chapter 8, page 305.

AUSTRIA: The birthplace.

"On the disputed frontier, in the zone of perpetual conflict, were formed and developed the two states which, in turn, were to dominate over Germany, namely, Austria and Prussia. Both were born in the midst of the enemy. The cradle of Austria was the Eastern march, established by Charlemagne on the Danube, beyond Bavaria, at the very gate through which have passed so many invaders from the Orient. ... The cradle of Prussia was the march of Brandenburg, between the Elbe and the Oder, in the region of the exterminated Slavs."

_E. Lavisse, General View of the Political History of Europe, chapter 3, section 13._

AUSTRIA: The Singularity of Austrian history. A power which is not a national power.

"It is by no means an easy task to tell the story of the various lands which have at different times come under the dominion of Austrian princes, the story of each land by itself, and the story of them all in relation to the common power. A continuous narrative is impossible. ... Much mischief has been done by one small fashion of modern speech. It has within my memory become usual to personify nations and powers on the smallest occasions in a way which was formerly done only in language more or less solemn, rhetorical or poetical. We now talk every moment of England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, as if they were persons. And as long as it is only England, France, Germany, Russia, or Italy of which we talk in this way, no practical harm is done; the thing is a mere question of style. For those are all national powers. ... But when we go on to talk in this way of 'Austria,' of 'Turkey,' direct harm is done; thought is confused, and facts are misrepresented. ... I have seen the words 'Austrian national honour;' I have come across people who believed that 'Austria' was one land inhabited by 'Austrians,' and that 'Austrians' spoke the 'Austrian' language. All such phrases are misapplied. It is to be presumed that in all of them 'Austria' means something more than the true Austria, the archduchy; what is commonly meant by them is the whole dominions of the sovereign of Austria. People fancy that the inhabitants of those dominions have a common being, a common interest, like that of the people of England, France, or Italy. ... There is no Austrian language, no Austrian nation; therefore there can be no such thing as 'Austrian national honour.' Nor can there be an 'Austrian policy' in the same sense in which there is an English or a French policy, that is, a policy in which the English or French government carries out the will of the English or French nation. ... Such phrases as 'Austrian interests,' 'Austrian policy,' and the like, do not mean the interests or the policy of any land or nation at all. They simply mean the interests and policy of a particular ruling family, which may often be the same as the interests and wishes of particular parts of their dominions, but which can never represent any common interest or common wish on the part of the whole. ... We must ever remember that the dominions of the House of Austria are simply a collection of kingdoms, duchies, etc., brought together by various accidental causes, but which have nothing really in common, no common speech, no common feeling, no common interest. In one case only, that of the Magyars in Hungary, does the House of Austria rule over a whole nation; the other kingdoms, duchies, etc., are only parts of nations, having no tie to one another, but having the closest ties to other parts of their several nations which lie close to them, but which are under other governments. The only bond among them all is that a series of marriages, wars, treaties, and so forth, have given them a common sovereign. The same person is king of Hungary, Archduke of Austria, Count of Tyrol, Lord of Trieste, and a hundred other things. That is all. ... The growth and the abiding dominion of the House of Austria is one of the most remarkable phænomena in European history. Powers of the same kind have arisen twice before; but in both cases they were very short-lived, while the power of the House of Austria has lasted for several centuries. The power of the House of Anjou in the twelfth century, the power of the House of Burgundy in the fifteenth century, were powers of exactly the same kind. They too were collections of scraps, with no natural connexion, brought together by the accidents of warfare, marriage, of diplomacy. Now why is it that both these powers broke in pieces almost at once, after the reigns of two princes in each case, while the power of the House of Austria has lasted so long? Two causes suggest themselves. One is the long connexion between the House of Austria and the Roman Empire and kingdom of Germany. So many Austrian princes were elected Emperors as to make the Austrian House seem something great and imperial in itself. I believe that this cause has done a good deal towards the result; but I believe that another cause has done yet more. This is that, though the Austrian power is not a national power, there is, as has been already noticed, a nation within it. While it contains only scraps of other nations, it contains the whole of the Magyar nation. It thus gets something of the strength of a national power. ... The kingdom of Hungary is an ancient kingdom, with known boundaries which have changed singularly little for several centuries; and its connexion with the archduchy of Austria and the kingdom of Bohemia is now of long standing. Anything beyond this is modern and shifting. The so-called 'empire of Austria' dates only from the year 1804. This is one of the simplest matters in the world, but one which is constantly forgotten. ... A smaller point on which confusion also prevails is this. {197} All the members of the House of Austria are commonly spoken of as archdukes and archduchesses. I feel sure that many people, if asked the meaning of the word archduke, would say that it was the title of the children of the 'Emperor of Austria,' as grand-duke is used in Russia, and prince in most countries. In truth, archduke is the title of the sovereign of Austria. He has not given it up; for he calls himself Archduke of Austria still, though he calls himself 'Emperor of Austria' as well. But by German custom, the children of a duke or count are all called dukes and counts for ever and ever. In this way the Prince of Wales is called 'Duke of Saxony,' and in the same way all the children of an Archduke of Austria are archdukes and archduchesses. Formally and historically then, the taking of an hereditary imperial title by the Archduke of Austria in 1804, and the keeping of it after the prince who took it had ceased in 1806 to be King of Germany and Roman Emperor-elect, was a sheer and shameless imposture. But it is an imposture which has thoroughly well served its ends."

