ABSTRACT
The historical roots, ethos and ‘mission’ of the Austrian Empire can be traced back to the Ostmark (Eastern March; hence the name Österreich, or Eastern Realm, Latinized into Austria). It was founded in 803 AD by Emperor Charlemagne as a fortified eastern outpost of Roman Catholic (Western) Christendom and of the new (Franco-German) Holy Roman Empire, of which he had been crowned Emperor by the Pope in 800 AD. From 803 to 1918 the enduring purpose and overriding ‘mission’ of the Ostmark was to stand guard over the Danubian gateway into Catholic Christendom and ward off Slav, ‘infidel’ and ‘barbarian’ incursions from the East. Throughout its long history the Austrian realm had the somewhat rigid, hard-edged, embattled spirit and mentality of a beleaguered ‘frontier state’. It continued to see itself as a bastion of specifically ‘Germanic’ Catholic values in a sea of hostile Slavs, long after its Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Croat and Polish neighbours had been converted to Catholicism. This nurtured a strong sense of internal as well as external ‘threat’. Indeed, the military and militarism of the Austrian realm eventually became ‘far more…an instrument for maintaining inner cohesion than of a defence against foreign aggressors’ (Jaszi 1929:137).
