Austria

**Austria**, or the **Federal State of Austria** is a Central European nation that borders Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland and Italy.

### **Established**

1917 (republic established)1931 (Federal State proclaimed)

## History

### After the Civil War

Despite going into the Great War with a bang, Austria would leave the war with a whimper. Exhausted from constant offensives after offensives and a population too angry with the Hapsburgs to try and rectify their relationship which their colonial subjects, in 1917 the empire collapsed. What started as riots in Austrian Illyria soon turned into revolution, as Serbs and Croatians took up arms and began clashing with the Austrian army. Not wanting to fight, many soldiers retreated as the revolution rapidly spread. With the failure to contain the Slavic rebels, Romania blitzed into Transylvania, Czech and Slovakian separatists began fighting in various cities as the empire was unraveling at speeds which couldn’t be undone. The Italians invaded the Adriatic coast while the Austrians signed a peace deal with the Entente. The former territories of the empire were so battered and fighting all sides that not even the Entente powers could push any demands onto the Austrians, only that the empire would officially dissolve and Hungary be given independence. Unable to do anything about those terms, the Hapsburgs fled Austria while Hungarian politicians proclaimed the independence of Hungary in Budapest.

After the civil war was over by 1919, the Austrians were left a fractured and very fragile republic on the cusp of national starvation.

### The refugee and famine crisis

The Republic of Austria watched very wearily as civil war engulfed their northern neighbor, bringing syndicalism to the entire German nation, while Austria got wrapped up in the conflict due to the amount of refugees who flooded through the border. Politicians, nobles and anyone deemed a "bourgeoisie threat" fled to Austria. After the civil war, over 100,000 Germans fled down south, amplified by the brutal Social Protection Act of 1921.

Unable to handle the thousands of refugees who fled to Austria as well as trying, in vain, to balance the issue of national starvation is ultimately what lead to the collapse of the Republic of Austria. By the end of 1921, Austria was in chaos. Streets saw protests and riots by socialists who clashed with government authorities, while massacres ensued against those same groups as a Red Scare engulfed Austria. There were rallies to go to war with Austria by extremists, but most of the population was too exhausted to even think of war as a possibility. In 1922 the first major signs of famine took hold of Austria, and at its height dozens were dying per day from starvation which disproportionately affected German refugees stuck in camps along the border. People began fleeing large cities as places like Vienna fell into disarray as bread riots grew.

Through an international council consisting of Ireland, France, Spain, Switzerland, Czechia, Russia and Italy, shipments of grain, vegetables and dairy were delivered en masse to the Republic by March of 1922 to large cities. It would take until 1924 for the threat of famine to totally disappear, but in the end over 100,000 people died, while 150,000 were severely injured.

## The end of the republic

The famine and refugee crisis severely hindered public perception of republicanism and democracy. The Red Scare was still ongoing, and fears of a German-backed civil war in the mid-20s were alleviated when the government cracked down on socialist circles in the republic. What resulted was a full cleanse of left-leaning to far-left influences from Austria. Those who escaped persecution from Austrian authorities fled the country, with most fleeing the border into Germany. Only classical liberals were spared this crackdown, and starting in the late 1920s Austria transitioned from a centrist republic into a far-right democracy. The government lead large-scale efforts to settle in the refugees who were accepted by the Austrian population, and as a result they were settled with ease. Impoverished towns used by refugees became largely abandoned by the mid-1930s as the majority of German refugees were able to settle in large cities or rural communities, but the psychological fear of an attack by their larger neighbor lingered for years.

National Populism grew exponentially in Austria after the mid-20s and the Great Depression, and it wouldn’t be long until it dominated the Austrian parliament and government. In 1922, the exiled German politician Anton Drexler formed the Pan-Germanic Party with various far-right Austrian politicians. Drexler’s party was the most influential National Populist party in the country, and after the 1927 election the PGP became the most powerful party in all of the country, though Drexler lost his campaign for the presidency both in 1923, 1927 and 1930. But as his party grew and grew, Drexler realized that he could use the power of the party for his own benefit.

In 1932, inspired by the coup in Russia by nationalist Lavr Kornilov, the Vienna Putsch was orchestrated in April. Overnight, the government succumbed to far-right mobs who attacked government authorities, while Drexler the next day saw widespread mutinied of the army in support of him. After Vienna was taken by PGP-aligned militias, the rest of the country fell to his influence shortly after, leading the coup to be a success. The Republic was disbanded after 2 weeks and Drexler proclaimed the Federal State of Austria in response.

## Federal State of Austria

Drexler’s own version of Austrian National Populsim was not a unique one, founded in ideas of anti-communism, anti-syndicalism and anti-semetism. He, and many others view the German Union as the reason why the world became so destabilized within the 20s and into the 30s. His ultimate goal as president of Austria is to defeat the German Union, and since the putsch Austria has become more militarized and nationalistic than ever. The revolutions in Switzerland and France terrified Vienna, and they’ve since allied with the Kingdom of Italy as confrontations between the socialist countries and those of Britain, Italy, Spain and Austria seem to be inevitable.

But with Drexler’s coup, questions regarding National Populism have begun to be challenged over the years. While the plight of the German refugees were once accepted, many regard the coup as a political invasion by said refugees, who’ve hijacked the Austrian state for their own ambitions. Opposition has grown in the country, spurred on by so-called “independents”, who wish to exclude German refugees and seek to restore an “Austria for Austrians”.