t the
Austria-Hungary of to-day is a state of fifty-two million inhabitants,
divided into three component parts: _(a)_ the Empire of Austria, _(b)_ the
Kingdom of Hungary, each with subdivisions which will be referred to later,
and _(c)_ the annexed provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, jointly administered
by the two Governments. But this bald fact is meaningless except in
connection with the historical genesis of the Habsburg State.

[Illustration: AUSTRIA-HUNGARY; PHYSICAL]

Austria--_Oesterreich_--is the ancient Eastmark or frontier province, the
outpost of Carlovingian power against the tribes of the east, then of
the mediaeval German Empire against Slav and Magyar. Under the House of
Habsburg, which first rose to greatness on the ruins of a Greater Bohemia,
Austria grew steadily stronger as a distinct unit. Two famous mottoes sum
up the policy of that dynasty in the earlier centuries of its existence.
_Austriae est Imperare Orbi Universo_ (Austria's it is to Rule the
Universe) ran the device of that canny Frederick III., who, amid much
adversity, laid the plans which prompted an equally striking epigram about
his son and successor Maximilian, the "Last of the Knights"--_Bella gerant
alii, tu, felix Austria, nube_ (Let others wage war; do thou marry, O
fortunate Austria!). There were three great stages in Habsburg marriage
policy. In 1479 Maximilian married the heiress of Charles the Bold, thus
acquiring the priceless dowry of the Low Countries (what are now Belgium
and Holland). In 1506 his son Philip added the crown of Spain and the
Indies by his marriage with the heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella. In
1526, when the battle of Mohacs placed Hungary at the mercy of the Turks,
Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand, in his wife's name, united Bohemia,
Hungary, and Croatia with the Austrian duchies.

Henceforth for over two centuries Austria and Habsburg became the bulwark
of Christendom against the Turks; though delayed by wars of religion and by
the excesses of religious bigotry, they yet never lost sight of the final
goal. Twice--at the beginning and at the end of this period, in 1527 and
1683--the Turks were before the very walls of Vienna, but the second of
these occasions represents their final effort. In the closing years of the
seventeenth and the first two decades of the eighteenth centuries the tide
finally rolled back against them. Foremost among the victors stands out the
great name of Prince Eugene, comrade-in-arms