[grecka]

They were involved in World War I and controllled a humungous empire consisting of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, and parts of the Balkans, Poland, Italy, and other Central European territories. When the began to lose the war, these separate territories began to seceed from the empire, causing a power struggle within Austria itself. When at last the war was over, the empire splintered, and as the people were up in arms against the Hapsburgs, they were removed from power. It was at that time that their enormous wealth of possessions was taken- they probably amounted to billions more than the wealth of the British royals. To be fair, the Hapsburgs had sparked World War I with their ambitions of conquering Serbia. That was one of the integral flaws with their empire, it was not a country and there were no ties of blood or allegiance, it was simply an imperial confederation of subordinate territories under the rule of an autocratic monarchy. That was one of the reasons why their own subjects hated the Hapsburgs so much.