Further Austria

Further Austria, Outer Austria or Anterior Austria (German: Vorderösterreich, formerly die Vorlande (pl.)) was the collective name for the early possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-western Germany, including territories in the Alsace region west of the Rhine and in Vorarlberg.

While the territories of Further Austria west of the Rhine and south of Lake Constance were gradually lost to France and the Swiss Confederacy, those in Swabia and Vorarlberg remained under Habsburg control until the Napoleonic Era.

Further Austria mainly comprised the Sundgau territory with the town of Belfort in southern Alsace and the adjacent Breisgau region east of the Rhine, including Freiburg im Breisgau after 1368. Also ruled from the Habsburg residence in Ensisheim near Mühlhausen were numerous scattered territories stretching from Upper Swabia to the Allgäu region in the east, the largest being the margravate of Burgau between the cities of Augsburg and Ulm. During the Habsburg Monarchy they were humorously called "tail feathers of the Imperial Eagle". Some estates in Vorarlberg possessed by the Habsburgs were also considered part of Further Austria, though they were temporarily directly administered from Tyrol.

The original home territories of the Habsburgs, the Aargau with Habsburg Castle and much of the other original possessions south of the High Rhine and Lake Constance were already lost in the 14th century to the expanding Swiss Confederacy after the battles of Morgarten (1315) and Sempach (1386). These territories were never considered part of Further Austria - except for the Fricktal region around Rheinfelden and Laufenburg, which remained a Habsburg possession until 1797.

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