The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Austria and Europe (II and III)

Austria and Europe.

By Henry Wickham Steed.

 

II.

Francis Joseph found himself in the early decades of his reign in the midst of two Liberal movements—the movement for Italian unity and the movement for German unity. Had he and his counsellors been capable of understanding the significance of these movements, had they not be dominated by the Metternichian fear of “the Revolution” which was held to be identical with the principal of Nationality, they might have led and have drawn strength from both movements. An enlightened view of the Italian Risorgimento would have enabled Austria to secure, by the sacrifice of direct political domination, a strong backing in the Italian peninsula; while the leadership of the German unitary movement would have made of Austria the acknowledged leader of the German race, and would have kept Prussia in a relatively subordinate position. Instead, Francis Joseph followed a policy of brutal resistance and repression in Italy, while in Germany he struggled only to maintain his presidency of the German League of Princes. Consequently, when there arose in Prussia a statesman of strong character and keen, almost infernal in telligence, he found himself utterly worsted. Bismarck first defeated Francis Joseph’s attempt to assert his leadership of German Princes at the Frankfurt Diet of Princes by preventing the King of Prussia from attending it. Then he enticed Austria into the joint Austro-Prussian attack upon Denmark in 1864, tore from Denmark the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and established an Austro-Prussian condominium, or joint rule, in them, with the deliberate purpose of making that condominium a pretext for picking a quarrel with Austria at convenient season. The Liberal German movement for unity Bismarck had ridiculed and opposed, but he skilfully turned it into a Conservative and Chauvinistic movement against Austria, under Prussian guidance and for Prussian purposes. At the same time he allied himself with the anti-Austrian parties in Hungary and in Italy. The Italian Radical “Party of Action” was largely guided by Bismarck’s clandestine agents. The Hungarian Independence Party was similarly guided. Thus when the moment came, in 1866, to pick his quarrel, Bismarck was able to make an alliance with Italy against Austria, so as to compel her to fight on two fronts and at the same time to sap her strength by fomenting Magyar discontent and opposition to her.

Thus, in a sudden campaign of six weeks’ duration, the Austrian Army was overthrown at Sadowa and compelled to make peace. Prussia formed the North-German Confederation, suppressed Hanover and other German States, and dictated to Austria a peace which, while shrewdly sparing her susceptibilities in the matter of territory, left her in a position in which there could be no escape from Prussian tutelage.

What was that position? Since the disastrous war of 1859 Francis Joseph had felt some kind of constitutional reform to be necessary, if only to appease Hungarian resentment. In October, 1860, he issued a Diploma, or Constitutional Decree, that provided for the reform of the Monarchy on a fed eral basis with approximately equal rights for the various Austrian peoples and large representation for the Hungarians. This Decree, if adhered to, might have proved to be one of the few wise acts of his reign. It would have promoted the development of Austria-Hungary into something like its true character, which has been accurately described as “a Slav house with a German facade”. But the Germans of Austria, influenced doubtless by Prussia, clamored for its abrogation; and in February, 1861, Francis Joseph substituted for it a Centralist Patent or Decree calculated to establish German mastery over all the other Hapsburg races. Magyar, Bohemian and Polish opposition to this Decree was strong; and had the Hapsburg dynasty ever considered the welfare of its peoples, it would have seen in that opposition a warning and an admonition. The Bohemians, Poles and Magyars had no liking for the prospect of being eternally sacrificed to a hopeless attempt to place the crown of Charlemagne once more upon a Hapsburg brow. They were overruled, and the Germanizing constitution was introduced. It failed; but before it failed it had destroyed Francis Joseph’s only hope of holding his own against Prussia. Thus he drifted towards Sadowa, only to find himself after defeat obliged to cede the province of Venetia to the Italians, whom his arms had defeated, and to negotiate in haste a settlement with the Magyars that made them and the Germans of Austria the masters of his destiny, while each and both exercised their control in accordance with Prussian dictation.

