Germany and the German Emperor (New York, 1912), Chaps. viii, xi; A. E. Zimmern, Nationality and Government (New York, 1918), Chaps. i, xiv; J. H. Rose, Nationality in Modern History (New York, 1916), Chap. vii; J. S. Schapiro, Modern and Contemporary European History (Boston, 1918), Chap. xii; F. A. Ogg, Economic Development of Modern Europe (New York, 1917), Chap. xxii; S. P. Orth, Socialism and Democracy in Europe (New York, 1913), Chaps. vii-viii; R. Hunter, Socialists at Work (New York, 1908), Chaps. i, viii; W. W. Willoughby, "The Prussian Theory of Monarchy," Amer. Polit. Sci. Review, Nov., 1917; ibid., Prussian Political Philosophy (New York, 1918); J. Dewey, German Philosophy and Politics (New York, 1915); H. W. C. Davis, The Political Thought of Heinrich von Treitschke (London, 1914); E. A. B. Hodgetts, The House of Hohenzollern (New York, 1911); S. Shaw, William of Germany (New York, 1913); W. von Schierbrand [ed.], The Kaiser's Speeches (New York, 1903); F. W. Wile, Men around the Kaiser (Philadelphia, 1913); E. Wetterlé, Behind the Scenes in the Reichstag (New York, 1918); B. von Bülow, Imperial Germany, trans. by M. Lewenz (New York, 1914); R. H. Fife, The German Empire between Two Wars (New York, 1916); E. B. Bax, German Culture, Past and Present (London, 1915); K. L. Krause, What is the German Nation Dying For? (New York, 1918); W. H. Dawson, What is Wrong with Germany? (New York, 1915); G. S. Fullerton, Germany To-day (New York, 1915); J. W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany (New York, 1917).

CHAPTER XXVI

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND ITS GOVERNMENT

The Rise of Habsburg Dominion. - In the throne room of the Hofburg at Vienna, the most ancient and picturesque of royal residences in Europe, the eye meets, here and there, embossed or in intricately intertwined gilt lettering, the mystic dictum of the Habsburgs-A EI O U. The symbol was adopted by King Frederick III in 1443, and stands for the proud prophecy, Austria erit in orbe ultima "Austria will last forever." 1 In these later days the motto seems an idle boast; for while there will still be some sort of an Austria after Europe is remade, the Empire bids fair to have been shorn of most of its territory, population, prestige, and power. Nevertheless, the remarkable thing about the Habsburg dominion is not that it has fallen in pieces under our very eyes, but that it has managed to last so long in reasonable vigor - in other words, that the Hofburg prediction has come so near being fulfilled. Probably no great political creation ever survived for four hundred years on a foundation so insecure.

The key to Austrian government and politics, as well as the explanation for the impending break-up, is supplied by the racial complexity of the country's population, and by the resulting conflicts of uncongenial and irreconcilable peoples. Prior to the Great War the ramshackle dominion of the aged Francis Joseph included one-sixteenth of the area, and one-eighth of the population, of all Europe. It formed one of the six so-called great European powers. It had been brought up to this magnitude, however, not by a natural expansion and amalgamation such as produced the modern English, French, and American nations, but by chance inheritances, ruthless conquests, unscrupulous diplomacy, and other means which took no cognizance of the 1 Schierbrand, Austria-Hungary: the Polyglot Empire, 26.

traditions and wishes of the peoples affected. To the last it remained a dominion created by force and by craft, and upheld by terrorism and intrigue. It would be futile to attempt to tell here the whole story of the growth of the Habsburg power. A few main facts will afford sufficient background for a description of recent governmental and political conditions.

The original Osterreich (eastern “empire," or "dominion”), i.e., Austria, was a mark, or border county, lying along the south bank of the Danube, east of the Enns, and founded by Charlemagne (771-814) as a bulwark of the Frankish kingdom against the Slavs. In the twelfth century the mark was raised to a duchy, and in 1276 it passed by conquest into the hands of Rudolph of Habsburg, who three years earlier had gained, by election, the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Hitherto, Rudolph and his ancestors had lorded it over only a petty district of some two hundred square miles. But now the family fortunes began to rise. Territories were lost on the west to the Swiss cantons, but eastward and southward there were steady accessions. In 1453 the duchy was raised to the rank of an archduchy, and four years later, when the Austrian branch of the ruling dynasty became extinct, the Styrian branch came in, bringing with them not only Styria itself but Carinthia, Carniola, the Tyrol, and the important city of Trieste. The greatest acquisitions, however, were Hungary and Bohemia. The former, after alternately falling under and out of Habsburg control for upwards of a century, was definitely brought into a personal union with Austria in 1526. The latter, after also being held temporarily once or twice by right of inheritance, was, in the same year, induced by fear of a Turkish subjugation to enter into what purported to be a free federation and to elect the Austrian archduke king. Promises of autonomy were freely given the new lands, but were promptly broken. To the amazement of the Bohemians, the new common sovereign - the Archduke Ferdinand, later Emperor Ferdinand I-proclaimed the Bohemian crown hereditary in the Habsburg family, and for a hundred years the country was ruled with little regard for the interests and wishes of its people. An uprising in 1618 had no effect save to precipitate the great civil and international conflict known as the Thirty Years' War and to bring upon Bohemia itself fresh disaster.