_E. A. Freeman, Preface to Leger's History of Austria-Hungary_.

"Medieval History is a history of rights and wrongs; modern History as contrasted with medieval divides itself into two portions; the first a history of powers, forces, and dynasties; the second, a history in which ideas take the place of both rights and forces. ... Austria may be regarded as representing the more ancient form of right. ... The middle ages proper, the centuries from the year 1000 to the year 1500, from the Emperor Henry II. to the Emperor Maximilian, were ages of legal growth, ages in which the idea of right, as embodied in law, was the leading idea of statesmen, and the idea of rights justified or justifiable by the letter of law, was a profound influence with politicians. ... The house of Austria ... lays thus the foundation of that empire which is to be one of the great forces of the next age; not by fraud, not by violence, but here by a politic marriage, here by a well advocated inheritance, here by a claim on an imperial fief forfeited or escheated: honestly where the letter of the law is in her favour, by chicanery it may be here and there, but that a chicanery that wears a specious garb of right. The imperial idea was but a small influence compared with the super-structure of right, inheritance, and suzerainty, that legal instincts and a general acquiescence in legal forms had raised upon it."

_William Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History, pages 209-215._

[Image]

ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

NOTE: The shaded parts denote the distribution of the Germans.

AUSTRIA: The Races.

"The ethnical elements of the population are as follows (1890 for Austria and 1880 for Hungary) on the basis of language;-- Austria (1890): German 8,461,580; Bohemian, Moravian and Slovak 5,472,871; Polish 3,719,232; Ruthenian 3,105,221; Slovene 1,176,672; Servian and Croatian 644,926; Italian and Latin 675,305; Roumanian 209,110; Magyar 8,139.

Hungary (1880): German 1,972,115; Bohemian, Moravian and Slovak 1,892,806; Ruthenian 360,051; Slovene 86,401; Servian and Croatian 2,359,708; Roumanian 2,423,387; Magyar 6,478,711; Gipsies 82,256; Others 83,940,"

_Statesman's Year-Book, 1893; edited by J. S, Keltie._

AUSTRIA: End----------

A Logical Outline of Austrian History

In Which The Dominant Conditions And Influences Are Distinguished By Colors.

[Red] Physical or material. [Blue] Ethnological. [Green] Social and political. [Brown] Intellectual, moral and religious. [Black] Foreign.

