Pogodin, the Russian scholar, had recommended the Matice to publish the works of Hus. “God prevent,” answered Šafařík to Pogodin’s letter (1857). “Who would think of publishing books on Hus in Austria?—yes, if they were against Hus—that would be simple.”
Before Krejčí’s work on geology could be published, every page, nay every line, was carefully scanned, and when that was done the manuscriptwas ordered to be submitted for approval to a learned priest, to make sure that it contained nothing contrary to the teaching of the church. Palacký, who was always dreaming of his pet scheme of the publication of a Bohemian encyclopedia, was told that “under the existing press laws it would be unwise to urge the matter.”
In honor of the emperor’s marriage (1854) the government showed clemency to certain political persons; yet, in general, conditions remained unchanged. Patriots who had been expelled from Prague could return, but city or country, their movements were watched by the police. Sladkovský, a famous journalist whose publications had been ruined by censorship, applied for a license to start a coal yard with which to support his family. The application was promptly disallowed. Young Frič, a literary rebel, planned to issue a volume of poetry with the collaboration of the younger set of writers. This warning was received from Vienna: “Let Frič beware; if he does not desist in his dangerous course, he may again find himself interned in a fortress.” The police directors and press censors suspected the loyalty of everyone who ventured to write in Bohemian. “I fail to comprehend,” remonstrated Police Director Weber with Frič, “why you persist in this ridiculous nonsense; in about six years there willbe nothing left of your Bohemian literature, anyway.”
On another occasion Weber gave Frič to understand that Bohemia was a German territory, and that if he wished to live in it he must obey German laws. Yet Frič was incorrigible. For his intractability and because he would not share Weber’s view that his nation was doomed to extinction, he was banished to the hills of Transylvania.
On the battlefields at Magenta and Solferino in Italy in 1859, the absolutist rule of Bach, which derived its chief support from the bureaucracy, the military, and the clerical party, came to an abrupt end. The progressive element clamored for reforms. Bach was dismissed from office and his successor (Goluchowski) announced that in the future the state budget would be subject to the scrutiny of the people and that provincial diets would be invited to legislate on their needs. The last part of the program the federalists interpreted to mean that the principle of local self-government had at last been recognized.
In the Bohemian Diet a prominent member, encouraged by the program of the new premier, moved, amid genuine enthusiasm of the federalists, that a deputation of the diet be appointed to go to Vienna and urge the emperor to have himself crowned king in Prague. When, subsequently, adeputation of the diet secured an audience from the ruler, he declared (1861): “I will be crowned in Prague as King of Bohemia, and I am convinced that this ceremony will cement anew the indissoluble tie of confidence and loyalty between My throne and My Bohemian Kingdom.”
Bohemians were elated. At last their ideal of autonomous Bohemia seemed at the point of realization.
Here a few words should be said concerning the constitution under which Austrians were to begin a new parliamentary life. The much-heralded and impatiently awaited document was drafted by Minister Schmerling, a staunch centralist, and because it was promulgated in February (1861) it was called the “Constitution of February.” As soon as its text had been made public, the Slavs instantly recognized that the statesmen in Vienna had not profited in the slightest from the lessons of 1848. Minister Schmerling, was, like all Germans, obsessed with the notion that German hegemony was indispensable to the safety and greatness of the state. Accordingly he subordinated every other idea and interest to that one obsession. A most ingenious electoral system was evolved whereby Germans, though in minority, were able to control, not only the central parliament, but the provincial diets as well. Thescheme was to favor the cities, wealthy individual taxpayers, and chambers of commerce (which groups then were German in sentiment) to the disadvantage of the agricultural districts inhabited by the Slavs. How the electoral law worked in Bohemia one can perceive from the fact that in 1873 2,500,000 Bohemians were able to elect only 34 deputies, while 1,500,000 Germans contrived to return 56 deputies. The powers of the provincial diets were reduced to a minimum, the controlling idea, of course, being to keep centred in Vienna the entire power of the state. By reason of this juggling the Bohemian element found itself in minority in its own Land Diet.
Although distrustful because of the partisanship evinced in the constitution, the Bohemians nevertheless entered parliament, but they did so upon the express understanding that their participation therein should not be in any manner prejudicial to the historical rights of their kingdom.
Generally speaking, the Austrian nations, from the very first day their representatives were permitted to enter the legislative halls, divided themselves into two political parties, federalists and centralists. The federalists favored granting self-government to the various races; the centralists, who were backed by the German masses, opposed this. Austria, according to the latter, was lost to the German cause the moment the agitation “Away from Vienna” had gained the upper hand. For reasons of self-protection the Slavs, led by the Bohemians, inclined toward federalism, as more likely to satisfy their national aspirations. Instead of a Teutonic Austria, the Slavs desired a United States of Austria that should be just and impartial to all.
For months the Bohemians waited, but to their surprise and dismay the government took no steps to make effective the emperor’s promise. On the contrary, the increasing persecution of their press, the brutal partiality of the speaker of parliament, the hostile attitude of the executive organs of the government were signs, the significance of which could not be doubted. The discouraging truth dawned on them at last that the emperor had no intention of keeping his word and of giving home rule to his Bohemian subjects.
Deceived by their sovereign and realizing that neither reason nor justice would influence Vienna, they decided, in 1863, as a means of protest and to show their deep resentment, to leave the parliament in a body. On June 17th of that year they issued a statement in which the grievances of the nation were set forth at length. For sixteen years after that no Bohemian legislator appeared in the Austrian Parliament. And while this may not have been a sagacious course—indeed, subsequent events have shown that the “policy of abstinence,” as the parliamentary boycott came to be known, almost irreparably prejudiced their position—yet, as a protest of an outraged nation, it was magnificent.
Up to 1867 the Hapsburg Monarchy was, outwardly at least, a Teutonic state. But in 1866, having been decisively beaten by Prussia at Sadova, it found itself facing a new destiny. Expelled from the Germanic Bund of which it had been a leading member, the championship wrested from it by victorious Hohenzollerns, rent by internal discord, its statesmen concurred in the opinion that reconstruction of some kind was inevitable. But what course of action should be pursued? Should the government again have recourse to the shop-worn policy of rigid centralization and Germanization which had been tried by Austrian Premiers time and time again and invariably found wanting?
