In addition to the general import and export trade, Austria carried on a very considerable amount of business in the transit of goods through her territory. In 1914 the total value of imports into Austria-Hungary was £114,716,000, of exports £83,996,000; the value of imports in 1913 was £141,433,000, the exports £115,129,000. Among imports were cotton and other fibres, textile goods and yarn, metals, machinery, drugs, chemicals, oils, fats, hides, skins, &c. The chief exports were cereals, animals, metallic goods, woven fabrics, pottery and glass manufactures. Nearly two-thirds of the commerce are with Germany, next in importance being the trade with Roumania, Italy, and Russia. The exports direct to the United Kingdom in 1913 were £7,705,949; the imports of British produce direct, £4,480,760; but these amounts do not include indirect exports and imports through other countries. The staple exports to the United Kingdom were corn and flour. The chief imports from it were cotton manufactures, machinery and metals, woollen goods, fish, &c. In 1913 the mercantile navy of Austria had a total burden of about 471,252 tons. The principal ports were Trieste, in Austria, and Fiume, in Hungary.
None of the European States, except Russia, exhibited such a diversity of race and language as the former dual monarchy. The Slavs—who differ greatly, however, amongst themselves in language and civilization—amounted to above 20,000,000, or 46 per cent of the total population, and formed the great mass of the population of Bohemia, Moravia, Carniola, Galicia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia, and Northern Hungary, and half the population of Silesia and Bukowina. The Germans, about 9,950,266, formed almost the sole population of the archduchy of Austria, Salzburg, the greatest portion of Styria and Carinthia, almost the whole of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, large portions of Bohemia and Moravia, the whole of West Silesia, &c.; and they were also numerous in Hungary and Transylvania. The Magyars or Hungarians (10,061,549) formed nearly half of the inhabitants of the former Kingdom of Hungary and the connected provinces.
The State religion of the former dual monarchy was the Roman Catholic. In 1910 there were in the Austrian portion of the monarchy 22,530,000 Roman Catholics, 3,417,000 Greek Catholics united to the Roman Church, 689,000 non-united, 589,000 Protestants, and 1,314,000 Jews.
The intellectual culture of the people was highest in the German provinces, but in some of the other provinces the percentage of uneducated was very high. Attendance at the elementary schools was compulsory on all children from their sixth to the end of their fourteenth year in most of the Austrian provinces; to at least the twelfth year in the whole empire. There were numerous gymnasia and 'real schools', the gymnasia being
intended chiefly to prepare pupils for the universities, while in the real schools a more practical end was kept in view, and modern languages and physical science formed the groundwork of the educational course. The technical high schools in Austria were very important institutions, and there are many other special schools where the students received training in mining, agriculture, industries of all kinds, art, music, commerce, &c. In 1917 there were eight universities maintained by the State, viz. in Vienna, Prague (2), Gratz, Cracow, Lemberg, Innsbruck, and Czernowitz. Most of these have four faculties—Catholic theology, law and politics, medicine, and philosophy.
Before the revolution of 1918 the ruler of the dual monarchy had the title of emperor in his Austrian dominions, but he was only king of Hungary. The Parliament of the Austrian division of the empire was known as the Reichsrath, or council of the realm, consisting of an Upper House (Herrenhaus), composed of princes of the imperial family, nobles with the hereditary right to sit, archbishops, and life-members nominated by the Emperor; and a Lower House (Abgeordnetenhaus) of 516 deputies elected on the basis of universal suffrage. There were seventeen provincial Diets or Assemblies, each provincial division having one. In the Hungarian division of the Empire the legislature was a Parliament consisting of an Upper House or House of Magnates and of a Lower House or House of Representatives, the latter elected by all citizens of full age paying a small amount in taxes, or otherwise qualified. Its powers corresponded to those of the Austrian Parliament or Reichsrath. All matters affecting the joint interests of the two divisions of the monarchy, such as foreign affairs, war, and finance, were dealt with by the Parliaments of the two States. There were three Budgets, viz. one for common affairs, one for Austria, and one for Hungary. The Budget estimates for the former Austrian kingdom in 1913 were £130,716,773 (the revenue balancing the expenditure). In 1918 the estimates were: expenditure 24,321,140,000 crowns, revenue 4,854,789 crowns. Austria's special debt in Feb., 1918, was placed at 54,081,765,681 crowns, of which 29,274,603,300 crowns were war debt. On 20th Nov., 1918, the Provisional Government of the Austrian Republic passed a law adopting the Budget of 1918-9, and empowering the Minister of Finance to make good the difference between revenue and expenditure.
