How the Austro-Hungarian Empire Destroyed Itself - The Fall of The Habsburgs - History Documentary

The Habsburg Dynasty had ruled large parts of Europe and the world for 650 years. During World War I, however, the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire sowed the seeds of its own demise. When Charles I inherited Franz Joseph's throne in November 1916, he embarked on a single-handed mission to make peace. He offered France control of Alsace-Lorraine - a betrayal of his greatest ally and brother-in -arms, Germay. The so-called "Sixtus Affair" destroyed the last chance for peace in Europe - and sealed the fate of the Habsburg Dynasty and the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself. Charles I would go down in history as the last emperor of Europe.

Austria’s Graf Gets Grief Over “United Tyrol”
REUTERS – BLOG: Breaking into the summer holiday lull, Austrian politics has gotten into a lather over a far-right populist’s call for a referendum on whether a mainly German-speaking region of northern Italy should rejoin Austria.

No matter how far-fetched, his proposal raised a hue and cry by challenging the taboo of old unreconstructed nationalism in a country restlessly determined to live down its Nazi past.

South Tyrol - Alto Adige in Italian - is an autonomous, Alpine province of Italy bordering Austria. It was annexed by Italy from defeated Austria-Hungary at the end of World War One.

Italy granted increasing self-government to South Tyrol in the decades after World War Two, defusing separatist unrest by Austro-German speakers. It is now among Italy’s richest regions, with an open border to Austria thanks to EU integration.

But Martin Graf, a rightist deputy speaker of Austria’s parliament, declared on Sunday that South Tyrol was actually “part of overall Tyrol”, and only “currently” within Italy.

The universal right of self-determination should apply for all “the German people” in Europe - just as those in old Communist East Germany got their wish to merge into one Germany at the end of the Cold War in 1990. “It’s time to ask the people if there should be one Tyrol,” Graf said. >>> Mark Heinrich | Wednesday, July 29, 2009