Thus came the compromise of 1867 between the Crown and Hungary, which is known as the Dual settlement. By it Austria-Hungary in its present dual form, that is to say, the Dual Monarchy, was created. Up to that moment Hungary, though technically and historically entitled to constitutional autonomy, had been practically a province of Austria, except during the Revolution of 1848–49. Into the history of Hungary and of her ancient constitution, her glories and her disasters, her struggle against the Turks and her final acceptance of the Hapsburg dynasty after her overthrow by the Turks at Mohacs in 1526, it is not now my purpose to enter. Hungary really becomes an important factor in modern European history only after her settlement with her king, i. e., the Emperor of Austria, in 1867. It must not be supposed that in making this settlement Francis Joseph was actuated by love for Magyar liberties, or that he was thinking of organizing his “dynastic estate” on a modern or liberal basis. He was thinking chiefly of a renewal of the struggle against Prussia for mastery over Germany, and was striving at once to neutralize Magyar opposition and to remove the lukewarmness of the Austrian-German Liberals. He was working to undo the consequences of the defeat of Sadowa by effecting a kind of moral mobilization of the most recalcitrant elements among his peoples.

 

III.

Like the other constitutional experiments under taken by Francis Joseph, the Dual Settlement of 1867 was an improvization hastily conceived for immediate dynastic ends and bearing no real relationship to the needs of his peoples. He doubtless imagined that, when he should have defeated Prussia, it would be subject to drastic revision or even to total abrogation. But he forgot Bismarck. He hastily gave to the Magyars a separate government in regard to all affairs of the “Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen”, that is to say, Hungary proper, together with Transylvania and Croatia-Slavonia. He left the Croats, who in the past had been his most loyal supporters, to make what arrangements they could with the Magyars; and the Magyars proceeded to exploit and oppress them unscrupulously. Except in regard to military and foreign affairs, the Dual Settlement of 1867 made the Magyars supreme in Hungary, and, through Hungary, all but supreme in the Monarchy. The settlement created a joint Austro-Hungarian War Office; a joint Foreign Office and a department for the administration of joint revenues; and as the Magyars insisted that they could only enter into relations with a completely constitutional Austria, Francis Joseph, King of Hungary, in his capacity as Emperor of Austria, bedizened Austria with a constitutional robe cut to please the Austrian-German Liberals. This Austrian “Fundamental Law” of December, 1867, was, in fact, designed to assure the predominance of the German over the non-German elements in Austria, just as the parallel settlement between the Crown and Hungary was designed to assure the mastery of the Magyar over the non-Magyar elements in the Hungarian half of the Monarchy.

The point to be remembered is that while the Germans of Austria and the Magyars of Hungary are each the strongest race-nucleus in their respective halves of the Monarchy, they are each in a minority as compared with the non-German races of Austria, and the non-Magyar races of Hungary. In Austria the Germans now number some 10,000,000 out of a total population of more than 30,000,000; while in Hungary proper the Magyars number some 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 out of a total population of, roughly, 20,000,000. The Dual System thus consists of an arrangement under which a minority rules a majority in each half of the Monarchy, and is dependent for its privileged position nominally upon the support of the Crown, but really, as we shall see, upon the support of Prussia.

As soon as Francis Joseph had assented to this Dual Settlement, he seems to have seen that he had committed himself to an arrangement likely to curtail his dynastic freedom of action. He knew that both the Magyars and the Austrian-German Liberals were in sympathy with Berlin, and therefore he cast about for some other support for his dynastic policy of revenge upon Prussia. This support could only be found in Bohemia, where the Czech nation, numbering at that time five millions, was eager for the restoration of the old State rights which had been taken from it when Ferdinand II. had over thrown Bohemia at the battle of the White Mountain in 1620. In 1868–9 Francis Joseph therefore began to coquet with the Bohemian leaders, and in 1870 actually went as far as to promise them, in writing, to grant autonomy to Bohemia and to be crowned King of Bohemia at Prague, as he had been crowned King of Hungary at Budapest on the conclusion of the Dual settlement. At the same time, he allowed negotiations to be begun with France and Italy for an alliance against Prussia. His Chancellor, Count Beust, actually consented, in principle, to the occupation of the Papal States by Italy in return for her prospective support. But Bismarck, who was doubtless well-informed of these manoeuvres, played upon Russian resentment of Francis Joseph ingratitude during the Crimean War, and induced the Tsar to throw the weight of Russia against any anti-Prussian alliance. Sure of the support, or, at least, of the benevolent neutrality of Russia, Bismarck then picked, in 1870, his quarrel with France, and crushed her. At the same time, and in order to paralyze any desire on the part of Francis Joseph to come to the aid of France, he mobilized both the Hungarian Government and the Austrian Liberals to compel Francis Joseph to dismiss his anti-Prussian Austrian Premier, Count Hohenwart, to break his promises to the Bohemians, and to surrender himself for the rest of his reign to the joint control of the Magyar minority in Hungary and the German minority in Austria.

