The Conference

Of the various causes of the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, nationalism was certainly one of the most important. In an age of integral nationalism like the latter part of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century it proved extremely difficult for a multinational empire like the Austro-Hungarian monarchy to survive. Not only did the Habsburgs face the question of how to retain the loyalty of a dozen different nationalities within the framework of a single empire, but they also had to reconcile ever increasing differences between the Slavs and the Germans and Magyars and between the Germans and the Magyars themselves. In the end, the Habsburg government failed to meet the challenge.