CHAPTER VISALONICA
Aehrenthalsketched a programme of commercial extension in the Near East. The first step to be taken was the building of the Sanjak railway. The Sanjak is a narrow strip of barren land which was at that period occupied by Austrian troops. Aehrenthal now proposed to build a railway through the Sanjak, with the terminus at Salonica. This railway would give Austria-Hungary the control of the Balkans as far as trade questions were concerned. Salonica would virtually become Austrian property, not by the force of conquest, but by the natural sequence of events. It had long been plain that the Turkish Empire was crumbling. None knew better than the Austrians that the hour for the final dissolution of the Turkish Empire had come. It therefore behoved Austria-Hungary to anticipate her rivals and to secure the mostimportant port—Salonica. The building of the Sanjak railway would have shortened the route to the East by many hours. Many statesmen in Austria-Hungary did not approve of the Sanjak project. There was an alternative and much quicker route over Albania. If a railway could be built from Durazzo or Vallona across to Salonica, two days could be saved on the route to the East. Many statesmen favoured this plan. The Sanjak was a death-trap, they said; the line would run through gullies among mountains where enemies could command it. Besides the danger of enemy forces in case of war, the wild bands of half-civilised folk in the Balkans must be considered too. They might plunder the train at any time; it would be very easy to hold it up between the steep defiles. In Albania there was flat, fertile country that would be vastly more suited for railway building; it could, besides, be opened up with advantage. The only trouble with regard to Albania was that there was a treaty between Austria and Italy regarding any occupation of that country. If Austria took northern Albania, as she hoped to do, Italy was to have the southern part. Vallona, the best harbour on the Adriatic, lay in the part claimed by Italy.
Thus Austria-Hungary hesitated betweentwo alternative schemes. The German element in Austria was for pushing towards Salonica over the Sanjak. The idea had come from Berlin, and had been carefully suggested to Austrian diplomatists by the Emperor’s advisers. Aehrenthal announced it publicly at the Delegations, and waited to see what effect his audacious move would have upon Europe. The Greeks sitting in the café in the Fleischmarkt in Vienna were the first on that memorable night of the Delegations’ meeting to catch up the words, “To Salonica.” “Salonica is Greek,” they said. “If it is wrested from the Turks, it must fall to Greece.” Twenty-four hours later Europe said what it thought of Austria’s plans of expansion. The old Emperor, Francis Joseph, who had probably listened in a semi-comatose condition, as he frequently did, to the report made by his Foreign Minister on the Sanjak railway, summoned him to Schönbrunn in haste. There, in his characteristic way, in language so plain that there was no mistaking it, and that would have done credit to a Vienna cabby, the Emperor forbade any thoughts of a forward policy. He had had misfortunes enough in his long reign, he said. If any innovation was to be made it could be undertaken by his successor; for the rest of hislife there would be quiet. He understood that Russia was aghast at Austria’s plans of aggression, England was furious, and France asking what it all meant. The announcement made at the Delegations might be regarded as unspoken.
Baron Aehrenthal.
Baron Aehrenthal.
Strange to say, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, agreed with the Emperor. He considered that the forward movement in the Balkans planned by Aehrenthal was ill-judged. He was aware that Kaiser Wilhelm and the “German” party in Austria desired to open the road to the East. The Archduke, however, took a much clearer view of the political situation than the Kaiser and his advisers. He grasped the very obvious fact that Italy was not a willing member of the Triple Alliance. She was only waiting for an excuse that would sound at all plausible to break loose from her bonds. Why the Archduke should be keenly aware of a fact that was never even suspected by Kaiser Wilhelm is not easy to say. Perhaps the intensity of his hatred enabled him to read the national character aright, for the Archduke hated Italy with a bitter hatred. He possessed estates in Italy, and considered that the Italian Courts of Justice had treated him unfairly in a series of law suits he had had about his property there. Moreover, there were differencesof temperament between the Austrians and Italians. Francis Ferdinand was essentially a “German” Austrian—that is to say, an Austrian with leanings towards Prussian methods, who wished to have the Austrian army reorganised on Prussian methods. There was something in the Italian character that roused the Archduke’s anger; both he and Kaiser Wilhelm felt the rage, often manifested by the savage for things he cannot understand, at Italy and Italy’s methods. This common dislike for Italy which possessed both men was doubtless due to a remarkable and startling change in the Italian character. During the last twenty years the Italians have organised themselves on German lines; the Italian of to-day has all the efficiency of the Prussian without his cumbersome methods. When Kaiser Wilhelm went to Italy