Soon enough, also, the
Ruthenian
eastern half of
the country will have tales to tell of the atrocities
of Polish Junkers and of the clergy.
the country will have tales to tell of the atrocities
of Polish Junkers and of the clergy.
Treitschke - 1914 - His Doctrine of German Destiny
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? 246 Treitschke
would happen if it entered the Belgian customs
area.
Serious opposition can hardly be expected from
the Dutch Government, which has long been
weary of its troublesome neighbour. But the
head of the House of Orange has long been con-
verted to the commercial neutrality of those
patricians of Amsterdam, whom his great an-
cestors formerly fought against; his heart, however
warmly it may beat for France, will find to-day
the clink of Prussian dollars quite as pleasant as
that of golden napoleons four years ago. An
understanding must also be possible with the
magnates of the joint House of Nassau, whose
rights were expressly reserved in the May Con-
vention. The simplest solution of the question
would certainly be arrived at if Prussia were to
acquire the country by purchase. Already the
Prussian State numbers fifty thousand Luxem-
burgers among its citizens in the districts around
Bittburg and St. Vith; if the Grand Duchy and
French- Luxemburg, together with Diedenhof , were
to be taken over in addition, that misgoverned
and mutilated country would at last be united
again under one Crown up to the Belgian portion.
But this solution, which is in every respect most
desirable, is not absolutely a necessity; German
interests primarily extend only so far that the
Principality be again adopted into our line of
defence, into the life of our State and culture.
Should, therefore, the joint House prefer to raise
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? Germany and Neutral States 247
up a Nassau Prince as a Prince of the Confedera-
tion to the throne of Luxemburg, Germany cannot
refuse; such an arrangement would at any rate
be far preferable to the unreal conditions of to-
day. Lastly, we are yet in need of the agreement
of the European Powers. That also is obtainable ;
for right and fairness are obviously on our side,
if we intend to impose similar charges on all
members of the Customs Union; moreover, Eng-
land has long felt the guarantee undertaken for
the neutrality of Luxemburg to be a wearisome
burden. However, everything depends entirely
on not commencing negotiations prematurely,
so that the neutral Powers may not find welcome
occasion to interfere in the Franco- German
negotiations.
Alsace, Lorraine, Luxemburg! What wounds
have been inflicted on German life in those
Marches of the Empire through the crimes of
long centuries, and how perseveringly will all the
healthy forces of the German State be obliged
to bestir themselves in order to keep in peace
what the sword has won ! The task seems almost
too heavy for this generation, which has only just
rescued our Northern March from alien rulers.
Still, what is being accomplished to-day is but the
ripe fruit of the work of many generations. All
the industry, all the honesty and active power, all
the moral wealth, which our fathers awoke anew
in the deteriorated Fatherland, will work on our
side if we now dare to adapt the degenerate sons
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? 248 Treitschke
of our West to German life; and the best that
we can achieve in peace can yet never ap-
proach the deeds and sufferings of the heroes
who paid with their blood for the dawn of the
new times.
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE.
HEIDELBERG,
i$th Dec. , 1871.
ONCE more Austria has emerged from a severe
ordeal. The Hohenwarte Cabinet has re-
signed ; the plans of the Slavs to upset the rights and
the policy of the Germans have been frustrated, and
under the auspices of the Magyars a Ministry has
been formed which, to say the least, may be cred-
ited with just intentions towards the Germans and
an honest desire for the preservation of the State.
But the cries of joy from German breasts to
greet the deliverance from threatening danger
are isolated. Hitherto, it was customary that
our countrymen on the Danube in days of stress
should lose faith in their Government only to
regain confidence as soon as the political clouds
lifted again, and for a long time past we Germans
of the Empire have been accustomed to this
sudden change of feeling in German Austria, just
as we are accustomed to laws of nature. For
the first time, however, the old rule no longer
applies; the news from our Austrian friends reads
gloomier than ever, despite the slight change for
the better which has now taken place, and the
249
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? 250 Treitschke
question is wonderingly asked how in such a
country reckless men are still found ready to
accept a ministerial portfolio. What a weird
spectacle to behold! a great empire whose own
people have lost faith in themselves. Let us
calmly examine these serious matters. It does
not admit of doubt what we for the sake of Ger-
many wish for Austria. We German Unity-
makers were never the enemies of Austria; we
only contested the preponderating power which
Austria exercised on German and Italian soil to
the detriment of all parties. Now, having fought
victoriously, we are more in favour of Austria
than many Austrians themselves. Nowhere dur-
ing the last few weeks have so many warm and
genuine wishes been exchanged for the continu-
ance of Austria as in the lobbies of the German
Parliament. Our Empire's ambition must simply
be directed towards the building up of an inde-
pendent and solid commonwealth within our
boundaries, which will suffice to us all completely.
We have Italy's hasty agitation for unity as a
warning example before us, and must not desire
to embody, in addition to the strong centrifugal
powers fermenting in the interior of Germany and
to the inhabitants of our Polish, Danish, and
French frontiers, yet another eight million Czechs
as our fellow-citizens. In the days of Frederick
the Great, when ideas of a Slav Empire lay dor-
mant, it was perhaps not very difficult to turn
over Bohemia entirely to German ideals. The old
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? Austria and the German Empire 251
race-hatred having, however, now been aroused
again with terrific ferocity, even the united forces
of Germany might have to spend scores of years
on this difficult and perhaps sterile task, should we
ever step into the sad heritage of the Hapsburgs.
We already have more than enough ultramontane
enemies of the Empire, and we will keep them in
check; our Empire is, however, well balanced only
because of the preponderance of Protestants. We
should commit a crime against the future liberty
of thought were we to contemplate absorbing
fourteen million Catholics. Germany longs for
peace ; the vapourings of the democracy regarding
the war-fanaticism of our Government are lying
statements, disbelieved even by their originators.
The collapse of Austria, however, would mean an
upheaval unexampled in history, which would
embroil us in endless wars and threaten to destroy
the development of a peaceful policy for a long
time to come.
We Germans have never understood the prin-
ciple of nationality in the crude and overbearing
sense that all German-speaking Europeans must
belong to our Empire. We consider it a boon for
the peaceful intercourse of the world that the
boundaries of nations are not engraved with a
knife in the shell of the earth, that millions of
French live outside France, and outside the Ger-
man Empire millions of Germans. If the present-
day situation in Middle Europe consolidates, if
in the middle of the Continent there are two great
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? 252 Treitschke
Empires, the one uniform and purely German, the
other Catholic and polyglot, yet permeated by
German ideas who will contend that such a state
of affairs is humiliating to German national pride?
More magnificent and more brilliant than the day
of Koniggratz shines the glory of Sedan; but the
firm basis of our power to-day, the creative
thoughts of a new German policy have been engen-
dered by the blessings of 1866. "Down with
Austria," was then our battle-cry, and Germany
breathed as if freed from a nightmare when we
separated from Austria. Every day of German
history has proved since then that this separation
was a necessity, and that only through it we have
found ourselves again. In order to satisfy un-
bridled greed are we to demolish again the struc-
ture of 1866, the foundations of our Empire?
Are we to discard like old rubbish that rich treasure
of historic-political importance amassed during
half a century by our serious thinkers as common
property of the Germans solely because our
countrymen in Austria do not immediately succeed
in adjusting themselves to the new order of things?
