British policy towards occupied Austria 1945-1950

This study examines British policy towards Austria in the context of post-war international politics on the basis of hitherto unused British and Austrian archival material. By the end of the war the British found themselves in occupation of an area where they had few fundamental strategic or economic interests. Austria's survival depended on the commitment which the United States made in the course of 1946. The problem of German external assets acted as a motor in this process. Soviet determination to exact a heavy economic price from Austria may not have involved the intention to undermine a western-minded Austria but by 1947 many in the West assumed it did. The discussions over the Austrian Treaty from 1947 to 1948 failed largely because the Soviet economic enclave which it appeared necessarily to entail, was seen as an unacceptable risk. The Yugoslav territorial claim to part of southern Austria played an important part in the public debates but was essentially a side-issue. By 1949 the British and Austrian desire to see a Treaty, even one involving economic concessions to the Russians, began to conflict with the growing American concern with the strategic and domestic repercussions of such an agreement. By the time Americans had shifted their ground the Soviet Union was no longer interested in a Treaty. The basis of the State Treaty was no merely the change in Soviet policy early in 1955 but also the decline in the importance to Austria of the United State's commitment.