British and French Political Approaches to Hungary at the turn of the 19th - 20th century

The aim of the paper is to compare and find similarities between British and French political approaches to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, later Austria-Hungary focusing primarily on the Hungarian Kingdom. In addition, the study also provides additional information on the relation of British and French pro-Slav groups, thus it also contributes to the current historical debates with novelties. In the first part of the thesis, I present the activities of the major representatives of the proSlav, anti-Hungarian groups, mostly Robert William Seton-Watson and Henry Wickham Steed, but, in parallel, opinions differing from theirs are also voiced, such as Arthur B. Yolland and James Bryce. At the end of the first part, I also discuss the impact of Steed and Seton-Watson on French intellectuals, possibly on politicians and the public opinion. In the other part of the study, I investigate the French intellectuals focusing on the members of the pro-Slav group, including Louis Léger, Ernest Denis and Louis Eisenmann. To what extent these politicians impacted on French politics is not known entirely, but among these thinkers, Louis Eisenmann had the most considerable effect, as his works had been adopted as handbooks of the French delegation at the Paris Peace Conference. The opinions of those are also mentioned, which were not against the maintenance of Austria-Hungary, for example, Madame Edmond Adam or Hyppolyte Desprez. I hypothesize that British and French pro-Slav political groups had similar ideas about the future of Hungary. With the help of newspaper articles, I revealed that these groups were aware of each other’s actions, furthermore, they also reflected on the activities and works of each other. Furthermore, I managed to systematise the most important British and French political views in terms of Hungary.