Austrian Government

“ Austria is not one of the “inevitable” countries, like England and Spain, bound to have a separate existence under some form of government or other because of their geographical situation and the national characteristics of their inhabitants. There is no Austrian nation: only a medley of races which detest each other, bound (but by no means welded) together for the supposed convenience of the rest of Europe, and unified only by the fact that its component parts all appertain to the dominions of the House of Habsburg. ”

“ Yet against this reliance on her luck by Austria must be placed the wonderful changes that have come over the world since those times when it was in the power of a government like the Austrian to exert a great influence on the course of events. Down to the time of the French Revolution, Austrian contests were carried on against nations, governments, and dynasties, and not against peoples. ”

“ The Austrian—we speak still of the government, and not of the people—has always denied and contradicted the interests of the whole German nation, at the head of an assemblage of races differing in language, in customs, in institutions. When it was in his power to have corrected the errors of time and a dynastic policy, by assuming the high mission of uniting them by great moral interests, he preferred to arm one against the other, and to corrupt them all. ”

“ In favor of this solution is the fact that by means of the declaration of the sovereignty of Austria these arguments could in the future no longer represent foreign political dangers for Austria, that is, that the Agreement of July was understood by the Austrian National Socialists and approved of, and that they were prepared to proceed in a legal way with the Austrian Government. ”

“ Austria yielded material resources. Moreover she provided ready cash, taken from the Jews and from the Austrian Government. One of the first orders passed after the Anschluss was an order signed by Hitler, Frick, Schwerin von Krosigk, and Schacht, for the transfer to the Reich of the assets of the Austrian National Bank. (2313-PS)
Austria yielded human resources. Three months after Anschluss, there was enacted a decree requiring 21-year-old men to report for active military service. (1660-PS)
And the acquisition of Austria improved the military strategic position of the German Army. ”

“ The Austrian Federal Government will constantly follow in its policy in general, and in particular towards Germany, a line in conformity with leading principles corresponding to the fact that Austria regards herself as a German State. ”

“ It must be prepared, at all times, to support the cause of order and religion against that of anarchy and infidelity; and, though the French cabinet is not overburdened with feelings of honour and delicacy, it has a sufficiently strong instinct of self-preservation, to induce it to side with its friends rather than with its enemies. The policy of the Austrian government could not be for a moment doubtful. Austria has always been the friend of order and of rational liberty; and it was her duty, no less than her interest, to take a decided step in favour of the Forest Cantons. ”

“ For that task she needs every one of her children. It will support no Austrian government that will not declare for the destruction of dualism and the complete autonomy of all its oppressed nations, in Austria and Hungary alike. ”

“ With respect to your remaining at Vienna, you will easily conceive, that having a project of this nature to propose, none of us thought we should give it its fair chance if we put it into other hands than those in which the business now is. We allow for your natural desire of quitting a scene which, God knows, must be mortifying enough to men who feel how much of the safety of Europe depends on the conduct of the Austrian Government, and who see how unfit that Government is to be [Pg 277] trusted with the interests of the smallest corporation. ”

“ Out of the immediate circle of the government, there is scarcely a satisfied man in the Austrian dominions. The nobles feel abridgment of their privileges, and decrease of profit by the abolition of their feudal rights, succeeding the late revolution. The merchants feel that in Austria they suffer more vexatious interference than it is in the nature of man to bear quietly. The people, a naturally good-humored race, have learned insensibly to clench their fists whenever they think of their absolute and paternal government. ”

“ The present occurrences in Austria are of the utmost importance to the world. They show that the time has passed when kings can rule as absolute monarchs, and that the voice of the people must be listened to.
We told you of the anger of the Austrian people against Count Badeni and his Government, and how the Emperor approved of him and his work, and was determined to uphold him in spite of the opposition. ”

“ In 1858 the controversy about the manuscripts of Králové Dvůr and Zelená hora was renewed in all its fierceness; and when, after the Austrian collapse in 1859, the talk about Constitutional government once more began, [509] it was soon found that the new liberties were not to produce equality of race. The wars of 1866 and 1870 gave a new impulse to the German claim for supremacy in Austria; and so the struggle has gone on with varying fortune, but ever circling round the central point of language and literature. ”

“ Except in respect to affairs managed by the commune as agent of the Imperial government, the local authorities are exempt from discipline at the hand of their superiors, and, indeed, an eminent Austrian authority has gone so far as to maintain that the communes of Austria possess a larger independent competence than do the communes of any other European state. ”

“ If ever a state, according to formal considerations, had the right of national defense on its side, that state is Servia. Deprived through Austrian annexations of its national unity, threatened by Austria in its very existence as a nation, forced by Austria into war, it is fighting, according to all human conceptions, for existence, for freedom and for the civilization of its people. ”

“ Austria’s approach to the Third Reich in the field of foreign politics is making further progress, as well as the process of cultural collaboration between the two sister nations. One can also assume from your most recent reports that the Trojan Horse of National Socialism is bringing greater confusion into the ranks of the Fatherland Front and particularly into the ranks bf the Heimatschutz (Home Guard) . Opposition to the normalizing of German-Austrian relations, which is extremely dangerous to Austrian independence, appears nevertheless to be relatively very great ”

“ Russia, while acting as a protector of Servia, saw the advantage of using Servia as a cat's-paw. The murder of the Austrian prince and princess by the Servian government, backed by Russian influence, was merely the match that set the powers of Europe fighting together. Whether the conflagration should spread beyond Servia depended on Austria and Russia's attitude. Austria hoped to confine the fight to Servia, while Russia showed her warlike attitude by mobilization. ”

