WASHINGTON — If a European Union bureaucrat could travel to Vienna during the last years of the 19th century, he would be surprised at how closely the Habsburg Empire resembled today's EU. Like the EU, Austria-Hungary was an experiment in supranational engineering, comprising 51 million inhabitants, 11 nationalities and 14 languages.
Presiding over this microcosm of Europe was a double-throned emperor-king and twin parliaments representing the largely independent Austrian and Hungarian halves of the realm.
The Habsburg Empire acted as a stabilizing force for its peoples and for Europe. To its scattered ethnic groups, it performed the twin roles of referee and bouncer, pacifying indigenous rivalries and protecting pint-size nations from predatory states. It also filled a geopolitical vacuum at the heart of the continent, placing a check on Germany and Russia.