Not an inch of land was taken by the victor of
1866 from the vanquished; such moderation not
only arose from the desire to reconcile the adver-
sary, it was also clearly evident that those Austrian
provinces which were for four centuries estranged
from German life and interdependent through
political ties, as well as through mutual commercial
interests, have a good right to stand side by side
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? Austria and the German Empire 253
independently with Germany. Austrian pessi-
mists might give as an example Moscow and
Warsaw. The opinion that the capital on the
Danube is to become a German provincial town
is ridiculed as ludicrous in sober- thinking Berlin.
The German idealists of the Danube speak lightly
of the disruption of Austria as if a Great Power
could easily be annihilated ; we but ask what is to
become of the territories of the Crown of St.
Stephen after the collapse of the monarchy, and,
unable to find a satisfactory reply, we desire the
continuance of Austria as a Power.
The dualism which so often is depicted as the
beginning of the end appears to us in a different
light. The agreement of 1867 has not exactly
created a new state of affairs, but merely recon-
nected the thoughts of the only Austrian sovereign
who intelligently and successfully understood the
handling of internal reforms. To leave the lands
of the Hungarian Crown under their former con-
stitution, and to form the Crown lands of the west
into one political unit, were the plans formerly of
Maria Theresa. It is due to Deak that this long-
forgotten policy has been renewed in modern form.
Our political pride may revolt, yet we cannot think
it unnatural that Hungarians have finally assumed
political direction in the dual Empire. Those
six million Magyars, together with the two million
Hungarian-Germans who obey the former almost
blindly, form the biggest political entity of the
Empire. They have the firm legal basis of an old
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? 254 Treitschke
historic constitution an immense advantage in
comparison with the chaotic conditions of public
law in Cisleithania. They alone amongst the
people of Austria have conquered freedom by
dint of hard work; they surpass all others in
political training and experience. Thus historic
necessity has finally brought it about that for the
present only a Hungarian Prime Minister is
possible. We shall not be expected to throw a
stone at the deposed Count Beust. The most
spiteful remarks which could be made about him
are at the outset silenced by his charmingly
ingenious eulogies, which, in the style of the Duke
of Coburg, he himself has made regarding his own
importance. Credit is due to him for having
recognized the moment when it was in the interest
of the Crown to submit to the conditions of the
Hungarians. In all other matters he displayed
as Imperial and Royal Chancellor of the Exchequer
exactly the same lack of tact and foresight which
in times gone by we admired in the diplomatic
faiseur of "Pure Germany. " Everything in poli-
tics turned out with regularity differently to
what he anticipated. The neutrality of Austria
during the last war was not due to him but to our
quick successes, to the bad condition of the Austrian
army, to the threats of Russia, the bravery of the
German-Austrians, and the clearheadedness of
Count Andrassy. It was an admission of weak-
ness on the part of Austria that a State ailing
from severe moral troubles should have for its
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? Austria and the German Empire 255
salvation called upon such a frivolous man, who
never claimed to possess the moral seriousness
of a reformer; and it is perhaps still more regret-
table that many an honest citizen to-day waxes
bitter in his outcry against the fallen dignitary
after having for five years been an eye-witness of
his debaucheries. Count Andrassy has at any
rate this advantage over his predecessor, that he
believes in himself and in his cause. He is an
honest Hungarian patriot, and therefore must try
to maintain the State in its entirety, as Hungary
is not yet powerful enough to exist without German
Austria. He must also defend the Constitution
of Cisleithania, as it is only with constitutional
Cisleithania that constitutional Hungary has
come to a settlement. He never recognized the
Concordat for Hungary although it existed in
Cisleithania, and for that reason alone he is the
enemy of the Ultramontanes and the Feudalists.
He cannot favour federalism, because Hungary
prefers discussing mutual Imperial affairs with
the delegates of Parliament instead of with
seventeen Diets. Besides, federalism in Bohemia,
Moravia, and Krain would inevitably throw the
Germans under the yoke of the Slavs; Hungary,
however, can make herself easier understood by
the Germans than by the Czechs. Count Andrassy
solemnly assures us of his love for peace, and we
have no reason to mistrust him. The weakness of
Hungarian politics lies in the fact that the mental
and economical development of the leading half
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? 256 Treitschke
of the Monarchy is vastly inferior to that of
Cisleithania. Only by continued and peaceful
efforts may Hungary expect to somewhat adjust
this proportion. A Magyar at the head of Austrian
affairs should therefore wish for peace if he honestly
desires that his country shall retain the leadership
within the Monarchy.
It is true that Austrian public authority assumes
peculiar and complex forms. In Transleithania
a Parliament of two Houses and the Croatian Diet;
in Cisleithania a Parliament of two houses and
seventeen Diets; for both halves of the Monarchy
delegations with two divisions altogether twenty-
one Parliaments with twenty-four Houses. But
these complicated forms are only the true reflection
of the variegated ethnographical and historic
conditions of the whole State, and does not our
own Imperial State teach us that even amongst
complicated institutions a healthy political life
may prosper? Still, it does not appear quite
impossible that an intelligent plan may be adopted
which the best heads of German-Austria have
conceived unfortunately only very late in the day.
If the Germans in Cisleithania are desirous of
obtaining predominance, which by rights is due
to them, this overloaded body must be freed of
some heterogeneous members. Dalmatia, by vir-
tue of her geographical position as well as by
virtue of her interests, belongs to the eastern half
of the Monarchy; the "triune Illyrian Kingdom"
longed for by the Slavs of the South in 1848 may
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? Austria and the German Empire 257
materialize and gain vitality if that South Slav
State decides to recognize the supremacy of the
Crown of St. Stephen; Galicia, on the other hand,
justly claims independence by the side of Cislei-
thania, in the same way as Croatia by the side of
Hungaria. If this separation were successful,
and at the same time direct parliamentary elec-
tions were introduced, German Austria, as a
country with fourteen million inhabitants and an
adjoining country of about six millions, would
face sixteen millions of the Crown of St. Stephen,
and the German element could retain the upper
hand in Parliament.
We in Germany are willing to remain on good
terms with Austria as long as Count Andrassy
does not depart from his peaceful programme.
The old feud is honestly fought out, and in to-day's
conditions of Austria there are at present only
two questions which might possibly compel us
to terminate friendly relations with the Empire.
If the Magyars misuse their power and upset the
German tendencies of the Suabians in Hungary,
or even those of the Transylvanian Saxons, the
best German race in the south-east, the friendly
tendency in Germany will rapidly disappear.
Our national pride has, God be praised, become
more sensitive to-day, and we all feel that our
Empire cannot silently put up with acts of violence
against our own flesh and blood. The alliance
which for centuries has united the Hapsburgs with
the Polish Republic is still operative. During the
17
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? 258 Treitschke
last ten years Austria has given free rein to the
Polish "Junkerdom," and for the Poles Galicia
is the stronghold of their nationality. If Galicians
obtain the desired autonomy, Polish liberty will
quickly show its true colours, and will reveal itself
in overbearing tyranny against all non-Poles.
The principle of nationality which represents
to-day the forlorn hope of the Poles, has not been
so shamelessly trampled upon by any nation in
Europe as by the Poles in the days of their good
fortune. In Cracow the last German professors
of the University have already been sent away,
and the old German college is in the hands of the
Poles. Soon perhaps the Jews of Kasimierz will
be the sole representatives of Germany in the old
town, which owes its existence to the Germans.
