Austrian Empire

Austria, officially the Austrian Empire (German: Kaiserthum Österreich, Hungarian: Osztrák Birodalom) is a state in Central and Eastern Europe. It borders Romagna, Parma-Modena, Sardinia-Piedmont, Switzerland, and Bavaria to the west; Saxony, Silesia and Poland to the north; Ruthenia and Romania to the east; and Bulgaria and Greece to the south. The Austrian Empire is the second largest country in Europe, excluding Russia, at 854,931 square kilometers. It has a population of 67,391,203, mostly living in the Pannonian Basin and along the river Danube. Its major cities include Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Milan and Belgrade.

The diverse state has also established an important political dominance in Europe, its emperor being the eternal president of the German Confederation, and the leader of the Imperial Alliance. The different states of Italy are also heavily influenced by the Austrian Empire, after the Treaty of Treviso established the Apennine Trade and Cooperation Agreement (ATCA).

The Austrian Empire has a very complex system of government, established in the Imperial Popular Constitution of 1931 under Kaiser Franz Ferdinand I. The state is composed of 19 federal states, each governed by a president. The members of the main house of Parliament, the Kaiserkammer, as well as each state's president, are elected democratically, the emperor having the power to override any decisions made by these organs of government.

History
The Austrian Empire was created by Francis I of Austria as a consolidation of the lands of the House of Habsburg into a single monarchy in the year 1804. After dissolving the Holy Roman Empire during the Napoleonic Wars, the German Confederation was founded in the Congress of Vienna and Francis I was made president.

Austro-Prussian War
After the 1837 Metternich reforms of the Confederation, tensions between the two major German powers began to escalate. Both Ferdinand V and Frederick II believed themselves to be the rightful rulers of the German Confederation. In 1852, Prussia declared war on Austria, and after nine months of fighting, the war ended with the Treaty of Reichenberg, which dismembered Prussia and created the Austrian-controlled Duchy of Silesia, as well as finally asserting Austrian control of the Confederation.