The New Austria and the Outside World

Abstract

The Social Democrat leaders, in the period 1918–20, found themselves not only taking the lead in ordering the affairs of the new Republic, or at least those of Vienna and the industrial south-east, leavingthe western Lands to go very much their own way. They also had to face the victorious Allied Powers and their immediate neighbours. Of these, the new states, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, were now counted as lesser allied powers. Hungary, like Austria itself, was usually reckoned an ex-enemy; internally, during this period, it veered from progressive liberalism to ‘Red’ Communism and then back to ‘White’ reaction. Germany was the great ex-enemy power; internally, it was still a battleground for rival political forces ranging from ‘Red’ to ‘White’.