Soon enough, also, the Ruthenian eastern half of
the country will have tales to tell of the atrocities
of Polish Junkers and of the clergy. All this does
not touch us immediately. West Prussia is pre-
paring to gratefully celebrate next summer the
centenary of the first division of Poland ; in Posen,
likewise, German culture and German develop-
ment is making progress ; the Posen peasant knows
that his position under Polish nobility was in-
comparably harder than under the present-day
Prussian sceptre. In this district we are immune
from any rising, provided no artificial agitation
is introduced from without. But moderation is
not to be expected from the hereditary political
incapacity of the Polish Junkers. Once masters of
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? Austria and the German Empire 259
Galicia this province will be the heart of busy
Polish propaganda, and the frantic cry, "Ancient
Poland down to the green bridge of Konigsberg"
may soon be heard again. Thus Austria's Polish
policy cements the friendship between Prussia and
Russia, the old faithful allies, and prevents us follow-
ing unsuspiciously the Danube Empire's measures.
As long, however, as our Polish possessions are
not endangered, Germany is willing to extend
benevolent sentiments to her neighbour, an honest
intention which does not lose its value because it
is expressed without sentimental tenderness. A
State like Austria cannot exact affection from
independent people. Our interests induce us to
desire the continuance of the Empire of the Loth-
rings, and these interests form the closest tie
between the States. But are our devout wishes
a power strong enough to face fate ? Who amongst
us desired the recent war? Nobody; and yet
inexorable fate dragged us into it. The mutual
interests of neighbouring Powers may afford a
small State an unjustified existence for centuries;
a big Power, however, cannot exist if it lacks
vitality, and if it does not appear as a blessing,
or at any rate as a necessity to its own people.
Were we to ask such questions regarding Austria,
innumerable apprehensions and considerations
present themselves. The most confident can
to-day only say it is possible that Austria may keep
together; but all the foundations of that State
belong to a period of the past.
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? 260 Treitschke
When Austria lost her unnatural power over
Germany and Italy, many hopeful prophecies were
expressed that the Empire on the Danube would
rejuvenate and breathe freely again, like the
Prussian State after having renounced Warsaw.
Exactly the contrary has happened. Austria's
worries have incessantly increased since 1866.
By withdrawing from foreign territory she has not
found herself again, but abandoned her old historic
character. Ever since its existence, the aims of
the Austrian Empire were exclusively directed to
European politics. An internal reign taken as a
whole did not exist at all. Once the creed of unity
was established, the Crown allowed everything to
go as it did, and was satisfied when its people
silently obeyed. Hardly ever has the House of
Hapsburg-Lothring bestowed a thought upon
improving her administrative machinery, the
furtherance of the people's welfare, popular educa-
tion, and upon all the seemingly insignificant
tasks of internal politics which to other countries
are of cardinal importance; only Maria Theresa
and Joseph II realized the seriousness of their
duties. To-day, however, humbled and weakened,
hardly able to maintain the position of a big
Power, Austria finds herself compelled to recon-
sider her ways. External politics which formerly
meant to her everything have now lost import-
ance; the whole country's powers are invoked to
repair the internal damage, and whilst the "Hof-
burg" (the Imperial Palace), although unwillingly,
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? Austria and the German Empire 261
is compelled to expiate the sins of neglect of many
centuries, the question is asked, with steadily
growing insistence, whether this age of national
State formations still has room left for an Empire
which lacks national stamina.
Undoubtedly the natural form of government
for such a conglomerate Empire is absolutism.
An independent monarch may maintain a neutral
attitude over his quarrelling people; he may in
happy days lull his country into comfortable
slumber in order to play one nation against the
other in time of need; but these old tricks have
long ceased to be effective. In every conceivable
form absolutism has been tried by the "Hofburg,"
only to finally prove its complete all-round ineffi-
cacy. Cisleithania's population owes its consti-
tution to the failure of absolutism, and not to its
own strength. To us Germans of the Empire
it was clear beforehand that liberty bestowed in
this way could thrive but slowly, and only after
severe relapses. True, some democratic dunces
in Berlin formerly applauded the juggling tricks
of the "People's cabinet," and have claimed for
Prussia "liberty as in Austria. " But all sensible
people in Germany find it natural that the consti-
tution in Austria so far has caused only venomous,
complicated, and barren party quarrels. More
serious than the infantine diseases of constitu-
tionalism seems the terrible growth of race-hatred.
Here, as elsewhere, parliamentarism has accen-
tuated national contrasts. As Schleswig-Holstein
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? 262 Treitschke
experienced it with the Danes, so Austria experi-
ences it now, that free people learn far more slowly
than legitimate Courts the virtue of political toler-
ance and self-restraint. As was to be expected
of the Hapsburg-Lothrings, the constitutional Im-
perial Crown has remained thoroughly despotic
in sentiment. As yet none of the innumerable
ministers of the present Emperor have in reality
guided the country. Count Beust could be par-
doned everything except popular favour, which
was his main support. The just plaint of the
Germans who are true to the constitution is that
"mysterious forces" a deeply veiled Camarilla
of subaltern bureaucrats and ultramontane noble-
men dominate the Court, and, in spite of the
abolition of the Concordat, the relations between
the "Hofburg" and the Roman Curia have not
come to an end. Since Austria's withdrawal
from the German alliance the house of the Loth-
rings, now fatherless, has no further inducement
to favour the Germans, and the Court already
displays marked coolness towards German ideals.
The spokesmen of the Germans are men of the
Liberal Party, who in their dealings with the
Crown have unfortunately displayed clumsy
ignorance about constitutional doctrine. The
Magyars show chivalrous respect for the wearer
of the Crown of St. Stephen, and the Court com-
mences to feel comfortable in Budapest. The
feudal leaders of the Slavs conscientiously display
their dynastic tendencies; the German Ministers,
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? Austria and the German Empire 263
however, behave as if the Emperor were really
the only fifth wheel of the cart after Rotteck and
Welcker, and in the lower Austrian Diet Liberal
passion recently descended to most unseemly
remarks against the Imperial family. Does Vienna
not remember that the Hapsburgs never forget?
Thus the ties between the Crown and the Germans
are loosening.
The Army is no longer an absolutely reliable
support of the State, because it has undoubtedly
lost in quality since the day of Koniggratz. A
State which resembles the "Wallenstein Camp"
can gain great victories only by means of homeless
mercenary troops. Any improvement of modern
warfare impairs the fighting capacity of Austria.
The more the moral element commences to enter
into the calculations of war the more the cruelty
of the private soldier and the deep-laid mistrust
which separates Slav troops from their German
officers will give rise to apprehension. The custom-
ary foolery about clothing, which has finally
led to concocting for the Imperial and Royal Ar-
mies the ugliest uniform in the universe, makes
just as little for the fitness of the forces as the
improvement of weapons. The introduction of
compulsory military service, which can serve a
useful purpose only in a national State, was in
Austria a thoughtless precipitation ; for the moment
it has disorganized discipline, and it is question-
able whether the future will show better results.
German students, Polish noblemen, fanatical
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? 264 Treitschke
Czechs, join the ranks of the volunteers and are
promoted to officers' rank in the militia; but this
new corps of officers does not invariably, as of
yore, seek its home under the black and yellow
standard. The militiaman acquires at home all
the prejudices of race-hatred; the Hungarian
" honveds " are certainly brave soldiers, but equally
surely cannot be led against an enemy. The
young noblemen who formerly gladly gathered
round the Imperial Standard now stay away, and
race-hatred impairs comradeship. The officers
of the German Army at times glance critically at
the history of Austria's military forces, who, with
rare exceptions, have for 130 years always fought
bravely and unsuccessfully; and they compare
the days of Metz and Sedan with the hopeless
campaign against the Bochese. The old remedy
of hard-pressed Hapsburgs a state of siege
promises but scant success for an army thus
constituted.
