The Grand Duchy of Austria

## General Information

* Head of the House of Habsburg & Head of State: - **Empress** **Hannah Maria Theresa Clemente** **(von Habsburg)**
* Archduchess, Archchancellor & Head of Government - **Archduchess Cara Sofia Kroshbon I**
* Advisor to the Queen - **Johnny Goldtimbers, Duke of Newcastle**
* Capital City - **Wien, Austria**

## The Empress

The Emperor (or Empress in the case of Maria Theresa) was the hereditary ruler of all the various Habsburg possessions, from the Austrian Netherlands and its old feudal estates to the Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia that maintain their ancient political and economic rights. The Matter of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 had been finally resolved in the Treaty of Aix-en-Chapelle, however at the cost of the loss of several duchies in Italy as well as most importantly, the loss of Silesia to the Prussian Monarchy. During Maria Theresa's reign, she has drastically increased the centralization of the Austrian Monarchy holdings in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as maintaining the hold of the Habsburg Dynasty over Germany to a degree through the position of Holy Roman Emperor.

## Foreign Relations

Foreign Relations Minister - **(Archduchess Cara Kroshbon)**

## History of Austria

The Holy Roman Empire was a political conglomeration of lands in Central Europe in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Emerging from the eastern part of the Frankish realm after its division in the Treaty of Verdun (843). By the 18th century, it consisted of the larger part of modern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as large parts of modern Poland and small parts of the Netherlands. Previously, it had included all of the Netherlands and Switzerland, and parts of France and Italy.

The name of the Empire in different languages: German: Heiliges Römisches Reich (later: Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation); Italian: Sacro Romano Impero; Spanish: Sacro Imperio Romano (later: Sacro Imperio Romano-Germánico); Latin: Sacrum Romanum Imperium; Czech: Svatá říše římská; French: Saint Empire Romain Germanique; Polish: Święte Cesarstwo Rzymskie Narodu Niemieckiego; Dutch: Heilige Roomse Rijk; Slovene: Sveto rimsko cesarstvo; Hungarian: Német-Római Császárság.

Contemporary terminology for the Empire varied greatly over the centuries. The term Roman Empire was used in 1034 to denote the lands under Conrad II, and Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973–983). Emperors from Charlemagne (c. 742 or 747 – 814) to Otto I the Great (Emperor 962–973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus ("August Emperor"). The precise term Holy Roman Empire dates from 1254; the final version Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation) appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century.

Contemporaries did not quite know how to describe this entity either. In his famous 1667 description De statu imperii Germanici, published under the alias Severinus de Monzambano, Samuel Pufendorf wrote: "Nihil ergo aliud restat, quam ut dicamus Germaniam esse irregulare aliquod corpus et monstro simile ..." ("We are therefore left with calling Germany a body that conforms to no rule and resembles a monster"). Voltaire later described it as "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire".

## Lands Ruled by the Grand Duchy of Austria

**Europe**

* Archduchy of Austria (Upper Austria);
* Archduchy of Austria (Lower Austria);
* Duchy of Styria;
* Duchy of Carinthia;
* Duchy of Carniola;
* The Adriatic port of Trieste;
* Istria (although much of Istria is Venetian territory);
* Gorizia and Gradisca;

(These lands (3–8) were often grouped together as Inner Austria.)

* The County of Tyrol (although the Bishoprics of Trent and Brixen dominated what would become the South Tyrol);
* The Vorarlberg (actually a collection of provinces, only united in the 19th century);
* The Vorlande, a group of territories in Breisgau and elsewhere in southwestern Germany (although the Alsatian territories (Sundgau) which had formed a part of it had been lost as early as 1648);
* Vorarlberg and the Vorlande were often grouped together as Further Austria and mostly ruled jointly with Tyrol.
* The Lands of the Bohemian Crown – initially consisting of the five lands: Kingdom of Bohemia, March of Moravia, Silesia, and Upper and Lower Lusatia. Bohemian Diet (Czech: zemský sněm) elected Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor as king in 1526.
* Lusatia was ceded to Saxony in 1635.
* Most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia in 1740–1742 and the remnants which stayed under Habsburg sovereignty were ruled as Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia (Austrian Silesia).
* The Kingdom of Hungary – two thirds of the former territory that was administered by the medieval Kingdom of Hungary was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and the Princes of vassal Ottoman Transylvania, while the Habsburg administration was restricted to the western and northern territories of the former kingdom, which remained to be officially referred as the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1699, at the end of the Ottoman-Habsburg wars, one part of the territories that were administered by the former medieval Kingdom of Hungary came under Habsburg administration, with some other areas being picked up in 1718 (some of the territories that were part of medieval kingdom, notably those in the south of the Sava and Danube rivers, remained under Ottoman administration).
* The Duchy of Savoy, Eastern Aosta Valley, County of Nice, and western half of the Principality of Piedmont conquered during the War of the Sardinian Succession, Austria was additionally ceded Cagliari, Sassari, Oristano, Nuoro, Ogliastra, Medio Campidano, and Carbonia-Iglesias.

Over the course of its history, other lands were, at times, under Austrian Habsburg rule (some of these territories were secundogenitures, i.e. ruled by other lines of Habsburg dynasty):

* The Kingdom of Croatia (1527–);
* The Kingdom of Slavonia (1699–);
* Kingdom of Sardinia (1750–);
* The Grand Principality of Transylvania, 1699 (Treaty of Karlowitz)
* The Austrian Netherlands, consisting of most of modern Belgium and Luxembourg (1713–);
* The Duchy of Milan (1713–);
* The Banat of Temeswar (1718–);
* Grand Duchy of Tuscany (Independently Ruled at Her Majesty's pleasure) ~ Augustus III
* The Duchy of Savoy (1750–);
* County of Nice (1750–);
* The Principality of Piedmont (1750–);

The boundaries of some of these territories varied over the period indicated, and others were ruled by a subordinate (secundogeniture) Habsburg line. The Habsburgs also held the title of Holy Roman Emperor between 1438 and 1740, and again from 1745 to present.