The Fall of the House of Hapsburg

by Edward Crankshaw

Edward Crankshaw's distinguished study offers a compelling account of the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the centre of the dramatic events stands the majestic figure of the Emperor Franz Josef, facing the tragedies of his disastrous marriage and the suicide of his only son, and doggedly resisting the ruin of his inheritance. In a sweeping panorama of Vienna, Imperial Russia, Napolean's France, Bismark's Prussia and Cavour's Italy, Crankshaw portrays the political and military intricacies, the statesman, soldiers and common people, and examines the ambitions and disillusionment that broke the Empire and forged the destiny of the twentieth century.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, European History, World War I, Germany, Politics

459 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Edward Crankshaw (3 January 1909 – 30 November 1984), was a British writer, translator and commentator on Soviet affairs.

Born in London, Crankshaw was educated in the Nonconformist public school, Bishop's Stortford College, Hertfordshire, England. He started working as a journalist for a few months at The Times. In the 1930s he lived in Vienna, Austria, teaching English and learning German. He witnessed Adolf Hitler's Austro-German union in 1938, and predicted the Second World War while living there.

In 1940 Crankshaw was contacted by the Secret Intelligence Service because of his knowledge of German. During World War II Crankshaw served as a 'Y' (Signals Intelligence) officer in the British Army. From 1941 to 1943 he was assigned to the British Military Mission in Moscow, where he served initially as an Army 'Y' specialist and later as the accredited representative of the British 'Y' services, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Following a breakdown in 'Y' cooperation with the Soviet General Staff in December 1942, the British 'Y' Board recalled Crankshaw to London in February 1943. In May he was assigned to Bletchley Park, where he served as a liaison officer on matters pertaining to Russia.

From 1947 to 1968 he worked for the British newspaper The Observer. He died in 1984 in Hawkhurst, Kent.

Crankshaw wrote around 40 books on Austrian, (Vienna; Vienna, the Image of a Culture in Decline; Fall of the House of Habsburg; Gestapo. Instrument of Tyranny; Maria Theresa; Bismarck; The Habsburgs: a dynasty...) and Russian subjects, (Britain and Russia; Putting up with the Russians; Tolstoy: The making of a novelist; Russia without Stalin; The Shadow of the Winter Palace: Russia's Drift to Revolution, 1825–1917; Khrushchev; Khrushchev Remembers; The New Cold War, Moscow vs. Pekin; preface to Grigory Klimov's The Terror Machine).

(source: wikipedia)

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Fall of the House of Habsburg is another immensely dated (to be polite) work of history by Edward Crankshaw, a midcentury English journalist who specialized in Austrian and Soviet affairs. Crankshaw's book revolves around the long reign of Franz Josef, the penultimate Emperor of Austria, who ruled from 1848 to 1916. This period began with the upheavals of 1848, wherein liberal movements and nationalism among the Empire's subject people's first strongly expressed themselves, and the First World War, which brought Austria-Hungary to destruction. Crankshaw's writing is lively and attractive, skillfully interweaving political discussions, military clashes, cultural developments and scandals like Prince Rudolph's murder-suicide at Mayerling; he argues that Austria-Hungary, far from the decrepit "corpse" of legend, was a lively, spirited and pluralist nation to the very end. All well and good. His position is undercut, however, by Crankshaw's efforts to rehabilitate Franz Josef; while other historians have apologized for the much-maligned Emperor's mistakes, Crankshaw admits them - then, in an unusual tack, suggests his failures to modernize the Empire were acceptable because they're no worse than democracy! His shortcomings, Crankshaw assures us, can be forgiven because Franz Josef had the best interests of his people at heart. When not reasserting the Divine Right of Emperors, Crankshaw disparages the subject peoples of the Empire - not least the Hungarians, whom he depicts as a singularly "ungrateful" and "egotistical" race who are constantly undermining the Emperor's efforts to make Austria a better place for all. In the most nauseating chapter, he pulls the defense that Austria brought modern civilization and enlightenment to the Balkans, concluding that fin de siecle Vienna was "dominated by Jews to a degree which was clearly unhealthy." Which gives the game away; Crankshaw, with his romantic longing for a vanished monarchy and prejudiced sputtering, reveals himself as a reactionary fool who lives up to his surname.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book back in the 1970s - Edward Crankshaw was a very good amateur historian - but even back then other historians had reservations and time has only increased my own reservations. I happen to be a great aficionado of the Hapsburg world and I admire the work of more recent authors like 'The Habsburg Empire: A New History' by Pieter M. Judson (2016) but most importantly history, even good history is inevitably time sensitive. The way any historian looked at the Austria-Hungary pre WWII in the post WWII cold war era is going to be different to the way it appears now. Post the demise of the Soviet Union and the Cold War historians, many of them who won't even remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, will see things differently.

