History of Austria Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This is the history of Austria. See also the history of Europe and history of present-day nations and states.
Much of present-day Austria was once the Roman territory of Noricum. Under the Franks, parts of modern-day Austria were considered first part of Bavaria and later the Eastern Frankish Kingdom and the Ostmark, "Eastern March". The Marches were overseen by a comes or dux as appointed by the king. The most normal translation of these offices is count or duke, but these titles conveyed very different meanings in the Early Middle Ages, and the Latin terminology is preferable to any modern translation. In German-speaking countries, the title was eventually regularized to Margrave (German: Markgraf). (ie "Mark count"). In 1156 the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy ruled by the Babenberg family.
The first record showing Austria is approximately 996 where it is written down as Ostarrichi.
Following the extinction of the Babenbergs in the 13th century, Austria came briefly under the rule of the Czech King Ottokar II. Contesting the election of Rudolf I of Habsburg as Emperor, Ottokar was defeated and killed by the German King, who took Austria and gave it to his sons in 1278. Austria was ruled by the Habsburgs for the next 640 years. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of Austria proper, which was a small Duchy along the Danube: Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrol, and other smaller provinces. These provinces, together, became known as the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, although they were sometimes all lumped together simply as Austria.
In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, from then on, every emperor was a Habsburg, with only one exception. The Habsburgs began also to accumulate lands far from the Hereditary Lands. In 1477, the Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Low Countries for the family. His son Philip the Fair married the heiress of Castile and Aragon, and thus acquired Spain and its Italian, African, and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs' hereditary territories, however, were soon separated from this enormous empire when, in 1520, Emperor Charles V left them to the rule of his brother, Ferdinand.
In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, in which Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed, Ferdinand expanded his territories, bringing Bohemia and that part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans under his rule. Habsburg expansion into Hungary, however, led to frequent conflicts with the Turks, particularly the so-called Long War of 1593 to 1606.
Austria and the other Habsburg hereditary provinces (and Hungary and Bohemia, as well) were much affected by the Reformation. Although the Habsburg rulers themselves remained Catholic, the provinces themselves largely converted to Lutheranism, which Ferdinand I and his successors, Maximilian II, Rudolf II, and Mathias largely tolerated. In the late 16th century, however, the Counter-Reformation began to make its influence felt, and the Jesuit-educated Archduke Ferdinand, who ruled over Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, was energetic in suppressing heresy in the provinces which he ruled. When, in 1619, he was elected Emperor to succeed his cousin Mathias, Ferdinand II, as he became known, embarked on an energetic attempt to re-Catholicize not only the Hereditary Provinces, but Bohemia and Habsburg Hungary as well. Although carried out in the midst of the Thirty Years War, which had greatly negative consequences for Habsburg control of the Empire itself, these campaigns within the Habsburg hereditary lands were largely successful, leaving the Emperors with much greater control within their hereditary power base, although Hungary was never successfully re-Catholicized.
The long reign of Leopold I (1657-1705) saw the culmination of the Austrian conflict with the Turks. Following the successful defense of Vienna in 1683, a series of campaigns resulted in the return of all of Hungary to Austrian control by the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699. At the same time, Austria was becoming more involved in competition with France in Western Europe, with Austria fighting the French in the Third Dutch War (1672-1679), the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) and finally the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the French and Austrians (along with their British and Dutch allies) fought over the inheritance of the vast territories of the Spanish Habsburgs. Although the French secured control of Spain and its colonies for a grandson of Louis XIV, the Austrians also ended up making significant gains in western Europe, including the former Spanish Netherlands (now called the Austrian Netherlands, including most of modern Belgium), the Duchy of Milan in Northern Italy, and Naples and Sardinia in Southern Italy. (The latter was traded for Sicily in 1720).
