You can also download a hi-res copy as a pdf (10 mbs).
This map shows the boundaries and major cities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time it entered the First World War in August 1914.
What do you know?
My grandparents left Poland in 1914 and travelled below deck by steamship for two weeks,
seasick and half-starving, to America to escape the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was drafting
Polish men to fight brother against brother. So escaped millions of other Polish people for
years. They reached the USA and went through Ellis Island and worked in coal mines in PA and
finally learned English and got better jobs. They were so grateful to live in freedom!! We, the
third generation, are so proud of them!!
America, the great melting pot, the great tapestry, the place of the great American Dream. I can
tell you that life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was brutal. The Poles' farm land was
taken from them, and the Polish people were in hell. God bless America. "Give me your
tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the restless refuse of the
teeming shore. Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden
door." Those words are found on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor.
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