The case for the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Ok, interesting enough, but

The whole empire, in fact, has a strong economic logic. Sentimentally, the Italian-speaking people of Trieste might enjoy the idea of national union with their fellow Italophones. But Trieste connected by rail to Ljubljana, Graz, Vienna, Bratislava, and beyond is a major port and commercial center. As a peripheral portion of Italy, it would be a backwater. The city’s bourgeois classes know that they’re better off inside the empire than out.

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