That Hungary should be given back her autonomy was conceded beforehand. Weakened by war, its military prestige shattered, its finances at a low ebb, the government was in no condition to resist the Magyars, who had assumed a threatening attitude. But what about the Bohemians, who alsoclamored for recognition? Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria, it will be remembered, had formed a union in 1526-1527 on terms of equality. And then how should the larger Slavic questions be settled? Numerically the Slavs were the strongest element in the monarchy. If allowed to elect representatives to one central parliament, these discontented Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, and Croatians might one day, uniting politically, control the country. Tacitly Vienna and Budapest agreed that, whatever the terms of the settlement with Hungary, the disaster of Slavic majority must be averted.
“The Slavs must be pressed to the wall” (Man wird die Slaven an die Wand drücken), declared a statesman who participated actively in the plan of reconstruction. “You,” addressing the Magyars, “will take care of your hosts [meaning the Slavs] and we shall take care of ours.”
In the parliament the cause of the Slavic federalists was lost beforehand; a German-made constitution and German-made electoral law rendered futile every opposition. Besides, the government would brook no interference with its plan of reconstruction as outlined by Count Beust.[12]Thisplan contemplated a dual government, one in Vienna, the other in Budapest, and three parliaments, one to sit in Vienna for the Austrian half, one to meet in Budapest for the Hungarian half, and a third one to be called the “Delegations” and to convene alternately at both capitals to deliberate on matters common to the empire as a whole, such as foreign relations, the army, navy, finances, and so forth. In other words, Beust’s plan provided for two seats of centralization instead of one. From a German state that it had been before 1867 Austria became a German-Magyar state—an organization without precedent or analogy.
The several kingdoms, crown-lands, etc., were divided under Beust’s plan; and, upon the consummation of the deal, were allotted to the contracting parties to the dualism as follows: Austria received Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Bukovina, Dalmatia, Galicia, Carinthia, Carniola, Trieste and vicinity, Goritz and Gradiska, Istria, Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Voralberg. Hungary secured as her part of the bargain Hungary Proper, Transylvania, Fiume, Croatia, Slavonia, and the Military Frontier.
Figures, better than anything else, will explain why the Slavs were opposed to dualism and presently became its irreconcilable enemies. Under the Austrian roof Beust put these Slavic groups (quoting from the census of 1910):
Bohemians6,435,983Poles4,967,984Slovenes1,252,940Serbo-Croatians783,334Little Russians3,608,844Total17,049,085
Under the Magyar domination fell the following Slavs:
Slovaks1,967,970Croatians1,833,167Serbs1,106,471Little Russians472,5875,380,195
Beust’s scheme was audaciously clever. By dividing the monarchy in two he divided the Slavs; and, separated and isolated, they were made easier victims of Magyarization in Hungary and of Germanization in Austria. A crying injustice of this shameful bargain was that the “high contractingparties” tore apart peoples of the same race, setting up a political barrier where nature intended that none should exist. Austria, for instance, had been awarded Dalmatia, the population of which is almost wholly Croatian; yet Slavonia and Croatia, which is also Croatian to the core (or Serbo-Croatian), went to Hungary. Bohemians of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were lodged under the Austrian roof; the Slovaks, on the other side, who are almost one with the Bohemian race, were put under the guardianship of Hungary. Nations and races were moved on the Austrian chess-board like so many pawns—exactly the same way as at the Vienna Congress in 1814 and at the Berlin Conference in 1878.
“No people in the monarchy were more unjustly prejudiced by dualism than the Bohemians,” is the opinion of Denis. “Every article of the Settlement affected their interests most adversely. Their kinsmen, the Croatians and Serbs, and particularly the Slovaks—the latter always confidently looked upon as a reserve force of the nation—were handed out to merciless and unfeeling masters. The crown of St. Václav (St. Václav is honored as patron saint of Bohemia) was reduced by Vienna to a position of semi-vassalage and given equal rank with a medley of outlying and insignificant provinces. Dualism condemned the Slavs to be the unwillingtools of a policy to which they had been opposed. Bohemia, the richest and most productive land in the empire, was made to bear the heaviest quota of the burden with which statesmen had saddled the Austrian half of the monarchy.” Condemning dualism, Dr. Edward Grégr, in a famous speech delivered in parliament, declared “that it would be wisest to tear down to its foundations the ramshackle building that made every tenant dissatisfied, that lacked light and air, that neither expense nor labor could make habitable, and to build upon the ruins an edifice answering the manifold needs of its inhabitants. In the judgment of Dr. Menger” (a German deputy), thundered Grégr, “this would be a treason and I confess that it would be a treason. Yet, is not dualism a treason on the rights and liberties of the peoples of this state and particularly on the rights and liberties of our Bohemian nation?”
And because the settlement between Austria and Hungary had been effected without the co-operation, much less the consent of the Bohemians, whose claims were utterly disregarded—it will be remembered that at that time, 1867, they were boycotting the parliament—a series of political duels were fought between Vienna and Prague, which in the end resulted in the defeat of the weaker antagonist, that is, Prague.
In the spring of 1867 the Prague Diet was summoned to elect deputies to the parliament which was to vote on the settlement with Hungary. The Bohemians refused to elect such deputies and entered instead a vigorous protest against being incorporated in Austria-Hungary, then in process of formation. The only state they recognized was the Bohemian Kingdom and this had as much right to autonomy as Hungary. Promptly the government dissolved the diet and ordered new elections. At these elections, thanks to the ingenious electoral law, the Bohemians were defeated and the German minority, now master in the diet, proceeded to elect delegates to the Vienna Parliament. The Bohemians declared this election unconstitutional and fraudulent. Deputies so elected, they maintained, were not true representatives of the people and could not, therefore, legally or morally bind the nation in parliament. Having issued this protest, the Bohemians left the diet, and the next year, instead of returning, issued their memorable Declaration of Rights, bearing date August 22, 1868. They continued to boycott the Land Diet until 1870.
The government was by no means tardy in making the rebels feel that they needed to be disciplined for their refusal to participate in the labors of the parliament. The Director of Police inPrague received orders to see to it “that Bohemian newspapers moderate their tone.” That, of course, meant the inevitable lawsuits, police chicanery, confiscation, fines, jail.
