The interest in the forest history of Austria lies especially in the fact that private forest property in large holdings is predominant, and that large areas are still untouched or just opened to exploitation, so that Austria is still in the list of export countries, although in some parts intensive management has been long in existence.
In the main, although movements for reform in forest use date back to the middle ages, the condition of forestry in Austria was past the middle of the 19th century still most deplorable, and in a stage of development which most of the German States had passed long before; but in the last 50 years such progress has been made that both science and practice stand nearly if not quite on the same level with those of their German neighbors.
If Germany exhibits in its different parts a great variety of development, political and economic, Austria, although long under one family of rulers (since 1526), exhibits a still greater variety due to racial, natural, and historical differences within its own borders. It is, indeed, an extraordinary and singular country, without an equal of its kind (except perhaps Turkey) in that it is not a national, but a dynastic power, composed of unrelated states or lands, with people speaking different languages, mixed races widely different in character. These were gradually aggregated under one head or ruling family, the Hapsburgs, who as Archdukes of Austria occupied the elective position of German Emperors for several generations, and after the collapse of the Empire, in 1806, retained the title and called themselves Emperors of Austria.
The Kingdom of Hungary alone (which was joined to the Hapsburg dominions by election of its people in 1526, and under new relations in 1867), with at least 50% Hungarians, is a national unit with a national language (Magyar), while all other parts have in their composition preponderatingly Slavish population, although German elements have the ascendancy more or less everywhere.
Not less than 10 different languages are spoken among the forty odd million people, of whom the Germans comprise about one-quarter, the Hungarians one-third, the balance being Slavs.
Originally, this section of the country was occupied by Germans with the German institution of the Mark, but, when the Slavish and Magyar tribes pressed in from the East, it became the meeting ground of the three races, and during the first 1,000 years after Christ the “East Mark” formed the bulwark of the German empire against the eastern invaders, who, were, in succession, the Slavs, the Huns, the Turks.