The Austro-Hungarian empire was well on its merry way to disintegration before the war. I was recently reading a book about this, A Mad Catastrophe[1], that was very interesting. I hadn't really realized the extent to which the Hapsburgs were challenging the Ottomans for the title of sick man of Europe. Not a good era for polyglot states.

Coming from the United States, we tend to think of WW1 exclusively in terms of the war on the Western Front, with maybe TE Lawrence and Gallipoli thrown in. The Balkan wars of the preceding decades that primed the whole powder keg are almost completely unknown.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GL9TQ2C/ref=dp-kindle-re...