Excerpt from http://www.lacw.org/programs/2006-02-25_By_Request.pdf

Often called "The Austrian March King," the Austrian military bandmaster Josef Franz
Wagner wrote some 400 compositions, 250 of which have been published.. The title of
his most famous march, Unter dem Doppeladler - "Under the Double Eagle" - refers to the
double eagle in the old coat of arms of the Austro-Hungarian empire, one head of which
looked out toward Austria and the other toward Hungary. Unter dem Doppeladler became
the official regimental march of the 1st Austrian Artillery Regiment, Number 2.

J.F. Wagner took the title for this march from the state emblem of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. The eagle has been a symbol of strength and courage since ancient
times; it was the emblem of the Sumarians 5,000 years ago and of Imperial Rome many
centuries later. The double-headed eagle was the symbol of the Byzantine Empire for
over 2,000 years before it appeared on the imperial coat of arms in Austria-Hungary.
The march itself has been extremely popular for nearly a century. By 1910 Franz Pazirek
was listing approximately fifty different instrumental and vocal arrangements of the
work published by a dozen different firms. Beginning in 1903, Under The Double Eagle
March was recorded by the Sousa Band four times before Wagner's death in 1908. Like
Sousa's Washington Post and numerous other marches around the turn of the century, this
march has probably motivated more dancers than marchers.