That doesn't make Edward Crankshaw's book bad, only dated, there are marvellous new histories out there read them.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more of an old-school history book: the author tends toward the judgmental (it's hard to find a passage that doesn't drip with disgust toward the Magyars) and makes bold statements that aren't always supported by good evidence. There are plenty of instances where I would think, "huh, how does he know that? I'm quite curious." Mostly they pertain to inferences about the state of mind of major players in the story of Austria-Hungary's downfall.

As old-school history, most of the discussion tends toward high-level diplomacy and great battles. The result is a convincing and engaging portrait of Franz Josef, whose personal history was certainly synonymous with an entire era and in Central European history. Where Crankshaw comes up short, however, is in drawing a good picture of the forces he was up against: I know that the proud Emperor felt it was his mission to keep his patrimony together, but I don't get a good sense of what made his downfall inevitable, other than maybe Hungarian and Slavic nationalism.

Crankshaw succeeds in bringing to life Franz Ferdinand just as well as he does Franz Josef, and he is at his strongest speculating how things might have gone differently if the heir had lived: part of Austria's doom was certainly the wall of pride between the two.

Also of interest is a great anecdote: an early twentieth century minister of Franz Josef's (I forget which one) had a dramatic insight, and he informed his Emperor that if they failed in containing other European powers, the end result would be a world dominated by the United States and Russia. How prescient!

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is clearly true, as one reviewer wrote, that Crankshaw has a bias against the Hungarians. Not knowing enough about the subject, I can't say how much, if any, is based on reality though either way, Crankshaw definitely goes overboard. They would hardly be the first group to demand independence and then repress their own minorities (the U.S. being an example).

But it was a pleasure reading the book after some of the rough reading I've been doing. It was well written (if opinionated). He seems to pity the Habsburgs which leads to some of his bias. So read it and take it with a grain of salt-along with other, more level-headed books on the subject.

[Don Heiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crankshaw's treatment of the fall of the House of Habsburg and the Holy Roman Empire was published in 1963. I was struck by his bias against Hungry but impressed by his treatment of Franz Josef's personality and values. His book is a biography of the Emperor's tragic life and the conflicts that led to the WW 1 and 2. Crankshaw helped me understand how irredentism (annexation of territories administered by another state) and interlocking treaties triggered the events that threw the world into a war to end all wars. I enjoyed the book very much.

[Jenni Wiltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
This book is a mixed bag in terms of subject matter, which is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a political history of the Habsburg empire during Franz Josef’s long reign (1848-1916), with a few pages to sum up what happened after FJ died. It’s not a biography of FJ, although he’s the through-line of the book.

You meet FJ’s many ministers, from Schwarzenberg to Taaffe to Beck. You meet European ambassadors and politicians of the empire, like Andrassy and Dimitrijević. But this isn’t a character-based history. Crankshaw dips in and out of narrative history, character analysis, political history, and his own opinion at will.

That’s what I mean about this being a mixed bag of subject matter. It'll work best for you if you read it for background and entertainment. Don't take it as gospel, or his viewpoints as current (he wrote this during the Cold War).

Crankshaw’s opinions are entertaining and, honestly, refreshing. That’s not to say they’re all correct, or even well supported. One thing this book lacks is support. There are frighteningly few endnotes, no bibliography, and few quoted sources.

In an afterword, Crankshaw admits he used mostly published materials to create this – the benefit being the German-language source material he’s interpreting for an English-speaking audience. I’m okay with that, but I really wish he’d footnoted more so you know where to go to follow up on what he tells you.