unexpectedly to visit his friends there, he found hydroplanes that excelled those at home moving about in the limpid waters of the Adriatic. He went to Miramare, swelling with anger. Both he and Francis Ferdinand were sufficiently intelligent to take in the position at a glance. Italy was like a child that had stolen a march upon the world in a night by attaining to her full stature while the others slept. Both raged at the unexpected turn things had taken. WhileKaiser Wilhelm was anxious to keep Italy as an ally, because Germany and Austria-Hungary had so small a coast-line, Francis Ferdinand, with much truer insight into the interests of his country, said, “Fall upon Italy unexpectedly and crush her.” Kaiser Wilhelm realised that the Austro-Hungarian fleet would only be of use if it could emerge from the Adriatic. Bottled up in the inland sea by the Italian fleet it was a negligible quantity. He did not comprehend the bitter hatred felt by every Italian for the ancient oppressor, the Austrian. He probably knew little of the ways in which Italians in Austria were persecuted, in spite of the existence of the Triple Alliance. The Government went about its work in a very wary manner, and incidents which would have opened his eyes were carefully hushed up. It is probable, too, that the Austrians deceived the Kaiser as to the attitude of the Italians. Every Austrian knew in his heart that there could never be anything but war between the two countries. The manner in which they habitually alluded to the Italians was sufficient to prove their intense hate. The Italian subjects living in Austria reciprocated this sentiment in full. Whenever they found an opportunity of paying back some of the Austrian hate for them, they availedthemselves of the chance. Archduke Francis Ferdinand always used his influence to prevent Austro-Italians rising to power. He had officials in Trieste removed from their posts merely because they were “Italians.” Their places were taken by Slavs, who regarded the Archduke as their protector. As a matter of fact, the Slavs were the only people in Austria-Hungary who respected and liked the heir to the throne. The Germans despised him. The Hungarians frankly detested him, and the Italians execrated him. The Bohemians, the Croats, and the Serbs, all Slav races, regarded him as their representative. In the racial contests for place and power in Dalmatia, in Istria, the Slavs who wished to oust the Italians from their places appealed to the Archduke, and immediately got what they wanted, while the Czechs, who were in deadly antagonism with the Germans in Bohemia, had a powerful advocate in Countess Chotek. When the German officials tried to introduce the teaching in German instead of the Czech language into elementary schools in Bohemia in Czech districts, the Archduke stood by them and prevented any encroachment by the German element.
Thus Emperor Francis Joseph and his heir agreed, although from different motives, in preventingthe plan of the building of the Sanjak railway being pursued. Kaiser Wilhelm, who had taken no part in the disputes that were raging in Vienna, was glad that the idea of Austria-Hungary’s embarking on an aggressive policy should be ventilated, but did not wish her to take any course that might lead to war either in the Balkans or with Italy. Neither country was prepared to embark on an aggressive world-war. Kaiser Wilhelm encouraged Austro-Hungarian statesmen to contemplate a series of wars with poor and helpless neighbours, such as Italy, Montenegro, and Servia, but he was really thinking of executing his projects, of placing Germany “über alles!” He knew that this idea of aggressive warfare would render it easier for the German party to obtain the armaments required for the coming struggle, while public opinion in the country would become accustomed to the idea of a policy of expansion. He cared little that the Archduke was preparing for acoupupon Italy when he was contemplating a blow in the opposite direction. The necessity for realising his plans made Kaiser Wilhelm regard all means justifiable, even the deception of his allies.
The storm raised by the Sanjak railway project gradually calmed down, and Count Aehrenthal,baulked in his plans, retired to the background to work out fresh plans for Austro-Hungarian aggrandisement; while Archduke Francis Ferdinand, still sore at the Court Ball incident, sulked upon his magnificent estate at Konospischt, in Bohemia, where he superintended his wonderful collection of exotic plants and tried to forget Vienna the dusty, that was so bad for his lungs.
Kaiser Wilhelm became increasingly aware that the immediate necessities of the situation rendered it important to gain Archduke Francis Ferdinand to his side. The Kaiser was painfully conscious that neither the aged Emperor nor his heir had any real regard for him. They were inclined to look upon him as an upstart in many ways. The Kaiser’s sudden excursions into realms that they regarded as distinctly not regal annoyed them. What need had the Emperor of Germany to seek distinction as a writer of plays? By such tricks he brought down the whole level of royalty. All the Habsburgs are eminently dignified, and Kaiser Wilhelm always seemed something of a royal mountebank to them, with his strange longings after artistic fame, his childish wish for popularity—a matter of the most complete indifference to his brother monarch in Vienna.