Austrian: History

Today’s Republic of Austria is a small state, whose origins can be traced far back into history. Populated since prehistoric times, Austria’s location in the heart of Europe means that it has had its share of the continent’s historical developments. It evolved from a border region into a powerful empire and multiracial state, which collapsed at the end of the First World War. In 1918, the small, newly-proclaimed Republic of Austria had at first to come to terms with its European environment. Austria emerged from the Second World War and the sufferings associated with it as a state that feels secure in its existence and which plays a decisive role in Europe.

From The Dawn of History to a Border Province

The Danube area was settled as early as the Paleolithic Age, between 80.000 and 10.000 BC. The Tänzerin, a small figure symbolizing a dancer, found in the environs of Krems, and the Venus of Willendorf provide the first significant evidence of early cultures. In 1991 the sensational discovery of a mummified male body (Ötzi) dating from the Stone Age was made in the glacial ice of the Ötztal Alps. In the Early Iron Age, from around 800 to 400 BC, Celtic tribes inhabited the territory of what is now Austria, trading throughout Europe in salt and ores.

Around the time of Christ’s birth, the Roman Empire conquered the greater part of present-day Austria. The provinces of Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia were established as border regions. The Romans founded numerous settlements, of which Carnuntum in Pannonia, lying to the east of Vienna, was the largest Roman town on Austrian territory. In the 2nd century AD, Christianity began to spread in Austria as well.

Rule of ‘The Babenbergs’

The new rulers of the margravate initially resided in Melk. In 1156 Duke Heinrich II (Jasomirgott) made Vienna his permanent residence. The Babenbergs extended their possessions to the north of the Danube and further to the east and the south. Before the turn of the millennium (996), a document referred to the region of the Alpine foothills under its present name Österreich (Ostarrîchi = Austria).

In 1156 the Babenbergs secured the transformation of the margravate into a duchy by Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, which allowed for greater independence from imperial power. In 1192 the Babenberg Leopold V acquired the Duchy of Styria through a contract of inheritance. When, in 1246, the childless Duke Friedrich II was killed in the Battle of the Leitha against the Magyars, his lands became the object of his neighbors’ power politics. The Austrian nobility then sided with the Bohemian king, Ottokar II, Premysl, who secured the heritage for himself by marrying the last Babenberg’s sister. He quickly succeeded in restoring order, re-conquering Styria and sub-jugating Carinthia through a contract of inheritance. However, the Holy Roman Empire’s newly-elected king, Rudolf von Habsburg, was not prepared to recognize the Bohemian king’s power without his swearing an oath of allegiance. When both sides took up arms, Ottokar was killed in the Battle of Dürnkrut in 1278. In 1282 Rudolf invested his two sons with the Duchies of Austria and Styria, thus laying the foundation for Habsburg dynastic power.

600 Years of Habsburg Rule

From the end of the 13th century to the middle of the 15th century the Habsburgs expanded their territory by gaining the Duchy of Carinthia (1335), the Earldom of Tyrol and the “Windische Mark” (1365). Losses of territory in Switzerland were offset by the acquisition of parts of today’s province of Vorarlberg. The gifted Rudolf IV referred to as “The Founder", not only founded the University of Vienna but succeeded in strengthening the position of this family for future generations by forging a document known as the “Privilegium maius.”

His capable successor, Duke Albrecht V, was married to Emperor Sigismund’s daughter, thus becoming King of Bohemia and Hungary. After the death of his father-in-law he became the first Habsburg to again be elected German king of the Holy Roman Empire. Following his untimely death during a battle against the Turks in 1439, Friedrich V (as emperor, Friedrich III) from the Tyrolean line of the Habsburgs began to rule in Austria and in the Holy Roman Empire. Through his prudent policy of alliances he laid the foundations for the Habsburg Empire. He married his son Maximilian to the Burgundian heiress Maria. Maximilian used a shrewd marital policy to secure the hereditary succession in Bohemia, Hungary and Spain for his grandsons Ferdinand and Karl. The Habsburg dynasty sub-sequently divided into the Austro-German and the Spanish-Dutch lines. In 1526, after the death of the last Jagellonian king Ludwig II in the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and Hungary were united with Austria.

The Ottoman Empire, which had been encroaching on Europe ever since the 14th century, posed an ever-greater threat to the continent. Following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks advanced even further west-wards and became a permanent danger for the Habsburg lands. Twice, the Ottoman armies reached the gates of Vienna before they were driven back (in 1529 and 1683 - First and Second Turkish Sieges). It took several campaigns with heavy losses to banish the Turks and to re-conquer Hungary. Austria’s emergence as a major power was mainly due to the brilliant military leader Prince Eugene of Savoy, who served under three emperors (Leopold I, Josef I and Karl VI) and proved to be not only an outstanding military commander but also a fine statesman.

In 1700 the Spanish line of the Habsburgs died out. In the “War of the Spanish Succession", fought in Europe, the House of Austria (casa d´Austria) did not succeed in winning back the Spanish possessions but managed to maintain its rule over Italy and the Netherlands.

With the death of Emperor Karl VI in 1740, the male line of the Habsburgs came to anend. Karl’s daughter Maria Theresa succeeded her father as empress of the patrimonial lands, since the “Pragmatic Sanction", which had been issued in 1713-mainly to ensure the indivisibility of the lands-allowed for female succession. The empress, who married Franz Stephan of Lorraine, found herself faced with a host of enemies who were seeking to seize the Habsburg lands. The Prussian king, Friedrich II, was particularly eager to gain possession of this heritage. Maria Theresa had to fight two arduous wars (the Silesian War, 1740-1748, and the Seven Years War, 1756-1763) in order to keep her lands intact, with the exception of the rich province of Silesia, which she lost to Prussia.

