Viewed from the perspective of thousands of years, political history reveals a pattern of continuous alternation between decay and re-formation. Thus, after the fall of the Roman empire, the first political entity that emerged in the West was the Carolingian empire, which, through the coronation of the emperor in 800, assumed the form of a revived western Roman empire. Although it soon became limited to the part of the old empire inhabited by the “German nation,” it continued to exist, at least in outward form, under the name of the Holy Roman Empire until 1806. As early as 1804, though, Francis II had adopted the title of emperor of Austria for his position as ruler of the “hereditary Austrian lands.”

Among the many delimitations determined by the Paris Peace Conference was the rectification of the Ausgleich frontier of 1867 between Austria and Hungary. Article 27, paragraph 5, of the Treaties of St. Germain and Trianon detached from the former Kingdom of Hungary the German-speaking western districts of the Hungarian Counties of Moson (Wieselburg), Sopron (Ödenburg), and Vas (Eisenburg). This region, then known as German West Hungary and subsequently as the Burgenland, had been the object of dispute between Austria and Hungary in the immediate postwar years. In the interval between the collapse of the Dual Monarchy in the autumn of 1918 and the Treaty of Trianon in June, 1920, the reactions of American representatives in Central Europe varied from advocation of the union of West Hungary with Austria to admonitions that the proposal was a serious miscalculation because the will of the inhabitants had not been ascertained and because historic and economic principles had been given only cursory consideration. In short, American observations mirrored the incertitude surrounding the West Hungarian controversy.

Most Austrians believe that in making countless policy decisions relating to Austria after World War I the Allies only twice demonstrated an awareness of the actual situation in Austria and took into account the wishes of the people: (1) when they determined to subject the conflicting claims to the Klagenfurt Basin to the test of a plebiscite; and (2) when they transferred the German-speaking areas of West Hungary to Austria without a plebiscite. However, although the creation of the Burgenland was commemorated in 1971 at numerous semicentennial celebrations in all parts of the country, the official speeches stressing the progress and the achievements of Austria's youngest province, no matter how tactful they were, could not entirely blot out memories of the bitter and bloody struggles of fifty years ago. The refusal of Hungary in her hour of humiliation to give up another piece of national territory; the political intrigues and military operations around the disputed borders; the fraudulent plebiscite in Ödenburg, as a result of which the new province lost its natural capital; and the Hungarian government's diplomatic efforts almost up to the outbreak of World War II to undo the Treaties of St. Germain and Trianon are all too much a part of Austrian history to be passed over in silence.

In terms of dynastic and family relations, political agreements between powerful feudal families, and the anarchistic intrigues of anarchistic nobles, Dr. Zimmermann discusses the role of the Burgenland in the history of the Habsburg monarchy. However, he never touches on important aspects of social and economic history. Although an account of military and political events might explain why a particular border region belonged to this or that prince at some time in the past, such information would seem to be of interest mainly to students of local history. The aim of the author, however, was not to write local or regional history but to prove that present-day Burgenland, as well as other territory which still belongs to Hungary, had a peculiar, individual character and a historical destiny which, from the time of the Avar occupation until the twentieth century, was more closely connected with Austria than with Hungary. In a similar statement about Slovakia, the author declares: “A full thousand years of Hungarian rule could not obliterate the living idea of Slovakia.” With these arguments the author is not trying to point out regional differences within a particular country but is attempting to prove the existence of nationalist ideas going back as far as nine hundred or more years.

Stadler's study, focused on Austro-Hungarian relations, sheds light on half-a-century's history of the Burgenland; Berlin's work deals with the Burgenland policy of the United States during the decisive years of 1918–1920. Both articles are based on valuable source materials. They are balanced in their evaluations, and the conclusions reached by both authors are in substantial agreement.

The riots that took place in Vienna in July, 1927, and the unsuccessful strikes that followed them came to be regarded almost immediately as a turning point in the history of Austria's first republic. In a flash, the Social Democratic Party, which had made the best relative showing in the parliamentary elections in April of that year, was thrown on the defensive, while within a few months the governing anti-socialist groups dominated by the Christian Social Party began to gather their forces for a vigorous political offensive. In the forefront of the anti-socialist drive stood the various paramilitary Heimwehren, which had played a leading role in foiling the nationwide strikes in July. Capitalizing on the widespread fear that the socialist leaders were preparing to wage violent class warfare, the Heimwehr leaders rapidly expanded their provincial organizations and used them as militarized pressure groups. They sought to depict the Heimwehr as a popular movement that would save Austria's traditional social order by enabling—or forcing—the “bourgeois” parliamentarians to stand firm against the socialists.

The Pragmatic Sanction (pactum mutuae cessionis et successionis), formulated in 1703 and first made public in 1713, has been regarded as the legal basis for the unity of the disparate lands under Habsburg rule until the mid-nineteenth century. Although the Pragmatic Sanction did not prevent foreign powers from trying to seize Austrian territory, it did provide legal justification for the existence of the monarchy as an indivisible whole for well over one hundred years.

The two-hundredth anniversary of the First Partition of Poland is an appropriate time to review the recent Polish historiography of the Partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, which at first glance appear to have been treated as stepchildren. Since the founding of the Polish People's Republic twenty-nine years ago, not a single Polish monographic study has been devoted exclusively to the Partitions. Moreover, both the classic, authoritative study, The Second Partition of Poland: A Study in Diplomatic History, by Robert H. Lord, and the recent major monograph, The First Partition of Poland, by Herbert H. Kaplan, published in 1962, were written by foreigners.