The New Europe/Volume 5/Count Czernin on Self-determination

by Ottokar Theobald Otto Maria Czernin von und zu Chudenitz

Count Czernin on Self-determination

[It is unnecessary to remind our readers that, owing to the hostility of the Austrian Slavs to war with Russia and Serbia, the Austrian Parliament was not allowed to meet from March, 1914, till May, 1917, and then only under the stimulus of the Russian Revolution. As a result, the Austrian and Hungarian Delegations (the two Parliamentary Committees by which alone the Joint Foreign Minister can be called to account for his foreign policy) met on 4 December, 1917, for the first time during the war. Count Czernin made three statements of very considerable importance, but as the first has already been fairly fully reported in the British press, we limit ourselves to reproducing the second, which illustrates very clearly the fundamental difference of views between the statesmen of the two rival groups in the vital question of self-determination.

The note struck throughout is that of the Speech from the Thron—“We mean to remain masters in our own house”; and those who know anything of Austria-Hungary know very well that “we” are the two dominant racial minorities of the Germans and Magyars, who jointly rule the other races.

For the benefit of those ignorant sentimentalists who still hanker after a separate peace with the House of Habsburg, it may be well to add that, both in the Speech from the Throne, in the Addresses of the two Delegations, and in the speeches of the Foreign Minister, and other prominent statesmen like Counts Tisza and Andrássy, quite unusual stress was laid upon the closeness of the Dual Monarchy’s ties with Germany and the need for strengthening them still further. In particular, the Hungarian Delegation expressed its conviction that above all the alliance which, concluded nearly forty years ago with the German Empire and loyally maintained by us, has assured to us the blessings of peace, is the proper foundation for the defence of our interests, as the successes of this war so brilliantly demonstrate. But also the re-organisation (Umgestaltung) of our Monarchy fifty years ago on a Dualist basis has justified itself, since during this period we were able to make splendid progress in every sphere, alike of intellectual and economic development.”]

“We are at one with Germany, on the basis of a defensive war—a basis of which this House unanimously approves, which was laid down by the German Reichstag as the Richtlinie of its war aims and which Dr. von Kühlmann defined very clearly when he said: ‘There is no obstacle to peace save Alsace-Lorraine.’ It is true that we are in certain respects in a more favourable position than our German ally. We hold practically all our territory: Germany’s colonies are in the enemy’s hands. It goes without saying that Germany will not and cannot make peace until she is certain of getting back her colonies. If now I am reproached in some quarters for my weak policy in Germany’s tow, which forces us to continue the war longer than would otherwise be the case and even to fight for German conquests—then I answer these arguments with a categorical ‘No.’ We are fighting just as much for the defence of Germany as Germany for ours. In this connection I know no territorial frontiers. We are fighting for Alsace-Lorraine just as Germany has fought for Lemberg and Trieste. I know no difference between Strassburg and Trieste. If new constellations should arise, as is not impossible, and if great events should occur on other fronts, then I should eagerly welcome the moment when we, too, should fight jointly with our Allies on other fronts. If, then, there are still people in the Entente who live in the idea that they might succeed in separating us from our ally, then I can only say that they are bad psychologists and childish minds.

“Italian policy since the beginning of the war has been moving down an inclined plane. Before the war Italy could have spoken with us, because we had a lively interest to prevent this superfluous war: and Italy could have reached an arrangement such as she can no longer hope to reach to-day, even in her wildest dreams. . . . At best she can hope for the status quo. . . . I say it quite openly for Rome to hear: if Italy obstinately continues the war, it will come later on to a worse peace. This we owe to our troops and to those at home (unserem Hinterlande).”

Alluding to America’s declaration of war, he made the positive assertion:—

“To the result of the war this will not make the slightest difference. I should, however, like to draw attention to President Wilson’s speech, which is in many respects incomprehensible and obscure, but shows a remarkable progress in its views in one direction. Speaking of our internal situation he says: ‘We must emphasise that we do not wish to injure Austria-Hungary in any way, and that it is not our business to concern ourselves with the affairs of the peoples. We in no way desire to prescribe to them their attitude and indeed wish that they should themselves regulate their affairs, great and small.’^[1] If this view is compared with that launched against the Monarchy by the Entente, and designated by the catch-word ‘Self-Determination of Peoples,’ which is to be realised at a peace conference by aid of the Entente, then I find in the President’s views an important progress to which we do justice and which it is our interest to fasten upon.