The history of Austria, so far as it has importance, is unique in being the history of a Family and not the history of a State,-- the history of a Dynastic and not of a National Power. Territorially, the name was attached, until 1806, to an inconsiderable arch-duchy, on the Danube, in that corner of Teutonic Europe where the Germans of the Middle Ages fought back the Turanian races and the Slaves. Dynastically, it became connected, in the 13th century, with a House, then insignificant, in Alsace, and to the future remarkable fortunes of that House the territory so named contributed little more than a strong central position and a capital town.

Rodolph, Count of Hapsburg, with whom the importance of Austrian history begins, was elected Emperor in 1272, for the reason that his possessions were small and the resoluteness of his character was unknown. He disappointed the Electors by increasing the weight and reviving the power of the Imperial office, which they had not at all desired, and he used its power vigorously for the benefit of himself and his own. The King of Bohemia resisted him and was defeated and slain; and a part of the dominions which the Bohemian king had acquired, including Austria (then a duchy), Carniola and Styria, was appropriated by Rodolph, for his sons. The House of Hapsburg thus became the House of Austria, and its history is what bears the name of Austrian history from that time until 1806. The Hapsburg family has never produced men of the higher intellectual powers, or the higher qualities of any kind; but a remarkable vitality has been proved in it, and a politic self-seeking capability, which has never, perhaps, persisted through so many generations in any other line. It owes to these qualities the acquisition, again and again, of the elective Imperial crown, until that crown settled, at last, upon the heirs of the House, in practically hereditary succession, despite the wish of the princes of Germany to keep it shifting among the weaker members of their order, and despite the rivalry of greater houses with ambitions like its own. The prestige of the splendid Imperial title, and the influence derived from the theoretical functions of the Emperor--small as the actual powers that he held might be--were instruments of policy which the Austrian princes knew how to use with enormous effect. Austrian marriages and Austrian diplomacy, often alluded to as examples of luck and craft in political affairs, show, rather, it may be, the consistent calculation and sagacity with which the House of Austria has pursued its aims.

By marriages, by diplomacy, and by pressures brought to bear from the headship of the Empire, the family plucked, one by one, the coronets of Tyrol and Carinthia (1363), Franche-Comté and Flanders, with the Low Countries entire (1477), and the crowns of Spain, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia (1516), Bohemia (including Moravia), and Hungary (1526). Its many diadems were never moulded into one, but have been, from first to last, the carefully distinguished emblems of so many separate sovereignties, united in no way but by homage to a common prince.

The one most fortunate acquisition of the House, which has given most stability to the heterogeneous structure of it power, in the judgement of the ablest among modern historians is the Hungarian crown. Its Burgundian and Spanish marriages, which brought to it the rich Netherlands and the vast realm of Ferdinand and Isabella, brought also a division the Family, and the rooting of s second stem in Spain; and while its grandeur among the dynasties of Europe was augmented, the real gain of the House in its older seat was small. But the Kingdom on Hungary has been a mass of very concrete political power in its hands, and has supplied in some degree the weight of nationality that was otherwise wanting in the dominions of the House.

The mixture of races under the Austrian sovereigns is the most extraordinary in Europe. Their possessions exactly cover that part of the continent in which its earlier and later invaders fought longest and most; where the struggle between them was final, and where they mingled their settlements together. The Slavic peoples are predominant in numbers; the Germans are scarcely more than one-fourth of the whole; and yet, until recent years, the Austrian power figured chiefly as a German power in European politics, and took leadership in Germany itself. This position accrued to it through the persisting, potent influence of the Imperial title which the Archdukes of Austria bore, with mediæval fictions from Rome and from Germany woven together and clinging around it; and through the broken and divided condition of the German land, where petty courts and princelings disputed precedence with one another, and none could lead. When time raised up one strong and purely German kingdom, to rally and encourage a German sentiment of nationality, then Austria--expelled by it from the Teutonic circle--first found her true place in the politics of Europe.