To break the rebellious spirit of the Bohemians the government sent Baron Koller to Prague, as Military Governor,—a soldier of the Radecký type of Austrian generals—brutal, violent. One of his first acts was to place the capital under martial law (1868). Koller suspended the publication of nearly every Bohemian newspaper. Arrests for political crimes became so numerous that the jail of the New Town (one of the Boroughs of Prague) held at one time 400 prisoners, though there was room only for 250 persons. During 1868 in Prague alone Koller sent to jail 144 persons who were convicted of political misdemeanors and crimes. The total penalties aggregated 81 years. How many prisoners there were in the provincial towns in Bohemia and Moravia is only conjectured, but it was asserted afterwards that there had been five times as many as in Prague, so that the total number of political prisoners in Bohemia in 1868 was about 700.
When the Premier tried to placate the Bohemian opposition by suspending martial law (April, 1869) in Prague, the centralists became furious. Bohemian autonomy, declared theirorgan, the Vienna “Neue Freie Presse,” is an issue that only force can solve; the unification of the Bohemian Crown may be of vital moment to the Bohemians, but the Germans will never give their consent.
At last wiser counsel prevailed in Vienna, and while certain members favored repression, even force, to bring the Bohemians to submission, there were others, Count Taaffe among them, who urged moderation. The Potocki ministry (1870) tried to breach the differences between Prague and Vienna. More successful than Potocki was Count Hohenwart, whom the emperor encouraged to make terms with the Bohemians. Hohenwart’s first step was to name two distinguished Bohemians, Jireček and Habětínek, members of his cabinet. The “Neue Freie Presse” commented on Hohenwart’s appointment as “the Sedan of German ideals in Austria.” Hohenwart’s next step was to select an Austrian commission, in co-operation with a similar commission of Bohemians, headed by Count Clam-Martinic and Dr. Rieger, to draft terms of settlement, which came to be known as the “Fundamental Articles.” These “Fundamentals” defined precisely the future relations of Bohemia and Austria. In the “Fundamentals”one could clearly discern Palacký’s ideas of federalistic Austria.
Thereupon an imperial rescript was issued, bearing date September 12, 1871, in which the emperor made this memorable promise: “Recognizing the state rights of the Bohemian Crown, calling to mind the renown and power which the crown has conferred upon Us and Our predecessors, and mindful further of the unwavering loyalty with which the people of Bohemia have at all times supported Our throne, We are glad to recognize the rights of this kingdom and are ready to renew this recognition by Our coronation oath.”[13]
Obviously it was not the mere mediæval ceremony of coronation that Bohemians were anxious to have take place. By having himself crowned as king, the sovereign would affirm by implication that the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margravateof Moravia, and the Duchy of Silesia were one and indivisible; that Bohemia was a part of the monarchy only as long as the Hapsburgs survived in the male or female line; that in the event of the Hapsburg-Lothringen line becoming extinct, Bohemia was free to elect its own ruler; that the power of legislation was vested jointly in the king and in the diets and that the king, upon taking the coronation oath, bound himself to defend the indissolubility of the Bohemian Crown.
In answer to the emperor’s declaration the diet passed in its sessions of October 8 and 10, 1871, the “Fundamental Articles.” Meantime the centralists worked indefatigably to defeat the settlement with Bohemia. Their journals employed every means to prejudice public opinion against it. “Austria is about to capitulate to the Slavs,” wrote these journals, “and Prague will eventually supersede Vienna as the capital of the empire.”
It is known that Bismarck, fearing that Bohemian home rule might have a stimulating effect on his Poles, and Andrassy, solicitous about the “welfare” of his Slovaks, jointly intrigued to defeat the autonomy which Premier Hohenwart was ready to concede. “Hungary will have nothing in common with Slavic Austria,” declared the “Pester Lloyd,” speaking for the Hungarian Government. “We Hungarians shall do everythingin our power to frustrate the reconstruction. Call it selfishness, if you will, but that shall be our policy.”
The victory of the Prussians over the French in 1871 naturally made the Austro-German centralists more stubborn than ever, and Hohenwart, despairing of the passage in the parliament of the “Fundamental Articles,” resigned October 30th. For the second time since 1848 the rehabilitation of the Bohemian State had been frustrated. That the emperor, always vacillating and ever fearful of the Pan-Germans, was not himself without blame, is obvious. In fact, it is charged that the coterie of archdukes around the throne welcomed opposition to Bohemian home rule, if it did not secretly foment it.
A new rescript commanded the diet to elect delegates to the parliament. Refusing to do this, the diet was dissolved. The Auersperg-Lasser Ministry which followed Hohenwart was outspokenly German-centralistic and Bohemian autonomists made ready for another onslaught from Vienna.
For the second time the “opposition tamer,” Baron Koller, was appointed Governor of Bohemia. To Moravia was sent the notoriousBohemiophobe, Baron Weber. As usual, the press was the first to feel the heel of these little despots. Public prosecutors throughout Bohemia and Moravia received instructions to proceed “fearlessly” against opposition journals. Those prosecutors who replied that they would do their duty strictly “in accordance with the law” were either removed or transferred to other posts and replaced by functionaries who were more mindful of the needs of the government. “It is not necessary in every instance to set forth the reason for the confiscation of a newspaper article,” the prosecutors were instructed. “The prosecutors have a full power to act and they are answerable to no one.” During the first year of the Auersperg-Lasser Ministry the daily newspaper “Politik” in Prague was confiscated 83 times by the conscientious prosecutor. A number of societies were dissolved, though non-political in character. An agricultural organization that had been founded during the reign of Maria Theresa and had survived the bitter days of Bach’s administration, was deprived of its charter because its president, Prince Charles Schwarzenberg, a Bohemian noble, declined to participate in the Vienna Exposition unless a separate space was allotted there to Bohemia, as to Hungary. Every presiding officer of the so-called District Committees in the provinces, who wassuspected of being a Bohemian sympathizer, was summarily removed. Two of the most noted journalists, Julius Grégr and J. St. Skrejšovský, who had the courage to fight the Auersperg-Lasser Ministry openly, were put in jail for an alleged attempt to defraud the government of a trifling tax with which newspaper advertisements were assessable. Both languished in jail for months. As an instance of official meanness, the case of the publisher of the “Correspondence Slave” should be mentioned. This man received a long term in prison for failure to pay a newspaper tax amounting to less than half a florin (20 cents).
