The history of Austria has always been very convulsive due to its geographical location. Austria (Osterreich) is located in the center of Europe. Where the great trade route meets, which crosses the Danube from west to east. And, the roads that connect the European heart with the Mediterranean, through the Alpine passes. At Curio Sfera -Historia.com , we explain the origin and history of Austria .
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- 1Origin of Austria
- 2Prehistory and formation
- 3Medieval Austria
- 4Advent of the Habsburgs
- 5European Hegemony of the House of Austria
- 6Austrian Counter-Reformation
- 7Era of reforms – XVII century
- 8Decline of the Empire – Metternich’s Government
- 9Austrian Revolution of 1848
- 10Loss of Germany and Italy
- 11Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
- 12Austrian First Republic and the Anschluss
- 13Second Republic
- 14History of the Austrian flag
Origin of Austria
To understand the origins of Austria, it is first necessary to understand its geographical location. The young Austrian republic is bordered to the north by Germany and the Czech Republic, to the east by Slovakia and Hungary, to the south by Italy and Slovenia, and to the west by Switzerland .
Austria is a very ancient place of settlement of men and cultures . As you can see, it is surrounded by many countries, which in ancient times caused a lot of trade and the passage of many invaders .
Its history is turbulent , since for centuries its inhabitants, of Germanic origin, vigorously opposed the rule of the Roman Empire and the Turkish Empire. Starting from a small archduchy, it became the center of an Empire that dominated half of Europe and that survived until the early 20th century.
Perhaps because they have inherited the historical memory of their ancestors, experts in relationships with very diverse peoples, the Austrians of today are friendly and welcoming.
Its villages, integrated into the magnificent landscape of its mountains and lakes, are a haven of peace for the traveler. Its cities spread the beauty of their buildings and gardens with the same generosity with which they offer the work of the great musicians who, like Mozart, saw the light of this land.
- Continent: Europe.
- Surface: 83,859 km².
- Capital: Vienna.
- Population: 8,832,124 inhabitants.
- Currency: euro.
- Official language: German.
Prehistory and formation
The Austrian territories have been inhabited since prehistoric times (Hallstatt Civilization). Around the 4th century, Celtic tribes occupied the area, and in the 1st century the Romans conquered the territories south of the Danube. Creating the provinces of Retía, Nórico and Panonia. They also founded Vindobona (Vienna) and Hadriana (Salzburg).
Due to its geographical location, it was a transit area for the invasions of the barbarian peoples. Towards the second half of the 6th century, several peoples of different origins, Bavarians, Czechs and Avars, settled in the territory currently occupied by Austria .
Medieval Austria
In 803 Charlemagne, after destroying the Avar empire, creates the East Mark in this region. Austria will play for a long time this role as a bulwark against the waves of assailants coming from Asia.
However, in 894 the Magyars appeared on the Danube , defeating the Germans in 907 and occupying Austria until 955, when Otto I the Great defeated them at Lechfeld. In 976 Otto II gave it to the Babenbergs, who kept it for three centuries.
The Mark of Austria was made a duchy by Frederick Barbarossa in 1156, and its first duke was Henry Jasomirgov (1141-1177).
His successors were enlarging the territory with the conquest of Styria and Camiola , which allowed them to control trade with Italy and the East.
Advent of the Habsburgs
On the death of the last Babenberg in 1246, Frederick II , the King of Bohemia, Ottokar II , temporarily seized the country, but was defeated by Rudolf of Habsburg at the Battle of Marchfeld in 1278.
Since then Austria was ruled by the House of Habsburg . A clever marriage policy contributed to its territorial expansion and Albert V , married to the daughter of the Emperor Sigismund , incorporated Bohemia and Hungary into their states.
In 1438 he was elected Emperor of Germany, and since then this dignity was linked to the House of Habsburg. The results of this policy became apparent in the reign of Maximilian . By his marriage to Mana of Burgundy , daughter of Carlos the Fearless , he incorporated Burgundy, Franche-Comté and the Netherlands to the crown in 1477.
In 1493 Maximilian was elected Emperor of Germany . He married his son, in 1496, Felipe el Hermoso, with Dona Juana, daughter of the Catholic Monarchs. In 1506 Felipe el Hermoso died, leaving three children: Carlos, who was emperor and married Isabel of Portugal , and Femando and Mana. Who married respectively with Ana and Luis, sons of King Ladislaus of Bohemia and Hungary . In this way the house of Austria prepared its hegemony in Europe.
