Croats
Croats or Croatians are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia. Croats live in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but are recognized minorities in such countries as Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Due to political and economic reasons, many Croats migrated to North and South America as well as Australia and New Zealand, establishing a diaspora in the aftermath of World War II, with grassroots assistance from earlier communities and the Roman Catholic Church. Croats are Roman Catholics; the Croatian language is official in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in the European Union, is a recognised minority language within Croatian autochthonous communities and minorities in Montenegro, Italy and Serbia. Evidence is rather scarce for the period between the 7th and 8th centuries, CE. Archaeological evidence shows population continuity in coastal Istria. In contrast, much of the Dinaric hinterland appears to have been depopulated, as all hilltop settlements, from Noricum to Dardania, were abandoned in the early 7th century.
Although the dating of the earliest Slavic settlements is still disputed, there is a hiatus of a century. The origin and nature of the Slavic migrations remain controversial, all available evidence points to the nearby Danubian and Carpathian regions; the ethnonym "Croat" is first attested in the charter of Duke Trpimir. Much uncertainty revolves around the exact circumstances of their appearance given the scarcity of literary sources during the 7th and 8th century "Dark Ages". Traditionally, scholarship has placed the arrival of the Croats in the 7th century on the basis of the Byzantine document De Administrando Imperio; as such, the arrival of the Croats was seen as a second wave of Slavic migrations, which liberated Dalmatia from Avar hegemony. However, as early as the 1970s, scholars questioned the reliability of Porphyrogenitus' work, written as it was in the 10th century. Rather than being an accurate historical account, De Administrando Imperio more reflects the political situation during the 10th century.
It served as Byzantine propaganda praising Emperor Heraclius for repopulating the Balkans with Croats, who were seen by the Byzantines as tributary peoples living on what had always been'Roman land'. Scholars have hypothesized the name Croat may be Iranian, thus suggesting that the Croatians were a Sarmatian tribe from the Pontic region who were part of a larger movement at the same time that the Slavs were moving toward the Adriatic; the major basis for this connection was the perceived similarity between Hrvat and inscriptions from the Tanais dated to the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, mentioning the name Khoroathos. Similar arguments have been made for an alleged Gothic-Croat link. Whilst there is indeed possible evidence of population continuity between Gothic and Croatian times in parts of Dalmatia, the idea of a Gothic origin of Croats was more rooted in 20th century Ustaše political aspirations than historical reality. Contemporary scholarship views the rise of "Croats" as an autochthonous, Dalmatian response to the demise of the Avar khanate and the encroachment of Frankish and Byzantine Empires into northern Dalmatia.
They appear to have been based around Klis, down to the Cetina and south of Liburnia. Here, concentrations of the "Old Croat culture" abound, marked by some wealthy warrior burials dating to the 9th century CE. Other, distinct polities existed near the Croat duchy; these included the Guduscans, the Narentines and the Sorabi who ruled some other eastern parts of ex-Roman "Dalmatia". Prominent in the territory of future Croatia was the polity of Prince Liutevid, who ruled the territories between the Drava and Sava rivers, centred from his fort at Sisak. Although Duke Liutevid and his people are seen as a "Pannonian Croats", he is, due to the lack of "evidence that they had a sense of Croat identity" referred to as dux Pannoniae Inferioris, or a Slav, by contemporary sources. However, the Croats became the dominant local power in northern Dalmatia, absorbing Liburnia and expanding their name by conquest and prestige. In the south, while having periods of independence, the Naretines "merged" with Croats under control of Croatian Kings.
