sentences:  The VF was strongly linked with the Catholic student fraternities of the "Cartell-Verband"—that maintained networks similar to old boys in English-speaking countries—in which most VF leaders had been members.In contrast, it was in a two-fronts conflict with the Social Democrats, supported by unionised workers and having its stronghold in the capital Vienna and other industrialised towns, and their paramilitary "Republikanischer Schutzbund" ("Republican Protection League")—whose February 1934 uprising (or "Austrian Civil War") was crushed in a few days—on the one, and Austrian Nazis on the other hand.The latter, having taken over Austria's older pan-German nationalist current, were supported by a part of the secular, urban middle and lower middle class, including civil servants and public sector workers, professionals, teachers and students.