In addition thereto, are public functionaries of
generally very inferior education, whose corruption
does not admit of doubt, servile and yet always
argumentative ; we refer to the Czech bureaucracy,
indescribably hated and despised by Germans and
Hungarians alike. In the Church there is a
strictly Roman party with very well meaning but
also very vague Old-Catholic aspirations, and there
exists widely diffused a shallow frivolity which
derides as Prussian hypocrisy all agitations for
moral seriousness. In the same way the quondam
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? Austria and the German Empire 265
much-talked-of inexhaustible resources of the
Danube Empire prove to-day a pleasant fairy
tale. An Exchequer, which has twice within
ninety years covered yearly expenditure by regular
receipts, and has now again just weathered veiled
bankruptcy such incredible financial mismanage-
ment has not only destroyed the private fortunes
of thousands; it has also largely stimulated the
habit of gambling and of prodigality. In nearly
all the Crown lands of Cisleithania agriculture
lacks a body of educated middle-class farmers;
it is the link between farms and the vast estates
of noblemen which is missing. The development
of industry is similarly handicapped. Whilst in
most provinces trade and commerce are in their
infancy, Vienna is agitated by feverishly-excited
speculation. For ever so long the Vienna Stock
Exchange has drawn the " smart set " into its circle.
Pools and syndicates carry on the organized
swindle, and the small man is also dragged into
the turmoil by innumerable commission houses.
The magnificent capital is of course a grand cen-
tre for every kind of intercourse, but its corrup-
tion reacts detrimentally upon the commonwealth.
The bulk of the citizens are still healthy and capa-
ble, but amongst the always immoral masses of
the metropolisan impudent socialism is to-day at
work, which derides the spirit of the Fatherland as
reactionary, and amongst all the races of Austria
most vehemently attacks the Germans as ' 'bour-
geois. " Of the moral conditions of the upper
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? 266 Treitschke
classes, and particularly of Stock Exchange circles,
the Vienna newspapers, which are closely allied
with the latter, give ample testimony. Vienna
journalism, although highly developed, is, on the
whole, the most immoral press of Europe Paris
by no means excluded. The German party in
Vienna is about to initiate the Deutsche Zeitung,
because an honest party cannot rely upon the
existing big German newspapers. All these power-
ful journals are nothing else, and do not pretend
to be anything else, than industrial undertakings,
and a smile of compassion would greet those who
were to speak to those literary speculators about
political tendencies. By the side of the big organs
of the Stock Exchange jobbers, there is a huge
crowd of dirty halfpenny rags, which live on
extortion and journalistic piracy, for in this frivo-
lous town there are many with a bad conscience,
and liberal payments are made to stop the slander-
ous tongue of the blackmailer. Since the first
happy days of Emperor Francis Joseph, when
court-martials condemned to death, New Austria
has attempted nearly every imaginable political
system ; such a sudden change is bound to unsettle
the sense of justice and the people's opinions re-
specting their country. The views of the Ger-
man-Austrian pessimists are very unpalatable to
Germans in the Empire, as they cross our political
calculations. But let us also be just, and let us try
to place ourselves in the position of a warm-hearted,
scientifically-educated young German- Austrian.
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? Austria and the German Empire 267
Why in the world should this man love his country
in its entirety? Ancient faith, force of habit, fear
of the uncertain future and of radical changes, all
these considerations retain him within Austrian
boundaries; but to rejoice his heart, he casts his
eyes northwards, where he beholds his country-
men in a respected, mighty Empire, in a well-
secured national commonwealth, with orderly
economic conditions, and he perceives them in
every respect happier than he is himself. He hates
the "rugged Caryatid-heads of the servile classes, "
as Hebbel, amid great cheers, once said of the
German-Austrians, and above all he hates the
Czechs. To keep this slavedom in subordination
and to shield the best he calls his own, i. e. , German
thought and German sentiment, from the aggres-
sive waves of barbarism he looks to the Empire
for protection. We seriously point out to him
the much-praised "colonizing vocation" of Ger-
manism in Austria. He, however, borrows from
the rich treasure of the Imperial and Royal bureau-
cratic language a beautiful phrase, and bitterly
suggests that this calling has now gradually become
obsolete (' ' in Verstoss gekommen ") . In Hungary,
in Bohemia, in Cracow, in the Tyrol, everywhere
Germanism is retrograding, and everywhere it is
proved that the atmosphere of the Hapsburg rule
is detrimental to German nationalism. He com-
plains that, "Centuries ago the liberty of German
faith was wrested from us, clerical pressure weighs
upon the soul of the people, and we have not
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? 268 Treitschke
sufficient iron left in our blood to protect ourselves
against the numerical majority of foreigners. "
He tells us of the political leaders of his race, how
they are nearly all done for and worn out, many
of them ill-famed for being deserters, sellers of
titles, or promoters. Then he asks whether it
behooves Germans to be governed by Hungarians
after the dicta of Magyar policy, and confidently
finishes up thus : ''Certainly Austria is a European
necessity, but the Austria of the future borders in
the west on the Leitha, and we Germans belong
to you. " We give him to reflect that after all it
is an honour to belong to Austria, that ancient
mighty Power, whereupon he shrugs his shoulders.
"Times of the past," he says. "When recently
Count Hohenwarte spoke to us of the real Austrian
nationality he was greeted by peals of derisive
laughter on the part of the Germans. We remind
him of the Oriental mission once entrusted by
Prince Eugene to the realm on the Danube.
Drily he replies : ' A State which can hardly stand
on its own legs will still less be able to subdue
foreign people, especially when violently hated by
them/'*
After the first great defeat of New Austria at the
battle of Solferino, Austrian Germanism began
to awake from its deep slumber. Notably in the
universities a more active national sentiment
developed, and we subsequently witnessed the
realization of what we German patriots always
anticipated, i. e. t that Austria's exodus from the
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? Austria and the German Empire 269
German Alliance would greatly enliven and
strengthen the mental intercourse between us and
the Germans on the Danube. Never before has
our political work met with such friendly reception
amongst the Austrians as amongst the German
nationalists of Graz and Vienna to-day. We
heartily apologize for the severe injustice done
years ago to the German "Gothaern"; nothing is
more touching than the youthful and amiable
enthusiasm which these circles harbour for our
new Empire ; nowhere has Prussia warmer friends.
From the bottom of our heart we wish that the
noble German national pride, the healthy political
intellect of this party, may display all its energy
in the perfecting of the Cisleithanian constitution.
The German-Austrian who greets every short-
coming of his country with a jubilant "Always
livelier and livelier" does not assist Germany in
her great object; she has only use for the active
man who works physically and mentally in order
to procure for the Germans the leadership in
Cisleithania. The German national pride in
Austria is a child of woe; it has invariably been
aroused by the defeats of the monarchy, and at
each fresh awakening it has given proof of greater
power. Up till now only a small portion of the
German-Austrians evinces strong German national
sentiment ; the history of the recent war shows to
what extent. The thinking middle classes fol-
lowed our battles with a hearty and active interest
never to be forgotten, and the brave German peas-
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? 270 Treitschke
ants in the Alps likewise recollected their heroic
wars against the Wallachs. The high nobility, how-
ever, and the masses in the towns persevered in the
old hatred against Prussia.
