THE HAPSBURG MONARCHY.*
THE relations of the various peoples which comprise the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary have long been an attractive subject of study to Englishmen. Several Englishmen who accidentally during their travels became interested in one of the numerous ethnological questions of the Empire have returned to the place and the subject again and again, until the watching of some well-nigh insoluble problem trying to solve itself has become a mental passion. One or two Englishmen in this way have acquired a masterly knowledge of some aspects of Austro-Hungarian life. We need only mention as an example Mr. R. W. Seton-Watson, valuable articles by whom have from time to time appeared in the Spectator. But Mr. H. W. Steed says that in spite of the existence of numerous works on Austria-Hungary—some the results of first-hand study and others of reading and compilation—there is room for the observations of one who has passed ten years of constant residence in the Dual Kingdom. Certainly everyone will welcome this book from so able a writer and so wellknown an authority on Austro-Hungarian life and politics as Mr. Steed. We think he over-emphasizes some of the influences at work in Austria-Hungary—notably the Jewish influence— but there is so much that is penetrating in this brilliant book that we can afford to put up with some prejudices (as we regard them) even though we may regret them. If we had to summarize Mr. Steed's conclusions in a sentence we should say that he believes the Hapsburg Monarchy to be a very powerful instrument of cohesion, capable probably of upsetting all the predictions that the fissiparous tendencies of the Empire will, end in structural disunion at the death of the Emperor Francis Joseph. The very choice of his title shows how dominant Mr. Steed believes the symbol of the Monarchy to be. In his view, the frequent internal crises are crises of growth rather than of decay. It is notorious, none the less, that the peoples of Austria-Hungary are more conscious of their differences than of their brotherhood. They are like ships steering different courses, yet using the same star for the purpose of navigation ; the star is the Hapsburg Monarchy. When the Emperor Francis Joseph addresses the various races under his control be calls them the " peoples," not the " people." " Nationality " for them means their own racial birthright, not membership of the Empire. Thus Austrian Germans speak of their " nation " and mean primarily the Germans of Bohemia, Tirol, Upper and Lower Austria, Moravia, Styria, and Carinthia, and secondarily Germans who are not Austrians at all—the Germans of the German Empire. Czechs, Croatians, Serbs, Slovenes, Poles, and Ruthenes similarly speak of their " nations " in the ethnical sense. The Austrian essayist, Ferdinand Kurnberger, said that Austria could be comprehended only if it were remembered that she is a kind of Asia. The spirit of the country is both that of a child and of an old man. In the whirl of persons, with all their South German liveliness and Slav changeability, and in spite of the way they "dance up to all things with verve and grace," there is still an Asiatic
stiffness, inertness, and conservatism which has "not budged an inch since Biblical times." The sudden arrival of universal suffrage in a virtually autocratic country was a typical paradox. It was characteristic that the move should have been dictated by the Emperor and forced on by the Socialists working from below. Parliament was reluctant. "In point of fact," says Mr. Steed, "the introduction of universal suffrage was the fulfilment of a dynastic plan long formed and tenaciously pursued. To regard it simply as popular victory' would be to overlook the circumstance that in the Hapsburg. Monarchy most things have another than their surface meaning, fulfil another than their ostensible function." The strength of the Throne was proved within very recent history when one of the long series of Magyar attempts to assert the separate nature of the Hungarian army failed like all the others. At the same time, Mr. Steed does not deny that the undermining tendencies of the Magyars are one of the most serious menaces to the Throne. The methods of the Magyars, indeed, are one of the great ironies which have to be remembered in stating a general rule as to the certainty of sweetening a people by a grant of autonomy. Englishmen who are still alive can remember the raptures of enthusiasm with which Kossuth was received in England when he pleaded for the cause of his countrymen. But never since the day when the Magyars got what they wanted have they shown any sign of according to their own subordinates the sympathy which they themselves once craved and won. The meanness is the greater because they attained more than they had deserved or even expected, thanks to the sagacity of Doak. When Austria was bard pressed by other troubles and the Hungarian question was still an open and dangerous sore, the Emperor Francis Joseph asked Deak on what terms he would settle the dispute. Desk, with an outward show of chivalry, answered that the Hungarians desired to take no unfair advantage and would require no better terms now than before. It was an answer worthy of that clever leader,
for what had been asked for before was a maximum representing much more than the Magyars had hoped to receive. The Emperor, however, gratefully closed with the offer. The Magyars have forgotten everything and learned nothing new, whereas the Emperor himself has never ceased to learn and to change with the times. He has never changed too soon, but has shown an extraordinary aptitude in recognizing the -hour of necessity. It may be said that his changes have