The latter part of the reign of Emperor Charles VI (1711-1740) saw Austria relinquish many of these fairly impressive gains, largely due to Charles's apprehensions at the imminent extinction of the House of Habsburg. Charles was willing to offer concrete advantages in territory and authority in exchange for other powers' worthless recognitions of the Pragmatic Sanction that made his daughter Maria Theresa his heir. The most notable instance of this was in the War of the Polish Succession whose settlement saw Austria cede Naples and Sicily to the Spanish Infant Don Carlos in exchange for the tiny Duchy of Parma and Spain and France's adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction. The latter years of Charles's reign (1736-1739) also saw an unsuccessful war against the Turks, which resulted in the Austrian loss of Belgrade and other border territories.
And, as many had anticipated, when Charles died in 1740, all those assurances from the other powers proved of little worth to Maria Theresa. The peace was initially broken by King Frederick II of Prussia, who invaded Silesia. Soon other powers began to exploit Austria's weakness. The Elector of Bavaria claimed the inheritance to the hereditary lands and Bohemia, and was supported by the King of France, who desired the Austrian Netherlands. The Spanish and Sardinians hoped to gain territory in Italy, and the Saxons hoped to gain territory to connect Saxony with the Elector's Polish Kingdom. Austria's allies -- Britain, Holland, and Russia, were all wary of getting involved in the conflict. Thus began the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), one of the more confusing and less eventful wars of European history, which ultimately saw Austria holding its own, despite the permanent loss of most of Silesia to the Prussians. In 1745, following the reign of the Bavarian Elector as Emperor Charles VII, Maria Theresa's husband Francis of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was elected Emperor, restoring control of that position to the Habsburgs (or, rather, to the new composite house of Habsburg-Lorraine).
For the eight years following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the War of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa plotted revenge on the Prussians. The British and Dutch allies who had proved so reluctant to help her in her time of need were dropped in favor of the French in the so-called Reversal of Alliances of 1756. That same year, war once again erupted on the continent as Frederick, fearing encirclement, launched a pre-emptive invasion of Saxony. The Seven Years War, too, was indecisive, and saw Prussia holding onto Silesia, despite Russia, France, and Austria all combining against him, and with only Hanover as a significant ally on land.
The end of the war saw Austria, exhausted, continuing the alliance with France (cemented in 1770 with the marriage of Maria Theresa's daughter Archduchess Maria Antonietta to the Dauphin), but also facing a dangerous situation in Central Europe, faced with the alliance of Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia. The Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 caused a serious crisis in east-central Europe, with Prussia and Austria demanding compensation for Russia's gains in the Balkans, ultimately leading to the First Partition of Poland in 1772, in which Maria Theresa took Galicia from Austria's traditional ally.
Over the next several years, Austro-Russian relations began to improve. When the War of Bavarian Succession erupted between Austria and Prussia in 1777 following the extinction of the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach dynasty, Russia refused to support its ally, and the war was ended, after almost no bloodshed, on May 13, 1779 when Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiated an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receive the Inn District from Bavaria.
On Maria Theresa's death in 1780, she was succeeded by her son Joseph II, already Holy Roman Emperor since Francis I's death in 1765. Joseph was a reformer, and is often considered the foremost example of an eighteenth century enlightened despot. Joseph attempted to bring under control the Catholic Church and the various provincial nobilities of his lands, which led to widespread resistance, especially in Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands, which were used to their traditional liberties.
Joseph's foreign policy was equally ambitious, and equally unsuccessful. He pursued a policy of alliance with Catherine the Great's Russia, which led to a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1787. Austria's performance in the war was distinctly unimpressive, and the expense involved led to further resistance. By the time of Joseph's death in 1790, all his plans seemed ruined, with both Hungary and the Netherlands in open revolt and the war in the Balkans dragging on and seeming impossible to finish, given Russia's commitment to continuing the war.
Joseph's death proved a boon, as he was succeeded by his more sensible brother, Leopold II, previously the reforming Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold knew when to cut his losses, and soon cut deals with the revolting Netherlanders and Hungarians. He also managed to secure a peace with Turkey in 1791, and negotiated an alliance with Prussia, which had been allying with Poland to press for war on behalf of the Ottomans against Austria and Russia.
