Austrian colonial policy

Although the Austrian colonial policy in the second half of the 18th century competed with similar efforts in Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Great Britain and the Netherlands, could be compared in scope and effectiveness but rather with the Brandenburg -Prussia and Courland.

Trieste East India Company

Support of the Austrian colonial aspirations was founded by Archduchess Maria Theresa East India Company in Trieste, which had been declared a free port in 1719. From 1776 their ships under the flag of the Austrian Habsburgs ruled by the Holy Roman Empire and under the command of the Dutchman William Bolts, who had previously been working for the British East India Company.

East Africa

In March 1777 the ships of the trading company the Delagoa Bay (now Maputo Bay, Mozambique) reached on the southeast coast of Africa and acquired by a chief port of the previously abandoned by the Dutch East India Company territory. A small attachment with ten men was erected and declared the Austrian colony before the ships sailed on towards India. 1781 was the bay lost to Portugal.

1783 submitted to the adventurer Moritz Benjowski the Viennese court proposed to conquer Madagascar under the Austrian flag, but received except benevolent words, no financial or military support for his company.

South Asia

Already in 1719 the Ostend Company ( Austrian Netherlands) had first established trading factories in Bengal, but the company had been dissolved on Dutch and British pressure in 1731.

Although Denmark had laid claim to the Nicobar Islands, the ships of the triester trading company acquired in 1778 by the locals some Nicobar Islands ( Nancowry, Camorta, trinket, Katchal and Teressa, named after Maria Theresa) and also they explained to the Austrian crown colonies. At the Indian Malabar Coast new factories were built. Six Austrians were left on the Nicobar Islands as items initially, but then returned by the Danes.

End of the colonial policy

In 1783, Maria Theresa replaced successor, Emperor Joseph II, under the pressure of the maritime powers, and in the absence of necessary to protect the colonies comparable own war fleet on the Trieste Trading Company. The last faltering and difficult because of strong foreign competition ceased trading. 1784 or 1785, leaving Austria also formally surrendered his rights to the Nicobar Islands countries Denmark and Great Britain. Portugal had now occupied the base in the Delagoa Bay.

Term review

Whether it is actually traded at Delagoa Bay and the four Nicobar Islands with the other maritime powers or trading companies comparable colonies is controversial given the short reign and marginal presence. At least it was not a question non- privately owned or pure trading factories. Considerably more complicated is the application of the term " colony " for the future status of Bosnia-Herzegovina, northern Italy, or not directly to the realm belonging to foreign possessions of the Austrian Habsburgs.

The Austrian Netherlands, although belonging to the Reich until 1795, seem from Vienna to the dissolution of the Ostend Company to be seen rather as a potential bargaining chip than as an integral part of the power base - as well as the also no longer the realm belonging Milan or Tuscany. Yet Emperor Francis I sought after 1815 then to permanently connect the Lombardy and Veneto with the other countries of the Empire of Austria.

The occupied in 1878 and then made ​​under the agreements of the Berlin Congress under the military administration of Austria-Hungary Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were still nominally under the suzerainty of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After the 1908 were also made formal annexation and associated integration into the imperial Monarchy was placed under either of the two parts of the empire, but managed through the common Treasury of Bosnia- Herzegovina.

Later expeditions

In the second half of the 19th century, the Austrian Navy undertook again several expeditions to the North Pole (Franz Josef Land ) and Southeast Asia (Borneo ), which also served the exploratory colonial expansion. However, the Austrian gunboat diplomacy associated not successful.