And because Bohemian juries almost uniformly acquitted journalists brought before them for political offenses, prosecuting attorneys resorted to the expedient of a change of venue to cities inhabited by Germans. To eminent jurists protesting that a procedure of this kind was unconstitutional, the Minister of Justice replied that state necessities justified this course. On one occasion a deputation of representative citizens of Prague called on Baron Koller to complain of the arbitrariness of the police. “Gentlemen, I hope you do not wish me to be uncivil to you. I am exceedingly busy, and inasmuch as I have nothing to say to you, I must ask you to leave the room in five minutes.” And when the deputation, incensed over Koller’sbrusqueness, wished to explain, the redoubtable baron exclaimed: “Gentlemen, the five minutes are up. Leave.” A door was opened, and in the ante-room stood a sentry with fixed bayonet.
The year 1879 witnessed the end of the “policy of abstinence.” Due, largely, to Premier Taaffe’s persuasion and promises, Bohemians re-entered the parliament. From Taaffe and his successors in office they obtained some political concessions (crumbs fallen from the opulent table of the master, to repeat a current expression of the opposition), yet the supreme ideal of the nation, autonomy, is to-day no nearer fulfillment than it ever was. If they thought that they might be able to convince Vienna of the injustice of dualism and might by parliamentary pressure force it to grant to them home rule of which they had been twice cheated, they had reckoned wrongly. Not only did they fail to bring Vienna to terms, but they were made to feel that another foe, powerful and implacable, blocked their way to national freedom. That foe was Berlin. For it must not be forgotten that, since the formation of the Triple Alliance, Berlin influence at Vienna, always great, had become predominant. If the two Teutonic partners were agreed on any one thing, it was on the proposition that Slavic trees in Austria should not grow too tall.
To conduct the reader through the maze of purely local happenings that occurred since Taaffe’s administration would be a long, though not wholly uninteresting story. Suffice it to say that during most of the time Bohemians were forced to fight on two fronts—Vienna on one front and their fellow-countrymen with Pan-German leanings on the other. The main quarrel between Vienna and Prague during all these years has been over Home Rule. Shall Bohemians living in the countries comprising the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia) be the arbiters of their own destiny, and shall they govern themselves from Prague by laws made and enacted by their home parliament? Home Rule is and has been the main issue; all else is subordinate to it.
In 1908 the German minority in the Bohemian Diet proposed a plan aiming at a division of Bohemia into two administrative parts, German and Bohemian. This plan the Bohemians vehemently combated, as they had consistently opposed like schemes in the past. They claimed that to rend the kingdom into two halves, Bohemian and German, was both impracticable and dangerous. Impracticable, because it would condemn to inevitableGermanization the very strong Bohemian minorities living in German districts on the border. Dangerous, because there were good reasons for believing that German Bohemia would gravitate toward Berlin, rather than toward Prague or Vienna. Their scheme having been blocked, the Germans availed themselves of obstructive tactics in the diet, with the result that a deadlock ensued. As usual, the Vienna Government hurried to the assistance of the Germans. Bohemian leaders were made to understand that they must yield in the Prague Diet, or suffer punishment in the parliament. However, neither threats nor promises moved the Bohemians; they made it plain that they would not submit to further political extortions. Unable to break the deadlock in Bohemia and unwilling to abandon the Germans in their hopeless struggle for the maintenance of Teutonic hegemony in Austria, the Vienna Government, as a last desperate means of saving its compatriots from political defeat, suspended what there was still left of Bohemian autonomy on July 26, 1913, one year before the outbreak of the war, having previously advised the Berlin Government of its intention. The diet was dissolved, although new elections had not been ordered, as the law provided, and in place of the autonomous Land Executive, the government appointed an ImperialCommission to govern Bohemia. This was the beginning of an absolutist era in the kingdom.
The echo of the deadlock in Bohemia was at once heard in parliament. Promptly the Bohemians carried the fight to the imperial assembly, thus crippling its functions. And so it happened that, on the eve of the Great War, the highest legislative tribunal of the empire did not meet and the nations were not consulted as to whether or not they wished war. The ruler alone decided this momentous question by taking recourse to the famous paragraph fourteen of the constitution which, in certain cases, allows him to act alone without the co-operation or advice of the parliament.[14]This situation really suited the wishes of the government clique, which knew beforehand that the Slavs would have resolutely opposed the war if given an opportunity. Certain it is that the Bohemians would have raised their voice against the mad adventure against Serbia and would have declared in no unequivocal language that a rulerwho had twice broken his solemn promise to them had little claim on their loyalty.
In a hundred different ways the nation is being wronged and held back, and no lasting relief is possible so long as the deadening centralistic, anti-Slavic policy obtains, so long as the state recognizes master races and servant races and accords different treatment to each.
To every one of its political and cultural demands Vienna is ready to plead reasons of state, policies of state, principles of state, necessities of state. If the grumbling is too loud the malcontents are given to understand: “If you are not satisfied in Austria, you may have a chance to become Prussians.”
“Our nation is in a grave danger,” said Palacký, “and surrounded on all sides by enemies. Yet I believe that it will conquer in the end, if it is only determined.” And the Bohemian nation is determined, determined to the last man, to fight for its life, its liberty, and its happiness.