My main interest in this book was in the royals. Crankshaw has a soft spot for Franz Josef, which I’m not sure is justified. Some who knew him, including Princess Louise of Belgium, describe him as cold and heartless. Crankshaw presents him as a canny politician utterly dedicated to maintaining his inheritance; his fatal flaw was not wanting smarter men around him. Is this accurate? Probably, and that doesn't exclude Louise's view of him. Now I want to read a few biographies of him to get a more complete picture of his personality.

Crankshaw doesn’t like Empress Elisabeth and he doesn’t like Franz Ferdinand, although he suggests FF might have made a good emperor. He also argues that turn-of-the-century Vienna wasn’t as decayed and decadent as popular imagery suggests, and the empire itself was actually modernizing at a rapid pace.

While I enjoyed reading this, it’s by no means a comprehensive or even reliable last word on any of the subjects covered. My suggestion? Read it, get a feel for the subject, then decide where to go to read up on the topics or people that interest you.

Boiled down into the good, the bad, and the interesting:

The Good
*Crankshaw’s opinions are always entertaining, even if you don’t agree with them. For example, he says Britain’s Disraeli was the only statesman in Europe “fit to hold a candle to Bismarck” (192). Similarly, he says no 20th century statesman is more “persistently underrated and treated with more unmerited contempt than Aehrenthal” (328). I’m nowhere near qualified to know whether these statements are true, but I like knowing where Crankshaw stands.

The Bad
*Crankshaw blames the Magyars for, oh, everything. It’s a painfully clear bias he holds throughout the book, with little justification. Just a taste: “They ruled over half the Empire, in which they occupied a position of extraordinary and indeed disastrous privilege, under a King to whom they professed romantic loyalty while doing their best to stab him in the back. They paid less than their share of everything…They contributed nothing but some dashing regiments of cavalry, a large number of surpassingly beautiful women, and an infinity of woe.” (299) My note in the margin? Ouch.

The Interesting
*He compares Franz Josef’s talent for ruling to Newton’s intellect. I don't buy this comparison, but here we go. Crankshaw writes that the talent of ruling is as rare as any other talent, and FJ had it in spades. But, he notes, men of these giant talents can also have lapses of logic, as illustrated by this story about Newton. When his cat had kittens, Newton took a look at his cat door and realized he needed to cut a smaller hole for the kittens to go through (78-9). When a ruler like FJ has a lapse like this, the consequences are “apt to be more serious” (79).

*On that fateful day in June 1914, Franz Ferdinand’s car wasn’t supposed to go down the Sarajevo street where Gavrilo Princip stood with a gun in his hand. The amended route called for them to go straight down Appel Quay, but the driver hadn't been told, so he turned right onto Franz Josef Street as per the original plans, created before a bomb had been thrown at FF earlier that morning.

*The Austrian ultimatum delivered to Serbia on July 23, 1914 was the last ultimatum drafted in diplomatic French (399).

*Crankshaw blames the start of World War I in part on statesmen who didn’t understand that, once started, mobilization couldn’t be stopped. That hadn’t always been true, he says, and that misunderstanding made them more likely to use mobilization as a tool in their diplomatic arsenal. Before standing armies comprised hundreds of thousands of men, it was easier to call your army up and disband it in a matter of days or even hours. But when the process involved a long chain of command, intense supply wrangling, and commandeering transport networks, it took on a life of its own. Even with faster methods of communication (telegraph and telephone), you couldn’t shut it on and off the way diplomats thought they could.

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Originally posted on GirlInTheTiara.com as part of the 2020 Royal Reading List at https://girlinthetiara.com/2020-royal....

[Bart Everson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't even intend to read this book. I had planned only to read part of the first chapter for some research I was doing on the history of Bohemia. But I got engrossed and it ended up filling my summer. That speaks to the quality of the writing.

It is refreshing to read a history where the author has a strong opinion and doesn't try to hide it. I'm not sure I agree with his perspective, basically one of sympathy for the Habsburg dynasty and the whole idea of monarchical rule, but it made for an interesting read.

