Transcript Austro-Hungarian union

Austro-Hungarian Immigration
Aaron Vega
Austro-Hungarian union
In 1867 a union was formed between Austria and Hungary. Most
political power was held by emperor Franz Josef . Over 50 million
people filled the 675,000 square kilometers of the empire. The ethnic
groups that were most common were German and Hungarian, overall
there were 15 different languages spoken in the Austro-Hungarian
empire. Austria and Hungary shared the same currency, but other
state functions rested with the national governments. Both states
unelected upper houses and elected lower houses of parliament.
In1879 Austria-Hungary and Germany formed a dual alliance. In 1882
this alliance expanded to Italy.
Austria and Hungary in WW1
In 1914, when WW1 just started Austria and Hungary both had there own
standing armies. Austria had 40,000 soldiers and Hungary 30,000. there
were also imperial and royal armies. In all 350,000 vowed there allegiance
to emperor Franz Josef. Their commander, Franz Josef (by 1914) was 84
years old and chief of staff, though count Franz Conrad was in strict
control of the armed forces. Conrad favored an aggressive foreign policy
that used the military contract to solve the territorial disputes that were
happening with Italy and Siberia.
Immigration to America
Although most Hungarians who immigrated to the United States
arrived between 1890 and the start of World War I in 1914, the most
significant Hungarian immigration took place during the 1930’s.
The spread of fascism and Nazism in Europe forced thousands of
highly educated scientists, scholars, artists, and musicians to leave
Hungary and Central Europe to find safe haven in America.
Although Hungarian presence in North America reaches back to
1583, when Stephen Parmenius of Buda reached American shores,
the first significant Hungarian political immigration took place in
the early 1850’s. Following the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution
of 1848-1849, several thousand Hungarians found haven in the
United States.
Most of them came with the intention of returning to Europe to resume
their struggle against the Austrian Empire, but a new war of liberation
never materialized. However, many émigrés repatriated to Hungary after
the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which transformed the
Austrian Empire into the dualistic state of Austria-Hungary. Before their
repatriation, however, close to one thousand Hungarians—25 percent of all
Hungarians then in the United States—had served in the Union Army during
the Civil War. Almost one hundred of them served as officers; among them
were two major generals and five brigadier generals. Many other
Hungarians never repatriated and instead joined the ranks of American
professionals, businessmen, and diplomats. They were able to do so
because over 90 percent of them came from the ranks of the upper nobility
and the gentry, and were thus learned enough, with sufficient social and
linguistic skills, to impress contemporary Americans.
The next significant wave of Hungarian immigrants were the
turn-of-the-century “economic immigrants.” These were mostly
peasants and unskilled workers who came in huge numbers,
primarily as guest workers, to work in steel mills, coal mines, and
factories. Of the nearly two million immigrants from Hungary
during the four decades leading up to World War I, about 650,000
were true Hungarians, or Magyars. The remaining two-thirds
were Ruysins, Slovaks, Romanians, Croats, Serbs, and Hungarian
Germans. Of the 650,000 ethnic Magyars, close to 90 percent
were peasants or unskilled workers who had recently emerged
from the ranks of the peasantry. They were drawn to America by
the work opportunities that did not exist at home.
Even though Hungary itself was then being urbanized and
industrialized, its development was not sufficient to
employ all the peasants who were being displaced from the
countryside. In the course of time, about 75 percent of
these “guest workers”—two-thirds of whom were young
men of marriageable age—transformed themselves into
permanent immigrants. They established families in the
United States and became the founders of Hungarian
churches, fraternal associations, and scores of local,
regional, and national newspapers geared to their
educational levels.
Websites I used
http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/560-hungarianimmigrants.html
http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWaustriaA.htm
http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWinAustria.htm
http://www.powayusd.com/online/usonline/worddoc/ellisislandsit
e.htm
Thank you