The Fall of the von Habsburgs



For five centuries, the von Habsburg family, one of Europe's greatest dynasties, had ruled from Vienna. Through clever marriages, political intrigue, and decisive conquests, the land of Österreich, under the rule of the Habsburgs, had transformed from a lowly march on the border of the Holy Roman Empire to one of the most powerful and influential countries in Europe. Despite several close encounters with destruction over the centuries, including two Turkish sieges of Vienna, a brutal thirty-year religious conflict in the Holy Roman Empire, the nearly unstoppable conquests of Napoleon, and the brutal First Weltkrieg, Austria had survived.





An Austrian trenchline during the First Weltkrieg



However, in 1940, the fortunes of the Habsburgs and their empire had seemingly come to an end. Never having truly recovered from the effects of the First Weltkrieg, the archaic, multi-ethnic empire's vain attempts at maintaining the centuries-long status-quo had all resulted in failure. First the Illyrians began to shatter, the large, revanchist Serbian population rising up against their Croatian rulers. Then, the large Romanian population in the Crown of St. Stephen revolted against the oppressive Magyars, while the lands of Galicia-Lodomeria quietly drifted off to a newly resurgent Poland. Even still, the problems of Vienna did not end, with the Czechs, one of the empire's oldest peoples, declaring independence from the Habsburg monarchy.



With the empire in complete shambles, old men and young boys being sent to fight increasingly futile wars against the Czechs and Serbs, and Budapest seemingly going its own way yet again, the people of Austria had grown weary of the rule of the Habsburgs. Indeed, with the war in France concluded, Germany, Austria's former enemy-turned-ally-turned-enemy again, seem poised to march into Austria and Bohemia in order to restore order. Thus, under immense pressure, both internal and external, Kaiser Karl I announced his abdication from the Hofburg palace. Shortly after, the Austrian parliament, led by the pan-German Heimatblock, voted to disband the monarchy and petition for Austria's annexation into the German Empire. Already intending to move troops into Austria to restore order, the aging Kaiser Wilhelm II, as his one of the last major decisions of his life, accepted Austria's annexation into Germany.





Austrian parliament votes for annexation into Germany



The news of the abdication and subsequent annexation of Austria was met with a mixture of alarm and excitement across Europe. With the Austria now an imperial province within the German Empire, the dream of Pan-Germans for decades had been fulfilled. Celebrations were held across Berlin, while the populace of Vienna breathed a collective sigh of relief, as German arms would now come to protect them from the encroaching Czechs. In Czechia, the news was met with abject horror, as it meant that Czechia was likely doomed to once again being a puppet of a German power. To the southeast, the Hungarians meanwhile proclaimed their final independence from the Habsburgs, with Hungarian Admiral Miklós Horthy declaring himself Regent of Hungary until a new King of Hungary could be chosen. In Poland, Polish nationalists cheered on the end of their centuries-long Habsburg enemies, while the Habsburg King of Poland silently watched, fearing that he would be next in the line of overthrown monarchs.