“The words ‘Right of Self-Determination cropped up fairly late in this war in the discussion of war aims. It is impossible to give a general definition of it, since almost every statesman who has employed it has given it a different sense. If we search for this catch-word’s origin, we find that it tacks on to the war aim put forward by the Entente since the beginning, ‘the protection of small nations.’ These were the small nations whom the Central Powers were alleged to have outraged—Serbia, Montenegro, &c., for whose defence the Entente claimed to have taken up arms. In his Note of 18 December, 1916, to the belligerents, President Wilson defined it as one of his noblest peace aims, ‘to guarantee the rights and privileges of the small States.’ In their answer of 10 January, 1917, the Entente supplemented this sentence by the brutal formula that they are waging war ‘for the liberation of the Italians, Slavs, Roumanians and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign rule.’ The protection of the small States fell into the background, the forcible detachment of single nationalities from the Monarchy took the first place, and, indeed, their forcible detachment without according a right of self-determination to the nationalities or their mother State.

“In his message of 22 January to the Senate, President Wilson took a certain step towards the Entente standpoint by calling for internal reforms in the various States, and thus making their internal political affairs a subject of international discussion. At the same time, however, he declared that there was no right by which peoples could be transferred from ruler to ruler as though they were their property.’ This message of the President, then, expresses the idea that the cession of portions of the territory of one State to another must be enforced, and also demands the consent of the governed to the government.’ Here the right of self-determination is already a fairly complicated mixtum compositum—territorially the right of the State to determinate its territorial existence, but at the same time also a joint right of the nationalities, under international protection, to decide their internal relations. On 11 April, 1917, the Russian Government declared that it repudiated the intention of ruling other peoples and robbing them of their national heritage: it claimed for the belligerent States themselves the right to decide the fate of their peoples at the conclusion of peace. This is the self-determination of States over their nations.

“Thus, now States, now nationalities are the subjects, and then again the objects, of this right of self-determination, which follows aims that fluctuate between autonomy won by constitutional means and State independence conferred by a European conference. Through the exploitation of this confusion of terms self-determination has in the speeches of Entente statesmen slowly assumed a definite form. It has become a mantle for the brutal Entente demand for a forcible detachment of portions of Austria-Hungary. Behind this word is concealed the demand that the Monarchy should renounce its right to control its territorial existence, its right to regulate of itself the relation of the nationalities to each other and to the State. It is the denial of all State sovereignty, the demand that Austria-Hungary’s internal affairs should be left to the vote of a European conference or of a plebiscite.

“But the right of self-determination—according to recent definitions by which popular meetings, party resolutions and even individual press utterances have had international importance assigned to them—leads to pure anarchy, to Mazerierung des Staatsbegriffes, to a recognition of regionalism extending almost to the individual.

“All this is the ‘right of self-determination,’ and is it with this idea, or rather catch-word, that we are to work and make serious politics? Besides, the Entente only allows self-determination in all these versions for its opponents, but always finds an excuse for excluding its effect from their own conditions. Where the Entente feels the need for annexations or disannexations, it naturally does not recognise the right of the State which is to be cut down to make its own decision, and indeed not even the right of the populations which are to be annexed to have a say as to this amputation. When the Freemasons in Paris let it appear that the fate of the territories claimed by Italy was to be decided by a plebiscite of their inhabitants, there was a storm of indignation in Italy, and in the same way the idea of a plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine was rejected in France on the ground that in that case it was only an old wrong which had to be righted. The Entente has never run short of pretexts for not allowing the right of self-determination to be applied to itself.

“If, then, I am to state the extent to which I recognise a right of the peoples to decide their own fate, I naturally prefer to express myself only in so far as the question bears an international character. The right of the State to decide upon its territorial existence is beyond all question and equally beyond all question is it that one foreign State cannot claim the right to interfere in the internal conditions of another. Such are the boundaries of the self-determination of States from the international point of view.

“As regards the question of nationalities inside the various States regulating their relations to one another and to the State, this is not an international but an internal question. I only have a right to express myself with regard to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in so far as these questions might influence foreign policy. I do not scruple to declare that I repudiate most emphatically any interference with the shaping of our domestic affairs, and must on the other hand repudiate the idea, if it should crop up, that certain internal questions are to be settled internationally. The relation of the two States of the Monarchy to each other rests on legal foundations: and the possibility of alterations in it is provided for. by constitutional institutions. Where the desire for such changes arises, they must be solved constitutionally through the legislature, which guarantees the self-determination of the nations within the framework of the State. Inside the two States of the Monarchy the individual nationalities possess every constitutional possibility of regulating their relations; and I am not in a position to recognise the possibility of other solutions.”

 

1. What President Wilson actually said was: “We owe it to ourselves to say that we do not wish in any way to impair or to re-arrange the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of ours what they do with their own life, either industrially or politically. We do not propose or desire to dictate to them in any way. We only desire to see that their affairs are left in their own hands in all matters, great or small.”—Editor.