3 ms·
I've read quite a bit about WWI, and that's a very good analysis. Although, as a nitpick, I'd reword "the dangers of multicultalism" as "rising nationalism tha
by npt4279 13y ago
I've read quite a bit about WWI, and that's a very good analysis.
Although, as a nitpick, I'd reword "the dangers of multicultalism" as "rising nationalism that made old political boundaries obsolete". The Austrian Empire worked well enough for hundreds of years... until it's various peoples started identifying more and more with their language and ethnicity.
- brc 13y agoWe all take nationalism for granted these days, but it really was a growing new thing in the late 19th, early 20th c. Germany and Italy didn't even exist as nations back then.
- vidarh 13y agoIt worked well enough then too - Austria-Hungary in its latest incarnation existed as it did as a result of negotiations to reform the empire that created an extremely devolved, decentralised government. They certainly faced problems and challenges, but they managed to work through them relatively peacefully. The problem was not the core of the empire, but the states it occupied and annexed with force in it's last few decades, which were not in any way assimilated or integrated into the empire itself.