European hegemony of the house of Austria
In 1522 Carlos V left the patrimonial dominions of Austria to his brother Fernando, and in 1526, at the death of Luis II in the battle of Mohács, in the course of a war against the Turks , Bohemia and Hungary also passed into his hands.
This meeting of the three states constituted a purely dynastic union, but at the moment it was only a factual situation, not an idea. The Austrian idea would take shape in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries , under the influence of events exceptionally serious for the future of Christian Europe: the Protestant Reformation and the Muslim invasions .
The victory of Suleiman I over the Hungarians (Mohács, 1526) brought the Ottomans, in 1529, to the walls of Vienna. Since then the invasions have not stopped. The reign of Leopold I (1657-1705) meant the victorious reaction against the Islamic power. In 1644 a march of the Turkish troops on Pressburg was stopped at St. Gotthard and in 1683 a new Ottoman attack on Vienna was repulsed by John Sobieski, King of Poland .
Immediately there was the Austrian counteroffensive : in 1686 Charles of Lorraine recovered Budapest and in 1697 Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the Turks at the Battle of Zenta and forced them to sign the Peace of Karlowitz (1699) and to restore Hungary and Transylvania.
Austrian Counter-Reformation
At the same time that Austria defended itself against the Turkish danger, Lutheranism proliferated in the country thanks to the indifference of the Austrian monarchs of the 16th century .
Only the Jesuits, established in Vienna in 1551, faced the heresy; But already in the seventeenth century , Frederick II, educated by them at the University of Ingolstadt, supported the Counter-Reformation and gave himself up to a violent persecution against the Protestants .
Then the Thirty Years War broke out , in which Bohemia, in revolt in defense of its faith, was crushed in Montaña Blanca (1620). From then on Bohemia completely lost its freedoms and the Austro-German Catholic nobility became the ruling class.
However, the Thirty Years’ War ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), by which Ferdinand III (1637-57) was forced to renounce religious unity and increase imperial authority.
Henceforth the Austrian sovereigns, Catholics and absolutists, would have to face national particularisms and Protestantism. Austria participated against France in the wars of Holland (1672-79), of the League of Augsburg (1686-97) and of the Spanish Succession (1701-14).
Time of reforms – 17th century
By the treaty of Rastatt (1714), Carlos VI (1711 -40) obtained the Netherlands, the Milanese, Naples and Sardinia. Carlos VI took care in the last years of his reign to secure the throne for his daughter Mª Teresa .
This forced him to make important economic and political concessions, which extraordinarily weakened the crown.
Immediately after his death, the throne was disputed to Mª Teresa (1740-80) and the war of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) was unleashed .
The empress was encircled in her dominions, and only with great skill did she manage to find the necessary support from Hungary and the other states to win the long succession contest. Hoping to recapture Silesia and to reduce Frederick II of Prussia, he participated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), but achieved neither and had to de facto acknowledge the supremacy of Prussia.
From this moment began the reorganization of its states, especially aimed at achieving their unification and centralization. He created new bodies, such as the Council of State and the Supreme Court , establishing them in Vienna. He drew up a unique Code and prepared a cadastre.
He also introduced the Austrian bureaucracy into the provincial administration, which together with the army, the police and the clergy constituted the elements that guaranteed centralization.
These reforms, applied by Mª Teresa with great prudence and without hurting susceptibilities, were pursued in a more radical way by her son José II , co-regent since 1765 and emperor (1780-90).
This monarch, a typical representative of enlightened despotism , greatly influenced by the French encyclopedists, dreamed of transforming the empire into a paradise of reason. His systematic reformist program covered all fields.
He proclaimed the abolition of serfdom and gave the land to the peasants through the payment of censuses. Centralizing work continued, dividing their states into 13 governments to better control them and strengthening the police and state bureaucracy.
His ecclesiastical policy was more ambitious, since it tried to overthrow the material and spiritual power of the Austrian Church (edict of tolerance, suppression of the Jesuits and other orders, creation of universities and seminaries).
But these hastily implemented reforms, ignoring traditions and injured interests, provoked backlash. Most of them had to be annulled during the reign of his brother Leopold II (1790-92). The only thing that lasted was a consolidation of monarchical absolutism.
