Austria

Abstract

KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS. Governed by the Hapsburgs from 1282, Austria served thereafter as the centre of their expanding power and empire; an empire which lasted until 1918. At their greatest extent under Charles V (1519–55) the Hapsburg dominions included part of Hungary (wholly conquered from the Turks in 1688), Belgium, Italian territories, Spain and its vast empire. Spain was soon separated, and the Hapsburgs struggled to gain international recognition of their dynastic holdings. The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 was only partially successful in this, but the Empire survived the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–63). Polish territory was annexed in 1772 and 1795. The Empire, represented by Prince Metternich at the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, recovered the influence in Germany and Italy it had lost during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It remained the major power in Central Europe till defeated in 1866 by Prussia and her German allies, a position confirmed by the unification of Germany in 1870–71 under Prussian leadership. Hungarian nationalism, the main obstacle to the integration of the Empire, was in 1867 appeased by the Ausgleich or Compromise: the state became known as the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.