? 246 Treitschke
would happen if it entered the Belgian customs
area.
Serious opposition can hardly be expected from
the Dutch Government, which has long been
weary of its troublesome neighbour. But the
head of the House of Orange has long been con-
verted to the commercial neutrality of those
patricians of Amsterdam, whom his great an-
cestors formerly fought against; his heart, however
warmly it may beat for France, will find to-day
the clink of Prussian dollars quite as pleasant as
that of golden napoleons four years ago. An
understanding must also be possible with the
magnates of the joint House of Nassau, whose
rights were expressly reserved in the May Con-
vention. The simplest solution of the question
would certainly be arrived at if Prussia were to
acquire the country by purchase. Already the
Prussian State numbers fifty thousand Luxem-
burgers among its citizens in the districts around
Bittburg and St. Vith; if the Grand Duchy and
French- Luxemburg, together with Diedenhof , were
to be taken over in addition, that misgoverned
and mutilated country would at last be united
again under one Crown up to the Belgian portion.
But this solution, which is in every respect most
desirable, is not absolutely a necessity; German
interests primarily extend only so far that the
Principality be again adopted into our line of
defence, into the life of our State and culture.
Should, therefore, the joint House prefer to raise
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? Germany and Neutral States 247
up a Nassau Prince as a Prince of the Confedera-
tion to the throne of Luxemburg, Germany cannot
refuse; such an arrangement would at any rate
be far preferable to the unreal conditions of to-
day. Lastly, we are yet in need of the agreement
of the European Powers. That also is obtainable ;
for right and fairness are obviously on our side,
if we intend to impose similar charges on all
members of the Customs Union; moreover, Eng-
land has long felt the guarantee undertaken for
the neutrality of Luxemburg to be a wearisome
burden. However, everything depends entirely
on not commencing negotiations prematurely,
so that the neutral Powers may not find welcome
occasion to interfere in the Franco- German
negotiations.
Alsace, Lorraine, Luxemburg! What wounds
have been inflicted on German life in those
Marches of the Empire through the crimes of
long centuries, and how perseveringly will all the
healthy forces of the German State be obliged
to bestir themselves in order to keep in peace
what the sword has won ! The task seems almost
too heavy for this generation, which has only just
rescued our Northern March from alien rulers.
Still, what is being accomplished to-day is but the
ripe fruit of the work of many generations. All
the industry, all the honesty and active power, all
the moral wealth, which our fathers awoke anew
in the deteriorated Fatherland, will work on our
side if we now dare to adapt the degenerate sons
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? 248 Treitschke
of our West to German life; and the best that
we can achieve in peace can yet never ap-
proach the deeds and sufferings of the heroes
who paid with their blood for the dawn of the
new times.
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE.
HEIDELBERG,
i$th Dec. , 1871.
ONCE more Austria has emerged from a severe
ordeal. The Hohenwarte Cabinet has re-
signed ; the plans of the Slavs to upset the rights and
the policy of the Germans have been frustrated, and
under the auspices of the Magyars a Ministry has
been formed which, to say the least, may be cred-
ited with just intentions towards the Germans and
an honest desire for the preservation of the State.
But the cries of joy from German breasts to
greet the deliverance from threatening danger
are isolated. Hitherto, it was customary that
our countrymen on the Danube in days of stress
should lose faith in their Government only to
regain confidence as soon as the political clouds
lifted again, and for a long time past we Germans
of the Empire have been accustomed to this
sudden change of feeling in German Austria, just
as we are accustomed to laws of nature. For
the first time, however, the old rule no longer
applies; the news from our Austrian friends reads
gloomier than ever, despite the slight change for
the better which has now taken place, and the
249
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? 250 Treitschke
question is wonderingly asked how in such a
country reckless men are still found ready to
accept a ministerial portfolio. What a weird
spectacle to behold! a great empire whose own
people have lost faith in themselves. Let us
calmly examine these serious matters. It does
not admit of doubt what we for the sake of Ger-
many wish for Austria. We German Unity-
makers were never the enemies of Austria; we
only contested the preponderating power which
Austria exercised on German and Italian soil to
the detriment of all parties. Now, having fought
victoriously, we are more in favour of Austria
than many Austrians themselves. Nowhere dur-
ing the last few weeks have so many warm and
genuine wishes been exchanged for the continu-
ance of Austria as in the lobbies of the German
Parliament. Our Empire's ambition must simply
be directed towards the building up of an inde-
pendent and solid commonwealth within our
boundaries, which will suffice to us all completely.
We have Italy's hasty agitation for unity as a
warning example before us, and must not desire
to embody, in addition to the strong centrifugal
powers fermenting in the interior of Germany and
to the inhabitants of our Polish, Danish, and
French frontiers, yet another eight million Czechs
as our fellow-citizens. In the days of Frederick
the Great, when ideas of a Slav Empire lay dor-
mant, it was perhaps not very difficult to turn
over Bohemia entirely to German ideals. The old
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? Austria and the German Empire 251
race-hatred having, however, now been aroused
again with terrific ferocity, even the united forces
of Germany might have to spend scores of years
on this difficult and perhaps sterile task, should we
ever step into the sad heritage of the Hapsburgs.
We already have more than enough ultramontane
enemies of the Empire, and we will keep them in
check; our Empire is, however, well balanced only
because of the preponderance of Protestants. We
should commit a crime against the future liberty
of thought were we to contemplate absorbing
fourteen million Catholics. Germany longs for
peace ; the vapourings of the democracy regarding
the war-fanaticism of our Government are lying
statements, disbelieved even by their originators.
The collapse of Austria, however, would mean an
upheaval unexampled in history, which would
embroil us in endless wars and threaten to destroy
the development of a peaceful policy for a long
time to come.
We Germans have never understood the prin-
ciple of nationality in the crude and overbearing
sense that all German-speaking Europeans must
belong to our Empire. We consider it a boon for
the peaceful intercourse of the world that the
boundaries of nations are not engraved with a
knife in the shell of the earth, that millions of
French live outside France, and outside the Ger-
man Empire millions of Germans. If the present-
day situation in Middle Europe consolidates, if
in the middle of the Continent there are two great
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? 252 Treitschke
Empires, the one uniform and purely German, the
other Catholic and polyglot, yet permeated by
German ideas who will contend that such a state
of affairs is humiliating to German national pride?
More magnificent and more brilliant than the day
of Koniggratz shines the glory of Sedan; but the
firm basis of our power to-day, the creative
thoughts of a new German policy have been engen-
dered by the blessings of 1866. "Down with
Austria," was then our battle-cry, and Germany
breathed as if freed from a nightmare when we
separated from Austria. Every day of German
history has proved since then that this separation
was a necessity, and that only through it we have
found ourselves again. In order to satisfy un-
bridled greed are we to demolish again the struc-
ture of 1866, the foundations of our Empire?
Are we to discard like old rubbish that rich treasure
of historic-political importance amassed during
half a century by our serious thinkers as common
property of the Germans solely because our
countrymen in Austria do not immediately succeed
in adjusting themselves to the new order of things?
