“THE HUNT FOR TRAITORS AND THE FALL OF THE HAPSBURG EMPIRE.” RAJAN D. At a lecture hosted at Reading School, Mark Cornwall, a renowned historian gave us an interesting lecture on the Hunt for Traitors and the fall of the Hapsburg (Austro Hungary) Empire. I have attempted to do justice to Mr Cornwall’s inspiring lecture in my article.
In the early 20th century, the definition of treason was endangering the state of which you were a member, but today treason is betraying secrets to another country. It is interesting how much the meaning of treason has changed over time. One kind of traitor that the Habsburg Empire just loved to deal with were the Emigre traitors, the kind who left their own countries to fight against them.
No empire has had a higher execution rate for treason than the Habsburg Empire. You may have heard of Hell, it is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem, Divine Comedy. It talks about Dante’s journey to hell, and how the further he went the worse the punishment became for more despicable crimes, of which treason stood paramount.
A person like Tomas Masaryk. He was a Czechoslovak politician, statesman, sociologist, philosopher and sported a tremendous moustache. He decided he did not like the way the Hapsburg Empire, which encompassed Czechoslovakia, was ran. He wanted a federal state where 28
