House of Habsburg - Arms of Dominion of The Austro-Hungarian Empire

Arms of Dominion of The Austro-Hungarian Empire

The arms of dominion began to take on a life of their own in the 19th century as the idea of the state as independent from the Habsburg dynasty took root. They are the national arms as borne by a sovereign in his capacity as head of state and represent the state as separate from the person of the monarch or his dynasty. Since the states, territories, and nationalities represented were in many cases only united to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by their historic loyalty to the head of the house of Habsburg as hereditary lord, these full ("grand") arms of dominion of Austria-Hungary reflect the complex political infrastructure that was necessarily to accommodate the many different nationalities and groupings within the empire after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.

After 1867 the eastern part of the empire, also called Transleitania, was mostly under the domination fo the Kingdom of Hungary. Their shield integrated the arms of the kingdom of Hungary, with two angels and supporters and the crown of St. Stephen with the territories that were subject to it:

The Kingdom of Dalmatia, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, the Kingdom of Slavonia, the Great Principality of Transilvania, the Bosnia and Herzegovina (since 1915), la City of Rijeka and in the center, the Kingdom of Hungary.

The western or Austrian part of the empire, Cisleithania, continued using the shield of the Empire in 1815 but with the seals of various member territories located around the central shield. Paradoxically, some of these coats of arms belonged to the territories that were part of the Hungarian part of the empire and shield. This shield, the most frequently used until 1915, was known as the middle shield. There was also the small shield, with just the personal arms of the Habsburgs, as used in 1815.