Unfortunately, Leopold's reign also saw the acceleration of the French Revolution. Although Leopold was sympathetic to the revolutionaries, he was also the brother of the French queen. Furthermore, disputes involving the status of the rights of various imperial princes in Alsace, where the revolutionary French government was attempting to remove rights guaranteed by various peace treaties, involved Leopold as Emperor in conflicts with the French. The Declaration of Pillnitz, made in late 1791 jointly with the Prussian King Frederick William II and the Elector of Saxony, in which it was declared that the other princes of Europe took an interest in what was going on in France, was intended to be a statement in support of Louis XVI that would prevent the need from taking any kind of action. However, it instead inflamed the sentiments of the revolutionaries against the Emperor. Although Leopold did his best to avoid war with the French, he died in March of 1792. The French declared war on his inexperienced son Francis II a month later.
At around the same time, the increasing radicalization of the French Revolution, as well as the French occupation of the Low Countries, brought Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Spain into the war, which became known as the War of the First Coalition. Once again, there were initial successes against the disorganized armies of the French Republic, and the Netherlands were recovered. But in 1794 the tide turned once more, and Austrian forces were driven out of the Netherlands again - this time for good. Meanwhile, the Polish Crisis again became critical, resulting in a Third Partition (1795), in which Austria managed to secure important gains. The war in the west continued to go badly, as most of the coalition made peace, leaving Austria with only Britain and Piedmont-Sardinia as allies. In 1796, the French Directory planned a two-pronged campaign in Germany to force the Austrians to make peace, with a secondary thrust planned into Italy. Although Austrian forces under Archduke Charles, the Emperor's brother, were successful in driving the French back in Germany, the French Army of Italy, under the command of the young Corsican General Napoleon Bonaparte, was brilliantly successful, forcing Piedmont out of the war, driving the Austrians out of Lombardy and besieging Mantua. Following the capture of Mantua in early 1797, Bonaparte advanced north through the Alps against Vienna, while new French armies moved again into Germany. Austria sued for peace. By the terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797, Austria renounced its claims to the Netherlands and Lombardy, in exchange for which it partitioned the territories of the Republic of Venice with the French. The Austrians also provisionally recognized the French annexation of the Left Bank of the Rhine, and agreed in principle that the German princes of the region should be compensated with ecclesiastical lands on the other side of the Rhine.
The peace did not last for long. Soon, differences emerged between the Austrians and French over the reorganization of Germany emerged, and Austria joined Russia, Britain, and Naples in the War of the Second Coalition in 1799. Although Austro-Russian forces were initially successful in driving the French from Italy, the tide soon turned - the Russians withdrew from the war after a defeat at Zürich (1799) which they blamed on Austrian fecklessness, and the Austrians were defeated by Bonaparte, now First Consul at Marengo, which forced them to withdraw from Italy, and then in Germany at Hohenlinden. These defeats forced Thugut's resignation, and Austria, now led by Ludwig Cobenzl, to make peace at Lunéville in early 1801. The terms were surprisingly mild - the terms of Campo Formio were largely reinstated, but now the way was clear for a reorganization of the Empire on French lines. By the Imperial Deputation Report of 1803, the Holy Roman Empire was entirely reorganized, with nearly all of the ecclesiastical territories and free cities, traditionally the parts of the Empire most friendly to the House of Austria, eliminated.
