William Tyler
The Rise of Nationalism in Vienna
Summary
William Tyler discusses how the failure of the Habsburg monarchy to deal with the rising tide of nationalism within their empire eventually contributed to their defeat in World War I, and thus, ended the empire.
William Tyler
William Tyler has spent his entire professional life in adult education, beginning at Kingsgate College in 1969. He has lectured widely for many public bodies, including the University of Cambridge and the WEA, in addition to speaking to many clubs and societies. In 2009, William was awarded the MBE for services to adult education, and he has previously been a scholar in residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre.
Oh, what a very good question that is from Michael, “in order to strengthen provincial languages.” Well, gosh, yes I think there would, I think there might well have been. That’s a very good question, and a good shot below, below the water line of my ship. I think that’s a good question, and there’s no easy answer to that, and you may well be right.
A made up reason, Bismarck simply wants a war to make sure Austria doesn’t interfere in his plans for the unification of Germany, exactly the same as he’d had a war against Denmark, and as he’s going to have a war against France. He’s the archetypal politic, and my goodness, may I give anything to have Bismark as Prime Minister. He was devious, but he was devious for the right reasons, and he was successful in what he wanted to achieve. He is not Wilhelm II, and he is absolutely not Hitler, remember. Bismark’s an interesting person.
Yes, there is. The majority of the population, I gave the figures, I’ve lost my bit of paper now, but yes. Yes, Catholicism was strong across the empire, and of course it’s their Catholicism versus Prussia’s Protestantism, which many argue is the reason that it wasn’t Bavaria Catholic and Austria, that unified Germany, but Protestant Prussia, that’s another talk for another day, and there’s a lot of truth in that.