ant of an Irish family, agreed in 1879 to make some concessions if all the Czech deputies would take their seats in the Central Parliament. At the beginning of his speech from the Throne the Emperor acknowledged their “full right of constitutional conviction.” Certain adminstrative rights were granted, and the long-fought-for Czech University was established; on the whole a practical modus vivendi was introduced, the achievement of our political rights being hoped for by the new method of compromises.
7. The establishment of the Hohenzollern Empire and the growth of national chauvinism in Germany led the Germans of Austria to make common cause with their kinsmen in Germany, and Francis Joseph yielded to their pressure. Pangermanism became a popular programme among the Austrian Germans, and their Radical wing demanded the union of Austria and even Hungary with Germany. The “Los von Rom” movement of the new century was nothing else than “Los von Oesterreich” or “Los von Habsburg.” Bismarck, strong in his authority as the founder of united Germany, resisted the Pangerman extremists. His plan was to leave Austria-Hungary independent, but to use her for Germany and her programme. In reality, he heartily despised Austria, for he saw through her.
But Bismark’s plans were not original. They were merely the continuation of older ideas and aims; it is only half true to say that he pushed Austria-Hungary towards the Balkans and the East. Austria was from the first the eastern kingdom (Ostreich, Oesterreich) and has forced plans of conquest ever since the days of Prince Eugene. The weakening of Turkey suggested this to the neighboring victorious Empire. It was not only Bismarck who induced Austria-Hungary to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina; Radetzky and Cardinal Rauscher of Vienna formulated this programme long before Bismarck. In the same way, when in 1848, at Frankfurt, the German nationalists were offering the German crown to the Hohenzollerns, Austria answered by the imperialistic programme of Prince Schwarzenberg and of Baron Bruck, who, following Friedrich List, devised the programme of Central Europe as it is now preached in Germany and Austria.
Bismarck, it is true, gained Andrassy and the Magyars for his plans; but it was Dualism which unchained Magyar imperialism. Bismarck was clever enough to use it as a means of putting pressure on Vienna, which could not easily forget 1866. But long before Bismarck List had preached in Germany a very practical Pangerman Magyarophilism.
The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina led Austria into a fatal antagonism against not only the Southern Slavs but also Russia. Germany joined her in this direction. Bismarck hoped, in spite of the Berlin Congress, not to lose the friendship of Russia, and even the creation of the Triple Alliance did not prevent him from the effort to secure the re-insurance of Russia, or rather, of Petrograd. But the new generation in Germany conceived Pangermanism in the sense of “Berlin-Bagdad,” and the road to Bagdad led to an inevitable dispute with Russia about Constantinople. William II., accepting Lagarde’s teaching and the designs of world-power which it involved, dismissed Bismarck and placed himself at the head of the new generation. Austria-Hungary and Prussia-Germany inaugurated a very decided anti-Slav policy with the double object of crushing the Czechs in the North, and the Jugoslavs, and above all the Serbs, in the South.
The Germans used the unjust privileges confered by an artificial constitution to maintain a majority in the Parliament and Diets; the bureaucracy and army also served their aims. The so-called Linz programme and still more, the motion brought forward by the Pangerman leader Schönerer, in 1901, aimed at granting a kind of autonomy to Galicia, Bukovina and even to Dalmatia, with the object of securing to the Germans a strong and unshakable majority. Count Badeni induced the Emperor to restore to Bohemia a part of her national right, but again the Emperor gave in to German terrorism and Badeni’s decree was step by step abolished.
The Poles were partly satisfied (Galician Resolution 1868), but Vienna temporarily favored the Ruthenes not only against Russia but also against the Poles; the Southern Slavs were utterly neglected, and though in Dalmatia the Croat language was introduced into the administration, this was done not to satisfy the Slav majority, but simply to annoy the Italian minority. Trieste was invaded by Viennese and Berlin capital—Trieste, which not less than Prague, is coveted by the Pangermans as the starting-
