With the end of the First World War, the longstanding and apparently God-given Habsburg order broke apart. The war-weary population was angry and mobilized, and longed for stability and prosperity.1 The long-lasting war with its devastating consequences functioned as a catalyst for democratization. The political and socioeconomic crises at the end of the war posed the utmost challenge for the new political elites, especially those on the losing side. No government considering itself civilized could deny the right to vote to the returning soldiers, who had risked their lives for the nation. Nor could it be denied to the many women who had replaced the men in the workplace. The democratization of political life promised a certain easing of the postwar crisis and inserted itself into the transnational democratization trend. Out of the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy arose the first democratic experiments in Central Europe, which had however...
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