With such expansion, Croatia soon became dominant power and absorb other polities between Frankish and Byzantine empire. Although the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja has been dismissed as an unreliable record, the mentioned "Red Croatia" suggests that Croatian clans and families might have settled as far south as Duklja/Zeta and city of Drač in today's Albania; the lands which constitute modern Croatia fell under three major geographic-politic zones during the Middle Ages, which were influenced by powerful neighbour Empires – notably the Byzantines, the Avars and Magyars and Bulgars. Each vied for control of the Northwest Balkan regions. Two independent Slavic dukedoms emerged sometime during the 9th century: the Croat Duchy and Principality of Lower Pannonia. Having been under Avar control, lower Pannonia became a march of the Carolingian Empire around 800. Aided by Vojnomir in 796, the first named Slavic Duke of Pannonia, the Franks wrested control of
Italians
The Italians are a Romance ethnic group and nation native to the Italian peninsula and its neighbouring insular territories. Most Italians share a common culture, ancestry or language. All Italian nationals are citizens of the Italian Republic, regardless of ancestry or nation of residence and may be distinguished from people of Italian descent without Italian citizenship and from ethnic Italians living in territories adjacent to the Italian Peninsula without Italian citizenship; the majority of Italian nationals are speakers of a regional variety thereof. However, many of them speak another regional or minority language native to Italy. In 2017, in addition to about 55 million Italians in Italy, Italian-speaking autonomous groups are found in neighbouring nations: a quarter million are in Switzerland, a large population is in France, the entire population of San Marino, there are smaller groups in Slovenia and Croatia in Istria and Dalmatia; because of the wide-ranging diaspora, about 5 million Italian citizens and nearly 80 million people of full or partial Italian ancestry live outside their own homeland, which include the 62.5% of Argentina's population, 1/3 of Uruguayans, 40% of Paraguayans, 15% of Brazilians, people in other parts of Europe bordering Italy, the Americas and the Middle East.
Italians have influenced and contributed to diverse fields, notably the arts and music and technology, cuisine, jurisprudence and business both abroad and worldwide. Furthermore, Italian people are known for their localism, both regionalist and municipalist; the Latin name Italia according to Strabo's Geographica was used by Greeks to indicate the southwestern tip of the Italian peninsula, corresponding to the current region of Calabria, from the strait of Messina to the line connecting the gulf of Salerno and gulf of Taranto. It most originates with Oscan Víteliú, meaning "land of young cattle"; the bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. The name was extended to include all the Italian peninsula south of the Rubicon, still by the end of the 1st century BC, to all of the peninsula and beyond. Latin Italicus as a substantive meaning "a man of Italy" is first recorded in Pliny the Elder, Letters 9.23.
The adjective italianus, from which are derived the Italian name of the Italians is medieval. The Italian peninsula was divided into a multitude of tribal or ethnic territory prior to the Roman conquest of Italy in the 3rd century BC. After a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, completed the conquest of the Italian peninsula by 218 BC; this period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, beginning with the First Punic War against Carthage. In the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily and Corsica. In 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, Rome became the dominant power in the Mediterranean; the process of Italian unification, the associated Romanization, culminated in 88 BC, when, in the aftermath of the Social War, Rome granted its Italian allies full rights in Roman society, extending Roman citizenship to all Italic peoples.
From its inception, Rome was a republican city-state, but four famous civil conflicts destroyed the republic: Lucius Cornelius Sulla against Gaius Marius and his son, Julius Caesar against Pompey, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus against Mark Antony and Octavian, Mark Antony against Octavian. Octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. Augustus created for the first time an administrative region called Italia with inhabitants called "Italicus populus", stretching from the Alps to Sicily: for this reason historians like Emilio Gentile called him Father of Italians. In the 1st century BC, Italia was still a collection of territories with different political statuses; some cities, called municipia, had some independence from Rome, while others, the coloniae, were founded by the Romans themselves. Around 7 BC, Augustus divided Italy into eleven regiones. During the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasions, military anarchy and civil wars, hyperinflation.
In 284, emperor Diocletian restored political stability. The importance of Rome declined; the seats of the Caesars were Augusta Treverorum for Constantius Chlorus and Sirmium (on the Riv
Austrian Riviera
The Austrian Riviera was a term used for advertising the seaside resorts on the Adriatic coast of the Austrian crown lands of Gorizia and Istria. The name arose with the emergence of tourism in the Austrian Littoral from the mid 19th century onwards and was common until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I; the Riviera covered the coastal areas centered around the Imperial Free City of Trieste and its port, it stretched from the Grado via Duino, Brioni to Abbazia and the border with the Habsburg Kingdom of Croatia. The southeastern continuation is called the Croatian Littoral. Today split between Italy and Croatia, the coast still presents a picturesque landscape, numerous historic buildings, a year-round mild Mediterranean climate; the Austrian coast ran from the border with the Kingdom of Italy on the Gulf of Trieste down to Pola on the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula and to Opatija on the Kvarner Gulf. The Istrian coast up to Trieste is now part of the Italian municipality of Muggia, the Coastal-Karst of Slovenia, the County of Istria in Croatia.