Military service was compulsory and universal throughout the dual monarchy. The old Austro-Hungarian army numbered about 820,000 men on a peace footing.
History.—In 791 Charlemagne drove the Avars from the territory between the Ens and the Raab, and united it to his empire under the name of the Eastern Mark (that is, March or boundary land); and from the establishment by him of a margraviate in this new province the former Austrian Empire took its rise. On the invasion of Germany by the Hungarians it became subject to them from 900 till 955, when Otho I, by the victory of Augsburg, reunited a great part of this province to the German Empire, which by 1043 had extended its limits to the Leitha. The margraviate of Austria was hereditary in the family of the Counts of Babenberg (Bamberg) from 982 till 1156, in which year the boundaries of Austria were extended so as to include the territory above the Ens, and the whole was created a duchy. The territory was still further increased in 1192 by the gift of the duchy of Styria as a fief from the Emperor Henry VI, Vienna being by this time the capital. The male line of the House of Bamberg became extinct in 1246, and the Emperor Frederick II declared Austria and Styria a vacant fief, the hereditary property of the German emperors. In 1282 the Emperor Rudolph granted Austria, Styria, and Carinthia to his two sons, Albert and Rudolph. The former became sole ruler (duke), and since then, until 12th Nov., 1918, Austria remained under the House of Habsburg. Albert, who was an energetic ruler, was elected emperor in 1298, but was assassinated in 1308. The first of his successors whom we need specially mention was Albert V, son-in-law of the Emperor Sigismund. He assisted Sigismund in the Hussite wars, and was elected, after his death, King of Hungary and of Bohemia, and German emperor (1438). Ladislaus, his posthumous son, was the last of the Austrian line proper, and its possessions devolved upon the collateral Styrian line in 1457; since which time the House of Austria furnished an unbroken succession of German emperors.
In 1453 the Emperor Frederick III, a member of this House, had conferred upon the country the rank of an archduchy before he himself became ruler of all Austria. His son Maximilian I, by his marriage with Mary, the surviving daughter of Charles the Bold, united the Netherlands to the Austrian dominions. After the death of his father, in 1493, Maximilian was made Emperor of Germany, and transferred to his son Philip the government of the Netherlands. He also added to his paternal inheritance Tyrol, with several other territories, particularly some belonging to Bavaria, and acquired for his family new claims to Hungary and Bohemia. The marriage of his son Philip to Joanna of Spain raised the House of Habsburg to the throne of Spain. Philip, however, died in 1506, and the death of Maximilian, in 1519, was followed by the union of Spain and Austria, his grandson (the eldest son of Philip), Charles I, King of
Spain, being elected Emperor of Germany as Charles V. Charles thus became the greatest monarch in Europe, but in 1521 he ceded to his brother Ferdinand all his dominions in Germany. Ferdinand I, by his marriage with Anna, the sister of Louis II, King of Hungary, acquired the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, with Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, the appendages of Bohemia. To oppose him the woywode of Transylvania, John Zapolya, sought the help of the Sultan, Soliman II, who appeared in 1529 at the gates of Vienna, but was compelled to retreat. In 1535 a treaty was made by which John Zapolya was allowed to retain the royal title and half of Hungary, but after his death new disputes arose, and Ferdinand maintained the possession of Lower Hungary only by paying Soliman the sum of 30,000 ducats annually (1562). In 1556 Ferdinand obtained the imperial crown, when his brother Charles laid by the sceptre for a cowl. He died in 1564, leaving his territories to be divided amongst his three sons.