Opinion on Habsburgs?

[Lawalye]

Charles Quint (Charles V)

Because He was born in Ghent ... and look at that chin !

[Lawalye]

Was there any greater dynasty in Europe?

The Carolingian dynasty was the greatest of all the European civilization.

[mikhail]

They were very good administrators. All who came under their rule benefited, I have sympathy for them.

During Ottoman times, Roman-Catholic Bulgarians fled to Banat in the Hapsburg Domains after a failed uprising in Chiprovtsi, and the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa granted them full economical and judicial autonomy in the lands where the Banat Bulgarians had settled, citing that "these lands since old times are Bulgarian and the refugees have a legal right to settle in their fathers' lands included in the Imperial borders".

[Deneb]

Metternich didn't save anything, he was miserably defeated by Napoleon and finished his days as a exiled in liberal England.
The only positive thing about austrian habsburgs is they stopped the Otoman advance into Central Europe. But that was all.
They didn't respect local cultures and tried to impose german language. Not even in 1900 there were democratic elections there, because they were only and exclusevely interested in preserve the inmense wealth of their aristocratic family.

But that is past, over, finished. You are in 2015, dude.

[Visage pâle]

Loosers.

[Gooding]

They presided over a vast Empire for centuries and sponsored great philosophers and composers. I can't speak to the goodness or badness of their reign because my people were under a different flag until 1783. I suppose the House of Hanover served its purpose, for awhile, anyway.

[blogen]

About the House of Habsburg is mostly neutral. We had good and bad king from this family, but bad about the Habsburg-Lorraine house, because only Joseph II was not good, but even tolerable Hungarian king between them. My opinion about the Palatinate-branch (descendants of Joseph Anton Johann) of the Habsburg is mostly good, except from Archduke Joseph August, who was a traitor, because he collaborated with the German occupators in 1944-45.

The 20th century leaders of the Habsburg-Lorraine house, the descendants of Charles IV the simple are basically imbeciles.

[Szegedist]

The Habsburgs disliked Hungarians, even the compromise was because there was no other choice.

“It is impossible to keep these ungrateful, unbending and rebellious people within bounds by reasoning with them nor can they be won over by tolerance nor ruled by law. One must fear a nation that knows no fear. That is why its will must be broken with a rod of iron and the people sternly kept in their place. After all, the ferocity of a restive steed cannot be controlled by a silken thread, but only with an iron snaffle.

General Raimondo Montecuccoli, the Habsburg military commander in Hungary, writing in the second half of the 17th century.

From Paul Lendvai's book, The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat

[Leliana]

I like that era. It brought order to the Balkans and Austrians and Hungarians (and Croatians to an extend) have reached a level of friendship.

No order in Balkan: See what happened after Habsburg...

[Permafrost]

I like that era. It brought order to the Balkans and Austrians and Hungarians (and Croatians to an extend) have reached a level of friendship.

No order in Balkan: See what happened after Habsburg...

So, I'm pretty much used to seeing Bosniaks and Croats reminiscing nostalgically about the Ye Olde Austrian Empire, not so much the actual Austrians I know.

I hope though that your little foray in Balkan lands was worth it in the end, since it pretty much costed you your admission to the other Empire. The Germans of the time, if I'm not wrong, interpreted the Austrians unwillingness of letting go their more soutern provinces as... some sort of unsavory Balkanophilia.

This delayed a true unification significantly... and well, German lands today are not unified at all, be it because of Orangist or Habsburg propaganda.