The coast north of Trieste is rocky, sandy, with the Laguna di Grado. In Ancient Roman times the region was the site of important settlements like Aquileia. From the Late Middle Ages until the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio, most of the area was administrated by the Republic of Venice, while in 1382, Trieste was joined with the Habsburg Monarchy which controlled most of the hinterland. Trieste developed into an important port and trade hub and by 1719 a free port was constituted and further developed as the Habsburg Austria's principal commercial port and shipbuilding center; the Habsburgs had acquired the adjacent lands of Gorizia and held some smaller eastern Istrian territories which were administrated within Inner Austria. In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, the remaining coastal villages became part of the new Austrian Empire and the completion of the Southern Railway line from Vienna to Trieste in 1857 not only helped to further develop trade between the two cities but brought Viennese upper class society to the mild winters of the Littoral.
Trieste developed into a buzzing cosmopolitan city visited by artists, musicians and writers from all over the Austrian Empire and the rest of Europe. The surrounding coastal towns and villages developed into favorite hot spots for the rich and famous. In 1850, Lošinj became a summer residence of the Habsburg Imperial family, in 1860 Miramare Castle was completed for Archduke Maximilian. In 1883, the beach resort on Brijuni Islands was set up, in 1904 the Austrian Riviera Journal was first published in Pula. Resorts: Grado Duino Sistiana Muggia Portorož Poreč Rovinj Opatija Lovran Mali Lošinj Several luxury hotels were built during this era, like the Hotel Kvarner in Opatija and Hotel Palace in Portorož; the eastern shore of Kvarner Gulf was under administration of the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary with additional resorts developing, like Kraljevica and Novi Vinodolski. In 1919, after World War I, the Austrian Riviera became part of Italy and was cut off from most of its hinterland. During the 1920s, the Riviera flourished somewhat as a "Austro-Italian Riviera", but the splendor of its heyday was gone.
The French Riviera and Italian Riviera in the western Mediterranean became more favorable resorts. In 1947 Trieste, together with a small stretch of the adjacent coast became an independent Free Territory of Trieste. However, in 1954, the Free Territory was abolished, its territory split between Italy and Yugoslavia. Trieste, Grado and Muggia remained part of Italy. After the political closure of most of the Adriatic Coast in 1945 due to the Cold War, the State of Carinthia in Austria began to call its Wörthersee lake district the "Austrian Riviera." Slovenian Littoral Venezia Giulia Istria Riviera, featuring links to articles on the many coastal strips around the world which are known as Riviera Trieste and its Riviera
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a Central European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, it was the third most populous empire after the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom in Europe. Along with Prussia, it was one of the two major powers of the German Confederation. Geographically, it was the third largest empire in Europe after the Russian Empire and the First French Empire. Proclaimed in response to the First French Empire, it overlapped with the Holy Roman Empire until the latter's dissolution in 1806; the Kingdom of Hungary – as Regnum Independens – was administered by its own institutions separately from the rest of the empire. After Austria was defeated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 was adopted, joining together the Kingdom of Hungary and the Empire of Austria to form Austria-Hungary; the power of nationalism to create new states was irresistible in the 19th century, the process could lead to collapse in the absence of a strong nationalism.
The Austrian Empire had the advantage of size, but multiple disadvantages. There were rivals on four sides, its finances were unstable, the population was fragmented into multiple ethnicities and languages that served as the bases for separatist nationalism, it had a large army with good forts. Its naval resources were so minimal, it typified by Metternich. They employed a grand strategy for survival that balanced out different forces, set up buffer zones, kept the Habsburg empire going despite wars with the Ottomans, Frederick the Great and Bismarck, until the final disaster of the First World War; the Empire overnight disintegrated into multiple states based on nationalism. Changes shaping the nature of the Holy Roman Empire took place during conferences in Rastatt and Regensburg. On 24 March 1803, the Imperial Recess was declared, which reduced the number of ecclesiastical states from 81 to only 3 and the free imperial cities from 51 to 6; this measure was aimed at replacing the old constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, but the actual consequence of the Imperial Recess was the end of the empire.
