N the Austro-Hungarian Empire cannot be said to exist. Apart from adherence to the dynasty, which is common to all classes, no idea, no sentiment is ever able to gain a majority among the heterogeneous population of this conglomeration of nations. No law, no fact, no project can ever reckon upon the sympathy or antipathy of the greater part of the combined AustroHungarians; and to obtain a true reflection of the slumbering inclinations and wishes of the masses is well-nigh impossible.

The treaty concluded in 1867 between Austria and Hungary has created two independent states, with separate centres, interests, and aims. Croatia occupies a semi-independent position, and the Cis-Leithan provinces, especially Galicia, enjoy almost a greater degree of autonomy than the South German kingdoms in their relations to the German Empire. Only one race, the German, is spread over all parts of Austria; every other nationality lives in compact numbers in one province, or at the most two, adjoining each other, and thus the provincial spirit among all non-Germans is much more powerful than their attachment to the empire. Zeal for the interests of their several nationalities outweighs patriotism; and even among the Germans, in consequence of the danger to which their nationality is exposed in provinces where their race is in

VOL. XIV.-NO. LXXIX. NEW SERIES.

the minority, and still more because

Magyars over all other nationalities residing in Hungary, the national feeling is beginning to gain the ascendency over every other sentiment. If this feeling, as in the case of the Oriental question, is opposed to the party interests of the nationalities, to religious convictions and historical memories, an indescribable confusion of opinions arises, more difficult to reduce to order than a net full of eels.

Among the various races of Austro-Hungary national consciousness is still in its infancy; it is only some five-and-twenty, or at the very outside fifty years ago, that the different branches of the separate races which inhabit Austria were first aroused from their apathy. The national feeling of the masses is for the most part only social hatred against better educated and richer nations; their national aspirations have been engrafted upon them by half-educated leaders and renegades from the German camp. The papers are therefore in general no echo of the feeling among the people, but only contain what in accordance with the wishes of the leaders the people ought to think and require; the very contrary often enough of what they really do feel and desire. The colour of the restless waves and the movement on their surface give no idea of the hidden life in the depths of the ocean. Thus, in order to dis

B 2

cover the hopes and fears of the individual races of the AustroHungarian Empire with regard to the decline of European Turkey, one must not be satisfied with reading journals and listening to speeches, but must also have recourse to historical, ethnographical, and religious facts, to be able to form an opinion on the feeling of the people. Even then it will be imperfect, but a hundred times more exact than any taken only from journals and political manifestations. Like a variegated mosaic, no one colour will predominate in it. But though public opinion does not at present exist in Austria, a successful war would create this powerful agent, which in the fullest acceptation of the words, as designating opinions common to the majority of the population, is absolutely necessary to the continued existence of any constitutional empire or kingdom; and victories won on battle-fields would at once call forth a patriotism strong enough to triumph over all opposition of nationalities, and to replace national pride by a pride in a common fatherland. Philosophers have shown the vanity of all fame won in war, yet it is a vital element for states and nations. The Swiss still live on their victories gained six hundred years ago; ard without such glorious memories the little republic would long ago have crumbled into three nationalities. The great revolution in the ideas of the Austrians, which is essential to the very existence of the empire, will not be obtained by education, peaceful measures, and liberal reforms. On the contrary, the progress made in these respects causes a ferment among the different nationalities, engenders their insane desire for independence, and encourages tendencies incompatible with the existence of the empire. Liberty is always abused before its right use is ascertained, for nations,

the

like children, learn to walk by their falls. As soon as the empire granted its subjects freedom, its provinces autonomy, these benefits were misused in an attempt to overthrow it; no sooner had some circles among the smaller nationalities obtained a superficial education, than they imagined themselves equal to chief civilised nations, and wanted to form great powers out of the little provinces governed by them. No one thinks of the empire, no one respects it, for all modern historical memories are associated with defeats from the wars with the first French Republic down to Sadowa. The choice, therefore, only remains to Austria to wage a successful war during the course of the next ten years, or to perish. Patriotism must be roused at whatever cost, or else the army must acquire fresh confidence to be able to break the power exercised by the provinces. To perish in war would be more honourable than to crumble slowly to atoms in peace.

