Lower Austria

“ The annual value of the industrial products of Austria is esti mated at not less than 130,000,000, of which 33 per cent, falls to the eastern, and 67 per cent, to the western half of the country. Among the crown -lands, 18 per cent, belongs to Bohemia alone, 15 to Lower Austria, 15 to Hungary, 6 to Transylvania and the other Hungarian crown-lands, 11 to Galicia and Buckowina, 10 to Moravia, 6 to Tyrol, 4 to Styria, and 4 to Upper Austria. ”

“ No country, no continent, no sea, mountain or river is restricted to itself in the influence which it either exercises or receives. The history of Austria cannot be understood merely from Austrian ground. Austrian territory is part of the Mediterranean hinterland, and therefore has been linked historically with Rome, Italy, and the Adriatic. It is a part of the upper Danube Valley and therefore shares much of its history with Bavaria and Germany, while the lower Danube has linked it with the Black Sea, Greece, the Russian steppes, and Asia. ”

“ The population of Austria is made up of a number of distinct races, differing from each other in manners, customs, language, and religion, and united together only by living under the same government. The most numerous race is the German, amounting to 9,000,000, and forming 25 per cent, of the entire population. They are found more or less in all the crown-lands, but are most numerous in Lower and Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, and Northern Tyrol. The different Slavonic races number together 16,540,000, or 46 per cent. ”

“ The manners of the higher classes in Vienna and in the other towns of Lower Austria, are in general mild and simple; and they are found in harmony with that good nature which is the most distinguishing feature in the Austrian character. Though the nobility are not free from the imputation of haughtiness and of attaching too much value to titles [Pg 17] and honorary distinctions, it cannot be denied that much hospitality prevails among them as among the wealthy tradesmen. Many of the upper classes keep open tables ”

“ The emperor declined the honor, jocularly remarking—
"There is no method more pleasant to kill an old man, than to marry him to a young bride."
The German empire was then divided into ten districts, or circles, as they were then called, each of which was responsible for the maintenance of peace among its own members. {102} These districts were, Austria, Burgundy, the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine, Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia, Westphalia, Upper Saxony and Lower Saxony. The affairs of each district were to be regulated by a court of a few nobles, called a diet. ”

“ The resolutions look upon this decree as a very indifferent substitute for German demands, upon the fulfillment of which the party must insist, namely the annexation of German-speaking districts of southern Bohemia to Upper Austria, of southern Moravia ot Lower Austria, and of northern Moravia and northeastern Bohemia, together with the industrial district of Moravian Ostrava to Silesia. At the southern end of the monarchy the party is opposed to all attempts to unite the South Slav districts with Croatia ”

“ This fame I now seek, not from ambition, but from love to my subjects. You all know Albert, Duke of Austria, to whom in preference to all other princes I gave my daughter in marriage, and whom I adopted as my son. You know that he possesses experience and every virtue becoming a prince. He found Austria in a state of disorder, and he has restored it to tranquillity. He is now of an age in which judgment and experience attain their perfection, and he is sovereign of Austria, which, lying between Hungary and Bohemia, forms a connecting link between the two kingdoms. ”

“ At the time of writing these lines, in June, 1919, Austria has long ceased to exist. There is only left now a small, impoverished, wretched land called German-Austria, a country without army or money; helpless, starving, and wellnigh in despair. ”

“ The Government’s Programme is, Austria—the Austria which has grown during a glorious historic .development, and which has, during this war, become convinced of its indestructible forces, the Austria which is preparing to be a powerful factor in the future economic and social development of the world—Austria, the venerable, proud and eternal fortress of her peoples. The Government could never, never tolerate rash hands being laid upon her proved foundations. ”

“ It was the plan of France to rob Maria Theresa of all her possessions excepting Hungary, to which distant kingdom she was to be driven, and where she was to be left undisturbed to defend herself as she best could against the Turks. Thus the confederates would have, to divide among themselves, the States of the Netherlands, the kingdom of Bohemia, the Tyrol, the duchies of Austria, Silesia, Moravia, Carinthia, Servia and various other duchies opulent and populous, over which the vast empire of Austria had extended its sway. ”

“ All are devoted to Austria, because to Austria the town owes its peculiar position, the source of its wealth and independence, and all these classes, though divided by race, language, and religion, are united by their common affection for the House of Hapsburg—a love which perhaps hardly attains to devotion, but which, in words at least, amounts to fanaticism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Being devoted Austrians, we have many anxieties concerning the political health of this admirable country. Austria, once so famed for the astute management, the 'Politiké,' which kept in order the most heterogeneous of households between Bohemia and Dalmatia, and from Hungary to the Milanese, is suffering from a complication of complaints. The first is the economic: her deficit for 1877 is already laid at twenty-six millions of florins; she lives on paper, and she habitually outruns the constable. ”

