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Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867
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The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (German: Ausgleich, Hungarian: Kiegyezés) established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. It was signed by Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and a Hungarian delegation led by Ferenc Deák. The compromise followed a series of failed constitutional reforms of the Habsburg Empire. The compromise granted the Hungarian government in Budapest equal legal status to the Austrian government in Vienna, while the common monarch retained responsibility for the army, navy, foreign policy, and customs union. The compromise was made with the suggestion of the Habsburg family as an attempt to shore up Hungarian support for the monarchy in the wake of the Austro-Prussian War, as well as dampen the internal discontent of various other nationalities of the Empire.
The compromise was rather unpopular with many ethnic minorities of the multinational Empire, most notably Czechs and Romanians, who resented the fact that the Austrians had only approached the Hungarian nobles and had not consulted them.
Under the dual arrangement, Vienna and Budapest each ruled half of a twin country united only at the top through the Emperor-King and the common Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of War. Each half of the country had its own Prime Minister and parliament: in Hungary the Diet was restored to power. The special status of Transylvania and the Military Frontier ended, as these areas became part of the Hungarian and Austrian crowns respectively. A new Nationalities Law was encacted which in theory preserved the rights of ethnic minorities, but this was often violated in practice, and enforcement was compunded by the vagueness of the legislation which guaranteed the many ethnic groups equal status under the law.
Every ten years, details of the compromise were renegotiated, and this often led to constitutional crises, as both the Cisleithanian (Austrian) and Transleithanian (Hungarian) halves of the empire desired to have the upper hand in national affairs. The two governments also proved more than willing to disrupt the other for their own advantage, although it was often to the detriment of the empire as a whole.
The Dual Monarchy established by the Compromise was intended as an interim solution, but it lasted for 50 years until 1918 when it was dissolved in the aftermath of World War I.
In general, most of the Austrian nobles were willing to accept equality with the Magyar nobility, since it meant preserving much of the old order of the empire. By giving the Hungarians control over substantial minorities of their own, such as Slovaks, Romanians, and Croats, the Austrians hoped to give Budapest a stake in the government's continued existence. This seems to have worked somewhat, as the ruling elite in both halves of the empire would often find a common cause in preventing the rise of new separatist and liberal reform groups. Nevertheless, the two halves of the empire continued to view one another with some distrust for the remainder of the state's existence.