Decline of the Empire – Metternich’s Government
Francisco II (1792-1835) definitively abandoned the reform program and based his policy on the need to maintain the authoritarian monarchy and the preponderance of the nobility. Faced with revolutionary France, he replaced the prudent attitude of Leopold II with a warmongering attitude of serious consequences for Austria.
By the treaty of Campoformio (1797), the result of his first intervention, he had to cede the Netherlands, the Milanese and the territories on the right bank of the Rhine.
His new participation in the war led to the defeat of Austerlitz and the Peace of Pressburg (1805), by which he lost the Italian territories and had to admit the disappearance of the Holy Empire and accept the title of Emperor of Austria under the name of Francisco I .
After a new war failure (1809), he entrusted the Government to Metternich , who directed Austrian politics until 1848.
Metternich managed to overcome this critical situation and in the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), held at the end of the Napoleonic wars, he managed to ensure that his country had an important participation in the future structuring of Europe. And, that it regained all its territories, except the Netherlands, Inn and Salzbach.
Under Metternich’s leadership, the Austrian Empire became the center of European reaction . The basis of his policy was the search for a balance that could only be obtained by maintaining order. Guaranteed by the monarchy and by respect for the aristocratic hierarchy.
Hostile to liberalism and the constitutional regime, it vigorously stifled the nationalist and liberal movements that were shaking the precarious imperial structure. In the German Confederation each state enjoyed much independence, but Austria had a predominant position. And, he opposed the unitary attempts, driven mainly by Prussia.
In foreign policy, for Metternich the essential thing was to maintain balance, and this could only be achieved with the union of all European monarchies, in a common desire to oppose the advance of the disintegrating forces: nationalism and liberalism .
Metternich found the expression of his ideas in the Holy Alliance , an instrument used by the European reaction to maintain the Old Regime, through a series of interventions (Spain, Naples, Piedmont).
Austrian Revolution of 1848
When Francisco I died, Fernando I (1835-48) was elected, despite his limited capacity, as it was considered of great importance to enforce the principles of inheritance in an empire in which the only common element was the monarchy.
But no major reform was carried out and local opposition groups began to emerge within the Confederation, based above all on nationalist demands : in Hungary. Croatia, Serbia, Bohemia. And, in Germany from 1840 on, a strong opposition began to manifest itself, which would explode openly in the Revolution of 1848 .
The revolutionary events forced the emperor to abdicate in Francisco José (1848-1916) and demonstrated the scant consistency of the Austrian empire, which if it managed to recover was thanks to the support provided by the army, which harshly repressed the insurrection.
Loss of Germany and Italy
Once again order was restored, Francisco José made the same mistakes again. Despite the fact that he succeeded in re-establishing the German Confederation , against the unitary wishes of Prussia, he did not bother to associate national minorities in the government, but carried out an intense program of Germanization and the strengthening of absolutism.
The loss of Lombardy (1859) led him to implement a federalist system , but, faced with the opposition it provoked, he replaced it with a centralist project (1861), which did not satisfy the national groups either, which began to be active in Hungary and Bohemia.
This policy accentuated the conflict between Austria and Prussia , which led to the Austro-Prussian war . After the defeat of Sadowa (1866), it was forced to recognize the dissolution of the Confederacy and the segregation of the German states grouped around Prussia; Venice also had to cede to Italy.
Austria found itself without Germany and Italy , with the army destroyed, finances ruined and facing Hungarians and Slavs. Only by reaching an agreement with Hungary could the empire survive.
Negotiations with Hungary concluded with the compromise of 1867. Francisco José recognized the independence of Hungary and agreed to be crowned king. And, exercise the executive power assisted by a Hungarian minister; foreign policy, war and finances would be in charge of a Ministry of the Empire.
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
The dualist state that emerged from the compromise of 1867 was in theory a constitutional monarchy , but in practice Francisco José almost always ruled by decree and relying on the Church, the army, the bureaucracy and the police, traditional support points of the Habsburg.
Francisco José I governed successively with the German centralist party , representative of the bourgeoisie of the big cities, and with the Catholic federalist party , which represented the interests of the aristocracy.
None of these parties managed to solve the difficult problem of nationalities. In Bohemia the Czech national party arose , which demanded treatment similar to that of Hungary, without satisfying its demands.
The establishment of universal suffrage in 1906 failed to curb the aspirations of these groups, and the German-Slavic antagonism was accentuated in the early years of the 20th century .
