Austria

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**Austria** was a historic human nation located in Central Europe on Earth in the Sol System. Austria initially emerged around 976 and developed into a duchy and archduchy. In the 16th century, Austria started serving as the heart of the Habsburg Monarchy and the junior branch of the House of Habsburg – one of the most influential royal dynasties in history. As an archduchy, it was a major component and administrative centre of the Holy Roman Empire.

Early in the 19th century, Austria established its own empire. The Austrian Empire was a major combatant during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. In 1805, a combined Russian and Austrian army was decisively defeated by Napoleon's French army in the Battle of Austerlitz. Under French influence, Austria joined Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. After the failure of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, Austria became part of the Sixth Coalition which defeated France in 1814, forcing Napoleon into exile. However, Napoleon returned from exile in 1815, but was finally defeated later that year.

The Congress of Vienna redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat. The Congress of Vienna led to the creation of the German Confederation, an association of German states, which was intended to replace the Holy Roman Empire that been dissolved in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. However, the German Confederation was weakened by rivalry between Prussia and the Austrian Empire for supremacy among the German states.

A wave of revolutions that erupted across Europe in 1848 led to some reforms in the Austrian Empire, including the abolition of serfdom, cancellation of censorship and a promise made by Ferdinand I of Austria to implement a constitution throughout the whole Empire.

In 1866, the Austro-Prussian War erupted between Prussia and the Austrian Empire as a result of a dispute over the administration of Schleswig-Holstein, which the two of them had conquered from Denmark in the Second Schleswig War in 1864. Prussia was victorious in the conflict, resulting in Prussian hegemony over the other German states. The German Confederation collapsed, and the Prussian-led North German Confederation was formed in 1867 to replace it. The Austrian Empire did not join the North German Confederation, and instead pursued its own course independently of the other German states following its defeat in the Austro-Prussian War. In 1867, the Austrian Empire formed a union with the Kingdom of Hungary, with the two nations establishing the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Although tensions between the great powers had been growing for some time, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria during a visit to Sarajevo in 1914 is considered to be the most immediate cause of the Great War. During the Great War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was allied with the German Empire and fought against the Russian Empire, Great Britain and France.

In 1916 the Great War ended in a mutually-destructive exchange of orbital weapons and long-range rockets between the European powers, resulting in the destruction of many cities across the continent. Austria was one of the hardest-hit countries in the exchange, losing its cities of Vienna, Salzburg and Graz to Allied orbital kinetic weapon attacks. In addition to at least half a million Austrian soldiers who died in the conventional fighting between 1914 and 1916, an estimated three million Austrian civilians died in the war, mostly due to the destruction of three of the nation's largest cities in orbital strikes. In total, Austria lost more than 40 per cent of its prewar population and more than 90 per cent of its prewar economic output, which were among the highest proportions of any country in the world.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire rapidly collapsed in 1916 due to the near-total destruction of its government, royal and military institutions. Many of the Empire's former territories declared independence. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Empire, liberal and leftist intellectuals established the Republic of German-Austria, a rump state with a democratic republican government for areas with a predominantly German-speaking and ethnic German population within what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The years immediately after the end of the Great War were challenging for German-Austria. Many of the large metropolitan areas that had been destroyed during the war were simply left abandoned for several years. The new government moved its seat from the destroyed capital of Vienna to Linz, which had also escaped destruction during the war. Millions were left homeless and with unreliable access to food, water and medicine. Crime skyrocketed - in many towns and villages, armed gangs of bandits and looters roamed the streets, with very few police officers and soldiers being available to stop them. The country largely reverted to a rural agrarian economy due to the destruction of industry in urban areas.

From 1918 the United States, shocked by the success of the October Revolution in the Russian Empire and the near-success of another communist uprising in neighbouring Germany, provided substantial aid to countries including German-Austria to help these nations rebuild from the devastation of the war and strengthen their institutions against communist influence.

Beginning in 1918 the government of German-Austria entered into negotiations with the government of the newly-formed German Republic on forming a union between the two countries. The former Allied Great War combatants including Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union strongly opposed the proposed German-Austrian union, being suspicious of future German militarism. A referendum among the population of German-Austria demonstrated widespread support for integration into the German Republic. German-Austria was formally integrated into Germany as the constituent republic of Austria in 1924.

Germany eventually became a founding member of the European Union, which was merged with the Commonwealth of Nations to form the United Commonwealth in 1968. In the wake of the start of the Allied-Cramori War and the Cramori Empire's attempted invasion of the Sol System in 1976, in 1988 the citizens of the member states of the United Commonwealth voted to give the United Commonwealth Parliament and the United Commonwealth Secretariat the powers of a federal government, effectively transforming the United Commonwealth from a supranational political and economic union to a single federal republic. It was thought that granting the United Commonwealth greater economic, political and military control over the resources of its constituent states would be more effective for planetary defence against the Cramori. The German government was therefore effectively absorbed into the United Commonwealth Government in 1988, and Austria is largely regarded to have ceased to exist as a political entity on that date.