CHAPTER XV

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY--THE KAISER'S VASSAL STATE

Few people in America perhaps realise how completely Austria-Hungary is under the domination of Germany and Kaiserism. There are those who think that the hand of the Vienna Government was forced by Berlin when the ultimatum to Serbia was answered so reasonably by the little country to the south, but there can be no doubt that Austria has been ever since under the yoke of the German General Staff.

And because the first break, the first glimpse of reasonable peace will in turn be forced on Germany by sorely tried Austria-Hungary, bent by war and bowed by debt, it is well to study a little the races and assess the influences of that unfortunate land.

My wife's sister married a Hungarian Count, a member of the Hungarian House of Lords, and I have met many of the political leaders and magnates of that country on my trips there.

The Germans of Austria are handsomer, more attractive but far less efficient than their bloody brethren from the cold, wind-swept plains of Prussia. They have acquired a slight touch of the Oriental and something of the mañana (to-morrow) of the Spaniards, a heritage, perhaps, of the days when Spain and Austria were so closely connected by Hapsburg rule.

In the presence of an Austrian one feels his charm instead of the aggressive personality which is Prussian. Undoubtedly the Prussians counted on the good nature of the southern Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Slavs in their insidious campaign to make these peoples, practically, if not in name, subject and tributary to Prussian rule. The Prussian propagandist has brought them face to face with a new Kaiserism.

Shortly after the war a great number of Austrian professors of German blood issued a manifesto demanding closer union with Germany--a prelude to the plots being hatched in Berlin against Hapsburg rule.

The Court of Austria is quite different from that of Berlin; no modern ideas during the reign of Francis Joseph disturbed his medieval outlook.

The beautiful Empress of Austria, who was assassinated by an anarchist in Switzerland, was probably insane. At any rate, for many years she lived apart from the Emperor, devoted to hunting and horses, going often as far as Ireland for her favourite sport and seldom appearing in Vienna. Francis Joseph, however, was consoled by an ex-actress, Frau Kathie Schratt, whom he visited daily and who occupied a position in Vienna almost as powerful as that of the mistresses of Louis XIV. Even in this very war when Frau Schratt established a hospital, she was photographed in the centre of a group of women all occupied at this hospital and all holding the highest rank at the Austrian Court. The instant the old Emperor died, however, her power, influence and prestige disappeared and I imagine that her titled and high born helpers were not long in deserting the hospital wards over which she had presided.

That extraordinary Empire known as the Austrian Hungarian Dual Monarchy is less an Empire or a Kingdom or a State than the personal property of the Hapsburgs, whose hereditary talent for the acquisition of land is recorded on the map of Europe to-day.

For centuries this royal family by treaty, by intrigue, by war, purchase and marriage has been adding to its dominions, bringing under its personal rule races who do not understand each other's language and who differ widely in customs, intellectual attainments and religion.

The last acquisition of territory by the house of Hapsburg was in the year 1908, when the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office boldly declared that Bosnia and Herzegovina, placed under the protectorate of Austria-Hungary by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, had been annexed to the Empire. The German Kaiser, standing by like a watching accomplice while the burglary was in progress, threatened a general European war if any nations protested.

At a time when Prussia was a struggling state, Austria was the dominant power in Central Europe, but the one battle of Sadowa in 1866 settled for ever the question of supremacy and the German States like Bavaria, Saxony, Würtemburg, etc., which stood with Austria in that war, after receiving a sound beating, ranged themselves on the side of the victor and, in 1870, joined in acclaiming the King of Prussia as the First German Emperor.

That event settled the question of leadership in Central Europe and the dream of the Emperor Frederick who died about the time of the discovery of America. It was he who wrote the famous anagram on the vowels A, E, I, O, U.

ustria st mperare rbi niverso A E I O U lles rdreich st esterreich nterthan

"It is the fate of Austria to rule the world."

In upper and lower Austria, so-called, there are about twelve million German Austrians. This territory is comparatively small and in it lies the city of Vienna. To the north and northeast lie Bohemia and Moravia, the country of the Tchechs or Szechs of Slavic blood. These people together number about six million. Prague is the capital of Bohemia, while in Moravia there is no great city. For centuries these peoples have been oppressed by the Austrians and in the Hussite rebellion the lands of Bohemia and Moravia were parcelled out to the Austrian nobles as well as to the warlike adventurers who had joined the Austrian armies.

With extraordinary obstinacy and patriotism these peoples cling to their old language and customs. They have suffered much during this war and many tales are told of the shooting of all of the officers of Tchech regiments and the execution of every tenth man among the privates.

It is a bit of poetic justice that the town of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, where my friend Schwab is making so much war material to be used against the Central Powers, was founded by fugitives, who, rebelling against oppression, left Moravia in search of liberty.

North of the Carpathians lies Galicia, a Polish country, with Lemberg and Krakow as its capitals, and in the eastern part the Ruthenians, a race identical with the Russians. These Ruthenians number upwards of four million.

It is a peculiar fact that in the curious Dual Monarchy each race oppresses some other. The Ruthenians complain that they are oppressed by the Poles. The kingdom of Hungary lies to the east of Austria containing in its twenty million inhabitants about ten million Magyars, who are the dominant race and who in turn rule over a population of one and one-half million Ruthenians, two and one-half million Slovacks or Tchecks, three million Roumanians in the southeastern portion and about three million of the race now known as Jugo-Slavs. Of these Jugo-Slavs about two million are in that part of the Dual Monarchy under Austrian rule. These are the principal divisions of peoples. A Slavish race differing somewhat from the others is in the mountains to the east of Hungary where much fighting has taken place in the last war known as Boukovina. In the southeastern part of Hungary there is a German speaking country, known as Siebenburgen, where live the descendants of a German colony planted about two centuries ago.

In Styria, in the mountainous districts of Austria to the west of Hungary, lives a race differing again from all the others, a mountain race supposed to be eaters of arsenic, a drug which they believe gives them a good complexion and stamina for mountain climbing. It is said that the bodies of these arsenic eaters remain undecomposed for a long time. And from this part of the world comes the curious superstition of the existence of human vampires.

Slovenes, and Jews, Carinthians and inhabitants of Carniola, Serbs living like Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italians in Trieste and the Trient--all make up the strange Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

The union between Austria and Hungary is a personal union. The Emperor of Austria is King of Hungary. Only in four particulars are the Empire and the Kingdom united, namely, a joint administration of the army and navy, of diplomatic affairs and of such finances as are connected with joint expenditures for these purposes.

In 1848 Hungary sought to break away from Austria. Kossuth heroically led the Hungarians against their Austrian masters, only to be beaten in the end because of the advent of the Russians, because one autocrat came to the aid of another.

Since then, by superior political talents and taste for intrigue, the Magyars have not only held the Slovaks, Roumanians, etc., of their own country in political subjection, but have held much of the power in the Dual Monarchy. Their danger lies, however, in the predominance of German influence; and some day the gay, easy-going, pleasant Hungarians may awake to find the Prussian Eitel Fritz seated on their throne and to learn what Prussian efficiency means when applied to those whom Germans consider an inferior people.

The twelve million Austrian Germans differ much in character from the Prussians. They are far more polite, far more agreeable, far more fond of amusement of all kinds. Indeed it is because of their pleasant personal characteristics that so many other nations have been content to remain under their rule. In no city of the world is the mass of the population as fond of pleasure as in Vienna. The best light operas come from that city. Vienna is the original home of the waltz. The "Blue Danube" was composed on the shores of the river which flows through the Austrian capital.

The dominant religion of the German Empire is Protestant, but in the Dual Monarchy it is Roman Catholic among the ruling Germans in Austria and Magyars in Hungary.

In Austria and in Hungary most of the land is held in great estates. The peasants, as in Germany, sometimes own a few strips of land near their miserable villages. Possession of land is necessary to the standing of any noble. In Hungary, for example, no noble sits in the house of Magnates or House of Lords unless he is the owner of a certain amount of land.

Once across the Hungarian border, one sees the people taking a certain delight in refusing to understand German. The names of the railway stations are in Hungarian, and the uniforms of station officials, conductors, etc., differ from those in Austria. Every effort is made by the population to emphasise the fact that Hungary is an independent kingdom, joined to Austria by personal rule alone.

There is no melting pot in this part of the world. In the Lower House of the Hungarian parliament sit forty-three Croatian delegates, Croatia being that part of southwestern Hungary near the Adriatic where the inhabitants are of Slav blood. By the Hungarian constitution those delegates have the right to speak in the Hungarian parliament in their own language and so from time to time a Croatian delegate arises in his place and delivers an ambitious harangue in Croatian, understood by no one except his fellow delegates who already know what he intends to talk about. This is only one example of how these peoples cling tenaciously to their language and national rights.

It is possible to find in Hungary an Hungarian village, a German village, a Slav village and a Roumanian village, all within a short distance of each other. Men from each of these villages after one month in the United States throw aside their national costume and buy their clothes in the same Bowery shop, eat the same food and send their children to the same public school not only without protest, but with eagerness, whereas, in Hungary, not one of the inhabitants of these different villages would think of abandoning his national traits to learn the language of his German neighbours.

Because commands are given in German in the armies of the Dual Monarchy all the male population, at least during the term of their military service, have been compelled to learn some German. But this they forget as soon as possible when they return from their period of military service.

Many members of these races go to America and after working there a short time amass enough money to return to Austria-Hungary and purchase a small piece of land,--the ambition of every one born of the soil.

One of the sons of Prince Lichtenstein told me that a friend who was running for the Hungarian Lower House in a district of Hungary largely inhabited by Slavs, spoke in Hungarian and, finding that his audience did not understand him, tried German. Finally, when matters had come to a standstill, some one in the back of the room called out to him, asking if he spoke English. The candidate answered that he did. Whereupon the crowd told him to speak English which nearly all understood, and so the Hungarian, a candidate for parliament in Hungary, was forced, in order to be understood, to address his Hungarian electors in the language which they had learned in America.

Franz Ferdinand, whose murder at Sarajevo was used by the Central Powers as a pretext for a war determined on long before that time, was the heir to the throne of the late Francis Joseph. He was a romantic character. He visited frequently at the house of Archduchess Isabella, where Countess Chotek, of a Bohemian noble family, was a lady in waiting. Franz Ferdinand fell violently in love with the fair Bohemian, and in his desire to marry, enlisted the aid of Koloman Szell, Premier of Hungary. Szell told friends how Franz Ferdinand loved mystery and how, when he wanted to talk to him about marriage plans, instead of meeting somewhere openly in Vienna, would arrange that Szell's train should stop in the open fields. Szell, on alighting and following directions, would find Franz Ferdinand hiding behind a designated haystack.

In a country where one royal family not only rules but owns the land, this attempt of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, then heir to the throne, and mad with love, to marry Countess Sophie Chotek, lady in waiting to Archduchess Isabella, caused a palace revolution. By the aid of Szell he at last succeeded in carrying out the marriage. But this was only after he and his wife had been required to submit to the most humiliating conditions and subscribe to a marriage contract or promise which was not only enacted thereafter as a statute in Hungary, but was formally put on record by the Austrian parliament.

In this declaration, Franz Ferdinand declared it to be "his firm and resolute resolve to marry Countess Sophie Chotek, that he had sought, in accordance with the laws of the house, to obtain consent of the Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, the Emperor and King, Francis Joseph I, gloriously reigning, that the most serene, supreme head of the Arch house had deigned graciously to grant this permission and that Franz Ferdinand, however (describing himself as 'We'), recognise the house laws and declare them binding on Us particularly with regard to this marriage declaration, that our Marriage with Countess Chotek is not a marriage of equal birth, but a morganatic one and is to be considered as such for all time, and that in consequence neither our wife nor our issue or descendants is entitled to possess or claim those rights, titles, armorial bearings and privileges that belong to wives of equal birth and to children of archdukes or marriages of equal birth." Franz Ferdinand, further, recognised that his children from this marriage would have no right to succeed to the throne in the kingdoms and lands of Austria nor, consequently, to the lands of the Hungarian Crown and that they were excluded from the order of succession.

He further agreed and promised not only for himself but for his wife and children, that none of them would ever attempt to revoke this declaration.

The old Emperor gave the wife of Franz Ferdinand the title of Princess Hohenberg and later raised her to the rank of duchess which, in the Central Empires, is a higher rank than that of princess. She was also created a Serene Highness after the birth of her third child, Prince Ernest, in 1904. The first child, Princess Sophie, was born in 1901, and the second, Prince Maximilian Charles, in 1902.

In spite of the rank thus granted to her, the Duchess of Hohenberg was frequently slighted by Archdukes and Archduchesses of the House of Hapsburg, and when the present Emperor, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, married Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, in 1911, and this marriage was followed by the birth of a son, on November 20, 1912, it was plain to Franz Ferdinand and his wife that the hostility of the old Emperor and the other members of the House of Hapsburg, aided by events, had succeeded in definitely excluding his children by Countess Sophie from the throne.

These slights to his wife, so marked as to cause the publication of articles inspired by himself in a newspaper devoted to his interests, and the birth of the heir to Carl, must have had a profound influence on melancholy Franz Ferdinand.

In all Europe there was one monarch clever enough to take advantage of the situation, to win Franz Ferdinand to him by the honours he paid to the Duchess of Hohenberg,--the German Emperor. Kaiser Wilhelm invited the pair to Potsdam and there both were made to feel that in one court, at least, the honours due to a wife of equal birth were paid to the ex-Countess Sophie. This Potsdam visit was in 1909, and I believe that, thereafter, the German Emperor and Franz Ferdinand met on other occasions.

In the chapter on Emperor Wilhelm, I have stated the belief prevalent, even in Germany, that he intended as his first step towards his openly expressed ambition for world dominion, to make himself, on the death of Francis Joseph, Emperor of a Great Continental Empire in which the German Princes, his sons, should occupy the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia, the heir of the House of Austria to rule as king or grand duke of Austria with possibly another German ruled kingdom touching the sea on the south.

There are some who believe that when the Kaiser, accompanied by von Tirpitz, visited Franz Ferdinand at Konopisht in June, 1914, before the Kiel week, that a great conspiracy was entered into, in which it was arranged that a great Central Empire should be created with one of the sons of the Duchess of Hohenberg on the throne of Bohemia and the other provided for by some newly carved out kingdom made from Bosnia, or a portion of Serbia. And it may have been part of this plot that Eitel Fritz and other sons of the Kaiser should be provided with thrones derived from Balkan territory.

It will be remembered that as Franz Ferdinand and his wife fell under the assassin's bullet at Sarajevo he called out: "Sophie, live for our children!" His devotion to his wife and to their children was extraordinary. He was continually sparing from his income so that on his death his sons would have a large sum of money, saved from the income of estates which they could not inherit.

It is hard to believe that such a crime against the House of Hapsburg and against his own country was contemplated from the inside of royalty. But one event seems a confirmation of this theory. The dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were buried with such lack of honour, almost with such contempt, as to lead to the belief that the head of the House of Hapsburg, Emperor Francis Joseph himself, without whose directions the Chamberlain, Count Montenuovo, would not have dared to act, discovered his heir in some act against the laws or fortunes of the Imperial House.

For the funeral arrangements were such, that the Austrian and Hungarian aristocracy were moved to protest and as a result a belated order was issued directing that the troops of the Vienna Garrison should take part in the funeral ceremonies. About one hundred and fifty members of the leading families of Hungary and Austria, without invitation, entered the funeral procession and followed the bodies to the railway station. The _London Times_ correspondent called attention to this in cables to his newspaper at the time.

Personally, I do not incline to this view, but I do believe that at Konopisht the war of 1914 was finally agreed on. Too many bits of evidence point to this and from something said to me at Kiel by a very high personage, before the assassinations at Sarajevo, I would have guessed that war was coming, had it not been impossible for me to believe that the world was to be plunged into war simply because the German people were restless under the rule of the autocracy.