Taking this significant change into consideration, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II created the title Emperor of Austria, for himself and his successors. In 1804, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, ruler of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, founded the Empire of Austria, in which all his lands were included. In doing so he created a formal overarching structure for the Habsburg Monarchy, which had functioned as a composite monarchy for about three hundred years, he did so because he foresaw either the end of the Holy Roman Empire, or the eventual accession as Holy Roman Emperor of Napoleon, who had earlier that year adopted the title of an Emperor of the French. To safeguard his dynasty's imperial status he adopted the additional hereditary title of Emperor of Austria. Apart from now being included in a new "Kaiserthum", the workings of the overarching structure and the status of its component lands at first stayed much the same as they had been under the composite monarchy that existed before 1804.
This was demonstrated by the status of the Kingdom of Hungary, a country that had never been a part of the Holy Roman Empire and which had always been considered a separate realm—a status, affirmed by Article X, added to Hungary's constitution in 1790 during the phase of the composite monarchy and described the state as a Regnum Independens. Hungary's affairs remained administered by its own institutions, thus no Imperial institutions were involved in its government. The fall and dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was accelerated by French intervention in the Empire in September 1805. On 20 October 1805, an Austrian army led by General Karl Mack von Leiberich was defeated by French armies near the town of Ulm; the French victory resulted in the capture of many cannons. Napoleon's army won another victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805. Francis was forced into negotiations with the French from 4 to 6 December 1805, which concluded with an armistice on 6 December 1805; the French victories encouraged rulers of certain imperial territories to ally themselves with the French and assert their formal independence from the Empire.
On 10 December 1805, Maximilian IV Joseph, the prince-elector and Duke of Bavaria, proclaimed himself King, followed by the Duke of Württemberg Frederick III on 11 December. Charles Frederick, Margrave of Baden, was given the title of Grand Duke on 12 December; each of these new states became French allies. The Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria, signed in Pressburg on 26 December, enlarged the territory of Napoleon's German allies at the expense of defeated Austria. Francis II agreed to the humiliating Treaty of Pressburg, which in practice meant the dissolution of the long-lived Holy Roman Empire and a reorganization under a Napoleonic imprint of the German territories lost in the process into a precursor state of what became modern Germany, those possessions nominally having been part of the Holy Roman Empire within the present boundaries of Germany, as well as other measures weakening Austria and the Habsburgs in other ways. Certain Austrian holdings in
Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca
The Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca was a crown land of the Habsburg dynasty within the Austrian Littoral on the Adriatic Sea, in what is now a multilingual border area of Italy and Slovenia. It was named for its two major urban centers and Gradisca d'Isonzo; the province stretched along the Soča/Isonzo River, from its source at Mt. Jalovec in the Julian Alps down to the Gulf of Trieste near Monfalcone. In the northwest, the Predil Pass led to the Duchy of Carinthia, in the northeast Mts. Mangart and Triglav marked the border with the Duchy of Carniola. In the west, Mts. Kanin and Matajur stood on the border with the Friulian region, which until the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio was part of the Republic of Venice, from 1815 onwards belonged to the Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia and to the re-established Kingdom of Italy from 1866. In the south the province bordered on the territory of the Imperial Free City of Trieste and the Margraviate of Istria; the medieval County of Görz had been acquired by the Austrian Habsburgs in 1500, when the last Meinhardiner count Leonhard died without heir.
Habsburg suzerainty was interrupted by the Venetians in 1508/09, before Görz was incorporated into the Inner Austrian territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1647 Emperor Ferdinand III elevated the Görz town of Gradisca to an immediate county for the descendants of privy councillor Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. After the princely House of Eggenberg had become extinct, Gradisca was re-unified with Gorizia in 1754, creating the County of Gorizia and Gradisca. During the Napoleonic Wars and Gradisca fell under French rule. In 1805, all of its territories on the right bank of the Isonzo river were assigned to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy; the majority of its territory remained part of the Austrian Empire until 1809, when it was incorporated into the Illyrian Provinces under direct domination of the French Empire. In 1813, Austrian rule was restored; the county was re-established in its former borders, including the former enclaves of Monfalcone and Grado, under Venetian control before 1797.
