Editing History of the Alps (section)

===Eastern Alps===
[[File:Habsburg (Aargau, Switzerland).jpg|thumb|[[Habsburg Castle]], Switzerland]]

The Eastern Alps had been included in the [[Frankish Empire]] since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of [[Habsburg]]. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at [[Habsburg castle]]. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland.  But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties.  They won the duchy of Austria with [[Styria (duchy)|Styria]] in 1282, [[Duchy of Carinthia|Carinthia]] and [[Carniola]] in 1335, [[County of Tyrol|Tirol]]  in 1363, and the [[Vorarlberg]] in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps.  But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful.
It is true that they won [[Primiero]] quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the [[Ampezzo]] Valley and several towns to the south of [[Trento]].  In 1797 they obtained [[Venetia (region)|Venetia]] proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of [[Trento]] and [[Brixen]] (as well as that of [[Salzburg]], more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the [[Bergamasque]] valleys, while the [[Milanese]] had belonged to them since 1535.  But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps.  The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of [[Tende|Tenda]] (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of [[Austria-Hungary]], there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.