Query about the dual monarchy, Austria-Hungary. Could Hungary have refused to go to war in 1914? Or was the decision to go to war a decision of the central government that bound Hungary ?
Follow-up question: was there much support for the war in Hungary? Or was it primarily supported by the Austrians ?
I’ve read where the Honved wrote home from Serbia in 1914 asking for more rope. The early revenge part of the war was greeted with enthusiasm, at least.
Legally they couldn’t opt out. “KUK” stood for kaiserlich und königlich: Franz Josef was emperor of Austria and king of Hungary
Another factor was Franz Ferdinand’s relative popularity in the non-Austrian parts of the Empire, especially Hungary.
Austria-Hungary didn’t have a consolidated constitution, but it did have a few statutes of constitutional importance which, collectively, are known as the “December Constitution”. One of these statutes declared a few matters to be joint powers of the Austrian and the Hungarian parts of the empire, managed by joint ministries, whereas other policy areas were run by separate government ministries in Austria and Hungary. I couldn’t find an English version of that statute, but here is the German text in case you want to run a machine translation. Foreign relations and war were joint matters, so Hungary could not have gone its own way there.
Official usage of this terminology was very precise: Where matters that were managed jointly for Austria and Hungary were concerned, the government used the abbreviation “k.u.k.”: kaiserlich und königlich, meaning imperial and royal - as you say, in Franz Joseph’s capacity as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, so applying to both parts. Where only the Austrian part was concerned, the abbreviation used was “k.k.” - kaiserlich-königlich, imperial-royal. The distinction lies in the missing “and” and was very significant: Here, Franz Joseph was acting in his capacity as Emperor of Austria and King of Bohemia. Bohemia belonged to the Austrian part of the dual monarchy, so this abbreviation indicates something pertaining to that part only, but the Bohemian crown was so prestigious that they still wanted to include that title.