For the Hungarians the problem of nationalities was raised with the same intensity. More reluctant to concessions than Austria, Hungary took rigorous measures to eliminate nationalist movements in the Balkans, and consequently the Croatian Serb struggle took on more violent overtones.
But even Hungary could hardly bear the restrictions imposed by the dualist monarchy and the Hungarian independence party demanded a national army. The war against Serbia , the main Balkan power, and against Russia , its protector, was offered to Francisco José as the best solution to save the monarchy.
The assassination of Archduke Francisco Femando and his wife (June 28, 1914) was the expected motive, and the following July 28, with the support of Germany, declared war on Serbia . Britain’s conciliation efforts failed and on August 3 the dual monarchy was at war with Russia and France and their allies.
Austrian First Republic and the Anschluss
On November 12, 1918, the Republic was proclaimed in Austria ; dismembered the empire because of defeat, the country’s territory was limited to the current narrow borders.
The political life of the new Republic, which in 1920 was organized under a federal Constitution , was dominated by the confrontation between the Socialist Party (which had its stronghold in Vienna) and the conservative Social Christian Party.
The global economic crisis had a serious impact on the fragile Austrian economy.
From 1930 the political positions were radicalized and the Social Christians clashed with the Socialists on the one hand and with the new nationalist formations on the other.
The Chancellor Dollfuss banned the Nazi Party (1933). It suppressed the socialist militias when they were cornered in the red quarters of Vienna (1934). And, he tried to rely exclusively on the Social Christians and their paramilitary formations.
All this, to form a conservative and Catholic state of corporate organization, according to the new Constitution promulgated on May 1, 1934, the work of Dollfuss and Otto Ender .
Austria was a “corporate, authoritarian, Christian-German state.” Then there was a Nazi conspiracy (assassination of Dollfuss, July 1934) destined to unite Austria with Hitler Germany (Anschluss policy). That ended in failure because of the Italian opposition.
In 1938 Chancellor Schuschnigg (who in July 1936 had already signed an agreement with Hitler in which he recognized that Austria was “a German state”), abandoned by Italy and the Western democracies, lacked the strength to oppose German demands.
On March 11-12, 1938, Third Reich troops occupied Austria unopposed. Thus consuming the Anschluss , traditionally desired by an important sector of Austrian opinion.
From 1939 to 1945, during World War II, Austria was constituted, under the name of Ostmark , in a German province, and all its economic reserves were used to meet the warlike needs of Germany.
Second republic
Soviet troops occupied Vienna in the spring of 1945. Austria was subjected to the quadripartite administration of the victorious powers .
However, from that same year, after the holding of elections, a republican regime controlled by the occupiers began to function.
And, in 1955 a treaty, guaranteed by the Soviet Union and the Western powers, enshrined the total independence of the Austrian Republic . He promised himself to remain neutral and to renounce all union with Germany.
The country was governed by a coalition of the Popular Party (of Catholic inspiration) and the Socialist Party between 1945 and 1966, the year in which the former, led by Joseph Klaus , went on to govern alone.
Between 1970 and 1983 the Social Democrats maintained the hegemony of power. B. Kreisky was in charge of the Government; But as of 1983 a coalition government was formed between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives.
In 1989 Austria applied to join the European Community , which became effective in 1995 .
The traditional coalition government that has governed the country in recent decades, and that has managed to get the country to access the single European currency , has succumbed in recent years to the advance of the xenophobic extreme right . He managed to enter the Government in 2000, despite international pressure.
History of the Austrian flag
In 1191, Leopold V, Duke of Babenberg, heroically fought against the Muslims in the capture of Acre (now Israel). It was a very tough battle and blood was spreading everywhere.
The duke’s beautiful white robe was stained with blood, except for the central part protected by a belt.
At the end of the fight, Leopold V joyfully waved his tunic.
According to legend, this is the origin of the colors of the Austrian flag .
In 1230 the colors white and red appeared on the seal of the Duke of Austria, Frederick II of Babenberg. Since 1786 the bicolor flag has been official in this Central European territory called Osterreich (“Eastern Kingdom”) since 996. Under the Habsburg dynasty, established in the 13th century, a black eagle adorned the flag of the government and the army .
With the arrival of the republic in 1919, the red-white-red flag was definitively adopted . But between 1938 and 1945 Austria, annexed by the German Third Reich, was subjected to the designs of the Nazi swastika.
