Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 - Continuing Pressures

Continuing Pressures

The Compromise of 1867 was meant to be a temporary solution to the problems the state faced, but the resulting system was maintained until the dissolution of the state following World War I. The favoritism shown to the Magyars, the second largest ethnic group in the state after the Germans, caused discontent on the part of other ethnic groups like the Czechs and Romanians. Although a "Nationalities Law" was enacted to preserve the rights of ethnic minorities, the two parliaments took very different approaches to this issue.

The basic problem in the later years was that the Compromise with Hungary only encouraged the appetites of non-Hungarian minorities and regions in Hungary that were historically within the boundaries of the previous Hungarian Empire. The majority of Hungarians felt they had accepted the Compromise only under coercion. The Austrian Archduke, separately crowned King of Hungary, had to swear in his coronation oath not to revise or diminish the historic imperial (Hungarian) domains to the Hungarian nobility, magnates, and upper classes. These Hungarian groups never acquiesced to granting "their" minorities the recognition and local autonomy which the Austrians had given to the Magyars themselves in the Compromise.

As such, several ethnic minorities faced increased pressures of Magyarization. Furthermore, the renegotiations that occurred every ten years often led to constitutional crises. Ultimately the Compromise, intended to fix the problems faced by a multi-national state—failed to sublet the internal pressures the old unitary state had felt. How much the Dual Monarchy stabilized the country in the face of rising nationalism is debated even today, particularly by those ethnic groups thus disenfranchised.