If there is one thing deeply rooted in the minds of the Bohemian people it is the belief, or rather the conviction, that the Hapsburgs, beginning with Ferdinand II. and ending with Francis Josef, the present sovereign, one and all planned the Germanization of the nation. Vienna newspapers make much of the fact that Bohemia has advanced under the rule of Francis Josef as under no other Hapsburg—and they seek to convey the impression that this remarkable renascence should be credited to his reign. If Francis Josef had had his way, Bohemians argue, they would to-day be like the Slavs along the Elbe who have succumbed to Germanization, and Prague would be as German as Leipzig or Vienna. Their own determination to live saved them from extinction. All that the nation is and all that it has attained it has accomplished through its own effort, without help from Vienna, often in the face of the bitterest opposition from that quarter. Deny it as much as you will, the truth remains that Bohemians, remembering their experience with Ferdinand II., have always distrusted the Hapsburgs; and Francis Josef has done nothing, despite the splendid opportunities of his remarkably long reign, to dispel that feeling of distrust. For, who was it but a Hapsburg who, in the first half of the seventeenthcentury, turned their fatherland into a waste, driving into exile the flower of the nation? Who but a Hapsburg put a tombstone on the sepulchre of the nation, and who but a Hapsburg tried to smother its spirit under that tombstone? Who but a Hapsburg caused the persecution and jailing of the revivalists who undertook the task of awakening the nation? And who but a Hapsburg twice violated, twice broke his solemn promise to the nation, first in 1861, and again in 1871? Who but a Hapsburg, by approving of the dualistic system of government in 1867, intrigued to barter them away, with the rest of the Slavs, into political bondage?
Reading the utterances of Austrian officials in the United States one is almost persuaded to believe that the reports of mutinies in the early stages of the war and of disaffection of Slavic troops were pure inventions of a hostile press, that the nations in the Hapsburg Monarchy were enthusiastic and united[15]on the question of war andthat stories of oppression of non-Germanic peoples were baseless, lacking the foundation of truth. A member of one of the consular staffs made a pretty speech before the New York Twilight Club in which he tried to convince his hearers that it was an old-time policy of the Austrian Government to treat justly and impartially all its subjects, irrespective of race, for does not the Hofburg in Vienna, the residence of the emperor, bear the proud legend, “Justice to all nations is the fundament of Austria”?
Is it really true that the Austrian troops are and were loyal, that none shot their officers and none surrendered to the Russians or to the Serbians when an opportunity presented? Do not these very denials of mutiny and disaffection sound suspicious? Mutiny of troops is admittedly unknown in the German Army, and none have been, so far as we know, reported from the French or English Armies. Neither the Germans, nor the English, nor the French officials in this country have felt the need to make public affirmation or denial where silence should have been most eloquent. If the Austro-Hungarian officials are so sure of their case, why do they make an exception and try to refute what in the case of the other warring countries is understood as a matter of course?
Before we could give unreserved credence to these official assurances, we should like to hear the other side of the story. But, it so happens that the other side cannot now be presented. Every newspaper in Austria, without an exception (particularly opposition journals printed in any of the Slavic languages), is edited by the government. The government censor is editor of all journals published in the empire, and the newspapers are given the choice either to print what the Imperial Royal Press Bureau sends them or have the articles promptly confiscated. As a result of this complete muzzling of the press, there is now but one kind of public opinion in Austria—the censor’s opinion. According to the Prague journals, which reach the United States, Austrians are winning everywhere—on land, at sea, and in the air. Police agents plan fraternal and loyal meetings of Germans and Slavs, and the police agents’ faithful ally, the censor, writes them up in the newspapers and the Imperial Royal Press Bureau in Vienna sends broadcast glowing accounts of them. Again, many of the leading men of the Bohemian nation are in jail or under strict police surveillance and cannot speak. Are we to believe that all the Austrian races fight enthusiastically? Precisely the opposite of this is true. With the exception of a fraction of the Galician Poles, the Slavs were entirely opposed to the war with Serbia.[16]Unfortunately they have no voice in the foreign policy of the monarchy; if their warnings and pleadings, as reflexed in their press, had been heeded, war against Serbia would never have been undertaken. Slavs are battling under the Austro-Hungarian standards because they cannot help themselves. Yet their hearts are not in the fight. Even the dullest and least informed mind will guess, notwithstandingthe honeyed assurances of consular officials, the way their sympathies incline. It should be borne in mind that this is a war of Slavs against Slavs, of Slavic Russia and Slavic Serbia against two-fifths Slavic Austria. Let us place ourselves in the position of the Bohemians. For decades they have worked for solidarity among the Slavs, so much so that their endeavors in this direction have earned for them the title of theApostles of Pan-Slavism. Is it reasonable to suppose that they would suddenly turn traitors to one of the most cherished traditions of their race and shout enthusiastically for a war which, if successful for the two Kaisers, would mean their certain obliteration? If Germany should win, the eventual absorption by her of Austria would be probable, if not inevitable. The Pan-German sentiment in the two neighboring empires would become so overwhelmingly strong that nothing would stay its furor and the millions of Austrian Slavs would find themselves face to face with their doom. Plainly, Slavs have nothingto gain from the defeat of the Allies, but everything to lose from the victory of the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns. They feel that nothing short of a decisive defeat of Austria will liberate them from the thraldom of German-Magyar domination. If Austria collapses in this war the Bohemians will be among the first to profit thereby.[17]
Is it really true that the Slavs are loyal? Is it not rather a loyalty wrung from them at the point of the bayonet? Besides, how can they protest against a war which was neither of their choosing nor of their making, when the military rule has made protests impossible? One must respect and even admire the French and the Germans when they declare that they are fighting for the existence of the fatherland. What are the AustrianSlavs fighting for? To them, or rather to the majority of them, Austrian fatherland conveys but an abstraction, for correctly speaking, Austria is a government and not a fatherland in the sense that a German or a Frenchman regards the country of his birth. Austria may possibly be a fatherland to the inhabitants of the Archduchies of Lower and Upper Austria, but not to a Bohemian, a Magyar, or a Pole—certainly no more than England is the fatherland of an Irishman. By allegiance a Bohemian is an Austrian subject, ethnically he belongs to the country of his birth—Bohemia. While the national anthem “Kde domov můj” (Where is my Home?) stirs deeply the emotions of a Bohemian, the singing of the Austrian hymn “Gott erhalte” leaves him cold and indifferent.
Vienna loves to pose as the beacon-light of the empire somewhat as Paris, the recognized centre of everything French, or Berlin, the pivotal city of Germany. Yet Vienna forgets that it lacks all of the historical, geographical, economic essentials of Paris and, for that matter, of Berlin. What is Vienna? The residence of the sovereign and the seat of the government and the capital—not of the empire, mind you, but of the Archduchy of Lower Austria. The capital of Hungary is Budapest; thecentre of attraction of the Poles is Cracow; the heart of the Bohemians is Prague. What has been the attitude of Vienna toward the non-German peoples and their national needs? The good-natured Viennese has for decades seen the Slavs caricatured on the stage, or in the humorous journals, as hopeless simpletons, while the Bohemian Wenzel was chosen by common consent as the quintessence of stupidity.
