In 1805, the 300-year-old Habsburg dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was a powerful state controlling vast territories in eastern, central, and southern Europe. By 1867, wars and revolutions had greatly reduced the Habsburgs’ lands, leading to the creation of an Austro-Hungarian Empire rump state.

Shawn Faulkner, a professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, explains how Austria-Hungary, though diminished by 1914, was still the second largest European empire in terms of territory and the third largest in terms of population. Yet, in only four more years, the empire and the Habsburg monarchy were gone.

Faulkner served 23 years in the Army as an armor officer, commanding a tank company during Operation Desert Storm before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He taught American history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and is the author of What Price Glory, Captain Flagg? Leader Competency in the American Expeditionary Forces and Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I, which earned the Richard W. Leopold Prize from the Organization of American Historians. This is his fourth appearance at the Library.