The history of the Hapsburgs since 1871 is mainly that of a fruitless attempt to escape from the toils in which their own foolishness and Bismarck’s as tuteness had entangled them. I know of no more confused and wearisome study in recent European history than that of the internal affairs of Austria and Hungary between 1870 and 1908. The first of those dates marks the firm establishment of the German grip on Austria, while the second marks the beginning of the process by which Austria became the active agent of Germany in provoking the present war.

From 1871 to 1879 Austria was ruled in semi-constitutional fashion by Liberal German Administrations. Those administrations were allowed to do much as they liked in home affairs on condition that they should supply unhesitatingly money and recruits for the army—the Emperor’s Army. During the same period a Magyar. Count Andrássy, was Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister. His tendencies, like those of the Austrian-German Liberal Administrations.were pro-German; and before he left office, in 1879, he concluded the Austro-German Alliance against Russia, which three years later was transformed into the Triple Alliance by the adhesion of Italy. In 1878 he secured at the Congress of Berlin (which made the peace settlement after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877) a mandate for Austria-Hungary “to occupy and administer” the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, like the Hungarian Crown Lands of Croatia-Slavonia and the Austrian province of Dalmatia, are inhabited almost entirely by Serbo-Croatians or Southern Slavs. This concession Andrassy obtained with the help of Bismarck and, sad to say of England. He would have wished to obtain authority to annex the provinces outright, but Bismarck shrewdly limited it to an occupation, in order that the hope of an eventual annexation might be dangled by Germany before the eyes of Francis Joseph to keep him sub servient to German aims. By the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina the Southern Slav question, that is to say, the question of the unity of the Serb, Croat and Slovene race, began to assume a practical form. It confronted the Habsburgs with another problem not unlike those of German and Italian unity which they had so signally failed to solve in their own interest—and failed for the lack of the moral sense that is inseparable from constructive insight in politics. The question was: Should the Southern Slavs be united with and for, or in spite of and against the Habsburgs? The territory they inhabit forms the main road from Central Europe to the Near East. By the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina all Southern Slav territory, except the Kingdom of Serbia, the Principality of Montenegro, and some districts then still held by the Turks, came under Habsburg control. Upon Habsburg policy it depended whether Serbia should play the part of a Piedmont in a Southern Slav Risorgimento, or whether she should be united—by force, fraud, or moral suasion—with the Habburg dominions. Austria, as usual, chose the mean and shortsighted course. She sought to divide, oppress, and demoralize those whom in her own vital interest she should have encouraged, united and developed. The Austrian-German Liberals seemed dimly to have apprehended some danger that the addition of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Habsburg lands might encourage the dynasty to follow a policy of Slav development in order to prepare for its own liberation from the German yoke. They therefore opposed the Emperor, violated the condition on which they held office—that of supplying unquestionably money and recruits for the army—and were kicked from power within a few months and crushed at a general election in accordance with the Emperor’s command. Bismarck, who knew how foolish were their fears of Habsburg wisdom, addressed to them many a bitter gibe. They were overthrown, and from the end of 1879 until 1896 Austria was governed by a combination of Slav and German-Clerical, that is to say. Habsburg Parties. The Bohemians, who after the Emperor’s breach of faith with them in 1870 had abstained from political life, joined in the work of govern ment and secured for themselves possibilities of development that would otherwise have been denied them. So indefatigable were they in their efforts that they decreased the percentage of illiterates among them to a vanishing point. They secured also possibilities of higher education that qualified them to increase their share of bureaucratic appointments and thus secure a part—the only effectual part in Austria—of the actual everyday work of government and administration. From 1879 to 1893, Count Taaffe, a nobleman of Irish extraction and a personal friend of the Emperor, remained uniterruptedly Premier of Austria. His work, which was certainly done in accordance with Emperor’s intentions, tended to give the Austrian Slavs—that is to say, the Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia, the Poles of Galicia, the Slovenes of Carinthia, Carniola, the Tristine Littoral and Istria, and the Serbo-Croats of Istria and Dalmatia—a larger share in the life of Austria, and thus to counterbalance to some extent the artificial predominance of the Germans. Taaffe fell in 1893. His successor, a Pole, Count Badeni, endeavored to continue his policy; but in 1896 the Germans of Austria revolted against a ministerial ordinance that placed the Czech and German languages officially on a footing of equality in Bohemia, and began a menacing Pangerman movement called Los von Rom, or, as I have explained, in reality, “Away from the Hapsburgs”. Ten years of confusion followed, during which constitutional government was practically suspended. It ended in the sudden introduction of universal suffrage at the command of the Emperor—a reform which at the elections of 1907 was seen to have broken for the first time the artificial German predominance in the Austrian Parliament.