Not an inch of land was taken by the victor of
1866 from the vanquished; such moderation not
only arose from the desire to reconcile the adver-
sary, it was also clearly evident that those Austrian
provinces which were for four centuries estranged
from German life and interdependent through
political ties, as well as through mutual commercial
interests, have a good right to stand side by side
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? Austria and the German Empire 253
independently with Germany. Austrian pessi-
mists might give as an example Moscow and
Warsaw. The opinion that the capital on the
Danube is to become a German provincial town
is ridiculed as ludicrous in sober- thinking Berlin.
The German idealists of the Danube speak lightly
of the disruption of Austria as if a Great Power
could easily be annihilated ; we but ask what is to
become of the territories of the Crown of St.
Stephen after the collapse of the monarchy, and,
unable to find a satisfactory reply, we desire the
continuance of Austria as a Power.
The dualism which so often is depicted as the
beginning of the end appears to us in a different
light. The agreement of 1867 has not exactly
created a new state of affairs, but merely recon-
nected the thoughts of the only Austrian sovereign
who intelligently and successfully understood the
handling of internal reforms. To leave the lands
of the Hungarian Crown under their former con-
stitution, and to form the Crown lands of the west
into one political unit, were the plans formerly of
Maria Theresa. It is due to Deak that this long-
forgotten policy has been renewed in modern form.
Our political pride may revolt, yet we cannot think
it unnatural that Hungarians have finally assumed
political direction in the dual Empire. Those
six million Magyars, together with the two million
Hungarian-Germans who obey the former almost
blindly, form the biggest political entity of the
Empire. They have the firm legal basis of an old
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? 254 Treitschke
historic constitution an immense advantage in
comparison with the chaotic conditions of public
law in Cisleithania. They alone amongst the
people of Austria have conquered freedom by
dint of hard work; they surpass all others in
political training and experience. Thus historic
necessity has finally brought it about that for the
present only a Hungarian Prime Minister is
possible. We shall not be expected to throw a
stone at the deposed Count Beust. The most
spiteful remarks which could be made about him
are at the outset silenced by his charmingly
ingenious eulogies, which, in the style of the Duke
of Coburg, he himself has made regarding his own
importance. Credit is due to him for having
recognized the moment when it was in the interest
of the Crown to submit to the conditions of the
Hungarians. In all other matters he displayed
as Imperial and Royal Chancellor of the Exchequer
exactly the same lack of tact and foresight which
in times gone by we admired in the diplomatic
faiseur of "Pure Germany. " Everything in poli-
tics turned out with regularity differently to
what he anticipated. The neutrality of Austria
during the last war was not due to him but to our
quick successes, to the bad condition of the Austrian
army, to the threats of Russia, the bravery of the
German-Austrians, and the clearheadedness of
Count Andrassy. It was an admission of weak-
ness on the part of Austria that a State ailing
from severe moral troubles should have for its
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? Austria and the German Empire 255
salvation called upon such a frivolous man, who
never claimed to possess the moral seriousness
of a reformer; and it is perhaps still more regret-
table that many an honest citizen to-day waxes
bitter in his outcry against the fallen dignitary
after having for five years been an eye-witness of
his debaucheries. Count Andrassy has at any
rate this advantage over his predecessor, that he
believes in himself and in his cause. He is an
honest Hungarian patriot, and therefore must try
to maintain the State in its entirety, as Hungary
is not yet powerful enough to exist without German
Austria. He must also defend the Constitution
of Cisleithania, as it is only with constitutional
Cisleithania that constitutional Hungary has
come to a settlement. He never recognized the
Concordat for Hungary although it existed in
Cisleithania, and for that reason alone he is the
enemy of the Ultramontanes and the Feudalists.
He cannot favour federalism, because Hungary
prefers discussing mutual Imperial affairs with
the delegates of Parliament instead of with
seventeen Diets. Besides, federalism in Bohemia,
Moravia, and Krain would inevitably throw the
Germans under the yoke of the Slavs; Hungary,
however, can make herself easier understood by
the Germans than by the Czechs. Count Andrassy
solemnly assures us of his love for peace, and we
have no reason to mistrust him. The weakness of
Hungarian politics lies in the fact that the mental
and economical development of the leading half
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? 256 Treitschke
of the Monarchy is vastly inferior to that of
Cisleithania. Only by continued and peaceful
efforts may Hungary expect to somewhat adjust
this proportion. A Magyar at the head of Austrian
affairs should therefore wish for peace if he honestly
desires that his country shall retain the leadership
within the Monarchy.
It is true that Austrian public authority assumes
peculiar and complex forms. In Transleithania
a Parliament of two Houses and the Croatian Diet;
in Cisleithania a Parliament of two houses and
seventeen Diets; for both halves of the Monarchy
delegations with two divisions altogether twenty-
one Parliaments with twenty-four Houses. But
these complicated forms are only the true reflection
of the variegated ethnographical and historic
conditions of the whole State, and does not our
own Imperial State teach us that even amongst
complicated institutions a healthy political life
may prosper? Still, it does not appear quite
impossible that an intelligent plan may be adopted
which the best heads of German-Austria have
conceived unfortunately only very late in the day.
If the Germans in Cisleithania are desirous of
obtaining predominance, which by rights is due
to them, this overloaded body must be freed of
some heterogeneous members. Dalmatia, by vir-
tue of her geographical position as well as by
virtue of her interests, belongs to the eastern half
of the Monarchy; the "triune Illyrian Kingdom"
longed for by the Slavs of the South in 1848 may
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? Austria and the German Empire 257
materialize and gain vitality if that South Slav
State decides to recognize the supremacy of the
Crown of St. Stephen; Galicia, on the other hand,
justly claims independence by the side of Cislei-
thania, in the same way as Croatia by the side of
Hungaria. If this separation were successful,
and at the same time direct parliamentary elec-
tions were introduced, German Austria, as a
country with fourteen million inhabitants and an
adjoining country of about six millions, would
face sixteen millions of the Crown of St. Stephen,
and the German element could retain the upper
hand in Parliament.
We in Germany are willing to remain on good
terms with Austria as long as Count Andrassy
does not depart from his peaceful programme.
The old feud is honestly fought out, and in to-day's
conditions of Austria there are at present only
two questions which might possibly compel us
to terminate friendly relations with the Empire.
If the Magyars misuse their power and upset the
German tendencies of the Suabians in Hungary,
or even those of the Transylvanian Saxons, the
best German race in the south-east, the friendly
tendency in Germany will rapidly disappear.
Our national pride has, God be praised, become
more sensitive to-day, and we all feel that our
Empire cannot silently put up with acts of violence
against our own flesh and blood. The alliance
which for centuries has united the Hapsburgs with
the Polish Republic is still operative. During the
17
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? 258 Treitschke
last ten years Austria has given free rein to the
Polish "Junkerdom," and for the Poles Galicia
is the stronghold of their nationality. If Galicians
obtain the desired autonomy, Polish liberty will
quickly show its true colours, and will reveal itself
in overbearing tyranny against all non-Poles.
The principle of nationality which represents
to-day the forlorn hope of the Poles, has not been
so shamelessly trampled upon by any nation in
Europe as by the Poles in the days of their good
fortune. In Cracow the last German professors
of the University have already been sent away,
and the old German college is in the hands of the
Poles. Soon perhaps the Jews of Kasimierz will
be the sole representatives of Germany in the old
town, which owes its existence to the Germans.