been only opportunism or mere cynicism. But at all events they have served the Empire well, and have probably saved it. To some ardent proposer of a new scheme of regeneration he remarked : "En theorie, en theorie, peut-etre; mais en pratique ii faut avoir ete Empereur soixante ans." Next to the Crown in importance Mr. Steed places the army. The Church, the police, and the bureaucracy are all, in his opinion, of less account. Of the army he says :— "It inculcates, moreover, unitary sentiment and devotion to the dynasty. In spirit it is far more democratic than the German army. The bulk of Austro-Hungarian officers are drawn, not as in Germany, from the aristocracy and the nobility, but rather from the middle and lower middle classes. Austro-Hungarian
officers are, for the most part, hard-working, hard-living men, unspoiled by luxury, and striving to subsist on little more than their meagre pay. They stand nearer than the German officers to the common soldier. Cases of ill-treatment of men by officers are rare. The subaltern who should restrict his intercourse with his men to the shouting of a few words of command would soon be found wanting. The bulk of Austro-Hungarian regiments are racially composite. Their officers must speak enough of the languages of the men to be able to supplement the German words of command with detailed instructions and explanations in the mother tongues of the rank and file. There results a personal relationship that renders the army in Austria-Hungary a more human and humanizing organization than Germany." On the Church Mr. Steed delivers a bitter and damning judgment :—
" It has great power, vast wealth, and little living faith. It is an institution, not an evangelizing nor always a purifying agency. In tutta Vienna non ho trovato una sola anima,' was the sad verdict of a profoundly religious foreign friar after considerable experience of the Austrian ecclesiastical world. The religious movement, nicknamed 4 Modernist,' that affected some of the best minds in the French, Italian, German, and English branches of the Roman Church, left Austria-Hungary practically untouched. Austria has not produced a single 'Modernist ' of note. One solitary priest who pleaded for greater spirituality in a book called Nostra Maxima Culpa was speedily silenced and is now forgotten. One Hungarian bishop revealed spiritual tendencies in a series of books and pastoral letters, but found himself condemned and obliged to retract. These are the only signs of loftier aspiration in the Church of Austria and Hungary. The rest is domination, intrigue, enjoyment of fat revenues, and maintenance of control over arpeople very observant of religious form and very void of religious feeling. In such conditions 'Clericalism' flourishes."
It is in his appreciation of Dr. Lueger, the famous Burgomaster of Vienna, and in his condemnation of Austrian "Liberalism" that Mr. Steed seems to us unnecessarily to excuse and sanction anti-Semitism. The Zionist organization —the most conscious and deliberate expression of Judaism— is but slenderly represented in Parliament, and the whole body of Jews is numerically inferior to such nationalities as the Rutbenes and the Rumenes. Mr. Steed attributes to Jewish capitalistic influences all the insincerities and inconsistencies of Austrian "Liberalism." Moreover, he assumes in many highly civilized countries a degree of anti-Semitism which we ourselves have been unable to detect.
We have not space to mention all the admirable points in the book, but we must add that there is a brief but masterly summary of the South Slav question. Apart from the South Slav question Mr. Steed would assign special prominence (among the dangers that threaten the Monarchy) to the old problem of Transylvanian autonomy and to the newer question of Rumanian Irredentism in the event of the relations between the Monarchy and Rumania becoming less cordial. In this respect the bigoted Chauvinism of the Magyars is once more to blame. Mr. Steed, contrary to one received opinion, does not think that Germany is waiting anxiously for the break-up of the Empire.
"Germany seems unlikely to consent to any essential dismemberment of Austria-Hungary as long as the German Empire is able, by a policy of economic and political penetration, to use the Monarchy as its instrument. A main object of this penetration is to give Germany command of the route to Trieste and, through the Adriatic, to the Mediterranean. The Hapsburg Monarchy will probably be exposed to no mortal peril as long as it refrains from serious insubordination to Germany ; and should a European conflagration ever arise out of the numerous unsolved international issues in Europe or the Near East, the Monarchy might hope, in the event of victory, to obtain with German help a considerable slice of Russian territory. In the event of defeat its existence, like that of the German Empire in its present form, might be endangered. But catastrophic hypotheses are best left out of account in these days of intertwined interests and of armies so colossal that defeat could hardly fail to be attended by revolutions fatal to thrones and to the existing social order ; and calm consideration of the complicated factors involved leads rather to the conclusion that the Hapsburg Monarchy has but one sure way of escape from its difficulties into a more prosperous and tranquil future—the way of evolution, gradual or rapid as circumstances may permit, towards a form of internal organization better adapted than the Dual System to the permanent needs of its peoples."
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