page_title: Austrian Silesia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Austrian Silesia / History
context_page_description: Austrian Silesia, officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Habsburg Monarchy. It is largely coterminous with the present-day region of Czech Silesia and was, historically, part of the larger Silesia region.
context_section_description: The area originally formed the south-eastern part of the Medieval Duchy of Silesia, a province of the Piast Kingdom of Poland. During the 14th century most Dukes of Silesia had declared themselves Bohemian vassals.
  As part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Silesia was inherited by the Habsburg archduke Ferdinand I of Austria in 1526, after the last Jagiellon king Louis II of Bohemia had died at the Battle of Mohács. With the female succession of the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa to the throne in 1740, the Prussian king Frederick the Great laid claim to the Silesian province and, without waiting for any reply, on 16 December started the First Silesian War, thereby opening the larger War of the Austrian Succession. His campaign was concluded in 1742 with the Prussian victory at the Battle of Chotusitz leading to the treaties of Breslau and Berlin, in which Silesia was divided. 
  Under the terms of the treaty, the Kingdom of Prussia received most of the territory including the Bohemian County of Kladsko, while only a small part of southeastern Silesia remained with the Habsburg Monarchy, consisting of:
  the Upper Silesian duchy of Teschen (Cieszyn)
  parts of the former Moravian Duchy of Opava  with Duchy of Krnov south of the Opava River, comprising several Moravian enclaves.
  the southern part of the Lower Silesian Duchy of Nysa  around Jeseník
  forming the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, which remained a Bohemian crown land with its capital in the city of Opava. In 1766 the title of a Duke of Teschen was granted to Prince Albert of Saxony, son-in-law of Maria Theresa, while the title of a Duke of Troppau and Jägerndorf remained with the Princely Family of Liechtenstein. The Nysa territory was held by the Bishops of Wrocław with their residence at Castle Jánský vrch (Johannisberg).
  When in 1804 the Habsurg emperor Francis II established the Austrian Empire, his title would include the "Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia". Austrian Silesia was connected by rail with the Austrian capital Vienna, when the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway line was extended to Bohumín station in 1847. In the course of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia became a crown land of Cisleithanian Austria.
  In November 1918 the Dual Monarchy was abolished. The major part of Austrian Silesia was ceded to the newly created state of Czechoslovakia by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, with the exception of Cieszyn Silesia (the former Duchy of Teschen), which after the Polish–Czechoslovak War was split in 1920 along the Olza river with its eastern part falling to the Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship of Poland. Smaller parts of the duchy also became a part of Poland, while the adjacent Hlučín Region of Prussian Silesia fell to Czechoslovakia.
caption: Composition of Austrian Silesia