On Tuesday 23 October 2018, Professor Martyn RADY, holder of the Masaryk Chair of Central European History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, delivered a high-level lecture on "The Fall of the Habsburg Empire".
Professor RADY first revealed the problems of poor leadership and organization that undermined the Austro-Hungarian war effort in 1914-18. This resulted in the subordination of the Habsburg Dual Monarchy to the German military high command, making impossible the kind of peace so often negotiated by the Habsburgs in the wake of defeat. He then demonstrated how the responses of the civilian and military authorities to the immense wartime challenges drove the many nationalities of the Habsburg Empire apart. Responding to questions, he argued that the Great War brought down a house of cards, but nationalism decided how those cards fell. The event was organized by the European Civilization Chair at Natolin as part of its centennial cycle "Breaking Empires, Making Nations?", and chaired by Professor Richard BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI.