policy of revenge upon Prussia. This support could only be found in Bohemia, where the Czech nation, numbering at that time five millions, was eager for the restoration of the old State rights which had been taken from it when Ferdinand II. had over thrown Bohemia at the battle of the White Mountain in 1620. In 1868–9 Francis Joseph therefore began to coquet with the Bohemian leaders, and in 1870 actually went as far as to promise them, in writing, to grant autonomy to Bohemia and to be crowned King of Bohemia at Prague, as he had been crowned King of Hungary at Budapest on the conclusion of the Dual settlement. At the same time, he allowed negotiations to be begun with France and Italy for an alliance against Prussia. His Chancellor, Count Beust, actually consented, in principle, to the occupation of the Papal States by Italy in return for her prospective support. But Bismarck, who was doubtless well-informed of these manoeuvres, played upon Russian resentment of Francis Joseph ingratitude during the Crimean War, and induced the Tsar to throw the weight of Russia against any anti-Prussian alliance. Sure of the support, or, at least, of the benevolent neutrality of Russia, Bismarck then picked, in 1870, his quarrel with France, and crushed her. At the same time, and in order to paralyze any desire on the part of Francis Joseph to come to the aid of France, he mobilized both the Hungarian Government and the Austrian Liberals to compel Francis Joseph to dismiss his anti-Prussian Austrian Premier, Count Hohenwart, to break his promises to the Bohemians, and to surrender himself for the rest of his reign to the joint control of the Magyar minority in Hungary and the German minority in Austria.
The history of the Hapsburgs since 1871 is mainly that of a fruitless attempt to escape from the toils in which their own foolishness and Bismarck’s as tuteness had entangled them. I know of no more confused and wearisome study in recent European history than that of the internal affairs of Austria and Hungary between 1870 and 1908. The first of those dates marks the firm establishment of the German grip on Austria, while the second marks the beginning of the process by which Austria became the active agent of Germany in provoking the present war.
From 1871 to 1879 Austria was ruled in semi-constitutional fashion by Liberal German Administrations. Those administrations were allowed to do much as they liked in home affairs on condition that they should supply unhesitatingly money and recruits for the army—the Emperor’s Army. During the same period a Magyar. Count Andrássy, was Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister. His tendencies, like those of the Austrian-German Liberal Administrations.were pro-German; and before he left office, in 1879, he concluded the Austro-German Alliance against Russia, which three years later was transformed into the Triple Alliance by the adhesion of Italy. In 1878 he secured at the Congress of Berlin (which made the peace settlement after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877) a mandate for Austria-Hungary “to occupy and administer” the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, like the Hungarian Crown Lands of Croatia-Slavonia and the Austrian province of Dalmatia, are inhabited almost entirely by Serbo-Croatians or Southern Slavs. This concession Andrassy obtained with the help of Bismarck and, sad to say of England. He would have wished to obtain authority to annex the provinces outright, but Bismarck shrewdly limited it to an occupation, in order that the hope of an eventual annexation might be dangled by Germany before the eyes of Francis Joseph to keep him sub servient to German aims. By the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina the Southern Slav question, that is to say, the question of the unity of the Serb, Croat and Slovene race, began to assume a practical form. It confronted the Habsburgs with another problem not unlike those of German and Italian unity which they had so signally failed to solve in their own interest—and failed for the lack of the moral sense that is inseparable from constructive insight in politics. The question was: Should the Southern Slavs be united with and for, or in spite of and against the Habsburgs? The territory they inhabit forms the main road from Central Europe to the Near East. By the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina all Southern Slav territory, except the Kingdom of Serbia, the Principality of Montenegro, and some districts then still held by the Turks, came under Habsburg control. Upon Habsburg policy it depended whether Serbia should play the part of a Piedmont in a Southern Slav Risorgimento, or whether she should be united—by force, fraud, or moral suasion—with the Habburg dominions. Austria, as usual, chose the mean and shortsighted course. She sought to divide, oppress, and demoralize those whom in her own vital interest she should have encouraged, united and developed. The Austrian-German Liberals seemed dimly to have apprehended some danger that the addition of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Habsburg lands might encourage the dynasty to follow a policy of Slav development in order to prepare for its own liberation from the German yoke. They therefore opposed the Emperor, violated the condition on which they held office—that of supplying unquestionably money and recruits for the army—and were kicked from power within a few months and crushed at a general election in accordance with the Emperor’s command. Bismarck, who knew how foolish were their fears of Habsburg wisdom, addressed to them many a bitter gibe. They were overthrown, and from the end of 1879 until 1896 Austria was governed by a combination of Slav and German-Clerical, that is to say. Habsburg Parties. The Bohemians, who after the Emperor’s breach of faith with them in 1870 had abstained from political life, joined in the work of govern ment and secured for themselves possibilities of development that would otherwise have been denied them. So indefatigable were they in their efforts that they decreased the percentage of illiterates
