Austria

From the Eastern March to the heart of an empire, and from collapse to a small neutral republic.

Austria's history is the history of a frontier that became the centre of Europe. The name first appears in 996 as 'Ostarrîchi', the 'eastern realm', a march of the Holy Roman Empire ruled by the Babenberg dynasty, who in 1156 were raised to dukes and made Vienna their seat. When the Babenberg line died out, the Habsburgs seized the duchy after Rudolf I's victory at the Marchfeld in 1278, beginning a dynasty that would rule for more than six centuries and turn Vienna into an imperial capital. The Habsburgs held the line against two great Ottoman sieges, in 1529 and 1683, ruled the Holy Roman Empire for generations, and under Maria Theresa reformed their sprawling possessions. In 1804 they proclaimed the Empire of Austria, and after 1867 governed it jointly with Hungary as a multi-ethnic Dual Monarchy. The assassination of the heir Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914 helped ignite the First World War, and defeat dissolved Austria-Hungary in 1918. A small German-speaking republic was left behind, its borders fixed by the Treaty of Saint-Germain (1919), which forbade union with Germany and ceded South Tyrol to Italy. Hitler annexed Austria in the Anschluss of 1938; after the Second World War and a decade of four-power occupation, the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 restored full sovereignty, and Austria declared its permanent neutrality. It joined the European Union in 1995.