Several years ago a Bohemian Bank purchased palatial quarters on a leading thoroughfare, but it had to cover with cloth a Bohemian sign on the building until the municipality gave its consent thereto. A few years ago a company of actors, attached to the National Theatre at Prague, arranged to give in Vienna representative plays. Anti-Bohemian demonstrations, ending in riots, were the result.
Vienna, the capital of an empire that is inhabited by a dozen different races, and which counts among its inhabitants upward of 300,000 Bohemians, objected to a business sign in Bohemian, because it might mar the beauty of its looks as a German city! A few years ago the municipality ordered the closing of the Komenský Bohemian elementary school, ostensibly because it failed to comply with building and health ordinances. The real reason, however, was known to be political and racial antipathy.Is it any wonder, then, that the sentiment “Away from Vienna” is strong and that it grows stronger every year among non-Germans? “Vienna has always been to us,” remarked a noted Bohemian writer, “a cruel, unforgiving step-mother.”
On the surface the Austrian problem appears to be quite complicated, yet with the assistance of a few facts and figures much that is puzzling to casual observers becomes intelligible, if not perfectly clear.
Like most industrial countries, Austria is plagued with issues which follow in the wake of modernism—whatever that term may imply. Modernism there pounds with ever-increasing violence at the doors of the palaces of the opulent captains of industry. The small farmer is land-hungry. Industrialism has everywhere created new sources of wealth, yet with every factory erected or a mine opened the socialists have added so much to their disaffected ranks. A bitter war is being waged in certain sections of the monarchy between the clericals and the modernists, for it must not be forgotten that Austria is still a faithful daughter of Rome. If there are those who favor the “Los von Rom”—“Away from Rome”—movement,there are others who firmly believe that a steadfast loyalty to a faith different from that professed by the Prussian neighbor, really constitutes one of the most effective barriers against the ever-threatening absorption of Austria by Prussia.
Most important of all the problems, however, which confront Austria is that of nationalism. Nationalism was unknown to Austria in the days of Napoleon. Prior to 1848 Hapsburgs knew and recognized Austrian-Germans only. After that revolutionary year they were compelled to take notice, unwillingly enough, we may be sure, of other races. Bohemians, Magyars, Croatians, and others forced themselves to the front; and, resenting the broad and ethnically meaningless term “Austrian,” demanded to be called by their proper racial names.
The voice that extolled racial patriotism had first been heard across the Austrian frontier from Frankfort, Germany, in 1848, when a parliament that had been summoned to that city called on Germans to unite. Promptly the Slavs took up the idea of unity and as a retaliatory measure summoned a Pan-Slavic Congress to meet in Prague. It was on the occasion of the Prague Congress that Francis Palacký addressed his famous letter to the Frankfortists, explaining why the Bohemians and other Slavs were opposed to the incorporation of Austria in the future Germany. “The aim which you propose to yourselves,” wrote Palacký, among other things, to Frankfort, “is the substitution of a federation of peoples for the old federation of princes, to unite the German nation in a real union, to strengthen the sentiment of German nationality, to secure the greatness of Germans without and within. I honor your resolve and the motives by which you are impelled, but at the same time I cannot share in your work. I am not a German, or at least I do not feel as if I were one. Assuredly you cannot wish that I should join you merely as a supernumerary with neither opinion nor will of my own. I am a Bohemian of Slavic origin, and all I possess and command I place wholly and forever at the service of my own country. It is true that my nation is small, but from the very beginning it has possessed its own historical individuality. Its princes on occasions have acted in common with German princes, but the people have never regarded themselves as Germans, nor have others, during all these centuries, included them amongst them.”
It, therefore, sounds very much like irony to hear Germans from the Fatherland censuring the Austrian Government for allowing the national movement among its Slavs to spread as it did.What the Austrian nations really did was to follow the advice of their Germanic tutors and awaken racially.
The population of Austria in 1910 was 28,571,934. Of this number the Slavs constituted 60.65 percentage, the Germans 35.58. It is in these figures that we must seek—and will find—the real problem of the country. “Austria,” once declared a noted statesman in the Austrian Parliament, “should be a German state in language and education. German should be spoken by all persons and serve as a political bond to all races and nationalities. All the citizens, whatever may be their mother tongue, Bohemians, Slovaks, Poles, Ruthenes, Slovenes, Rumuns, and Italians, should submit to the baptism of the German school, if they desire to participate in the public affairs of the state.” Someone answering von Kaiserfeld, for that was the name of the distinguished statesman, “You desire to Germanize the empire; you are not Austrians, you are Germans,” von Kaiserfeld replied angrily, “There are no Austrians in Austria, only Germans.” Von Kaiserfeld was not the only statesman who believed that Austria should be a German state. That is the obsession practically of every German in the country, from the emperor down to the meanest postman. Yet Austria is to-day further from the realization ofthis dream than it ever was. The feeling of nationalism has grown too strong among the non-Germans to be suppressed. And this nationalism demands that people shall be allowed to live their individual lives, to cultivate their language and racial ideals, and to pursue both without the interference of any other people.
Much of the difficulty in the past has been directly due to the fact that the 35 per cent. not only thought and acted for themselves, but they also insisted on doing the thinking for the 60 per cent., regardless of the latter’s feelings. The result was jealousy, discord, opposition. Even the Great War which has caused Austria to rock like a rudderless ship, was engineered and premeditated by the 35 per cent., in face of the bitter, though of course futile, opposition of the 60 per cent. As a result, there is only 30 per cent. of enthusiasm and efficiency; and in juxtaposition, 60 per cent. in disaster, defeats, and discouragements.
The Hapsburgs have never learned, it seems, how to rule their many nationalities successfully. There are two races in Canada, the English and the French. If the Canadian Government had treated its citizens of French origin in the same rough-shod manner as Vienna has treated the Bohemians, or Budapest the Slovaks, Serbs, or Rumuns, she would have made rebels of every oneof them, instead of loyal citizens. The Swiss Republic is the home of three races, French, German, and Italian, and yet we hear of no racial friction among them. And when and where did the national, state, or city government in the United States interfere when this or that people of foreign origin desired to build a school or establish a clubhouse?