With Bonaparte's assumption of the title of Emperor of the French in 1804, Francis, seeing the writing on the wall for the old Empire, took the new title of Emperor of Austria as Francis I, in addition to his title of Holy Roman Emperor. Soon, Napoleon's continuing machinations in Italy, including the annexation of Genoa and Parma, led once again to war in 1805 - the War of the Third Coalition, in which Austria, Britain, Russia, and Sweden took on Napoleon. The Austrian forces began the war by invading Bavaria, a key French ally in Germany, but were soon outmaneuvered and forced to surrender by Napoleon at Ulm, before the main Austro-Russian force was defeated at Austerlitz on December 2. By the Treaty of Pressburg, Austria was forced to give up large amounts of territory - Dalmatia to France, Venetia to Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, the Tyrol to Bavaria, and Austria's various Swabian territories to Baden and Württemberg, although Salzburg, formerly held by Francis's younger brother, the previous Grand Duke of Tuscany, was annexed by Austria as compensation.
The defeat meant the end of the old Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon's satellite states in southern and western Germany seceded from the Empire in the summer of 1806, forming the Confederation of the Rhine, and a few days later Francis proclaimed the Empire dissolved, and renounced the old imperial crown.
Over the next three years Austria, now led by Philipp Stadion, attempted to maintain peace with France, but the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons in 1808 was deeply disturbing to the Habsburgs, who rather desperately went to war once again in 1809, this time with no continental allies. Stadion's attempts to generate popular uprisings in Germany were unsuccessful, and the Russians honored their alliance with France, so Austria was once again defeated, although at greater cost than Napoleon, who suffered his first battlefield defeat in this war, at Aspern-Essling, had expected. The terms of the Treaty of Schönbrunn were quite harsh. Austria lost Salzburg to Bavaria, some of its Polish lands to Russia, and its remaining territory on the Adriatic (including much of Carinthia and Styria) to Napoleon's Illyrian Provinces.
Klemens von Metternich, the new Austrian foreign minister, aimed to pursue a pro-French policy. The Emperor's daughter, Marie Louise, was married to Napoleon, and Austria contributed an army to Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. With Napoleon's disastrous defeat in Russia at the end of the year, and Prussia's defection to the Russian side at the beginning of 1813, Metternich began slowly to shift his policy. Initially he aimed to mediate a peace between France and its continental enemies, but when it became apparent that Napoleon was not interested in compromise, Austria joined the allies and declared war on France in August 1813. The Austrian intervention was decisive. Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig in October, and forced to withdraw into France itself. As 1814 began, the Allied forces invaded France. Initially, Metternich remained unsure as to whether he wanted Napoleon to remain on the throne, a Marie Louise regency for Napoleon's young son, or a Bourbon restoration, but he was eventually brought around by British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh to the last position. Napoleon abdicated on April 3, 1814, and Louis XVIII was restored, soon negotiating a peace treaty with the victorious allies at Paris in June.
The Austrian Empire was beset by nationalist agitation in the 19th century, especially after the Revolutions of 1848. One of the concessions to revolutionaries had been the freeing of peasants in Austria. As a result many flocked to the newly industrializing cities of the Austrian domain. Thus the German character of most of the towns of the Austrian Empire was forever altered, leading to mass nationalist movements.
As a result of Hungarian nationalism, Franz Joseph made a deal with Hungarian nobles to grant them a degree of self rule in 1867. This compromise, or Ausgleich, led to the creation of Austria-Hungary. For details see the article: Austria-Hungary.
Immediately after the war, the newly-formed Austrian parliament asked for a union with Germany. Although they were not eager to be absorbed into the larger German nation, they preferred it to annexation by Yugoslavia or Italy. In the end France and Italy prevented the merger, but maintained an independent Austria much to the relief of most Austrians, but to the disappointment of committed German nationalists in Austria.
Although Austria-Hungary had been one of the Central Powers, the allied victors were much more lenient with a defeated Austria than either Germany or Hungary. Representatives of the new Republic of Austria convinced them that it was unfair to penalize Austria for the actions of a now dissolved Empire, especially as other areas of the Empire were now perceived to be on the "victorious" side, simply because they had renounced the Empire at the end of the war. Austria never did have to pay reparations because allied commissions determined that the country could not afford to pay. It was also the only defeated country to acquire new territory as part of border adjustments -- a small land tract to the east that belonged to Hungary.
