Was Austria neutral during World War 1?

Answer 1

No, far from it. Austria was the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Vienna, the capital of Austria today, was the Imperial capital. Austria-Hungary was Germany's main ally in WWI. The Empire was ruled by the Hapsburg Dynasty, and had been for several centuries. In Europe, when people spoke of "the Empire", everyone understood they meant the Hapsburg domain, and "The Emperor" was its current ruler. Germany and Austria-Hungary were called "the Central Powers" during WWI, because between them they covered most of central Europe, but the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the larger of the two. For several hundred years it had been "the Austrian Empire", but in the mid-1800s, as a concession to one of the more prominent of the many nationalities in the Empire, the Hungarians, they began calling it "the Dual Monarchy" (there was a vassal king on the throne of Hungary obliged to obey the Emperor), and it became "the Austro-Hungarian Empire" or "Austria-Hungary", but it was the same huge chuck of central Europe as before. After Germany had easily defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Europe began to divide up into alliances. After losing that war, the French made an alliance with Russia, which had the effect of surrounding Germany. So, Germany began to want an alliance of its own, and Austria-Hungary, its next door neighbor, where the dominant nationality and the ruling dynasty were German speakers, was a natural choice. It was this alliance between Austria-Hungary and Germany (and some ill-advised actions by the Russians) that turned a local dispute in 1914 into something much larger. Serbia was a tiny little independent nation next to Austria-Hungary. The intelligence service of the Serbian government backed a group of Serbian nationalists who then murdered the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife. This was especially aggravating to the Emperor, even more than anybody would feel if their nephew was murdered. The Emperor in 1914 was old Franz Joseph, who had been on the throne since 1848. Obviously, he was getting old, and would soon be gone. He had once had a son, but the son wanted to marry a girl the Emperor did not think was suitable as a future Empress, and forbid the marriage. So the son and his beloved killed themselves. That was the Emperor's only child. His beautiful wife had been stabbed to death by an anarchist in Switzerland around 1900. After his son and heir killed himself, the Emperor tried to get his younger brother to be the heir, but he was not interested, so the offer then was made to that brother's son, the Emperor's nephew, Franz Ferdinand, who was murdered by the Serbs in 1914. Austria-Hungary seethed with anger, and made demands on Serbia that were harsh, such as allowing Austrian investigators to come into Serbia and hunt for proof of the connection of the Serbian government to the murder plot. No nation could really agree to this, and so about a month after the murders, in late July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The Kaiser of Germany had told the Austrians to do what was necessary, then went off for his summer vacation, sailing around the Baltic Sea on his yacht, out of touch with events. This was called "the blank check". When Austria declared was on Serbia, Russia decided to meddle and take Serbia's part in the quarrel, though Russia had no obligation, no treaty of alliance with the Serbs requiring them to mix in to it. Russia began to mobilize her massive army, almost the same thing as a declaration of war. The Kaiser had finally been made to understand things were serious, and tried to get the Russians to mobilize only that portion of their army that was to go to the Austrian border, but the Russians said it was impossible for them to sort out that massive alteration of their long held plans. So Germany mobilized too, as Austria's ally, and put her own plan into effect, which called for quickly beating the French, as they had in 1870, in the event of war with either Russia or France, and then Germany could turn her entire attention to Russia. This led to the German invasion of France, which went though Belgium, causing Britain to enter the war against Germany. So Austrian events were what got the whole thing going. The Hapsburg dynasty and the Empire did not survive the war, and after it was over many new nations were created from what had been the Empire.