The New Europe/Volume 4/The Austrian Muddle

by Robert William Seton-Watson

For other versions of this work, see Germany and the Habsburg Problem.

The Austrian Muddle

It is more and more difficult to obtain a clear idea of the political situation in Austria-Hungary. Kaleidoscopic changes are followed by sudden rumours, circumstantial announcements and prompt denials. But the very fact that Germany suffers equally from the increased severity of the censor in matters Austrian, and that even papers of the standing of the Frankfurter Zeitung have been penalised for their frank messages from Vienna, is the best proof of the alarm in official German circles at the progress of disintegration in the Dual Monarchy.

Even through the veil between us it is not difficult to detect the désorientation of the Emperor Charles and his advisers. The six months of the Clam-Martinic régime lent themselves naturally to misinterpretation. Because he refused to uphold the unveiled absolutism of Stürgkh or to comply with the insistent demands of the Austrian Pangermans for a constitutional coup d'état and the imposition of German as the language of State, a few thoughtless optimists have rushed into the opposite extreme and rashly assumed that Count Clam was throwing himself into the arms of the Slavs. In reality, with that blind groping for ideas which characterizes a certain type of mediocre Austrian aristocrat, he was searching for a middle course, and thought he had found it in the meaningless phrase: “My programme is Austria.” He forgot that the rarest being in Austria is the man who calls himself an “Austrian,” rather than a German, a Czech, and so on, and that in the sphere of patriotism at any rate Austria is not even a geographical expression. Clam was just sufficiently Slav to feel embarrassed at the grosser forms of anti-Slav persecution, but was at the same time German enough to contemplate constitutional changes such as would assure to the Germans a permanent parliamentary majority. Even as long ago as December he stood committed to the principle, if not to the extreme form, of the octroi,^[1] and although the reactions of the Russian Revolution and the insistence of the young Emperor led him to convoke Parliament in spite of all objections from the German extremists, it was none the less natural that the Slavs should regard him as definitely in the German camp and frame their parliamentary attitude accordingly. The postponement of the Emperor’s oath to the Constitution, which was announced in the Speech from the Throne, was interpreted by the Slavs, and almost certainly intended by Clam, as still leaving the line of retreat by octroi open; while the Government programme, as defined in a speech of well-meaning but uninspired verbosity, could only be explained as a centralist manifesto, and a rejection of the federalist idea. So obvious was this that those Entente journalists who had persisted in regarding him as a Slav federalist were reduced to silence. And yet the fact that more than a fortnight before he spoke all four Slav groups in the Reichsrat had openly challenged him by their uncompromising definition of national and constitutional claims ought to have made it absolutely clear that there was no manner of doubt in Austria itself as to his political tendencies.

The outspoken attitude of the Czechs, the closeness of their understanding with the Jugoslavs and Ruthenes, the astounding revelations of political and military oppression during the three years of war and the excitement maintained by a perpetual stream of news from Stockholm, where a whole series of rival deputations aired their views—all this produced an atmosphere of uncertainty and mutual suspicion. There was a general disinclination to drive matters to extremes by challenging the Budget; and the Minister of Finance, Dr. von Spitzmüller, performed the unique exploit of passing it through Parliament while withholding every essential figure which would have betrayed the appalling facts of the financial situation. But the restraint with which the Reichsrat treated matters of finance disappeared whenever national questions were under consideration. The Czechs and Jugoslavs in particular interpreted the right of self-determination in the sense of their national independence and unity, and went on quite logically to demand the abolition of the Dual System as forming the main obstacle to such a programme. When the Poles, abandoning the aloofness with which they had regarded their fellow Slavs for nearly two generations, definitely joined the opposition to the Clam Cabinet, the Premier had no alternative but resignation. Their action was, it is true, dictated in part by personal motives and by anger at his indifference to ravaged Galicia’s claims for compensation; but, as the Germans of Vienna themselves admit, the determining factor was the rapid growth of Slav national feeling among all classes in Austrian Poland which forced their leaders to come to the aid of the other Slav parties in distress.

The Emperor made no secret of his reluctance to part with Clam and entrusted him with the reconstruction of the Cabinet. For two days the Premier made desperate efforts to secure a majority in Parliament, and even the scanty information at our disposal clearly indicates the growing confusion and perplexity in Viennese political circles. Incredible as it may seem, he appears to have put forward in this brief period several absolutely contradictory proposals for a solution of the crisis. He began by rejecting the demand of the Czechs and Jugoslavs for a new division of Austria on a racial basis. He then tried to bribe them by offering to create seven new portfolios in his Cabinet, to be filled by representatives of each of the non-German nationalities. And when this suggestion proved equally unacceptable to Slavs and Germans he appears to have actually come forward with a project for dividing Austria into four-presumably the German, Czech and Jugoslav districts and Galicia. Of this project we know nothing beyond the bare fact, but it is probably safe to connect it with the action of the Emperor in summoning Father Korošec, the leader of the Southern Slav Club, in audience. It is of course not known what passed between them, but Korošec, who before going consulted his Czech and Ruthene colleagues, was evidently not prepared to modify the Slav claims. Count Clam Martinic had to go after all. He has now been appointed Governor of Montenegro, and general comment has been aroused by the positively gushing terms in which the Emperor’s formal letter of dismissal was couched-terms for which no parallel could be found in all the long reign of Francis Joseph.

