Munich
man Empire a great service, helping to strengthen and defend it; political stupidity because this belief was mistaken, and in fact they were helping to chain the Reich to a very corpse of a state, which was bound to drag both into the abyss, and above all because this very Alliance sacrificed them more and more to de-Germanization. For the Hapsburgs thought themselves—and unfortunately were in fact—protected by their alliance with Germany against interference from that quarter, and consequently it was considerably easier and less risky for them to carry out their domestic policy of slowly ousting Germanity. Not only were they shielded by the well-known “objectivity” from any protest of the German government, but by referring to the Alliance they could always stop the unseemingly mouth of Austrian Germanity if it threatened to open against some altogether too vile method of Slavicization.
And after all, what could a German in Austria do, when the Germanity of the Reich itself expressed admiration and confidence for the Hapsburg regime? Was he to resist, and be branded as a traitor to his own nationality throughout the German-speaking world? He, who for decades had made the most supreme sacrifices just for his nationality?
But what value had the Alliance once the Germanity of the Hapsburg Monarchy was exterminated? Was not the value of the Triple Alliance for Germany absolutely dependent upon the preservation of German supremacy in Austria? Or did they really suppose they could live in alliance with a Slavic Hapsburg Empire?
The attitude of official German diplomacy and the whole body of public opinion toward the Austrian domestic problem of nationalities was not even stupid—it was absolutely insane. They relied on an alliance, planned the future and safety of a people of seventy millions accordingly—and watched their partner from year to year deliberately and unwaveringly destroying the sole basis of the compact. Some day a remnant of the “treaty” with the Viennese diplomats would remain, but the aid of an allied empire would be lost.
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