Servus and welcome to Vienna, the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria,
Germany‘s Canada. Not but seriously, Vienna is a beautiful city and one that is so important
to Central European history that I may or may not reuse some of this stock footage for
another video another time-- I mean it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that-- but we’re
not here to talk about the city, we’re here to talk about the country. Germany and Austria
have a more or less similar culture and speak more or less the same language, but probably
the worst mistake you can make here is saying they‘re the same, so why exactly are Germany
and Austria separate countries?
Well part of the answer actually has more to do with why places like Bavaria or Baden
or Lower Saxony are part of Germany. You see, while the idea of there being a German-speaking
country near the center of Europe called “Germany” is something I’d imagine most of us are
pretty used to by now, this hasn’t always been the case. Germany was first unified as
one singular state in 1871 by the man himself Otto Von Bismarck. Before that though Germany
was split up into dozens of small kingdoms, some merely city-states and some the size
of small kingdoms. For over 1,000 years the dominating order over these small states was
something called the Holy Roman Empire. Now history YouTubers all like to point out how
the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, Roman, nor an empire, but for our intents and purposes
it definitely wasn’t an empire, it was more of a political union between all these small,
nominally independent states, all bowing down to the authority of the emperor, who always
lived off somewhere within the empire, it changed a lot though.
Because of the crazy wack politics of the HRE, there were numerous different powers
all vying for greater influence within the union, one sort of example being the Hanseatic
League, but by the 18th century there were two dominating powers within the union: Brandenburg
Prussia in the north and Austria in the south (I think you can already see where this is
going, but I’m going to take the long way around, just so we can make this into a video).
Austria’s House of Habsburg (known today as the main reason why incest is indeed a
bad thing) had already had control over the crown of the HRE for around 300 years before
these times, but now Prussia started to emerge on the scene as a new power. Now, Prussia
and Austria actually both liked the idea of a united German-speaking state, but the disagreement
here (as would start to repeat itself again and again in world history) was who would
control it. So which city do you think should be the capital of a united German state? “Berlin!/Wien!”
they both said at the same time, so that’s kind of where all the drama starts (as if
it hasn’t already). However, the Holy Roman Empire was not much
longer for this world, as Napoleon conquered the area and dismantled the old union in 1806,
reestablishing most of the old states (aside from Prussia and Austria) as the Confederation
of the Rhine. This new Confederation was in turn quickly dissolved after a Prussian victory
against France, when they established the German Confederation, which encompassed all
the old territories of the Holy Roman Empire, including Prussia and Austria, but not including
the territories they held that weren’t previously part of the HRE. This meant that there were
effectively parts of Prussia and Austria that weren’t part of this confederation (history
is weird sometimes). As a kind of a loose example, that would be like if part of Denmark
weren’t part of the European Union… oh, right. The area was then again pushed to a
boiling point with the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which resulted in a decisive Prussian
victory and the establishment of the North German Confederation. Then once Bavaria, Baden,
and Württemberg were incorporated after a Prussian victory against France, Otto von
Bismarck proclaimed the German Empire (the second one) in 1871, crowning King Wilhelm
I as Kaiser Wilhelm I… but alas Austria wasn‘t a part of this new nation.
But before the German Confederation fell— indeed right after it first formed— there
was one question that needed to be answered: will it blend? But also, should Austria be
a part of this new greater Germany? Well for that there were two solutions: the Greater
German Solution or the Smaller German Solution— die Groß oder Kleindeutsche Lösung— which
basically put out what Germany would look like with or without Austria, and thus either
a small Germany or a thicc Germany (I‘m so sorry, I‘m never saying that again).
Austria however had one big thorn in its side if it did want to be a part of Germany; Germany
was united through a common language and culture, basically everyone in Germany was a German-speaking
German. Austria however was very much not, although this was true with core Austria,
this was absolutely not true with the rest of their empire, which was made up of Hungarians,
Serbs, Croats, Poles, Czechs, Romanians, etc. This can be seen as we start to look at what
happened after all this took place, as the Austrian Empire became the empire of Austria-Hungary,
which wasn‘t too long for this world in the age of nationalism. After World War I,
Austria-Hungary broke and now Austria was just this little turkey leg up in the Alps.
Then a guy with a bad moustache and an even worse agenda, who happened to be from Austria,
wanted to unify all the German-speaking lands and so merged Austria and Germany for the
course of World War II until his side lost the war and Germany and Austria were split
up amongst the Allied powers. During this time however, not only were there now two
Germanys and an Austria, but the Allied Powers also declared that Germany and Austria could
not be allowed to unify, although I should probably point out that that was also specified
in the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, but still. In addition, basically the only way
Austria was able to keep itself from being split apart like Germany was through declaring
neutrality in the Cold War, which the two Germanys definitely did not do.
Of course, Austria and Germany today aren‘t exactly in a rush to form a union between
themselves. But yeah, basically Austria didn’t join at first because they were kind of off
doing their own thing, and then crazy moustache-man happened and the Allies forbid the two countries
from reunifying… assuming they even wanted to at all. Besides, as both countries are
members of the EU, Eurozone, and Schengen Area, what would exactly be the point of that
today? Now, as for why Australia isn‘t part of Germany, well…
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