For two more centuries the country lay under the heel of the Habsburg oppressor, "a land of desolation, her peasants serfs, her native nobility destroyed and expropriated, her rights and prerogatives denied and disregarded." The experience of Hungary was similar. The Hungarians, who have ever been noted for their love of independence, clung desperately to their nationality, and even kept up the forms of an elected kingship. At intervals they, or some of them, threw off the Austrian yoke completely. But after the close of the seventeenth century the union was unbroken, and in 1687 the Hungarian crown was officially declared hereditary in the Habsburg family. Notwithstanding repeated oaths to preserve the Hungarian constitution intact, even the " enlightened despots," Maria Theresa (1740-1780) and her son, Joseph II (1780–1790), curtailed the privileges of the subject nation as much as they dared.

The Polyglot Empire. Set in the midst of a whirlpool of races, the old Austrian duchy became, by centuries of conquest and expansion, the polyglot dominion which has been a chief danger-spot of Europe throughout our own times. On the eve of the Great War, the scepter of the Emperor-King extended over at least twenty different races or fragments of races, falling into four main groups: German, Slavic, Magyar, and Latin. The original Austria was, of course, German; and to this day the wealthiest and best educated elements in the Empire are German. The Germans have also been the ruling element, and they have always proceeded on the assumption that the Empire is, or at all events is to be made, a German country. In 1910, however, the Germans, numbering twelve millions, comprised only a little more than twenty-five per cent of the population. They occupied almost solidly the older portions of Austria proper (Upper Austria, Salsburg, Vorarlberg, etc.), formed a strong minority in Bohemia, and were found in considerable colonies in Hungary. More than forty-seven per cent of the aggregate population was Slavic, the number being twenty-four and onefourth millions. One great group of Slavs lived mainly in the north; another in the south. In the north were (1) the eight

1 This chapter must deal with the Dual Monarchy as it was in the summer of 1918, before the changes which set in in the more recent period of military collapse, territorial disintegration, and political upheaval.

and one-half million Czechoslovaks, in Bohemia, Moravia, Austrian Silesia, and northern Hungary; (2) the five million Poles, in northwestern Galicia and in Silesia; and (3) the four million Ruthenians, in eastern Galicia and in Bukowina. In the south were (1) the one and one-fourth million Slovenes, in Carniola, Görz, Gradisca, and Istria, and (2) the five and onehalf million Serbo-Croats, in Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. The ten million Magyars were the Hungarians proper, descendants of the conquering Turanian hosts that at the close of the ninth century swept down into the lowlands of the Theiss and middle Danube and drove a permanent wedge into what otherwise would have been solidly Slavic soil. Encircled and outnumbered by Slavs, the Magyar kept his weaker neighbors under his heel for a thousand years, even after he had himself sacrificed his independence to German power as represented in the Habsburg government. The principal peoples of Latin stock were (1) the seven hundred and fifty thousand Italians and Ladini, in Tyrol, Görz, Gradisca, Dalmatia, and Trieste, and (2) the three and one-fourth million Rumans (Rumanians), in Transylvania and Bukowina. It must not be supposed that each of these racial elements occupies an altogether compact or contiguous territory. In many great regions, as Bohemia and Moravia, two or more peoples are inextricably intermingled; and there are numerous "enclaves," i.e., districts inhabited by one race, while the whole surrounding country is inhabited by another.

In this remarkable heterogeneity of race lay, obviously, a vast political problem. Two courses were open to the Habsburgs: (1) to accept the situation as it was, permit the several peoples to retain their autonomy, and be content with an imperial state which should be a federation, with Austria proper as only one of the leading members, or (2) to deny local autonomy, thrust Austrian rule upon a mass of powerless "subjects," centralize and Germanize without mercy. Unfortunately the latter course was chosen; and, century after century, the Vienna authorities strove to force the many discordant peoples into one huge mass, devoid of all individual traits. Ancient constitutions were overthrown; autonomous governments were curbed or suppressed; education was restricted and kept under close surveillance; the press was regulated, in some cases almost to the