For Germany the relationship was never a fortunate one. Alien interests came constantly between the Emperors and the Empire-- the proper subject of their care,--and they were drawn to alien sympathies by their connection with Spain. They imbibed the hateful temper of the Spanish Church, and fought the large majority of their German lieges, on the questions of the Reformation, for a century and a half. Among the combatants of the frightful "Thirty Years War" they were chiefly responsible for the death and ruin spread over the face of Germanic Europe. At no time did Germany find leading or strength in her nominal Emperors, nor in the states making up the hereditary possessions of their House. In the dark days when the sword of Napoleon threatened every neighbor of France, they deserted their station of command. It was the time which the head of the House of Austria chose for abdicating the crown of the Holy Roman Empire--that lingering fiction of history,--and yet assuming to be an Emperor still--the Emperor of an Empire which rested on the small duchy of Austria for its name.

The renunciation was timely; for now, when Germany rose to break the yoke of Napoleon, she found leadership within her own family of states. Then began the transformation in Germanic Europe which extinguished, after half a century, the last remains of the false relations to it of the Austrian House. Prussia opened her eyes to the new conditions of the age; set the schoolmaster at work among her children; made herself an example and a stimulus to all her neighbors. The Family which called itself Austria did otherwise. It was blind, and it preferred blindness. It read lessons in nothing but the Holy Alliance and the Treaty of Vienna. It listened to no teacher but Metternich. It made itself the resurrectionist of a dead Past in all the graveyards of Feudal Europe, and was heard for half a century as the supporter and champion of every hateful thing in government. It had won Lombardy and Venice by its double traffic with Napoleon and with those who cast Napoleon down; and it enraged the whole civilized world by the cold brutality of its oppressions there.

Events in due time brought the two "systems" of domestic polity-- the Prussian and the Austrian--to account, and weighed them together. As a consequence, it happens to-day that the House of Austria has neither place nor voice in the political organization of Germany; has no footing in Italy; has no dungeons of tyranny in its dominions; has no disciples of Metternich among its statesmen. Its face and its feet are now turned quite away from the paths of ambition and of policy which it trod so long. It has learned, and is learning, so fast that it may yet be a teacher in the school of liberal politics which it entered so late. It has set Hungary by the side of Austria, treading the one great nation of its subjects no longer under foot. It sees its interests and recognizes its duties in that quarter of Europe to which History and Geography have been pointing from Vienna and Buda-Pesth since the days of Charlemagne. Its mission in Europe is to command the precarious future of the southeastern states, so far as may be, and to guard them against the dangerous Muscovite, until they grow in civilization and strength and are united as one Power. In this mission it is the ally and the colleague of both Germany and Italy, and the three Powers are united by stronger bonds than were possible before each stood free.

[Right Margin]

9th Century. The March.

A. D. 1272. Rodolph of Hapsburg. Emperor.

A. D. 1282. The House in possession.

A. D. 1438. The Imperial Crown.

A. D. 1363-1526. Gathering of crowns and coronets.

The mixture of races.

A. D. 1521-1531. The Reformation.

A. D. 1618-1648. Thirty Years War.

A. D. 1806. End of the Holy Roman Empire.

A. D. 1815-1866. Policy of Metternich. vs. policy of Stein.

A. D. 1859. Loss of Lombardy.

A. D. 1866. Seven Weeks War. Loss of Venice.

A. D. 1867. Austro-Hungarian Empire.

A. D. 1882. The Triple Alliance.

End of "A Logical Outline..."-----

{198}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246. The Rise of the Margraviate, and the creation of the Duchy, under the Babenbergs. Changing relations to Bavaria. End of the Babenberg Dynasty.