However, in 1816 the county was combined with the Duchies of Carniola and Carinthia, the Imperial Free City of Trieste, the March of Istria and its associated islands to form a wider administrative unit named the Kingdom of Illyria, with the capital in Laibach. In 1849, the Kingdom of Illyria was dissolved, the Austrian Littoral was formed, comprising the County of Gorizia and Gradisca and Istria. In 1861, the territory of the County gained autonomy as the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, a crown land within Austria-Hungary; the County had its own provincial parliament and enjoyed a large degree of self-government, although it was formally subjected to an Imperial Governor with the seat in Trieste, who carried out the government supervision for the whole territory of the Austrian Littoral. In 1915, Italy entered World War I against Austria-Hungary; the western part of the county was devastated by the Battles of the Isonzo, fought between the two armies. In August 1916, Gorizia was occupied by Italian troops for the first time in its history, but in November 1917 the Austro-Hungarian Army threw the Italian forces back in the Battle of Caporetto.
Large numbers of the population were interned in civil camps around Austria-Hungary and Italy, while half of the province's territory laid in ruins. In Spring 1918, two mass political movements emerged in the county, demanding larger autonomy within a federalized Habsburg Monarchy; the Slovenes demanded the union with other South Slavic peoples into a sovereign Yugoslav state, while the Friulians demanded special autonomy for the western part of the region, where they were the majority. The two movements did not clash; the only open issue was the town of Gorizia, claimed by the Friulians. An underground movement, known as Italia irredenta, demanded the unification of Gorizia with Italy. With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in late October 1918, a short interim period followed, in which no movement was able to establish its authority. In November 1918, the whole territory of the county was occupied by the Italian military which suppressed all political movements challenging her claims on the region.
In November 1918, the county was abolished and incorporated in the provisional administrative region of Julian March. With the treaties of Rapallo and Saint Germain-en-Laye of 1920, the whole territory of the county became an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy; the former Habsburg policy favouring local autonomies was replaced by a strict centralism. The Province of Gorizia was established, which had little self-government compared to the old county; the borders of the new province were partially changed. The new province included some areas of the former Austrian Duchy of Carniola that were assigned to Italy by the Peace Treaty. On the other hand, most of the territory in the Karst region, which had belonged to the County of Gorizia and Gradisca, was incorporated in the Province of Trieste, while the district of Cervignano was included in the Province of Udine. In 1924, the Province of Gorizia was abolished and i
House of Habsburg
The House of Habsburg called the House of Austria, was one of the most influential and distinguished royal houses of Europe. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs from 1438 until their extinction in the male line in 1740; the house produced emperors and kings of the Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Germany, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia, Kingdom of Illyria, Second Mexican Empire, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of Spain, as well as rulers of several Dutch and Italian principalities. From the 16th century, following the reign of Charles V, the dynasty was split between its Austrian and Spanish branches. Although they ruled distinct territories, they maintained close relations and intermarried; the House takes its name from Habsburg Castle, a fortress built in the 1020s in present-day Switzerland, in the canton of Aargau, by Count Radbot of Klettgau, who chose to name his fortress Habsburg. His grandson Otto II was the first to take the fortress name as his own, adding "Count of Habsburg" to his title.
The House of Habsburg gathered dynastic momentum through the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries. By 1276, Count Radbot's seventh generation descendant Rudolph of Habsburg moved the family's power base from Habsburg Castle to the Duchy of Austria. Rudolph became King of Germany in 1273, the dynasty of the House of Habsburg was entrenched in 1276 when Rudolph became ruler of Austria, which the Habsburgs and their descendants ruled until 1918. A series of dynastic marriages enabled the family to vastly expand its domains to include Burgundy and its colonial empire, Bohemia and other territories. In the 16th century, the family separated into the senior Habsburg Spain and the junior Habsburg Monarchy branches, who settled their mutual claims in the Oñate treaty; the House of Habsburg became extinct in the 18th century. The senior Spanish branch ended upon the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and was replaced by the House of Bourbon; the remaining Austrian branch became extinct in the male line in 1740 with the death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, in 1780 with the death of his eldest daughter Maria Theresa of Austria.
It was succeeded by the Vaudémont branch of the House of Lorraine, descendants of Maria Theresa's marriage to Francis III, Duke of Lorraine. The new successor house styled itself formally as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, because it was confusingly still referred to as the House of Habsburg, historians use the unofficial appellation of the Habsburg Monarchy for the countries and provinces that were ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg between 1521 and 1780 and by the successor branch of Habsburg-Lorraine until 1918; the Lorraine branch continues to exist to this day and its members use the Habsburg name. The Habsburg Empire had the advantage of size, but multiple disadvantages. There were rivals on four sides, its finances were unstable, the population was fragmented into multiple ethnicities, its industrial base was thin, its naval resources were so minimal. It typified by Metternich. Along with the Capetian dynasty, it was one of the two most powerful continental European royal families, dominating European politics for nearly five centuries.