[Laura Lieberman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good things about this book:

1) Crankshaw was buddies with the Prince of Schwarzenberg and the Duke of Hohenberg, so he had access to their families' papers and archives, getting these documents translated into English - that's pretty cool
2) He makes the point (as have other people chronicling the end of the Empire) that the Habsburg Empire was the one thing keeping numerous ethnic groups from slaughtering each other
3) points out that our collective memory of WW1 basically ignores all the fighting going on in Central Europe
4) makes the point that the Sudeten Germans had been under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so Germany trying to claim that region was laughable

Bad things about the book:

1) forgoes actual historical analysis in favor of flowery, muddled writing about a number of topics, such as an entire section ranting about how the arts/culture scene in Vienna around the fin de siecle was banal and meaningless and stuff like "monarchs and politicians had abdicated their countries' destinies to the armies" in WW1 without any explanation of what he means by that.

2) claims that the Jewish influence on Viennese culture was "unhealthy" and that the Jewish community was asking to be discriminated against because they "were pushing too hard" - wtf

3) stuff about how Serbians are all treacherous and depraved because they were influenced by the Ottomans and how the "Turkish taint" corrupted them. Yes, he literally calls it the "Turkish taint."

4) yes, I know that Sisi had severe depression and was really difficult to deal with, but no need to trashtalk her physical appearance, dude.

[Jim Gallen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It had been decades since I had read “The Fall Of The House Of Habsburg” and I thought the Centenary of the Great War was a good time for a second look.

This work basically covers the reign of Franz Joseph who, as a teenager, succeeded his uncle during the crisis of 1848, maintained peace for decades, was instrumental in the beginning of World War I and continuing until his death in 1916. After stabilizing the situation after the 1848 uprisings that temporarily lead to the family’s exile from Vienna, he presided in the establishment of the dual monarchy, leaving him as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, a concession to Hungarian nationalism. During his reign the Habsburg claim to seniority among German monarchs was successfully challenged by the upstart Prussia and its Prime Minister, Otto von Bismarck, Russia continued its expansionist ways in Southeastern Europe, particularly after the Russo-Japanese War, Italy united and challenged Habsburg control of its Italian domains, and alliances shirted across the continent. Through all this Franz Joseph maintained his goal of holding his multi-lingual and multi-ethnic empire together. Although his name will forever be associated with the Great War, he was, for most of his reign, a man of peace.

Franz-Joseph’s family saga were tragic. His relations with his wife, Elizabeth, were strained at the outset and became almost non-existent as she descended into madness to the point that little was left when she was stabbed to death by an assassin. Their son and heir, Rudolph, died in a murder-suicide with his mistress after petitioning the Pope for an annulment of his marriage. So little affection or respect was shared between the Emperor and his next heir, nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand, that the latter’s assassination, which had such tragic international consequences, stirred little emotion at court. By the time of his death, little chance remained for the new Emperor, Karl, to salvage the Empire despite overtures for peace.

Author Edward Crankshaw has crafted a brilliant and, although long, readable, history of an indispensable Empire in Central and Southeastern Europe. He makes the case that the Empire was not failing but doing well before the war and that it fell, not as an inevitable consequence of its internal frictions, but due to the actions of others who wanted it destroyed. This is necessary reading for anyone wishing to understand the course of continental European history from 1848 through 1920.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A factual account of the unfortunate demise of the last, great Catholic Monarchy on earth, the Habsburg dynastry which ruled the Holy Roman Empire (turned Austria-Hungary) for over 700 years. Giving a brief history of the Habsburgs from the Medieval era until the failed 1848 Revolution, the author brings to life the real people who made and broke the Empire during its final epoch from 1848-1918, notably the life, character, and mind of Emperor Franz Josef who reigned for 68 of those 70 years.

The book details the wars and foreign interactions during the time. One cause the author purports for the failure of the Empire was the increasing entanglement it found itself with the proud and ever more powerful Prussia/Germany. At some points, the narrative gets a bit belabored and goes into too much detail about the armaments and military strategies of the Italian and Prussian campaigns, but the author quickly returns thereafter to the historical narrative of the Royal Family itself.