"Austria, as is well known, is but the Latin form of the German Oesterreich, the kingdom of the east [see above: AUSTRASIA]. This celebrated historical name appears for the first time in 996. in a document signed by the emperor Otto III. ('in regione vulgari nomine Osterrichi'). The land to which it is there applied was created a march after the destruction of the Avar empire [805], and was governed like all the other German marches. Politically it was divided into two margraviates; that of Friuli, including Friuli properly so called, Lower Pannonia to the south of the Drave, Carinthia, Istria, and the interior of Dalmatia--the sea-coast having been ceded to the Eastern emperor;--the eastern margraviate comprising Lower Pannonia to the north of the Drave, Upper Pannonia, and the Ostmark properly so called. The Ostmark included the Traungau to the east of the Enns, which was completely German, and the Grunzvittigau. ... The early history of these countries lacks the unity of interest which the fate of a dynasty or a nation gives to those of the Magyar and the Chekh. They form but a portion of the German kingdom, and have no strongly marked life of their own. The march, with its varying frontier, had not even a geographical unity. In 876, it was enlarged by the addition of Bavaria; in 890, it lost Pannonia, which was given to Bracislav, the Croat prince, in return for his help against the Magyars, and in 937, it was destroyed and absorbed by the Magyars, who extended their frontier to the river Enns. After the battle of Lechfeld or Augsburg (955), Germany and Italy being no longer exposed to Hungarian invasions, the march was re-constituted and granted to the margrave Burkhard, the brother-in-law of Henry of Bavaria. Leopold of Babenberg succeeded him (973), and with him begins the dynasty of Babenberg, which ruled the country during the time of the Premyslides [in Bohemia] and the house of Arpad [in Hungary]. The Babenbergs derived their name from the castle of Babenberg, built by Henry, margrave of Nordgau, in honor of his wife, Baba, sister of Henry the Fowler. It reappears in the name of the town of Bamberg, which now forms part of the kingdom of Bavaria. ... Though not of right an hereditary office, the margraviate soon became so, and remained in the family of the Babenbergs; the march was so important a part of the empire that no doubt the emperor was glad to make the defence of this exposed district the especial interest of one family. ... The marriages of the Babenbergs were fortunate; in 1138 the brother of Leopold [Fourth of that name in the Margraviate] Conrad of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Franconia, was made emperor. It was now that the struggle began between the house of Hohenstaufen and the great house of Welf [or Guelf: See GUELFS AND GHIBELINES] whose representative was Henry the Proud, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria. Henry was defeated in the unequal strife, and was placed under the ban of the Empire, while the duchy of Saxony was awarded to Albert the Bear of Brandenburg, and the duchy of Bavaria fell to the share of Leopold IV. (1138). Henry the Proud died in the following year, leaving behind him a son under age, who was known later on as Henry the Lion. His uncle Welf would not submit to the forfeiture by his house of their old dominions, and marched against Leopold to reconquer Bavaria, but he was defeated by Conrad at the battle of Weinsberg (1140). Leopold died shortly after this victory, and was succeeded both in the duchy of Bavaria and in the margraviate of Austria by his brother, Henry II." Henry II. endeavored to strengthen himself in Bavaria by marrying the widow of Henry the Proud, and by extorting from her son, Henry the Lion, a renunciation of the latter's rights. But Henry the Lion afterwards repudiated his renunciation, and in 1156 the German diet decided that Bavaria should be restored to him. Henry of Austria was wisely persuaded to yield to the decision, and Bavaria was given up. "He lost nothing by this unwilling act of disinterestedness, for he secured from the emperor considerable compensation. From this time forward, Austria, which had been largely increased by the addition of the greater part of the lands lying between the Enns and the Inn, was removed from its almost nominal subjection to Bavaria and became a separate duchy [Henry II. being the first hereditary Duke of Austria]. An imperial edict, dated the 21st of September, 1156, declares the new duchy hereditary even in the female line, and authorizes the dukes to absent themselves from all diets except those which were held in Bavarian territory. It also permits them, in case of a threatened extinction of their dynasty, to propose a successor. ... Henry II. was one of the founders of Vienna. He constructed a fortress there, and, in order to civilize the surrounding country, sent for some Scotch monks, of whom there were many at this time in Germany." In 1177 Henry II. was succeeded by Leopold V., called the Virtuous. "In his reign the duchy of Austria gained Styria, an important addition to its territory. This province was inhabited by Slovenes and Germans, and took its name from the castle of Steyer, built in 980 by Otokar III., count of the Trungau. In 1056, it was created a margraviate, and in 1150 it was enlarged by the addition of the counties of Maribor (Marburg) and Cilly. In 1180, Otokar VI. of Styria (1164-1102) obtained the hereditary title of duke from the Emperor in return for his help against Henry the Lion." Dying without children, Otokar made Leopold of Austria his heir. "Styria was annexed to Austria in 1192, and has remained so ever since. ... Leopold V. is the first of the Austrian princes whose name is known in Western Europe. He joined the third crusade," and quarrelled with Richard Coeur de Lion at the siege of St. Jean d' Acre. Afterwards, when Richard, returning home by the Adriatic, attempted to pass through Austrian territory incognito, Leopold revenged himself by seizing and imprisoning the English king, finally selling his royal captive to a still meaner Emperor for 20,000 marks. Leopold VI. who succeeded to the Austrian duchy in 1198, did much for the commerce of his country. "He made Vienna the staple town, and lent a sum of 30,000 marks of silver to the city to enable it to increase its trade. He adorned it with many new buildings, among them the Neue Burg." His son, called Frederick the Fighter (1230-1246) was the last of the Babenberg dynasty. His hand was against all his neighbors, including the Emperor Frederick II., and their hands were against him. He perished in June, 1246, on the banks of the Leitha, while at war with the Hungarians.