Maria Theresa’s husband, who was elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1745 as Franz I, was over-shadowed by his wife throughout his lifetime. The great empress implemented a program of important reforms in her lands. Her son Joseph II abolished serfdom, issued the Toleration Edict and secularized monasteries and church property, thus paving the way for consistent centralism.

In its early years, the land that became Austria was invaded by a succession of tribes and armies using the Danube Valley as a conduit - Celts, Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, Huns, Avars, Slavs all came and went. Charlemagne established a territory in the Danube Valley known as the Ostmark in 803, and the area became Christianised and predominantly Germanic.

By 1278 the Habsburgs had gained control and this mighty dynasty managed to rule Austria right up until WWI. Although the Habsburgs were not averse to using a bit of muscle, they preferred less barbaric ways of extending their territory and so Austria gradually expanded thanks to judicious real estate purchases and some politically-motivated marriages. One such marriage produced two sons: the eldest became Charles I of Spain, who mutated three years later into Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire; the younger son, Ferdinand, became the first Habsburg to live in Vienna and was anointed ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia. In 1556, Charles abdicated as emperor and Ferdinand I was crowned in his place. Charles’ remaining territory was inherited by his son, Phillip II, splitting the Habsburg dynasty into two distinct lines - the Spanish and the Austrian.

In 1571, when the emperor granted religious freedom, the vast majority of Austrians turned to Protestantism. In 1576, the new emperor, Rudolf II, embraced the Counter-Reformation and much of the country reverted, with a little coercion, to Catholicism. The attempt to impose Catholicism on Protestant areas of Europe led to the Thirty Years’ War, which started in 1618 and devastated much of Central Europe. Peace was finally achieved in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia. For much of the rest of the century, Austria was preoccupied with halting the advance of the Turks into Europe. Vienna nearly capitulated to a Turkish siege in 1683 but was rescued by a Christian force of German and Polish soldiers. Combined forces subsequently swept the Turks to the southeastern edge of Europe. The removal of the Turkish threat saw a frenzy of Baroque building in many cities, and under the musical emperor Leopold I, Vienna became a magnet for musicians and composers.

In 1740, Maria Theresa ascended the throne and ruled for 40 years. This period is generally acknowledged as the era in which Austria developed as a modern state. During her reign, control was centralized, a civil service was established, the army and economy were reformed and a public education system was introduced. But progress was halted when Napoleon defeated Austria at Austerlitz in 1805. European conflict dragged on until the settlement at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. Austria was left with control of the German Confederation but suffered upheaval during the 1848 revolutions and eventual defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. This led to the formation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867 under Emperor Franz Josef and exclusion from the new German empire unified by Bismarck.

Austria began the 20th century in prosperity but its expansionist tendencies in the Balkans and its annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 led to the assassination of the emperor’s nephew in Sarajevo in June 1914. A month later, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, the Russians came to the Serbians’ aid and the slaughter of WWI began in earnest.

At the conclusion of the war, the shrunken Republic of Austria was created and forced to recognize the independent states of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia which, along with Romania and Bulgaria, had previously been under the control of the Habsburgs. The new republic suffered economic strife, which led to an upsurge in Nazi-style politics. Austria’s embrace of fascism meant that German troops met little opposition when they invaded in 1938 and incorporated Austria into the Third Reich. A national referendum in Austria that year supported the annexation. For its troubles, Austria was bombed heavily in WWII and by 1945 it had been restored to its 1937 frontiers by the victorious Allies. It was divided into four zones by occupying American, British, French and Russian troops who remained entrenched for a decade before withdrawing and allowing Austria to proclaim its neutrality.

In the post-war years Austria worked hard to overcome economic difficulties and established a free trade treaty with the European Union (EU, then known as the EEC) in 1972. Apart from the election of former German army officer and UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim to the Austrian Presidency in 1986, Austrian politics became a rational zone of consensus rather than conflict. Increases in Eastern European immigration following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc resulted in the rise of the right-wing anti-immigration Freedom Party in the late 1980s. Concern among moderates has been exacerbated by the recent influx of refugees from the former Yugoslavia.

The Austrian people heartily endorsed their country’s entry into the EU in a referendum in 1994 and formally joined the Union on 1 January 1995. Since then most Austrians have been rather ambivalent about the advantages of EU membership.

In elections in 2000, the right-wing Freedom Party came in just behind the Social Democrats, forming a ruling coalition with the moderate right People’s Party. Freedom Party leader and alleged Nazi sympathizer Jörg Haider handed the leadership to Susanne Riess-Passer, seen as less extreme, but the EU imposed sanctions on Austria despite the move. The Danube flooded in August 2003, sanctions were lifted in September because they were seen as counterproductive, and in November the People’s Party made sweeping electoral gains at the Freedom Party’s expense, but was nevertheless obliged to form a governing coalition with the latter despite divisions. Pension reforms and restitution for Holocaust crimes are two of the other issues that have dominated public debate.

In 2004 Austrian Elfriede Jelinek was awarded a Nobel Laureate in Literature, recognizing her powerful poetic voice in works such as Women as Lovers and Lust.