The democratic federal parliamentary republic that emerged from the collapse of Austria-Hungary, formally established via the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (10 September 1919). It had a bicameral legislature (National Council and Federal Council), an elected Federal President, and a Chancellor drawn from the National Council — but was landlocked, stripped of over 70% of the former empire's territory, and economically fragile, wracked by hyperinflation in the early 1920s, the 1931 Creditanstalt bank collapse, and violent clashes between left- and right-wing paramilitaries (the deadly July Revolt of 1927).
Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss suspended parliament in March 1933 and ruled by decree; a brief Austrian Civil War in February 1934 crushed the Social Democratic opposition. Dollfuss's 'May Constitution,' proclaimed 1 May 1934, replaced the republic with the authoritarian corporatist Federal State of Austria (Austrofascist one-party rule under the Fatherland Front).
Cambridge's accessible survey of Austria including the failed First Republic and its 1934 collapse into the corporatist state.