Years ago T. G. Masaryk, a prominent Bohemian deputy, delivered a scathing denunciation in parliament, in which he took the government to task for its anti-Slavic policy. “Extirpate, Germanize, that is and has been the favorite policy of the government for decades,” said Masaryk. “Extirpate whom? The Slavs, of course, and first among them the Bohemians. A nation as vigorous and virile as our Bohemian nation is bound, if persecuted, to seek and find new outlets for its surplus energy. And if, while this process is going on, we succeed in reclaiming some of the ground that had been wrested from our forefathers, it is but a law of compensation and the Germans should not claim that we are encroaching on their domain, which they claim belongs to them. We shall never rest content if we are only tolerated in Austria; we demand the right to be treated as equals with the rest of the citizens of the state and we insist on being permitted to work out ourdestiny as Bohemians without restrictions or limitations. We entertain no hatred toward the Germans. We are distrustful, not so much of Germany, as of Prussia. Recently a speaker in this parliament has declared that the Germans were not antagonistic to the Slavs, and that, therefore, they could not be hostile to the Bohemians. This, I regret to say, is untrue. It is a matter of common knowledge that not only they, but the government as well, are in opposition to us. I shall not repeat what Mr. Dumreicher has lately said about the Germanization of the Slovenes and of the Bohemians; permit me to allude to a pamphlet which came out some time ago and which is causing a great deal of comment, ‘On the right and the duty of the Germanization of the Bohemians and the Slovenes,’ by Mathias Ratkovsky. Yes, gentlemen, it will be a sin if the Bohemians and Slovenes are not Germanized, is the opinion of Mr. Ratkovsky of the Vienna Theresianum. The government should use force to attain this object, if necessary. Equality of languages, what nonsense, argues Mr. Ratkovsky! The government owes it to the people to make Bohemia German. Extirpate! Remember, gentlemen, Ratkovsky is not an isolated case; this agitation is being conducted systematically both in Austria and in Germany. F. Löher, a Bavarian historian, who studied conditions in Austria-Hungaryin the seventies, declared that there was only one conclusion possible: to make Germans of Bohemians and Magyars. This same idea was advanced by Professor Walcker of the University of Leipzig. Yet, gentlemen, I should not attribute so great a weight to the opinions here cited were it not for the circumstance that bigger men in Germany were behind this scheme. One can often hear mentioned the name of Lagarde in this connection and you, gentlemen of the German national party, know Lagarde’s name full well. What has this great thinker taught the German youth for decades? ‘Austria must be regarded in the light of a colony of Germany. Apart from this Austria has no claim to a separate existence. Austria is confronted with one task only and that task is to Germanize all its Slavs.’ To the South Slavs Lagarde gave pardon. All the other people of the Danube Monarchy, including the Magyars, were obstacles in Germany’s way and the sooner they were extirpated the better for Germany, the better for themselves. Slavs, according to Lagarde, resembled a commercial enterprise which was working with an insufficient capital. And just as there could be no Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz-Lobenstein policy, so there could not exist a state called Wenzelland (an opprobrious term given to Bohemia by Germans and meaning much the same as Patrickland as applied to Ireland). Istria, contended Lagarde, should be German to form an outlet for German commerce to the Adriatic Sea and to the African coast, Jablunkov (a town in Austrian Silesia situated on a direct route to Hungary) should hear nothing but German, and from there let the wave roll southwardly, submerging the wretched little states and people that now bar the way thither. ‘No empire, save Germany, is capable of upholding peace in Central Europe, a Germany, which should reach out from the Ems to the delta of the Danube, from Memel to Trieste, from Metz to the river Bug. Only such a Germany could be self-sustaining, only such a Germany, with its huge standing army, would be powerful enough to defeat both France and Russia. Bohemians and all the other small races must not be coddled by us. On the contrary, they are our enemies, and we should deal with them as such. Austria cannot be preserved except as a Germanic Empire.’ Gentlemen, note what is going on in Germany at the present time and you cannot but see that this plan to unite Austria with Germany, to Germanize Austria, has become a recognized policy in both of these monarchies. I am not quoting from newspaper clippings. I could refer you to the books of several prominent writers in support of this contention. Can you blame us thenthat we are on guard and that we watch with jealous look what is going on both in Germany and among our Austrian Germans? Do not tell us that we should not take seriously theories of professors lecturing at Göttingen, Münich, and so forth. No, these theories so-called are assuming practical forms. Behold, for instance, the teaching of a philosopher like Edward Hartmann. A few years ago this noted scholar defined the program of Germany very clearly:Ausrotten!(extirpate).Ausrottenwhom? The Poles, of course, and with them all those who are not of German blood. You cannot convince us that this is a theory advanced by professorial dreamers only; no, it is a theory which the chancellor of iron and blood (Bismarck) put to practice with the backing and money of the Prussian Government in the case of the Poles in Posen. I allude to this not as an isolated case, but as part of a well-recognized system that is at work throughout our monarchy and that not alone threatens to undermine its very existence as a state, but which aims a death-blow at our nation, just as it menaces the life of the Poles, of the Slovenes, and of all the Slavs.”
The constitution of 1867 proclaimed the equality of languages in schools, courts, and in administration of public affairs. However, the operation ofthis constitutional guarantee is unique and its interpretation a legal puzzle. For example, in Carinthia there are 30,000 Germans and 500,000 Slovenes; the latter are autochthons, yet the Germans there demand equality but they vehemently deny equality to the Slovene minority in Styria. In the same breath, they insist that German schools be maintained in Italian Tyrol, while they urge the authorities to close Italian schools in northern Tyrol. In Prague the courts try cases in either Bohemian or German, but should a Bohemian come into contact with the courts in Vienna, the capital of the empire, the law forgets equality and treats him there as a foreigner who must plead his case in German only. In Prague there are numerous and palatial German schools maintained by the state or the municipality, as the case may be; but in Vienna Bohemians, though numbering not less than 300,000 (in Prague Germans are 17,000 strong), have not one public school and the school authorities at the capital have fought for years in the courts every attempt of the Bohemians in that direction. A very striking illustration of the chaos in this respect is found in Bohemia. There, in the so-called German-Bohemia, Germans insist that their language shall be paramount and exclusive in the judiciary, schools, and administration. Having long enjoyed ascendency they will not contentthemselves with equality; yet in the rest of the country, in the mixed and in the pure Bohemian districts, they demand that both tongues shall have equal rights. By stamping their tongues as “minderwertig,” inferior, the government provokes to opposition the non-German element.