In Hungary the Emperor left, from 1875 to 1890, one statesman in charge of the government—Mr. Koloman Tisza, father of the late Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza. He held office on an understanding similar to that which had existed between the Emperor and the Austrian-German Liberals between ’71 and ’79—that the Magyars should have a free hand in the oppression and Magyarization of the non-Magyars provided that they voted, without wincing, money and recruits for the army. This understanding Tisza and his successors observed until 1903, when the Hungarian Independence Party refused recruits and engaged in a conflict with the Crown. Then, after two years of crisis, the Crown turned against them and threatened to introduce universal suffrage, which would have broken the predominance of the Magyar minority over the non-Magyar majority in Hungary. Frightened, the Magyars yielded, and escaped the danger of universal suffrage, which, however, was taken up as a cry in Austria and was used by the Emperor in the hope of curtailing German predominance.

Now mark these dates. The Magyars began to fear for their mastery over the non-Magyars in 1905–6. In 1907 universal suffrage placed the German elements in a minority in the Austrian Parliament. Thus both the levers created in 1867 under Bismarckian influence to establish Prussian control of Austria-Hungary were seen to be weakening, and it became necessary to strengthen them. This could only be done by an anti-Slav policy. Therefore, in 1907, the Magyar government began a series of per secutions of the Croatians and the Southern Slavs, accusing them with the help of false documents and perjured witnesses of treasonable relations with Serbia. In 1908 the Emperor Francis Joseph annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina at the suggestion of the German Emperor and made preparations for a war against Serbia, which was only averted by the withdrawal of Russian support from Serbia under a German ultimatum. In the autumn of 1909, a libel action brought by the Serbo-Croatian leaders against the Pangerman Austrian historian, Dr. Friedjung, revealed the fact that the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office had prepared a whole series of forgeries designed to justify both the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the invasion of Serbia. The exposure of these forgeries defeated Austro-German schemes for a while, but during and after the Balkan wars of 1912–13 other pretexts for an attack upon Montenegro and Serbia were sought, and only the combined efforts of European statesmen averted a catastrophe. In 1914, when Germany was ready for war, the Austro-Hungarian heir-presumptive, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina, was allowed to visit the capital (Sarajevo) without military or police protection, was shot down by assassins—one of whom was the son of an Austrian policeman. The Austro-Hungarian authoorities promptly accused the Serbian government of complicity in the crime, and the long-sought pretext for this war was created.

No official was punished for dereliction of duty in connection with the murder of the Archduke; and the more the details of the crime are studied, the more it becomes evident that the murder was deliberately permitted, if not organized, by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. The Archduke had long been suffering from the effects of an incurable disease. His mental stability had been affected, and there existed a danger that should he succeed to the throne of his more than octogenarian uncle, even for a few months, he might appropriate the Hapsburg Family Fund for his morganatic children. His death removed the danger and, at the same time, provided a pretext for a war which, by enabling Germany and Austria-Hungary to crush forever Serbia and the Southern Slavs, should open the Germanic road to the Balkans, Constantinople and Asia Minor.

The question, the only question, that arises for us is: Are we, in seeking the future peace of Europe, to follow dynasties—degenerate, unscrupulous, incapable dynasties—or are we to support the peoples—the peoples who are struggling for liberty, who are our friends, and whose development will guarantee their security and ours? There can be but one answer: We must support the peoples with all our strength, and in supporting them, establish the freedom of Europe forever against any future menace of Hohenzollern or Hapsburg tyranny.