Joint Crisis Committee

Agenda Item: The Disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

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Under-Secretary-General: Aykut Küçükyıldız

Academic Assistants: Işıl Başkan, Uğur Ozan Baygeldi

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A Serb student fired a bullet in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, and pushed the whole world into an endless bloodshed. The modern machinery of war is hungry for the lives of young men; trains from every corner of Europe are carrying them to fronts, for them to die in a couple of days. The dark side of humanity, coupled with modern weaponry, shows itself to the world while machine guns, mortars, grenades and open graves are ready to cover them all. In the middle of this chaos, a question forces itself into the minds of elites across the Danube, onewhich was repressed in memories for many years.

Kaiserlich in Vienna and Königlich in Budapest had been the summary of the 1867 Compromise, a compromise which pleased no one yet bound two nations that were obliged to function together. Fifty years have passed since, and the Imperial Cabinet in Vienna knows that the settlement is doomed to fail; still, it attempts to reinforce the imperial structure. Meanwhile, in Budapest, who knows how many ethnicities, gathered around how many parties, are trying to overpower each other and furnish the definitive answer to an existential question: should Hungary remain within the Empire, or should she declare independence?

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“There are political arrangements which, by virtue of their permanence, do not gain, but rather lose strength, till at length the moment is reached . . . when their long life qualifies them only to be allowed to die.”

Lajos Kossuth