When the murders occurred at Sarajevo, all plans had been laid for war and the death of Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess of Hohenberg merely gave another excuse to begin hostilities, after Austria, in the Council of Potsdam, had ratified all the arrangements made by the Emperor Wilhelm and Franz Ferdinand for the European war. Undoubtedly the German Emperor used his influence with Franz Ferdinand and his wife in order to secure the former's aid in dragging Austria into the war,--a war begun to win the dominion of the world.

How many in America have heard the name of Sophie Chotek? Yet the ambitions of this woman have done much to send to war the splendid youths who from all the ends of the earth gather in France to fight the fight of freedom.

The clever German Emperor, playing upon her ambitions, induced the gloomy, hated Franz Ferdinand to consent to the world war, and matters had gone so far that even the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand could not change the situation nor turn the war party of Hungary and Austria from their programme of blood. Eighty-four years of age, the old Francis Joseph could only offer a weak defence to the martial insistence of Tisza, Premier of Hungary, and his able understrapper, Forgotsch, who represented him in the Foreign Office at Vienna and who undoubtedly is the man who drafted the forty-eight hour ultimatum to Servia.

[Illustration: MAIN STAIRWAY IN THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, BERLIN]

Berliners say that although the German Emperor gave the Duchess of Hohenberg all the honours due to the wife of an Austrian Archduke, heir to the throne of the Austrian Empire, he was careful not to bring her claims in direct conflict with any Prussian female Royalty and that on the first visit of Franz Ferdinand and his wife to Potsdam, when the doors of the banquet room were thrown open, it was seen that the Kaiser had skilfully placed all the guests at small tables, sitting at one with the Empress and his two guests. In this way he prevented a conflict of precedence and a possible scene with some Prussian royal princess.

After one of these Potsdam visits, the Austrian government appropriated three hundred millions for new Skoda cannon and a great and unexpected increase of the navy was voted. In Austria itself it was seen that the German influence was dragging Austria-Hungary nearer and nearer to war.

Ferdinand disliked the Hungarians and in turn was hated by them. If he had attained the throne of the Empire, as his children could not inherit, he would have endeavoured first to remove that obstacle, but if he had not succeeded he intended, as I have said, either to restore the kingdom of Bohemia and place his son, child of a Bohemian mother, on the newly created throne, or create, possibly from conquered lands, another kingdom over which his heir could reign.

The Magyars, the real Hungarian ruling race, are most skilful politicians. Their elections often are corrupt and all the tricks of the politician are in use in Hungary.

In many families political talent seems hereditary. Tisza, the Premier of Hungary for the period for some time before the war, was the son of Tisza, who was Premier of Hungary about the year 1875. Kossuth, son of the great Kossuth, has been active in politics. The father of Count Julius Andrassy was Premier about 1866 and favoured Germany, a policy which has been inherited by his son. One of the sons-in-law of Count Andrassy's wife, Marquis Pallavicini, came to America to act as best man when my wife's sister married Count Sigray.

Andrassy came to Berlin during the war where I had several long talks with him. The one desire of Hungarians and Austrians alike is for peace, but surrounded by the armies of their German masters, they have lost their independence of action, a bitter blow to the Magyars, who are not fond of the Germans.

Count Stephen Tisza is an obstinate and able man, so many sided that it is related of him that he fought a duel, rode a steeplechase and made a great speech in Parliament, all in one day.

Duelling is still a custom in Hungary, Austria and Germany. Once when I was in Hungary I took supper with a Count who had been second in a duel that day. One young Magnate was at a restaurant with an actress who wore a wide brimmed hat. Another young Magnate of his acquaintance looked under the hat brim to see who the girl was. Result: a duel with sabres in a riding school. On this occasion, as the insult was not deadly, the use of sharp points was forbidden. The duel was stopped after one young Magnate received a cut on the forehead.