Plagued by tragedy, the first heir to the Thron, the estranged from his father Crowned Prince Rudolph committed suicide in 1889. This was to be followed by the tragic death of the Empress Elizabeth and ultimately by the assassination of the next heir, Franz Ferdinand in 1914 precipitated World War I. The "felix culpa" of this last tragedy was the ascension of the Emperor's great-nephew, Blessed Karl I to the Throne in 1916, but sadly his reign was to be cut short because the liberal forces of the Entente, including the US, decided to recast this unnecessary war into a cause for "democracy and self-determination" of "oppressed peoples".

A sad, but true story which provides valuable lessons about the nature of politics, the errors of classical and modern liberalism creeping in to strangle the Empire, an the deplorable existence of ultra-nationalism and racism among peoples who were better off morally and economically under the Empire than what was to follow. The author writes from a secular point of view, but he is quite sympathetic to the glory of Austria and considers the demise of the Habsburgs to have been an unnecessary and avoidable outcome of history.

Long live His Imperial and Royal Highness, Emperor Karl II (the grandson of Bl. Karl I), Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, etc.

[Rex Brampton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take notes! There's a huge cast of minor characters who keep recurring and you need notes to keep track of them. Best to have a family tree of the Hapsburgs handy too.

[Geoffrey Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit that nostalgia for the year I lived in Vienna right after college fueled my interest to return to this history (of which I read half right after I graduated in preparation for my year abroad). It was a welcome return to thinking not only about nineteenth-century European history, but also a history that challenges you to think about places that most Americans have little knowledge of, including the history of central European countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Balkans. Granted, this history is more about the last Hapsburg monarch, Franz Josef, and the last sixty-five years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but within that story are many other stories about the multi-ethnic state that oversaw a great deal of this region. Crankshaw's account is perhaps more invested in certain perspectives than a more objective historian, but his sympathies with the Monarchy do make for good reading. As others have noted, he seems a little hard on the Hungarians, but there's a lot here to appreciate. And in a way, it's a good reminder, that in our current political crisis, there have been many other countries and cultures who've struggled to make governing right and provides a sometimes much needed antidote to American exceptionalism.

[barbara stanisz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me a long time to read and at time I felt like it was a history primer. However, I perservered and discovered that I really knew very little about world war I and my feeling now is that the world learned very little from up setting up the stage for world war II. I felt that at times, the author got too tied up in the details, but maybe that was just my frustration with how long it was taking to get to the end. This book is chock full of details and presents a very interesting perspective of Europe between 1850 and 1910 and it well worth taking the time to read it.

[Christopher Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more detail than a casual reader would want, but I loved the first 170 pages, which present a razor-sharp portrait of the young Emperor Franz Josef and the perils of operating a polyglot empire in 19th century Europe. The author is a cranky Brit of the old school but extremely intelligent.

[Grindy Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully cynical and enlightening. The author is far more familiar with the princes and diplomats of the 19th Century Habsburg empire than I am, and going back to keep the players straight takes some effort.

[Bob Croft · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Rayrumtum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always been interested in events in Europe leading up to WWI. I felt particularly weak on the Austro-Hungarian Empire so I selected this book. It was interesting, but it focused more on political history when I would have liked to see more cultural/social history during this fascinating period of time.
It did seem to me frequently that he was an apologist for the Emperor and blamed most of the Empire's woes on the implacable Hungarians. That seems to be a bit extreme for 10 million Hungarians who didn't want to be in the Empire in the first place. Anyhow I need to read more on this period to see if that opinion is representative of such thinking or is an outlier.

[Luis]

This is one of the best works written about the fall of the Dual Monarchy and what were the origins as what were the consequences of this real tragedy for Europe and the World. Without the Habsburg dynasty everything was worst in Europe, the allies invented Yugoslavia, which was much more against nature than the Habsburg realm. Was a real plot of the French left, socialists and nationalists like Clemenceau, who supported their fellow masons such as Benes and Masaryk. This was in my opinion the worst consequence of WW1, with the only exception of the tragic Russian revolution and civil war.

[Tej · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this is a book about history, it was clearly influenced by the time and place that it was written. The author is English, and he was writing during the height of the cold war in the 1960s. His opinions definitely reflect those two things. I'm guessing there are probably more objective books about the last Austrian emperor. But, it did teach me about a subject I don't know very well.

[Tarbuckle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goddamn Magyars!

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book - worth re-reading