“ It was the German-speaking provinces of the Eastern Alps, with their centre at Vienna, which formed the cradle or nucleus of the Austrian monarchy. It was there that the house of Hapsburg began its rise in 1276. And it is to this small mountain territory that the once proud name of Austria is again restricted. The new republic inherits only about one-fourth of the area of the old Austrian or Cisleithan half of the late empire. It is supposed to have a population of about six and a half millions, whereas Austria had twenty-eight and a half millions in 1910. ”

“ Do you not realize that you would no longer be Gräfin Zattiany, you would be Mrs. Lee Clavering? Do you imagine for a moment that you could play the great rôle in Austrian affairs you have set yourself, handicapped by an American name—and an American husband? Not with all your gifts, your wealth, your genius for playing on that complex instrument called human nature. Austria may be a Republic of sorts, but it is still Austria. You would be an American and an outsider—a presumptuous interloper. ”

“ It has united Hungary, Sclavonia, Italy, Bohemia, and Lombardy under Austria's flag and Austria's field-marshals. Indeed, your majesty, this war has given us something of far more value than Prussia's vote. The bloody baptism of the battle-field has made Austrians of all those who bled for Austria's rights."
"That does not prevent that abominable man from clinging to my fair domain of Silesia. How will my ancestor, the great Charles, greet me when I go to my grave, bearing the tidings that under my reign Austria has been shorn of a principality?" ”

“ 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 ”

“ Ladislaus relinquished all claim to the Austrian territories, and paid a large sum of money as indemnity for the war.
Thus Austria again comes into independent existence, to watch amidst the tumult and strife of Europe for opportunities to enlarge her territories and increase her power. Maximilian was a prince, energetic and brave, who would not allow any opportunity to escape him. In those dark days of violence and of blood, every petty quarrel was settled by the sword. All over Germany the clash of steel against steel was ever resounding. ”

“ But above all this regrettable favoring of Austria is a form of disease deep-seated with certain people, a disease that we call habit. As many persons look upon it, the disappearance of Austria would create a gap in Europe which would endanger its equilibrium. Since Austria has always existed, what will happen, if she ceases to be? Such reasoning, unconscious for the most part, reminds me of people who have a bad tooth; they suffer a great deal, but they imagine that if it were pulled out, they would miss something. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The difference can be most shortly stated by saying that Austria did, in some blundering and barbaric way, care for Europe; but Prussia cared for nothing but Prussia. Austria is not a nation; you cannot really find Austria on the map. But Austria is a kind of Empire; a Holy Roman Empire that never came, an expanding and contracting-dream. It does feel itself, in a vague patriarchal way, the leader, not of a nation, but of nations. ”

“ So we are determined to be prepared with all means within our power. Austria is not a state, but a nightmare centuries old, an Alp mountain of tyranny and nothing else. Austria is a state without patriots and without patriotism; it is an absurdity, it is such a state that Czech soldiers sent against the enemy to embrace him and join him for the formation of new regiments and divisions against Austria. ”

“ The work, however, is going on, and if the war which has come and passed has not swallowed everything appertaining to Austria into its maw, the ugly remnants of destruction will be soon carted away, and the old glacis{4} will be made bright with broad pavements, and gilded railings, and well-built lofty mansions, and gardens beautiful with shrubs, and beautiful with turf also, if Austrian patience can make turf to grow beneath an Austrian sky. ”

“ By all accounts there is not even the will to govern well and make the new Austria into a going concern. Hence arises the economic problem of Austria, which is certainly grave. Here is a State which persistently refuses to live on its income, and prints off paper money to make up its deficiency. A highly expensive bureaucracy five times as large as is needed for little Austria pays itself first, and as for the rest of the population the devil can take the hindmost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Far more serious are the difficulties with the Germans. The government of German Austria—or simply Austria, as one ought to call it now, since there is no other Austria any more—still assumes that the biased Austrian census of 1910 should be accepted as valid and that nearly a third of the territory of the Bohemian lands should go to Austria, and that means to Germany. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was indeed a fearful combination now prepared to make a rush upon the King of Prussia. France had assembled eighty thousand men on the Rhine. The Swedes were rallying in great numbers on the frontiers of Pomerania. The Russians had concentrated an army sixty thousand strong on the borders of Livonia. And the Queen of Austria had one hundred and fifty thousand men on the march, through Hungary and Bohemia, to the frontiers of Silesia. ”