Stephen Tisza, on first taking office, was permitted by the old Emperor to obtain some apparent concessions for Hungary in order to make his premiership popular. It was arranged that Hungarian flags should be carried by Hungarian regiments, and that the officers of those regiments all should be Hungarians, but German was to be used as the military language and language of command even in the Hungarian regiments.

As soon as Tisza became premier for the first time, Count Apponyi left the Liberal party and lately Count Julius Andrassy and his wife's sons-in-law, Count Karoli and Marquis Pallavicini, have been in violent opposition to Tisza, Pallavicini even fighting a duel with the Prime Minister.

In a country where the majority of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics it is rather strange that Tisza and his father, both strong Protestants, should have attained the Premiership. The father of Count Stephen Tisza was even more obstinate than his son and greatly oppressed the Slovaks and Roumanians within the borders of Hungary.

A great responsibility lies at the door of Stephen Tisza. He allowed the Germans to use him in bringing on the world war. Doubtless he believed that Russia and the Powers would not move, that Austria-Hungary could seize or invade Serbia, while Germany terrorised the world as in 1908 when Bosnia and Herzegovina were added to the Imperial dominions. But his failure to read the intentions of Russia and the other Powers is no excuse for the calamity he brought on Hungary and the world, no excuse for the fact that his country is now overwhelmed by Kaiserism, its armies surrounded by the armies of Germany and its very independence threatened by the subtle influence and intrigues of the master intriguer of the world,--the German Kaiser.

The franchise in Austria and in Hungary is like that given grudgingly to the Prussian, a mere ghost of suffrage. Autocracy rules. In Hungary, particularly the Magyars, seeking to keep the political power in their hands, oppose a broadening of the franchise. Tisza has always been against any letting down of the bars, but when the young and brilliant Count Esterhazy was made Premier, many looked for a change--a change which has, however, not yet come.

The new Emperor Carl at first seemed to exhibit Liberal tendencies, but only for a moment.

The events in Russia will have a grave effect in Austria-Hungary. More than a million Russians are prisoners in the Dual Monarchy, nearly a million of whose subjects are in Russia--and of these at least fifty thousand Czechs are fighting the Austrians and Germans in the ranks of the Roumanian army. Many more will refuse to leave Russia, but the coming back of one-half, after having witnessed the winning of liberty by the Russians, will influence their countrymen in no small degree. Just as the French soldiers under Lafayette and Rochambeau, after helping us gain our independence, returned from the free fields of America to a France where the burdens of the plain people were almost unendurable and brought on the great French Revolution, the soldiers and prisoners who return to Prussia and to Austria-Hungary from the strange scenes of the Russian Revolution may, perhaps, leaven the inert slave masses of the Central Empires with a spirit of revolt for liberty.

We should institute a great propaganda from the Italian front. For instance, I have been told by a man who has been on that front, a man who should know, that if a few American troops were sent there and signs erected stating "Come over and surrender to the Americans, you will be taken to America well fed and paid a dollar per day when you volunteer to work," there would be a great rush of Austro-Hungarian troops eager to be taken prisoner.

The losses of Austria and Hungary have been enormous--men up to fifty-five have been drafted for the army, and the troops have often suffered defeat and the horrors of retreat at the hands of Russians, Serbians, and Italians.

And all the time the iron hand of the German Kaiser grasps more and more of the power. Cheerless prospect it is for the once gay Hungarians, the once happy Austrians, if to financial ruin and the killing of the flower of their youth is to be added the iron horror of Prussian domination.

Our citizens of Austrian and especially of Hungarian descent have been loyal to their new flag. And our great President with enlightened wisdom has eased the enemy alien regulations so as to favour those born in the Dual Monarchy. America will never forget the loyalty, ungrudgingly given by those of her people born under the double eagle of the Hapsburgs.

In my many visits to Hungary I grew to like and admire the Hungarians. Natural in manners, hospitable, polite, there is something in them that wins Americans. How different the open hospitality and friendliness in Budapest from the stern, cold formality of the Prussian capital!

And with all friends of Hungary I hope that that country will soon throw off the trance of Prussianism, which has led the Dual Monarchy into a Dance of Death.

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