habsburgs began to rule Austria, and over the next two hundred years, Austria gradually annexed the surrounding Styrias, Tyrol and other places, expanding its territory by nearly three times, becoming the largest state within the Holy Roman Empire.
At the end of the 15th century, France found itself gradually surrounded by Habsburg territory, so in 1494 AD launched the Italian War, seized a lot of Italian territory, the Habsburgs launched a counterattack, after more than half a century of fierce battles, expelled French power from Italy, and the Habsburgs also occupied the territory of southern Italy.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the battle for the throne broke out in Spain, Austria united with Britain, defeated the Franco-Spanish coalition, and occupied the Kingdom of Aragon and the Kingdom of Naples, but Britain did not want to see the Habsburgs rule Austria and Spain at the same time, so they negotiated with Louis XIV of France alone, and finally the Habsburgs gave up the inheritance of Spain, but in exchange for the inheritance of Milan, Belgium, Naples and other places.
In 1798, the French Revolution broke out, the relationship between the Habsburgs and France deteriorated rapidly, and they participated in the anti-French alliance three times, but they were all defeated by Napoleon, and successively lost the territories of the western part of the country, northern Italy, Western Galicia and Yugoslavia, and the Holy Roman Empire has completely collapsed.
But the last emperor of the Holy Roman Empire merged the Archduchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the territories located in Italy and Poland, among others, into the Austrian Empire, and the era of the Austrian Empire began.
However, due to the strong military power of France, the Austrian Empire began to live with France in a strategic peace situation.
After Napoleon's failed attack on Tsarist Russia, the Austrian Empire went to war with France again, and in 1814, after the Battle of Leipzig, the anti-French coalition invaded Paris, and O'Leary took the opportunity to regain all the lost territory and once again become a great power in Europe.
The territory of the Austrian Empire included the southeastern part of present-day Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Venice region of Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Serbia, the northwest of Romania, the southern part of Poland, and the northwest corner of Ukraine, surpassing France in terms of territory, reaching 650,000 square kilometers, and in Europe at that time, the territory area was second only to Tsarist Russia.
The Austrian Empire was a multi-ethnic country, and although Austria was dominant, there were many other ethnic groups, among which Hungary was the second largest ethnic group in the Austrian Empire.
In 1867, in order to prevent Hungary from becoming independent, the Austrian Empire was renamed the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Hungary gained a high degree of autonomy, but the Austrian monarch still served as the king of Hungary and became a political state.
In 1900, in the year of Gengzi, Austria-Hungary was known as one of the five great powers in the world, second only to Tsarist Russia in terms of territory in Europe, and ranked third in the total population of Europe after Tsarist Russia and Germany.
Austria-Hungary, such a superpower, is certainly qualified to participate in the Eight-Nation Coalition and participate in the plundering and robbery of China by foreign bandits.
On the eve of World War I, Austria-Hungary joined the Allied powers of Germany and Italy against the Entente of Great Britain, France, and Russia.
Austria-Hungary wanted to annex Serbia when Turkey launched the revolution, which caused strong resentment among Serbian nationalists, and finally the Sarajevo incident became the trigger for World War I.
However, the performance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War was very strained, the internal economy of the empire was stagnant, and other peoples everywhere demanded to get rid of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and seek independence, and the Austro-Hungarian rulers could no longer control the other peoples in the country to submit to the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the country was facing collapse and end.
On November 3, 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Entente signed an armistice agreement to withdraw from World War I.
On October 28, the Czech Republic and Slovakia took the lead in independence, and then Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and other countries successively seceded from Austria-Hungary, and other territories were seized by Italy, Romania and Poland respectively, and finally Austria-Hungary disappeared, and the only remaining Republic of Austria was only 830,000 square kilometers, only about 10% of the original Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire suddenly added Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Montenegro, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Slovenia, and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Before World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire seemed to be strong, but in fact it was a behemoth that was a foreign power and a middle cadre, and its domestic economic strength was not as good as that of Britain, France, Italy and other countries.
Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a multi-ethnic country, with Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Slovenes, Croats, Romanians, Italians, and Ukrainians, but the problem is that none of them has more than 50% of the total population, and although Austria is the royal family of the empire, the proportion of Austrians in the empire is not very high, which leads to the fact that no nation can obtain absolute control over the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Therefore, Austria-Hungary's participation in the First World War was the fuse for the collapse and destruction of the empire, and if Austria-Hungary had not participated in the First World War, perhaps Austria-Hungary could have existed for a longer time!