![]() ![]() As a subject of the “Sick Man of Europe” Bosnia was a medieval backwater, undeveloped and lawless. From 1878, the province came under the rule of the Dual Monarchy, the Austro-Hungarians having captured the region from the Ottoman Empire. At one end of the spectrum, take Bosnia-Hercegovina. It is undeniable that all constituent parts of the Empire were on the whole worse off after the fall of the Hapsburgs. When the century of conflict after the end of Hapsburg rule is taken into account, the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire seem like a golden era of peace and stability. Far from becoming the core of a newly revitalised, more liberal Europe free from the tyranny of ancient autocracies the new states became puppets of the 3rd Reich, then of Stalin, and then of nationalist fervour. Economic ruin, the brutal ethnic conflicts within the former Yugoslavia, political corruption- the woes of Central Europe continued to multiply. The same cycle occurred- great hopes for a new epoch of peace and prosperity were born and then snuffed out. These nations would endure four decades of Soviet tyranny, before being liberated along with the rest of the Eastern Bloc in the late 80s and early 90s. By the late 1940s the Central European states found themselves under a new master, as the iron fist of the USSR clamped down on their autonomy. So brief, in fact, that it is hardly worth mentioning. After 6 years of continuous warfare, their populations decimated by the combined evils of the depredations of the SS and conscription into Hitler’s ill-fated campaigns, these states enjoyed a brief respite. Two decades later, the Nazi jackboot stamped down on the nations of Central Europe. Hopes for a new era of freedom and progress arose, as the new states of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland were created from the ashes of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Across the Hapsburg lands separatists rejoiced as their dreams of independence were realised by the post-war treaties. When the Dual Monarchy fell, few mourned.
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