“ During the wars with Napoleon Austria lost forty-five thousand square miles, and about three and a half millions of inhabitants. But when at length the combined monarchs of Europe triumphed over Napoleon, the monarch of the people's choice, and, in the carnage of Waterloo, swept constitutional liberty from the continent, Austria received again nearly all she had lost.
This powerful empire, as at present constituted, embraces:
Thus the whole Austrian monarchy contains 256,399 square miles, and a population which now probably exceeds forty millions. ”

“ When in a fit of rage—such as attacks all the Habsburgs who are epileptic—nothing was sacred. A man who was not able to control himself could not be trusted with secrets that might imperil Austria’s relations with Germany. Thus things drifted. Germany obtained increasing power in Austrian councils; the only man who could lay a restraining hand upon his heir was old and weary and unwilling for anything that spelt change or unrest. ”

“ For Austria, we can well conceive that the prudent and cautious policy of that ably conducted monarchy must dictate excessive jealousy and suspicion of these popular movements. Austria, more than any other power in Europe, has the truest cause to pride itself on the good results of its peculiar system of government, as demonstrated by the solid and practical wellbeing of the States under its paternal sway. ”

“ The whole force of Austria was now turned against France. The French were speedily driven from Bavaria; and Munich, the capital, fell into the hands of the Austrians. The emperor, in extreme dejection, unable to present any front of resistance, sent to the queen entreating a treaty of neutrality, offering to withdraw all claims to the {445} Austrian succession, and consenting to leave his Bavarian realm in the hands of Maria Theresa until a general peace. The emperor, thus humiliated and stripped of all his territories, retired to Frankfort. ”

“ It is a very great mistake, whether conscious or unconscious, to believe and to maintain that the population of German-Austria, and especially the present leaders of Social Democracy, are devoid of any strong national feeling. I refer to the part played by the Austrian Social Democracy in the question of union. It was the motive power in the union with Germany, and the papers repeated daily that no material advantages which the Entente could offer to Austria could alter the decision. ”

“ There is not an Austrian statesman of much account; not even a man of the mark of Felix Schwarzenburgh; and a true statesman is much needed in Austria just now.
Let us not, in our just antipathy to the cruelties and abominations of Austrian rule in Italy, ever lose sight of the fact that the existence of a powerful military monarchy in the south-east of Europe has been found throughout historical ages necessary to our own security. What may be the political action of this new Italian kingdom, we know not as yet. ”

“ Statesmen who knew the age, and who were aware of the change that has come over Europe in half a century, would have told the Emperor that to rely on "something turning up," after the ancient Austrian custom, would not answer in 1866, and that peoples as well as princes had much to do with the ordering of every nation's policy; and with every people Austria is unpopular. ”

“ At all events the growing impossibility of preventing the literary intercourse of Austria with the rest of Germany, and through Germany with the rest of the world, contributed much toward the formation of an anti-Governmental public opinion, and brought at least some little political information within the reach of part of the Austrian population. Thus, by the end of 1847, Austria was seized, although in an inferior degree, by that political and politico-religious agitation which then prevailed in all Germany ”

“ Let us then examine the resources of both parties, and see what was the preponderance on the side of Austria, 706 which would justify her in undertaking so hazardous an enterprise, on the supposition that she relied solely on her own resources.
The Austrian empire contains a population of 36,000,000; of these about 7,000,000 are Germans—about 15,500,000 are Sclaves,—nearly 8,000,000 are of Italian and Dacian races, and about 5,600,000 of Asiatic races, including 5,000,000 of Majjars. ”

“ We know how deceptive were all appearances in regard to Austrian strength; but it was in the power of Austrian statesmen to convert what was simply apparent into a solid reality. Had they been wise men, they would, during the long peace that followed 1815, have made of Austria a state as powerful in fact as the world believed her to be. Nothing could have been easier, as her undeveloped resources ever have been vast ”

“ Just as the ancient history of Austria cannot be dissevered from the history of the Holy Roman Empire, so the modern history of Austria is inseparable from the modern history of Europe. Had the House of Austria been able to read the signs of the times, had it possessed the faintest inkling that moral factors—the sense of justice, respect for truth and sincere care for the well-being of peoples—play a large part in politics, it might today stand higher than any dynasty in Europe, and be surrounded by the respect of a peace-loving world. ”

“ Austria is to-day one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. There is fresh blood at her heart, and fresh life coursing through her aged limbs. And though no man or kingdom can be said to be master of the future, it has as fair a chance of long existence as any other power on the continent. The form of government may be changed; there may be internal revolutions; Bohemia may obtain a separate government like Hungary; but whatever may come, there will always be a great and powerful State in Eastern Europe, on the waters of the Danube. ”

“ What is certain is that the heterogeneous constitution of what is called the Austrian Empire makes her weak alike for attack and for defence; and as local and race-patriotism grows more and more among the Hungarians and the Slavs, as it is doing year by year, the continued unity of the Austrian Empire will be more and more difficult. ”

“ And in the interior of the monarchy, in Austria itself, a stiff bureaucracy represses every sign of life amongst the people; and where the people do not feel, do not think, do not co-operate in public life, they are incapable of making great sacrifices and heroic efforts to uphold and to save the state. Oh!" he went on, with still greater animation, "if Austria could arise in renewed life, if her rich powers could be developed and strengthened by natural movement, then all would be won back for Austria and for Germany. ”