Their principal roles were as follows: Holy Roman Emperors, kings of Germany, kings of the Romans) Rulers of Austria Kings of Bohemia Kings of Hungary and Croatia Kings of Spain Kings of Portugal Kings of Galicia and Lodomeria Grand princes of Transylvania Numerous other titles were attached to the crowns listed above. The progenitor of the House of Habsburg may have been Guntram the Rich, a count in the Breisgau who lived in the 10th century, forewith farther back as the early medieval Adalrich, Duke of Alsace, father of the Etichonids from which Habsburg derives, his grandson Radbot, Count of Habsburg founded the Habsburg Castle, after which the Habsburgs are named. The origins of the castle's name, located in what is now the Swiss canton of Aargau, are uncertain. There is disagreement on whether the name is derived from the High German Habichtsburg, or from the Middle High German word hab/hap meaning ford, as there is a river with a ford nearby; the first documented use of the name by the dynasty itself has been traced to the year 1108.
The Habsburg Castle was the family seat in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Habsburgs expanded their influence through arranged marriages and by gaining political privileges countship rights in Zürichgau and Thurgau. In the 13th century, the house aimed its marriage policy at families in Upper Swabia, they were able to gain high positions in the church hierarchy for their members. Territorially, they profited from the extinction of other noble families such as the House of Kyburg. By the second half of the 13th century, count Rudolph IV had become one of the most influential territorial lords in the area between the Vosg
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy, was a constitutional monarchy in Central and Eastern Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed by giving a new constitution to the Austrian Empire, which devolved powers on Austria and Hungary and placed them on an equal footing, it broke apart into several states at the end of World War I. The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies, one autonomous region: the The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown, which negotiated the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement in 1868, it was ruled by the House of Habsburg, constituted the last phase in the constitutional evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal. Foreign affairs and the military came under joint oversight, but all other governmental faculties were divided between respective states.
Austria-Hungary was a multinational one of Europe's major powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 km2, the third-most populous; the Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States and the United Kingdom. Austria-Hungary became the world's third largest manufacturer and exporter of electric home appliances, electric industrial appliances and power generation apparatus for power plants, after the United States and the German Empire. After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was annexed in 1908, provoking the Bosnian crisis among the other powers; the northern part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Novi Pazar was under de facto joint occupation during that period but the Austro-Hungarian army withdrew as part of their annexation of Bosnia. The annexation of Bosnia led to Islam being recognized as an official state religion due to Bosnia's Muslim population.
Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I which started when it declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia on 28 July 1914. It was effectively dissolved by the time the military authorities signed the armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918; the Kingdom of Hungary and the First Austrian Republic were treated as its successors de jure, whereas the independence of the West Slavs and South Slavs of the Empire as the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Second Polish Republic and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and most of the territorial demands of the Kingdom of Romania were recognized by the victorious powers in 1920. The realm's official name was in German: Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie and in Hungarian: Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia, though in the international relations better Austria-Hungary was used; the Austrians used the names k. u. k. Monarchie and Danubian Monarchy or Dual Monarchy and The Double Eagle, but none of these became widepsread neither in Hungary, nor elsewhere.
The realm's full name used in the internal administration was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen. German: Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der Heiligen Ungarischen Stephanskrone Hungarian: A Birodalmi Tanácsban képviselt királyságok és országok és a Magyar Szent Korona országai The Habsburg monarch ruled as Emperor of Austria over the western and northern half of the country, the Austrian Empire and as King of Hungary over the Kingdom of Hungary; each enjoyed considerable sovereignty with only a few joint affairs. Certain regions, such as Polish Galicia within Cisleithania and Croatia within Transleithania, enjoyed autonomous status, each with its own unique governmental structures; the division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship: one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both. This meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, never a common one.
However, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports which were written in Croatian and French and displayed the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia on them, it is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the control of both Austria and Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary after the Austrian Empire was created in 1804; the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire. Hungary's central government structures remained well separated from the Austrian imperial government; the country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary – located in Pressburg and in Pest – and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancell
Subdivisions of Austria-Hungary