Observe how the idea of equality works out in practice the matter of the distribution of schools. For 9,950,266 Germans Austria maintains 5 universities (at Vienna, Prague, Graz, Innsbruck, Czernovitz), and for 6,435,983 Bohemians one university at Prague. And this one university the Bohemians were able to get in 1882 only after a great deal of political haggling and bargaining. Opponents of the Bohemian seat of learning predicted that it would soon fail for lack of professors and of students. Yet, contrary to their expectation, when the Prague school was divided in 1882 into two parts, Bohemian and German, 1,055 students matriculated the first year in the Bohemian section as against 1,695 Germans. Eventually the Bohemian university—by the way, one of the oldest universities in Central Europe, having been founded by Emperor Charles IV. in 1348—far outstripped its old partner in point of attendance. At present the number of students in the Bohemian faculties is 4,713; in the German 2,282. Of late years a demand has been made for a second university to be located at Brno (Brünn), the capital of Moravia. The University of Prague is scandalously overcrowded and students from the sister state of Moravia are compelled, in consequence, to go to Vienna in search of education, where, under Teutonic influences, many are estranged from their nation. Numerous petitions have been addressed to the government on the subject of a second university, but to no purpose. In the matter of secondary schools (gymnasia and real schools) the discrimination against non-Germans is very striking. For 4,241,918 Bohemians in Bohemia the government maintains 39 schools of this type for secondary education, and they are unable to get more, while 2,467,724 Germans boast 34 of these schools. In Moravia the disproportion is still greater and in Silesia it is relatively worse than in Moravia. The condition of the Bohemian elementary schools in the mixed districts near the border is most deplorable. It was the blind and unreasoning hostility of the authorities in the German-Bohemian districts against Bohemian schools which led the patriots, in 1880, to found a school society called theÚstřední Matice Školská. This vernacular school society had spent, up to 1912, a total of more than $3,000,000 in the establishment and support of such schools in districts inhabited by both races.Every cent of this money has been donated by the Bohemian people in order to give their children an education in the mother tongue.
“Austria as a great power,” said Rieger,[18]in a speech delivered in parliament in 1861, “dates back only to the days when the Bohemian Crown and the Hungarian Crown united with Austria. We Bohemians raised it to the dignity of a state of the first magnitude when, by a free election, our diet summoned, on October 23, 1526,[19]Ferdinand I. to the sovereign throne of our kingdom. Our action was followed on November 26th of that year by the Hungarians, who placed the crown of their country on the head of this Hapsburg. From that time on Austria, composed of three states in one, started on its career of a world power. The three units were the basis, the origin, the rise of the Austrian Empire. All else is really the result of accident. Eastern Galicia hasbelonged to Austria only since 1772, Bukovina since 1777, Western Galicia since 1795, Venice and Dalmatia since 1797, Southern Tyrol (Trient and Brixen) since 1801, Salzburg and other smaller lands since 1814, while Cracow is part of Austria only since 1846. All these possessions have not made Austria a great power, for even without them it would still be one; however, an Austrian Empire is unthinkable and Austria as a great power is inconceivable without one of the three crowns—that of Austria, Bohemia, or Hungary.”
What is Austria? A land that has a German head and a Slavonic body, in which minorities rule and majorities are made to obey, the homeland of a dozen races, every one of which is dissatisfied or jealous of some other race.
There was a time when Austria had a mission to perform. That mission was to serve as the advance guard of Germandom and as a Catholic power. The first came to an end at Sedan when the Prussians assumed leadership among Germans; the second terminated when Prussia gave up its Kulturkampf against Rome. Now Austria is a country without a mission, unless it be a mission to thwart the legitimate aspirations of the Slavic races to national freedom.
For Austria to pursue further its policy of Teutonism is madness. If the monarchy wishes to live it must be neither German, for there is no room in Europe for two Germanic Empires side by side, nor wholly Slavonic, like Russia. Her manifest destiny is, or rather has been, to form a bridge between Germany and Russia, between the Slavs and Teutons, between the west and the east. For Germany to go to war to fight the Slavic peril is conceivable, even justifiable; but for Austria, more than 60 per cent. Slavonic, to draw her sword to combat Slavism sounds very much like the familiar story attributed by Plutarch to Menenius Agrippa, according to which various members of one’s body determined to down the stomach as the source of all their troubles. To fight the Slavs Austria must fight herself.
Plainly the destinies of Austria and Germany are as unlike as are divergent their ambitions. Germany aspired to be a world power, aWeltmacht, and in pursuance of this dream she began to build up a colonial empire. Austria possesses no colonies. The plan of her statesmen (Aehrenthal) has been to establish a predominating Austrian influence in the Balkans, where Germany’s interests, to quote the well-known words of Bismarck, were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. Germany is a homogeneous countryor nearly so; Austria, on the contrary, is the most heterogeneous empire in Central Europe.
Quite naturally the question suggests itself: what would arise on the splendid ruins on the Danube should the proverbial ill-luck overtake the Hapsburgs in the present war? With Galicia and Bukovina lost to Russia, with Transylvania annexed to Rumania, with Trentino and Trieste restored to Italy, and Bosnia and Herzegovina incorporated in Greater Serbia—provided the partition went no further—what would be left of the Hapsburg inheritance? Instead of a Greater Austria, that should have included conquered Serbia, it is not improbable that the Hapsburgs will return home from the Great War with a Small Austria—an Austria as it began in 1527, when the Austrians, Bohemians, and Hungarians formed a confederacy and elected a Hapsburg as their ruler.
Rieger, a Bohemian statesman, once declared in the Vienna Parliament, that Austria will only live as long as the Slavs wish her to live and no longer. Rieger’s famous utterance has acquired a new meaning in view of the passing events in the Hapsburg Empire.
Thomas Čapek.