_L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 9._

ALSO IN: _E. F. Henderson, Select History Documents of the Middle Ages, book 2, number 7._

{199}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282. Rodolph of Hapsburg and the acquisition of the Duchy for his family.

"The House of Austria owes its origin and power to Rhodolph of Hapsburgh, son of Albert IV. count of Hapsburgh. The Austrian genealogists, who have taken indefatigable but ineffectual pains to trace his illustrious descent from the Romans, carry it with great probability to Ethico, duke of Alsace, in the seventh century, and unquestionably to Guntram the Rich, count of Alsace and Brisgau, who flourished in the tenth." A grandson of Guntram, Werner by name, "became bishop of Strasburgh, and on an eminence above Windiisch, built the castle of Hapsburgh ['Habichtsburg' 'the castle of vultures'], which became the residence of the future counts, and gave a new title to the descendants of Guntram. ... The successors of Werner increased their family inheritance by marriages, donations from the Emperors, and by becoming prefects, advocates, or administrators of the neighbouring abbeys, towns, or districts, and his great grandson, Albert III., was possessor of no inconsiderable territories in Suabia, Alsace, and that part of Switzerland which is now called the Argau, and held the landgraviate of Upper Alsace. His son, Rhodolph, received from the Emperor, in addition to his paternal inheritance, the town and district of Lauffenburgh, an imperial city on the Rhine. He acquired also a considerable accession of territory by obtaining the advocacy of Uri, Schweitz, and Underwalden, whose natives laid the foundation of the Helvetic Confederacy, by their union against the oppressions of feudal tyranny."

_W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 1_.

