Austria
Historie
The Alps were inaccessible during the Ice Age, so human habitation dates no earlier than the Middle Paleolithic era,
during the time of the Neanderthals. The oldest traces of human habitation in Austria, more than 250.000 years ago,
were found in the Repolust Cave at Badl, near Peggau in the Graz-Umgebung district of Styria.
Mesolithic remains include rock shelters from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine Valley, a funeral site at
Elsbethen and a few other sites with microlithic artifacts which demonstrate the transition from living as hunter-gatherers
and sedentary farmers and ranchers. Remains include those of the Linear pottery culture (5500–4500 BC), one of the
first agrarian cultures in Europe. Another culture is the Mondsee group from around 4th millennium to 3rd millennium BC,
represented by stilt houses in the Alpine lakes.
By the beginning of the Bronze Age fortifications were appearing, protecting the commercial centers of the mining,
processing, and trading of copper and tin. In the late Bronze Age appeared the Urnfield culture (1300–750 BC),
in which salt mining commenced in the northern salt mines at Hallstatt.
In the later Iron Age, the Celtic La Tène culture spread to Austria, out of twhich arose Noricum (2nd century
to c. 15 BC) – a confederation of Alpine Celtic tribes. It was confined to present-day southern and eastern Austria and
part of Slovenia. The West was settled by the Raeti.
Although Noricum and Rome had been active trading partners and had formed military alliances, around 15 BC the majority of
what we now know as Austria was annexed to the Roman Empire.
The Great Migration sealed the decline of Roman power in Austria. In the First Phase (300–500 AD) the Roman Empire
was increasingly harassed by Germanic tribes, including Goths and Vandals.
During the second phase of the Migration Period (500–700 AD) the Lombards made a brief appearance in the northern
and eastern regions around 500 AD, but had been driven south into northern Italy by the Avars by 567.
Charlemagne, King of the Franks, conquered the area in AD 788, encouraged colonisation, and introduced Christianity.
As part of Eastern Francia, the core areas that now encompass Austria were bequeathed to the house of Babenberg. The area
was known as the marchia Orientalis and was given to Leopold I of Babenberg in 976. With the death of
Frederick II in 1246, the line of the Babenbergs was extinguished.
As a result, Ottokar II of Bohemia effectively assumed control of the duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia.
His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hands of Rudolph I of Germany in 1278.
Thereafter, Austria's history was largely that of its ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria.
The Habsburgs began also to accumulate territory far from the hereditary lands.
In 1477, Archduke Maximilian,
only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress Maria of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Netherlands
for the family. In 1496, his son Philip the Fair married Joanna the Mad, the heiress of Castile and Aragon,
thus acquiring Spain and its Italian, African, Asian and New World appendages for the Habsburgs.
In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans came under
Austrian rule.
During the long reign of Leopold I (1658–1705) and following the successful defence of Vienna against the Turks in 1683
a series of campaigns resulted in bringing most of Hungary to Austrian control by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.
With the rise of Prussia, the Austrian–Prussian dualism began in Germany. Austria participated, together with Prussia
and Russia, in the first and the third of the three Partitions of Poland (in 1772 and 1795).
Austria later became engaged in a war with Revolutionary France, which was highly unsuccessful in the beginning,
with successive defeats at the hands of Napoleon. In 1814, Austria was part of the Allied forces that invaded France and
brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars.
It emerged from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as one of the continent's four dominant powers and a recognised great
power. The same year, the German Confederation was founded under the presidency of Austria. Because of unsolved social,
political, and national conflicts, the German lands were shaken by the 1848 revolutions aiming to create a unified
Germany.
As Austria was not willing to relinquish its German-speaking territories to what would become the German Empire of 1848,
the crown of the newly formed empire was offered to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
In 1864, Austria and Prussia fought together against Denmark and secured the independence from Denmark of the duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein. As they could not agree on how the two duchies should be administered, though, they fought
the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. Defeated by Prussia in the Battle of Königgrätz, Austria had to
leave the German Confederation and no longer took part in German politics.
After the defeated Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, provided for a
dual sovereignty, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, under Franz Joseph I.
World War I began when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia in July 1914, following the Assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand. Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers, along with the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
The defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 resulted in the disintegration of Austria-Hungary.
The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 confirmed and consolidated the new order of Central Europe, creating new states
and altering others. The German-speaking parts of Austria which had been part of Austria-Hungary were reduced to a rump
state named the Republic of German-Austria. The fledgling Republic of German-Austria was to prove short lived.
The proposed merger with the German Empire (Weimar Republic) was vetoed by the Allied victors in the Treaty
Saint-Germain-en-Laye (10 September 1919), which prohibited economic or political union. The allies were fearful
of the long-held Mitteleuropa dream —a union of all German-speaking populations. The treaties also forced
German-Austria to rename itself as "Republic of Austria" which consequently led to the First Austrian Republic.
First Austrian Republic ended with the establishment of the Austrofascist Federal State of Austria based upon a
dictatorship of Engelbert Dollfuss and the Fatherland's Front in 1934. His successor Kurt Schuschnigg
maintained the ban on pro-Hitlerite activities in Austria, but was forced to resign on 11 March 1938 following a demand
by Adolf Hitler for power-sharing with pro-German circles. Following Schuschnigg's resignation, German troops occupied
Austria with no resistance.
Just before the end of the war, on 28 March 1945, American troops set foot on Austrian soil and the Soviet Union's Red
Army crossed the eastern border two days later, taking Vienna on 13 April. American and British forces occupied the
western and southern regions, preventing Soviet forces from completely overrunning and controlling the country.
Much like Germany, Austria was divided into American, British, French, and Soviet zones and governed by the Allied
Commission for Austria. On 15 May 1955, after talks which lasted for years and were influenced by the Cold War,
Austria regained full independence by concluding the Austrian State Treaty with the Four Occupying Powers.
The political system of the Second Republic is based on the constitution of 1920 and 1929, which was reintroduced
in 1945. The system came to be characterised by Proporz, meaning that most posts of political importance were split
evenly between members of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).
Interest group "chambers" with mandatory membership (e.g. for workers, business people, farmers) grew to considerable
importance and were usually consulted in the legislative process, so hardly any legislation was passed that did not
reflect widespread consensus.
Since 1945, governing via a single-party government has occurred twice: 1966–1970 (ÖVP) and 1970–1983 (SPÖ). During all
other legislative periods, either a grand coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP or a "small coalition" (one of these two
and a smaller party) ruled the country.