On October 20, 1920, a plebiscite in the Austrian state of Carinthia was held in which the population chose to remain a part of Austria, rejecting the territorial claims of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the state. Another plebiscite was held in Sopron earlier that year, which decided to join Hungary.
The interwar years were socio-economically difficult for Austria. Since 1920, Austria was ruled by the Christian Socialist Party headed by a Catholic priest named Ignaz Seipel (1876-1932), who served twice as Prime Minister (1922-1924 and 1926-1929) and was succeeded by Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg. While in power, Seipel was working for an alliance between the wealthy industrialists, the Catholic Church in Austria and the para-military gangs known as the Heimwehr. This alliance, directed against the Socialists, led to the Massacre of July 15, 1927, where 89 demonstrators were killed by the Austrian Police forces.
This is an Article on History of Austria. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About History of Austria Early History
The Habsburg Monarchy (13th century–1918)
Beginnings (1278-1526)
The Reformation and Austria's Rise to Power (1526-1714)
Charles VI and Maria Theresa (1711-1780)
The Reigns of Joseph II and Leopold II (1780-1792)
The Era of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1792-1814)
The war with France, which lasted until 1797, proved unsuccessful for Austria. After some brief successes against the utterly disorganized French armies in early 1792, the tide turned, and the French overran the Austrian Netherlands in the last months of 1792. While the Austrians were so occupied, their erstwhile Prussian allies stabbed them in the back with the Second Partition of Poland, from which Austria was entirely excluded. This led to the dismissal of Francis's chief minister, Philipp von Cobenzl, and his replacement with Franz Maria Thugut.The Nineteenth Century (1815-1918)
The First Republic (1918–1934)
Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, in the Aftermath of World War I the Empire was broken up based loosely on national grounds. Modern Austria was created out of the main German speaking areas. On November 12, 1918 Austria became a republic. Austrofascism (1934–1938)
Under the Christian Socialist Party, the Austrian government was moving towards centralization of power in the Fascist model. on May 1, 1934, the Dollfuss cabinet approved a new constitution that abolished freedom of the press, established one party system (known as "The Fatherland Front") and created a total state monopoly on employer-employee relations. This system remained in force until Austria became part of the Third Reich in 1938. The Fatherland Front government frustrated the ambitions of pro-Hitlerite sympathizers in Austria who wished both political influence and unification with Germany, leading to the assassination of Dollfuss on July 25, 1934. His successor Schuschnigg maintained the ban on pro-Hitlerite activities in Austria, but was forced to resign on March 11, 1938 following a demand by Hitler for power-sharing with pro-German circles. Following Schuschnig's resignation, German troops have taken Austria with no resistancePart of Nazi Germany (1938–1945)
Although the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St. Germain had explicitly forbidden the unification of Austria and Germany, Nazi-Germany annexed Austria in 1938 following a pro-Nazi, pro-unification coup in Vienna. (See: Anschluss). As a result, Austria ceased to exist as an independent country during World War II. On March 30, 1945 Red Army forces invaded the country, and on April 13 captured Vienna.The Second Republic (since 1945)
Allied occupation
In the same year, Austrian independence was restored, but under an Allied Commission, established by agreement of July 4, 1945. The country was then under official Allied occupation from May 9, 1945 to July 27, 1955, when the Austrian State Treaty was signed. In April 1945, the Soviet government established a Socialist government in Vienna under Karl Renner, which was recognized by the western allies later that year. Even though under occupation, the Austrian government was officially permitted to conduct foreign relations with the approval of the four occupying governments under the agreement of June 28, 1946. As part of this trend, Austria was one of the founding members of the Danube Commission since August 18, 1948.Independence
Upon the termination of allied occupation, Austria was proclaimed a neutral country between east and west. General neutrality was incorporated into the constitution on October 26, 1955.European Union
Austria joined the European Union in 1995. In 2002 the Euro became the only official currency of Austria.See also
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