That is the axiom accepted by the leaders of a far-sighted policy in Austria, who are not always identical with her Ministers. Austria requires a war, of course one in which she has not to dread defeat, and in which her acquisitions would not be an increase of weakness; but she cannot enter upon any war without having the majority of her population opposed to it. That is the key to her attitude since the peace of Prague, and explains her wavering policy in the East. We must have a war, that no longer the very street boys may laugh at and defy the Empire; and it can only be in the East,' said Count Andrassy in the summer of 1868, when he was Hungarian Premier; but Count Beust desired to obtain triumphs of another sort in the West. For him the conquest of Russian provinces had little attraction; the accession of Turco-Sclavic districts would be

a burden, as Austria has already too many 'cutters-off of ears and noses' among her subjects; while on the contrary, by regaining her position in Germany, she would have assured the basis of her existence. The Austrian Imperial Chancellor therefore tried to gain the alliance of Russia by proposing, on New Year's Day 1867, what the St. Petersburg Cabinet accepted in October 1870, and by favouring the Turkish vassals, the protégés of Russia. The Turkish garrisons were withdrawn from the Servian fortresses; Roumania received permission to coin her own money; for Montenegro Count Beust tried to effect the concession of the harbour of Spizza; and to the Cretans, after the insurrection in their island, a very large amount of self-government was allowed. The Chancellor, in this change from the traditional Oriental policy of Austria, was urged on by Count Andrassy, who, as former partisan and ambassador of Kossuth, had welcomed with enthusiasm the childish idea of his hero of forming a Danubian Confederation, in which the Magyars would have the hegemony. Childish indeed was such an idea, for the Servians, Bulgarians, and Roumanians would sooner die than enter into any confederation with the Magyars. The answer to Kossuth's project was the insurrection of the Croatians and Servians in South Hungary in 1848, and the civil war which ended with the destruction of the Hungarian autonomy; while, twenty years later, the attempt of the Foreign Office to gain the sympathies of the Turkish vassals has been repaid with base ingratitude in Bucharest, Belgrade, and Cettinje. Count Beust recognised his error, and, returning to the traditional policy of Austria, arranged the visit of the Emperor Francis Joseph at Constantinople at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal, and this was the first be

ginning of the rupture between the Imperial Chancellor and the Hungarian Premier.

Such was the position of affairs when the Franco-German war broke out in 1870. Count Beust, when he drew up the Austro-French treaty of alliance during the meeting of the Emperors of France and Austria at Salzburg, was alarmed himself at what might be the consequences of this step, but it was too late to draw back. Later, when the danger of a war between France and Prussia was imminent, his German sympathies were aroused; and while Count Andrassy, on July 14, 1870, in the Vester Correspondenz inspired by him, gave the signal for a war of races against Russia and Germany, Count Beust, in his dispatch on July 11, instructed Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador at Paris, to annihilate the French hopes of an Austrian alliance. The Duke de Grammont has denied the existence of this dispatch, and it is proved that Prince Metternich did not present it. At that time, palace intrigues had succeeded in undermining the position of Count Beust; the appointment of Count Andrassy as Minister of Foreign Affairs was certain, and Prince Metternich, informed of the crisis, delayed presenting the dispatch till every warning was too late.

Like all the world, Count Beust thought that Napoleon III. would assemble all the troops at his disposition and conquer South Germany before the completion of the mobilisation of the Prussian army. Then, according to the calculations of the Count, Austria was to assume an active part, free Southern Germany, and regain the old position she had in Germany. Count Andrassy, on the contrary, desired war at any price. The Prussian victories of Weissenburg, Wörth, and Spicheren put an end to the crisis, and after Sedan the inter