Now came a fresh sign of désorientation. The retiring Ministers were replaced by a Cabinet of respectably obscure officials, of whom not a single one had ever held office or had ever taken even an indirect part in politics. Even the new Premier, Ritter von Seidler, an amiable departmental chief in the Ministry of Agriculture, had probably never been heard of by 99 per cent. even of the German population of Austria. His first step was to emphasise the provisional character of the new régime.

The general relief at Count Clam-Martinic’s disappearance from the scene did not lead to any slackening in the Slav attitude. The Czech deputies in particular, whose uncompromising speeches have already been summarised in The New Europe (No. 36), re-affirmed their claims more boldly than ever, and one of their most influential spokesmen declared that no Government would receive their support which did not base its policy upon the abolition of Dualism and the transformation of the Monarchy into a group of independent national States. The assumption that the Habsburg dynasty is to form a link between these States does not, of course, in any way diminish the radical nature of such claims, and indeed it would be foolish to make too much of the convenient habit adopted by the various advocates of racial claims, of using superficial expressions of loyalty to the dynasty as a cloak to cover far-reaching and well-nigh revolutionary designs. Alarm at the bold and united front presented by the Czechs to their persecutors, and at the deeds of prowess of thousands of Czech volunteers in the Entente armies, has penetrated even to Berlin; and there is good reason to believe that the political amnesty proclaimed by the Emperor Charles on 30 June was not merely due to his own good feeling and sense of the need for reparation, but was also directly inspired by the German Government and General Staff, who, true to the traditions of Bisrmack, realise the importance of a German-Czech understanding, and would fain convince the intractable Austrian Germans of its necessity. In passing we may allude to the significant fact that the leading newspaper in Austria, the Neue Freie Presse, which for years before the war did all in its power to envenom the relations of the two races, should now be following the lead of its political and financial patrons in Berlin in urging moderation.

The effect of the amnesty has merely been to increase the political confusion. It is intensely and unanimously resented by the Germans of Austria, who are less than ever inclined for compromise, for the simple reason that rather than surrender to the Slavs any further instalment of political power in Austria, they would prefer to unite themselves bodily with their kinsmen in the German Empire. If, in the words of a prominent German journalist, the amnesty has had a “positively paralysing” effect on the Germans, it has roused the Magyar jingoes to fury: and a phrase coined in Budapest has gone the rounds of the Press to the effect that the Czechs are fighting Austria on two fronts—in Galicia and in the Reichsrat. The first half of this jibe refers to the exploits of the Czecho-Slovak brigade, as announced in a recent communiqué of General Brusilov, the second receives added point from the latest action taken by the Czechs in Parliament. In the Constitutional Committee of the Reichsrat on 5 July, Professor Redlich (the well-known constitutional authority and the least Slavophile of German deputies) made conciliatory overtures to the Czechs, but was met in an absolutely uncompromising spirit by Dr. Stransky. This speaker, who in a recent speech had declaimed against the Austrian fortress of Peter and Paul,^[2] and had quoted the famous saying that Bohemia had existed before Austria, and would exist after her, now declared that the Czechs declined to negotiate with the Germans before the Peace Conference. This statement, which caused a profound sensation in Parliament, was at once interpreted by the Germans as an attempt to make the fate of the Czecho-Slovaks an international question, and the explanations offered next day by its author are not calculated to diminish the impression. He had merely declared, he said, that as self-determination for all European nations till now under foreign rule had been generally accepted as a condition of peace, it would be well to await the results of the Peace Congress, where both groups of belligerents and the neutrals would be represented. While denying that his remarks partook of the nature of a demand, he added: “I surely cannot be reproached for being ready to accept from the whole world what the niggardly and harsh attitude of those at home withholds from me.”

The above summary should make it clear that in Austria at present the authorities are living from hand to mouth, and that political chaos is aggravating the already desperate economic and financial situation. Even in Hungary, with whose political situation we propose to deal next week, there are similar signs of political disintegration. In both countries the Governments seem in their alarm to cling more firmly to the German alliance as the solitary hope in stormy times.

Rubicon.

1. The arbitrary promulgation of a constitutional change.
2. The Russian prison for political offenders.