Austrians
Historically, Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such. Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 which resulted in Prussia expelling Austria from the Confederation. Thus, when Germany was founded as a nation-state in 1871, Austria was not a part of it. In 1867, Austria was reformed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria was reduced to a rump state and adopted and briefly used the name the Republic of German-Austria ("Republik Deutschösterreich") in an attempt for union with the Republic of Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The First Austrian Republic was founded in 1919. The Third Reich annexed Austria with the "Anschluss" in 1938.
History of Austria
The First World War effectively ended for Austria on 3 November 1918, when the defeated army signed the Armistice of Villa Giusti at Padua following the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. (Technically this applied to Austria-Hungary, but Hungary had withdrawn from the conflict on 31 October 1918, and most other states within the empire, such as Czechoslovakia and the South Slavs, had also done so.) Austria was forced to cede all territory occupied since 1914, plus a considerable amount of other territory, and the allies were given access to Austria. The empire was thus dissolved.