Victims' State

The belligerent country that literally started the First World War, the Habsburg Empire suffered grievously during the global conflict. At the end of the war, it was estimated that 1.2 million soldiers, out of 8 million men and 100,000 women mobilized from an empire of 52 million, perished in service. Among those who lived, the wounded, the disabled, and their dependents constituted at least several million people whose survival was endangered both during and afterthe war. How did the Habsburg Empire confront the scale of the casualties brought about by the First World War? What care and support were offered to disabled soldiers and dead soldiers' survivingdependents? Victims' State offers the first integrated account of how the Austrian half of the empire and the successor Austrian Republic responded to the needs of citizen-soldiers and their families from the nineteenth century to the interwar years. Ke-Chin Hsia traces the policies, ideas, and administrative practices developed over the decades by a range of government, semi-public, and societal actors to deal with the massive losses of lives, health, andlivelihoods. The provision of care and welfare to disabled veterans, war widows, and war orphans shows that compulsory military service and war mobilization profoundly changed the relations between citizens and theAustrian state. The expansion of the Austrian welfare state was consciously undertaken by the Habsburg authorities as well as the successor Austrian Republic to generate support and create legitimacy in times of crisis. In the process, assertive war victims helped create a participatory welfare system and contributed to the democratic transition of 1918-1920. With its incisive analysis, Victims' State underscores the centrality of totalizing war to the making ofmodern citizenship and the fully-fledged European welfare state.

“"An exciting new interpretation of welfare practices in Habsburg Central Europe that spans the Imperial and Republican periods. Hsia's pioneering arguments demonstrate that innovative welfare practices rarely came solely from the state but developed as much from claims by socially diverse groups of actors and interest groups from below. Readers may be surprised to learn that in the multinational Habsburg empire, when it came to popular demands for welfare programs, nationalist concerns apparently took a back seat to more pressing social, economic, and regional interests." -- Pieter M. Judson, European University Institute "An impressive, original study of the neglected history of the emergence of the Austrian welfare state out of World War I and its centrality to the transition from the elite Habsburg Empire to the cohesive, democratic Austrian Republic, permanently transforming its politics and culture, an experience more similar to other European states than is usually recognized. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, it is a major contribution to the history of Austria and of European welfare states." -- Pat Thane, author of The Foundations of the Welfare State "This meticulously researched study offers a new and compelling interpretation of wartime and postwar politics. Centering social welfare as an integral part of total war, Ke-Chin Hsia reconceptualizes links between imperial Austria and the postwar republic. He reveals continuities in late Habsburg and early republican welfare policies without defaulting to the nationalities prism. As such, the book is a pioneering 'next generation' work that extends the recent historiographical re-examination of the significance of 1918 in Austrian history." -- Maureen Healy, author of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire”

An exciting new interpretation of welfare practices in Habsburg Central Europe that spans the Imperial and Republican periods. Hsia's pioneering arguments demonstrate that innovative welfare practices rarely came solely from the state but developed as much from claims by socially diverse groups of actors and interest groups from below. Readers may be surprised to learn that in the multinational Habsburg empire, when it came to popular demands for welfare programs, nationalist concerns apparently took a back seat to more pressing social, economic, and regional interests. Pieter M. Judson, European University Institute
An impressive, original study of the neglected history of the emergence of the Austrian welfare state out of World War I and its centrality to the transition from the elite Habsburg Empire to the cohesive, democratic Austrian Republic, permanently transforming its politics and culture, an experience more similar to other European states than is usually recognized. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, it is a major contribution to the history of Austria and of European welfare states. Pat Thane, author of The Foundations of the Welfare State
This meticulously researched study offers a new and compelling interpretation of wartime and postwar politics. Centering social welfare as an integral part of total war, Ke-Chin Hsia reconceptualizes links between imperial Austria and the postwar republic. He reveals continuities in late Habsburg and early republican welfare policies without defaulting to the nationalities prism. As such, the book is a pioneering 'next generation' work that extends the recent historiographical re-examination of the significance of 1918 in Austrian history. Maureen Healy, author of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire
Ke-Chin Hsia's excellent book energetically addresses these strands of scholarship, as he explores the ebbs and flows of the making and unmaking of Austria's welfare mechanisms vis-à-vis war victims. [This study] is an ideal example of this tight and mutually informing and reinforcing relationship between state and society, as he pays attention to the war victims' own leverage in welfare reform-making. Doina Anca Cretu, CEU Review of Books
Without a doubt, Hsia's book pushes for further reflection on the story of welfare,...the book lives up to the promise outlined in the title and in its introduction. Doina Anca Cretu, CEU Review of Books
Hsia... provid[es] a thoroughly researched and sharply written book examining Austria's welfare system for war-wounded veterans...The succinct arguments and ambitions scope of Victims' State makes it a welcome addition to recent scholarship on the Habsburg Monarchy and Austria....While the primary beneficiaries of his work will obviously be historians of Austria, it is also valuable to those interested in the development of the European welfare state, the development of European democratic institutions, and the history of the World War I. Moreover, because the book is written in clear, approachable prose, it could easily be assigned to both graduate and upper-level undergraduate students. Scott Moore, Reviews of New Books

Ke-Chin Hsia is Assistant Professor of History at Indiana University Bloomington and faculty affiliate with the Russian and East European Institute and the Institute for European Studies of Indiana University.

The belligerent country that literally started the First World War, the Habsburg Empire suffered grievously during the global conflict. At the end of the war, it was estimated that 1.2 million soldiers, out of 8 million men and 100,000 women mobilized from an empire of 52 million, perished in service. Among those who lived, the wounded, the disabled, and their dependents constituted at least several million people whose survival was endangered both during and afterthe war. How did the Habsburg Empire confront the scale of the casualties brought about by the First World War? What care and support were offered to disabled soldiers and dead soldiers' surviving dependents? Victims' State offers the first integrated account of how the Austrian half of the empire and the successor Austrian Republic responded to the needs of citizen-soldiers and their families from the nineteenth century to the interwar years. Ke-Chin Hsia traces the policies, ideas, and administrative practices developed over the decades by a range of government, semi-public, and societal actors to deal with the massive losses of lives, health, and livelihoods. The provision of care andwelfare to disabled veterans, war widows, and war orphans shows that compulsory military service and war mobilization profoundly changed the relations between citizens and the Austrian state. The expansion of the Austrian welfare state was consciously undertaken by the Habsburg authorities as well as thesuccessor Austrian Republic to generate support and create legitimacy in times of crisis. In the process, assertive war victims helped create a participatory welfare system and contributed to the democratic transition of 1918-1920. With its incisive analysis, Victims' State underscores the centrality of totalizing war to the making of modern citizenship and the fully-fledged European welfare state.

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