Vienna - History Of An Imperial City
Posted by young traveller on 02/3/08 in Travel and Leisure
Due to its privileged geographical placement, just between the Danube river and the Alps that descend calmly to the mountains called Wienerwald. The Austrian capital was through its dynamic history a very important factor to take into account for the future of the whole actual Europe.
The fact that it was placed in the crossroad of the great routes between Occidental and Oriental Europe, soon made Vienna become the heart of Europe. But the process to reach that objective was far from easy, as history explains. In their efforts to secure their lands and the Mediterranean sea against the Northern invaders, the romans, under Augustus emperor, occupied this privileged zone between the Alps and the Danube.
In its origin, they established simply a soldiers camp base, the strongest they had in Austria, next to the position that the actual Vienna occupies, and later it became capital of the region during nearly 400 years. Some years later, in Claudius time, Limes was built at the east, as an advanced defensive place to control the border. Also, as a lateral defense of the central camp, some other troop camps were built in what today is the Third District of Vienna.
Around year 115, the main troops where moved to this new camps. After this happened, a critic period was to follow, and after serious battles against the barbarian invaders, resistance went down and the whole city was devastated.
Only at year 960 the territory was ready again to be rebuilt, after the current emperor strengthened the oriental border. 1137 is the year when Vienna is first designated as a city and 1156 brings to Vienna the quality of the capital of the territory.
Vienna today is amazingly full of story. Some stones standing there have seen many empires come and go, but in the end the result was the obvious. Vienna has a privileged position in the heart of Europe and this made many empires to be interested in gaining this position. At same time, even if it was burnt down once in the early years, the actual city was never conquered again and even resisted the battle against the Turkish troops between 1529 and 1683.
This war alone can be understood as many others that happened on that period, but it really had a special meaning for the whole Europe, as in that period the whole strength of Europe was brought there. If Vienna would have not resisted, almost certainly the whole Occidental civilization would have been destroyed.
Dani Alonso
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