After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria was reduced to a rump state and adopted and briefly used the name the Republic of German-Austria (German: Republik Deutschösterreich) in an attempt for union with Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919).

In the 8th century, the former territories of Raetia and Noricum fell under Carolingian rule, and were divided into the duchies of Swabia, Bavaria and principality Carantania.

As a consequence, the national character of the Austro-Bavarian speaking majority population of Austria throughout their early modern and modern history remained characterized by their neighbourhood to the West Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks) to the north, the South Slavs (Slovenes, Carinthian Slovenes, Burgenland Croats) to the south, and the Hungarians to the east.

[citation needed] The Habsburg, who had ruled the territory of Austria since the Late Middle Ages, greatly increased their political prestige and power with the acquisition of the lands of the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia in 1526.

However, the second half of the 18th century saw an increasingly centralised state begin to develop under the reign of Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II.

A further major change resulted from a reorganisation of the Austrian Empire in 1867 into a dual monarchy, acknowledging the Kingdom of Hungary as an independent state bound to the remaining part of the empire, as well independent, by a personal and real union, the Emperor of Austria being the Apostolic King of Hungary (with both titles on the same level).

The Austrian half, a patchwork of crown-lands, broadly coterminous with the modern-day Austria, the Czech Republic, and parts of Slovenia, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, and Croatia, was bound together by the common constitution of 1867, stating that all subjects now would carry "uniform Austrian citizenship" and have the same fundamental rights.

Until 1915, they were officially called "the Kingdoms and States Represented in the Imperial Council" and politicians used the technical term Cisleithania (labelling the Hungarian lands as Transleithania).

The lands later called Cisleithania (except Galicia and Dalmatia) were members of the German Confederation since 1815 as they had been part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1806.

The developing sense of a German nationality had been accelerated massively as a consequence of the political turmoil and wars that engulfed Central Europe following the French Revolution and the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte.

When Emperor Franz Joseph I ordered to build a monument in Vienna in 1860 to Archduke Charles, victor over Napoleon in the Battle of Aspern-Essling in 1809, it carried the dedication "To the persistent fighter for Germany's honour", to underline the Germanic mission of the House of Austria.

The idea of uniting all ethnic Germans into one nation-state began to be challenged in Austria by the rise of Austrian nationalism, especially within the Christian Social Party that identified Austrians on the basis of their predominantly Catholic religious identity as opposed to the predominantly Protestant religious identity of the Prussians.

When asked by Edward VII to abandon Austria-Hungary's alliance with Germany for co-operation with England, Franz Joseph replied "I am a German prince.

[25] While the high bureaucracy of Austria and many Austrian army officers considered themselves "black-yellow" (the Habsburg colours), i.e. loyal to the dynasty, the term "German Austria" (Deutschösterreich) was a term used in the press to mean all the Austrian districts with an ethnic German majority among the inhabitants.

[26] Although many Austrians shared the same views, a lot of them still showed allegiance to the Habsburg monarchy and hoped for Austria to remain an independent country.

[27] Although not as radical as Schönerer and his followers, populists such as Karl Lueger used anti-semitism and pan-Germanism as a form of populism to further their own political purposes.

[citation needed] The creation of the Czecho-Slovak and South Slav states, the dissolution of the real union with Hungary, and the post-war treaties imposed by the victorious Allies combined to see the newly established Austrian republic both with the boundaries it has today, and a largely homogeneous German-speaking population.

[29] The idea of unifying Austria with Germany was motivated both by a sense of a common German national identity, and also by a fear that the new state, stripped of its one-time imperial possessions, and surrounded by potentially hostile nation-states, would not be economically viable.

[30] By March 1938, with Nazi governments in control of both Berlin and Vienna, the country was annexed to Germany (Anschluss) as Ostmark.

In 1942 the name was changed to the "Alpen-und Donau-Reichsgaue" ("Alpine and Danubian Gaue"), thus eradicating any links with a special Austrian past.

[citation needed] When social democrat Adolf Schärf, from 1945 party president and vice-chancellor and from 1957 federal president of Austria, was visited by German friends who wanted to talk about post-war government, he spontaneously explained to his surprised visitors, "love for Germany has been put out in Austrians".

Though the Allied forces treated Austria as a belligerent party in the war and maintained occupation of it after the Nazi capitulation, they accepted the Declaration of Independence which Austrian politicians had signed at Vienna's city hall on April 27, 1945, and they made the first national elections possible in the autumn of that year.

Kreissler (1993) writes: "It was not until after the (long dark) night of the Third Reich that Austrian identity was brought back to consciousness by resistance and exile".

It was based on cultural achievements of the past, the Moscow Declaration, geopolitical neutrality, language variation, the Habsburg legacy, and the separation of the two empires in the late 19th century.

[41] Austria's multicultural history and geographical location has resulted in post-Soviet era immigration from Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Poland.

In terms of native language, it is generally not Austrian German that is used, but instead local dialects of the Austro-Bavarian and Allemannic (in Vorarlberg and the Tiroler Außerfern) family.

[citation needed] The minority languages Slovene, Croatian and Hungarian are spoken and officially recognized by some states of Austria.

Composers of the 18th and 19th centuries were drawn to the city by the patronage of the Habsburgs, and made Vienna the European capital of classical music.

Writers of philosophy include Ernst Mach, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Popper and the members of the Vienna circle.

In addition to native regional traditions it has been influenced above all by German, Hungarian, Czech, Jewish, Italian and Polish cuisines, from which both dishes and methods of food preparation have often been borrowed.