"On the death of Rodolph in 1232 his estates were divided between his sons Albert IV. and Rodolph II.; the former receiving the landgraviate of Upper Alsace, and the county of Hapsburg, together with the patrimonial castle; the latter, the counties Rheinfelden and Lauffenburg, and some other territories. Albert espoused Hedwige, daughter of Ulric, count of Kyburg; and from this union sprang the great Rodolph, who was born on the 1st of May 1218, and was presented at the baptismal font by the Emperor Frederic II. On the death of his father Albert in 1240, Rodolph succeeded to his estates; but the greater portion of these were in the hands of his paternal uncle, Rodolph of Lauffenburg; and all he could call his own lay within sight of the great hall of his castle. ... His disposition was wayward and restless, and drew him into repeated contests with his neighbours and relations. ... In a quarrel with the Bishop of Basel, Rodolph led his troops against that city, and burnt a convent in the suburbs, for which he was excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV. He then entered the service of Ottocar II. King of Bohemia, under whom he served, in company with the Teutonic Knights, in his wars against the Prussian pagans; and afterwards against Bela IV. King of Hungary." The surprising election, in 1272, of this little known count of Hapsburg, to be King of the Romans, with the substance if not the title of the imperial dignity which that election carried with it, was due to a singular friendship which he had acquired some fourteen years before. When Archbishop Werner, Elector of Mentz, was on his way to Rome in 1259, to receive the pallium, he "was escorted across the Alps by Rodolph of Hapsburg, and under his protection secured from the robbers who beset the passes. Charmed with the affability and frankness of his protector, the Archbishop conceived a strong regard for Rodolph;" and when, in 1272, after the Great Interregnum [see GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272], the Germanic Electors found difficulty in choosing an Emperor, the Elector of Mentz recommended his friend of Hapsburg as a candidate. "The Electors are described by a contemporary as desiring an Emperor but detesting his power. The comparative lowliness of the Count of Hapsburg recommended him as one from whom their authority stood in little jeopardy; but the claims of the King of Bohemia were vigorously urged; and it was at length agreed to decide the election by the voice of the Duke of Bavaria. Lewis without hesitation nominated Rodolph. ... The early days of Rodolph's reign were disturbed by the contumacy of Ottocar, King of Bohemia. That Prince ... persisted in refusing to acknowledge the Count of Hapsburg as his sovereign. Possessed of the dutchies of Austria, Styria, Carniola and Carinthia, he might rely upon his own resources; and he was fortified in his resistance by the alliance of Henry, Duke of Lower Bavaria. But the very possession of these four great fiefs was sufficient to draw down the envy and distrust of the other German Princes. To all these territories, indeed, the title of Ottocar was sufficiently disputable. On the death of Frederic II. fifth duke of Austria [and last of the Babenberg dynasty] in 1246, that dutchy, together with Styria and Carniola, was claimed by his niece Gertrude and his sister Margaret. By a marriage with the latter, and a victory over Bela IV. King of Hungary, whose uncle married Gertrude, Ottocar obtained possession of Austria and Styria; and in virtue of a purchase from Ulric, Duke of Carinthia and Carniola, he possessed himself of those dutchies on Ulric's death in 1269, in defiance of the claims of Philip, brother of the late Duke. Against so powerful a rival the Princes assembled at Augsburg readily voted succours to Rodolph; and Ottocar having refused to surrender the Austrian dominions, and even hanged the heralds who were sent to pronounce the consequent sentence of proscription, Rodolph with his accustomed promptitude took the field [1276], and confounded his enemy by a rapid march upon Austria. In his way he surprised and vanquished the rebel Duke of Bavaria, whom he compelled to join his forces; he besieged and reduced to the last extremity the city of Vienna; and had already prepared a bridge of boats to cross the Danube and invade Bohemia, when Ottocar arrested his progress by a message of submission. The terms agreed upon were severely humiliating to the proud soul of Ottocar," and he was soon in revolt again, with the support of the Duke of Bavaria. Rodolph marched against him, and a desperate battle was fought at Marschfeld, August 26, 1278, in which Ottocar, deserted at a critical moment by the Moravian troops, was defeated and slain. "The total loss of the Bohemians on that fatal day amounted to more than 14,000 men. In the first moments of his triumph, Rodolph designed to appropriate the dominions of his deceased enemy. {200} But his avidity was restrained by the Princes of the Empire, who interposed on behalf of the son of Ottocar; and Wenceslaus was permitted to retain Bohemia and Moravia. The projected union of the two families was now renewed: Judith of Hapsburg was affianced to the young King of Bohemia; whose sister Agnes was married to Rodolph, youngest son of the King of the Romans." In 1282, Rodolph, "after satisfying the several claimants to those territories by various cessions of lands .... obtained the consent of a Diet held at Augsburg to the settlement of Austria, Styria, and Carniola, upon his two surviving sons; who were accordingly jointly invested with those dutchies with great pomp and solemnity; and they are at this hour enjoyed by the descendants of Rodolph of Hapsburg."

_Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 14._

ALSO IN: _J. Planta, History of the Helvetic Confederacy.