Un impero multinazionale nella guerra delle nazioni: lo strano caso dell’impero asburgico

The crisis and then the dissolution of the Hasburg Empire have been long interpreted as the somehow inevitable result of the national lacerations that had struck it in the second half of the nineteenth century. Unable to react to stronger and stronger centrifugal forces, the Austro-Hungarian Dual monarchy slipped into the First World War without a future in front of it. The essay, however, tries to place the events of the national clashes on a wider scene, considering further factors: the lively parliamentary life of the last Austria, the attempts at a constitutional reform, and finally the last – and disastrous – ambitions in foreign and military politics.