Soon enough, also, the Ruthenian eastern half of
the country will have tales to tell of the atrocities
of Polish Junkers and of the clergy. All this does
not touch us immediately. West Prussia is pre-
paring to gratefully celebrate next summer the
centenary of the first division of Poland ; in Posen,
likewise, German culture and German develop-
ment is making progress ; the Posen peasant knows
that his position under Polish nobility was in-
comparably harder than under the present-day
Prussian sceptre. In this district we are immune
from any rising, provided no artificial agitation
is introduced from without. But moderation is
not to be expected from the hereditary political
incapacity of the Polish Junkers. Once masters of
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? Austria and the German Empire 259
Galicia this province will be the heart of busy
Polish propaganda, and the frantic cry, "Ancient
Poland down to the green bridge of Konigsberg"
may soon be heard again. Thus Austria's Polish
policy cements the friendship between Prussia and
Russia, the old faithful allies, and prevents us follow-
ing unsuspiciously the Danube Empire's measures.
As long, however, as our Polish possessions are
not endangered, Germany is willing to extend
benevolent sentiments to her neighbour, an honest
intention which does not lose its value because it
is expressed without sentimental tenderness. A
State like Austria cannot exact affection from
independent people. Our interests induce us to
desire the continuance of the Empire of the Loth-
rings, and these interests form the closest tie
between the States. But are our devout wishes
a power strong enough to face fate ? Who amongst
us desired the recent war? Nobody; and yet
inexorable fate dragged us into it. The mutual
interests of neighbouring Powers may afford a
small State an unjustified existence for centuries;
a big Power, however, cannot exist if it lacks
vitality, and if it does not appear as a blessing,
or at any rate as a necessity to its own people.
Were we to ask such questions regarding Austria,
innumerable apprehensions and considerations
present themselves. The most confident can
to-day only say it is possible that Austria may keep
together; but all the foundations of that State
belong to a period of the past.
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? 260 Treitschke
When Austria lost her unnatural power over
Germany and Italy, many hopeful prophecies were
expressed that the Empire on the Danube would
rejuvenate and breathe freely again, like the
Prussian State after having renounced Warsaw.
Exactly the contrary has happened. Austria's
worries have incessantly increased since 1866.
By withdrawing from foreign territory she has not
found herself again, but abandoned her old historic
character. Ever since its existence, the aims of
the Austrian Empire were exclusively directed to
European politics. An internal reign taken as a
whole did not exist at all. Once the creed of unity
was established, the Crown allowed everything to
go as it did, and was satisfied when its people
silently obeyed. Hardly ever has the House of
Hapsburg-Lothring bestowed a thought upon
improving her administrative machinery, the
furtherance of the people's welfare, popular educa-
tion, and upon all the seemingly insignificant
tasks of internal politics which to other countries
are of cardinal importance; only Maria Theresa
and Joseph II realized the seriousness of their
duties. To-day, however, humbled and weakened,
hardly able to maintain the position of a big
Power, Austria finds herself compelled to recon-
sider her ways. External politics which formerly
meant to her everything have now lost import-
ance; the whole country's powers are invoked to
repair the internal damage, and whilst the "Hof-
burg" (the Imperial Palace), although unwillingly,
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? Austria and the German Empire 261
is compelled to expiate the sins of neglect of many
centuries, the question is asked, with steadily
growing insistence, whether this age of national
State formations still has room left for an Empire
which lacks national stamina.
Undoubtedly the natural form of government
for such a conglomerate Empire is absolutism.
An independent monarch may maintain a neutral
attitude over his quarrelling people; he may in
happy days lull his country into comfortable
slumber in order to play one nation against the
other in time of need; but these old tricks have
long ceased to be effective. In every conceivable
form absolutism has been tried by the "Hofburg,"
only to finally prove its complete all-round ineffi-
cacy. Cisleithania's population owes its consti-
tution to the failure of absolutism, and not to its
own strength. To us Germans of the Empire
it was clear beforehand that liberty bestowed in
this way could thrive but slowly, and only after
severe relapses. True, some democratic dunces
in Berlin formerly applauded the juggling tricks
of the "People's cabinet," and have claimed for
Prussia "liberty as in Austria. " But all sensible
people in Germany find it natural that the consti-
tution in Austria so far has caused only venomous,
complicated, and barren party quarrels. More
serious than the infantine diseases of constitu-
tionalism seems the terrible growth of race-hatred.
Here, as elsewhere, parliamentarism has accen-
tuated national contrasts. As Schleswig-Holstein
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? 262 Treitschke
experienced it with the Danes, so Austria experi-
ences it now, that free people learn far more slowly
than legitimate Courts the virtue of political toler-
ance and self-restraint. As was to be expected
of the Hapsburg-Lothrings, the constitutional Im-
perial Crown has remained thoroughly despotic
in sentiment. As yet none of the innumerable
ministers of the present Emperor have in reality
guided the country. Count Beust could be par-
doned everything except popular favour, which
was his main support. The just plaint of the
Germans who are true to the constitution is that
"mysterious forces" a deeply veiled Camarilla
of subaltern bureaucrats and ultramontane noble-
men dominate the Court, and, in spite of the
abolition of the Concordat, the relations between
the "Hofburg" and the Roman Curia have not
come to an end. Since Austria's withdrawal
from the German alliance the house of the Loth-
rings, now fatherless, has no further inducement
to favour the Germans, and the Court already
displays marked coolness towards German ideals.
The spokesmen of the Germans are men of the
Liberal Party, who in their dealings with the
Crown have unfortunately displayed clumsy
ignorance about constitutional doctrine. The
Magyars show chivalrous respect for the wearer
of the Crown of St. Stephen, and the Court com-
mences to feel comfortable in Budapest. The
feudal leaders of the Slavs conscientiously display
their dynastic tendencies; the German Ministers,
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? Austria and the German Empire 263
however, behave as if the Emperor were really
the only fifth wheel of the cart after Rotteck and
Welcker, and in the lower Austrian Diet Liberal
passion recently descended to most unseemly
remarks against the Imperial family. Does Vienna
not remember that the Hapsburgs never forget?
Thus the ties between the Crown and the Germans
are loosening.
The Army is no longer an absolutely reliable
support of the State, because it has undoubtedly
lost in quality since the day of Koniggratz. A
State which resembles the "Wallenstein Camp"
can gain great victories only by means of homeless
mercenary troops. Any improvement of modern
warfare impairs the fighting capacity of Austria.
The more the moral element commences to enter
into the calculations of war the more the cruelty
of the private soldier and the deep-laid mistrust
which separates Slav troops from their German
officers will give rise to apprehension. The custom-
ary foolery about clothing, which has finally
led to concocting for the Imperial and Royal Ar-
mies the ugliest uniform in the universe, makes
just as little for the fitness of the forces as the
improvement of weapons. The introduction of
compulsory military service, which can serve a
useful purpose only in a national State, was in
Austria a thoughtless precipitation ; for the moment
it has disorganized discipline, and it is question-
able whether the future will show better results.
German students, Polish noblemen, fanatical
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? 264 Treitschke
Czechs, join the ranks of the volunteers and are
promoted to officers' rank in the militia; but this
new corps of officers does not invariably, as of
yore, seek its home under the black and yellow
standard. The militiaman acquires at home all
the prejudices of race-hatred; the Hungarian
" honveds " are certainly brave soldiers, but equally
surely cannot be led against an enemy. The
young noblemen who formerly gladly gathered
round the Imperial Standard now stay away, and
race-hatred impairs comradeship. The officers
of the German Army at times glance critically at
the history of Austria's military forces, who, with
rare exceptions, have for 130 years always fought
bravely and unsuccessfully; and they compare
the days of Metz and Sedan with the hopeless
campaign against the Bochese. The old remedy
of hard-pressed Hapsburgs a state of siege
promises but scant success for an army thus
constituted.
