(i) Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies within the territories in which lived diverse people.
(ii) They did not see themselves as sharing a collective identity or a common culture.
(iii) The Habsburg Empire that ruled over Austria–Hungary, for example, was a patchwork of many different regions and people.
(iv) It included the Alpine regions— The Tyrol, Austria and the Sudetenland — as well as Bohemia, where the aristocracy was predominantly German-speaking.
(v) It also included the Italian speaking princess of Lombardy and Venetia.
(vi) In Hungary, half of the population spoke Magyar while the other half spoke a variety of dialects.
(vii) In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke polish.
(viii) Besides these three dominant groups, there also lived within the boundary of the empire a mass of subject peasant people—Bohemians, Slovaks to the north, slovens in Carniola, Croats in the south and Romans to the east in Transylvania. The only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor.
