Habsburgs Balkanized-Remembrance of a Tragedy

The day this article is being written is the eleventh day of the eleventh month; the very day that the armistice at Compiègne was signed by the Entente and the German Empire, officially ending all hostilities in the First World War. With the Paris Peace Conference, and the subsequent signings of the five major peace treaties, new nations were born from the collapse of the afflicted nations; most notably, from Austria-Hungary. However, it should be said that it was only the beginning of another tragedy to last decades and a century, which could have been prevented.

The Balkans have never been in true peace in the modern era; from the Balkan Wars between 1912 and 1913, to the bloody fight between the ethnicities there during the Second World War, and the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia between 1999 and 2001, the Balkans have been plagued with conflicts. Similarly, from the infamous Croatian Ustase during the Second World War that massacred the Serbs, to pro-Serbian paramilitary groups that massacred Croats and Bosniaks alike, the Balkans have suffered from ethnic cleansing massacres. Currently, the former nations of Yugoslavia, especially Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, are in a state of unstable peace that could be lit into yet another bloody conflict. This year, we have seen the Bosnian Serb region of Republika Srpska`s lawmakers declaring to reject the rules of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a possible foreshadowing to the split that also broke up Yugoslavia and all the atrocities that could come with it. With the constant remnants of previous wars threatening to light up the powder keg in Europe along with the two ongoing wars in Eastern Europe and the Levant, a single war in the Balkans would be another devastating blow to the fragile peace settled in the region.
Some would argue that the peace maintained by the old monarchy of Austria-Hungary is better, compared with the apparent threat of a total war in the Balkans currently. It serves as a reminder of the strength of the Habsburg Monarchy, as they were able to preside over a period of peace and stability over the multiethnic empire even during the era in which nationalist fervor was high amongst nations.

Since the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the Balkans have become more balkanized:
a grave reminder that perhaps the balkanization of a relatively stabilized Monarchy capable of amending ethnic tensions, was not such a good idea after all.