In addition thereto, are public functionaries of
generally very inferior education, whose corruption
does not admit of doubt, servile and yet always
argumentative ; we refer to the Czech bureaucracy,
indescribably hated and despised by Germans and
Hungarians alike. In the Church there is a
strictly Roman party with very well meaning but
also very vague Old-Catholic aspirations, and there
exists widely diffused a shallow frivolity which
derides as Prussian hypocrisy all agitations for
moral seriousness. In the same way the quondam
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? Austria and the German Empire 265
much-talked-of inexhaustible resources of the
Danube Empire prove to-day a pleasant fairy
tale. An Exchequer, which has twice within
ninety years covered yearly expenditure by regular
receipts, and has now again just weathered veiled
bankruptcy such incredible financial mismanage-
ment has not only destroyed the private fortunes
of thousands; it has also largely stimulated the
habit of gambling and of prodigality. In nearly
all the Crown lands of Cisleithania agriculture
lacks a body of educated middle-class farmers;
it is the link between farms and the vast estates
of noblemen which is missing. The development
of industry is similarly handicapped. Whilst in
most provinces trade and commerce are in their
infancy, Vienna is agitated by feverishly-excited
speculation. For ever so long the Vienna Stock
Exchange has drawn the " smart set " into its circle.
Pools and syndicates carry on the organized
swindle, and the small man is also dragged into
the turmoil by innumerable commission houses.
The magnificent capital is of course a grand cen-
tre for every kind of intercourse, but its corrup-
tion reacts detrimentally upon the commonwealth.
The bulk of the citizens are still healthy and capa-
ble, but amongst the always immoral masses of
the metropolisan impudent socialism is to-day at
work, which derides the spirit of the Fatherland as
reactionary, and amongst all the races of Austria
most vehemently attacks the Germans as ' 'bour-
geois. " Of the moral conditions of the upper
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? 266 Treitschke
classes, and particularly of Stock Exchange circles,
the Vienna newspapers, which are closely allied
with the latter, give ample testimony. Vienna
journalism, although highly developed, is, on the
whole, the most immoral press of Europe Paris
by no means excluded. The German party in
Vienna is about to initiate the Deutsche Zeitung,
because an honest party cannot rely upon the
existing big German newspapers. All these power-
ful journals are nothing else, and do not pretend
to be anything else, than industrial undertakings,
and a smile of compassion would greet those who
were to speak to those literary speculators about
political tendencies. By the side of the big organs
of the Stock Exchange jobbers, there is a huge
crowd of dirty halfpenny rags, which live on
extortion and journalistic piracy, for in this frivo-
lous town there are many with a bad conscience,
and liberal payments are made to stop the slander-
ous tongue of the blackmailer. Since the first
happy days of Emperor Francis Joseph, when
court-martials condemned to death, New Austria
has attempted nearly every imaginable political
system ; such a sudden change is bound to unsettle
the sense of justice and the people's opinions re-
specting their country. The views of the Ger-
man-Austrian pessimists are very unpalatable to
Germans in the Empire, as they cross our political
calculations. But let us also be just, and let us try
to place ourselves in the position of a warm-hearted,
scientifically-educated young German- Austrian.
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? Austria and the German Empire 267
Why in the world should this man love his country
in its entirety? Ancient faith, force of habit, fear
of the uncertain future and of radical changes, all
these considerations retain him within Austrian
boundaries; but to rejoice his heart, he casts his
eyes northwards, where he beholds his country-
men in a respected, mighty Empire, in a well-
secured national commonwealth, with orderly
economic conditions, and he perceives them in
every respect happier than he is himself. He hates
the "rugged Caryatid-heads of the servile classes, "
as Hebbel, amid great cheers, once said of the
German-Austrians, and above all he hates the
Czechs. To keep this slavedom in subordination
and to shield the best he calls his own, i. e. , German
thought and German sentiment, from the aggres-
sive waves of barbarism he looks to the Empire
for protection. We seriously point out to him
the much-praised "colonizing vocation" of Ger-
manism in Austria. He, however, borrows from
the rich treasure of the Imperial and Royal bureau-
cratic language a beautiful phrase, and bitterly
suggests that this calling has now gradually become
obsolete (' ' in Verstoss gekommen ") . In Hungary,
in Bohemia, in Cracow, in the Tyrol, everywhere
Germanism is retrograding, and everywhere it is
proved that the atmosphere of the Hapsburg rule
is detrimental to German nationalism. He com-
plains that, "Centuries ago the liberty of German
faith was wrested from us, clerical pressure weighs
upon the soul of the people, and we have not
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? 268 Treitschke
sufficient iron left in our blood to protect ourselves
against the numerical majority of foreigners. "
He tells us of the political leaders of his race, how
they are nearly all done for and worn out, many
of them ill-famed for being deserters, sellers of
titles, or promoters. Then he asks whether it
behooves Germans to be governed by Hungarians
after the dicta of Magyar policy, and confidently
finishes up thus : ''Certainly Austria is a European
necessity, but the Austria of the future borders in
the west on the Leitha, and we Germans belong
to you. " We give him to reflect that after all it
is an honour to belong to Austria, that ancient
mighty Power, whereupon he shrugs his shoulders.
"Times of the past," he says. "When recently
Count Hohenwarte spoke to us of the real Austrian
nationality he was greeted by peals of derisive
laughter on the part of the Germans. We remind
him of the Oriental mission once entrusted by
Prince Eugene to the realm on the Danube.
Drily he replies : ' A State which can hardly stand
on its own legs will still less be able to subdue
foreign people, especially when violently hated by
them/'*
After the first great defeat of New Austria at the
battle of Solferino, Austrian Germanism began
to awake from its deep slumber. Notably in the
universities a more active national sentiment
developed, and we subsequently witnessed the
realization of what we German patriots always
anticipated, i. e. t that Austria's exodus from the
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? Austria and the German Empire 269
German Alliance would greatly enliven and
strengthen the mental intercourse between us and
the Germans on the Danube. Never before has
our political work met with such friendly reception
amongst the Austrians as amongst the German
nationalists of Graz and Vienna to-day. We
heartily apologize for the severe injustice done
years ago to the German "Gothaern"; nothing is
more touching than the youthful and amiable
enthusiasm which these circles harbour for our
new Empire ; nowhere has Prussia warmer friends.
From the bottom of our heart we wish that the
noble German national pride, the healthy political
intellect of this party, may display all its energy
in the perfecting of the Cisleithanian constitution.
The German-Austrian who greets every short-
coming of his country with a jubilant "Always
livelier and livelier" does not assist Germany in
her great object; she has only use for the active
man who works physically and mentally in order
to procure for the Germans the leadership in
Cisleithania. The German national pride in
Austria is a child of woe; it has invariably been
aroused by the defeats of the monarchy, and at
each fresh awakening it has given proof of greater
power. Up till now only a small portion of the
German-Austrians evinces strong German national
sentiment ; the history of the recent war shows to
what extent. The thinking middle classes fol-
lowed our battles with a hearty and active interest
never to be forgotten, and the brave German peas-
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? 270 Treitschke
ants in the Alps likewise recollected their heroic
wars against the Wallachs. The high nobility, how-
ever, and the masses in the towns persevered in the
old hatred against Prussia.
